i

[Emprexx Plush]

We did what we did. We are what we are. Straightforward affirmations that just, they just didn't feel right with the gravity of what they were discussing. Could it be that simple? They were killers. Even Michael was a killer, the absence of the act didn't change the resolve he'd put forth. Marco was a killer, no, a murderer before he ever laid eyes on Kayla at the shore. Neither Nick nor Michael had answered his question directly but he knew, he had made a choice when the blades were still clean that h would never be able to take back. If he was a murderer then, he was a murderer now. If you were in his head that might seem circular; hadn't he already come to that conclusion before they'd even arrived? You'd probably be right to be confused. There was a shift he hadn't known how to put into words until Michael rooted them somewhere solid.

Murderer: A person who committed murder. That was a working definition, right? That's how Marco had seen himself. He'd done something that he could never shed. He would always be a person who had murdered. Had, though. That was the sticking point. Marco knew what he had been. Nick had pulled him that way too. The things they'd done, they were just mistakes, mistakes they had all made. Thinking about it like that brought some degree of closure, but it told him nothing about his future. Admitting you made a mistake offered no way forward other than resolving to not make it again or cosign yourself to failure, for if it wasn't a mistake to repeat what you'd done could it be a mistake in the first place? The obvious proposal would be to not hurt anyone ever again. If you hadn't been where they had you'd probably think it was that simple to walk back. Marco was intimately familiar with how much easier everything looked staring at it through a screen. At least one person was watching them right now in a dark room, glare from the screen making their sleep-deprived eyes water as all the things they'd do better played out in their head. They'd never know. There were people here who would never understand why it wasn't so easy to tell yourself you'd stop and open up to the inevitable regret when you didn't.

Michael, intentionally or not, pointed him down a different path. We did what we did, and so we are what we are. There is no clinging past or looming future in their actions. They had no beginning or end. Instead of transformation they offered enlightenment, rendering them into a fully realized state of are that supplanted all states of were and would not yield to any states of would be. It was not that they couldn't be anything else, but they shouldn't be anything else. This is what they were. Why try to be anything else? The person Marco wanted to be was hazy. He appeared only in flashes and felt so far away in a life that did not belong on this island. Some day he wanted to be him, but to get there...

The definition was wrong, if ever so slightly. It had to be amended.

Murderer: A person who commits murder.

That was what it meant to be Marco Hart. It was the price asked for the right to exist. It did not need to be paid now. It had been asked, though.

How much was it worth to live the life he was tasting?

Marco smiled and wrapped one arm tighter around Michael's waist, extending the other to Nick.

[General Goose]

Nick did not deserve this kind of compassion.

At the very least, when people were being cruel to him, yelling at him, fearing him, despising him, he could get that. It matched up, if nothing else, with his own self-image. There was a certain consistency there that, while far from comforting, at least made sense.

When Michael had shown a certain viciousness towards him, it made sense. When Michael sniped at him, it hurt Nick, true, but that was more because he thought he had in Michael somebody who had, whether out of apathy or proximity, lost sight of how awful Nick was, or at least lacked the energy to hurt Nick for the sake of hurting Nick. Fundamentally, Nick thought it was true. There was no way he had stayed with Michael for so long, under such gruelling circumstances, and not given him sufficient cause to detest Nick, at least on some level.

And that was assuming Michael didn't have pre-existing reason to hate Nick from before the island - an assumption that stretched credulity, especially seeing that Michael cared about Beryl.

Nick didn't bother with self-reflection or introspection. At least, not when he had a say in the matter. It was too tiring, too exhausting, too futile a task.

Nick didn't deserve a hug, either. But he couldn't be bothered to argue with that strong impulse to get up, walk over to the other two boys, and throw his arms around them.

So that's what he did.

[Kermit]

Michael heard rain start to patter against the roof of the building.

Nick joined the hug. Hugs were nice. He liked hugs. He couldn't remember the last time he'd hugged someone who wasn't, like, related to him. This was nice.

His eyes flitted around the room. He hadn't really gotten a good look at it until now.

A zoo? It looked like a zoo, kind of, except it was indoors like an aquarium. Almost an aquarium, but not quite an aquarium. It was like -


Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait Wait Wait Wait No No No no no no no no oh god it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt


- his rebound.

Marco was his rebound.


none of this was real none of this was real none of this was real none of this was ever real this was fake this wasn't michael this was never michael this wasn't closure this wasn't his closure therapy island was fucking bullshit


Michael's eyes widened like saucers, glazed over. He screamed with his mouth closed. His arms dropped from the hug.

he was falling.

fragmenting

He stumbled backwards. His mouth moved but he hadn't decided which words to say and all that came out was a dry creaking sound. His backpack hit the wall. He couldn't breathe.

Words started.

"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhh - diabetes. I - diabetic. Me. My diabetes. Outside. I just - fresh air. Outside. Myself. By myself. Medical... emergency. I'll be back. Soon? Don't follow. I'm okay. I'm on drugs. Don't worry about it."


He stumbled sideways and then out through the door.



_____




He felt the rain. He could breathe. He stumbled along the outer wall, to the side of the building.



_____




He landed in grass.

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know where he was. Wall. Camera. Camera on a wall. He saw it. He knew where he was. He was outside the menagerie. He was still outside the menagerie. Nick wasn't there and Marco wasn't there and he didn't know where they were and -


Right now he was alone. He was alone with the universe. No Nick. No anybody. Just him and the universe. And the camera.


He had a gun in his pocket.



_____




He swallowed an indeterminate number of pills.

He was looking into the camera.

"Hi, U.S. government. If I die on this island, I'd like to request that you give my name an adjacency with Beryl Mahelona's. Morgan Dragosavich, Marco Hart, and Nick Ogilvie, too, if you can manage it. But just Beryl Mahelona's fine if you can't."



_____




He had memories from before 9/11. It felt absurd. It felt surreal. He'd been a year old when the attacks happened. Nobody remembered things from when they were that young. His dad had always called him a prodigy.

He remembered the goddamn Spiderman trailer with the helicopter caught in the web between the twin towers. He remembered that his brain didn't associate that memory with 9/11. He remembered that the only thing his brain associated it with was that it was one of his first memories. He knew that if it was a memory from after 9/11, his brain would've given it darker associations.

He knew he might have been the only student at GHH who could remember something from before the American public lost its wide-eyed innocence.



_____




He knew everything about marine biology. He knew that ctenophores weren't goddamn jellyfish. They weren't even goddamn cnidarians. They didn't have cnidocytes. In order to be considered part of the phylum cnidaria, an organism needed to have cnidocytes. Ctenophores didn't. They were their own goddamn phylum.

And yet dumb idiots always just called them jellyfish and it pissed him the fuck off and -



_____




He knew anomalocaris was theorized by some to have been the apex predator of the Cambrian seas. He knew it was pretty fucking neat looking. He knew that when it had been first been named, it was only known from partial fossils. He knew its name meant "Odd shrimp."

He knew he was odd and kind of shrimpy too.



_____




He didn't know what alcohol tasted like. He didn't know what it was like to be high on anything other than amphetamines.

He didn't know what a naked woman looked like. He'd never even seen a picture of one outside of diagrams from bio class. He barely knew what a naked dude looked like.

He'd never had sex. He'd never even gone solo. He'd always been waiting for literally anyone to just, like, ask him to do the do with them. Consent was his only turn-on. It sounded like some joke he'd make with Morgan while shittalking some doofus, but it was true. He just wanted to be special enough to someone for them to want to show him their true true true self; for them to feel comfortable enough around him to not need to keep secrets. He just wanted to be special enough to someone for them to want to see his their true true true self. He figured it would happen eventually. He was decent-looking. He put effort in.

And yet it never happened. He'd sat around waiting for someone else to get him to start really living his life. And now he was dead.

Actually, it was a lie that nobody had ever asked him to do the thing.

It had happened one time. At the ct-



_____




He was crying. He didn't know why.

The gun was out of his pocket. Safety on. It was in his hand.



_____




He was laughing. He didn't know why.

The gun was out of his pocket. Safety off. He was pointing it at his own head.



_____




He was laughing and crying. He didn't know why.

The gun was out of his pocket. Safety on. He was pointing it at his own head.



_____




He pulled the trigger.

He was staring into the camera.

"Safety's on."

He pulled the trigger.

He was staring into the camera.

"Safety's on."

He pulled the trigger.

He was staring into the camera.

"Safety's on."

He pulled the trigger.

He was staring into the camera.

"Safety's o-"



_____




He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety's on."
He pulled the trigger.
"Safety-"



_____




He was staring into the camera.

He was standing up.

His shirt was off.

He couldn't remember the last time anyone had seen him with his shirt off. He'd always been afraid of people seeing what was underneath.

Now the world could see his skin, thin over his ribcage. The world could see the notches between his vertebrae. The world could see his gangly arms, much too long for their width. The world could see his heart beat through his sunken chest.

The world could see just how broken he'd always (physically!) been.

"Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at-"



_____




He felt the rain against his back.

He was standing up.

He was staring into the camera.

"- look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look-"



_____




He felt the rain against his face. He felt the rain against his chest. He felt the grass against his back.

He lay still with his arms outstretched.

The rain was like an aerosolized ocean crushing him. It was nice. The rain looked like falling stars.

He felt almost like he was flying through space. He felt like he was the space baby from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Love was a place and he was in it.



_____




He was crying and he was laughing but it was a good kind of crying and a good kind of laughing. He was quiet. His eyes were closed. The cameras didn't exist.

He existed. He was alone in the universe.

He was alone with the universe.

Bittersweet euphoria.



_____




"This is just really neat."



_____




His eyes were closed.

Bittersweet euphoria.

Oscillation.



_____




All he felt was bittersweet euphoria.

Oscillation.



_____




He was still laying on the ground. His shirt was still off. One of his boots was off too and he wasn't sure if he remembered how that had happened. It was still raining. Gun was in his hand. Safety off.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He didn't know how long he'd been out here.


"...Huh."

[Emprexx Plush]

He wanted to ask- No. Wrong word. He wanted to beg- No, worse, much worse. He wanted to demand-God, no, that wasn't what they were either. Synonyms spider-webbed through his mind in search of the right phrase. Meaning was tertiary, his own feelings secondary, with capturing Michael's as his primary concern. A request wouldn't do it any more than an order or an appeal to pity. Marco did not want to be simply acknowledged. It was greedy when acknowledgement had evaded him so long, but he already craved something deeper that he could almost feel when Michael held him. He wanted to be desired. He wanted to urge Michael to stay, stir within him the feeling not only that he was wanted here but that he wanted to be here. If he heard them, he would want to stay with Marco.

When Marco opened his mouth to speak Michael was already gone. He still felt his arm around his back, but it was too late to keep him there. Him and Nick were alone now while Michael ran off to who knows where asking them not to follow, and in a breath the clearing he'd wandered into appeared in his mind. Kayla hadn't been alone like she was at the shore. Roxie probably stayed with her. They could have agreed to meet there on the shore some time later, never suspecting what might happen in each other's absence. Someone else could have already found Roxie, but if not she would wander in on the less Marco had left with no preparation, let alone explanation. What must that feel like?

There was an instinct to slip into that fear, explore the headspace that came with it. The sort of thing his anxiety seemed to live for, but even if he wanted to it wasn't quite connecting. Confessions from all three of them had woven them into existence were fear for the others was at best awkward if not outright denied. Not one among them was a victim. They did not deserve that consideration. If gunshots rang out from beyond the door, they would not rush out to find Michael cooling in the rain. They would find him reloading.

We are what we are.

There would be others. Others that Marco couldn't comfortably say were like them, but who had done what they did. The difference might be immaterial in the long run. The divide still remained until he was given reason to let them cross it. For now when his grip transitioned from around Nick's waist to holding his hand, he chose his words more deliberately. "When I was freaking out, I um, I missed the names this morning. Is there anybody we should be looking out for? Not just them, I guess, Abe Watanabe stole a lot of my things before I woke up so maybe we should think about people like him too, If you know any."

[General Goose]

Nick would have stepped away from the hug, returning to where he'd been slumped before. He wouldn't have cried this time. The hug had helped. Why had a hug helped? They were still in exactly the same situation. Everything that had been said was as true - or not true - as it had been before. If anything the situation was worse. Michael had walked away. For medical reasons. He was in danger. Nick couldn't follow him. Marco didn't follow him either. That meant it was the right thing to do. Nick trusted Marco's judgement more than his own.

In Michael's absence - Nick didn't know how long he was out for, keeping track of time was difficult and Nick didn't even think to look at his watch - silence was threatened again. Not complete silence. People made noises, as they breathed, as they shuffled about, as they moved around. Nick would have broken away from the hug. He couldn't have stayed hugging Marco. Hugging one person was too...intimate. Nick didn't deserve that. It was too much.

But Nick was too slow to break away from the hug, Marco beat him to it, and then Marco was holding his hand, and Nick swallowed. He definitely didn't deserve that.

Thankfully, Marco distracted him. With questions. "I can't remember. Tyrell was on twice. Blaise killed Dante. Katrina killed one of the triplets. Abel had died first. Paloma killed Abel." What Nick could remember was arbitrary, unhelpful, riddled with doubts and ambiguities and places where Nick thought he remembered something but didn't want to accidentally condemn anyone or falsely label someone as dead. Sorry."

Marco had mentioned Abe. "Abe was there when Beryl died."

[Kermit]

Michael blinked a few times. His glasses kept the rain out of his eyes. The rain was warm-ish. He was glad it wasn't cold rain. He sat up slowly, a few blades of grass sticking to his back. A leaf stuck to his right shoulder blade. His clothes were soaked through. That was okay. They'd either dry out eventually or he'd die before it mattered. He combed his non-gun hand over his head, fwipping his hair back into place. He stared out at the distance in the direction he and Nick had originally come from. His foot fished around for the boot, eventually finding it. He placed his gun on the ground for a second, cracked his knuckles, and then picked it back up. He pursed his lips.

It wasn't his gun. It was Adam Dodd's gun. It was a historical artifact. It belonged in a museum. He remembered that now. He could remember museums. He didn't think he would ever see one ever again, but he could remember them.

The past day and a half seemed like it had been a dream, now. He still felt like he was in a dream. He knew it wasn't a dream, but it still felt like it was a dream, sort of.

"...Okay, yeah."

He stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. He didn't see his shirt anywhere on the ground, so he assumed it was probably in the bag. He turned and looked through the camera. He shrugged.

"Me neither." he said. It wasn't a lie. He wasn't sure if any of it had actually even happened.

Nick and Marco still existed, probably. He... he didn't know if he wanted to see them per say, but he felt a compulsion to go back to them. He shuffled back to the menagerie's entrance.

As he approached the door, he heard Marco and Nick's voices. Marco was asking about the announcements. Michael was pretty sure he remembered all the names; all the dead, all the killers. Marco mentioned Abe Watanabe. Michael recognized the name. Stoner dude.

According to Marco, he was an immoral stoner dude. He asked about people similar to Abe. People who were murderers in conscience but not law. Michael was one. Michael'd been one three times.

Nick mentioned Abe had been present for Beryl's death. He recognized that name too. She was on the list of the dead. She was... she was a mind Michael had once known. It was the only objectively true statement he could think of.

...He wasn't sure if it was the only plain true statement he could think of regarding her. He made the decision not to follow that specific train of thought. He didn't deserve to follow that train of thought.

He popped his head through the doorway. Nick and Marco were holding hands now, but still in roughly the same place they'd been when he'd left. That was... weird? He thought it was weird. He felt like he'd been outside for... he wasn't sure how long, but it seemed like a while.

Weird. It was just weird. He felt weird. This felt weird. This was like a dream. This didn't make sense. This was the norm now, he remembered. He was pretty sure he liked this being the norm.

Safety on. Gun in pocket. He stepped in through the door.

"Eyyyyy," he made finger guns and snapped each once towards Marco and Nick. "I'm alive. Don't ask where my shirt went."

He remembered Nick wasn't wearing a shirt either.

Shit, this was kind of awkward, wasn't it?

He didn't want to care about that kind of thing anymore. He pushed it all down.

"We're talking about people we want to watch out for, yeah? 'Watch out for' with a negative connotation? We're gonna need to watch out for Nia Karahalios and Alexander Brooke, 'cus, uh, they're liable to shoot me and Nick on sight... mmm, pun was accidental, but I'll go with it. Also watch out for, uh..." he trailed off as names ran through his mind. His own name. Sierra Cook. Morgan Dragosavich. Henry Sparks. All of them were for selfish reasons. Only one name came out of his mouth. "...Darlene Silva. Darlene Silva is bad news."

[Emprexx Plush]

"What happened to your-"

"Eyyyyy, I'm alive. Don't ask where my shirt went."

"Oh okay."

Marco had a lot of questions. Where did you go? Why is everybody shirtless except me? Why do Nia and Alexander want to shoot you? Did Abe hurt someone already? What happened with Beryl? Who is Darlene Silva? None of them felt more relevant than getting all the information out in the open first, though. Nick and Michael had veered off into people that would probably want to hurt them on sight. Marco could think of a couple more to add to the list. "Roxie was with Kayla before I...yeah...so she might want revenge, or something. Emmett and Emil maybe too, I think they'd already been in a fight over somebody playing so they won't like us very much."

He paused, fingers drumming nervously against his thigh. "I was with Garnet too. I, I don't think she'll want to see me when she hears, but I don't think she'll hurt us." That was the best they could hope for, right? That people didn't immediately try to kill them for what they'd done? Was that their blue sky scenario? "Do you think, um..." He wanted to externalize the feeling. Nick and Michael would understand, and they'd been at it longer than he had if only by a slim margin. They'd probably went through the same conclusions, probably why they didn't barge right in out of the rain. It'd have to be confronted eventually, and if not here it'd be done at the end of somebody else's vengeful anger. All of them were going to be rejected again and again, so why not get comfortable with the idea now?

Because right now they were unified. The energy they brought to the room was one that bound them together. Lingering on what others might think would tear that apart. Marco couldn't imagine their acceptance weathering the hatred of the rest of the island, and logically he knew it would catch up to them eventually, but right now it was outside their door. Someone had to invite it in, and it wasn't going to be him. "Nevermind, I was going to say we should be careful but that's stupid, sorry, you know, I, I just, I'll shut up."

[General Goose]

Michael reentered. He didn't have a shirt anymore. Nick smiled in response - a very small smile, one that probably wasn't even noticeable to those looking at him, looking more like a slight twitch in his beard than any subtle indication of emotion.

As to why he smiled, it was for a pathetically petty reason. Nick liked to aspire to be a trend-setter. It wasn't his biggest ambition, certainly not one he'd ever put much in the way of effort into, but it would be something that Nick would quite happily try out for a bit by sheer chance. And he liked to imagine - for a second, inside his mind - that Michael had gone shirtless not out of comfort or esoteric medical need or as a symptom in some private mental breakdown, but because, likely unconsciously, seeing Nick had put the idea into his mind.

Nobody commented on it, and Michael requested that they didn't address that subject, and so he didn't. Nick just looked Michael up and down, knowing in the back of his mind this was probably going to be the last time he'd peacefully get to look at another person in a state of undress, before turning his attention back to the topic of discussion.

Names were listed. Darlene Silva. Nick nodded along with that. That smile, as small as it was, disappeared. "Yeah." She hadn't shot Beryl with malice and it was likely not a mistake she'd repeat, but whatever. It was a pretty harmless way of getting back at her. "She was the one who shot Beryl. By accident, but...still." He'd be honest about her. The facts condemned her enough.

Marco added some more names to the list. "If we're talking about people who might want revenge, anyone who liked Beryl will probably take a shot at me. Or Jeremiah too, now, I guess." Jeremiah was less beloved than Beryl. He felt comfortable saying that. Maybe it was his own biases getting in the way, but there we go.

"Saying we should be careful isn't stupid," Nick murmured in response, unable to think of a more eloquent way of dismissing any doubts Marco had about the worthiness of his contributions. "Might be worth naming people we could trust, too?"

[Kermit]

Michael caught Nick ogling him. It felt cool. It was cool.

Nick Ogle-vie. That was an okay pun, actually.

He didn't know why he was making puns. He'd just knowingly suggested that the group maybe ambiguously kill Darlene, a (technically) innocent girl, and he was making puns. It was fucked up. It hurt.


Aw jeez, he didn't even know how Marco was feeling about all this shirtlessness.

He felt like an asshole.
He was a bad person
he was a bad per-

He needed to shut the fuck up already. He couldn't do this anymore. He didn't need to do this anymore.

He stared at the far end of the room and let his eyes glaze over.

His mind went somewhere else.
___

Michael was sitting on something beach-esque. He wasn't on dry land or in water. The beach was behind him, but the water was in front of him. Maybe it was the other way around. He didn't know. He knew he was dreaming or hallucinating or going through a psychosis or daydreaming or something. He knew it wasn't real. Beryl was there, standing on the beach. She looked normal. She looked serene. She looked perfect. It wasn't Beryl.

Beryl was dead.

"She is." the person standing on the beach said. Michael wasn't sure if her mouth was moving. He knew this was just his brain talking to itself. He almost ended whatever this was. He didn't end it.

She pointed out at a figure floating in the water. "That's Beryl." she said.

Michael saw that the Beryl in the water looked like how he imagined she would after a day of rotting at sea. A gull stood on her chest. She had no eyes. Her face was bleached by the sun and partially torn away. Her scalp was starting to slip off. Michael could see part of her skull. He could see her bones.

It hurt. He couldn't bear to look any more.

He loved her. He loved them both.

"Maybe. We'll see." the other Beryl said. She took a few steps and sat down next to Michael.

She reached out and held his hand.

This was nice. This was almost nice.

He could see more bodies in the water now. Abel Zelenovic, Toby Underwood, Christine Bright, Felix Rees, one of the Hayashibaras, Violet Quinn, Dante Luciano Valerio, Benedict Murray, Jeremiah Anderson, and Kayla Harris. He saw all of their faces. They all looked dead.

He missed them. He wanted them to be alive. He wanted them to be happy. He wanted them to be okay. All of them were people.

In addition to the bodies in the water, Michael could now see versions of each standing on the beach with their feet in the sand. They looked like they had looked in life. Some of them were vague, blurry shapes; but they all looked like how Michael remembered them.

"..it's like a memorial!" she said.

He understood.

He squeezed her hand tight. He never wanted to let go.

"We're all part of you. We were always just part of you." she said.
___

The menagerie faded in. The gun was in Michael's hand again. He wasn't sure how that had happened. He wasn't sure how much time had passed.

This wasn't him. He needed to be somewhere he could start over.

He didn't know if Nick and Marco were even talking still. He looked once at each and smiled.

"Stay beautiful, y'all."

He didn't know if they'd heard him say it. It wouldn't matter in a few seconds.

He slipped backwards through the doorway and softly faded into the rain.

((Michael Froese continued in the commissary))

[Emprexx Plush]

Anyone who had known Beryl wanted them dead.

Anyone who had know Kayla wanted them dead.

Anyone who had known Jeremiah wanted them dead.

Marco remembered a decades old sociological theory that was still being used in articles today. It had a pithy name that was repeated often in writing, The Strength of Weak Ties. Marco hadn't read the article itself, just a lot of references to it going down a rabbit hole to justify his inability to reach out. The idea behind it was that social strength didn't come from having a tight, close support network, but one that was very broad, easily accessible in a variety of emergencies. Theoretically it was better to have a large group of people willing to lend you favors than a small group of people who would do anything for you. What Nick was pondering was the venn diagram of their victim's the inner circle of, then expanding outward to find the people untouched by it. Hopefully those in their own inner circles would be outside it as well, that was a workable theory right? It didn't account for weak ties though. The question didn't end with who would kill for Beryl, Kayla, or Jeremiah. Who would kill for their friends? Who would kill for the friends of those friends? Who would kill for the friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those friends of those

He was still holding Nick's hand. He wanted to squeeze it tighter, he could see himself turning to look up at him with his eyes wide and glistening. "I don't trust anyone." Their faces suddenly close enough to feel each other's breath. "No one but you." Their embrace reignited with a passionate kiss, his fingers swirling through Nick's beard while his fingers hooked into Marco's shirt, skin pressed against skin. Every caress leaving him trembling over the edge of completion, so tantalizing close to feeling whole but still inches away until they broke panting and they were moving, Nick dragging him down the pathway to the first dry enclosure, pinning him to the ground, anxiety burning his face and pulling his gaze away until Nick demanded it back with a hand wound tight through his hair, the other slipping beneath Marco's waistband to grasp his-

Marco opened his eyes. There was value in pitting one hyper-active fixation against the other, but only if he escaped them both. Things had started to get out of hand, or too in hand or, or, Michael was gone, that was anchoring. He said something very quickly and then disappeared out the door. Marco flinched after him only to be reminded of his hand locked around Nick's still. It withdrew only after Michael was gone, and if he was lucky Nick would assume that was the only reason he'd let go. "Is, um, I mean since you got here, has he always been like that?" His gaze peered out the cracked slit in the door at Michael's retreating form. It was a good excuse not to turn back to Nick. "Should we go after him? I, probably nobody will hurt him but still, plus, well he has the gun and we have, well..."

He looked down at his glove on the floor. It had seemed rude to ask what the others had and Michael had rendered his part of the question answered without awkwardness, but between his weapon and the mention that Nia wanted to shoot them Marco could only assume others were similarly armed. If someone burst into the hall at night and started sweeping for them with firearms in hand their chances of making it out alive were slim to none. "We need better than what I have if someone comes after us."

Consciously, the statement ended there. Everything he intended to stay communicated clearly without anything fogging up his intent. No necessary addendums. Post-scripts. Final thoughts.

"I don't trust anyone but you."

Ignore that.

[General Goose]

Nick watched as Michael left. He expected it, truthfully, to be another temporary medical absence. Michael went out into the rain and all Nick could think was that he should probably, at the very least, put his own waistcoast back on.

"Something about Beryl's death...messed him up. I dunno. Didn't see him much before that." Had Beryl mattered that much to Michael? Nick didn't know. But breaking down under the circumstances was...understandable. "He'll know where to find us. Probably going out to, I dunno, do a rain dance or something. He'll be fine. He's...yeah."

Armed.

The conversation, by necessity, turned to weapons. "I think we should be...fine. For the most part. For long enough, at least." Nick knew that every feelgood utterance he produced crumbled under the most cursory of glances, thus the required addendums. But still he said it anyway. Throughout all this trauma and horror, there had to be some sort of...if not meaning, then at least some kind of gratification. Some kind of reason to wake up, try fighting until the next dawn, live a few more hours to tell a bit more of their story and leave behind a few more memories. Nick didn't know if he could summon that sort of ad hoc short-term motivation for himself. But he could help Marco. Hopefully.

But their weapons weren't fine. "I have a knife," Nick added. He'd still need to use it, even though it was the knife that killed Beryl. "And my fists are...well. Lethal." He felt less guilty about using them again. Nick should probably have felt more guilty about killing Jeremiah. Probably. "Nia has a gun. Or Alexander did and he gave it to Nia. Whatever." It could have been the latter. Not like Alexander would have been able to stop her. "But other than that I imagine most people who want to kill us will have worse weapons than what we have here." It was an awful discussion to be having, but a necessary one.

Nick heard what Marco said.

He looked at Marco.

"I know. Same."

[Emprexx Plush]

It wasn't real. The things he felt when Nick looked at him, he knew he was making up most of them. Not that Nick was trying to trick him or anything, just, he was reading too much into it. Marco had been a satellite presence in his life. Nick's reputation wasn't a mystery to anyone who paid attention, and it was far from the first time he'd let his mind wander where it shouldn't about him. Whatever could happen between them would never be half as genuine as anything Nick had thrown away, setting aside the notion of approaching anything he'd tried to keep. Not that Nick didn't feel anything for him, Marco was dense but not so much that the significance of returning a phrase Nick could have pretended not to hear escaped him. Trauma created fast bonds. He'd read that somewhere, he was pretty sure of that. The alienation they shared drew them closer than any hallway flirtation ever would have, but it felt faker. It had to feel faker. If it didn't everything he heaped on top of it in his haste to be accepted could start to look reasonable, and that would destroy him when it was undone.

Marco could catch himself in the green tinted reflection of Nick's eyes when he looked at him, and god did he feel seen when he did. There was no way to describe what it felt like when someone saw who you were for the first time. If Marco asked his eyes could chip away everything he hated about himself to reveal the person he dreamed of being. Maybe they did without asking, if he wanted to push his imagination a little farther. That's all it was though. He hoped for the understanding to be real, and craved for the desire so much more deeply, but they were projections. Comforting, yes, and a reminder of what he could have, but he shouldn't stake anything in them. Nick would leave him eventually. It was what he did. Everyone knew that. From the sound of it the announcement made it crystal clear for those still in the dark. There were moments when the school gossip trickled in through his better connected friends that Marco wondered why people kept coming back to people like Nick when their affection had such a mercurial reputation.

Nick looked at him. Whispered those words.

Marco understood.

He did his best to meet Nick's gaze after he retrieved his glove. "There's lots of enclosures, they're mostly pretty dry. I guess you can kind of take your pick, though um, it might be better if we stayed in the same one in case something happens, I mean, if that's okay, it'd maybe be safer, I don't know..." His best was not nearly good enough. By the time he trailed off again all he had to show was an eyeful of Nick's muddy dress shoes.

[General Goose]

"Sure. We can share an enclosure. Get some shut-eye." Nick made his way slightly deeper inside the menagerie building and picked out the first dry-looking reasonably spacious enclosure. "This one good?"

Nick slept poorly. Not the worst he'd slept. Better than he had the night before. At least he slept.

He hoped Michael would return. Safety in numbers, if nothing else. And Michael was cool.

But Marco was cool too. Cooler, even. Marco had stayed. Marco had a Freddy Krueger glove. Marco didn't insult him. Marco trusted him. He had bad taste in people, yes. Had killed Kayla for reasons that he couldn't defend. But whatever.

They left early the next morning.

((Nick Ogilvie continued in I Came In The Name Of The Dead, To Bring My Neck To The Blade.))

[Emprexx Plush]

Marco slept.

That said enough.

They left early the next morning.

((Marco Hart Continued In I Came In The Name Of The Dead, To Bring My Neck To The Blade))