Fictional Men George

𝓜𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓛𝓲𝓼𝓽:

𝓞𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓽𝓼:

ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇ ʜᴀʀʀɪɴɢᴛᴏɴ

The Sun Will Rise and We Will Try Again - Twenty One Pilots and Stranger Things Crossover

-

ʀʏʟᴀɴᴅ ɢʀᴀᴄᴇ

The Persistence of Lecture

𝓢𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓼:

Patient Zero: Hawkins, Indiana- Resident Evil and Stranger Things Crossover

The beach stretched endlessly alongside them, a ribbon of dark stone pebbles and pale sand beneath the foggy, clouded sky that looked exactly like San Francisco's on a moody autumn afternoon. The resemblance was uncanny, deliberate, even. The Eridians had studied Earth's climates with meticulous care when designing the biodome, analyzing weather patterns and atmospheric conditions until they'd recreated the exact quality of light that filtered through the Bay Area's famous fog.

Even after years of living here on Erid, Bee still couldn't get over how beautiful it was. How much thought and detail the Eridians had put into every aspect of the biodome created for her and Ryland to feel at home. The temperature regulation, the moisture content in the air, even the particular shade of gray in the clouds, all of it carefully calibrated to match the climate data they'd gathered from Earth.

The ocean rolled lazily against the shoreline, waves glittering beneath the diffused light that managed to break through the cloud cover. Each wave caught the light differently, creating shifting patterns of silver and shadow across the water's surface. The air was cool enough to be comfortable, that perfect temperature where you needed a light jacket but didn't feel cold, where the breeze felt refreshing rather than biting. The kind of weather Bee had always loved back in California.

Though, predictably, Ryland had spent the entire walk complaining about it.

Bee smiled to herself as she listened to her husband and Rocky walking several feet ahead of her, their voices carrying back on the wind. She'd buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans, feeling the cool air prickle against her exposed forearms. The sand beneath her worn converse sneakers was a mixture of textures, smooth in some places, coarse with pebbles in others. Each step made a soft crunching sound that was oddly satisfying.

"Yesterday the water was boiling," Ryland was saying, shoving his hands into the pockets of his signature fox cardigan, the rust-colored one with the little embroidered fox on the chest that he wore all the time on Earth, and now Erid too. "Now it's freezing. Is there a middle ground?"

His tone was dripping with sarcasm, which Rocky and Adrian still didn't quite understand the concept of, but Rocky knew by now that this was just Ryland and his particular sense of humor. The way humans said things they didn't literally mean in order to express frustration or amusement or both simultaneously.

Rocky chirped quizzically, his carapace tilting slightly to the side in that particular gesture of confusion that Bee had learned to recognize. When he spoke, his voice came through the translator with its characteristic musical quality.

"How water freezing when water remain liquid, Question?"

"You know what I mean." Ryland rolled his eyes, and even from behind him Bee could see the way his shoulders moved with the gesture. He was pretending to be annoyed, but the little tilt in his smile gave him away. That tiny upward quirk at the corner of his mouth that meant he was actually enjoying himself.

"I do not," Rocky chimed in, his tone perfectly sincere.

"It was cold."

"Yesterday, Grace say water too hot."

"Because it was."

"Today water too cold."

"Yep."

Rocky paused mid-step, his carapace tilting in that particular way that meant he was processing something, running calculations or cross-referencing data or whatever it was that Rocky's brilliant mind did when confronted with human inconsistency.

"Is there temperature that does not cause human complaint, Question?"

Ryland sighed dramatically, throwing his head back like he was appealing to the cloudy sky itself for patience.

"No."

"Interesting," Rocky noted, though didn't quite understand how to fix the situation. 

"It really isn't."

"It is."

They walked in silence for approximately thirty seconds, Bee counted, amused at listening to both Rocky and Ryland bicker. She thought after all these years she would get used to it, she never did but it always did amuse her. Ryland spoke again, breaking the small amount of silence because he always had to fill the silence wirh something. She could practically see him building up to the next complaint, the way he did when he was on a roll.

"The wind is also terrible today."

"Wind speed identical to yesterday," Rocky replied immediately, probably because he'd actually measured it with some instrument built into his suit.

"Yesterday the wind was fine."

"Yesterday you complain wind too strong."

"That was different wind."

Rocky stopped walking entirely, his whole body going still in that way that meant he was genuinely baffled.

"How wind different, Question?"

"It just was."

"Wind is wind."

"Not all wind is created equal, Rocky."

"All wind created by atmospheric pressure differential."

Ryland threw his hands up in exasperation, his cardigan sleeves flapping slightly with the motion.

"You're impossible."

"I am possible. I standing here, Statement."

Bee had to bite her lip hard to keep from laughing out loud. She caught Ryland glancing back at her with an expression that clearly said 'are you hearing this?' His eyebrows were raised, his mouth slightly open in mock disbelief. She gave him her most innocent smile while she shrugged her shoulders, the universal gesture of 'don't look at me, you started this.'Even though the wind hadn't actually changed, Rocky was right about that, it somehow felt colder today than it did yesterday. Maybe it was the dampness in the air, or the way the breeze came in from a slightly different direction, carrying the salt-spray scent of the ocean more directly.

"Also," Ryland continued, apparently not done with his litany of complaints, "the sand is too soft here."

"Sand composition unchanged from previous walk."

"It feels different."

"Human perception unreliable."

"My perception is fine, thank you very much."

"Evidence suggest otherwise."

Ryland stopped walking and turned to face Rocky fully, gesturing at the beach around them.

"Okay, but yesterday the sand was firmer. Today it's all—" he stomped his foot slightly, demonstrating, "—squishy."

"Moisture content may vary based on tide schedule."

"See? So it IS different!"

"Sand still sand."

"But wetter sand!"

"Wet sand still sand. Same silicon dioxide composition."

Ryland made a frustrated noise and turned to continue walking.

"You're being deliberately obtuse."

"I being accurate."

"Same thing!"

"Not same thing."

Bee snorted quietly, unable to hold it in anymore. The sound made Ryland glance back again, and this time she couldn't hide her grin. He pointed at her accusingly.

"You're not helping."

She held up her hands in surrender, still smiling.

Some things never changed.

The fate of two planets had rested on their shoulders once. They were tasked with going to Tau Ceti E to figure out why the Astrophage wasn't diming that sun, that's when they met Rocky, who helped come up with plans for the mission. And now, here they were on Erid, living a new life away from Earth, but together. 

Now Ryland and Rocky spent most of their time arguing about weather patterns and sand consistency and whether clouds looked different on Tuesdays.

Bee wouldn't have it any other way.

Behind them, Adrian walked beside Bee at a leisurely pace, occasionally making soft clicking sounds that Bee had learned meant contentment. It was a different sound than Rocky's clicks, softer, more melodic, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. Adrian's carapace caught the diffused light in interesting ways, the natural patterns on their shell creating subtle shifts of color as they moved.

Unlike Rocky, Adrian's interests had never revolved around engineering or science. They enjoyed creation for creation's sake. Specifically sculpture, architecture, music, and the Eridian version of decorative carvings. Bee had watched Adrian carve carefully into a piece of zeonite that Rocky had synthesized for them, and she'd been fascinated by the process, the way Adrian's claws moved with such precision, the way they seemed to see the finished piece inside the raw material before they even began.

The first time Bee had visited Rocky and Adrian's home, her eyes had lit up like a little kid's eyes on Christmas morning. She'd actually gasped when she walked through the entrance, her hand flying to her mouth.

Every wall had been covered in intricate carvings, geometric patterns that flowed seamlessly into organic shapes, abstract representations of Eridian history, tiny detailed scenes of daily life all interconnected like a massive visual story that wrapped around the entire dwelling. There were depictions of the ocean, of the stars, of Eridians gathering in groups, of the moment of first contact with humans. The level of detail was staggering. You could spend hours looking at a single wall and still discover new elements you'd missed before.

Beautiful things made simply because someone wanted them to exist.

It reminded her of Earth.

It reminded her of home.

And right now, walking beside Adrian while her husband argued about meteorology with a literal alien scientist, Bee felt that familiar warmth of belonging spreading through her chest. Different planet, different sky, but the same comfortable absurdity of people she loved. The same gentle teasing, the same easy companionship, the same sense that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Ahead, a cluster of Eridians were gathered near the edge of the shoreline, their carapaces forming a loose semicircle around something Bee couldn't quite see yet.

Several enormous zeonite blocks had been arranged in a semicircle, each one taller than either of them, probably eight or nine feet high, their surfaces still rough and unfinished. The zeonite had a strange black color, almost deep slate color in some lights, with veins of lighter material running through it like marble. Tools were scattered around the base of the stones, carving implements, measuring devices, what looked like some kind of polishing equipment.

Bee's attention immediately shifted, her art-history-professor instincts activating like a homing beacon. She could feel it happening, that familiar pull, that magnetic draw toward anything that even remotely resembled artistic creation.

"Oh."

She slowed to a stop, her eyes widening as she took in the scene. Her fingers twitched in her pockets, already itching to take notes, to document, to analyze.

Adrian noticed immediately, their carapace shifting to look at her.

"You interested, Question?"

Bee tilted her head, already cataloging details with the practiced eye of someone who'd spent years studying art. The way the stones were positioned, not quite symmetrical, but deliberately arranged to create a sense of movement. The tools scattered nearby, different sizes, different purposes, suggesting multiple sculptors working on different aspects. The careful, deliberate movements of the sculptors themselves, the way they stepped back periodically to assess their work from different angles.

"What are they making?"

"Community sculpture."

Bee's eyes widened further, her pulse quickening.

"A public art project?"

"Yes. Represent historical event. Treaty of Seven Currents."

"That's—" Bee's brain was already spinning, making connections, drawing parallels to Earth's artistic traditions. "That's incredible. Collaborative public art, commemorative sculpture, community engagement—"

Immediately she was interested.

Interested was actually an understatement. Bee's pulse had quickened noticeably. Her fingers were already twitching like she wanted to take notes, to sketch, to document everything she was seeing. This was the kind of thing she would have spent an entire semester teaching back on Earth, public art as community expression, collaborative creation as social bonding, the intersection of history and artistic representation.

Ryland and Rocky continued walking ahead, now apparently debating whether clouds looked different on Tuesdays versus Thursdays, completely unaware that Bee had slowed to a complete stop several yards behind them.

Bee stepped closer, drawn like a moth to flame, her feet moving almost without conscious thought.

The sculpture wasn't finished yet, probably only about forty percent complete, if she had to guess, but she could already see the shape emerging from the stone. It was like watching something being born, the form slowly revealing itself as the sculptors carefully removed everything that wasn't part of the vision.

Flowing curves that suggested water, the way waves moved and curled.

Layered forms that built upon each other, creating depth and dimension.

An abstract representation of movement and unity, if she had to guess. Seven distinct elements that somehow formed a cohesive whole, probably representing the seven Eridian clans that had signed the treaty.

"It's beautiful," she breathed, and she meant it. The composition was already stunning even in its unfinished state.

Adrian's carapace shifted slightly with what Bee had learned was pride, a subtle change in posture, a particular angle of the head.

"You think so, Question?"

"Absolutely. The composition is stunning. And the way they're carving it, look at how they're working together, each one adding to the whole without overwhelming the other elements. It's like a visual conversation. Like they're all speaking the same language but with different dialects."

Adrian was quiet for a moment, watching Bee's face as she studied the sculpture. Bee was aware of being observed, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the emerging forms in the stone. The way the light hit the carved surfaces differently than the rough stone. The way you could see the individual tool marks, the evidence of hands, or claws, shaping the material.

Then Adrian chirped softly, a questioning sound.

"What Earth art like, Question?"

Bee froze.

The question hit every single part of her art-history-loving brain at once, like someone had just pressed every button on a control panel simultaneously.

It was like someone had just asked a sommelier to explain wine, or asked a musician to talk about their favorite song, or asked Ryland to explain microbiology. It was the kind of question that had no simple answer, that opened up into infinite branching paths of information and context and historical significance.

Adrian tilted their head, looking up at Bee as she froze, her eyes still not looking away from the various Eridians working hard to create the sculpture, their movements careful and deliberate.

"Question?"

Bee laughed, a slightly manic edge to it that she recognized as the sound she made when someone had just accidentally triggered a hyperfixation.

"That's... actually a really big question."

"I listening."

And that was all the encouragement she needed.

Bee took a breath, her hands already starting to gesture, pulling free from her pockets as if they had a mind of their own.

"Well, art on Earth goes back tens of thousands of years. Some of the earliest examples are cave paintings, people would paint animals and hunting scenes on cave walls using natural pigments. Ochre, charcoal, manganese oxide. They'd grind up rocks and minerals and mix them with animal fat or water to create paint."

Adrian immediately leaned forward, their whole body language shifting to indicate focused attention.

"Why?"

"Lots of theories. Some people think they were storytelling, like visual records of successful hunts. 'Hey, remember when we killed that mammoth? Let me paint it on this wall so we don't forget.' Some think they were spiritual or ritualistic, like asking the universe for good fortune before a hunt. Some think they were just... humans wanting to make marks, you know? To say 'I was here, I saw this, this mattered. I existed and I want to leave evidence of that existence.'"

Adrian made a thoughtful clicking noise, a sound Bee had learned meant they were processing something interesting.

"Interesting. Eridians also make marks in sacred caves."

"Really?" Bee's eyes lit up even more, practically glowing with excitement. "See, that's fascinating because it suggests a universal impulse toward, toward marking space as significant, toward using visual representation to communicate meaning across time. It's like—"

She caught herself, recognizing the familiar feeling of her thoughts spiraling outward into increasingly complex territory.

"Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself."

"Please continue," Adrian said, and their tone was genuinely encouraging.

And just like that, Bee was off.

"Okay, so then you have ancient Egypt. They made these incredible monuments and sculptures, pyramids, sphinxes, massive statues of pharaohs. Everything had symbolic meaning. The poses people stood in, the size of figures, even the colors they used. Like, if you were a pharaoh, you'd be depicted way bigger than everyone else. Not because you were actually giant, though imagine if they were, that would be terrifying, but because you were more important. Size equals significance."

One of the nearby Eridian sculptors had stopped working and was listening, their carving tool held motionless in their claw.

"Size indicate importance, Question?"

"Exactly! It's called hierarchical scale. It's like... okay, imagine if Rocky was drawn twice as tall as Ryland because Rocky is a better engineer."

"Rocky IS better engineer, Statement," Rocky chirped lowly from down the beach, just loud enough for his voice to carry back but quiet enough that Ryland wouldn't hear and start another argument.

Bee ignored him, staying focused on her explanation.

"The point is, it wasn't about realism. It wasn't about making things look exactly like they appeared in real life. It was about meaning. About communicating ideas and relationships and power structures through visual language."

Adrian's carapace rippled with what might have been understanding, a wave-like motion that traveled across their shell.

"Symbolic representation."

"Yes!" Bee was getting animated now, her hands moving more, gesturing to emphasize her points. "But then you've got Greece, and they went in a completely different direction. Like, completely opposite."

"What Greece?"

"Oh, a civilization from Earth. Ancient Greece. They were obsessed with anatomy and realism. They wanted sculptures to look exactly like people, every muscle, every tendon, perfect proportions. They studied the human body like it was a science project. They had these mathematical ratios for the ideal human form."

Adrian looked genuinely horrified, their carapace pulling back slightly.

"Exactly?"

Bee laughed at their reaction.

"Pretty close. They studied human bodies extensively. There's this concept called contrapposto where…Okay, imagine you're standing with all your weight on one leg."

She demonstrated, shifting her hip so her weight rested on her right leg, letting her left leg relax. Her whole body curved naturally with the shift.

"See how my body curves? One shoulder higher than the other? One hip jutting out? The Greeks figured out how to carve that into stone to make sculptures look alive and natural instead of stiff and rigid. Before that, most sculptures looked like they were standing at attention. But contrapposto makes them look like they're actually standing the way real people stand, with weight and balance and natural movement."

Two more Eridians had stopped working now, their attention drawn to the strange human explaining Earth art with increasingly animated gestures.

Adrian was completely focused, their eyes fixed on Bee.

"Why want look exactly like human. Question?"

"Because humans are weird and obsessed with ourselves?" Bee offered with a self-deprecating grin.

Adrian nodded seriously, as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"Acceptable explanation."

Bee grinned and kept going, her voice picking up speed as she warmed to her subject.

"So then you get to the Renaissance, that means 'rebirth' by the way, because they were trying to revive classical Greek and Roman ideals, and artists like Michelangelo are taking Greek realism and adding emotion and drama and religious significance. Michelangelo carved this sculpture called the Pietà, which is Mary holding Jesus after he died, and it's—"

She pressed her hand to her chest, right over her heart.

"—it's devastating. You can see the weight of grief in how she holds him. The fabric of her robes looks soft even though it's marble. He made stone look like fabric. Like, how do you even do that? How do you take something as hard and unyielding as marble and make it look like it would be soft to touch?"

Several minutes passed.

Bee had completely lost track of time, lost in the flow of information pouring out of her.

She was explaining Leonardo da Vinci now, talking about how he dissected corpses to understand anatomy better, actually cut open dead bodies to see how muscles and tendons connected, how bones fit together, which made several Eridians click with what might have been approval or horror. Bee wasn't entirely sure which, and she was too caught up in her explanation to stop and ask.

"And he invented sfumato, which is this technique where you blur the edges between colors so there's no harsh lines. It's like... okay, you know how when you look at something in fog, the edges get soft? Everything kind of blends together at the boundaries?"

Adrian nodded, probably thinking of the foggy sky above them right now.

"That's sfumato. It makes paintings look more realistic because that's how we actually see things. We don't see hard edges everywhere. Our vision is softer than that, more blended. The Mona Lisa uses it extensively, especially around her eyes and mouth, which is part of why her expression seems so mysterious."

"Mysterious how?"

"You can't tell if she's smiling or not! The soft edges make it ambiguous. Is she happy? Sad? Amused? Knowing? You can't quite tell, and that's intentional. Leonardo wanted that uncertainty."

"Why want ambiguous?"

"Because—" Bee gestured wildly, her hands cutting through the air. "—because art isn't always about answers! Sometimes it's about questions! Sometimes the point is to make you wonder, to make you think, to create space for interpretation!"

The crowd around her had grown to at least fifteen Eridians now. It kind of reminded her of her lectures back on Earth, many art majors crowded into a room, looking at projected images of paintings and sculptures while frantically taking notes as Bee talked animatedly, her voice echoing in the lecture hall.

Bee didn't notice the growing audience.

She was explaining perspective now, how Renaissance artists figured out mathematical systems to make flat paintings look three-dimensional, how they literally used geometry to trick the eye.

"It's all about vanishing points. Imagine you're standing on a long straight road. The sides of the road seem to get closer together the farther away they get, right? Even though the road is actually the same width the whole way. Artists figured out how to calculate that mathematically, how to use lines and angles to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface."

She grabbed a stick from the sand and started drawing, crouching down to sketch lines in the damp sand near the water's edge.

"See? All the lines converge here. This is the vanishing point. Everything in the painting follows these sight lines, so your brain interprets it as depth even though it's actually flat. It's literally a mathematical trick to hack human visual perception."

An Eridian sculptor clicked thoughtfully, leaning in to look at Bee's sand drawing.

"Trick brain, Question?"

"Exactly! It's an optical illusion based on how human vision works. Our brains are constantly interpreting visual information and making assumptions about depth and distance, and artists figured out how to exploit that."

"Clever."

"Right?" Bee was fully energized now, her voice getting louder, her gestures becoming more expansive. "And then Baroque artists took that and added drama and movement and intense lighting—"

She swept her arm dramatically, nearly hitting Adrian with the stick she was still holding.

"—like Caravaggio, who painted these intense religious scenes with stark shadows and bright highlights. It's called chiaroscuro, which literally means 'light-dark' in Italian. Everything is super dramatic. People are always in the middle of something intense happening. There's this painting called 'The Calling of Saint Matthew' where Jesus is pointing at Matthew, and there's this beam of light cutting through the darkness, and everyone's reacting with these huge dramatic gestures. It's like the visual equivalent of a dramatic movie scene with intense lighting."

At some point she had started pacing, walking back and forth in front of the sculpture.

At some point her hair had started falling out of its ponytail, loose strands whipping around her face in the wind.

At some point she had completely forgotten where Ryland was, forgotten that she'd been walking with anyone, forgotten everything except the flow of information and the attentive audience in front of her.

"And then you get Romanticism, which was all about emotion and nature and the sublime, that's the feeling of being overwhelmed by something vast and powerful. Like standing at the edge of a massive waterfall or in the middle of a storm. That feeling where you're awed and terrified at the same time."

She was gesturing with both hands now, the stick abandoned in the sand.

"Artists like Caspar David Friedrich painted these huge landscapes with tiny human figures to show how small we are compared to nature. It's about awe and terror and beauty all mixed together. There's this painting called 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' where a man is standing on a mountain peak looking out over this sea of clouds, and he's so small compared to the vastness around him. It's about the human experience of confronting something bigger than yourself."

The crowd was at least twenty-five Eridians now, forming a loose semicircle around Bee.

Several were taking notes, with what, Bee wasn't exactly sure, but she was too caught up in her own rambling thoughts to ask. Some kind of recording device, probably, or maybe they were just memorizing everything. Did Eridians have eidetic memory? She should ask Rocky later.

"Then Impressionism!" Bee's voice had gone up half an octave, getting higher and faster as her excitement built. "Okay, so Impressionists were like 'what if we stopped trying to make everything look perfect and instead captured the impression of a moment?' They painted outside, quickly, with visible brushstrokes. You can see the individual marks of the brush. Claude Monet painted the same haystack like thirty times in different lighting conditions because he was obsessed with how light changes perception."

"Same haystack?" An Eridian asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

"Same haystack! Different times of day, different weather, different seasons. Because the light made it look completely different each time. Morning light versus afternoon light versus sunset. Sunny day versus cloudy day. Summer versus winter. It's not about the haystack, it's about the light! The haystack is just the excuse to study light!"

Adrian was utterly transfixed, their carapace completely still except for the slight movements that indicated breathing.

"And then Post-Impressionism, where artists like Van Gogh took Impressionism and made it even more emotional and expressive. Van Gogh painted with these thick, swirling brushstrokes, you can see the texture of the paint on the canvas. His paintings feel alive. They vibrate with energy. It's called impasto, when you apply paint so thickly that it has actual physical texture."

She was fully animated now, her whole body involved in the explanation, her hands tracing swirling patterns in the air.

"He painted sunflowers and starry nights and wheat fields, and everything feels intense and emotional because he wasn't just painting what he saw, he was painting what he felt. The world filtered through his emotional state. When he was manic, the paintings are bright and swirling and energetic. When he was depressed, they're darker and heavier."

-

Meanwhile...

Far ahead on the beach, Ryland had moved on to complaining about the angle of the sun, how it touched the water, casting the sky in a muted orange color. 

"It's too bright."

"Sun brightness unchanged," Rocky replied, probably because he'd measured it.

"It's in my eyes."

"Adjust position."

"I shouldn't have to adjust my position. The sun should adjust."

Rocky paused, his carapace tilting.

"That not how celestial mechanics work."

"Well it should be."

Rocky made a sound that might have been a sigh, a soft hiss of air, before he glanced back, noticing how Bee and Adrian were missing. 

"Where Bee, Question?"

Ryland frowned, looking around. He'd been so caught up in his complaints that he hadn't actually checked on his wife in... how long? Several minutes at least.

"She's right—"

He turned around, expecting to find Bee and Adrian a few yards behind them.

Instead, he found nothing. Empty beach. No Bee. No Adrian.

"—here?"

Rocky rotated slightly, his whole body turning to look back the way they'd come.

Both of them looked back down the beach.

Far behind them, much farther than Ryland had expected, Bee stood in front of a half-finished sculpture surrounded by Eridians. A crowd of them, actually. When had that happened?

She was waving her hands enthusiastically, her ponytail half-undone with strands of hair flying around her face, her voice carrying across the beach on the wind.

"—and then Van Gogh cut off part of his ear—"

Ryland blinked.

"Oh no."

Rocky chirped, tilting up at Ryland as he questioned what was happening.

"Bee making presentation, Question?"

"She's giving an art lecture." Ryland's voice was flat with recognition. He knew this pattern. He'd seen it before, many times where he would ask her some art related question, and hours later he still wouldn't get his answer and Bee was out of breath from talking so long.

Rocky paused, his carapace tilting as he observed the scene, probably running some kind of analysis.

"I count forty-three Eridians."

"What?"

"Audience. Forty-three individuals. Wait. Forty-four. Another approaching from north."

Ryland stared, his mouth slightly open in disbelief.

Sure enough, a small crowd had gathered around his wife. Some were sitting on the sand, their carapaces settled into comfortable positions. Several were taking notes with recording devices. One appeared to be sketching, actually drawing what Bee was describing, trying to visualize Earth art based on her explanations.

"How long has she been talking?"

Rocky checked something on his suit, probably accessing whatever internal chronometer he used.

"Forty-eight minutes, thirty-two seconds."

Ryland's voice went up, cracking slightly.

"You timed her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Scientific curiosity. Wanted measure duration of human hyperfocus state."

"Of course you did." Ryland pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture of long-suffering patience. "Of course you're running experiments on my wife."

"Not experiment. Observation."

"That's the same thing!"

"It not. Experiment require controlled variables and hypothesis testing. This pure observation."

"Rocky—"

"Also taking notes on physical manifestations of hyperfocus. Hair dishevelment, increased gesture frequency, vocal pattern changes—"

Ryland started walking back quickly, his feet kicking up sand in the process.

Rocky followed behind, easily keeping pace as he was no longer in a ball like he was back on the Hail Mary with Ryland and Bee.

"How did we not notice she was gone for forty-eight minutes?"

"You complaining about sun."

"That doesn't—" Ryland gestured helplessly at the air. "We should have noticed! We should have realized she wasn't with us!"

"Bee very quiet normally. Easy to forget presence when not actively engaging."

"She's not quiet now!"

Indeed, as they got closer, Bee's voice became easier to hear. She'd moved on to the Arts and Crafts movement, her voice slightly hoarse but no less enthusiastic, no less energetic.

"—which eventually inspired the Arts and Crafts movement because many artists felt industrialization was removing the human element from creative work. William Morris believed craftsmanship had value beyond simple functionality, that beautiful things should be accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy! He wanted to democratize beauty!"

Ryland stopped beside her, slightly out of breath from the quick walk back.

She didn't even notice.

Her hair was definitely falling out of its ponytail now, the elastic barely holding on. She'd gestured so much that her jacket had slipped off one shoulder, hanging awkwardly. She looked slightly manic, her eyes bright and unfocused in that way that meant she was completely absorbed in her own thoughts.

Adrian immediately noticed Ryland's arrival, their carapace shifting to acknowledge him.

"Hello Ryland."

"Hi," Ryland said, slightly breathless.

Bee continued talking, completely oblivious to her husband's presence.

"—and Morris designed wallpapers and textiles with these intricate natural patterns. He wanted to bring beauty into everyday life. He said, 'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,' which I think is—"

"Bee."

Ryland spoke up, softly at first. She didn't respond, too caught up in her unprompted lecture.

"Bee."

He spoke a little more loudly, trying to get her attention... but that didn't work either. Ryland ran a hand through his slightly mussed blonde hair, sighing slightly in defeat. This was familiar territory. Once Bee got going on a topic she loved, it was like trying to stop a freight train.

"Bee."

She kept going, now explaining the philosophy behind handcrafted furniture, her hands tracing the shapes of imaginary chairs in the air.

Ryland looked at Adrian helplessly, his expression clearly asking 'how long has this been going on?'

Adrian seemed amused, their carapace moving with them as they did the familar gesture of excitement, similar to jazz hands. 

Rocky stepped forward and simply turned up the volume on his speaker to maximum.

"BEE."

The sound was loud enough to make several nearby Eridians startle.

Finally she turned towards him looked up, blinking like she'd just woken up from a deep sleep, her eyes taking a moment to focus.

"Oh!"

She smiled brightly, slightly breathless, her chest rising and falling from talking non-stop for nearly an hour.

"When did you get here?"

Ryland stared at her, his expression somewhere between amused and exasperated.

"You've been lecturing an entire crowd for almost an hour."

Bee looked around, her head turning slowly as if seeing her surroundings for the first time.

Only then did she realize dozens of Eridians had gathered around them. Some were sitting on the sand, their carapaces settled into comfortable positions. Others were perched on the stone blocks of the unfinished sculpture. All of them were watching her with rapt attention, their eyes fixed on her face.

"Oh."

She paused, glancing around her, and her eyes went wider as the full scope of the situation registered.

"Oh."

Her hand went to her hair, discovering the disaster of her ponytail, the elastic barely hanging on, strands everywhere, probably looking like she'd been in a windstorm.

"Oh no."

Rocky stepped forward, his carapace tilting in that particular way that meant he was about to say something he found very logical and everyone else would find very awkward.

"Question."

Bee immediately looked at him, still trying to fix her hair, attempting to gather the loose strands and re-do her ponytail, which was easier said than done in the wind.

"What?"

Rocky's tone remained completely serious, clinical even.

"Is this human mating behavior?"

Silence.

Complete, absolute silence.

Even the wind seemed to pause.

Ryland blinked, his eyes widening slightly in shock at Rocky's sudden question. Ryland glanced over at Bee, whose eyes were also wide with shock, her hands frozen in her hair. Both of their faces were turning red from embarrassment, the color creeping up from their necks.

Several Eridians in the crowd clicked with interest, leaning forward slightly.

"What?" Bee's voice came out slightly strangled, higher than normal.

Rocky gestured toward her with one claw, his movement precise and deliberate.

"Bee displaying extensive knowledge in attempt impress mate. Classic mating display behavior observed in multiple Earth species. Peacock show feathers. Bower bird build elaborate nest. Human give lecture about dead artists."

Ryland made a sound like he was choking on air.

"ROCKY!"

"What?" Rocky's tone was genuinely confused.

"NO!"

Adrian tilted their head thoughtfully, considering Rocky's hypothesis.

"This not correct, Question?"

Bee's entire face turned red. Not just her cheeks, her whole face, up to her hairline, down her neck, probably down to her collarbones under her shirt.

"I wasn't trying to impress anybody!"

Her voice had gone up a full octave, nearly squeaking.

Rocky looked genuinely confused, his carapace tilting as he processed her denial.

"You talk for one hour, twelve minutes."

"That doesn't mean—"

"You become louder when Ryland arrive. Volume increased by approximately fifteen decibels."

"I did NOT—"

Bee made an absolutely horrified noise, somewhere between a squeak and a wheeze, her hands flying to cover her face.

Ryland was laughing so hard he had to bend over, hands on his knees, his shoulders shaking.

"Okay," he gasped between laughs, trying to catch his breath. "Maybe Rocky has a point."

"RYLAND!"

"You did get louder! And you definitely kept looking at me!"

"I was just…I was excited about the Arts and Crafts movement! You know I love that movement!"

Bee scrambled, trying to defend herself, her words tumbling over each other.

"Sure you were." Ryland couldn't help the small but amused smirk that began to form on his face at Bee's reaction, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

"I WAS!"

Rocky seemed pleased with himself, his carapace settling into a satisfied position.

"Hypothesis confirmed. Human mating display successful. Mate appears amused and affectionate."

"It is NOT confirmed!" Bee's voice cracked slightly, breaking on the last word.

Ryland was still laughing, now wiping tears of amusement from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Rocky, buddy, I'm already married to her. She doesn't need to impress me with William Morris facts."

"Then why she do it?"

"Because she can't help herself!"

Bee covered her face with both hands, her voice muffled.

"I hate both of you."

"No you don't," Ryland said, still grinning, his voice warm with affection despite the teasing.

"I'm considering it!"

Adrian watched this entire exchange with what appeared to be fascination, their carapace shifting slightly as they observed the human interaction. Then they spoke, their voice thoughtful and perfectly innocent.

"Bee never explain artist named Van Gogh, Statement." Adrian interjected. 

Bee's hands slowly lowered from her face.

Ryland's laughter stopped abruptly, his smile fading.

"No."

Adrian continued, completely innocent, as if they had no idea what they were about to unleash.

"What happen after ear? You say he cut off ear, but then stop talking. Very unsatisfying ending."

Bee's eyes lit up, the embarrassment of the mating display accusation immediately forgotten.

The horror was replaced by the irresistible pull of an unfinished art history lecture, the need to complete the story, to provide context and closure.

"Oh! Well, Van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who—"

Ryland pointed accusingly at Adrian, his finger jabbing the air.

"Don't encourage her."

He warned, glaring down at Adrian with mock severity.

"—struggled with mental illness his entire life—"

Adrian didn't stop Bee. Like Bee, Adrian was interested in knowledge of art, especially sculpture, and Adrian wanted to learn about art of Earth and what it was like. They settled in to listen, their carapace shifting into an attentive position.

"Adrian, I'm serious."

"—and the ear incident happened after an argument with Paul Gauguin—"

"She's going to talk for another hour!"

"—who was staying with him in Arles—"

Too late.

Bee had already turned back toward the sculpture, her hands gesturing again, her voice regaining its enthusiastic energy despite the hoarseness, despite having been talking for nearly an hour already.

"So Van Gogh and Gauguin were both Post-Impressionist painters, but they had very different styles and philosophies, and they were living together in this yellow house in southern France—"

Ryland sighed deeply, but he was smiling, his expression soft with affection.

Rocky clicked happily, a sound of satisfaction.

"Mating display continuing."

"Rocky, I swear—"

"Very persistent. Admirable trait in potential mate."

"We're already married!"

"Still admirable."

Adrian settled in to listen, their carapace shifting into a comfortable position.

The crowd of Eridians, which had started to disperse when Bee stopped talking, immediately gathered again, reforming their semicircle around her.

Bee was fully back in lecture mode now, explaining the complex relationship between Van Gogh and Gauguin, the artistic tensions, the personal conflicts, the famous yellow house, the ear incident, the aftermath, Van Gogh's time in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, the paintings he created there.

"—and even while he was in the asylum, he was painting these incredible works. The Starry Night, which is probably his most famous painting, was painted from his asylum window. Those swirling stars, that cypress tree reaching up like a flame—"

Her voice was definitely hoarse now, rough around the edges, but she didn't seem to notice or care. The words kept flowing, unstoppable.

Ryland sat down in the sand with a soft thump, accepting his fate.

Rocky sat beside him, his carapace settling into the sand.

"How long this time, Question?" Adrian asked, their tone genuinely curious.

Rocky checked his suit, running calculations.

"Estimating sixty to ninety minutes based on previous data and current speech patterns."

Ryland leaned back on his hands, looking up at the cloudy sky which was starting to dim as the sun began to dip below the horizon, the light taking on that particular quality of twlight.

"Might as well get comfortable."

And together they settled in for another hour, watching Bee gesture wildly while explaining the tragic beauty of Vincent van Gogh's final years, her voice carrying across the beach, her passion undimmed, her audience completely captivated.

Some things, Ryland thought with affection, would never change.

And honestly? He wouldn't want them to.

For as long as anyone could remember, Dema had stood untouched.

Its towering white walls cut across the horizon like a scar, separating its citizens from the world beyond. Within those walls, the Bishops ruled absolutely. Every aspect of life was controlled. Every thought monitored, every dream suppressed. The city crushed your spirit, that's what it wanted. It wanted you to feel hopeless, to give in, to forget that anything existed beyond those suffocating walls.

The Bishops ruled the city, creating a religion to practice these sick ideals. There were nine of them, one to rule each district of the city, to control and rule over their citizens with iron fists wrapped in crimson robes. But one was the most powerful, the one whose name was whispered with the deepest fear: Nico.

And for just as long, there had been the Banditos.

Living beyond the city in the wild lands of Trench, they fought for freedom. They sabotaged supply routes, guided escapees out of the city, and refused to bow to the Bishops' rule. They wore yellow duct tape on their shoulders like armor, carried yellow flowers in their pockets like prayers. Yellow—the color that meant hope still existed somewhere in the world.

Their leader was known as the Torchbearer. For years, that had been Steve Harrington.

He had led the Bandito's across Trench, built camps from nothing with his own bleeding hands, rescued citizens from Dema's grasp in the dead of night, and spent countless nights studying the city that haunted every horizon. He knew every gate, every guard rotation, every weak point in those impossible walls. He'd memorized the layout of streets he'd never walked, towers he'd never climbed.

But no matter how many victories they claimed, one truth remained, heavy as stone in his chest.

Steve could never destroy Dema alone. The walls were too strong, the Bishops were too powerful, their control too absolute. To bring down Dema, they needed someone from inside. Someone who understood the city, someone capable of fighting the Bishops on equal ground, someone capable of seizing, taking control of vessels the way the Bishops did, turning death itself into a weapon.

No citizen held this power, except for one.

The Banditos called this person Clancy.

Not because it was a name, but because it was a role. A title passed from one hopeful soul to the next, each one carrying the weight of everyone who'd come before. Each one carrying the desperate belief that maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.

A Clancy possessed the rare ability to seize vessels the same way the Bishops could, taking control of the dead and turning them into living puppets. It was the only power that could truly challenge the rulers of Dema. The only thing that could level the playing field.

Over the years, Steve had searched endlessly.

Some Clancys died before they could reach the tower. Some disappeared into the city and were never seen again. Some surrendered, choosing the safety of submission over the danger of rebellion.

Each loss carved something out of Steve's chest. Each failure made the next search harder. Made belief feel more like foolishness.

Yet Steve never stopped looking. He never gave up hope that one day, one cycle would end the rule of the Bishops and free the citizens of Dema. Even when hope felt like the cruelest thing he could carry.

Then they found Eddie Munson.

And for the first time in years, Steve allowed himself to believe.

Eddie wasn't what anyone expected. He was loud, reckless, stubborn. He didn't lead people like Clancys had before, with quiet determination or solemn speeches. He led them with music, with laughter that echoed across Trench, preaching hope and screaming "stay alive" like it was both a command and a promise.

He laughed in the face of danger and somehow managed to make everyone around him laugh too, even when their hands were shaking, even when fear sat heavy in their stomachs.

The younger Banditos adored him. They followed him like he was made of starlight, hung on every word, learned every song. The older ones respected him, saw something in his eyes that reminded them why they'd started fighting in the first place.

And Steve…Steve became his friend.

The kind of friend who stayed awake talking beside campfires until sunrise painted the sky pink and gold, discussing everything and nothing, childhood memories, favorite foods, the shape of clouds, the weight of responsibility. The kind of friend who knew exactly how Eddie took his coffee in the morning (too much sugar, not enough patience to let it cool). The kind of friend who trusted him with the future of every Bandito, with the lives of everyone they'd sworn to protect.

Together they trained, Eddie learning to control his power while Steve taught him everything he knew about Dema. Together they planned, spreading maps across makeshift tables and marking routes with trembling fingers. Together they dreamed about the day Dema finally fell, about what freedom might actually feel like, about a world where yellow flowers could grow without fear.

Steve remembered one night in particular. It was the first time Eddie had been practicing seizing, taking control of a small animal, a dead rabbit, then releasing it gently. His hands had been shaking with exhaustion, sweat dripping down his temples.

"What if I can't do it?" Eddie had asked quietly, vulnerability cracking through his usual bravado. "What if I get up there and I freeze? What if I'm not strong enough?"

Steve had looked at him, really looked at him, and seen the fear beneath the confidence. Seen the boy who'd escaped Dema's walls with nothing but hope and terror.

"You're stronger than any of them," Steve had said, and he'd meant it with every fiber of his being. "You're going to tear that place apart, Eddie. I know you will."

Eddie had smiled then, that brilliant reckless smile that made Steve believe impossible things.

"Yeah," Eddie had said. "Yeah, I will."

For the first time, the future didn't seem impossible. It seemed close enough to touch, close enough to taste. Steve could almost feel it, the moment when those walls would finally crumble, when the Bishops would fall, when everyone trapped inside Dema would walk free into Trench.

Then the day finally came.

Banditos emerged from every corner of Trench like a flood. Hundreds of yellow banners appeared across the landscape as they marched toward Dema's gates, a sea of hope moving as one. Every Bandito covered in yellow duct tape with yellow flowers in their pockets, symbols of everything they were fighting for. Some were crying. Some were singing. All of them were ready.

Steve's heart had been pounding so hard he could barely hear his own thoughts. This was it. After years of planning, years of losing, years of hoping, this was finally it.

The final battle had begun.

While Steve led the Banditos against the Grateful Gone rising from the ground to attack them outside the walls of Dema, Eddie slipped away. Steve had watched him go, their eyes meeting for just a moment across the chaos. Eddie had nodded once. A promise, a goodbye, a see you on the other side, and then he was gone, disappearing toward the base of the tower.

Their plan depended on it.

The Torchbearer could lead the army, but only Clancy could reach the Bishops. Only Clancy could climb the tower. Only Clancy could end the cycle.

Steve had forced himself to turn away, to focus on the battle in front of him. He had to trust Eddie. Had to believe.

The fighting lasted for hours.

The Grateful Gone came in endless waves, shambling forward with dead eyes and rotting hands. Citizens who had lost their lives to depression, who couldn't handle living in Dema, now controlled by the Bishops like puppets on strings. An army that never tired, never stopped, never felt pain.

Steve's arms burned with exhaustion as he fought. His sword was slick with something he tried not to think about. Around him, Banditos screamed battle cries and fell and got back up and kept fighting. He saw Marcus take a hit to the shoulder but keep swinging. Saw Elena pull another Bandito out of the path of grasping dead hands. Saw Thomas fall and not get back up, yellow flowers spilling from his pocket onto blood-soaked ground.

Yet the Banditos kept pushing forward, kept fighting with everything they had.

Because high above them, somewhere inside the tower, Eddie was fighting for all of them.

Steve's lungs burned. His muscles screamed. But he couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. Not when they were this close.

Another wave of Grateful Gone rose from the earth in front of their neon gravestones, dirt falling from their shoulders, mouths hanging open in silent screams. Steve braced himself, raised his torch, that both served as a weapon and a symbol of hope. 

And then they fell.

Just collapsed, all at once, like strings had been cut. Bodies hitting the ground with heavy thuds, finally, truly dead.

For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

The bishops had fallen. 

A roar erupted throughout the battlefield that shook Steve's bones.

Banditos cheered, weapons were thrown into the air, some collapsed from relief, others cried openly. Years of fighting, years of losing, years of hoping…and they had finally won. Steve felt tears streaming down his face, felt his chest expanding with something too big to name. Joy. Relief. Disbelief.

Eddie had done it.

Eddie had actually done it.

Steve had never ran into the city and climbed the stairs so quickly in his life. His legs burned, his breath came in ragged gasps, but he couldn't slow down. He and a handful of Banditos raced up the main tower where the Bishops had ruled, taking steps two and three at a time. Robin was beside him, Nancy just behind, all of them desperate to reach the top, to see Eddie, to celebrate their impossible victory.

When they finally reached the top, Steve burst through the doorway expecting triumph.

Expecting freedom. Expecting Eddie standing there with that brilliant smile, maybe a little bloody, definitely exhausted, but alive and victorious. Expecting to throw his arms around his best friend and laugh and cry and finally, finally breathe.

Nico lay dead at the center of the room.

The final Bishop, the most feared of them all. Gone. His crimson robes pooled around him like spilled wine, his face frozen in an expression of shock.

For a brief moment, Steve smiled.

They'd done it.

Eddie had done it.

Steve's eyes searched the room, looking for Eddie, ready to celebrate—

But his smile died on his lips as he watched Eddie reach for the red robes hanging along the cobblestone wall.

The room fell silent. No one even dared to breathe.

Steve's heart stopped.

No.

No, that wasn't, Eddie was just, he was going to destroy them, right? Tear them down, burn them, throw them from the tower as a symbol of Dema's fall?

"Eddie?"

Steve's voice came out smaller than he intended, almost pleading.

Eddie didn't respond. Didn't even look at him.

Slowly, deliberately, Eddie tore one of the crimson robes from the wall.

Then another.

The bright red fabric pooled around his feet like blood.

Steve's chest tightened. His hands started shaking.

For a moment, Steve thought he was destroying them. Had to be destroying them. Because Eddie wouldn't, he couldn't—

Instead, Eddie lifted one, and draped it over his shoulders.

The world tilted.

Steve felt like the ground had disappeared beneath his feet, like he was falling through empty air with nothing to catch him.

"No," Nancy whispered, her voice breaking with disbelief.

Eddie adjusted the robe with careful, deliberate movements. Crimson against black, the colors of the Bishops. The colors of everything they'd been fighting against.

Steve stared, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to process what he was seeing.

This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

"Eddie..."

The name barely left his lips, breathy and broken and desperate.

Eddie didn't answer. Didn't even flinch.

He picked up another robe, turning around as he draped the hood over his head, shadows falling across his face. When he looked up, his eyes seemed different. Distant. Like he was looking at them from very far away.

One by one, he offered the robes to the gathered Banditos.

Some hesitated, staring at the crimson fabric like it might burn them. Others accepted immediately, reaching out with trembling hands, wrapping the red around their shoulders like it was something precious.

The moment they did, something changed in their expressions. Something hardened. Something closed off.

The victory dissolved and something colder took its place.

A new beginning, or maybe an ending.

Steve wasn't sure anymore. Wasn't sure of anything.

His mind was screaming. This wasn't supposed to happen. Eddie was supposed to destroy the Bishops, not become one. They were supposed to win. They were supposed to be free.

Then Eddie stopped in front of him.

The room seemed to disappear around them. The other Banditos, the dead Bishop, the tower itself, all of it faded until there was only Eddie standing there in crimson robes, and Steve still wearing yellow duct tape on his shoulders.

His best friend. The person Steve had trusted more than anyone, the person he'd believed would save them all. The person he'd stayed up with until sunrise, sang with, laughed with, dreamed with.

Eddie held out a robe toward Steve.

An invitation. A choice. A betrayal.

Steve looked down at the crimson fabric, and something inside his chest cracked open. Not anger, he couldn't find anger anywhere in the hollow space where his heart used to be. Not hatred. Just grief. Just devastating, crushing grief.

Because the person standing before him wasn't Clancy anymore. Maybe he wasn't even Eddie.

Maybe he'd never been.

Slowly, Steve shook his head.

"I can't."

For the first time, Eddie faltered.

The words felt like giving up. Like admitting defeat. Like watching everything he'd fought for turn to ash.

His hand tightened around the robe, knuckles going white. His jaw clenched. For just a second, something flickered across his face, regret, maybe, or pain, or the ghost of the person he used to be.

Yet he never looked up.

Never met Steve's eyes.

As if he couldn't bear to. As if looking at Steve would shatter whatever resolve he'd built around himself.

Or perhaps he simply couldn't see him anymore. Couldn't see past the yellow duct tape on Steve's shoulders, the color of the Banditos, the color of hope, the color Steve had spent years carrying like a torch through the darkness.

Steve remembered the first time he'd seen Eddie. Years ago, when Eddie had first escaped the walls of Dema, stumbling into Trench like a newborn learning to walk. He'd been scared and alone, breathing in the fresh air like he'd never tasted anything so sweet. The chill of the wind had cut through his thin grey and drab prison clothes, and he'd been shaking, from cold or fear or relief, Steve had never been sure.

Steve had walked up to him and handed him a jacket without a word. A jacket with yellow duct tape on the shoulders.

Eddie had stared at it like it was made of gold. Like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"What's this for?" Eddie had asked, voice rough from disuse.

"It means you're one of us now," Steve had said. "It means you're free."

Eddie had put it on with trembling hands and smiled, that brilliant, reckless smile that Steve would come to know so well. The smile that made him believe impossible things.

"Free," Eddie had repeated, like he was testing the word. "Yeah. Yeah, I like the sound of that."

It felt like so long ago now. Like a different lifetime. Like a dream Steve had woken up from.

Eddie's gaze passed right through the yellow on Steve's shoulders now, like it was invisible. Like Steve was invisible.

Without a word, Eddie stepped around him.

Offering the robe to someone else.

And just like that, the cycle began again.

-

Steve didn't remember leaving the tower.

One moment he was standing there, watching Eddie hand out crimson robes like gifts, watching Banditos accept them with eager hands. The next moment he was stumbling down stairs, his vision blurred, his chest so tight he couldn't breathe.

Robin was beside him. He didn't know when she'd grabbed his arm, but she was holding on tight, guiding him down and down and down the endless spiral of steps.

"Steve," she kept saying. "Steve, breathe. Just breathe."

But he couldn't. Every breath felt like swallowing glass.

They'd lost.

After everything, after years of searching, years of fighting, years of hoping…they'd lost.

No. Worse than lost. They'd won, and then had victory ripped away and twisted into something unrecognizable, a bishop, Nico. They were so close, and Steve knew it. 

By the time they reached the bottom of the tower, Steve's legs were shaking so badly he could barely stand. The streets of Dema stretched out before them, impossibly quiet after the chaos of battle. Bodies of the Grateful Gone littered the ground, finally at rest. Yellow flowers were scattered everywhere, trampled into the dirt.

The celebration had ended only minutes ago, Steve could still hear the echoes of it. The cheering. The chanting. The sound of red fabric tearing as Eddie distributed the robes.

But now there was only silence.

Heavy, suffocating, wrong.

Robin guided him to a narrow alleyway tucked between two towering white buildings. Other Banditos were already there, moving like ghosts. Some wrapped injuries with shaking hands. Others gathered abandoned equipment, their movements mechanical, empty.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody wanted to.

Not after what they'd just seen.

Not after Eddie.

Steve's knees gave out and he collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold ground. His pack was beside him, he didn't remember dropping it, and he stared at it like he'd never seen it before.

They were supposed to be celebrating right now. They were supposed to be free.

Instead, they were hiding in an alley, preparing to run.

Steve's hands were shaking as he reached for his pack. He needed to do something. Needed to move. Needed to focus on anything other than the image burned into his mind, Eddie in crimson robes, Eddie with dead eyes, Eddie becoming everything they'd fought against.

He pulled the pack open and started shoving supplies inside. A canteen, a map, a flashlight. His movements were jerky, uncoordinated. His vision kept blurring.

He could still picture the scene perfectly, like it was happening right in front of him.

The tower rising over the city, impossibly tall.

The red robes hanging from its sides like banners of victory.

Eddie standing at the very top, crimson fabric draped over his shoulders.

For one brief, impossible moment, Steve had thought they'd won. Thought Eddie had finally done it. Thought this Clancy would be different.

Then Eddie had grabbed the robes.

And instead of throwing them down, instead of destroying them, instead of ending the cycle—

He'd wrapped them around his own shoulders.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, but the image only became clearer.

Eddie standing above the city dressed in crimson, looking like he belonged there. The citizens going back to their bleak routines, multiple worships a day, after a long day going back to their dark and drab rooms with the only light being the neon, the buzz deafening their ears after a little bit. What Steve thought were Banditos stepping forward one by one, reaching for robes with eager hands. Accepting the role of Bishop. Accepting Dema. Accepting defeat.

Accepting everything they'd sworn to destroy.

A sob tried to claw its way up Steve's throat. He swallowed it down, forced it back, shoved it into the hollow space in his chest where his heart used to be.

He couldn't break down, not here, not now.

He had to keep moving, keep calm to lead as he knew the Banditos were counting on him…more than ever now.

A pair of footsteps echoed through the alley.

Steve didn't need to look up. He knew the sound of Robin's walk, the particular rhythm of her steps.

She stopped beside him and slid down the wall to sit next to him. For several moments neither of them spoke. The sounds of the city drifted around them, distant bells, the wind whistling between buildings, the soft crying of other Banditos trying to muffle their grief.

Robin stared toward the massive tower looming over the rooftops, her expression unreadable.

"I really liked this Clancy," she said quietly, her eyes glancing up at the tower, knowing that Eddie was looking down at them.

Steve's hands froze on the strap of his pack.

The words hit harder than any physical blow could have.

Because she wasn't wrong.

Everyone had liked Eddie. He was impossible not to like.

He'd been loud when everyone else was afraid to speak, funny when morale was low, hopeful when things felt impossible. He'd made them believe that maybe, just maybe, they could actually win.

Steve remembered nights around campfires in Trench, Eddie making up ridiculous songs about the Bishops, making everyone laugh until their stomachs hurt. Remembered Eddie promising he'd tear Dema apart brick by brick if he had to. Promising he'd never become one of them. Promising he was different.

Promising.

Steve's throat tightened.

"Yeah," he said quietly, his voice rough and tired and broken. "Me too."

Robin looked down at her hands. They were covered in dirt and blood, she'd been fighting just as hard as him.

"He was so close," she whispered.

Steve let out a slow breath that felt like it was tearing something inside him.

"So was the last one."

Robin's eyes shifted toward him, understanding settling in her expression.

The last one, and the one before that, and the one before that.

The pattern repeated itself over and over, an endless cycle of hope and betrayal. Find a Clancy. Teach them. Believe in them. Watch them climb the tower. Watch them fall to the bishops sick rule or worse, watch them choose to stay at the top.

The conversation ended there for a moment.

Because there wasn't much else to say.

They both knew the pattern. They'd both lived it too many times.

Steve resumed packing, his movements mechanical. A map disappeared into his backpack. Then a flashlight. Then a handful of supplies, dried food, bandages, a spare knife.

Anything to keep his hands busy.

Anything to avoid looking up at the tower.

Anything to avoid thinking about Eddie standing at the top, wearing crimson, becoming everything Steve had spent his life fighting against.

"So that's it?" Robin finally asked, her voice small. "We just leave?"

The question lingered in the air between them.

Steve zipped the bag shut. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet alley.

"What?"

"We just leave?" Robin repeated. "We don't—I don't know—try to talk to him? Try to bring him back?"

Steve's jaw clenched. He wanted to say yes. Wanted to say they'd storm back up that tower and drag Eddie down and remind him who he used to be.

But he knew better.

He'd seen this before.

Once someone put on those robes and their faces and hands were smeared in that black paint, once they felt that power, once they stood at the top of the tower and looked down at the city spread beneath them, they didn't come back.

They couldn't.

Steve stood slowly, his body feeling heavy, like every failed attempt was another weight strapped to his shoulders. Like he was carrying the ghosts of every Clancy who'd come before, every Bandito who'd died believing in freedom, every promise that had turned to ash.

He glanced toward the tower one last time.

High above the city, crimson banners fluttered in the wind. The setting sun painted them even redder, like they were soaked in blood.

Somewhere up there was Eddie.

Not the Eddie he'd known. Not the Eddie who had laughed around campfires and made terrible jokes and promised to stay alive. Not the Eddie who'd put on that yellow-taped jacket with trembling hands and smiled like he'd been given the world.

That person was gone.

Maybe not forever.

Maybe not completely.

Steve tightened the straps of his backpack, the familiar weight settling against his shoulders.

"That's not Clancy up there anymore," he said, his voice flat and empty.

The words hurt to say. Hurt worse than the battle had, worse than any physical wound.

Robin looked away, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Because she knew he was right.

Neither of them wanted him to be a Bishop, the thing he hated the most…but he was.

The alley fell silent except for the quiet sounds of other Banditos preparing to leave. Packs being zipped. Weapons being gathered. Quiet goodbyes being whispered.

Then Steve looked beyond the city walls visible between the buildings.

Beyond Dema.

Beyond the towers.

Beyond the endless white stone that had haunted his dreams for years.

Out there was Trench. Wild, unpredictable, free.

And somewhere in these walls, someone wanting to escape from the Bishops rule, someone was waiting.

Someone who didn't even know it yet.

Another Clancy. Another chance at freedom, finally.

Another person who would promise to be different, who would swear they'd never fall, who would look Steve in the eyes and make him believe impossible things.

Steve had spent too many years doing this to stop now. Had lost too many people to give up. Had carried hope for too long to let it die in a Dema alleyway.

Even if hope felt like the cruelest thing he could carry.

Robin watched him carefully, studying his face like she was trying to decide whether he actually believed what he was thinking, or if he was just going through the motions.

Maybe he did believe.

Maybe he didn't.

At this point, belief wasn't the important part, continuing was, getting up was, taking the next steps to find the right Clancy was.

"We'll try again," Steve said, his voice stronger now, steadier.

Robin blinked, surprise flickering across her face.

"Again?"

A tired smile appeared on Steve's face. A hopeful smile even after he watched his best friend become the one thing he hated.

The kind of smile that said he'd been knocked down a hundred times and intended to stand up a hundred and one. The kind of smile that said he'd carry this weight until it killed him, and maybe even after that.

He adjusted his backpack and started toward the alley's exit, his legs steadier now, his purpose clear.

Toward the city gates.

Toward Trench.

Toward whatever came next.

"Always," he said.

Robin stood and followed him, and one by one, the other Banditos did the same. They moved through Dema's streets like ghosts, yellow duct tape still on their shoulders, yellow flowers still in their pockets. Defeated but not broken. Lost but not gone.

They passed through the gates as the sun set, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. The Grateful Gone lay still on the ground, finally at rest. The battlefield was quiet now, peaceful in a way that felt wrong.

Steve didn't look back, he couldn't.

If he did, he might see Eddie standing at the top of the tower, watching them leave. Might see the person he'd trusted most in the world wearing crimson robes. Might see the moment when hope died and the cycle began again.

So he kept walking, one foot in front of the other, leading his people back into Trench.

Back to the wild lands, home for the Banditos.

Behind them, the tower stretched into the darkening sky, impossibly tall, impossibly white, impossibly permanent.

And somewhere at its peak, the newest Bishop stood at the window, watching the Banditos disappear into the wilderness.

Watching Steve walk away.

Watching the yellow fade into the distance.

Eddie's hand touched the crimson fabric at his shoulder, and for just a moment, something flickered across his face. Something that might have been regret. Something that might have been grief.

But then it was gone, smoothed away, replaced by the cold certainty of power.

The cycle would continue.

It always did.

-

THREE YEARS LATER

Bee hated the walls.

Not the way someone hates an inconvenience, or the way you hate waiting in line, or the way you hate cold coffee in the morning. She hated them the way you hate something that's stolen pieces of your soul. The way you hate something that's beaten you down so many times you've lost count. The way you hate something that wins, again and again and again, no matter how hard you fight.

Most citizens didn't seem to notice them anymore.

After a while, people stopped looking up. The towering white structures surrounding Dema became part of everyday life, no different than the roads beneath their feet or the grey buildings stretching endlessly toward the sky. Just another feature of the city that crushed you slowly, day by day, until you forgot what it felt like to breathe freely and you eventually take your own life.

Citizens walked beneath them every day without a second thought, heads down, shoulders hunched, moving through their routines like automatons. Work, home, sleep, repeat. The walls might as well have been invisible for all the attention anyone paid them.

But Bee noticed them every single time.

How could she not?

They were impossible to ignore, at least for her. Every time she turned a corner, every time she walked down a street, every time she looked up at the sky, there they were. Looming. Watching. Waiting. A constant reminder pressed against her consciousness like a thumb on a bruise.

The walls weren't just stone and mortar. They were a promise.

A promise that no matter how far she walked, how hard she fought, how desperately she wanted to leave, how many times she tried, Dema would always be waiting for her. Dema would always win. The walls always won.

She stood now at the edge of a deserted street in the outer east district, Keon's district, staring at the massive structure looming overhead. Her neck ached from tilting her head back, but she couldn't look away. Cold white stone disappeared into the clouds, so tall it seemed to pierce the sky itself. Somewhere beyond it was Trench. Freedom. Or at least what she imagined freedom looked like, she'd never actually experienced it long enough to know for sure.

The wind carried the distant sounds of the city around her. Footsteps echoing off stone. Muted conversations bleeding through walls. The faint ringing of bells marking time for the evening worship, another day closer to nothing. Life continued as normal, the way it always did.

Even when people were miserable.

Even when they wanted more.

Even when they dreamed about escape but were too afraid to try.

Bee's gaze drifted downward, away from the impossible height of the walls, toward the pavement beneath her feet. Toward the long scars cutting through the stone like claw marks, deep grooves, scratches, drag paths. Evidence of struggle that were left there on purpose.

A bitter smile touched her lips.

Those were hers.

Every single one.

Years of escape attempts had left marks across Dema's roads, a trail of failure carved into the city itself. Physical proof that someone had tried. That someone had fought. That someone had refused to accept this place as home, no matter how many times they were dragged back.

Evidence that she had failed to escape and find freedom. She couldn't remember how many times she had tried to escape and failed, how many times he Bishops had tried to drown her and crush her spirit. 

The first time she'd tried escaping, she had been fourteen years old.

She could still remember it with painful clarity, the way her hands had shaken as she'd packed a small bag with stolen food and a change of clothes. The way her heart had hammered so hard she thought it might burst through her ribs. The way the fence had felt beneath her fingers as she'd climbed it in the dead of night, rough metal cutting into her palms.

She'd made it nearly halfway to the outer walls before being caught.

A hand had closed around her ankle, smearing black liquid against her skin…the mark the bishops left, and yanked her down from the fence. She'd hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, stars exploding behind her eyes. When she'd looked up, gasping for air, Nico had been standing over her.

His face had been completely blank.

Not angry, not disappointed, not even mildly annoyed.

Just... nothing.

He dragged her back towards the city and dragged her back to her assigned housing unit without saying a single word. She'd kicked and screamed and clawed at his back the entire way. He hadn't reacted, hadn't flinched. He didn't acknowledge her struggle at all as she kicked and screamed, her heels digging into the gravel as evidence, hoping someone would find her and help her. 

It was like fighting a statue.

The second attempt had lasted two days.

She'd been smarter that time, waited until a supply shipment was leaving the city, hidden herself among the crates, held her breath as the gates opened and the truck rolled through. For two glorious days she'd walked through Trench, feeling grass beneath her feet instead of stone, breathing air that didn't taste like ash and despair. The wind was cold and the grey uniforms every citizen wore did nothing to provide her any warmth from the harsh winter of Trench. 

She'd thought she'd made it…but she was wrong.

Nico had found her sleeping beneath a tree, curled up with her stolen jacket pulled tight around her shoulders. She'd woken to find him standing there, watching her with those empty eyes. This time he'd tied her hands before carrying her back.

The third attempt had lasted nearly a week.

After that, she'd stopped keeping track of the exact numbers. The details changed, different routes, different methods, different desperate plans cobbled together from hope and stubbornness, but the endings never did.

Eventually, Nico always found her.

Sometimes he found her hiding in abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the city, pressed into corners with her knees pulled to her chest, trying to make herself small enough to disappear. Sometimes he found her running through the streets at night, her lungs burning, her legs screaming, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might kill her before he could catch her.

Sometimes she woke up to discover him standing beside her bed, just watching, waiting. Like he'd known exactly where she'd be and had simply decided to let her sleep before dragging her back.

The memory alone made her stomach twist with something that felt like nausea mixed with rage mixed with a horrible, creeping sense of helplessness.

She hated him.

Hated him with an intensity that sometimes scared her, a white-hot burning thing that lived in her chest and never quite went out. But not because he shouted at her, he never did. Not because he punished her beyond the recapture itself, he didn't. Not because he threatened her or hurt her or made her life worse than it already was.

In some ways, that would've been easier to process if he did, easier to fight against, easier to hate cleanly, without the complicated tangle of emotions that came with it.

No, Nico never seemed angry.

Never frustrated.

Never disappointed.

Never anything at all.

I's like he never showed any emotion, and maybe that's what this city did to you, make you an emotionless husk until it all ends. 

Every time he dragged her back to Dema, his face remained completely blank. Expressionless and empty, like her escape attempts weren't worth reacting to. Like she wasn't worth reacting to. Like she was simply a problem to be solved, a misplaced object to be returned to its proper place.

Not a person. He never treated anyone like a person, especially not the citizens in his district.

Just a thing that kept ending up where it didn't belong.

And somehow, that was worse than any punishment could have been. The complete and utter absence of acknowledgment. The way he looked at her, or rather, the way he looked through her, like she was made of glass. Like she didn't matter enough to warrant even the smallest emotional response.

The worst part, the part that kept her awake at night, staring at the ceiling of her assigned housing unit, was that despite everything, despite every failure, despite every time Nico's hand had closed around her arm and pulled her back...

She still wanted to leave. Still dreamed about Trench every night. Still found herself staring beyond the walls whenever she got the chance.

Still wondered what freedom felt like, really felt like, beyond those two days she'd managed to steal.

The wanting never stopped. It lived inside her like a second heartbeat, constant and insistent and impossible to ignore. Some days it was the only thing that felt real.

Which was exactly why she found herself sitting in the backseat of Nico's car right now, her hands resting nervously in her lap, her heart doing that familiar hammering thing against her ribs.

She didn't know why he'd agreed to this.

She'd asked, more out of desperation than any real hope, if he would drive her to the outer edges of the city. Just to see, just to look, for the last time. She'd expected him to say no, or more likely, to simply ignore her the way he usually did.

Instead, he'd said yes.

On one condition, that she would never escape the city ever again, or even think about it. It was the only way she could get one painful breath of fresh air.

And now here they were.

Outside the window, the city slowly disappeared behind them, grey buildings giving way to smaller structures, then to open spaces, then to fields of dead grass stretching toward the horizon. Bee watched carefully, her eyes tracking every landmark, every turn, every checkpoint they passed through.

Even now, even sitting in Nico's car with him right there in the driver's seat, she couldn't stop herself from cataloging escape routes. Noting which roads led where, which gates had guards, which sections of wall looked weaker than others.

It was automatic at this point. instinctive, like breathing, even if she wasn't planning an escape. 

Nico sat in the driver's seat, silent as always, his hands steady on the wheel. His face was turned toward the empty road ahead, expression blank, giving away nothing. The streetlights streaming through the windshield painted harsh shadows across his features, making him look even more like a statue than usual.

Bee looked up at those street lights, their yellow glow almost casting a comfortable glow over the barren road. She closed her eyes, praying those lights would take her away from this, take her somewhere safe. Home, but deep down, she knew it was insane to think that. 

For several minutes neither of them spoke.

The silence wasn't unusual, Nico rarely talked. When he did, it was usually because he needed something, and even then his words were clipped and efficient, stripped of anything resembling warmth or personality.

Bee stared out the window, watching the landscape change. Empty fields replaced buildings, green and lush grass growing off the side of the road wildly, freely. The farther they drove from the city center, the lighter her chest felt, like someone was slowly removing weights she'd been carrying for so long she'd forgotten they were there.

This was the furthest she'd been from Dema's core in months. Maybe longer.

She almost smiled. Almost.

The feeling was too fragile to trust, too easily shattered. Hope had betrayed her too many times before.

Instead, she glanced toward the front seat, studying the back of Nico's head. His dark hair curly hair blowing slightly in the wind, his posture was perfect, as always. Everything about him was controlled and precise and utterly devoid of humanity.

"You know," she said carefully, testing the waters, "I'm surprised you said yes."

Nico didn't look away from the road. Didn't even twitch.

"To what?"

His voice was flat. Emotionless. The same tone he used for everything, whether he was recapturing her or asking what she wanted for dinner or informing her of new city regulations.

"The drive," Bee said.

Silence stretched between them, long enough that she thought he might not respond at all. Then—

"You agreed to the conditions."

That was it, a couple of words. As if that explained everything, and maybe it did…because after all, he told her the conditions and she still agreed to it. 

Bee rolled her eyes, a familiar frustration bubbling up in her chest.

"Wow. Riveting conversation." She scoffed, sarcasm dripping from her voice. 

Nothing. Not even a flicker of reaction.

She sighed dramatically, slumping lower in her seat.

"Do you ever get tired of being mysterious? Or is this just your personality? Because I've gotta tell you, it's really annoying."

Still nothing.

Bee sank even lower into her seat, until she was practically horizontal, staring at the car's ceiling.

"Great talk."

The road continued beneath them, smooth and endless. The engine hummed softly, a steady rhythm that might have been soothing under different circumstances. For a while, everything felt strangely normal. Almost peaceful, in a surreal sort of way.

The sun was warm through the window. The landscape rolling past was almost pretty, in a desolate kind of way. If she squinted and ignored the walls visible in the distance and pretended she wasn't sitting in a car with the person who'd recaptured her more times than she could count—

It almost felt like freedom. Almost.

Then Nico stiffened.

It happened so suddenly that Bee nearly missed it. One second he was driving normally, hands relaxed on the wheel, posture perfect but not tense. The next second every muscle in his body seemed to lock up simultaneously.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel, knuckles going white.

His shoulders went rigid.

His jaw clenched.

Every line of his body screamed tension in a way she'd never seen before. In all the years she'd known him, if "known" was even the right word for their strange, horrible, toxic relationship, she'd never seen him react to anything. Never seen him show fear or anger or surprise or any emotion at all.

But this...This was different.

Bee frowned, her own body tensing in response to his.

"Nico?"

No answer.

His eyes remained fixed on the road ahead, but there was something in them now. Something she couldn't quite name but that made her stomach drop.

A strange feeling settled over her, cold and heavy.

Slowly, carefully, she leaned forward in her seat, trying to see what he was seeing.

"What is it?"

Then she saw him.

A figure stood in the middle of the road, maybe fifty yards ahead.

Motionless. Waiting.

At first, Bee's brain couldn't process what she was seeing. The figure didn't move, didn't wave, didn't step aside. Just stood there like they'd been planted in the asphalt, like they were part of the landscape itself.

Then the details started filtering in.

One thing standing out to her the most, Yellow.

That was the first thing that registered. The color immediately drew her attention because it was so out of place, so vibrant against the grey and brown and white of everything else. Yellow tape crossed the front of a worn olive-green hoodie in an X pattern. More yellow tape wrapped around both knees of dark olive cargo pants. A yellow bandana hung loosely around the figure's neck, bright as a sunflower.

Dark curls escaped from beneath a black beanie, wild and unkempt in a way that no one in Dema would ever allow their hair to be.

In one hand, the figure carried a torch.

An actual torch, like something out of a story, flames dancing wildly in the afternoon breeze. The fire seemed impossibly bright, impossibly alive, casting flickering shadows across the road.

For a split second, nobody moved.

The car kept rolling forward, eating up the distance between them and the figure. Thirty yards. Twenty-five. Twenty.

Then Bee saw something she'd never expected to see in her entire life.

Fear.

Nico looked afraid.

Not just tense, not just alert, actually, genuinely afraid.

His face had gone pale. His breathing had quickened. His eyes were wide, fixed on the figure ahead like he was staring at death itself.

Bee's own heart started hammering.

She'd never seen Nico afraid of anything. Hadn't thought he was capable of fear. He was a Bishop, one of the nine rulers of Dema, powerful and untouchable and completely in control of everything.

But right now, in this moment, he looked terrified.

"Nico—"

The Bishop slammed on the brakes.

Everything happened at once.

The tires screamed against asphalt, a sound like the world tearing itself apart. The car lurched violently, throwing Bee forward against her seatbelt. The belt caught her hard across the chest, knocking the air from her lungs.

But they weren't stopping.

They were accelerating.

Nico's foot had hit the gas instead of the brake, or maybe he'd done it on purpose, she couldn't tell, couldn't think, couldn't process what was happening because the car was speeding up and the figure in yellow was getting closer and closer and—

Metal shrieked under the weight. Glass shattered all around them.

The car jerked sideways so violently that Bee's head slammed against the window. Pain exploded behind her eyes, white-hot and blinding. The world tilted, spinning, everything turning sideways and then upside down and then sideways again.

The figure in yellow disappeared from view.

Or maybe Bee's eyes had closed.

She couldn't tell.

Couldn't tell which way was up.

Couldn't tell if she was screaming or if that was the sound of metal tearing.

The car rolled.

Once. The ceiling became the floor became the ceiling.

Twice.

Her shoulder slammed against the door so hard she felt something crack. Not break, maybe, but definitely crack. Pain shot down her arm, sharp and immediate and impossible to ignore.

Three times.

Something struck her head again, the window, the seat, the roof, she didn't know. More pain. More confusion. The world was a kaleidoscope of motion and sound and terror.

Metal shrieked like a living thing dying.

Glass rained down around her, glittering in the sunlight, beautiful and deadly.

Her seatbelt dug into her chest and shoulder, the only thing keeping her from being thrown around the car like a rag doll.

Then, finally, the car stopped moving.

For a moment, there was only silence.

Bee hung suspended in her seatbelt, the world still spinning even though the car had stopped. Her head throbbed, her shoulder screamed at her in pain, her chest ached where the seatbelt had caught her.

She tried to breathe and coughed instead, her lungs burning.

Smoke.

The smell hit her before the realization did, acrid and chemical and wrong. Smoke was filling the car, thick and grey, making her eyes water and her throat close up.

Then she heard it.

The crackling. Fire.

Oh god, fire.

Panic surged through her, sharp and immediate, cutting through the disorientation and pain. She had to move. Had to get out. Had to—

She tried to reach for the seatbelt buckle, but her hands wouldn't cooperate. Her fingers felt numb and clumsy, like they belonged to someone else. The buckle wouldn't release. She pulled at it, yanked at it, her movements growing more frantic as the smoke grew thicker.

The heat was building. She could feel it now, pressing against her skin, making sweat break out across her forehead.

The crackling grew louder.

Closer.

"Help," she tried to say, but it came out as barely a whisper, her voice lost in the smoke and fear.

She pulled at the seatbelt again, harder this time, desperation making her movements jerky and uncoordinated. The buckle still wouldn't release. The smoke was so thick now she could barely see. The heat was intense, painful, like standing too close to an oven.

This was it.

After all those escape attempts, all those times Nico had dragged her back, all those years of fighting and hoping and dreaming—

She was going to die in a car crash on the outskirts of Dema.

The irony would have been funny if she wasn't so terrified.

Then she heard a voice.

"Easy."

The word cut through the chaos like a knife, clear and strong and steady, close. Very close.

Hands appeared through the smoke, strong hands, capable hands, hands that knew what they were doing. They reached for her seatbelt, found the buckle, pressed the release.

The belt snapped free.

Bee started to fall, but the hands caught her, hooking beneath her arms, supporting her weight.

"I've got you," the voice said. "Hold on."

She was being pulled, dragged out of the car. The world tilted again as she was maneuvered through the wreckage, through the smoke, through the broken window. Metal scraped against her legs. Glass crunched beneath her. The heat was intense, almost unbearable, and then—

Cool and fresh air of Trench.

The smoke cleared and she could breathe again, gasping and coughing and alive.

The hands kept pulling her, kept moving her away from the wreckage. Away from the heat, away from the fire that was consuming what was left of the car.

Normally, she wouldn't have let a total stranger drag her around aimlessly, but every bone in her body ached from the wreck.

Finally, they stopped.

Bee was lowered gently onto grass, soft and cool beneath her. The hands released her carefully, making sure she was stable before letting go completely.

She lay there for a moment, just breathing, just existing. Her head was spinning. Her body ached everywhere. But she was alive.

Alive.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Slowly, the world came back into focus.

Orange flames lit up her surroundings, climbingthe twisted remains of the overturned vehicle, maybe twenty feet away. Black smoke poured into the night sky covered in stars you could never see from the city. The heat radiated from the wreckage in waves, intense enough that she could feel it even from this distance.

Too close.

She'd been too close.

If someone hadn't pulled her out…She would've been a goner.

Bee turned her head, looking for her rescuer.

A man crouched beside her, watching her with concerned brown eyes. He was maybe in his mid-twenties, with messy brown hair that stuck up in several directions and a face that might have been handsome if it wasn't currently covered in soot and worry lines.

He wore an olive-green hoodie with yellow duct tape crossed over the chest in an X pattern. More yellow tape wrapped around his knees, a yellow bandana was tied around his neck, dark olive cargo pants, and worn boots. The same figure she saw on the side of the road. 

The torch lay on the ground beside him, the flames dying out before it laid against the moist grass.

"Can you hear me?" he asked, his voice gentle but urgent.

Bee blinked at him.

"Yeah," she managed to speak between coughs, her voice rough from smoke.

His shoulders visibly relaxed, some of the tension leaving his body.

"Good. That's good." He studied her face carefully, like he was checking for signs of serious injury. "You hit your head pretty hard. How do you feel? Dizzy? Nauseous?"

"Like I was just in a car crash," Bee said flatly.

The response slipped out automatically, her default coping mechanism, sarcasm in the face of trauma. It was either that or start crying, and she refused to cry in front of a stranger.

The man actually laughed.

A short, surprised sound that seemed to catch him off guard as much as it caught her. His eyes crinkled at the corners, genuine amusement breaking through the concern.

"Fair enough," he said, still smiling slightly. "Anything broken? Can you move your arms? Your legs?"

Bee took inventory of her body, carefully moving each limb. Everything hurt, but nothing felt broken. Her shoulder throbbed where she'd hit the door, and her head was pounding, but she could move. Could breathe, could think, mostly.

"I don't think so," she said. "Just... bruised. Everywhere."

"That's good. That's really good."

He paused slightly, looking at her as she raised an eyebrow slightly at him.

"Well…not good that you're bruised, that's really bad actually—." He began to ramble aimlessly, which in any other circumstance, Bee would be annoyed, but she couldn't help the way the corners of her lips tilted up in amusement as he rambled.

He sat back on his heels, running a hand through his hair and leaving streaks of soot behind. For the first time, Bee noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. Not much, but enough to be visible.

He'd been scared too, she realized. Scared for her.

The thought was strange, foreign. When was the last time anyone had been scared for her? When was the last time anyone had cared whether she lived or died?

Bee's gaze drifted past him, toward the burning wreck.

The driver's side door stood open.

Empty. Her heart sank, a cold weight settling in her stomach.

"Nico," she said quietly.

The stranger followed her gaze, his expression darkening slightly.

"He got out," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Saw him run into the fields right after the crash."

Bee stared at the empty driver's seat, at the open door, at the space where Nico should have been before her head laid back against the soft grass with a soft thud.

He'd gotten out.

But he hadn't stayed.

Hadn't checked on her.

Hadn't come back.

He'd just... left.

Left her trapped in a burning car.

Left her to die.

She shouldn't have been surprised. 

A lump formed in her throat, thick and painful. Not because she cared what Nico thought, she didn't, she couldn't, he'd never given her any reason to. But because some small, stupid part of her had hoped that maybe, after all these years, after all the times he'd dragged her back, after all the times he'd found her and returned her and kept her alive—

Maybe he cared, at least a little, at least enough to make sure she wasn't dead. 

Apparently not.

It made her question, why did Nico always chase after her if he didn't care? 

"Hey."

She looked up at him, it was almost like he could see the internal spiral. 

The stranger had moved closer, concern written clearly across his face. His brown eyes were kind, genuinely kind, in a way that made her chest ache.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

Bee swallowed hard, forcing the lump in her throat back down.

"Yeah," she lied. "I'm fine."

He didn't look convinced, but he didn't push. Instead, he just nodded and settled into a more comfortable sitting position beside her, close enough to help if she needed it but not so close as to be invasive.

For a long moment, they both just sat there in the grass, watching the car burn. The flames had fully engulfed it now, consuming what was left of the metal frame. The heat was intense even from this distance, making the air shimmer and waver.

Bee's mind felt sluggish, struggling to process everything that had happened in the last few minutes. The figure in the road. Nico's fear. The crash. The fire. Being pulled from the wreckage. Nico leaving.

It was too much, too fast.

She focused on breathing instead. In and out. Steady and slow.

Finally, she turned to look at the stranger properly.

Really look at him.

The way he carried himself, confident but not arrogant, capable but not cold. Everything about him was different from anyone she'd ever met in Dema. Different from the grey, lifeless citizens shuffling through their routines. Different from the Bishops with their crimson robes and empty eyes.

Different in a way that made something stir in her chest. Something that felt dangerously close to hope.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

The stranger tilted his head slightly, like he was surprised by the gratitude.

"For what?"

Bee gestured toward the burning wreckage.

"For saving me." Her voice softened, became smaller. "I would've died in there."

The stranger looked away briefly, like he was uncomfortable receiving thanks. Like saving people was just something he did, nothing worth acknowledging or celebrating.

Then he shrugged, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Couldn't exactly leave you in there, could I?"

Something about the way he said it, so casual, so matter-of-fact, like of course he'd risk his life to pull a stranger from a burning car, like there was never any question, made Bee's throat tighten again.

She studied him more carefully, taking in details she'd missed before. 

The yellow. So much yellow. Almost too much if she was being honest. 

And suddenly, like a puzzle piece clicking into place, realization struck her. He wore this bright color, one no one ever saw inside the walls of Dema. It was too bright, too hopeful, the Bishops couldn't see it. 

There were only a few people who wore it, but Bee always thought they were a myth, something a citizen made up to give more citizens hope. Hope that maybe there was more to life than this city. 

Her eyes widened.

"No way," she breathed.

The stranger raised an eyebrow, amusement flickering across his face.

"What?"

"You're one of them."

His smile grew, like he'd been waiting for her to figure it out.

"One of who?"

Bee's heart was hammering again, but this time not from fear, from excitement, from disbelief, from something that felt like the world tilting on its axis, she couldn't tell.

"The Banditos."

The word came out almost reverently, like a prayer, like a secret, like something sacred.

The stranger's smile became a full grin, bright and genuine and real.

"We're real," he confirmed.

Bee stared.

Actually stared, her mouth hanging open slightly, her brain struggling to process this information.

The Banditos were real.

Not just stories whispered between citizens when the Bishops weren't listening. Not just rumors passed down through generations. Not just desperate fantasies invented by people who needed something to believe in.

Real.

The stories flooded back, things she'd heard as a child, huddled in corners with other kids, trading tales like precious treasures. Stories about people who lived beyond the walls. People who refused to kneel. People who fought back against the Bishops and won, sometimes. People who wore yellow like armor and believed in freedom the way other people believed in breathing.

Ghosts in the wilderness, some called them.

Rebels beyond the walls.

The people who refused to give up.

Most citizens thought they were myths, fairy tales, things parents made up to give their children hope, even though hope was dangerous in Dema.

But Bee had never stopped believing.

Even when it seemed impossible, even when everyone else dismissed the stories as fantasy, even when believing felt like the most foolish thing she could do.

She'd believed.

And now one of them was sitting right in front of her.

The stranger extended his hand toward her, his smile warm and open.

"I'm Steve," he said.

Bee hesitated for just a moment before taking his hand. His grip was warm, steady, grounding. Real. Solid. Proof that this wasn't a dream or a hallucination brought on by hitting her head.

"Steve?" she repeated.

"Steve Harrington."

His smile grew wider, and there was something in his eyes now, something proud and fierce and unbreakable.

"Leader of the Banditos."

Bee's jaw nearly dropped.

Not just a regular Bandito. Not just someone who'd escaped Dema and joined the resistance, but the leader himself, Torchbearer.

The figure from every story, every rumor, every whispered conversation. The person who'd been fighting the Bishops for years, who'd rescued countless citizens, who'd built a community in Trench from nothing, who carried hope like a torch through the darkness.

Standing right in front of her.

For the first time in years, maybe in her entire life, excitement replaced the hopelessness that had taken up permanent residence in her chest. Not just a flicker, not just a spark, a genuine surge of something that felt dangerously close to joy.

"You can't be serious," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Steve laughed, the sound rich and genuine.

"I get that a lot."

Bee stared at him, speechless, her mind racing. The Torchbearer. The actual Torchbearer. The person she'd heard about in stories since she was a child, the person she'd half-convinced herself was just a legend, a symbol, something people invented to keep themselves going—

He was real.

And he'd just saved her life.

"I'm Bee," she finally managed to say.

The moment the name left her mouth, Steve froze.

It was subtle, just a fraction of a second, barely noticeable. But Bee caught it. The way his eyes widened slightly. The way his breath caught. The way his entire body seemed to still, like he'd just heard something significant.

Something changed in his expression.

Something shifted behind his eyes, something hopeful and hungry and almost desperate. Like he'd been searching for something for a very long time and had just caught a glimpse of it.

He looked at her differently now.

Not like a citizen he'd rescued.

Not like a stranger he'd pulled from a burning car.

Like a possibility, like she might be the answer. 

Like maybe, just maybe, the thing he'd been looking for had finally found him instead.

Steve's hand tightened slightly around hers, still holding it from their handshake. His brown eyes searched her face, studying her with an intensity that should have been uncomfortable but somehow wasn't.

"Bee," he repeated softly, like he was testing the name. Seeing how it felt.

She nodded, suddenly nervous without understanding why.

"Yeah. Just... Bee. Not short for anything. Just Bee."

A slow smile spread across Steve's face, not the friendly, casual smile from before. This one was different, deeper, like something inside him had just clicked into place after years of being misaligned.

"Bee," he said again, and this time there was something almost reverent in his voice.

The moment stretched between them, heavy with something Bee couldn't quite name. The air felt charged, electric, like the space between lightning and thunder. Like something fundamental had just shifted in the universe and they were both standing at the center of it.

Steve's eyes never left her face, and Bee found she couldn't look away either. There was something in his gaze, recognition, maybe, or hope, or the ghost of a belief he'd thought was dead.

For the first time in three years, hope stirred inside Steve Harrington. Real hope.

Not the stubborn, desperate kind he'd been carrying like a weight and trying to convince the other Bandito's and himself. Not the kind that felt more like obligation than belief. But genuine, honest-to-god hope that maybe, just maybe, Dema hadn't won.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd finally found another Clancy.