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Duvall is hesitant to rent a room in Marrowcreek, but It seems at home, so he tries to tell himself it’s safe here and settles in for a few days.
He’d asked Chine about it on their way to Aldomina, had known something Big happened here, knew about Katonya and young Chine, but not what actually happened until Chine told him everything sitting beside the campfire one night. So he walks along the creek that he hopes isn’t radically different from the one Chine had described, anxious to see the farm, and hoping Katonya would remember him in some way, or at least not kill him on sight.
All he finds though, is barren fields and the remains of what might have been a farm.
Dejected, he wanders the town a little, buying food from stalls for It to eat (he’ll be eating his rations, not sure if he trusts the town, but if it really is a manifestation of the Course, then It should be alright, probably), before returning to the Inn for another long lonely night.
He tries to pretend that he’d never joined the Blackwick group, or that Chine had never joined the Blackwick group.. To imagine, as he used to do often when they were apart, what Chine might be getting up to, far away from him but alive (that had been all he had for years, and it had been enough, too. Knowing they were out there exploring and meeting strange creatures. Happy, hopefully) - but he can’t do it, can’t lie to himself like that anymore.
The next morning he lays in bed longer than he would if he had anything at all to do, It has no complaints, content to sleep sprawled out on the bed beside him. A few of the bugs get bored or hungry or have business Duvall doesn’t know about and wander off, though. He hopes they have a good time, wherever they’re going.
But then he hears it: a laugh that strikes him as shockingly familiar. He can’t quite place it though, and it’s definitely not Chine. He runs through every laugh he can remember with a name or face attached to it, which is difficult work because he’s been traveling alone with It for a long while now, and his memory has been muddied by the laughter of strangers.
The members of the Blackwick group are fresh enough in his mind, but it’s not Pickman’s huff, it’s not Marn’s quiet gentle laugh or her barking surprised/delighted laugh, either. It’s low in pitch, ruling out Es, Hazard, Virtue. Definitely not Lyke’s loud open laugh, or his nervous laugh, and he can’t remember Alicast very well but he doesn’t think it sounds like a noise he would produce. Same with Bucho, it’s not a quiet laugh but it’s not nearly as... Big, as he’d expect from Bucho.
He runs through the people he’d spoken with in Aldomina, tries to tally people in reverse from there. Not Dayward Yve or Dyre Ode, nor that vampire librarian Lyke had gotten on with so well. Jolyon.... That's the closest so far, but not quite..? or, maybe? Duvall returns to the present day and listens for the laugh, wanting to hear it again to compare.
He listens and listens, but the tavern below has filled with people hungry for a mid-day meal, and he’s not entirely sure he’d be able to identify any individual’s laugh in the crowd of sound.
It nags at him, though. Duvall is here because he’s sure that the Course will show him something important. He’d hoped that if he just wanted enough it would bring Chine back, if only briefly. If the zephyr could bring Jolyon back, then why couldn’t the Course bring him Chine?
It has been growing and learning so rapidly... He’d wanted Chine to see it, wanted to ask how Chine would have dealt with some ... Growing pains that he didn’t feel prepared for. Of course, in his heart Duvall knows that his motivations are more selfish than that. He can’t imagine Chine having opinions on child rearing that anyone should listen to, or that they’d even thought ahead this far. But Duvall hasn’t gone a day without missing them. It a constant reminder by his side and Sangfielle, in general, a place he’d so strongly associated with Chine that it’s been hard to let him go, because - how could there still be a Sangfielle if Chine wasn’t in it?
But he doesn’t really want to go down into a room full of maybe-people, maybe-hallucinations or ghosts, so he shuts his eyes and asks the insects to help.
Mostly it’s legs or corners where crumbs have collected, but one of them is buzzing about enjoying the thrill of stealing sips of a stranger’s soup and avoiding the swatting of aggravated hands. This one, Duvall knows, will probably enjoy the adventure of showing Duvall as many faces as it can gather, easily drawn in by what he frames as a game.
Strangers, strangers, passing at disorienting speeds and angles. Duvall is mostly used to the kaleidoscope vision of compound eyes, but the swirling and looping and speed is still difficult to parse.
Except, there’s a glimpse of red hair and broad round shoulders.
His chest feeling tight, Duvall asks to see this person, hoping his desperation doesn’t bleed through into his request for fear that the fly might decide his game isn’t fun anymore.
The fly goes up above the heads of the crowd, and Duvall holds his breath in anticipation, but it’s another figure that catches his eyes first. It’s.. It’s him. His skin is elastic and flushed and full of life, his cheeks are filled out and his hair falls in soft curls around his ears, not stiffened by wax too thick to wash out. There are no bags under his eyes and he laughs - and Duvall realizes the sound he’d heard was himself.
He should have expected this, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the Course might taunt him the way it had played with Chine. The sight of himself younger and full of life and wholly himself makes him lightheaded. He’s grateful that he hadn’t gone downstairs earlier because if he’d been standing and unprepared he may have fainted or thrown up.
And then the fly circles back around, indulging his request, and there’s the Chine he knew best: not the farmer, but not the Chine cut through with years of scars, bigger, transforming slowly into something not quite human but not any other humanoid species Duvall had heard of, either.
He doesn't get a good look because the fly zips in, landing on Chine’s nose before Duvall can think to warn it - and the sight is gone. Duvall’s spent years of his life imagining that version of Chine and what they might be doing, it’s easy to see him slap the fly. He thinks he hears his own laughter again and imagines Chine’s face, grimacing in pain from having smacked himself, but eyes smiling at Duvall, proud to have shown off their speed, to have succeeded at getting Duvall to laugh out loud.
His envy of his younger self wanes a little at that, remembering how conflicted he’d been - excited to travel, in love with every new part of Sangfielle he’d met, but afraid of himself in a way that Duvall suddenly realizes isn’t too different from his current situation.
He'd thought he had an effeminate laugh, knew that his face often gave away any fleeting attraction he had, and had paid the price for that in his youth. The city of devils had unforgiving social rules that prohibited what might be perceived as deviating from the reproductively compatible heterosexual norm.
And so Duvall came to Sangfielle without understanding that he was fleeing something specific. It’d taken him years in the heartland to realize that there was anywhere that wouldn’t treat his secret self as something that needed fixing.
He’d been terrified of Chine once their running into each other became a pattern. Not of their strength or crude personality or affinity with the monstrous, but because Duvall had been charmed by his unapologetically rough edges and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners and all but closed completely whenever they smiled. Something in the way they were often kinder to the strange and violent beasts they found in their shared travels than to the people that hired them made Duvall feel safe. And so, he was terrified of giving himself away, confident that at best Chine would never talk to him again and at worst kill him as soon as Duvall let slip his strict facade.
But Chine was more bothered by Duvall’s hiding it than by his affections directed their way. Duvall hadn’t made any mistakes, would never have thought of intentionally revealing himself to a small town farmer-turned-monster-hunter - it had been Chine’s touch lingering at the small of Duvall’s back, an arm around his shoulders, a hand stopping Duvall’s own from covering his smile. Chine had sought him out, in their own way.
And Chine had taught him that the word monster had nothing to do with an animal’s worth or inherent danger, only with how those with voices that are heard perceive them.
He gives up, goes down stairs for a look, and there they sit: entirely-human Duvall just barely catching himself from hiding his laughter behind a hand, doing his best to undo a lifetime of oppression, to let himself be seen; and the Chine that he’d thought of as his, flushed red and grinning at the version of himself that he still isn’t sure survived to become what Duvall is today.
And it hurts. Duvall pulls out a chair at the nearest empty table and all but collapses into it. He watches them, because what else can he do? He came here for this. Duvall watches Chine reach out and touch Duvall’s arm, sees himself sit up a little straighter, not quite recoiling but not able to fully enjoy the contact, either. He knows acutely how badly he’d wanted to open up to Chine, and he wishes he’d been able to do it sooner, on his own. Wishes he’d gotten a few more years of what he thinks of as the happiest period of his life, when Chine had finally cracked him like a walnut, first tearing at the pungent flesh, headless of how it stained their hands, then applying pressure until he popped, allowing himself to be consumed in bits and pieces as Chine picked him free of his shell and devoured him.
Chine gives his arm a squeeze and then quickly swipes a biscuit from Duvall’s plate - stuffing it into their mouth. The Duvall-he-once-was stares slack-jawed in shock, watching Chine chew with his mouth open, baring his teeth in the self-satisfied smirk that they used whenever they knew they were about to get a rise from him.
Past-Duvall attempts to play Chine's game: grab the remaining biscuit from Chine’s plate, but even a decade younger he wasn’t quick enough to get anything away from Chine that they didn’t willingly give. The Duvall at the table with Chine is twice what Duvall is now, healthy and filled out in a way that he’ll never be again, even after being remade entirely into a man who didn’t look nearly as hollowed out as he was. But Chine’s hand still wraps all the way round his wrist, and they pull Duvall towards them until they can eat the biscuit, using Duvall like a fork.
Duvall’s heart pounds in sympathy, remembering how it felt to be confronted with just how much stronger Chine was. He watches his own eyes darken, focused on Chine’s mouth. Duvall wonders how long they’ve known each other. . . As though they’ve existed at all before this morning. As if the Course can control time, as if those two are real, as though Duvall could hope this Chine-that’s-not-his-Chine will be alive for real, somewhere, after he leaves the town.
His throat gets tight and he looks away, forcing himself to read a menu; not wanting to order food or drink but needing the excuse to stay there, if he manages to sit long enough for anyone to take his order. He could always feed the food to It later, but he is hungry, a rare enough feeling that it sticks out. He feels calmer thinking about what it even means for him to be hungry anymore, not sure of his body’s composition, and he wonders if the calm is whatever counts as natural or if that’s a gift from the insects he carries with him, the insects that are him.
When he looks back the baby is peering out from under their table at him. He stares it in the eye and shakes his head, willing It to leave the aberrations alone, but It pokes its head out and looks up and its little eyes go wide to see Chine’s face looking back at it. Duvall holds his breath again, unsure if he should step in or not.
It cries out “CHINE” in a voice rougher and louder than he’s grown used to as it’s aged and gained better control when speaking, but he has a pretty good handle on reading it’s face and body language now, and his heart breaks as it cycles from excitement to apprehension and finally to It’s equivalent of a poker face; an unfocused stare, mouth held tight together as he’s seen It do sometimes when it wants to be treated as a harmless dumb animal by a threatening stranger.
Duvall begins to stand, to collect his ward before It can be hurt or hurt itself, but Chine is smiling down at it, scooting their chare away from the table with a horrid scraping sound so they can bend down and scoop it up. Duvall freezes, anxiety spiking as It opens its mouth in confusion. He’s seen it bite people after making that face, and knows that if it bit Chine they could easily kill it.
But Chine’s face is soft and he cradles It in one arm as if it were still an infant, exactly as Duvall had seen his - as he’d seen current - as he’d seen the real Chine do when It was too small to stand without wobbling. Duvall feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him, sits back down.
Chine leans down close and strokes It’s face with their free hand and as they do it their long ragged fingernails change shape, becoming claws. Freckles and years of sun damage bloom across their face and what Duvall can see of their shoulders, but there are no scars to cut clear paths through the discoloration, Their ears don’t grow into long pointed things, and they don’t sprout fur.
Duvall looks at himself, at what that version of himself makes of the sudden change, and what he sees is love written clearly across his features. The tormentors of his childhood were right - when he didn’t fight to hide himself, Duvall was easy to read. He reaches out to run his fingers through It’s fur, saying something too quiet to hear, but that melts the tension from It’s body. Chine looks up at him and smiles, and for a horrible moment Duvall sees the family he could have had.
The other Duvall offers It a strip of meat from his plate, and It doesn’t hesitate to take it. It’s enthusiastic when he offers a second strip and catches some of Duvall’s fingers along with it. He gasps and pulls his hand away and it’s bleeding, but he’s laughing, too, and the two of them look down at It, relaxed and happy now, with unbearable fondness.
Duvall looks down at his table, trying to focus on the grain of the wood and his breathing, but his vision blurs around the edges and all he can do is gasp, gulping in lungfuls of air and holding them, trying not to hyperventilate. He’s unsure if it make a difference, physiologically, but he needs something to think about that’s not..
Aware that he’s probably making a scene, he claps a hand over his mouth and looks at them all again, but they’re oblivious of the old wax man having a breakdown a table over: now Chine has it in his lap so it can sit up at the table. The two of them are talking to each other and to It, happy and comfortable and Duvall doesn’t understand why the Course would do this to him. He’d loved Chine, who had loved the Course. He was raising a child of the Course itself, and he’d entertained the idea that he had been rewarded with a few months of Chine’s company and protection on his long walk back across Sangfielle to Aldomina. So he thought that ... He didn’t know what he expected, exactly, but it wasn’t this cruelty.
Still, maybe this is some sort of lesson - he watches himself and Chine and It until It’s fallen asleep and Duvall reaches across the table to hold its paw the way he himself often does when there isn’t much risk of losing a hand, and Chine puts his hand over the both of theirs, holding all three together in such a casual show of intimacy that it makes Duvall sick.
And then It turns its head into Chine’s chest and nuzzles in, and Duvall realizes this vision may not be directed at him at all. He’d wanted Chine to see his baby growing up, but maybe It had wanted two fathers together instead of one at a time.
He’s broken from his staring by someone asking what he’d like for lunch, and he decides he doesn’t want the excuse to stay after all. Instead he excuses himself and leaves before he ruins things for It. Hopefully it will still be around when he comes back, but he wouldn’t blame It if it left with those two - Duvall would have given anything to take his own place, but he knows that he’s made a mess of his face, that his skin has almost no elasticity and the crying he isn’t entirely done with has no doubt left him full of ugly lines and cracks until whenever the insects next take the time to remake him, smooth him out again.
The Chine at the inn deserves a Duvall made entirely of flesh and blood, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of taking that experience away from himself, either - just in case they were real people pulled from the past.
He walks down the street and tries to remember if they’d ever spent a day with a strange baby monster that knew Chine’s name, but he doesn’t have any memories like that. Duvall hopes that maybe this experience will alter their paths through life. Maybe that Duvall will choose to wait to see the City with Chine rather than going alone, maybe they’d be in Duvall’s current situation together, or maybe the City wouldn’t have appeared with the both of them there. Maybe they keep It and parent it together, becoming a family for real. They wouldn’t settle down, Duvall thinks, but they’d move a little slower, and stay together most of the time, provide the type of home It deserves.
He’d miss It, terribly, but he wants the baby to have the best life it can, and living with himself and Chine before either of them changed irrevocably ... Duvall trusts that they’d want the same, and that they’d be better equipped to provide it. Certainly better than one lonely old maybe-person and a few hundred bugs could do.
He finds himself on the banks of the Ojan, having wandered the streets with no particular goal in mind. He remembers the Jade Moon, the last time he was happy for more than an hour or two at a time. He imagines he can see the ship’s hull out in the swirling mists, and realizes that if it were real, then this would have been the day he lost Chine.
He doesn't want to cry again, so even as he thinks the boat is becoming clear enough to make out figures on its deck, he turns away.
The forest has drawn in around him, the town still visible through the tall swaying birch trees, and he’s reminded of the loaf of bread that he threw onto the deck of the riverboat the day Chine left, and how it had turned into ants. Bugs that left him turning into completely different bugs. He’d suspected Chine had been changed here, but forgotten that he’d seen evidence that may have had more truth to it than not.
He wonders how it’ll change him, or if it hasn’t worked on him already.