#I think Barb did it because she knows the significance and was rubbing it in

[rottmntrulesall]

THEY BOTH TOUCH HIS MOM’S SKULL PENDANT I AM UNWELL

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter five: dark vibrations

word count: 11.4k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: body horror, hallucinations (?), mentions of self-harm, mentions of suicide. spooky scary activities ensue. elliot has an increasingly difficult time keeping a grasp on reality. we knew this was gonna happen, though!

notes: howdy! i hope y’all enjoy this. sometimes i go weeks without updating and sometimes i wait like, 4 days before manically writing an entire chapter. you know how it be like that sometimes. i was feeling a bit more inspired and felt like i finally hit a groove on where this story was going, which i think definitely helped, and i hope you all enjoy it!

thank you, as always, to everyone who reads, likes/comments, even if you just come into my dms with two nice words or write something nice in your tags; it really does make my whole night to see even one person enjoying anything i’ve made. <3

Cold morning light filtered in through the window, drenched in wedding-silk grays thanks to the wintery cloud-cover. Everything in the room looked to be placed with absolute intent and care; polished, porcelain-white decor in elaborate geometrics, gold accents, a king-sized bed with impeccably pressed sheets. Truthfully, John had thought for certain he’d come back into the house to be informed by Elliot’s statuesque mother that, in fact, she had rescinded her offer to let him stay and actually, he would need to depart immediately, lest the authorities be called.

He was glad that it hadn’t come to that, of course, because it would’ve been such a shame to have to dampen Scarlet’s opinion of her own daughter so quickly into their meeting.

Dropping his small bag of belongings—the manila folder packed full of information, including his own scribbled notes; the burner phone; a few quickly-packed clothes that had been meticulously cycled to avoid the most long-term wear—John paused as the heat in the house kicked on with a delicate whirr.

Everything in Scarlet Honeysett’s home seemed to be precisely the shape and color that she liked, with not a single thing out of place; and yet, as the heat kicked on, he was certain that he could hear the sound of sharp, hushed voices downstairs, a little ripple in the woman’s perfect, arcadian home scene.

It was good. It felt good, to be here. To have gotten the upper hand. So much of the past weeks he’d spent with Elliot had felt like he was slowly, violently spiraling out of control, but this? She was here, and she had to play by his rules for once, and—

And he’d wanted just one more second alone, with her. To watch the way her eyes flickered over his face, to drink in the way her chin tilted up in defiance but not unlike the way she used to do it when she was waiting for him to kiss her, the same lovely high-color in her spreading along her cheekbones and the same little spark in her gaze. Whether it was anger or allure was neither here nor there, anymore; with Elliot, they were interchangeable, a stepping stone one way or another, just the way it had always been with them.

Because John liked her anger. He liked her wrath. He wanted to put his hands on it, his mouth on it, break it into pieces and wring it out of her and put it back and do it all over again, while she said his name, his name, and not anyone else’s. God, she’d been so fucking close—so close, and he couldn have just had her if he really wanted to, grabbed a fistful of her hair and kissed her when the sting of her slap was still fresh on his face. She liked when he did that; kissed her, like he was starved for her. Because he was starved for her, and then she could knot her fingers into his shirt or dig her nails into his skin or whatever it was she wanted to make him desperate.

The sound of excited barking downstairs broke him out of his thoughts. John blinked, taking one last swift look-over of the immaculate room his mother-in-law had decided to put him up in before he nudged his bag beneath the bed and stepped out into the hallway.

To say old money would be almost an understatement. Surely, this house had to have some kind of historical significance; it was several stories, with one of those grand staircases that was wide going up, hit a landing, and then split to either side of the house. As he made his way down, he caught sight of the flicker of Scarlet’s silk robe in the kitchen; music drifted out of it, the same kind of hazy, older music that Elliot had turned on in her mother’s house back in Hope County.

“Stop moving,” Elliot was saying to Boomer, strapping him into a little reflective vest that sat on him like a saddle blanket. For a second, she didn’t notice his presence—or willfully ignored it; he couldn’t say for sure one way or another—and instead focused on the Heeler, rubbing his ears and kissing the bridge of his nose. A tiny little smile ticked the corners of her mouth, and he thought he heard her say, so handsome, best boy, yes you are.

Boomer’s attention snapped to John, now at the foot of the stairs. He let out one sharp, accusatory bark (could dogs sound accusatory, John wondered, or was that just Elliot getting to him?), and what little of his hackles were visible from out under the vest spiked up instantly.

“Good to see you too, beastie,” John greeted him, trying to ignore the way the hound’s low-pitched, reverberating growls made his skin crawl. Flashes of Boomer’s numerous and vicious takedowns of not only Eden’s Gate members but at least one member of the Family that had the misfortune of having chained the dog up darted across his memory, like a flipping through a photo album.

“Don’t talk to him,” Elliot snipped, cupping Boomer’s ears protectively. “I don’t need him getting the idea we’re friendly.”

John rolled his eyes. “More than friendly, I’d say.” His eyes darted over her, drinking in once against the shock of her appearance—red hair, so fucking red that every time he looked at her it was almost like staring at a stranger until he took in the rest, the freckles smattering her nose and the flush in her cheeks, cupid’s-bow lips that were glossed. Had he ever seen Elliot with more than river-soaked mascara on before?

The woman shot him a look, dry and unamused, coming to a stand. He asked, “Going for a walk?”

“Trying to,” she replied tartly, “but someone is evil enough that Boomer doesn’t trust them.”

“We’re pals,” John offered pleasantly. “Me and the beast. You know, were, anyway. He probably just needs to spend a little time with me.”

“Speaking from personal experience, more time makes you less palatable.”

“Let me come on the walk with you,” he tried again, letting her little barbs and jabs roll right off of him, water skating off of his feathers. At this point, he really quite enjoyed her venom; it was familiar. “I’m sure we’ve got plenty to catch up on.”

Elliot eyed him warily, eyes giving him a scathing once-over—eerily reminiscent of her mother’s own disdainful look, and now he thought, ah, yeah, that is where she gets it from, then—as her mouth twisted around whatever it was she wanted to say but wouldn’t let herself. Something too vicious for Scarlet to overhear, perhaps. The threats she’d made in the past had been wildly colorful, but each second that Ell spent considering her words more carefully rather than saying whatever it was she felt with her eyes darting to the kitchen was another second that John became more aware of how little Scarlet actually knew.

“Fine,” Elliot said at last, her eyes narrowing. “I suppose that we do. Mama, we’re leavin’.”

The little quirk of an accent at the end of her sentence made him swallow back a laugh. He’d barely heard that Georgia accent back in Hope County, but maybe spending time with her mother had reinspired it.

“Alright,” Scarlet said, drying her hands on a towel as she stood in the doorway. Her eyes glanced between them, inquisitive for a moment, before she said, “Be quick. Doctor’s appointment in an hour and a half.”

John tilted his head. “Oh? Baby check-in?”

“Can’t imagine what else it would be, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet idled. “Are you familiar with the process of pregnancy?”

“Not beyond the knowledge of a man, I’m afraid.”

“Well, allow me to educate you,” the blonde said, her voice light. “When a woman is carrying a baby, she has to make frequent visits to the doctor, to ensure that all is well. Can’t have anything going wrong with the baby, you know.”

John steadied the intake of breath so that it did not sound so abrupt. He would have done a double-take and thought perhaps she was just overbearing, and not attempting to insult him, were Elliot not smiling. Certainly, only her mother’s attempted insult of him could elicit such an expression out of her.

“Then my arrival was fortunately timed,” he announced. “I look forward to it.”

“And you’ll be sorely disappointed,” Elliot cut in, her humor fading. “You won’t be coming.”

Ah, yes. That’s why I don’t love her attitude. “That’s absurd,” he replied, incredulous. “It’s nearly six weeks, and I haven’t seen a single ultrasound of our baby.”

He was careful, this time, to keep it to our baby. He’d seen the way Elliot’s expression tightened when he’d said my baby, even though that’s what came so naturally to him now, being that they were hardly on the same team—but he’d seen it, that look in her eye, the way she’d squared her shoulders like she’d suddenly been ready to go at him.

Only one thing to do with a rabid dog, Jacob had said, not two days before they found Elliot drenched in another man’s blood in the woods.

John half-expected Scarlet to jump in, to say that it was the father’s right to be there; she was more traditional than Elliot, if her comment about wedlock or her insistence of him staying were anything to go by, but when he turned his gaze to her, the older woman’s expression was devoid of any sympathy. Typical of Honeysett women, he was coming to find.

“If she doesn’t want you there, then you won’t be there. I won’t have my daughter stressed out,” Scarlet told him. “Stress is bad for the baby. Surely that falls within the realm of what a man knows about babies, Mr. Seed?”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Surely.”

“Good. Hour and a half, my beloved, do not be late.”

That a woman had become so capable of tacking the softness of my beloved onto something that verged on a threat was nearly beyond John—would have been, certainly, were he not accustomed to Isolde’s particular brand of venom that was not so unlike Scarlet Honeysett’s.

“I won’t,” Elliot promised. “Can you call the handyman? My TV’s been acting up lately. Turning on static and whatnot.”

“Fine,” Scarlet replied, waving her hand. “I’ll have them come out this afternoon.”

Elliot turned on her heel and opened the front door out into the frigid morning, letting Boomer dart out ahead of her and not waiting for him in the least. He fell into step beside her easily, shrugging into his coat halfway out the door as it clicked shut behind him; she trudged through the snow, passing the garbage can and opening the gate that led out into what had once been pastureland and towards the woods.

It was the same fence that she’d been standing at, early that morning, face lax and serene. If the return to the fence bothered her at all, it didn’t show on her face any more than her irritation at having him there.

“Your mother’s quite...” John’s voice trailed off. “Tall.”

“Mm.”

“Statuesque, even.”

“Mmhm.”

“I get the feeling she doesn’t like me that much.”

“Yes,” Elliot acquiesced, her tone dripping with something close to venomous amusement, “I’ve never seen her take so poorly to someone so quickly before.”

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

“You would be.”

A fourth of the way into the snowy pasture and Boomer was far ahead of them, leaping like a little speckled gazelle in drifts of snow. It was easy to forget that the dog had been ready to rip him to shreds just a little under an hour ago (and once more, more recently). Still, as they trudged through a path that it seemed Elliot had worn through a few times before, John let out a little puff of breath and glanced over at her.

For just one second, she wasn’t spitting any venom at him, but rather seemed to favor the act of pretending like he wasn’t there, which was a bit worse than having her fix her fury on him. Her gaze was focused forward, following Boomer’s little lines in the snow. Attention at all was one thing, but acting as though he didn’t exist?

John said, “So, Burke just got his autopsy reports back and dropped you off right here at home, huh?”

Elliot’s face had already gone pink from the cold, right on her nose and spreading through her cheeks. At his words, a new flush of color rose, a shade more vicious than the last, and her gaze slid to him. If looks could kill, he thought, that dreamy little spike of delight at her eyes on him going straight to his head. Look at you, my little Wrath. You’ve got the good girl mask on, but I know what your true face is.

He’d seen it. Kissed her when the blood was still in her mouth. Let her feed the monster inside of her when she told him to beg, when she dug her nails into his skin, when her breath hitched in her chest from the pressure of his knife blade against her sternum—not in pain, necessarily, but delight at that pain.

The scar had to still be there, of course. The reminder of its existence, swathed in the heavy winter fabrics she wore now, made his fingers itch. If he could just get his hands on her—get his mouth on her, if she would just stop being so obtuse—but he didn’t think he’d be so fond of her if she wasn’t.

“The same way the government probably drove you and your siblings back to the compound and dropped you off,” she replied at last, her voice tight, “isn’t that right?”

John flashed his teeth at her in a grin. “Very astute, hellcat.”

Her expression tightened at the moniker. She sucked her teeth, fixing her eyes forward again, shifting back into the strategy of being withholding of her attention rather than entertain him.

“Oh, come on,” he said, swinging around in front of her and stopping her single-minded journey across the pastureland. “You can’t say you didn’t miss me even a little bit, Ell.”

“I told you,” she replied tartly, “not to call me that.”

“Because it reminds you of what it was like when we’re together,” he agreed.

An exasperated noise came out of her. “Did you forget that I lied to you?”

“At the end, sure,” John said, eyes flickering over her face. “But I don’t think you’re so good a liar you could lie about all of the times you said please, or the way that you said my name, or—and I think you’ll recall I’ve insisted on this bit from the beginning—the undeniable connection that we’ve had since we met.”

“You are a fucking lunatic,” Elliot snapped, her face flushing red. “And don’t fucking talk about me like I’m—like I wasn’t there, I know what I—” She sucked in a sharp breath; lower, and more threatening, “I’m aware of what I said. Of what I did.”

“And you’re going to tell me that it was all fake?” he prompted, unwilling to let go of this little thread. Gripping, sliding through his fingers, but he wouldn’t be so quick to let it escape him now that he didn’t have to think about her mother pitching in an unwanted opinion. “That you lied the whole time and you don’t feel anything for me, that—”

“Of course it wasn’t fake,” she bit out. Her voice had gone venomous, sharp, unbridled in its timbre. “I’m not a fucking psychopath, John, I can’t fake loving someone like you can.”

John opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. He hadn’t been expecting that. Sure, there was a part of him that was sure Elliot had her doubts about his intentions, otherwise she wouldn’t have fucked off to the middle of nowhere (nor turned them in), but—still?

“You think I—” He paused again, blinking. “You’re not that stupid.”

Her eyes narrowed. Everything about her stiffened, quite suddenly, like maybe she was bracing to take another swing at him. “You are fucking begging for a punch to the face.”

“I mean,” John began quickly, waving his hands a little, “that you surely don’t think that whole time I was just—”

Elliot made a disgusted sound and brushed past him, letting out a high whistle; the sound immediately drew a flurry of activity as a flock of birds when bursting from the treeline, followed closely behind by Boomer’s gray-and-black speckled form. John fell back into step with her, huffing out a breath of air. He was going to table that discussion for later—she was clearly still upset, still a little sore and tender from their departure, and that was fine. There were a lot of things at play concerning his wife’s mood, including but not limited to being pregnant.

So she did, he thought, glancing at her through the corner of his eyes. Love me. Back then, and maybe now, still.

“How have you been sleeping?” is what he said instead, when the moment had spread between them long enough for him to think that he was safe to speak again with incurring her wrath once more. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Fine,” she replied, her voice tight.

“Yeah?” he asked, keeping his tone conversational. Elliot blinked once, slow, clearly trying to temper herself. “I just remember what a restless sleeper you were, back home.”

He wanted to say, I saw you at three AM, twice, staring out your window and then walking out into the snow barefoot. I saw you sleepwalking, I know you aren’t sleeping well.

He wanted to say that, and he couldn’t, because if Elliot knew he’d been tailing her for a while she’d go berserk—pull the plug, self-destruct, take whatever loss she had to in order to fucking end him.

“I’m sleeping fine,” the redhead reiterated. For a second, she looked like she wanted to say something; her eyes flickered uneasily, like something was bothering her and she hadn’t been able to say it to anyone but maybe she wanted to, and maybe she could say it to him, but something in the treeline drew her attention away. They were about ten yards away, now, the low breeze skimming pine needles against each other as Boomer barked conversationally at the birds that had so rudely taken flight.

Elliot’s molars clicked, grinding together. Her lashes fluttered, and she sucked in a sharp little breath through her nose.

“Elliot?” John glanced at the trees, but that was all he saw—tall, dark pines, bunching together erratically through years of growth spurts and inevitable fellings. He turned his gaze back to his wife, gaze inquisitive. “What?”

“Don’t you—?” She stopped herself, and sucked in another sharp breath, and now John felt the concern spike sharp and hot in him, because when he reached up she didn’t even seem to register his movement; Elliot, the same woman who had snatched his wrist and threatened to snap it in half for having the audacity to ‘sneak up on her’ when he’d been in the middle of talking to her, completely transfixed on something that he couldn’t see.

“Elliot.” He tried something firmer this time, his hand coming up to sweep the strands of her hair away from her shoulder and neck. The gesture finally startled her out of wherever it was she had gone, yanked her back to reality.

Her shoulder bunched up to her jaw in an effort to deter his hand, swatting at him absently with her hand. “Don’t touch me.”

“Are you going to tell me where you were just now?” John asked, tilting his head inquisitively.

“I was here. Just thought I saw something in the trees,” she replied tightly, turning away from the treeline and clearing her throat. “Just birds.”

Just birds, she said, even though the birds had already taken off and the forest was otherwise still and serene. Behind her, Boomer whined before beginning to follow her back towards the house. Elliot moved with a newfound purpose, one that she had been distinctly lacking before.

His mouth pressed into a thin line. John turned his attention back to the trees, searching for anything—any tangle of branches of play of shadows that might read sinister or threatening.

Only the trees and their shadowy pines. He thought about that night he’d fished Elliot out of the Family’s grip, when she’d been so fucking drugged up to her gills that she’d balked at the sight of the treeline on their way out. I don’t think I can, she’d said then, her voice pitching high with the anxious vibrations of panic. John, I don’t think I can—

“John,” Elliot snapped from ahead of him, “are you coming, or are you just gonna stand there all fucking afternoon?”

He thought about the way Ase had grabbed her hand, blood and viscera coating Elliot like she’d become a tried-and-true Scream Queen. If he searched long enough, if he sat in the memory long enough—did Ase’s mouth open? Had she said something to Elliot? What had she said?

“John,” came the grinding demand, again, less patient than before. “As much as I would love to leave you to freeze to death for insinuating I’m stupid, mama would hate to have to deal with a corpse on her property and I’d never hear the end of it.”

“I missed our banter,” he replied, though the jest did not quite land the same way that it would have were he not so deep in his own thoughts. By the time he’d started walking in her direction, his back to the forest, something uneasy had settled just under his skin; the feeling of being watched, eyes on the back of his neck, anticipation prickling along like his spine.

The house loomed, polished and pristine, on the horizon; as they picked their way across the snowy field, Elliot puffing out breaths occasionally from the labor of it all, John tried to shake that pervasive feeling of dread that had settled over him.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Weyfield was just Weyfield, a small town not unlike Hope County, and maybe he was just jumpy from the way the Family had conducted their business, and maybe it was the same for Elliot, who had certainly been put through a different experience than he—but regardless:

The sooner they got out, the better.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Shouldn’t have agreed to let him drive me here.

“Have you been getting enough sleep?”

It was stupid. Stupid, I should have put my foot down, told him to fucking stay at the house and wait for me to come back.

“Elliot?”

She blinked, vision fuzzing and refocusing around the sterile white of the doctor’s office. Her abdomen was sticky, and the ultrasound machine had been turned off along with her shirt tugged back down. Like usual, Dr. Harding did not say anything about the gossamer-webbing of scars, but did pause upon first seeing them, as though she hadn’t seen them times before.

“Sorry?” Elliot said, the apology quirking up at the end in question. She sat up from the bed, the paper crinkling beneath her as she moved.

“I asked,” Harding reiterated, “have you been getting enough sleep?”

Elliot knew the answer. She felt the exhaustion souring in her mouth already, the way something spoiled when it went too long without attention. A sickness. She should say that she hadn’t been sleeping well at all, that she’d begun sleepwalking, that

(seeing things, I’m seeing things when I close my eyes and when I look in the dark treeline, I see faces, heads, people I don’t know but they feel familiar and their faces drop down in between the branches of trees on invisible silk threads and their terrible dark mouths open but they can’t scream)

she’d been feeling out of sorts, as of late. That seemed like a nice way to put it.

The dark images that had fluttered between the trees on her walk earlier that morning with John felt as real as any memory—and that wasn’t to say that her memories always felt real, because they didn’t. But the validity of this morning’s waking nightmare of floating heads drifting between tree-trunks, swinging loosely while John asked her how she’d been sleeping.

“Fine,” Elliot said after a moment, feeling a fresh wave of nausea come over her. “I think, um, maybe the stress about the baby is keeping me up at night.”

Harding regarded her for a moment. The severe sharpness of her dark hair pinned back did nothing to soften her expression—though the woman was hard-pressed to be cheerful, she, at the very least, never sugar-coated anything. “Have you been trying those breathing exercises before bed? And spending time at the stables, as I suggested?”

“I have,” she replied, which wasn’t entirely untrue—she was doing at least one of those things. “It’s just been a lot of—stress, is all. I’m sure it’ll get better once the holidays are over.”

“That can definitely help,” the woman agreed, nodding her head and typing a few loose notes into the computer. “If you find that you aren’t getting enough sleep—enough,” she continued, pointedly, “restful sleep, you let me know and we can figure out some next steps.”

Elliot nodded, coming to a stand; the sudden movement had her head rushing, and she for a second she thought again of the floating heads, swaying with the breeze through the pine boughs.

“I’ve been sleep-walking,” she blurted out impulsively, her doctor’s gaze turning quizzically towards her. “I mean—um, just twice.”

“Do you have a history of it?”

“No,” Elliot began, “but I’ve always been a restless sleeper.”

“It’s not uncommon for sleepwalking to increase with pregnancy, Miss Honeysett,” the doctor replied, her voice even-keel. “It sounds like you’re under quite a bit of pressure, as well. I would suggest trying something mild—an over-the-counter sleep aid would be fine. Unisom is a typical one. Try half of one first, and see how it makes you feel.”

“Okay,” she murmured, sliding her coat back on. Something that was less heavy-duty than the pills her mother had left for her might be good. “Are there any—symptoms? To sleeping pills?”

The doctor adjusted the glasses on her nose, regarding her for a long moment. “Some adverse side-effects, on occasion. Usually with stronger, prescription sleep aids, you could have worsening anxiety and depression, day-time drowsiness. That kind of thing.”

So, no hallucinations, then. No sleepwalking, no lost time, no...

“Are you having other symptoms?” Harding asked.

You’ll think I’m crazy, Elliot thought, you’ll think I’m fucking nuts if I tell you about my dream with the television, and Joey’s body, and walking out nearly to the treeline in my sleep clothes. You’ll think I’m fucking nuts and I’ll have to be committed.

So Elliot said, “No, just curious,” and Dr. Harding hummed as she scribbled the name of the sleep aid onto a sticky note for Elliot to take out with her.

“You have a healthy baby, Miss Honeysett. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?” The brunette gestured for Elliot to head out the door, walking with her back up the hallway that led to the front lobby once again. “Next appointment we can find out the gender, if you’d like.”

“Oh,” Elliot said, surprised. Was it that soon already? Had it already been that long of being—like this? With child? She swallowed, pleasant little flutters in her chest. It was the first time that she’d felt something other than dread concerning the baby. Well, first time, sans John’s annoying little assertion about his claim. Why had that bothered her so much?

“You can decide to keep it a surprise,” Dr. Harding added, sound a little amused. “Think about it, and in the meantime, get some rest. Half a pill to start, remember.”

“Will do, thank you.”

She waded through the small collection of people in the lobby and out onto the street. Something strange was humming inside of her—it was sad, she realized, with a little spike of panic. She felt mournful. So fast, and so soon, she would figure out the baby’s gender, and suddenly the baby would be all the more real and she’d have to start thinking about names, she couldn’t have a baby without a name, and how was she supposed to pick a name? How was she supposed to decide something a real human being was going to be saddled with, forever?

Was the baby a Seed? Or a Honeysett?

Which one was she?

“What’re you doing, just standing out here? You’ll freeze.” John’s voice broke her out of her thoughts, shaking her back to reality again. He must have seen her standing there, glassy-eyed in the middle of the sidewalk, from where he’d been waiting—perhaps, if she was lucky, even suffering over the fact that he hadn’t been allowed into the doctor’s appointment—and come out. He’d kicked up a big enough fuss about not getting to come in that she’d said, fine, you can fucking drive me there, but that’s it, and true to his word John hadn’t pressed the matter any further than that.

Even though he wanted to. She could tell he wanted to, the second they had parked on the main street. She could tell he wanted to say, so, maybe I do come in, hm? What do you say to that? But he hadn’t. And that was...something.

Fuck, she needed to stay focused; she couldn’t keep letting her mind wander like that. Twice in less than an hour?

“I was just—thinking,” Elliot replied, feeling exhausted already. John’s brows furrowed at the center of his forehead, and she sighed. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He arched a dark brow loftily. “Like what?”

“Like you fucking care,” she snapped.

“Contrary to what you might believe concerning my feelings for you,” John quipped, his voice tart, “I do have every reason to be invested in the well-being of our baby.”

She thought to reiterate again that the baby was, in fact, hers, and not any part his, as she was doing all the work and John had done nothing to endear himself as an acceptable father-figure, but she was too tired. Something about the doctor’s office and the way she’d had to dodge the truth of how she’d been feeling left her empty, scooped out her insides like she was a Jack-O’-Lantern and left her floating, aimless.

“Ell,” he began. His voice had pitched lower, now, and his hand reached up; she saw it move in the corner of her vision and something inside her said, yes yes yes, this is what we want, we remember you, we know you. He twisted a loose curl around his finger, letting it smooth out against her shoulder, the corner of his mouth ticking upward when she absently batted his hand away. “Tell me about the appointment. Did everything go well?”

“The baby is fine,” she told him, and then sighed. “I mean—healthy. The baby is healthy. The doctor wants me to pick up an over-the-counter sleep aid, so we’ll need to stop at the store on the way home.”

“I thought you were sleeping fine?” John prompted. He sounded sly. His was a gotcha tone, the way he got when he thought he’d walked a particularly fine circle through the holes in what she chose to tell him or not. Elliot’s expression flattened. She ignored the way that he was looking at her—hungryhungryhungry, always greedy and never, never content with what he had—and fixed her eyes on the passing traffic behind him.

She said, “Just when you’re being somewhat tolerable, you have to go and ruin it.”

“If it’s intolerable for me to point out when you’re withholding information from me about your health,” he demurred, “then I’d prefer intolerable.”

“I cannot believe that I have to say this to you,” Elliot bit out, the sudden spike of irritation flaring hot and violence in her chest, “but I don’t fucking owe you anything. I don’t owe you the truth, or an explanation, and quite frankly, the fact that I allowed you to even chauffeur me to this fucking appointment is a sign that I’m being incredibly generous with you—far more generous than what you deserve.”

John’s teeth flashed in a grin. Before, back in Hope County, the venom had bothered him—he’d hated it, frowned and fought back with a little poison of his own, despised that he had to work so hard to get to the nitty-gritty underneath. But he had once, and perhaps now that he had known her, it only thrilled him.

How frustrating.

“Everything I did,” he said, lowering his voice as he closed some of the small distance between them now, “whether you believe me or not, was for us—”

“Ugh.”

“—and I might have gotten a little heated,” John continued, and this time when he reached up again Elliot’s mouth twisted into a grimace and she tilted her face away, don’t say it don’t say it don’t you fucking say it fuck you fuck you fuck you, “back at the ranch, but I meant it when I said that I l—”

“Honeysett!”

It was Via. Her greeting immediately cut off John’s words, effectively driving a wedge between their metaphorical—and physical—closeness. Snapped her out of the magic of his cologne and his voice and his hand coming up to her shoulder with its grounding weight.

“Missed you at the barn today,” the blonde chirped, cheery as she approached, hands tucked into her fluffy parka pockets. Her eyes flickered over to John, inquisitive. “Friend?”

And then Via turned her eyes back to Elliot, waiting expectantly. It struck her quite suddenly that Sylvia was checking—that despite the kindness and warmth in her voice, she was giving Elliot the opportunity to escape, to wave a red flag and ask for help. She said friend?, and what she meant was, is this man bothering you?, and it made a fuzzy warmth spread right through Elliot’s chest, uncomfortable in the softness is inspired in her.

“Hey, Via, this is...” How best to proceed? How to explain, this man is the father of my baby—which, by the way, I’m pregnant—and also technically we are legally married, oh and also he’s supposed to be in Federal custody right now but he isn’t, somehow, but it’s fine, we’re all good? “...my...John.”

Sylvia eyed her for a moment, sticking out a gloved hand. “Howdy, Elliot’s John. I’m Sylvia.”

John was clearly trying not to have the biggest shit-eating grin on his face as he shook Via’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Sylvia,” he replied pleasantly, once again reminding Elliot that the man was a tried-and-true practiced liar and could slip a perfect face on at any time. The knowledge was almost enticing, to know that she’d seen him without the masquerade, more than once.

It made, in hindsight, reflecting back on that moment he’d come unraveled at the ranch—No way, baby, I’m fucking it for you—have a different light. She had done that to him.

Good.

“Y’all busy?” Sylvia asked, blissfully not prying any further for an elaboration on what the nature of their relationship was. “I was just about to meet Wyatt at the Wild Rose. It ain’t trivia night, but they do have a live band playing tonight that’s supposed to be good.”

“Oh,” Elliot said faintly, “I don’t think—”

“That sounds excellent!” John interrupted. “I’ve barely seen anything of Weyfield. What do you say, Elliot?”

I say you can eat shit, she thought, but Sylvia was watching her closely—trying to make sure everything was okay, she supposed, considering Elliot had said nothing of John since they’d become friends. She took in a little breath and looked at the blonde, giving a small smile.

“No harm in a little time out of the house,” she agreed after a moment. “I’m starving, anyway.”

She wasn’t hungry in the least. The sticky note with the doctor’s suggested sleep aid was crumple in her pocket, and a little sweaty from the way she’d been clutching it, but somehow the idea of returning back to the house only seemed to fill her with more dread.

The tv, buzzing static, dull and thrumming in the back of her head, in the roots of her molars. HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING STRANGE DREAMS? And the heads, twisting and turning in the breeze, their silk-spun puppet threads invisible, their mouths swinging open as they try to scream.

HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING STRANGE DREAMS?

“Well, can’t have you starvin’,” Sylvia said amusedly, looping her arm through Elliot’s own and beginning to walk. “You’re not keeping my girl well-fed, Mister John?”

“Trying my hardest,” John replied, his gaze sly, “but she can be a bit ornery.”

“Hm, that does sound like her. Where are you visitin’ from, anyway?”

As they chattered, over her, John on one side and Sylvia on the other, Elliot got the distinct impression that her friend was quietly, politely fishing for information without putting Elliot under the stress of it.

HAVE YOU

Snow underfoot. The forest breathing, expanding, swelling because it holds some great, dark beast just waiting for her to get close enough.

BEEN HAVING

(Itwaitsforyouitwaitsforusallanditwillhaveyou)

STRANGE

“Careful,” John cautioned, reaching for the door with all of the gentlemanly nature of a man not possessed by the devil to hunt her down across states, “it’s slick.”

He opened the door into the Wild Rose, the sweep of warm air rushing over her a pleasant shock to her system that managed to draw her back to reality. Sylvia nudged her inside, effectively planting herself between Elliot and John as they moved single-file into the crowded bar.

She was tired, and having nightmares, and once she finally got some sleep she would feel a lot better about everything. All she needed was some sleep. And in the meantime, try to enjoy her time with her friends as best she could.

Get some sleep. Feel better in the morning. Burke’s old mantra popped up in her head, running through the worn grooves that were a sad, bittersweet sort of comfort to her now; the second you think you can’t anymore, you keep going anyway. Dig, dig, dig, until her fingers were dirt-packed and bloody, as deep as she fucking needed to go to keep moving, because it wasn’t just about her anymore.

Get some sleep.

Feel better in the morning.

Sylvia had drifted out from their little formation to make her way to the booth they had recently staked out as their own, where Wyatt already sat waiting and waving for them. John planted his hands on her shoulders, squeezing and lowering his mouth to her ear. “What do you want to drink?”

“You’re acting awfully domestic for someone who should be in Federal custody,” Elliot replied lowly, looking at him over her shoulder just in time to see him flash a smile that was all teeth.

“C’mon, hellcat,” and he all but purred the words at her, making her skin prickle in a type of anticipation that wasn’t purely dread. Traitorous, treacherous body. “You can at least play at liking me while your friends are around.”

“Iced tea.” She shrugged, disembarking his hands from her shoulders. “No lemon. A lot of ice. Think you can swing it without, I don’t know, lying halfway to Hell on your way there, Slick?”

“Anything,” he replied, pitching his voice even lower amidst the din of the bar, “for my lovely wife.”

Elliot’s head snapped around, ready to grab a fistful of his shirt and remind him to watch his fucking mouth, but he’d already started his journey to meander through the crowd and reach the bar on his little fetch quest.

Fucker, she thought, even when her stomach twisted with something other than vicious disdain. John had only been here for a day and was already too comfortable taking liberties; she’d have to make sure that got nipped in the bud before he got any funny ideas about his own personal redemption arc.

It would have been nice, to just be able to turn off any and all feelings whenever she wanted. But she couldn’t, and that meant she’d have to do the next best thing:

Get John the fuck away from her.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Eden’s Gate did not make a good first impression. Eden’s Gate did not even make a good second or third impression; in fact, Isolde had come to the conclusion that Joseph’s little compound was incapable of making any impression that didn’t fill the observer with a sense of despair. Every time she stepped out of the little building Jacob had set her up in, she was overwhelmed with disgust—eyes followed her, but none of them held anything beyond a dull spark of interest, nearly smothered by what seemed to have been a full-body beat down by the other cult.

The other cult, she constantly had to remind herself, because that’s what Eden’s Gate was. A cult.

A few miserable days at the hands of Montana’s coldest winter by record had her in a foul mood. The snowfall seemed inevitable, like it wouldn't ever stop, and the amount of times there had been paths shoveled between buildings—all leading to the chapel—were equally endless. Isolde couldn’t imagine coming to fucking Montana for fun, let alone for work, and yet she was somehow here for the latter and not the former. Distinctly, painfully lacking in fun.

It didn’t help that Joseph was insufferable. It didn’t help that every time he fixed his eyes on her, she felt an uncomfortable heat dripping down her spine like some kind of molten IV, like they hadn’t left on the worst of terms. Like she hadn’t told him to get the fuck out of her loft, like she hadn’t thrown an engagement ring on the floor like it was poison.

That was a time of her life that she had the distinct desire to not revisit, not even once, and yet in his presence—she found it nearly impossible to ignore. Joseph seemed to take a special, muted pleasure in making her hackles raise, and at least that hadn’t changed about him.

“Sol!”

Jacob called to her from halfway down the compound’s yard, a truck idling beside him. She stopped her trek back to her little hovel and looked at him, arms crossing over her chest.

“You wanna get out for a little?” He inclined his head toward the truck. “I’ve got some errands to run.”

“What kind of errands do the Collapse dictate?” she asked.

“The important variety.”

“Hm.”

She didn’t elaborate on that any further, and Jacob waited only one heartbeat before he reached for the driver’s side door and opened it, slowly.

“Going once—”

“I am not a child, Jacob.”

“—going twice—”

Fuck, did she want to get out.

“Fine,” Isolde snapped, “but bring that truck here. I’m not hiking through a snowdrift to get to you.”

Jacob, sounding quite pleased with himself, replied, “I thought you weren’t a child?”

He seemed moved enough by the dramatic eyeroll to oblige her, and if he found it annoying, it didn’t show; enough so, at least, that Isolde was able to clamber into the passenger side of the truck once he pulled it around, tapping the snow off of her shoes before pulling herself in.

“Thank you,” she huffed, shutting the door and rubbing her fingers to circulate the blood again. “This weather’s a bit abnormal, don’t you think?”

“Not anything out of the ordinary for this time of year, no,” Jacob replied. He nudged the windshield wipers on, plowing a thin layer of snow that had already begun to accumulate off of the window before starting to pull out of the compound. “I think you’re just not suited to the snow.”

“Could have told you that myself,” Isolde snipped. “I’m a hot-blooded creature.”

Jacob made a noise, something like an mm, a place between agreement without incriminating himself by agreeing too fervently or elaborately. She glanced over at him through the corners of her eyes as they turned onto the highway. In the comfortable silence that elapsed between them, Isolde settled back against the seat of the truck and tried to appreciate being out from the stifling dread of the compound.

It did seem to her that Joseph was markedly different than he had been, before. In the few instances in the last couple of days where he hadn’t been picking a fight with her, it almost felt normal—but of course, he was doing it in his own way, this pot-stirring, this instigating. With politeness. With kindness. By remaining completely unrattled by anything she said to him, every, any critique, so self-assured in his righteousness that not even reason could make him look twice at the state of his congregation.

Then, he had always been that way. Righteous. Assured. She had found it appealing, once—she liked a man with confidence—but now she found it—

Equal parts frustrating and attractive. Objectively, of course. Not anything that she felt herself.

“Trying to account for the bodies of the Family against the ones we know we saw before,” Jacob explained, when she had been quiet long enough to let him sort out his thoughts. “Seems like they started killing themselves, in pairs, once the two leaders were done with. I sent out a couple of scouts and they radio’d back some locations, but they’ve gone quiet for a while.”

“Dedication,” Isolde murmured, digging the nail of her thumb into her lower lip. “How dreadful.”

“The dedication, or the act?”

“Both. Imagine being so bound to something or someone.”

Jacob’s mouth twisted in a wry smile, and he brought the truck to a crawl. Two bodies, swallowed by snow nearly up to their waists, sat propped against the cliff face. He fished a pad of paper and a near-worn out pencil out of the center console of the truck and held them out to her.

“Mark it down, Sol.” When she blinked at him, he continued, “What, you thought you were gonna get out and not help me?”

“Well, I was hoping.”

She sighed, taking the pad and pencil—a glorified secretary is what I am, she thought bitterly—and marked two tally marks down. From where the car was stopped, she could see that the arms of the corpses came together, and though it was buried in snow, she had to think that beneath the white frost their hands were intertwined.

They went like that for a while; Jacob would drive to a spot, have her mark down the amount of bodies, and then go on. By the time they had reached Fall’s End, Isolde had counted nearly twenty dead bodies. As they rolled into the far end of town, Isolde realized very quickly that most of the buildings were blackened, and when she rolled down her window, the stale scent of charcoal still sat in the air.

“What happened here?” she asked, grimacing and scrunching up her nose.

“Dunno,” Jacob replied tightly. “Someone with an agenda.”

Isolde’s gaze snapped to him, to try and wring any information out of his expression, but true to his nature Jacob remained completely unreadable. It wasn’t until they had gotten to what appeared to have once been a bar and tallied up the bodies there that Jacob threw the truck into park.

“What in the fuck?” he muttered, eyes fixed forward. When Sol followed his gaze, she realized that it was fixed on someone—someone running towards them, frantically, nearly falling over themselves in the snow.

“Is that one of yours?” she asked. “Jacob?”

“Shh.”

He had busied himself fishing around in the back seat, and as he did Isolde squinted, trying to get a better look at what was going on. The man running definitely had to be Eden’s Gate—he had the big red emblem on his shirt, but he wasn’t wearing any coat, and—

And there were others.

“Jacob,” Isolde said, “there are more.”

“What?”

“Bodies,” she managed out, “there are more bodies.”

The snow wasn’t so deep on the roads that she couldn’t see the width of a body, and she did—see it, that is, tousled dark locks reflecting wet and sticky in the overcast, late-afternoon light. The man running was waving his arms and yelling for help, and then he fell over one of the bodies, fell to his hands and knees over the body of someone else, and made a sound kind of like anguish.

Jacob finally managed to pull out what he’d been looking for—a pair of binoculars—and immediately lifted them to his face.

“Shit,” he said. “Fuck, they’re ours.”

“All of them?” Isolde demanded. “They’re all—”

“Yes,” he bit out, opening the driver’s door and grabbing the rifle from the back seat. “They’re all ours. Isolde, stay in—”

Jacob’s words were cut off by the violent crack of a gunshot. For a split second, Isolde saw nothing; in the space between heartbeats, sluggish from panic, she saw the arterial spray coming from the back of the running man’s body before he hit the ground, screaming.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead, he was still crawling, dragging himself through the snow, leaving a smear of red behind him, and that’s when Isolde saw them.

Jacob had stopped moving as well. The person at the far end of the main road leading through Fall’s End had yet to shoulder their weapon. From here, Isolde could see that she was tall—short-cropped, blonde hair, swathed in dark clothes, but beyond that the features were near impossible to make out.

“Close the door,” Isolde hissed, not moving, her instincts screaming to duck but the fear that sudden movement would draw attention prevailing. “Jacob, close the fucking door.”

The eerily satisfying click-click of what could only be the bolt-action rifle in the hunter’s hands clattered around in her head. The rifle was returned to their shoulders, brought up level, and then fired again.

Out of pure instinct, Isolde flinched—but once again, the bullet was aimed not at them, but at the man already crawling in the snow. The sound of the gunshot, and the subsequent bullet-on-bone impact, was enough to make her stomach churn; now, at least, the man lay slumped in the snow, one of the many bodies that seemed to have been the unfortunate pull-and-fire clay birds for the stranger.

“Who,” Isolde whispered furiously, as Jacob carefully put the truck into drive without letting it move forward at all first, “Jacob, who the fuck is that?”

The redhead’s expression was unforgivingly tight, pulling taut with it the scars and mottling of his skin visible outside of his beard. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather kept his eyes fixed forward, as he closed the driver’s side door.

“Fifteen men,” he ground out between his teeth, “that’s fifteen fucking men I sent out here to figure out the body count.”

The stranger finally lowered their rifle, apparently satisfied with their work. This far away, it was hard to tell, but Isolde got the distinct impression that they were being watched, looked at now, where before the attention had been elsewhere.

And then it was confirmed, because the stranger lifted one gloved hand and pressed her index and middle fingers right against the hollows of her jaw. A snakebite. A cut right to the carotid. A message.

Jacob cranked the wheel, the tires shrieking in protest against the snow as he pulled between buildings in a sudden rush of acceleration. The stranger was quickly cut out, stifled by the side of the used-to-be-bar, leaving them out of direct range of a sniper rifle. Not that her companion seemed that pleased about it, anyway.

“Fuck,” he bit out, seething as he tried to navigate the narrow space in the clumsy Eden’s Gate truck. “Fuck, did you count how many bodies were on the ground?”

“Hm, no!” Isolde snapped viciously. “I was a bit too busy trying to make sure they were going to shoot us!”

Jacob gritted out another string of swears between his teeth, turning the truck until he could take what looked to be a back alley in the opposite direction of their little hunter. He checked the rearview mirror frequently; his expression was set in a deep frown, and he only looked at her once before continuing his regular scanning of the road behind them.

“Well, aren’t you going to turn around?” she demanded.

“For what?” Jacob replied flatly. “I’ve got a hunting rifle, not my HTI.”

“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care,” Isolde bit out.

“It means, the chances of me getting shot before I get a shot on them are significantly lower,” he told her, his knuckles whitening along the steering wheel, “and as confident as I am that I could kill them before they killed me, I’m not confident they wouldn’t take a shot at you first.”

Isolde’s stomach rolled. It wasn’t the violence that bothered her—it wasn’t the death, or the guns, or even the blood—but the message itself. The Stranger had been hunting the Eden’s Gate men and women for sport. For fun. To pass the time, while they waited. But what for? What could they be waiting for?

She stayed quiet, listening to Jacob radio back to the compound quick, short orders that flew right over her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about it—the gesture. The stranger. Who were they? The remainder of the other cult, perhaps? What were they waiting for?

You’re next, that two-fingered, snake-bite-right-to-the-carotid gesture had said.

You’re next, and I’m coming for you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Sylvia did not seem that impressed with John Seed, and Elliot could not blame her.

John was exceptionally charming. So charming, in fact, that he and Wyatt seemed to get along smashingly. It was almost frustrating, how quick the blonde took to John—but then, Wyatt did strike as the type of man who got along with everybody until they gave him a reason to think otherwise. After all, he’d been kind to her, and she was...

Needless to say, Sylvia was a harder sell, which was nice. Reassuring. It made Elliot feel more grounded, to see Sylvia politely smile at John’s chatter—she’d nearly forgotten how much he liked to talk—but then decidedly turn to Elliot to ask her about something or dive into a different conversation. It was pointed, and if the way John watched them interact was any indication, the message of it was not lost on him.

By the time the evening had drawn to a close, for her and John at least, the brunette had departed to go warm-up the Jeep and left her standing by the doorway, keeping warm, with Sylvia.

“You sure you’re doin’ okay?” the blonde asked after a moment, propped up against the wall in the tiny little doorway that led out to the main street. “You look tired. Stressed out. I was worried when we didn’t hear from you this morning, about comin’ to the barn.”

Elliot felt a little pang of guilt digging in, just there below her sternum. “I’m okay,” she promised. “I’m sorry I didn’t call, I—had a doctor’s appointment this morning that I completely forgot about until my mama reminded me, and John showed up this morning too, so it’s just been...”

“A crazy day,” Via agreed, her nose crinkling cutely in amusement. “He’s a funny fella, that John of yours.”

Oh, if only you knew. “I think so, too.”

“What is he?” she asked, conversationally. “Maybe a—car salesman?”

Her friend’s playful jab was enough to elicit a laugh, billowing out of her and catching even herself by surprise. But then, she shouldn’t have been shocked to find that Sylvia had gotten a quick read on John. Given the way she’d quickly diverted from the attention on Elliot’s scar and carried on, she thought maybe Via was more perceptive than she liked to let on.

“Lawyer,” Ell replied, and Via winced comically.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I mean—Elli,” Via intoned playfully, “he might as well be sellin’ you snake oil when he’s a lawyer.”

Elliot sighed ruefully, glancing out the window to see John clambering out of the front of the jeep. Snake oil seemed a light judgment for him, all things considered.

“Hey, Via,” she began, swallowing a little, “if I tell you something, you’ve gotta promise you won’t say anything?”

Via regarded her curiously, head tilted. “Okay, sure, Freckles. What’s up?”

She shifted on her feet. “John and I are actually, um—” Elliot paused, swallowing thickly. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to, because saying it out loud—her, and not John—made it real. Gave it legs. Forced her to face what had happened and what she couldn’t change yet.

“You don’t have to,” Via told her gently. “I could tell there was somethin’—you know, out of sorts. You don’t get a slick-talkin’ lawyer grinnin’ like the cat what ate the canary if he hasn’t done somethin’ to piss a woman off.”

Elliot shook her head. “We’re actually, uh,” she tried again, pulling at a loose thread on her shirt, “m—married.”

Saying the word out loud didn’t feel as wretched as she thought it would, which was almost three times as concerning. She felt, instead, more dread waiting for Sylvia’s reaction—waiting to see what her one friend had to say or think about that.

The woman’s face screwed up comedically. “Oh, Freckles,” she said, her tone teasing. “Say it ain’t so.”

“I’m not kidding!” Elliot felt a nervous little laugh bubble out of her. “I mean—what, Via? You clearly have an opinion on him.”

“I don’t know the man from Jack walkin’ down the street,” Sylvia demurred. “I just think...well, I just think you’re a real peach, you know? And you didn’t seem too pleased to have this John walkin’ around, and I take that kind of thing seriously.”

Sighing, Elliot scuffed her shoe against the ground, watching John pick his way through the crowd back down the street.

“We left on—bad terms, sort of,” she explained. “He showed up to make amends.”

“Do you want to make amends?”

The question caught her off-guard. It was an obvious one—obvious in that, it should have been one of the first things anyone asked her regarding John, even John himself, and yet: no one had. Not a single person had asked her if she wanted to suffer through making amends with the man who had lied to her, violated her trust, and still somehow managed to be the one person she didn’t have to fear seeing the worst, ugliest parts of her.

“I don’t know,” Elliot said after a moment, clearing her throat. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Then I will reserve judgment,” Sylvia replied firmly, “so you can make a decision on your own.”

The door to the street opened, bringing with it not only a waft of chilly wind, but John himself and the scent of his viciously-expensive cologne. It took every ounce of Elliot’s self-control not to burst into laughter at the absurdity of it—John Seed, charisma-extraordinaire, somehow managing to make poor first impressions both on her mother and her friend.

“Car’s all warmed up,” John announced, rubbing his hands together. He glanced between the two women, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “What’s so funny, hm?”

“Nothing,” Elliot replied. “Just talking about you.”

This piqued his interest. He said, “Good things, I hope,” and she could see it on his face—the painful reminder of the way John had craved Joseph’s approval, the way he’d lit up like a nuclear mushroom cloud the second Joseph deigned to say anything remotely kind to him.

“Jury’s still out,” Sylvia said lightly, and then flashed a pretty smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “But don’t worry bud! We’ll get you there eventually.”

John tried very hard to feign polite laughter, but the uneasiness bled through readily—and it was a little satisfying, to see John squirm, to see him out of his element, no longer surrounded by a constant chorus of Yes hitting his dopamine centers nonstop. No wonder the man had a conniption anytime someone dared to dislike him.

“Better get this lady home, she looks like she’s about to fall asleep standing,” Sylvia announced, reaching and giving Elliot a gentle hug. “Night, Freckles.”

“Goodnight.”

John and Sylvia bid each other a pleasant goodbye as Elliot stepped out onto the street, careful to avoid icier parts of the concrete as she made her way to the car. Her brain felt fuzzy—a lot of socializing, a lot of time spent trying not to let John get to her. It had been long enough since she’d had to hold her walls up for so long that she felt exhausted from doing it, even for this long.

Maybe that was his strategy. Wear her down, then swoop in, just like last time.

“Did you have fun?” John asked, and she realized that she was at the car, having climbed into the passenger seat already. He closed the driver’s side door, settling in before carefully beginning to back out of the parking spot.

“I mean, having you loom over my shoulder the entire night was a little odd.”

He made an affronted sound. “I was not looming.”

“You were,” Elliot told him, “a little.” She paused, feeling the exhaustion pulling at the edges of her vision, begging for her to close her eyes—but she couldn’t. Not in the car, not with John driving. If she did, he might just keep driving and not turn back around. “It’s funny—”

“My quote-unquote looming?”

“How much different you are,” she finished, “when you’re not around Joseph.”

John was clearly trying very hard not to look like he was stiffening at her words. Gotcha, she thought, with a little pinprick of pride. Yeah, I didn’t forget. I didn’t forget how much you hated it when I brought him up.

“I don’t know what you mean,” John replied, keeping his voice light. “I’m exactly the way I’ve always been.”

“You haven’t tried to drown me a single time.”

“That time was a miscommunication,” he insisted. “I wasn’t trying to drown you. Just—coerce you. And besides, that’s behind us now. I know you, Elliot Honeysett, intimately, which means such forms of brute persuasion aren’t required.” He paused. “It’s much better when you indulge me willingly, anyway.”

Elliot’s nose crinkled. “You sound fucking nuts when you say that. ‘That one time I thought about drowning you was just a miscommunication’. No wonder Sylvia doesn’t like you.”

“So she told you? That she doesn’t like me?”

He paused for a moment, his gaze flickering over to her, and when he saw the very subtle upturn of her mouth he exhaled out of his nose.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Not necessarily. But if I was—it would be the least you deserve.”

He was different, out from the insane pressure of the cult, out from under Joseph’s thumb. It was like, given room to breathe, he was suddenly relearning what it was like to make his own decision—to exist outside of Joseph. Back in Hope County, John had been fervent in his belief that he owed Joseph everything. Maybe the distance had done him some good.

Don’t, something inside of her insisted viciously, as she turned her attention out to the side of the road where the headlights illuminated snowdrift after snowdrift. Don’t get soft on him. That’s how he got you last time, you know. Don’t let it happen again.

But if he wanted to press the issue about Sylvia—or about her comment concerning Joseph—John seemed to exercise a remarkable amount of self-control and instead focused on driving. In the quiet, without him chattering on about doing things for them or how much he missed our banter, it was almost...Comfortable.

“Finding out the gender,” Elliot said after a moment, the exhaustion now settling like a deep chill in her bones. “Of the baby, I mean. At the next appointment.”

The brunette shifted in his seat. In an attempt at nonchalance, he said, “Oh, yeah?”

What am I doing? she thought. He plays nice for one night. He’s good at that. Short-term goodness.

“I’m nervous,” she added after a moment. “About finding out.”

“Not excited?” John tilted his head.

“No,” she admitted. “Nervous.”

Ahead of them, she saw the dark blur of a figure. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. John was saying something—something about how he’d read a number of books and it was normal to feel nervous, or some other kind of psycho babble—but she shifted forward in her seat, eyes straining to see.

“Slow down,” she said, “I think there’s a dog...?”

“What?” John asked. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“Just up ahead. Have you not been paying attention to the road?”

He made an indignant sound—“I am the best driver between the two of us, you know,”—but before Elliot could think up a response, the dark, furred creature slowed down ahead of them, stopped in the middle of the road, and turned its head.

The headlights caught it immediately. It was a dog, four-legged and large and shaggy black fur, but when it turned its head, it was a man’s face, the mouth slung open and the gently-rounded teeth of a human’s mouth blaring white in the headlights. Something dark and slick oozed between the teeth, in that split second, she watched the dog-human-creature push off from the ground and stand on its two hind legs.

She screamed, and John swerved, and immediately threw the car into park and slammed his hand on the hazard lights button.

It was dread, pure dread and fear, sending a pulse of adrenaline straight to her brain. Bent over at the waist, Elliot closed her eyes tight, trying to will the image out of her head, out from behind her irises. John had quickly unbuckled and reached over, his hands doing the same to hers.

“Elliot,” he said urgently, fingers pushing the hair back from her face. “Ell, take a breath, come on—sit up, you have to take a breath—”

“Is—is it gone?” she asked, but the words came out closer to a wail, the fear spiking viciously in the timbre of her voice. Please, God, what the fuck, please let it be gone. God, oh fuck, what the fuck what the fuck— “The—the—”

“There’s nothing—?” John stopped. Elliot frantically scrabbled at the high neck of her parka, fingers shaking and clumsy. “Ell—”

“Can’t breathe,” she managed out. “Too hot, can’t—”

The brunette reached over the console and stilled her hands. She was still bent at the waist, but he made do, pulling the zipper of the parka down until she could pull her arms from it; once it had been deposited in the back seat, his hand went to the back of her neck.

She sat up slowly, her eyes immediately making a frantic search of the road. There was nothing. Only quiet snowfall.

“Where—” She paused, swallowing thickly. “Where did it go?”

“Ell,” John murmured, “there wasn’t anything in the road.”

“What do you mean?” she moaned. “I saw it, the—I saw the—”

“You saw...?” he prompted. His thumb swept across the back of her neck, coaxing.

“The dog,” she insisted. “It was a dog, but it had—it’s face was—it was a man’s face, and it f-fucking—it fucking stood up, John!”

He was watching her carefully, his gaze searching her face for a long moment. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t see anything,” he told her. “Just that you—you just screamed, so I pulled over.”

“I’m not crazy,” Elliot bit out, her voice wobbling.

“I know,” John replied plainly. “Maybe it was just—you know. The snow. In front of the headlights.” And then: “Have you really been getting enough sleep, Ell?”

She felt her lip tremble, the desire to cry almost overwhelming. She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand John being tender to her, worrying about her, questioning the validity of her saying that she had been sleeping fine because he could see that she couldn’t. He was wretched and wicked and it needed to stay that way.

“Please take me home,” she said finally, re-buckling and rolling the window down to let the cold air on her face. “Please just take me home.”

John waited for a few heartbeats before he turned the hazard lights off and put the Jeep in drive.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he told her after a moment, glancing at her a few times. “I mean it, Ell.”

“Fuck you,” she replied, exhausted and feeling furiously wound up. “Just take me home.”

Get some sleep.

Feel better in the morning.

[nitewrighter]

#23 McSombra AU with baby Annie. "Family" can be Overwatch crew or Ashe and the Deadlocks if you want more cowgirl.

I don’t know what compelled me to write this one. But I’ve been seeing some McSombra floating around and I’ve missed them.

I title this one: McCree and Sombra say “VACCINATE YOUR FUCKING KIDS”

—-

Genji shook Mercy’s shoulder gently in the middle of the night.

“Angela–Your comm went off,” his voice was soft.

“Mmh…” Mercy just pulled the comforter up to her chin, “Is anyone dying?”

“No–” Genji started.

“Then it can wait–” said Mercy, turning over in bed.

“It can’t–” Genji started.

“Look, just let me talk to her–” a too-familiar voice came over the comm and Mercy’s eyes snapped open, “Jesse?” she sat up in bed as Genji turned on a bedside lamp.

“Hey doc–” McCree started.

Mercy seized her comm from Genji. “Jesse McCree, is that you!?” she said, furiously.

“Yep,” said McCree, “I–I needed to talk to you about some vaccines—”

“You drop off the face of the earth for months and now you show up asking for help like—”

“It’s not for me. Can you switch to vid-com?” said McCree.

“McCree, how is switching to vid-com going to make this any better?” said Mercy, with an eye-roll.

“Just… switch to vid-com, doc, trust me,” said McCree. 

Mercy huffed and switched her com to vid-com, projecting a small hologram showing McCree holding his own com at arm’s length. He wasn’t wearing his serape. Next to him was Sombra, holding a small red bundle.

“You can bring her closer, it’s okay,” said McCree, glancing over at Sombra, who instinctively flinched inward a little with the bundle.

“McCree–” Mercy started, warily.

Sombra stepped forward and held the little bundle up, tucking some of the cloth aside to reveal a round, chubby-cheeked ruddy brown face topped with a crop of soft, short, dark brown hair. The blanket she was wrapped in was McCree’s serape, Mercy realized.

“Her name’s Annie and… she’s ours. She’s okay. She’s–she’s great, I’m honestly amazed she’s as great as she is, but she needs shots, Doc,” said McCree, he glanced over at Sombra, “And maybe formula?”

“My tits are fine,” said Sombra, frowning and glancing off, “The more people we get involved in this…”

“Yeah but you’re runnin’ on fumes. And you said we should get a doctor in case–” McCree started.

“I know what I said! But we also said I wouldn’t be joining the Gibraltar Circus troupe!” Sombra snapped.

“They’re outside the Watchpoint…” said Genji, leaning over Mercy’s shoulders slightly, studying the background of the hologram.

“How would they get this close to the watchpoint without setting off any of the security systems?” said Mercy.

“Because I’m me,” said Sombra, clearly impatient, “Ana-Soledad needs vaccines and Jesse said you were the only doctor we could trust, now can we?”

“…we should run this by Winston or Jack–” Genji said on reflex.

“No Jack,” said McCree.

“Jack would understand–” Genji started.

“Jack getting involved makes this way messier than it already is,” said McCree.

“…it doesn’t get much messier than when there’s a baby,” said Genji, glancing at Mercy, “Trust us.”

“Look, maybe we can discuss telling people after we vaccinate my fucking newborn,” said Sombra, a furious hoarseness in her voice.

 “Doc–Please,” said McCree.

Mercy’s lips thinned. “Genji–get to Athena’s mainframe and use our override code to let them in.” 

“Are you sure?” said Genji.

“…I honestly don’t think Talon would come up with a ploy like this,” said Mercy, gesturing back at the comm’s projection, “I’ll see you in the infirmary.”

“Got it,” said Genji, getting out of bed and pulling on a pair of sweats as Mercy threw on her robe. Genji was toeing into his sneakers as he headed down the hallway when the door at the end slid open and Genji stopped. Rei was shrunken up against the doorframe, peering at him with those big, dark gray eyes. Her hair was a flame-like mess of bedhead sticking out in all directions.

“Rei–” Genji bent over her and kissed her forehead, “Go back to bed. It’s way too late.”

“Is it a drill?” she rubbed one of her eyes, “Are there bad people?” At two years old, her stumbling, still-forming words had the striking consonant qualities of Mercy’s native German, and the ‘I need to fit in as many syllables as possible’ tempo of his own Japanese. 

“No, everything’s okay,” said Genji, throwing on his hoodie, “Just go back to bed and if you need anything, mom can–” he caught himself, realizing Angela was going to be in the infirmary, and he wasn’t sure calling Hanzo in the middle of the night to keep an eye on her was the best call, “Do you want to go see Athena?” he asked quietly.

“Athena!!” Rei bounced on her heels a little bit.

“Get your coat on,” said Genji.

—-

“I don’t like this,” said Sombra, tucking a bit of the serape aside to study Annie’s face. The Gibraltar air around them was salty.

“You said half of your contacts and safehouses are compromised–As it stands, Overwatch is our best bet,” said McCree, keeping an eye out for anyone who might have pursued them.

“I wanted out of this fight, McCree, we might as well have gone back to Talon,” said Sombra, flaking off a bit of dried snot from Annie’s nose.

“Yeah you say that, but what are your thoughts on Moira playing pediatrician?”

Sombra couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“Yeah. Thought so,” said McCree.

The front gate of the watchpoint slowly rattled open with a long buzz. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Jesse,” she muttered.

“You know I don’t,” said McCree as they both walked in.

—-

“Two months!? You’ve been on the run with a two month old?!” said Mercy, pulling several small bottles from drawers.

“It hasn’t been that bad–Sombra’s been able to hack a lot of what we need–” said McCree.

“She needs a stable environment–” Mercy went on.

“Because a Watchpoint being squatted on by a rogue splinter of a now-illegal UN Peacekeeping organization is the definition of stable,” said Sombra with an eye-roll as she projected several purple screens.

Mercy ignored the barb. “Did you have a chance to give her a HepB shot when she was born?” said Mercy, grabbing sterilized needles from her cabinet.

“It’s uh… been a bit touch and go,” said McCree, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“…so all the inoculations, then,” said Mercy.

“Yeah,” said McCree with a sigh.

The infant fussed on the examination table, clearly uncomfortable with the cold of the watchpoint infirmary. A high-pitched whine escaped her as Mercy took ahold of one of her bare legs, a needle in her other hand. Sombra was pacing back and forth, several purple screens following her as she chewed her thumbnail and looked tense watching the streams of data between them. Under the lights of the infirmary, it was clear both were exhausted.

“It’s okay, sugarbean,” said McCree, leaning over Annie, “It’s only for a little while–” but Annie’s whine turned to a scream as Mercy made the first injection.

“Jesse–” Sombra looked up from her screens, concerned.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said McCree as Mercy prepared the next injection, “Hey–” he waggled his prosthetic fingers in Annie’s face, “Look at me? Look at me?”

Annie reached up with her chubby little arms and took ahold of one of his metal fingers, pulling it to her mouth and gumming it while still whining with tearstrained eyes. He sang to her, low and gentle. “They say that falling in love is wonderful… it’s wonderful… so they say….”

Annie kept her eyes fixed up at McCree but another whine-turned-scream escaped her as Mercy made the second injection.

“Need some backup, pumpkin,” said McCree, and Sombra huffed and waved away her screens, stepping up to the examination table.

“And with the moon up above, it’s wonderful… it’s wonderful… so they tell me…” Sombra sang, not 100% sure whether to use her head voice and falling a bit flat, but Annie’s eyes flicked to her as she kept gumming McCree’s finger. The baby’s eyes were remarkable, Mercy noticed–purple like Sombra’s, but flecked with the sunlight-through-whiskey brown of McCree’s. McCree and Sombra kept singing to her as Mercy made the last injection and Annie whined a bit but otherwise seemed sufficiently calmed down by her parents’ presence. Mercy bandaged up the injection site and McCree quickly changed Annie’s diaper before getting her back into her onesie and wrapping her back up in the serape. The swaddling seemed to calm her further.

“This is why you disappeared?” said Mercy as Sombra took the bundle from McCree.

“Part of it,” said Sombra, walking around and gently bouncing Annie against her, “For a while, this was just my chance–my choice to get away from Talon, maybe keep her away from the fight for as long as we could… ”

“But then Sombra here had a… pretty significant, and may I say, horribly timed breakthrough with her little ‘Eye’ project,” said McCree.

“I told Jesse I could look after her on my own but he insisted—Anyway, people are after us,” said Sombra, “Not Talon. Not Overwatch. Not Null Sector. Something… older. Omnic Crisis old. And there’s remnants of it in each of the organizations.”

“Are we compromised?” said Mercy.

“Here? This base? I don’t know…” said Sombra, readjusting Annie in her arms and sitting down, “A door opened with those guys always goes both ways… But they saw me and now I’m doing everything I can to keep us hidden.”

“So stay with us,” said Mercy.

“No–” Sombra said on reflex.

“Look at you! Both of you!” said Mercy, “You’re both exhausted! You have a baby! You–”

She was cut off as the door slid open and Genji stepped in with a Rei in one arm. 

“Genji?” said McCree, his eyes wide.

“…Yo,” Genji gave an awkward wave with his free arm.

“Long time no see,” said McCree.

“Great, more liabilities” said Sombra, 

“Genji, she’s supposed to be asleep,” said Mercy, looking at Rei.

“Well she’s awake. And I couldn’t just call up Hanzo and say, ‘Hey, McCree’s back, can you keep an eye on Rei and our apartment while we touch base?’”

“I knew this was a bad idea–” Sombra was saying.

“It’s fine–it’s fine,” McCree tried to reassure her.

Rei was staring at McCree.

 “Wow–that’s her, huh? She’s so much bigger than last time I saw her,” said McCree. He tilted his head at Rei, “Do you remember me, sunshine?”

Rei stared at him but said nothing.

“…yeah that’s fair,” said McCree.

“That’s what happens when you disappear for the better part of a year,” said Mercy, dryly. But then she sighed and put a hand on McCree’s shoulder. “You have to stay, Jesse. Just for a short while. If not for your sake then for theirs.”

“…we can stay maybe a few hours…” said McCree, looking back at Sombra nearly nodding off with Annie in her arms before Sombra suddenly flinched from her own near-sleep and sat up with attention.

“I think I should also give Annie a full check-up when everyone’s rested–” Mercy went on.

“And make us deal with the rest of Overwatch? No thanks,” said Sombra, glancing off.

“Even if the security system didn’t recognize Sombra, Athena says your biometric data was recognized by the watchpoint security systems as soon as you walked on. If the turrets didn’t fire on you, then Jack and Winston are going to know you’re here,” said Genji, gently letting Rei down.

Sombra shot McCree a dirty look

“…so we make it a few days,” said McCree.

“And of course I’ll need to update her inoculations in a few months,” said Mercy folding her arms.

“Right… said McCree, “That’s… a thing that babies need.”

“Yes. Yes it is,” said Mercy. She watched as Rei warily stepped close to Sombra and Sombra lowered the bundle Annie was wrapped in slightly so Rei could look at her, “Annie won’t be the only child on the Watchpoint.”

“…You’re a bigger target…” Sombra said, not meeting Mercy’s eyes.

“Which is why we protect ourselves,” said Genji.

“You can’t–” said Sombra, “Not against what I’ve seen–Not—” she shrank inward with Annie in her arms, but then she drew in a steady breath, “I’m not in this fight–” said Sombra, “Overwatch–Talon–It’s arbitrary compared to what’s really at stake.”

“Olivia,” McCree squatted to her level and tucked her hair back, gently running his prosthetic hand along the pink lines of her neural implants, her undercut shaggy around them, “I know being alone has been what’s kept you alive all your life, it’s not just you and it’s not just us anymore. You know how they say ‘it takes a village?’” He jammed a thumb in Mercy and Genji’s direction, “This is the village.”

Sombra’s eyes flicked down to Annie. She studied her for a few seconds, watching as Annie’s violet-and-whiskey eyes stared up at her before they slowly shut. Sombra closed her own eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said with a huff, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“You know I don’t,” said McCree, kissing her on the temple. 

[daeta801-blog]

Deer Rattling Lessons

I'd left the home a quarter of a mile an hour before and approached my personal first own stand out of downwind. I climbed to the stand at the shadow, understanding that the and fawns utilized the brushy area beside the gold pole patch facing me as a night bedding place. I expected I could get in the stand with no deer hearing or seeing me. Having a gentle west end along with my charcoal odor removal match on I was convinced they wouldn't smell me.

I was watching the dollar that visited the place for many weeks, patterning his moves across the rubbing path I found in early October. I'd noticed him coming round the hayfield one day but there wasn't any place to put him up. In early November I started to find him in the evenings about the rubbing path back into his bedding field. You will find three distinct stands across the rear route and that I was convinced I could get near him after the set was in full swing.

A half an hour later I got in my stand that the does and fawns came from the brush stopping to get a previous bite until they returned into their own day bedding areas. The doe with a single fawn may have noticed my leg shaking with the cold and stood twenty yards to my right, stamping her foot, trying for me to devote myself off. I kept still and she finally joined another deer to nourish.

I saw that the deer to another half an hour the fawns ingestion and enjoying intermittently. This was perfect, I had a few live decoys to draw the buck directly facing me. The will eventually proceed ahead of the four-lane street, grabbed the driveway and vanished. I saw them move and then return back in the gold pole patch. There were just two yearling does position at the old street at the close of the area. Curious as to the response I picked my pockets and told them collectively loudly then ground them together, mimicking two dollars fighting. The yearlings did not even appear. They simply continued licking each other.

I saw then battled back again. A four-stage buck appeared around the area searching my way. I raised my binoculars to get a better appearance. He looked closely at my direction and toward this does. I swung my sleeves to the older street hoping to observe the does seeing the dollar. What I saw made my heart stop. Fifty yards off, coming on a rope, had been the large eight-point buck. The sun was over the trees today and the sky was crystal clear. The dollar moved gradually, muscles rolling beneath a coating of fat. His throat was swollen twice normal size and glistened in the sunlight. His large, broad rack appeared bigger than I recalled. This is the manager, the most prominent of both elderly bucks that frequently traveled the region.

I swung my sleeves back into the little four stages, likely the son of this eight stage, only in time to watch him turn tail, then jump the four-strand barbed wire fencing and depart. He did not need something to do with his dad when there were really does nearby. I'd noticed him get kicked from the eight pointers in May. He knew who was boss. I brought the flashes back into the eight stages and observed as he walked toward me. My left leg started to shake up if in the cold, enthusiasm or I did not understand. I willed my leg quit because I did not need to have the dollar to detect, but it still stinks. My mouth was dry, the adrenaline flowing through my anus.

Since the dollar got nearer I reduced my flashes. After he got to the place at which the had stamped her earlier I knew he'd smell the surplus interdigital odor she left. I expected it would not alert him. After he reached the place he lowered his head and smelled the floor. I totally expected him to turn tail and run, however, he did not. He stood facing head, then turned and provided an ideal shot his shoulder twenty-five yards off. There was nothing but air. Since he looked into the area where the four magicians were raised my left arm brought my right hand into my cheek and emotionally said, "You are mine" I then lowered my palms.

He stood some time more than walked to the gold rods. After he was thirty yards out I caught my pockets and rattled again. He ceased and looked back, looking for the dollar's he thought that he heard. I blew my Haydel's grunt phone to flip him. He seemed a moment longer then kept going. I rattled back again. This time he started to trot. I moan louder, believing he had not discovered the rattling. The dollar started to trot, evaporating in the gold rods, just his stand visible in the early sunshine. After he reached the weapon he jumped it went from sight. I have fired a shot at

No, I had not had a significant case of buck fever. But a number of my hunting friends thought I suffered from the severe mental malady. I had not been taking my Darton Viper. It had been in the garage. I had been doing exactly what I'd been for the past couple of decades, exploring whitetails. I have never carried out a bow, just my pocket. I didn't wish to kill some of the bull. I wished to keep to examine them under real hunting conditions daily from the start of the bow year in September before it finished in December. Let us see exactly what I heard from the bull.

 I'd rattled the dollar in on two distinct events. The very first time he had been using a doe displaying all of the signs of estrus. He had been a quarter mile off and revealed little curiosity about my rattling until I lost sight of him. I chose to rattle loudly every ten minutes, looking the region about me to get any other dollar keen to react. As I prepared to leave my own stance I took one final look around facing me. I didn't look behind since there was a farmhouse thirty meters off. My error. Since I caught up and turned around I watched the eight pointers, and I found me. He'd stepped to the forests and had come from downwind, requiring twenty minutes to pay a quarter distance. I saw afterward he seen me was a big whitetail, frantically waving good-bye.

 Lesson 1

When utilizing aromas, calls or give the dollar time to react, and also be ready for different dollars you might not be conscious of to react.

 Lesson 2

Look all on your rack before leaving and anticipate dollars to come in from downwind.

 The next time that I rattled the eight pointers I had been sitting at a rack together his rub path near a scratch. I'd no idea he had been in the region but understood he traveled the region late in the day from east to west throughout the pre-rut. Together with the joys is complete swing I had been certain that which time and which course he'd be traveling. I set my rack ten yards out of his rub path in a bottleneck. I was about fifteen minutes once he revealed. He arrived right when I anticipated him shortly before sundown. However, he arrived from the west and also then traveled east. I didn't find him before it was too late, and that I did not have a shot before he had been out of scope.

 Lesson 3

Know the standard travel route of this dollar and search it, rather at a bottleneck.

 Lesson 4

Through the rut, dollar motion is inconsistent, be ready for dollars constantly and from some other direction.

 The previous time that I rattled the dollar was at the gold pole patch. It was through the rut. Since I'd spent a lot of hours viewing the place that I knew the dollar traveled before in the day and after in the afternoon than normal in his hunt. I'd noticed that the buck chasing a doe the afternoon and that I knew she had been near estrus and the dollar would stay close to return.

 Lesson 5

Buck's frequently traveling later in the afternoon and earlier in the day than normal throughout the rut.

 I understood the does frequently fed from the gold pole patch before returning for their own beds

 Lesson 6

Through the rut search known artisans use areas.

 The does were at the area while the dollars were in the area.

 Lesson 7

Live decoys will draw in different deer, or make them feel protected.

 As soon as I rattled, the four-stage along with also the eight-point buck replied. If I was interested in carrying any money I may have attempted to make the four-pointer and given away myself into the eight pointers.

 Lesson 8

When utilizing rattling, calls or scents recognize more than 1 buck can react, remain awake and carefully assess the region before picking that deer to take.

 After the eight stages came he had been in no rush and he had been suspicious. As soon as I awakened while he was leaving he got nervous. He had been studying that when he did not see or smell different dollars when he noticed rattling there was something wrong.

 Lesson 9

Do not rattle the exact identical dollar a lot of occasions, they learn quickly.

 Lesson 10

Do not rattle the exact identical dollar over double in precisely exactly the exact identical stand.

 Conclusion

The longer I spend exploring whitetails the more I understand. The more I understand about whitetails the more I understand how little I actually know. However, it is entertaining studying, and that I can not think of a much better job description compared to being in the forests 6-7 hours every day throughout deer season. If I can only convince the wife I want to take off three months to investigate elk and turkey.

[pyropsychiccollector]

Goodbye Despair, Chapter 0: On the way to the School Trip (Part 1)

            Hajime honestly didn’t know how to feel being on a boat at this time. The infrequent rocking back and forth was unsettling enough, but they were also on a boat… with them. People who had brought the world to its knees. All fifteen of them, on one boat. In cells, mind you. But… really, what were jail cells going to do against Ultimates? There was an Ultimate Fighter, for Kami’s sake! An Ultimate Hope that supposedly had all the talents!

            If Mitarai didn’t need to take the last helicopter to Jabberwock, Hajime was sure he would’ve taken it himself. Nanami and Gekkogahara wanted Mitarai’s opinion on something; apparently, the Neo World Program was experiencing a bug, and the Ultimate Despairs needed to be shipped out as soon as possible, because the drugs wouldn’t keep them knocked out forever. Keeping them at Foundation headquarters wasn’t going to work, because they were trying to focus on rebuilding the world, now that the side of Despair was on the ropes. Junko Enoshima was dead, and her faithful lieutenants were hopefully going to be rehabilitated…

            They weren’t out of the woods yet. But if all went well, this would be a step in the right direction. A significant step.

            Hajime blinked and tensed when he heard running footsteps coming up to the deck. Based on how quickly the person was running up the steps, it was probably something urgent. It would have to be, what with how early in the morning it was.

            “Th-They’re awake!!!” Souda’s panicked cries called out to anyone who would hear him… which included Hajime, Fuyuhiko, and Peko.

            “… Shit.” The heir to the yakuza succinctly summed up their thoughts.

            ~*~

            Contrary to Souda’s report, not all of the Ultimate Despairs had stirred from their forced slumber. Kamukura had been up for ages, but he hadn’t done anything of note, and Munakata had made sure to have multiple cameras aimed at the Ultimate Hope’s cell.

            Aside from Kamukura, three Despairs had awoken that morning. Ironically, all in separate sections of cellblocks.

            “See! I saw her wakin’ up, so I decided to go check on the others, and two more were already up!” The Ultimate Mechanic exclaimed while pointing at a young woman huddled in the far corner of her cell, her knees drawn to her chest. Her striking, almost glowing red eyes were staring back at them. However, the expression was neutral, almost nonchalant. There was no heat, no anger, no hatred.

            Then again, this Ultimate hadn’t been very expressive while she was at Hope’s Peak. Pekoyama could attest to that.

            “Figures Ikusaba would be one of the first ones up…” Fuyuhiko raked his fingers through his short, blond hair. “Lemme guess… Oogami and Oowada are the other ones up.”

            Souda rubbed the back of his head as he chuckled nervously.

            “Actually, I’m kinda relieved it’s neither of them… It’s gonna be a nightmare when Oogami wakes up.”

            Peko raised an eyebrow curiously as she crossed her arms, facing Kazuichi.

            “Then who did wake up?”

            The mechanic scratched his cheek as he let out a light sigh.

            “Umm… Togami was talkin’ my ear off, so I got Munakata to take care of him. The other was Fujisaki. He’s kinda like Ikusaba, though – quiet and creepy…” Once again, he laughed nervously, evidently at a loss of what else to say.

            Fuyuhiko frowned deeply as he crossed his arms, his brow furrowing.

            “I guess if Ultimate Despair had a leader besides Enoshima, Togami would be it. Kirigiri was more of the brains behind the operation, though… I’d like to check in on Munakata’s interrogation, but we should leave him to it for now. Souda, mind comin’ with me?”

            The mechanic looked befuddled for a brief moment.

            “H-Huh? Where’d you wanna go? And why do I gotta come with?!”

            The yakuza heir snorted dryly.

            “Because you have similar talents to Fujisaki. Might as well see if we can get the little bastard to crack a little.”

            “Wouldn’t yakuza tactics fit her more?” Souda pointed at Ikusaba accusingly. “She’ll be a tougher nut to crack than Fujisaki!”

            “Soldiers are used to pain.” Fuyuhiko deadpanned. “And I’m not gonna break fingers yet, anyway! Look, just come with me, or you can stick around with the trained killer. Hajime, you good with staying here for a bit?”

            At the proposal, Hajime smiled nervously before nodding reluctantly.

            “Y-Yeah, sure… I stay here. Got it.”

            No, not really, but okay.

            “Good.” Fuyuhiko nodded tersely. “Peko, you keep Hajime safe. She tries anything funny, just knock her back out.”

            “Understood.” The swordswoman primly replied.

            As the yakuza and mechanic left, Hajime stood rooted in place as he mulled over how to proceed. It’s not like this was a “proper” interrogation anyway. They just wanted to understand… why their underclassmen had fallen to Despair. Because before they were million-class murderers, these guys had been normal high schoolers, just like them.

            … Well, as “normal” as anyone from Hope’s Peak could be.

            The point is, you didn’t just change who you are fundamentally without some kind of reason behind it.

            “Ima… watashi no… negaigoto ga…”

            Hajime and Peko both stood rigidly as the singing started. It was quiet, melancholic. And briefly, they didn’t know where it originated from, but they soon discerned that it was the imprisoned soldier, with a faraway look in her eyes. It took Hajime a few moments to place the song, but then he spoke up uncertainly.

            “That’s… Please Give Me Wings, right?”

            “…shiroi tsubasa tsukete kudasai…” Mukuro remained off in her little world. Steadily, she rocked back and forth, keeping her legs drawn to her chest.

            Hajime sighed inaudibly at the lack of response. He should’ve expected as much. The Despairs weren’t going to talk as if they were old friends; being ignored was probably the tamest thing they did.

            Peko wasn’t deterred, however, staring down the caged soldier coolly.

            “Was it painful to lose your sister, Enoshima? Or did you take pleasure in the Despair?”

            That stopped Ikusaba cold. Hajime noted a shift in the air as the two warriors stared each other down, no changes of inflection in their stoic expressions. Hajime nervously shuffled his feet as the temperature in the cellblock seemed colder somehow. He knew Peko had likely stabbed a sore spot with that barb, and maybe that was the point, but…

            “H-Hey, Peko? Why don’t you let me do the talking…?” Hajime coughed awkwardly as he adjusted his tie. Peko’s frosty glare did not waver, and Ikusaba finally addressed them.

            “And what would you know about Despair?” The soldier quipped nonchalantly. Peko narrowed her eyes.

            “I know the 78th Class spread Despair all over the world… leaving billions miserable in their wake.”

            “How clinical of you to put it that way.” Mukuro mused sarcastically. “But what about you? What Despair have you personally experienced, firsthand? And don’t try to say the loss of a random yakuza. They’re about a dime a dozen.”

            Peko bristled at the insult to the Kuzuryu Clan, and Hajime held his hands up peacefully.

            “H-Hey… c’mon, now… The world’s fallen apart; of course we’ve all lost someone by now!”

            Mukuro’s cold eyes never left Pekoyama.

            “The issue is never what we ‘lost’.” The soldier snapped. “It’s ‘what we have left’. And I’m willing to bet that despite aaall that pain and ‘suffering’ you’ve experienced, you can still carry on because of those precious people. Well, not everyone is as fortunate as you.”

            While Hajime’s face softened at Mukuro’s harsh, but true, words Peko’s gaze narrowed.

            “By the same token, just because you don’t have anything left doesn’t mean you have to spread misery to the rest of the world. By the sounds of it, you’re just petty and bitter about others being happy. Despair isn’t anything to rejoice over. Find new friends, and move on with your life.”

            Suck it up.

            Hajime sweated nervously as the temperature in the cellblock took another nosedive. He tugged at his collar as he looked between the two warriors. He didn’t think Peko, of all people, would get under someone’s skin, but lo and behold, she was pissing off the Ultimate Soldier… And that wasn’t a good thing.

            “Get. Out.” The dark-haired girl hissed, her arms wrapping tighter around her knees as she glared at the two visitors.

            Peko arched an eyebrow at her adversary.

            “I was under the impression you were the prisoner here. You do not dictate our actions.”

            Mukuro shook from her spot on the metal floor, but she did not make any sudden moves. Hajime took a steady breath and decided to put his foot down before the situation got any tenser.

            “Peko, could you wait by the door? I’ll handle this.” Hajime rigidly requested. The swordswoman seemed to disagree with Hajime's plan of action.

            “Fuyuhiko said…”

            “He wanted me to try talking to her.” The brunet reasoned, keeping his voice calm, not harsh-sounding. “Needling her like this isn’t going to do us any favors. Just… trust me, okay?”

            He wasn’t making a very rational argument, and he knew it. If Mukuro decided she wanted to hurt him, there wasn’t going to be much he could do about it on his own, even with her in the cage. But… even so. Peko’s presence wasn’t helping. It was nothing against her; talking with Ultimate Despairs was always going to be a chore. Yet upsetting them was a worse outcome than getting “overly friendly” with them. They were volatile enough already, and Hajime wanted to pacify Mukuro before they reached Jabberwock Island.

            It wouldn’t be pretty, otherwise.

            “… My apologies. I got carried away.” Peko bowed her head and closed her eyes for a moment. “I will be nearby, if you need me.”

            As the swordswoman walked away, Hajime released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and ran a hand through his hair nervously. He didn’t like being forceful, and he hated making Peko feel like she was a nuisance. But Peko really hadn’t been doing them any favors by exchanging barbs with Mukuro.

            Hajime turned his attention to the dark-haired woman who hadn’t budged an inch from her spot in the corner. Her eyes were solely on him now, but they contained no heat or coldness, like they had when Pekoyama was there. Her expression was devoid of emotion again, and Hajime was unsure what to feel, himself… or how to proceed, really.

            “H-Hey, um…” Hajime trailed off uncertainly. He winced when Mukuro cut him off in an even tone.

            “I told you to leave.”

            Hajime winced at the steel in her voice. Peko had really struck a chord, and he couldn’t really blame Mukuro for feeling this way… Peko meant well, and she had a point with moving on in life… But sometimes, people couldn’t move on right away. He didn’t know what Mukuro had suffered or what kind of person she was, so he couldn’t judge her, even if she was a soldier. A strong physical talent doesn’t guarantee an equally strong spirit.

            “Look, I’m not here to judge you, alright?” Hajime expressed in a slightly exasperated tone. “Peko was out of line, and I don’t want to leave things at that... It’s not fair to you.”

            “It doesn’t matter to me.” The soldier droned. Hajime couldn’t help arch an eyebrow at the claim.

            “Huh…? But you got really angry after Peko said all that…” He didn’t mean to sound naïve; he just wanted to be direct.

            “…” Apparently, Mukuro didn’t have anything to say to that as she continued to stare, her eyes never wavering. She didn’t even blink.

            Hajime sighed.

            “Look, I think it matters to you.” The brunet insisted. “Why else would you be so hostile so suddenly?”

            “What makes you think it was sudden?” The soldier quipped back. “Ultimate Despair and the Future Foundation are enemies. It shouldn’t surprise you that I have no desire to see your faces.”

            “No, that’s wrong!” Hajime was still insistent. “You were provoking Peko, but something in you changed when Peko talked about moving on…!”

            “It doesn’t matter!” Mukuro barked sharply, causing Hajime to flinch again. “Nothing matters anymore. Nothing that bitch can do or say will affect me. You’re wasting your breath.”

            “… No. This does matter.” Hajime replied stubbornly. He could tell he was getting under Mukuro’s skin, too… But something within him believed this was necessary. “I don’t know if this is your ‘despair’ – ignoring something in your past that meant something to you – but you’re still emotionally attached to that thing. You wouldn’t just… submit to despair without a reason. You wouldn’t care about spreading despair if you weren’t experiencing it yourself!”

            Hajime felt a shiver run up his spine as Ikusaba’s red eyes seemed to flare with new vigor and malice as she glared at him again. He did feel intimidated – how couldn’t he be? – but he wasn’t going to back down.  They had a duty to bring back their underclassmen from the dregs of Despair that Junko Enoshima had dragged them into. Even if the Neo World Program was going to make them forget all this pain and suffering… He had to know. What pain was so terrible that they wanted to end the world?

            The brunet was expecting Mukuro’s rage to peak again… But instead, it all dissipated. The flare in her eyes was snuffed out like a candle. It… truly confused Hajime.

            “I am telling the truth. Nothing matters anymore.” Mukuro intoned coldly. If Hajime wasn’t watching her closely, he would have missed the slight quiver in her frame as she seemed to shake with some emotion. “The others… have buried it in their subconscious. They have moved onto other Despair in their lives… But I am not like the others.”

            Hajime felt another chill run down his spine as Mukuro’s red eyes became so lifeless… They were black holes of nothingness, yet it was still so very different from the look that Junko would sometimes get… With Junko, the Ultimate Despair was practically inhuman when she made this face. For her, Despair was her motivation for everything. When Mukuro made this face… Hajime could tell that this was a woman who had clearly, without a doubt, given up on everything. And it chilled his blood to see this happen in a girl that was a year younger than him. Because there was no motivation, no joy, in plunging the world into anarchy and terror, not for Mukuro Ikusaba.

            “There is nothing left for me. There was nothing left for me when Junko was alive. I hate Despair… I hated my sister… But I had nothing left. It’s easier once you accept that you’re a tool of war, but that does nothing to quell the cruel emptiness inside… You numb the pain, but it’s still there. Just a dull ache now. There is nothing worth saving in this world… so I dismantle it all, at Junko’s behest.”

            Hajime wet his lips as he tried to process this… ‘logic’ Mukuro was using. In theory, it kind of made sense… Mukuro had lost the will to live, but she hadn’t become suicidal. Instead, she killed her emotions and became just a soldier. Just a tool. He supposed he could see that as her Despair, but…

            “Well… what did matter?” Hajime asked quietly. As Mukuro kept silent, he gritted his teeth. “You say nothing matters now, but that implies that at some point, something mattered to you! You haven’t been ‘hopeless’ your entire life…!”

            “On the contrary, we Despair Sisters were born in this world with nothing but Despair within us.” If Mukuro wasn’t still dead in her expression and tone, Hajime would swear she was using snark just now. “It’s not hard to imagine nothing has ever mattered to me.”

            Hajime shook his head fiercely, pointing at her accusingly.

            “I might’ve bought that if you hadn’t said that, unlike the others, you never ‘forgot’ something. You said the others found new forms of Despair, but not you. What happened to make you all like this?”

            It felt more than aggravating when Mukuro fell silent again. She was dodging the issue, and he supposed by now it was possible he’d never get an answer out of her… He would question the other Despairs, but he had this gut feeling this was the root of the issue of everything. How could Junko brainwash her entire class? What pain were they all forced to experience?

            “… We lost our Hope.” The soldier finally said, after what seemed like an eternity. Hajime clenched his fists in frustration.

            “But what does that mean?” Hajime demanded. “You guys had all sorts of hopes and dreams! Don’t tell me Junko attacked each one!”

            Enoshima had been powerful, monstrous, but she hadn’t been omnipotent.

            “We lost our Hope.” Mukuro put more stress on that word, apparently unwilling to elaborate. “Nothing mattered after Hope was gone. Nothing.”

            “Then why did they shift to other forms of Despair?!”

            “Because Makoto would have wanted them to move on… and not one of them was willing to do that. So they killed their own friends and family, and tore their dreams to shreds.” Mukuro informed the brunet coldly. And it was only then that Hajime finally understood, with that one word.

            Makoto Naegi was the one member of Class 78, aside from Junko Enoshima who was dead, that had been part of Ultimate Despair.

            Makoto Naegi was the Ultimate Lucky Student. He had also been the class representative of Class 78. 

            Makoto Naegi was the boy from their class that had gone missing. Just like Mitarai.

            Makoto Naegi… had been Class 78’s Hope. 

[artswaps]

have you seen the full season yet? thoughts? are you as mad about adam being killed off as I am?

My health has taken a downturn and I don’t really have energy to think too hard abt it all right now, especially with all the negativity on my dash dragging me down ugh ….. but I’m not really sure what I thought of the season myself. It was a mixed bag of confusing and vaguely anxious feelings, and some stunning moments that made me very happy.

I’m not upset about Adam. I did mostly enjoy the season (i think?? eh I gotta process it) but let me be a tiny but critical for 2 hot secs cos I have a billion thoughts in my head and I GOTTA get them out hserjdgthy. Under the cut:

First of all, the Adam thing?? To be honest, I don’t… really care. I understand why people are upset and that’s fine! But Adam was literally a character for like 10 seconds. He was never meant to be prominent, the only purpose he served was to offer some insight into Shiro’s character, and the weight of his decision to choose to go through with the Kerberos mission. 

Adam was never Shiro’s happy ending. Even if he’d survived, he and Shiro weren’t going to get back together, and he probably wouldn’t have become a significant part of his life again; the nature of their breakup just wouldn’t have allowed for that. Their relationship was a thing of the past, they’d moved on from one another and him surviving wouldn’t have changed that. He was important enough to Shiro at one point in his life that he was mourned for and remembered, but they were never going to just go back to how they were.

So, no, I’m not upset about it because Adam like…….. literally wasn’t even a character we were supposed to care about outside of his faded connection to Shiro. We don’t know a thing about him. I personally don’t even consider this much of a “bury your gays” trope moment because he wasn’t a prominent character and was never meant to be and literally only served as a device to let us get to know Shiro more. Adam himself was not the important part of the “Shiro isn’t straight” reveal. Shiro is. Idk if that makes sense but that’s how I see it. 

As for the rest of the season…… hmmmmmmmm a little critical (I promise this is at most one of two posts I’ll make complaining about the season cos overall I think I did still mostly like it)

I really need time to process it all…. I didn’t hate it! But I had a lot of issues with the season; things that just rubbed me the wrong way, especially in regards to Keith’s characterisation in one certain episode I’m not thinking about ggrrrrrr and some of his and Lance’s interactions. I guess I got my hopes up for more keith/lance friendship this season but it just didn’t deliver as much as I’d hoped? There were a few nice moments (Keith trusting Lance to lead the team, Lance calling Keith “the future” aaw that was so sweet) but otherwise they didn’t really seem to act like friends?? Maybe I was imagining it but... hm.  A lot of the barbs they threw felt totally unnecessary and tbh it felt like they fell back to their more bitter season 1-2 dynamic. (And it mostly came from Keith this season which was a weird and abrupt shift? What happened to him being glad that he and Lance were getting along??? I honestly can’t tell if his quip about “not wanting to spend eternity here with Lance” was meant to be a joke or not... it seemed harsh I guess compared to everyone else’s genuine compliments)

There were a lot of very strong moments and scenes, but I just… didn’t quite enjoy it as much as the other seasons?? I just wasn’t engaged? It kinda dragged a bit near the end. That two-part about the Holts during the time skip was………. so tedious, we already knew most of the stuff they kept repeating. Why not give the same kind of focus to the other time-skips and developments that could’ve benefited from it, where things were glossed over? 

Veronica was kickass though, I love her!! The new characters were pretty neat. The admiral’s death was… appropriately sombre and actually struck a chord with me, which was a nice surprise. I ended up liking her, in the end. She made a bad judgement call but she had a noble death. 

But hmmm Keith being back finally didn’t get the focus I was hoping for. They half-dragged some of the underlying issues between himself and the team into focus and then kinda just slapped a bandaid over it and never resolved anything? There were a few moments especially in that one episode adwshefrgtjrhytju where they made Keith come across as a lot more callous than he’s ever been before?? Ugh I have so many problems with that episode but I can’t tell if they’re genuine criticisms or me just… reading the characters wrong/ pushing my own unfounded expectations onto the ep. Him making such cruel comments about Allura’s father had me so shocked though... I’m glad he owned up to his words and apologised, he always knows when he’s in the wrong and tries to make amends, but the fact that he dropped that in the first place was?? not something i’d expect from keith.

I’ll definitely talk more about what I did love about the season soon, but uuuughghhgh it just… hmm… it felt off. It didn’t really feel like Vo/ltron. I guess the first 3 seasons really were my favourites, at least as far as pacing, tone and characterisation went, but there’s been such a shift since then that I doubt it’ll return to that. I certainly don’t think it was bad, I think there’s just a discrepancy between my own expectations and what I personally want from the show and what they’re actually delivering- still largely more action-based than character-driven and never quite delving deep enough into the relationships I really want to see explored. 

Hunk kicked ass though. Hunk dominated this season it was so refreshing and wonderful to see  

[moiraineswife]

Stormlight Archive Theory: Chasmfiends Are Voidbringers/Thunderclasts

Okay I’ve had this theory forever, but I’ve never shared it before bc, well, this fandom is scary intimidating, and I’m probably wrong...But if I am, then that’s what I expected. But if I’m right and don’ have bragging rights I’ll be salty forever. 

As a note, I haven’t read any of the Oathbringer chapters, yet, and don’t intend to until I have this giant doorstop book in my hands. 

So, to business.... 

Physical similarities: 

 The eyes were deep red spots on the arrowhead face, as if created by a fire burning deep within the stone. They faded.

Even after all these centuries, seeing a thunderclast up close made Kalak shiver. The beast’s hand was as long as a man was tall. He’d been killed by hands like those before, and it hadn’t been pleasant.

In the prologue of TWOK, Kalak describes a thunderclast this way. Note the ‘arrowhead face’, the size comparison, and just the vague shape is roughly the same.  

The chasmfiend towered like a mountain of interlocking carapace the color of dark violet ink. Dalinar could see why the Parshendi called these things gods. It had a twisted, arrowhead-like face, with a mouth full of barbed mandibles. While it was vaguely crustacean, this was no bulky, placid chull. It had four wicked foreclaws set into broad shoulders, each claw the size of a horse, and a dozen smaller legs that clutched the side of the plateau.

When Dalinar and co are attacked by the chasmfiend during the hunt in TWOK, they describe it like this. The arrowhead-like face was what set me wandering down this path in the first place, because the phrase stuck in my head. But there are other physical similarities as well. This is fairly flimsy on its own but there’s more stuff.... 

Chasmfiend in stone - voidbringers emerging from the ground 

Parshendi gods - Elohkar ‘are you a god?’ desire to stop their gods taking hold 

The chasmfiends are supposed to be Parshendi gods, this is fairly commonly peppered through the books, but I like this quote for dramatic effect, and also irony: 

“Are you a god!” Elhokar bellowed.

Dalinar groaned, looking over his shoulder. The king had not fled. He strode toward the beast, hand to the side.

“I defy you, creature!” Elhokar screamed. “I claim your life! They will see their gods crushed, just as they will see their king dead at my feet! I defy you!”

Meanwhile, the parshendi don’t seem overly fond of their actual gods: 

“King Gavilar,” Eshonai said, as if mulling over the name. “He should not have revealed his plans to us that night. Poor fool. He did not know. He bragged, thinking we would welcome the return of our gods.” 

As we know, the parshendi killed Gavilar, and thus started the war...Which just so happens to involve both Parshendi and Alethi united in killing the chasmfiends. If the chasmfiends are, actually, Parshendi gods, and are also Voidbringers, this war is a pretty good way of getting shot of them all. 

I almost convinced him, she thought. It’s the red eyes. I’ve instilled in him, and some of the others of my own division, too much of a fear of our gods.

This is after Eshonai’s transformation to stormform, and one of the things that unnerves Thude is the red eyes. Right after that, Eshonai thinks of the fear she’s instilled in her division of their gods, which seems to imply that the reason Thude is unnerved by her red eyes, is because it reminds him of their gods. And part of the description of the thunderclast Kalak gives us in the prologue, is this:  The eyes were deep red spots on the arrowhead face, as if created by a fire burning deep within the stone.

“You spoke of the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “This has to do with the red eyes?”

Rlain nodded.

“What does it mean, soldier?” Dalinar asked.

“It means our gods have returned,” Rlain whispered.

“Who are your gods?”

“They are the souls of those ancient. Those who gave of themselves to destroy.” A different rhythm to his words this time, slow and reverent. He looked up at Dalinar. “They hate you and your kind, sir. This new form they have given my people… it is something terrible. It will bring something terrible.”

 Eshonai feared stormform because of its connection to the gods, but once she was turned, she became determined to have everyone transform. She also then set about wanting to destroy the Alethi. On the surface, it seems like stormform makes her, and her kind, more powerful, and will simply help to end the war. However, if I’m right, and the chasmfiends are thunderclasts/voidbringers, and the Alethi and Parshendi were engaged in destroying them all, as they wanted, this new tactic will end the war, destroy the Alethi, but the byproduct of that is that the chasmfiends will stop being killed, and will be allowed to pupate on the plains. And also, the masses of stormform Parshendi will have the power to call forth an everstorm...And I think that’s significant because: 

Pupating Chasmfiends become Thunderclasts during an Everstorm: 

Parshendi transform during highstorms with the use of spren. If chasmfiends are Parshendi gods, I believe they have this ability as well. They have spren inside their gemhearts. However. They need an Everstorm in order to transform, which is why they need Parshendi in stormform in order to return, which is why the Parshendi feared the mass transformation to stormform, and why Eshonai knew it was wrong.

Our gods were born splinters of a soul,

Of one who seeks to take control,

Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.

 This sounds to me like spren tbh, and the spren that live within a chasmfiend unlock a parshendi’s stormform, as demonstrated by Eshonai. Rlain identifies this as proof of the Parshendi gods’ return. 

“They must have an interesting life cycle. They haunt these chasms, but I doubt they actually live here. There’s not enough food to support creatures of their size. That means they come here as part of some migratory pattern. They come here to pupate. Have you ever seen a juvenile? Before they form the chrysalis?”

“No,” Adolin said, scooting his chair around the table. “It often happens at night, and we don’t spot them until morning. They’re hard to see out there, colored like rock. 

 Shallan starts taking an interest in the Chasmfiends, and starts wondering about the chrysalises and the Chasmfiends life cycle. As every chasmfiend that pupates on the plains is killed by either Alethi, or Parshendi, no-one knows what the purpose of the pupating is, or what happens as a result of it. But I think what happens is the same as what happens to the Parshendi during a highstorm. I think they pupate, they wait for an Everstorm, and that causes them to transform into thunderclasts. 

He approached the rock mound at the center. It really was odd. Adolin circled it, noticing its shape, ridged in places, almost like…

“It’s a chasmfiend,” Adolin realized. He passed the face, a hollowed-out piece of stone that evoked the exact feeling of a chasmfiend’s head. A statue? No, it was too natural. A chasmfiend had died here centuries ago, and instead of being blown away, had slowly crusted over with crem.

 What if it wasn’t a dead chasmfiend, but a chasmfiend that successfully pupated, and was left alone to crust over with crem, and become part of the rocks of the shattered plains? This makes sense from a biological point. Pupating leaves the chasmfiends extremely vulnerable, but, as Shallan points out, they don’t have any natural predators. The shattered plains are desolate, and before the war began, presumably pretty damn empty. Which makes it a pretty good place for a giant monster to go, nestle down into a chrysalis and get slowly turned to stone, waiting for its transformation via Everstorm. It’d probably go untouched, protected, and preserved by crem, and then stone, for centuries. 

Thunderclasts, we know, rip themselves out of the ground, and are made of stone: 

The enormous stone beast lay on its side, riblike protrusions from its chest broken and cracked.

Less frequently, he passed cracked, oddly shaped hollows where thunderclasts had ripped themselves free of the stone to join the fray.

So, the chasmfiends pupate on the plains, undisturbed, slowly being turned to stone. The Everstorm comes, the spren in their gem hearts transform them, as the Parshendi do, which is why there are some physical similarities with the thunderclasts, but not exactly, because they haven’t transformed yet. 

Finally: 

Danlan set it aside, getting out a third sheet of paper. Dalinar held the drawing up, Adolin at his side. The nightmarish beast in the lines and shadows was faintly familiar. Like…

“It’s a chasmfiend,” Adolin said, pointing. “It’s distorted—far more menacing in the face and larger at the shoulders, and I don’t see its second set of foreclaws—but someone was obviously trying to draw one of them.”

“Yes,” Dalinar said, rubbing his chin.

“‘This is a depiction from one of the books here,’” Danlan read. “‘My new ward is quite skilled at drawing, and so I had her reproduce it for you. Tell me. Does it remind you of anything?’”

A new ward? Dalinar thought. It had been years since Jasnah had taken one. She always said she didn’t have the time. “This picture’s of a chasmfiend,” Dalinar said.

Danlan wrote the words. A moment later, the reply came. “‘The book describes this as a picture of a Voidbringer.’”

This identification of the chasmfiend as a Voidbringer, but with slightly different mistakes, both sounds like the thunderclast at the beginning of the book, but it also sounds like a chasmfiend slightly altered, as I theorised would happen if they transformed during the Everstorm like the Parshendi and became a thunderclast. 

‘Before you jump to conclusions,’” Danlan read, “‘I’m not implying that the Voidbringers were the same thing as chasmfiends. I believe that the ancient artist didn’t know what a Voidbringer looked like, and so she drew the most horrific thing she knew of.’”

But how did the original artist know what a chasmfiend looked like? Dalinar thought. We only just discovered the Shattered Plains—

But of course. Though the Unclaimed Hills were now empty, they had once been an inhabited kingdom. Someone in the past had known about chasmfiends, known them well enough to draw one and label it a Voidbringer.

 Jasnah theorises that the ancient artist didn’t actually draw a Voidbringer, because she didn’t know what it looked like, so she simply drew a chasmfiend, slightly altered, as the most awful thing she could think of. But what if she did draw a Voidbringer? What if the chasmfiends really are Voidbringers. I don’t know about you, but it just seems so very Brandon to literally have the answer right there staring us in the face from book one. 

Also, speaking of things that are very Brandon...I’m going to remind you that Shallan agreed that she would start taking steps to learn how to breed the chasmfiends and increase their numbers. And is actively trying to war against the parshendi, because she believes they are Voidbringers. The irony in this is just...It’s too much. She’s blaming the people who have tried to stop bringing these things back for centuries...While she actively works to increase the number of them. Imagine. 

TL;DR: Chasmfiends are Parshendi gods, Parshendi gods, not the Parshendi themselves, are Voidbringers. Chasmfiends transform during storms, like the Parshendi themselves, using the spren in their gem hearts. They pupate to prepare for the transformation, and use the Parshendi in stormform, which is strongly identified with their gods, to create an Everstorm, which is what starts their transformation from chasmfiend to Voidbringer. 

Have at it. 

[moreracquetball]

Excerpts from “I’d like to believe that I’d do it again”

Hey, so I wrote this Whizzvin College AU (which clocks at about +60k words), and I thought that maybe I could share some of my fave excerpts from this behemoth. It’s a little long, so apologies for that. BUT HEY, JUST WANNA THANK EVERYONE AGAIN FOR SUPPORTING THIS STORY AS SO MANY PEOPLE DID. IT MAKES ME HAPPY.

See, right now, Whizzer's supposed to be the nice guy—tell him that while he's flattered and all, getting into any sort of sexual relationship with him would be wrong and irresponsible. You have a girlfriend, he'd remind him, grasping his shoulder and giving him a significant look, after everything you've been through together, you can't do this to her. He's supposed to help him along this journey of sexual identity by being a simply platonic mentor who watches out for him and lets him discover his own sexuality in his own way and time. Whizzer's supposed to not take advantage of a sad, lonely man who has no idea what he wants.

But Whizzer is not a nice guy, which is why he disregards all these supposed-to’s and leans in, tightening his grip on Marvin’s thigh and giving him a wicked smile, “You and I are going to have so much fun together, Marvin."

“So I’m a game to you?” Marvin asks, his voice carefully neutral.

“Don’t beat yourself up. Everything’s a game to me.” Whizzer sighs and repositions his head, right over Marvin’s heart, “I’ve always sorta liked you, you know. You never backed down from me, even when I made you look like an idiot. You’ve caused me a lot of grief over the years, not gonna lie, but you’ve never bored me. Not yet, anyway.”

Marvin pauses, “I guess you want me to be flattered by that.”

“Feel however you want about it; it’s the truth,” Whizzer draws back and untangles himself from Marvin, prompting, “So same question about me then.”

Marvin stares hard at him for a moment too long, vague emotions flitting across his gaze. He seems conflicted as to what to say, what to admit. Finally, he settles on, “You’ve never bored me either.”

Not even thinking about it, Whizzer takes Marvin in his arms, burying a hand in the man's hair and letting his breathing even out. As he comes back to his senses, he begins to hear the faint hum of traffic from outside, a faint but constant reminder of the world around them.

Whizzer doesn't know what to do with this information, so he stays silent and lets Marvin lament. Instead, he simply watches as the man restlessly rolls his shoulders, the fluorescent lighting above making the sweat glisten on his toned skin. He's alluring in an abstract, unattainable way. No one has really caught him, Whizzer believes. Marvin has always held everyone at arm's reach, closing the shudders within his eyes every time that something becomes too close to home, too real. Whizzer used to contribute the distance as another sign of the man's pretension, as if he believed himself to be too high above everyone to give anyone leverage on him. But now that he's actually spent time with him—has gotten to know Marvin intimately in the dim lighting and tangled bedsheets—Whizzer thinks that maybe Marvin is just scared.

Scared of being vulnerable. Scared of giving someone a map of his weaknesses and trusting them to not destroy him in the end.

No one has really gotten to know the real Marvin. To his friends, Marvin is just the snobbish but harmless kid whose bark is bigger than his huge. To his teachers, Marvin is just a try-hard with so much potential that it seems to choke him at times. To his girlfriend, Marvin is the fulfillment of some unrealistic, romanticized fantasy. But to Whizzer, he's...

Whizzer isn't saying that he himself knows the real Marvin, but he thinks that maybe he's gotten the closest.

"Fuck off. Beyoncé is in Dreamgirls."

That night, Whizzer comes home early from a disappointing fuck and can't sleep, tossing and turning on his shitty mattress and kinda wishing he was in Marvin's comfortable bed. However, he imagines Trina to be in his place right now, tangled in his bedsheets and threading her fingers through his lover's hair. Wildly, he wonders if she could smell his cologne on the pillow just as he sometimes breathes in and gets a faint whiff of her perfume.

And Jesus Christ, Whizzer cannot be pining right now. He refuses to let himself. It's ridiculous. Whizzer does not chase after men—especially not closeted ones with pretty girlfriends and psychological complexes.

"Whizzer, I don't hate you because you're gay," Marvin declares incredulously, like the sheer thought of it baffles him, "I hate you because you're a pain in my ass. I mean, come on, I know I'm a dick, but give me a little credit here."

At his surprising response, Whizzer laughs. He laughs and laughs until his sides start hurting and he's panting for air. He looks over at Marvin and finds the man watching him, his face desperate and hungry—but for what, Whizzer's too drunk and upset to try to figure out.

Whizzer slaps the man on the back, breaking Marvin from his spell, "You're alright, Marvin. Fuck, sober me will hate me for saying it, but you're damn alright." And they stay like that for a little while longer, staring up at the stars in the night sky.

"Passion dies eventually," Whizzer tells him as they lay breathless in the aftermath, "Just because it's not today doesn't mean it can't be tomorrow."

Marvin shrugs, pulling Whizzer into his arms, "We'll deal with it tomorrow then." And it seems so simple right now between the two of them, but Charlotte's words of warning still echo in the back of his mind.

Whizzer admits quietly, "Marvin, that night...I think I wanted to kiss you, too." Marvin’s hold on him tightens, and his smile is blinding in the pale lighting of the room. And Whizzer knows that he is devouring this man and his bleeding heart, but he doesn’t think he could stop even if he tried.

He wonders if this is what love feels like.

“Oh well, I’m sorry that I disgust you so much,” Marvin grits out, mimicking his tone, “You know, for someone who fucks any guy that buys him a drink, you sure act like you have standards!”

Whizzer scoffs, his anger radiating off him like waves, “For someone who swears he’s not a fag, you sure take it up the ass like one!” The heat off of that barb seems to fly across the room and slap him in the face, causing Marvin to redden even further and throw his shoulders back. Whizzer feels dizzy with the satisfaction, can practically taste the blood in his mouth and wants more.

“For someone who likes to brag that he’s nothing like Trina,” Marvin says, his voice softer but no less cruel, “You sure bitch and whine like her.” 

It’s the way that she talks that unsettles Whizzer—the knowing lilt in her voice when she talks about Marvin. Whizzer has always liked to trivialize their relationship—to pretend that Trina is a nameless, robotic mannequin that Marvin simply dresses up and shows off—but it’s ignorant to believe that they aren’t close in at least some ways. Marvin hasn’t shared all of himself with Trina, but he’s given her breadcrumbs of himself—his past, his insecurities—to soothe her desire for any intimacy at all.

They’re sitting at a park bench and absently watching kids play on a swing set and dogs shitting in the bushes. They talk and talk about nothing that really matters, but the hum of organic conversation is soothing. Whizzer has almost lost in the chill that he’d developed earlier when Trina randomly blurts out, “Marvin doesn’t want kids.” It doesn’t take long to connect this line of thinking to the way her gaze has followed the children playing in the park.

Whizzer doesn’t find that hard to believe, “What about you?”

Trina hesitates, “I don’t know. I think I would be a terrible mother. But. Sometimes I think I would really love it, you know?”

Whizzer finds himself shrugging, “I think you’d be a good mom.”

Trina smiles, “Thank you. That means—a lot.”

“Marvin doesn’t like the thought of sharing,” Whizzer tells her, as if she doesn’t already know, “That’s why he doesn’t want kids. He’s very needy—of everyone.”

Trina scoffs, “Trust me, I know. You think being friends with him is bad? Just try dating the bastard.”

Whizzer is thankful that she’s too busy looking at a little toddler in pigtails to gauge his expression. He responds after a beat, his voice sounding stilted even to himself, “No, I don’t think I ever wanna do that.”

Her eyes mist over, a fond sense of wistfulness coating her voice, "We ended up talking for like four of five hours after that, even went to this shitty twenty-four hour diner when the library closed. He talked more, of course. I just listened, mesmerized by how he seemed to command every room he stepped in and the way he talked with his hands." She pauses and adds quietly, "And I wanted him to love me—desperately—so I changed my personality a little just so we could fit perfectly together." She lets out a self-deprecating laugh, "It sounds so stupid to admit it out loud. But I tend to always do that; I warp my own qualities so I can be whoever the other person wants me to be."

“What do you want me to say?” Marvin demands, pulling Whizzer closer and rubbing calming circles into his skin, “Why are you so mad at me, huh? You already know that she means nothing to me. I’ve always been honest with you, Whizzer—more than I have been with anyone. Ever.”

“He’s actually quite good at that,” Trina’s words suddenly come back to haunt him, “At making you believe that you’re the only one who understands him. It’s part of his charm.”

Whizzer is a terrible person. He’s always known this, deep down, but sometimes it hurts to be reminded of the fact.

He doesn’t really know what he was planning to accomplish by coming here. To give Trina some justice? To prove his own decency somehow? But that would require Whizzer to be selfless.

Whizzer kisses Marvin then, ending wherever that conversation was heading. He pushes Marvin back onto the couch and devours him, turning the man into a quivering puddle of shuddering sighs and moans.

Whizzer keeps having to make a choice. But, time and time again, he refuses to make the right one.

Marvin soon appears, hopping off the stage and walking over to him. Whizzer smirks and begins to offer him a harmless taunt about the tights that he wore, but then Marvin seizes his collar and pulls him into a kiss.

In public. With people still around.

Jesus Christ, has he lost his fucking mind?

"No one knows us around here," Marvin whispers against Whizzer's mouth, noticing that the other has been too stunned to reciprocate, "Relax." As if that broke the spell, Whizzer loops his arms around his waist and pulls him closer, deepening the kiss. 

It's incredible, really. Whizzer had forgotten that he'd had pressure wedged in his chest until Marvin kisses him and suddenly releases it.

"What?" Marvin asks when they eventually pull away, eyeing his dazed expression.

Whizzer thinks about blowing it off, but the quiet words tumble out of his mouth anyway, "I think I'm happy."

Marvin smiles, suddenly looking as shy as the day that Whizzer had first introduced himself, "Me too." 

In bed that night, Marvin pushes him to lie flat on his stomach and starts pressing chaste kisses along his spine, mumbling words into his skin that Whizzer can't make out. It's so easy, Whizzer thinks amazedly, to be with him. How can it feel so complicated and fucked up one moment and then feel like this the next?

Whizzer tries not to think about it. He presses his face into the pillow and just enjoys the ride.

Marvin stiffens, "You didn't have to say it."

"Does it still bother you?"

"Of course it bothers me," He snaps, suddenly defensive, "I'm not like—that. I'm not like you."

Whizzer narrows his eyes, pushing out of Marvin's arms, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not gay," Marvin declares, "Whizzer, you know that." Whizzer knows that that's what Marvin likes to tell himself. It's never stung to hear him say it before though. Until right now.

Maybe because of last night. Maybe because Whizzer had thought that something—anything had changed.

But the air between them has shifted. It took Marvin essentially showing his hand to him to clear the dust from Whizzer’s eyes, but he gets it now. He understands the game that they’ve been playing has been revised; it’s become dirtier, more calculated.

He’s more aware of Marvin now—of the mind games that transcend verbal arguments and offhanded gestures. As if things weren’t already complicated before, both men have now gone straight-up nuclear—so much so that they’ve convinced each other that every word and gesture is a tool to work against the other, is a ploy for domination, is a zero-sum game with nothing off-limits and everything to lose.

It’s fucked up. Whizzer loves in a sick sort of way that has his heart breaking but his mouth begging for more.

Whizzer doesn’t want a fairytale. He doesn’t want glass slippers or talking horses or handsome princes telling him what to do. Whizzer wants passion and bitter fights and rough sex and the taste of heartbreak and loneliness on his tongue. He wants as little as possible, just enough to get his rocks off.

Marvin doesn’t want a trainwreck. He doesn’t want the harsh collision and crushing of bones and shrapnel to the heart. Marvin wants romance and submission and doe-eyed devotion and the cult of domesticity. He wants more, enough to make him choke on it.

Marvin kisses him deliberately, making it clear that this conversation is over.

But the tension hasn’t left his body, so Whizzer pulls back and clarifies, “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Marvin shakes his head, pulling at Whizzer’s shirt, “Help me forget.”

Whizzer doesn’t fight him on this. He knows when to pick his battles.

“What can I say? I have a way with men,” Whizzer says jovially, tasting acid in his mouth when he adds pointedly, “Even the straight ones.” Trina and Whizzer make eye contact, and he sees the real question she desperately wants to ask in her eyes. Why you? What makes you better than me?

Everything, he wants to tell her, an obnoxious sense of pride rising in his throat, everything.

At times like these, their afternoon together seems like such a distant memory. After all, they do share a bed with the same man, and nothing is more polarizing than the desire for attention and the yearning for…for an unspeakable thing. For a four letter word that Whizzer refuses to name.

Marvin tilts his head back and ignores the rising resentments, seemingly tired of more than just his parents at the moment.

"And hey," Whizzer prompts before the other man can hang up, "I just want to remind you...You don't have to change for them, you know? If they don't like you—the real you, they can piss off. You shouldn't have to—you know, wear this mask all the time and put up this huge wall around yourself. It'll get lonely; trust me. I mean, it already is, isn't it?"

There's a pause of silence before Marvin says quietly, "I told you. It's not that easy."

Whizzer sighs, resigned, "Goodnight, Marvin." After he hangs up, he stretches out on his shitty mattress and looks up at his ceiling fan, letting the blur of motion lull him into sleep.

"He seems to know his way around here quite well." Marvin's mother makes the offhanded comment, and it seems harmless enough but Marvin flinches like she's just slapped him.

"We're friends." Marvin explains tightly as he and Whizzer finally make eye contact. Taking one look at the man, Whizzer knows that he didn't take his advice to heart. Marvin has transformed back into his former shell of a self, stapled this ill-fitted persona to his skin as he continually tries to hide the cracks in the façade. Whizzer has spent the last several months mapping each nook and crevice on this man's body, but at this very moment, Marvin might as well be a stranger to him.

Whizzer adopts a chill he just can't shake throughout the entire meal.

Whizzer feels like a passive observer as he watches the dynamics of those around him. Marvin's parents dote on Trina, every word directed in her direction being some form of glowing compliment. By contrast, they are curt and strangely formal with their own son. His mother makes mere small talk with him that reminds Whizzer of how one talks to a stranger. Meanwhile, his father simply stares down at his untouched plate more often than not, his mind far away from here.

Marvin smiles and charms and lies his way throughout the meal, readily putting on this mask that his parents have forged for him. He pretends to be enraptured by Trina and plays along with his mother's unrealistic envision of his future. And he fits into this role of obedient son and charming boyfriend so effortlessly, Whizzer starts to wonder if Marvin could theoretically put up this act for the rest of his life. But then he notices the bags under Marvin's eyes, the edge in every single one of his easy smiles, the tension in his squared shoulders. How exhausting it must be, he quietly marvels, to be so aware and calculated in your every word and movement.

Sensing he's crossed a line, Marvin softens, but he doesn't apologize. He never apologizes. Even when he knows he’s wrong.

It takes a few seconds for Whizzer to regain control of his voice, but when he does, he makes sure it sounds as cold and brittle as ice, "You think you're so much better than me, don't you? You're so much smarter than me, Marvin. You're so much more successful than me, Marvin. You're so superior at everything," He takes a step closer, bring their chests close together, "But you get on your knees for me again and again. You beg for it time after time—why is that, I wonder?” Marvin’s muscles clench tighter and tighter, but he holds his tongue. Whizzer presses on, wanting something—anything at all that proves he’s gotten under his skin, “And how would Mommy and Daddy react if they saw you like that, huh? Do you think they’d believe me if I told them all about it?" He raises his voice to a yell, "Hey Everybody, Marvin is a fa—"

Finally, Marvin shoves Whizzer against the wall, slapping a firm hand over his mouth. Pain erupts in Whizzer's back, but he barely registers the sting through his fury. He removes the hand as soon as Whizzer cuts off, but he keeps their bodies pinned together. With a pang, he’s reminded of that first time in the small closet at a stranger’s house. It seems like that happened an entire lifetime ago, though he knows it hasn’t even been a year.

Marvin's face is still just inches away from his, and Whizzer feels fear beginning to coil in his stomach, "Enough." 

"Or what?" Whizzer taunts in a low voice, and he wants him to hit him. He wants the sting of a busted lip, needs the distraction to the turmoil brewing in his chest. But Marvin doesn't look as angry as Whizzer feels; he seems heartbroken at Whizzer's words, as if something actually brought the High and Mighty Marvin down a peg. And so Whizzer breaks their silent truce on to never speak of what’s going on between them, but he makes a pointed decision. He lies.

"You think I give a damn about you?" Whizzer whispers, and Marvin takes his words like a punch in the gut, "You're just an easy fuck, Marvin. That's all you are to me. We aren't boyfriends. We aren't even close."

"You mean nothing to me." 

Marvin nods, letting the words wash over him. He straightens his posture, all previous emotions of fury and heartbreak wiped from his face. He's slipped the mask back on. Good, Whizzer thinks to himself, it suits him.

“Stop being petty,” Whizzer snaps, walking towards him and crowding him against the wall of the hallway, “You know that I—“ The words get caught in his throat, so he settles for something easier, “You know that you mean something to me.” He doesn’t say it, but Marvin hears it all the same.

A few hours later, as they lie cramped and entangled on Marvin's shitty couch, naked and sated, they don't talk about what happened before or what will happen later. Maybe they should—after all, several wounds are currently left untreated, exposed to viscous infection that could occur any time in the form of a careless word or barbed insinuation—but they're young and mean and they don't give a flying fuck about the problems that lie just on the horizon. Marvin keeps trying to make him laugh—desperately—and Whizzer refuses to give him the satisfaction, biting his lip to keep the treacherous snickers at bay.

And it isn't perfect, Whizzer thinks as he tries to smother his laughter into Marvin's mussed hair, but right now, it's enough.

Whizzer notices that Trina's hand has entangled in Marvin's hair.

"Yeah," Whizzer agrees faintly, the jealousy choking him, "Let's enjoy it while it lasts."

I love you.

It means nothing to Marvin. It means everything to Trina. 

I love you.

To Whizzer, those words have always been an excuse for mistreatment or a ploy for sex. It's always been his parents' "I'm justifying being the cause of your unhappiness" or one of his lover's "Please give me head later." It's never just I love you. It's always had a double meaning. It's always had strings attached.

The words are never meaningless per se, Whizzer rationalizes; they just never only carry the surface implication.

I love you.

Marvin tells Trina this, but what he’s really saying is a plea for submission, for her to stick her head in the sand and never question him. It's a ploy. It's a deceit. It's a breadcrumb.

I love you.

Sometimes Whizzer imagines Marvin saying those words to him—perhaps mid-sex, or huddled beneath the covers and trying to ignore the rising sun, or in the middle of an argument when Marvin needs a trump card.

Whizzer ponders just what his reaction would be. Would it mean anything to Whizzer? Would Marvin ever mean it in the first place?

"I love you." Whizzer whispers once, alone in his apartment.

The words still feel hollow to him—be it in his mind or mouth.

"Jesus Christ, I can't believe I fell in love with someone like you." As soon as the exasperated words fly out of Marvin's mouth, the man stiffens in shock and horror (Whizzer can't tell if it's being feigned, if this is just one of those theatre workshop activities that he's been obnoxiously doing all the time).

Up until that point, Whizzer had been pretty sure that he knew just how those words would affect him. They would hardly even register, he had reasoned. Whizzer would be mindful of the mind games that Marvin plays, and he would be reminded of the ease that Marvin spouts off those words to Trina, and he would be able to rationally see it as the bullshit that it is. He would be calm and indifferent and unwavering, he had imagined.

He was wrong.

Whizzer's eyes widen, and his mouth goes dry, and his chest does something a little funny that makes his breathing turn stilted. And he feels like his heart is devouring every sense of rational thought. 

"...Whizzer, I love you." Whizzer rips off Marvin's belt and tears open his shirt.

"Don't say it," Whizzer whispers harshly, threading his hands through Marvin's hair and pulling Marvin's head so their mouths are two little words apart, "Prove it."

"And she deserves more," Marvin continues after a pause, "She deserves someone who doesn't tune her out when she starts talking for more than five minutes and likes sleeping next to her and holds her hand when she's sad—"

Whizzer interjects, supplying, "Someone who loves her."

"I do love her." Marvin protests sharply, his gaze snapping into focus. He's on the defensive now, as if he's still trying to cling to that lie as much as Trina. But Whizzer gives him a pointed, knowing look, and after a beat, Marvin softens.

He amends roughly, "Well, I care about her."

"You know that's not the same thing."

"Yeah," Marvin looks at Whizzer, echoing faintly, "I think I’ve realized that now."

Whizzer snorts, "Always the idealist."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting it all," Marvin tells him, leaning in for a kiss, "As long as you can actually achieve it. And I can."

"He told me he loves me last night," Whizzer confesses to her, the words buzzing on his tongue, "He's breaking up with Trina today."

Cordelia watches him, "And how do you feel about all of that?"

Whizzer keeps his eyes on the endless blue above him, smiling in a way that hurts his face, "Happy."

"She's pregnant." Marvin says, measured and neutral.

A lot of things happen at once.

Charlotte sucks in a surprised breath, and Mendel drops the beer that he’d been holding, and Cordelia beams at Trina but squeezes Whizzer's hand tightly, and Whizzer—

For Whizzer, the entire room is spinning. He's surprised that he doesn't throw up.

"Oh." He exclaims faintly, more breath than word.

At that moment, Whizzer and Trina make eye contact, and he wildly expects a gloating expression on her face. After all, she's won, hasn't she? It's over. She's got him beat.

But there is no pride or boast in her gaze. Trina looks at him, and she smiles, and she just looks so genuinely happy. And it makes Whizzer feel disgusted with himself—for that day in the park, for sleeping with her boyfriend, for hating her.

"I'm happy for you." Whizzer tells her, holding her gaze. He doesn't mean it. From the way her smile dims, Whizzer thinks that she kinda knows that.

"You're going to have a family," Whizzer rationalizes, "I don't exist in that world."

"You exist in my world," Marvin says tightly, "That will never change."

In his dream, nothing is awful. He's in a crowded ballroom, feeling tipsy and happy and in love. Across the room, he spies Cordelia and Charlotte, getting drunk on champagne and giggling into each others’ ears. A few feet away from the two girls are Trina and Mendel, holding each other tight as they dance to the melodic melody echoing throughout the hall. Trina looks beautiful and happy in the arms of a man who loves her. Whizzer watches his friends laugh and fall in love, and he's struck with a sense of deep contentment. In his dream, he's happy.

Sturdy arms wrap around his torso, pulling him into an embrace from behind. Whizzer relaxes against Marvin, turning his head so the man can see the unadulterated adoration on his face.

"I love you." Marvin says, and it is beautiful in its offhanded nature. It means nothing and everything all at once.

"I love you, too." Whizzer admits finally, his voice aching with the honesty of it.

When he wakes up, Whizzer is alone in a cold bed.

"You know you can go to somebody whose actual job that is, right?" Whizzer says bluntly, looking down to fiddle with his camera so he won't see Trina's smile dim.

"Well, yes, I know," She admits slowly, caught off guard by his defensiveness, "But I just thought that it would be more special. You know, to be taken by a friend."

Friend. She thinks that they're friends. Well, that’s just—spectacular.

Whizzer nods, swallowing down the lump in his throat, "You're going to marry him." It isn't a question, so he doesn't phrase it like one. Of course Trina will say yes—because she's young and she wants so desperately to pretend that he loves her and she's always wanted the All-American, tight-knit family. 

No, if he were to ask a question, it would be: He's going to marry you?

But that shouldn't be a surprise either. Of course Marvin will propose—because he's gay and he wants so desperately to pretend that he isn't and he's always wanted the All-American, tight-knit family.

Maybe they are perfectly suited together; they're both so willing to play into delusions and pretend that they're happy and everything happens for a reason and a marriage will somehow make things better.

At this point, Marvin and Trina have almost finished digging their own graves, but Whizzer himself still hasn’t broken the ground yet. Right now, he's still holding the shovel, trying to decide if it's all worth it, if he's all worth it.

"Okay." Whizzer says faintly, "I'll take the picture."

Trina hugs him, and even though her grip is light and her body is soft, Whizzer feels like he's being crushed.

This picture is a lot better, though Marvin looks into the camera with a pained smile and Trina is smiling like she does realize that she's delivering herself into a devouring mouth but just can't seem to help herself.

Whizzer makes sure to give her a look of solidarity; he knows the feeling.

Marvin huffs as he walks in, his back facing Whizzer, "It's never meaningless when we do it."

"Speak for yourself."

The muscles in Marvin's back tense, but he doesn't take the bait, "Why didn't you answer me?"

"Because I didn't want to," Whizzer says as he closes the door, sneering, "Is that alright with you? After all, my needs are always subservient to yours, aren’t they?”

"Stop it," Marvin commands, like Whizzer's some lapdog, "I don't want to fight right now."

"Why is it always about what you want, huh?" Whizzer demands, "I'm not just some mindless sex doll, Marvin. I have wants and needs, too."

"I know that," Marvin snaps, turning around to face him, "Of course I know that. You're Whizzer. I love you."

"You're Trina," The memory of Marvin's words hits him like a truck, "I love you."

"Trina was right,” Whizzer says coldly, “You really need to get new material." And the words are so meaningless to Marvin, he doesn't even seem to know what Whizzer is referring to.

"You're ruining her life. You're ruining your life." And once Whizzer has started, he just can't stop. Anger and frustration leak into his calculated voice, thickening it to the point of almost incoherency, "You're ruining the baby's life. You're ruining my life.” He hates pretending that it doesn’t bother him, that nothing has changed, that Whizzer can somehow fit into that family portrait. Because it does bother him and everything has changed and Whizzer doesn’t want to waste his life shadowing somebody else’s family and being fed breadcrumbs by a man too cowardly to be honest about what he wants.

Whizzer is trembling now, admissions and anxieties rising in his throat and gagging him.

But Marvin is perfectly composed, his eyes narrowed and mouth fixed in a sneer.

"How am I ruining your life," He asks sharply, "When apparently you don't love me anyway?" Whizzer doesn't answer. He can't.

"What, you want me to feel sorry for you?" Whizzer scoffs, his voice cold, brittle, ”Fuck you, Marvin. That's just another bullshit excuse. Everyone always has a choice. You're just making the wrong one and trying to blame it on the invisible gun to your head." 

Marvin shrugs, Whizzer’s justifications lost on him, “I only play games that I know I'll win.”

“We both know that that’s not true.” Whizzer points out, smiling, “You’re playing one with me right now.” 

“I said that you mean something to me because it’s the truth,” He scoffs, overwhelming disgusted with the both of them, “But that isn’t good enough for you, is it? You want to mean everything to me. But that will never happen.”

“I did all those things because I’m in love with you,” Marvin says after a long, agonizing pause, unflinching, “And you’re trying to fault me for that? For being nice to you and hoping against hope that you could ever learn to love me back? You call me selfish? You’re the one who’s been using how I feel to get yourself off. You’re the one who constantly reminds me that I am one of a dozen others. You’re the one who took advantage of a closeted guy who had his entire life figured out and ruined everything because you could—because you were bored.

“And now you get pissed at me for trying to get my shit together and be there for the woman who is having my child. What did you expect for me to do? Break up with her anyway so I could still just be one of your many booty-calls?” He scoffs, shrugging, “Maybe I am selfish, but at least I’m honest about it. You want to crucify me for wanting to have it all while you’re trying to pull the same shit by wanting me to abandon my kid and girlfriend when you won’t even tell me that you love me!”

“So, if I did choose you,” Marvin challenges, “Would you choose me? Would you stop fucking other guys and make me dinner and kiss me goodnight and tell me that you love me?”

“No.” It’s honest—brutally so. And it makes Whizzer so shocked at himself, has him forgetting his plan and looking up at Marvin.

Marvin nods like he expected that answer, but he looks like Whizzer broke his heart by confirming it.

“Trina does all those things for me,” He says tightly, “Because she loves me.”

Whizzer does things for him, too. He cooks for him and always gives him his honest opinion and calls Marvin out on his bullshit and challenges him to be better and encourages him to follow his stupid dream of theater and tries to get him to accept himself for who he is.

He does those things for him. Because he loves him.

"I'd love to meet them," Mr. Total-Dick-Face looks at the picture again, "To hear the rest of their story—the things that not even images can show." No, you really don't want to know. 

Because it's a sad story—the kind that keeps getting bad and never gets any better; the kind that only has a few moments of happiness and lightheartedness but is overall fucking awful; the kind that no one really gets a happy ending.

And Whizzer wants to go back to how things were before—when it was just fun, with mouths pressed against inner thighs and secret glances when out with friends and arguing for the sake of getting the other to take his pants off. 

But no, no, no, Whizzer wants to go back to how things were before even that—when they hated each other and it seemed like it would always stay that way, with mouths shooting off snappy retorts and pointed glares when out with friends and arguing just for the sake of hearing themselves talk.

Whizzer wishes that Marvin had never kissed him that day. He wishes that he himself could have been smart and kind enough to not kiss Marvin back.

But Whizzer doesn't dwell on past decisions and wrong choices. He refuses to lament on the past and instead keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon ahead.

Because he'll never be able to fix his mistakes but he can always run away from them.

Whizzer always walks away. And he never looks back.

"Look, I just don't care anymore." Whizzer tells them lowly, keeping his gaze trained on his beer bottle, "About any of it." He says those words with a strange amount of confidence for a man who had to drag himself out of bed and then had a full-fledged break down in the shower this morning.

"Did he cry?" Whizzer blurts out, "Over me?"

"Yes. And it was not a pretty sight," Charlotte hits his arm, "Stop smiling."

"I'm not." He lies stubbornly, turning away from her.

Though Marvin looks away immediately, Trina doesn't stop staring at it for a long time.

"That's not the picture you gave us." She says faintly, her tone and face unreadable. Her eyes are glued to the photograph, flickering from her own terrified face to Marvin's lovesick gaze directed at someone else.

"I took two, remember?" Whizzer says, trying to pawn off any of the tension, "I hope you don't mind." Trina finally looks at him then, and she knows. She finally knows. Whizzer can see it in her face.

Every single one of them wait for her reaction with baited breath.

"Of course I don't," Trina says, steeling her face and voice as her grip on Marvin's arm tightens, "It's beautiful. It shows the beginning of our family. Wouldn't you agree, Marv?" She takes the easy way out, pleading ignorance. For the sake of her relationship. For the sake of her kid. For the sake of her future.

Whizzer is disappointed in her.

"Yes," Marvin is stunned, looking as if he was gearing up to be defensive, “Baby, you look, uh, very beautiful in it. Glowing, even." At the compliment, Trina looks like she's trying very hard not to cry. She kisses Marvin then, slow and sweet and not letting him pull away. And Whizzer watches the two of them, like always. He's the dark cloud over them, the shadow, the observer, the open secret.

"Passion dies and love fades," Whizzer tells him roughly, "It's all just chemicals, isn't it? Come on; Don't be such a fucking romantic."

"You know, I always thought we had nothing in common," Mendel muses bitterly, smiling sadly at him, "But you're pathetic. Just like me."

The insult surprises him, coming from Mendel. Rather than lashing out, Whizzer just looks at him and doesn't say anything for a long time.

"Why did you come out here?" Whizzer asks, "Hoping for a quick screw in the back of an alley?”

"I don't know," Marvin admits quietly, dropping the coyness, "I don't know what I want."

"Stop it. You know what you want," Whizzer scoffs, "You want it all."

Marvin looks away, doesn't deny it. 

He's giving Whizzer a choice, like he always does. Because Whizzer has always said yes. Because Whizzer has always put himself before anyone else. Because Marvin thinks that Whizzer never changes either.

And before this very moment, Whizzer had thought all those things too.

Right now, Whizzer has a choice. And for the first time, he makes the right one.

When Whizzer turns around, he reflexively snaps a picture of him, desperate to suspend this moment in time.

And Whizzer wants to kiss him—one last time. He wants to close his eyes and lick his lips and sigh into his mouth and breathe him in. He wants to memorize the feeling that this man has given him, the love and ache of it all.

He doesn't kiss him. He just sticks out his hand for him to shake.

And he keeps his gaze on the horizon. And he doesn't look back.

His gaze lingers when he gets to one of the nicer apartment buildings, a faint echo of pain igniting in his chest. All of a sudden, he's reminded of slamming doors and yelling in elevators and giggling in the soft glow of the refrigerator light and whispering half-hearted promises in between ragged breaths and moans.

Whizzer wonders if Marvin's old apartment is the same as he remembers it—spacious and messy; a safe haven and a battleground.

Shaking himself, Whizzer continues walking, keeping his gaze stubbornly fixed on the horizon. He doesn't look back at the building. 

But there's a part of him that wants too. Maybe there always will be.

Youth. Ignorance. Selfishness. Whizzer doesn't miss any of it as much as he once believed he would.

"Take a breath and let it out, and swing." Jason finishes, smiling a little, "Thanks, Whizzer." And there's something about that lopsided smile and tilt of the head in that very moment—something that knocks all the air of Whizzer's lungs.

Jason's smile fades, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Whizzer says quickly, looking away, "You just, uh, reminded me of someone." And now that he sees it, he can't unsee it. The wavy hair, the brown eyes, the crooked smile...

“And you didn’t have another job lined up before you quit?” Charlotte asks, ever the practical one.

Whizzer shrugs, “It was kinda like an impulse decision. Like, I was in Ohio and it sucked, and I just didn’t want to be there anymore.”

Cordelia hits him on the arm, “Don’t blame this on Ohio.”

Whizzer rolls his eyes, exclaiming to get a rise out of her, “Fuck Ohio.”

New York hasn’t changed, but Marvin has.

“I divorced her.”

Whizzer stares at him, bewildered at the stranger before him, “Why would you do that?”

“Whizzer, I don’t know if you know this,” Marvin says calmly, straight-faced with zero inflection, “But I’m really fucking gay.”

Marvin reaches out again, threading his hand through Whizzer’s hair and messing up the hour worth of hair products that Whizzer dedicated to make it look just right. Whizzer tries to scold him and push him away, but right now the only thing he’s accomplishing is maintaining measured breathing. As Whizzer and Marvin lock eyes, he knows that they’re both thinking of the same thing—of Marvin pulling Whizzer’s hair all those times during sex, of holding him in place by his hair so Marvin can press tender, hurried kisses to his exposed neck and jawline.

Marvin pulls a little, and Whizzer bites his lip.

“Not wearing a wig, either,” Marvin comments lowly, smiling filthily, “Jesus, Whizzer, would it have killed you to gain a few pounds or lose some hair? You make the rest of us look so old.”

“Jesus, Marv, you’re at a little league game,” Trina scolds, snapping the two men out of their daze, “Keep it in your pants.”

Whizzer looks over at Marvin, who’s watching Whizzer with stars in his eyes.

“What?” He demands, defensive.

“You’re incredible,” He murmurs, almost absently to himself, “You know that?”

At least one thing hasn’t changed about Marvin.

He’s still very, very charming.

It’s like the universe is trying to get him laid. And Whizzer can’t just not do what the universe so clearly wants him to do:

Bone Marvin. The universe totally wants Whizzer to bone Marvin.

“I knew your dad,” Whizzer elaborates, not missing the slight trace of panic on Marvin’s face at the mention of the past, “We went to college together, actually.”

Jason just makes a lighthearted Hmpf, the significance of that time lost on him.

When Marvin finally comes back, Whizzer wastes no time, crowding him against the door and kissing him.

Marvin’s mouth is soft and warm, and just one kiss drives a chill from Whizzer’s bones that’s been there since he walked out of his boss’s office with his head held high and heart racing.

Whizzer kisses him once, chastely, before backing away.

Marvin’s eyes have already fallen shut, and his lips try to chase after Whizzer’s as he pulls away.

“What?” Marvin demands softly, opening his eyes again to stare mystically at him, “What’s wrong?”

It all feels so familiar, so second-nature. Whizzer remembers kissing him like that dozens of times before, whether to shut up his latest arrogant rant or to communicate feelings that he couldn’t with words.

He thought that it’d feel different—that it’d be different. But it’s not. It’s the exact same.

Whizzer doesn’t know whether to find that relieving or troubling.

Whizzer kisses him again, rougher this time—with more desperation and teeth. Marvin buckles against him, letting out a low, guttural groan like a wounded animal. He slips his hands around Whizzer’s waist and grabs his ass, and it’s good—fuck, it’s really good. Whizzer doesn’t so much as kiss him as devour him, his kisses quick and biting and prompting shaky, quivering noises to release from Marvin’s mouth.

Marvin breaks the kiss and turns his face to the crook of Whizzer’s neck, retracting one hand from the other’s ass to slip it down the front of Whizzer’s pants. When he touches him, Whizzer makes a sound so shameless and dirty, it makes Marvin flush even redder.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Marvin keeps repeating, laughing breathlessly, “I’ve missed that sound.” He rotates his wrist and makes Whizzer make it again.

“Take me to bed.” Whizzer says, pleads actually, “Marvin, come on. Take me to bed and fuck me.”

At his demand, Marvin shudders, making a gasping sort of sound almost like he’s drowning.

“Fuck yeah. Okay,” He says shakily as Whizzer impatiently starts tugging Marvin’s pants down, the hunger between them so palpable, it’s all that they can taste, “Okay.”

He hears Cordelia’s phone ring in the kitchen, followed by the blonde’s panicked voice, “It’s Marvin.”

“Answer it.” Charlotte instructs.

“Cordelia, don’t you dare!” Whizzer yells.

The two lock eyes for a split second before both bolt to the kitchen.

As they bust through the door, Cordelia already has the phone pressed to her ear, “Oh, hey, Marv. What’s up?” A pause, and then her gaze flickers to Whizzer, “You’re asking if Whizzer is here?”

Whizzer hurriedly, enthusiastically mouths the word No, No, No, No, No…

“You know,” Cordelia says nervously, biting her lip, “He actually just walked in.”

Whizzer makes an audible noise of surprise and betrayal.

Whizzer sighs, “Look, Marvin, what do you want?”

“What do I want?” Marvin repeats incredulously, “I want you, Asshole.”

It’s a sucker punch to the gut, causes Whizzer’s heart to jump to his throat.

He stutters out, “Will you settle for a cup of coffee instead?”

"During all those years,” Marvin asks suddenly, "Did you ever think of me?" It seems off-subject, but really, maybe it isn't. Because the answer seems important to Marvin, even though it won't change anything.

Whizzer pauses, biting his lip, “Sometimes.”

“All the time,” Marvin says quietly, “I thought about you all the time.”

"What else is there to do?" Marvin demands, and well, Whizzer can't say what he would rather do, right? Just friends may be able to 'compliment each other on their best features,' but they probably can't freely admit, I would really like you to fuck me so hard, I lose my voice from screaming your name.

Marvin huffs a laugh, and because he still never knows when to stop and drop something, he asks, "What's your type then?" It's a stupid, pointless question to ask, and it just seems weirdly uncalled for, given their history and all that Marvin already knows about Whizzer. Marvin knows his type already, but he still asks it. Because he's fishing for a certain answer, one that would assure him that Whizzer is just as silently miserable at being just friends as Marvin noticeably is.

And Whizzer could answer this question in many ways—the slutty any man who buys me a drink; or the coy men who have cruel smiles and nice hands; or the honest the unattainable sort of men; or the pointed the type that lets you hold them and kiss them but never keep them; the type that will always say that they love you and they may very well even mean it, but they'll never be willing to meet you halfway.

Whizzer calmly uncovers his face, calmly sits up, and uncalmly says, "Come again?"

Living with Marvin, sharing a home with Marvin, is easy. They eat breakfast and dinner together, and they watch shitty cable television in the evening, and they bicker about weird domestic things like the electricity bill (Whizzer’s fault) and the mysterious dent in the living room wall (Marvin’s fault), and they entertain Jason on the weekends, and it’s all just so—

Domestic. So disgustingly, repellently, achingly domestic.

“So, you two were good friends?” Jason suddenly asks, causing both men to remember themselves and break eye contact. Whizzer notices that Jason is paying full attention to them now, his phone laying forgotten on the table as he stares pointedly at the two men sitting across from him.

“No, I don’t think we were,” Marvin says honestly after a beat, “That’s what caused the problem.”

And this is why Whizzer has to always look toward the horizon—because looking back leads to nostalgia and sadness and the overwhelming desire to recapture the past.

“You’ve been testing me,” Marvin says, oddly sounding both sad and hateful, “You don’t think I realized that? You want me to prove this preconception in your head that you’ve built up for years. You think everyone else is capable of change except me.”

Whizzer stays silent, not answering. Marvin looks a little broken.

"Then what are you still doing here?"  He demands roughly.

Seeing him shattered like that, it takes awhile before Whizzer can find his voice, and even when he does, it’s small and broken, "Maybe I want you to prove me wrong."

"Bullshit. I've been proving you wrong," Marvin points out, "You want me to prove you right."

"Whizzer, I already told you," Marvin says, horrifyingly calm, "I’m too old to be chasing after people who only want to be chased and not caught." Whizzer belatedly places the vague look on Marvin’s face.

It is one of a man who is ready to let go.

Gripped with shock and fear and denial, Whizzer doesn't respond and walks out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Marvin doesn't ask him to wait, to stop, to stay. 

As he walks away, Whizzer doesn’t look at the horizon. With each step, he keeps stopping and turning his head and looking back, expecting Marvin to still—without fail—to chase after him.

But the only thing chasing him is the past, and Whizzer refuses to let that actually catch up with him.

"You've grown meaner." Whizzer notes idly, an undercurrent of appreciation for her in his voice.

"I've had to." Trina says vaguely. 

"Trina, I'm really sor—"

"Don’t. Just—don’t. I don't need your late, guilt-tripped apology." Trina scoffs, exasperation and bitterness clogging her tone, "I don't need this anymore, you know? This—This migraine that you two have always given me. I'm not a side character in the Great Opera of Whizzer and Marvin anymore. I have a child and husband who love me. I have a life where I am happy. I got my happy ending."

"I didn't." The words spill out, accusing and pitiful.

Trina doesn't look sorry for him. She gives him a cool, withering look, "Well, that was your own fault."

"It was Marvin's fault," Whizzer tells her, and he wants back that silent, subtle gaze of hers, that solidarity—he wants her to make him feel less alone, "He ruined us, Trina. He—"

"Us? There is no us. Oh my god, are you serious right now?" Trina looks at him with scathing disappointment, "Jesus, Whizzer, you want me to feel sorry for you? News flash: just because Marvin was a bigger asshole than you doesn't take away from the fact that you were an asshole, too. We are not allies in this, Whizzer—not anymore. And honestly, looking back on it all? I don't think we ever were."

They talk and listen and laugh and cry. And Whizzer wants to say that it had been everything that he thought it would be—renewal of passions, happiness only found within one another, the promise of a future together, the promise of love—but it is not everything. It is only one thing.

It is forgiveness. And Whizzer thinks that right now, that’s more than enough.

Whizzer doesn’t like to look back, to admit to any regrets, but still he needs to know, “Would you do it again? If you—If you knew then all that happened afterwards. Would you have still kissed me that night?”

Whizzer remembers his own response to that question, years ago: "It doesn't matter," Whizzer says quickly, releasing his grip on Marvin's hand, "Just let it go."

“I’d like to believe I would,” Marvin doesn’t hesitate, saying firmly, “That I’d do it again and again. That I would choose you, every time.”

Whizzer looks up at the sky, feels a warm smile spread across his face. He feels happy.

“I’d like to believe that I’d let you, every time.” Whizzer concedes.

Whizzer covers Marvin’s hand with his own, the giddiness and hope rising within him and threatening to split him open. They stare at each other for a long time—adoringly, nervously, disbelievingly—before they slowly turn their gaze to the horizon.

And they don’t look back.