Fanworks

Scott was warned about what he was going to see before he opened his front door. A loud sneeze on the other side rocked the house. He sighed, deep, and pushed his way in.

Charles spent most of the season some level of miserable, but there were always a couple days that were the worst. He sat on the couch, TV playing a cheesy makeover show at high volume, with a waste paper basket directly next to him and two boxes of tissues in his lap. One was still unopened, on standby.

He looked back when Scott opened the door and greeted him miserably. Scott thought he was looking a little too alert for a guy who should be on some heavy allergy medicine.

“Hey, Charles!” Scott replied, a little too loud. He tossed his jacket and boots off and hustled over to the seat next to Charles on the couch. He gave him a nice big smile, pulling a bit tight at the edges. “I think we need to have a conversation, bro!”

“Uh. Can it wait?” Charles asked. His eyes, rimmed with red, flicked from the tv screen, to Scott, and back again.

Scott looked at the television. There were credits on the screen. “The show’s over, man.”

“Uh, it’s a two-parter!”

“You’ve seen it before! I’ve seen it before, and I don’t even watch these shows!”

“Okay, but I’m still in the middle of it, Scott.”

“Charles.” Scott turned fully towards him, even though it meant kneeling on the couch. He dropped his hands, heavy, on his shoulders. “Charles. Man. Enough is enough.”

“I guess we’re having this talk anyway.”

“We can have this talk with Margianne shouting about hats in the background, or you can turn it down and you can watch it with your full attention during the six reruns they play every week.”

“She comes around on the hats.” Charles muted the television, but his eyes still kept flicking back to t he screen.

“She has like a life-changing epiphany about hats, man. I remember! I saw it. I don’t want to talk about hats.”

“That’s a shame. I think they might suit your face shape.”

“You do? Like, what kind of -” he broke off. “-later! We’ll talk hats later. Charles. Man. I am asking this so kindly, right now. Did you take your antihistamines?”

Charles looked down at the tissues on his lap, and then glanced over at the garbage can next to him. “...yes?”

“C’mon!” Scott burst out.

“Okay, not quite yet,” he admitted. “I was just thinking about getting some. After this episode.”

“Were you? Really?”

“...no. Look, Scott.” He moved the boxes off his lap. “If I take it now, I’ll be wide awake in the middle of the night. I’ll have to take more, and then I’ll be completely out of it tomorrow.”

“So, like, tell Yuri and take off. You never take time off anyway.”

“I…don’t want to?”

“You should take off if you don’t take anything, too. Don’t you think it’s worse this year? Like, you gotta figure out something better to take if you can’t take what you have.”

“I think the flowers are out to get me,” Charles said, sounding completely sincere. “Every year the island gets healthier and they get more powerful.”

Scott laughed. “Okay, doctor, I’m sure that’s it.” Not like it was normal for some allergies to get worse with age, or anything. “But what are you going to do about it? Yuri was looking ready to rip someone’s throat out earlier, and I definitely heard her say something about histamines.”

“Oh.” Charles stared at the muted screen, expression blank. “Maybe I will take off tomorrow.”

“And?”

“...and, what?” He looked at Scott, and then started to blink rapidly. His eyes teared up and he grasped for a tissue just in time.

“What are you going to do about that?” Scott waved at him, in his entirety.

Charles wiped at his eyes and tossed the tissue. He didn’t answer.

Scott switched tactics. He gave Scott a totally sensitive and understanding pat on the shoulder. “Look, man, I get it. I get side effects.”

Charles looked at Scott’s hand like it was a tarantula.

“I had to go off something once ‘cause it was just awful. It actually helped a lot other than the side-effects, but I couldn’t deal with it. But, you haven’t tried everything yet, right? Yuri seems to think there’s something out there that will help without -”

Charles’ gaze had sharpened.

“—without, uh…”

“What were you taking?” Charles asked, clearly trying and failing to sound only casually interested.

“That’s not the point, man. I had zero appetite and lost way too much weight, so it wasn’t worth it.” He waved his hand, dismissive. “I bet Yuri already has—”

For some reason, Charles was looking back over at the front door, where Scott had left his coat, shoes, and a few other things. He was frowning. “Was it a stimulant?” he asked. He looked back at Scott and gave him another visual once-over.

“Uh, sure. I guess that’s the big one that messes up your appetite?”

“There are innumerable drugs that have that as a side effect, but it seemed the most likely. Considering.” He paused, looking uneasy for a second, before steeling himself. “Scott, have you been diagnosed with -”

“We weren’t talking about me!” Scott protested. “I’m over here staying on the one topic, and you’re the one changing things around.”

“There are non-stimulant medications for...that.” Charles was transforming back into a doctor in front of his eyes. He sat a little straighter and fixed the coat he’d been using as a shoulder blanket since Scott came in. “You shouldn’t have to be afraid to talk about it with me. I assume Yuri has brought up the other possible treatments with you.”

“Sure, but I lost like so much, man. All my gains, just, gone, even though I was being really consistent with my routine. I wasn’t feeling like playing around anymore when I’m mostly okay without anything.” He shrugged, uncomfortable. He stood up and brushed some imaginary dirt off his pants.

“I understand your reticence,” Charles said. “But it must have been a while since then.”

“Uh, yeah, this was all back home,” Scott said. Why had he brought up the side-effect thing? He’d just been trying to be relatable.

“Some of the – Scott, are you leaving? I thought we were having a conversation. You made me mute my show.”

“I’m sorry, Charles, I really don’t want to talk about this.” He held his hands up. “You win! No more medicine talk. You wanted to talk hats? I’ve done baseball caps but I don’t think they’re me, you know?”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Charles said. He patted the seat next to him on the couch again.

“Yeah, we can’t all be baseball cap guys, I guess.”

Charles glared at him and patted the seat again.

Scott sat down. He grabbed the remote and turned the sound on.

Charles continued to glare at him for a minute, until a flashy outfit caught the corner of his eye and he was pulled back in. A series of sneezes gave Scott a little time to think.

“Okay, maybe I’m being a little bit of a hypocrite about all this.” He pinched his fingers in front of his eye. “Little tiny bit. You too, though, Charles. Admit it.”

“I’m being a hypocrite about the allergy medicine,” Charles said. “I know, I know. I’ve had this conversation with Yuri. It’s not like I’ve avoided trying anything else.” He glanced at Scott, away from the screen, and then back. “With your face shape, you’re right about not wearing caps.”

“I meant more just the vibe, man, but that’s good to know. I was thinking I could rock a panama.”

“Absolutely not,” Charles said. He made a face, like he’d tasted something disgusting. “I mean, uh. I’m sure it’d be fine, Scott, if you really wanted to try it for a while. There’s no such thing as a wrong way to dress, really!” He didn’t look like he believed the words he was saying. He started to say something else, and interrupted himself with a sneeze.

“The flowers are trying to kill you, huh.”

“That’s what it feels like, anyway.”

“Hey. Here’s an idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Charles, look at me a second. I’ve got an amazing idea.”

Charles looked at him, worried.

“I don’t want to try my thing, because it’s going to be a pain in the ass, and you don’t want to try yours, either. How about this? I try something new for my problem, you try something new for yours. We’re both miserable and hate it, but Yuri gets off your back for a while about your allergies,at least for the rest of spring, and I don’t have to worry about you jumping me with suggestions from now on.”

“I wasn’t going to push the issue.”

He scoffed. “Sure you weren’t.”

“I would have emailed you some articles on newer medications, and that would be it. Patient consent has to be at the forefront.”

“I’m not your patient, but, sure. Tomorrow, we both go and talk to Yuri. I can hold your hand if you need it.”

Charles laughed at that, a little.

It took a little more cajoling to convince him, but Scott knew he’d won. And lost, sure, but sacrifices were sometimes necessary. Now that Scott’s “health” was on the line, Charles would feel obligated to try some of Yuri’s suggestions. His doctoring spirit wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise. Because Scott really, really didn’t want to relive his experience on stimulants again, so Charles wouldn’t be able to get out of it. The second he was all “I’ll try these later,” Scott would be tossing his new pills.

A woman on the screen fell to her knees and screamed something about felt. Scott had watched this episode three times before with Charles, but still was not clear on what she said. He wasn’t sure it mattered. He didn’t think she really knew, either.

“I read that they kept the contestants awake for three nights in a row for shoots before this scene,” Charles said.

“That explains a lot,” Scott said. “Want me to grab you something when I get dinner? Did you eat yet?”

“I mean, if you’re going to the taco stand...I wouldn’t turn something down,” Charles said.

The sunset reflected on sand, cascading colors over the landscape. Amirah had to pause in her collection to watch the slow descent of the sun, and the way its light reflected off the sand flying in the wind. She wanted to sculpt this feeling, paint it in a way that other people would feel a drop of what she did in that moment.

“Gosh, that’s nice!” Venti’s voice slammed into the moment and shattered it.

Amirah sighed to herself. She knelt again to collect more of the plants she was planning to transform into color. “It is,” she agreed.

“Didn’t expect to find anyone else out this far! Though, I don’t mind the company.” Venti knelt in front of her. “What’s this? Oh. I bet it makes such a pretty shade of blue.”

“It does,” Amirah said. Venti was a kind girl. Not one she had much in common with, but it was clear she meant well.

“Do you want me to bring you more of these, when I’m delivering clay? There’s tons of interesting scrap out this way, you know, so I’ll be out here for a few weeks, at least.” Venti rested her pickhammer - silver tinted orange in the sunset - on her shoulder.

“No...thank you. I don’t want to overharvest these. This is the closest patch I have found to town.”

“I could make sure to take one in two or one in three or...whatever you wanted! I’d be nice picking flowers on my break instead of just shoveling down my grub and getting right back to it.” She grinned, but her tone almost sounded pleading.

“I...do appreciate the idea. Should you not take a break on your break, however? Your work is grueling.”

“Nah, it’d be fine. I’d rest even more, if I wasn’t bored! I’d think about you working on your pots and it’d feel so much less lonely out there.”

Amirah did not find the place “lonely.” She thought it was pleasant. Serene, even. She could barely see the city from here, and what she did see of it was more like a fantastical watercolor than a real place with real flawed people. “I do appreciate the offer, but...no. I have quite enough now to turn into pigment.”

“Well, all right.” The disappointment was audible in Venti’s voice.

It wasn’t Amirah’s job to cater to her. She nodded.

“I should...get back to work, then. Um, let me know if you change your mind!” She gave Amirah one last long look and was gone, running off to whatever stack of garbage seemed valuable to her.

Her speed was impressive, but how could she enjoy the world around her at that pace? Amirah and Venti were different people, at their cores.

A cloud raced across the sky, scattering shadows over the ground. Amirah paused and watched in fascination as the environment shifted in a thousand different subtle ways. The cacti briefly became a shade of green she wished she could permanently stamp in her mind. What tints could make it? What glaze would make it glow?

She walked back to town, lost in thought.

--

Sandrock was beautiful in motion. Sweat dripped down Venti’s face, but the wind from her running pace kept her hair from sticking to her.

There must be a sandstorm coming, the way the granules of sand kicked up and spun around her. In the distance, the blue sky was muted.

Venti stopped by her wheelbarrow and considered her situation. She was pretty sure she had another day before the storm reached her. If it even did! They missed, sometimes.

She had just dug up a whole load of useful looking scrap and was worried she’d find it buried again if she wimped out and headed back early.

She waited a few minutes until things settled. Nice! Anyway, a little sandstorm couldn’t bring her mood down. She had a mask if it got dicey, and she’d run right home. If it got really bad, there was a tiny cave a short distance away. She had spotted it and poked her head in a few days earlier.

She knelt down and picked a tiny blue flower. It wasn’t for Amirah, she reminded herself. She’d get told off after Amirah made herself so clear.

But it was such a pretty flower. Venti thought it cute and useless before, but now she knew it could make the beautiful colors Amirah used in her art. Picking one flower for herself wasn’t so bad. She’d stick it in between the pages of a book, and she’d have a cute little memory to keep for herself, to make her happy whenever she saw it.

There were so few things in the world that were genuinely useless. Even garbage dregs made fuel for the builders, right? And those dregs helped make the sweet birthday pickhammer the builder had given her, which let her her dig up even more dregs and scrap, to make even more tools!

Venti bet nothing was useless at all. The things she didn’t know had a use, well, she was just ignorant about.

She hefted the pickhammer over her shoulder and brought it down, hard, on an ordinary looking rock. The impact vibrated through her. Her muscles burned as she lifted it again. Soon, instead of a boring ol’ rock, she had useful quartz and conveniently sized rocks that had a million uses.

The wind picked up again, and she smiled into it. She tasted salt and smelled her own sweat mixed with dust. And flowers, stronger than expected. The wind led her around an enormous pile of boulders and suddenly there were hundreds of those tiny blue flowers. They swayed together in the wind. Petals broke free in a strong gust and flew off, swirling into the sky until they blended into it.

Venti breathed in. The perfumed air filled her head and made her dizzy. Amirah had been right all along to only take exactly what she needed.

Venti had to resist the urge to lay down in the flowers and roll around like a child. She took her own little flower and brushed the petals against her cheek. She closed her eyes, for just a minute.

You are the weed that needs to be pulled out by the roots.

You are not the beautiful flower, or the crop, or the grass the holds the ground together. You are not even the sand or soil under your feet. You thought you were ripping out weeds to allow room for useful plants to flourish, but you were only making room for your own twisted, prickling roots.

Perhaps you should have known, by who associated with you. Pen? Yan? Men with such poison in their blood you would be afraid to use them as fertilizer. You know a man by who he stands with. Listen to these Duvos soldiers, your compatriots, and what they say to each other. Listen well, Miguel.

At best, they are normal hardy folk, pushed to war to send money back to their families. At worst, they are greedy and violent, and those types are often the ones commanding. They are the type of people you were hoping to rid the world of to save it. You blinded yourself so you couldn’t see yourself draining the life from the ground and salting it behind you.

Time passes, and you are the lone weed in the garden, hiding out of sight. Insidious. You once thought you admired that which was pure and good and kind. But whenever they were in front of you, you mistook them for naivete and stupidity. Look at you now. There is not a kind, warm feeling left in you, or spared for you.

It was time for you to lie in your bed of thorns you had made and for your old “friends” (when have you ever acted as a friend?) to put on their gloves and build the green Sandrock they had worked so diligently towards.

“He’s just kind of sad now,” Burgess said.

Sad? You are ashamed – disgusted in yourself, and your behavior. You are not to be executed, but you are still being sent to rot in the compost with the other weeds, traitors, and liars. Perhaps it is the grief Burgess is sensing, but that has been there for so long, you can’t imagine life without it.

The town’s new minister visits every day to speak with you. You were a fool to dismiss him. You are daily amazed by the power of his simple convictions and the love he has for the Light and for his true friends. If you could live your life differently, you would be one of his friends. You would learn from him how to love this world and live in it. All he really learned from you was rote ritual and the basic structure of a sermon.

It strikes you that with Matilda turning out to be whatever she was, you have somehow lived for decades on this beautiful world without a single real honest friend. You once thought your greatest crime was lying to her and betraying her sweet heart.

Ha. The both of you had turned out to be garbage, hadn’t you? You would say that you deserved each other, if she had ever actually cared for you. You can’t imagine she did. It shouldn’t hurt so deeply. It did.

“Isn’t forgiving one of the most important things we’re taught to do?” Burgess asked. “The Light knows we’re going to mess up, and it must see why you did it. The Light is why we can see anything!”

“I cannot ask for forgiveness for what I have done,” you say. “The harm is too great.” Perhaps one day, there could be forgiveness. From the Light itself, if nothing else.

“You don’t have to ask! If you do then – well, I forgive you, at least! One person is something, right?”

Venti normally had plenty to say, but that night she only occasionally pipes up to share her thoughts. You don’t like to talk much, so it's slightly uncomfortable trying to lead the conversation.

At first, you assume she’s had an especially tiring day salvaging. Even with the best possible tools, it’s intense, physical work. She usually seems to draw energy from the garbage she sifts through, but tonight is an exception.

“Venti, are you all right?” Maybe she’s sick.

“Oh!” She immediately brightens, but there’s a plastic fakeness to it. “I’m great! Sorry. I don’t know where my head is!”

“If you’re tired, let’s just call it early.” It’s a shame, since you’re both so busy.

“No, no! Please don’t.” She reaches across the table and grips your arm. “I don’t want that. Can’t we just sit together? I’m sorry I’m not my usual chipper Venti self.”

You rest your hand on hers. “You don’t have to be. Just be yourself, okay? I was just worried you were coming down with something.”

“Peach, I hope not,” she says. “Nah, I’m just. I don’t know. Thinking. ‘Bout stuff maybe I shouldn’t.”

“And you don’t want to talk? That’s okay.”

She stares at your hand on hers, biting her lip.

You don’t know her as well as you want to. You’ve been dating for seasons, now, but you are both working so hard, it feels like you are still just a little better than acquaintances. You want everything, but all you have are scraps.

You wish life wasn’t so hectic, and that your work was just important, and not necessary like it is at the moment. Sandrock is bleeding out and you are part of the medical team struggling to keep its heart beating.

You need a vacation.

“I guess I’m just kind of worried,” Venti says, quiet.

With the way your thoughts are turning, you assume you know what she means. “About the water,” you say.

“No, I—” she breaks off, laughing. “Well, yeah! Pile that on too, I guess.” She sighs and retrieves her hand. “Can we go? Someplace quiet? I really want to see the stars right now. If that’s okay.”

You nod, and the two of you head out of the Blue Moon, hand in hand. She takes you to one of the higher points near your workshop, and you both lay down on the rocks and sandgrass.

The sky is clear; the stars bright. Sometimes dark shapes flutter across the moon. Clouds seem to race to escape the dry air of the desert. You can’t remember if it’s been two or three seasons since the last rain.

“I lied to you,” Venti says. “I just wanted to be close to you so bad, but…” she trails off.

“Is this about when we snuck in to the salvage yard? You know that didn’t bug me. I was just worried about you.”

“No, it’s not – well, maybe. Partially. I just – it’s so hard to explain what’s it’s like, you know? What everything was like for me, before Sandrock. I’m so happy here, but it all feels so fake, sometimes.”

“Does it?” You struggle to think what she means. You want to fix what’s making her miserable. You’ve always struggled with how some problems had to be “fixed” with sitting and listening, not by doing. If Venti needs a chair or a better axe to solve her problems, you’d help in a flash.

“I just had these dreams, you know? Getting to have a house someplace that’s not a dumpster. Having a job that pays good. Maybe running a business of my own. Meeting someone great and they’d be…” She covers her face with her hands. “Someone like you! And it is so great, better than I imagined. Even without the house and kids and a little cafe where I can stand behind the counter and wash mugs and talk to customers. I’m still happier now than I ever thought I would get to be.” She pulls her hands away from her face and smiles. Her eyes are wet. “I have such a big family, now! Pebbles calls me Auntie Venti and Krystal always wants to help me pick out clothes for when we go out, and, and – there’s you.”

She sniffs. You fumble to find a cloth, and eventually pull a scrap piece out of your pocket she can wipe her eyes on.

“I kind of love you,” she says. “And them. And all the people in town, even!” She blows her nose loudly on the cloth. “And the only reason I get to be here instead of someone else is ‘cause I’m a liar.”

“Maybe you’d feel better if you were honest with me about it, at least?” You’re still not sure what she’s talking about. “I can’t say I won’t be mad, but I can’t imagine ever hating you.”

“That’s what you say now.” She sighs. “But, okay.” She sits up and leans back on a rock outcropping.

A gust of wind sends sand scattering. You worry there will be a sandstorm soon, but right now it’s just pretty when the moonlight hits the particulates.

“I already told you how I got into school that one time, right? And then I used some weird stuff they said there to impress Rocky and get this job.”

“I don’t think he cares.” He had probably already guessed that Venti wasn’t a financial expert. “He knows you’re a hard worker. He told me himself you’re one of the best.”

“Did he? Aw! That’s sweet. I think if I don’t mess up again, my job will be okay. It’s actually...something else I’m trying to figure out how to talk about. I think I just want you to understand me. And like how everything good I have is ‘cause I’m a sneaky liar.”

“Everything I have right now is because my parents helped me at the start,” you say. “You didn’t have someone who could do that for you.”

“That’s what I always told myself, too! 'Venti, if you’re going to have anything, you have to take it!' Everything was free in the garbage dump. Because it was worthless. I didn’t want that. To be worthless forever. I can’t feel guilty about doing what I had to. To eat real food every day and sleep in an actual bed and not have to worry about clouds of noxious fumes from the garbage making me feel sick all the time. I can’t feel bad about it. Even if Rocky and everyone is so nice and so good to me now. I just can’t.”

“You shouldn’t. Do you?”

“Not as much as I should if I was a good person.” She flings her arms in the air and makes a frustrated noise. “I know I’m not making sense! I’m sorry.” She settles down. “That’s not even what I wanted to tell you. You know that already.”

You set your hand on her calf and squeeze. You’re still on your back. “Just say it.”

“I know.” She rubs her forehead. “I know! Okay. It’ll be fine, Venti.” She grits her teeth and braces against the rock. When she speaks again, it’s in a rush of words. “I don’t like yakmel milk!”

You think you misheard. “Pardon?”

“I don’t hate it! But it’s just kind of weird tasting and I don’t like it! I wish everyone would stop giving it to me. But I lied! I lied to you and everyone and said I liked it! That I loved it!”

“What? Why?”

“So you’d like me! Rocky likes milk; the other salvagers like it – all the real Sandrockers like it. I thought if I said I didn’t want any, everyone would stop wanting to hang out with me.” She’s tearing up again. “I just wanted to belong somewhere that wasn’t a trash bin. I didn’t want anyone to go, ‘oh, you want to invite Venti? She’s so boring and she never wants to get drinks with us.’”

“You could just drink something else, couldn’t you?” It strikes you that you’re trying to logic your way out of an emotional issue, again. You’re not even trying to fix the right problem. “I don’t think they’d be like that. I figured out you weren’t that into milk when I saw how you looked at me whenever I gave you some. I saw the difference when I got you coffee. Your face would just light up.” You finally sit up, too, so you can look at her properly. She’s beautiful. “I wanted to spend more time with you.”

Covered in dirt, tear tracks on her face, a wad of scrap cloth in her hand – you want to kiss her every time you see her. You think it’s the bright light in her eyes that makes her so beautiful. Even when she’s upset you can see it glimmering. That strong, indefatigable hope. She’d been born at the bottom of the world, seeing sky in cracks between mountains of garbage. The sky was open to her now. You never wanted to see that light go out.

“I know,” she says, quiet. “I know you want to...be with me, now. But I feel like I tricked you. Into this. Because I wanted to be like you, or with you, or...both?”

“I think I could’ve cared for you, even if you told me right away you didn’t like milk.”

She snorts. “I know it sounds stupid. I know that.”

“Even if you had to trick me to get to know you. I’m glad you did. I’d want you to do it again.”

“It’s not just the milk, though,” she admitted. “It’s everything. The milk’s just, like, the obvious thing. Sometimes I’m not that optimistic or cheerful about things. But I pretend I am. Because I can’t do anything else. I’m so...I’m so, so scared this crisis or the next one is going to ruin everything. Rocky will have to close shop and we’ll all move. I have a real job to put on my resume now, so I’m not worried about finding more work, anymore. But I love this place. These people. Even if they don’t know me or like me, I care about them. I don’t want this all to go away. It feels like home here.”

You sidle over so you can put your arm around her. “I’m scared, too.”

“Oh no! You too? You’re always so confident. And at least you can help do something about all these things that keep happening, unlike me.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, “I lie sometimes, too. This was just a contract job, but the longer I'm here, the more I want to live here the rest of my life.”

“Yeah. It’s really good, isn’t it? Like, good good.” She buries her head in her knees. “Everyone says it’s okay to be scared. It doesn’t feel okay.”

“Yeah.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had to be confident around me all the time. Good job, Venti. I know you’re a person and not, like, just someone for me to look up to.”

You nod. “When I’m working, it’s easy to be confident. So I’m not constantly afraid. But I feel it too, that same fear you do. I think that fear is more what makes you a Sandrocker right now than what you drink.”

She rests her weight against you. “It’s that we care, right? Listen to me! Acting like I’m from here, or something.”

“If you were just worried about the future, I’d say you could come back and live with me and my parents until I signed another contract. I’m sure wherever I went next would have salvaging work.”

“You’d want me to go with you?”

“I know it’s pretty early for that, but, yes. I would.”

“That does make me feel better, actually.” She knocks against your shoulder. “I would miss Rocky and Krystal and little Pebbles and Fei and even Peck...oh! And Amirah and her brother at the shop and Owen is always so nice to me and everyone. I wish we could stay with everyone forever, right here.”

“It could work out,” you say.

“But it’s too much about luck, right? Who knows when a big disaster will be too big to come back from.”

“Hey. Maybe it’ll be good luck, next time.”

“Maybe. I must be worried because I’ve been feeling too lucky lately. I’m so happy right now.”

“Me too.”

“I’m sorry I lied. Even if I’m not sorry if it made you like me.”

“I’m sorry I lied,” you say. “Unless it was the only reason you wanted to be my friend.”

“It’s not,” she says. She laughs. “You’re real pretty, too.”

You smile at that. “We didn’t have to worry, did we? Not about being friends. Because we’re both so beautiful.”

“Beautiful people like us are always attracted to each other! We’re like magnets.”

You nod. After a brief silence, you continue, “Let’s be more honest from now on.”

“Well, I’ll do my best.”

“Me too,” you say. You found yourself less concerned about the current crisis. If this place ends up not being able to be home, maybe Venti can be one with you.

But you aren’t going to give up on this place, either.

--

Once a month, Pablo’s mailbox was stuffed full of magazines. Most of them were popular fashion magazines from around the region, but a few were more “general interest.” Pablo always rolled his eyes and did air quotes when he said that, for reasons that Burgess thought must only be clear to super fancy people like Pablo and Amirah.

That didn’t matter. Pablo said he needed all those stacks of glossy paper to run his business, and Burgess had to trust him. They seemed to be kept next to the stations inside the salon, so there was no reason to think it was an elaborate scam to release more litter into the oasis and the surrounding areas. Pablo and Burgess had different priorities, but Burgess knew he wasn’t evil. He’d even seen Pablo pick up a bottle from the ground and toss it in the trash when he thought no one was watching.

The magazines were still a problem, though! “Accidental” litterings could happen, especially during a sandstorm. Burgess had watched, once, in horror, as one of the builder’s free roaming cats knocked down a recycling bin, got the secured lid off, and scattered the contents. Bits of junk had hit the wind and were out of sight before Burgess was able to make it down from the temple grounds.

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!” Burgess had set up a meeting at the Blue Moon to try and explain to Pablo why “reduce” took the primary spot in everyone’s favorite anti-trash slogan.

“I’m just one man, sweetheart,” Pablo said. “You can’t expect me to keep a full house entertained and ensure I’m paying proper attention to beautifying my customers. And if I leave them alone, they get bored and leave before everything’s set properly. Even the elderly transform into petulant children if you don’t give them something to look at while they’re waiting.”

Again, Burgess couldn’t argue about how Pablo ran his business. He still recalled very clearly the time a tourist fell asleep on a busy day and got locked in when Pablo closed up. When she woke up and realized she was in the dark and couldn’t figure out how to get out, everyone in town heard the stream of insults and cosmopolitan expletives coming from the salon when she found Pablo in his bedroom and woke him up. He had assumed she was a “fantastically coiffed robber.”

“Well, I guess if you’ve done everything can to follow the first and most sacred of the three R’s, then I guess...can you try reusing them?”

Pablo sighed. “Sometimes I rip them up if their ‘newest trends’ section is offensive enough. Plaids? This season? Really?” His voice was soft and gentle. “And after I burn the parts no one deserves to have to see, I give the rest of that magazine to the doctor for his bird.”

“You burn it?”

“Oh, just the worst parts. I promise. But I don’t think his bird uses enough paper in a month to take all of them. Maybe the town should think about investing in better locking lids on their garbage bins? Just an idea?” Pablo had an air of calm about him as he sipped his tea, but Burgess got the sense that he didn’t think any of this was his responsibility. But litter was everyone’s responsibility.

“I can apply for another grant, but Mayor Trudy says that garbage collection already takes twice as long since we added the old locks, and the animals have already figured out how to break into the cans, anyhow.” Burgess had ordered sand tea because it seemed like what everyone drank when they sat in the Blue Moon talking to Pablo. He hadn’t taken a sip yet. This was a difficult puzzle and he was determined to solve it. He sighed. “I guess using gene manipulation to create races of super intelligent mutant animals was another bad move on the old world’s part! Who could have guessed?”

“And they made them so ugly, too,” Pablo said, sympathetic. “Well, it seems like a more complicated problem then I realized.” He frowned. “Well, how about you just take them? Maybe your church could, I don’t know, distribute them to the fashion needy throughout the area? While you’re out there dropping off food and things, anyway.”

Burgess had to approve of charitable impulse, which made it difficult to turn down the offer. He felt a tiny be like this very serious problem of chronic littering – a problem Pablo had caused with his rampant magazine subscribing – was not being taken seriously. And maybe the problem was being foisted off onto him and the church. “Um, thanks! I’m sure all the people living in the depths of poverty on the edges of civilization could use...something to read?” Literacy rates fell dramatically the further people lived from any major city.

Pablo must have had the same thought. “They all have pretty pictures in them, too.”

He couldn’t figure out how to turn down the offer, so Burgess took the donation. He didn’t want to store them in with the more important things in church storage, so he kept them in a neat stack in the back of his dorm room. Whenever someone (usually Dan-bi) went on a charity run, they would take some along. They only ever took a couple, since food kind of took priority space-wise. It usually took a full season to distribute them.

The ranchers thanked the church for the “free TP,” but Dan-bi mentioned they all were dressing more colorfully when she visited again. “Farmer Ban asked me if he thought his shirt looked good on him, even though he’s a ‘winter,’ whatever that means.”

“Oh! Then he probably wants to wear different shades of blue? The quiz I took says I’m a spring and I should wear bright colors! Except I’m not sure I guessed my undertones right, and that’s a big deal, apparently.” Burgess had read every single magazine. It was difficult for him to have a piece of paper nearby and not read it. Plus, some of the magazines had surveys! And quizzes! “Maybe I’ll ask Pablo later.”

“I bet he’ll love that.” Dan-bi shoved a couple more magazines into her bag. “I think this might be your last season with these. I guess some of Fang’s patients started reading the scraps X was scattering around, and they spent less time trying to talk to him. So he’ll take the leftovers.”

That would probably just move the problem forward a couple more seasons, but Burgess was willing to accept a lot to get the distracting quizzes out of his direct eye line. “That’s great! But, oh no! What about Farmer Ban? If his love of fashion is just starting to blossom, I wouldn’t want to crush it before it had the chance to bloom!”

“I’ll save him a couple, Burgey-boy. Don’t worry.” She started to leave, and then ran back. “Oh, hey! This Friday! Babysitting? You up for it?”

“Oh, of course! It’s such an honor that-”

“Yeah thanks bye!” She was gone.

“Well...bye!” He called out the window.

Burgess knelt down next to the stack of magazines. “And goodbye to you, too, magazines with beautiful people on the cover!” He really would miss the quizzes, though, even if all the articles about getting a “summer body” made him feel kind of bad in a weird way he tried hard to not think about.

He heard a loud bang right outside the dorms and rapidly jogged out to find out what was making the noise. Coco was sitting on one of the dorm’s recycling bins, pecking at the elaborate lock the builder made for him to test out. Three pecks and it fell off. “Co Co--!” It flew away when it spotted Burgess.

“You can’t keep getting away with this!” He shook his fist at the sky. “I’m adding it to your fine!”

Man, everyone was just running away from him that night. He piled some rocks on the can and went back inside.

Hermann was sure that when he left Anchorage, he would never be cold again. Everywhere he went, he would compare it to that period of his life and it would be a warm summer day by comparison.  

Instead, the cold seemed to have settled into his bones.  It refused to shake free, no matter how much tea he drank and no matter how many layers of clothes he wore.  It made him ache, not just in his legs.

The lab he shared with Newton was kept as chilled as possible, for the sake of their computers and Newton's specimens.  Newt seemed oblivious, rolling up his sleeves and complaining about proper temperature control.  One of his freezers had given up, overnight, and when they returned the scent of ammonia and rot had seeped into every inch of the lab.  

Hermann had thought himself used to the smell of kaiju, by that point.  He had been wrong.  The lab was always kept cold.  If it got too warm, Hermann complained about it himself.  

It was a warm day after Christmas in Hong Kong, and Hermann was up on his ladder trying not to shiver inside his jacket.  It had become night, somehow, when he wasn't paying attention.

He climbed down, his leg aching painfully, and he almost tripped over a box resting at the bottom.  He was exhausted enough that he stared blankly at it and its cheerful wrapping instead of immediately berating Newton for putting it in his way.

"Man, if you fell over that and died, it'd be more like a gift for myself," Newt said.  

"Christmas was yesterday, you imbecile, even if I celebrated it," Hermann snapped.  He grabbed his cane off the rail and knocked the box away with the end of it.  It was Hanukkah, but he was non-practicing and had not practiced since he was a very small child.

"Jesus Christ, Hermann, calm down.  I actually got it for you for your birthday, but," he shrugged and never finished the sentence.

"That was--"  He shook his head.  His birthday was months ago.  Newton had gotten him a present for it, once before, years ago.  He had received that one around this time, but to give Newt his credit, it had been postmarked only two months late and had gotten delayed in the mail.  When Hermann opened the package, he had found a stack of papers detailing with excruciating precision everything Newt had found wrong in one of Hermann's publications.  It had taken Hermann a full month to point out all the errors in Newt's work and respond.

Hermann knocked this new package over to his desk chair and sat down to pick it up off the floor.  He held it in his lap and frowned, expecting something similar to the last gift.  

He neatly tugged off the wrapping paper.  Inside the box, under a layer of glitter-flecked tissue paper, he found a sweater.  He had been so expecting some joke or dig at his work, he stared at it, uncomprehending.  "It's a shirt."  

"It's great to see that you didn't waste your doctorate, Hermann," Newt said.  "What the hell were you expecting, honestly?"

It was not particularly to Hermann's taste, and he would be surprised if it was the correct size.  It was a very bright shade of blue.  "Well, nothing, if I am being completely honest."

Newt rolled his eyes and yanked his gloves off.  "Why do you have to be a dick about everything?  Well, the results of this experiment were conclusive.  'Thank you' isn't in your vocabulary, and you're just going to keep insulting me by looking at me like I grew two heads because I was nice to you, god.  Yeah, grade A dick behavior."  

"It really wasn't necessary.  Really." He closed the box and set it on his desk.  "But thank you." It was odd, and late, but more than Hermann had done for Newt's birthday, so what else could he say?

Newt frowned at Hermann, skeptical.  

"Oh, now you're looking at me like I'm some monstrous freak for having common decency.  Though, no, if I was one of those, your gaze would be lascivious."

"The gratitude is just coming off you in waves.  Thanks for that, dude, I never get tired of people implying I want to deep dick a kaiju."

Hermann winced at the mental image.  "I don't need the specifics."    

"Or deep dicking you as a kaiju; now you can't even say you didn't get me a Christmas gift, with that thought to carry around with me for the rest of my life." 

Hermann closed the box and started to get up.

"Throw it in the garbage if you have to, but you look like you're freezing your ass off when other people are passing out from heat stroke."

"I'm not planning on throwing your gift in the trash," Hermann said, irritated.  

"Yeah, right.  You aren't even going to put it on.  It's getting shoved under your bed and then you'll throw it away after we save the world and move out of here."

"It's a gift.  You have no say in what I do with it, honestly."   

He brought the box back to his room to store away.  He meant to wear it once, if it wasn't completely uncomfortable, just to show Newton that he was not a completely ungrateful person.  

But that was the sort of matter that got pushed aside and forgotten, with the weight of his work pressing him down until he found he could not move to do anything outside the immediate.  He remembered birthdays, as he could not stop himself from being aware of the date, but he did not remember that they should be celebrated, or even just acknowledged.  He did not call his family, or remember to eat regularly, and his sleep was frequently irregular and often impossible.  

Before he put the gift away and forgot it, he pulled the sweater out of its box and ran his fingers over the material.  It was soft, not the least bit scratchy, and it looked warm without being too heavy.  The color was eye searing.  He put the lid back on.

--

The images from the drift were tinged a dull blue.  Hermann found himself with little to say to Newt, which was bizarre. Even more strange was how when he went to speak and realized there was nothing, Newt would look at him like he understood, completely.  

They did not shadow each other, but time and time again they found themselves in the same place, until they were both outside the door to Hermann's room.  

Newt finally had something to say to him, then, and it burst out in overwhelming waves at too loud a volume.  Newt was exhausted and erratic, skipping from topic to topic mid-sentence and then back again.  Hermann was sympathetic.

"Come here a sec," Newt said, patting the bed next to him.  

Hermann realized, just then, that Newt was on his bed.  Sitting there like he had the right to.  Everything was coming to him through a blue haze of exhaustion and aching pain and his back twitched, like he was missing a weight there.  

They stared at each other, and Hermann sat down.  Newt leaned against him. He yawned with his mouth wide open, not bothering to cover it with his hand.  

"If you let me sleep here," Newt started talking again in a rapid burst of words, "If you let me, I'll do something for you."

"Sleep in your own bed."  Uneasiness was settling in Hermann's stomach. It felt like he had swallowed a stone.  "What would you do?" When he saw the look on Newt's face, he knew and wished he hadn't asked.  

Matter of fact: "I'll blow you, dude."  He looked Hermann over, once.  "I mean, if you want me to.  I would do that."  He caught up with himself, and flinched.  "Wait, forget I said that.  Unless, I mean--"

It was at this point that Hermann covered his face with his hands and tried to just let Newt's words pass over him.  

"--but I think I know you better than literally anyone else ever has?  So--"

"My god, Newton, please be quiet."  

"So that's a definite no?  Okay.  That's cool."  His voice was a little higher.  "It's fine."  

Hermann decided that the wisest course would be to just not think about it and move on.  "I'm exhausted, and you're far worse than I am." He grasped the handle of his cane, tight, and stood up.  He went over to his plug-in kettle and made them tea.  

Newt was a mess--physically and mentally worn out, bloody and disgusting. By the time he finished drinking the offered tea, he had fallen quiet again.  After he put his cup down, Newt tried to put what they had learned from the kaiju drift into words and try to align it with what he knew from years of study.  He kept slurring his words and he ended up nodding off halfway through the word "decomposition."  

Hermann left Newt on his bed and watched the news, volume low, just to see the escape pods come up over the water one more time.  He decided not to push Newt off the bed and eventually he climbed in with him.  Newt was passed out over the blankets, but Hermann made a proper effort at sleep--changing into pajamas and getting in under the covers where he would be warm.  He mouth tasted like alcohol, better than what it could have tasted like, and felt like someone had shoved a wad of cotton in there.  He nodded off almost immediately.  

--

Waking up rarely seemed like a good idea, but when pain would not let him sink back to sleep again, Hermann reluctantly opened his eyes.  He was being stared at.  

"Hermann, man, I know where everything in your room is, check it out." Newt looked physically worse than he had last night, a bright new bruise coloring the area around the bandage on his forehead, but he seemed alert.  Erratic, more so than normal, but less strange.  "This extra toothbrush is mine now, unless you want a used toothbrush back."  He snorted.  "Oh, yeah, and this."  He held up a searingly blue sweater.    

"God," Hermann said.  He closed his eyes, again.  

He heard Newt get up off the bed and pace around the room.

"Keep out of my things," Hermann mumbled.  

"I've been in here, what, twice before now?  But it's all familiar." He went around Hermann's small room, pointing out parts of it and going on a tangent about how memory worked, biologically.  He asked Hermann if he noticed anything similar.  

"Actually you're right.  My bedroom is strangely familiar to me,"  Hermann said.  He made himself sit up, despite the many ways his body was trying to communicate that it was a poor decision.  

Newt balled up the sweater and aimed for Hermann's head, but he was not an athlete and it hit the wall and landed on the bed next to him. "Prick.  Come on, this is a big deal."  

Hermann rubbed his head.  There was something sticky in his hair, and he had no idea what it could be.  "It sounds typical, honestly, what you're experiencing.  For our situation."  

"Okay, first off, there is nothing typical about our situation."

Hermann took out a bottle of pills and as he shook two out into his hand.  He looked up and noticed Newt was looking at him with some amusement. "What?"

"Your hair is sticking up, man, half of it.  It's very attractive," Newt said, snorting.    

"Already regretting propositioning me?"   He looked amused, suddenly remembering Newt's offer.  He was positive Newt had meant it in all earnestness, in the moment, but he had not been in the best state.

Newt paused before answering.  "I was kind of hoping you would never mention that again, ever.  And expecting, actually, that you would do that; never mention it again."  

Hermann shrugged.  "It's not like you were in your right mind."  

Newt walked over and sat down next to Hermann on the bed.  "Technically, you did let me sleep here.  I think it's relevant so I'm just going to point that out."  

"I wasn't really in a state to drag you out of the room."  He picked up the sweater, lying in a heap next to him, and folded it again.  

"I guess not."  He rested his head on Hermann's shoulder.  He was warm--almost unbearably so.  Hermann wasn't used to it, after so many years of being cold.  He let out a small sigh as the pain started to settle down to something bearable.

Hermann eventually fell back asleep, and Newton was gone by the time he woke up.  He took his time getting out of bed and getting ready--there were things to do, even with the world finally safe.  

He put on the blue sweater without even thinking about it, carefully buttoning it up to his neck.  It was as warm and soft as he had guessed.  He could imagine himself as Newton, seeing it in some store and liking the color.  

He only had a few direct memories from the drift, and a number of vague impressions of events and the feelings surrounding them that he would never be able to place on a timeline or put into words.  He could not recall Newt's childhood like it was his own.  

But as he looked around his room, he saw it as Newton would have seen it that morning, and when he looked in the mirror he saw himself as Newton saw him. 

The mystery of why Newt had purchased clothes for him was solved, definitively.  Newton had seen it and thought he would like how Hermann looked in it, and built an excuse up around that.  

Hermann straightened his posture and headed out towards the lab, where he knew Newton would be.  It felt warm inside the Shatterdome that morning, almost hot, and the constant rain made his forehead damp with sweat.  He paused to roll up his sleeves before he went inside the lab.  

Newt was over by one of his specimen tanks, hand pressed against the glass, looking lost.  He turned his head, slightly, when he heard Hermann come in, but not enough to look away from whatever had his interest.  

Hermann walked over, taking his time, and rested his hand on Newton's shoulder.  Newt started, at the contact, and looked at him.  His face lit up.

"Oh, hey," Newt said.  He grinned, his eyes huge and liquid, all warmth.  

They spoke low.  No one noticed right away that they hadn't followed everyone else.  

"I guess if you have to visit Wakanda, I'll just make reservations for the night before you leave.  Keep the catsuit at the base," Hawkeye murmured.  

"I would ask you to leave your complaints at the base, but then I might as well dine alone."