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[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

It was as awkward as Aremu had thought it would be, one hand and one wrist pressed into the rough ground, his knees moving steadily as he made his way through the tunnel. It was wide enough, but he never knew what was to come; it was only pitch black darkness before him, the scrape of him against the ground, and the rough sounds of his breathing and Gideon’s both, deep behind him.

For a long time, at least, there was nothing else. He hadn’t known to be grateful for it.

Scrap.

Aremu came to a stop in the dark; he hadn’t meant to. He thought – he thought he would find Gideon on top of him then, but the other man must have stopped too; he could hear him breathing.

Aremu shifted; he twisted, low, crouching, looking backwards in the tunnel, desperate – as if he could make out anything. His wrist balanced him against the ground; his hand reached behind, back, hovered at the waistband of his pants. His breath was coming unevenly now, hesitant; he searched the dark once more.

He never knew, Aremu reminded himself, his heart pounding; as if he’d needed another reminder of that. His jaw worked; it tightened. Why say it now? He didn’t understand; if Gideon had known, all along, then – why now?

The narrow, tight tunnel; Aremu felt something like panic crawl up into his mouth, choking him. There was nowhere to go; there was nowhere to run. He couldn’t run; could he outcrawl Gideon? If the passage narrowed – maybe – he was already conscious of the walls closing in, and he could not even bring himself to hope for it.

So fucking what if I am? He wanted to spit the words between them. I’m no more likely than you to bring this tunnel down – less, godsdammit, seeing as I’m half your size. If you’ve a problem – if you have a problem, then you can go fuck yourself, plowfoot – how do you like it? I’m the one who found this tunnel, I – I can crawl, dammit, just like any man –

It wasn’t me, Aremu wanted to say, choked and desperate. It wasn’t me; it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. I’m not dangerous in that way; I can’t hurt you with it – if I – would Gideon know the word diablerie? He didn’t know what they said of passives here in Anaxas. Scrap, Gideon had said.

“What about it?” Aremu said, instead, into the stillness of the passage. His voice was choked and hoarse with the rough air of the cave, or so he would have liked to believe; he knew it for a lie. He scooted himself back, just a little, searching the darkness between them for any glint of light, any hint of what might be to come. There was nothing; he could find nothing.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Peregrine had stopped but they hadn't thought as that Aremu would, too. Had hardly realized they'd said nothing out loud until he did. Even after, it had surprised them. Weren't the first time he'd heard the word, surely. Peregrine could have laughed, if the sound weren't stoppered up in their throat.

What did he want to hear instead? "Halfsie"? "Crimp"? Or maybe, maybe--"imbala"? Could have used that one. All of them were variations on a theme: not right. A scrap was a crimp was a halfsie was a passive. Just part of a person, alone in the dark. They could smell the damp, could--

Aremu had stopped and now he turned. Peregrine couldn't see him, could just feel the movement. Uneven breath--who was afraid here? Aremu didn't know, couldn't know--only Peregrine knew, Peregrine alone. Alone alone alone, just the dark and then there was nothing and then, suddenly, there had been Peregrine.

"What about it?" they echoed, hardly hearing the words. Escape route cut off, that's what--left with only one option, if this weren't no way out. They could take it, but they didn't want to. They wouldn't be trapped here, nah nah nah. Gideon's mouth made an animal noise. Had to be Gideon, couldn't have been Peregrine--Peregrine weren't afraid. Because they couldn't be put back in the dark, hey? No worms could come for Peregrine, only for Gideon. Peregrine would always escape, could escape forever. Run forever and ever and ever.

Something from a hole in their memory came to grasp at their ankle. Oily thing, left greasy marks all over Peregrine.

How did Gideon speak? Peregrine tried to remember, tried to hold it. That was who they were now, hey? Just Gideon's face and Peregrine and there weren't nobody else, had never been nobody else. Peregrine snapped their teeth, hard and loud.

"Nothin' 'bout it," they hissed, and their eyes were wide, darting all over. Calm down, they were calm, if they weren't calm the walls would get too small for them to fit.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

What about it, the other man repeated back. There was something twisted in his voice, something tangled; Aremu couldn’t see him in the dark. He scrabbled back, a little further; something jabbed at his shoulder from the narrow walls, and he clenched his teeth together, tight, to keep from making a sound. The whole world was the pounding of his heart in his ears and the scrape of his breath, and the rest was all darkness, and the close press of the stones.

Yes, Aremu wanted to shout; he wanted to fill the darkness up between them with his voice, so perhaps it wouldn’t seem so terrifying empty. Yes, what about it - what the fuck about it? Yes, I’m a scrap: you think I fucking chose it? You think I want to be? What the fuck about it?

He didn’t ask again; there was only silence between them, a little longer. Why now? Aremu wanted to ask. Why now? He wanted to turn and keep going; he couldn’t bring himself to put Gideon at his back again. The thought crawled all through him and prickled over every inch of his skin, icy cold down his spine.

Nothing, Gideon said, his voice a hissing scrape of breath. There was a sharp snapping noise, something Aremu couldn’t place.

“Moashit,” Aremu snapped, suddenly furious. “You fucking liar,” the imbala spat. Waste of a soul, he wanted to say, sudden and bitter; the fury twisted and burned out and left him feeling even emptier than before. He was crouched in the darkness, staring at the blankness where the other man must have been, where he could hear the rasp and scrape of another breath alongside his own.

I didn’t do this, Aremu wanted to say, but he knew something of how the raw edge of desperation in his voice would sound. You fucking liar, he told himself. He didn’t close his eyes; he couldn’t. He searched the darkness, looking for - something - some sign - his left hand crept back, closer, pressed against his waistband, and all he could feel was the coolness of the knife against his skin.

I didn’t do this, he wanted to say; he knew better. A truth was worse than a lie, sometimes, for the believing. A truth could sound as desperate, as unbelievable; how was one ever supposed to know it? Aremu wanted to know; more than anything, he wanted to know what it would be like, to know truth.

“Call me what you want,” Aremu said, finding something like mastery of his voice, a little less raggedness to the edge of it. “Passive, scrap, crimp, halfsie - it doesn’t matter.” He swallowed; he could almost believe it. “I just want to get out of here, the same as you.”

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Liar? Ha! That was a good one, that was a funny one. Yeah, yeah, Peregrine was a liar--a liar through and through, top to bottom. Just weren't lying about this. The face was a lie, the name, every stitch and part that was Gideon Carver was the lie. Not the fucking part where they said some shit out lout in the dark.

"Ent lying," they snapped back. Fuck them six ways to Vienda, they wished they could clocking see in the godsdamn dark. Wished they could move, stand up, straighten out. Who the fuck did he think he was, this Aremu--whatever the fuck his last name was. Peregrine couldn't remember, it hardly mattered. One day he'd be dirt and worms too, same as everyone else. Everyone except Peregrine.

He'd spat it, when he'd called them a liar. Oily dark little things came oozing out of the holes. Someone else had called them a liar, too, hadn't they? When? What face? Not remembering was starting to get a little bit upsetting. Just a pinch, just a tiny bit. Was the wall just a little closer than it had been before? Shit, no. No, it weren't. That--walls didn't work like that. Unless they did, and they'd just forgotten that.

Did walls work like that?

Did air?

Peregrine could hardly even hear the raw scrape in Aremu's voice. There weren't much they could hear, over the sound of their own ragged breath, their own heartbeat. In and out, thump thump thump. Except it weren't their heartbeat, their breath--stolen, both of them. Stole the blood and the breath and the bone. A thief and a liar. Peregrine gnashed their teeth again.

"Then let's go," they said. Low voice uncurled in the dark. They liked the sound of Gideon's voice, even though they never had figured out the accent. "Can't stay here--won't stay here. Gotta get out, one way or another. Ent nobody," they paused, searching the dark, "ent nobody can keep me in it."

There was a panicked edge to Peregrine's voice. They reached out a hand, suddenly needing to know where Aremu was in the dark. To know that they weren't there, alone, talking to someone what they'd made up. Talking to an old face or a face they'd yet to take. Without thinking, they groped blindly in front of them.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

Can’t stay here, won’t stay here.

Aremu knew to turn and go. He didn’t want to be there either, he wanted to say, half-trapped in the narrow tunnel, hampered by his heavy coat, with only one set of fingers to dig into the dirt of the tunnel.

He didn’t move. He was crouching; his right wrist was pressed into the wall, holding him steady, his left hand hovering at his lower back. He pulled it away, slowly; he set it against the damp wall of the tunnel, feeling the prickling off the rocks and dirt.

All right, Aremu wanted to say. All right. He didn’t. He could still taste the word scrap, like blood in his mouth, coating his teeth and tongue so he couldn’t taste anything else. He was searching the darkness still. He didn’t know where Gideon’s face was, but he searched anyway, as if there was something to be found. It was all blankness and stillness, and there were no stars.

Out of the darkness then - in it still - something reached out and brushed against his knee, grasping fingers curling around him to hold. Aremu cried out, a choked strangled noise; he jerked back, scrabbling away against the ground. His back hit the tunnel wall, his head too; he grunted, bright sharp pain sweeping through his scalp, and kicked out in the same notion, pushing with a booted foot - away, away, away! Everything in him cried.

“What the fuck!” Aremu gasped. He didn’t know if he’d kicked the other man; his head ached, tears stinging in his eyes from it. His skin crawled; every bit of him crawled. The darkness was all grasping hands, reaching for him-

He thought at any moment he would feel Gideon lunging on top of him. He didn’t know why; he didn’t know. It wasn’t me, he wanted to say; I’m not keeping you here. He thought he would feel those fingers again - he could imagine them, frigid cold - and wrapped around his throat. That was how the other man would do it, he thought; unless he had that hook, still.

It doesn’t hurt, he told himself. For most men - for men at peace with the cycle - it doesn’t hurt - it must hurt, at first. It must -

No! Everything in him rebelled at the idea. No, Aremu thought, bloody bitter vicious, no - no, no, no, not yet, not here and now. He didn’t have a hand to crawl and hold his knife again; he had to get away. He didn’t want Gideon to grab for him again; everything in him writhed and crawled.

Aremu felt for the opposite wall; he scrabbled away further, back-crawling, a horrible awkward motion, the fingers of his left hand squirming and pulling at the dirt, palm rasping against the ground; he was sliding as much as crawling, skidding back, wanting away from Gideon and still unable to bring himself to turn around.

“Touch me again,” Aremu spat, half-choking on the panic, “and I’ll kill you.” He didn’t know if it was a lie; he didn’t care.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Real, real and solid. Peregrine's relief was short-lived, on account of how Aremu made a choked noise and skittered away. There weren't far to skitter; Peregrine heard contact and the grunt that told them it weren't the kind he'd expected. A foot came out, booted and smashed against the long fingers of Gideon's hand.

"Fuck!" Peregrine hissed the word and drew his hand back. Yep, this one was definitely real. Weren't no imagining of Peregrines ever smashed their hand so hard. The pain was sharp and real. Unless, of course, Peregrine had just gotten better at it. Couldn't quite as dismiss that notion, neither. There were lots of ways to bang up your hand, yeah? But nah, probably real. Almost definitely real.

They wanted to keep going. They wanted to press forward, but they couldn't see, and they were so sure there was any room to press if Aremu weren't of a mind to keep on. Well, shit. He wanted out, too, or so he'd said. Could phantoms be liars? They didn't know. They were one.

Scraping noises came to them from the blackness. Was Aremu moving on? Their ears strained to catch the sound one way or the other. Couldn't tell, couldn't fucking tell in the godsdamn pit they were in. Should have carried the damn lamp in their fucking teeth after all. A note for next time they were trapped in a tunnel with some jumpy scrap.

The threat made them laugh. It was weighted with their panic. Kill them? Oh, that was a good one.

"Like to see you try," they growled, then laughed again. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Until they stopped, abruptly and completely, lapsing once more into silence. Can't kill what's already dead--but nah, nah! They weren't dead yet, not Peregrine. Could never die.

Others had tried, hadn't they? It weren't often that they'd lost a face to age or illness. A few times to their own hand. But the bookseller, the sailor? The soldier in Hesse? Nah. They'd tried to kill Peregrine, in those other faces, for all kinds of reasons. And Peregrine had beat them all. Would beat them all forever and ever--Peregrine the Undying, Peregrine of a Thousand Faces. Yeah. They liked that, and it made them grin again. It was a feral thing, and best masked by darkness.

"Moony fuck." There was only room for one of those down here, and Peregrine had already volunteered. Just keep fucking crawling, gods damn you.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

Aremu burned with anger; it washed through him. He didn’t reach for the knife; his left hand stayed, trembling, where he had left it. He took a deep breath, and then another, shaking. There was a hysterical edge to Gideon’s laughter; it filled the tunnel, reverberated around them both like some horrible, awful song, and when it stopped it cut-off so abruptly Aremu half thought the other man – he didn’t know.

But Gideon’s breathing started up in the darkness. Moony fuck, he said.

Takes one to know one, Aremu wanted to say, bitter still. In the close quarters of the tunnel, he’d – the Bad Brother took another deep breath. It was dark in here; it was too dark, and he had no light to see by. He eased himself back again, slower this time, careful. He could hear Gideon’s breath in the darkness behind him.

Aremu said nothing; he turned, and began to crawl once more.

In time, the tunnel began to widen around him. He didn’t know how long it took; it might have been minutes, but it felt as if it could have been years. In the darkness, in the sameness, there was nothing to tell the moments apart. He knew his breathing was even again, when he felt the press of rock around him lift; he found he could stumble up to his feet, then. The tunnel was still close, but he could stand, and grope against the walls with one hand, and if he banked his shin or his thigh or shoulder against a protrusion, it was nothing he couldn’t stand.

The first hint of light was more like a memory; it was faint enough that Aremu almost thought he’d imagined it. It was no more than the ability to make out shapes, and he did not know if it was his imagination or something real, which filled in the spaces between his fingers, and all the rest.

But it grew; it grew, slowly, and it was real, and Aremu was stumbling and then almost running. The tunnel opened up and the imbala came out and – stopped.

He stared. It must, he thought, have once been – a staircase of sorts, perhaps, or at least something like a ladder. It was a pile of debris, now, rotted, and the opening was filled with light, but all of it came down from a cave-like opening dozens of feet off the ground up a jagged rock wall, spilling in from the world outside, like a reminder that it really existed. A bit of rope dangled in over the edge, tantalizing, too high to do either of them any good.

Aremu took a deep breath; he frowned at the wall, and breathed in deep. He ached in half a dozen places; his chest hurt like hell, the place where he’d been stabbed not two weeks earlier burning, aching and sore, but manageable. His arms hurt, his shoulders tight from the crawling. He moved away from the opening when he heard Gideon behind him; he didn’t look back.

Aremu went closer to the wall, settling the fingertips of his hand against it; he dug them in, gently, searching for holds in the rock, exploring.

Yes, Aremu thought, slowly; yes. He could climb it. He glanced back at the other man, turning to put the wall at his back, looking at Gideon across the pit-like room.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Peregrine had snarled and they had snapped their teeth, but they had no idea what Aremu would do. Didn't know the other man at all; had only met him what, an hour before? Hell of a first date. Somehow they didn't think as they'd be going on a second. He'd threaten to kill them, a laughable idea--but he could certainly have tried. Part of Peregrine wanted him to do it. They'd never gotten Gideon into a fight before. There were worse places for it than a tunnel in damp rock. At least there probably were--Peregrine certainly couldn't think of any.

No light to see by, but they could hear well enough. They held themselves there, muscles tensed--but Aremu just continued on. Peregrine snapped their jaw again and sighed, an irritated sound that bounced off the rock around them. They followed after with no more words.

Some time passed, and they found they could breath again. Less pressing down around them; didn't feel so much like crawling through their own fucking tomb. They took a shuddering, triumphant gasp, coming to their knees as soon as they could. Crawling along on their belly like a fucking worm weren't exactly their favorite activity for an autumn afternoon. They'd just as soon be rid of it. Aremu was a distance ahead of them; how far, they weren't sure. It was fair likely that it was easier for the smaller man to navigate through the widened end of the tunnel. These were some small clocking smugglers, shit. A volley of hissed swearing marked their progress as they seemed to smack their shins into every jagged outcropping of rock.

After so long in the dark, even that small amount of light was too much. They swore again and squinted, waiting until their eyes adjusted. They took their time, moving slowly. If Aremu outpaced them entirely, so fucking be it. And if they had to do any more crawling, they'd rather cut Gideon's throat right there. Weren't no face as worth that constant press of suffocation.

Gideon ached, his every muscle and tendon and bone screaming at Peregrine that he hadn't much liked that crawl through the tunnel, either. So of course what greeted them when they emerged out the other side was another godsdamn obstacle. How fucking high was that opening, now? Twenty feet? Thirty? And just the filthy rotten remains of what might have been a ladder, once.

Aremu stood with his back to the base of the wall. Gideon rolled his eyes.

"Ent gonna hurt ye any, damn." Peregrine squinted, first at the tantalizing spill of light, then back to Aremu. Peregrine flexed their hand experimentally; the one that had made contact with Aremu's foot still hurt. If anything, it hurt more now that Gideon's heart weren't trying to escape from out behind their teeth--fuck.

"Fuck," Peregrine said out loud, voice milder than it had been in the tunnel. They flexed the muscles in Gideon's back; each and every one protested. Weren't so sure as they could any climbing. Weren't so sure as there was any godsdamned alternative, except one. After that display back there, they didn't think it were so likely that Aremu would be willing to drop them a rope or something. Out of the kindness of his heart. Peregrine approached the wall anyways, weighing their options.

"Ent done no climbing as Gideon," they muttered. Like they'd forgotten Aremu was there to hear such a plum moony thing come out of their mouth, or at least like they didn't care.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

What the fuck does that mean?” Aremu asked. He stood against the wall, still; there was tension all through him, in the set of his shoulders and the clench of his left hand against his leg. If anything, he’d shifted back when Gideon came closer; there was still plenty of space between the two of them, and Aremu found he very much wanted to keep it that way.

The light spilling into the cavern caught Gideon’s face; it had not, Aremu understood now, been only the shadows before that had made his eyes looked bruised. He looked gaunt in the light of the day, as if his skin didn’t quite fit his bones; he looked tired, too, and there was a vein jumping and pulsing in his neck.

Aremu was aware of the knife against his back. He was always aware of it, when he carried it; now, more than usual, because the crawling through the narrow tunnel had pressed the blade against the skin. He didn’t think he’d bled, or if he had, not much; maybe just irritation, maybe the faintest cut. There was no wet, damp warmth of blood - he knew he feeling well enough, Aremu thought, bitterly – but just an odd, unpleasant, chafing sort of irritation.

He hadn’t meant to ask. Fucking moony, Gideon had said; Aremu was pretty godsdamn sure he knew which of them was moony. As bitter as he felt about it, he couldn’t have blamed the other man for being afraid of being in a narrow tunnel with a passive. Aremu knew he was harmless, in that way; it stung, but it was a sting like the prick of his knife against his back. It couldn’t make him bleed, so long as Gideon didn’t act on it.

He felt badly – a little – about how he’d responded. Scrap had taken him off-guard, spat into the close tight darkness between them. Gideon’s hand, too, reaching out of nothingness to scrabble at him – the memory of it sent prickling shivers down his spine, still, and his eyes stayed carefully on the other man.

Aremu inhaled, and exhaled, and let go of what he could of the tension in his muscles. It was not relaxation, not quite – it was something more like readiness. His head prickled in the cool breeze drifting through the cave, the sweat that had formed on his skin as they’d crawled and panicked drying, unpleasantly. He hadn’t meant to ask; he wasn’t sure he expected an answer. He wasn’t sure in the least what sort of man he was trapped here with – liar or not, cracked in the water barrel or not, dangerous or not.

All men, Aremu thought grimly, watching Gideon, were dangerous. He didn’t draw his knife; he knew something of what that did, in a moment like this, and he thought it best to wait. It rasped against the skin of his back, and he found the sting of it comforting.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Peregrine looked at Aremu, confused by the question. What did that mean? Meant what they said, didn't it? What part of it was--wait. Stop. Peregrine took a few mental skips back, trying to remember what it was they'd actually said. Had they--yeah, yeah, yeah. They had said that, hadn't they? About being Gideon. Well, still meant exactly what they'd said.

"Heard me," they muttered sullenly. "Not sure as Gid--as I can do it." The light coming in from above did the exhaustion in their handsome face no favors. Peregrine scrubbed at it with a sigh and a growl; they were filthy. Peregrine didn't much care for being filthy. It was a state they were in often enough, to be sure--didn't mean as they liked it. The other hand drummed an anxious little tattoo against their thigh before they stopped and started to pace around.

There was just something about all of this setting them on edge. Peregrine felt only precariously settled into their borrow flesh and bones. Experimentally, they held a hand in front of them, watching it intently. For a moment, it stayed strong and steady--just like a hand should. The moment was fleeting; it started to tremble like a leaf in a spring fucking breeze fair soon enough. Peregrine clenched it into a fist and put it back down.

"No other way out, can't stay in here, nah..." Peregrine muttered rapidly to themself, weighing the task before them. Their head came to snap back to looking at Aremu. It was a little easier to see him now in this light than it had been even before the mouth of the cave had collapsed, sealing them both inside. Less harsh, this light; didn't cast so many ominous shadows on the faces of men as the lamp seemed like to do.

"Y'any good at climbing?" Peregrine asked, not sure they expected an answer. Better than they were, likely. Because Aremu didn't look near as tense as Peregrine felt, except as when he looked at Peregrine. And that was expected, really. Just because he hadn't attacked them in the dark didn't mean he wasn't just waiting to have more room to do it. Had to be ready for opportunity, if that was your aim. Peregrine knew that well enough.