#it just feels so bad y'know? like you have a bone deep weariness in you that nobody else recognizes

[kyonite]

Aren't you all so fucking tired? I'm so fucking tired. I will continue because I can't afford to do anything else, but good fucking lord above I'm so tired.

[phoenix-before-the-flame]

Haha! It was me all along @phoneboxfairy !

Are you beshooketh?😏😏😏😏

I sure hope you are, and i sure hope that this was worth the wait (im sorry!)

Please enjoy!

Lucy grumbled quietly to herself, the bark digging sharply under her fingertips as she hoisted herself higher up the tree. Her foot almost slipped on a whorled knot that she guessed used to be a branch, snapped by time and sealed shut like an old wound that wouldn't allow her to step on it. 

She did it either way though. Lucy steadied herself with a heart pounding eep! her foot finding purchase on the same spot, stilling in her journey to regain her breath and to keep her heart from climbing any further after the scare. She glanced up amidst the tangles of branches and thick vines reaching down towards her, and clouds of grayed leaves stretching further and further than she could possibly measure. A second sky. The thought made her lips almost quirk, taking note of the scattered slivers of silvered moonlight breaking through.

The bark cracked beneath her palms and her fingers sunk even further in for a hold as the broken pieces trickled away into the still air. She squinted, the moment of reverence gone and she grumbled again, reaching out for the nearest handhold.

Why was she even up here again?

Not too far above a branch shook wildly as something leapt towards Lucy, sending down a shower of leaves to nestle themselves in her hair. Alongside the rest of the leaves she'd gathered along the way. With a light grunt he landed with ease on a thick branch a bit closer to where she was, peering at Lucy owlishly through the gloom from his odd choice of position. He hung by the backs of his knees like it was nothing, barely even swaying in his upsided downedness. The green of his eyes were almost eerie in the darkness as they ran over her unblinkingly. His arms were crossed, head tilted in a silent question of 'you good?'

Right, Natsu asked her too.

It was well after the fire died down yet sleep had failed to claim her, staring blankly up at the  paled clouds of leaves with a blankness on her mind that she couldn't quite place. Which was odd really, her mind felt so full but full of just, nothingness. Lucy's eyebrows knitted together in slight confusion at her thoughts, her attention shifting to the almost empty sleeping bag near her housed by a lone exceed who took it all in tow, sprawled out in content slumber in its center. 

Weariness should've been on her, and it was- a weak thrum in her bones that was all too familiar but it didn't bring with it the calming lull of rest. Something that was happening all too frequently in the recent days. Sad now that she was getting used to it.

She didn't bat an eye when her partner dropped silently down in front of her, already used to his night time wanderings through the trees. It was something he always did during missions, getting a feel of each place and maybe snag a souvenir or two. He'd given her a blank look, though Lucy thought it speckled with concern as he silently pointed above. A second later he was already on the lowest branch, staring down expectantly for her to follow. And she knew he wouldn't budge unless she did.

Lucy fixed him with a slight nod that she was fine but his eyes narrowed disbelievingly, pointedly eyeing the freshly broken branch above her head. 

"Do you need some help getting up Lucy?" His voice bounced around the air, sounding louder in her ears than it should be. "It's kinda a long ways up."

"I can manage just fine Natsu." Lucy responded. She sucked in a deep enough breath and hoisted herself higher, feeling his eyes upon her back as she continued her ascent. Silly as it may be she still remembered his relentless teasing on a mission a few months ago when she needed his help to get down 'cause a bandit left her stuck in a tree. And he still liked to bring it up with an all too gleeful grin. 

So no, she'd make this climb up the tree to see whatever he wanted to show her without help thank you very much. No need to give him more ammunition for future teasings.

Lucy progressed smoothly without any mishaps, the repetitive motions almost calming as they started to come naturally, the crunch of bark under her palms a welcome sound. Natsu hung close from nearby branches, oddly quiet save for the few huffs and grunts between each jump.

He was being so cryptic, it almost had her worried at his silence and pinched brows. What was it he wanted to show her? He'd left the question relatively unanswered, giving her just another silent point to the sky then hopped along.

Treetops. Lucy silently corrected herself. The trees stretched on forever upwards and the forest they traversed through almost endless. She hadn't seen the sky in forever it felt like, only tasting its presence when it broke through the treetops.

Absently Lucy grasped for another handhold, fingers curling tightly on a thick branch that left her hold before she could even pull herself up properly. The arm that snuck itself around her middle was a familiar one, and Natsu snickered at her surprised squeak. "You made it up this far just fine. Lemme take care of the rest of the journey for ya."

Lucy opened her mouth for a quick retort but he cut her off as he easily clambered up the tree effortlessly even with an arm around her, wrapping a vine around his wrist to swing up and higher. They were moving faster than she could on her own and her hands cried out in relief at no longer having to grab at roughened bark. But she still wore a soft pout. He better not use this as fresh teasing ammunition.

A chill rushed over Lucy and she realized with a startled blink that they almost neared the top, the night breeze playfully nipping at her skin. She hadn't felt that in a while. The air on the ground was so still and dead. And as Natsu broke the pair through the treetops, stuffy. Lucy greedily gulped in a lungful.

It was cold, colder than she expected and from below it was a sky but now as her partner helped her up, she saw how far it stretched. The second sky now a sea of trees that seemed to curl into waves the further out it went. 

It was beautiful.

Natsu slipped from her side and she cursed at his warmth leaving her so swiftly. Lucy took a step to follow behind him but almost tumbled face first into the leaves. Then the thought struck her. They were hundreds, maybe even closer to thousands of feet in the air. One wrong step could send her careening wildly to the forest floor. She quickly plopped herself down. Best stay put.

Better instead to watch her partner, better trusting of the trees and bounding across their tops, searching the skies intently for, something up there. Lucy's eyes flitted up. Cignus, Big dipper, Aquila, Orion. Everyone was out tonight with not a cloud in sight for them to shy away.

"There!" Natsu exclaimed, pulling her out of her thoughts with a jolt. He pointed excitedly at a cluster of stars, 14 to be exact that Lucy knew all too well.

"That's it isn't it?" He asked quickly. "Your favourite one right? Cephus?"

"Cepheus, and yeah." Lucy corrected, slightly confused. "What about him?" She stared at him rather blankly and the air turned somewhat awkward. Natsu's eyes roamed her face, finding only blank confusion that made his hand and shoulders fall. He pulled at his scarf.

"Nothing." Natsu said, the nonchalance in his voice painfully obvious. "I just thought it was cool is all." Lucy fixed him with a look, a well honed skeptical one that made him look away sheepishly to the night sky.

"C'mon Natsu, I know you didn't make me climb a tree just to see the sky." Lucy joked, picking at the leaves she was comfortably seated on. "There's always something more with you." Natsu's fingers ran through the tassles on his scarf, a habit he tended to do when he was mulling things over. He gnawed on his lip slightly, brows brought low in thought.

"Not….not this time i guess." He said simply, glancing back at her. A silence floated between his words before he spoke again, pacing atop the treetop. "We've been walking through these woods for days now trying to get to the next town and it feels like forever, and that we're walking in circles and i feel like it's kinda my fault since i made us miss the train and all and well-"

His mouth snapped shut with a sharp click! of his teeth and he shook his head hard to get rid of the rambling thoughts and he sat down.Natsu turned his head to her with fingers still tangled in the tassles and a heaviness in his voice.

" I just felt bad y'know?" He continued quietly. He kept a steady gaze with her but they shook, like his eyes desperately wanted to dart away. "Having ya stuck in these dark woods, and worse you're not sleeping much. It wasn't sitting right with me. And i know that this isn't a fix it to the problem, but if you're gonna be up all night then i made sense to me to at least let you see the stuff you love about it so much?"

Natsu's lips thinned, a tinge of darkness soaking into his cheeks when the last words left his tongue. He finally took the chance to look away, his eyes ducking low. "It sounds kinda stupid now that i said it out loud……" he mumbled.

Lucy watched as he ran a nervous hand through his tousled hair, shaking free the last of the leaves that made home there. And her lips quirked at the sincerity of his words

No. It's not." Lucy mused. "It's really thoughtful of you." Cautiously she stood on shaky legs, not quite trusting the thicket of closely knitted leaves and stumbled closer to him. "It isn't your fault for any of this. And i've just had a lot of…..nothing on my mind to think about. But it's really sweet of you to do this for me."

Lucy plopped down next to him and shoved his shoulder playfully, a relieved smile already growing on his face as he dramatically fell to the side with a laugh. She leaned back on her elbows, gazing thoughtfully up at the clear night sky. The moon was nowhere to be seen and yet, everything was so bright, the stars countless in their neverending clusters and the familiar touch of their light on her skin. She really did miss them.

"Hey Lucy," Natsu piped up beside her. "If you can't sleep again tomorrow i'll carry you up here again. If you want."

"And you won't let me climb up halfway by myself first?" She teased.

"Hey i was gonna carry you up from the get go but i saw that look on your face  and knew you probably wouldn't let me even if i asked you on the ground." He smirked gleefully at her. "Am i wrong?"

Lucy stuck out her tongue at him. "Maybe. But i think i'd like that Natsu. I'd like that a lot."

[spookyspaghettisundae]

After All These Years

Snow gently fell outside the diner’s window. Danielle sipped from her cup of steaming hot coffee and watched the spectacle of Sheriff Blake arguing with Old Gambino, whose snowplow had broken down and now blocked the narrow road. Gambino’s arms flailed as he flapped his mouth and Blake visibly recoiled from him. The window and distance almost turned it into a silent film and gave it a comical look.

Michelle, who sat in the same booth, leaned over the table and clicked her tongue to draw Danielle’s attention.

“You know this is crazy, right?”

Danielle peeled her eyes away from the roadside conflict and let the exhaustion from the fifteen-hour drive weigh down her eyelids. Soaking up the warmth inside the diner that slowly dispelled the tingling cold from outside, with the sounds of Eva tinkering and toiling away in the kitchen, and that pleasant smell of the black coffee rising into her nostrils, it was easy for Danielle to imagine that her twin sister Michelle didn’t exist.

Still feeling the weariness of rolling up the roads from the city all the way to the sleepy town of Evergreen, she opened her eyes again and gave Michelle a tired smile.

“You know as well as I do that I had to come here. It was a letter from Harry. Our best friend,” she reminded her sister.

“Who has been dead for over ten years,” Michelle countered.

Danielle shrugged and sighed, taking another sip from her cup. Michelle hadn’t touched the cup in front of her on her side of the table.

“Like we haven’t seen our share of hoaxes. You’d think that the supposed UFO lights over the old reservoir, or the kids gone missing in the Misty Pines, or Butcher Benson’s grisly murder would have made us just throw that out. Just disbelieve such a thing flat out,” Michelle continued.

Danielle put her cup back down and poured some sugar into it. Michelle just glared at her in the moment of awkward silence, filled by the clink and clank of Danielle’s teaspoon mixing the sugar into the cup.

“I could really go for some of Eva’s pie,” Danielle said.

“No, you’re not gonna just drop that and—no. Even with what you and I know about all the, y'know, all the—occult stuff? You don’t believe that Harry’s ghost just up and possessed a pen, wrote a letter, got proper fucking postage, and sent it to you in the mail. Come on.”

Michelle crossed her arms.

Danielle peered over the edge of her cup at her and said, “Allie got a letter too.”

“Yeah, all the more reason to think it’s bullshit.”

“I thought so too, but she said it was his handwriting. And she had some guy she knows test it. Some expert. It was written recently. How do you explain that?”

Michelle’s lips formed a thin white line and her silence expressed a deep-rooted frustration. Invisible fumes rose from her head with her inability to rattle out a rational explanation for that.

“I don’t know, maybe Harry’s ghost possessed someone and, had them send the letter he wrote while riding the body?”

Danielle shook her head.

“No. I mean, maybe? That’s so far-fetched. Though it would explain a few things.”

Danielle craved a cigarette. The bad old habit crept up in the back of her mind, tickling her lizard-brain. She fought it by looking over to the pies on display. Eva was still busy in the kitchen, whipping up some breakfast for the truck driver sitting in the booth at the other end of the diner.

“So how about a little séance? We go to the cemetery, visit Harry’s grave, and—”

“Allie and Ryan came to Evergreen, too,” Danielle interrupted her.

A shadow passed over Michelle's face and she said, "Not Ryan. Rhiannon."

Danielle shrugged and continued on, "We all got a letter from him each. Looks to me like Harry wanted to get the whole gang back together again."

“And possessed someone to write a letter to the three of you. Yeah, this still makes no sense to me.”

“Allie also said she was attacked by a naked man wearing a horse’s head and carrying a street sign.”

Michelle just stared at Danielle upon hearing her say that. Stared right through her. Like her gaze consisted of two Superman-like eye-laser beams, and they were burning holes through the wall behind her.

Danielle leaned over the table, closer, and lowered her voice to a hiss to add, “Rhiannon said that Sheriff Blake told her to leave town when he got here.”

Michelle clicked her tongue again and shook her head, “So what? Blake always hated us. Doesn’t mean there’s any conspiracy going on in this crappy hick town.”

She leaned back in her seat and spread her arms across the length of it to lounge there with that same level of laziness that she always used to display.

“Okay. Sure, fair enough. It’s just weird, though. Also, look—even if this is just some prank—”

“You bet this is a prank. Listen, I think one of those jock assholes did a good job at faking Harry’s handwriting, and they’re gonna punk us if we show up at the reunion party.”

“Or, we could show up and then show them up with a prank of our own,” Danielle said with a feeble smirk.

“Oh, right,” Michelle said with a derisive giggle. “Like that’ll work out how you expect it to. Like that ever worked out.”

The smirk faded from Danielle’s face as those words cut through her confidence like a hot knife through butter.

“I have not forgotten that time when Bradley—that jerk—pantsed you in front of the team when you tried to mess with him,” Michelle said. “The cheerleaders sure had a—”

“Yeah, right. Okay, enough,” Danielle said to stop her.

Then her stomach growled.

Michelle grinned at her, “Isn’t that inconvenient? If only we could all be ghosts, without the need to eat and sleep, and all that.”

With a sigh, Danielle said, “Shut up.”

Michelle’s grin widened, stretching from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat. Danielle broke eye contact and took a bigger and greedier gulp from her coffee cup to squelch herself from replying with any profanities. The dark brown substance cooled with each passing second.

Eva had returned from the kitchen and served the truck driver a plate of eggs and bacon. The man over there replied in gravelly grumpy growls to Eva’s cheery tone, though it was far away enough for the jazzy background music playing from the speakers to drown out the precise words.

Taking a break from staring at her twin sister, Danielle looked back out the window and saw Blake helping Gambino push Mills’ tow truck. She had to stifle a giggle when the wheels spun without traction or moving the truck, and instead just shot a pile of muddy slush onto Blake’s jacket, prompting him to step away and glare at Old Gambino, then shout something at Mills.

When she looked back up at Michelle, her sister had tilted her head and just stared at her in that typical fashion whenever she expected her to admit she was right.

Danielle just shook her head and chose to continue ignoring her, so she waved Eva over.

The elderly waitress and now owner of the diner approached with a big beaming smile plastered across her face.

“What can I get'cha, darlin’?”

“I could really go for a slice of that apple pie,” Danielle said with a tired smile.

“Not for nothin’, but you do look like you could use some meat on those bones o’ yours,” Eva said with a mischievous wink. “Bet the boys in the city never leave you alone, huh?”

She turned to follow up on Danielle’s request. Danielle somehow wanted to feel mad about Eva’s comments—but couldn’t. This place hadn’t changed one bit in all these years.

Out of the blue, Michelle asked, “Allie said she slept in Room 214 of the Lakeview Inn, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Danielle said with a shrug and feeling more tired than before.

Maybe it was the mention of a place with warm beds—conveniently ignoring that Room 214 was “the suicide room.” Maybe it was just the stress and slow, grueling exhaustion from the long drive catching up on her, coupled with a chronic lack of sleep. Maybe it was having Michelle around all the time.

“Which is where the horse-headed freak attacked her.”

Danielle didn’t even merit that non-question with a word, she just nodded and mumbled a sound of confirmation through tight lips.

“She said that she woke up from a nightmare with a real injury that the freak had caused,” Michelle continued drilling.

Danielle didn’t feel like talking anymore, but she always appreciated the futility of saying so to her sister. Michelle always did whatever the hell she wanted and Danielle never felt like stopping her.

Not since the incident.

“Anyway, there’s no fucking way we’re staying in the Lakeview hotel,” Michelle said. “Wembley offed himself in that creepy-ass old Shining place. And Allie said she was attacked there. So. Just, no. No fucking way.”

Danielle set her jaw and decided she had to push back. Even if just a little bit.

Harry’s letter wasn’t a hoax. Allie wasn’t imagining things.

Something was wrong in their hometown. Always had been. And she had to get to the bottom of it.

“But what if there are ghosts? What if Evergreen is haunted? Shouldn’t we—of all people—be the ones to do something about it? To investigate?”

Michelle rolled her eyes and groaned.

“Okay. Fine, Nancy Drew. You win. We sleuth around, prove there are no ghosts, and get the fuck out of dodge again, before we get snowed in in this God-forsaken town.”

“I’m actually kinda worried about that,” Danielle said, shooting a glance outside to the beached snowplow and the combined efforts of Blake, Gambino, and Mills failing to move it from the ditch it was stuck in.

“Worried about what, sweetie?” asked Eva.

She had returned to the table with the pie Danielle had ordered. She put the plate down in front of her and gave her a smile, but it didn’t quite reach the woman’s eyes. The bright fluorescent lights reflecting in her irises flickered with worry.

“Oh, it’s nothing serious,” Danielle said. But her voice cracked and trembled with a hint of concern. “I do have to get back to work in a few days, and the snowfall is getting worse by the hour.”

“Yeah. But don’t you lose any sleep over it. Old Gambino will have it cleared out, just you wait. You can go to that high school reunion o’ yours and leave on time, no problem-o.”

Danielle forced herself to smile a sad smile at that, as she had zero interest in going to the high school reunion.

“You’re right, Eva,” Danielle said. She had to squeeze out the rest alongside a sigh, “You’re always right.”

Eva shuffled two steps closer and bit her lip before leaning in and whispering, “Maybe try to stop the, uh—you know what I mean? Them bullies might still hassle you over it. Y'know, some boys just never grow up.”

Eva’s pained smile poorly masked pity and it made Danielle more uncomfortable with each passing second. She forced herself to nod and peeled her gaze away from the waitress, then trained her eyes on the three men outside struggling to rescue the snowplow.

“Uh, do you want me to get you another cup o’ coffee? This one’s probably all cold now,” Eva asked.

From the corner of her eye, Danielle saw her point at the one on Michelle’s side of the table. Michelle’s gaze wandered back and forth between the two like someone watching a tennis match.

“Nah, it’s all good,” Danielle said. “I kinda like cold coffee.”

Eva took a deep breath and said, “Alright, knock yourself out. You need anything else, honey, just holler.”

Then the waitress left.

Danielle grabbed the cold coffee from Michelle’s side of the table. Michelle did nothing to stop her in any way, just giggled. Danielle poured sugar into the cup and stirred once more. The two of them remained silent while Eva visited the truck driver again, who had waved to her from across the diner.

Danielle asked Michelle with a frown, “Couldn’t you have, y'know—warned me? That I’m talking out loud again?”

She took a sip and winced. While the smell still enticed her, no amount of sugar could mask how strong the coffee was—and Danielle remembered that she didn’t even like coffee that much.

Michelle sprung forward and leaned over the table again, grinning, “And spoil this? I fuckin’ love watching you squirm whenever you gotta come up with excuses for this.”

Danielle shook her head and put the coffee down. Grabbing a fork, she sampled some of the apple pie. Her eyes went wide with the explosion of a delightful taste unfolding in her mouth. It obliterated any frustration she felt welling up, pushed back all the complaints she wanted to level at Michelle.

She just chewed and savored the sweet flavor and the silky feel of the pie on her tongue.

Observing Danielle’s face, Michelle’s lips curled into a warm smile. It was untypically warm and gave her a glow—a somewhat surreal appearance. She was fuzzy around the edges and almost translucent as daylight outside the diner grew brighter, and the sun rose.

“I love you, sis’,” said Michelle. “This is gonna be great. We were destined for this. I miss Harry, too. Who knows, maybe he is a ghost, too? Maybe we’ll get to talk to him.”

Danielle swallowed the delicious bite and returned the smile. Genuinely happy that Michelle was still with her. After all these years.

After Michelle had died in the car accident all those years ago.

—Submitted by Wratts

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

last conversation

Summary: Three months after they took down the delta, Clementine finds Louis out in the cold trying to pay his respects and talk to Marlon. 

Warnings: Louis is a sad boy with self-esteem issues but Clem loves him anyway

Author’s Note: I got an ask earlier that inspired this little story. This is a oneshot that takes place in a series I’ve started calling the [reasons to survive] series, so yes, this story takes place in the same universe as [good riddance] and [with you]. 

[reasons to survive] series:  last conversation || good riddance || with you

Read on: AO3 | Wattpad | FF.net

---

The fading of the day also meant the fading of any heat the sun had spared through sheets of clouds. Wintry air swirls around her, sucking every lick of warmth from her body.

Clementine wraps her arms tighter around herself, pulling her heavy coat closed and yanking the hood over her head, sighing as her ears find shelter from the numbing chill. She gives a deep sigh, her breath visible as a puff of light mist.

She can hear everyone moving around inside. They’d moved dinner in for the night, deeming it too cold to eat outside, even with a fire going for them all to huddle around.

She almost enjoyed the serene view of the yard completely empty, completely silent aside from the soothing lull of trembling leaves, but she’s not out here to enjoy such a thing.

Clementine tightens the heavy knit scarf around her neck, burying her chin in it as her eyes dart around in search of any movement. From the corner of her eye, done past the burnt portion of the school, down the walkway, she sees him standing there with his back to her.

Louis is still, his head down and arms folded over his chest. He’s still wearing his usual jacket rather than the warmer one she had found for him last week when the weather took a turn for the worst. It’d been a little big for him, the sleeves falling over his wrists and the puffiness making him look twenty pounds heavier than he really was.

He’d “lost” it the next day, shrugging when she asked him why he didn’t have it on.

Clementine steps down the stairs, careful of the icy frost forming along the concrete. It’s not too bad yet, but she goes slow anyway.

She's been worried about him since the morning when she woke up to find him gone. He'd been fine, of course, claiming he didn't want to overstay his welcome. Which was silly, since Clementine was the one who asked him to stay after he came knocking on her door.

He'd been so terrified.

Another nightmare, of course.

He'd had plenty of them since they got home after the delta.

He’s silent as she approaches, slightly shivering as he stands there. Hearing her footsteps, he cocks his head around to see who’s sneaking up on him. Upon seeing it’s her, he gives a small, weary grin.

Clementine moves close beside him, saying, “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’re going to become a popsicle if you stay out here.”

“A ‘lou-pop.’”

She smirks. “Cantaloupe flavor.”

He elbows her. “Ha, ha.”

She reaches for his hand and is shocked to feel how freezing and stiff his fingers are.

“Louis, come inside,” she says. “You’re gonna get sick, and it’s almost time to eat.”

“I will,” he sighs. “In a minute, I-”

His eyes become lidded, something sad glistening within the darkness of them. She follows his gaze down to the marked grave before them.

Marlon’s grave.

“Oh,” she murmurs.

“Yeah.”

She watches him, her gaze wandering over his neck and the exposed part of his collar bone where harsh goosebumps rise. His cheeks are flushed a dark red, and she can tell his usually soft lips are becoming chapped from the cold.

Clementine moves around to fully face him, unwinding her scarf and wrapping it around his shoulders. She pulls the openings of his coat closed before leaning in and pressing herself against his chest. His arms come around her, contentedly sighing as he holds her. She tries to rubs some warmth into his back as he rests his chin atop her head.

“You don’t have to stay out here with me,” he murmurs. “No sense in us both becoming pops.”

She hums light-heartedly, resting her eyes as she melts into his touch.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” she asks, her voice muffled by the scarf.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Louis’ chest rises as he inhales heavily, letting it out with a slow, shuddering breath.

“I thought I’d have a lot to say to him, y’know,” he says. “But, now that I’m here, I just- what can I say?”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m sure that he’s just glad you visited, right?”

“Maybe.”

They stand like that for a long time, pressed together and savoring the others warmth as the chilly air continues to envelop them.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asks.

"Better," he hums. "Thanks... y'know, for letting me stay last night. It really helped."

Clementine smiles. "I was actually thinking... if you wanted to stay the night again, I wouldn't be opposed."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Clementine can feel his heartbeat against her cheek, a soothing pulse that lulls her eyes shut.

“I ever tell you about the last conversation we had, me and him?” Louis asks suddenly, then stammers, “Well, uh, I mean, not the last last conversation, but the one we had before, uh-” he sighs, “-you know.”

Before he came out of the basement with blood splattered on his face. Before he pointed the gun at Clementine’s face. Before Louis stood between them.

Before Marlon died.

She shakes her head, grimacing lightly at those unhappy memories. “No.”

“It wasn’t a great talk,” Louis says quietly. “It was about you.”

She pulls back to glance up at him, still resting her temple against his shoulder.

“Me?”

A small, sad smile pulls at his lips. “Yeah. He wanted to know what happened at the train station, so I told him. Then, I told him how goddamn cool you were.”

She finds her cheeks warming up at his words, a small tingle twisting a nerve in her stomach.

He continues, “I had never met anyone like you, Clem. Not really. I remember telling him how glad I was that we decided to pull you and AJ out of that car wreck and how I couldn’t wait to get to know you and I just went on and on.”

“Really?”

“Hell yeah, Clem, I-” he chuckles nervously, his grip around her tightening, “-I really liked you.”

She tries the repress the small giggle, but it bubbles in her throat as she buries her face into his chest, embarrassed.

His chuckle vibrates against her before dying down, and they’re silent again. She doesn’t have to see his face to know something’s changed. She feels it in the way his hands run up her back and to her shoulders.

He whispers, “You know what Marlon said?”

“Hm?”

“He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Dude, don’t get your hopes up. I doubt she feels that way about you.’”

Clementine’s eyes snap open. She leans back to look at his face, brows furrowed with confusion.

“He said that to you?”

“He said that to me.”

She slightly shakes her head in disbelief, asking, “And, what did you say?”

Louis doesn’t answer right away, instead looking past her and at the grave. “I said, ‘Yeah, Marlon, you’re right. I’m probably not good for her anyway.’ Then, I thanked him and went to bed.”

“Lou-”

“I know.”

“That’s-”

“He’d already planned to give you and AJ away, remember? I figure he didn’t want me to get too attached, or something.”

His tongue darts out to wet his chapped lips before sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. He angles his head up to stare at the cloudy night sky silently, brows knitted thoughtfully and eyes blinking rapidly, something he does when repressing tears.

Clementine brushes her fingers against the exposed, chilled flesh of his neck, along his jaw, and used her thumb to tilt his chin down towards her. Reluctantly, he gazes at her through lidded eyes.

She presses her self up on her toes, their noses brushing.

“For the record,” she murmurs, “I did like you. Very much.”

“Really? Back then?” he breathes out skeptically. “Why?”

“Why?” she echoes, pressing her lips softly against his flushed cheek. “Not very many cute boys have ever made me laugh the way you did, or show me that there really is something more than just survival.”

A light kiss, quick against his lips, there and back.

When his hand grasps the back of her head and pulls her back to him, their lips crushing together in a warm press that prompts a quiet moan in her throat, her own hands keep him close. They move together like they have many times before, sighing and clinging to each other.

And, like always, when they finally pull away, Louis can’t repress the grin or the chuckle from escaping him.

“See, Marlon?” Louis grins. “She does like me.”

That forces a breathy laugh from her as she buries her face back into his shoulder.

“Oh, god,” she laughs.

Soon, their laughter dies down, but the tingling warmth still lingers on her lips.

He pulls her back, smiling fondly down at her.

“Go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna say goodnight.”

She gives him one more kiss before tightening the scarf around him again, her hand lingering on his chest before she walks away, glancing back to watch him get down on a knee in front of the grave.

“I’m sorry, Marlon. I should’ve come sooner,” he starts. “I-...I do miss you. I should’ve tried harder, helped out more before. Maybe you wouldn’t have felt so desperate if I did. I can’t change that, but I’m gonna do better. I’m gonna step up and make sure we don’t lose anyone else. I’m gonna do that for you, for Brody, for Minnie and Sophie, for everyone we’ve lost. Don’t worry. I- ... I’ll come talk to you more, too.”

Louis smiles.

“I promise.”

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

CHAPTER THREE

                                       ~ x JUDGMENT x ~

"So you admit you were following her?" Sae asked Makoto as she crossed her legs in the other direction. "You know stalking is a crime."

The student brushed off the black vest she wore over her white shirt. Clearly it was just a nervous habit; an attempt to appear more presentable. "And yet it's part of your job, Sis."

"It is. Not part of yours."

"Fine. But I didn't have any…" Her shoulders rose and fell. "There was no way to tell if I was completely crazy, a-and Ren was just a good person concerned about his teacher, or if… if she was doing something unspeakable with him. And after Kamoshida…"

At last, Sae let her eyes fall closed for a moment. "Alright. So you believe you have good intentions. I'll grant you that - and only that so far. But I'm going to need to hear more and you know that."

"Yes, I understand. So where was I? Right… the fresh lead."

                                      ~ x The Priestess x ~

Ms. Kawakami and myself steered clear of each other for a few days. It was good to see that she was back in school and teaching again, despite whatever trouble had befallen her thanks to those two horrible people. I really wished I could help, and I wanted to ask Ren, but there was no way I could do that without revealing to him that I had followed him to the hospital and eavesdropped. Not that this was anything new for me, but I still felt too guilty to come forward.

So I left it alone for a while. But eventually…

"Hey, bro," Ryuji whispered to Ren just after one of our little… gatherings. And his whispers aren't particularly quiet.

"Hm?"

"About that thing… with Victoria." His dyed-yellow spikes barely wobbled atop his head as he glanced around, but I appeared to be nose-deep in a book and Ann had already skipped off to do something else, so he decided the two of them were relatively 'safe'. "You're really not gonna give me any details?" Ren shook his head. "Aww, man…"

Ren muttered something back that I couldn't quite overhear. He was better at being discreet than the "monkey", as another of our friends calls Ryuji on a regular basis.

"But you actually got to talk to her, dude! Like, what's that like? Y'know, with the kinda things she does?" His eyebrows waggled. "Special services! Ehhh?"

By this point, Ren looked like he would really prefer the conversation to be over. So he said something a little quieter, a little longer, and Ryuji gradually started to look like a boy who found out the video game he wanted was all sold out at the store.

"Fiiiiiine, keep your friggin' secret. Just sayin', Becky sounded really hot! And you got to hang out with her alone because Mishima an' me choked! Why couldn't I keep my shit together, man?! UGHHH…"

That was it. And alone, the piece meant nothing to me; I assumed Ren, Ryuji, and for some reason Yuuki Mishima of all people had run into some cute girls named Becky and Victoria - maybe they were Westerners visiting? - and had hit on them, and then the other two ran off to leave Ren fending for himself. Even if I didn't know what they meant by "special services", I decided it was probably some disgusting boy euphemism for activities I didn't want to think very deeply about.

The very next day was a Saturday. Ms. Kawakami still looked weary, but not quite as bone-tired as she had before her brief hospital stay. And she still seemed the same way as I followed her out of the building. This time, it was by coincidence, not design; I had been busy studying in the library and lost track of time. It was just starting to edge into the evening by then.

And I wanted to call out to her. In fact, I started to speed up my steps and do exactly that. There had to be something I could say to show her I didn't mean her any harm; that if she wasn't hurting anyone, wasn't taking advantage of Ren, then we had no problem and I wanted to help if I could.

Before I could, her phone rang. And as she rounded the corner, her voice changed when she answered; became higher.

Bubblier.

"Hiiii, this is Becky! Did you call to request li'l ol' me again?" There was a slight pause, and then she giggled in a way I had never, ever heard a teacher giggle before. "Wonderful, Master! Laundry with Becky's extra-special fluff and fold, meeeeYOW! Do you have my usual fee ready?" Another pause. "Great! Don't worry, I will be there very soon! Byeeeeee!"

As Kawakami thumbed the touchscreen to end the call, I could do nothing but stand there as if turned to stone by Medusa, watching my teacher hang her head in weariness and shame. What did I just hear? Who did I just hear? "Becky" bore absolutely no resemblance to the woman who normally slogged her way through our classes as if she could really use some of Cafe Leblanc's specialty brew - the one standing before me now, who looked like she wanted to climb down the sewer grating and disappear.

And furthermore… no way was it a coincidence that was the same name Ren and Ryuji had been talking about.

Now I had to know what was going on. That whole conversation sounded like something very specific, and it made me worry about her… but I couldn't be sure. And the last thing I wanted to do was throw around more unfounded accusations.

Which is how I ended up following her.

The subway took us another stop along before she got off. Even though she did glance in my direction once or twice, my magazine shot up to hide my face often enough that she never quite realised I was following her. Then she went inside and I was left to loiter. I needed to turn to a friend - and since I was fairly certain Eiko Takao, the flightiest girl I have ever known, would be of no use to me…

QUEEN: Hey do you have a sec?

PANTHER: What? Omg you never text me Mako-chan PANTHER: What's up? 8D

It was hard not to be intimidated by Ann's overabundance of enthusiasm. Just made it feel too daunting and like I would be better off if I threw my phone away. But I tried not to let my nerves keep me from responding.

PANTHER: Hellooooooooo? QUEEN: I think I'm doing something bad

PANTHER: Something bad? PANTHER: ARE YOU ON A DATE PANTHER: Who is it? Joker? No wait, no way… QUEEN: It's not a date PANTHER: RYUJI?! PANTHER: Oh QUEEN: Seriously does Ryuji seem like my type? PANTHER: LMAO okay maybe not QUEEN: It's not a date it's something else PANTHER: Huh? PANTHER: Hey… it's nothing life threatening is it? PANTHER: Please QUEEN: Whoa whoa no PANTHER: I can't go through that again PANTHER: Okay good QUEEN: I'm sorry PANTHER: DON'T FREAK ME OUT LIKE THAT PANTHER: No no you're good friendo 3

QUEEN: Maybe this was a mistake PANTHER: Huh? PANTHER: Omg just tell me already QUEEN: Well QUEEN: I think one of our teachers is up to something strange QUEEN: And I followed them

My eyes glanced up toward the apartment building's door when some man walked inside, and I swallowed hard, waiting for Ann to reply. At least I had managed to say 'them' instead of 'her', so she wouldn't know it was Kawakami. Or Ms. Chouno, but still, the list of female teachers was shorter.

PANTHER: Something strange? PANTHER: Kamoshida strange? Because if it is PANTHER: I want in QUEEN: Well… I don't think that's it? QUEEN: Please listen PANTHER: It's not? QUEEN: I'm close to the Akasaka-Mitsuke station QUEEN: And I'm waiting to see if I'm right about something PANTHER: Dude you're being pretty sketchy PANTHER: But it sounds like PANTHER: You're worried? Like really for real? QUEEN: Yes. QUEEN: I think this teacher is being blackmailed PANTHER: Blackmail?

Just then, the door opened, and I had to close the text and raise my magazine to hide my face again. But it wasn't Miss Kawakami who came out, anyway; it was a woman in sleek black pigtails and a French maid uniform. She seemed totally at home walking around like that; probably had regular hours in one of the maid cafes in Akihabara or somewhere. While she stood at the curb, I started to go back to reply to Ann's incoming messages…

The maid glanced my way, waiting impatiently for her cab. And she felt familiar. Recognition was already making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end before my conscious mind sorted it out.

"Wait," I breathed softly as a car pulled up. It had a pink banner on the side of it, proudly proclaiming "VICTORIA Housekeeping Services" in bold red letters. My thumb was already activating the camera app as I watched the maid approach the back door and open it, bowing and saying something to the driver before slipping inside and away. I was able to get one or two shots of her, then of the car.

And she was gone before my brain fully realised what had just happened. "Was that… Kawakami?!"

                                      ~ o ~

In practically no time, I was standing around in the underground mall below Shibuya station - "Shibuchika" as it's called. Looking for Ann. Eventually, she waved me over to the flower shop she was poking around in.

"So?! What's up, what's the story, what's the dirt?!"

My hands came up to ward her off as I laughed nervously. "Okay, okay. Wow! Let me catch my breath. Can we get some boba or something first?"

"Sure, let's grab some aojiru. I'm trying to be healthier, for my modelling career? And like, I keep getting it pointed out to me that all I eat is crap."

"It won't kill us to be healthier, I suppose," I admitted as she steered me to the stairs.

Aojiru is… interesting. Greenish sludge in a glass that is full of nutrients but bitter and unpleasant. Still, we ordered two cups of Beauty Aojiru to hopefully make us more radiant, and shelled out ¥5000 for the pleasure.

"Bottom's up!" Ann laughed, clinking her plastic cup against mine. "The things we do for beauty!"

Passerby seemed alarmed at how much we were gagging afterward. Still, we managed to finish the drinks and then found a bench somewhere to sit and catch our breaths.

"I can… feel the burn!" she finally announced in a strangled gasp.

"R-right! So refreshing!"

Bracing against her knees, she took in a few strong breaths and let them out slowly. Then she sat back and smiled over at me, tears at the corners of her eyes.

"Okay, spill, girl. What's this crazy mission you went on, what did you find out?"

"Well…" I still felt really guilty for following Kawakami in the first place, and if she was truly an innocent victim, would feel even worse exposing such a secret. "Let's just say… her name is Becky."

"Becky?!" Her blue eyes narrowed in thought for a moment before she shook her head. "No Becky I remember hearing of on the Shujin Academy faculty."

"It's not her real name. Anyway, here's what I know so far…"

So I told her. Not everything, obviously, because I didn't want to out Ren or Kawakami until I was absolutely sure of the situation. But I filled in all of the other details I knew so far. That cartoonish face I was beginning to grow so fond of went through a million transformations - shock, disgust, sadness. But she seemed to feel roughly the same about the situation as I did.

"Well we can't do nothing, Mako-chan. Those two creeps are shaking her down for money! Totally exploiting her!"

"Exactly! I'm not sure what that student's connection is, but even without that…"

Ann nodded, arms tightly folded over her chest. All I had told her about Ren was that some student I knew was in frequent contact with 'Becky'. "There's a big problem here, though."

"Oh? What's that?"

"How are you supposed to ask her for details if she doesn't wanna talk to you? Like, I completely get that you wanna protect her identity, cuz you don't know for sure that she's hurting anybody. And if she's not... Becky is just in trouble and you don't wanna hurt her more."

My nod must have been sadder than I myself realized, because I suddenly felt a gentle hand resting on my shoulder. Smiling up at her, I whispered, "You're right. What she has to go through... it makes me sick thinking about it. So I need all the answers before I make a move."

"Sure, yeah. And… well, I could ask her for you, but then you'd have to tell me who she is. Same for any of the guys - and she'd prolly hate the idea of talking to them anyway."

"True," I said, even though Ren came to mind again. But Ann didn't need to know that. "So what can I do? Camp outside her front doorstep and confront her when she gets home? It would embarrass her too much. Right out there in the street like that!"

"Hell yeah, it would," she sighed, sitting back and staring up at the ceiling as commuters passed by us, off to destinations unknown. "But… what if…"

My ears perked up. "What if…?"

Ann held up her index finger as she looked at me, eyes wide and lips slowly beginning to stretch into a smile. "What if she didn't talk to Makoto?"

"Huh? Sorry, I'm… didn't we just say it has to be me, since I would be betraying her to tell any of you?"

"Yeah, but also nah. Okay, since you're the student council president, you've got the keys all sorts of parts of the school, right?"

Squirming, I held up a hand as I told her, "I'm not breaking into the teacher's office and waiting to ambush her."

"No, no! Let me see your phone again." I handed it over, and she wasted no time pulling up the pictures I have hastily snapped. Luckily, none of them showed Ms. Kawakami's face - or it was too blurry and far away to tell it was her. "Victoria, huh?"

Now Ann was pulling out her own phone and looking up something. Then she took a picture of her screen with mine and handed it back.

"'Victoria Housekeeping'," I read. "Wait… what are you-"

"We gotta hurry," she said as she popped up, grabbing my hand and yanking me to my feet so fast that I almost dropped my phone to the ground. "If we don't hurry up, we'll run out of time!"

"Time for what?!" I protested as I stumbled after her. "Ann, slow down! ANN!"

                                      To Be Continued…

[forestwater87]

She was selfish. It was just one of the many things wrong with her.

Summer 2017

Get up.

Get the fuck up.

Get out of bed, you lazy piece of shit.

It wasn't any good. Gwen stared up at the ceiling, sweating to death under the blankets but she couldn't even gather the strength to push them off her. Her chest was tight, her heart racing, the blood in her ears loud enough to drown out anything else, her stomach tight and quivery like she was going to throw up.

She had to get up. Breakfast was in ten minutes. David was probably waking up the campers now —

Fuck.

David.

He couldn't see her like this.

That thought, and the cold-sweat-sick panic that accompanied it, was enough to jolt her into a sitting position, her movements jerky and clumsy like a wind-up toy. She slid the blankets off and turned to the side and just . . . sat there, heels braced on the splintery wooden bed frame, elbows on her thighs, head in her hands. As much as her mind kept saying (screaming) at her that this wasn't much better than being found lying in bed, sitting up had drained her of even her meager energy, and the bone-deep weariness that settled in its place kept her rooted to the spot, staring at the patch of worn carpet between her feet like she could teleport herself there if she just tried hard enough.

You're doing great! Okay, we both know that's bullshit, but come on. Just stand up and get dressed.

Nothing. It was like there was something blocking her brain's orders from her muscles, something heavy and dense settling like silt along her veins and weighing her down.

"Gwen?" There was a knock on the door, making her jump and scramble to her feet. (See? her mind wailed. You could've gotten up any goddamn time!) None of the bedrooms had locks, but David still waited for her to respond before poking his head inside, a surprised frown creasing his forehead. "Um . . . do you need a little more time to get ready?"

Sure, just a lifetime or two. Gwen shrugged, running a hand through her hair and wincing as her fingers snagged on knots. "Few minutes, yeah. Sorry, I was lazy this morning."

"Oh, okay. No problem! I'll . . . should I wait for you?"

She shook her head with a dismissive wave of her hand that was impressively casual. That anxiety and regret hardly seemed crippling at all! "Nah, no point making you late too. I'll catch up."

That wasn't what she wanted to say, not even close. What she wanted to say was stay and help me tame my hair. What she wanted to say was stay, I'm scared I'll crawl back into bed the second you're gone. What she wanted to say was I'm sorry I insisted on sleeping in my own room, I missed you the entire night and I'm not ready for you to leave yet.

What she wanted to say was please, please let me be selfish and hold onto every second I have left before you come to your senses.

"Right. Right, that makes sense. And you should, y'know, have time to . . . of course." David paused for a second, gnawing on his thumbnail. She was about to ask what was wrong — did she have drool on her face or something? — when he darted forward, crossing the room in a few long strides, and cupped her jaw, pulling her in clumsily for a kiss on the temple before backing away. "Um, I'll . . . I'll see you out there," he mumbled, scuffing his heel along the carpet.

"Yeah." That was a little out of character for David. Even before they'd gotten together he wasn't really shy about physical affection; he wasn't kissing her, sure, but this hesitation, this almost embarrassed withdrawal — that was new. Like he hadn't been positive she'd want him to do it. Or like he hadn't been positive he wanted to.

The thought coiled cold and leaden in her stomach, because things had been . . . weird since they'd arrived at camp for the summer. Maybe it was just a little new-relationship awkwardness, but after almost a year it could hardly be called new anymore, could it? The only new element had been that they'd visited each other.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

"Hey." She snagged his sleeve, pulling him to a stop. He glanced up, something sweet and hopeful in his eyes; she swallowed and looked away. "I'll, uh, see you tonight, okay? We'll hang out?" That was one thing she still had to offer, at least.

David smiled, plucking her hand off his sleeve and squeezing it. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Her answering smile felt almost real.

They didn't see much of each other for the rest of the day; it was Search and Rescue Camp, which meant they were so busy running around making sure all the campers were accounted for that they barely spoke. Even lunch and dinner were fairly quiet, both of them dead on their feet and barely able to say more than a few words to each other.

Gwen hated to admit it, but it was kind of a relief. Because when it came to actually talking . . .

"What a fun day!" The exclamation point in David's voice was a little wobbly, but she was amazed he could work up any enthusiasm at all. He was nursing a gash on his elbow from one of the kids' fingernails (some of them, led by Nikki, really resisted the idea of being "rescued"). "I think it went great, don't you?"

"It . . ." Come on, she berated herself, think of something positive! He likes positive. Unfortunately, Gwen wasn't very good at looking for the bright sides of anything. But he didn't need to listen to her bitch about how tired or annoyed she was; he deserved a girlfriend who could at least try to match his excitement. "They're really . . . energetic."

David gave her a strange look, a slightly guarded half-smile, and she cursed herself for not being convincing. He probably saw through the phony Pollyanna act in a second. Why couldn't she just be happy like normal people? "Yeah, they were!"

His knuckles brushed against hers. They froze for a second, then he took her hand, lacing their fingers.

Gwen wasn't sure if he was just being polite — if he could feel how cold her fingers were without his constant sunshine and pitied her for it — but she tightened her grip and wished she had the words to thank him for every scrap of affection he threw around like it was nothing.

Which it probably was. It wasn't like David was reserved about touching people; even before they'd dated she'd gotten used to being on the receiving end of a barrage of hugs and pats and friendly slaps (that were way harder than he seemed to realize).

But fuck it, she'd take what she could get for as long as she could get it, take it with as much of a smile as she could muster. As they approached the cabin she leaned in slightly, letting her arm graze his. Small contact, such a pathetically tiny nothing of a touch, but it prickled over her skin.

Bump.

She glanced down, but he'd leaned away again, tilting his head back and looking up at the sky. He bumped her shoulder with his once more before dropping her hand to open the cabin door, flicking on the hallway light and ushering her through like he was her butler.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "I'm not the queen, for Christ's sa —" She cut off abruptly, pressing her lips together and frowning own at the floor, because who the fuck was she to tell him off for being nice? "Thanks," she muttered instead, scurrying out of his way with her shoulders hunched. (God, she was gonna end up with posture as bad as his if she kept it up.)

"You're . . . welcome?"

For a second they both hovered in the hallway, watching each other without making eye contact, and it was crazy because they'd never been this awkward — talking had always been effortless. Even when she was pining over him, even when he was apparently pining over her, even her first week, they were literally strangers and they'd had an easy rapport, David bouncing along at fifteen words a second and her trying to keep up, throwing the occasional wrench into his crazy plans or teasing him for his unshakeable "campe diem."

But lately he didn't have so much to say that words tumbled over themselves trying to get out.

And lately she didn't have anything to say at all.

She jumped as David's fingers closed around her wrist, turning her palm up and tracing the creases in her skin. "Um, Gwen . . ." He spoke haltingly, quietly, it felt like a word every fifteen seconds instead of the opposite. "Have you noticed that — I mean, do you think . . ."

No.

She'd really rather not.

"I'm just tired," she mumbled, turning to him. It was the perfect excuse because she was, she was tired all the time and she was especially tired of acting like she wasn't. And that wasn't David's fault — he hadn't done anything wrong except believe in her — but living up to whatever he saw when he looked at her was exhausting. "It's fine, really, it's just been a long day."

She was tired of pretending to be normal, but that didn't mean she had the energy to talk about it.

"O-okay. Yeah, that makes sense! It was pretty stressful, in some ways . . ." His brows, which had furrowed just slightly, smoothed out again and he gave her a sunny smile. It felt like a reward for being okay — or for faking it.

She couldn't help it; she'd spent too long working here, bathing in his smiles even when she hadn't wanted to, and now they'd created a Pavolovian response in her.

David smiled, Gwen felt better.

Gwen felt better, she wanted him to keep smiling.

Which meant . . . seeming like she was worth more than she really was. No matter how tired it made her.

She stepped closer, as though she could inhale his smile if she just got near enough. "Wanna help me relax?" she whispered, and his breath caught in his throat.

"I — I, um . . ." His eyes darted from hers down to their linked hands, to the wall over her shoulder and back again, his face growing redder with each anxious flick. She loved that almost a year of near-constant flirting hadn't made him immune to ridiculous come-ons, how even something that cheesy still made him flustered and shy. Finally he met her gaze and held it, swallowing hard, then nodded weakly. "Uh-huh."

Before she'd met David, Gwen hadn't really put much thought into kissing. It wasn't that she disliked it — it was the most important moment in any good romance, and caused the most drama in all her favorite TV shows — but it hardly seemed sustainable. It was an explosion, a firecracker that lit up the sky and then disappeared almost immediately, because everyone knew that making out was something you grew out of in high school, that a normal adult relationship treated kissing as the necessary stepping stone to sex. It was a lit match dropped in gasoline, but nobody wanted to stand around holding the burning stick when there was something much brighter and hotter lying at their feet.

Nobody, anyway, except David.

The first time he'd tugged at his bandanna nervously and mumbled, stammering, if maybe he could just kiss her for a little bit longer before the, y'know, rest — if that was okay — she'd made the mistake of laughing. (Which had caused him to retreat into his bandanna until only his bright-pink forehead was left peeking over the yellow fabric, and it'd taken several minutes to coax him back out.) But she couldn't help it, because the idea of just kissing as an end in itself had seemed crazy. She'd figured it'd take maybe ten minutes for him to get bored and move on, because . . . well, what was there to it, really?

Gwen prided herself on having taught him a whole hell of a lot, especially since they'd started dating. This "kissing" thing, though? Turned out he'd been 100% right on that count.

Maybe it was selfish, to ghost her fingers up his sides because she loved how it made him shiver, to yank on his bandanna because she loved his startled squeak, to slide her hands into his hair and tug because she loved the choked, almost broken moan he couldn't swallow back. Maybe it was even more selfish that after a few breathless minutes she let him tilt her head back, let him pepper her jaw and throat with soft suckling kisses that emptied the air from her lungs, let her hands fall limp against his chest, give up all semblance of control and love the feeling. Selfish to love the way David had taken the time and cared enough to learn every one of her buttons, paid careful attention to where and when and how to press each, because she didn't deserve this. She shouldn't let him take care of her when selflessness dictated she take charge, use the few valuable skills she had, take the scant worthwhile results of half a decade of disastrous relationships and put them to use. When she had so little to offer, it was selfish to feel the strength leech out of her muscles until all she could do was cling to his shirt and keep breathing.

Maybe it was selfish how much she loved so many things about him, even if she couldn't even come close to deserving them. But she wasn't strong enough to let any of it go.

Not yet.

Gwen was almost asleep when a warm, solid weight draped over her side. She jerked awake and glanced down, smirking at the pale, lightly-freckled arm bright and luminescent in the dim moonlight. There was a soft rustling from behind her, and then David was pressed against her back, nuzzling into the crook of her neck. "Mmmhh."

She turned her chin as much as she could before her jaw bumped against his forehead, strands of soft auburn pouf tickling her nose with each breath. "Thought you were asleep," she murmured.

He hummed drowsily, lifting his head just enough to plant a slightly-chapped kiss to her cheekbone. "Missed you."

"A whole six inches away was too much?" When he didn't reply, just let his head plop heavily back down onto the pillow, she smiled and reached back to run her fingers through his hair, doing her best not to disturb him. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Hnngh." For a minute he was quiet, and she resigned herself to trying to find her phone without getting out of bed. But then he shifted against her and the room was lit up by a blinding flash of neon blue. "Twelve-thirty."

"Huh." Later than she usually stayed. Well, the past few weeks — last summer she was pretty sure they hadn't slept in separate rooms since the disastrous Order of the Sparrow. But things were different this year.

This year, she couldn't make it a full night before the feeling of David's body around hers became suffocating, because she could already feel the chill emptiness that would surround her after they broke up, cold and impossibly dense in her gut and there was only so long she could stomach that feeling.

Stop it.

This year, she could only listen to his breathing for so long, hated how she could tell if he’d managed to fall asleep or if he was looking out the window at the forest just by the depth of his inhales. How it was only a matter of time before that information wouldn't be hers anymore, until she stopped being allowed to share the nights with him like this and while she wanted to stay and drink up as much of him as she could, she had to get out of there before she drowned in her own thoughts.

Stop being so fucking melodramatic.

This year, she couldn’t sleep over without feeling the hot sour prick behind her eyes and constricting her chest, and she couldn’t have him ask her why she was crying. No matter what Audree told her she just couldn’t stand the thought of enumerating point-by-point the many many reasons he’d be better off without her, because there was too good a chance he’d realize she was right and she was too selfish to have that conversation a second before she had to.

You’re going to ruin this, you paranoid, crazy bitch.

“That’s late.” As gingerly as she could, Gwen slid out from under his arm, climbing to her feet and avoiding his eyes. “Should probably get back to my own bed if I’m gonna have any energy for those brats.

“Oh.” David sat up, his face hidden in shadow. (Her own was illuminated by the silver light slanting in through the window, and she hated to think what she looked like.) “Are, uh, you having trouble sleeping here?”

She shrugged, giving him a smile that felt painted on. “Oh, y’know . . .” Please don’t let me leave. Please ask me to stay.

“Well, of course I want you to be rested, Gwen,” he said, after a moment where he seemed to be waiting for an elaboration that she had no intention of providing. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Yeah, definitely.” She bent down and gathered up her clothes, hugging them to her chest, before darting forward and pecking him on the corner of the mouth. “I had fun tonight,” she said quietly, hoping he’d hear in her voice something of the confused and roiling emotions screaming in her chest.

Please, dear god, David, don’t let me walk through that door.

His mouth twitched under hers, too many slightly for her to tell if it was a smile or a grimace. “Me too,” he replied, brushing his lips against her briefly before pulling back. “But . . .” His shoulders slumped, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was in disappointment or relief. “You should get a good night’s sleep.”

“Right.” She blinked, clearing her throat. God, she couldn’t cry in here. Just a few more seconds and she could fall apart in the safety of her own bedroom, just like usual. “Night.”

He just nodded, and she slipped out of the room in silence.

And that was their week. That was two weeks.

She hated it, but she hated the idea of it ending even more. But of course it had to, she knew that.

They both did.

“H-hey, Gwen?” David pulled back, though she only let him go far enough to rest his forehead against hers. It felt like these points of contact, sweat-slick evenings that released tensions like the snapping of a rubber band, were impossibly valuable and fragile. “Could . . .” He was breathing hard, but not quite enough to justify the length of that pause; apprehension coiled tighter in her gut with every fraction of a second he hesitated. “Could we maybe . . . not, tonight?”

Gwen stepped away automatically, not understanding.

He read her blank look and flushed, looking down at the floor. “It’s just . . . maybe we could watch TV tonight? Or talk?” His eyes darted back up to hers, shy and hopeful and very embarrassed. “It’s n-not that I don’t — it’s just — it’s . . .” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Would that be okay?”

“Of course, David,” she said through lips that were strangely numb — even more bizarre considering how alive and tingling they’d felt just a minute ago. “Whatever you need.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” His shoulders slumped and he gave her a bashful, relieved grin. “I just . . . I dunno, I wanted . . .” He shook his head with a shrug. “I don’t know what I wanted.”

Neither did she. “I’m just gonna — go to the bathroom, okay?”

“Sure!” He stepped aside, letting her brush past him.

Once the bathroom door was shut she sank onto the closed toilet seat, resting her forehead in her hands and taking deep breaths.

This was normal, she reminded herself. It wasn’t like she was some kind of animal, after all. Couples didn’t have sex every night anyway, sometimes she wasn’t in the mood and David was absolutely more of a prude about all this than she was, so of course there’d be times when he just wouldn’t be interested. That didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in her, she knew that.

She . . . knew that.

Gwen bit down hard on her knuckle to muffle the gasping, high-pitched sob that tore from her throat, shuddering from her chest in wet ragged whines that made it hard to breathe and would make looking normal once she left the bathroom impossible, because of fucking course she was an ugly crier, everything else about her was ugly so it just made sense because her life her apartment her face her body her personality was so disgusting nobody could ever tolerate it for long, no wonder David didn’t want to touch her, the miracle was that he’d tolerated it for as long as he had, she was lucky distance made the heart grow fonder or whatever because there’s no way they would’ve lasted a year if it weren’t for a six-hour drive and conflicting work schedules because god she wouldn’t fuck her, she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror most of the time so she couldn’t really blame him but how repulsive must she be, how little must he like her to turn down a free orgasm? It wasn’t like he was getting any somewhere else so apparently nothing was better than her and . . . and . . .

Stop, she snapped at herself, forcing her breaths to more or less even out and sitting up straight. You’re overreacting, you’re freaking out so just fucking stop it.

Knowing it was true didn’t make her feel any better, of course, but she was able to wrestle herself into something approaching calm.

Good, the quiet little voice in the back of her mind continued, the Audree she carried with her for when the real thing wasn’t available to coach her through something. Now take a shower, splash some cold water on your face, and go watch TV. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“Gwen!” David brightened when she finally emerged, and if her face and eyes were a little pink that was just because the water was for once hot enough to give her a nice healthy flush and there was nothing anyone could say to change her story. He wriggled to the side with all the elegance of a fish on land, giving her more room in his armchair. “Look what I found left over from last summer!” It was one of Gwen’s DVDs, the first season of Prison Teen Mom Wars. “What do you think?”

She managed a weak smile and sat down next to him, letting him drape his arm over her shoulders and pull her against his chest. Apparently his complete disinterest in her didn’t overpower his love of cuddling . . . unless this was just because he’d heard her crying, maybe this was pity —

Gwen. Enough.

The voice was like a sudden slap, jerking her out of her head and back to David’s side. “Sounds —” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Sounds like fun.”

And for a few minutes they were quiet. Except for a few quietly murmured opinions on some of the moms — he loved Carol Mae, and under different circumstances she’d be excited to see how he’d react to her becoming the villain — they didn’t say much.

Gwen was startled by something alighting on her hair, almost too soft to feel. David froze when he felt her jump. “Sorry,” he whispered, trailing his fingers down the strands to her shoulder. “Just . . . should I stop?"

She shook her head, her throat oddly tight as she slumped back against his chest and let him stroke her hair. It made her scalp tingle, a ticklish-shivery sensation that would’ve been pleasant, would’ve made her tilt her head up and kiss him because it was nice in a way that made her warm. It wasn’t supposed to be an invitation but she wanted to take it like one.

She couldn’t, of course. Whatever he wanted — whatever he was getting out of snuggling against her side and petting her hair — it wasn’t that. Not from her, apparently.

But if not that . . . then what?

“Wh — Gwen?” David’s arms fell away from her as she wriggled free, scooting to the edge of the chair and sitting there for a moment with her eyes squeezed shut.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and she hoped he’d attribute the roughness in her voice to exhaustion, or maybe just her usual bitchy self. Certainly not that she felt like she was going to cry for the third time that day, of course not. That’d be crazy, and she . . .

She really hoped he hadn’t figured out how crazy she was yet.

He tentatively put one hand on her shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, totally, sorry.” She shook him off, climbing to her feet and stretching in what she hoped was a vague semblance of normalcy. “Just, y’know, tired.”

“Tired. Right.” She couldn’t look at him — didn’t trust herself to meet those stupidly pretty green eyes without tearing up again — but she wanted to, because there was a dullness in his voice that she didn’t know how to read, and it scared her not knowing what he was thinking. “I’m sorry.”

Gwen took a few steps toward her bedroom before she finally summoned the strength to turn back to him, shaping her face into something that vaguely resembled a nonchalant expression. “It’s fine, just haven’t been sleeping all that great,” she said. And it was stupid and unfair and mean, but the petty hurt voice inside her chest had to have its say and forced itself out through her throat in the form of the words “and I mean, if nothing else is happening tonight I’ll probably just go to bed.”

It was hard to tell, because her gaze was firmly fixed on the tip of his bright red bangs (which were starting to droop as the heat overpowered his hairspray), but she thought she caught a flash of something . . . crumpling was the only word that came to mind. Like one of the supports holding up his face had wobbled, just for a second.

But then it was smoothed over and he turned back to the television with a shrug. “I understand,” he said coolly, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he actually understood anything, if he could sound that casual if he had an inkling of what was going on in her mind. “I’ll probably just . . . finish this episode.”

There was an offer there. She could agree that twenty minutes wasn’t very long at all and return to his side, smush herself into the narrow space between his hips and the arm of the chair and let him play with her ponytail and tease him for averting his eyes at every hint of sex or violence.

It was an olive branch. Or maybe a life preserver.

“All right, have fun. Lemme know what you thought of it in the morning.” And with that Gwen turned and disappeared into her room.

She was just too goddamn good at drowning.

[throwaway8472]

An American Fairy Tale

Once upon a time,  A village burned.  Ever since Prometheus passed along the idea of making fire to a caveman somewhere at the dawn of civilization, human beings have enjoyed burning things. It started with wood, moved on to your neighbor’s wood, and then the natural progression was to set fire to your neighbor as well. Prometheus would have rolled in his grave if he’d ever been allowed to die. But this fairy tale takes place before the Catholic Church had gotten its world renowned reputation for burning people in all sorts of ingenious and incredibly creative ways, when the concept was still on the cutting edge of brutality and not something that happened on a day to day basis. Burning villages was still an avant-garde art-form that only the most cultured artists of the era had tried their hand at. The most talented among these was a man named Atilla the Hun, who had reached the forefront of his field slowly and methodically. Like most fools, what he lacked in talent he made up for with endless practice and quite admirable tenacity. Through sheer force of will a man who is inept at a task may slowly become a master.  That is also an accurate summary of the human race’s plodding and asinine progress through the last ten thousand years or so.

 But that is not the point of this fairy tale. This fairy tale follows in the same classical tradition as the immortal and universally hallowed morality tales of the great Greek storyteller Aesop. It is a homage, if you will. Which is to say is to say that its message is about as subtle as a brick flying out of the back of the truck in front of you, smashing through your windshield as quickly as it takes a grumpy old man to complain when you change the channel from yet another NCIS rerun, and near instantly pulverizing your skull so completely that when the paramedics finally show up to scrape your lifeless husk out of your 1973 Oldsmobile Omega, the grizzled 20-year veteran paramedic actually gags a little.

 This is one of those kinds of fairy tales.  Once upon a time,  A village burned.  A young man stumbles from the ruins. He is covered in ash, and the softly moaning wind blows his soot stained shawl up against the side of his body, revealing his hollow chest and the bones of his rib-cage. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, imagine him looking a bit like like a character from Loony Toons who’d blown himself up chasing a roadrunner, but admittedly it’s a lot less comedic considering the boy’s circumstances, which are as follows:

 Two days before, he had gone out into the wilds alone on his first hunt. This was the right of passage into manhood for this particular village, in which when a boy reached the age of thirteen, all of the older men in the tribe forced him to go out into the nearby forest alone covered in nothing but what amounted to a tattered sack. Sometimes they gave them a stick, too. He had three days to kill an animal of some sort, preferably a big one that tasted good, then bring it back so the village could throw a big party and eat whatever the boy caught. After this set of arbitrary conditions had been met, the boy was thought to have become a man, and everyone congratulated him for slaughtering the animal and not getting killed after they had all abandoned him in the woods. It was a sort of proto college fraternity hazing ritual, basically. The French anthropologist who first studied this practice, Arnold van Gennep, christened it “rite de passage” and so ever since anthropologists have called this the “The Rites of Passage Tradition”, but everybody else calls it “Fucking Retarded.”  On the second day of his rite de passage, the boy returned with a promising deer only to discover every single person that he had ever known was dead. If you actually took the time to trace the modern Gregorian calendar all the way back to when the boy came back to find that everybody and everything that he’d ever known was on fire, you would find that it in fact occurred on a Monday, which anybody probably could have guessed anyway, since it’s without a doubt the worst day of the entire week.

 He hadn’t stayed in his village long after he had returned to find it burning, only pausing to take a broken sword from what was left of his own home. He didn’t bother gathering any food; he didn’t plan on traveling much. This was because the young man had decided to kill himself. The burning village had been his home his entire life. He was born there, and he had once expected to live a long life, start a family, and eventually die there surrounded by friends and loved ones. That was obviously off the table now. "Up in smoke”, if you will.  Like many suicidal people, the boy also developed a certain inexplicable taste for irony and the macabre. The shattered sword he carried had been passed down from father to son for generations. He supposed now that since his father and brothers were dead that it now belonged to him. His plan was to travel far enough away from his old home so that he could no longer see the flames and billowing smoke rising from what was left of the village, and then take his broken sword from its sheath and slit his throat. There was a cliff outside the village, and for a time he stumbled toward it slowly like a zombie from a bad horror film, but he never got there. He kept looking back on the life that was behind him, and each time the fires in the distance reflected in his eyes. Eventually he stopped and sat on a rock, and sadly watched as his future slowly turned to ash. It would be a disservice, I think, to call what he felt sadness. Nor would it be accurate to call it the mind-numbing torturous emptiness that sucks at a person’s chest like an open wound, which we name despair. It was a kind of peace, maybe, but not the kind which gives us grace in times of trouble. If there were any word to describe it, perhaps it would be resignation. Yet even that is a disservice to the countless millions that have died by their own hand. Who can say what is in the mind of a person who is about to take his own life? They silenced their own voices before they could tell us their stories– their thoughts, whatever they might have been— are gone now forever, hidden from us as though behind the reflective sheen of a darkly tinted two-way mirror: from the outside looking in, impossible to understand, and from the inside looking out, impossible to explain.  But don’t worry. The boy did not die. Well, he did eventually, of course, but not like that. This isn’t some horribly-ending German fairy tale, after all, but an American one. It’s right there in the title.  The sun would soon set in the west. The boy took his sword from its sheath and placed it alongside his throat. The steel was as cold as something that’s really cold, and a drip of blood slowly began to pool at its point.

 “Evenin’, traveler. I think I know you.”    The young man spun wildly towards the source of the voice. He was especially quick to move the blade from his neck. Human beings still have a shred of modesty burned into them, even when they are about to kill themselves. The sword fell to the ground almost instantly in a quick jerking motion of his arm, a thoughtless reflex action, like the legs twitching on a dead cricket, and he assumed a position and posture that insisted wordlessly that “Oh. Hey. I had just been standing around with a sword next to my neck.” and that people doing this particular activity were as common as sneezing or starting inane  conversations about the weather. He’d just been thinking, that’s all. Sword? No, I hadn’t had a sword held to my neck. You must have seen me at a bad angle, and gee, isn’t it nice out today?  “It’s harder to kill yourself with someone watching, y'know. Makes people feel ashamed, because something in them knows it ain’t right.”    The young man stared at the the new arrival in disbelief. Anybody living today would have recognized what was standing before him as quickly as they would recognize the Coca Cola logo. Here is what the boy saw:  The stranger wore a white button up shirt, and a rugged brown leather vest, with a sort of cloak thrown over it to protect him from the elements. He wore blue denim jeans. His boots were of an odd design. They were tall, brown, the tips were pointed, and there were odd circular metal rings hanging off the back of them which were ringed with spikes. He wore a belt that had a sheathe for some kind of weapon on his right and left leg, but they were not swords. Instead of having a straight handle like that of a sword, these had a strange curved handle made out of wood. Behind the man, the sun setting in the west  gleamed off the blue steel of the two weapons he wore on either hip.

 Most importantly, he wore a hat the likes of which the boy had never seen before. It had a wide brim that circled the man’s entire head.

 “Howdy,” the mysterious stranger said. For some reason he was squinting so hard that he looked like somebody who was staring straight into the sun, even though the sun was at his back. It was the sort of weather-worn face you couldn’t ever imagine having smiled.

"Who’re you?“

 The squinting man shrugged casually, and a brown cylindrical object suddenly appeared in his hand.  He put it in the side of his mouth, and casually walked over toward where the boy was sitting alone on the rock. The boy wasn’t frightened by this. He was in a place beyond fear now. He wasn’t even afraid when the mysterious stranger sat down next to him, reached into his pocket for a small box, made a quick flicking motion, and fire appeared in his hand as if by magic. He lit the tip of the thing in his mouth with his magic fire, took a deep breath. After a moment he breathed out a cloud of smoke with a sigh that sounded like it was weary with the weight of a thousand troubles and a long and profoundly annoying 62 year Hollywood career.  "Are you a god?” the boy asked.

 The man sat there for a long while before replying, seeming to ponder this as he stared off into the distance. The sun was getting lower now.  “‘I 'aint no god. I only been here just as long as people have been around to think me.” His voice was as rough and gravelly as asphalt. He took another long drag of his cigar, exhaled. “Kid, y'know, each drag burns different, but in the final moment, they all become wind.”  The boy told him he didn’t understand.

 The stranger nodded toward the broken sword on the ground, which had only so recently been up against the boy’s throat. “That 'aint no way to die.”

 The boy shook his head. “I don’t have anything left. Why not do it?”

 At this, the stranger took the cigar from his mouth and gestured toward the setting sun and the burning village in the distance.

   “Kid, you been lookin’ at the wrong thing out there.”  The boy looked. He saw the life he had thought was his future burning. But then he saw something else, beyond, further in the distance. It was smoke, but not from the burning village. They were campfires, thousands and thousands of them.“  "That’s them,” said the stranger, “the ones that burned your village. They’re out there waiting for you to go fight them.”  The boy looked down at his scrawny body. “But if I do that, I’ll die.”  The stranger took another long drag from his cigar, exhaled, and watched the smoke as it billowed away into nothingness. “Like I said kid, in the final moment, they all become wind.”

 This time the boy understood. He picked up his shattered sword and stood up. Before he could start walking toward the horde amassed on the horizon, the stranger put a hand on his shoulder. “Figure I’ll go out there with ya’, and besides, think you could use a horse.”

 The stranger worked his magic again, and two horses were there so quickly it felt that they’d been there all along, just out of sight. He and the boy mounted up on the horses and turned them toward the fires of the army in the distance.  “Better to go out like this”, said the mysterious stranger to the boy, “and keep on fighting, for the rest of our lives.”

 “For the rest of our lives,” the boy agreed.  And so they rode off into the sunset together, and they kept on fighting, for the rest of their lives.

[lightholme]

An American Fairy Tale

  Once upon a time,   A village burned.   Ever since Prometheus passed along the idea of making fire to a caveman somewhere at the dawn of civilization, human beings have enjoyed burning things. It started with wood, moved on to your neighbor's wood, and then the natural progression was to set fire to your neighbor as well. Prometheus would have rolled in his grave if he'd ever been allowed to die. But this fairy tale takes place before the Catholic Church had gotten its world renowned reputation for burning people in all sorts of ingenious and incredibly creative ways, when the concept was still on the cutting edge of brutality and not something that happened on a day to day basis. Burning villages was still an avant-garde art-form that only the most cultured artists of the era had tried their hand at. The most talented among these was a man named Atilla the Hun, who had reached the forefront of his field slowly and methodically. Like most fools, what he lacked in talent he made up for with endless practice and quite admirable tenacity. Through sheer force of will a man who is inept at a task may slowly become a master.   That is also an accurate summary of the human race's plodding and asinine progress through the last ten thousand years or so.

  But that is not the point of this fairy tale. This fairy tale follows in the same classical tradition as the immortal and universally hallowed morality tales of the great Greek storyteller Aesop. It is a homage, if you will. Which is to say is to say that its message is about as subtle as a brick flying out of the back of the truck in front of you, smashing through your windshield as quickly as it takes a grumpy old man to complain when you change the channel from yet another NCIS rerun, and near instantly pulverizing your skull so completely that when the paramedics finally show up to scrape your lifeless husk out of your 1973 Oldsmobile Omega, the grizzled 20-year veteran paramedic actually gags a little.

  This is one of those kinds of fairy tales.   Once upon a time,   A village burned.   A young man stumbles from the ruins. He is covered in ash, and the softly moaning wind blows his soot stained shawl up against the side of his body, revealing his hollow chest and the bones of his rib-cage. If you're having a hard time picturing this, imagine him looking a bit like like a character from Loony Toons who'd blown himself up chasing a roadrunner, but admittedly it's a lot less comedic considering the boy's circumstances, which are as follows:

  Two days before, he had gone out into the wilds alone on his first hunt. This was the right of passage into manhood for this particular village, in which when a boy reached the age of thirteen, all of the older men in the tribe forced him to go out into the nearby forest alone covered in nothing but what amounted to a tattered sack. Sometimes they gave them a stick, too. He had three days to kill an animal of some sort, preferably a big one that tasted good, then bring it back so the village could throw a big party and eat whatever the boy caught. After this set of arbitrary conditions had been met, the boy was thought to have become a man, and everyone congratulated him for slaughtering the animal and not getting killed after they had all abandoned him in the woods. It was a sort of proto college fraternity hazing ritual, basically. The French anthropologist who first studied this practice, Arnold van Gennep, christened it "rite de passage" and so ever since anthropologists have called this the "The Rites of Passage Tradition", but everybody else calls it "Fucking Retarded.”   On the second day of his rite de passage, the boy returned with a promising deer only to discover every single person that he had ever known was dead. If you actually took the time to trace the modern Gregorian calendar all the way back to when the boy came back to find that everybody and everything that he'd ever known was on fire, you would find that it in fact occurred on a Monday, which anybody probably could have guessed anyway, since it's without a doubt the worst day of the entire week.

  He hadn't stayed in his village long after he had returned to find it burning, only pausing to take a broken sword from what was left of his own home. He didn't bother gathering any food; he didn't plan on traveling much. This was because the young man had decided to kill himself. The burning village had been his home his entire life. He was born there, and he had once expected to live a long life, start a family, and eventually die there surrounded by friends and loved ones. That was obviously off the table now. "Up in smoke", if you will.   Like many suicidal people, the boy also developed a certain inexplicable taste for irony and the macabre. The shattered sword he carried had been passed down from father to son for generations. He supposed now that since his father and brothers were dead that it now belonged to him. His plan was to travel far enough away from his old home so that he could no longer see the flames and billowing smoke rising from what was left of the village, and then take his broken sword from its sheath and slit his throat. There was a cliff outside the village, and for a time he stumbled toward it slowly like a zombie from a bad horror film, but he never got there. He kept looking back on the life that was behind him, and each time the fires in the distance reflected in his eyes. Eventually he stopped and sat on a rock, and sadly watched as his future slowly turned to ash.  It would be a disservice, I think, to call what he felt sadness. Nor would it be accurate to call it the mind-numbing torturous emptiness that sucks at a person's chest like an open wound, which we name despair. It was a kind of peace, maybe, but not the kind which gives us grace in times of trouble. If there were any word to describe it, perhaps it would be resignation. Yet even that is a disservice to the countless millions that have died by their own hand. Who can say what is in the mind of a person who is about to take his own life? They silenced their own voices before they could tell us their stories-- their thoughts, whatever they might have been--- are gone now forever, hidden from us as though behind the reflective sheen of a darkly tinted two-way mirror: from the outside looking in, impossible to understand, and from the inside looking out, impossible to explain.   But don't worry. The boy did not die. Well, he did eventually, of course, but not like that. This isn't some horribly-ending German fairy tale, after all, but an American one. It's right there in the title.   The sun would soon set in the west. The boy took his sword from its sheath and placed it alongside his throat. The steel was as cold as something that's really cold, and a drip of blood slowly began to pool at its point.

    "Evenin', traveler. I think I know you."     The young man spun wildly towards the source of the voice. He was especially quick to move the blade from his neck. Human beings still have a shred of modesty burned into them, even when they are about to kill themselves. The sword fell to the ground almost instantly in a quick jerking motion of his arm, a thoughtless reflex action, like the legs twitching on a dead cricket, and he assumed a position and posture that insisted wordlessly that "Oh. Hey. I had just been standing around with a sword next to my neck." and that people doing this particular activity were as common as sneezing or starting inane  conversations about the weather. He'd just been thinking, that's all. Sword? No, I hadn't had a sword held to my neck. You must have seen me at a bad angle, and gee, isn't it nice out today?   "It's harder to kill yourself with someone watching, y'know. Makes people feel ashamed, because something in them knows it ain't right."       The young man stared at the the new arrival in disbelief. Anybody living today would have recognized what was standing before him as quickly as they would recognize the Coca Cola logo. Here is what the boy saw:   The stranger wore a white button up shirt, and a rugged brown leather vest, with a sort of cloak thrown over it to protect him from the elements. He wore blue denim jeans. His boots were of an odd design. They were tall, brown, the tips were pointed, and there were odd circular metal rings hanging off the back of them which were ringed with spikes. He wore a belt that had a sheathe for some kind of weapon on his right and left leg, but they were not swords. Instead of having a straight handle like that of a sword, these had a strange curved handle made out of wood. Behind the man, the sun setting in the west  gleamed off the blue steel of the two weapons he wore on either hip.

  Most importantly, he wore a hat the likes of which the boy had never seen before. It had a wide brim that circled the man's entire head.

  "Howdy," the mysterious stranger said. For some reason he was squinting so hard that he looked like somebody who was staring straight into the sun, even though the sun was at his back. It was the sort of weather-worn face you couldn't ever imagine having smiled.

 "Who're you?"

  The squinting man shrugged casually, and a brown cylindrical object suddenly appeared in his hand.  He put it in the side of his mouth, and casually walked over toward where the boy was sitting alone on the rock. The boy wasn't frightened by this. He was in a place beyond fear now. He wasn't even afraid when the mysterious stranger sat down next to him, reached into his pocket for a small box, made a quick flicking motion, and fire appeared in his hand as if by magic. He lit the tip of the thing in his mouth with his magic fire, took a deep breath. After a moment he breathed out a cloud of smoke with a sigh that sounded like it was weary with the weight of a thousand troubles and a long and profoundly annoying 62 year Hollywood career.   "Are you a god?" the boy asked.

  The man sat there for a long while before replying, seeming to ponder this as he stared off into the distance. The sun was getting lower now.   "'I 'aint no god. I only been here just as long as people have been around to think me." His voice was as rough and gravelly as asphalt. He took another long drag of his cigar, exhaled. "Kid, y'know, each drag burns different, but in the final moment, they all become wind."   The boy told him he didn't understand.

  The stranger nodded toward the broken sword on the ground, which had only so recently been up against the boy's throat. "That 'aint no way to die."

  The boy shook his head. "I don't have anything left. Why not do it?"

  At this, the stranger took the cigar from his mouth and gestured toward the setting sun and the burning village in the distance.

    "Kid, you been lookin' at the wrong thing out there."   The boy looked. He saw the life he had thought was his future burning. But then he saw something else, beyond, further in the distance. It was smoke, but not from the burning village. They were campfires, thousands and thousands of them."   "That's them," said the stranger, "the ones that burned your village. They're out there waiting for you to go fight them."   The boy looked down at his scrawny body. "But if I do that, I'll die."   The stranger took another long drag from his cigar, exhaled, and watched the smoke as it billowed away into nothingness. "Like I said kid, in the final moment, they all become wind."

  This time the boy understood. He picked up his shattered sword and stood up. Before he could start walking toward the horde amassed on the horizon, the stranger put a hand on his shoulder. "Figure I'll go out there with ya', and besides, think you could use a horse."  

  The stranger worked his magic again, and two horses were there so quickly it felt that they'd been there all along, just out of sight. He and the boy mounted up on the horses and turned them toward the fires of the army in the distance.   "Better to go out like this", said the mysterious stranger to the boy, "and keep on fighting, for the rest of our lives."

  "For the rest of our lives," the boy agreed.   And so they rode off into the sunset together, and they kept on fighting, for the rest of their lives.