Chapter Text
“Is there anyone - other than you - who knows a lot about the Leviathan? Anyone we could contact?”
Wifies- now perfectly dry - perched on the edge of the bed he’d placed last night, impressively close to falling off. Hummer’d had him go over the details who knows how many times, but try as he might he couldn’t find any reason why something had gone differently. Besides the obvious leaving Wifies to drown without telling him- but that couldn’t be it. It hadn’t worked the first time, so why-
Hummer huffs, effectively cutting off that train of thought. “Well there’s Arronax, but she’s convinced that Levi is a hoax, and we know otherwise! Her museum-“
“Museum?” Wifies interrupts, and Hummer curses himself internally before pausing, because he doesn’t know about the museum?
“The- the leviathan museum?” He laughs. Isn’t Wifies supposed to be some kind of detective? “It’s the largest server dedicated to the leviathan- you don't know about it?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Wifies admits, sounding much too excited about this. “You said she thinks it’s a hoax?”
Hummer doesn’t know why Wifies sounds so interested in the museum- they have proof that Levi is real, that Arronax is wrong, why should it matter now?
“She supposedly ‘solved’ the Leviathan,” Hummer says, static flickering across his screen in annoyance. “There’s nothing useful there.”
Wifies doesn’t immediately agree, which is a terrible sign. “But if she has enough information to make a museum… maybe she caught something we didn’t? It can’t hurt to check it out.”
Sure it can.
Of course Wifies isn’t going to change his mind about Levi, not after what happened, but then there’s no point in going there at all!
He isn’t bitter about Arronax. He moved past that. He did.
But it isn’t his choice, is it. “You can go if you’d like,” he sighs, resigning himself to a lonely couple of hours. He’s pretty sure they put some of the books back in the wrong place so he should probably fix that, and then what? It wouldn’t hurt to try drowning again.
Looking at the deep blue of the waves brings him a slight comfort. At least he won’t be completely alone, not with the company of Levi and the whispering tides as they pull away from the shore in a flutter of wings-scales and sea salt flung across the sky like sand in his eyes.
“You aren’t coming?”
“Me?”
It’s impossible for Hummer to keep the disbelief out of his voice. Wifies wants him to come along? He’d just drowned the man - sure, he’d gotten to see Levi (and also hadn’t actually drowned), but it’s the thought that counts. And Hummer’s thought was very clearly lets drown this guy.
“I mean- sure, yeah. I’ll come.”
Wifies grins at him and pushes himself off the bed, walking over to stand at the rails. He looks perfectly in place, haloed by the sun and surrounded by the ocean. It gives Hummer a strange feeling that he decidedly blames on Wifies wanting him to go with. Even if it is to the museum.
And Hummer hadn’t actually thought that Wifies would just up and abandon him forever, but maybe the thought had lingered more than absolutely necessary. Even if Wifies did decide to leave, that would be fine! Hummer doesn’t need him to find Levi (even though Levi had only shown himself to Wifies, even though Hummer had never gotten any farther than feeling his presence no matter how much he put his trust in Levi only to drown, over and over).
“What are we waiting for?” Wifies asks him. Hummer wishes he knew.
⟩<^,«⋗
The museum is just as terrible as Hummer remembers it to be. The lights are harsh, the people are loud, and everything looks horribly artificial. Even the displays look out of place, surrounded by metal and glass as they are. He follows behind Wifies, who has seemingly taken it upon himself to press every single visible button in the place.
Every voice over is painfully cheery. At the very least, Arronax isn’t spouting nonsense. Everything she says is backed up by research and evidence. Hummer isn’t so annoyed as to not admit that she has good points about a lot of the fake sightings, but Arronax had never given herself fully to the cause and it’s painfully obvious in those echoing halls.
She could never look beyond the facts. Not like Hummer was willing to, not like Wifies would.
… her being wrong doesn’t feel as good as he’d hoped it would.
In the underwater tunnels (like Levi would just show himself?) Hummer gets to watch Wifies talk about how impressive the evidence that Arronax had gathered was, how thoroughly she’d researched everything.
“… but proving that something doesn’t exist is hard. The bug reports are good at explaining it, but guardians only spawn by ocean temples, and there’s a majority of reports which she should know about that aren’t by ocean monuments.” He looks contemplative, gaze cast to the ocean.
“Hey,” starts Hummer, suddenly blessed by a brilliant idea, “I don’t like most of this place, but there’s one thing that is impressive. You want to see it?”
Wifies smiles at him, and everything is alright. “Yeah, sure. I’d love to.”