Archive of Our Own

ElQuackity isn’t real.

Cellbit has never been as sure of anything as he is of this fact. The sky is blue and its constellations unchanging, the rabbit he hunted eleven days ago is dead, its hide scraped clean and stretched and dried, and ElQuackity isn’t real. He’s an alien, a robot, a mirage, a fake. Not real, not human. He can’t be.

Cellbit killed ElQuackity two weeks ago. This is another fact he knows like the surety of the stars in the sky and the smooth swipe of his new leatherhide holster under his thumb as he anxiously fidgets with the strap. Cellbit remembers watching the light leave those glinting black irises, lightly pinning ElQuackity to the leaf-littered ground with one boot on his chest as the stab wound between his ribs bled his life out steadily. He checked the pulse, the breathing: ElQuackity was a corpse. Cellbit has seen enough of them to know a dead body from a live one. He dug a shallow hole, nudged the body in with a few firm kicks, and didn’t bother to shut ElQuackity’s eyes.

From across the banquet hall, those dead eyes catch his, and his thin lips tip up in a smile, crooked and smug. Cellbit feels a chill sweat sprout on the back of his neck, feeling a bit like those helpless rabbits he hunts when he can’t go another day without tearing meat under his nails. He swallows thickly, suddenly feeling like he’s gulping down a slurry of wet sand, sticky and scratchy sludge in his throat, and the toes of his boots feel too tight, like he’d just finished kicking the body into its nameless grave. The sound of a falling corpse hitting loose, wet dirt plays a rhythm behind his eyes every time he blinks and ElQuackity is still there. Thump. Thump. Thump.

ElQuackity holds his gaze from across the room, still smiling that infuriating bemused grin as he runs a finger around the rim of his champagne flute. His eyes don’t catch the light and he hardly blinks, like his eyes are not eyes at all but a pair of pinhole cameras through which the Federation intently watches Cellbit’s every move. He wears his suit jacket open, dark blue dress shirt popped at the collar, a gold chain glimmering in his clavicle. When Cellbit next inhales, the air is hot and suffocating.

That thing leans against the wall, alone, just staring at Cellbit, as everyone else mills around him like he isn’t there at all. Cellbit is struck with the chilling impression that he is seeing a ghost, or even worse, a hallucination. He hunches over, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes until bursts of sickly color tessellate on the backs of his eyelids. This can’t be happening again. He won’t let it.

An image plays out, a memory, he’s sure. Cellbit holds his breath, daring not move. The frigid concrete cell walls seem to press in. Someone dead stares at him, a man with eyes that are open and trusting and milky, but he knows it’s not real. He should know it’s not real, because people don’t come back once he kills them, especially not when he’s sitting in solitary with their taste still coating his teeth. Blood in his mouth, voices in his head, knife in his hand. 

It’s not real. He tries to convince himself. It’s not real.

“Are you fucking crazy?!”

He vaguely feels his body wilting, curling up protectively as he drops into a half crouch. Even without looking, he can feel the oppressive gaze of those uncanny, dark eyes. He keeps his own eyes firmly shut, petrified that when he opens them it will confirm that he’s lost his mind again, because he’s hallucinating his kills again, and worst of all, he’s being indefinitely haunted by ElQuackity’s smug fucking face. There’s a loud and irritating noise brushing up against him on all sides like a hot, sweating blanket full of needles, the dull roar of a crowd and the sharp clink of silverware on fine china plates. The anxious voices in his head are even louder; they always are.

Why did you do it? What the hell did you think would happen? Now he’ll never leave you alone!

Something touches his shoulder and he whips around, teeth bared as he sucks air through them. The first thing he sees is a hand, frozen mid-air as if comforting a frightened animal. A tattooed arm, some vague suggestion of blue. His eyes track upward and meet Jaiden’s. Her mouth is moving, but he can’t hear her; the voices haven’t gone away so much as they have turned to a burning, lingering static.

Jaiden motions at her own ears, and Cellbit realizes he’s clamped his hands down against his head. He doesn’t remember doing that, and that’s kind of…well, pretty typical, actually. He takes a measured inhale and slowly peels his hands from his ears, standing so Jaiden is no longer towering over him. When the noise floods back in, he digs his nails into his palms, clenching and unclenching one fist.

“Are you okay?” she’s asking. He stares at her earlobe instead of her eyes. “Actually, don’t answer that. Wanna get out of here for a minute?” She jerks her head towards one of the doors that leads to a balcony.

Cellbit’s eyes dart back to where ElQuackity had been standing, but he’s gone, now. Swallowing sand again, and not trusting his voice at all, he nods.

The night air is warm with a mild, crisp breeze, the same cookie-cutter perfect weather that the island has day in and day out. Cellbit leans up against the ornate marble railing and stares at the ground below, the islanders’ eclectic, colorful buildings and paths dotted with glittering lights, and breathes deep, mindfully expanding and deflating his lungs. 

The high balcony of the palatial Federation building provides an ideal vantage point to see the entire west side of the island, until the distant point where the lights fade and the dark blends the ground and the mountains and the sky into a gradient of dim blue. A few stars twinkle on the horizon, but the excessive outdoor lighting of the Fed building’s grand columns and windows make it difficult to see any constellations. There is no moon, the sky blank like a cleared chalkboard in the light-polluted glow of the party. 

Cellbit takes in another long, cool breath, the faint scent of the ocean on the breeze tingling his nose. He suddenly feels like he should be smoking, something to occupy his hands, even though he’s never had a cigarette.

Jaiden reappears at his elbow with a sweating glass of water. He takes it and hopes she doesn’t notice the minute tremble of his hands as he sips from it.

“It can be a lot,” Jaiden remarks, folding her arms on the railing and joining him in looking out into the night. “I get it.”

It occurs to Cellbit that Jaiden thinks he was overstimulated because of the party. Which, well—maybe that was part of it. She’s seen him overwhelmed before, and he only somewhat bitterly acknowledges that Roier has probably spoken to her about his meltdowns more than once when he’s been worried for him. Cellbit takes another sip in an effort to clear his throat, gripping the glass so the condensation pools in the hollow of his forefinger and thumb. It feels dishonest to let her think that, somehow. Still, it feels nice to be cared for. 

“Roier was roped into doing tequila shots with Max. I swear, those two are nuts. You might have to carry him home, later,” Jaiden continues with a smile in her tone that makes it sound like a joke but which Cellbit knows is partly serious. He huffs an exhale through his nose, the most he can give her, but already feels more settled. He glances over at her.

Jaiden wore a suit to the party. At some point in the night she discarded her jacket, leaving her now in a cuffed-up white collared shirt and slim black necktie. Her brilliant blue wings are folded behind her as she leans forward and stares out with her chin propped on one hand. The lights from below light her jaw and cheekbones in a warm, acid glow as the breeze tousles her hair. She looks handsome and effortlessly put-together, despite toting Cellbit out here to calm him down like he’s an unruly toddler she’s had to wrangle out of a fancy restaurant. When she finally looks over at him, he ducks his gaze, feeling silly.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. His voice still feels weird and small in his throat, like it’s been smothered away by the memory, but it’s not as bad as it usually is. Sometimes he doesn’t get his voice back for hours afterwards. The fresh air is helping, maybe.

“Aw, you don’t have to thank me. But you’re welcome,” says Jaiden. 

Cellbit huffs and picks at his nails. They’re getting a little long. He likes them that way, but if they get too long, they’ll just break, ugly and useless.

“Some party, huh?” Jaiden says.

Cellbit scoffs, and Jaiden laughs.

“Yeah, I know,” she agrees. “Not sure this is really doing much for ‘island morale,’ unless you consider drinking yourself blackout in a fancy outfit to be personally gratifying.”

Cellbit turns around and peers into the party through the wide balcony doors. Most everyone is spectacularly wasted, especially the other egg parents. He chews the inside of his cheek as he watches Foolish playfully prod at Baghera, who is completely prone across a table, faded pink hair fanned out across the white tablecloth. The Federation loves feeding them unhealthy coping mechanisms disguised as morale boosters. Cellbit is convinced they do it on purpose to make them even more miserable, as if giving them children to love then senselessly stealing them away wasn’t twisted enough. He sighs, glancing back at Jaiden. He’s not surprised she hasn’t gotten drunk. Her grief is less of a knifepoint wound and more like a beast that sits on her shoulders, a weight to which she’s long grown accustomed.

“Have you had anything to drink?” she asks.

Cellbit shakes his head. They had arrived late, and he had only come because Roier wanted to. He’d wanted to stay alert in case Cucurucho or some other abstract danger showed up. This island was a nightmare, and sometimes he felt like he was the only one who cared about this fact.

“Anything to eat?” Jaiden presses. “At all, today?”

Cellbit shrugs. He vaguely recalls picking at a plate of canapés when they arrived, hours ago.

“Okay, one sec,” Jaiden says, and is gone. Cellbit sighs. He wants to go home.

From the glowing rectangle of festivities Cellbit observes through the open veranda doors, he still can’t see ElQuackity anymore. He wonders again if it was a hallucination, and grits his teeth to avoid freaking out again. It was a horrible idea to kill him, a pointless lapse in judgement when Cellbit had been satisfying his killing urge with small animals for months.

Cellbit hates the fact that he needs to hunt so often in the first place; it makes him feel like a freak, and unstable, though he knows if he didn’t do it, he would really be unwell. Every few months, the flashbacks pick up; he can’t sleep, he becomes irritable and irrational and scared, and he can’t calm down until he tears something up and tastes its blood. It’s honestly disgusting, and he always feels vile afterwards, but it sates that animal-child part of his brain that lives on the battlefield and never calms down, reassuring it that he is still capable of protecting himself.

It has taken him a long time, years, to get to this place where he feels relatively okay, and has figured out a system that works. If the lives of a few animals are all it takes, well…better than people.

Needless to say, Cellbit undertakes these “hunting trips” alone. It’s a disgusting and humiliating ritual, and he would hate for anyone to see him crouched on the forest floor, tearing open a raw animal with his teeth. Which is of course exactly where ElQuackity found him, two weeks ago.

He’s on the edge of the woods behind the castle, bordering the cliffs. The ruby leaf litter on the ground thirstily absorbs the dripping blood as Cellbit digs his teeth into his hunt’s throat, humming. It’s a mountain goat, one that had probably wandered up from the nearby rocks and had been easy pickings. Now that he holds it, limp and very small in his arms, Cellbit realizes it might be a juvenile. He hums again and settles into a more comfortable position on the ground, cross-legged as he inhales the musky animal smell of its wiry fur and tastes its gamey blood. 

He doesn’t typically eat much of the animal when he hunts; just holding it in his mouth and sitting here for a while is enough to calm him. It’s dawn, the sun reaching its first fingers of light across the fog-tipped mountains, and it’s almost peaceful, until there’s the snap of a branch behind him. Cellbit whirls around, almost choking, and ElQuackity screams.

“Ay!! El Chupacabra!” he shrieks, pointing. It takes Cellbit several seconds to register that he’s being made fun of, more focused on the alarm bells blaring in his head that someone is here, interrupting his hunt. It won’t work if he’s not alone. It’s ruined.

“Leave,” he growls, dropping the goat and rising into a crouch.

ElQuackity blinks. “Leave? But I just got here. And you’re out here being super gross and interesting.”

Cellbit’s ears buzz, agitation building in his brainstem like a furious swarm of wasps. The muscles in his neck tighten to the point of shooting pain. “Get out.”

“You’d think a guy could take a morning stroll through the woods without seeing some freak sacrificing a baby goat.” ElQuackity ignores him, stepping closer. He sniffs, turning his nose up. “Jesus, I tried to tell Roier he was sleeping with crazy.”

The blood on Cellbit’s hands is becoming tacky, seeping into the creases of his fingers and sticking every time he flexes his fists. That animal part of his brain wails like a klaxon, screaming at him to kill, maul, kill. Make them stop watching. Make him stop being seen. A guttural sound escapes his throat, growl-like. His hand goes to his knife at his hip.

“Wow, I’m so scared,” ElQuackity mocks. He slouches with his hands in the pockets of his overalls, like he’s no more intimidated by Cellbit than a kitten baring its teeth. “Jeez, what were we thinking, bringing someone like you here? And leaving you around the kids, no less.” His eyes flit down to the slaughtered goat. “Guess it’s only a matter of time before you murder another innocent baby.”

Cellbit leaps at him, knife drawn. He tackles him to the ground and pins him down in an instant, one sticky hand gripping ElQuackity’s wrists above his head as he bears down on his stomach, holding his knife to his throat.

“Shit!” ElQuackity shouts. He writhes, but can’t buck Cellbit off, much lighter and at a helpless disadvantage. His beanie slips off and bits of leaves tangle in his dark hair. “Get the fuck off!”

“You hate those kids,” Cellbit seethes. He’s so furious that he can hardly hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears like the roar of a bursting dam. “You don’t give a shit about them. You kidnap them. You hurt them. I never have.”

“What?” ElQuackity struggles again. “Come on—”

“You’re the reason they’re gone. You probably know where they are and think it’s fucking funny, don’t you?” Cellbit spits. Bright red goat blood drips from his beard and lips and lands in flecks on ElQuackity’s face, who sputters.

“Fuck, get off me, crazy!” ElQuackity rolls back and forth, but it’s useless. Cellbit presses the knife down, and the threat goes still. Beneath his knuckles, Cellbit can feel ElQuackity’s pulse thundering in his neck. A childish impulse in Cellbit thrills at having overpowered his attacker, relief making his head light. Once he’s done here, he can go home. He’ll just drag his knife across the throat, and this person will never bother him again.

Sitting there atop his opponent, Cellbit pants, holding the knife firmly enough that the blade prevents any movement. Sounds begin to trickle in through the fuzz of adrenaline in his ears: a bird chirps nearby, a melody he’s never heard before on the arid plains of the Games. Above him in the treetops, cicadas begin their droning buzz. The wet morning mist makes the hair on his arms prickle.

The aggressive pumping of blood through Cellbit’s body abruptly solidifies into cool dread as he recognizes the murderous impulse he just felt. He sits up, leaning back and away from ElQuackity’s face. The knife has left an angry red line across his throat.

“I—” Cellbit starts, not sure himself what he’s about to say. Surely, he doesn’t want to apologize. He never gets the chance to figure that out as ElQuackity shoves him down and leaps forward, taking the chance to pin him.

As soon as he lands on his back, Cellbit tucks his elbows on reflex, the point of his knife facing upward. ElQuackity lands his tackle with a punched-out exhale and Cellbit freezes, feeling his fingers flush with ElQuackity’s warm, damp shirtfront. The blade is inside. ElQuackity stills, too, propped up above Cellbit in shock until a trickle of blood dribbles from his mouth. 

Cellbit nudges him off and looks at where the base of the knife landed, wedged high between two of his left ribs. It’s almost comical. It’s so ridiculous and fucked up that it’s hard to feel anything at all.

Cellbit shudders, remembering, and swipes his sweaty hands against the smooth marble balustrade behind him. It was so impulsive to attack him, and deeply, painfully stupid. There wasn’t much else to do after that. He’d eventually gotten up, waited for ElQuackity to bleed out, then left him in that makeshift grave a bit further into the woods. Cellbit has spent every day since then waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the Federation to dole out a new and exquisitely torturous punishment for him for breaking their toy.

He should probably feel worse for killing again. And at first, he did—but, well…is ElQuackity really a human? He’s more like a mysterious ghoul wearing the face of their missing friend, inexplicably sent by the Federation to grief their homes for fun and laugh at their misfortune. Predictably, nobody even seemed to notice that he was gone, except for Roier commenting one evening that he hadn’t seen him in a while. Nobody really cared. Cellbit feels vindicated for getting rid of the little dickhead, even if it was partially an accident.

Jaiden strolls back outside, carrying a plate of food. She sets it on the banister between them, turning to the side and poking it towards him. He must be making a scary face, because she furrows her brow.

“You okay?” she asks. Cellbit nods. “Okay, eat something, then.” She pops a grape into her mouth and pulls out her communicator.

The plate has some fresh fruit, small fried pies that look like miniature pastéis, some sort of rolled tortilla, and a few colorful French macarons. Cellbit picks up one of the pastel-looking things and nibbles it—it’s full of seasoned meat. Realizing at once how hungry he is, he stuffs the rest into his mouth and picks up another.

“Hey, Jaiden,” he starts, after he swallows.

“Yeah?” she asks, not looking up from her scrolling.

“Was ElQuackity at the party tonight?”

Jaiden looks at him with a mild expression. If she is surprised Cellbit is asking after ElQuackity, she doesn’t show it. 

“Yeah, he was. I haven’t seen him in a while though, I think he left early. He hardly even talked to anyone, the cryptic bastard.”

Relief and confused terror crash into Cellbit in alternating waves that leave him feeling nauseous and a bit cold. 

“So I wasn’t hallucinating,” he murmurs.

“Cellbit, what—”

A body suddenly drapes itself across Cellbit’s back and he stiffens completely, nails digging into his tightened fists, until he smells the familiar scent of cedarwood and warm stone.

“Gatinhooo,” Roier sings, nuzzling his face into the side of Cellbit’s neck. Cellbit sighs fondly and reaches up to gently scratch his husband’s scalp. Roier would have remembered not to sneak up behind Cellbit if he weren’t so drunk, but Cellbit can’t be mad when his love is this cute and clingy.

“Hi, Roier,” Jaiden greets, frowning a little at first but relaxing when she sees Cellbit isn’t bothered. She gives Cellbit a look that says that their conversation isn’t over, which Cellbit willfully ignores.

“Hey, guapito,” Cellbit says quietly. “Feeling okay?”

“Feeling good, feeling great,” Roier asserts. “You having fun at the party?”

Roier slurs his words, but he’s at least intelligible. Maybe Cellbit won’t have to carry him. 

“I’m feeling tired,” Cellbit tells him. “Can we go home?”

“Mm, me too,” says Roier, slumping further against Cellbit’s back and looping his arms around his waist. “So sleepy.”

Cellbit snorts, looking at him. All his eyes are closed as he holds Cellbit and sways in place. “Você pode caminhar pra casa?”

Roier lets him go for a second, stumbles, then giggles and plops back down against Cellbit, draping his arms over his shoulders. “Nnnnão,” he replies.

Cellbit sighs and crouches, hoisting Roier onto his back, who giggles again.

“I’m going to take him home,” Cellbit tells Jaiden, who has been watching this exchange with a bemused expression. She gives him a two-fingered salute.

“Take care of him,” she says. Then, leaning in, she adds, “And yourself. Okay?”

Cellbit feels that familiar twist of guilt and solace in his stomach that comes every time he remembers that people on this island actually care about him. He nods.

Starting off towards the warp stone, Roier a warm, solid weight on his back, Cellbit braces himself. There’s something he has to do.

He has to make sure.

With his husband tucked into bed, Cellbit stands in the woods behind the castle, dowsing the ground with the flashlight on his communicator. It’s around here, somewhere. He feels pretty stupid for not remembering better where the grave was, like he’s given up a tactical advantage—though then again, he never thought he’d be returning to it. The woods are unusually quiet, and Cellbit gets the uncanny sense that all the owls and rabbits and crickets are holding their breaths, observing him.

Eventually, he finds a patch of depressed earth at the base of a tree, less covered with leaves than the ground around it. He props his light up so the whole area is dimly illuminated, then kneels and starts digging with his hands. The dirt is loose and the hole is shallow enough that it isn’t long before he uncovers the tarp he’d laid over the body to prevent the odor from escaping. Taking a deep breath, he peels back the corner.

“Ugh!” he cries, flinching back and dropping the tarp. That was a very dead, very decomposing face, and was definitely ElQuackity. He gags slightly when a puff of the rancid smell hits him, blinking hard against it. 

Staring down at the uncovered grave, he holds his breath and grabs the tarp again. He’ll look one more time. Just to make sure.

“What’s the damage?” says a voice from behind him. 

Cellbit’s blood freezes.

When he turns his head, ElQuackity is standing several paces away, hands in his suit pockets. He’s still wearing his party outfit—he must have been waiting here for hours. Cellbit swallows and grips the corner of the tarp, rubbing the waxy plastic surface between his fingers. He pulls it back slightly and darts his eyes towards it, not looking away from the living ElQuackity for too long, just to once more see the sliver of grayed skin, the tiny insects crawling. He holds it open just long enough for the smell to reach ElQuackity, who retches dramatically.

“Ew! Dude, that is nasty, cover your leftovers,” he coughs, covering his nose and flapping his other hand in Cellbit’s direction like he can bat the stench out of the air. Cellbit drops it and straightens up.

“Why are you here?” Cellbit asks, fighting to keep his voice steady. This is unprecedented, terra incognita. He’s not sure what to do now, and despite everything is still not fully convinced he’s not hallucinating. 

“What do you mean, why?” ElQuackity says, sniffling into his hand. “You’re the one who killed me. If anything, I should ask you why you’re digging me back up like a weirdo. Were the appetizers at the party not filling enough?”

“I didn’t—” Cellbit sputters. ElQuackity rolls his eyes, and Cellbit decides that’s a battle not worth fighting. “How are you alive?” he demands.

ElQuackity shrugs and drops his hand. “You know, it’s not so easy to get rid of me.”

Cellbit has no idea what he means by that. He bites his cheek, regarding ElQuackity. He finds himself mentally cataloguing the differences between him and Quackity, whom none of them have seen for a while: the moles on his face are in different spots, particularly the one on his upper lip; the crest wings at his temples are a paler yellow; his eyes are duller, like two tarnished coins in his skull. He looks real, and even Jaiden said she saw him at the party. Still…Cellbit closes the space between them, stalking towards ElQuackity before he has time to react. ElQuackity flinches, but isn’t fast enough to jerk away as Cellbit grabs his wrist.

Despite his avoidance, ElQuackity holds still and quiet once Cellbit has him. His cuff has ridden up, and the skin of his wrist is warm. Cellbit palpates it for a few seconds, feeling the bone and tendons and soft skin. There’s another mole on his wrist, and when Cellbit thumbs it, it’s slightly raised, as it should be. He’s solid. Real. ElQuackity finally yanks his hand away, and Cellbit allows him, satisfied.

“Seriously, man,” ElQuackity says. “You’re weird.”

Cellbit looks between him and the open grave. 

“You can’t possibly think I’m the weird one for being here,” he says, feeling a bit defensive. “I killed you. Last time I checked, people stay dead when they are killed.” 

“You hardly killed me,” ElQuackity shrugs. “Must not have been trying very hard, if I’m back already.”

Cellbit’s brow twitches. “Well technically, you killed yourself on my knife, asshole.” He points at the grave. “You died, and I buried you right here.”

“Did a shit job of it, too,” ElQuackity adds.

“Your body is still there,” Cellbit continues, willing himself to not indulge any more of ElQuackity’s taunts. “Obviously. So who are you?”

“ElQuackity,” ElQuackity says.

“No, you’re not.” It’s all Cellbit can think to say as he grows steadily uneasier. This makes no sense, and the idea of an enemy that doesn’t stay dead sits impossibly wrong with him. A squirming feeling picks up in his chest, twisting his insides like a wet plastic bag, the longer he thinks about the true implications of this.

“No? I think I can tell if I’m me.” Perhaps feeling bolder, ElQuackity dips back into Cellbit’s personal space, cupping his own face between his hands and wiggling his fingers. “You can look at this pretty face all you want, if the one in the hole over there is too ugly for you.”

Not quite intending to use it yet, Cellbit sets his hand on his knife holster. It has the intended effect when ElQuackity darts away, holding up his hands.

“Whoa there, hot ‘n’ crazy,” he says. “Let’s not go there again.”

Cellbit pulls out the knife. A glint of fear and recognition crosses ElQuackity’s dull eyes like heat lightning, gone in a blink.

“Don’t call me that,” says Cellbit.

“Okay, how about just ‘crazy?’ You seemed to love that, last time.”

Cellbit grips the knife but doesn’t move. The twisting feeling hasn’t gone away but gotten worse, and intensifies the longer he stares at ElQuackity. 

He is an enemy to them all, sent by the Federation, with unknown motives, none of which can be good. A shady operative from the administration set on destroying Cellbit’s life, who has taken a specific interest in bothering Cellbit specifically. A dangerous unknown variable from whom Cellbit is incapable of defending himself, because for whatever reason, he won’t stay dead. 

As long as ElQuackity is alive, he’ll never feel safe again.

He grits his teeth as the swirling thoughts continue to bubble up in his head like a pot boiling over.

“Um.” ElQuackity clears his throat, and Cellbit’s eyes zero back on him. He’s fidgeting, his stance staggered like he’s ready to run, his gaze on Cellbit’s hand. On the knife. “Sorry, are we done talking? Can I go now? You’re kind of just standing there, it’s giving me the creeps.”

“I’ll tell you this once,” Cellbit starts. His voice is still quieter than he would like and a bit gravelly, but ElQuackity freezes and listens. “Stay away from me. Stay away from my family.” He looks down at the knife in his hand, then back up at ElQuackity. “If I see you again, I think I really will kill you.”

“Haha, uh—right, stay away from you, right, okay.” ElQuackity looks nervous for another second, but in the next he’s back to looking as smug as ever. “Looks like that’s my cue. Hasta luego,” he calls, then hightails it out of there. 

Cellbit isn’t sure he’s ever seen someone run that fast through forest underbrush since his war days. A certain cortisol thrill blooms beneath his skin, electrifying each vein and capillary in a warm buzz. He sheaths the knife.

Cellbit remains on the alert, still unnerved by the reappearance (revival?) of ElQuackity, but the next several days pass with little fanfare. He shifts his attention to sifting through the few Federation documents he’d pilfered from his stint in the census bureau for mentions of regeneration or clones, which proves even worse than useless. He’s wasted his nights drowsing at his desk when he could have been cuddling with Roier. 

ElQuackity is still causing trouble around the island, and Cellbit hears about him in little stories, like “ElQuackity killed a bunch of my horses” or “ElQuackity left a landmine in my wheat field,” but he seems to have the common sense not to show his face around Cellbit.

“ElQuackity stole Maxo’s sunglasses, he told me yesterday,” Roier says, tossing and catching a bright red stress ball as he walks. “Can you believe it? This guy already has, like, one million pairs of shades.”

It’s another perfect, sunny day, elegant rays dappling the dirt path ahead of them as they cross through the trees. Roier had invited Cellbit to clear an abandoned mineshaft together, and Cellbit had jumped at the opportunity to spend quality time alone with him. His eyes hurt from staring at fine print all night, the hot sun glaring down on him like a personal insult. Still, he’s trying his best to enjoy the day with Roier.

It’s a bit more difficult when he keeps talking about ElQuackity.

“How does Max know it was ElQuackity?” Cellbit asks, mild as anything. Just the thought of him sets every one of Cellbit’s nerves on edge, but he doesn’t need to worry Roier with that.

“Apparently he left a note.” Roier laughs, a buoyant ha-ha that usually makes Cellbit want to start laughing with him. “This guy—a note, seriously. Like, ‘I’m borrowing these, expect them back never.’ What a bastard, eh?”

Cellbit can’t put his finger on it, but there’s something in Roier’s tone that he doesn’t like. There’s a note of fondness, maybe even admiration.

“Do you like him?” he blurts out. Roier looks over at him and Cellbit watches the ground, at once embarrassed for asking.

“Who, ElQuackity? No, man, he’s horrible.” Roier catches the ball one last time and pockets it. “Wait, you didn’t mean like-like him? Because, no also. Is that what you meant?”

“Talvez,” says Cellbit, though he’s not really sure what he meant. All these relationship intricacies of “like” and “like like” tend to fly way over his head. All he knows is he doesn’t want ElQuackity anywhere near Roier.

“Don’t worry, gatinho, you’re stuck with me,” Roier says, throwing an arm around his shoulders as they walk. Cellbit stumbles slightly as Roier presses a firm, long kiss to his cheek, pulling away with an exaggerated smack. 

Cellbit feels his cheeks fill with a dopey smile. Even after almost a year of marriage, it’s so hard to believe someone as perfect as Roier loves him. He’s never loved someone this much in his entire life. He hooks his arm with Roier’s and bumps his head against his husband’s shoulder as they begin to climb a tall hill in the path.

“…Hablando del rey de roma,” Roier mutters as they crest the hill, squinting ahead.

Cellbit lets go of his arm. “O que?”

Roier gestures with his chin, and when Cellbit follows his gaze, he goes rigid, his jaws twinging with the force they clamp together.

Several blocks from the base of the hill stands the mouth of the mine. And in front of the mine, stands ElQuackity.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” is the first thing Cellbit says, already feeling his palms clench and sweat. Then, to Roier: “Did you invite him?”

“No, what?” Roier turns his attention to Cellbit. “This is our date. I wouldn’t.”

“But—the waystone was, like, in the middle of nowhere! You set this up, right? The path and everything?” Cellbit scuffs at the dirt path with the toe of his boot, kicking up tiny mushroom clouds of dusty earth as he keeps his gaze fixed on ElQuackity, a slouching figure in the distance. 

“Yup. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

Being on the island for so long, all the areas near where they resided had long since been mined clean. Cellbit knew that while it was not too hard to find untouched mines like this much further out, it was time-consuming and a bit dangerous. Roier wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to set up this date just to invite someone else, let alone ElQuackity. Which means…

“Filho da puta,” Cellbit mutters. “I believe you. I should’ve known he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Whaaat? Has he been following you? Since when? Why?” Roier begins peppering him with questions as Cellbit starts down the hill.

“Yes. And I don’t know,” Cellbit answers. He decides to not mention what happened in the forest. Roier doesn’t need to worry about all that.

Just the sight of ElQuackity again fills Cellbit with sharp agitation, and more horrifyingly, fear. His mind floods with images of the last time he killed ElQuackity, but this time, Cellbit stabs him on purpose. This time, he’s the one on top, twisting the knife. 

This time, he’s the one in control. 

He swallows hard and breathes through his nose, trying not to show Roier how much he suddenly feels at the verge of a freakout, intrusive thoughts flickering through his head like a fucked-up picture show.

“Everything okay? You seem really, um, worked up.” Roier asks anyway, resting a hand between his shoulders. They stop for a moment.

“Fine,” says Cellbit. He takes a deep breath in then releases it slowly. “Let’s just see what he wants.” He walks again, and Roier doesn’t press.

As they get closer, Cellbit steps lighter, signaling to Roier to stay quiet with a finger to his lips, who grins and plays along. He wants to see how close they can get before ElQuackity notices them. 

ElQuackity leans against the rock face, his trademark obnoxious shades covering his eyes. If he simply looked up he would see them, but his head is ducked low as he pretends to sort through his simple black inventory bag to look busy. It’s easy to tell he’s pretending by the way the same items make frequent reappearances. Cellbit stops and squints. An invisibility potion. An apple. A flint and steel. A health potion. The flint and steel again.

The fact he is still oblivious to their presence, mere paces away, shows an astounding lack of observation. Cellbit could cut him down right now, if he were trying. He would never survive being hunted. The thought makes Cellbit feel a little better.

“Or maybe it’s just a ploy,” Cellbit thinks aloud under his breath. 

“Ooh, stalker mode,” Roier whispers. “Sexy. What’s just a ploy?”

“Him being so stupid right now,” Cellbit says. 

“Pinche Quackity,” Roier chuckles. “He wouldn’t know a creeper was behind him even if it stopped and gave him una mamada.”

The implication that this thing is the same as Quackity in anything but appearance makes Cellbit feel sick, as does the reminder that Roier is friends with ElQuackity himself, but to get into why that bothers him so much would mean explaining everything to Roier, so he just huffs a laugh and continues down the path.

It’s not until they’re within earshot that ElQuackity finally looks up. He waves, smiling like a cat.

“Cellbit, Roier!” he crows. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He spreads his arms wide, like he’s welcoming them to the mine that Roier scouted out, after they came on the path that Roier clearly had made. Cellbit fixes him with a silent glare.

“Eh, not much, you know, just going on a date with my husband,” says Roier. 

He folds his arms, and Cellbit mirrors him, hoping it makes them look like a more united front. A glance at Roier shows his mouth pressed into a tight line, but it keeps twitching, like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Oh…oh! Well I sure hope I’m not interrupting,” ElQuackity says, obviously extremely pleased to be interrupting. “I was just about to go down here for some resources, you know how it is. Always on that grind.”

“Okay…” Roier says. “At this mine? Five thousand blocks from the castle?”

“Yup.” ElQuackity shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets, grin cracking open to show a glint of teeth.

They all stare at each other for a moment, the couple clearly waiting for ElQuackity to get the hint and leave. Cellbit knows he won’t. He just stands there smiling like getting under Cellbit’s skin is his life’s purpose. Even through the tinted lenses, Cellbit can feel his eyes dissecting him.

“Why do you even need to mine here, anyway?” Cellbit finally demands. “Don’t the Federation give you everything you need?” ElQuackity’s smile shrinks at that, but in a blink it’s back, so quickly it almost seemed a trick of the light. Cellbit presses on. “I bet you’re sitting on stacks of diamonds right now. Just leave us alone on our date, asshole.”

ElQuackity inclines his head to reveal his eyes. He stares at Cellbit the same way he had that night in the banquet hall—dead, unblinking eyes still twinkling with sadistic mirth.

“And if I don’t?” ElQuackity asks, giving Cellbit that creepy look over the rim of his shades.

Cellbit feels his eye twitch. He still doesn’t understand why ElQuackity is so obsessed with tormenting him, but encroaching on his time with Roier is unforgivable. He would be furious even if this wasn’t someone he already wanted to kill.

“I told you what would happen if I saw you again,” Cellbit warns. His knife rests on the hip opposite the side where Roier stands, so he brings his hand to it, smirking when he sees ElQuackity give the slightest flinch.

“Hey, hey, okay,” Roier steps in then, like Cellbit expected him to. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Cellbit’s threat was anything but verbal, not sparing a glance to the knife as Cellbit casually releases it. “Listen to me, Cellbinho,” he says, putting a hand on Cellbit’s shoulder and turning his back to ElQuackity. “Let’s just go in. He can follow us or not, but we're not gonna let that be our problem. Okay?”

Cellbit catches ElQuackity’s eye over Roier’s shoulder, who gives him another smarmy grin. It doesn’t seem he’s learned, or heeded the warning Cellbit has very fairly given.

“Okay,” Cellbit agrees, still staring down ElQuackity. His mind begins to wander to how he can teach him a lesson once he gets him alone—it would only take a little shove at one of those deep, dark crevasses. Roier pinches Cellbit’s neck until he looks at him and gives him a quick kiss, rolling his eyes.

“It’ll be fine,” he promises. “Vamos, gatinho.”

It’s not fine. Cellbit glares in mute rage as ElQuackity walks ahead with Roier. He whispers something with a hand cupped around Roier’s ear that makes Roier laugh so boisterously it echoes against the low stone ceiling.

Roier, bless him, is too friendly to ignore ElQuackity, despite the fact that this was supposed to be their date, and his friend might be the antichrist. Cellbit considers that might be too far, but then ElQuackity swings an arm around his husband’s shoulders and looks back to wink at him. 

Cellbit swings his pickaxe so violently into the nearest hunk of iron that the impact jars his arm from wrist to shoulder. ElQuackity watches him shake out his hand and gives a quiet snort before turning back to Roier.

Yeah, he’s definitely the antichrist.

Cellbit never had an issue with Roier being friends with ElQuackity, before. In fact, he remembers feeling a bit impressed. No one seems to really like ElQuackity, because he strives unusually hard to be unlikeable. Cellbit had always thought that the effort Roier put in to be his friend—probably his only friend—reflected more on his husband’s goodness and easygoing nature than anything else. It was sweet.

That was, of course, before Cellbit found out that ElQuackity was some sort of…immortal homunculus, sent by the Federation to stalk him. And before he found out just how much ElQuackity has apparently been flirting with his husband.

ElQuackity takes the moment to playfully fiddle with Roier’s hoodie string, sending another stupid look backward as he does so. He clearly revels in how much this act is irritating Cellbit, but Roier doesn’t seem to notice nor care how ElQuackity clings to him like a limpet. Like nothing is out of the ordinary.

ElQuackity still has his arm around Roier’s shoulders. It’s been too long. Cellbit sidles up on Roier’s other side and swats ElQuackity’s hand away, replacing it with his own.

“Oi, guapito,” he starts. “How are you doing?”

“Hey!” ElQuackity cuts in. “Aren’t you meant to be on mob defense? Get back there.”

Cellbit looks back to where ElQuackity now walks behind them, forced backward due to the narrowness of the passageway. He gives him a mean smile.

“I think you’ll manage,” he replies.

“It opens up ahead, anyway,” Roier says, and normally Cellbit would be glad for his helpfulness, but the way ElQuackity lights up at Cellbit’s missed opportunity to tease him back fills Cellbit with another spate of fury. He tries to convey on his face all the ways he is fantasizing about causing ElQuackity’s violent end. 

“Ay, that’s it, that’s the scary face,” ElQuackity fake-cries, and as soon as the passage widens into another large cavern, he darts ahead to cling to Roier again.

Roier stops, looks down at both his arms locked in firm grips, and sighs.

“Guys, come on,” he says, though he sounds like he’s trying not to laugh again. “I need a free hand to hold my pick.”

Cellbit glowers at ElQuackity harder. Strangling you, he thinks. Burning you in lava. Pushing you from a high place. Slitting your throat.

ElQuackity gives another mocking shriek and hides behind Roier’s shoulder. The way he only pretends to be threatened is just as annoying as it was last time.

“Roier, ayúdame. Your husband is going to kill me,” he stage-whispers.

Cellbit raises his eyebrows. “You think I won’t?”

“Look, friends, diamonds,” Roier says, pointing ahead with his chin. “If only I had a free arm to mine them.”

Cellbit doesn’t let go, obviously. He’s holding Roier’s left hand, and he’s his husband. Why should he have to let go? 

ElQuackity keeps clinging to Roier’s dominant arm like a leech, making a show of whimpering and burying his face into his shoulder. Roier shoots Cellbit an apologetic look but makes no effort to shake him off. Cellbit narrows his eyes.

“I hate you,” he says to ElQuackity.

“God knows why,” ElQuackity mumbles, sounding petulant now. “What’d I ever do to you?”

Cellbit feels his eyes almost bug out from his skull. “‘What did I ever’—what? ” He laughs. “You do this shit on purpose. Everyone hates you.”

Roier tenses under his hand, and Cellbit feels a tiny spark of guilt. Not for what he said, but for how he’s stooping down to ElQuackity’s level in front of Roier. He'll have to apologize later.

“And you hate everyone, so I guess we’re even,” ElQuackity sniffs. 

“Alright,” Roier says, dislodging them both with a forceful shake as he steps forward. “Guys, enough. This area is big enough that we can split up, we don’t have to be all on top of each other. Let’s keep going, okay?” He gives Cellbit a look over his shoulder urging him to follow, and walks off in the direction of the diamonds he spotted earlier.

Cellbit doesn’t move. Neither does ElQuackity.

“Don’t you want to go with him?” asks ElQuackity. He shifts on his feet, looking oddly bereft at how suddenly Roier had pulled away. His fidgeting only makes Cellbit angrier.

“I could ask you the same thing. What’s your problem with me?” he demands.

“What? What does that have to do with anyth—”

“Stop flirting with my husband,” Cellbit clarifies.

ElQuackity stares at him for a beat. Then, he throws his head back and laughs.

“Oh, Cellbit! Cellbit, what? You’re really that insecure, that you thought I was flirting with—haha!” He gives Cellbit a benign smile. “You’re even more pathetic than I thought.”

Cellbit frowns at the blatant manipulation attempt. “I know what I saw. You were doing it on purpose, to make me mad.”

“Sounds like you’re projecting,” ElQuackity sighs, spinning on his heel and walking in a separate direction from where Roier went. “Maybe it’s you who has a problem with me.”

“Only because you started tormenting me first,” Cellbit says, stalking after him. Sweat beads up and falls down the back of his neck in nauseous anticipation as he realizes he can’t hear Roier anymore. He has ElQuackity all alone.

“Tormenting you,” ElQuackity repeats, snickering. “That’s a good one. ‘ElQuackity the Tormentor,’ it has a nice ring to it.” He clambers up a ridge of fallen rocks, pausing near the top. “Do you realize how melodramatic you sound, like, constantly? Doesn’t it ever get old?”

As Cellbit clambers after him, he realizes the sweat is not just from his premonitions of murder. An undulating, warm glow coats the rocky ceiling, and as he reaches the edge of the outcropping, a blast of heat hits Cellbit’s face. Looking down into the crevasse reveals a small pit of molten lava several blocks below.

ElQuackity peers over the edge. “Huh. Didn’t think we were deep enough for lava,” he observes inanely.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Cellbit growls. 

“Isn’t it?” ElQuackity turns back to him. “I crashed your date, and you’re projecting because you can’t imagine Roier enjoying anyone else’s company over your miserable, psycho self.”

“So you admit it,” Cellbit bites out. He hates how he shakes with rage, how ElQuackity knows how to push his buttons so effectively that he seems to lose all control of himself. “You came here to ruin our date.”

“Well, duh,” ElQuackity says. “But I didn’t even have to do anything. You spoiled it all on your own. Poor Roier.”

Cellbit steps closer. “The fuck do you mean, ‘poor Roier?’”

“Is a monster like you even capable of love beyond possessiveness and jealousy?” ElQuackity asks blithely. “You’re so afraid of being alone that you’ll cling to anyone who is nice to you. That’s sad. He deserves better.”

Cellbit can’t speak another word around the hot tinderbox of rage fuming in his chest, anger filling his throat like thick smoke. He cocks his head toward the pit behind ElQuackity, who laughs.

“Oh, come on. You won’t.” He blinks slow and satisfied, spidery eyelashes casting strange shadows under his eyes in the irregular backlight of glowing magma. “What would Roier think?”

Cellbit lunges forward and shoves ElQuackity’s shoulders, hard.

ElQuackity stumbles backwards to the edge, and there’s a wonderful moment as he overbalances, pinwheeling his arms with a look of pure, eye-white surprise and terror. Cellbit stands still as ElQuackity grabs for his shirtfront, misses, and tips over the edge.

It doesn’t sound like water when someone falls into lava. Instead of a splash, there is just a muted hiss as ElQuackity’s body makes contact. The lava reaches his waist when he rights himself, but he’d impacted it with his entire back, which is already covered in visible burns. 

At first, he just stands frozen in shock, mouth open in a silent expression of pain. Cellbit watches as flames begin to lick up his clothing and inventory bag.

Then, ElQuackity screams, and every one of Cellbit’s hairs stands on end.

The sound is unlike any scream Cellbit has heard before. It is louder than any opponent’s panicked shriek as he tackled them on the battlefield and prepared for a killing blow. It is louder still than a younger Pac’s drawn-out cries that echoed against the concrete prison walls as Cellbit sank his teeth into his leg. ElQuackity’s scream is long, shrill, and animalistic, and it reverberates in the cavernous space to sound like ten. It is so arresting that Cellbit can only freeze and watch as ElQuackity thrashes below, howling in agony.

“Holy shit!” Roier’s voice is almost lost under the din. He appears on a larger outcropping near the edge of the lava. “Hold on! A la mierda, here, can you—can you grab onto this?” 

Roier holds his shovel by the spade and extends the handle towards ElQuackity, who gives another wordless moan of pain and makes weak grasps at it.

Cellbit watches with a stone in his gut as his husband rescues his worst enemy. He backs up and starts making his way towards them before either of them have the thought to look up.

By the time he reaches them, Roier is almost done patting out the little fires dotting ElQuackity’s clothing. His inventory bag is gone, the only remainder the burned-off strap clinging to one shoulder. 

ElQuackity lies on the ground on his side, back heaving with labored breaths. His clothes are completely worn through in several places, revealing bright red and blistered skin. Parts of his hands are even black.

“Here, drink this,” Roier says, uncorking a healing potion and pressing it to ElQuackity’s mouth. He moans in pain again but seems to comply, and Cellbit watches as the worst of his burns lighten and recede.

Roier looks up, then. “Cellbo! What happened?”

“He fell.”

“Really?” Roier helps ElQuackity sit up slowly. “Que pendejo.” 

ElQuackity no longer looks like he’s dying, but he’s still red all over, like he’s been badly sunburned. He makes a dry noise like a sob when he moves to sit up, and Roier takes off his hoodie and wraps it around him like a shock blanket. Cellbit pretends it doesn’t bother him. 

“What would Roier think?” ElQuackity’s voice taunts in his head, the last words he said before Cellbit pushed him. Well, now Cellbit knows how Roier would act: with compassion. He can’t even be mad.

“Yeah, it was a super unfortunate place to lose his footing,” Cellbit says.

ElQuackity looks up at him. His eyes glisten in the dark, still wide and white around the edges, and he’s burst a few blood vessels from screaming. His hands tremble where he holds onto Roier’s hoodie. Instead of the playful, mocking looks he’s come to expect from ElQuackity, Cellbit is met with a baleful glare. He’s furious.

“Even my luck isn’t that bad,” Cellbit adds, not breaking eye contact. “You’ll have to be more careful next time, right?”

Cellbit hopes he conveys with his gaze, If you tell Roier, you’re worse than dead.

After a few long seconds, ElQuackity looks away.

“Right, well, we should get out of here. I don’t think we can do any more after this,” Roier says. “Cellbo, do you have a warp stone? I think mine fell in when I was rescuing ElQuacks, and his is…”

Cellbit nods, trying not to show how his own hands shake from adrenaline as he fishes it out of his pack. 

Roier suggests the hospital, but ElQuackity shakes his head.

“Just go home. I can get back on my own,” he rasps, his voice wrecked. He staggers to his feet, still clinging to the hoodie wrapped around his shoulders. Roier’s thick brows pinch together, and Cellbit has to admit ElQuackity makes a pitiful sight.

“Are you sure?” Roier asks. “Lava burns are no joke. I know you had some healing, but you should really rest, and—”

“I’m fine,” ElQuackity snaps. “Can you just fucking go?”

Cellbit meets Roier’s eyes, who gives him a helpless shrug. He shrugs back and keys in the coordinates for the waystone near the castle, grabbing Roier’s hand. It’s no surprise when Roier snags ElQuackity’s arm just as the ground disappears from beneath them.

The dizzying sensation of warping causes ElQuackity to stumble in front of Cellbit, who then scrambles back several paces from the edge of the fallen stone bridge when he realizes he’s once again between Cellbit and a sheer drop. Cellbit’s lips twitch. It feels…calming, to see ElQuackity wary of him. Like he knows he won’t be fucked with again.

As soon as ElQuackity processes where he is—ironically, on the outskirts of the very forest where Cellbit had first killed him—he hunches his shoulders and backs up against the nearest tree, bristling like a mad cat. He looks much worse in the waning sunlight, every bit of exposed skin shiny, patchy, and flushed.

“What the fuck, Roier!” he spits. “I said to leave me! Are you so stupid you couldn’t get that?” 

“Hey!” Cellbit says, moving to stand in front of Roier. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

Even while addressing Roier, ElQuackity eyes Cellbit with a venomous glare, hunching up even more like he can’t decide whether to shrink or make himself look bigger. 

“It’s fine,” says Roier, putting a hand on Cellbit’s shoulder. “He almost just died.”

Not like he wouldn’t just be back again, Cellbit thinks. 

“Look, I know that you are very cool and mysterious,” Roier says, addressing ElQuackity, “but you looked like shit, and we didn’t wanna carry you out of the mine. I’m not expecting any thank you, but can you please stop acting like such a pendejo all the time?” 

“Sure.” ElQuackity shivers despite the warm weather, and shoves his arms through the hoodie sleeves. “Gracias, Roier. Fuck you, Cellbit.”

Cellbit almost fails to stifle a laugh. It’s refreshing to see ElQuackity so angry—he speaks his mind, and for the first time, Cellbit has no trouble reading his intentions.

“He literally had the warp stone that got us out,” Roier points out.

“I don’t give a shit. And I’m not going anywhere else with you two,” he adds when he sees Roier edging towards him like he wants to support his walking.

“Man, you’re being ridiculous,” says Roier, throwing his hands in the air. “Let us help you.”

“‘Let us help you!’ Haha! That’s funny,” ElQuackity scoffs. “No.”

The fiery orange sunset glares at them through the trees, and Cellbit’s communicator buzzes. He belatedly realizes it’s been going off for a while.

Jaidenishere: Dude where is Roier hes not answering

Jaidenishere: Ik you had plans together earlier, date run late? lol

Jaidenishere: Either way I’m chillin here so lmk

Cellbit nudges Roier’s arm.

“Guapito, weren’t you going to meet Jaiden for dinner and show her around Bobby’s city later today? It’s almost night,” he points out.

“Ah!” Roier whips out his communicator to check the time and curses. “Fuck, with everything that happened I totally forgot. She’ll understand if I cancel, right? I mean, this is…” he trails off, taking in the foul glare ElQuackity points his way.

Cellbit realizes he has a choice, here. He knows what a moral person would choose, but he’s never claimed to be someone who always makes the right decision, and there's no point in pretending now. He’s not ready to let ElQuackity out of his sight just yet.

“You should go,” he tells Roier, giving him the warp stone. “I can take ElQuackity where he needs to go.”

“No! No, no! Fuck off!” ElQuackity shouts, but he’s slid down the tree that he’d been wobbling against, clearly incapable of any meaningful protest. Cellbit ignores him.

“I don’t know…” Roier says. He looks between Cellbit and ElQuackity, clearly uneasy about leaving the two alone.

“I can handle it,” Cellbit promises. “Go see Jaiden. She’s been dying to talk to you. You know, uh, gossip and stuff.”

Cellbit wishes that wasn’t a true statement. He’s been avoiding her since the party, her face after handling him promising of a prying, personal conversation full of good intentions. He knows pushing Roier and Jaiden together now will lead to some sort of…intervention with Roier later, but he’d rather talk to his husband than have anyone else touch his problems with a ten-foot pole.

“Well, I do want to see her, but if we’re taking him to IMSS, it’s on the way, no?” Roier says, nodding at ElQuackity.

“I’m not going to your dogshit clown hospital,” ElQuackity says. “I’ll go to the clinic at HQ.” He seems to realize his admission too late when Roier lights up and looks at Cellbit. 

“And I can get there myself.” ElQuackity adds.

“Perfect! Cellbit, you’ve been there, right?” Roier says at the same time.

Visions of IV bags, Felps’ frozen-slack face, and that creepy mascot bear smile come to mind. Cellbit licks his lips. “The one in Cucurucho’s office. I know the one.”

“I don’t need his help,” ElQuackity insists. He struggles back to his feet, sweat beading on his scalded skin and eyes glassy. Cellbit is a bit stunned he’s still being so churlish in his clear state of heat shock. Seeing Cellbit looking, ElQuackity narrows his eyes. “I’m not letting you inside, you terrorist.”

“Fine, I don’t wanna go back in there, anyway,” Cellbit retorts.

“So you’ll let him come? I’m glad.” Roier smiles at ElQuackity, stowing his communicator. “I know you two don’t get along, but Cellbo will take good care of you. He’s not heartless.”

Cellbit’s chest twinges with the guilt of everything he hasn’t told Roier, but he smiles at him. Each vague plan of finishing the job evaporates into the evening air. “Right.”

Roier leans in and gives Cellbit a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for doing this, gatinho. Meet you back here later?”

“Claro, guapito.” Cellbit looks away from ElQuackity for a moment to run an affectionate thumb under one of Roier’s spider eyes, making the tiny lid flicker. “Have fun, and I’m sorry this happened. We can make up for it tonight.”

“Kill yourselves,” ElQuackity says. 

Roier laughs and pulls back, waving to them both before warping away. ElQuackity stares at the space Roier left behind with a look Cellbit is almost certain is hurt.

After a beat of awkward silence, Cellbit clears his throat. “Okay, let’s go, then.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m walking anywhere with you,” ElQuackity blusters, eyes locked back on Cellbit in a second. “Actually, no, you’re just crazy, no ifs. Fuck. Off.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t actually want to kill you right now,” Cellbit tells him. “I got my point across already, I think.”

“By pushing me into fucking lava?!” ElQuackity balks.

“It’s not so crazy, really. You were threatening me.” Cellbit says. “Plus, I warned you, so.”

ElQuackity laughs, short and mean. “Threatening you? I was teasing you, and you tried to kill me. What, do you—do you think you’re his guard dog? I don’t even know what to say to that. I’m embarrassed for you.”

A spark of anger stirs in Cellbit’s belly, but it’s measly kindling compared to before. He won’t let ElQuackity rile him up again—he knows this game, now.

“The waystone is right here. It’ll take five minutes to get to the train station office entrance.” Cellbit shifts forward on his feet ever so slightly, pleased inside at the way ElQuackity shrinks back, glowering. “Roier expects me to, so I won’t leave your stupid ass here even if I really want to. You can hardly walk, and you have none of your stuff. Come on.” He holds out an arm, expectant.

ElQuackity takes one look at Cellbit’s outstretched hand and bolts into the trees.

Cellbit curses under his breath and drops his arm, but doesn’t give chase right away. He really…doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t care at all about whether ElQuackity makes it back to a Federation base, or if he kills this lava-broiled body himself and lets the Feds (somehow) stuff and prop him up in a brand new one.

But, Roier asked him. And he said Cellbit wasn’t heartless. Feeling that tug of shame again, Cellbit sighs and sets off.

ElQuackity hasn’t made it far. Cellbit spots him after just a few minutes of walking into the woods, thrashing on his belly in a patch of thorny underbrush. He’s cursing up a storm in Spanish, but falls silent and still when he hears Cellbit’s footsteps behind him.

“You’re sure you don’t want my help?” Cellbit asks. 

“Yes,” ElQuackity snaps. “Piss off, psycho.” He returns to twisting around to try and get himself free, hissing and wincing whenever the long thorns prod at his sensitive new skin. It looks inordinately painful.

Cellbit sighs again and produces his knife, pondering the extent of what he will do for love. ElQuackity twists back enough to get a look at him and screams. The shriek rattles around in his hoarse throat like a rusty key in a drain.

“Shh—shut up!” Cellbit shushes him, feeling his shoulders tense as he looks around. The scream that had felt so victorious before now has him on edge, resisting the urge to cover his ears. He crouches down and starts hacking at the bramble snagged around ElQuackity’s ankle. “I already told you I wasn’t going to try to kill you again. Was I not convincing enough?”

“No! Hell no!” ElQuackity protests, but holds still and allows Cellbit to cut him free. “You already tried it, twice! Would you wanna be around someone who’s made multiple attempts on your life? One of them literally succeeded!”

“And yet, you’re the one who followed me today,” Cellbit points out. ElQuackity opens his mouth, but then looks away and falls into a sullen silence.

With the last thorn snagged on ElQuackity’s singed shirt cuff hacked off, Cellbit stands, pulling a reluctant ElQuackity with him. It’s dusk, now, the trees cutting eerie shapes against the bruised purple sky. He can just barely see the lights from the path near the waystone in the distance—they’d strayed farther than he’d thought.

“Okay, well, come on,” says Cellbit, tucking an arm under ElQuackity’s, who flinches in distaste but allows himself to be guided into a slow walk.

ElQuackity stumbles over a root a few steps later, and Cellbit stops to dig a torch out of his pack, lighting and handing it to him.

“Here, hold this. We’ll both eat dirt, otherwise.” Cellbit moves to support him again, but ElQuackity ducks away.

“Why are you even doing this?” he asks. 

He’s clearly trying to sound casual, to gain the upper hand, but everything about him screams displeasure. The torch illuminates a deep frown cutting ugly lines into his soft face, and his crest feathers are pressed so close to his head that his beanie has slipped down to completely cover them, the seams at the edge eaten away by the heat from the lava.

“I told you, because Roier said to.” Cellbit shrugs. “I care about him, and he cares about you, so here we are. Lucky you, I guess.”

ElQuackity gives him a skeptical look up and down and scoffs, holding his elbows.

“Yeah. Lucky me,” he mutters.

Before Cellbit is able to parse what that reaction means, ElQuackity lets out a sudden cry of pain and ducks, almost losing his footing again.

“Pinche esqueleto!” he screeches, whipping around. Sure enough, a crude arrow sticks out of his left wing, a red tint already seeping through the pale yellow feathers.

Cellbit moves towards him, drawing his blade once more. Though he can’t see much in the dark, the unsettling clicking of bone against bone surrounds them. Another arrow sails out of the darkness and Cellbit only just dodges it, hearing ElQuackity’s yelp from behind as it barely misses him.

“Fuck, they’re everywhere,” Cellbit curses, lowering his stance. “Stay near me.”

The next few minutes are lost to the mindless focus of combat: evading arrows and thrusting the blunt of his blade into skeletons until they collapse into piles of bones. ElQuackity cowers behind Cellbit a bit too close for his liking, but Cellbit manages to maneuver well enough. That is, until ElQuackity’s foot hooks around his ankle.

Cellbit stumbles and just barely manages not to faceplant into the damp leaf litter. A skeleton clatters towards him and he hisses as an arrow buries itself into his leather shoulder guard. Growling, he lunges at the thing and shakes its cervical vertebrae until it collapses.

“What the fuck?” he spits when he feels ElQuackity return to his back. “Was that on purpose?”

“Why would I trip you on purpose? I have no weapons, idiot,” ElQuackity bites back.

Cellbit rolls his eyes but another skeleton looses an arrow and the retort is forgotten. He’s even almost willing to believe ElQuackity, until he feels him step on the back of his shoe moments later. As Cellbit swerves to keep his balance, an arrow clips his ear, a hair's breadth from death. When he looks back, a faint smile plays on ElQuackity’s lips, like he just thought of a personal joke.

Oh, so it’s going to be like that.

Cellbit takes a large step away from ElQuackity, dropping his arms so he’s no longer shielding him. When ElQuackity scrambles to get behind him again, Cellbit simply sticks out his leg and watches the asshole trip over it, landing hard on the ground.

“C-Cellbit!” ElQuackity wheezes. He tries to get up, but is unable to move fast enough in his weakened state, instead flopping around like a fish. Cellbit puts more distance between them, making sure ElQuackity can’t grab his ankle in his retreat.

The remaining few skeletons descend on the felled prey, and ElQuackity twitches and screams as arrows thunk into his body.

Cellbit dispatches the skeletons himself and approaches ElQuackity to take in the damage. He winces. The guy is armorless and essentially a porcupine of arrows. One protrudes from his eye, which drips a sluggish stream of dark blood down his cheek. He’s not moving.

“Fuck,” Cellbit says to no one.

It’s not like he didn’t understand the consequences of his actions. He knew that if he tripped ElQuackity, injured and with no armor or weapons, that he would die. He simply didn’t think beyond self-defense—if it could even be called that, with his adversary so helpless—and now faced with another gruesome scene of his own creation, that shame twists in his gut once more.

He didn’t feel safe, so he retaliated, and now ElQuackity was dead. Again.

“He deserved it,” Cellbit says, trying to convince himself.

ElQuackity did deserve it for trying to sabotage him, and for those horrible things he said, and for not knowing when to leave Cellbit the hell alone. Roier’s disappointed face appears in his mind, frowning at him over his grandfather in a hospital bed. His hoodie, which still covers ElQuackity’s corpse, is ruined—torn and blood-soaked. Cellbit grinds his knuckles into his eyes.

“Good morning.”

Cellbit’s head snaps up at the robotic voice. “Caralho!”

Cucurucho stands in the shadows a few paces away, partially hidden by a tree. Its pristine white fur stands out in the gloom, and Cellbit cannot believe he missed its approach. It steps out and regards ElQuackity’s corpse before staring at Cellbit with its beady eyes.

“What are you doing?” it asks, as innocuous as ever.

Cellbit’s hands shake, his jaw clenched so tightly he thinks his teeth might crack. At a loss for what to do, he bends down as though to pick up ElQuackity’s body.

“Stop.”

Cellbit freezes.

“Classified,” Cucurucho emits. 

Cellbit takes a slow step away. “What?”

“Classified,” Cucurucho repeats.

In unnatural, smooth movements—like its joints are oiled ball bearings, not like any animal should move—it bends down and ties a lead to ElQuackity’s ankle, as if to drag the body somewhere. Straightening, its eyes bore into Cellbit in silence as it takes a characteristically long pause to compute a more complex phrase.

“Private property of the Federation,” it finally says.

Cellbit hardly dares breathe. It was one thing to call ElQuackity the Federation’s toy in his head, but hearing Cucurucho refer to him the same way grips Cellbit with a sense of dread as tight as a vise. The ugly scars on his arms from Cucurucho’s chainsaw itch.

Cucurucho looks back down at ElQuackity. It tugs on the rope once, testing its hold, then slowly returns its gaze to Cellbit.

“Goodbye,” it says.

Cellbit takes the dismissal and turns heel, sprinting back to the waystone. Abandoning his mess feels cowardly, having failed both at controlling himself and obeying Roier’s wishes. Despite that, the mixture of anxiety and relief thrumming through him is so strong it feels like his skin is trying to turn inside out, his feet propelling him away from the scene with little conscious thought. Whatever the Federation does with ElQuackity is their business. He’s just thankful to not be killed or worse for playing too rough with their “private property.”

As soon as the walls of the castle are in sight, Cellbit ducks inside, tearing through the halls until he finds a windowless corner to sink into. Another wave of gut-churning anxiety washes over him and he digs his nails into his arms, trying in vain to breathe after his mad sprint.

He failed today. As much as he relishes the kill, Cellbit knows he should never indulge himself. He knows why he turned to killing animals years ago. That the part of him that yearns to kill to feel safe is dangerous and unpredictable, and rots away his identity as someone who prides himself in careful planning. He can’t believe he let himself get so carried away, again.

That is not the extent of his guilt, though—there’s something more. It’s Roier.

Roier cares about him because Cellbit has done everything he can to never lose control. As soon as he did, impulsively attacking his grandfather out of fear, Roier had left him. It was a miracle that he ever forgave Cellbit, and Cellbit hasn’t even managed to learn his lesson. He can’t control himself, and if Roier ever found out, he would never give Cellbit a second chance. He shudders.

He should have never tried to kill ElQuackity with Roier nearby—not only that, he had sent Roier away after he put a stop to the first attempt. Yes, he hates ElQuackity, and Cellbit meant the threat he had given him, but he never would have done it if he wasn’t provoked. He’d been provoked into murdering his husband’s friend in front of him, like a violent dog. He wishes more than anything that he didn’t like it so much.

The worst of it is that Roier doesn’t know Cellbit is like this. He truly believes that Cellbit has turned over a new leaf since the Abueloier incident. Hell, he doesn’t even know about the animals. Cellbit has made certain of that.

Sleep comes slowly. Cellbit worries.

In a matter of days, he has become a wreck—his body pulled tight as a bowstring, his mind consumed with hunting and eliminating ElQuackity again without alerting Roier. These past several nights have been the worst, not only not knowing where ElQuackity is, but if he is. Is he revived yet? How is he doing it? Why is he following Cellbit? Why won’t he stop? Why Cellbit?

Roier’s steady presence has been an invaluable sleep aid, but he’s absent from their bed tonight, leaving just a cold indent in the mattress where he usually splays on his side, limbs wrapped around Cellbit.

The balcony doors are cracked open, letting in the faintest wisp of cloying summer breeze. Cellbit is drifting through the slough between wakefulness and sleep when he hears the telltale scrape of Roier’s shoes coming up the stairs to their bedroom. 

He waits with his eyes shut and is rewarded when Roier slides under the covers with him, combing his fingers through the back of Cellbit’s hair before wrapping an arm around his waist and tucking himself against his back. The cool press of Roier’s forehead against the nape of his neck makes Cellbit’s heart clench, and he curls his legs back into Roier’s to signal that he’s still awake.

Sometimes, Roier will continue singing or humming under his breath until he gets Cellbit’s attention for a goodnight kiss. Today, he seems exhausted from working on Bobby’s city, slumped against Cellbit like a puddle, but instead of the usual odor of dirt or shampoo, there’s a fresh smell somewhere between laundry detergent and a newborn baby. Cellbit greedily inhales.

The line of Roier’s stomach and chest is warm against his spine, and Cellbit snuggles into it with pure satisfaction. This is the moment he needed after the jaw-clenching stress of the past week.

Roier gives him a gentle squeeze of a hug, which is enough to make Cellbit exhale and relax into the downy mattress, letting his worries fall away.

Lips brush up against his ear. “You actually let Roier be the big spoon?”

Cellbit rips himself out of the grasp of the pretender and scrambles across the bed so fast that he’s kicking the mattress. He tumbles off the side and lands on his ribs, then jerks upright to grab the loaded crossbow off his nightstand and fires, barely feeling it as it springs back and impacts his shoulder.

The instant the wooden bolt slams into ElQuackity’s chest, Cellbit glimpses him illuminated in the sliver of moonlight creeping in through the balcony doors. His eyes are wide with the shock Cellbit feels as he rocks backward on his knees, looking down to see the tail of the arrow sticking out of him. The shot was so fast that his mouth is still half-frozen in a taunting grin, lips still curled as they part with surprise.

“Jesus,” he breathes, raising a single shaking hand to grasp the feathered knock. ElQuackity’s hand hovers, his fingers twitching as he attempts to close them before he slumps forward and collapses face-first onto the bed with his arm pinned beneath him. 

There’s a dark wet stain spreading across the back of ElQuackity’s shirt, where the end of the gleaming arrowhead juts out of his back. Cellbit breathes in, smells the fresh blood, and notices his own body trembling as he clenches the crossbow so tightly it hurts, pressing himself back against the nightstand until the corner bites into his hip. 

His back itches, his neck itches—everywhere ElQuackity touched burns with phantom bugs crawling across his skin. Cellbit finally lets out a scream so loud he frightens himself into scrambling up onto his feet away from the body.

Then, he pitches the crossbow into the stone wall and lets out another wordless yell, muffled into the hands he’s clasped over his mouth to try and prevent the vomit from welling up.

“Drinking wine, gatinho?” Roier’s voice floats from behind him, heralded by the rushing sound of the transporter. He plunks down next to Cellbit and eyes his nearly empty glass. “Pinche alcohólico.”

Cellbit stares down at the nearly-empty glass of red he’s been nursing and can’t help but feel like their inside joke is a bit ironic, today. “Hey, guapito,” he says.

The shifting neon pink lights of the Energy Room dance across Roier’s face as he scoots closer to Cellbit, swinging his feet where they sit perched on a slab of weeping obsidian that gently pulses with violet light. The way every inch of this room glows like it’s alive normally fills Cellbit with a sense of calm, because the chaos in here is controlled; he built it, after all. Now, consumed with thoughts of ElQuackity’s sick existence and everything he has to continue to hide from Roier, the carnival-like gleaming makes Cellbit feel a bit sick.

Roier moves the bottle of wine from between them so he can sit even closer, pressing his thigh against Cellbit’s and hooking his chin over his shoulder.

“Where were you?” Cellbit asks. 

“What?”

“You didn’t come to bed,” Cellbit clarifies, throat drying. He tries not to sound accusatory. “Where did you go?”

“I spent the night in Bobby’s tower. Just wanted to catch up with him, you know?” Roier gives him a wry smile, bumping his shoulder with Cellbit’s. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Cellbit could kick himself. Of course that’s where Roier was. He feels horrible for wishing that Roier had stayed with him, knowing that his presence would have deterred ElQuackity.

“It’s morning?” he asks.

“Yeah, it’s like, seven.” Roier fixes him with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”

Cellbit sighs and nods, looking away. The thought of spending another second in that bedroom, let alone in the bed, had made him want to tear his skin off.

“Hey,” Roier says. “You’re being weird.”

“What? No I’m not,” Cellbit says a bit too quickly.

“Uh-huh,” Roier drawls. He puts a hand on Cellbit’s back. “You can’t fool me, Cellbo. You’re so sweaty.”

Cellbit arches away slightly, though not enough to dislodge Roier’s head from his shoulder. Roier gets the idea and stops poking his back.

“The lights in here throw off a lot of heat,” Cellbit points out, tracing shapes in the condensation on his glass. Roier had discarded his hoodie upon entering. If Cellbit was a little extra sweaty because of the nerves and the harrowing, horrible night he’d had, Roier shouldn’t be able to tell. 

“No, no, you’re extra weird, lately,” Roier insists. “You’re sitting here alone all night, drinking wine, all moody. You’ve been like this all week. You’re all like, like…” He casts around for the word. “Jumpy.”

Cellbit can’t exactly deny that when his husband is curled around his side and his muscles feel loaded like a coiled spring. “It’s been a bit harder to relax recently,” he admits.

“Is this about what happened the other day with ElQuackity?” Roier pulls back and looks at him. “That was fucked up, man. Are you okay?”

Cellbit focuses on the way the pink lights swim in the liquid in his glass. “Yeah.”

Roier sputters. “‘Yeah?’ A guy was almost melted to death in front of us and all you have to say is ‘yeah?’”

Cellbit sets his wine glass down and shifts around, unable to meet Roier’s intent gaze for more than a millisecond. What just happened in the bedroom was so twisted that he had momentarily forgotten about the whole lava thing. “Um. No, I mean. Well, it was fucked up, right?”

Roier just looks at him with a sort of pitying understanding, like he understands how difficult it is for Cellbit to process witnessing something so horrible. Cellbit brings up his feet and hunches over himself cross-legged, staring down into the colorful pit below them.

The image of ElQuackity skewered with a crossbow bolt like a piece of barbecue sears across his vision like the afterglow of a neon sign. He still feels the blood under his nails, even though he buried the body along with the stained sheets and scrubbed his hands until they were raw. His fingertips still sting.

“I feel bad,” he finds himself saying. That I’m lying to you.

“Aww, that’s so sweet, I thought you hated each other,” Roier says, misunderstanding the way Cellbit knew he would. “There was nothing you could have done once he fell, so don’t feel bad, Cellbo. We’re lucky he’s even alive after that.”

Cellbit swallows and nods his head. He feels worse.

“Death…freaks me out,” he says. Only once I’m done killing. He shakes his head. “It- It makes me remember—well, you know. The Games. The hell that followed that. Prison. The hell that followed that. ”

In his periphery, Cellbit sees Roier nod. “I know, Cellbit. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Cellbit hugs his knees to his chest and rocks a little. He feels rotten inside doing this, like he’s putting on a performance of trauma to throw Roier off the scent of his transgressions, even though everything he’s saying is true.

“I—I don’t know,” he says, and it’s like his brain isn’t even in control of his mouth anymore. “I just—I see it, or I hear it, or I’m reminded of it, and I’m—like I was. I get so…” Angry. Defensive. Violent. “...scared.”

Roier places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’re strong,” he says. “Eres fuerte, Cellbit,” he says again, until Cellbit nods.

“I don’t feel like it,” he mumbles. “If you knew what I was really like, you’d hate me.” 

The melodrama of this statement makes Cellbit cringe even as he says it, but he bites his tongue, resisting the urge to dismiss his own feelings.

“I know what you’re like,” Roier proclaims with a confidence Cellbit wishes was real. “You don’t have to tell me everything. I don’t tell you everything, either, okay? We know each other’s hearts.” He pauses and laughs. “Fuck, that sounded so cheesy. But you get me, no?”

Cellbit’s stomach twists at the reminder that Roier keeps things from him, then sours when he reminds himself what a detestable hypocrite he is. Silence stretches as Roier patiently awaits his answer. He swallows.

“Remember when I almost murdered your grandfather?” he blurts out. 

Roier recoils, and Cellbit hates himself even more for bringing this up, but he keeps going.

“I tried to kill him because he—well, never mind, the reason isn’t even important. The point is that he could be dead right now, because of me.”

Cellbit snakes his hands up to grip his own hair, staring out at the slow-shifting lights as he remembers the sensation of the old man’s neck in between his palms. It had felt so satisfying to finally squeeze the life out of him—even after Cellbit thought that he’d killed him, his blood thrummed through his veins, panting wide-eyed in exhilaration. It wasn’t until the adrenaline wore off that he realized what he’d done and stumbled away.

Cellbit has heard the spats between Roier and his grandfather over the phone, snappish and pithy even before Roier’s decision to stay with Cellbit after the attempt further strained their relationship. But despite what he says, Roier and ElQuackity are friends—Cellbit has seen Roier wander off from their walks together when he sees ElQuackity skulking around the island, and unite to tease Cellbit whenever the mood arises. Cellbit would never be forgiven for what he’s been doing to him if Roier ever found out, especially since things were supposed to change. Everything was supposed to get better once they were married.

“It was supposed to be different,” Cellbit says. “I was supposed to be different. And I’m just—” he chokes.

He’s worse. Nothing really changed after they were wed. Sure, there was a honeymoon period where Cellbit managed to convince himself that he could change, that love could somehow magically heal him, but that was all it was: a delusion. Wishful thinking that if he just tried hard enough, he could stop the craving for bloodshed that had sustained and protected him since he was twelve years old, trembling over the first man he ever killed.

Even without looking up, Cellbit can feel Roier’s eyes on him, beaming misplaced concern at him like rays of sunlight focused through a spyglass. Cellbit squirms. He wants the comfort. He doesn’t.

“Cellbit, relájate. We’re both fine. And so is my abuelo, right?” Roier squeezes his shoulder. “Don’t worry about things you can’t change. You don’t need to be carrying the weight of everything on your shoulders.”

Cellbit swallows tightly. “One day it’s going to be too much. I’m going to be too much for you.” 

His stomach twists when Roier rolls his eyes.

“You don’t believe me?” Roier asks, fond exasperation leaking into his voice.

Cellbit straightens up and turns to face him. Roier is resting his cheek on the palm of his hand, fixing him with a scrutinizing expression. 

“Ah, Cellbit. You are such a pendejo,” he says, then stretches his arms behind his head and arches his back with a groan.

He runs a hand through his hair and tugs his headband free before flicking it at Cellbit and standing.

It feels so strange, looking up at Roier with the sense that the space between them has never been greater. Cellbit wants to close that chasm, reach out and spill everything, but the moment has passed, and he is still too afraid.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Roier says. “You don’t get a wink of sleep without me, huh?”

Cellbit swallows and fidgets with the worn fabric of Roier’s headband, stalling. He’d torn the sheets from the bed and left the windows open, but the entire upstairs of the castle still stank of spilled blood. He knows Roier would not notice, but Cellbit can’t go back there yet, not even with his husband at his side.

“Gatinho, let’s go,” Roier says, patient but unwilling to leave without him.

Cellbit takes Roier’s offered hand and startles so hard he almost tumbles off the ledge when his wine glass tips over, shattering loudly. The dark red liquid pools and drips into the glowing cracks of the obsidian, turning them from violet to a sickly crimson. Cellbit feels his chest heave, his stomach lurching as he gets to his feet and stumbles back. The indelible images of blood pooling around fresh arrow gouges, blistered red skin, and the terror-wide whites of eyes swim to the front of his mind once more. Part of him wants to hide from the violence. Another wants it, again and again, more than anything.

“I can clean it,” he cuts in before Roier can say anything. As the words leave his mouth, he makes a decision: he has to leave. “Just go ahead. I’ll take care of it.”

“What the hell? No, I’ll clean it, don’t worry about it,” Roier says. “Stay here, and don’t touch the glass, okay? I’ll go get something to wipe it up.” He backs away, then looks back and points at Cellbit. “Don’t move.”

With that, he leaves. Cellbit waits for a moment, the normally quiet humming of the lights a cacophony of buzzing insects in his ears. His whole body trembles like a live wire, but his teeth are set—he knows what he has to do. Before Roier can return, he takes the transporter up and steals away into the dewy morning.

As long as ElQuackity keeps coming back to hunt him, Cellbit cannot be safe. He cannot sleep, he cannot eat, he cannot be the person worthy of love that he has tried so desperately to become. This paranoia is ruining his life, the new one he’s so precariously built. Cellbit brushes his hand over the knife at his side and shudders in anticipation, feeling the wet blades of long grass brush his ankles as he moves further and further from home, towards the forest where he’s now buried his nemesis twice.

ElQuackity has to die, permanently. It was wrong to ever think there was any other solution.

No one but faceless Federation workers and Foolish have entered or exited the Federation Headquarters from the main entrance in two and a half days. Cellbit knows, because he’s scarcely moved from this spot in that time, tucked away in a rare spot of shadow near the train station, hidden by the dramatic eave of a building and a cluster of trees. Roier has been by a few times looking for him, and Cellbit tries not to feel like a coward each time he takes a sip of his invisibility potion at the sound of his husband’s voice.

When Foolish emerges from the gate again, humming an imaginary tune to himself and flipping a coin in his hand, Cellbit has had enough. He steps out from his hiding spot and approaches him.

Foolish does not jump, to his credit, but he does look shocked to see Cellbit.

“Oh! Uh, hi, Cellbit,” he says. He stops walking and looks Cellbit up and down. “You’re looking, uh…tired?”

Cellbit knows how he probably looks. He hasn’t had a proper rest, meal, or shower in days. He can feel the slight overgrowth of his beard, the puffiness of his eyes, the smell of himself.

“Yeah, but don’t worry,” he tells Foolish. “I have a question for you.”

“Oh, sure, what’s up?” Foolish pockets the coin in his billowy pants and stretches his muscular golden arms over his head, jewelry tinkling. “Is this about one of your mysteries? Sorry, enigmas?” At this he leans forward and grins, rubbing his hands together cartoonishly.

“In a sense,” Cellbit hedges. “Have you seen ElQuackity?”

Foolish’s expression shutters slightly, though he’s still smiling.

“ElQuackity? Not really,” he responds, but he looks away and fiddles with one of his dangly earrings. 

Cellbit seizes the vulnerability like an injured prey.

“Foosh, you may be working with the Federation, but I trust you.” Cellbit doubles down. “You have been there for me when I was alone. I need you to trust me when I tell you that this is very important.” 

Foolish stares at him, and Cellbit does his best to not show the mania he feels on his face. Sometimes his violent intrusive thoughts are so strong, it feels like other people should be able to see them just by looking into his eyes. He’s never been any good at reading the expressions in Foolish’s glittering emeralds—he already has enough trouble reading the faces of people with normal eyes.

“...Okay, so I haven’t seen him, per se,” Foolish starts. “But they’ve been talking about him a lot lately.”

Cellbit narrows his eyes. “‘They?’”

“Cucurucho and the workers,” Foolish says, then laughs to himself. “Those Fed workers are actually huge gossips, it’s crazy.”

Cellbit takes a step closer. “What have they been saying?”

“Well, ElQuackity is super mean to them,” Foolish says. “He keeps stealing their ID cards, and then they get in trouble. I mean, why can’t he keep track of his own?”

Cellbit thinks of Cucurucho dragging ElQuackity’s corpse away by the ankle and suppresses a grimace.

“I don’t give a shit about those bears,” he tells Foolish honestly, which makes Foolish laugh again. He doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously, but then again, Foolish doesn’t seem to take anything seriously. Cellbit knows he’s more intelligent than everyone thinks he is. He’s obviously dancing around something he is not supposed to say, and Cellbit resolves to force it from him. “What did Cucurucho say?”

“Well, he usually doesn’t say much of anything except for “good morning” and “enjoy the island,” but there was something kind of weird yesterday,” Foolish muses. “It felt like something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”

Cellbit wills himself to be patient. He needs this. “Go on.”

Foolish rubs his chin. “I walked past his office and he was saying something like, ‘The twin is resisting.’ And that’s a big sentence for a guy like him, y’know? So I stopped, but he stopped talking when he caught me listening and told me to come in. It was some sort of phone call, which is weird ‘cuz Cucurucho usually is a memo kind of boss. And he had ElQuackity’s file open on the desk. It was super weird.”

“Yeah, super weird…” Cellbit trails off, mentally categorizing the information. Resisting? “Did they ever say anything about where he goes?”

“Where he…goes?” Foolish cocks his head like a confused spaniel. “I’m pretty sure Cucurucho sends him on some sort of missions, but what he actually gets up to is his business. I wouldn’t be surprised if he blows them off, with all that mischief he’s always making.”

“Right, yeah,” Cellbit agrees. He looks around, the sick, agitated feeling spiking again. “You said you haven’t seen him, though. He doesn’t come here?”

“Oh, to HQ? No, he hangs out somewhere else. He doesn’t even have an office here.”

“Do you know where that could be?” Cellbit presses.

It hits Cellbit, then, that they are still standing in the middle of the street, where anyone could watch or eavesdrop. Hastily, he grabs Foolish’s arm and yanks him back towards his hiding spot, who allows himself to be pulled along with a startled laugh. Cellbit clears his throat and continues in a hushed tone. “Another Federation facility, maybe?”

“I don’t know which one, but I always see him arriving from the west.” Foolish points in the vague direction of Lucky Ducks. “Southwest, maybe? The tunnels here connect to most of the other facilities in the main part of the island, but not the most distant ones. Most of them out there are abandoned, but a few are still being used. I only know that any of those places are even there from all that breakroom bitchin’, you know how it is.” Foolish pauses to laugh at his own phrasing. “Apparently getting stationed out there is a real hassle ‘cuz the teleporters are always breaking.”

Jackpot. Cellbit’s entire body gives a minute shudder, his muscles bracing in anticipation of a hunt, but he needs more information, first. “Do you know anything about these places? Maybe coordinates?”

The second Foolish leans back, narrowed eyes gleaming under the shadow of his hood, Cellbit regrets his overeagerness.

“Now, Cellbit, this sure is a lot of questions about ElQuackity’s whereabouts,” Foolish says, adopting an exaggerated air of suspicion like a film noir detective. “Why do you need to know all this stuff, anyway?”

“He is hiding some information,” Cellbit says carefully. “Information that could be life or death to all of us on this island. I need to find out where he re—” 

He stops himself from saying “respawns.” It feels a bit inane to say about a real-life person.

“—resides,” he finishes.

“I see,” Foolish muses, drawing out the end of the word. “I see what you’re saying, Cellbit.”

Cellbit squints. “You do?”

Foolish straightens his back, and the ever-present grin slips off his face for a moment.

“Yeah. I may be stupid, but I’m not an idiot, Cellbit. I know there will be…” He pauses, looking Cellbit up and down again. “...bloodshed. But that’s just you, right? You know what’s best.” The smile returns to his face, but with a sharp glint in his crystalline eye that makes Cellbit tense. “It’s like you said. We trust each other.”

“...Yes,” Cellbit says, a bit wrong-footed. He feels oddly intimidated, like a strict parent has just given him permission to skip school.  “So, will you tell me?”

Foolish shrugs. “Sure. We could use a little excitement around here.” He pulls out his communicator and types for a moment, and Cellbit feels his buzz in his pocket. The whisper from Foolish is a simple string of coordinates.

“Have fun,” Foolish says, stowing his device. “Don’t get too crazy out there. Or do! That’s the spice of life.”

“Thank you,” Cellbit murmurs, eyes still on the screen, the coordinates burning into his brain. He can’t believe it was that easy.

Foolish covers the screen with his hand, forcing Cellbit to look up at him.

“For what?” he says, that fake-innocent grin still on his face.

Cellbit shivers. He reminds himself not for the first time to never get on Foolish’s bad side.

“Hasta la vista, Cellbit,” Foolish says, spinning on his heel and walking back down the street with a lazy wave. “See you later. Preferably after you’ve done your nasty little detective work.”

Cellbit almost laughs. Foolish is pure chaos and his whims change on a dime, but it has never felt more powerful to have such a capricious ally. Cellbit returns his focus to mapping the coordinates, almost surprised to see they’re truly still there and he didn’t just hallucinate this entire bizarre interaction. Like Foolish said, the location is several thousand blocks southwest, in an area Cellbit is unsure anyone has ventured. He locates the warp point furthest in that direction on his map and slinks out of his spot towards the nearest waystone.

His palm itches until he wraps it around his knife. The familiar feeling of the handle—the smooth bone enveloping the sharp, cold line of the metal tang—is more comforting than any words of reassurance, any touch of affection. The answers are so close he can almost taste them.

The day blurs by as Cellbit plods through forest, then desert, then forest again. The facility does not emerge from the horizon until nightfall, and he nearly misses it entirely. He passed several abandoned bases on the way, each one the same: squat concrete eyesores that clashed with the surrounding nature despite their overgrowth, dilapidated and puny compared to the grandiose architecture of the main island buildings. This one is partially hidden, built in the shadow of a rocky outcropping and only just barely visible in the dusk. From somewhere, he can hear water pattering on stone. Cellbit approaches cautiously.

Its silhouette is not much bigger than the others, but as he gets closer, he realizes the structure is built into the cliffside. The facade is in the same state of disrepair as the rest of the abandoned buildings, the concrete crumbling and coated in vines and grime, and there does not seem to be any obvious entrance. Though it looks deserted, Cellbit trusts that Foolish led him to the right place. He presses his fingers into several spots along the filthy wall, seeking purchase on a hidden pressure plate for a door, but nothing changes. 

Following the sound of the water reveals a thin waterfall dribbling from the top of the cliff. The runoff forms a stagnant pool near the side of the building before trickling away somewhere into the foundation. Cellbit’s treads sink into thick, dark mud, and when he looks down he sees it is dimpled with footprints—in both directions. An anticipatory thrill jolts through him, tugging him back into his body after hours of mindless travel. Something pale catches his eye in the gloom ahead and Cellbit approaches on instinct, senses hungry.

The entrance is hidden past an elevator marked with a strategically placed teacup of all things, half-buried and covered in sludge. Closer examination reveals it is made of plastic, an orphan from a child’s play tea party set. Cellbit nudges it aside with his boot before crouching down to enter the ramshackle lift.

The elevator descends to a single subsurface level. It’s dark and cold in the bunker below, with winding hallways that trail off in different directions and the slow rhythm of his boots on the metal grates. The only light is the sickly greenish glow of a few dying fluorescent strips on the ceiling, and the sheet metal walls ooze with streaks of mud at the seams, creating a wet mildew smell that permeates the air. Cellbit can taste the plant rot on his tongue when he opens his mouth, so he tugs up his shirt and keeps it firmly closed.

The largest hallway leads to a room full of empty cylindrical tanks, dimly illuminated by the emergency lights extending along the base of the grimy walls. Each tank is about the size of his wingspan in length. Judging by the thick ring of algae along the edges of the glass, it’s been a long time since anyone has serviced them. 

Cellbit creeps into the room, pausing when a moldy lump on the ground catches his eye. He crouches down and uses his sword to flip it over to reveal a stuffed rabbit, one of the types with bells inside that jingle when it moves. He wonders if he ever had something like this as a kid. He can’t remember.

Scratching his chin, he stands back up and surveys the room again. In the corner, there’s an old table with ragged, decayed blankets stacked on its surface. The rest of the room is empty, although there are grime marks with sharp edges on the floors that indicate the presence of furniture that has since been removed. Cellbit heads back down the hallway.

This deep into the maze of corridors, most of the dust-caked overhead lights that had dimly lit the entrance are completely burnt out. The ends of the hallway here are inscrutable, maws of blackness that look like they could swallow him whole. Steeling himself, he picks a direction and continues walking.

This time, he decides to follow the path to an adjacent room. As he draws closer to the next room, Cellbit notices a dull hum coming from overhead and a faint breeze that indicates the presence of air conditioning. It is a jarring, artificial feeling from this place that seems otherwise so thoroughly derelict, and he trades his sword for his faithful knife as he approaches. He’s not sure what to expect from this Federation hideout, let alone one that appears to be the current hiding place of one ElQuackity, but the resulting sight is unholy. 

Cellbit throws a hand up as he’s blinded by the suddenly functional fluorescent lights that switch on overhead with a grating electrical whine, casting a sickening beam that slides into every crack and corner. 

In the moment before he can close his eyes, Cellbit witnesses a flicker of nightmares: a semicircle of tanks full of human bodies suspended in translucent blue gel. Each and every one of them are the same shape and size. From a single glance, Cellbit is certain that each and every one of those bodies is an exact replica of ElQuackity.

He digs his nails into his cheekbones as he waits for his vision to adjust, blinking down at the floor as if the quicker he can regain his vision, the faster he can prove to himself that he somehow hallucinated the sight in front of him. 

Unfortunately, the moment Cellbit cracks his eyes open without his shielding hand, he’s met with the same dreadful row of bodies twitching in their encasements. Electrode wires loop over the sides and feed into large monitors mounted atop each tank.

The monitors display each specimen’s biometrics with a large number at the top that matches the sharpie-scribbled ones on the bottom of the tanks. In the immediate batch in front of him, Cellbit counts five tanks, with one empty. He wonders if there could be more. 

“Puta que pariu,” he whispers, dragging his hand down his face. 

He approaches the tank marked “3” to observe the body inside. All of the ElQuackity look-alikes are bare except for a pair of dark shorts, and Cellbit takes a moment to scan the skin. There are no visible scars, but it does have his characteristic sunspots, likely thanks to the UV light installed in the tank’s bottom. 

For a brief moment, Cellbit feels sorry for the gel caked into their wings, which occasionally flutter like a dog’s leg kicking in its sleep. Then, he remembers the way he felt when ElQuackity whispered into his ear that night, and the sympathy curls into fury. He startles when the lights cut off once more, dropping the room into the eerie blue glow that emanates from the tanks.

“They’re just shells, you know,” a voice behind him drawls, and Cellbit spins around to face ElQuackity as revulsion surges within him. His heart feels like it’s bulging through his ribs with how furiously it’s pounding. 

ElQuackity stands slouched and stiff like a dead man, but he forces his body upright and bares his teeth as Cellbit’s eyes land on him. His shirt is only partially buttoned, revealing the bare expanse of his chest, and his overalls and beanie are missing, like he’d been napping before he wandered in. It is discomfiting to see him like this, half-dressed and so…Cellbit glances at the empty tank on the end of the row and shudders. New.

He watches in horror and agitation as ElQuackity removes his hand from the light panel and spreads his hands, gesturing around the room. His positioning in the doorway gives no indication of whether he had been following Cellbit or if he had appeared from elsewhere.

“Great job, Sherlock Holmes, I guess you finally figured it out. You think you’re gonna win Employee of the Month for this?” His beanie tamps down the frantic fluttering of his crest feathers, but his gaze remains unnervingly steady.

“What is this place?” Cellbit asks, his voice raw. He can’t stop his eyes from flickering back to the tanks stuffed full of lifelike husks and goo. 

ElQuackity gives a shrug and strolls over to the closest tank by the door, the last tank, Number 5. He leans down to press his cheek against the glass, tapping on the side boredly. 

“You still don’t get it? These are the secret to immortality,” ElQuackity’s voice is unexpectedly flat. “Empty-headed dolls that look just like new.” 

Cellbit’s feet are moving before he can second-guess himself. The UV light along the tank’s base casts a glow on the left side of ElQuackity’s face while illuminating the right side of the body double. ElQuackity recoils minutely as Cellbit approaches, but he remains still.

“So as long as they’re here…” Cellbit begins.

A grimace twists the side of ElQuackity’s face, followed by an indiscernible, aloof expression. Cellbit doesn’t miss how his eyes dart down to his knife.

“Yeah, that’s right: you can’t kill me.” 

The silence festers between them over the gentle hum of the lights and complex machines strung around the lab, and in that space, there’s a shift in ElQuackity’s demeanor. He peels his cheek away from the glass and steps away from Cellbit. Strands of hair flutter down over his face as he shoves a hand through his hair, dislodging his beanie in the process.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” ElQuackity sneers. “You had every chance in the world to put an end to this, but you still let me get close to everyone around you- everyone you cared about- and now they’re screwed.” 

ElQuackity barks out a sudden, sharp laugh, tinged with hysteria. “I mean, we’ve got data on everyone. Even Roier, and especially you! You’re fucked. You’re fucked! And now everyone’s gonna be running around in circles like fucking chickens with their heads cut off because you were too damn stupid to figure out how to murder me like you were trying to.” 

Cellbit recalls a shrill, throat-tearing scream blended with the hissing of lava and the acrid stench of charred skin. Surely no one would put themselves through that for the Federation’s sake. It had often felt that only someone with a deathwish would taunt him the way ElQuackity did, but that can’t have been the real goal, even with all these…backups.

Cellbit is indignant. “Were you trying to get me to kill you?”

“No. Listen to me very closely,” There’s a lilting tone to ElQuackity’s voice that snaps Cellbit’s attention back like a magnet. “When you give an advantage to a test subject, you don’t only look at him. There’s a process for everyone involved.”

A wave of frustration washes over Cellbit and he knocks on the side of the tank emphatically. The clone inside twitches away from the sudden stimulus, which only makes him angrier. 

“What does that have to do with any of this?" he demands.

ElQuackity regards him shrewdly. His mussed hair forms a sheer black curtain over his eyes as he stares, head cocked so he looks at Cellbit down the end of his nose. This close, the blue UV lights make his dark eyes luminous, tiny reflections glowing like lanterns in pools of black. His face is shadowed strangely, the side exposed to the tank so harshly illuminated that Cellbit can see his tiny pores and peach fuzz—his skin is uncanny and smooth beneath the sun spots, like porcelain flecked with ink.

Cellbit glances at the empty tube across the room again and suppresses the shiver that crawls up his spine. It’s been mere days since he killed ElQuackity in the bedroom, so of course his skin is perfect; he hasn’t lived. The whitened scars on Cellbit’s own face itch.

“Suppose you gathered a group of strangers together in a survival scenario and introduced one man with inside information,” ElQuackity begins. “Obviously, everyone else would start to get suspicious right away.” He pauses. “I know I would. Now, let’s say you also granted the insider an advantage, making him dangerous and impossible to ignore.”

He tips his chin at the tank. The identical body shudders where it is suspended, and Cellbit watches as the movement travels to its twitching wings. 

“Would you kill him?” asks ElQuackity. “Even if he didn’t hurt you, but you felt so sure that he was going to, would you kill him for good?”

Cellbit wets his lips. “...If there was a man,” he began warily. “Some stranger whom we—I—hated, do you think he would hurt us?”

The fluorescent lights sink through the upper layer of skin on ElQuackity’s wrists and arms, casting his veins in a sickly green hue. There are purple gouges under his eyes, sunken lines that burrow into his face to emphasize the dark stare.

“I’m going to hurt you, Cellbit.” ElQuackity says. “I’m going to hurt all of you.” 

Beyond the clear bravado in his posture, Cellbit can only focus on the slight upward tug of ElQuackity’s lips. He looks washed and drawn, a walking paradox of newborn and worn ragged by life, and that small smile, that twinkling in his eye, makes him look…Cellbit grips his knife. Unstable. Like a reactive element ready to combust.

ElQuackity’s wings flutter before he straightens up and opens his mouth again. 

“Every day around ten A.M., Roier leaves your castle to grab coffee from StarBobby. At around eleven-thirty, he makes his way back to his old house to retrieve materials and begin work on his city, the one he’s building for a dead kid who has no chance of seeing it.”

There is a pressure like a static building in Cellbit’s head, pressing on the sides like an oncoming migraine, or the wheels of a train barreling over the tracks straight towards him.

ElQuackity continues, “On days where he’s late, Roier ends up taking a nap on one of the beds in the IMSS. That’s about twenty-three percent of the total days he’s working. I specified it on his report before I handed it to Cucurucho. And the one for Jaiden, Baghera, Phil… are you getting it yet?”

“You were spying on us,” Cellbit spits, shaking his head. “So what? Everybody knew it.”

His fists clench when ElQuackity scoffs. “You’re a cannibal,” he observes boredly, like it doesn’t send Cellbit careening off of the panicked edge of his brain that keeps him up at night chewing deep ulcers into his cheeks. 

“You don’t know anything,” Cellbit growls.

“You think so? I think we know more about you than all the other idiots combined. Things you don’t even know about yourself, probably.” ElQuackity scoffs. “And it’s still not enough for them.”

Cellbit grinds his teeth. “What kinds of things?”

“Oh, you know. Why you’re like this.” ElQuackity says it so casually, derisive eyes flicking over Cellbit’s disheveled appearance. “I know about the prison, and the ‘Hunger Games,’ and all that boo-hoo tragic backstory nonsense. I’ve seen those pictures from when you were a kid, right before they called off the search early. They really wanted to get rid of you.”

Cellbit feels his bones go cold.

“What?” he whispers.

ElQuackity’s eyes go wide for a moment, then he rolls them. 

“Oh, sorry, was that a spoiler? Good thing I don't give a shit.” He edges away from Cellbit, who is still petrified in numb rage.

“What they fuck are you talking about?” Cellbit demands, finding his words.

“You used to live here. We even met a few times, years ago—not that you’d remember, apparently.” ElQuackity scoffs. “I knew you forgot some things, but I thought you’d at least remember that much.”

Cellbit reels. His mind feels like shattered glass, like ElQuackity just broke it open and crushed it underfoot. Ever since he could remember, he had been inured to vague memories he could never piece together, flashes at the ends of nightmares that left him waking more melancholic than fearful: a gentle hand in his hair, a knee skinned against tree bark, the grip of a wooden toy sword in his palm. Never did he consider that he had been to this horrific island before, much less grown up here. 

And then—“they” had wanted to get rid of him. The Federation. Cellbit grinds his teeth so hard his jaws ache. His earliest real memory was his first kill, in the Games—being a kid, a little kid, no older than twelve, with the thick taste of blood on his teeth, bile welling in his throat that bobbed with tears. They had put him there. The Federation had sent him to Hell. Why? He shakes his head and begins to pace, restlessness crawling into his limbs like if he remains still for one more moment he will implode.

“You—no,” Cellbit mutters. “You’re just saying this to—to break—to distract me.” The handle of his knife digs a bruising groove into the meat of his palm.

“You know what, Cellbit? I don’t really give a damn about you,” ElQuackity announces. “I’m just doing this for the same old reasons anyone does anything: to survive. And I’ll let you in on another little secret—I would do anything to survive.” 

Cellbit stops. His eyes dart around to the glowing tanks, a hot tingling of rage growing in his brainstem. The floating bodies seem to mock him, their faces so peaceful and innocent. Endless backups, endless second chances, these inchoate shells that the Federation had clearly poured endless time and energy into cultivating for their golden child. A backdoor cheat to death.

“They want to keep you alive so fucking badly,” Cellbit hisses. He draws his netherite axe, stalking forward to one of the tanks. “Why is your life so important? What did you ever do to deserve this kind of treatment? What did I do?”

The back of the tank is connected to a massive power grid along the far wall by a thick bundle of cables. That looks important. Cellbit heaves up his axe and cleaves it in two.

Instantly, the ultraviolet light in the tank cuts off, sparks flying from the chopped wires. The body inside seizes and then goes limp in the thick fluid, lifeless. The biometrics console on the side begins wailing.

“Wh-What the fuck?!” ElQuackity screams. “What the hell are you doing? Stop!”

ElQuackity’s screeches are only fuel to Cellbit’s fire. He moves onto the second tank, slicing through its life support as easily as the first. The thick snap of the cables is satisfying, like severing a vital artery. 

When he reaches the third console, he hears the angry patter of footsteps on metal. Cellbit plants his stance just before ElQuackity launches himself at him from behind. ElQuackity is lighter than he looks, his vicious leap hardly causing Cellbit to stumble. He clings onto Cellbit’s back like a spider monkey, trying to wrestle away the axe with grasping, desperate snatches. Cellbit simply changes hands and holds it out of his reach, setting it down momentarily.

Once he realizes he won’t be getting the axe, ElQuackity lets out a wordless scream and starts clawing at Cellbit’s face, scratching anywhere he can reach. ElQuackity’s sharp little nails drag grooves into the old scars stretched across Cellbit’s cheeks, making him thrash and bare his teeth. His blood pounds in his ears as he jerks his chin down to catch the hand in his teeth and bites down until he tastes copper. ElQuackity swears, loosening his grip on the back of Cellbit’s shirt. 

Cellbit does not hesitate to slam his back against the tank, knocking the wind out of ElQuackity, then grabs and tosses him away overhand. He smacks face-first against the corner of one of the consoles and lets out a little gasp of pain as he falls.

Threat handled, Cellbit takes up the axe again and slices through the power cords of the third tank. Just one more to go.

“Cut it out, you fucking bastard!” shouts ElQuackity, sitting up as he clutches his chest. His eyes smolder with anger through the curtain of bangs as they flick upwards to meet his gaze. 

Cellbit takes a special kind of satisfaction in gripping the axe with white knuckles and slinging it into the cylindrical tank at full force to spite him, smashing through it and sending glass, goo, and a limp body spilling out onto the floor.

But unlike the others, this body continues to twitch with unconscious nerve spasms that ricochet up its sprawling form, its fragile homeostasis disturbed when it was ripped from its tubes and wires. Cellbit pants as he glances towards ElQuackity, who looks between him and the seizing body with a daring expression. 

“Nice going, asshole,” he says, grimacing as he pushes himself back onto his feet. There’s blood streaking down his nose from a nasty gash where he hit the edge. “The next time you kill me, I’ll just wake up in that one.”

A chill runs down Cellbit’s spine, and he sets his jaw. 

“No,” he says, raising the axe. “There isn’t going to be a next time.”

He swings with the reckless imprecision of someone who needs to hack, planting the sharp axe bit deep into the malleable ribs of the mindless ElQuackity clone lying in front of him with a sickening thud that echoes in the wide room around them. Cellbit hears a choked sound escape ElQuackity’s throat as he grimaces, wiggling the blade back and forth to try and free it from the chest until he’s forced to plant his foot against the body and yank. It’s a messy thing to dislodge, flinging hot flecks of blood upwards from the welling site of the wound.

That should be enough evidence that he finally has the upper hand. And yet, after seeing ElQuackity come back to life time and time again, Cellbit’s mind rushes with a tsunami of paranoid thoughts culminating in terrified fantasies of the inevitable. He cannot allow history to repeat itself. 

His arms move on their own as he lifts the axe and swings it down on the corpse in front of him again and again. And again, and again, and again and again and again…

Where the FUCK is ElQuackity?

Cellbit’s breath comes out heavy as he swivels his head towards the empty console where ElQuackity had been sitting.

His vision blurs around the edges as he stumbles to the doorway with the axe dragging on the floor behind him, leaving the site of carnage splattered on the floor behind him like a specimen ravaged by an inexpert dissection.

The clamor of footsteps followed by a metal latch trigger him to pursue down the dim hallway with his heartbeat thrumming in his ears and a single-minded drive to see this through to the end. 

All of those nights he’d given Roier the same bitter smile with notes clutched in his ink-stained hands and empty coffee mugs littering the desk in front of him couldn’t be for nothing. Those nights of sleepless, roiling anxiety and hatred that made his soul feel black and blighted, his whole self alienated from his own life because of this violent urge within him. This is the only way to make it stop.

ElQuackity is nowhere to be seen in the hall, and Cellbit abandons the axe with a clatter to move faster and quieter, drawing his knife once more. Something in the back of his mind balks at the way he is drenched in blood, knife slick in his gore-stained hand, but it is buried under the way the rest of him sings.  

With strong teeth set to tear and his blade primed to rend his enemy’s flesh, Cellbit feels the most powerful he has in…years. Slaughtering animals was a pale facsimile of this: a true hunt of vengeance, where nothing and no one can hurt him as long as he can make them bleed first.

His eyes adjust quickly as he works his way down the dark hallway, methodically checking every door for sounds of life. Most of them are locked, and the ones that aren’t are all the same: abandoned medical rooms and offices, desks and exam tables covered in a thin, undisturbed layer of dust and mildew slime. They smell stale enough that Cellbit is sure he’s the first to open these doors in a long time.

The bunker is silent but for the omnipresent sound of dripping water from somewhere deep within. This far inside, even the buzz of the fluorescents is absent, all of them dark and long-dead. Cellbit squints at the dim spot at the end of the hall where it splits off in two directions, finally fishing out his flashlight, and notices for the first time a stain on the floor in the darkness. All the way down the hall, he can see the contrast of red drips against the dull metal grating. In his haste to escape, ElQuackity had forgotten to staunch his bloody nose, a preylike mistake.

Knowing the path forward is simple, after that. Cellbit follows the spots of blood down several more hallways, each narrower and shorter than the last, until the metal grating transitions to solid tile underfoot. This area feels a bit more lived-in, less like a research laboratory and more like an old office building or barrack. The smell of mold still lingers in the air, but all the lights here actually function. Stowing his own light, Cellbit notes a motion sensor on the ceiling, and the fact that the hall was already illuminated before he turned the corner. 

One of the doors on the right is slightly ajar, with a bright drop of blood sitting in its frame like an invitation. The door swings silently open on its hinges, and Cellbit steps inside.

It is not a large room, and the air is much drier; instead of wet rot, it reeks of old paper. From floor to ceiling, this room is full of books. Each wall is crammed so full that the bookshelves sag where they have not been reinforced with steel supports. Cellbit slowly laps the room, breathless. Closer inspection reveals each thick volume is labeled with a Fed worker ID number and a set of dates. 

Cellbit can clearly see the blood spots lead a trail to a closed door at the opposite end of the room, but his bloodlust is at once overpowered by his curiosity. The shift happens so quickly he feels dizzy with it, like taking a breath of cool, clear air after minutes of sitting under warm water. Finding a records room in a hidden place like this was the last thing he expected, and he would be foolish to not learn everything he can while he has the opportunity. His hunt can wait.

He pulls out a book and flips through, tucking his knife between two fingers. It’s full of schematics, diagrams of complex machinery and computer programs. The next page has a diagram of the tube capsule which housed ElQuackity’s clones, the margins crammed with shorthand and scientific jargon. These are lab notebooks, Cellbit realizes—hundreds of them. He could spend hours pouring over these, but the schematics don’t interest him as much as the deeper questions: Who is ElQuackity, and what is his purpose?

His gaze falls on the row of filing cabinets at the back of the room to the left of the shut door, and he’s off in an instant, marching to the first cabinet and opening the top drawer to seek the answers he desperately needs. In a surprising contrast to the stuffed shelves, there are only two items inside: a thin folder and a small box.

The manila folder has long since softened and yellowed with age, and it opens easily in Cellbit’s hands, sending a polaroid photo sliding down to the floor. He bends down to retrieve it.

The tanks in the photo are shorter—likely the ones from that abandoned first room—and the bodies inside are much smaller, almost fetal. From the angle of the photo, Cellbit can see Cucurucho hovering over the round-faced body of a child with golden wings. 

His stomach churns. 

The back of the photo has a short description: EQ01 introduced to the facility - 2006.

The folder contains a few more loose items, mainly crude marker drawings that have worn at the edges, like they’ve been handled frequently. The first one depicts two stick figures, both with smiling faces and yellow scribbles across their backs. Scrawled at the bottom: me + kwakiti

The next drawing shows one of the yellow-scribbled figures crying alone, with a white, boxy figure standing beside him. Its simple smile sends a shiver down Cellbit’s spine. There is no written caption, but a sheet of paper is attached to the drawing with a paperclip. It’s a psychologist’s note, Cellbit realizes, fingertips growing damp.

EQ01 is not handling the separation well, it reads. He was excited to tour the facility when he entered on Monday, but has not stopped crying since he was told his brother will not be coming. He has not eaten any meals in the past few days and has been prone to violent outbursts when approached, particularly by Cucurucho. Will continue to monitor.

The last drawing in the folder is dated a few years later, 2009. The figure in the drawing is clearly still ElQuackity, but the yellow markings are more clearly drawn as wings. He floats in what looks like a box full of frantic blue scribbles, mouth open in a scream. The other side of the paper is half-filled with the messy handwriting of a child.

I died. I was walking to get brekfast and the floor went away and it was like a swimming pool but I cant swim. I dont think they knew that. it hurt alot. now I have a new body. it feels wierd

Attached to this drawing is another doctor’s note. Cellbit reads. 

The first death was a complete success. EQ02 is physically healthy, has retained the full memory content of EQ01, and is expected to recover emotionally with continued psychotherapy. Trials will continue upon recovery.

The note continues, but Cellbit closes the folder. His heart beats too fast, stirring his blood uncomfortably in his ears. The only other item in the drawer is the small photo box tucked into the back corner, and he reaches for it, fishing out the stack of polaroids inside and fanning them out in his hands.

The photographs seem innocuous: ElQuackity splayed on the ground on his belly, about eight or nine, doodling in a journal. A preteen ElQuackity in a hospital gown, having his height measured by a faceless worker in a lab coat. ElQuackity as a teenager, sitting on a twin-sized bed and putting his middle finger up at the camera. What makes Cellbit’s mouth go dry are the captions below each photo: EQ39. EQ108. EQ354.

ElQuackity was taken from his family by the Federation and put through a constant cycle of death, hidden away in this miserable bunker. Cellbit thinks back to what ElQuackity revealed about his own childhood and swallows the rage and disgust boiling in his throat. He thought that the two of them could not be more opposite, but the Federation had clearly wronged them both in ways he still couldn’t fully comprehend.

The first image and caption bother Cellbit especially. By the date on the drawing of that first death and his age in the picture, the photo must have been taken not long afterward. In just a year or two, the Federation had murdered the child in their care almost forty times. Cellbit recalls the wobbly letters and spelling mistakes, the screaming character in the drawing, and pinches his nose, looking around the room again. They were able to record this much, on this project alone. Knowing the contents of the volumes makes their number even more staggering.

Finally learning how ElQuackity keeps resisting death should make him feel better, but Cellbit only feels a sickening bolt of dread growing in his stomach. ElQuackity wasn’t some preternatural being incapable of fear or compassion, immune to death and despair—he was a child, and then he was…a science experiment.

The last photograph, buried at the bottom of the stack, is a photo of ElQuackity and Cucurucho, standing together in front of an unfamiliar modern home. It’s more recent—ElQuackity looks almost his current age, giving a forced smile to the camera in a black beanie, turtleneck, and pair of overalls. The photo feels strangely familial compared to the others, like a posed holiday card. A note is written on the back in the psychologist’s now-familiar handwriting.

Retirement dinner with the boss! Today was my last day on the island. “ElQuackity,” if you read this, I hope you’ll do well without me. Be of use to the Federation, and make us proud. You are our greatest work. 

Cellbit replaces the photos and closes the drawer, feeling sick.

From behind the door to his right, there’s a shuffling noise. Cellbit pauses and listens, but it’s silent again. He had thought the door ElQuackity escaped through led further into the facility, more twisting halls and corridors to navigate, but maybe…

He strides over and presses his ear to the door. It’s made of metal, but it looks thin, likely to amplify sounds through both sides.

He holds his breath, and there it is: the faintest rasp of ragged, rapid breaths from the other side. Whatever space is beyond this door, it sounds small. A dead end.

“I know you’re in there,” Cellbit announces. His voice is still gravelly from the exertion of earlier. The breathing picks up.

“I—” Cellbit opens his mouth, then closes it. What was he even about to say? It feels horribly gauche to apologize, at this point. His nail beds are still tacky with blood.

“Nevermind,” he mutters, turning away from the door. ElQuackity’s not going anywhere, anyway.

The lower drawer of the filing cabinet creaks open only with a rougher tug, much heavier on its treads. It’s filled with crude leatherbound journals, smaller and more portable than the books on the shelves. The one sitting on top is labeled Mission Log: Cellbit. He snatches it up and opens it without hesitation.

Boss gave me a new main mission today, the first page reads, in a tight scrawl that could only be ElQuackity’s. They handed me this huge file on Cellbit and…it’s an absolute shitshow. I remember seeing him creeping around outside the base as a kid, trying to get a peek at where his parents worked, poking his nose into things even then. One day, he was just gone. I always wondered where he went, and it turns out we don’t fucking know either!

Cellbit narrows his eyes and keeps reading.

Either no one ever wrote it down, or the record was destroyed, but no one knows what he saw that made him leave the island—just that he saw something. And now that they have him back here, wiped fresh like a new toy soldier, I guess they’re regretting it. Maybe that information was really important. I don’t know, and won’t have the privilege of knowing more. Not that it matters. 

Boss thinks because he’s already mentally unstable, strong emotions will trigger the memories. All I have to do is rile him up. I’ve done this type of mission before—it’s never that hard to get intel out of someone once they’re angry—but I don’t want to mess with this “repressed memories” bullshit. I don’t think they know what they’re dealing with. 

You lab people told me to be careful…you’ve never done that before. I wonder if the backups will get any use. I hope not. It’s been nice using them on my own terms, these past few years. 

Either way, I’ve got orders to pursue at all costs. Will update here accordingly if any deaths result.

“Hey ElQuackity! I’m reading your diary,” Cellbit says, pressing his back against the door with a thump.

Silence. Cellbit turns the page.

Everyone does things for a reason, ElQuackity’s next entry begins. Even when it looks like they’re totally crazy, or it’s something you’d never do in a million years. In spite of this, I have no fucking idea why I just caught Cellbit eating a baby goat. Is this some kind of omen telling me to quit while I’m ahead? It was so ridiculous I almost just started laughing before he spun around and scared the shit out of me. And then I died! 

My very first death on the very first day. Thank God you assholes had the backups ready, or I’d be a goner—once you figure out how to hook up more than 5 tanks then we’ll really be moving. 

I’ll have to trigger Cellbit’s brain a little more delicately. This one was my fault. He leapt at me like an animal, and I wasn’t expecting it at all. 

That fucking serrated knife hurt like a bitch. It missed my heart, just punctured a lung, so the bleeding was slow. I felt everything getting colder as that asshole stood over me watching the blood pour out for however long it took. He didn’t even bother putting me out of my mercy. It sure didn’t seem like he “remembered” a fucking thing.

This shit is degrading and I hate it. Where are the normal tests? Why can’t you guys just make me go back to running on a treadmill? 

Cellbit presses his lips together and rubs the page edge between two fingers, leaving a rusty smudge of dried blood. The familiarity with which ElQuackity has written feels personal, despite knowing it would be read by his supervisors and keepers. Maybe calling it a “diary” wasn’t as far off the mark as Cellbit intended.

As an addendum, the opposite page begins. I gave it a couple of weeks before reappearing to Cellbit—tonight’s party was the perfect opportunity. I thought maybe the break would let him cool off, but I was wrong. He took one look at me and had some sort of freaky episode that probably ruined everyone’s night. Then he came to the gravesite afterwards where I’d hoped to have a chat, but that didn’t go as planned, either.

He’s losing it. Human resurrection isn’t something you see every day, but this guy was…manic. Cellbit had his knife out before I could get anywhere. And then he just stood there with it, glaring at me like he was going to use it again if I so much as breathed the wrong way. He looked scared. He threatened me, too, and said he’ll kill me the next time he sees me.

I got the hell out of there. Just because I have the backups doesn’t mean I want to use them. I’ll monitor from a distance for a while before I make my next move. This fucking weirdo is seriously creeping me out. This could be so bad. You’d better appreciate what I’m fucking doing for you.

Cellbit tips his head back against the metal door and squeezes his eyes shut. 

ElQuackity was never trying to kill him. Thinking back, ElQuackity had never attacked him first, not even once. He was all bark and no bite, the illusion of danger.

How could Cellbit have missed that? Could he have ever looked past his snarling instincts to wonder about the bigger picture?

He knows the answer to that question, and he despises it. With trepidation, he turns the page.

You have to get me out of here, it starts. The handwriting is much more frantic, the letters running into each other as though to escape into the next word.

Cellbit stops and takes a deep, rattling inhale. He has to take responsibility for this.

You have to get me out of here. Call it off, cancel the mission, do whatever you have to do to get me AWAY FROM HIM.

I underestimated how much of a threat he was to me. Cellbit is psychotic—he MELTED MY SKIN OFF, which I only survived because of stupid fucking Roier. The fact Cellbit did it IN FRONT OF HIS HUSBAND was even worse. Literally nothing will stop him. You already saw how I ended up dead anyway, so don’t play stupid and ask why later.

If he could remember anything, it definitely would’ve come back by now. I don’t think I could get him angrier if I tried. There’s no goddamned way that Cellbit’s just gonna remember his childhood and magically become better, and even if he did, he hates our guts. He’s gonna keep mowing down everyone in his path until there’s nothing left. And you want those bodies to all be me, don’t you? You knew this would happen, didn’t you?

I’m not doing it anymore. There has got to be a better way to get into his head. Please don’t make me do this again. You know I don’t beg you, but please. Please.

The lower half of the page is dominated by a large “DENIED” stamp and a block of neat text in dark ink, clearly added by another party.

REQUEST DENIED. MISSION RISKS REMAIN WITHIN EXPECTED PARAMETERS. MISSION WILL CONTINUE AS GIVEN WITH NO CHANGE. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN PUNISHMENT. POOR ATTITUDE HAS BEEN REPORTED.

Cellbit thinks he might vomit, the bile welling like foul mud in his throat. He swallows several times, eyes skimming the words over and over, catching on the places the pen had bitten into the page.

He turns the page, knowing it is not yet finished. ElQuackity’s last entry is brief.

You want me to keep going on these stupid missions? Well, now I’ve shown you fucking stupid. You don’t care, so why should I? As long as you keep up the supply, who cares how many times it takes, how many resources you waste? Let’s just sit back and kill me over and over again. It’ll be just like old times! I’m done crying.

Laying in bed with Cellbit gave me a rush, like dangling a raw steak over a hungry tiger. You can do anything when you’ve got infinite chances, right? That’s what you always told me, but I guess I forgot. I never thought I’d miss that stuck-up therapist. Maybe that crossbow bolt wouldn’t have pulverized my ribcage if I kept practicing positive affirmations.

I think he’ll follow me, after this. I have been watching him try to piece it together. Maybe it’ll hurt. But I’ll be fine. I always am, because of you. “Fine.” Alive. Maybe that’s all that matters.

That, and the objective, of course. Don’t you worry, boss. I’m on it.

The rest of the pages are blank. Cellbit closes the book and sets it aside, hands shaking.

“ElQuackity, you…” Cellbit pauses, listening for any change, then tips his head back against the door.

Once again, the words die before reaching his tongue. How is he meant to react to all of this? He came to uproot his answers and finally settle things, only to uncover a rabbit hole deeper than he could have fathomed. Simply washing his hands of ElQuackity now is impossible, knowing the truth of the situation. It involves them both so intrinsically that to eliminate ElQuackity would be to sacrifice the only person who could possibly tell him why he was brought to the island in the first place.

Cellbit at once feels very tired. Three days without proper sleep weigh on his limbs like lead shackles, the tightness of dried blood caking his hands and face pulling at his skin unpleasantly. Coming down from the high of a kill always feels wretched, but now the shame and despair digs its fingers even deeper into his soft tissue, a throbbing ache in his whole body that is everything but physical. 

He sacrificed so much of his progress, his sanity, for nothing. Worse than nothing—a half-baked Federation plot to force more information from him, regardless of how poorly it left him in the end.

Even after all this time, he is still a fly in the Federation’s web, senselessly playing into their schemes. Just like before, the struggle to escape the trap has only led him to be further ensnared. The more energy he wastes thrashing, the weaker he will be when they finally go in for the calculated kill, pinned precisely where they want him. He had thought ElQuackity was the spider, but all this time he had just been another fly.

That didn’t mean he was no longer dangerous. He may have been harmlessly taunting at first, but after what Cellbit has done to him, he may want to seek revenge. Cellbit knows he would, were he in ElQuackity’s shoes.

He needs to make ElQuackity understand that that is not an option.

“Let me in,” Cellbit says, getting to his feet. He presses his palm to the cold steel door. “ElQuackity, let me in. I won’t kill you.”

ElQuackity says nothing, but Cellbit also can no longer hear his rapid breathing.

“I mean it,” Cellbit adds. “I don’t want to kill you.” 

Each time he speaks the words aloud makes them feel more true. He says it to convince both ElQuackity and himself.

“I won’t kill you again,” he repeats a third time. The last vestiges of exhilaration fade into exhaustion, embers stamped out underfoot. “I was wrong. You were…never trying to kill me, right? I overreacted.”

He pauses, still not sure that an apology is appropriate. The truth is, Cellbit was completely lucid during all of it: the Cellbit who shoved ElQuackity into lava without remorse is the same Cellbit who stands here now, feeling the collar of horror and shame garroting him. Its tightness around his neck crushes his words out.

“I’m sorry. Okay? I said it.”

From behind the door, there is a sharp, echoed bark of a laugh.

“Oh, now you’re sorry,” ElQuackity says, voice muffled. “Quick, let’s call the Pope and canonize you.”

“Fuck off, you were skulking around the island like a sentient zombie, of course I tried to kill you,” Cellbit bites back.

Cellbit hears ElQuackity scoff through the door.

“But I’m serious,” Cellbit insists. “I messed up. This place is…” he trails off, looking around the derelict room, feeling the pungent stench of mold hit the roof of his mouth. “This place is horrible. You have to see that they were just—just throwing you to me, right? They knew I would…act that way, it was part of their plan. You saw what they said to you. Do you think they care about you at all?”

ElQuackity is quiet.

“How could they just abandon a project like this?” Cellbit murmurs, more to himself. “After all these years of work…”

“So you won’t kill me anymore,” ElQuackity cuts in. “Because the only thing Cellbit loves more than murdering people is foiling the Federation’s plans, right? Sorry to say, you’re way too late.”

“What?” Cellbit blinks. “The plan failed. I haven’t remembered anything.”

“Not that one, you idiot,” ElQuackity snipes. “The revival tech was never meant for me. I was just the little birdie they tested it on. They wanted to make sure it worked until I was an adult, and now that they know it does, well.” ElQuackity pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is flatter. “I bet they’ll be glad you cleared out those pods. They’re for Cucurucho now.”

A sliver of dread pierces Cellbit thinking about an immortal Cucurucho. It already seemed so untouchable, dancing out of reach as it gleefully tormented the islanders in the name of “happiness” and “safety.” That Cellbit may have just given it yet another allowance of power makes his teeth go dry.

“I’m not useful to them anymore,” says ElQuackity, still sounding hollow. “The writing’s been on the wall for years, them letting this place go to shit, but the moment they denied that request, I felt it. This whole mission to retrieve your memories was never meant to succeed. They want me gone, in a way that they don’t have to think about. Less cleanup, less paperwork. It’s just so much easier if you do it for them. Maybe they could even kill two birds with one stone.”

“You seem so sure they’ll just leave you for dead,” Cellbit says, dread thickening in his throat like tar. “Won’t they just fix the pods and make you more of those creepy clones?”

“You saw the empty tank,” ElQuackity replies. “Normally, they’d have a new one growing hours after. They stopped replacing them days ago.” A soft and ragged sigh echoes through the steel door. “They’re not coming back here until I’m really gone.”

“I…I didn’t know,” Cellbit says.

“Would it have mattered if you did?”

Cellbit rubs his arms, nails skirting over the places where the skin is puckered and numb. He hopes it would have mattered, but this whole situation has only taught him that he has even less control over his own actions than ever before.

“You were still taunting me earlier,” Cellbit realizes. “Even though you knew what they wanted. Why?”

“What do you want me to say? It’s my fucking job. How was I supposed to know that you would go all chainsaw massacre on me?” He pauses. “And guess what, asshole? I’m not letting you in here. Don’t try to plead for my forgiveness after I just watched you try to send me to hell.”

“At least you know where you’re going,” Cellbit mumbles under his breath. “Listen, I said I’m sorry. I didn’t see the whole picture and made everything worse, I’ve got that. Just open the door. I need to see you.”

“You must think I’m an idiot,” ElQuackity declares. “In what world would I invite the man who just tried to murder me twenty minutes ago into my bedroom?”

“It’s your bedroom?” Cellbit asks, blindsided. It makes sense that ElQuackity would live in the same place where he was revived, but the knowledge that this is the room where he sleeps makes Cellbit feel a bit strange—like he’s camping a kill, even though his killing intent has all but evaporated.

ElQuackity does not respond. Beyond the door, Cellbit can hear shuffling sounds.

“This is ridiculous, I already promised not to hurt you,” Cellbit says. “Look, I know you must be feeling scared, but I just want to talk to you. We can manage that, right?”

“We are talking,” ElQuackity snarks, but he sounds further away from the door now.

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Cellbit twitches closer to the door as the shuffling sounds continue, heart rate picking up. “What are you doing?”

There’s no response but for a loud, tumbling crack, the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. Cellbit clenches his fists and holds his breath as the other side of the door goes silent.

If it is ElQuackity’s personal quarters, it’s possible he has an escape route planned through the familiar space. He could be trying to weasel away right now, and then Cellbit would never know when to expect his strike. Burning agitation battles its way through his exhaustion again, forcing his senses back on high alert. Sweat prickles his neck and a wave of dizzying nausea sweeps him. He takes a few steps back from the door, panting a bit at the sudden return of the anxiety, oppressive and urgent like a gloved hand pressed around his windpipe. He didn’t want it to come to this, but ElQuackity is just as skilled at forcing his hand as ever. He reels back and kicks the doorknob as hard as he can. 

The lock mechanism crumples on the first kick. On the second, the door bangs open, and Cellbit rushes inside.

The room is dark, the only light flooding in from the open doorway. He startles at first, seeing his own blood-caked face staring back at him, until he realizes the entire far wall of the room is a massive mirror. As Cellbit suspected, it is a tiny space, cell-like and cramped with meager furnishings: a toilet and sink in the far corner, a small desk, a chest of drawers, a fallen lamp, and a twin-sized bed. Atop the bed, ankles wobbling, is ElQuackity.

Cellbit draws his knife immediately, sensing the intent to attack from higher ground. There are no signs that Cellbit can see of an attempted escape, just ElQuackity standing on his mattress, looking worse for wear. The blood from his gash has run down his nose and into his mouth, and both knees have been scraped raw from his panicked flight. The hand that Cellbit bit in their earlier scuffle is bloody and bruised. 

ElQuackity just stares at first, crest feathers pinned to his ears as he bores into Cellbit with round, fearful eyes. Then, he narrows them, and leaps.

Cellbit tilts his knife away and catches ElQuackity’s weight with his elbow as they topple to the ground, knocking the wind out of him as it digs into the soft meat under his ribs. ElQuackity recovers quickly, reeling back and swinging a punch at Cellbit’s face before he can react. It’s not the strongest hit he’s ever taken, but it still catches him off guard for long enough that ElQuackity is able to land another adrenaline-fueled right hook. Cellbit snarls and resists the urge to swing his knife. The next time ElQuackity reels back, Cellbit catches his wrist in his free hand, squeezing until ElQuackity gasps in pain.

“Stop,” Cellbit breathes. “I don’t want to—”

ElQuackity’s bruised left hand shoots to his throat, pressing down. With the physical leverage he has over Cellbit, the downward force makes Cellbit gag, struggling to take another breath. 

“You expect me to just lie down and take it while you kill me? Cornered in this shithole like vermin?” ElQuackity heaves, eyes wide and wet and angry, sharp teeth glimmering in an open-mouthed snarl. “You’re so fucking stupid, Cellbit. You’re just a monster. Nothing you say will ever change that. Die.”

Cellbit’s face is hot and tight from the blood rushing to his head. Against his clamoring instincts, he tucks his knife beneath him and grabs ElQuackity’s wrist, prying it off his throat. Now holding both of ElQuackity’s wrists in each of his hands, he jackknifes upwards, using the momentum to roll ElQuackity backwards and swap their positions. ElQuackity’s head crunches against some of the shattered glass from the lamp’s broken bulb and he winces as he struggles, but Cellbit keeps his wrists pinned, careful to avoid forcing them into more of the glass. He can't let go, not yet.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Cellbit wheezes, pressing ElQuackity’s wrists down into the grimy, cold tiles as he tries valiantly to writhe away, wings flapping in a frenzy. “Hell, you’re—you’re right, okay? I’m fucked up. You think I want to act like this? You think I fucking enjoy it, always being one trigger away from snapping and killing someone? Maybe someone I care about?” He shakes ElQuackity’s wrists. “Stop fucking squirming and listen.”

“Why should I listen? I’ve known your sob story this whole time, and it doesn’t change my opinion of you,” ElQuackity spits. He’s acting tough, but Cellbit can see the way his chest heaves with shallow, rapid breaths, the tears gathering in his eyes. He’s terrified. “Let—Let me go, asshole.”

“I don’t want to be manipulated anymore!” Cellbit shouts. “You should understand that better than anyone. They’ve been using both of us. They’re using you to get to me, and me to get to you. It’s a cycle that never ends until we both agree it’s bullshit.” 

ElQuackity’s wrists feel so small in Cellbit’s calloused hands. Cellbit wonders if his bones are hollow like a bird’s, how much more pressure it would take for them to snap like twigs. He loosens his grip slightly.

“Please understand me,” Cellbit says, staring down at ElQuackity’s panicked, furious expression. “I don’t like you, but I don’t want to be used like a tool for them to kill you. You’ve won, entende? You showed me what I was missing, that there are so many more important things to learn here than why you don’t die. Maybe we can even find them out together.” He presses his thumbs to the hollows of ElQuackity’s wrists, feeling the pulse thudding there, and is reminded of that first time, when he had grabbed ElQuackity’s wrist and squeezed to make sure he was real. “We don’t have to be at each other’s necks. I won’t take your last life. You just have to agree not to take mine, or anyone else’s.”

ElQuackity’s breaths are coming so fast, Cellbit wonders if he might start to hyperventilate.

“Fine,” he says quickly.

“You leave me alone. You leave Roier alone. And everyone else, okay?” Cellbit stares at him intently, searching for sincerity in his face, but ElQuackity just squeezes his eyes shut, forcing the tears to fall and trickle down into his hairline. “You’re down to one life now, like the rest of us, so surely now you understand. It’s precious.”

“I get it,” ElQuackity heaves. “I get it, I get it, okay?” Now, just—please— ” he jerks his wrists upward, and when Cellbit doesn’t release him, a sound between a gulp and a sob bursts from his lips. “What the fuck do you want from me? Let me go!”

“I want you to say it,” says Cellbit. The more ElQuackity squirms and cries, the viler he feels, but he needs to do this, or he’ll never be able to put this brief and horrible nightmare to rest. “Look at me, and say you won’t kill me, or anyone else.”

ElQuackity’s eyes snap open. “I won’t kill you, I won't kill anyone. F-Fuck, you pushed me to this, and it’s c-clearly not worth it. Just—” he jerks again, then whimpers when he still can’t get free. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I’m serious if you are,” Cellbit tells him, to which ElQuackity frantically nods, his skull crunching more glass beneath it. Cellbit cringes, and experimentally lets go of one of ElQuackity’s wrists to nudge his head away from the broken glass. ElQuackity’s freed hand stays limp beside his head, like he’s too frozen with fear to move it. His hair is silky and new, like a baby’s. He gives Cellbit a confused look, but says nothing more around his shuddering breaths.

Cellbit is awash with a remarkably strange feeling, like he’s blinked and woken up in an alternate world. Here he has his previously unflappable adversary, pinned and begging for mercy to spare his final life, something Cellbit has spent weeks wanting more than anything else. But now, knowing the truth, Cellbit looks at ElQuackity’s desperate, tear-stained face and feels only peace. This is not the face of someone who wants him dead. As much as this evening has changed Cellbit, ElQuackity has changed, too.

Cellbit exhales, and releases ElQuackity’s other wrist. It’s over.

He shuffles backwards off of him, quickly picking up his knife and stowing it. As soon as Cellbit’s weight leaves him, ElQuackity sits up and tucks his knees to his chest, swiping at his face. He does it with his fists, like a little kid.

Cellbit’s chest gives a similar pang to when he saw ElQuackity’s childhood drawings. ElQuackity just looks so small, the fear of permanent death instilled in him for the first time in his entire life. Now that Cellbit is sure he won’t try anything, the bitter sting of pity begins to take root in his gut. He still dislikes him, but he feels a responsibility for ElQuackity now, after putting him in this situation.

ElQuackity looks up and glares. “What are you still doing here? Was that spectacle not enough for you? Do you want to bask in my misery?”

“No, that’s not it.” Cellbit shakes his head. “It’s just—you don’t want to stay here, do you?”

ElQuackity covers his face with both hands and drags them down, pulling at his eyes. He makes a pathetic sight, curled up into a ball beside the bed like an armadillo tucked into its shell to uselessly hide from its predators. He mumbles something unintelligible, and when Cellbit steps closer, he snaps.

“I said, where else am I supposed to go?” he barks. A considering expression passes over his face for a moment, then he shakes his head and covers his face again. “Fuck, don’t—don’t come near me. I don’t want to look at you, or hear your stupid rhetorical questions.”

Cellbit swallows. ElQuackity is not wrong—without the care of the Federation, he has nowhere to go. Whatever home or family the Federation had torn him from as a child is long gone, as Quackity never mentioned anything about it, either. Cellbit almost decides to ask about Quackity’s whereabouts as he comes to mind, but holds his tongue. For all his social ineptitude, even Cellbit can tell that this would be a horrible time to ask, after all that’s happened. ElQuackity would bite his head off.

“Come with me,” is what he ends up saying. Based on the look ElQuackity gives him, asking about Quackity would’ve been better.

“Cellbit,” he says slowly. “In what world, and under what circumstances, would I ever go with you after what just happened?”

“I don’t mean stay with me,” Cellbit clarifies. “Just to get out of here. It’s thousands of blocks to the nearest warp stone. You can’t just stay out here until you starve.”

ElQuackity’s red-rimmed eyes take the edge off his scowl.

“Have you forgotten how you just spent the last few hours destroying my life?” he spits. “Do you need me to give you a recap?”

“What kind of life even was that?” Cellbit asks. “Living as the Federation’s lapdog? Sitting and staying when you’re given the order, as they euthanize you again and again? You’re telling me you enjoyed that?”

“…I hated it,” says ElQuackity, gripping his knees. “But you don’t get to act like you’ve done a good thing for me after all this, so stop trying to twist it to make yourself feel better. You did all that killing because you wanted to, not because anyone forced you. Not because it was the right thing to do.”

Cellbit sits with that statement for a few moments, regarding him quietly. It hurts, not because it is another one of ElQuackity’s deceitful taunts, but because its candor cuts clean through Cellbit’s own circling self-justifications. Meeting ElQuackity’s eyes, he is faced with a new side of him, the vulnerable yolk that had been hidden beneath a shell of mocking bravado.

It’s refreshing to have someone fight back in a way that feels meaningful. Cellbit feels at once that ElQuackity sees a piece of his true self that he’s never shown to anyone else, not even Roier.

“Okay,” he says, digging through his pack. He finds a wrapped piece of bread and tosses it at ElQuackity, who fumbles to catch it. “Eat this.”

“What?” ElQuackity squawks. Cellbit crosses the room and tugs open one of the drawers. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“You’re right,” says Cellbit, rummaging around through the messy, unfolded items until he retrieves a pair of socks and overalls. “I’ve only made things worse for both of us. And you might still believe I’m a monster, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to leave you here.” He balls up the clothing and lobs it at ElQuackity, who yelps in protest again. “Get dressed.”

“Stop fucking throwing things at me!” he grouses.

“You said not to come near you,” Cellbit replies, fighting back a smirk. “I’m only respecting your boundaries.”

“I despise you,” says ElQuackity, but he gingerly stands and begins pulling on the overalls.

“I’m going to take some of these lab notebooks,” Cellbit informs him, peering back out into the records room. “Who knows what they’ll do to this place once they return.”

“Be my guest,” ElQuackity sniffs, leaning against the bed while fixing the toe of his sock. “I’m just going to grab my shit.”

Cellbit isn’t sure what his face is doing, but when ElQuackity glances up at him he gives him a withering look.

“Just so you know, I’m not going with you,” he says. “I just happen to be leaving at the same time as you. No reason to sit here with my thumb up my ass until they come back with the firing squad.”

Cellbit jolts. “They’d do that?”

ElQuackity presses his lips together. “No, probably not. But I don’t want to stay to find out.” He looks up with a hollowed-out expression, his under-eyes already bruising into fuzzy purple half-moons. “You’ll allow a newly mortal man a bit of gallows humor, won’t you?”

Cellbit turns around and sighs, beginning to stuff his pack with books that look the most relevant to the mechanism of the revival tech. Eventually, ElQuackity emerges from his room, beanie pulled over his ears, and approaches the filing cabinet. He fishes out the folder of drawings, but leaves the stack of photos.

“Ready?” asks Cellbit.

ElQuackity rolls his eyes, hoisting his bag on one shoulder.

“Like I need to follow you. Do you even know your way out of here?”

Cellbit pauses. “Well, I was just going to warp.” He digs out his stone, then curses. “Nevermind. I don’t have enough XP to get all the way back. You don’t happen to…” He glances at ElQuackity, who likely hasn’t left this place since being revived days ago, and trails off.

ElQuackity shoves past him. After a moment, Cellbit follows.

As they snake their way through the darkened hallways, Cellbit finds himself wondering if ElQuackity will miss this horrible place. It’s impersonal, cold, and dirty, but it’s almost all he’d ever known. There is an odd tug in Cellbit’s chest the more he considers it: the fear of leaving behind a place of comfortable misery for a new place that could be more miserable or could be wonderful, but which is wholly unfamiliar. He understands the feeling.

ElQuackity walks ahead with his fists clenched, evidently deep in thought. The back of his shiny black hair is tangled and mussed from where it had scraped against the ground. 

“Is he watching?” Cellbit hears him mumble to himself, an unbidden response to an internal conversation. “Could I go…?”

“Who? Cucurucho?”

ElQuackity sends him a foul glare over his shoulder and walks a bit faster. Well, whatever.

As they approach the clone room, Cellbit retrieves his axe that he had abandoned in the hall. ElQuackity looks a bit green at the trail of blood on the floor, and when they reach the open doors, he stops, but doesn’t move to look inside. Cellbit does, and cringes when he sees again the gruesome mess he’d left behind.

Just when Cellbit is about to open his mouth to say something, ElQuackity blinks hard and continues walking, staring resolutely forward. Cellbit steals one more look at the carnage before catching up, selfishly glad that they hadn’t lingered.

As the elevator gives a lurch and begins its crawling ascent, ElQuackity regards Cellbit with an unreadable expression, dark eyes glinting in the dim glow of Cellbit’s flashlight. Cellbit quite honestly doesn’t have the energy to parse it. He can’t wait to get home and only deal with thinking about this again after he’s slept for a week.

“You didn’t have to help me,” ElQuackity says. His voice is dwarfed by the rickety clatter and hum of the elevator. “You could have just ignored me and killed me for good. I know that’s what you came here to do.”

“I suppose,” says Cellbit. “But I told you, I don’t want to be manipulated anymore.”

“What if I was lying?” ElQuackity asks. His stare is challenging, fists balled up at his sides. “I could have said all that to get you to spare me.”

Cellbit raises his eyebrows. “Were you?”

ElQuackity huffs and looks away. “Obviously I wouldn’t tell you if I was lying. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to get all paranoid and change your mind.”

The elevator grinds to a halt before Cellbit can think of a response to that, and ElQuackity steps out.

It’s still dark, but the faintest haze of light bleeds across the sky from the east, painting the forest in a wash of deep blue. Ahead of him, ElQuackity takes in a deep breath and blows it out slowly, flexing his wings. Cellbit breathes in the clean air greedily as well, thankful to be out of that rotten place. It feels like turning a new chapter, leaving the horrors of the bunker behind them with no intent to return.

“So, where should we—” he starts.

“Cellbit,” ElQuackity interrupts. His voice trembles, and he stands still as a statue a few paces ahead.

Cellbit instantly draws his knife, scanning their surroundings. At first nothing stands out in the early morning gloom, but then, he sees it. A flash of white, tucked behind a tree. Then another, and another. He counts, and there are at least five Federation workers facing them, quiet as death. He whips around and sees another three camped atop the cliff face, faceless but watching.

“We don’t know what they want,” Cellbit whispers. “If we run too suddenly, it could be bad.”

“They want to kill me, Cellbit,” ElQuackity whispers back.

Cellbit scans them again. “They don’t even have guns. How can you be sure?”

“Well, you can stay and find out,” ElQuackity bites out, and with that, he’s off like a shot.

“ElQuackity!” Cellbit shouts. He moves to follow him, but that’s when the workers decide to close in, circling him. “Filho da puta. What do you want?”

Cellbit cranes his neck, trying to see where ElQuackity had gone. His muscles jump and strain to chase after him, to not lose track of him again after everything, but the workers have him completely surrounded.

At the very least, it doesn’t seem like any of the workers pursued ElQuackity, but Cellbit feels uneasy letting him out of his sight with this many of them around. The worker in front of him produces a notebook and hands it to him.

Thank you for your participation in this mission, Cellbit. Your continued dedication to the Federation’s cause is appreciated.

The force of the revulsion and rage that shudders through Cellbit’s body makes him fear he might vomit, slit the throat of the worker in front of him, or both. But more importantly, he needs to get away from this mess without suspicion.

“Okay. Yeah,” he says tonelessly, handing the notebook back. “Can I leave?”

The faceless worker stares at him for a moment, then writes in the notebook again.

We will escort you back to Headquarters.

The worker pulls out a charged warp stone. As loath as he is to go anywhere with these glorified police dogs, Cellbit isn’t sure he wants to drag himself thousands of blocks with them sniffing at his back. He gives one last look to the direction where ElQuackity ran off, and touches the stone.

When they land in front of the entrance to the main Federation building, the workers nod to him in turn and scatter. The sun peeks over the cupula of the train station, lighting up the colorful decorations strung about the town square, and Cellbit is alone.

Time has always been strange to Cellbit, a straight-flying arrow for everyone else that seemed to only loop him again and again, meandering and lost. Some days, the hollow victory of the Games feels like yesterday, and he spends days in ravenous isolation, raw and abraded as a weeping wound. Other times, the way he spent the previous day feels as distant as his fifth birthday, an elusive fiction that is no realer to him than the stories he used to read to Richas as he tucked him into bed.

The only thing that remains constant about time, in its addled flow about him, is its ability to equalize. There are ups and downs, periods of splitting rage and boundless woe, effusive joy and hair-point obsession, but everything balances out over time into a numb, continuing existence, a zero-sum game. Every experience and emotion that captures him, beautiful and terrible, will eventually fade.

Days pass without seeing ElQuackity, which turn into weeks, then months. Cellbit searched for him at first, unwilling to let go of what had so deeply destabilized him. But, in the end, he’s just…gone. The threat he posed, both real and imagined, had vanished like a bad dream. It should not be so easy to return to normalcy, but when Cellbit feels the tug of routine, he allows it. He lets Roier cradle him close, reassures those he had worried, and redirects his attention to the search for their children—something he should never have let slip, to begin with. 

ElQuackity did not want to be found. It was time to let go of this folly and re-center, though the defiant part of Cellbit still rankles at the unanswered questions.

Cellbit sits on the bedroom balcony, nursing a mug of black coffee. It is far too late in the night for it, but his insomnia had made a reappearance, batting him around like a bored cat as it often did. Roier had stayed out late for some reason or another, and the empty bed made Cellbit jittery. 

It’s a cool night with a faint breeze, a bit chillier than the island usually gets. The full moon casts everything in a halogen glow, sucking the color out of the still landscape below. Cellbit stares up at it. It never gets cloudy on the island, not truly, but a mist dances around the moon, swathing it in a dancing haze of blue and brown.

Cellbit hears Roier’s footsteps, but his husband clears his throat, announcing his presence as always before draping his warm arms around Cellbit from behind. 

“Hey,” he whispers. “Can’t sleep?”

Cellbit shakes his head.

“I was cold without you,” he says. Roier smiles.

“Maybe you’d be warmer if you wore a shirt,” he teases, trailing his fingers playfully across Cellbit’s bare bicep as he takes the chair next to him.

Cellbit shrugs. They both know he’s not actually cold in his tank top, worn soft from sleep. They both know he’s endured worse than the nip of an early autumn wind.

“Where were you?” Cellbit asks. The question floods him with a sense of déjà vu. Images flash: a moonlit sliver and crossbow recoil and warm breath on his neck, and he shakes his head, tossing the nasty memory free. 

“Oh, here and there,” Roier says. “Mostly near the city.” He pauses, then, as if not sure he should continue. He looks at his feet, then up at the moon. Cellbit raises his eyebrows at him.

“Yeah?” he prompts.

“I ran into Cucurucho,” Roier says, eyes still fixed on the sky.

Cellbit feels his muscles lock up. The cold air which had rolled off him before penetrates the top layer of skin, sets his hairs on end. Cellbit had seen very little of Cucurucho since the incident with ElQuackity. So little, in fact, that he had mistakenly gotten comfortable in its absence. Of course it had still been listening.

“Okay,” he says evenly. “What did it say?”

Roier sighs, and looks at him again. “Cellbit, don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry,” says Cellbit. There is an emotion squirming through him, some unknowable and slippery thing that he cannot yet categorize, but he’s certain it is not anger. “What did it want?”

“It didn’t want anything.” Roier leans back in his chair. “I asked him about ElQuackity.”

Cellbit grits his teeth. “Oh.”

“You’re angry,” Roier says.

“I’m not.”

Roier stands up and moves in front of him. His head partially blocks the moon, its backlight fanning out behind him like a pale halo.

“I know something happened between you two,” Roier says. “But he was my friend, too.”

Cellbit feels pinned, but not trapped, never trapped by Roier. He recognizes the feeling, now: apprehension. 

“What’s with the ‘too?’” he deflects. “We weren’t friends.”

Roier blinks at him. “Yeah, but you miss him.”

Cellbit bristles at that, but knows it is true before he can consider a retort. He does miss ElQuackity, in the sick way a sled dog misses its whip. ElQuackity had sharpened him with cruelty, made him hungry and horrible. He’d made him keener and smarter, brought him closer to the Federation’s secrets than he’d ever been before. Cellbit almost understood him, had him in his grasp, and then he was gone. 

“It’s okay,” Roier says, understanding Cellbit’s nonresponse. “Cucurucho had nothing to say about it, anyway.” He reaches out and rubs Cellbit’s shoulders, kneading the tension away. “We can miss him together.”

Looking up into his husband’s dark pupils, his vestigial spider eyes cracked open the slightest bit in the dim light, Cellbit considers telling him everything. How ElQuackity kept coming back no matter how many times Cellbit hunted him; the sick experiments of the Federation; where the enigma of ElQuackity, the bitter and beaten clone, fit into all of this. He thinks about how Roier will react, knowing that Cellbit had relapsed so egregiously, how close his husband had been to mindlessly destroying his friend.

The information would only hurt Roier. Cellbit sips his tepid coffee and sighs under Roier’s gentle ministrations, gazing past him at the placid moon. It’s better if he doesn’t tell him. ElQuackity would never be seen again—if even Cucurucho didn’t know where he was, it was unlikely he’d ever return. Not for the first time, Cellbit wonders if he’d managed to escape the island entirely. If anyone could have done it, it would’ve been him.

“Let’s get to bed, hm, gatinho?” Roier asks, squeezing his shoulders. He looks sad, but patient. Roier would wait forever for nothing, Cellbit thinks. He tries not to let the secrets between them leave a bad taste on his tongue.

“Okay,” he says, standing. He feels heavy, the weight of everything unsaid like a stone in his core. It’s been there, but each new conversation seems to roll it around, add to its weight. He wishes he was not such a coward.

He looks up, and the moon behind Roier is blood red.

An overwhelming surge of horror from beyond his body at once pins Cellbit into stillness. The vermillion is so vibrant and real that it does not cross his mind for a second that this is a hallucination. Foreign emotions well up in him like thick tar, malice and guilt and intent. Something is looking at him, and the gaze feels familiar.

“ElQuackity,” he whispers in horror.

The moon blinks.

“What?” Roier says, turning around. The sky is as normal as it’s ever been, but the luminous haze around the moon now carries an eerie feeling. Cellbit shudders. He feels watched.

And Cellbit knows, somehow, somewhere, it’s him.

“Cellbinho, look at me. Did you see something bad?” Roier crouches into his eye line, thick brows pinched together. A gritty lump of dread solidifies in Cellbit’s throat, and he can’t swallow around it. They are both familiar with his hallucinations, but this was different.

“No,” Cellbit rasps. “Not that.” 

The wind rustles the sheer curtain behind them, and it feels like fingers dancing against Cellbit’s prickling arms, twining through his hair. He needs to get inside. Jerking to his feet, he takes Roier’s hand and leads them back into the bedroom, locking the door and pulling the heavier red drapes shut as they go. Roier squeezes his hand several times, pumping it in his own like the sensation can keep Cellbit from floating away into nothing. Cellbit collapses against the bed, and Roier sinks down beside him.

“I’m here,” he says. “Estoy aquí contigo, Cellbit. Breathe.”

The rationalizing voice in Cellbit’s mind tries to him it was just a hallucination, that he should expect this by now. But it is drowned out by the rest, clamoring at the emotions that gaze had made him feel. 

A sudden violence that only existed in the wake of a brutal kill, blood soaking into parched earth. A penitence that only existed in a church, a vague memory that consists of only a stained glass window and a feeling of indelible guilt. A focus that only existed in the held breaths before a death blow. Those emotions had not come from Cellbit, but from the moon itself, like a premonition being projected into his brain. ElQuackity, somehow. Cellbit didn’t know how, but he was certain.

“Roier,” he chokes. “I let him go and he did something. He’s—he’s done something.”

“Slow down,” Roier says. His palms are so warm in Cellbit’s, shaking with fingertips cold and clammy. “What do you mean?”

“He’s—” Cellbit swallows. “I took away his power. He must have found something worse.” He shakes his head, trembling.

“You—what?” Cellbit will certainly have to tell Roier, now. The flicker of dread hardly registers under the panic of what ElQuackity has seemingly done.

Cellbit remembers shepherding him out of the bunker, winding through dank halls, the way ElQuackity had held himself taut and buried himself in thought, the consideration on his face before declaring he had nowhere to go. Cellbit should have known he’d always had another plot, another backdoor to escape death. It was the only way he knew how to survive. The thought sparks a gnawing guilt under the horror, the fear of what he may have pushed ElQuackity to do. And what on earth had he done?

“He was looking at us,” Cellbit says. “From the sky, he was watching.”

Roier is incredibly skilled at making his eyes reassuring. He rubs his thumbs against the backs of Cellbit’s hands, and his confused expression shifts to one of such patient kindness and concern that Cellbit wants to crumble from it.

Roier doesn’t believe him. Why should he? It’s hardly the first time Cellbit has panicked from what others would consider complete nonsense. But Roier still loves him, he still wants to care for him. Cellbit has no one else to tell.

“I’m sorry, Roier,” he gasps out. “I don’t know what to do.”

Roier places a hand on his back and pulls Cellbit’s face to his shoulder.

“It’s okay, gatinho,” he says, rubbing Cellbit’s back in slow circles. “Can we fix it?”

He’s still treating this like one of Cellbit’s nightmares. Cellbit presses his forehead into the crook of Roier’s collarbone and shudders.

“I don’t know.”

Through the gap under Roier’s arm, Cellbit stares at his lap. His eyes are dry, but his chest heaves like something in his hindbrain is scrambling in fervid terror, trying to get him to cry or throw up to purge the crawling anxiety from his body. The thin sliver of light shining from between the curtains is a knife wound slicing the bedspread in two, catching across the back of his hand entwined in Roier’s. As Cellbit watches, it begins to flicker unnaturally, heat lightning from another world where storms are red and ultraviolet. He squeezes Roier’s hand so tightly his husband gives a yelp and sits him upright.

“Cellbit,” he says, still staring earnestly into his eyes. “What—”

Cellbit yanks his hands away to grab Roier by the arms and bodily turns him around. The flickering red light is just barely visible through the crack in the drapes. Roier stills.

Cellbit finds himself unable to speak a word, letting himself be pulled along as Roier slowly stands and moves to the window. Through the glass door, the wind whistles and moans like a dying animal, wounded and hollow. Roier undoes the latch, and Cellbit makes no move to stop him.

The wind is the first thing he feels, buffeting his face with tiny razors of chilled air as the door bounces open, drapes fluttering back. It has picked up into a whirling squall that kicks debris high into the air, tearing leaves from the trees below. The moon is again as it was for those few horrible moments, deep crimson like a weeping wound. Taking it in, now, everything is bathed in its unearthly glow, hideous incarnadine catching on rooftops and the ledge of the balcony and Roier’s cheekbones.

As Cellbit’s eyes land on Roier, he cannot look away. Roier stands stock still, bathed in the diffuse light, his soft hair being whipped around by the howling wind. Cellbit watches as his face twists into one of horror, his eyes widening and lips dropping open slightly to let that light catch on his lower teeth, find its way into his mouth. The red accentuates every crease in his face and blurs the highlights, dark crevices between his eyes and at the edges of his mouth that deepen the longer he stares at the thing that ElQuackity had somehow become.

Cellbit blinks up in terror, and ElQuackity glares back.