#..writing

Stone in hand, Monty stood stock still in the darkness of the forest, dark eyes fixed on a grazing rabbit. He was waiting for a good shot at it, arm reeled back at the ready. Then, just as he was about to make the throw, snap! Something large was coming up behind him, and the noise scared the rabbit off. It scared Monty, too, sending him face-first into the tree that was immediately to his right that he’d forgotten was there in his haste to leave.

After getting knocked on his ass, the zombie had to take a few seconds to recover, blinking away the stars. But it was only a few seconds, because then he remembered the big thing that was coming for him. Scrambling backward, he whipped around and tried to get back to his feet, but the forest floor had other ideas. Tree roots were holding him up, tangling around his feet and catching one ankle in a strong grip as his foot twisted beneath it. He whined, barely feeling the pain but falling victim to the panic that was creeping in. Grasping his own leg he began to pull, imagining some huge wildcat about to pounce out from the bushes and rip his head off, deciding that he’d rather tear his own foot off than face that fate. 

—

Another night, another long walk through the Pines. Carefully and pointedly walking in the opposite direction of town, further to the North instead. No repeats of last time, thank you very much. Especially ‘cause it would be worse at this point. Kit was hungry. Could feel it like human hunger, like a pit in their stomach but worse. Like the jitter-drone of those first weeks of withdrawal. They were trying to tough through it, at least this very edge of it. They weren’t trying to starve themself, not at all, they just wanted to know they could control it. Because for forty years they couldn’t, not in any way. But they weren’t that anymore and they had to prove that to themself if no one else.

Definitely no one else because Matty would go fucking spare if they ever told him that.

They were acutely aware of the rabbit nearby, could smell the fear on its blood. But there had been a sound like something heavy hitting something else, way too big for a rabbit. Kit couldn’t smell any other blood though and they were just about to start getting scared when they drew into a clearing and saw a tangle of a man on the ground. “Whoa, hey,” they called, hurrying toward him. He looked caught, bottom forest brush caught around his ankle. “You need a hand there, bud?” They approached cautiously, waiting for the scent of human blood to soak into their consciousness, for the pulse to skitter over their every thought. But it never came. The rabbit was long gone and the night air was silent. No running blood, no hearts beating. 

But he clearly wasn’t dead, scrambling and scrabbling at his caught leg. “Here.” Kit dropped to their knees near the man, working to tug through the roots that were holding him. “Are you all right?”

—

The sound of a voice was something of a comfort—okay, so it wasn’t a wildcat. But it could still be someone who wished him harm, as there seemed to have been an increasing number of those, lately. Monty stared up at the stranger with wide eyes, still trying to shift away from them as they approached, not speaking a word. Behaving much like a rabbit in a trap, which was a bit ironic considering his dinner plans that night. 

When the stranger knelt beside him and started tugging at the determined roots, Monty felt reassured. Okay, whoever they were, it wouldn’t make sense to help free him if they wanted to kill him or whatever. Finally relaxing, the zombie let out a groan and flopped backwards into the dirt. “I think I broke it.” Technically it couldn’t break, but it could get pretty messed up and therefore be impossible to walk on for a little bit. Probably not long, but long enough to be an inconvenience. 

Whatever he’d managed to do to the ankle didn’t actually cause him any pain, and he almost didn’t realize once the other had gotten his foot free. “Oh. Thank you,” he stammered, pulling his legs to his chest. Oh yeah, the foot was nooot quite facing the right direction. He grimaced, looking back up at them. “Well… guess there won’t be any walking this one off.” Before he could laugh at his own joke, something… moved? No. That was just tree roots, and those didn’t move. Right?

—

“Oh, shit, dude,” Kit drawled out. A broken bone might mean blood… But they didn’t smell any. They definitely would have smelled the blood, wouldn’t have been able to stop themself. When he pulled his foot out of the mess of roots and forest debris, Kit felt their eyes go wide. Yeah, he definitely wouldn’t be walking on that. But how was his foot that mangled without a drop of blood. Kit keyed into the atmosphere again, listening. There was a rabbit, still running, some distance away. The steady, slow lope of a few calm deer. Nothing else. Not their own, obviously, and not Matty back at the house. And nothing from the man laying before them. 

Maybe he was a vampire, like them? There had to be some around – Matty found that freaky one to help change them, after all. Before they could find a way to subtly ask, though, the roots under them, around them, shifted. “What the hell?” they stuttered back, eyes on the shifting trees. “Ah, listen. I’m thinking it’s probably best if we, ya’know, get the fuck outta here.” She rounded over to the other side of him, hunkering down. “If I help you, do you think you can walk?” More rustling from the roots and horrible, hollow noise from above them. “Do you think you can walk fast?”

Kit didn’t know what the hell was happening with the tree…trees? something else? But they knew they didn’t care to stick around and find out. And being a vampire hadn’t made them any taller but it sure had made them stronger. When they reached down to hoist the man up, he goes easily. So they can slide an arm under his, on the side with his fucked-up foot and meet his eyes. “Cool?” they ask.

—

It would heal quickly, Monty knew, but not quick enough to get up and run. And he would definitely be hungry once it was done, as it always seemed to go after a severe injury. This person, whoever they were, wasn’t safe around him. But what choice did he have? The freaking tree was coming alive, and dying (again) by being crushed to death by a tree wasn’t high on his list of ways to go. He didn’t even know if it would kill him, but he knew it would suck. A lot.

“Uh, yeah,” he stammered, clinging to them and trying to hobble to his feet, finding that the stranger hardly needed any help. He let out a soft whoop! as they righted him quickly, fingers digging into the fabric of their shirt. “Cool,” he breathed, noting that they didn’t feel hot to the touch like everyone else seemed to. Huh. 

As the pair started their fast-walk away from the spot, something huge started to creak and groan behind them, and the forest floor erupted in leaves and dirt and shredded ferns as the roots ripped themselves from the earth around them. Monty spared a glance behind them, and immediately regretted it. “Ah! Faster!” he balked, trying to limp as fast as he could, willing the stupid ankle to just fix itself already, even if it meant outing him.

—

“Cool,” Kit echoed, again, laughing a high-wheeling anxious laugh. “Okay, just hold on tight and we’ll get out of this jam, okay?” They trailed along as quickly as they could, ever-surprised at their new strength. It took no effort at all to heft this fully grown man along. “My place isn’t too far from here, so we can just–”

And then there was a horrifying noise behind them, like those earthquakes on the West coast but worse. Like an earthquake where the ground itself was yelling from the pain of splitting itself in two. “Fuck,” Kit spat out. And yeah, they agreed with the guy: faster. So they did just that, went faster. Faster than any human should rightfully be able to go but fuck it, apparently the trees themselves were chasing them. Plus they were pretty sure that whatever this guy was, it wasn’t exactly human either.

Kit didn’t stop until they found the edge of the treeline, a break in the woods that marked the beginning of a trail leading back to their house, the roof’s peak just visible. And it was then that they realized they’d more or less hefted the man up entirely, fully carrying him through their dash. Setting him down gingerly, they offered a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Like, you good?” And they listened out for any more of that horrid, wood-and-dirt sound, trying to gauge if whatever the fuck that was was still coming after them.

—

He could comment on their speed or strength, but he didn’t. It wasn’t his business, anyway. Slapping a hand to his forehead after he was set down, gaze fixed on the direction they’d come, Monty’s eyes were wide and he looked a bit wind-swept. “Huh?” He blinked, ripping his eyes away from the forest and back up at his rescuer. “Oh! Ah… yes. Fine.” Those dark eyes bounced down to his mangled foot, which was not so mangled anymore. Wiggling it from side to side, he pushed the hand on his face through his hair instead before dropping it back to the ground. Hm. All better.

He looked back in the direction of the moving trees, nerves on high alert. He couldn’t see anything moving now, but he was slow to trust that they were out of danger. “Let’s, um, get to that house you mentioned… I feel a little bit like bait out here in the open.” Taking their hand to hoist himself upright, he dusted off his clothes and tried putting some weight on it, finding that it seemed to be working fine, now. That would probably be a question he’d have to answer in a few minutes. Once they were inside. 

—

Kit looked with him, down at the foot that had been an absolute wreck but now it was…fine? Huh. “Funky little trick,” they murmured, wondering what exactly he was. Had to be something on the supernatural spectrum. They wondered if he could clock that they were also not quite entirely right. He proved that further, hopping right up and walking fine on it. “Truly funky,” they doubled-down.

“Yeah, for sure,” they agreed, head bobbing in a rippling nod. “Learning all sorts of fun things about this place. Trees with an attitude problem. Maybe Tolkien had some real-life inspiration after all, huh?” They figured Matty didn’t know about that, would have warned them otherwise, and they felt a squirm of delight at being able to tell him. Ents! Live and in color! Too bad they seemed to be fucking murderous but, well, it couldn’t all be rainbows, could it?

Waving a hand, they led him up through the clearing and onto the path toward the house. Moonlight was still glowing high above them which was a relief. At least they didn’t have to race against sunrise on top of everything else. “Think my roommate is out on some errands which is a relief, actually. He can be kind of a mother hen, you know the type.” They reached the house before long and Kit trailed up to the entrance on the lower-level. They gestured for their newfound friend to go ahead of them, making sure the door was locked and secure behind them. Not that whatever the fuck those things were would be knocking, but it couldn’t hurt.

And then, turning toward him with their hands on their hips and a tilt to their head, they asked, “So, hey. Figuring between the foot and the fact that you’ve got no pulse. Maybe you’re…something like me?”

—

The hunger pangs were swift to follow the healed ankle, and as Monty followed them to the building they’d described earlier, he closed his eyes for a few seconds at a time, looking… uncomfortable was the best way to put it. “Tolkien.” Moving trees. Oh—he’d never read the books, they were way above his skill level, but he’d seen the movies at some point or another. He remembered the tree men that released the river. “I hope for his sake, it was just a coincidence!” 

Nodding as they both stepped inside, Monty took in the place with a discerning eye, wincing again as his hunger roared louder. 

They were asking a question, and he struggled to focus. 

“Huh?” Something like me. “Oh. Yes, I’m—oh, you’re dead, too?” He looked suddenly hopeful, dark eyes brightening and posture straightening up. “I hate to be so to the point, but… I don’t suppose you’ve got any animals around? Dead, or… available for eating? With their brains still…” He tapped a finger to the side of his head. “There? I am sorry, it’s just—healing that break—” Or what would have been a break, if his bones could do such a thing, “—has made my hunger significantly worse. And I was already getting dangerously close to starving.” It was never good for anyone when Monty got to that point. 

—

A laugh burst out of Kit at the casual posing of the question. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.” Dead. They didn’t often consider that fact of it all, that they were dead. Because they were also very much something else along with that, and the something else was usually a lot more pressing. Like at that moment, with their strange hunger tearing a hole through the side of their head. And that hunger was something that their new friend could relate to. Even if it wasn’t exactly the same, apparently.

“Uh, brains?” They hoped that wasn’t a kind of vampire that they could become. Kit had eaten their fair share of, well, everything with blood in it, including brains. It turned their stomach to consider it now, but that didn’t mean they were going to judge this guy for it. Neither of them could choose what their appetite was. “Not so much, no. Just the blood. That wouldn’t work for you, huh?” They had a feeling it wouldn’t, not when he had specifically asked for something else. 

Kit gave a sympathetic wince as he described the hunger, being starving. They could understand. “There’s… There’s animals around?” They offered, half of an idea forming. “Plenty of them out in the woods. And I could– I mean, I’m fast, you saw that.” They could hunt something. A few deer or rabbits, maybe a moose if they got lucky. It wouldn’t be the first time Kit tracked down something wild and drained it. Far from the first time. But the first time in this form. “We could split it. I’ll take the blood and you take the brains?”

—

“Afraid not,” Monty answered, sounding a little downtrodden. “Trust me, it is not… I don’t like it, but it is what it is.” His gaze landed on his shoes until they suggested going back out into the woods to find something to eat, like he’d been trying to do with that damn rabbit, and he gave an anxious glance toward the door. “Um… okay, sure. As long as we head in the opposite direction of the ent,” he chuckled nervously. Kit was faster than he was, and as long as they could catch something, he could make sure it stayed down with relative ease, if it was big enough to try and fight them off. “Blood’s all yours. No need for that, just the… brain.” And maybe the eyes. And the tongue—he shuddered, hating the way the hunger started to carry him off like that. 

Shaking out the ankle that’d previously been rendered useless, Monty gave it a quick test hop before nodding at his companion for the evening. “Right! Ready when you are. I will try to keep up!”

—

“Hey, d’you think I’d be sucking down pig’s blood if I didn’t have to?” Kit trailed out a huff of a laugh, eyes sympathetic. It is what it is. Yeah, wasn’t that just the rub? They were the both of them stuck with their uncanny appetites, nothing to be done about it. Except, of course, try and feed the hunger. Matty probably wouldn’t be stoked to hear that they had gone hunting live prey but, fuck, it beat jumping some poor innocent human, didn’t it? And besides, they would be helping a friend! He was starving, he had said. They weren’t going to leave him to bash some other poor innocent’s head in for their grey matter.

It was. 

He’d let them go, all those years back. When they first unraveled into what they’d been ever since. It was so much the same, now: the lurch of their bones, the ropy twist of rearranging muscle, the rattle and roar and raw agony of it. But this time, this time, Matty clung tight. And felt it all. Felt rather than saw, felt even more than he heard. Until what he was feeling was Kit. Was their timbre rising through those howls, crumpling into ever-smaller sounds, then - then just breath, shuddering against his chest. Like either of them even needed to breathe. The two of them had fit back together as they writhed and rolled; fit just right, their dark curls tucked under his chin, his arms slung all around them, wrapping his best friend in this life or the life before in a still-bright silk robe, the one they’d stolen for years. Tight. As if he could gather up every shred of Kit Clarke he’d been keeping and work it all into place, again. Nothing forgotten. Nothing lost. Nothing they couldn’t fix.

“Got you,” Matty managed, just barely, with a smile that burned like the goddamn sun. Finally. 

-

The first thing Kit became aware of was, well, awareness. Something that had been absent for so long. It was a riot at first, just the simple existence of their thoughts, of their mind. The instinct that had taken hold in its place dropped and shattered like a mirror on impact. Held back behind a muzzle the hunger and the rage and the hunger and the violence and the thirst, it melted back into the shadow of the back corner of their mind. They gasped, long and ragged, lungs working in a way they didn’t need. Their throat was raw and burning and their nose was raw and burning and goddamn, man, all of them was raw and burning. But it was only for a few seconds, a four-beat. 

And then, clouds clearing, Matty.

They rasped, rattled out, a drawn thin, “Fuck.” The awareness shuddered down in layers – they were in the body they had been born in. They were naked, or almost. They were cold, but in a way they had never been cold before, like it was coming from the inside out. They were with Matty. 

That last one sort of washed all the rest of it away. They were with Matty. Matty was there with them so all the rest was fine. All the rest they could figure out and it couldn’t be so bad because, like. Matty was there. 

“Hey,” Kit tried, voice torn to shreds. They shuddered, turned further into him, deeper into the bevel of his chest. “Shit, dude, let’s, uh, not do that again, okay?” And it came back to them, in layers, too. Their request and the way it all went to shit and what they had been and done for… For how long? Fuck, how long? 

–

God, they sounded like - like Kit. Past the raggedness, there, that was Kit, resonating against his breastbone, like the heartbeat neither of them had. (Neither of them. Matty bit down, a hand gathering in their hair. Refusing to miss that, the thud and flutter of Kit’s heart, where his had gone quiet. He couldn’t go missing shit, when he’d just got them back.) 

It was almost a laugh, the noise they dragged out of him, there. Almost. A little too wet, maybe, as he curled them in tighter. Somehow. “Never, man. It’s all - it’s gonna be cool.” They’d make it cool. Like it should’ve been, years, and years, and fucking years ago, and - “And you’re never, ever gonna - never. You’ll never be there, again.” There. In the pit of their undead souls, or whatever the hell. Lost in the dark and the need to drink. Never. 

Matty rocked back, hands coming to frame their face. Kit’s face, Jesus. Talk about drinking, man. He drank them in, there, got blasted on every detail: those just-the-same freckles, the dip of their dimpled cheeks, the - the rich, oxblood-leather red of those eyes. Holding that unsteady stare, he leaned back in, his forehead to theirs, chest rising in time. Like they shared that totally needless breath. Like before. Like this was just another rhythm they could fall into, easy, like all the others, like every goddamn song they’d ever heard or made since they were kids. So fucking easy. 

He’d - he would make all of this as easy as he could.

If they let him. After everything. 

–

They could feel again, the nuance of it all. It wasn’t all cratered out between just hunger and rage. And Matty’s fingers in their hair was something else. Had he done that for them? When they were like that? Kit couldn’t remember – it was all flashes, like an image reflected on shards of mirror, tessellated. Blood and gore and not much else. Maybe the low sound of something rattling up from Matty’s chest, maybe not. 

“Cool,” they echo back, dazed in some sense. It was still all pulsing through them, this grotesque awareness of everything. Of what they had been and what they had done, yes, but also of the present. So much of the present screaming through their head. It went a little quiet, though, when Matty met their eyes. Because there he was. Not just physically, in front of them, but somewhere woven into the fabric of their being. They had always been preternaturally aware of Matty and where he took up space in their universe but this was different. This was that sense, made tangible. 

Kit bucked their forehead into his at the press, letting out a low keen that was almost involuntary. That was so familiar it ached. “Matty,” they sighed out. The volume on everything else turned down even lower and they knew then that whatever it was in their chest, deeper, was not just the stuff of their songs. “Hey. Can you like–” A swallow, mouth dry. “Can you feel that? It’s like…” It was like he was inside them somehow, but that sounded fucking crazy. Instead they just wrapped one of his hands in theirs and pressed it to the center of their chest, just inside the fall of the robe, where a heart had beat once. Where, now, they felt Matty like he was an organ inside of them. 

–

He’d started running hot, dropping beats, losing bars. Just - spun up, on the fact of them. Kit. Back. With a fullness that, God, like… Matty twitched out of the drift of the tide of whatever the fuck he was feeling as they said his name, took his hand. As they asked, or nearly did. But he got it. Immediately. The way they’d got things, together, for so long. Across stages, and interviews, and parties. In music and total silence, reading each other like… like he’d never been able to read anything else, besides the few fucking precious people he loved. “Yeah,” he was already nodding, kneejerk. “It’s - it was like you were here, all the time, like you… you weren’t gone. I told them…” And he knew, he knew it hadn’t been cruelty that made Drew say different. Fuck. Drew. Matty managed something like a grin, even if it crumpled at the corners as he took their other hand, made them echoes of each other. Heart to heart. “I could feel you. I can feel you, Kit. Like crazy.” He’d felt so fucking crazy. “Is it - how is it, for you?” Matty wavered, fingers tangled in theirs twice over. How did you ask that? If whatever freaky shit you’d bled together in your souls was alright, somehow? As if he could fix it, if it wasn’t. Could he? He’d try.

—

Kit weaved their head, bobbed it back and forth so their foreheads chafed together, so they could feel the reality of him up against them. “I think it was the same.” Hard to tell. Their most recent memories, memories of being that, were some kind of helter skelter. Some kinda Pollock painting of pain and hunger and cold and rage and fear. But Kit thought there might be bits and pieces of something like Matty woven through it. Something calm and familiar. Something soothing. Maybe they had been there, the whole time. 

Either way, who the fuck cared because they were back now. 

Their fingers sprawled open on his chest, spreading, netting together with Matty’s. How long ago had they lain with him, hand just like this, reassuring themself that he hadn’t died, he wasn’t dead, was still here, there was his heartbeat right there. “Fuck,” they intoned. Because, yeah, there was no heartbeat anymore but there was something better, maybe. Something in them that let them know Matty was right there. And if Kit focused on it, stroked the connection like the barest brush of fingers on bass strings, they could feel his relief flush through them. His pain and his sorrow and his guilt but over all of it his relief and love. And shit, man, did it get better than that?

“It’s like that,” they agreed, feeling safe for the first time in god knows how long. “Yeah, Matty, it’s like that. It’s like you’re right here, next to me, in here.” They tapped their tangled hands against their chest, mimic of a heartbeat. 

Then doubt swept through Kit, sudden and sharp, because what if he didn’t want them there? What if that was too close for comfort, after what they had been, what they had done, how long had it been since he had seen them like this? “Is that, like, copacetic?”

– 

The same. Matty nodded again, fuck, still temple to temple, still - head swimming, the dizzy churn of all those fears, every worry, just washing out to some sorta sea. For now. He’d take it, man. 

Like he’d take that, this… fucking electric arc rippling up and down his backbone, a solo playing across every goddamn nerve. Good thing he didn’t need that breath. Matty lost it, tilting into all that tension they’d always found, together. And Kit wanted to know if this was copacetic? His smile - the release, tension and release, right - sprawled into a low laugh, thick-throated, the sound of it crushed down by all the heart in his mouth. “Totally,” he insisted, with another nod, catching that time they were keeping against their ribs and counting it out against his own. Without missing a beat. They’d missed too fucking many, the two of them, as it was. Forty years. Forty fucking years of winding himself up in this, this… tie, between them, hoping it really was Kit, on the other end of it. Not just his miserable goddamn imagination, spinning some kinda comfort out of memories that’d got to be older than they did. In living years, anyway. “Yeah, man,” Matty whispered, smiling into the sliver of space between them. “Promise.”

–

When was the last time Kit had hesitated to kiss Matty? At least ten living years – his wedding, maybe? But they were careful in it, this time. A gentle incline of their chin, tentative tilt so their lips could match. Even that brush of a touch was enough to send something sparking down Kit’s spine, vibrating through whatever matter or more-than-matter linked them together now. Just like before, but more still. God, could they have ever imagined it could be more?

And he promised. Matty had meant and kept every promise he ever made to them. This one would be no different, they knew. “Okay,” they sighed out, barely enough space between them for the air to move. “Okay, good.” Their hand went tighter around his, pressed into the valley of their sternum. “God, dude, fuck,” a babble of sentiment and then, “I love you.” And then, “Thank you.”

It wasn’t the first time Matty had brought them back to some kind of life. And they didn’t expect it would be the last. Gratitude flushed through them and they hoped he could feel it, sent it along to him.

– 

Fuck, they’d fallen into all kinds of things together. This kiss, though, raveling up some kinda circuit that’d been frayed for forty years; that, and the “Love you, too,” he fucking croaked back, like he hadn’t said it damn daily, since - what a soft landing, after decades of flailing through this. Such a long, long fall. Towards a rock-bottom, a failure, that he’d just refused to see. And, hey - here they were. Tumbled out to the other damn side of hell, after all. At last. “Love you so much, baby.” Matty smoothed that silk around their shoulders, rubbing those. As if he could put the warmth back in them. “I -” he swallowed, hard, and scuffed the side of his hand along his tear-tracked jaw. With a nod back to a bag barely clasped together nearby, on a patch of stone he’d brushed as clean as he could get it. In a fucking crypt. “Brought your things.” Packed quick, like all the blood he’d brought them before this. “Some. There’s more, there’s everything...” Everything. Kit could still have just about everything that’d made their life what it was, worth being turned for. Couldn’t they? Just about. Everything them and him had ever, ever been, at least. If they wanted. Because they were back. 

(And they didn’t even know how long it’d been, or what they’d missed. Who they’d missed. Shit. A shiver of an exhale skittered against the back of his collarbone, and Matty sniffed it away. And tossed his wild curls back. And tried to smile. Like Kit’d always made him smile, forever. As if the terror that’d been eating through his guts for all that fucking time hadn’t got its teeth in his heart, wasn’t shaking it, beating all that hope to a new goddamn death. No. Not yet.)

Matty dragged that breath back, and smiled. “C’mon, man. Let’s get outta here.” 

– 

Kit drew a hand along his jaw after he did - could smell the salt in the air. Could smell him too but it was…wrong. The smell of him was…wrong. Different, but not. Different but not and so strong like the smell of everything else too. They got distracted by the fall of their sleeve, grinning at this well-loved robe. “This mean you’re finally gonna let me keep this?” they asked, tugging the sides closer. 

He had their stuff but they weren’t even really sure what stuff that was. How long ago it had been theirs? Journals bound together and leather with fringe and shirts stolen from all three of the boys and some silly barrette in the shape of a duck Lene had given to them– “Hey, cool, okay,” they rambled, a little lost. And then, fingers flexing. Something of theirs. “Wait. Do you—” It was stupid to ask maybe, now, here, only minutes back into their body but— “Do you have my ring?”

—

“And put a stop to the whole, like, communal wardrobe? Hell, no. Steal it whenever you want, though.” As ever. Matty left a kiss between their eyes, cradling the corner of Kit’s jaw, half-registering that they’d done the same - damn. Back two minutes, maybe, and already book-ending each other. Even more closely than they once had, which… was saying something, alright. He’d been distracted by their distraction, watching those cordoba-red eyes tick around, the slight, darting wrinkle of their nose. God, he was sorry it’d had to be a pit like this they came back to. Hell of a first impression of the freaky world they’d just woken up for. Even in that bloodsoaked hotel room, at least the only death he’d been able to smell was his own. Nosferatu over there could keep the fucking graveyard real estate. 

(Not that Hopefully Untricky Dick was even around; Matty became aware of that, abruptly, the elder’s absence trickling down his spine like a cold goddamn sweat, hair-raising. He’d deal with - with that deal, of theirs. Later.) 

Now, they had better places to be. But, first - just when he’d wondered if he could’ve smiled more, Kit went and tested the theory right out. “Uh, yeah. Totally. Wasn’t gonna let that get lost.” He’d done his best to not lose a damn thing, of theirs. All this while. “Here…” hooking a couple fingers into the open neck of his shirt, Matty looped out that long chain. The one he’d first worn it on - Kit’s ring. And there it was: dark fretboard, steel and nickel glinting away. Shined up, kept nice. Like his, still where they’d seen it last. “All yours,” he snaked that chain out, and their ring clinked softly against his, nestled in his palm as he offered it back. A perfect match. Almost like they’d been made that way. Crazy. 

– 

Kit watched him tug the chain out from his shirt, just like the night he’d given it to them. Watched it flicker in the dark. “Hey,” they intoned quietly, almost as if they were greeting the ring itself, like an old friend. “Thanks, dude.” Scooping it from his palm, they slid it home. Still fit, right where it belonged. They laid their hand over his, right over right, rings a perfect pair. “There we go.”

A deep inhale, the recognition that they didn’t need to breathe. And then Kit wound their arms over his shoulders. “Okay. Let’s get outta here.” If Matty wanted to get out of there, they would. If Matty wanted to live on that cold stone floor, they would. “Think I might be a little shaky on the uptake, though,” they warned. They weren’t quite sure of their body yet, in this form. More human than whatever they had been, but less human than human. Or, maybe more accurately, more than human. That would be okay, though. Matty was there, like always, to help hold them up.

–