Paths Connect

                                    

                                          

He was handling it surprisingly well. 
Ash had to abandon this idea, however, when she found him in the bathroom of the Taco Bell throwing his guts up. 
But other than that, he was doing alright, when compared to her other friends and acquaintances she had before. At least nothing was getting thrown through a window or children getting tackled. 
Definitely an upgrade.
"Are you sure you're fine? You're looking a little . . . green still."
He waved his hand, opting instead to chug his water bottle. Ash sat there, her half-eaten cheesy bean burrito dangling from her hand, strategically avoiding the looks from the family in the corner and the old man by the door. She was sure it looked like they were on the worst date of all time. 
"I'll live. Maybe. I mean, according to you, I'm going to die so honestly not."
"Everyone dies. Your due date is just scheduled a little sooner than you would probably like."
He stared at her, a perplexed look on his face, the longer curls of his hair falling down into his eyes. She blinked stoically back at him. 
"Can you . . . can you go over it real quick again?"
"The monsters are real and humanity should be more fearful for their lives bit?"
"No, no, the uh, the part about my issue."
Ash nodded, taking another sip from her Baja Blast. "Yes, well, like I said, I wasn't all truthful with you about what happened outside the cafe. My bad. But we unfortunately ran into a Holster–"
"The monster."
"You don't have to go all gooey-eyed when you say it, dude. Yes, the monster, but they're called Holsters, so get it right."
"Who named them?"
Ash squinted at him. "Do you really care about that right now?"
He shrugged sheepishly and she sighed, leaning back in her chair. 
"I named them, shut up. Anyway, they grabbed you and were about to absorb you like they did with . . . Finch. But I, being the perfect savior that I am, got you off on parole and took you back to my place."
He didn't have to say it, she already knew what he was thinking. 
If you were the perfect savior, you would have saved him. You know, the one person who actually mattered to you. 
"So what happened to me, exactly?"
Shaking her head, she took another sip. "Yeah, so, short answer is I'm not sure."
Charlie threw up his hands. 
"The long answer is that you are most likely experiencing some residual side effects to being touched by a Holster. The weird part that I don't quite understand is how you reacted to the Holster before even seeing it or why you felt something in your chest. That's a bit harder to explain."
"So what . . . is your connection to these . . . Holsters? Are we sold on the name, by the way?"
Her glare had him back peddling. He picked up his water and rolled it between his hands. It gave her enough of a distraction to figure out how to say it.
"I suppose you could say I . . . fight . . . the monsters."
God, that sounded awful. And his response was way too energetic for what she was expecting.