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Joel ran through the secret tunnel. He had to get to Jimmy. He couldn’t let them kill him. They had promised to stay together, and they needed to stick to that now more than ever. Even if he died here- how could he ever face Scott if he didn’t even try to help?
He came up over the edge of the hill. They didn’t look like they were trying to kill each other, but you never knew with Bdubs and Cleo.
“It’s just me,” he said as they swung around, weapons drawn.
“It’s him,” Jimmy told the other two. He stepped forward, an odd look in his eyes. “Joel, they- they gave me a pufferfish.”
“Oh,” he said, “that’s nice of them.”
“They gave me a pufferfish,” Jimmy’s grip on his sword tightened, his knuckles nearly white, “so I have to do this.”
Joel frowned, confused. What did-
Jimmy slashed forward at him, drawing a line of blood on his chest. Oh.
Joel dodged another strike. “Wait, Jimmy what are- what are you doing?!” He fumbled for his bow, and shot at his best friend. “C’mon, Jimmy- day one crew!”
He ducked, and pulled something else out of his inventory. Joel heard glass shatter next to him, then the pain hit, almost as nauseating as Jimmy’s betrayal. Poison. He poisoned me. An arrow whizzed past him, grazing his cheek.
Shot after shot flew at Joel, his desperate pleas falling on deaf ears. Cleo and Bdubs stood to the side, watching calmly. He tried to fight back, but it was like Jimmy was a completely different person, dodging his arrows and shooting his own with a ruthless efficiency.
Jimmy, he tried to say. Why are you doing this? Weren’t we day one crew? Weren’t we friends? Do I really mean so little to you? Did what we have not matter? Was I not good enough? Please stop. Please come back to me.
He didn’t get very far.
The last thing he managed to get out was “Ji-”, as the final arrow slammed into his forehead with a dull thunk , and his back hit the grass.
He heard Jimmy talking to Cleo and Bdubs as if from a distance. He thought of songs sung around the campfire, of lying on the sun soaked stone of the altar, of picking potatoes and laughing until his sides hurt. He wondered if the bile and blood in his throat was what karma was supposed to taste like.
He wished he could say any of it was worth it.
—
Jimmy had just killed Joel. He was pretty sure he was supposed to feel something about that- sad or guilty or something. Anything, really. He didn’t. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. He couldn’t find it in himself to care.
He had been scared, at first, when he had seen Bdubs and Cleo approaching the Crastle. He had run away after the fight, unsure if once the Red King and his hand were gone, he would be next.
Then they offered him a pufferfish, and he remembered a birch forest and a boy with blue hair, and a half-melted bucket filled with lava. He jumped down to greet them, eagerly snatching it from Bdubs’ grip.
They told him to kill Joel, and he thought of dancing around a jukebox and huddling in a hole in the cliffside. Then he remembered Joel on the other side of a battlefield, and fighting against them.
He agreed to kill his oldest friend.
Scott was dead. Scott was dead and he had been avenged. Logwarts was destroyed. Nothing and nobody mattered anymore.
Bdubs and Cleo grinned at him. Their smiles were vicious. Red and bloodthirsty, though Cleo was still yellow.
They were going to kill him. He knew that. But it didn’t really matter. Scott was already dead.