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Angus McDonald is seventeen years old, turning eighteen in the next month, and is feeling pretty good about life. He’s part time teaching at Lucas’s school, still taking classes as well. There’s still so much to learn, not that he’ll really use the stuff he’s learning for either teaching or detective work, but it’s fun to be in the classes.
Basil’s getting older, six years old and still very ready to get started every day. She pulls him out of bed when he doesn’t want to get up and keeps him focused in the moment, and while he doesn’t really need her help most of the time, it’s nice to have her there. He can’t really imagine not having her around and he doesn’t want to. Regardless of if he needs her for help, she’s his dog and he loves her a lot.
He’d consider his life pretty normal, disregarding the fact that he’s a teacher at an esteemed school at only seventeen. But he has friends his own age and lives in his own dorm at school and visits his family on the weekends and it’s nice.
All things considered, he’s a whole lot better than he was those first months after getting kidnapped. He doesn’t really think about it all that much, and at this point it’s a little blurry in his memory. For the better, he supposes. He’d rather not think about it constantly.
He wears the gloves sometimes, but not always, and he’s comfortable being barefoot inside again. On stone floors is a different story, but he’s not really ever in a situation where he has to be barefoot on those, so it’s more than fine. His voice is still scratchy and everyone’s pretty sure it’ll stay that way, but he’s used to it now, and so is everyone else, so it’s not an issue.
He’s at a café when it happens, sitting outside because it’s warm but not so hot that it’s uncomfortable. He’s there with his friends Fritz, a halfling girl that he met on his soccer team, and Talley, a dragonborn that sat next to him in a class about mystery writing. Talley’s going to be in one of his classes next semester, which will probably be at least a little bit weird for both of them, but for now they’re not worried about it. Basil sits at his side, and Angus gives her a small piece of meat from his sandwich while they talk.
“I’m just saying you’re biased,” Fritz says. “He’s your magic teacher and also pretty much your dad. You obviously think he’s cool.”
“He’s not my dad and I never said he was cool,” Angus argues, munching on a grape from the bowl in the middle of the table. “I said he does, in fact, live up to your hype. He’s not cool. He’s absolutely a nerdy asshole but he just won’t show it to random fans.”
“It’s pretty much the same thing,” she says. “Come on, Talley. Back me up on this.”
“I’m not gonna get into your weird ‘Who’s the best bird’ argument again. I learned better the last seven times.”
“I don’t even have a favorite bird,” Angus says. “They’re my family, I can’t really choose a favorite when I live with them. I’m just saying that if you meet Taako, he’ll probably live up to whatever aloof, too cool and collected façade you have made up in your brain. It’s absolutely all fake, but he’ll put it on if you meet him.”
“You’re allowed to have a favorite bird if you live with them.”
“Mmm,’ Angus scrunches his face up. “If I chose, word would somehow get back and then there’d be some wild jealousy and I really don’t want to deal with that. Also stop calling them the birds. They’re real people and they’re all kind of awful.”
“Well, who’s your favorite family member?” Talley leans in and grabs a grape, disregarding the food on their plate.
“Kravitz,” he says without pausing to think.
“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Fritz pouts, grabbing his drink and taking a drink for herself. “You know who we’re asking about.”
“He is my family,” he says, smiling. He looks up from the table and sees a man waiting in line at the counter. He looks vaguely familiar, face obscured by other customers, and Angus squints his eyes to get a better look at him.
“Well,” Fritz says. “My favorite is—”
“Taako, we know,” both him and Talley say at the same time.
“You mention it every time he gets brought up,” they say, also taking a drink from Angus’s cup.
“Well, tell me who yours is if you hate hearing me talk about it so much.”
“Lucretia,” Talley says, and that’s interesting but unsurprising. Angus never asks people who their favorite is. He understands why people do it, but it still weirds him out that people idolize the people he’s grown up with.
“Oh?” Fritz shoves three grapes in her mouth before she keeps talking. “Why?”
“Gross, eat when you’re not talking.” Talley takes a drink out of their own glass before continuing. “And don’t you remember hearing it? The story? That was all her, we all heard what she wrote down, and it was so stupid vivid that we could see it. Like, come on! How can that not make her your favorite? And just, her own story? Growing over those years? Incredible.”
Angus has to admit that they’ve got a good point. The writing was vivid, and she did have a lot of personal growth in that hundred years. It would be hard not to grow in a hundred years.
He looks up again and finds the man staring at the ground, facing towards them. He still can’t catch what his face looks like, but there’s a pit in his stomach that’s starting to grow.
Basil nudges him and he finds himself holding at his stomach. He shakes his arms out and gives her a pet.
“You alright?” Angus turns his head and finds Fritz looking at him, worry plastered on her face.
“Yeah!” he says, trying to sound bright and cheerful. “Yeah, I’m good. Just, uh, does that guy look familiar to you? The third one in line over there.”
Both of them turn their heads to look and at the same time the man looks up. He doesn’t look at their table, doesn’t even really turn his head that much closer, but Angus feels his throat start to lock up.
“Nope, never seen him before,” he hears Talley say in the background, and Fritz hums in agreement with them, but he can’t really pay attention to that. He’s stuck staring as it feels like his body shuts down and anxiety replaces him.
The man shuffles, turns his head, and finds Angus staring at him, and he can’t find it in himself to look away. There’s a hand on his shoulder, he thinks, maybe, but it gets lost in the haze. The man stares for a second, eyes wide, and then he smiles.
Angus thinks he might throw up.
He remembers that grin, remembers this feeling, remembers cold stones and hot knifes and pain everywhere and that horrible, awful smile through it all. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He can’t do anything but sit in fear as he stares at the man that kidnapped him almost five years ago and why does this feel so bad.
Basil barks in his face, paws braced on his legs, and that’s what snaps him out of it. Basil never barks, especially not at him, and absolutely never in public. He blinks a few times to find her right in his face, barking one more time for good measure. He raises a shaky hand and rests it on her neck and she quiets, nudging against him.
“Angus,” Talley says, and he remembers where he is, in public, having a quiet, frozen breakdown at a café table, and he stands up abruptly.
“S-sorry,” he mutters, backing up. “I… I gotta go I’m sorry.”
Basil nudges his legs and he turns and walks as fast as he can on shaky legs. Basil stays right next to him and he doesn’t look where he’s going, just goes until something tells him to turn right and he does.
He collapses into a sitting position against the brick wall of an alleyway, and Basil fits herself right in between his legs, nudging at him more forcefully. He wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her fur, breathing in rough breaths that don’t really do much for him.
Footsteps echo off the bricks and he tenses, waiting for something he’s not sure will come.
“Angus?” Calls a voice gently from a few feet away. Fritz. That’s Fritz. “What’s, um, what’s up?”
“What’s up?” Another voice hisses, quietly, meant to be a whisper. Talley. Both of them, then. They both followed him here. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“Shut up,” Fritz hisses back. She turns her attention back to Angus. “You, uh, don’t gotta talk I guess. Can we sit here with you?”
He gives a thumbs up but doesn’t look up from where his face is pressed against Basil. There’s some more footsteps and the he sees a body sit on either side of him in his peripheral. It’s a little bit comforting, but he still stays braced, ready for anything.
“So, did I ever tell you about the time I made actual liquid milk catch on fire because I fucked up a spell so bad?” Talley talks quietly on his left. It adds a bit of comfort, knowing who’s where. He shakes his head.
“I was trying to cool it down, because it was reaching room temperature and everyone hates room temperature milk. So I was just gonna cast a little cooling spell on it to make it colder, y’know? Like you do. But it was nighttime, and I was like twelve, and I was wondering why people always talk about warm milk before bed when that honestly just sounds disgusting, and that thought popped into my head as I was casting, and I guess thought and intention got all kinds of messed up and it just burst into flames. The whole glass of milk. Not the glass part, just the milk inside. I had no idea what to do because it was liquid, and liquid shouldn’t catch on fire, so I shot the worst freezing ray of my life at it and shattered the entire cup. The flames when out, but then there was broken glass and milk everywhere and I was the only one awake, but not after that.”
Angus huffs out a breath that he thinks might be a laugh, and Talley seems to sigh in relief a little bit. Angus reaches into his pocket and fishes around for his notebook and pen, still not looking up from his place in Basil’s fur. He writes with shaking hands onto the paper and then pulls out his stone of farspeech. He hands them to his left, and scaled hands take both the notebook and the stone from him.
“Call Taako.”
“Alright,” Talley says warily. “Do, uh, do you got him in here as some fancy name?”
He shakes his head, and Talley breathes out. “Alright. Gimme, uh, gimme a second. Do you want to talk to him or should I?”
He points at Talley.
“Got it.”
The sound of the stone reaches his ears and it rings, reverberating in the brick.
“Who are we calling?” Fritz whispers, and then he picks up.
“Hello, bubeleh. What’s up? Biweekly call isn’t up for two more days.”
Fritz sucks in a breath on his right and Angus decides he made the right choice in making Talley call Taako.
“Hello, um, sir? This is Talley, Angus’s friend. He, uh, he’s not really talking right now and kind of freaked out earlier and I’m not really sure what happened but he had me call you so I assume you’ve got some idea.”
“Shit,” Taako says, and Angus curls up around Basil tighter. “Alright, uh, does he want to come here? Because that can happen. Or does he want me to come to where you fine folks are?”
Angus raises a hand with two fingers up on it before Talley can ask.
“Apparently the second one. I’m not even sure how that’ll work, since you’re in a completely different city, but that’s what he wants.”
“Lup’ll be there too,” Taako says, and Angus doesn’t think he’s talking to Talley anymore. “Just so you know, Agnes.”
He nods and Talley says, “He says that’s fine.”
“Where are you all at?”
“The alleyway behind Taskin’s trinket shop? It’s on thirteenth and Brist.”
“Alright. Gimme like three minutes and I’ll be there.”
The stone shuts off and Angus raises his head.
“Uh, how’re they gonna get here in three minutes? Why is Lup coming? Why is Taako coming? How does any of this work?”
He shoots Fritz a glare and she shuts her mouth, wrapping her arms around herself. “Sorry. Sorry I’m just. You’ve never freaked out like that before. Basil’s never had to bark you out of it before. I’m just worried.”
Angus nods and rests his head back onto Basil’s back, facing Fritz. She stares down at the bricks they’re seated on, and Angus wishes he’d worn his gloves today. Instead he yanks his sweater sleeves over his hands, stretching them out more than they should be.
It’s a long few minutes, and then he hears a rip. He lifts his head up, finds Fritz and Talley staring wide eyed at the dark rip in reality in front of them. He realizes they’ve never seen any of his reaper family come to pick him up before.
Taako steps through first, and then Lup, closing up the rift behind them and releasing her scythe back into the ether.
“Hey little man,” Taako says, crouching down in front of him. “Sounds like you’re having a pretty shitty day. Wanna talk about it?”
He motions to his mouth and then shakes his head. Taako nods and Lup sits down next to him. “What’s got you all shook up?”
Angus holds his hand out for the notebook and Talley slaps it into his hands tag team style. Angus still has the pen so he starts writing as fast as he can, wanting to get it out of his head as fast as possible.
“I saw him at the café we were at. I saw him and he saw me and he SMILED and I freaked out and I don’t know what to do.”
Taako and Lup both read it, and both of their faces go a little bit murderous, and Lup speaks first.
“Do you want me to go find him? Cause I can and will go fuck him up. Really bad. Super bad. I’ll fuck him up, no questions asked.”
He shakes his head harshly. That’s not what he wants. He just never wants to see that face again. He just wants his friends and his family around him.
“What do you want us to do, Angles?”
He looks at Taako a little helplessly. He doesn’t really want them to do anything. He just wants them there. He just wants to be surrounded by people he deems safe and sit there and calm down.
“Just sit here?” Lup suggests, and he nods. “Alright. Can do. But really, if you want me to go fuck him up for you I can definitely go do that.”
He gives her a small smile and nods. It’s the best he can do right now. Basil woofs quietly to Taako and Lup, happy to see them again. Lup reaches out and scratcher her ear.
“So,” Talley says. “You’re, uh, Angus’s family?”
“Oh we’ve never met,” Taako say, slipping the smile he uses for strangers and fans on his face. It’s a little ragged at the edges, Angus thinks it must be from this whole experience, but it’s there. “I’m Taako, you know, from TV?”
“I’m Talley, and this is Fritz.” They motion to her with their hand and she gives an awkward little wave. Angus thinks whatever starstruck-ness she’d usually have here is dulled by Angus freaking out. He cringes inside. This isn’t how he wanted either of them to meet his family, breaking down in an alleyway.
“Sorry,” he croaks out quietly, and all eyes turn towards him. He buries his face in Basil again to avoid them.
“Whatcha saying sorry for, Mango?” Lup’s voice comes softly into his ears.
He scribbles out words onto the notebook and hands them to Lup. The sorry was really the most his mouth could do.
“I’m messing up the first time either of them meet my family.”
“Oh come on. What better first impression is there? All chilling together in an alleyway making sure you’re good? This is the best kind.”
“Dude, you gotta worry about yourself for once,” Fritz says. “Like, sure, this may not be the most ideal meeting situation but I don’t actually care that much. I just want you to be okay.”
“Ditto,” Talley says. “Also I’d like to know what’s going on, but I’m cool not knowing if we’re not doing that right now.”
Taako gives Angus a look as he raises his head again. “They already know, pumpkin?”
He nods his head and rubs his hands over Basil’s fur. She shifts a bit, resting her head on his shoulder. He sighs and does the same on hers.
“So the gist of it is that Ango’s kidnapper showed up and he freaked out a little bit. Also he refuses to let us go fuck him up, but that’s his choice and I guess we gotta respect it or something.”
“Was it that guy?” Fritz asks. “That one you pointed out?”
“Mhm,” he says, not looking at her.
“Shit,” Talley says. “No wonder you got all freaked out. Are you sure you don’t want us to do something? I can go set him on fire classic milk style.”
Angus snorts and he can see them grinning in the corner of his eye.
“You good to be touched or are you still not about that,” Fritz asks tentatively.
“’m good,” he mumbles into Basil’s fur. She boofs quietly, encouraging. Fritz leans their entire weight on his side, which he wasn’t expecting but it isn’t horrible. Talley does the same on his other side.
“So how’d you two meet Ango McDango here?”
“Soccer,” Fritz says at the same time Talley tells them, “Class.”
“How’d you two meet each other?” Lup asks, crossing her legs and getting comfortable.
“Angus,” Talley says. “Him and I were hanging out and we ran into Fritz and she just kinda stuck around for the rest of the day.”
“Stuck around,” Fritz says, scoffing. “Like Angus didn’t explicitly invite me after making sure you were cool with it. Like I would ever just stick around unprompted.”
“You would,” Talley says. “But that’s not the point.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“Well Taako and I met in the womb,” Lup says, and Angus can’t help the snort that comes out of him.
“That’s- I wasn’t—,” Fritz stutters out, red faced.
“Angus and I met on the moon, briefly, and then we fought off the Hunger together and he did a really good job so I figured he was good enough to keep around,” Lup says, sparing Fritz any further embarrassment.
“I kept him around, thank you. And I met him on a train that—,” he stops, squinting his eyes. “Has he not told you all of this?”
“I mean, some of it,” Talley shrugs, but they look very, very interested in what Lup and Taako have to say. “He never told me you two fought off the Hunger together. Or that he met you on the moon.”
“Keeping secrets, Agnes?” Taako gives him a look. “Cause I will not hesitate to brag.”
Angus makes a face at him and Taako makes one back and Fritz lets out a choked back laugh.
“I don’t like people using me to talk about you guys so I just don’t tell them anything about you. These two are fine, I just haven’t gotten into the details yet,” he writes, handing it to Taako.
“Gotcha,” he says, handing it back. “Well you two are in luck. Because we have time to kill and Agnes says we’re good to tell everything and anything.”
Fritz sits up a little straighter and Talley leans in closer and Angus is only a little worried how he’ll tell all of this.
“Angus and I met on a train when he was like eight, and Merle and Magnus were there too, I guess.”
“Ten,” Angus mutters indignantly. Taako ignores him
“He was polite in the rudest way possible and, in his own words, detectived good enough to see through our horseshit.” Talley tries and fails not to laugh at that and Angus is only feeling a little bit embarrassed. “Then we saved him from a big mess of a train crash and tried to leave him in the dust, but he finagled his way into Lucretia’s good graces and got himself a job on the moon and I became his magic teacher.”
“You left out the part where you stole the family silverware from my dying grandpa, threw me off the back of the moving train, and told me you thought I died the next time we met,” Angus says quietly.
“He threw you off a train?” Fritz says loudly. “He threw you off a moving train and then thought he killed you?”
“I just said I thought he was dead, not that I killed him personally,” Taako argues. “And you got some of that silverware back. Also it covered the cost of magic lessons, so we’re even.”
“This guy’s your dad?” Talley asks. “Wild.”
It’s a tense few seconds where Angus and Taako both realize what’s been said, what Taako’s been called, and it’s uncomfortable for both of them. Talley and Fritz seem unaffected, but Lup picks up on it.
“I really met Angus when I accidentally blew up his cookies when I was stuck in the umbrella,” Lup says, saving everyone from that discomfort. “They were really pretty good cookies, but he just didn’t put any flavor in them. The texture was perfect. It was a shame. We met face to face when I got out and then me and him and Barry and Kravitz and a whole lot of other people all fought off the Hunger on the ground. He did do a really good job. Especially with his super broken wand. I still can’t believe you just didn’t tell anyone it was snapped in half and went out there like that.”
Angus shrugs and doesn’t say anything. It worked, he found some tape between the time on the moon and them going to the ground. There were a few moments when things just didn’t work how they were supposed to, but he did it and it was fine.
“You fought the Hunger with a broken wand when you were eleven?” Talley asks, sounding a little awestruck. Angus winces. This is why he never tells people this. “That’s fucking awesome!”
“Don’t idolize our friend,” Fritz says, shoving at Talley behind Angus’s head. “It’s making him get all uncomfortable.”
“Oh, gods, I’m sorry.” They shift uncomfortably next to him. “I know you hate it when people do that. I wasn’t thinking—”
“It’s fine,” he says quietly, because it really isn’t that big of a deal.
“Okay,” they say, a little subdued. Angus feels a little bit empty. That’s what’s replaced the raw fear sitting in his chest, and he want nothing more than to go home and curl up on the couch with a cup of hot something.
“Can we go home?” He turns towards Talley. “It’s not because of what you said. I’m just really not feeling good.”
“I know, you don’t lie,” Talley says, and they give him a brief hug. “Call me? I wanna make sure you’re okay.”
“Also call me,” Fritz says, giving him a hug of her own. “When you’re up for it.”
Lup stands and stretches out a bit before making another rift. She pulls Taako up and Angus stands, disrupting Basil’s spot on his shoulder. She gives him a disgruntled noise but follows him up and through the rift. He waves to his friends and they wave back.
Their living room is a welcome respite where he kicks his shoes off immediately, finding one of Taako’s stray pair of slippers to put on his feet. He grabs a blanket and curls into his corner of the couch, offering his lap for Basil. She takes it deftly, going back to laying down, closing her eyes.
Kravitz comes out from around the hallway, staring at Angus. “Hello,” he says slowly. “You’re home a few days earlier than I expected.”
Angus doesn’t really say anything, just nods, and Lup pulls him to the side to explain what’s happening. Taako hands him a mug and he wonders how he made that so fast. It’s hot chai, spicy and warm and comforting.
“You feeling okay, kid?”
He shrugs and takes another drink. “Been better.”
Taako huffs a laugh and sits next to him. “I’m sure. At least you’re back to mostly talking. I kinda figured you’d be nonverbal the rest of the day.”
“I might still stop talking later.” He stares into his mug, looks at the steaming liquid. “I’m just kind of ignoring it right now.”
Taako hums and settles into the couch. “So. Those friends.”
“They’re good,” he says, suddenly desperate for Taako to like them. “They’re good people. I really like them.”
“Jeez, I wasn’t gonna interrogate you. I just wanted to know some more about them. You never mention anyone’s names.”
“Do you want to know more?” If this keeps them from talking about what happened at the café he’ll gladly talk about his friends.
“Sure,” Taako says, and he sounds fond. “Tell me about your wild friends.”
“Well, Fritz and I aren’t in a lot of classes together. She’s not super into book smarts and stuff, but she is smart. She really likes sports and being outside and also dogs. Her and Basil really like each other. I know I’m not supposed to let Basil get pet by other people a bunch, but Fritz really likes her so it’s fine, I think.”
Kravitz and Lup come back into the room, and Kravitz looks ready to bring up the incident, so Angus barrels on.
“Talley’s super into writing and magic. They’re more of a bird person, but Basil likes them too so they like Basil. They’re gonna be in one of my classes next semester, which is kind of weird, but also fun? I don’t know. They’re both a lot sometimes, but in a good way.”
He suddenly remembers what Talley called Taako earlier and feels himself blanche a bit. Taako puts his face in his line of vision, eyebrows furrowed.
“You good, pumpkin?”
“They called you my dad,” he says, lips pouted into a frown. He’s not even sure why that’s a bad thought. He’s already had a dad. And a mom. They weren’t exactly the best, but he hasn’t seen them in years. Calling Taako, or Kravitz even, dad and associating him with that feels indescribably wrong.
“They, uh, they sure did,” Taako says, resting his arms on his knees. Kravitz sits down on the opposite couch and Lup sits her weight on the arm rest. “You got any thoughts on that?”
“I don’t like it,” he says immediately.
“I mean, thank gods, me too,” Taako says. “But why such the immediate response?”
“You’re not like my parents,” he says. “You’re nothing like my dad and I don’t want you to be called the same thing he was.”
“Cheesy Petes little dude.” Taako pushes himself back into the cushions for a moment, pressing at the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “We should probably talk about that sometime. Because that’s, uh, yikes. But yeah. Not your dad. Cool. Got that squared away.”
Angus would love nothing more than to never talk about that again, and that’s maybe a possibility with Taako, but Kravitz will needle it out of him and tell Taako about it later, so there’s no way they won’t have a conversation about it eventually.
Not tonight though.
Today was a good day, it was shaping up to be a really good day, and then it all went south and Angus is kind of mad about it. But mostly he’s still just feeling empty.
“Are you okay?” Kravitz asks him.
Angus takes a drink of his chai, cooled down now, a bit more room temperature. “I’m not actually feeling anything right now.”
“So no,” Lup says, and he shrugs and nods.
“You wanna talk about it at all?” Taako asks, pushing just a little bit.
“I don’t think I want to talk at all,” Angus mumbles into his mug. “I think I wanna not talk for the rest of the day.”
“That’s alright,” Kravitz says. “You don’t have to talk.”
“Mm,” he hums, giving Basil a scratch under her collar. She huffs on his lap, not a care in the world.
Angus wonders if his friends are going to get weird about this, about what happened and him freaking out and not being able to talk for a while. He decides no. They’ve both seen him in varying states of bad, this is just a next level kind of bad. They get it, as best as they can get it.
“Do you need anything?” Kravitz doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself, so Angus actually thinks the question over.
“Gloves?” he asks quietly. Kravitz nods and head to his room to grab the extra pair they leave here.
“Kravitz really wishes we would have messed him up,” Lup tells him once he’s out of the room. “But he gets why you said no, so don’t even worry about him. He’s just a big old worry wort.”
Angus closes his eyes and tips his head back as an answer, or a lack of one. Kravitz returns with the gloves and he accepts them wordlessly, slipping them onto his hands.
Taako and Lup chatter quietly, trying to fill up the space, and Angus appreciates it. It means he doesn’t have to spend effort on making words of listening or doing any kind of brain work. Kravitz sits back down, still looking worried, but he eventually relaxes and joins Lup and Taako in their idle talking.
Angus thinks the day over loosely, trying not to focus on it too hard. It could have gone worse, the man could have walked over, Angus could have had his actual meltdown at the table instead of getting up, he could have confronted him. Anything could have happened, and this is probably the best outcome.
That smile makes its way into his brain and he shivers.
A hand wraps loosely around his wrist, and Angus finds it’s Taako’s hand. He’s not looking at him, still looking at the two on the couch across from them, but he’s there, keeping him grounded in the moment. Angus lets a small smile come onto his lips and he looks away, not acknowledging it.
It’s been almost five years, and while he’s got a pretty good handle on his brain and how it processes things, stuff like this sets him back. This probably has to be the worst one, actually seeing the man out in the world, not even in some kind of controlled environment.
Things could probably be better, but they’re not and he’s got to deal with that. Not right now. Right now he’s going to feel nothing and be fine with it. He’s going to sit here and be a little empty and then he’ll probably cry about it tomorrow and make cranberry bread with Taako because it’s his favorite and then cry while he eats the bread and then he’ll feel better.
That’s his plan and Angus is sticking to it. So he empties out his brain and lets himself be grounded in the moment and breathes.
He can deal with it all tomorrow.