Night Moves

[Maraoone]

((Matias Juarez continues from I Want to Conquer the World))

Alone again.

He was curled up on top of a cardboard-thick mattress hidden somewhere in the hallways of this ship, facing the closed door, serving as his own sentry. His arms wrapped around his bare shoulders. Cold sweats had wracked him the entire night, but the air had never stopped crushing him after Luanne and Verity, enough that it felt like his shirt would suffocate him, and the idea of hypothermia felt less hostile. Hypothermic people started feeling warm after a while, right?

His thigh was pulsing now. He'd torn off a strip of his own gauze, wrapped around the wound like a kid trying to cut off a hose. He figured he'd try his best to not undo the work Nadine had done to save him, show her at least that bit of respect, but the gauze he'd tied around his thigh was knotted haphazardly and folded and creased in random spots, and he'd gotten the impression that anyone could undo it with a single tug.

Whatever. He'd tried.

He laid in bed, curled, alone, the grand sum of three entire people saving his life on separate occasions. Didn't matter. Was his choice in the end, at least. Could've had a posse of players around him but it didn't matter. Could still have two functional legs to walk on but it didn't matter. Could fuck himself over a million times but as long as he fucked himself over?

Didn't matter.

Wouldn't have to think about it for much longer anyways. The shivers had wracked him for hours, they'd done their work. His eyelids were finally, mercifully starting to feel heavy. So, maybe things would feel better when he woke up.






A sliver of light entered the room.

[Jilly]

"...Bud, you gon' sleep all day or what?" it called to him.

[Maraoone]

It felt like he'd spoken right into his ear. Goosebumps raised all over his skin.

Tears pricked the corner of his eyes.

"Why are you here?"

[Jilly]

It kept staring at Matias until a warm grin cracked through its cold face. It stepped away, chuckling a single time and beckoning with its hand as it kept walking towards the door.

"C'mon, ain't got much time. Hang out with me for a bit. I'll wait out on deck."

[Maraoone]

A few words, half-questions came to mind, and then didn't as the boy walked out. Not that he would've been able to say them anyways. It felt like he was choking.

Matias lingered in the darkness for a bit. And then, he got up from the bed and followed, floating along to the door.

He stepped out onto the deck, and they were facing outside again, cold, quiet sea laid out in front of them.

Several moments passed with the boy standing in front of him. Matias' lips opened and closed and opened and closed without any voice, any breath coming through. The silence pressed in on him, stones weighing on his chest.

He looked away.

"I'm sorry."

He spoke those words to the ground.

[Jilly]

The boy's expression faltered into a frown. His brow furrowed, and the gears in his head clanked with his eyes darting back and forth a few times before settling on Matias again.

"For?" he asked, drawing out the last letter for a noticeable distance.

[Maraoone]

"I—"

He swallowed, his throat closed in on itself for a bit. He took in a deep gulp of air, like he was surfacing from the sea.

"I haven't done much of anything of worth after I— after y— after you left. I've tried but, uh, nothing ever seems to work out. People leave, people die.

"I always fuck it up.

"You asked me, before you left, if I was sure I'd go home. I told you yes.

"And I'm a liar."

[Jilly]

"Oh."

The boy didn't say anything else for a bit. He looked away from Matias, out towards the open water.

He took off his baseball cap and flicked it a few times while holding the bill before readjusting it back on his head.

He tapped his foot a few times in the increasingly growing awkward silence.

He cleared his throat and waddled towards one of the used-to-be-white plastic chairs scattered around the deck. "C'mon, you ain't gotta kill the mood so quick either," he said, his tone a little annoyed. "At least sit with me for a bit first."

[Maraoone]

"...okay."

He walked over. Took the chair closest to the boy. And he sat with him.

They looked at the stars.

[Jilly]

The boy leaned forward in his chair, alternating between looking out at the starry sky and looking at his own fist as it clenched and released in his lap. It was a long time before the silence broke again.

"Thanks for, uh, comin' round. I was real worried-"

Clench.

He shook his head, not looking back at Matias. "-nevermind. It's dumb."

He didn't release the fist.

[Maraoone]

"What?"

He turned his head to the boy.

"You can- you can tell me. It's fine."

[Jilly]

The boy kept looking down at his hand

"I- ...idunno. I was scared you hated me."

[Maraoone]

"You were scared?

"...

"That is dumb yeah."

[Jilly]

"-So you're glad-" the boy interrupted, cutting himself off in turn with a huff and a shake of the head before editing his words.

"...Look, I just- idunno. I ain't ask you a fair question, back there with just the three of us. And it sounds like I shouldn't've asked. I ain't a good friend... But I also just-

"...Nevermind." The boy huffed again and shuffled in his seat as the cheap plastic legs wobbled. "These chairs suck."

[Maraoone]

"They do."

He scoffed.

"Fuckin' make people pay two grand for these rich-people cruises and this is the quality seating we get? Fuckin' scam."

Despite himself, he laid back in the chair, testing the limit of the polyethylene material. It stayed intact, surprisingly.

He smiled for a moment. And then he thought a bit further about what the boy was about to say. Thought about asking him about it. The missing half of that sentence bothered him like an itch.

But the stars would only stay in the sky for so long. Only so much they could talk about.

He looked again at those twinkling dots above. Thought long and hard about what to say next. And then he looked back at the boy.

"You shouldn't have- you... I didn't want to- fuck."

He cleared his throat. Voice came out scratchy.

"I don't hate you. I-"

Gulped down another lump.

"Don't say that. Don't say you're not a good friend. You're... I've met a bunch of people since you left, and I haven't had a moment like this with any of them. There's always something that goes wrong, some fight or some quarrel or some incident and...

"Around you, I almost feel like things are still okay. Like they'll still be okay.

"I feel good around you."