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He supposed he was better, but that had always been a fuzzy question. At the very least, he was no longer bedridden and no longer required spoon-feeding. It was raining lightly (that would, undoubtedly, change soon), but he sat outside. There wasn't much of an overhanging from the roof of the small shack, but it was enough to keep most of him dry. Presumably, if his daughter was around, she would chide him for risking a cold, but it was an understatement to say that he was sick of being inside. Ironic choice of words, too. Really, all he wanted to do was go back to that more familiar stretch of forest and sit around in his own damned house. Enough of being taken care of and sleeping on someone else's property. He had never wanted to come.
Somewhere behind all the rain and clouds, the sun was setting. He wasn't sure how he knew though. The white had not left him, but then again, neither had the sometimes-quiet cackling in his head and the feeling that there was always someone else just beyond what he could see. There were no longer any shapes, not even vague indications. It was a blank canvas and it showed nothing. Laruku could not yet dwell on the fact of his own uselessness, helplessness; he did not think about how he would no longer be able to effectively care for himself. He couldn't hunt without seeing, and he couldn't eat without hunting. It was a pathetic way to be, moreso than he had ever been before. Denial was still there, he supposed, just like it always was. He heard someone laugh.
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Something felt like it had changed. It wasn’t anything great or remarkable, but a subtle taste in his mouth and weight in his bones. That had started with the dreams, and as he began to see less and less of himself in them. Soon he was able to control the dreams, and to change his own body in them. At points, he would become airborne, and at other points, he would see nothing yet see everything, and hear strange voices that made no sense. The sky and the ground would become the same color and he would walk in a daze, but feeling as if it was safe. He was safe within himself, and as long as he trusted that other presence that had not yet become an individual to him—no, that was a feeling, an impulse, an instinct.
Once upon a time, he had known it as The Line. His mother had known it but a truer name, but she was long dead. The blonde coughed and shook the drizzle from his fur, no longer fully feeling the sickness but knowing he was not yet well. All around the smell of sickness and disease was fading with the rain, replaced by cold water and the gusting wind that came and went. One of these breezes brought a familiar scent to him, and Ahren followed it as if in a trance. It was only then, as he approached and got close enough to see Laruku that a dire feeling twisted in his gut. He stopped dead in his tracks.
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The woods still made him uneasy. He was certain the fog was still there, though the rain might have speared it to the ground temporarily. The air was heavy with moisture and maybe-ghosts, maybe-spirits, maybe-memories. As usual, it was the last one was probably what contributed the most weight, and at that particular moment, he wasn't sure whether or not there was a point in continuing to fight it, or if there had ever really been a point at all. There was a grin in the darkness of his skull. Nihilist, it whispered. Then suddenly, Ahren was there, like another phantom in the white -- a mere presence and nothing more. A vague, bitter sort of smile sat on the hybrid's lips, but he wasn't sure if he was the one who put it there.
Hey, he greeted simply, turning to him. He appeared normal, perfectly normal, but for the weariness of his body and the lost weight. And cloud that sat in his open eyes. Laruku did remember the night they'd last spoken, though like most of his weakest moments, it sat in a place just beyond thought. But that was a misleading way to phrase it; more precisely, it was in a place where he accepted it, but chose not to acknowledge it, like an unsightly blemish. Except that unsightly blemishes usually went away after a while. Are you planning on staying here? he asked instead, a question he didn't remembering having wondered about.
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He was blind. The disease must have done it, coming like a thief in the night. Ahren had not suffered any permanent effects from the illness, and for this he was lucky. Of all the things though, to have one’s sight taken away was terrible. The blonde had experienced this in two different intervals—first with color, and then with the loss of his left eye. Both times, he had wanted to go mad. Both times, he very nearly had. “Yes,” he said evenly, wondering how he managed to keep his voice so calm. “I can’t survive a winter alone.”
Neither can you. A shadow crossed over his face, and his ears turned back slightly. They had to stay here.
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Surviving did not consist of much. Just enough subsistence to keep you walking and breathing. Just enough shelter to keep the snow off. Just enough warmth to keep the frostbite away. Just enough voice to keep the demons at bay. He could still smell. He could still find his way back to the house. Probably. He could still find water. He could still find carrion, if that was what it came to. He could survive, in theory. Pride was a funny thing, something he rarely bothered with anymore. Finding a hole in rock bottom didn't leave a person with much to be proud of, and yet, the hybrid was ever resistant to the idea that he had to stay there, that he had to be taken care of and provided for. Or perhaps it was just that he thought no one should have to bother, and that he didn't deserve that kind of attention.
Laruku could not see Ahren's face, but he could imagine it, it with all its little shifts in expression. I guess you're right, he said quietly. How's Jasper?
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“He fades in and out,” the blonde admitted. He was frustrated that his son was not doing much better, but Jasper had been the initial infection source, and he had been the youngest to suffer. Shifting his weight and moving out of the rain, Ahren stood under the overhang and looked up at the gray sky. He couldn’t bear to keep looking Laruku in the face anymore. Both hands moved with traitor speed and skill, and drew the cigarette and the matches, giving flame and smoke life, only to have the four-year-old suck this down as if it belonged to him. “Are you planning on staying here?”
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He frowned. It didn't make sense to him that Jasper should suffer the longest; younger bodies were supposed to be more resilient, right? Maybe it was a sign that he wasn't going to come out of it at all, but no one wanted to think about that. Laruku had felt little, assuming that both his own sons were dead, but he took that as another indication that he had been ill-suited to be a father all along. Ahren had tried harder; he cared more. The hybrid didn't want to see Jasper die for that reason more than any other.
Scarred shoulders shrugged in response to the question, and he inhaled the wisps of smoke that managed to escape the other. I guess so. There's no where else to be, he had almost said. No where else to go. Except that there was. Any place away from people. Any place without fog and maple trees. Without ghosts. The frown remained. It was too obvious that he didn't want to stay. He could survive, he continued to tell himself, but it was easier to stay regardless. Inertia was hard to fight, even with forced pride and self-destructive reasoning.
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He could read his companion, as he had been reading him for years now, it seemed. Ahren looked down at the ground, where the water was striking, vanishing, and repeating its strange cycle. It felt like they had lost everything in one fell swoop, and that perhaps really, nothing mattered anymore. He wanted to believe he had gotten his wish. He had truly begun to feel less as less as the days and weeks went on.
“The winter would kill you,” he stated flatly. A year and some odd weeks out in the world had shown him these things. In Europe, perhaps, a blind beggar could live. Not here.
Smoke filled his lungs, and he exhaled into the damp air.
“I can build a new cabin. Away from this one.” Because secretly, Ahren wanted to be further away from them. He needed the space. It was a safety net—not just for him, but for those terrible things he did.
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There was no point in arguing, he knew, just like there was no point in pointing out that it had been a long time since he had considered death an unfortunate alternative. It wasn't something he actively sought anymore (because there was no point), but it had also been a long time since he had actively sought to avoid it. Every other thing he did he did because there was no point in seeking the alternative and inertia kept keeping him in place. Wherever he ended up, he ended up. That was all. He might have shrugged again but the energy to do so was gone.
They both needed that space, that buffer. It was the original reason he had chosen not to join any pack. As long as there was a grin in the darkness, that reason would remain, and he was certain that would be forever. Wood and locks couldn't keep a monster in place if he really wanted to get out. Distance helped. Lots and lots of distance. He didn't want to be there. The forest likely didn't want him there either. Your arms okay with that? They were both just mad cripples, in the end.
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“I’ll manage. Probably get Laurel and Laurent to help me.” They would manage. They had managed that much this far, and a small push like that would be nothing spectacular. After that was said and done, they would be able to hide away, and keep their doors shut. Even after so long here, Ahren barely saw anyone. This was a small group, and they seemed to stick to themselves. It was just as well. Esper Hollow was hiding two madmen, and they would do well to keep them in some back corner, out of the public eye. For a few more moments he smoked in silence, then flicked the cigarette away and sat next to the hybrid. “There’s no where else for us to go,” he finally said, vocalizing what they both knew in their secret hearts.
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Even now, after so many months, Laruku wanted nothing more than to go home. Nevermind the rest of whoever had been there, nevermind the ashes that were probably still there and the broken trees, burnt out bushes. Nevermind that the lake would be filled with dirt and debris and nevermind that the fog would have drifted away with no branches to hold it in place. Nevermind that nothing would be as he remembered it. He didn't dwell much anymore on the fact that he should have died there, but he still felt strongly that that was the only place he'd ever belonged. A curse and an invisible ball and chain for a madman, a lunatic asylum without a make-believe fence that only they could see. The tawny coyotewolf leaned forward against his knees.
Anywhere but here, he said, staring straight on ahead. Where no one else is.
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A faint, and half-mad smile broke across Ahren’s face. Even now, he was smiling at the absurdity of it, smiling because they had discussed these things so many times, smiling because he had to smile and ignore the fact his son might be dying in the room behind them. “You don’t want to live,” he said, looking up at the rain. “You just want to disappear.” They had become so candid with each other that he no longer cared what he said. He didn’t feel anything either way.
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Of course, he couldn't see that smile. I'm tired, he said, because it was true. One of so very few truths. He was tired of winters and summers, of wanting, of needing, of obligation, of pride, false or otherwise, of the world, of himself, of others, of everyone, of no one. Of conversations like these. Of arguing, of saying nothing, of accepting, of fighting, of dreaming, of thinking. Of everything. Did he want to live? No, not really. Did he want to die? Not if he had to go out of his way to get to it. If it would just take him, however it wanted, quickly, slowly, suddenly or not, in the darkness, in the blinding light of sunrise -- if it would only take him, then he could be content. But he was tired of thinking that, too.
What do you want? If not the same?
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“I don’t know,” Ahren said quietly, still staring up at the swirling gray sky. Once he had believed he had found everything he wanted. That had all gone up in flames, in the alcohol, in the alleys where the dead men came. It had been over a dozen, but he barely remembered any. Mechanical purpose had replaced feeling, and a chaotic impulse had become dominant over the rational, the logical. “I really don’t know,” he said again, though this time, his voice betrayed the smallest amount of defeat.
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He didn't know. No one ever seemed to know. They had the same words, the same questions, the same answers. Laruku was tired, so very, very tired of it all, and he wondered whether there was a point in saying anything else at all because he had, undoubtedly, said it all before. (The answer is that there's never a point, isn't it?) He found that he didn't really even want answers anymore. The validity of any set of words was questionable, and he didn't believe in anything. So really, what was an "answer"? More meaningless thoughts, more meaningless everything. I don't either, he said, quiet, voice holding no feeling, no tone. What he said meant nothing. What he did meant nothing.
He leaned against his friend and set his head on his shoulder. Touch. Meaningless, right? Love, maybe. Feelings, maybe. Betrayal and risk and heartbreak and a desperate neediness, maybe. His mind ached and the demon laughed again. In the end, it would mean nothing.
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The touch, which had only weeks ago been nothing but fire and pain, was comforting. They needed each other, even though they refused to admit this. A nihilist and an existential serial-killer could not hope to survive without some support, as meaningless as it was. So that was why Ahren raised his arm and hooked it around Laruku, letting his fingers trail though his companion’s hair as he watched the rain. Maybe this didn’t matter, and maybe they were all ready dead. Still, though, in the rain and gray-sky earth, they were doing what they had to do in order to survive.
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