hold me like water

His first day stateside is spent sleeping. Maran has a whole list of things he wants to do and see - some of which Benji exhaustedly informs him are hundreds and thousands of miles away, what the fuck - but it was a long flight. His nap is more of a coma sleep, and when he wakes up after thirteen hours, Benji’s staring at him with just a bit of concern. 

“Thought you’d died.” He eyes the wall clock. “Hungry, m’assuming.” 

Maran blinks bleary fuzz from his eyes, registers the words, then hops so immediately to his feet that his head swims. Benji catches him with a tight grip to the arm.

“I want-“

“On my, mate,” Benji promises. He’s grinning, but there’s something softer to it. Maran knows he watns to extend a hug, just stuck in that awkward Benji place in his head. So Maran crushes him into one instead.

“The best.” He says. He bounces a little, imagining all the different highway-framed fast food places they’re about to hit. Benji’s poor fucking wallet. “Favorite little lad.”

“Ha!” Benji bellows. He slaps a hand on Maran’s back and shoves him out the door. “Never-fucking-mind, g’head, fuck you.” 

And they tumble out the door like that, in a tangle of swears and insults and knocking limbs, like they have a hundred times before. 

*

A good mood washes off Maran slower than most. Majority of time, he recognizes it for the blessing it is; that he can sit in euphoria and keep taking from it like some people stew in a bad mood. This time, though, he might sit in the newness of his visit slightly longer than he ought to. No need to pay attention to other feelings when everything else feels sunny and warm.

*

The first week he’s there, Benji tests him with a snack run mission. Local gas station that sits diagonal to a brick two-story that boasts a cheery, red-eyed cloud giving him a thumbs up. 

“Mad.” Maran whispers to himself, delighted that parts of America are exactly how they look in the shows he likes to watch. He snaps a quick photo, tongue peeking out as he lines up the shot against a setting sun’s glare. 

The belll above the door chimes; it swings open so fast he’s got to jump out of the way. 

“Oh!”

“M’sorry,” he blurts sheepishly, phone in hand as he raises both. “Bit fo tourism, didn’t mean to get in your way.”

The elderly woman who nearly bowled him directly into the gutter snorts. It’s a very grandmother sort of noise - Maran knows those well. Whatever feels familiar must tweak some recognition for her: she peers up at him, a big blocky pair of plastic glasses balanced on the tip of a hawk-like nose. They’re bright orange — Fanta orange, the good kind, not the States shite — and match the shiny purse swung over her elbow. She’s got veins all up and down her forearms, and one of her hands seems to be going off with tremors. 

“Quit that, it was my fault.” She says, swatting her only free hand at him. The other, knuckles like the knots of old tree roots, clutches a brown pharmacy bag. “Always in a rush, my boyfriend says.” 

Maran grins at her and shields his heart. “A boyfriend? Say s’not true. I’m broken up.” 

The old woman tips her head back to laugh - she’s easily a foot shorter than him, maybe more, but the weight and warmth to the noise make her ten feet tall. His heart really pangs, thinking about nonna, missing her something awful. She’s so much further away than she usually is. 

“You’re awful.” The smoke shop patron wags a finger at him. “I call him my boyfriend but he’s my husband. So don’t you follow me home, now.” 

“Walk you with permission, then?”

She peers either way down the street. It’s fifteen past five on a weekday - Maran has quickly figured out an easy bit of American chitchat is to complain about traffic congestion just about that time. 

“Well. I do live across, up Main.” She hooks a wrinkled thumb over her shoulder. “I know Fred in there. If you’re planning on making off with an old lady’s medicine.”

He smiles and offers an elbow, “No ma’am. Have a feeling it might be a bit much for me. And, sheesh. Maybe a large, tolerant horse.”

Elizabeth — who he must call Betty — is going on eighty-two. Still walks three miles every day, which reminds him of nonna. She tells Maran: he should start moving more because one day he’ll begin to slow down and there’s no going quicker once that starts, no matter how much the doctor encourages him to keep trying and no matter how much flower gets smoked, because you either die suddenly or you die of age and if it’s the latter, won’t he prefer to go as comfortable about it as possible? Her husband - stage two lung cancer, he ought not to smoke either, while he’s at it - says she’s a bit too morbid; Betty makes an awful joke about being flattened when a local food supplier truck zips past them just shy of the walk signal. 

She lives in a small ranch, tucked between two larger new-build homes. The lawn, by contrast of its neighbors, over grows prettily at the edges with long stalks of grass - the kind her neighbors have cut down and stuffed into landscape bin bags.

“Clover.” Betty catches him lingering on the lush, pillowy green. She fishes in her purse for her keys while Maran holds her umbrella and the bag from the dispensary. “When you’re ready to settle down, you put that on your lawn.”

“Because Betty told me to.” Maran says wistfully, watching the small ecosystem of her garden; dragonflies and a hare suspiciously watching them from a row of ill-kept hedges. “You got someone taking care of this for you?”

“Because it’s good for the bees. Milkweed for the butterflies, but you make sure its the native and not invasive.” She pats him on the arm. “And don’t be a kiss ass, young man. You’ve done your good deed for the day.”

He really would rather that Betty, this stranger whose approval all his self-esteem now is squarely dependent upon, doens’t see how the words make him deflate. But if anything, their walk to her place has proven her sharpness. Of wit, of perception. Maran knows whatever cocoons him is transparent; of course Betty spots the loneliness underneath. 

And even though the choice is out of his hands - whether Betty catches it or not is up to her, not him - the way her face softens into pity still stings. 

She squeezes his hand. “Goodness, stop it. I’m developing a problem with this medical card, so we’ll run into each other again. You go live your life, boy. You have plenty of years ahead until you’re in my position, getting walked home to make sure you stay upright the whole way.”

He fights a pout. He’s lonely; he misses nonna, he wishes Benji could stick to him constantly like glue, like when they were kids, rather than go to class all the time. He wants to have something to fill his time, because otherwise all he’s left with are his thoughts. He wants Betty to invite him in for tea, or something, even though its too early. It would be nice if she needed the clover yard mowed (or tended, whatever that sort of plant needed). Maybe it needs tended once or twice a month, and he could have something to look forward to. Maybe it needs it more, if it’s rained. 

Maran wants to help, and he wants to stop being lonely, and he wants very selfishly for Betty to transform into nonna, or his own mother, and sweep him up into a hug. He wants to be home. He wants to be asleep. He wants to not feel jet lagged after a week.

But he also knows that he is three or four blocks away from the convenience store he was meant to be clearing out for party snacks. So instead of betraying all that (or, shiver down his spine, disappointing Benji with a broken promise) Maran bows dramatically low. He parts from his new friend with a Golden Era movie-style kiss to her spotted knuckles.

He’s also three whole blocks away from the convenience store he’s meant to be clearing out for party snacks, so instead of betraying all that and coming across as perhaps even more pathetic than he’s already managed, Maran bows dramatically low and parts from his new friend with a Golden Age kiss to the knuckles. 

*

He runs an errand, he walks an old woman home, he helps a trio of kids save a cat from the sewer one morning, he gives them fifteen of his last hundred pounds (dollars, bucks) to get it seen by a vet. Maran helps, and he parties (goes to about twenty of them in his first few weeks in the States, and probably could have done more’). He’s so happy to be with Benji again. Happy to be somewhere new and exciting, to do things he wouldn’t have been able to, sitting in mum’s flat and mulling over job adverts he wasn’t qualified for or school programs that were at best a long shot and, realistically, a dream of a dream. 

So he’s happy. He is.

He just also can’t shake the fact that there’s something missing, and that once the exhilaration of one week passes, there’s something worse occurring. 

Benji’s busy. Maran doesn’t know many other people, just acquaintances and classmates of his best friend that he’s met once. Barely met, really.

The euphoria fades sharply. He doesn’t prepare for it. And then Maran is absolutely, crushingly, devastatingly alone. 

*

Why’s it always late, when the thoughts come?

 It helps to party. Noisy music and meeting new people and socializing - drowns them out. 

It helps to be in someone else’s bed. 

It helps to be curled up with Benji, both of ‘em dead to the world while some shit movie or documentary whispers from the television. 

Anything so he doesn’t think about it. Maran never thinks about it. Tries, anyway. 

Later, near-future sort of later, he’ll realize that he isn’t so good at introspection as he is at figuring others out. Like:

Sarah, his first crush, likes music class the most. So he had begged mum a favor; see if their neighbor (Mrs. Weiss, lends them a ride to temple when the mood strikes mum to go, widowed and retired music teacher) would take him for piano lessons. Looking back on old family videos, Maran’s absolutely shit at it. Hasn’t really got a musical bone in his body. Not like Benji. But he’s ten and already figuring people out: what they like, why, how to make himself one of those things. So he tries, and Sarah kisses him at the end of the school year. On the cheek, first, and then the next week very curtly and awkwardly on the lips when he brings her a fistful of pink-tinted clover from their front lawn. 

Sarah breaks up with him the following week, of course. Because they’re ten. But Maran never forgets the way her eyes light up when he plays a bit of a tune on the piano before their lesson. 

It just…well, it never really occurred to him to wonder if he ought to do things he liked. Seek and figure himself out. 

*

He might not realize it or actively be trying, but Benji’s a good host. The first week of Maran’s visit, he casually relays the information that he spent several days doing a load of course work in advance. So it’d be alright for him to skip class, so he could spend time with Maran, so Maran would be more comfortable in a strange environment. 

Which is sweet and earns him a hug he can’t really comprehend and grimaces good-naturedly through. But Maran can tell he’s itchy to get back to it; the structure, the feedback, the comfort of expectations on a schedule. Benji’s just the type. It’s why, even though both of them were near truancy as kids, Benji was always the better student. Competent. Had a knack for it, even as an irresponsible teenager.

The second week he’s there, though, Maran’s on his own. 

And he is who he is: the spiral is near instant the second someone familiar isn’t glued to him.

*

It’s like getting a micro dose of his best friend, how it used to be, how it was when they were kids. Then, his new life and new responsibilities and new friends pull Benji back into reality. Away from Maran, who begins to feel as though he exists on some sitcom soundstage. Sitting just off screen. Waiting to be cued in on a laugh track for an episode of Benji’s life.

Which is all very unfair. He knows that’s not how it really is. How Benji feels. 

Or — is it? 

It’s not more than a few days of the renewed distance and absence - even now, existing in the same city, close but not close enough - that Maran begins to think about a very scary possibility:

 they’ve grown apart. 

The distance isn’t a quirk or a phase of their friendship. It’s just how it is, now. They’ve become too separate. Too distinct, two separate people. 

Maran had never really considered himself a person whose wellness and health hinged on a lack of significant change. He can go with the flow. He’s adaptable. 

But time has passed. Distance, even though its less now that they’re in the same country again, still feels the same. Benji’s got a whole life, a new one, and facing the idea that Maran might be something of the past…well. He can’t face it.

Besides the occasional girlfriend here and there, besides skate park acquaintances and a handful of forum friends he’s had since he was a teenager, Benji’s his only social constant. Eggs in one basket, and all that. Now that they’ve got nothing if not proximity? Chance, since their mums are basically sisters? What have they got in common, really? Besides growing up together? Is that enough? The glue wasn’t holding - maybe hadn’t been strong enough in the first place.

And what has Maran got, then?

*

The first day Benji goes back to his classes, Maran wakes up to an empty flat and turns over on his air mattress and jams his face into his borrowed pillow and cries it out: 

has Benji told other people his secrets? do other people know about his sillly, pathological phobias? have they asked after the road rash scar on his left knee isn’t anything cool, but from when they were fifteen and he tripped and spilled ass over head on the asphalt? does Benji talk about why he’s chosen the career path he has, the school he has, as far from home as he has? does he get a little misty-eyed and strange with other people, sat up late at night? 

Maran hopes not. 

But —

That’s a selfish thing to want, right? What sort of friend are you, mate, thinking like this? Healthy friends aren’t jealous. You can’t be jealous - Benj is a good lad. Deserves to - can have - as many friends as he wants. Benji can tell other people secrets, and spend time with other people.

So can you. 

He can make new friends. He’s got some time to do it. Once he’s done self-pitying, a bit. He misses his mum and he misses nonna, it’ll be the first summer in a long time without the sea on his face and her meals in his stomach, and he mourns a hundred other things he can’t really name properly as he wallows on the air mattress. 

And then Maran gets up.

*

 Maran does his detective work step-by-step.

The longer he lingers, the more he learns. He needs to focus on a conversation to contribute to it, rather than settle into the fun puzzling someone out bit. It becomes, maybe, a problem; he’s no stranger to addiction. His old man taught him that lesson. He’s heard some people are predisposed - its why in secondary he’s careful about agreeing to sneak a spliff with Henry at most once a month. Why he only sips off friends’ drinks at parties, rather than have his own. 

At first, Maran doesn’t realize there is an addictive element to it all. A certain quality to the reaction he gets when he can tell he’s sorted someone out.  If he gets something right: delivers a joke that aligns with their sense of humor. Makes a reference they, and nobody else, will understand. He enjoys it when he can make someone he fancies feel important. Soars high when he accurately gauges when to press in, the moment to pull away, when to pull a conversation’s thread and when to slacken it. Knowing, naturally, the need to be soft or firm. 

People enjoy how it feels to be seen. To be understood. Maran likes to satisfy both. Sometimes, he pictures new people like puzzles: delights the moment he finishes a color or an edge or a finicky pattern. 

Look, he can tell them with his actions, his words, enjoying a mutual favorite film or encouraging a song recommendation, listening to a story. Look, I found that piece. It fits. Lets fill in the middle now, yeah?

They’re more likely to stick around if he completes them. 

*

In retrospect, which is admittedly where a lot of his realizations about people come from, maybe that’s why he struggles so hard with Fiadh. Why he tries, even through that struggle. Appeasing her is even more addictive; hard to read, flighty. Fiadh always gives him the impression that he’s on the cliffs edge of something. That it’s her, and her alone, that hooks a finger in his shirt to keep him steady…or let him topple over the edge. 

Her attention feels like a gift from the universe at first. It never occurred to him that she was as good about people. 

Fiadh’s gorgeous. The sort of beautiful that he thinks you can really only find in black and white movies. He’s never had the patience to finish those, something about the accents or the pacing or lack of color makes him drift off. But he knows the famous faces. The icons. Fiadh has the sleek, shiny curls and the deep-socketed, soulful eyes, round cheeks and full lips of those women. Doesn’t matter where the preferences sway, she’s a little timeless.

And Maran is easily infatuated. Mostly, it’s that he hadn’t expected to be granted the attention of somebody that beautiful or mature or worldly. Fiadh’s smart. Witty. Mysterious and withdrawn, but warm about it. And Maran is - he’s unemployed, hasn’t got any school to look forward to, paid an extra fee to bring a skateboard on the flight rather than another bag, which seems immature when he laughs about it to her, and -

So he doesn’t ever expect to hear from her again, after the first night they spend together. Like a lot of other things, he considers it a fluke. Good luck on his part, a once-in-a-lifetime act of divine intervention. 

When she texts him with an invitation to a party, her warm attention is brilliant, blinding. He doesn’t understand then. Doesn’t see her puzzle pieces straight away. Admittedly, those early days he tends to focus on in the moment things. Like:

She pushes him away from their kiss and Maran falls, totally willing, flat to her minimalist botanical bedspread. Licking his lips, smile widening because she her lipgloss tastes of peach and it’s nice, no artificial or chemical bitterness at the end like some of those sorts of flavors. 

“You’re decent at that,” she notes as she settles over his lap. Maran grins even wider. Yeah, he doesn’t  know it then, but Fiadh’s puzzle is all edge pieces. Or all one color - you’ve got to go in blind or obsessive or certifiable or all three to sort it out. 

Patience. He’s never been good at it. 

(And, privately, much later and alone in his thoughts; guilty; with an sense of himself and his understanding of the world; life and connection shattering just a little bit, Maran realizes that he might not have been all that good at people to begin with. Sometimes, cruely and unfairly and unkindly, he catches the thoughtful thread that maybe some people - Fiadh, for example - maybe they’ve got no middle pieces. Maybe they know it.  Or they do have ‘em, and they know people like Maran would very much like to sort them, and they won’t give that up.)

“Decent at what?” He asks coyly. His hands fit nice to her hips, but only for a moment. Fiadh snatches them and pins them up by his head, leaning over. There’s a strange look on her face he can’t quite unscramble. Amused…something else. 

“I’ll give you a one-star.” 

Maran pouts, cheeks heating the longer she holds him still and simply stares at him. “No, don’t, those are so hard to get rid of and my rating—”

She dives down to kiss him quiet, mouth soft and practiced. He ignores the feeling that he’s being kissed quiet, rather than kissed because. It’s a kiss with a bit less pressure than he prefers. But he won’t put more on. Won’t say a fuckin’ word about it. Boot to his own ass if he did. 

And really, no point in denying it, that time is quick. Another thing he’s not particularly strong about - the newness is what gets him, usually. New body, new sounds, new tastes, new things to figure out. An affirmative noise or positive reinforcement does wonders for his mental and his prick, there’s no lying. That phrase - find out what makes you tick. Truth to it. 

People are different than clocks, sure, so it’s not a perfect comparison. Maran doesn’t get how clocks work at all, them all staying in tune to one universal measurement of time. Gears, screws, and little metal bits? Some shit. He’d rather - and is much better at - finding the rhythm of a person. Everyone’s got a nice, unique one. 

He likes finding it. Likes satisfying it. Likes being satisfactory. 

Maran likes being satisfactory. 

(And, y’know, if he can chase some satisfaction of his own, isn’t that a happy accident? He’ll take the good fortune.)

 *

Fiadh is amber hues and honey and sunlight. She’s golden. Luck, abundance. It’s a hookup, that first time, that second time, even the third. But Maran goes about it like they’ve been together for years. Everytime she sees him off, he’s not expecting to hear from her again.

And then Fiadh texts him. Again. Again. Another invitation, another Thursday night party, and— 

Then they’re dating. Exclusively. Seriously. And at least in the beginning, intensely. He’s so excited by it that he can’t even manage to wait the proper, perfunctory minimum hour before he responds to her texts.

He doesn’t know if they’ll last, but it feels like they might. He hopes they might. Maran can’t get enough of the expensive smell in the tuck of her neck, into which she will always - briefly - allow kisses buried. Or the pleasantly heavy metal sound of a charm bracelet on her wrist, rattle around the back of his neck while he fucks her. She’s got an equally musical laugh, tinkling and high and feminine. She’s got soft skin on the back of her thighs that raise goose flesh when he touches them, quick and guilty, when he’s awake before her in the morning. She’s got thin, graceful fingers that thread nicely through his: a hand to hold. 

Someone next to him. A soft yellow light, a personal lingering golden after the sun’s set, that keeps the shadows back.

She’s satisfying - he feels, really he does! - satisfied. 

…That’s what he likes, and that’s what a relationship is, right? Being content, satisfied?

*

She never gives him a key, but if he texts her she keeps her door unlocked. For awhile, Maran ignores that it makes him feel a bit like an outdoor cat. Being let in if someone remembers to get the door for him.

“In here,” she calls when he nudges into her flat. 

Fiadh lives alone. Her place is in an expensive looking gated apartment complex with a large bean-shaped pool in the center. Each building that frames it has two balconies - one facing the tree-lined street the complex sits on, and the other to the lounge chairs. He’s never been somewhere besides a downtown area where there are shops below the living units, but Fiadh’s neighborhood has them. Craft stores and brunch spots and coffee shops. Sidewalks, too. Well maintained. 

Maran lingers in her modern living room, sparsely decorated except for a few palms and framed botanical prints. He likes looking out at the trees on the street. Sometimes doves roost in them.

“Maran? In here.” 

He shakes himself and puts on a smile before nudging her bedroom door open. Stops in his tracks. 

There’s some sort of sad yet upbeat pop music drifting from her record player. Tinkling piano and soft, feminine vocals singing about dogs. Gotta be a metaphor, but he’s not really paying attention. Fiadh lounges, effortlessly pretty even in an over-large t-shirt and the tight, soft athletic shorts she prefers. She looks a bit like a painting with her hair all over the place, head propped in her hand, a leg bent-knee over the other. The pose accentuates the curve of her waist and thighs, so he doesn’t immediately respond to whatever she says. 

Her nose wrinkles dangerously. “You alright?” 

Maran fixes his slack mouth into a close mouthed smile. He goes to his knees at the end of the bed, cheek resting on the duvet next to the textbook she has open. He hopes she’ll keep looking at him, rather than its pages. 

“Distracted.” Maran drawls, waggling his eyebrows. “‘Cuz you look so pretty today, obviously.”

Fiadh rolls her eyes and scoffs, her lips tugging up in an amused smile. “Right, Mar, I’m well fit, I get it.” She goes back to flipping through her book. “Singleminded, you.”  

He feels deflated by that, a bit. But he stays where he is, stays looking at her, smiling. He wants to ask her what they’re going to do today, if she has plans, if she wants to watch something, go out, get food. 

But she does look pretty, and Maran’s focus is easily drawn down again to the severe curve of her waist. Fiadh’s got a pillow between her calves - preferred way for her to sleep, she’s a bit of a princess about her sleep posture - and even that is distracting. 

His brain suddenly flashes him the memory of a video he’d seen linked on a forum one time, a thread of users sharing…formative experiences. He’s not thinking of that girl (pretty and softly curved and brunette with a tattoo on her calf), just what was…happening. Maran stares at Fiadh, feeling stupid and distant and turned on, and wonders if she does that. If she’d do that. If he could watch. He imagines, in great detail, mirroring her posture and facing her and watching as she shifted the pillow higher and started to rock against it, chasing pleasure of her own but never looking away from him, and imagines that she might let him kiss her through it and watch her face get red and lips get shiny and he’d watch, he’d watch and -

Fiadh scoffs again. She closes her book, rolling her eyes - he’s embarrassed for a second, cheeks hot and ashamed to have been caught clearly fantasizing right in front of her - 

Then Fiadh scoots up the bed and makes room for him as she shucks off her top with little ceremony, and it’s alright from there.

*

Back home, the council wasn’t too quick about potholes. Especially in their part of Liverpool. Days that were rainy and cold would settle into asphalt, bulging hairline fractures into deep, crumbling divots by spring’s last thaw. 

He’s seeing Fiadh from early April to just around the first of May. Maybe he should have jumped the potholes. They were there from the start.

*

“Wish you had hair to pull,” Fiadh laughs breathlessly. 

Cheeks smushed between her warm legs, Maran can’t manage anything more than a soft groan. Her nails raking up the base of his neck leave prickles in their wake, like she scooped out his insides and replaced them with that candy that pops in his mouth. He shivers, goosebumps on his shoulders despite the skin-sticky heat of thighs draped over them. 

He comes up for air when her moans start to taper off into softer sighs, instead of climbing higher. 

“Alright?” He breathes, pawing helplessly at her hip. Tries not to grind against the mattress too much, because if she’d like him to fuck her instead he’d like to last. 

“Stressed. End of term coming up.” Fiadh dismisses, tipping her head back. It bares her pale throat, has him eye-glazed at the tint of pink along the column. He goes to press a kiss there - she stops him, hand under his chin and fingers a little tight. 

“M’sorry.” He doesn’t want to sound whiny. “We can stop?” 

“Just put it in,” Fiadh sighs. “That’ll do it.” 

Well, fuck, no amount of holding himself back will prevent that drop of nestling heat into his gut. Maran bites a noise into something softer and nods. He hopes that her hand will stay under his chin; imagines that while he lines up, that she wants to make him look at her, that she’ll look at him back. Instead her eyes are screwed shut and her hand drops to the base of his spine. 

That touch is enough. Almost as good as the hand on his face. She puts a bit of pressure there, which is nice as he sinks into her but not as nice as being in her, and Maran has to drop his face into the golden mess of hair on the pillow.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and then does moan a little, high and tight. “Fi, you —”

Her hips rock up. Slim fingers pressing harder into his skin, make the rhythm he’s trying desperately to build falter. 

“Got a girly moan,” Fiadh teases him, her own breath hitching alongside his. Her other hand slides from his bicep up to the crown of his head, pulling his face more into her hair and the pillow when he tries to lean up to look at her. It’s stifling, hard to breathe, but it smells like her and she’s hot and still decently wet from his attention and he tries, he really does, he counts and hopes enough time goes by and waits for her to do that tell-tale shiver and then —

“Not in me.” She gasps when she finishes, because they don’t use condoms and she doesn’t always like to have a full shower after because her hair frizzes out and Maran is wondering if that’s a strange thing to have to think of, midst of his own orgasm, but he likes finishing on he stomach too and he likes watching 

so it’s fine, it is. 

*

It isn’t long after that. 

“I’m sorry.”

He sits across from her at the tastefully expensive and fuckin’ heavy table he helped - carried himself, mostly, because she’s so small - bring up to her apartment last week. 

Both their breakfast plates are empty; she’d waited, at least, until the end of a decent morning. 

“It’s fine, Fiadh.” Maran soothes. He reaches across and twines their fingers together, pretending not to notice the stiffness of hers or the fact that the little golden stacking ring he’d saved a paycheck to buy at the mall is missing from her middle finger. 

“It’s not.” She sniffles. She’s looking out the window. Her eyes look wet, but not teary. And he doesn’t think that’s strange, in the moment, but she’s always been a crying sort of emotive. “It’s really not, it’s awful of me, I know it.” 

“You’re not awful.” Maran says. He believes it, and he wants her to as well. He brings her knuckles up to his mouth and then allows himself to let go. She puts both hands in her lap, no doubt fidgeting. “It’s fine, it happens. I’m alright, you are too, it’s just that sometimes people are better as friends, yeah?” 

She nods into her lap. Doesn’t respond.

He gets the feeling that been cramming two pieces together, never minding that they’re not a fit. 

About a week after that, they try again. 

Just for a couple days. They even try grocery shopping, have sex one more time - he tries really hard, he does, even though it feels shameful to try and fuck her into changing her mind and he knows that he can’t, even as he pants into the space under her ear and pulls a muscle, he’s pretty sure he can’t -

And then, in the middle of a party they’ve attended together, Fiadh guides him wordlessly aside with a Look. Her eyes are watery with alcohol, cheeks flushed the way she gets when she’s had one or two too many. Maran cups her shoulders, soothing hands up and down her arms while she stares up at him with parted lips and the clear desire to speak.

“Alright? Ready to tap out?” It’s early for her, she loves socializing, but Maran will never mind being her excuse to leave early. 

“Did Benji come?”

Huh? He can’t remember the last time Fiadh spoke to Benji. Or, more accurately, Benji spoke to her in more than a syllable. They were understandable opposites with nothing in common but Maran.

“Probably snug in bed with some notes.” Maran means to sound airy and teasing, but for some reason his voice feels tight. 

Fiadh sucks in a breath, tucks her bottom lip behind her teeth. “Well, can y’ask him to?”

Her accent slips into the thickness Maran loves, but the rhythm of it isn’t enough to distract him from the strangeness of the moment. He watches her, eyes circling her face. There are pieces in him fitting together, slowly; she’s been so hard to read this week, even more so than usual. Even softened by drinks. 

Feels as though his mouth has been welded shut. He can’t answer, but his silence must be interpreted as something else. Fiadh abruptly shrugs his hands off and embraces herself. The way he’d prefer to be doing, in that moment. 

here’s a cold, knowing stillness flitting up his chest. It’s familiar. 

Oh, Maran thinks. Again, already?  

“I think this was a mistake.” 

He hears what she doesn’t say. Coming to the party wasn’t a mistake. The music selection isn’t a mistake, or even her few drinks, or the shirt she had helped Maran pick out and he thinks, actually, he looks rather nice in. 

They’re stood out on the patio with the interior curtains pulled open; he knows people are watching. He can feel the eyes on him. He can’t meet them. None of this, coming here, was a mistake. It was a choice.

And sure. He’s hurt. Even though he expected this, really, guilty and deep down. He knew there was only going to be one sort of conclusion. Fiadh was the one to reach out, ask to talk. Was the one to text him, invite him over. And he was happy to let her make decisions - he liked letting her make decisions, liked following along, was happy to. But this had been one of her decisions, too. 

 Molars grind at the inside of his cheek. They’d fucked again, just a couple nights ago, and he’d gone down on her, and now he’s thinking that might be it, maybe he hadn’t been attentive or good as he thought, he was just bad at it, the emotional stuff and the sex, and nobody was honest enough to tell him. 

Or he’d forgotten an important date, maybe. Maran?

Her mum’s middle name. Maran.

Her favorite dragonfly? Maran!

He blinks.

“Aren’t you upset?” Fiadh asks. The sudden sharpness of her tone makes his head snap up. She looks…her face is wet with tears, but her eyes are bright and normal, except for the shine. Both hands buried in her hair, lifting the pretty strawberry-wheat curls away from her face, her shoulders tense. 

That’s when Maran, head moving as though packed with syrup, slowly; looks through the glass door; catches just how many people are watching them. Observing. 

Very, very carefully. 

Something stirs at the back of his head, but it feels nasty and mean and anxious, so he confusedly pushes it aside. Don’t have anything nice to say? Say nothin’ at all. 

“Yeah, Fi, of course.” He whispers. His hand lifts, fingers brushing her elbow. “I’m sad. I’m confused. I thought —”

Fiadh suddenly bursts with a hitching sob. She shoulders past him, one hand cradling her face like she’s embarrassed, and then she’s through the sliding door back into the crowd and into the embrace, he figures of a few close friends. And Maran’s there, stood on the patio in the slight spring chill, breeze tugging at the color of the shirt she helped pick out. 

It’s nice. Just a bit tight on him.

*

Nobody knows. That’s Maran’s choice. He isn’t particularly private, has never been the type to withdraw. But he knows enough to understand that the dynamics are…funny. Fiadh’s who she is, and he’s - who he is. 

So, he has never felt more an outsider in Benji’s complex web of friends and mutual friends of friends than he does after their breakup. Fiadh’s close to Nelly’s - Nelsy? -  twin with the long hair; who’s close to Matilda; who might as well keep Xavier in her back pocket for as frequently as they’re together; who Benji clearly needs to open his eyes about, but Xavier’s also dated Fiadh and Maran likes the lad but isn’t sure how close they remain so —

Complicated. So, so complicated. Maran doens’t do complication well. Doesn’t have the audacity to cross any of those intricate boundaries, or the finesse to tiptoe them. Especially if it makes things difficult or awkward for Benji. 

Who is, honestly, the happiest he’s ever seemed. As open and sociable as a moody little bastard like Benji could be open or sociable. The gloomy and introverted twenty year old is a self that Benji left behind in Liverpool.

Now that Maran’s single again, he has the time to think about all that. Selves and change and departures. He thinks too hard, as he’s prone, so he realizes there’s a bit to mourn there. That Benji has changed, and maybe Maran hasn’t. Maybe that’s the issue. 

So Maran withdraws a bit. He doesn’t want to make a fuss.

*

Except Xavier is well-intentioned. Loud, larger than life. He has a way of making social cues useless if he’s in the room. 

And he’s the only one who prods Maran about it. 

Maran isn’t sure how he figures it out. Who, maybe, he gossips with. But the news gets to him, and then he and Maran are playing games every other night, going out for pizza or spending time at the basketball court an slowly building a friendship over split pizza and regular multi-litre Diet Pepsi gaming nights. 

(Maran hates Pepsi, especially the diet, but Xavier’s got some fight he needs to weigh in for or something, so he tolerates.) 

Xavier’s not so good at tolerating. The television blinks rapidly - their enemy’s score goes up on the top left. 

“Aw fuck,” Maran swears. 

Xavier wails like someone’s run over his childhood dog. There’s a break in their guard, and one of the bastards scoots his character past their (frankly lackluster) goalie. 

End-zone guardian. Linebacker? Whatever the fuck they’re called. 

“I thought you were on him!” 

“Well I’m shite at it!” Maran fires back, laughing in that easy with-Xavier way that could get hysterical and giggly if they go on enough. “This is not what I thought you fuckin’ meant by football.”

“This is football.”

“It’s not.” 

“Is too.”

They poke at each other for the whole next game and the one after that. It feels good. It’s the lightest Maran has felt in days. To be honest, he hadn’t even realized the weight of moodiness hanging off him until Xavier had slung an arm around his shoulders and suggested, with a big smile and bright eyes, that it fuck entirely off.

The embarrassment of being seen so clearly stops him from saying thank you outloud. But Xavier, who masters people-awareness the way Maran once thought he had, picks up on the gratitude. At the end of their loss (close, Maran copes to himself, it was a close loss), he puts his controller down and twists up to face Maran.

“Aw, don’t even get that with me -“ 

“I’m not getting anything,” Xavier interrupts, laughing softly. He reaches out to rub a hand on Maran’s head until the friction burns and they push away from each other like magnets, giggling. “Dude. I’m so glad you’re like. Yourself again.”

Maran tries not to let the defensiveness show, but he’s sure his face seizes.. “Who the fuck else am I meant to be?” 

The bait goes ignored. Xavier’s smarter than him. Distantly, Maran wonders if maybe Fiadh’s lack of middle pieces was because Xavier had found them. Maybe she hadn’t liked what happened when he’d done so; he could imagine being incapable of anything but total transparency with a partner like Xavier. Freedom could be scary, he supposes. You needed to be ready for it. 

“You know what I mean.” 

Xavier takes the last piece of pizza and tears it down the middle. Maran takes it, and  would have been content to lick his own hands lean or rub them on his shorts, but Xavier’s careful and dutiful about getting them both a paper towel. licked his own hands clean, or rubbed them on his shirt, but Xavier’s careful and dutiful. He retrieves each of them a rectangle of paper tower, and he hands Maran the bigger of the two pieces. 

“It’s fine.” Maran concedes. “Really, it wasn’t - it was a month, basically.” 

“That’s ok.” Xavier says. He’s not pressing at all. Soft. “I’ve cried about relationships I had for like, a few days.”

“In primary, yeah?” 

He grins. “Okay, yeah. But I’m just saying. I know it’s not cool to talk about—” He puffs his chest up, trying to look big, but all he really has going for him is verticality so the effect is a bit lost. “We’re tough, or whatever. Just between you and me, though? It’s okay to talk.” 

Maran opens his mouth.

Xavier holds his hands up, having cleared his own piece of pizza in about two bites. “Not now. If you don’t want to, that’s whatever man. I know we’re not womb homies like you and Benji are, but-“ he pauses here to wipe his hands again, sheepishly grinning. “You can talk about that, if you want. Or anything else.”

Maran stares at him. His pizza still sits in his hand. After. a brief stretch, Xavier points.

“Did you want that.”

He laughs and hands the slice over. “Nah, mate, g’wed. All yours.”

Eventually, they do talk. Everything is quickly on the table, no matter how hesitant at first Maran is to serve it up. Relationships and first girlfriends and, with twin blushing cheeks and haltingly sparse on details, first times and first loves and some of the shit that made none of it stick, in the end. 

They don’t talk about Fiadh. They never really do despite the shared link, but they talk. And it’s more than okay. More than fine. It’s good, and Maran feels good, and he feels, for the first time since he arrived, like he might have found himself a strand on that web. 

*

“Xavier’s been my favorite of the lot,” Maran says casually.

They’re at a shit campus in between Benji’s classes. The lettuce in his sub sandwich is wilted and the bread is way dry, but it’s still a sandwich.

Benji, to anyone else, might not give anything away with that expression. It would be easy for the average assessor to look at him and see nothing more than his usual stoney expression. Post-class funk. But Maran knows it’s bitchy. 

“Alright.”

“Aw, c’mon. Me bein’ friends with the lad doesn’t stop you from shaggin’ him sideways up here.” Maran taps his temple. “Let us have a friend, hey?” 

Benji looks near explosive. But he’s also too tired to argue, much less in public, so he just keeps glaring stonily while Maran finishes his food. And then, channeling their mutual friend, steals a few crisps off Benji’s plate. 

*

The next morning, Maran finds him sat — shoulders curved so more of a hunch, really — at the kitchen table. There’s a pile of weird looking squares set in front of him; some pale with an artificial gray tinge, pink, yellowish and nearly translucent. Even a few dark brown, shade of wet wood. 

“S’all that?” 

Benji glances up with his typically dismissive morning grunt. “Skin of the last prick who bothered me ‘fore ten.” 

Maran ignores this, because its really all you can do when Benji’s in a sour mood and trying to get attention about it. He reaches out to poke at one of the squares and wrinkles his nose at the texture. They’re plastic or silicone or something, with a strange and firm give beneath the pad of his finger. He learned how to do CPR when he was a teenager. For a bit after, he’d had nightmares of the mannequin. Fucking creepy, how they made it as close to human density as possible.

“Ewww.” He whines, peeking closer while pulling a face. “Why’s this one got all the gouges in it? Told you not to keep buying ‘em cheap offline.” 

Benji swats at him. He seems a bit too tired to really put up a fight about it, but still manages that nasty scowl. “Would you fuckin’ — shit, your mother never teach you to look with your eyes?” 

“Your mother.” Maran fires back, pokes his tongue out. Then he imagines Kay’s amused but stern face, and clamps his mouth shut. 

“They’re not tattoo skin.” Benji says. He gestures to the table. 

Only now does Maran notice the array of supplies scattered about. There’s a set of cloth-wrapped and plastic-tipped scalpels, unrolled like a set of artist brushes next to Benji’s elbow. And a roll of thread: this he peers a bit closer at, eyes narrowing to determine if Benji’d ransacked his sewing kit. The spool looks more wiry than fabric thread. It has a slight oily sheen, indicated smooth, maybe plastic, thickness. 

“What’re you, makin’ Frankenstein monsters?” 

Benji opens his mouth, but Maran hears the voice he’s about to quote in his own head. Matilda’s pretty tone, with that hint of back of the throat girly vocal fry. 

“Frankstein’s the guy, dumbass, not the experiment.” Maran beats him to it. Rather good impression, if it were up to him to judge.

His best friend snorts, which tells him it was probably accurate. Then he holds up his left hand, where thumb and index pinch a needle. A fucking scary one, long and curved like a crescent moon.

“Oh,” he says suddenly, glancing up. “Forgot to tell you. Got an exam prep group tomorrow ‘round noon. Won’t be in after your shift. Xavier said he won’t be in but you’re welcome to—”

Maran goes from pouting to grinning at the mention of their friend. 

*

While they were dating, Maran spent a lot of afternoons dozing on Fiadh’s soft, expensive sectional.

Now after an exhausting shift at the pool, Maran naps on Xavier’s couch. 

And, honestly, it’s not even a fraction as comfortable as that fuzzy beige cloud on the other side of town. One of the more wholesome moments during their relationship had been the time they’d tried to fuck on it: Fiadh sat in his lap and stifling laughter as Maran sunk into the cushions, unable to get any sort of leverage to move, embarrassed at first then just laughing about the whole thing, too. 

Maybe the best part of Xavier’s couch is that it isn’t in an empty flat. Benji has never been the type to leave a note when he’s off, or even text, or even give Maran more than a grunt when he’s leaving or returning. Meanwhile, three people and usually some visitors rotate Xavier’s place. Maran rarely wakes up from his couch naps to silence:

Someone in the kitchen. Music from Lark’s room, or the sounds of him arguing with Matilda. Sometimes he wakes to Xavier flopping on top of him, turning the television, stomping home from his own job with awful electronic music blaring from his phone. It’s a good, noisy orchestra that edges out the loneliness that he really won’t blame Benji for - he’s been kind enough to host, to spend as much of his meager free time with Maran as possible, and it’s just not his fault…

Promise it’ll get better ‘round May, everything starts slowin’ down  and people take summer gigs n’ we’lll have time before you got to go. 

I’m fine, mate, fuckin’ hell! I get up to it, not like I just sit here waitin’ around? What’dy call an arsehole thinks he’s the center of the universe? Benji. 

With a soft whuff of breath, Maran pulls himself up from the couch. He feels loosely achy, the sign of a poor nap even if he slept hard. Reflexively, he swipes at the corner of his mouth for drool. The headache and after-work soreness that prompted him to lay down in the first place suddenly feels like it’s gone from a soft pulse to bony knuckles digging into his temple. 

He needs a shower. Pain meds, maybe. 

The rise to his feet is more of a peel of his body from the cushions. He goes like an unfurling ribbon; the curve starting from the small of his back and his head lifting and arms shooting into the air. 

Must be what gum feels like, gettin’ tracked about on some poor bastard’s shoe. The mental image makes him giggle softly, groaning and stretching and trying desperately to pull some sort of oxygen into all the stiffness.

Maran stops in the hall to grab towels from the linen closet (one of the only organized storage areas in the whole place, mostly thanks to Xavier and his penchant for everything-in-its-place, especially if it’s somewhere someone might snoop). 

On the fourth shelf down, there’s a spare plastic bin. It’s missing its matching lid, but Xavier’s sharp, boyish and boxy scrawl has labeled it MARAN. Inside: a folding blue travel toothbrush, floss, a detangling pick, tweezers, and even a few condoms tucked in a box of Spongebob bandaids. Looking into the box unfurls a tight knot in his chest that he hadn’t realized was there; there’d been a dream, during his nap. Hadn’t there? Impressions of scenes poke behind his eyes as Maran takes a coarse spare towel and fingers the threads. It couldn’t have been a good dream, but it couldn’t have been bad either if looking at something lovingly crafted for him - just a simple, sparse box of toiletries with his name on it - was enough to lessen whatever nastiness lingers.

And then Maran notices the music. 

He blushes for some reason, feeling embarrassed about having such selfish, babyish focus of himself had distracted him from music that loud. 

He recognizes the beat, which is really on a skill he picked up after two decades of friendship with Benji. And the artist, too — maybe Tears for Fears? Or something else heavy with synth and 80s-laced reverb. He thinks of Matilda immediately, because that sort of shit really is in her wheelhouse. Something she’d dance to in her room -

And he blushes harder there, because it’s not like he makes a habit of imagining Matilda, or spends a particular amount of time thinking about Matilda dancing or her bedroom itself, it’s just her style, right, so -

The beat is making his foot tap as he listens. He shuffles a bit, a lazy dance, as he meanders down the long, sunset-lit hallway towards the only full bath in the apartment. It’s the one with the heavy door - Benji’s flat is cheap, newer construction and these doors are real wood, fuckin’ bricks —

It swings open and slams against the wall with a loud bang!

Loudly. Loud enough that something on a kitchen shelf rattles. Loud enough Maran’s shoulders draw towards his ears. Loud enough sick, twisting nostalgia spreads panic up his chest and has his ears red.

A second passes. There’s no stomping feet, no blaming yell throughout the house. Actually, there’s less noise - the music stops. 

It picks back up a second later to something Maran is much more familiar with. 

“Hey-o,” Maran announces himself, just in case the slammed door hadn’t done the job properly. 

No response.

“Uh. Maran. Benji’s, uh, I was - I’m gonna use the loo, s’alright? Need to shower. If that’s—-” Silence. “Well, right. Love N.W.A.!”

Still no response. Maran isn’t nearly as acquainted with Lark and Xavier’s roommate so there in’t a logical reason he should feel so wounded by the cold-shoulder.  Strangers, aren’t they? Friends-of-friends, only just; met once or twice, polite and in passing at the front door or outside at a party. Always opposites, coming or going. He shouldn’t feel so sore about being ignored. As respectfully as he can pass judgment, Maran figures the lad looks the type. Always in big chunky boots and a dismissive, slack expression around a cigarette. Type to ignore. 

Except:

“Passed the fuck out on our couch again, huh?” The music touches down a notch to accommodate the closed bedroom door. “You b-break in this morning or something?”

“Oh.” Maran laughs sheepishly and drops his forehead to the towel. “Fuck, sorry. Yeah, kinda? Xavier said I could, because Benji’s place - it’s closer than his, ‘cause I work up at the -“ His words pinch off.  

Fiadh’s shrewd observations linger just under his skin. Thinking of the country club makes him think of her, which makes him sad, which makes his cheeks burn and his eyes sting. He’s not even that broken up about it, not really. But his face feels hotter. He rubs it into the towel. Keeps going, even after it starts to hurt. It’s a good distraction from the thoughts that rotate around in his brain, and he’d rather do that than dump his issues on a stranger.

“Uh.” He snorts, self conscious. “Anyway, long morning. Unless you need to, I mean, s’your house mate - I’ll just be quick?” 

Silence again. The music kicks up a little louder, then louder, then so much it probably can be heard in the adjacent units. 

Maran scowls, giving up.

 “Prick.” 

Unless you’ve got something nice to say in his mum’s voice, but Maran is exhausted - so he snaps it a bit louder than he ought to, even with the loud music. 

*

He’d like to linger for awhile under the cold spray, just on principle. Rude host, he’s overwarm from the nap and being in the heat all day. But halfway through undressing he realizes his phone’s out on the couch, that he’s in another person’s home. And then Maran is far too embarrassed to go retrieve it, but loud music would be nice because loud music meant no loud shower thoughts, and he’s rather liked going without those, lately.

So as promised, he keeps his shower quick. 

When Maran is done and relatively dry, he peeks his head out to confirm that the bedroom door’s still shut. It is. Relieved, he darts back out to the couch. 

He could go home. 

He should. 

He’s already spent long enough on a friend’s couch, today and the whole of the past two weeks. Probably overstaying. Definitely overstaying.

Except when he gets back to the living room, there’s an immediate contrast between the strong air con (chills his damp skin) and the lingering warmth of his body on the cushions. Maran lands, the television goes on and he loads up a game but the couch is warm and he finds he can’t even reach for his phone. Because he just —

He passes the fuck out again. 

*

“Hey.” 

He’s swimming. His strokes feel lazy, yet hurried; his muscles can’t seem to decide if they push through gelatin or air.  Someone is calling him. Maybe his name from a significant distance. There is a bodily sensation of being far-off from this voice, although it sounds close. Away, but somehow vibrating his bones; as if the owner is at the other end of an indoor pool, watching him lazily travel down a lap lane.

A response sits on his tongue, but if he opens his mouth he’ll get water in his lungs, and he’ll drown, and — 

“Hey, man. Wake up.” 

Oh. I’m asleep?

The edge of the water rushes up to meet him with an immediacy only native to dreamscapes. Spits him out. Instead of hefting himself over a tile edge, or wading up a lake shore, Maran simply tips over. 

Tips… out?

*

He wakes up in the middle of that strange post-dream falling sensation, his shoulders tight. Body stiff, then as consciousness grabs him, liquid relaxed. 

“Jesus. Jumpy fucker, aren’t you?”

Maran tips his head back, dangling upside down over the armrest. 

Benson stand a few feet away beneath the dark archway that separates living room from orange-wood dated kitchen. His jaw is working around a mouthful of food. An icy focus drifts from Maran’s dramatic awakening to the idle pause screen on the television.

Maran follows it, blinking blurry specks out of his vision.

“Oh,” he says like an apology. He sits up too quickly, so he gets a spinning head as he reaches for the remote. 

Benson observes him. Still expressionless, except maybe now with a hint of curiousity, still chewing. He’s got a stark black tattoo on the side of his neck - a scorpion? - whose stinger twitches almost menacingly when he swallows.

“Sorry.” Maran fills the awkward silence. “Been tryin’ to beat this puzzle for like a week, doin’ this speed run when m’not at work, so I showered, right, told you. Sorry, must seem so dodgy just bein’ here still, I—”

Benson rolls his eyes. “Relax, man. Your stress is fuckin’ infectious.”

Rude, Maran thinks, and then suddenly remembers one of their only prior conversations. Funnily, in almost the same exact scenario:

Maran had, undoubtedly, been a bit drunk. Last one to leave a party Xavier had hosted in this very flat, maybe waiting for Benji. Had draped himself impatiently over the couch in a position that made his spine hurt the morning after. Head over the edge, attempting a headstand, one shoe on the cushions and the other swinging dangerously in the air. 

Benson had entered his blurry, spinning vision. Venomously hissed at Maran to get his feet off the couch. He’d done so immediately, because -

Well, actually…had that been Xavier? No, it was this guy. Xavier wouldn’t have laughed mean like that.

“Mate. Hey.” Maran chirps, tipping further back to cast crossed-eyes at Benson. He kicks a socked foot up. “No shoes this time, see?”

Benson stares at his face, then at his leg in the air, then his face again. His eyes are narrowed. They’re so light, it’s sort of hard to tell where they focus actually. It makes Maran nervous, like when he’s trying to tell a joke to people wearing shades. Can never properly gauge their reaction.

“W-Where’s your plus one?” Benson drawls. He reaches up and bites into an apple Maran hadn’t even realized he was holding. Green one.

Who the fuck likes green apples that much? Maran stews, annoyed at the insinuation that he’s got to have Benji with him at all times. Like he needs a chaperone. Only people who like green ones that much are pricks, right? Those are for baking, fuckin’ awful snack choice. Fuckin’ sour, not sweet at all.

He stands up and starts gathering his phone and key ring and moves to unplug his Switch from the television. 

“I go places without Benj.” Maran says, trying not to sound contrite or moody. When he turns, Benson sweeps an arm around the room. 

“Clearly. Not here now.” Another bite of the apple. “He leave you unsupervised often?”

Maran was trying to keep a polite smile. It drops entirely. “I’ve got a life of my own, yeah? Job and everything.”

Benson snorts, which is even more infuriating. Maran feels angry heat begin to creep up his neck. Settling at his cheeks. He’s sore enough as is, then shower hadn’t washed all of the exhaustion and heat of the day, and he really doesn’t have the mental energy to deal with such a fucking vibe killer at the moment. 

“You’re acting pretty p-put out for a guy who was asleep on my couch.” 

It’s Xavier’s couch, Maran wants to snap at him. And Xavier said I could sleep there, so fuck you.

“Well I’m not anymore, yeah? No worries, mate, I’ll get outta here.”

Except the front door is on the other side of the kitchen, down the hall. Maran has to go through Benson to get there. Benson, who is still. Who probably, judging from the mean, sneering smile on his face, also knows Maran needs to get past him to leave.

“What’s the rush?” He lifts his wrist to check his watch, doing so with as much smug laziness as anyone’s ever done it. Maran is quickly starting to hate him, and feeling guilty for it because this is a friend of Xavier’s, of Lark’s, and he likes those two plenty. 

“No rush.” Maran says. He holds all his shit - drawstring work bag with sunglasses, his phone and charger, his switch, his key to Benji’s flat - closer to his chest. “I want to be alone in my own place?”

“Oh. Your place.” Benson takes another bite. The apple’s only core, now. Instead of moving to the trash can, Benson casts a glance over his shoulder and tosses it in. If Maran weren’t so intent on disliking him at the moment, he would be impressed. 

“Right. Oh. So—”

“Didn’t know Benji put you on the lease?”

Maran bristles. He is not on the lease. He can’t be on the lease, technically. He doesn’t even think Benji’s allowed to have a long term guest. 

Right when he opens his mouth to retort, to maybe get snappy with this guy, to tell him to get the fuck out of Maran’s way and make future social gatherings awkward, a phone rings. 

Stock ringtone, license-free. More aggravating than the Calm Tropical Marimbas it’s probably named. Benson stares at Maran a moment longer before reaching into his back pocket. The way he holds the screen, Maran can see it reads: Matilda. 

*

“I check myself out every time I pass a mirror.” Matilda flips a page in her magazine. “Or window. Reflective surface.” She peeks at him with a glance Maran could not even begin to hope to decode. “Don’t you? You have enough reason to.”

It’s…a compliment? He thinks it is, anyway. Maran opens his mouth. Then he thinks about doing exactly what she’s suggesting and suddenly gets so itchy and uncomfortable that he has to huff a breath. 

“No? Course not? Just want an opinion.” 

“Why?”

He shrugs helplessly, regretful that he asked her. Fuckin’ evil, with her insightfulness and inability to let something go. “Well, just, somebody else’s gonna be an expert?” 

“On looking at men?” Matilda’s lips twitch. “Ask Benny.” 

He snorts. “Ben?”

She holds up two fingers. “Benson. Experience. Asshole. He’ll tell you the truth.” There is a different, but equally as unreadable, expression on her angular face. 

*

Her picture on Benson’s phone screen is that same expression. Eyes glinting, smile demure but confidently sharpened.

Benson, still watching Maran, thumbs the answer button. 

“Hi Matilda.” Maran chirps out of reflex, and then his mouth stays slack as the two men stare at each other.

“Maran?” Her voice is still somehow pretty and comforting over the phone. She sounds confused, but happy to hear him. “You’re with Ben?”

“He’s not with me.” Benson jumps in before Maran can answer. Tone decidedly annoyed; Maran’s smile flattens. “You know this guy just shows up places without invites?” 

“I was invited.” Maran hisses, glaring. “You’re not the only one who lives here, dic—“

“Whoa.” Matilda laughs. “Boys, please. Save it. I called to ask a favor that’s like, way more important than whatever is going on there.”

Based on his behavior, Maran expects that Benson will give her a curt no, maybe even laugh and hang up. Instead he sighs good-naturedly and leans a shoulder against the doorway’s trim. Still fucking staring at Maran.

“Anything for you, princess.”

Maran breaks their glare and shuffles a few inches away. He has little choice; can’t leave without shouldering past Benson and causing a scene Matilda might hear, relay to other people. He doesn’t particularly feel like picking a fight, either. So he leans on the opposite side of Benson, legs kicked out to take up as much space as possible.

“I’m at - okay, don’t judge, but you remember that bitch Grace?” And then Matilda launches into a short recap of some drama that Benson nods through. His face softens incrementally until, at one point, he even laughs. Maran watches but keeps his face downturned, not willing to give any more attention to this prick than he already has. 

After a moment: “So - Grace.”

“Oh!” Matilda laughs, pausing mid sentence. “Right. Anyway, so I’m at her house. For a party.”

“Uh-huh.”

“For her birthday party.”

Benson whistles.

“And I think I forgot her present in Lark’s room when I left this morning.”

Maran’s cheeks heat a little at that, shuffling awkwardly. He can feel BEnson watching him, still, and an itch breaks out across his shoulders - sunburn? bug bites? 

God, he wants to leave. 

“And you would be like,” Benson adopts an airy, valley girl tone, which considering his timbre and Matilda’s feminine rasp, actually results in a pretty good impression. “So grateful towards whichever hero ferried this forgotten package across the Styx and like, delivered it unto mine grateful bosom, or whatever.” 

There’s a brief pause. Then: “Ew. Pervert. Do you need the address?”

“Nah.” Benson drawls. “It’s that big ugly adobe style house out in the hills, right?” 

“Oh my God, right? It’s so fugly.” Her tinkling laugh. “Actual McMansion, but worse.”

“Fifteen.” Benson promises. He lifts a finger to tap the screen and Maran straightens, excited that he’ll be moving and gone which means Maran can move and go, fucking finally. 

“Maran?” Matilda asks.

Both men freeze in place.

“Yeah, Til?”

“You’re coming, right? You’re not busy?  It’s such a quick drive and I haven’t seen you in like a week.”

Maran feels his cheeks get hotter when one of Benson’s brows quirks. He gets a couple of deep wrinkles in his forehead when it does that. 

“Um. Well, I haven’t got - I only have my bike still, and that’s like-“

“What?” Matilda laughs. “Oh my God, don’t bike here, just ride along with Benny.” She snorts. “I know it’s ugly too, but it’s faster than a bicycle, Jesus.”

“She’s not fucking ugly.” Benson snaps, “And just for that you’re n-not getting shit from me.” 

“Really?”

Benson stares at Maran. Maran blinks back. 

“No. Fine. Cunt.” 

“Mwah,” Matilda blows a kiss, and then she cuts the call quicker than Benson tries to hang up on her. He swears under his breath and then pushes out of his lean, directing the residual ire at Maran with a glare. 

“Go put your fuckin’ shoes on, or you can bike.” 

And Maran does. 

*

There’s no attached garage to the apartment building, like Fiadh’s place had. But there is a lot nearby, which Benson leads them to with hands in his pockets and a smoke burning between his teeth. Maran follows for what has to be the longest elevator ride down and thirty second walk down the block. The lot is full of mostly shitty cars, a few flat tires and mismatched doors, bumpers that are so damaged they’re missing chunks and dents that look like wadded up paper. Even the lot itself looks in disarray, concrete splitting to allow weeds and water amongst the crumbles. He can’t believe his eyes at the rates on the sign posted at the entrance. 

“Scam.” 

“Yup.” Benson pops the end, leading Maran down a few rows to the back of the lot. There’s one line of cars in the back that are sheltered by a rusty sheet metal canopy, and when Benson suddenly stops in front of one Maran nearly trips.  

“Whoa.” Maran breathes. He doesn’t know much about cars, much to Xavier’s frequent disappointment, but he does know this one’s old. Looks it, anyway. And as he’s come to find out, also thanks to Xavier, old means cool. 

(And expensive to maintain.)

“This is yours?” 

Benny stops at the driver’s side door. His head drops back, neck loose like a broken doll. He sighs so loud it echos off the canopy.

“You’re this close to walking.” 

“I could.” Maran says, feeling peeved for a reason he can’t quite place. Maybe it’s he sounds whiny to even himself. 

He’s staring at the car, still. There’s a strange and perhaps bitter twist in his gut. This is Benson’s car. It’s a nice car. It’s old - expensive to maintain and in pretty good condition. He plucks at the tips of his fingers to crack the lowest knuckle (mum in his head, your worst trait, stop that, do you want arthritis at thirty?) and resists the urge to pace around the vehicle. 

Maran doesn’t have a car. He’d really like one. Doesn’t have a license. He’d need one. But even back in the UK, Maran drives without the proper documentation. He learned to drive in Carini one summer; drove nonno’s Piaggio around while nonna gave him laughing - and at times panicked - instructions.

The Piaggio was not in good shape. Or old. Or well-maintained.

He wants one of these: something cool and masculine that people want to look at. To ride in. Maran wants a mysterious, smart person’s job in a vague lab on a college campus. Could he pull off leaning (real American, that, the lean) against some pre-80s car, could he pull off a bomber jacket? Could he pull off cool? 

He must make a face - must be too quiet or staring - because Benson’s own expression pinches with grimacing impatience. Somehow, he still still looks put together and cool that way, too.

“Walk?” Benson head swivels. He squints at the meager amount of sunlight coming in through the parking garage’s concrete slats. “End of spring heatwave? Eighty-five b-before noon? Get the fuck in the car.”

Maran does.

*

On the way to Matilda’s not-friend’s birthday party, up in the rich people neighborhood of the hills, Benson swears and realizes they need petrol. They pull into a place just a few minutes away from their destination.

Although several heads swivel to stare, the attention doesn’t bother Maran as much as it seems to Benson. Maran is grateful for the break. They’d spent the majority of the ride in painful fucking silence, the only noises filling the cabin being the hum of the car and Benson’s gear shifting. The car was old enough there was no Bluetooth connected to the radio, only a handful of CDs crammed into a crate on the passenger side floor that Maran was too nervous to look through, much less make a request. 

Still, for the whole drive, Benson had tapped a thumb against the steering wheel as he drove. Mad, mean bastard probably heard music all the time. 

So when Benson gets out to fill up the tank, Maran is looking forward to the break. Except, instead of silently filling the car, Benson rounds the hood and slaps the passenger side roof so loud Maran jumps.

“Well?” 

Maran blinks up at him. He hasn’t even taken his seatbelt off. He can’t see Benson’s whole face from the inside of the car, just his jaw and the tattoo that winds up his throat. 

“Well? I - do I - you want me to pay?” Maran starts to reach for his wallet. 

Benson’s laugh is sharp, loud, and surprised. “What? No, man. I mean. If you want to give me money, I’ll take it. B-But I need to pay inside.” There’s an awkward moment where his mouth does something funny that Maran can’t dissect. “Plus if I don’t show up on time, Matilda’ll string me up. And don’t get me wrong. Hot, probably. But I think I have at l-least five more years left before I’m ready to go.”

Snacks? Maran’s brain blinks hopefully at him. GoGoGo. 

*

He doesn’t even get a break in the petrol station. The tacked-on convenience stores here always entranced Maran, mostly becuase there was just such an array of shite food. And some had little ice cream stands attached to all the colorful noise. 

Instead, Benson pre-pays for petrol quickly at the counter and then finds Maran wandering the candy and crisp aisle. He already has a Fanta bottle in his hand. 

“I’ll get that.”

 Maran waves grateful but dismissive. He laughs, too, but it’s nervously loud. Hopefully not so much so that anybody else in the shop needs to turn their head and look. He doesn’t want to embarrass Benny. 

(Doesn’t want to take his money, doesn’t want to seem like he needs the handout, doesn’t want to seem like he can’t manage. Doesn’t want to seem needy. And definitely doesn’t want to give this prick any fodder.) 

“M’good, mate. Thanks for offerin’.” 

He goes to scoot past. To wait at the door, to not be in the way. But Benson doesn’t move from the end of the aisle, mirroring the impasse they’d had in the apartment not ten minutes ago. 

Maran blinks up at him, at an honest loss on what to do. The other man takes up the whole lot of the aisle, actually; he seems bigger under the fluorescence, in the thick-soled combat boots. Maran hasn’t noticed them before. Until this afternoon, they really only have interacted in passing:

Let me at the cooler.

Oh, shit. Sorry, Benny, right? Howsit?

Fine. Party’s too loud but I haven’t killed myself yet, so. 

…Oh, yeah? Okay, sound. 

Maran swallows. They’re not under dizzying party strobes or night-lit bar neon or the dated yellow of his flat or dim car headlights. So Benson is very clear. Very…right there. He’s kind of fucking scary.

You’re being fucking strange, man, Maran tells himself. He shakes it off with a grin.

“Uh. I’m gonna—”

Sharp, icy eyes roll up and then lock on him again. Benny gestures at the wall of fogged coolers.

“Jesus, I don’t have all night. Matilda will kill me. I’m b-buying, so go fuckin’ pick something fast.”

“But—“

“Go.” His arms cross. “Or I’ll stand here until the cashier freaks and kicks us out.”

Hot, bubbling annoyance flashes in his gut. He scowls and then immediately thinks of his mum reprimanding him for being impolite, to remember his manners. That’s all it takes to deflate him; the memory of her sharp eyes and furrowed brow. He misses her so much.

“Brick fuckin’ wall. Brains of one, too. Stubborn as.” Maran mumbles under his breath. Then, loud and forcibly polite: “Thank you very much.”

But he’s still not ready to give the whole lot of it up, so when he’s turned at the cooler, somehow aware he’s still being watched, Maran flashes a middle finger behind him. 

And there’s no real guarantee he hears it (some Cardi B song is blaring over the store speakers, distracting him as much as the ad playing on the television above the coolers, the jingle from the speaker on the shaved ice machine, America is one big fucking loud distraction really) —

There’s no real guarantee, anyway, but Maran swears that middle finger earns him a laugh.

* 

If he’s going to be bullied with generosity, Maran’s going to take advantage out of spite - he picks a bag of barbecue crisps he’s not yet tried, a bag of sour gummy…things, and an energy drink. When he meanders back to the front register, Benny’s stood chatting at the cashier. 

“—if you have any cans?” He’s saying as Maran approaches. The young woman behind the counter looks tired, but hasn’t really blinked away from Benny yet. She’s chewing gum slowly - just not as slow as her eyes pan to the ground, his nasty combat boots, and back up. 

“We only have bottles.” She chirps. She sounds out of town, maybe a student from another state. Maran’s only good at picking out Xavier’s weird east coast slush of sounds and the real deep Southern thing from movies - the drawl that occasionally slips out of Naima. 

Benny turns to look at him. Gives him a can you believe this? look and shake of his blond mop. “B-Bottles.” He turns back to the girl. “I’m trying to save the planet.”

The cashier scoffs and takes his card, begins ringing their haul; cigarettes in the red and white package, Maran’s food, a chocolate bar with a video game discount code. Whatever lingering appraisal she had been giving Benny flashes away from her expression in favor of retail annoyance.

“Hurry up.” She wiggles her fingers for his card. “I want to take my fifteen.”

Benny snaps into stiff military posture and salutes her. Maran’s left to stare at the climbing number on the little pin pad. 

“Well. Weather’s nice.”

She makes a half-hearted noise. 

“You off early tonight at least? Get to enjoy it?”

She glances up at him frigidly. “I’m trying to go on my break.”

Benson flashes her a sharp, toothy grin that does nothing to charm her mood back into order. Maran cringes at the attempt.

*

Back in the car, Benson opens the backseat and drops a pile of candy near the birthday present they’re couriering. Maran drops into the passenger seat and pauses as he reaches for his seatbelt.

 “Thanks,” he says, pointing to the candy bar. “But m’not really into the fruit stuff.”

Benny snorts, then pauses. Snorts again. He follows it up by putting one (tattooed, silver ring, pale, black-painted) finger onto the chocolate and sliding it away from Maran’s pile of snacks.

“Bit premptuous,” he mocks snidely, the accent pulling less Scouse and more New Yorker bombing at improv night. “That’s not for you, Pinkie Pie.”

Maran feels his lips part so he snaps his mouth shut, jaw clenched. “Fuckin’ sorry?”

“I said, don’t be greedy.” Benson jams his key into the ignition and twists it, drops his forehead violently so the sunglasses perched in his pale hair drop to his nose. He’s still got that creepy grin on. “Not everything’s about y-you.”

*

They’ve got a few minutes left when that fucking Calming Marimba shit starts going off again. Maran still uncomfortable, hasn’t even touched his snacks, so the fact that it just goes and goes make him increasingly itchy.

After another minute or so, he glances into the backseat. It’s still ringing.

“Should answer it,” he points out, trying not to beg. “Might be an emergency?”

“I d-don’t have emergencies.” Benson grumbles. Then he swears, relenting, under his breath. “Check the name for me.”

Maran has to lean over the center console a bit to crane his neck. He tries very hard to ignore how much smaller the interior of the car feels, all of a sudden. 

“Um. Bun….Bunny?” He laughs. “Sullivan, Bunny?”

The wheel creaks under Benson’s new grip. “Fuckin’ — fine. Answer it.”

Maran glances back at him. Then retrieves the phone. 

Ringring, ringringring. 

He lets the weight rest in his hand. It’s an older model in a massive, heavy duty case. No cracks on the screen, no real wear or dings on the case. His case, by contrast, looks like it might have survived the impact of a bomb. 

Maran taps the green circle.

Benson leans into his space to talk at the phone, even though Maran’s got it on speaker and the mic’s good enough there isn’t really a need. He finds that sort of charming, for some reason. Real boomer shit, like the pristine, indestructible case.

“Ehhhh...W-What’s up, doc?” 

Alright Bugs, Maran mouths, stifling a laugh. At the same time, the caller offers:

“Your complete and utter lack of talent never ceases to amaze me, Benson. You’ve had, oh, twenty fuckin’ attempts at that bit? Committed to bombing every time. Maybe next try you should rent a rabbit costume and skip into the woods peak hunting season. Really get into character. ” 

Maran’s jaw drops. Personally he’d be in tears, getting talked to like that.

But Benson laughs. “Rabbit s-season. Fire.” 

“Answer my question.” 

He rolls his eyes and shoots Maran a look that seems more annoyed-with-lighthearted-banter than genuine insult or hurt.

“I was ignoring your text purposefully. No, I’m not at the fuckin’ lab.” He sighs. “It’s Friday.”

“Not like you have a life.” 

“Right. But still somehow looks b-better than yours.” Benson turns the wheel slowly, bringing them into the neighborhood of Matilda’s party. “On the other side of that hill.”

There’s a pause, and then some sort of shuffling or airy sound on the line. It’s hard to tell with the loud noises of the road, the soft hip-hop beat on the radio that he’d turn down before Maran picked the call up. 

“Get that shitty piece by Miller and Jameson off my desk when you’re on campus this weekend. Ah-ah, I know you will be. Mooney’s — that cafe on fifth you’re too poor to patron — leave it with Wendy the hostess and I’ll pick it up on Sunday.”

The call cuts.

“She sounds nasty.” Maran says after a beat.

Benson laughs, full and loud. “She fuckin’ is. Among other things.”

He pouts. “Benji had a teacher back in secondary — high school —“

“I know what secondary is.”

“— and she was so fuckin’ awful to him, swear down. Real targeted shit.” He crosses his arms and watches the street blur by. “Failed her class twice, never said shit just kept retakin’ it. I think she finally just got tired of torturin’ him and let him go, no fun without the reaction.”

Benson makes a thoughtful noise, but doesn’t fill the silence that follows. 

After a moment: “He dropped right at the end of term. Behavior n’ fightin’ stuff. Almost done.” A woman in clean, expensive yoga pants walks her fuzzy golden lab past a coffee shop, a avoiding a tired-loooking man who wavers as he walks and drinks from a paper bag-wrapped bottle. 

Maran’s frown depends. Then, he offers the secret he hasn’t even told Benji. “I keyed her car at the end of term.”

That laugh again. This time louder, barking, delighted. For the first time since he started driving, Benson goes one-handed on the wheel. The other claps Maran’s shoulder and shakes him nearly out of the passenger seat.

“No fuckin’ shit. You a bad kid, Liverpool?” He whistles, shakes Maran, and then lets go and sucks his teeth. “Stay b-back. I don’t run in those crowds anymore.”

“Can I roll down the window.” Maran asks weakly. His stomach is flipping, and the heat’s getting to him.

It’s another slow few minutes, car carving up a winding hill, before either of them speak again; Benson, because he’s bobbing along to a song he seems to enjoy and Maran, because he’s still got his face stuck out the window trying to suck down cool air. 

“Why’d you t-t-tell me that story?”

“Hm?”

“About Benji, that teacher.”

Maran pulls himself back into the car with a frown. He dodges a glance towards the driver’s seat, not quite looking at Benson but out his window, skating off his hands on the wheel, the wrong-sidedness of it. 

“Because your —whatever she is? Teacher?”

A pale hand see-saws in the air. “Eh. Sort of. Advisor.” 

Maran blinks at him, waiting for an explanation. 

“Like a…mentor? She’s not in the same department. Fuck, not even the same college at the university b-but she’s been— so it’s not really…” Benson trails off, casts some strange sort of look Maran’s way. “You were saying.”

“Too many wankers in the school system.” Maran finishes. “Nobody should get treated like that.” You should key her car, he doesn’t add.

*

Benson doesn’t speak again until they’ve pulled up at the — what had Matilda called it — McMansion?

He masterfully aligns the car to the curb and then lays on the horn for a full two seconds longer than he really should. Up the brick-paved, tree-lined street, a dog begins to bark. They house they’ve parked in front of is pretty ugly, Maran decides. But you can’t see much of it from the road. The drive extends into a clump of trees, just beyond a hedge that further encapsulates the property.

Maran whistles.

“I hate rich people.” Benson complains. He leans back to grab the present, coming directly into Maran’s space in the process. There’s a lingering beat where he pauses to peer at Maran from behind the red-tinted glasses. Then his eyes drift to the side, and a soft grin pulls his mouth. Nowhere near the nasty, sneering thing he’s been sporting all afternoon. 

“Except that one.” 

Matilda is a distant speck near the front of the house. Her stark red hair lifts her brightly against the beige tones of the home, one pale arm lifted to wave. A few other heads poke out of the doorway, most blonde or brunette. One’s blue, but ducks back inside the house as Matilda bounds down the path.

Benson gets out of the car, still running, and drapes arms over the iron fence separating the property from the sidewalk. Matilda tugs him into a quick, one-sided hug and takes the shiny metallic gift bag. There’s a chorus of oooohs from the house - Matilda turns to throw them the finger, and Maran is filled with intensely familiar affection.  

He tries not to eavesdrop on their conversation, because both Benson and Matilda drop their heads together to indicate it might be private. But:

“What did you do to get avoided?”

“Don’t I do enough for y-you?” Benson huffs. He leans back and shoves her face away with a palm to the forehead. “Stop prying.”

“Well I have to try you. She won’t divulge.” 

Something about the way Matilda purrs the word makes Maran blush. 

“Maybe because it’s none of your b-business,” Benson sings-songs. He nudges her away again. “Go away. You owe me.” 

“And you’ll end up doing another favor for me anyway.” She says haughtily. Then, tone cheerful and bright: “Oh hey, Maran! Glad to see you two are finally friendly.”

And whatever strange, nervous energy that possessed Maran for the drive up into the hills seems to be contagious, because the drive back into town is spent in similar silence. This time, it’s entirely on Benson’s end. He drives with both hands ten-two on the wheel, sat up straight, while Maran gets comfortable in the passenger seat and dolphins his hand out the open window, swimming it through early summer air. He even waves at a kid in backseat of a minivan at a red light.

“Why’d she say that?” Maran asks.

Benson grunts.

“That thing about - glad we’re friendly? Were people talkin’, or something? Did they not think we were, like, cool?”

“I don’t pay attention to that shit.” Benson says, offering nothing further.

The light turns green. Benson’s car lurches for the first time that evening, his boot not coming off the clutch with timing to make the gear shift smooth. Maran hums thoughtfully, then picks up the crate of CDs at his feet. 

“Well. I think you’re alright.” He offers, hoping it’ll be an effective olive branch. Then, distracted by an album he recognizes, he whoops excitedly and finesses it out of the cracked case and into the slot. 

Even the radio is well maintained. The sounds of a familiar 808 fill the car. And even though the song’s not over when they pull into the lot, Benson lets them idle under the canopy to finish it. 

Daniel’s out at the cemetary's manmade pond. Sat in the grass, never a care in the fucking world, but it’s not like it can stain their funeral black, so who gives a fuck?

Really, Vic thinks as he approaches, who gives a fuck?

“Not me.” 

Something seizes up in him for the briefest second. Who gives a fuck? Not me. He can’t stand the idea of someone else in his brain, in his thoughts. Mama teased him for being so bare-faced, so easy to crack when he tried to lie. Privacy is one of the last things he’s got, and Vic really would prefer not to lower it into the ground on the same day as their grandmother.

“Damn. Won’t fuckin’ be me.” Dan continues, though, so the universe rewards him with space for a relieved breath. 

Think your brother’s motherfuckin’ telekinetic? Vic could laugh, but there really would be no worse time. He imagines what a sight they make. Grown men — troubled men, Miss Cindy and the church crowd probably chirping about that — just sat in the grass. 

He glances down at Dan’s fingers. There’s a cigarette tucked in his sleeve, like he doesn’t want anybody to know. Like there’s not smoke curling up around them, hanging over them. 

(No breeze today. Stagnant air feels right. Nice weather would be an insult, would mean the earth was turning and everything was going along as-is, like everything hadn’t changed).

“What won’t be you?” He takes the cigarette from Dan before he even offers it. Watches bony knuckles rub against each other, trying to replace the filter’s orphaned weight between fingers. 

Dan gestures broadly. It’s just at the pond, but it’s not just at the pond: the whole acreage, the pokes of trees over the horizon, rolling hills beyond and everything else on the goddamn planet beyond that, the universe, whatever rests just past it.

It’s the crowd, too. She knew a lot of people. Dan doesn’t know a single one, besides family. And even then, barely them.

“Don’t know nobody.” The words squish together like mince in his mouth. Vic feels guilty for looking at him so close. Watch for the clenched jaw, the teeth grind, the tense of the neck, the whites of the eyes, is he sweating a normal amount, are those the anxiety shakes or the shakes shakes?

Vic flicks ashes and turns his chin. “Khalil’s over there with Miss Cindy. You remember him?” 

Dan snorts. He still hasn’t looked away from the pond. “Fuck no. You think I keep up with these clowns?”

“Hey.” 

A shrug. “I’m just sayin’.” The cigarette returns to its owner and is promptly sucked to the marrow. Vic pounds his back when he coughs. “Not gonna be me, Freddie.” 

He hasn’t gone by that name since he was a kid. Then again, they haven’t been around each other much since they were kids. Dan’s a city boy now. Big-time quick, no life faster in Houston. Had a Goliath or two to fight, seems like he might not have kicked them both. 

“That’s David.” 

“What?” 

Dan turns abruptly to look into the crowd. There’s an unreadable look on his face (eyebrows pinched, mouth flat, nostrils flared), but Vic doesn’t know him well enough anymore to gauge expressions like that. 

“David? Next to Khalil.”

Vic scoffs. “Man, that’s Greg. An— Abuela’s live-in, you don’t remember him?” 

The man in question is slim and Miami tan. He wears tailored pants that fit his ass a little too personally for a funeral and is weeping into a jewel-toned purple handkerchief. The cuffs of his suit jacket and rolled pant legs have the same color - bright enough Vic can see it from the hundred or so feet between them and the rest of the mourners.

“She went through them.” 

And she did. One after another. None of them had complained about her, but all of them had bounced on short notice after only a few months of service. Vic had never seen any of them hang around. Some of his friends had family that needed care (supervision, abuela called it all tongue-in-cheek). He’d heard from a few that, on occasion, the nurses and aides were happy to catch up with old clients. Take them out to breakfast, meet up with family for updates, even help with eventual passings. 

Grace, Hector, Yvonne, Sam, Lakeisha, Julian. Anyway, those were the names he could remember over the years. None of them he’d seen since the last time. Nothing for breakfast or updates. 

Except Greg. 

“Greg must be special.” 

Dan sucks his teeth. “He’s something.”

“Watch it,” Vic warns, sounding like mama. Not now, of course - she hasn’t said more than a word or two since abuela went on, and when she does decide to speak her voice is gritty and hoarse.

Speak in front of others, that is. Vic’s staying in the guest room. The kids’ old room, where the three of them - Annie Jay, Vic, Dan - would sleep most nights, along with maybe some cousins. Mama’s room is down the hall, between theirs, the little bathroom, and the stairs. 

Every night since he rolled back into town to attend to funeral needs, Vic’s heard mama mumbling to herself late at night. Her bare feet sticking slightly to the old, humid-fat wood floors. 

Sleepwalking. Sometimes: Mama, mama. Sometimes: Y tu también? Y qué hay de mí?

(And sometimes, even this, which Vic will not admit he hears, which he swears to God and whatever else is his own sleep walk, his own dream: Y qué hay con mi alma? Because it echoes sometimes, right down the hall to him: mi alma, mi alma, mi alma.)

“You think she’s still around?”

Another shiver passes over him. Vic pulls his jacket closed a bit more, unbuttons and rebuttons it like that’ll keep the late fall chill away a moment longer. 

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid.” Dan sounds angry. But when Vic looks at him, his face is blank. “You think we do that?”

“What?”

“Vic, man.” Dan fishes for another cigarette. Instead of pulling a pack out, he takes one. With a mean, hot twist of anger, Vic realizes that’s what he’s been doing all evening: going up to mourners, family, friends, community members. Not offering thanks or appreciation or sharing memories, but asking for fucking smokes.

“Vic, man, what?” He snatches the cigarette away. In his head, it tosses gracefully right into the pond. But Vic won’t start smoking for another three years now, so he doesn’t know how light they are. How hard to throw. It flings about five feet ahead and then settles in the wet grass. 

Dan swears at him colorfully and then jogs to get it. He doesn’t return to the spot next to Vic, to the flattened bit of greenery. 

That’s Daniel, Vic thinks meanly. Always leaving the impression, the afterimage, never fucking staying.

Dan turns then. “You think we ever really go? You believe all that shit, God takin’ us home?”

Vic wants to tell him yes. Wants to say yes more than anything. Let him have some comfort, let him fill the impression of himself with something if it can’t be his own body. That would be a comfort. That’d be a blessing, and isn’t that what God’s all about, anyway? Blessings and faith and comfort and going home?

No.

“Kinda.” Vic says. He looks over the pond, trying to find solace in his lie by way of the mosquitos beginning to descend in a buzzing crowd, the skippers that chase after, the frog song, the brush of green life at his ankles. Nature. More abuela’s style than gospel and devotionals and counting little beads, the way Italians went about God. 

“More every day. You gotta, believe, right? Otherwise what’s all this for?”

Vic’s speaking, not looking at Dan. He doesn’t catch the way his baby brother’s face shutters, the blank look in his eye. He’ll wish he had. 

*

He dreams her most nights. It’s comforting.

It’s terrifying.

In a little house. A parking garage. The alley of the apartment he remembers from kindergarten. The prairie sweep of eastern Texas, where she took him exactly once, at fifteen. And sometimes rising over the marsh mists, her arms spread like Jesus and legs billowed up in fabric - the pink-daisy print nightgown they’d debated burying her in.

She wouldn’t be caught dead in that, in front of everyone, he remembers mama saying. So she’d gone six feet under in a church dress Vic didn’t recognize, bounded and bundled in cloth (by a man of the cloth), sent off with hymns he never heard her sing, not once in all his years. Maybe even all hers, either. There was so much she hid from them.

When he started dreaming her, he selfishly hoped a little of all that would be revealed. When he started dreaming her, he expected answers.

Not more questions.

*

Five years later: 

“You gon’get tired of Miss Butler any day now, Jay.” He says. “What’s that, five-hundredth read?”

“Mind your business.” AJ volleys back. They flip a page in the loved book spread between their fingers, knuckle-twirling a grey-streaked coil. “Just mad your thick skull don’t allow for reading.”  

Vic snorts. Starts to throw his coat over one of the rickety kitchen chairs, has vision of mama in his head going una cuadra? una cuadra? and quickly thinks better of that. Her influence lingers, even if the scent of her left. Some comfort in that, he thinks. Scents and dreams.

“Where’d you go?” 

AJ’s abandoned the book (big, rare ask) in favor of catching him on the way into the front room. With loving, tacky palms they cradle his face. 

“Nowhere.”

“Not here,” they tease, although there’s a teeny, tiny serious note to it. Rarer than a book not being in their hands. “C’mon.” 

He swallows. It’s hard to look at AJ. He and Dan got the Pierce tossed earth stare, bit of green if you looked close. But AJ was all mama, aunties, abuela. That cherrybark oak - querus pagoda. Dark-black-cinnamon-brown, mama’d say, in a rush like a spell. All Calderón. 

Dan.

The cool palms on his cheek turn his face, so Vic takes the darkness behind his eyelids instead. 

“Being difficult.”

“S’that skull you whine about.” He says smartly. 

“Where?”

There’s no room to argue. Not when they’re on his ass like this. AJ’s a fucking hound about causing problems, making confrontation - if he wanted to be real nasty, he’d mention that being the source of at least two departed ladies. 

“I was thinking of Dan.” Vic says. He swallows roughly. “Danny, Danny. My Danny.” 

In his head, he sounds neutral and strong. In his head, his voice doesn’t waver at all. But with AJ cradling his face, standing with them in the matriarch’s home on floorboards they used to accidentally scratch and catch groundings on and sneak out past the squeaky ones and stain for abuela every other summer when the constant wet pulled the color off, Vic cries. 

And cries.

And cries.

AJ shushes him as long as they can, broad hands rubbing along his back like it’s just tender skin they’re trying to fend a bruise from. 

“I was thinking of mama.” AJ admits as he sobs into their shoulder. “And daddy. And being Annie, now.”

Vic’s throat hurts when he’s done. And there’s a shadow in the corner he can’t quite name, that the sun can’t quite touch, that stays there even when the ceiling light sways towards it and illuminates the rest of the room. 

“That’s a sign,” Vic decides out loud, burying his privacy six feet deep. AJ doesn’t speak. Or, if they do, Vic can’t - won’t - hear them. “I gotta get right by God. That’s the way? That’s how I live like this? I gotta get right?” 

And maybe then, only then, maybe after I give everything like they say and I’ve got nothing left to give and I’m right by God, God’ll get right by me.

Problem is that Vic won’t learn that peeking under rocks, looking for the answers of life, gives you all sorts of new questions. 

*

Five more: 

It isn’t official the way it oughta be. But if there’s one thing in this life that Vic knows, one question he has been able to answer, it’s about the topic of wayward children. They’re a problem until they’re gone. Then, they’re just gone.

He knows better than to put his faith in an omen, but the baby’s on his doorstep at three in the morning. On the dot. 

He’s not asleep when the knock comes. When the great, tinny chime of the electric doorbell floods the chapel-converted-bachelor pad. 

The big wooden door swings open. Not a soul besides the howling ones outside, weaving between heavy dollops of rain. Thunder cracks overhead, and the little bassinet starts making noise.

“Alright.” Vic says, new to this. Trying to reason. “Alright, I hear it. I hear you. Here we are. Come on in. Get you a drink?” 

Remarkably - predictably, at this point? - there’s not a corner of the baby’s shroud 

“This makes me Moses, huh?” He asks the little bundle, bounchign it gently. His eyes glaze and trail off to the side, and Vic frowns. “Nah, shit. That ain’t right. Moses was the baby. Heh, sorry kid. Know your folks probably thought they were doing right by you, but seems like you used the last of your luck to stay dry. Got saddled with a fraud.” 

Vic taps the white square at his throat with a wink. The baby stares up at him. It’s big, wet eyes are the color of cherrybark. 

“Hm.” Vic hums thoughtfully. His head feels full, fuzzy. There’s a shadow in the corner. Maybe a couple. He needs to re-salt.

Instead, in no rush, he tucks the blanket around soft brown cheeks, thumb passing over a dimple in one. “Querus pagoda.” 

It’s rare that anyone is invited to one of their outings. They’re not quite girls nights, because Nomi’s brow does a cute little furl at the label. Doesn’t quite apply, even if it gives each date a label Matilda knows she’s coveted since she was a kid. Girls night meant having friends, meant being invited and involved and wanted. Included. 

So on the off-chance that outsiders are invited, it’s usually not one of the boys. Xavier occasionally, if “out” means club or pizza. Benji, if it’s a quiet tag-along to the art store and cafe afterwards. Naima and-slash-or Mouse to dinner, Lark on one catastrophically memorable bar trip where Matilda had, of course, roped him into an argument after receiving a free drink from some weirdo regular.  

Maran hasn’t come with them. Yet. 

But Matilda is, if not anything else, very perceptive when it comes to her best friend. Nomi is about as elusive as they come. And while it might be easy to say she wants to untangle the mystery for the prestige of it, the bragging rights of understanding such a strange little creature…well, it’d be a lie. At the end of the day she wants Nomi happy. She’d do quite honestly anything to see that goal realized — as mushy and cringe and over-warm as admitting that makes her feel. 

As of late, Nomi has seemed the happiest and most herself when her little buzz cut shadow is following her around. Matilda is protective of Maran in a way that Benji probably relates to. But that protectiveness won’t stop her from putting him on a hook just for Nomi. He’s the perfect little colorful wriggling lure. 

She’ll settle for bragging rights of matchmaker. Even though their orbit around each other seems destined for an adorable, dorky collision.

Like now, at the shopping center food court, the two of them are leaned across the table into each others’ space. Nomi’s babbling about her latest convention trip — Atlanta or Nashville or something down south, where she’d been a national or regional or whatever finalist in a cosplay competition. Her manicured black fingernail taps along her phone screen, swiping picture after picture of costumes that Matilda has to begrudge as…really well-crafted. Unless it’s Nomi, or Xavier talking her to sleep with some NatGeo history documentary in the background, Matilda really prefers not to give nerds their flowers. 

Keeps them humble.

But she does love listening to Nomi regale the drama and politics behind the scene. She had no idea these sorts of activities could be so deliciously cutthroat. Trophies and titles and controversy, lying and cheating and sabotage? 

“Who knew a bunch of video game obsesseès could be cunty?”

“Oh man,” Maran says, tapping Nomi’s wrist to stop her swiping. “Is that a Soul Caliber one? That’s so good.” 

“That’s Josette.” Nomi says with a twist of admiration and spite that pulls Matilda’s full interest. “She’s just cunty.”

Maran’s eyes go big. “I thought that was good?”

“Bad cunty, Mar.” Matilda reaches across to pat his cheek. “Start taking notes.” 

Nomi pouts at the grid of gorgeously color-graded, professionally-taken, and expertly-posed pictures.

“Well I can’t bend that way.” She grumbles, lifting another mouthful of noodles. It’s certainly more difficult to chew with her chin propped in her hand, but somehow she manages — and looks cute, too.

“You shrimp sit in your chair for fourteen hours a day.” Matilda points out, voice overlapping with Maran’s exclamation:

“Flexibility is so important overall though, Noms.” He does a little arm-over-elbow stretch. Clearly, he thinks he’s being motivating. Matilda isn’t sure he realizes that he’s showing off. “Just a few minutes a day, like while you’re waitin’ for your tea or whatever. Helps out so much, promise. Posin’ too!” 

Matilda hms thoughtfully, sensing an opportunity. “Overall, huh?” She has the pleasure of watching the gears shift in Nomi’s head. 

“Posing flexibility.” She downs another too-big bite of noodles thoughtfully. “Well…Oh! D’you suppose it helps sex, too? Like positions? I’ve always had a few I wanted to try but—”

Matilda lifts a hand to her mouth, refusing to show her cards through the smirk. She loves when Nomi gets like this. Matter-of-fact but totally socially inept with her curiosity at play. She can’t help but glance their friend’s way — he’s faring much worse than amusement. 

Maran sits there with his jaw nearly unhinged, fork paused halfway to his mouth. He is going hilariously, incrementally red. 

“I would assume so,” Matilda says, but only after she pauses to gather herself. “Maran said overall health, right? Give it a month and I’ll bet you could—”

“Maran are you feeling alright?”

“Yes.” Maran stutters. Liar, Matilda thinks fondly. Fucking awful one.

“When’s the last time you got your blood pressure checked?” Matilda snickers. “Gotta be careful with the junk food. You can have all the flexibility you want but if it comes to blood pressure, sex is totally off the table.” She pauses, snorts. “No pun intended.”

“On the table,” Nomi says absentmindedly, as if she’s got a running list of positions she’d like to try and is adding to that. As if. Matilda knows she does. “Is that true about blood pressure and sex?”

“Girl, why do you think you’re always hearing stories about old men stroking out mid-stroke?”

“Why is your example always old men.” 

“You are so desperate to hear about my sexual escapades.” Matilda loftily teases. “Maybe you should try having some of your own?”

“I’m trying—”

Maran stands abruptly. They both look at him. 

“Mar?”

“You alright?”

“I need to go.” He blurts. Then somehow goes redder. “I mean I’ve got to piss.” His eyes widen, almost look teary. “I mean I’ll be right back I need—”

“Some air?” Matilda offers. She points towards the other end of the mall, where there’s a little atrium and open windows. Maran nods jerkily and then dashes in the wrong direction. They watch him stumble, look over his shoulder, avoid eye contact with either of them, and then rush past to go the opposite and correct direction. 

When he’s out of sight, Matilda levels Nomi with one of their patented Looks. 

“You’re going to kill him before you can test his blood pressure.” Matilda steals a bite of her remaining ramen. “Or flexibility.”

Nomi blinks at her. Owlish and pretty and totally fucking obtuse behind her giant glasses. 

“What was that about?” 

Benji scoffs into his tankard. His eyes find Bellara’s across the table, and so he raises a single brow. 

She doesn’t relent.

He sighs. “What?”

Playing obtuse won’t get him what he wants with someone who lives for the challenge of a new problem, a puzzle — he recognizes that look on her face. But it’ll certainly drag out the moment. Maybe enough precious time to work up something to say. Something he ought to say. Something acceptable. Expected. 

“That man.”

“What about him.” 

Her turn to quirk a brow. “He wanted to—” she drops her voice, blessedly aware of his preference for privacy, but delivers the rest of it with a smirk: “Copulate.”

Benji flushes regardless of their lack of an audience and her clean choice of wording. It’s just them in the little dark corner of the tavern, both their faces barely lit by a candle; Benji’s face probably glows a bit brighter, hot as it is. 

“He’ll find his luck elsewhere.” He takes a healthy, healthy fucking sip of his drink. Winces. Calling this swill would be an insult to swill, so he’ll stick with utter shit.

“Maybe,” Bellara starts, and he knows that’s not the end of it because she tucks a fist under her chin. Thoughtful, like. Working through the problem. “But you don’t usually do that.”

He nearly spits his drink. “Beg pardon?” The laugh escapes, despite how tight he pinches his mouth. “Did you just insinuate I’m — what, a slag?” 

Bellara lifts a hand, squints one eye to watch how close her index and thumb get. When they’re a suitable distance away (very, very close) she smiles. “Just this much of one, honestly.”

He makes a put-upon noise, and she sobers a bit.

“I meant, well. You turn people down—”

“Plenty.” Benji interrupts in his own defense.

“Right. Plenty.” Her head tilts curiously. It gives him a strong, strange déjà vu. He can’t place the source. “But I mean how you did it.” 

Another drink. And another, nearly draining the tankard. Necessary, if he’s about to be on the receiving end of her particular brand of pointed character analysis.

“How’d I do it then?”

She picks both hands up, fingers spaced as far as they’ll go, and holds them next to either cheekbone. Then she clenches fists and drops them into her lap. 

Benji stares at her. 

“It’s usually like—” here, she sits up straighter, adopts an expression he figures is meant to mimic. Chuckles. It’s a silly, low-pitched sound. Again, meant to mimic. 

“You’re losing me.” Benji warns. 

“Ugh! It’s the way you do it. Never gentle—“

“Thanks.”

“—But not mean, either? Not polite. But not cruel. This time, though.” Her face pinches. “Oh, Benji, you looked so sad.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” He says, but he waves off the barmaid when she comes over with another tray, hopeful and then devastated when Benji waves her on. They’d tipped well the first round. 

There’s a chorus of laughter that suddenly fills the tavern. It comes from the direction that Benji’s would-be bedfellow retreated towards. When he glances quickly over his shoulder, he confirms the rowdiness isn’t at his expense, but the poor bastard’s. His head is hung in perhaps shame. His ringlets of squash-orange hair are patted nearly flat. 

From nerves? Had Benji really made him that nervous, hurt him that soundly? He winces. 

Bellara snaps her fingers, startling him out his head again. 

“Oh! Did he remind you of someone?” 

The world, the entirety of the fucking world, freezes. For the longest moment of his life everything goes strangely still and muted. The air becomes stale, the sounds of the tavern filter out, and Benji feels as though someone has drained all the blood from every inch of each individual vein. 

Across from him, Bellara leans atop the table to put her face near. “You’re doing that thing again.” 

Thedas rotates on. Benji is left dizzy in the pick-up, pins and needles in his fingers and weightless like after a long, unfulfilling nap. 

“What?”

“With your face.” 

It pinches even tighter. “Can we drop this.”

She reaches across to touch two fingers to his sleeve. Benji doesn’t pul back, but he fixes a glare to let her know he very much does not appreciate what is happening. 

“Is it painful?”

His throat tightens. Benji hesitates. Nods. Bellara nods with him after a moment, her two fingers becoming a flat palm over his wrist. She pats three times. 

“That means it will help to talk about. All the painful things are worth sharing.”

He supposes she knows about loss — and then he fights the urge to bash his skull gory into the table, because how could he make that comparison of pain? How dare he, really? What does Benji know of loss, looking into her face specifically? How could he ever?

“Fucking hell.” He says, groaning a scrubbing a hand from forehead to chin. “Can’t believe I’m doin’ this over a pint.” 

“At midnight.”

“In a packed shithole.”

“With me!” She finishes, beaming. Her hand still hasn’t moved. “Is it a long story?” 

He hesitates again. Sighs. “Yeah.”

Bellara lets go now to clap. She’s beside him in an instant, stool and her own drink repositioned so she can be closer. He’s glad for it. He’ll never admit. 

“Good! Long stories.” Her eyes glint mischievous, in a way that Benji figures no one would expect from someone like her. He wonders if she knows how some people look at her, how they judge. How they pity, observing as she fits about her interests: with the obsessive, flighty air of a sparrow dosed with fifty templars worth of lyrium. 

When he still hasn’t begun, Bellara scoots even closer. 

“It’s not very happy.” Benji warns. He drains the rest of his drink. He needs it. He needs it. “And it happened ages ago, really. So I don’t think it really is that relevant to—”

Her glare is withering. 

“We had no business deciding what’s important to our hearts.” Her eyes go big and manipulative. “Cyrian used to say that.” 

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Alright, okay. He didn’t. But tell me!”

He grimaces. “I don’t fuckin’ — Bel, I’m not a speaker, alright? Just a mage. Haven’t the slightest on how to start this shit.” 

“Once upon a time!” 

He gags. 

“Okay.” She squirms a bit in her seat, then spreads her hands dramatically over the nasty table. “Fine. How about…it starts like this?” 

Benji takes a breath. 

*

It starts like this: 

The people of the Anderfels are a religious sort. Zealots, almost. He has the misfortune of being born before Divine Victoria declares the end of Circles. And so, when he is four and sets the family barn ablaze, they come to take him away. 

At least, that’s what he’s told. Any number of things could be true, he supposes. Any number of beginnings to the story. His. 

The people of the Anderfels are Andrastian. Perhaps to a fault. The Circle bunch are no different. Benji grows up bored out of his skull during services, doodling in the margins of a hymn book — his artistry earns him four lashes over each bare-knuckled fist, but an extra tart at dinner from the kitchen staff. 

They tell him his family weren't Andrastian; heretics, but at least the good kind. Farmers. Hard workers. They tell him they were freed people escaped from the Imperium, a land as foreign to him as his past. They tell him its full of mages who have never learned to control themselves. They tell him he had — has? — a sister. They tell him he has to learn to control himself. They tell him his parents were both sleight in stature, with curly hair like him. They tell him mages without control are dangerous. They tell him to pray to Andraste for forgiveness, because they tell him that he had a dog and four barn cats and fifteen sheep. They tell him all perished in the fire he started, four and chubby-cheeked.

Benji wonders what the animals’ names were. Benji wonders if his parents, whoever they had been — were? — had let them name any sheep. He counts them at night when sleep evades. 

Opal, Pearl, Diamond, Quartz, Moonstone, Gregor, Chauncey, Francis, Divine Woolsmith IV, Yvette, One, Two, Three, Four, Five. 

Life isn’t particularly rough in the Circle. He has food, which he’s told many don’t, and blankets, which he’s told more lack, and a roof over his head. Which, of course, he’s told is a luxury. 

The people of the Anderfels are a devout bunch, because life in the Anderfels is difficult. 

Benji wouldn’t know. He lives his life inside, between levels three and fifteen of the tower. 

That is, until he’s nineteen. 

*

Twenty. If he counts the fact that the moon’s height in the sky means it is past midnight. He only knows this from books on the passage of time and how it might be tracked using the moon and sun. How seasons are found in the array of stars. 

So it’s midnight. It is his birthday. 

He’s twenty. 

He’s free. 

Benji, breathing heavily, presses back against a stone wall. He can hear dogs barking, the blue-glow of a wisp powered mage light trailing up the path. He clutches his bag to his chest, terrified that its meager contents might rattle too loudly. That they’ll haul him back and hold a brand to his forehead. He’ll never feel the terror he does again; Benji needs the fear. He needs the sweat at his temple and the sweat under his arms and the sting of a cut on his cheek, a fresh wound on his palm, the bitter bite of magic tingling at its edges.

The Fade is closer to him now than it ever has been. In the cold, he feels it like a kiss to the brow. Warmth and static and dirt beneath his boots and the rush of distant water. Hossberg rests at the meeting apex of three rivers; Benji follows none of them. He has the Fade, an aura that gives him goosebumps and spurs him onwards, onwards, onwards. 

His wounds sting, the shame of what he’s had to do to get here, to get out, still bitter on his tongue. But the rest of the world sings for him, and now that he is free he plans to find every note. 

* 

He’s lost almost immediately. Reading a map becomes significantly more difficult when hungry, thirsty, and completely out of one’s element. His feet ache, his boots have holes, and the thin-leaf trees above his head do little to staunch the constant flow of fucking rain.

Fucking rain. 

“No rain in the Circle,” Benji reminds himself. “No mud in the circle, lest some fuck-shit templar tracked it in. Bet one of those helmet heads invented rain. Fucker. Piece of shit. Fucking rain.”

At noon, twelve hours marking his freedom, the sky opens up another way. Everything smells metallic and fresh from rain, but the pleasant sensory experience lasts a fraction as long as his annoyance. The sun beams now, drying not just his hair and clothes but his entire fucking being.

*

A day into his journey of new-found freedom, he runs into another traveler. 

“Hey!” He calls, before remembering countless stories from templars and enchanters alike of what happens to witless full-pursed fools on roads such as this one.

But the figure in the far distance, wiggly from heat rising off the ground, doesn’t strike him down. 

Instead, she allows him a swig of something nasty and dry from her canteen.

Benji splutters. “That’s not water.” 

“It could have been poison.” She teases, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. It’s messy and brown. Same shade as the mud he’d trudged through the day prior. “Well. Wine sort of works the same, doesn’t it?”

Benji takes another drink, smacking his lips. As long as it’s not poison. “Wouldn’t know.”

Her eyes widen. “You’ve never had wine?” He shakes his head. “Oh, fuck. Those bastards. I mean. I knew, but what bastards? I wish I could take you with me.” 

“You’re going north.” 

The young woman, whose name Benji is not given and will not know for another decade, grins. “Right. Towards the hills. And you’re going south.”

He peers up at the sun, then turns himself the proper direction. “South east.” He corrects. 

She claps a bit for him, and Benji finds himself smiling for the first time in nearly a month. “Towards the mighty Imperium! Well, you won’t fucking see me around there. Not until they fix their problems.

He raises a brow, trying not to look too concerned. “I thought — what most of the others said about Tevinter was just lies? Borne of religious animosity and—“

“Shit.” His temporary companion whistles. “You really did grow up reading, didn’t you? Weren’t lying about that.”

Benji is starting to think maybe he should have lied a little. This stranger knows so much about him; neither trustworthy nor kind, and yet the story had tumbled from him all the same. He clutches his bag tighter, but she sees this and laughs before taking her canteen back. 

“Right, and you’re thinking — who is this person? Maybe I should have shared some false info, in case they’re nasty. In case they want to do something to me. In case they want to go back to Hossberg and report a little mage runaway for the bounty.” 

He feels his face drain of warmth. “There’s a bounty?”

The other traveler nods. “Big one.” 

They stare at each other. Neither moves. Benji’s fingers itch, the ripple of magic moving as it always does from his heart to strange place beneath his nailbeds. Electricity and ozone crackle the air.

His companion puts both her hands up. Her palms are calloused and dry.

“Relax. I’m not hurting for money.” She shrugs a shoulder. “And my —well. I get it. I’m not sending you back.” 

No one could make him if they tried. Not now that he’s smelled fresh air from the source, tipped his face to the sun, heard frogs sing, slept under the stars. 

Once they part, Benji sets camp. The sun will dip below the horizon soon, and he’s learned enough that terrain makes sleeping safer. Onyx, Pearl, Diamond, Quartz, Moonstone. 

* 

Three days later, he’s out of rations. He’d been accosted in the early hours of the morning. And instead of clinging to the final piece of bread or the last bit of fresh fruit or the skin of water his mysterious partner had left him with, Benji had begged for his bag. 

When it’s tossed at him, lighter for the lack of money or valuables he’d intended to sell at the first settlement he ran across, he almost weeps. On his knees in the dirt, eye blacked, mana drained and exhausted. He almost weeps.

He clutches the bag tighter, waits for the retreat of hoof beats, and continues walking. 

And walking. 

And walking.

*

When he stumbles upon the next stranger, he is travel-torn and weary. He’s hungry too, but hopes the desperation isn’t too visible. Hopes the rattle of his empty stomach not too loud. 

The stranger is at the far curved of the barely-there road. It’s barren, winding like an awful snake between dusty hilltops and steep, rocky inclines. To the far south, Benji knows that lush civilization awaits. Orlais. But it’s not his goal. And he has to keep moving south east, past this stranger, to find where he belongs. 

His fist tightens on his staff. It is the only thing keeping him upright, at this point in his travel. He’s free, and he won’t trade it for anything, but he’s free and hungry and sunburnt and aching in more places he knew he could ache. 

So when the traveler raises a hand in the air, other clearly resting on the hilt of a sword at their hip, Benji just glares.

“‘Lo!” They call, the greeting breaking over wind and rocks and the oppressive loud silence of the southern Anderfels. 

Benji debates. He’s too tired to negotiate. Too tired to fight. He cannot gamble on a stranger’s mercy, and yet it’s his only option. 

Well. The knife strapped to his thigh is one, but he’d rather not if he doesn’t have to. He’d stabbed Ser Gowan while fleeing. He had not expected to be able to feel how a blade struggled to punch through fat. He would rather not do that again

“I’ve nothing of value.” Benji calls back. He drops his pack to the ground. Even though they’re too far to see each other properly, he opens it to demonstrate. “Just a spare shirt, a book, and a bit of wine.”

The other traveler is silent. They don’t move. Then: “What kind?”

“Book?”

A loud, echoing laugh bounces off the rock face around them. “No! The wine!”

*

He tells Benji that his name is Xavier. That he’s from Ferelden. He has a big family and a few mabari and he doesn’t know any magic, so he oohs and aahs at the trio of wisps Benji conjures to dance around his head. They’re a soft, twinkling blue. It clashes strongly with the almost-bloody mop hair Xavier boasts. The color is unlike anything Benji’s seen before, but he hasn’t seen many people outside the Circle. So distracting is it (and so exhausted is Benji, surely), the wisps dissipate long before he’d meant to let them go. And although their gone, Xavier’s childish glee at their presence lingers. As does the tinkling, harp-string notes of the Fade — electricity and ozone. 

Benji wonders if he would react the same to other magic. If his hair would look the same under the burning roof of a fire. He swallows.

“That’s impressive.”

“It’s nothing.” He gestures between them. “Your aspirations are the impressive thing.”

Xavier laughs. It’s a delightful sound. A delightful display. He tosses his head back every time — Benji’s got enough from him in the two nights they’ve camped the same area to take note. 

“That’s not what everyone calls it.” He says, a bitter touch to his tone. 

“Wardens are revered in the Anderfels.” Benji says, quoting a bit monotonously from a history book he’d read in the Circle library. “They’ve saved everyone from the blights. So —”

Xavier swings his arms in place as if he’s walking. “Yep! Off to die — revered — at the old, old age of forty.”

Benji blinks at him. “Is that really all the time they get?”

Xavier shrugs. “I don’t know. Honestly,” his hands wring in his lap. “I try not to think about it.”

The air feels heavier a moment before. Benji studies his face.

“Does it scare you?” 

“What? Death?” 

He debates this. Had that been the intended closure of his question? 

“I guess. But not having a choice in the matter?” Something dark and deep and hot in his chest flares. “Aren’t you walking into a sort of prison, then?” 

Xavier puffs his chest, his cheeks reddening from embarrassment or anger or another thing Benji isn’t versed enough in people to name. 

“No. I’m doing a duty that’s necessary. That no one wants to do but has to be done. And so what if it’s a prison? At least I know people are out there, from the other side of the cell. At least I know they’re out there safer because I made a choice?” 

Benji stares at him across their campfire. 

That night, he sleeps soundly. He gets to Quartz before the dreams take him.

*

On the final day they camp together, Benji doesn’t tell him about his escape. Doesn’t tell him about the darker side of magic he’d had to employ. Doesn’t tell him the truth about the scars circling his forearms, his hands, dotting up his bicep. Blood had to come from somewhere, after all, and Benji couldn’t make a decision on another source’s behalf. 

He doesn’t tell Xavier about his dreams, either. About how he walks the Fade, stumbling across demons and spirits alike. That one of the latter, gleaming golden in the strange multicolor fog of that place, leads him onwards. 

And Benji doesn’t tell him about the only book he’d been left with, after the robbery. 

But Xavier finds it anyway.

He holds up the tattered tome at breakfast, his face stuffed with a chunk of bread and cheese he’d had to carve blue bits from. 

“What is this?” He asks, boyish and teasing. 

Benji snatches it back. His face is warm despite the cool morning air. “It’s a story.”

“Is it?” Xavier makes a face with puckered lips and closed eyes. Briefly, Benji imagines leaning forward and doing the same. Touching dry mouths together. He wonders if it would startle. Would be unwelcome. 

“Alright. It’s a fairy tale.” 

Xavier kicks back immediately, falling from the stump he’d been using as a seat in favor of splaying across the ground. He has not a single care how dusty his tunic gets, or twigs in his hair. He glows under the sun, and Benji decides he is in love. 

“Tell me? Give me the summary.” He tilts his head, beaming and curious.

Benji doesn’t hesitate. He can’t. He is compelled into forming the words. 

It starts like this:

* 

The Circle library shelves lift so high they disappear into the dimly lit darkness above. No magelights float higher than six feet from the ground, unless directed to one of the cloud-soaring archival shelves.

Benji isn’t hear for that sort of boring reading, though. He’s here becuase it’s his fourteenth birthday, and as a gift the First Enchanter said he could pick a book to keep. Any book.

Benji knows which one he wants. He goes to its section, its shelf, its exact placement. He takes this book every first day of the week, reads it, and returns it the following morning. It’s a ritual, of sorts. A reminder.

It takes place in a far-off land. Iona, an eager apprentice to a mysterious nation’s court wizard, is found one afternoon with a broken ankle by a wandering knight. Vee, the knight, is sworn to the neighboring freeland’s leader. The two countries are at war, as is typical in such stories. Benji wouldn’t know — he’s only read this one, and hears poor reviews from the other Circle mages.  

Trite, boring, cliche, everything from this author reads the same and I just can’t care about the characters when the twist is so obvious from the start!

Benji cries when Vee betrays their solemn oath to free Iona, captured in battle, from prison. Benji cries harder when they share a first and final kiss, cornered at the top of a crumbling tower. The two sides are closing in, engaged in bloody battle beneath the would-be lovers. 

There is a sequel, but Benji never reads it. He likes the ending in which side characters hypothesize on the duo’s fate — are they roaming the Fade, forever joined in death how they could not be in life? Did they somehow make a daring survival escape and live together free from the tyranny of war, perhaps in a cottage along the rolling hills? 

He doesn’t know. And he likes that.

*

Xavier does, too. He has little diamonds in the corners of his eyes when Benji is done retelling the story. 

“That was beautiful.” He sniffles, wiping his cheek with the edge of his sleeve.

Benji wants to tell him that he’s beautiful. That he’s the most beautiful person Benji’s ever seen, nevermind that number is below fifty. Benji wants to tell him that all he needs to do is ask and Benji will follow him back into the depths of the Anderfels, where he’s wanted for escape. Where he’s wanted for murder, for the crime of blood magic, for the crime of existing. For choosing freedom. 

He could tell Xavier. There are a million opportunities between their stories around the fire that final night, and the dawn of the next morning. He could say it when they pack their things, separate but in sync, he could say it when Xavier crushes him in a hug and presses his face into Benji’s hair, when he feels dry lips to his forehead on the retreat, when he turns to go, when Xavier pauses halfway down the road and turns around to wave twice, when he is a speck on the horizon Benji could run after, could use the last of his strength, could ask him to travel together. 

Benji could tell him that it would be better than being alone, that he hasn’t enjoyed anyone’s company like this in his whole miserable life. Benji could change the trajectory of his goal. Could forget the Imperium. Could forget what he thinks he needs of freedom. Could forget. Everything he knows, or has been told, everything he wants to know, wants to be told — he would choose something else. Something with the would-be Warden. 

But it’s not a story, is it? It’s his life. He’s stupid. Idealistic. It’s not a fairy tale. It’s his life. It’s harsh and unforgiving and he’s alone in it. So it’s alone, it’s beneath the stars, alone, that Benji counts sheep once again: Onyx, Pearl, Diamond —

He cries. The first since he escaped. It will be the last for a long, long while.

* 

When he's done, Bellara rounds the table and socks him as hard as she can in the arm. She has tears streaming down her high cheekbones, dripping from her pointed chin.

Nomi pops in from the hall. She was in there awhile, judging from the steam lifting off her wet, pink shoulders.

Her mouth moves, but so do her hands; they go first to the loose tie on her fluffy robe, then to toss it on the bed near his feet, then to the pile of pajamas she’d set out.

Maran doesn’t catch her words whatsoever. He doesn’t even hear them.

First a pastel shirt whose tourist origins are faded with time, then a pair of underwear she’s referred to as ‘plain’ and Maran would label ‘astronomically mind-melting’.

He’s watching this process so intently that, when the little video game characer on his Switch yelps to indicate they’ve taken lethal damage, Maran jumps.

Nomi flicks her head up, carefully tucking her towel around itself. Mad, he’d always thought. How girls could just make that sort of everyday thing look as sexy as it did.

“Oh,” Nomi pouts, pointing at his screen. “Same boss again?”

Maran blinks several times. He feels like he’s rebooting; Nomi smells her usual shower-fresh, sweet and clean. It’s making the process go significantly slower.

He looks from her, wide-eyed and stunned, to his screen.

“Uh.” He laughs. “No, yeah, I wasn’t watchin, jumped right off the platform again.” Another; higher, almost shrill as he giggles. “Silly. Like the fifth time.”

Nomi leans into his space to tuck close to him. She’s warm and her skin is soft and dewey from the shower, her expensive lotion. Crisp, almost too-sweet with a spicy note. Apples? he wonders, Different from that one she likes to wear out, that one’s heavier. And that other one, smells a bit medicine-y in the best way?

Maran’s character dies again. This time, he’d just run straight off a cliff.

Nomi scoots in, pushing her bare legs under the sheets. She’s quick about winding them together, her knee over Maran’s thigh, ankle tucked under his calf. He feels constricted in the best possible way.

The Continue? dialogue bounces letter-by-letter. Her well-manicured finger hovers over it. Nomi peeks up at him, her chin tilted on his chest. She looks so fucking cute he feels as though something shuts off in his brain entirely.

“Want me to beat it for you?” Her fingers tap a little rhythm on the screen; she really wants to play the game herself, it isn’t coming down to altruism entirely.

“Yes please,” Maran says. He hands it over, hoping his voice doens’t sound as funny to her. “Um. After you’re done, do—”

Nomi, sorting through his character’s inventory with quick thumbs on the joysticks, pauses. Then she puts the console on the bedside table. She assesses Maran for a second, tea-colored eyes darting between his. Her next little smile coy.

Bit dangerous, even.

…He swears his vision blackens at its edges.

Whatever she finds on Maran’s face makes her laugh. She swings a leg abruptly over his lap, tossing the blankets back as she goes. Maran palms the spread of her thighs immediately. He isn’t even sure if his brain had time to process the command fully before his hands were moving.

“If you want to have sex now instead of later, we can.” Nomi says in her matter-of-fact way.

He can sometimes understand why people find Nomi hard to read, or a challenging person to communicate with; she’s gotten abrasive, harsh, and unpolished.

Maran understands, but thinks they’re all fucking stupid. Nomi’s not confusing. She’s direct.

He likes that. She doesn’t leave room for errors of assumption. And evidently, she knows what she wants.

Now instead of later.

Maran swallows. Winded, he tries to joke. “I might be able to fit it into my schedule.”

Nomi wrinkles her noses, makes a face at him from above. There’s a little wave of blue escaped from her towel. He reaches up to tug it, then tuck a finger under the edge to free the rest.

“Okay,” Nomi says, leaning a cheek into his cupped palm. “Now and also later works for me as well, if you were wondering.”

With that, she shifts forward with a wiggle of her hips, settling directly into his lap. Maran, squirms. His shoulders dig into the bed.

“We’re gettin’ up early for that thing—”

Nomi leans down to kiss him swiftly. It’s quick but deep, playful swipe of her tongue to his. She plants a peck to his nose on her retreat.

“We’ll just make Ben take us through McDonald’s, Mar. You can get one of those big frappuccino concoctions.”

He doesn’t need any convincing. Nomi crosses her arms and flings her shirt back off.

“What.”

Her head tilts. “The caramel ones?”

Maran blinks twice then finds her face. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, caramel. Nomi, can—?”

She kisses him again, thumb pushing into his cheek to make it messier. Ben does the same thing. She picked it up from him.

Maran moans about that, not quite sure why.

“Already?” Nomi snorts, rocking purposefully. “Weird thing to get off about. Drip coffee’s absolute shit.”

Maran barks out a little laugh at that, then sits up enough to get a better handle on her. Arm around her shoulders, he pulls down. They press together. His skin feels like it boils where they touch — his other hand coasts up her back to find more of that warmth.

“You smell amazing,” he says softly, hand tickled at the back of her neck with wet hair. Maran grins at her. “That’s what it is, mostly. But the caramel sauce is fit too, honestly. I’ll let you try it tomorrow.”

Nomi blinks at him. Her lips are slightly parted, like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or kill him.

Benji knows he doesn’t belong in this place. Clearly, he isn’t the only one.

When the double doors swing open (shiny, recently cleaned glass and gold accents he has to assume are real),  several heads turn his direction. 

The hotel bar is fancy. Except that’s not the best word for it. Doesn’t do the establishment justice; Benji just lacks the proper descriptive skill to take a crack. 

He’s keen (and used to) to DIY places without a license.  Where ‘dimly lit’ meant electric hadn’t been paid, not ‘mood lighting’. Dive bars. The nasty yet entirely self-legitimate sort of establishments that have a mysteriously consistent crust over every surface, no matter what bar, what country, what continent. The kind that make you balance on rotting subfloor to take a piss at a toilet without a tank lid. With stalls that sport not just sharpie cock and phone numbers area codes the world over, but good and proper tagging. 

Good graffiti is hard to come by these days.

Certainly isn’t any here, Benji thinks, lingering next to a potted plant at the entrance that’s got several centimeters on him. 

And there’s no crust to anything. In fact, the mood-lit bar has been recently cleaned; he can tell from the scent in the air. No harsh cleaners, but something like what Saha uses: all natural, essential oils, what the fuck ever. 

The smell mingles (shockingly well) with the variety of scents worn by the bar patrons. At every glittering marble-topped table are a few rich blokes in nice suits. A prim businesswoman, here or there. At a hightop, two heiress types in expensive athleisure sneak pulls from a vape. Their designer bags sit out in the open, not tucked around a shoulder or tight between knees to prevent opportunity. 

Benji shouldn’t be here. Not just that he feels so out of place, so alone in a total alien environment, but because both his moral compass and political foundation feel…itchy. It’s bad enough they’ve copped rooms at such a posh hotel. The bar’s gotta be like this? 

He’s about to turn on his heel and leave when he catches one of the barteners’ attention. A handsome woman with short cropped hair; he supposes he hesitates because her smart white button-up and sleek black suspenders remind him of Bunny. 

Bunny would do well in a place like this. He can imagine her sitting here for hours until a proper insomniac, toying with all this prey. Less networking. More making up lies for fun, picking apart their tiny insecurities, and boasting with just the right amount of ‘oh, it isn’t that impressive’ and ‘you should honestly just kill yourself right now in front of me’.

Thinking of her has his lips twitching, and the bartender must take that as a sign of her fish on the hook. She lifts a hand and waves in a way that seems…shockingly welcoming. Almost normal. Almost. 

Benji meanders towards the bar, tucking closer to himself than he needs to. All of the tables and chairs are spaced well far apart, and somehow the place still seems intimate. 

He’s a fucking cynic, of course, so all he can think is that it has to be a part of the gimmick. Some trust-fund psychologist turned interior designer had figured out how to design the place like a comforting venus flytrap for rich idiots. 

Benji supposes he’s one of those: he sits at the bar. It’s unlike any he’s ever sat at before. The counter is solid rock of some sort, polished enough but not overly so; it’s grittiness seems purposeful. The counter encircles the bartenders and their stations, as well as a massive glass shelf unit in the center. It’s taller than he is, maybe three times so, and well fucking stocked. 

He can’t recognize a single label past the lowest shelf. 

“Are you a patron of the hotel?”

Benji must make a face.

The bartender is polishing a glass, but she pauses to hold up a few placating fingers. 

“I know how that sounds.” She casts a glance down to the far end of the counter, where another bartender is focused on two patrons. “My manager gets so bent out of shape if we don’t ask.”

“I get it,” Benji says, because he does. He had the experience of a few shit retail jobs between meager residual checks, back when he and Lark had first started out. 

“Give me just a second.” The bartender says. Her focus drifts to a newcomer. Maybe a well-tipping regular, judging from the eager little glint to her eye. 

“No worries,” Benji says. He wonders if she’s really that good at her job: comfortable enough now, he lets his jacket slip off around the chair. 

Are you manipulating me? He thinks at her back as she goes. Don’t feel like I fit here, but maybe you think I do. That’s fuckin’ horrifying.

She doesn’t take long. Benji decides he respects the honesty of chasing a tip, and the fact that she returns to chat shit seems a good sign as well. 

“Mel,” she introduces. “What caught your attention?”

A glass bottle on the fourth shelf. Benji points at it, and she turns. 

“That a cock on the label? Who fuckin’ picked that.” 

Mel laughs, taps her nose. “Someone with great taste. Want a try?”

He balks a bit. “Uh.” 

“On the house,” Mel concedes, already going for a rocks glass and a pair of ice tongs. The places Benji would usually go, ice just gets fuckin’ dirty palmed. 

She pours him a generous two fingers worth. Benji doesn’t recognize the liquid or the label, so he isn’t sure at all how he’s meant to take the drink. 

So he takes it like a shot. 

It does not go down like one. 

Mel slaps a hand over her mouth. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry. I should have — here.” She rushes to get him a pint, just something off tap. Benji glares at her without heat from the rim of the glass, eyes admittedly a bit teary.

“That was a test, a little bit.”

“For?” 

She shrugs. “You already don’t seem like the type to come in here and pay fifteen for a shot of regular ass vodka. It’s…nice.”

Benji leans on the counter and assesses the room again. The newcomer is the only one who seems to be paying them attention. He can’t fully tell in the darkness of the bar, but he might be a redhead. 

“Are you a musician?” 

Benji smiles nervously. He hopes she doesn’t know who he is, hopes she isn’t playing at ignorance. 

“Yeah, s’pose. Some might say.”

“Some wouldn’t?”

“Bunch more than some, I think.” He takes another sip. 

“Controversial?” 

Benji feels something cool settle in his stomach. Almost panic, but not quite. “We’ve had a bit of it, maybe.”

“Oooh.” Mel says. She closes one eye. “Band, then? We?”

“Right.” 

She shakes her head. “Well. I hope you enjoy for now. You’re good company, so I might come bother you between scamming.”

Benji laughs. “Alright.”

“It was nice to meet you…” she trails off, and Benji realizes with an embarrassed blink he hasn’t introduced himself back. 

“Benji.” 

The newcomer at the end of the bar coughs. Mel casts a glance his way, and then smiles apologetically before meandering down. 

*

After a few pints, Benji makes the mistake of checking his phone. He groans and pinches between his eyes.

“Ready for it?” 

His shoulders tighten at the sudden intrusion on his quiet; Mel was a quick and decent reader of people, so had given him space. Now she’s back with that same apologetic smile.

“Tired of me?”

She shrugs. He likes how she does it. A bit of attitude there. Feels familiar. “Not trying to kick you out, promise. You just don’t seem like the until-closing barfly type.”

He’s tipsy enough to be loose, so Benji presses a hand over his heart. “Fuckin’ hell, thank you. I’ll take that compliment any day of the week.”

Mel is quiet a moment. Then her eyes narrow in a friendly sort of glint. “You know where else you might get those?” 

“Hm?”

“Compliments.”

Benji blinks at her, shakes his head. 

As sneakily as she seems able to manage, Mel points down the bar towards the other patron. He’s one of the last few people to linger, along with Benji and the heiresses. There are two rocks glasses beside him, and the remnants of —he tries to remember the drink that gets an orange peel and a cherry. Maran can down those little fuckers like no tomorrow. 

“I don’t usually do this, but that guy would not stop asking what you were drinking.” 

Benji blinks to clear the bit of fuzz to his vision. When he turns his head, he finds the other man is watching them with a hand propping his chin. 

The second their eyes meet, his widen. Benji can’t tell if he blushes in the bar mood lighting, but he figures it’s a good probability: he ducks his head and tucks around himself. 

Always been chum in the water for Benji — shyness. 

*

He’s sweet, Benji supposes. Bit too awkward, maybe. His hands shake where they rest on Benji’s forearms as he gets both their belts undone, and he finds out his hunch was right. Redhead.

He can’t help but to think that it could be better, though. It could be a dingy, shitty bathroom in the sub basement of some warehouse turned DIY club. It could be a wood-paneled family owned place off in the country.

Rather, the hotel bar’s bathroom is all sleek lines and polished granite. There aren’t any knobs on the faucet of the sink Benji presses the man against.  

Fancy.

*

The next morning, he wakes late to a text from Bunny. 

Damage control working on it. Don’t freak out, it cost me too much money last time.

Benji palms his face, feeling groggy and sore. He squints at the message. 

Then the anxiety smacks into him. 

He finds the source of her cryptic (and more than a bit insensitive) message. It’s a post on some music subreddit making the rounds, talking about an encounter they had with ‘Ratspit’s own’. 

His heart drops into his stomach at the title. Betrayal is a swift and brutal plunge of a blade, but the real twist of the knife is the post’s first sentence: 

I don’t want to doxx myself, but I work at a bar and one of our guests last night was— 

It goes on from there. What Benji had to drink as proof of the encounter, with several others commenting to chime in the alcohol choice ‘seemed like him’ and thus added credibility. The post even mentions him leaving with the stranger, coy assertions that he seemed very happy when he finally left. There’s a comment asking what he was wearing. A comment asking what hotel, specifically, for no worrying reason. There’s a comment where someone asks if anyone else in the thread remembers the drama in Montreal, the man he’d been pictured with in Houston, and on. 

He texts Bunny back. They rarely do, so he fucking hope she doesn’t read too much into it. 

I’ll handle it. Call off the dogs, creep.

Fuck you, comes the immediate response, but Benji doesn’t get a call from their PR lad, so he figures she at least listened.

*

That night, after rehearsals and a day on the town with Nomi that he thinks he manages to be normal through, Benji returns to the bar. 

It hadn’t seemed particularly mysterious or magical the first time he’d been, but at least some of the intrigue has been lifted. It really is just an overpriced, pretentious bar for investment losers cheating on their wives. 

He can’t believe he sat in this place so long. Had drinks here. Amongst a bunch of top-tier A-level pricks who were probably fiscally conservative, socially progressive liberals who would still suck Reagan raw given the opportunity. 

Fuckin’ hell. He’d gone for two pints in the same room with investment bankers. 

But he’s got a mission, as much as he’d like to leave and never return. 

Mel is working again. She seems surprised to see him, but tentatively happy. 

Benji doesn’t smile at her as he sits, or get friendly whatsoever. He orders a pint and waits for her to bring it. All the while, he stares up at that funny bottle. The label of that nasty whatever she’d recommended a taste. Benji stares at that medieval manuscript style drawing cock with wings.

Then he clears his throat. It’s a test.

Mel fails. She looks up too eagerly. Too much friendly, intimate comfort written all over her face.

Touched with a hint of guilt.

Benji imagines letting her have it. Getting rowdy. Loud, like half the people that hate him like to imagine punks get. Do get, really. It’s not a far-off stereotype, not without its edge of truth; there were times where they were the rotten, chaotic free-spirited young musicians who didn’t bat an eye upon receiving a bill of a solid grand for their trashed hotel room.  

Go outside once in awhile, he wants to say to her. Do you think a normal person goes and posts every conversation they have with any average prick online? Do you think I wouldn’t find out? That I’m above it all like that? Or did you think I wouldn’t care. Or worse. Were you thinking at all about me? 

Instead Benji stares at her. His breathing is even, deep. Relaxed, the way he doesn’t feel whatsoever. 

Benji’s arms are crossed on the counter. He slowly nudges them forward until the pint glass tips off the inner edge of the bar and shatters at Mel’s feet. 

“Oops.” Benji says. Then he drops a five dollar note on the counter, stands, and leaves. 

*

Bunny had rented them the entire floor of rooms. They were there for a whole weekend, a music festival about thirty minutes out. Matilda advocated for no expense spared at some peace and quiet. Some safety.

Their floor is quite high up, but Benji avoids the elevator. Something about being enclosed in that glass box, alone except for the blinking dot of the security camera in the corner, feels a bit too on the nose for him right now. 

When it dings for him to get off, he turns down the hall towards his door. 

And then he pauses. He blinks. 

At the far end of the hall, Xavier lifts a hand chest-high, as if he means to wave. It drops, as does the eager smile beginning to spread his lips.

 Benji’s heart does something similar; plummets straight into his stomach with a cold chill of embarrassment. He turns towards his door, fumbling with the little plastic circle meant to get him in. He swipes and swipes and swipes it, as he hears long strides incoming. 

It seems pitiful to chance a look over his shoulder. It feels pitiful, desperate, lonely. But he’s glad he does. 

“Benji!” Xavier yells, and then slaps a hand over his own mouth. Wide green eyes dart side to side, pink peeking at his cheeks under the edge of his big hand. It lowers, and Benji is summarily stunned by the adorably sheepish grin hiding beneath. 

“Shush.” He admonishes. The bloody door still won’t open. 

Xavier falters for a moment, but only that. HIs gait slows, dripping rejection, until he realizes he isn’t being dismissed; Benji stands still, hands tucked in his hoodie and —

Waiting. He’s waiting. So Xavier comes towards him quicker, eager, excited. 

Fuckin’ hell, Benji thinks, scrubbing a hand back through his hair. Fuckin’ hell, mate, have some self-preservation, you’ve got no idea — you’ve no idea what I’ve been thinking, are you serious? 

Xavier stops several feet away. The hotel hall is dimly lit with fancy sconces lining the walls, orange glow turned soft for the night. He looks. Well. Benji, who is occasionally paid by the word if the lyrics are good enough, cannot manage a single syllable.

“Alright?” 

“Yes.” Xavier breathes. That grin widens. “I mean, hey.”

They stare at one another a beat. 

“Can’t sleep?”

“No rest for the wicked?”

Their synchronization makes Benji toss his head back and laugh. 

“Fuck off,” he says, unable to keep any bit of fondness concealed.

“I heard there’s a crazy expensive bar downstairs.” Xavier smiles, pats his back pocket. “And I just got paid.”

Benji winces. “Ah. Not really my style. Or yours, if m’honest.”

Xavier looks absolutely heartbroken for a moment. It’s tortuous.

So, even though he’s exhausted and buzzed with the adrenaline of a confrontation, Benji tilts his head back towards the elevators. “I was gonna turn in but. Fancy a walk, instead?” 

“Sure. Yeah.” Xavier sounds winded, still.

The elevator ride back down is mostly silent. At the door, the hotel doorman gives Benji a nod and then says something into his earpiece; maybe making note of the time of his departure, or letting Tino know that he’s been spotted, has a chaperone. 

Benji glances up at said guard. Only to find him staring down. He blushes when he’s caught, and Benji can only think of fucking chum.  

“Been busy? If you’ve already done your laps tonight, no worries.” He gestures at Xavier’s heaving chest. 

Xavier looks, as if unaware. He takes a big breath and lets it out slow; Benji catches his fingers shivering as he winds them together and pulls at knuckles until they pop. 

Shaking? Nervous, Xavier? I make you fuckin’ nervous?

*

They escape the hotel, dancing awkwardly out its rotating doors and into the cool night air. Benji can’t help but admonish himself a bit; he hadn’t even checked for a crowd or the absurdly committed fan or two usually lingering wherever they went. He wonders, distantly, if Xavier’s presence had scared them off. At the last few shows, Xavier had developed a bit of a reputation. 

Take no shit, is what Benji had overheard him say to Benny, voice clogged by a broken nose. You gotta establish dominance. Like, y’know. The hierarchy of nature. Like meerkats. 

Meerkats? Benny had asked incredulously, prodding at the blood on Xavier’s upper lip.

Yeah, dude, you ever seen Meerkat Manor? Those little fucks are metal. 

The hotel isn’t situated in a particularly busy part of the city, but its a big enough town to have cars out on the street this late.

Benji smiles at the memory, tucks close to Xavier against the chill. He’s so fucking warm, all the time. 

“So I take it that’s a no?” 

“No!” Xavier says quickly. Then his brows pinch. “Uh, I mean? No, it’s not a no. What you’re asking about. Um. What were you asking about?”

Benji snorts. “Asked if you’d gotten your exercise, if comin’ for a walk was a bother.”

“No,” Xavier repeats even faster. “No, this is — I kinda needed this.” 

Benji feels his snide, half-sided grin turn genuine and is somewhat terrified of that. “Yeah? Me too.”

“Shit day?” Xavier asks it sincerely, but he’s also glued to his phone enough that Benji has no doubt he’s at least a bit aware of the latest gossip. 

“Yeah, you could say.” He leans in conspiratorially, completely in the other man’s space now. “I like this, though. Feels better.” 

Xavier trips over a rock or a crack in the sidewalk, yelping just as he’s about to respond. “Ah! Fuck. This?”

Benji pauses and waits for him to stop, too. They stop outside and open-late deli, whose flickering neon sign side casts Xavier in pretty reds and blues. 

Mood lighting, Benji thinks with something far too soft lodged in his throat. 

“Spending time with you.” Benji says. He doesn’t feel bold for the honesty; it’s just the truth. Why not tell him? What’s he got to fucking lose, the rest of his dignity? He can handle a rejection, after all that. 

It doesn’t help that Xavier looks so sweetly startled by the admission. His cheeks are pink, little rosy thumb-sized dots of color high on his cheeks. They start to join in a flush over his nose. 

“Oh.” Xavier says. He blinks rapidly before breaking out into a smile so bright Benji feels like he’s staring into the spotlight. 

“I like spending time with you too, Benji. I’m —” he pauses here, hands coming up to lace in front of his stomach. They coil and knot and fret. His usual tell. Whatever he wanted to say gets pushed visibly down, and Benji mourns it for a moment. 

Just a moment. Because Xavier goes on:

“You’re cool. I’m glad somebody cool wants to be around me.” 

Benji shakes his head. He knocks his boot against Xavier’s calf. “Mate, wouldn’t pay the compliment if I didn’t mean it? Wouldn’t be out here walkin’ with anybody.”

Xavier’s smile grows. It’s sort of addicting to accomplish. So Benji goes on, too: 

“Naw, Xavier, honest. Not just flattering you. Think I get along with people like this? Fuck no.” A laugh that he hopes doesn’t sound too bitter. “Sounds mad and probably egotistical to say, but it’s hard…y’know, making friends like this. Especially ones as fast with it as you.” 

Xavier’s blush depends, and he ducks his head. Shyly. “Come on.” 

“No, honest. Banter with the best of ‘em, swear you do.” 

Xavier scuffs his shoe. Benji can’t help what happens. He leans in, chin tilted, eyes cast up Xavier’s chest to find his face. 

“Not bad to look at either, if I’m honest.” 

The smarmy little compliment is received exactly as he anticipated. Xavier, clearly too flustered to function, mumbles something that might be a polite, awkward Catholic fucking ‘thanks!’ before immediately trying to pull Benji’s attention away.

He oohs and aahs at the late night joint in front of which they’ve paused their walk, pulling Benji’s sleeve. Trying to convince him to go in, as much as he is trying to get a reprieve from the compliments. 

And yet, when Xavier’s eyes get too big for his stomach (a fucking feat, if the stories Lark tells are anything to go by), it’s Benji, idiot, who carries the boxes full of wings and two different pizzas and a cookie cake and subs and massive potato fries back to the hotel. 

At ten, on the fourth of June, Maran receives a Hanukkah card in the mail. 

He only sees it because his mum is late from her shift and he gets to the pile first. The envelope is nondescript, in handwriting he doesn’t recognize — but then, he’s eleven; the only writing he can pick out is mum’s and nonna’s and Benji’s and maybe amma, if she tries particularly hard to be tidy about it.

So this mysterious envelope really isn’t his to open. He does anyway. He’s not sure why. 

Once the folded notebook paper flutters out of it, he wishes he hadn’t.

He knows a bit about his father than he had while the man was actually living with them. Off ad on, of course, because he was ‘allergic to permanency and responsibility’, as his mum put it. He wasn’t sure what the first one was, but the second was what got his chores done on time — also according to her. 

The thing Maran knows most and intimately about his father, aside the moments of sharp pain and raised voices, is that he isn’t around. So when he scans the whole letter to decide if it’s something worthy of reading or some sort of bill notice for his mum, when he sees that from, your old man scribbled at the bottom?

Maran drops the paper like its a snake in his hand. It’s already crumpled the way paper gets after it’s been wet and dried, so he isn’t guilty about it touching the ground.

Maran, the letter says, that voice in his ears, how’s my favorite boy on the planet? And then it goes: I know you’re not allowed to talk to me, so if you get this first keep it a secret. and then it goes: But if this is Lia, you know what you’ve done and what you owe us, so give the boy his letter.

Maran regrets opening it. Regrets retrieving it from the split stepping stone he’d dropped it. Regrets reading. Regrets, very much, not heading immediately to Benji’s after school.  Benji is home sick, Benji is waiting for him to run in with a game to play, a distraction to be made and Maran is here—

Reading the fucking note.

He gets one at twelve. Thirteen, fourteen. Maran, they go, it’s your old man again. Another, the next winter. February. Maran, this next one says, happy birthday!

It is not.

When the next one comes that autumn, leaves crunching beneath trainers that desperately need replaced, something snaps in him. Something that says last straw.

This letter says, instead of a greeting, are you never going to speak to me? Is she hiding these from you? Are you choosing this? You didn’t get my last note, Maran? I need help. I need your help, son. I need a couple pounds—

Without quite realizing it, he ends up at Kay’s table. 

He can’t tell his mum. He isn’t sure why he can’t tell his mum. He isn’t sure of so much, these days — he feels less than what he was as a child, most of the time. Things are rough and money is tight and his mum’s hours are long and revisions are hard and he is so, so done with it all. 

“How many of these have you gotten?” 

Maran’s head is in his hands, otherwise he’d show her — it’s not enough to occupy all ten digits, at least. Instead: “A few.”

“Meaning.”

“Less than ten,” he mumbles. “They all say not to tell my mum.”

Kay is quiet so long a moment he begins to get nervous. Just when it feels too much, she lets loose a long breath. 

“I’m going to tell you something.” She says, reaching across to take Maran’s hand and thread their fingers together. “I don’t know if Lia — if your mum’s told you this one.” 

He thinks, bitterly, probably not. You don’t even know, amma, how much she doesn’t fucking tell me. Nonna passed last year and it took her two days for that. 

Another breath. Benji’s mum is so busy, so full of life and movement and energy that the pausing and patience makes him antsy.

“Your mum was very close with her uncle, growing up. Your grandfather’s brother. He left when he was younger, tried to make something work for himself in the States.” 

“She talked about him. Before,” Maran says. “Just a bit though.”

“She was very fond of that old loon.” Kay laughs, but it isn’t disrespectful. “When he passed…”

Another pause. Maran fidgets.

“When he passed,” amma says, “Your mum was there. Living in New York with him for a time, because he’d been close to the end awhile. He had friends, you know. A big nice group. But it was…it was a rough time. Hard to get care, especially with his status. And, ah.” She tilts her hand back ad forth in the air, which is one of her tells. “Other things. So your mother went because she’s got the biggest heart I’ve ever known.” 

Maran sniffles. She does. 

Kay squeezes his hand tight. “She gave that to you. Anyway. It’s very sad, as you know, to lose an elder. But your mum was especially beside herself. And she tells me this story of when they came to get him. One of the nurses asked, well, was he an organ donor? And he couldn’t of course. For some of the same reasons it was so hard finding care. It was just the time. But your mum tells me, I said no, I didn’t even check. I didn’t want them to take him at all.”

Maran’s eyes are more than misted by the time amma trails off. Her own gaze has shifted over his shoulder, thoughtful and distant. It snaps back to him quickly, though. She tuts and wipes his cheek with the back of her soft brown hand. 

“I tell you this because we’re very loved by the people who we give love to. And we are so, so missed. When they want to hang onto us, we’re held.” She squeezes again.

“What’s the lesson?” Maran asks, throat tight. He knows there is one. There has to be, for all the emotion welling up in him.

Amma smiles. 

“The lesson is your father was a right bastard and no one is going to miss him.”

Maran blinks at her, tears dropping from his eyes and drying up altogether. “Oh.”

“Also, he wasn’t good enough to even consider donating organs.”

Maran’s jaw cracks with the speed it opens. He stares at her. 

Her smile sharpens. “And the lesson is that you are that man’s son in name alone, do you understand what I am trying to tell you?” Her slim finger taps the pile of notebook paper in front of him: Maran, son, could you take the envelope in this one and send back ten pounds? I need fare to visit. 

“They’re not all like that,” he blurts. It feels very abruptly, like his brain hadn’t even processed it much less his mouth. “Are they? Obviously—“ he gestures around the room. “Obviously not appa but, I just — mine’s awful and, and I just want to know that some of them would want to give organs? Some of them would have been upset my mum said no and didn’t check.”

Some of them, Maran doesn’t say, would remember my birthday and buy proper paper to write on instead of torn notebook pages and would spell our street name right after ten years, because it hasn’t changed that long. I don’t want him back, because he used to hurt, but don’t some of them care?

“Yes,” amma cups his cheek, “Yes, my sweet baby, my poor Maran, come here.” 

He doesn’t feel better entirely leaving to walk the five minutes down the path back to his own home, but he walks it with a paper bag full of wrapped food for dinner and Kay’s own — one for each day of the week, surprises that he can open when he needs them. 

Maran, my little darling, my sweet baby, they say. 

*

Maran’s skateboard clacks over the cobblestone just a bit faster than it should. One wrong angle and the wheel’s wedged, and at the rate he’s going— 

He laughs as the wind whips around him, early striking spring chill against his cheeks. Blocks pass; grey dead-fingered trees blurring until he’s close enough to see the spindly bits of them, reaching towards him, faster faster faster. 

Then he’s downhill. He imagines it. Mach speed, a flip to his stomach as an ugly gordy end flashes in his head. Board sailing through the air, tumbling him off like he’s the rock in a catapult. He imagines colliding with something firmer than the tissue and meat of his own body, imagines it comically splattering everywhere. 

He winces, and tucks himself into a crouch, center of gravity low like Henry’d taught him, arms around his knees. 

If you fall off, the older boy had told him during their lessons years ago, then you’ll just break one bone. Just your neck, maybe, and it’ll be full paralysis instead of partial paralysis and a feeding tube and won’t get to wank ever fucking again.

He goes back to that messy image of himself, splattered on the corner of the road. He imagines Henry coming by and sticking a straw in it. Feeding tube.

Maran laughs and laughs, wild and not at all concerned anymore for the speed, because the mental image’s funny enough to clear out all that concern. 

Somehow, he makes it in one piece. The corner shop’s not usually the one he’d end up at, but he’d cut a few extra blocks than he meant to and so — 

“Alright, mate?” Maran calls, voice pitched loud enough that the  man behind the counter can hear. He darts to the left, towards the drinks and candy. As he peruses the aisle, he keeps both palms flat on the prickly top of his head. Tip from his mum. Make sure they know he’s not liable to pinch something and run. 

“Well I’ll be goddamned.” 

Maran whirls at the sound of that voice.

Behind the counter is a man he recognizes without a placeable name. It’s been years since Maran saw him, and for a moment he hesitates to remember exactly where. Then it comes:

Shoulder to shoulder with his old man, nastily split grins on their faces, arms slung about each others shoulders as they wobbled down the street, drunk. 

The man laughs. “My second favorite Cohn boy, hey? Ain’t you fuckin’ grown.” He holds a hand to his side. Maran’s eyes flick to it, then back to his face, brow pinched.

“M’not—”

“Goddamn,” the man repeats with a whistle. “Really grown, and with that hair. Look like your da, y’know? Spittin’ image.” 

The world narrows strangely. Maran doesn’t move, but his eyes feel as though as they shiver in his skull. 

“No I don’t.” He says softly. Something bitter and fizzy is filling up his insides.

“You do.” The man insists. “I’d know. Friends with the bastard for years. Since you were but a wee little glimmer in his eye, as they say.” He winks. 

Maran’s fist around the candy bar he’s selected tightens, squishing it. He drops it gingerly and guiltily back into its spot on the shelf. He would buy it, but —

“I don’t go by Cohn.” Maran says. He doesn’t look at the man anymore, but at the scuffed off-white tile between his filthy shoes. He rubs at a mark with the toe until it disappears, and imagines himself in the messy, meaty skateboard-mess from before. It’s vivid enough to roll his stomach. 

“Perfectly good name.” His father’s friend says. Then he scoffs. “Hope she’s not poisonin’ you to the man. No offense, ‘course, but it’s a perfectly good name. You oughta be proud.”

“Giarrizzo-Cohn,” Maran corrects, even softer than before. 

Until the man says “What?”, Maran wasn’t sure it had been loud enough to be heard at all. 

“It’s Maran Giarrizzo-Cohn.”

The shop keeper blinks at him. After a moment, his scowling mouth pulls into a strange smile. “Oh, aye, her first? Poisoned. Tragedy, that. Sound man, your da. Loyal.” His nose wrinkles. “Well, til he fucked off n’told not a one of us. Owes me ten and then some on an old gamblin’ debt—“

Replacing the image of himself and accidental mess seeping between stones is a vivid, somehow more awful one: his own shaking hands, thin and small in childhood, wedging a kitchen chair beneath the handle of his bedroom door. In the memory, it rattles on its hinges from a single, hard pound. He grew up in an old, but sturdy, house, and his father hadn’t been the strong sort. It’s a figment of his frightened, imperfect memory that the door shakes. Right?

Maran blinks at the man. Before he can stop himself, before he even knows, he’s reaching into the cardboard box of candy bars. His fist closes around the squished one, then another, and another. 

He doesn’t ride back home. He runs. And when he blows through the (always unlocked) front door of the Palanivel residence, he’s panting and tacky from the exertion.

“You reek.” Saha says when he nudges her door open. She doesn’t turn her attention from her desk; she’s home for a break. Technically between revisions, but chin propped in her hand and a highlighter in the other fist anyway. The amounts of studying she does — Maran’ll never go to school. He’s not cut out for it. He’s just not bright like that. 

“Can you cut my hair.” 

Saha pauses her scribbling, and then turns so slow she seems to creak. Her brow is pinched when they finally face one another.

“Why?” Saha asks. She’s quieter, chin down and eyes shrewd. They flash with something that would terrify him to be on the receiving end. “Did somebody say something to you, Mar?”

“Can you.” Maran starts. His lungs tighten, so he folds abruptly with hands to his knees and draws air as best he can. “Can you please cut it, Saha? Please?”

She stares at him. Assessingly, intelligently; that X-ray I see all sibling sort of look that Maran has coveted his entire life. 

“Go get me the clippers, then. How short d’you want it?”

For the last time that day, Maran imagines himself in that death puddle. He imagines the candy bar wrappers scattered around himself. He imagines the street clear sweeping him away first thing the next morning.

“All of it,” he whispers. 

*

“And you’ve got your passport?” 

Maran holds it up over his shoulder; if he faced her, she’d see the eye roll. He’d rather die than let her see it — fuck, he’d die anyway if she did.

“Why’re you making a face at me, hey?”

He bites back a four-letter swear of shock, turns. Hands on his hips to mirror her, which makes her worry-warmed gaze go sharp. 

“You’re using wall hacks or somethin’.” 

“Maran, I haven’t a clue what you’re saying.” She tosses a folded shirt at him, square to the chest. 

“Like how do mums do that, is what I mean? You’re cheatin’, clearly.”

Her finger raises.  He notices something to her expression, beneath the regular sort of maternal worry she usually sports. It’s presence softens him. 

“You be nice to me, child. I am this close—” her fingers pinch together “—to changing my mind. I am vulnerable. Be nice.”

He wants, immediately, to cross his room and hug her. The floor is clear for once: his charity shop suitcase is packed tight to the brim. No clothes left to make a mess. 

The thought moves his feet for him.

“Oh,” his mum says in surprise, arms immediately folding around his shoulders. She’s smaller than him, but not by much. Got most of his height from her, he liked to think. 

“I’m bein’ nice.”

She squeezes him tighter. There’s a rough note to her voice. A childhood in Sicily, teenage years in the Bronx, and the rest of her life in Liverpool muddy her accent into something just vaguely off. It pairs nicely with a soft, soothing lower register. 

He could be biased though. He’s been so excited to go, to adventure. To see Benji in person again. The bittersweet hadn’t yet hit him, but it does just then during their tight hug. He realizes his mum will sound different than she does now, with Maran tucked down and his ear to her heart. On the phone, she’ll sound different — her words won’t reverberate this way, how they do in person. How long will it be until he hears her like this again? 

His throat starts to tighten, eyes sore at the corners with new tears. Maran sniffles.

“Don’t.” His mum warns. She leans back to cup his face and shake him. Staring into her face, Maran wonders if she looks at him and sees herself. Or sees—

“Oh, bastard. Why would you go and do that?” She yanks him back in. 

“I’m sorry,” his voice wavers. “I’m excited, I’m not second guessing, I’m just —“ he swallows, and it’s almost painful. “I’m just going to miss you, mum. You gotta go over to Kay’s and get outta the house. Go to bingo or something.”

She squeezes him tight, her hands locked around her own wrists. How old do you think I am, you little shit? Old. You think I haven’t got friends? Imaginary don’t count, loon. You think my life still revolves around your arse? Middle of the universe. Oh, I’ll kill you Maran I really will, I was holding it together so well. And now we’re both a mess. You’ve got to stay in touch, you hear me? No, you. 

He replays their conversation on the way to his flight, forehead pressed to the window. He’d sworn at the end to her demands: a text, so she knew he landed before he fucked off to whatever trouble Benji had planned; to call Saha the second he could and get the rest of his visit paperwork sorted; to keep his identifications safe and ready, because he’d get stopped, they were rough over there, she couldn’t afford Saha’s hourly. 

She’d work for free, mum. She loves you. She loves me. I’ll be fine. I’ll work it out. I’ll be responsible, I’ll stay safe. 

Fuck, Maran thinks as he pays the cabbie. I’ll miss you. 

*

Saha looks so official it makes him want to cry.

“Oh shit,” Maran says when she walks into his mum’s meager kitchen. “You own a blazer?”

Saha pauses in the doorway, demeanor that of a bristling cat. Startled, but ready to swipe. She wears a cream, silky button blouse covered by a dark emerald jacket. Her trousers are a close brown to her skin, their pattern a darker plaid. She looks prepared. Professional.  

“How dare you?” She asks. Beneath her left elbow is a stack of papers; they switch to her right. She reaches out to do exactly what Maran anticipated. 

He rubs his shoulder with a pout. “S’not very professional, that. Hittin’ your client. Who was, by the way, just about to say what a lovely color that is. Very complimentary.”

Saha’s cheeks are flushed as she sits across the table, spreading the white rectangles with a flourishing sigh. “No need to kiss arse, you’ve already got me doing a favor.”

Maran bats his eyes. “Maybe I’ll need another in the very near future and I’m playing chess.” 

There’s a sharp snap! and some rustling. From her leather shoulder bag (newly polished but certainly not new because Maran recognizes it as the trusty thing she carried all through secondary) she pulls more papers. Two pens, one blue one black. A little granola bar crinkling in its packaging. A calculator. 

Maran raises his eyebrows. “M’done with maths, yeah? No thanks on that.” He purses his mouth shut because he wants to keep talking: do you think dressing that way gives you confidence? since you passed the bar in a few states do you think you’re going to keep collecting licenses to practice? what are you going to do once you run out of school or learning, you’re so flighty? do you think this is a good idea, Saha, or am I burning life off?

He glances down at the thick stack of papers. The first page is printed with legal jargon and the fifth word is one with so many syllables Maran gives up halfway through parsing its sentence. 

Another question comes to his mind: do you trust me to handle any of this at all, really, this responsibility, me?

“You’ve got to initial some things for me.” Saha says. She has, in Maran’s distraction, pulled a pair of reading spectacles from the confines of her bag. They perch on her nose like some sort of fancy movie character’s — perfect, right on the curve.

“My soul.” Maran jokes. He’s nervous. He’s smiling. Nervously. “In blood?”

Saha ignores the crack. Glances up at him. “You sent those bits in the mail I told you to, yeah?”

Maran hadn’t. He’d nearly forgotten. His mum had been on the way out the door for her night shift when she spotted the unsigned, unstamped, unsealed forms near the front door. She’d whinged (no, that wasn’t fair) told him to get at them and she’d take them on her way, and so he had right then and there. Without reading much of the important stuff, of course. Partially because he knew the outcome was frustration, partially because he trusted Saha. 

She was fresh, he supposed. During his mum’s protective order case, they’d spoken to a few solicitors. None of them had Saha’s eagerness or sunny professionalism; what they had was sullen, grey finality dripping from every word, a penchant for checking their phones and emails and watches and turning to his mum and saying “you’ve a bill by the hour going, and we’ve got a batch of these to take before the court so shall we move along”. 

Pricks.

Not Saha. Not yet, anyway. He did sometimes (privately and guiltily) wonder if it was only a matter of time. Especially working the realm she did. 

“Is this the end of it?”

She sighs. Takes her glasses off. Pinches her nose. Maran flushes immediately, dips his chin a little as he signs paper after paper. It feels never-ending. Then Saha speaks.

“You’ve been paying attention, Mar?” She sighs again when he looks up at her, eyes full of sharp wet hurt. “Oh, come off it. You know I don’t mean anything that way.”

He hates that even Saha looks at him pityingly when subjects of responsibility and punctuality and seriousness starts hanging over a conversation.

“Yes you do.” Maran says petulantly. Grumbles, really — he tucks a fist to his chin then abruptly drops it when he realizes it’s not really doing him any favors in seeming more grown. “I’m taking it seriously, I told you. I want to visit and I’m not lookin’ to get in trouble with the U.S. fuckin’ military.”

Saha’s expression drifts fond, amused. “Now why’d it go straight way to the military, Maran?” She pretends to cover her phone. “Go ahead and tell me. I’m not tapped.” 

*

Three months later, Maran sits upright. Consciousness is abrupt and disorienting. A wash of cold, immediate oh fuck ices his spine. He hates waking up anxious. But he has no idea— 

Oh fuck.

Under his arm, Fiadh grumbles and slumps more into his lap. She shoots him a glare that, under other circumstances, he’d find distractingly cute. 

For a moment, she searches his face. Then she rolls her eyes and nestles back down. “What’d y’forget now, then?” 

Forget. Maran swallows. His throat tighten, tighten, tightens with building anxiety. It chokes him. In combination with the slithering guilt souring his stomach, he feels like he could be sick at any moment.

“What’s the date?” 

Fiadh is quiet for a moment. That sort of silence from her is deadly. When he glances over, her mossed-amber eyes are cold.

“You’re havin’ one over on me.” She goes to her knees, pale arms crossing. “Maran, are you serious right now?” 

“What—”

“It’s the twentieth!” She throws her hands in the air. “We just went ‘round arguing about you wanting to spend the holiday with Xavier, but it’s movie night.” 

The twentieth. The bloody fucking twentieth, you idiot. You fucking idiot. “It is?”

Fiadh’s face flashes with an intense, terrifying anger; he fights the urge to flinch. Then something carefully mournful slips over those same features, smooth as anything. Her pretty, perfect eyebrows slant, her lower lip juts out, and hands come up to cup over her mouth.

“You’re jokin’, Maran. Why aren’t you ever serious about this? You’re always forgettin’ important things, always spendin’ time with other people, always —” she sniffles loudly. “I know boys are different and all, but with Xavier? After what I told you?” 

Maran looks through her. It isn’t that he doesn’t care. It’s just that the missed deadline pounds his skull so loud nothing else really filters in. 

Besides. There are no tears in her eyes. Fiadh gives him the feeling that he’s two steps behind in a game she created. He feels guilty for thinking as much; she falls into the arms he opens, and her breath hitches while he pats circles on her back. 

When she pulls away, there’s no wet spot on his shirt. He’s too numb to argue, so he apologizes. Hopes it doesn’t sound as distant as he feels. 

The twentieth. Make sure you sign and send them back by the twentieth, Maran, put a reminder in your phone, write a note for yourself, tell someone else and have them remind you, tell Benji, make sure—

I can do it myself, Saha. I’m not a kid. I can handle some responsibility.

*

Nomi counts: every fifth ugly orange triangle, the hotel hallway’s carpet offers a green diamond. Awful pattern meant to camouflage any potential (or already present, she supposes) stains. 

She bumps into something on her right. 

“Jesus.” 

Warm, dry hands close around her upper arms, keeping her steady. She doesn’t wobble on platforms. Not ever. But—

Beside her, Benny snorts. “Don’t cause a p-pile-up, four eyes.” 

Nomi rights herself with another little stumble, cheeks flaming. She loses track of the ugly triangles, and glances up. Mistake — Benny’s watching her, icy eyes amused and mischievous. He makes a loud sound, blowing air through his teeth. She figures it has to be a car crash sound effect. 

“I’m nervous.” Nomi blurts.

He blinks at her. Shrugs. “Sure. For nothing, though.” 

For nothing? 

“Ben, this is the last regional bracket opportunity and if I come less than third place I don’t get to move on to semis Seattle.” 

He blinks at her, barely swallowing a wolffish grin. “Semi.”

“Oh for—!” She throws her hands in the air, frantic. “Rose Evans moved onto regional.” 

“I d-dunno who—“

“The most shit programmer, is who she is. I’m sorry. That’s nasty. I shouldn’t.” Nomi takes a breath to rant. “No I’m not. I should. She got caught pre-writing her code, and still managed—”

“Most shit?” Benny interrupts, musing. “Shittiest? Shitter in chief?”

Nomi stops walking abruptly, turns, and puts her face to the beige wall with a dramatic, huffy moan. She feels a hand enclose around her shoulder, although the body attached to it is shaking with barely-stifled laughter. 

“Noms, you don’t have anything to w-worry about.” Benny turns her gently. “Not third place, because you’re comin’ in first, not fuckin’ Rose Edwards —“

“Evans,” Nomi breathes, staring up at him.

“Evans, what the fuck ever.” He shakes her. “You have s-six monitors and forty keyboards. There’s no way your nerdy ass is losing.” 

Nomi sniffles. Then she smiles.

She wins. And when she does, when the room absolutely fucking erupts into cheers because it was a sweep from the beginning, from the second Nomi primly folded her skirt under her thighs and put her fingers to the keyboard, Benny’s just off to the side. 

He’s a bright little moon in the sea of the crowd, eyes warm with something she is very scared to pinpoint as pride. He doesn’t know anything at all about the work she’d done, the lines and lines of code projected on a screen above her station so everyone could watch as she narrowed the problem into easy if-then. But the look on his face says a lack of understanding won’t stop him. 

The pictures afterward might make her cringe; she feels bug-eyed and out of body as the cameras flash, she’s handed a shiny acrylic trophy and fake cheque. It’s not more money than she makes taking freelance jobs, or shady under-the-table gigs, but it’s the accomplishment that counts. 

She won. She fucking won.

“You won.” Benny says, when she stumbles off stage after the celebratory wrap up and social media clip interviews. He’s smiling wide and crooked, more at ease in a corner of the conference hall that isn’t so packed with people. 

“I won.” Nomi repeats. Her face hurts. Fingers touch to the corners of her mouth, which she finds upturned. She’s smiling so hard her face hurts. 

“That was awesome, Noms.” He continues. “You’re a menace. Went so fast you made that one rude d-dork at station three cry. Very inspiring.”

Nomi isn’t sure what pushes her closer, but the distance between them suddenly swallows up entirely. Magnetic, her mind offers. What all her stupid pulpy romance paperbacks call it. 

The adrenaline still shivers beneath her skin, and her hands feel shaky — better than clutching any game, cracking any code. Nomi puts the trophy down between their feet and then sways closer. Pulled in. 

It doesn’t take much for him to get into her space: he bends at the waist, just slightly; Nomi tilts her chin up, mouth aching from the wide grin she still sports. It all happens sort of slow motion, but also sort of so fast that the details blur. He leans down, Nomi’s smile fades into something slack and anticipatory, and—

*

“So it was good.”

Nomi sniffles into her palms. She presses until colors flash behind her eyelid and that strangely pleasant ache happens — like ocular pins and needles. 

She takes so long to answer, slim fingers slink around her wrists and gently pull. 

“You’re giving yourself wrinkles, Nom. You have, like, maybe ten more years before you can truly enter MILF territory. Give it a rest.” 

She mumbles.

Matilda leans in, hair falling over her shoulder. She offers Nomi her ear. “What was that?”

“It was really good.” Nomi whines. She throws herself backward dramatically, held aloft only by Matilda’s grip — and barely.

Her best friend makes a thoughtful, unsurprised noise. “I mean, figures. Repectfully, but he looks like he gets his practice in.” Nomi must make a face, because Matilda throws her head back and cackles. “Oh my God! Nomi. Oh, you’re fucked. Bitch. You are totally fucked.”

She realizes the tight little ball of nastiness is jealousy. Just the thought of Benny kissing. Kissing other people. They’re friends. It was a fluke, heat of the moment, strange energy. 

Jealous.

*

Matilda adopts her mother’s airy, somber I’m listening tone. “I’m not following the source of your anxiety.” She steeples her fingers together. “Would you help and draw a map so we can find it together?” 

Nomi wrinkles her nose. “She doesn’t sound like that, really.”

“Only when she’s getting shadowed or trying to seem all above-board for licensing, or something.”

“It’d make me off myself straight away,” Nomi says matter-of-factly. Her lips pull into a smile when Matilda giggles. “I’m serious, Mati. Out of it enough to talk to a professional, and she starts at me like that? Oh, no. No, no no.” 

Until the ceiling tips and spins in her periphery, Matilda had no idea she’d fallen over. Splayed on her back, she tilts her head to look at the coffee table.

“Should we have finished two, do you think?” 

“Well.” Nomi holds up index fingers side-by-side, then splits them apart. “Technically that’s one each.” 

Matilda sits up too quickly. The room spins again, and she fists Nomi’s sweater. “This is why you’re the hot smart coder. You do math.” 

“It’s not—”

The red blush crawling up Nomi’s plump cheeks makes Matilda remember. 

“Oh! You let me change the subject.” She ignores the dryly amused expression on her sweet face, but makes note to remind herself later; she has to tell Nomi how intimidatingly sultry she looks, being all judgmental. It’s a good tool for her arsenal. 

*

A few months later, at another of their late-night Love is Blind marathons, Nomi snatches the remote and pauses the show.

“Don’t laugh.”

Matilda holds up twined fingers. Her eyes are big and red and heavy-lidded; she’d hit her one few too many times.

“With Lark. How did you know—”

Matilda, to her credit and promise, does not laugh. It’s more a snicker. 

“You really want to talk about Benny again?” She squirms closer. “It was a week ago, and we talked about it, and you’re still ruminating aren’t you? You’re thinking about him so hard. You want him to—”

Nomi lurches upright, tucking bare legs beneath her. She waddles forward on her knees a few strange paces across the bed, arms outstretched and hands clawed. 

Zero doubt she’s imagining my neck in between those, Matilda thinks, and the smirk it brings to her mouth only stokes her best friend’s temper hotter.

“No!” Nomi finally manages, after sputtering. She doesn’t seem capable of much more than those high, adorably frustrated noises; they’re muffled, her face buried in cupped hands. She looks very pretty like that. Matilda wants to tell her as much, that the shape of her rounded shoulders and embarrassed slouch makes her Baroque-painting-mournful. She would like that a little too much, though, and the annoyed noises are cute, so —

“Okay. Sorry for misinterpreting.” Matilda sits back, nail file slicing through the air. “So, Maran then?”

Nomi huffs into her fists. “I don’t like how you emphasized that.”

“Don’t make your drama so emphasizable?” Matilda suggests sweetly. When Nomi’s giant eyes get that tell-tale sheen to them, she gives just an inch of ground with a sigh. “Oh, fuck off with that. Nomi, sweetie, you have asked me like forty fucking times, how did you know with Lark?”

Nomi sniffles. “That’s not what I sound like,” she insists, but it absolutely is.

*

“Ask what you w-want to ask, Maran.”

“Well.” He twists his fingers together, popping a few giants and smiling sheepishly. “Don’t want you to take it the wrong way, or nothin’.”

“Couldn’t if I tried.”

“It’s weird.”

Benny shrugs, flashes teeth. “I’m weird.”

“No, you?” Maran drawls. When Benny laughs, he gains the confidence. “Just, I’ve always wondered. Movies and stuff, watching Benji make an arse of himself on the occasion. Clumsy fucker, that one, he—“

“Maran.” Benny redirects with another laugh.

“Oh! Yeah. I mean. Well, it’s just — does it hurt?”

Benny shakes his head quizzically: go on, I’m not there quite there with you just.

Maran points at the curly grey smoke lifting between his fingers; Benny looks too. 

“That trick you do.” Maran hedges, poking a finger to the back of his hand and hissing. “Like, how bad is it? Just a little? Or like…if it is a little, how’d you compare it. Paper cut, or bangin’ your elbow? Smaller?”

Benny stares at him. “Lick it first. The moisture—“

“Yeah,” Maran huffs. He rolls his eyes, realizes his cheeks are warm and isn’t sure why. Because he’s asking a silly question? Because Benny’s blank-faced, like he gets right before it shifts devious and he drops a nasty one-liner?

“Yeah, Ben, I know how the trick works. I’m asking when it’s, y’know, when you don’t lick it. Like an accident or something. You drop it, or.”

He stops. Benny picks up the thread. 

“Or?”

Reallg, he can only hold that level stare for so long. Benny’s got a way of cutting through nerve with just a second of that concentrated iciness.

“Dunno.” He cedes. “Sorry. Stupid.”

When Benny moves in the corner of his eye, he nearly jumps out of his skin. Maran watches him put that cigarette out on the bottom of his worn-in Doc Marten instead. 

“It stings.” Benny says mildly. Then he clears his throat. “Like any other burn. You know when the bath water is too hot, and you scald your hand. Then it goes numb?”

Maran nods slowly. 

“It’s like that, but real concreted and only for—“ he snaps his fingers, and now Maran does jump. “A second.”

“Oh.” Maran breathes. “So, not too bad then?”

He’s assessed then. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. Benny’s cool focus drifts around his face then up and down, in a circle around Maran’s general vicinity. Then he heaves a sigh and rubs over his scruffy jaw. 

“Come on. Back inside. Staring to f-f-freeze my ass off. Can’t believe it dropped so low tonight, huh?”

“Huh?” Maran echoes.

“The temperature, Maran.”

“Oh! Right. Hah.” He shakes his head? willing the giggles to cease. “Right, temp’s low. I’m always a bit chilly this time of year. Summer needs to come quicker.”

Benny snorts. “You alright?” 

He sits up a bit from, loose arms between his spread knees. It’s a funny angle; Maran standing over him, hands in his pockets, Benny somehow comfortable on the concrete, back to the brick wall. Maran takes a moment to answer. Not because he doesn’t know, but he knows maybe a bit too much in that moment.

“Yes.” He fiddles with the junk he’s got in one pocket of the hoodie — little 3D printed otter Naima gave him, a paper clip that had fallen off a stack of Benny’s school papers last week, a penny.

“You sure?”

Maran blinks at him. A little sweep of panic rolls his conscious: does he know? Maran doesn’t want to admit it, even if it’s maybe obvious. The words are on the tip of his tongue, and he can’t imagine stopping them from tripping off if he tried.

“This is the first time I’ve been loaded since I was, dunno, fifteen?” He cracks his knuckles. The taste of the joint refreshes on the back of his tongue like a reminder, bitter and earthy. “Fuck. Am I actin’ funny? Now I feel like I’ve been actin’ funny. This is why I don’t do it often, y’know. Sometimes I just get—“

Benny’s mouth flattens, then starts to spread in a grin. 

“Oh, shit. Mar, I’ve been trying to p-place it.” He narrow his eyes. The teasing expression makes Maran’s stomach flip — he’s always fucking nauseous if he gets too high. “You rotten little devil, you. Accepting d-drugs from strangers at parties?” 

Maran feels his face warm. Something about the combination of being ribbed for poor choices and the genuine note of concern Benny seems to be trying to conceal is too embarrassing to think about. 

“Wasn’t a stranger.” He mumbles. “Well. Xavier. So strange, but.” 

Benny scoots over on the curb, keys in his pocket jingling. It’s a familiar noise — Maran thinks he could pick out the sound of boots and that metallic clink from a crowd. Then again, his senses feel slightly heightened from the weed, so maybe he’s just imagining it. 

“C’mon, man. If you’re too s-spacey, you’ll cool off out here and come down a little.” Benny tilts his head. “Unless the company’s b-bad.” 

Maran nearly trips over himself to sit. It’s not a comfortable position, but their shoulders press together. The shared warmth is nice. Cusp-of-summer night air, humid enough to chill. Maran basks in it, head tipped back and eyes shut. The world spins strangely behind them. 

There’s a rustle. He blinks and looks at Benny. The other man is toying with his trusty deck, the edges of playing cards tucked between knuckles in the set-up for what Maran assumes is about to be a wicked trick. 

“Been practicing this one?” He scoots a bit closer to watch. Benny makes a thoughtful noise,  but doesn’t move away; jumpy at times, but Maran likes to think they’ve long since moved past that. They’re proper friends now. 

“Saw it on a YouTube.”

Maran throws his head back and laughs. “Saw it on a YouTube, mate? What the fuck. Oh, that’s mad. Saw it on Youtube. Or saw it in a YouTube video.” 

“I don’t get on that shit.” Benny grumbles. His eyes are firmly on his own hands as he mimics the steps of the trick; his cheeks look flushed. 

“Are you cold? We can go in—“

“No.” He says firmly. Maran stops from getting up, blinking rapidly. “No, want to show you this first.” 

“Okay,” Maran says, and gets comfortable again.

*

It isn’t always that nice. Maran tries. He figures he’s better suited to managing temperaments like Benny because it reminds him of his youth. For as level as he seems today, Benji spent a large portion of their teenage years almost two-faced: introspective and quiet one day, explosive and prone to dramatics the next. 

Not that Benny is being dramatic, per say. But none of them have seen him for a week before he shows up again on a Friday afternoon, duffel tucked over his shoulder and stormy-faced. 

Maran and Lark, sat on the couch picking a weekend hiking spot, look up. He wonder what their faces show to Benny: the relief on top of the shock, or vice versa?

Lark opens his mouth. Benny holds up his palm. 

“Don’t fuckin’ speak. I’m not talking about shit.”

It’s a bit heartbreaking, seeing that split second sadness cross Lark’s face. But he isn’t like the rest of them — unless he’s in a particularly nasty fight with Matilda, Lark doesn’t hold onto moods. And Maran figures that he’s happy enough to see Ben safe not to hold that dig against him, or receive it too personally.

Lark’s better than Maran, maybe.

He follows Ben’s stomping into his room, and nearly catches his fingers in the slamming door. 

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.” Ben somehow manages to pop that p with attitude. Maran’s temper boils a bit hotter. 

He crosses his arms. “You’re gonna regret sayin’ that to Lark later. He was just—”

“In my business.” Benny interrupts. He’s unpacking the duffel bag, but the breadth of him doesn’t let Maran eavesdrop the contents; if he could see, he might have a clue where Ben was, how long he had been there, what the purpose of his disappearance had been. 

“Ben.” 

He whirls. “I set a b-boundary.” 

Maran feels it quickly spiraling, mouth dropping at the sheer fucking audacity of pulling that. His cheeks heat. “Well it was a shit boundary.”

“Ah, I see. Thanks for letting me know how my boundaries shouldn’t be what they are.” Benny nods condescendingly. “Makes so much sense.”

This is the beginning of a proper fight, Maran realizes. They haven’t sniped at each other like this. Maran squeezes his shut, takes a breath. 

“I’m not trying to—”

“Me either,” Benny interrupts yet again, and that’s it. Maran tosses his hands in the air.

“Oh, this is going to sound awful. But I can’t — when you fuck off like that, I worry, alright? You have friends that worry about you, mate. Like, we still exist. I get you’re goin’ through some things you’re keen to sort through yourself, no help. And I’m sorry if I’m bein’ narcissistic here. If I’m, dunno. Making this about me, when its all yours.” A hand cuts between their chests, lingers in Ben’s space before tucking away in his pocket. “But for fuck’s sake, Ben. You don’t exist in a box of your own, yeah? You got people around you worryin’ their fucking arses off when you come back from wherever you hole up.” Maran taps his temple. He feels a vein there, prominent from the emotion. 

 Sensing the frustration in himself seems to cool it entirely. He deflates.  “I—”

Ben holds a hand up. Stop. It hesitates. Hovers. Lingers. Then it drops. 

“You think you know me like that?” 

For a split and fierce second, Maran is a bit shattered. But he recognizes the theatric indifference, the venom. Isn’t real — it’s sprayed-thin green. Could go with another coat or two, but Ben’s not trying for actual cruelty.

Maran tilts his head. “And you think that—“ he emphasizes a finger-drawn circle around Ben’s chest. “Is really gonna work on me at this point? Nah, be for real. Thought you woulda given it up awhile ago.”

“Can you go m-mess with someone who fuckin’ cares, Mar? Christ. My fuckin’ shadow.”

Maran blinks at him.

Ben glares.

Maran crosses his arms.

Ben does a series of motions that Maran suspects are meant to calm himself. He closes his eyes; clenches and unclenches his fists; breathes four, five, six times very slowly; runs a slow hand through his hair. 

When Ben opens his eyes again the very obvious great deal of effort it took him to go through those motions has paid off: he looks more relaxed. When Ben opens his eyes, Maran finds them impossible to meet. 

“Okay. That was a defense mechanism. But it isn’t very useful and I need to find more productive, healthy ways to process things from the past instead of projecting them on the present. Otherwise old hurts become bad habits, and once it’s ingrained it’s harder to heal and the amount of work it already takes fuckin’ sucks cock.” 

Maran’s focus snaps immediately back to him. He feels his jaw drop. Benny blushes and scratches behind his ear. Of course Maran knows that the majority of what’s just come forth, uninterrupted and totally clear, can be credited to someone else. 

Shrink. His mum used to say with a gentle scoff. You know why they call ‘em that, peanut? Because what you want ‘em to do is shrink your problems, but they end up making you aware of fourteen more.

He stares. Ben is trying, is what that means. He is going after what he needs. Nobody has told him to follow this path, make this decision. At least not that Maran knows. Otherwise he’d serve the tosser who tried the verbal demolition of a lifetime. And, for some reason, reallyreally enjoy it. 

“Ben.” 

He scrunches his eyes shut, as if doing so will stop Maran from saying anything further. His whole face puckers with it. That expression, Maran thinks fondly, would sort out nicely under ‘to cringe’ in the dictionary. 

Before he pushes his trailing focus back on track, Maran thinks: Funny how that one’s a verb and an adjective, and then: Holy fuckin’ shit can’t believe I remembered that. 

“I think there was a b-b-better way to say that.” Benny says. He sounds embarrassed, regretful…and borderline suicidal. 

Maran smiles widely, eyebrows knit. “You are havin’ one, mate. I literally don’t think you could have said it any better.” He shakes Benny by the shoulders gently, laughing. “No, honest. C’mon, would I judge? Proud of you, there.” 

Ben can’t possibly go any redder. He swallows harshly, eyes scanning Maran’s face (for a lie?), so Maran keeps his grin soft. He tries to project his own thoughts into that blond head: See? It’s fine. I’m being sincere, Ben. Relax, we’re friends working on a conflict. This is safe. I’d give you a gold star, if I could, if I didn’t think you would find it condescending. 

*

At midnight that same day, he realizes sleep won’t stick. Maran reaches abruptly for his phone. His fingers tap, searching his messages for Ben’s series of emojis, opening his photos, finding the memes folder, scrolling until—

Heart pounding inexplicably, Maran watches himself attach the picture. The little thu-wing of his message being sent makes him jump. On his screen, a deep-fried reaction image of two strange monkeys with the caption i care you shines up at him. 

Maran stares so long it burns into his retinas. Then he groans in mortified shock and slaps a hand over his forehead. 

His phone pings. He pats desperately the nest of blankets he’d thrown it into. 

>What the fuck are those

> monkeys! (•⩊•) although idfk what kind..

> What is idfk

> I don’t fucking know

>Why say it?

> hahahahaha no ben idfk=i don’t fucking know

> Oh

> Why monkeys

Maran chews his lip. His thumbs hover circles over the keyboard. He types. Pauses. Deletes that. Types again, deletes. A third time:

> just like i said today. srs that shit is hard and i respect you  being honest with me. it’s healthy (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b u should be proud too

Maran falls asleep with the screen sick-blue lit on his chest. When he wakes up, sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains he’d found for fifty cents in the thrift store’s sharpie-labeled linen section, there’s no reply from Ben.

Instead, he finds the blond sat at the (also secondhand) kitchen table. 

“Oh.” Maran’s voice is gravelly from sleep. He needs a drink of water. He rubs his eyes and tries not to look as roadkill messy as he feels, fears he does, and is suddenly anxious. 

“These are fuckin’ great.” Ben says around a mouthful of pancake. There are more in a plastic gallon bag on the table between his casually tossed arms. “Don’t t-tell Benji I complimented him.”

Maran moves to sit across the table. He stops, blinking sleep from his eyes. “Wait, so. I couldn’t have cooked them?”

Benny swallows. He lifts a cup of coffee Maran missed; Maran glances at the kitchen, where a full pot of it cools. Maran hates it the way Ben prefers: no cream, no sugar. Which means —

“Don’t answer that, actually.” Maran slips into the chair opposite, and it creaks predictably. “You make a habit of breakin’ into peoples’ places when they’re sleeping, mate?”

Benny quirks an eyebrow at him, retaining some of his usual candid, grim snark. “Self report. You’re already rifling through our cabinets b-by the time I’m up, most days.”

He grins, sneaks a hand past Ben’s defenses and swipes a pancake for himself. Chews, privately admits it is as good as he was going on about, and swallows. When he’s done dragging the moment out to make Ben uncomfortable, Maran laughs.

“Do you want me to accept it without you havin’ to say anything?” Maran asks, gesturing sleepily at Ben: accept it. This apology.

“Yes.” Ben says immediately. He narrows his eyes and then scowls immediately. “I mean n-no. Fuck. I should—“ he shoves a hand back through his hair. It shines wetly in the sun. Maran stares at it. At him. Then smiles wider.

Exaggerated, shitty, bratty emphasis to it, Maran drawls: “You woke up early to —“

“I’m sorry, Mar.” Ben says through gritted teeth, like Maran’s attitude is making him regret it. He tries again: “I was being an asshole. And you are so.”

He stops. The silence drags.

Maran blinks at him. His cheeks hurt. “Soooo?” 

Again, that this fucking guy glare. He doesn’t seem to realize each singular instance of it gives Maran what has to equal, like, six years of solid healthy living. 

“You’re a good person.” Ben says, after a breath. “And I am t-trying to b-be…” He trails off, eyes flicking towards the pancake in Maran’s hand, the table, the floor, the ceiling. “And you don’t deserve that bullshit. And can you p-p-please accept so I don’t keep fuckin’ talking, man, come on Mar—”

Maran gets up abruptly and folds him into a hug before he can protest. It’s quick, and maybe Benji left the heat on becuase he is suddenly entirely too warm because he feels his cheeks warm and sweat break out on his neck and. 

He pulls away. Because he can’t do much else than, it seems, smile and stare, Maran reaches down to snatch the rest of Ben’s pancake and shove it in his own mouth.

*

The following week, Maran convinces Benny to tag along to the skate park. Its a leisurely drive; he takes the long way so they can keep chatting in the car, windows rolled all the way down. At one point, Maran sticks his whole upper body out the passenger window to sniff at the floral air; honeysuckle, which he’s tried for the first time thanks to Xavier, and the first cloying earthy notes of summer. He’s so fucking excited he can hardly stand it. 

“Oh good!” Maran says when they park across the street. The park is tucked beneath an overpass that has long fallen out of use. It’s a cool place. Reminds Maran of the empty, exciting places back home — the ones he’d used to delve into on an adventure with Benji. 

“Good?” Benny says. He locks the car and tucks his keys, rounding the trunk to cross the street with Maran. He looks both ways, then ushers them ahead. “It’s fucking empty.”

“That’s alright,” Maran says cheerfully, instead of admitting to Benny the usual denizens of the park would…well. Benny wouldn’t get along with them. And people meant both of their attention would be drawn away, and Maran —

Maran, now that they’re proper friends, really wants to get to know him better. 

“Is it?”

Maran drops his board and coasts alongside Benny as he walks, opens the fence to the park, and pauses at the bowl. He peers down. 

“That’s higher up th-than it looks.” 

Maran scoots, heel-walking noisily, to the edge. He tips the nose over, wheels scraping pavement in a familiar noise. “Yep.”

“Maran, actually, that is way fuckin’ higher—“

He drops in, and for some reason the brush of fingers to his jacket’s hood are more exhilarating than the stomach-throat sensation or air whipping around his face. 

“Jesus!” He hears Benny yelp. 

Athleticism skipped a generation. His mum played volleyball growing up. Through multiple moves, across multiple countries, in the midst of an awful relationship or two. She liked to be wistful about her youth in a way that made Maran too sad to really think about, really. Right around the time she found out he was coming into the picture, she was preparing to sign some big contract. He’d asked, did you give it up for me, and without hesitation she told him, no, pumpkin, that was the easiest decision I ever made. 

Mums were human. They lied too. 

So no, Maran didn’t have her athleticism. But he was good at this. 

Skating was for the kids that grew up with MTV and could watch the pros. For those California American kids on the internet, on Youtube, with kilometer-long drives and parents who had cars who could take them to parks.

Maran took it up out of spite, maybe. It makes him happy. Skaing is lovely. His brain sort of shuts off. Everything is too fast and immediate to think. Decision making needs to be in the moment. 

All those tutorial videos he watched as a kid, all the hours and bruises and frustration of practicing tricks: everything becomes muscle memory, and Maran just gets to focus. 

He’s laughing as he drifts back towards Benny after a few rotations around the bowl (off a rail, because he’s been practicing a particular rail grind and he got it recently and for reasons he can’t articulate, he really needs Ben to witness). 

“It’s not funny.” Ben says. He’s sat on the edge now, arms crossed over his chest. 

“I’m not laughin’ at you!” Maran promises. He rolls to a stop right at the apex of the curve, catching himself on Ben’s shins. Just to be a shit, he tips the board and balances on just two wheels, grinning. “Forgot you made it illegal to enjoy things. ‘Pologies”  

“Shithead.” Ben says. He glances around the park, eyes lingering at the rail. “How many bones have you broken?”

Maran balances with just one hand now, palm tight to Benny’s knee. He bends his other arm, waving it in the air. “Just one! This guy. The long arm bit. Uh…” under his breath, he whisper-sings that bone song he learned as a kid. “Ulna.” 

“Jesus,” Ben says again, but he’s starting to smile. “Any other grievous injuries?”

“Nope!” Maran chirps. “Let’s see, though.”

“Maran—”

Before he can be caught or stopped or found himself rolled in two layers of bubble wrap, he pushes backwards with a little wave. His chest feels scooped out and hollow when Ben twitches; as if he intends to launch off the edge and run after Maran. 

Who, honestly, has never been that great with a fakie, but he tries it anyway for the same reason he found himself eyes-locked on that rail, determined. 

Watch this, he thinks, imagining the thought floating up into the night sky, neon so Ben can read. Watch me, watch, watch.

He eats shit quickly. 

It happens so fast he isn’t even really sure what he fucked up about the foot positioning, if he hit something on the concrete — a stray rock, a twig. 

The spill isn’t nearly in his top ten — or top hundred, really — but it’s still a spill. Maran’s should catches the slight edge of the ramp, which of course burns. He yelps and twists to avoid more of that pain, and feels his elbow skidding. 

He’s already on his feet by the time Ben’s running over. Something about the frenzied, worried look on his face makes Maran warm all over. Embarrassed about wiping out so fuckin’ stupidly, on such an easy little ramp— he can do more, he’s tried a 360 and nailed it, he—

Ben’s hands close around his shoulders, squeezing and then patting up his face. Maran laughs breathily and shoves at him, but not hard enough to disengage the touch. 

“Alright, mum.”

That hand cups the back of his head, fingers probing. Then he’s being shaken. 

“Jesus,” Ben hisses for the third time. “Jesus, Mar. Thought you cracked your head open.”

Maran bends his arm again; right on that scar from his bone reset as a kid, there’s a long angry rash that bubbles blood in a few places. He feels his face drain, stomach swimming. 

“Oh.” He whips his head to the side. Bile rises. “Is it bad.” 

“Aw,” Ben says. The mean little note of teasing to his voice makes Maran’s stomach flip even more. “M-Mortal injury. Sorry, man.” 

“Fatality,” Maran mumbles, eyes trained on the cloudless night sky. He feels warm inside, but the top layer of his skin cool — nausea at just the sight of his own blood. He burns even more at such a childish reaction being obvious to Ben, too. Anyway, Ben is older, isn’t he? Solid in himself and level-headed when required. Problem solver.

Maran thinks back to the roadtrip they took recently, up into the hills. Everyone’s data had dropped pretty quickly, and although Xavier could read a map better than any of them, Ben was the one to direct everyone to their tasks. He wasn’t a leader, but he could get organized. Keep a clear head, for the most part. 

And Maran? Maran got nauseous at the sight of his own blood — even just a little. Maran had been silly enough to a try a trick he hadn’t practiced enough to show off. 

He stares at Benny’s hair, glowing almost white beneath the single street light that had been repurposed as a spotlight for the park, faulty wiring ignored. It flickers slightly, and Maran focus on the rhythm of it as Ben gently clears away debris from the edges of the rash. 

“Am I gonna live?”

He hums a little laugh, eyes flicking up to Maran’s face. “Probably. With the right t-t-treatment.” 

Maran swallows and glances back up at the sky. His own voice sounds far-off and tinny, even as he laughs too: “Think I can get a medical professional to kiss it better?” 

There is a very tense, very quiet beat of silence between them. Neither he nor Ben moves. Maran doesn’t even think he breathes. An owl passes overhead, hooting softly before disappearing into the tree line. 

Maran is watching it so closely, a dark blur of wings against even blacker darkness, that he jumps when something touches near his elbow. When he tilts his head to look, Ben’s mess of shiny, light hair is obscuring the view. 

Things Maran wasn’t aware of notch into places he also wasn’t aware of: showing off, feeling warm, the light’s flicker-gold tinting blond hair, the brush of dry, nearly chapped lips to just the edge of the roadburn. 

When Ben pulls upright, there’s even a little smear of rusty blood drying quickly on his chin. Maran doesn’t feel nauseous about that. He feels— He feels—

He stares.

Oh. He realizes, the whole of the night sort of crashing around him. I fancy Ben?

Ben reaches up to swipe it away with a thumb.

“Gross.” Maran breathes. 

Ben snorts. “Better?”

Maran swallows thickly. “Yep.” 

It’s not. It still stings. It hurts, actually. The wind is cruel. And the puff of Benny’s last retreating breath over it makes his eyes burn. 

But the part he’d kissed feels the worst — like Maran’s been branded, or something. 

“D’you want to go get food?” He asks stupidly. He forces himself to blink, swallow, return to his body. They’re standing awful close. 

“I do have that first aid kit Benji makes me carry around. We should get that cleaned up, huh?” Benny grins. “But we were here for like five m-minutes. You sure—”

Yes Maran thinks, and then doesn’t say: I want to be in the car again, it smells like you, and I want to crack a joke right before you order for us because it’ll make you laugh, and when we’re in the car its warmer and since its cramped there’s an excuse to brush our hands together and oh fuck, oh fuck Ben, I’ve got a crush?

“I’m sure.” Maran blurts, and fists Benny’s sleeve to pull him back to the car.

*

For the next day or so, Maran feels like he wanders around with a head wound. He debates, briefly, asking Benji to employ his still-incomplete training and treat him for a concussion. Only briefly. Benji would ask questions. And Maran — Maran can’t properly hide things from the little bastard. So it would come out. So Benji would know. And Benji would never let him fucking forget the price of that knowledge.

He hangs around Xavier, instead. He isn’t avoiding Ben, really, but there’s a worrying pit of anxiety in his stomach all the same. 

“You okay, man?”

Maran glances over to Xavier. He looks back at the television. Hadn’t even noticed the Pause menu; the letters dance in rhythm to the soft, muted music in the background. 

“Uh.” Maran says, because Xavier has the sort of open and friendly face that makes it difficult to dodge questions. “I think so.” 

Xavier puts his controller down, crossing long legs and twisting so they face each other on the couch. Maran smiles weakly.

“I’m very good at reading people.” Xavier announces. He reaches for his soda, then Maran’s half-finished can and hands it to him. “Nobody pulls one over on me. Especially not my homies.”

Maran snorts. “Fucking hell. White.” 

And naturally they fall into it after that. But maybe everything with Xavier feels natural. Easy. Maran would really like to believe that he’s special — that it’s because of him, them together as friends, that there’s simplicity and ease. He wouldn’t put it past Xavier’s general disposition, something magic and friendly and charismatic that he’s got with everyone…

But Maran would like to believe it’s him, them, only. Is it selfish? Sure, maybe. But he also feels ill-prepared to dissect that. 

They carry on for a bit, volleying teasing insults and cackling about the games they play for the next hour and sharing stories, anecdotes, gossip about their respective weeks. Maran makes a few things up, because his week was largely uneventful: Benji’s out of town for some conference his college is putting on, Matilda has taken Nomi to her aunt’s beach house for the weekend, Naima is also visiting family. The only thing of note that has happened is—

Maran flushes warm, reflexive; the memory of Ben’s hair all yellow-gold under the flickering skatepark light is sort of stuck in his head.

“Xavier.”

“Hm.”

“Can I ask you something — dunno. Bit awkward?”

“I love awkward questions.” Xavier steers himself around the third lap, knocking Maran aside with a shell as he goes. “Get rolled. I mean…oops!”

“Fuck you!” Maran wails cheerfully. He doubles his focus, wanting so bad to win. For whatever reason, it makes the words easier to grasp, to let loose.

“I mean. Okay, so. I grew up with Benji, obviously, yeah? And he was — well, y’know.” 

“Benji.”

Maran laughs. 

“Yeah, but. Okay, so he was out pretty early. Got a lot of shit for it, had a tough go until he made it clear he weren’t gonna be the easy target.”

Xavier hums. But his tightening knuckles on the controller betray that easy-going noise.

“So, y’know. Me personally, I knew about all that stuff.” 

(Gay stuff? Maran wonders if that’s offensive to say, so he doesn’t.)

“And, like — aw, rotten fucking Yoshi, get his arse, yeah! — like, knew all of it. Homophobia and stuff. Obviously didn’t want to be that, even accidentally.”

“Right, obviously.” 

“And Saha as always sayin’, y’know, keep your mind open and don’t judge and be comfortable with yourself.” Maran pauses, mulling over her voice in his head; she’d meant confidence, right? Honesty to yourself?

“Saha sounds so awesome.” Xavier interrupts almost dreamily. “Everything I hear.” 

“Yeah, she’s sound. Like, genuinely perfect other than…can be a bit of a Benji if you catch my drift. Must be genetic.”

Xavier laughs, his big wild unfiltered thing. 

Maran can’t find one to offer back, strangely. He swallows. “Anyway. Dunno. So I was fine datin’ girls and stuff—”

Xavier puts his controller down. He’s finished the race, with Maran crossing shortly after in third. He pouts at that for only a moment, then turns.

“I mean. Okay. Awkward question, like I said, but how’d you know? Right, like. Was Benji?” 

Xavier blinks at him. “Huh?”

“I mean,” Maran says again, awkward. He rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t really talk about this kinda stuff with him, but you’re you, and I know it’s weird I can’t figure it out on my own but I just wanna hear from everybody who is so I can make sure I’m doing it…dunno, right? Like I’m fitting in? So how’d you know you liked —” Maran trails off. Breathe, you clown. “Well, men? It was Benji?”

He has never seen Xavier go startlingly red so quickly before. And Maran has seen the poor lad go lava crimson in a variety of situations. 

“Was —I’m not…Benji, I don’t—” He stutters helplessly. Then, almost as fast as the blush crawled up his face, Xavier is leaping from the couch and bolting to the kitchen. Maran hears the fridge door open, then the freezer which stays open for a long moment, thne the fridge again. 

When Xavier returns, he’s holding two seltzers. Maran doesn’t like the peach, but Xavier hands him the cherry without asking — he knows. 

Maran grins. “Thank ye kind sir.” He says in a silly medieval posh. “So?” 

“Benji.” Xavier says after a long sip. “Is my friend.”

His eyebrows knit. “Well yeah, mate, right. Me too. But I don’t wanna kiss him?” The very idea makes him shudder dramatically. “Eugh.”

“I was older,” Xavier seems to go far off for a moment. “I sort of envy people that were that confident and knew young, like Matilda, Benji. Even Naima says she had a little fourth grade girlfriend.” He smiles, thumbnail flicking the tab of his seltzer. “Once I figured it out I sort of jumped in. So I think…I don’t want to assume what you’re asking here, Mar, but if you want advice, I would say you’re allowed to figure it out however you want. Just make sure whatever happens is, like, something that feels good? For you?”

Inside him wells such a strong, massive, painful emotion that Maran struggles to name it. His chest feels scooped out and full all at once; the burst of that, the vacuum and the immediate density that follows, brings tears to his eyes. 

“Oh fuck.” Xavier says. The slant of his eyebrows is almost trademark to his face, at this point. “What did I say wrong?” 

But Maran can’t speak: he shakes his head, sniffling gently, and sets his drink on the messy coffee table before launching across the couch at his — his friend. 

He lacks the vocabulary to put it into words: I love you Xavier, isn’t quite enough. You’re so fucking special, lacks the nuance he feels the other boy deserves. If anything happened to you I would off myself, swear, sounds, although maybe more accurate a joke than he would care to admit, absolutely insane.

So instead Maran squeezes him as tight and as close as possible. He tries to push the feelings in him through the barrier of his chest right into Xavier’s — he can imagine it happening, like transferring a little ball of light or something. Like magic. 

“Thank you, mate,” Maran says, loose and unabashed sniffles into his shoulder. “I’m so—“ he means to say lucky, grateful, blessed, anything. 

Instead all of it wells up; the emotion, the drink, the events of the week. And, worst of all, the squirming knot of fear residing deep deep deep within him: I have to go soon, maybe, and I’m going to drag it out as long a possible because I don’t want to, fuck the consequences, I can’t imagine being without any of you.

I don’t want to be alone again. I’m real, real bad at being alone. 

*

In the end, its Xavier’s idea. 

Well. It’s Ina’s. 

“That was a great trip.” The big redhead is tossing fries into the air towards Maran’s mouth. And of them that fall onto the countertop are quickly snatched up by the platform-tall girl watching their game. 

“Was it?” 

“The Mall of America is a place between time and space.” Ina says solemnly.

Maran chews, jaw clicking — he had too many sour gummies today, and it’s suffering. “Like magic?” he asks once he’s swallowed.

Ina looks at him as though he’s grown a second head, but not as though it’s a surprise. She mostly looks curious: like she expected it to sprout from the other side of his neck. 

“No?” Her laugh is tinkling, but strange. It reminds Maran of the half-rusted bell on his nonna’s proprety she used to call the chickens. Pretty. But yeah. Strange.

“Oh no.” Xavier says.

“What?”

“It’s not magic Maran.” Ina intones. “Its soulless. What it represents is a hunger for something that can never fill. Places like that poison, and they get so heavy everything—” she presses her palm to Xavier’s, then bends his fingers back until he yelps. “Bend. Fold, before it destroys.”

Maran blinks at her. “You sound like Benji. I know all about the evils of capitalism, Ina.”

Ina makes her eyes big, wide, scary. “You should go to an American mall, Maran. You’ll find out.”

Xavier glances between them with narrowed eyes. “Maran should take someone on a fun mall trip. Stop scaring my boy.” He tugs Maran in, tucks him under his freckled chin. “Malls can be fun. Mall dates are really fun.” 

Maran, mouth half-covered by Xavier’s hoodie sleeve, squirms to be heard. “Ben doesn’t fuck with malls. He gets on the same trip Benji does. All consumerism and and over-consumption and the…what was it, dissolution of public space? The third space? Somethin’ like that.” 

“Take Nomi.” 

Maran and Xavier both turn to look at her. Xavier is first to break; his eyes slide to Maran next, assessing. 

Maran, strangely, has to clear his throat. “Um.”

“Nomi likes shoppin’.” Xavier says slowly. His mouth is starting to spread into that wolfish and excitable grin. “You could even get some holiday gifts for Benny done.” As an aside, almost to himself: “Deserves coal, though.” 

“Does not.” Maran turns his nose towards the ceiling, sticks his tongue out. Xavier does it back. 

*

The mall is exactly as Maran imagined it. And exactly the type of place he could imagine bustling with people and holiday decor twenty year ago. But its not early November in the nineties; brassy-gold accents in a sweeping atrium of light beige and red plastic trim only make the place look…dated. 

As he gazes around the large entrance area, at the food court that barely seems to get enough business to keep its dinky little Sbarro above water, Maran can’t help but think Ina was right. Time and space. He feels as though he’s been dropped into the shopping montage scene of a direct-to-video sequel. An extra stuck in a film fated for a pound shop’s clearance shelf.

It’s fucking incredible. And not just because Nomi sways beside him. Big eyes wide, open mouth painted a deep, dark cherry. 

“Wow.” She says, and nothing else.

Maran glances down at her, tucking anxious hands into his pockets. For a painful, awful, tortuous moment he regrets inviting her to spend the afternoon wandering. What a silly idea it was, boring and goofy and just Maran of him. Nomi was smart. Interesting. She could run circles around him with half her brain missing, he was sure of it — why in the fuck would she want to do something so utterly daft as wander around a dying mall with him? 

“Wow.” Nomi says again. “Oh hell, I can’t decide what I want to do first.”

All the anxiety drips from him the second her fingers wrap around his arm. 

“I looked this place up. They haven’t renovated since it opened! And there’s a big coin fountain in the west portion, and they’ve got an original Build-A-Bear—”

Maran quirks an eyebrow. “Build-A-Bear? Construction or campin’ store?”

In that moment, he isn’t sure if Nomi raises a hand to swat him or cover her mouth. She doesn’t seem decided either. 

“Oh. My. God.” She shake his wrist. It doesn’t have to move him, but Maran lets himself be swayed just to please her. “Oh, that first. Come on. That first!” 

For a brief, wildly confusing moment, Nomi slips her hand into his. Maran’s fingers begin to close, tips of them seeking the little narrows to lace together. 

They both freeze.  

Maran holds Benny’s hand like that. Nomi slips away, bounds forward on her platformed heels. 

Maran can only stand there a moment, totally flummoxed. Dread in the back of his skull, like nails on chalkboard. He winces, and tries not to pay any mind to the adorable flare of Nomi’s bead-accented jeans or the way her vintage t-shirt looks

(cropped, some goth band, stretching skinlike in its fit)

He trails after her, trying to sort himself out. 

*

At the front of the store, which Maran has to admit is whimsical and fun enough he might tear up, is a bright red wire crate on wheels. Someone has painstakingly designed a sign for the front of it that reads: Adopt Us! Funky friends! There are several cute animal faces drawn in various marker neons around the edges of the sign. Some of them are missing ears, or have a lopsided nose, or sport only one eye. In smaller font: Sold as-is, no returns, 75% tag price. Must go!

Nomi sniffles dramatically and bolts for the bin. Her arms sink into plushie up to the elbows, tongue out while she fishes around. Finally, after some digging, she retrieves a —

A…

“Uh.” Maran says, taking the plushie creature that she holds out for him. It’s floppy, several threads hanging from various joints. One beaded eye is shiny. The other is missing. 

“It’s a bat!”

Maran flips it upside down, head tilted to assess the general shape. Or…rather, lack thereof. “Really? I thought it was a dinosaur.” 

Nomi scoots closer. “The tag says Bearly Beloved.” Her nose scrunches cutely. “He’s supposed to be for…Valentine’s Day?” 

Few months late. Maran turns the creature in a circle. When he finds a paw (claw? hand?), he discovers the bottom pads are in the shape of hearts. Or trying to be in the shape of hearts. Anatomical hearts, maybe. Or livers.

“Why is he this shade of green if he’s meant to be for Valentine’s Day?”

A passing employee, balancing an armful of fully stuffed plushies, glances at the monstrosity. She laughs. “Oh, yeah. That one was a dye mix-up at the factory.”

Nomi blinks at her. “And the rest of it?”

The employee looks around for sensitive ears, but the mall is mostly dead — only a teenager and a single family with one child are in the store, both occupied. 

Her voice drops the polite falsetto of retail. “Dude, honestly, we just lost our health insurance. The company is tanking without all the sponsorships or collabs. Nobody comes in anymore except for when there’s Sanrio shit. So they’re cutting corners in production too, and…” She waves a hand at the clearance bin. “Well.” 

“They’re perfect and I love them all.” Nomi says. “Do you have another of these guys?” 

The employee goes elbow-deep in the pit of rejects. She pulls out a copy of Bearly Beloved, just…not green. When Maran was a kid, he ate an entire carton of his mum’s favorite orange cream ice pops. The resulting sick was about that color.

“He’s awful.” Nomi says like she’s just met the love of her life. She holds her arms out. 

The employee laughs and hands him off. Her name tag says Grey. “I was saving him for myself, that’s why he’s at the bottom. Missing like, the entire left side. I was gonna fix it up at home, maybe post it online to sell. These factory errors can go for a buck.”

Nomi turns the thing over in her hands a few times. Maran can’t stop staring at the shiny, perfect color of her nails. He wonders if she does them herself. Maybe Matilda. Maybe she gets them done professional, like Saha and his mum, maybe she could save some money if someone did them for her—

He clears his throat. 

“They’re like long lost twins.”

Nomi’s eyes widen. “Oh, Maran. You’re a fucking genius, babe.” She directs  what he can only label as manically excited energy to Grey. “Is it possible we can get a bag of that stuffing to take with us? I’ll pay extra.”

Grey holds up her hands. Her cheeks look a little flushed, and she looks at the bear in Nomi’s hands instead of at her. “No need. You want a few of the hearts to go with it?” 

Hearts? Maran wonders. Of course this is right up Nomi’s spooky little alley. She’s buildin’ a monster, not a bear.” 

It’s weird. It makes him smile like a fucking idiot. His hand is shaking when he turns over the crisp twenty at the till, Nomi bouncing on her heels excitedly. 

*

She outlines her plans in the food court. It involves a pair of scissors, stuffed animal surgery, gruesome body-swapping, and far, far too much excitement to be normal.

Maran loves it. He chews his lackluster, yet wildly fulfilling, pizza and listens as Nomi describes the little outfit she’d put the plush in. 

“I can make that.” 

Her eyes brighten. “Will you?” 

“Sure.” He laughs. “I mean, I charge by the hour. Also, if you want me to do the sew-their-opposite-halves together bit, I need you to know: I don’t have medical malpractice coverage.” 

“Then don’t fuck up?” 

Maran squawks a laugh. “Fuck you? I’ve never lost a patient a day in my life?”

“Well yeah,” she steals the last bit of his breadstick and pops it into her mouth. “That’s ’cuz most individuals are smart enough not to go to you for treatment, aren’t they?” 

“Mehmeh heheh meh.” Maran mocks back, knowing he’s lost, cheeks flushing. He’s never gotten this amount of banter from her in his fucking life, and never wants to go back. “You’re rude, you know that?”

“And you are going to make the cutest little outfit for our fucked up Dead Ringers.” She pauses, and then a bit of color goes to her cheeks too. “Really, though. Um. Thanks for paying, you didn’t have to. And for lunch.” 

“You’ll get me back.” Maran teases. He nudge she’d boot under the table. “Moneybags. Matilda says you’ve got multiple bank accounts. I barely got the one.” 

“It’s for privacy.” Nomi mumbles, clearly embarrassed. He loves the way her posh little accent pushes that word out. All odd edges and vowels.

“You’re money launderin’ or some shit,” Maran says, tapping his nose. “But I won’t speak a word of it as long as you buy lunch next.” 

Nomi snorts when she laughs. He shakes his head.

“See, there it is.”

“What.”

Maran nudges her again. “You’re, like — you’ve got this vibe about you. Not uptight, don’t hit me. But like. Put together? Proper? Then you relax.” Maran wipes his hand on the napkin, bunches it up, and misses his shot on the trash can completely. 

Nomi’s doing a little golf clap when he returns to his seat, cheeks hotter than before. He shows her his middle finger. 

“S’what I mean. You relax, and it’s like— oh! There’s Nomi. No wonder Ben’s always on about you. Hard for him to find somebody that gets that outta him.”

He can’t parse the look this brings about her face. Nomi bites her lip at the end of it, eyes darting everywhere but his own.

“What do you mean?”

Maran wonders, briefly, if he imagines the coy note to it. Flustered (and unsure why) his focus drifts to the ceiling. “Well, s’just nice that somebody else gets him, right? Like.” 

When his focus drops, Nomi’s pretty, tea-and-milk irises are locked on him. His mouth works, shuts, opens again. 

“Like. Uh, I mean.” Awkward. Fuckin’ fool idiot, awkward! Be normal. He laughs. “Just that it boils me fuckin’ raw when people don’t give Ben the chance?” 

“To what?” 

His wrist circles the air. “Y’know.”

Nomi nods sagely here. Like she gets it — she does. “Right. Be Ben.”

There’s a bit of a pause while Maran processes the simplicity to this. Then he beams. 

“Exactly!” 

He waits for her to peruse the kiosk of phone accessories; chargers and charms and cases and even leather-flap wallets meant to, he supposes, safekeep. To make a phone look more distinguished?

For boomers, Maran thinks, and snickers to himself because: Benji’d love something like that. 

Nomi turns to him again, and Maran feels absolutely disgusted with himself for how quick his eyes have to snap up and off to the side. 

*

After they’ve had their fill of the mall, they catch the bus back to the campus side of town. Nomi leans on him the whole trip, although the seats aren’t all that small. Between her knees is the little cardboard box shaped like a house that holds the frankenbears he finds himself eager to experiment on. 

Nomi sneezes. 

He laughs. “Hay fever?”

She flaps a hand at him. “Allergies somethin’ awful, I swear.” How can she manage to make something like a sniffle look so cute? “It’s worse here.“

“Same, just in the spring. Apparently, it’s either barometric pressure change,” Maran recalls, “Or the fact, y’know, different regional pollen than where we grew up and immunity.”

The corner of Nomi’s mouth quirks. “You must have been watching nature documentaries or somethin’ with Benji.”

Maran sucks his teeth. “Nerd, that one. Naw, I get my facts from a legit source.” 

“Internet?” 

“More credible.” 

There’s a beat before Nomi smiles. “Xavier?”

Maran laughs, which kicks her off, which makes Maran pause and stare and think if you ever stop laughing at my jokes I think I will fuckin’ die, Nomi, if I’m not funny anymore you gotta let me down gently.

“He is so absurd to watch at trivia.” Nomi says. She sounds funny from the laughter, breathy and staccato. “How is that fair for anybody? I almost want to accuse him of cheatin’.”

“Oh, don’t, you know he’d never. Can you imagine the absolute face he’d pull if you said somethin’ like that to ‘em? He’d die of betrayal. And grief! And I’d die just because how’d you look at that and not be too sad to breathe? Fuckin’ hell, I’d —“

Suddenly, he feels aware of several pairs of eyes. It’s later in the night, and the public transport crowd around them seems to be made a majority of evening shifters. Everyone looks exhausted or in various states of please just let this part of the night go easy. Maran purses his mouth shut immediately, sinking his chair a bit. He dares a glance aside.

Nomi’s pink again, a pale hand pressed over her mouth. She looks — 

In him, something offers: a bit embarrassed, humored, like she’s about to laugh.

Something else, something dark, disagrees: totally uncomfortable, mortified, like she’s ashamed.

Maran swallows the fear of that almost as quickly as it bubbles up, though it tastes rough going down. She wouldn’t. Nomi’s not exactly sweet all of the time, but she isn’t cruel either. From what he gathers, she knows a bit about being treated poorly. 

*

When they finally end up at the boys’ flat, Maran sneaks into Ben’s room (away at a conference, no plus one this time) and retrieves a pair of sea green latex gloves and goggles. 

“For safety.” He intones seriously.

“Muahaha.” Nomi responds. 

They set about the work with plenty more enthusiasm and just the same ease of banter. Nobody goes about it like Benji, but Nomi is quickly becoming a runner-up. 

He doesn’t have much by way of fabrics. Most of the scraps in the little sewing box are black or plaid and black or striped with black — Benji has his tendencies, and also he’s the only one that wears clothes to shreds to the point Maran doesn’t feel bad for nicking them when necessary.

“What are we feeling?” He sets about threading a needle. “And have you figured names for ‘em.” 

Nomi points to the green-and-orange creature on one side of her knees. “Jekyll.” The other, almost a mirror copy except for its missing eye. “Hyde.” 

Maran beams. He isn’t even at all upset there was no stake offered in the naming process, because it’s fucking perfect. 

“Little pair of overalls for Hyde?” He holds up a swath of fabric. “Benji put soap in my mouthwash for cuttin’ this shirt up. Apparently it was some vintage something or other, but you couldn’t tell for shit because there was this big hole in the tit.” 

Nomi purses her lips, trying not to laugh. “Well you’ve wronged him? It’s only fair. Mouth’s extra clean, anyway.”

“Alright,” Maran holds up his hands. “I feel like too many people forget that little fuckin’ bastard is evil.”

“Anything Benji’s done wrong can be fully attributed to the other person.” Nomi says primly. “They deserved it nine times out of ten, I’m sorry.”

*

Nomi stays until midnight, nearly. They pop on a movie, Maran makes a platter of snacks, and they take advantage of the rarely-empty flat to chat shit the whole time. Halfway through the film, Nomi pulls her attention from the strange happenings on screen to face him. Hyde sits in her lap, paws encased in lacy little sleeves of its new outfit.

“Conversation lulled.” She warns.

“A deep question, then.” 

Nomi taps her chin. Quicker than he expected, she goes: “Alright, what’s one of your best memories of your mum?”

Maran whistles. “Right for it.” 

She blushes, but her eyes are glint with the challenge. Nomi won’t back down just because maybe the question’s in poor taste, not socially appropriate. He likes that very much, and isn’t sure why. 

“When we first moved in the landlord — leech —” Maran corrects, pitch and New York accent off enough to make Nomi giggle behind her hand, “He tells mum there’s nothin’ to fix…except well a bunch of this stuff, blah blah, this n’ that, and also the overhead light in the closet’s in need of a new chain.”

Maran smiles a bit, recalling being no higher than her brown, freckled knee. He remembers looking directly up to that light, thinking it was bright as the sun. He remembers feeling terrified immediately after, because she was always telling him not to look up at that, either.

“Not to get too into the weeds or tell her business n’all, but it was first place that was hers after my old man flew off into the wind. So she was real serious about fixing it herself. Least what she could.”

Nomi, fist curled to her cheek, smiles. She guesses: “Replaced that light chain with something funny?”

Maran shakes his head, smiling too. “Close. Sentimental lady, my mum. Took one look and couldn’t bare it. Because there were, like, knots all up n’down? Bits that someone tied a new piece of yarn or string to keep the links together. Ancient rusty piece of shit, looked like it was there from the first tenant, and she just got so teary about that. Couldn’t get rid of it.”

Nomi is a bit misty eyed when he looks at her. Maran feels it touch just at the corners of his own lashes: he misses her something fierce. He misses her more than anything. He wants a hug from her, a kiss to his scalp, a flat joke about whatever outfit he’d decided on for the day.

“She sounds the best.”

“Yeah.” Maran says, throat tight. “Best.”

*

He sees Nomi off in a sleek rideshare. She pays extra for the luxury cars, because they talk less and they’ve got good water in the back, always. 

Then he’s left alone in the cold, empty flat of his friends. He cleans a bit, but not too much — Xavier likes handling it for the most part, hates when its done wrong. He stays up a bit, tries to watch an episode of an anime he’s giving a second chance, and then can’t fucking bare it anymore.

He hates being alone, but its how he walks home. Earbuds in, some esports recap playlist blaring at him while he listens to not a word.

When he gets back to their flat, Maran all but tosses himself onto the pile of blankets and his slowly-deflating air mattress. It wheezes underneath him, but doesn’t give. He’s thinking about the flashing lights of the photo booth, Nomi’s warmth next to him, crammed into the seat. Once the curtains were drawn, the whole booth had smelled like her pretty, spicy perfume. A bit of her hair had gotten stuck in his necklace for one of the pictures. It makes him smile to look at their blurry attempt to gently free it, caught on camera at just the right moment. 

Funny this time! Flash. Now do serious, like we’re Bond villains or somethin’. Flash. Oh! Ouch, oh, don’t move! Flash. 

Maran pulls out his phone and opens the note app, where he’d typed down Nomi’s social media. He didn’t follow her on anything; she didn’t have much public except that business page for her modeling.

He only just saw her an hour ago. He’s still warm from the shitty food court meal, the company. Jekyll make a nice pillow, even if the fur is a little coarse.

Maran taps in the username, and gets no results. He frowns. Deletes it, fixes a letter, and touches the return button. The page takes a moment to load. He tracks the spinning wheel, anticipating what he might find: big, rare Nomi smiles, or artistic black-and-white magazine spreads like those vintage covers of Vogue Matilda has lining the walls of her kitchen. 

The page loads.

Maran blinks twice. 

There’s a strange whoosh in his ears. He hasn’t taken a breath yet. His heart begins to pound loudly in his ears, and his thumb touches down to scroll, and then he imagines accidentally double-tapping something, liking it. He imagines Nomi comfortably asleep or maybe close to it, tucked in a big girly bed with a nice duvet (she seems the type to own one, and have multiple covers, and even a throw blanket on top now that the weather is changing). He imagines her sleepy, blurry eyes when the notification wakes her, imagines her setting aside Hyde to pick up her phone, imagines her seeing that it’s Maran, at two in the morning, liking — liking a picture of — liking —

Fuck, he thinks intelligently. S’a lot of skin.

And then his phone is clattering against the milk crate in the far corner, skidding directly under the closet door’s gap into further darkness. 

Maran hadn’t even realized he tossed it, had sat up, was breathing so strangely. He palms a flat touch to his chest. 

He thinks about having to get up and retrieve that phone, about having to pick it up, of that page still open. Dully, he wishes the screen cracked. He wishes, even though he doesn’t have the fucking money to replace it, that the phone is shattered beyond repair. 

Instead of dragging himself from the bed, Maran nestles down under the thrifted covers and blankets. He clutches Jekyll tighter. 

Hoping not to wake Benji (if he’s around, anyway), Maran calls out: “Hey, set an alarm for eight hours from now?”

There’s a blessed moment of silence where Maran is relieved — the phone’s fucking dead. 

And then the robotic, feminine answer, muffled by the distance he’s managed to send it.

“Your alarm has been set.”

“Thanks,” Maran mumbles, and shoves his face in the pillow. 

It isn’t long for the silence of the room to bother. Then he’s shoving a guilty hand underneath his stomach and beneath his briefs.

*

He doesn’t sleep through the night. He doesn’t even sleep through the next hour, really. The second Maran’s out, he dreams. 

Him and Nomi, sat at a long laminate table. It’s diner style, but fancy dining room long. They sit in big velvet chairs, either end, and have a conversation. Maran can barely hear her across the distance; he tells her as much. Nomi stands from her chair. She’s illuminated on all sides by old television screens, their blue-green glow and static turning everything sickly. Nomi looks beautiful, as usual. There would have to be no light at all not to suit her. He thinks he says this out loud, because Nomi smiles. It’s a sharp thing. Wicked. Like the jagged stitch where Jekyll and Hyde had been separated, switched up, and put back together. 

Nomi lifts the great train of her skirt, which is either Victorian in style or slinky and modern, depending on how long he focuses on it. She holds it around her waist, climbs onto the table, and begins to crawl down it towards him. He feels a touch on his thigh, his arm. A hand cups his cheek. Slides down his chest.

Maran wakes up making noise. He isn’t sure what kind; it’s lodged firmly in his throat.

*

Ben gets back from his conference the next evening, late. And although he gets that text letting him know the door’s open, Maran fights the urge to go immediately. He should be better at being alone. He should be okay, spending time without company. He should give Ben some space, let him come down from what he knows is a stressful week of socializing for an introvert like him. 

He lasts maybe an hour. Then he pulls on mismatching socks, a hoodie, and grabs his wallet. The bus ride isn’t nearly as fun without Nomi sat beside him, snickering mean behind her hand but looking sweet.

*

What feels awful is that Ben accommodates him. He’s clearly tired, maybe up studying. What feels bad is that he steps aside with a worried, welcoming kiss to Maran’s forehead. What feels bad is being tucked into bed, being enclosed in warmth and the solidness of his boyfriend’s body, and not being able to shake that dream. 

What feels worse is the exhaustion of it all; usually, warmth to his back and breath on his ear and greedy arms squeezing tight, Maran drifts immediately. But now the minutes tick, slow and stretching. 

He can feel each of them them. 

Doesn’t need to glance at the red-blinking face of the ancient, bulky end table alarm to know — three, three fifteen, three thirty. 

It’s the exhaustion that pricks at his eyes, frustration and the desire to sleep that brings the sniffles he tries to contain. Four: the tiny, hitching breaths become impossible to contain. 

Ten past is when Ben’s rhythmic breathing changes, when the body behind Maran shifts, stretches, clenches tighter before relaxing.

“You awake?” He asks, and the sleepy, gentle incredulousness of that question is what brings the proper tears to Maran’s eyes. 

How Ben manages to always be prepared for action will never cease to amaze him. Maran figures its the anxiety, like he’d shyly admitted once and has never spoken further in depth about. Where Ben sees the crutch of it, Maran admires the readiness — in a crisis, he knows he’s a freeze. In a crisis, Maran knows where he would look for guidance, for next steps, for action. 

It’s not the mirror. 

“Yes,” he answers, and cringes. His voice is croaky and too loud in the ambient stillness. This late and everything is supposed to be soft and gentle and subdued. Asleep. Maran hasn’t ever in his life felt more awake; even as Ben squeezes him again, comforting, his brain won’t stop turning and turning and turning and —

“Baby,” Ben mumbles. He’s less out of it than a moment before. Maran feels him sit up, lean over, press a the back of a hand to his forehead, then his cheek. Ben freezes when he feels the wetness there. 

“It’s fine—“

“Baby?” Ben mumbles again, and then Maran is being moved.

It’s a real, genuine, awful cry as he’s guided onto his back. Above him, Ben is blurry. Like opening his eyes underwater, minus the sting. Looking at Ben, it couldn’t ever sting. 

Maran’s chest hurts a bit, anyway. It aches. His head is starting to hurt. From the emotion, the tears he’d been working to suppress for so long, from the exhaustion. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Maran’s breath hitches. It’s an awful, pathetic sound. He slips a hand over his mouth, catching the next one, and then closes that noise within a fist he presses to the center of Ben’s chest. 

“I’m a-awful,” he whispers, he croaks. His throat hurts, now. The words barely manage, tight and strangled on the way up. He thinks of Nomi’s comforting hand, soft on his arm.

He’s thinking of that? Now?

Maran hitches another little sob at the realization, sick to his stomach. “I’m no good, B-Ben, I’m not. I can’t be, really. I can’t if—”

“Maran,” Ben interrupts. Fully awake now, his brow tight with concern. “Where’s this coming from?”

Stop fuckin’ crying, Maran hears in a voice that belongs to neither of them. Or you’ll get something to cry about. 

He tries to stifle it. Stop the crying altogether. But all that accomplishes is a solid choke on air for the trouble. He hears himself make a silly, embarrassing sound. Then he’s mortified about that too, how childish he must seem, how stupid he must sound. But Ben’s here with him anyway, isn’t he? Yet he takes that for granted, he’s think of of —

 He’s awful. 

Ben cups his face in bed-warm hands. He shakes Maran a little, thumb fluttering across a wet under eye. 

“Nobody gets to talk about my b-boyfriend like that,” Ben teases awkwardly. He’s trying: his voice is as soft as it will go. Lulling. Maran remembers, suddenly, their trip to the petting zoo, and how shockingly sweet he’d looked holding out a palm full of grain to exotic deer. 

Are you impressed? He’d asked, batting his eyelashes at Maran. Look, animals totally love me. That’s sexy right? 

Maran sniffles again, although the hitching of his chest has slowed a bit. “But—“

“Nobody.” Ben emphasizes. He leans down to plant a loud, wet, smacking kiss to the center of Maran’s forehead. Any other time, it’d make him laugh and kick and shove away. 

Now, though, Maran just wants to crawl closer. 

He slings his arms around a broad back and yanks the body above, flattening to the bed. The air whooshes out of his chest in a huff; the softest air has left him in the last hour. He feels pathetic for asking it: 

“Why’d you even put up with me?” 

Ben lifts his head from where he’d been nosing in Maran’s chest. “Put up with?” 

Maran blinks at him, eyelashes feeling heavy and sticking together as the tears dry. 

“P-Put up with!” Ben repeats, and only seems to be dramatizing his absolutely shell shocked expression a little bit. “Mar, what’s wrong? My poor fuckin’ boy, what kind of nightmare was that? Jesus.” 

Maran sniffles again, speechless. His thumbs rub circles between Ben’s shoulder blades; the sensation of solid bone and soft tissue is calming.

“I — It wasn’t a nightmare.” He says. He swallows thickly. “I haven’t been to sleep yet. Barely got any last night, either.” 

Ben gapes at him, then shakes his head before leaning in for a quick kiss. It tastes sympathetic. He prefers that to pitying.

“My poor boy,” he repeats, humor just touching the words. When Maran shivers a little, his mouth curves slightly. “My poor, sleepy, sad baby.”

“C’mon.” His cheeks feel hot about that. The swirling, conflicting emotions make him shy.

“W-what’s the matter? What’s bothering you?” Ben insists. He shifts on top of Maran, easing them together before rolling onto his side. All the while, he keeps Maran close, arms tight. And for some reason — for some fucking reason, the softness and the comfort and the closeness — Maran starts to cry again. 

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. He tries to keep it quiet, conscious that the apartment is rarely truly empty, conscious that others might hear him in distress, ashamed of that. “I don’t know. I’m so —“

He bites back whatever might spill from him. Tired. Confused? Evil — evil, fucking evil, for even thinking about —

He’s tired. His filter feels weak; if Ben presses more, if he keeps asking… Maran is scared of what answer could pour forth. He doesn’t even know what it be — no. He’s terrified that he might know. 

That he already does. 

“I don’t know,” Maran cries harder. Ben shushes gently, and pulls him in tight. He doesn’t complain that the tears smear against his chest, that Maran grips a little too tight to his shoulders. Ben doesn’t even complain in the morning when they both wake, Maran uncharacteristically groggy, and there’s a pinched nerve in his neck from their greedy clutch at each other. 

Ben doesn’t complain at all, and Maran thinks he ought to.

*

In the morning, their usual lazy, slow burn of a connection is more frantic. It’s mostly Maran, which is slightly embarrassing after the events of the night. Somehow, makes it sweeter. His head buried in a bed-warm, stumbled and scratchy neck, hoping that the tears get confused for pleasure rather than anything else. 

Stupid to think he could. The second Maran huffs a little sound, one that sounds more like an after-cry hitch of breath than a moan, Ben is pulling him gently away and assessing.

Stupid. Ben knows him well. 

Although everything pauses, nothing is asked. The check is quick. Silent: Ben stops their frantic movements, holds Maran still with broad palms under his jaw. Their eyes touch, heat fizzling out almost entirely. Maran’s face scrunches. Blue eyes narrow, crinkle at the edges in a way that usually makes him feel hot all over.

Then Maran is being swung about, lifted out of Ben’s lap. Now he makes noise — a soft one, barely there, but not for long. Their positions switched, so now it’s Maran sinking into the pillowy mattress. Ben needs a new one. Maran’s always whinging at him for it. Won’t fix the neck stiffness, the back pain, but it’ll help. 

He isn’t complaining about it now, though: again, the energy shifts, and Maran is pressed slowly but firmly into its plushness. It’s anything but frantic. He still feels as desperate, as needy, but it’s like Ben won’t let him bleed that into the sex. Not too much, not multiple times, not with that fun, sweet edge of hurt: when it’s over, it’s because Maran gasps and burrows into his chest, shivering from the languid pace and well of emotion exploding in him. 

Still feels like crying, though. So he does. Cups the back of a messy blond head, holds him close, lets the panting wash over his collarbone. Maran sniffles through the comedown and then cries outright. He starts to apologize and gets a hand over the mouth for his trouble.

Maran pries it off, brows pinched. He bite at Ben’s heel until the hand loosens just enough. “Lemme talk.” 

“No.” Ben rasps. He squeezes Maran’s cheeks a few times. “Still got a f-f-fucking attitude after that. Incredible. Really, one of a k-kind.”

Maran blows a raspberry at him, then tosses himself to the side. Scoots purposefully so the hint is taken. Ben spoons around him immediately. 

“No early breakfast?” 

“I wanna stay in bed,” Maran mumbles. He wipes at his eyes with the corner of the blanket, but not sneakily: Ben squeezes him harder. It’s unlike him to turn down a meal.

He imagines the conversation that could happen. Ben might ask, what’s gotten into you, and Maran could huffily demure with a nothing, really. It wouldn’t be a foreign discussion. He’s had plenty of those, scuffing over his own feelings to keep the peace. But the watery image of that dialogue is hard to hang on to — Ben wouldn’t let him get away with it. 

And that’s the difference, right? Maran realizes he’s been coasting. Asleep at the wheel. The streetlight may be flickering, but it’s on now at least — it isn’t quite as dark.

Maran sniffles again. He can’t decide how he feels: bad, or…

Ben squeezes him. Like he can sense that indecision. 

“Baby,” he huffs into the back of Maran’s neck, “What’s gotten into you lately?” There’s a hard, teasing little squeeze to his hip. “Well. You know. Other than—“

Maran snorts hard, the humor welling up and pushing everything else out. He snorts, and then he laughs, and then he’s hysterically giggling while Ben pushes up and hovers above him, expression amused but still tinged with worry. 

“Oh fuck,” Maran gasps, hands on his chest. His stomach hurts from the laughter, from the earlier workout of being on top. It also hurts emptily: he’s hungry. “Oh, fuck. I dunno. Mid-life crisis, or something. I’m just—” he shakes his fist near his temple, almost smacking Ben in the jaw. 

He dodges and touches teeth to Maran’s fist, growling and making awful snorting noises. 

“I don’t feel as bad now,” Maran says. He winds arms around Ben’s shoulders and pulls him down, but the words are only half-true: he feels like crying again, just for a difference reason. 

Do I deserve this? 

“You’ll feel better after a nap,” Ben promises. 

I don’t know if a nap can fix this. Maran thinks. Something’s broken, isn’t it? In me? 

He drifts off, and this time, he does have a nightmare. In it, he’s alone in the empty flat. When he opens the door to leave, he walks into his room at Benji’s place. All his belongings are gone, except a blanket on the floor. Maran dreams that he folds it around his shoulders, lays down—

Maran sidles up to Xavier, who looks frustrated and uncomfortable in the massive throng of partygoers.

He nudges their shoulders together. Before Xavier loosens up, he stiffens full-body. Like a spooked dog, ears straight and tail perked. 

“Relax mate.” Maran raises his voice enough for his best friend to hear, and no one else. “Hey, d’you reckon there’s an iced cream flavor you’d toss over?”

Xavier barks out a startled, incredulous laugh. Several people turn to look at him, so naturally his ears go red. Maran fights a grin, fingertip grip on the ledge of proper, polite.

“What?” Xavier whispers back, somehow also shouting. “Maran. You’re joking.”

“Mine’s Pandyssian Plum, without a doubt.”

Xavier’s mouth does something funny before stretching into a grin. “I hear they don’t even ship those plums in from the continent. They’re just normal Tyvian plums.”

“Well they’d get a hole put in ‘em,” Maran says mildly, expression never faltering from graceful, host-of-the-party noble. 

Xavier bursts into another volley of laughs that peeter off with gasping breaths and a few shy apologies to the surrounding crowd. 

When the circus comes to Dunwall (base and low-brow and dirty and wild in the way that his father hates) every year, Maran sneaks out his third-story window and down to the outskirts docks. It’s at the filthy end of the city, where industrialization lingers in smog and coal pillars half the sky tall. 

But Maran loves it. 

The exotic animals from distant lands always make him sad, of course: even though the ringleader always assures his father when inspections and meetings about land fees and fancy ball fundraisers, Maran knows the truth is far uglier. He’s made friends with the acrobats. 

Years ago, actually, when they were around his age. They’d swap real stories of the life they led; Maran, his. Them, how to fool some of the game masters to actually get a prize; Maran, the pubs that would turn an eye if you looked a bit young. 

One of his favorite games had been this hole-and-mallet style thing. It consisted of violently bludgeoning tentacles of a kraken as they sprouted from the holes of a finely hand carved pirate ship. If you smashed enough of them, the gamemaster would bring out a little ceramic kraken’s eye. They were all handmade, too. His wife had been a clay artist, before they came to the empire; Maran could only imagine how many she made a week. He had a shattered kraken eye, shining keen and pretty on the bedroom mantle. She put an extra layer of pearlescent glaze on it because he asked. 

Sometimes minding Xavier reminded him of that game. Waiting vigilantly for some little anxiety or hint of embarrassment to appear — then smashing as quick as he could. 

Maran cups his elbow to do that now, imagining his hammer as it swings down. I’ve got you, mate. 

“Want to go dance, then?”

Xavier’s cheeks burn. “It’s…kind of improper?” 

Maran blinks at him. 

“We’re not married.” Xavier clarifies. 

“Xavier!” Maran yells, his turn to draw attention. 

It’s briefer than it had been on his friend, though: Maran is familiar and well-known nobility. Xavier has messy clipped hair and the aura of working class, the way his cuticles bend from stress-biting and his trousers have been visibly mended, no matter how no nice they were originally. Not to mention the size of the lad, the mad little gleam in his eye that not everyone is intelligent enough to appreciate. 

Unlike Maran. 

“I cannot believe you think I’d want to —“ he glances around, peeks over his shoulder, leans closer. “Waltz.”

Xavier smiles, but his brows are softly arched. “Well…that’s kind of your only option?” 

It’s what people do at these things, is what Maran means. And he’s right. It’s still just about the only acceptable form of social-event dance, because Dunwall’s utterly shit at adapting. She’ll rot into the sea before she sees change of her own will. 

“Of course it’s not our only option.” Maran dutifully nods and waves and exchanges pleasantries as he pulls Xavier from the ballroom. “There’s a party going on at the little dock, y’know? The one off the back garden. Invite only, a bunch of the employees get together during this annual shitfest.”

A bit more of him comes out now that they’re alone, cool air against skin from the swinging patio doors. They lope down the stairs in a giggling race, and then they’re off towards the far-off fence. The estate’s grounds are sprawling; it takes them time to stumble closer to the sound of revelry and genuine enjoyment of a party. 

I’m going to miss you, Maran thinks. It’s so sudden and strange a thought in that moment, no reason or rhyme to that sort of melancholy. He’s happy, he’s laughing, he loves Xavier to death and they’re about to spend what he hopes is the most memorable night of their lives shit-faced and together. 

Together is what matters. So that’s why: I’m going to miss you. 

It feels like a deadly premonition, a warning, and advice from his mother all at the same time. 

*

Maran can hear them talking out on the roof. One voice sounds as he hears it every day. One sounds like he could only grasp the entirety of it if he swum five leagues below the ocean and pulled it from the depths himself. 

Xavier’s voice warbles strangely. He imagines the sound of it would look a bit like the vortex you get if you swirl wine in the bottle. Maran prefers doing that to wine rather than drinking it. 

But he’s considering the latter now. And very seriously. 

It would be nice if just once he could hear what Xavier says. He gets jack all from Benji’s one half of a conversation. Emotionally constipated little prick.

He could march out and demand why. Of course there was a difference, that link between he and Benji, between he and Maran. No visits, no conversations, no signs on the wind or message in the stars. He tried not to be too sore about that. But it was near impossible. Most days, he figured he could understand what it would feel like to be one of those delicate ceramic eyes. 

Maran squeezes his eyes shut. He takes a deep, lingering breath and pretends it sticks in his lungs like honey. Lets them expand, push out all the empty loneliness. 

It wasn’t right to put the blame on Xavier. He repeats that to himself, gritted teeth slowly unclamping as his jaw loosens. It wasn’t right. Surely it wasn’t easy. 

Maran didn’t know much, but he wasn’t stupid. He pieced what he could together, from what little he knew.

He longed for just one more dance, though. 

Benji has always imagined himself a fly on the wall of most conversations. Present, but not in. And still he found them difficult to parse. As if everyone had gotten the script, but Benji showed up one day to be assigned ad-lib improv.

(Fuck if he knew the only reason certain social activities like improv comedy were real activities people did together. Make shit up on the spot to try and get a laugh? He’d rather be hung, frankly. Improv comedy. Pickleball. Microbreweries. Lunch espressos at a co-operative community work space? Things to do because Grace by the cooler said they were fun?)

Asking why, none of those things sound fun at all, would only draw accusations of impoliteness or poor social skills or something worse.

But Benji was really just curious. He wanted to know. Be in on the thing everyone else was, if not to do but just understand. Why this, why that?

He preferred to be the fly, really.

If he got into the weeds, he’d just muck it up per usual. He was prone to misreading a situation; uncomfortably misreading an expression for humored when really it meant, annoyed and following social decorum to not show it. He was prone to, when faced with heavy emotion, ask: wait, are you really angry? are you just joking, or are you really sad?

And of course they were. He just hadn’t been paying enough attention from his spot on the wall.

*

Benji pays attention now. Now, in the brisk early spring, off on a post-bar food run with the rest of the regular miscreants.

He hangs back, to watch. Maran and Xavier walk shoulder to shoulder, arms around necks and heads tilted in the way they do while whispering. Except the two of them gossip loud; voices and laughter rocketing into the night air. They’ve both got the sort of accents that jump. Together, their whooping and laughing remind Benji of a rollercoaster.

To Maran’s right, Lark strolls several paces ahead of the rest. He’s graceful about dodging things on the sidewalk (or the two swaying boys) while texting. Lark’s decent at multitasking, but best when something like texting Matilda was involved.

And Benny, on the far left: he lopes smoothly next to Xavier. He’s just about the only one of them that can properly keep up with the redhead — or cares to try.

When Maran briefly trips, stumbling behind their little chorus line, it’s Benny who loops a finger in the back loop of his jeans and keeps him just-barely upright. Xavier, whose cheeks are blotchy with a few drinks and the cool air, assumes Benny drapes near him for a hug. The four of the nearly go to the pavement in the ensuing tangle of limbs cut from their rhythm.

And Benji sighs, although he feels like laughing. He could spend all night like this: warmed, watching.

“Watch it.” Benji drawls. He sidesteps to narrowly avoid becoming a crash victim. “First day with legs then, lads?”

“Fuck your mum!” Maran pops back first (of course), with genuine cheer. He rights himself, his cheeks also pink despite the fact that he’s got more general color than Xavier. Almost like he’s blushing.

Benji’s eyes snap from his wide grin down — Benny’s still keeping him upright, or using that as an excuse, with a hand on the small of his back.

In what seems like a covert aside only they’re privy to, Benny and Benji lock eyes. Benji raises an eyebrow. Benny sheepishly looks away, but keeps his hand in place.

Benji swears he spots a smirk. His eyes narrow.

“Mar?”

“Yeeeees?”

“Didya know Benny’s birthday was a week or so ago?”

Maran whirls to look at Benny. His expression makes the rest of them laugh in unison.

“No it wasn’t.” He twists again: Benji. “You’re havin’ one.”

“Swear.”

“On your mum or you’ve reached the top of my list, mate, I am properly serious here.”

(Lark blinks, leans towards Xavier. “Sorry, what the fuck are they saying?”

Xavier shakes his head with absent sort of smile. “I don’t know. I’m still learning.”)

Their caravan has stopped moving now. They pause in a half circle with Benny positioned in, what Benji evilly assumes, must be an uncomfortable center.

“I swear, Mar. Ask him.”

Maran does immediately.

Benny’s frosty stare pings between the lot of them and then settles into the night sky. “Jesus, yes. I’m — I’m over the hill as of —“

“No!” Maran wails dramatically. He shakes Benny by the lapels of his ugly Hawaiian shirt. “We weren’t fuckin’ friends two weeks ago!” He kicks and sighs and scuffs his shoe. Benji isn’t sure if it’s genuine or put-on, that show, and loves him all the more for it.

“And here I am, got you fuck-all.”

“It’s okay,” Benji assures to pull them all back on track to his petty revenge. He holds Benny’s eye. “Benson here got nice of lovely gifts. What was your favorite, hey?”

Benny stiffens. He’s quick: he can see where Benji might be moving his chess pieces, and does not fucking like the outcome.

“Um. Actually my a-a-aunt sent me a pair of really nice house slippers—“

“Oh, really?” Benji quirks an eyebrow. “Because.”

Benny lifts both his: please don’t.

“I thought.”

Benny’s nose wrinkles: brace for impact.

“You seemed pretty fond of that DVD set that girl from your O-chem class sent along.”

Nobody else is paying attention to what Maran’s face is doing, except Benji. It goes through quite the same series of expressions. Except unlike Benny, who looks devastatingly embarrassed as Xavier and Lark ooooooh! boyishly at him, Maran looks.

Well.

Maran looks jealous.

“Oh nice.” Maran says. To Benji, it sounds thinner than usual. And not really at all curious when he asks: “What series was it?”

Benny, not looking at him but Benji, grits his teeth. “X-Files.”

Benji whistles. “His favorite.”

“Is it really?” Are the words that leave Maran’s mouth, but what Benji hears him ask is: and she knew that?

“Original packaging too, wasn’t it Ben? Vintage find online?”

Maran’s head whips; Benji and the nickname, Benny and his splutter.

“Wow.” Maran says dully. “Original packaging. Vintage.”

Benji laughs. “Yeah, should seen the number of hearts over i‘s and shit on that cute little birthday card.”

“No way,” Lark interrupts. “That you’re that much of a loser and still getting love notes.”

Benny spins in an awkward circle, making a cartier of faces at first Maran, then Lark, then Benji. He points at the latter, eyes flashing.

Benji smiles back.

“That’s really sweet.” Xavier sniffles.

They all turn to look at him, flummoxed by the emotion in his voice. He wipes a hand under a wet cheek; Benji’s heart lurches painfully in his chest.

“Xavier, buddy?”

Xavier takes Maran’s offered hand, his attention pulled from Benny’s crush and the hurdles his brain must be leaping to rationalize those feelings.

“I’m okay.” He sniffles again, convincing no one.

“Are you?” Lark pats him awkwardly. “You look like you’re gonna puke, dude.”

Maran wiggles back a step or two, clearly unimpressed by the prospect of having sick splatter his trainers.

“Yeah, mate. You sure…?”

“It’s just really sweet. It’s really romantic, and nobody does that anymore. It’s all apps and stuff and bot-slash-never-verse and pay for a few swipes left and, and — nobody wants to hold hands anymore and—“

Xavier leans over and retches.

“Oh!” Maran yelps. He tries to balance rubbing Xavier’s back and standing a safe distance away. “Oh shit, mate. You usually put it away.”

“I think I forgot to eat.” Xavier announces. He stumbles woozily into Benji, who can do nothing but move instinctually. Catch, hold upright. He covertly checks Xavier’s pulse as he slips a long, gangly arm around his own shoulders.

“Alright, someone’s clocked out. You all go on, we’ll take up the rear. Bit of a walk left, Xavier. Have you got it?”

Eyes blearily clouded, Xavier offers a wobbled smile. “Yeah, totally. I can like, maybe walk a whole two miles still for sure. I go to the gym every morning.”

“Oh. ‘Grats then.”

He did not need that mental image. It must show on his face because Benny’s suddenly looks victorious.

As he leads Maran and Lark forward, Benny holds back an arms length to two-finger point his own eyes, then Benji.

“Watch your back.” He hisses. “I’ll get you, bitch.”

And with the way he observes Xavier’s slumped lean into Benji, his face tucked into the top of his head, Benji has no doubt he’ll make good on that threat.

It begins with little stretches of time fleeing from his day. Bits and pieces, gone. Poof. Magic trick.

Maran isn’t any stranger to the funny, fluctuating passages of time; if he’s bored, a second will last eternity. If he ha something to do, hours drop from the day like crumbs, only bits and pieces. He’ll have started a project only return to himself an hour later with a finished scarf in his hands.

But lately.

Lately it’s been different.

He comes to one afternoon without an activity having occupied his Saturday. Benji and Tino are out, of course, having gone evidence hunting or problem solving or general sleuthing, whatever it may be. And Maran, because he was loyal enough to offer transport but not so loyal that he felt the need to wade around in murder-island-water with his best mate, had taken to the Life Insurance.

He would be fine alone. He could handle some rough waters, if the weather came to it. He wasn’t green after all. He knew his way around the water. He could be trusted, he didn’t need to be kid gloved—

Maran sits at his kitchen table, finger table absentmindedly against Geico’s terrarium. Watching the cool mists of the temperature and filtration system, he stares down at the piece of paper in his other hand.

Grocery List, it says, and he has the impression that it is supposed to be his handwriting. But it looks…strange. Each t tilts opposite the way he’d usually write it. Every a wears one of those fancy little hats at the top, the curved bit he’s too impatient to spend time adding if he’s in a rush to write a note. And it seemed he was rushed. But Maran doesn’t remember writing it. Doesn’t remember sitting down and having the thought: I am going to write a grocery note.

Much less waking up that morning, to begin with. He almost doesn’t want to check the galley sink for a used tea cup. He’d almost rather not know.

Grocery List, the note says, in Maran’s (?) pokey, scrawling script. And then, right below that header…

Food. Food. Food. Food. Food. Food.

Maran drops the note to the table and rubs over his mouth. He close his eyes. He tries very hard not to lose his fucking mind. To go absolutely mental, mad in every sense. He feels that way.

It must have been him writing it. Nobody uses that color-changing pen. Nobody has access to it. Nobody has access to his boat, other than Tino and Benji.

And they’re too busy working. Fixing a problem. Being serious and professional and helpful to society while Maran—

While he sits here on his boat, the boat he bought on a impulsive whim after his father’s windfall. While he scares himself silly with strange nosies at night that he probably just dreamt up. With lights off the coast, beacons of impossibly bright neons flickering up from, what seemed like, the sea floor.

Debris. He tells himself. Bioluminescent bacteria from vents deep below them.

And if those sorts of things can exist deep below them, what else might?

Maran shakes his head. He looks back at the note. His stomach rolls, flips, tightens and goes sour.

Geico’s tongue flicks out to catch a roving gnat against the terrarium’s interior. For some reason, this circle of life soothes him. The world goes on, geckos need food, and all that bothers is if the warming rock’s been turned on or not. Nothing else to worry about. Nothing.

It gathers an airy laugh from Maran that quickly turns nervous. He can’t shake the image of his own strange, alien scrawl from his thoughts.

He wets his lips, swallows a thick and cottony feeling in his mouth. Dry. He needs a drink. He needs several.

“Feel like a vacation, mate?”

Geico blinks one eye at a time.

*

Maran doesn’t expect the door to open after the first knock. He doesn’t expect it to open at all, and so he isn’t quite prepared when it does.

“Hullo. Uh. Maran.” He chirps, adjusting Geico’s portable enclosure under one arm. His knee comes up to balance it better on his hip, fingers wiggling around the corner as if to say: I’d shake your hand but see? All full.

“Uh,” says Benny intelligently. He looks recently awake, blond hair a springy mess from the back of his neck up. There’s a cowlick on the right that Maran almost wants to mention. “Yeah. I remember.”

He can be a bit weird, Benji was laughing in his memory, so don’t let that scare you off askin’ for help when you need it. You can trust him if..well. If someone feels the urge to toss shit into the fan, y’know?

You think it’s gonna come to that, mate?

The more we uncover about this mess, Mar? I don’t fuckin’ know. Maybe. Maybe.

“I’m, uh.” Maran laughs to himself. The soaking black edge returns to his head, but the light is on in Benny’s living room. It casts enough of a glow onto the gravel path outside, where Maran stands, to fend off some of that darkness.

He laughs again. “Well. Um, I’m here on a maybe.”

Benny blinks at him, eyes trailing a circle from his too-thin, fuzzy-hooded coat; Geico’s enclosure; the duffel slung opposite; his eyes, which feel wide and desperate.

“Sorry? A m-maybe? I’m…not following.”

And despite that, Benny steps aside. Maran tries to fight the relieved smile, the fucking beam that bursts out from his chest, but there’s nothing to be done.

*

Benny’s flat is small. It’s the split-level basement unit of a home owned by the head librarian in town. Apparently, she’s got a cot in the loft at the old building and spends her free, working, and sleeping time there.

“I think she’s got a gentleman caller she won’t tell me about. Needs her space.” Benny teases, clearing several stacks of books for Maran to set the gecko down. “Eighty and still p-pullin’. God fucking bless Georgina.”

“She sounds lovely,” Maran says absent-mindedly; he’s being nosy, assessing the wall furnishings (minimal) and various stacks of books (many) and science magazines (even more).

“She’s a cunt sometimes,” Bennys without a hint of shame, pulling Maran’s startled focus towards him again. He shrugs, smiles. “And I’d kill anybody else wh-who says so.”

“Thanks.” Maran blurts. He steps closer, shins bumping the coffee table. Benny stands on the other side, watching him. Still.

“I’ve been having weird dreams.” He admits. “Maybe a bit…isolated? S’not good for you, y’know. Especially me. I’ve never gotten on well alone, and with Benji and Tino out, it’s like everything’s just dialed up.”

His rambling isn’t met with more teasing, or a look of disgusted you’re over sharing.

Benny just nods. “Innsmouth’ll do that.” He gestures vaguely behind Maran. “And kill whatever nice p-plants are in there with him. You know, because of the chill.”

Maran flaps a hand. “Oh, no. I designed it myself, not to brag. But it’s got a temperature system in there with a recharagable battery tucked into the base, so he’s got a warming rock and automated humidity and —well. It’s not important, just…the little plants in there will be just about as happy as him.”

Benny shifts past him towards the table Geico now calls home — at least temporarily. At least Maran gets socialized, gets his shit in order again.

“What’s this one?” He asks, reaching into the top to pet a finger over some of the foliage.

“Lamb’s ear.” Maran breathes heavily, focused as if hypnotized on gentle sway and brush of leaves against a pale wrist. “Perennial, you usually plant ‘em outside, but my mum taught me the trick to house plant it. Humidity. They’re soft, right?”

Benji’s old friend, his old something, glances up to look at Maran. He smile seems to soften.

Or maybe he’s imagining it. He’s always been prone to imagining and daydreaming and all that other dangerous business.

“Real soft. Almost like vel-vel-velvet.” Benny says. His hand withdraws, brow tightening. “Anyway. Late. Uh, like I said. You can take the couch as long as you need. Key’s under the mat if you want to come and go for— I dunno. Investigation purposes.”

“I’m not part of all that,” Maran demures, taking sudden interest at his socked feet. He flushes to realize they’re Pikachu-print, wants to fucking die for a moment. He wishes he could sink into the godawful 1970s shag carpet. At least it’s soft. At least he’d go quick and easy.

He shrugs. Trails off again, valiantly finds his thought and loses it once more: “So.”

Benny tucks both hands in the pockets of his navy robe. “So…you got some time to k-kill?”

Maran ducks his head. He counts three seconds before he responds, just to test it.

The little drop of pretty, crimson blood descends as if in slow motion. Matilda’s reflexes aren’t quick enough — if they were, she’d do something impressive. Stick out her hand, catch it before it could splatter into the sigil’s center. Kick her heeled boot, scrub the line of salt to break its seal. Anything, anything to stop from happening what now seems irreversible.

Fated.

But she’s not quick enough, of course, so the blood falls directly into the center of the letter she’d carefully copied.

“Oops.”

As the sigil begins to spark, Matilda glances to her left. Nomi clutches her own wrist, manicured fingers curled inwards.

Matilda looks from the neat red line, faint but no doubt stinging, that splits the swell of her thumb. To the open envelope on the ground.

To the Attention of: Matilda Mary Rhodes

From: City of Philadelphia Department of Transportation, Division of Parking Enforcement

“Fuck you.” Matilda declares to the piece of paper that has fluttered out. “One hundred seventy dollars for an hour over? Suck me.”

“Babe.”

Matilda looks at her. Nomi’s pretty round face is lit up with shades of red and gold. The lick of flames reflected in her big dinner-saucer eyes.

A fleeting glance over her shoulder confirms what isn’t quite worst case scenario, yet certainly far from ideal.

“We should go.”

Matilda stares into the now-flaming runes they’ve drawn in the floor, the rapidly growing spark of hellish fire licking a spiral from the center of the digital out; its spark point is the drop of Nomi’s blood. It seems to have turned into a tar-ish substance, bubbling black and reeking of sulphur.

“So what happens if we substitute holy water for fresh blood?”

Nomi pretends to flick through a book, then eureka! sticks her index finger in the air.

“Oh, simple, it’s just — Til, I don’t fucking know! And I don’t want to stick around to find out!”

Matilda has some shred of an idea. Beneath the sigil, the ground begins to tear apart. It’s a strange phenomena to witness; the concrete doesn’t crack, the floor beneath doesn’t move or grown with effort. It’s just…a ripple of shimmery, awful red appears. A hole in the veil. The sigil parts slowly, like separating flesh.

Like a papercut. She laughs, pitchy and thinning. She’s sounds manic. Mad.

“We’re going to need help with that, I think.” She says, pointing at the smoking portal. Her hand is shaking.

Nomi grabs it and squeeze, then pulls.

I’M FREE.

The voice is supernaturally loud. Swimming in the air round them, booming and oppressive. Yet disembodied. Ownerless. Clearly not in the immediate room with them, but on the other side. Reaching through the veil.

FREE. FREE. FREE.

The echo of it breaks a window in the little shed. It’s volume makes Matilda shriek. She claps her a hand to her ear, stumbling as Nomi tugs at her.

“We’ll deal with it after we get out!” Nomi spits anxiously, her voice winding high. “I know a guy, it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’s not even—”

They’re barely six paces from the shed when something within it shrieks; when Matilda turns around, she sees shapes and shadows flicking along the glowing walls.

“He better be good at his job,” Matilda whispers, eyes growing impossibly large as the portal widens its gaping maw.

*

Matilda frantically tugs Nomi around a shelf, out of view from the shop’s owner.

She leans down very close, putting their noses together.

“Are you serious.”

Nomi’s cheeks are pink, her eyes not fully focused on Matilda but flickering to the side.

“He’s very professional and also trustworthy.”

Her hands raise, wave, lower, claw in frustration between them, then shake as fists in Nomi’s face.

“Nomi. Nom. Noms. I love you, like, so much.”

“But.” Nomi pouts.

“Tell me,” Matilda beseeches her friend with such amazing taste. With trustworthy taste. With a history of really good, really mature decisions and life choices. Her empty palm outstretched between them: give me the truth.

Nomi can’t meet her eye.

“Nomi. Tell me you did not.”

Nomi still won’t. Her milk-and-tea eyes dart side to side, never landing on Matilda’s for long. She’s silent.

Then:

“It was just the once.”

Matilda groans and drops her forehead to Nomi’s shoulder, bumping several times.

“Okay, actually.” Nomi rubs her back between the shoulders. “In the interest of transparency. It was like. The full deal just once. And then a couple times of, y’know—“ she gestures too vaguely for Matilda to connect it with a specific act, “—that.”

“A couple.”

“Three.” Nomi says definitively. Then, with a smile that she is terrified to label fond, giggles. “I got a discount after, but it was very polite-like. Not weird.”

The shop owner clears his throat. Matilda has no doubt that he’s eavesdropping, and isn’t really sure if they’ve ducked far enough away from the checkout to truly have privacy.

“I’m sorry. Nomi. He looks like he sells overpriced dirt weed to desperate middle schoolers.” Matilda says, testing.

“He does not—“

Louder: “The aura is definitely giving micro.”

“Fuck you.” The owner finally breaks. He’s got a funny, but somehow charming, gait as he leaves the counter to find the aisle where they’ve ‘hid’.

“You did some crazy shit like open a p-portal to welcome the antichrist or whatever, which b-by the way is totally above my pay grade.” He leans against the shelving, long fingers balancing some sort of wax-sealed spell jar in a spin. “I don’t have to help you. I’m doing it for Nomi.”

Matilda looks between the two of them: sleazy, I’m thinking about one or both of you naked grin; Nomi’s alarmingly besotted blush.

She throws her hands up.

“You know what? Maybe we let the world end over a parking ticket, actually, so I don’t have to witness this.”

The owner leans closer to Nomi, fingers brushing the ruffled, lacy black cap of her sleeve.

“Hear that, Noms? World ending. Think we could grab one last —“

Matilda spins on her heel, palms to her forehead. “Pardon me, I need to go play in traffic.”

Maran laughs.

Beside him on the couch, Benny’s chin tilts in curiosity. His fist is still tucked underneath, a leg drawn up to balance himself; the movie has engrossed him. Rare. Maran has noticed he’s picky about movies. Their story, sure, and how immersed he feels about it. But Maran’s also never heard a guy rant the way he does about shoddy acting.

He hasn’t ranted for the last fifteen minutes, at least. Ben’s a quiet movie watched, to Maran’s complete opposite preferred viewing experience. Still, he lets Maran add commentary here and there. Crack jokes. Doesn’t get mad, doesn’t sigh all passive-aggressive, tell him he’s ruining it.

Benny talks now, though. He leans over, tilted a bit to catch Maran’s eye.

“This is very serious, Maran.” He wiggles a tattooed knuckles at the television. “Why are y-you laughin’? Something funny about a good climax?”

On screen, the protagonist-slash-final girl (boy, really) is locked in a rainy embrace with a side character. The two clutch each other, kissing and crying in what is likely the adrenaline-comedown of relief. Rain washing off the blood they’ve accumulated throughout the, frankly, gorefest of a film.

Now, Maran knows it’s all fake. Rubber prosthetics and clay modeled faces, buckets of dyed corn syrup with styrofoam chunks. But he’s still glad to watch it all away. It’s just…it’s just the other part of the scene that’s making his stomach do weird things. The nausea of a horror watch lingering, he supposes.

“I mean, no.” Maran laughs again, awkward now. He gestures at the scene, cheeks hot for some reason. “Just…feels a bit much?”

Benny quirks an eyebrow. He’s got that nasty, mean sneer on his face. Which usually means Maran is about to get roasted over the fire and have to scramble to keep up with the witty teasing.

“You a homophobe, Maran? Is that your issue? The gay agenda in your g-good Christian horror?”

Maran’s he nearly unhinges.

“That’s not—“ He starts.

Benny’s grin widens.

“I’m not even—“ He tries again, desperate. He goes to his knees on the couch. “You’re not serious.”

Benny only stares at him. Challenging.

“You’re being— that wasn’t what I—!”

He trails off because Benny hoots, slaps his knee. The sting sticks even through his jeans, and Maran rubs the spot. His stomach hurts.

“Jesus. Your f-face.” Benny pulls an impression of him then, and Maran has to admit it’s pretty spot-on. His cheeks feel so bloody hot.

“I. Am. Not.” Maran asserts. He drops back to his spot, arms crossed petulantly. “I was gonna say it felt rushed. And that kiss scenes are always - y’know. Weird.”

Benny scoots closer, arm flung around the back of the couch.

“Ooh. Unpack that.”

He suddenly doesn’t want to. He suddenly would rather be at the edge of a cliff. “No.”

“Come on. Can’t drop media critique circa Hayes Code and then not back it up?”

Maran frowns, brows furrowing. He’s got no idea what computer science or coding has to do with horror cinema, but he makes note of that to ask Nomi about it later. She’ll know.

“I mean. I dunno. It’s always a bit uncomfortable, yeah?” His hands twist awkwardly in his hoodie pocket. The credits on screen begin to roll, punctuated with a bass-heavy rock anthem from the opening scene. Benji would like it, probably. He’d be an arse about the drumming, but he’d like it.

“What is?” Benny leers, leaning into his space more. “Watching, or—?”

Watching, or?

Maran feels the heat in his face with a palm, laughing once more. “Sure. But, like, you know it’s actors, yeah? That’s like…you’re suckin’ face with a coworker, practically? How d’you reckon you water cooler that convo later?”

“With fat pockets. They get paid fuckin’ bank to pretend.” Benny sits back. “I’m sure they’re very professional.”

“Or nude scenes.”

His attention is back on Maran, and so is that nasty grin. “I’m sorry? Nude scenes?”

“Fuck off.” Maran pouts. He shoves Benny’s poking finger away from his arm.

“Nude scenes! You can say sex, Maran. It’s not a dirty word.”

But it is, isn’t it? That’s why it makes Maran feel warm to say, to think, no less watch on screen. Especially with friends around? In a theater, in public? It’s just too intimate to playact. He sort of wishes everything just faded to black, and the characters got their privacy.

“I know.” He huffs. He squirms down into the mass of blankets they’ve accumulated, hiding his burning cheeks in the top of his hoodie. “Put the next one on, already.”

“You didn’t rate that one.”

He considers it for a moment. “Seven.”

Benny hums thoughtfully. “Hm. Would have given it an eight if y-you weren’t a homophobe.”

Maran lurches across the couch and grabs at his shirt, shaking him and growling playfully until they fall to the ground with a bang! that draws the downstairs neighbor’s typical pounding. They watch two more movies, but by the middle of the second, Benny’s heavy body is slumped into him. His arm still wraps behind the couch, and because there’s no threat of someone walking in, Maran wiggles closer.

Even though the last film wasn’t too bad on the gore, his stomach still feels strange. Tight, nearly sore like after a workout. Warm like his face.

It is another dreary, rainy evening. Across the slick two-lane road, a diner’s glowing sign spills like neon paint into each black corner of the night.

Benji isn’t sure why he looks both ways before jogging to the other side; the sprawl of asphalt stretches far into distance. The road tapers thinner and thinner. First, it becomes a pencil-thick black line — then, in the far mist, it disappears completely. As if some higher power had ambitions to drawn a line across the landscape, lifted the pen from page, and simply…forgot.

If there were cars coming either side, he’d seen them a solid minute before they pulled up. But he checks both ways, and then…

Benji strolls up to the diner’s chrome and glass dood, scowling. He pats for his pack.

Front: right left right? back: left right jacket: inner outer, fuck.

Benji glances around to make sure he hasn’t dropped them. Although in the downpour, what good does a wet cigarette manage? Still, he lifts either book, looks over his shoulder. Groans.

Something creaks over his shoulder. Before Benji can whirls fully, there’s a mirrored groan even further behind him.

Across the road, standing in the spot he’d occupied before crossing, is a figure.

Benji blinks. He pats his pocket again, absent-minded and instinctual.

When he turns back to the diner, he finds the interior lights have gone out. Neon has choked dark, and the only luminance seems to be whatever moonlight spills through the clouds. It is not enough.

As he stares at it, the diner’s open sign flicks on. It is the only thing that does.

I’m dreaming, Benji thinks clearly. Relieved.

The whole of the night yawns, creaks, stretches around him. He feels nauseous, because once he’s had that thought: I am dreaming…nothing stops.

That tether keeping him tucked to sleep. The abrupt yank out of himself, awake.

I’m dreaming. His mind shivers. I am dreaming.

He has to be. He is.

Is he?If he’s not…

He wants to turn to look. He wants to see if the figure behind him still watches. He wants to know who they are. He wants to wake up. He wants to wake up—

Gift, a voice in the darkness says.

He knows somehow, inexplicably and without turning, that it belongs to the thing watching him. He wants to wake up—

Benji finds his legs moving without much of his own input. The door to the diner swings open, darkness spilling from it like slippery black innards. Enveloping him. A single booth illuminates on the far end of the restaurant. There is a coffee mug on the laminate, steam rising from its contents.

Deep, deep, deep down (somewhere far and cold and strange to touch his mind towards), Benji knows that something awful will happen if he slides into that empty booth.

And yet Benji moves towards it. He cannot stop. He wants to wake up—

When’s the sun rising? When will light filter into the windows, shine away the darkness? How long has he been standing there, across the road, staring at the diner? Why had he, for that matter?

Benji is just a body length from the table, now. Although both seats are empty, a strange shadow touches into the opposite side from the mug. It wiggles at the edges, but its form remains still: perfect, alien posture.

The shadow elongates and twists. Benji realizes it is turning its head towards him, although there is no face nor features. But it smiles. He feels it smile, although it doesn’t. Feels it. He knows it has sharp teeth. He wants to wake up. He wants to wake up. He wants to wake up—

He does.

Lark bolts upright with him, legs tangled in the other sleeping bag. His yelp and Benji’s loud, gravelly cry of conscious dismay mingle in the air. The mostly-empty building sings it back.

“Ow. Fuck.” Lark sniffles, face pinched as he pulls something from under and behind him. “Dude. You made me sit on my EMF.”

Benji stares at him. He realizes, abruptly, that his chest is heaving for air.

He laughs softly, because it’s just vague enough to sound like a naughty euphemism.

“I just had the most mad dream.” Benji whispers.

Lark holds up both index finger, crossed like a warding symbol.

“Ah-ah. I didn’t ask about your nightmare for a reason. No heebie jeebies please. The energy in here is fucked as it is.”

“Someone was hunting me.” He continues anyway. He pats for his cigarettes, in his back right pocket — first try. “And I was on this, dunno. Country highway? Raining, but…” he frowns. “I don’t remember feeling wet. Or cold. And there was this diner—“

Lark’s stomach rumbles. He pats it with a flare cast down. “No, boy. Bad. No Denny’s.”

“Someone say Denny’s?”

Both of them make noises. The volume and pitch of those noises are details to take to their graves, respectively.

“Ahh!” Xavier screams just a second after them, hand pressed to his chest. The angles of his face are sharply sculpted in the blue light dusting up from his phone’s flashlight.

“I just came to check on you. Are we okay—?”

He looks half close to exhaustion; Benji isn’t sure how he ever managed to convince Tino he was well enough to come back to contracts after that scare last month.

“Fuck off.” Benji says, instead of you shouldn’t be here, or who knows what could happen to you, or we still aren’t sure what happened to you last time, or it’s not safe.

“Wow.” Xavier says back, his voice not raised yet but dripping with that tell-tale seethe. Indicates the rapidly approaching end of his rope.

“Wow.” Benji parrots, rubbing at his sore eyes, his forehead. He feels a headache coming on. Xavier’s fucking presence, no doubt about it. “Listen, mate, we’re busy.”

“You know, I was kind of hopeful that you were having a nightmare instead of like, gettin’ smacked around by whatever is haunting this place.” Xavier pouts. “But now I kind of wish I walked in on you getting like flying-knee uppercut by some imp with its ass out.”

His headache gets markedly worse each second.

I had a nightmare. Benji doesn’t say to him. Last time that happened I stumbled down to Tino’s kitchen and you were there playing a game on your phone. Two am, and we sat there until three not talkin’ much, but also not at each others’ throats. It was nice, I suppose. Not to feel hated. And Benji certainly doesn’t say: I went back to sleep fine, after.

“Is it that hard for you to understand when you’re not wanted?” Benji asks coldly, that same sort of helpless fizz to his vocal chords that has been in his limbs during the dream. He can’t stop himself from moving, from talking. It feels nightmarish all the same.

“I mean, really. How many times have I got to tell you to fuck off? One more for luck?”

Lark tugs at pants leg as he stands, squares up to Xavier.

“Fuck. Off. Wolffe.” He says, venomous and slow. “It is pathetic.”

Xavier full-body twitches.

For a moment, Benji imagines him lunging forward. His arms outstretched, hands clawed. But Xavier doesn’t move to attack. Rather, he stumbles a step back and then twists abruptly, stomping a retreat from the room he and Lark have set up in.

When Benji turns to Lark, he’s glaring.

“What?”

Xavier follows him out the blast-open door into the courtyard. The hospital was abandoned when the frontline was pushed back, and evacuations spread over this side of the continent. Like the vine-locked graveyard of a picnic space, the land is battle-torn and desolate.

Perfect place for them to meet. Perfect sort of circumstances; upcoming leave for Benji, a longer period of time to spare. Lovely day, really — blue sky, lack of clouds, cool breeze. 

Was perfect. Until one of them had rustled Xavier’s gear wrong, and something unexpected had rolled out.

“Benji—”

He walks faster.

“Benji!” 

When he whirls, Xavier is closer than he thought. They nearly collide. For some reason, the possibility is worse than what reality has just offered. 

Betrayal, says the back of Benji’s skull, his gut instinct, his bitterness. You were right to worry. It was too good to be true.

Xavier stands before him, eyebrows pulled but not much else. Benji realizes that, maybe for the first time they’ve been around one another, Xavier is trying to control his expression. 

He tries not to be hurt by that. There’s so much more to be hurt about. 

That’s what all this was, anyway. A larger plan with a gullible mark. Theft — of a worse sort than Benji previously thought possible.

“It’s not—“

“What it looks like?” Benji finishes.

Xavier’s whole face puckers with the force of his wince. 

“Oh fuck,” Benji barrels on, ignoring him. “I’m so bloody stupid.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Benji snaps. His heart clenches painfully. He winds a shaking hand up into his hair, pets it back until it lays flat. “Fuckin’ hell, you made it so fun.”

Xavier lifts a hand, eyes searching Benji’s face. The hand drops. 

“Makes sense, don’t it?” Benji asks monotonously, gaze locked to a spot just left of Xavier’s ear. He likes the cowlick just there, more curled than the rest of his choppy red. “I mean, me. Didn’t put up much of a fight.” 

Xavier stares at him, face still flush. His anger-locked jaw begins to soften with something; but seeing it, that tiny fragment of — of pity, fuck, if it’s pity he’ll —

Seeing it makes Benji steam hotter. Abnormally so. Suddenly, he hasn’t felt as out of control of his emotions as he had as a teenager. And with that realization comes shame, which makes the anger burn bright, which forces his mouth open. 

“And you? Probably you specifically, wasn’t it?” Benji’s laugh is as far from humor as it could possibly be. “Oh, fuck. I knew.” 

“Knew what? Benji.”

Benji takes a step back. He starts to unravel inside. “I thought you were laying it on thick, yeah? Direct right from the beginning, weren’t you. You’re a shit spy, Xavier, now that I think about it.”

And he was. He was thinking about it, and spiraling, and thinking about it, and—

He swallows hard. What must have been a manic, awful mask of humor slips from him entirely. He is very cold, all of a sudden. 

Iced, Benji takes another step, arms crossing over his chest. Try as he is, suddenly ducking with surrendered hands and worried brow, Xavier cannot pull his eyes from the ground. 

“Fuck away from me.” Benji whispers. Xavier flinches, then freezes in place. He won’t look at that face any longer. 

(can’t)

His eyes burn. He swallows again.

“When I was wounded, probably mortally, just lucky to run into somebody merciful. It’s so stereotypical. Enemy soldier in an alley, Benji? Yeah? Just happens find you, just happens to have the last of his supplies, isn’t that generous, and just happens to need to touch you to save you, what an angel. And smiles like that, because of course he does, mate, and flirts with you, asks about you, just wants you to like him, Benji, you fucking stupid —”

There’s a muffled thud, pain shoots up his hand and wrist and arm and shoulder. Paint that quite nearly wakes him out of it. 

He drops his arm, hand throbbing, heart pumping blood to new bruises. His lungs push the air from his chest to leave his mouth.

His eyes unfocus.

 Benji  stares a particular section of pavement at his feet; about one millimeter from where it begins, it arches in a strange pattern. 

He floats a bit away, then. Or maybe he already had, the second he pulled a cool, familiar sphere of material from Xavier’s pack. 

He feels rather than experiences himself move. His body move, anyway. Lungs push air in and out. Spine bends to lift, bicep contracts to adjust weight. Arm reaches for pack, for gun and holster and (most embarrassing of all) helmet. 

In training, Benji had been a record-breaker for equipment up and off. Something about the routine of all those buckles and belts did a funny thing to his brain, made the time move quicker. He’s training-efficient now; he turns to Xavier within fifteen seconds, to his estimation. Unlike training, he hadn’t been timing himself.

They don’t announce themselves. We sit here and wait for a new hole to be torn in the world. So if you want to be a sitting duck, take your time with the laces. If not, if you want to be a bastard served in a confit, then learn to move your arse quicker. 

Lieutenant, permission to inquire?

Palanivel, don’t make me regret this. 

Thank you LT. Respectfully, sir, you think any of these these ones are cultured enough to get what you mean by a fuckin’ confit?

Benji. Private. 

Sir.

You’re going to get yourself in shit someone won’t let slip, someday.

Benji laughs again. Dull, as he stares Xavier straight-on. He hasn’t got any dignity left, which means he hasn’t enough ego for shame, which means eye contact is as easy as breathing. 

Xavier’s irises look even greener wet at the edges. Such a pretty color that Benji can’t help but admire it, even now. 

“I killed for you,” Benji whispers. He feels his face curls into something ugly.

Xavier makes a breathy noise. He stumbles forward, fingers patting up Benji’s arm to cup his elbow. 

“Benji!“

And Benji does what he hasn’t done this whole time. What he should have done to begin with. 

He moves out of reach. He hopes one day his brain will let go of this particular memory. For now, the expression that falls across Xavier’s face is one that will stick — guilty and glue-like in the pit of his stomach — for awhile. 

Worse, he sticks to the act: he tries. 

“Will you listen to me for a second?” Xavier hisses. His breathing is deep and slow. Benji’s isn’t; even that makes him angry.

“I think I have been, right?” Benji hisses. “Hope you get paid overtime. Or was that all of that punched in?”

“I’m not getting—“ Xavier grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes shut. “I mean, like. I am, okay, not like that?”

“Right.” Benji laughs. “Right, sorry, you just get paid to kill. Not to lie and — and —”

For a second, fury splits over Xavier’s face. He burns to his hairline, eyes flashing, fists clenched at his side. Still, he doesn’t move into Benji’s created space. 

Then it all drains out.

Benji watches how a hundred little movements point to the sort of…deflating Xavier does then. He wonders how he ever could have believed him in the first place, when he wears everything on his sleeve like that.

“You believe that?” 

Benji turns away. “Mate,” — hates himself for hanging onto that — “stop, alright? You got me. Don’t be a sore winner.” 

“I’m not,” Xavier insists weakly. Throat dry like that, he sounds injured. His mouth twitches into a ghoulish line. It is not, but is trying desperately to be, a smile. 

“This…this is just a massive miscommunication.” 

Benji pushes him aside to go for the discarded pack. He tears through it and then finds Xavier’s tiny heist. 

“A miscommunication. Fuckin’ likely. What’s this? I mean, for all I know this isn’t the first. You’ve been taking. Stealing! The very fuckin’ thing that started this whole shit—”

“You think it’s great back home?” Xavier snarls. “You think you’re the only sad asshole worrying about his family?” His palms slap to his chest. “Fine, if you don’t want to believe me about — about that, believe me when I say I’m not taking it for some higher up.” 

“Oh, you’re bein’ altruistic?” Benji scoffs. “Gonna give it away so somebody can power something they really need, or sell it for cash?” 

“My sister wants to go to school.” Xavier shouts. He gets animated it about it, hands thrown to the sky. “Alright? Fuck you.”

“No, Xavier, fuck you.” Benji brings them nearly chest to chest. “You got all you need, don’t you. That,” he gestures with the sphere. “Intel, I’m sure.” He resists the urge to eave a hand at himself, too. You got that, he thinks, and this.

“I couldn’t be an intel officer if I wanted,” Xavier says heatedly. “I’m not—”

He falls silent. It lingers. 

“What do you do for them?” Benji finally whispers. They’re still close, but they don’t touch. 

Xavier’s head tips forward. His skull knocks dully against Benji’s helmet. 

“Entry and Extraction.” Xavier replies, just as quiet. “I’m a corporal.”

Benji huffs. “Aw, fuck. You’re not helping. That’s either a coincidence, or —”

“Or I was assigned this,” Xavier’s hand closes around the fist Benji makes. They squeeze the sphere together. “To what, fuck with you?”

“I told you troop movements. I talked about people in my company by name.” Benji sways a bit, and Xavier’s lean becomes heavier. His forehead slips to Benji’s shoulder. The strap of his pack can’t be comfortable, but Xavier brushes his face there like a pillow. Stop, Benji wants to tell him, but is unable. 

“You could have been wired this whole time. We know your radios work.” Benji slips a hand up his curved spine, feeling for a wire bulge beneath his shirt. “It’s probably more advanced than that, huh? You wearing a mic, handsome? You been wearing one this whole fuckin’ time?” 

Xavier’s shoulders shake with a dead laugh, too. “Yes.”

Benji smiles despite himself, despite the situation, feeling absolutely mad. “But?” 

“I turn it off when I’m with you.” Xavier still doesn’t touch him, hands limp at his sides. His chin tilts, their noses almost brushing. “Which I get is what somebody would say—”

Benji snorts loudly. Bastard has him going even now. 

“I really, really want to believe you. Fuck, Xavier. You’ve no idea.”

“It’s the truth,” Xavier insists. He sounds so, so sincere. He’s sounded so sincere this whole time. 

Benji swallows. It’s a pit in his throat, now. He pulls his hand free of Xavier’s and then unfurls each pale digit one at a time. Benji puts the radianite into his palm. Pushes it away, into Xavier’s own chest.

“What’s she want to go to school for?”

Xavier blinks at him. “Literature. Total collapse of our fucking world, and Em’s content to read Jane Austen right to the end.”

Benji smiles a little sadly. “Funny she exists over on your end, too. My sister loved Wuthering Heights.” 

“That’s Brontë, Benji. Jesus, get it together.” 

Benji has to escape then. He squirms out of Xavier’s orbit before he crashes to the surface. Xavier lets him go, but it takes the mercenary a moment to stand up straight.  

“Have you got the extra bandages I gave you?” 

“You know they overstock special boys like me, right?” Xavier says, but he kneels and reaches to the pack Benji discarded and holds it open, shows him the spare kit he tucked inside.  

Benji stares down at him. He wants, very badly, to touch Xavier’s boyishly smiling face. 

Believe me, it says up at him. We can go back to kissing and talking and playing stupid card games. Wasn’t that nice? Wasn’t that fun?

Benji reaches up. He touches two fingers briefly to the corner of Xavier’s frowning mouth. 

“Stay away from mine, and I’ll stay away from yours, alright?” Xavier’s eyes stay locked to him as he backs up, towards the hole in the fence. 

“Stay, Benji? Please? We can talk—” But Xavier doesn’t move. Xavier has stopped following. We can talk about it.

You could, Benji thinks. You could talk me into it. I can’t let that happen. I have to get back. 

He turns his back.

I have to confess.

*

Quinn doesn’t rage. He doesn’t act disappointed. He doesn’t discharge Benji right then there, or hang him for treason, or react, really, whatsoever. 

He watches Benji from the other side of his desk on base. Well. Metal folding table, and with more than a few dents. It squeaks when he stands, spreads his palms. 

Benji has lied again. 

He watches Quinn fiddle with the crushed bit of electronics in his palm. Xavier’s tactical mic; Benji had nicked it, a quick slip of his hand into Xavier’s back pocket. He’d plucked it free of the nylon strap. Kept that. Sentimental, even now. 

“This is…manageable.”  

His stomach drops. He clears his throat, trying not to sound worried. “We can track it, sir?”

Quinn laughs. He meanders around the edge of the table slowly. “Naw,” he drawls. “Crushed to all hell like this, not a chance. At least, no ‘verse tech interns to spare. You want to know something funny? Based on our intel, I think it was Wolffe’s team that planted the device that took that corporate office out.” 

Benji swallows. He feels ill. “Civilians. Quinn. I thought—”

“They’re fucking savage beasts.” Quinn says. He kneels down to put both hands on Benji’s knees. “I know it seems like us. I know they seem — familiar. But you have to understand, Benj, that world’s not ours. They’re different. And Wolffe.”

Benji doesn’t meet his gaze until his chin is tilted up. 

“Benji, you’re lucky, alright? That one is a piece of work. Nearly running into him? The fact you could slip him…the fact you even got in close enough to grab this.” He holds up the crushed mic. 

“I was talking on the radio to Officer Katsidis about rendezvous. About movements.” Benji blurts the lie. He blinks what he hopes are sufficiently sad eyes. “I wasn’t secure with the perimeter. I wasn’t careful. Shouldn’t—“

“No.” Quinn says. His palm flattens over Benji’s shoulder. 

“But I—”

“It’s manageable,” Quinn says. “I can deal with it. We can.”

We. 

Benji stares at him. “I saw him leave.”

“I’m not planning on chasing.” Quinn straightens, hands on his knees. “You know about roaches, Benji?” 

They had roaches briefly, when he was a child. He barely remembers, but Saha’s was nine — old enough to pick up weird cleaning compulsions from the experience. 

“A bit, LT.” 

Quinn rounds his desk. He peers out the flapped tent window, across the yard. “They need such tiny amounts of food and water. But they do need it. And once they know where they can find both, they keep coming back.” He looks over his shoulder at Benji. “They’ll even walk over poison traps, empty-headed bastards, until enough of ‘em die.” 

Benji, not for the first time, begins to regret seeking punishment. “Do we have poison traps on hand?” 

Someone grabs him from behind.

Benji lifts from his body, eyes shuttering like they always do, and bursts into motion. 

He drops to a knee as he spins out of grasp, shrugging away the shoulder pawed by a stranger’s hand. And then in a series of movements, he has the unlucky bastard’s knee knocked to the side, spun off-balance. It gets Benji in range. Benji’s awful in range. Up-close.

But in the back of his mind, he’s prompted into harsh movements by something even worse than in-range training. 

Betrayed, a little voice hisses. Compromised.

It’s that special rage that pushes Benji back to his feet, the body of his attacker in tow. It’s that rage that spins it by the shoulders to face him, momentum throwing the person into rapid, desperate stumbles as Benji walks them both forward. Directly, and without much care for gentleness, further into the depths of the alley. Towards the brick.

As his back hits the wall, Xavier makes a cartoonish sort of ack! sound. It’s so absurd Benji immediately snaps from wherever his head had gone. Not knowing whether it’s unintentional or intentional (but, knowing this one: with a desperate need for Benji to agree with his humor). 

That thought, really, is what snaps him out of it. That it’s Xavier trying to make him laugh, even with a forearm to his throat.

“Dude,” Xavier wheezes, grinning even as his breath cuts short. It makes him sound funny, and he must agree, because he’s grinning like a lunatic while he says it. “I just wanted to hang out.” 

*

They do. A not-so-carefully organized rendezvous whose coordinates were delivered in code over an agreed frequency. How Xavier manages to get this deep behind lines, Benji isn’t sure — but he figures it has something to do with the arsenal of networking and connections Xavier has established for himself amongst his group. Or so he assumes, based on how much the bastard yaps. 

For twenty minutes. For twenty minutes, they converse. They joke. For twenty minutes, (Benji counts as discretely as he can with glances at his watch) they circle the outer path of the city. It’s mostly an entertainment and commercial distract; these days, it houses a quickly dwindling array of shops and venues. 

“It used to be cool.”

“It’s still pretty cool,” Xavier says. He can’t stop looking above them, through the great glass dome encapsulating the city. “I mean, we don’t have anything like this —oh fuck! Is that a whale?”

Benji nods, but he doesn’t have the attention for it. Xavier’s darted down a path, eyes wide with childish excitement as he watches the great, dark shape in the far distance traverse the ocean floor like a hawk in the sky. Slowly, inch by inch, it fades the same mottled black-blue of the horizon until its gone, swallowed up by the dark water beyond.

Maran hates this place. He’d been here exactly once, to the comic store around the corner from where Benji leads them now. And then he had sworn, as typical, to never ever fucking come back. 

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” 

Benji snaps out of his thoughts. He’d been walking with Xavier close behind, the enemy soldier at his back —

The enemy soldier, Benji thinks, grounding himself. At his back.

He slows until Xavier passes him. His brow furrows. He feels no apprehension or fear or adrenaline; he should have. Xavier is armed. And Xavier is — Xavier. Benji’s seen him in the midst of it. 

“Yes,” Benji confirms. He steps up to the shopfront, shoulder to chest with the other man. “You said you liked music.”

Xavier tilts to smile at him. “Fuck, dude. I meant like — I go to the club and like music.” He gestures broadly at the store. “Not, like, actual real music. Or making it.” 

Benji shrugs. “Club music’s still music, mate. Got a decent beat.” 

“Tell me about it.” Xavier adopts a strange stance, then lifts both arms in the air and drops his chin as he bounces in place, unce-unce-unce of his own bad synth impression serving as tempo. When he stops, his hair’s a bit of a mess and his cheeks are flushed.

Benji clears his throat. “Ah, well. My bad. Can’t really recommend you clubs. Y’know. Considering. I, uh. Like this place,”

“Yeah? Can I guess?”

“Guess?” Benji asks, flustered. 

Xavier laughs. “Yeah, dude. What you play.” At Benjis surprised expression, his laughter bursts forth again. “Benji, come on. You’re totally obvious.”

“Alright, then, if I’m obvious. What?” 

“Hm.” Xavier says, eons of philosophers providing wisdom to that single, brief noise. “Saxophone.”

“Fuck yourself!” Benji splutters. He shoves Xavier, who stumbles a bit into the brick behind him. “Dickhead.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Xavier leans back into Benji’s space, as if forced by gravity. “Um. Bass?”

“Drums.” Benji holds up his hands, flexes them. “Couldn’t tell?” 

Xavier swallows. His eyes dart between Benji’s raised fingers, green finding brown in the gaps. “I was wondering.”

“Used shit sticks as a kid.” Benji says. He taps a finger against the window. “Like those.”

Xavier looks to where he points. “What’s that brand?”

“Why, you lookin’ to upstage me?”

Xavier smile stays turned toward him a split second longer than Benji thinks it ought to. Only after that lingering beat does his pale, freckled chin turn towards the store display. Brass and cherry-red candy paint acrylic guitars gleaming new behind an already glossy window. It looks like its cared after regularly and maybe even obsessively. There’s a bright yellow sale sticker in the bottom left, shaped like a star: voted best manufacturer by DRUM! four years in a row. 

“Never heard of this one. Don’t have it.” Xavier sways forward and taps the glass. “Amazon Basics. You can get, like, everything.” He frowns. “Uh, mostly because they like. Own...everything.”

Benji thinks back to his main supply pack, propped against the bottom of his cot on base. There’s a pair of worn and oil-darkened sticks tucked inside for luck. 

He frowns, staring at the laser-etched logo. “Mad.” He notes, drawing the vowel long. 

“What?”

“We’ve got a few — brands, I mean. Myself, m’kinda sentimental. Only used Yamaha growin’ up ‘cause they were cheap.” He looks up at Xavier. “Never heard of Amazon. Instrument company?”

“Dude.” 

Benji’s turn. “What?”

“Dude.” Xavier repeats, answering absolutely nothing. He takes Benji by the shoulders and shakes him. “You don’t have Amazon over there? Oh, fuck, that’s like…wicked inconvenient.” 

Benji blinks at him.

Xavier smiles wider. “Imagine overnight shipping. Same hour shipping. You guys got that?” 

Benji blinks at him again, then scoffs. “Mate, we’re lucky to get three weeks. You lot keep comin’ and pinchin’ the majority of our power source, remember?”

Xavier’s laugh is slightly delayed. Once it comes, it’s a big, bark of a sound. 

Then he sobers. Benji’s smile dies a bit, too. Suddenly the moment is too visceral, the conflict around them closing in less backdrop. 

It feels so different with you, Benji thinks. It feels slower. I forget. The fondness rolls his stomach with a knife-twist sharp like anxiety, serrated like fear. 

“Do you want me to break in and steal you the cool multidimensional drum sticks?” Xavier whispers. His voice is dead serious, pitched low. But there’s a little slippery twist to the words that lets Benji know he’s being…teased? 

He snorts. 

“Aw, you’re a right evil bastard, aren’t you?” Benji grins, spurned on by the shamed flush on Xavier’s face. “The family owned shop? I’d judge you.”

“I don’t want you judging me,” Xavier sing-songs. He tucks his hands in his pants pockets, swaying. “I just want you to like me.” 

Benji rolls his eyes. “You’re alright.”

Xavier takes a step. Benji has to tilt his chin up to keep their eyes level. 

“Just alright?” 

He lifts a gloved hand, pinches index and thumb together. “Fine. Bit better than alright.” 

Xavier must mean for his next look to be silly; outrageously flirty. But without trying, mostly because of how his eyes slip half-closed, he manages to land between coy and sultry. It, Benji thinks, is a dangerous place for him to be. 

“You gonna give it up any time soon?”

Xavier’s brows waggle. “Literally the second you say flip, I am fucking flipping.” 

“Can you?” 

“Fuck off.” Xavier laughs. His hands finally slip from Benji’s shoulders, although they don’t go without a friendly (friendly?) squeeze. “Maybe not, actually. Haven’t tried.” 

“I meant,” Benji laughs. “I meant if you’re gonna give up the act, Xavier.” 

“The act.” 

“The act.” Benji says.

“The…act.”

He throws his hands up in the air, laughing. “Fuckin’ hell. Got myself a shadow and a damn echo.”

But every light moment seems to catch wrong on the edges; when Benji tosses his head back, he sees not just the deep, sun-mottled blue of the ocean above, but each explosive orange burst of the battle outside the domed city’s safety.

He remembers, suddenly, that he stands in one of the most secure bastions of that — safety — left. Because of the man in front of him, smiling with his fingers tucked a millimeter beneath his sleeve. Benji glances down at that, and tries a hundred different ways not to romanticize the touch’s softness in direct comparison to the literal war being raged above. 

He tries, anyway. 

“When I found you in that alleyway,” Xavier starts, his fingers drawing circles on Benji’s skin, “I was going to kill you and loot you and sneak back home in your uniform.”

Benji wonders if he’ll ever tire of the up-downs of being around Xavier, the constant shifts in energy and tone — without the sensation of being yanked about, Benji likes being kept on his toes. 

“Now there’s a thing to admit,” Benji says wryly. “And of your own free will n’volition, too.” 

Xavier moves again. Another step. The smallest he seems capable of taking; he’s in Benji’s space, barely, and touching, but only just. Benji can’t figure out which side of the other soldier this is: purposeful or natural. 

“Shut up, I’m not done.” His hand trails up Benji’s forearm, squeezes. “When I got closer I was like, well no fucking shot. Right? You’re just —”

“Got a bit on you, hey?” Benji teases. His eyes feel heavy, but without exhaustion. “And you on me, suppose?”

Xavier blinks sluggishly at him. His mouth, lips slightly parted, splits into another wild grin. 

“Hah. That’s what she said.”

Benji gives him a quizzical look. “What?” 

“Wot?” Xavier shakes his head. “You don’t have The Office either? Man. This universe sucks.” He winks. “At least it has you.”

“Awful,” Benji amends, ducking his head slightly. “Amended to awful, not alright.” 

“Benji.” 

He glances up. Xavier cradles the side of his face like that means something. 

“We’re — I have to —” his eyes dart between Benji’s own. There’s an unreadable expression on his face. Xavier is not smiling. “I want — fuck. Can we kiss again?” 

Benji nods, tongue glued thick to the roof of his mouth. As Xavier leans forward, ducking down in the grim blue light, he catches one last glimpse of the fiery battle above.