Archive of Our Own ^beta

After the end of the world, Impulse’s employer… downsizes. He is, promptly and expectedly, fired.

To be honest, even if he hadn’t been unceremoniously fired in the process of PWG’s mass layoffs, he probably would have quit anyway. The idea of working for the company after… everything… Well, it turns his stomach, to say the least.

It’d be nice if he could just forget about the whole thing altogether, but the constant news coverage of PWG’s downfall makes that harder than he’d like it to be.

BREAKING NEWS: PWG corporation had NDAs, patents on deep-space rocks capable of curing cancer.

BREAKING NEWS: PWG corporation did not fully inform patients involved in experimental trials about the outcomes of their treatments

BREAKING NEWS: PWG experimented on children to achieve parasite “cure”

BREAKING NEWS—

Skizz turns the TV off. “Come on, dude, you don’t need to be watching that crap.” 

Impulse blinks. “But I was watching it,” he grumbles.

“And did it help you at all? Did you learn anything new? Exactly. That’s what I thought.”

Impulse sighs, but he can’t object. The PWG news does, in fact, make him feel worse, and every shot of the courtroom footage shown makes his stomach ache in anticipation. “Um, actually, speaking of—”

“Yeah,” Skizz says, face and expression grim as he flops down on the other end of the couch.

Impulse’s stomach does a triple flip. “Wait, for real?”

Skizz nods. “End of next month,” he says. 

“That’s… soon.”

“I mean, it’s already been six months of proceedings. I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

“Yeah, but… I dunno. It doesn’t feel like it’s been six months.” And it really doesn’t—all the time since the end of the world has passed in an absolute blur. Impulse feels like it was just yesterday when he was buying a busted radio from an old secondhand store. He swallows, then mutters, “You’d think they’d have all the evidence they need to send the execs to jail at this point.”

“Oh, they do,” Skizz says. “But—you know how it is. Corporate proceedings, they’re gonna try and pin whatever blame they can on middle management so the guys at the top can get away with a slap on the wrist.”

As much as Impulse should probably be bothered by that, he can’t really find it in himself. He never sees the executives he never met in his nightmares, after all. Just the doctors, and the therapists, with all their eerie smiles and white coats. 

“Speaking of…” Skizz says, shuffling awkwardly in his seat. “We need to have a talk.”

Impulse frowns. “About?”

“About… About what’s going to happen if the court finds me accountable.”

It takes Impulse a moment to realise what he’s saying. The realisation sends ice down his spine. “No.”

“Dippledop—”

“They wouldn’t do that!” Impulse protests. “I mean—yeah, it was messed up, we’ve had this conversation, but it was—you never did anything illegal.” Which is messed up in its own right, that Skizz could do that without ever breaking the law, but that’s not the point right now. The point right now—

“I was an Executive Manager in the Tunguskite R&D Arm,” Skizz says. “Even if I never—” He falters. “They’re looking to pin the blame on someone, and honestly, from their perspective? I’m a pretty good candidate.”

—is that Skizz cannot go to jail.

“I’m not having this conversation,” Impulse says.

“Dude—”

“It’s not gonna happen, so we don’t need to worry about it.”

Skizz’s mouth is set in a thin line, his eyes shadowed. “But it might happen,” he says. “And if it happens, we need to be prepared.”

“But it won’t—it’s not—you didn’t know. It’s fine. We already decided it’s fine. I’ll—I’ll just tell them. When I give my testimony. I’ll tell them that you didn’t know, and it’s okay, and I’ve—” He breaks off, the words forgiven you dying on his tongue, because no matter how much he may want to, he absolutely can’t forgive Skizz. But that doesn’t matter right now. “I’ll tell them, and it’ll be fine.”

“Dippledop…”

Skizz looks deeply sad. Impulse looks away so that he doesn’t have to see it. “So, there, we don’t need to have this conversation.”

“...Sure, dude. Whatever you say.”

Impulse picks up the TV remote and turns it back on. The newsreader has moved on to talking about a dolphin rebreeding program trying to build up the species’ population again after the spontaneous extinction event that wiped out all wild dolphins six months ago. Impulse lingers for a moment, then hits the button to change the channel, and settles back to watch reruns of some sitcom. Across the couch from him, Skizz sighs, but doesn’t protest or move, and the two of them sit there until the credits are splashed across the screen. Neither of them laugh the whole time. Neither of them are really watching, after all.

It’s fine, Impulse tells himself to the sound of a tinny laugh track. It’s fine. Skizz isn’t going to jail. He hadn’t broken the law, and yeah, yeah, it’s fucked up, but—it’s Impulse’s job to forgive Skizz. Not any faceless judge or jury, or the millions of people following the court proceedings across the country from the comfort of their own homes. It’s Impulse’s job to decide if Skizz is guilty, and—and yeah, he is, but—

That doesn’t mean Impulse can live without him.

“Yo, Impulse,” calls his new boss, jerking Impulse’s attention away from the stasis pod he’s fixing up. “I’m headin’ off. You good to lock up?”

Impulse nods. “Yeah, I can do that,” he says. “Have a good night!”

“You too!” 

The door to the lab swings shut. Impulse lets out a sigh and turns back to his work. He’s not expecting to get much done at this point, and sure enough, five minutes later the door swings open again.

“Hey, Impy.”

“Hey, Tango.” Impulse looks up to see Tango standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, backpack slung over one shoulder and two cafeteria coffee cups in his hands. He extends one towards Impulse, who stands and makes his way over to take it. “Thanks.”

“You ready to head out?” 

“Sure, just gimme a sec.” Impulse takes a sip of the coffee—which isn’t good, exactly, but it’s coffee— and walks back over to the stasis pod to cap the wires and close the maintenance panel.

“Oh, is that one of the new stasis pods?” Tango asks, peering at it.

“Yeah,” Impulse says. “This bad boy’s got, like, three weeks of reserve power without being hooked up to a ginny.”

“Damn.” Tango raises an eyebrow. “Where was that when I needed it?”

“In development,” Impulse says with a wince.

Tango sighs. “The worst,” he grumbles, but it’s light-hearted. He seems lighter these days in general. It’s nice. “So, you good?”

“I’m good,” says Impulse, grabbing his bag and keys and heading to the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

Getting a job after the fall of PWG had been… stressful, to say the least. When your only employment history is working for a company that is currently the biggest scandal in the country, preceded by five years of nebulous health issues, nobody is exactly jumping at the bit to give you a chance. It’d only been when Tango had been transferring to his new role within HASA that he’d found out about an opening in their bioengineering department, and put a good word in. 

Impulse’s familiarity with the kind of tech an astronaut might need in a pinch had won him the job.

He and Tango don’t always carpool, of course. Tango’s hours are a little all over the place, with his mission control shifts often stretching late into the night or starting at ungodly hours of the morning, plus the occasional days he spends at the training centre with the new recruits. But on days like today, where they’re working mostly the same hours, it’s no trouble at all to pick Tango up and drop him back off at his and Zed’s apartment on the way to and from work.

“So,” Tango says, as Impulse turns out of the parking lot and onto the road, “Skizz told me you guys have a court date.”

Impulse’s grip tightens on the wheel. His knuckles turn briefly white. He lets out a breath and forces a smile as he replies, “Yup!”

“So, uh, how’re you feeling about that?”

“Fine!”

“Are you sure, man? You sound a little, uh…”

“I’m fine!” Impulse repeats, cheeks beginning to ache from how hard he’s smiling. “It’s gonna be fine, and we’re gonna be fine, so you know, I’m feeling fine about it!”

“...Ah.” Tango grimaces. “I see. Sure.” Impulse feels Tango’s mind brush against his own, a faint tickle of reassurance. “It is actually gonna be fine. I mean—you got me off that moon. Got Pearl out of a death spiral. You can get Skizz out of jail free no problem.”

Impulse lets out a breath, feels the tension drain from him, sigh turning into a laugh at the last second. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously.” They drive in silence for a few moments more. Tango pulls out his phone, glances at the screen, and curses under his breath. “Ah, hey, Impy, mind dropping me off downtown?” 

“Oh, sure.” Impulse glances at him out of the corner of his eye as he goes to make a turn away from their usual route home. “How come?”

“I’m meeting a friend,” Tango says.

“Oh, Keralis?”

“Huh? Oh, no, a… new friend.” 

Impulse blinks. “Someone from work?” Then, another idea occurring to him, he adds, “Or the hivemind?”

“What? No, he’s just… some guy.”

“Just some guy,” Impulse echoes.

“Why is that so hard to believe? And what’s with all the questions, anyway? You’re not normally this nosy.”

“You’re not normally this weird.”

“Ahjck! Weird? Who’s weird? You’re weird.”

“...If you say so, man.”

“Ah, here’s good,” Tango says abruptly. “Thanks Impy, see you!”

Impulse blinks as Tango wrenches the door open almost faster than he can slow the car down. Then the door is slamming shut, and Tango is hurrying off away from him, bag slung over one shoulder. 

“Bye…?” he calls weakly after him, sitting for a moment in baffled silence before pulling off again.

Impulse has been having trouble sleeping.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t technically need to sleep—mimicking the human body’s functions and needing those functions are two different things. It still sucks though. Tiredness is unfortunately not a sensation he can turn off. It just won’t kill him if he never sleeps again.

…Though, if he never slept again, he might just kill h—

He reels back from where he’d been leaning over the kitchen counter, startled over his own train of thought. That’s not—he doesn’t usually think like that, at least he hasn’t in—

“Okay,” he mutters to himself, running a hand over his face. “Okay. I need some coffee.” 

He leans over to turn on the coffee machine, and as it begins to gurgle he’s distracted by his phone screen lighting up with a notification. He frowns—who’s up at 3am?—only to smile as he recognises Pearl’s contact name.

hey impulse cna i come to yours?

He picks up his phone and types out a response.

Right now?

Sure

Do you need me to pick you up?

Three dots appear, and he pulls out a second mug as Pearl types her response.

no need i’m outisde lol

He nearly drops the mug in his haste to respond.

Wait what do you mean outside

Pearl’s response:

open the door

He does, leaving the coffee machine to turn itself off as he makes a beeline for the door. Sure enough, Pearl is at the end of his drive, phone in her hand and shivering in her hoodie. Impulse winces. It may not be winter yet, only just beginning to creep towards autumn, but the desert nights can get cold.

“Pearl?” he calls.

“Impulse!” Pearl looks up from her phone and grins, heading down the drive towards him. She sways as she does, slightly off-balance, and it’s only as she gets close that Impulse gets a whiff of why.

“Are you drunk?”

“Maybe. Who are you, my mother?” 

Pearl slips past him and into the interior of his home. Impulse closes the door behind her and follows her through into the kitchen.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “Coffee?”

“Sure, I’ll have some.” Pearl hikes herself up onto the counter, swinging her legs against the cabinet doors. “What did you mean it like, then?”

Impulse shrugs. “Just… surprised, I guess.”

“Yeah, well…” Pearl stares blankly into the distance for a moment before shaking herself. “I couldn’t sleep. Uh, last night. And the night before. And I didn’t want to… It’s enough t’drive you insane, y’know?”

Impulse snorts. “Trust me, I know.”

“So—one of the girls at the agency invited me out. And I said sure, so we went, and it was fun, and then I, uh, lost her in the crowd… And then I couldn’t remember how to get home, but I remembered how to get to yours, so, uh, here I am!”

“Wait, did you walk here from downtown?” Impulse hands her a coffee cup. She doesn’t drink any, just cups it in her hands and stares down at it.

“Yeah?”

“Jeez, Pearl, that’s like, over an hour. There’s no sidewalks for half of it.”

“I’ve walked worse.” Pearl shrugs. “And I wefted a little bit of the way. And then I puked my guts out and decided walking was better. Think the cold air cleared my head a little.” 

“Jeez,” Impulse says again, because he’s not sure of what else to say. 

She snorts. “Yeah. So, how come you’re up, Mr. Nine-to-Five?”

Impulse takes a long sip of his coffee. “Couldn’t sleep.”

She hums sympathetically. “Ah, yeah. That’ll do it. Nightmares?” Impulse’s throat feels tight. He shrugs. Pearl hums again. “I’ve been dreaming about my parents.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Just—being torn in two.” She mimes it with her hands, pushing them together and then pulling them apart, fingertips to heel, making a noise like a zipper opening. “The—blood, y’know. And the screams.”

“Pearl…”

“And there it is.”

“Is what?”

“The—you know. Pity. Sad look. That’s all—no one gets it. Other than Grian. And I can’t talk to him about it, because—I can’t talk to him about it. So. Booze. And then—walk here, instead of going home.” 

“Pearl…”

“What? Can you just—can you stop looking at me like that? Please?”  

Impulse averts his eyes, staring down into his coffee. “Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“No—don’t— ugh. I don’t—do you ever think.” She stops, silent for a moment, then begins again, haltingly. “Do you ever think that—it doesn’t change. Sure, things are—things are better, and I’d never say that they’re not, but—I’m. I’m still the same. I don’t change. I’m just—a mess, a right old mess, and no matter how good things get I’m still just going to be— this. A bloody wreck.” She laughs. There’s no humour in it. Impulse hasn’t—

Impulse hasn’t seen Pearl like this in a very long time.

His throat feels tight. He takes a long, long sip of his coffee before replying. Swallowing hurts. 

“I like to think I’ve gotten better,” he mumbles at last. “I mean—if I haven’t—what was any of this for? If I’m still the same as I was back then…” He thinks of days spent sitting in a dark bedroom, drafting up plans for an electromagnetic pulse weapon that could tear spaceships out of the sky. Thinks of days spent in a hospital bed, something empty and aching in his head that he never had the words to explain. Thinks of days sat anxiously in his home, waiting for the burst of radio static or a familiar pain in his arm. “I don’t want to be the same as I was back then,” he finishes. “I can’t…”

“Yeah,” Pearl mumbles. Then, burying her face in her hands, “Fuck.”

“Things are better now,” Impulse says, trying for reassuring, and sure that he’s missed the mark. “It’s not like it was before, Pearl. Not for you, or for me.” 

“I know that,” Pearl says. “I know—I know it’s better. But am I better?”

Impulse can’t answer that. Instead he says, “You’re not alone anymore.”

And Pearl—smiles. Huffs into her undrunk coffee. “No,” she says softly. “We’re not, huh.” She glances up at him. “Thanks, Impulse. You always know the right thing to say.”

Impulse snorts into his coffee. “I have no idea how. I’m just making it up as I go along, really.”

“Well, you’re doing a pretty good job of it.” She yawns, blinking tiredly. “Can I crash on your couch?”

“Always.”

“Do you think I’m being ridiculous?” 

“Often, my friend.”

“Zed, c’mon.”

“Well, I do often think that you’re being ridiculous. But unlike you, I don’t think being ridiculous is necessarily a bad thing.” Zed pauses to swap vials. “Feeling alright there?”

“Fine,” Impulse mumbles, even as his head swims a little. “You know I only have a limited amount of blood, right?”

“I can put it back in when we’re done, if you’d like.”

He frowns. “Won’t that make me sick?”

“Will it?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Then we’ll try it! For science.”

“Mmm.” Impulse stares, not fully comprehending, at the movie on the TV. He’s in Zed’s apartment, reclining on the old leather lazy boy, a needle in one arm and a monitor strapped to the other. If he were anywhere else, with anyone else, he’d be freaking out and halfway to the door long before now—but it’s Zedaph. Zedaph, who hadn’t even batted an eye at the notion that Impulse was an alien. Zedaph, who, despite all his weirdness, Impulse knows would never purposefully hurt him. Who would stop as soon as Impulse told him to, no questions asked.

And there’s more to this little experiment than simply satisfying Zedaph’s scientific curiosity. The truth is that nobody really has much idea about how being Occupied affects humans, not on a long-term, everyday health level. Sure, PWG had done their experiments, but that was more— stress testing. Throwing half-baked clay against a wall to see where it moulds, and where it breaks. Impulse already knows what will and won’t break him. What he doesn’t know is, like, how does ageing affect him? Could he still get cancer? Would it kill him? Heck, can he even have children? It’s all unknowns, and he needs to know.

Not necessarily for him, but for everyone else, every other occupied human in the world who is in this situation, ultimately, because of him. For them, he needs answers, and if someone has to get them…

He’d rather it be Zed, in his apartment, with a makeshift setup that feels nothing like the cold and clinical walls of a hospital or lab, and some mediocre action movie playing on the TV to drown out the anxiousness in the silences between. 

“I just,” he begins again, glancing up at where Zed is staring at the vial filling with his blood, and then away again as it makes his head feel kind of fuzzy. “Skizz thinks this is something serious, that it’s a possibility we actually need to think about, and that’s making me anxious, but Tango says it’s going to be fine, and, like, they can’t both be right?”

“Well, which of them do you trust more?” Zedaph asks, reasonably. In most circumstances, it’d be a reasonable question. In this circumstance—

I never wanted to hurt you, dude. I didn’t—why are you acting like I’m the monster here?

Explain what? That you’re a traitor? That you lied? That all of this is your fault?

No, you’re right. I hurt you, didn’t I? I’m so stupid! I spent so long looking for you—but you were right in front of me the whole time. Weren’t you.

I’d never have gotten this far without you, so if I’m a hero, then you are too.

—it’s not a question he can answer at all.

Zed must read his panic from his expression. “Okay, then. What’s the worst case scenario here?”

“Skizz goes to jail forever and my whole life falls apart without him.” Again, he doesn’t say.

“Okay… and the best case scenario?”

“He gets acquitted and we get to go home and never think about any of this again.”

“And the most likely scenario?”

Impulse thinks for a long moment. “I… I don’t… I don’t know.”

Zed hums. “Skizz goes to jail for not-forever and your life doesn’t fall apart without him?” he offers.

Impulse’s stomach lurches. “Skizz going to jail at all is a worst case scenario,” he presses. “I—I can’t lose him again, Zed. I can’t.” And he can’t explain it, the absolute panic that Skizz being out of his life for a couple of months or years causes in him, but it’s so, so important that Zed understand. He needs someone to understand. 

“Okay,” Zed says, finally pulling the needle from Impulse’s arm and pressing some gauze to the incision. “Hold this for me, will you?” Impulse does, waiting as Zed grabs out some medical tape to hold it in place. “So you’re looking for a miracle, is what I’m hearing?”

“Something like that.” Impulse removes his fingers as the tape is sealed into place, flexing his stiff and sore arm. 

“Okay, then. So… be ridiculous about it.”

Impulse blinks. “What?”

“Miracles don’t happen to normal people, Impulse. If you want one… well, you’re probably gonna have to do something ridiculous for it.” 

“Like what?”

“I have no idea.” Zedaph shrugs. “But I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Oh, we’re done, by the way. Did you want to hang out, or did you need to get home?”

“...I can stay for a bit,” Impulse says after considering it for a moment.

Zed grins. “Great! I’ll get the popcorn. Maybe a good movie night will get your mind off of things.”

Impulse’s gaze drifts back to the movie he absolutely hasn’t been watching. “Yeah, maybe…”

When Impulse gets back from Zed’s, there’s an unfamiliar car in his driveway. He frowns, parking on the street instead, and heads up to the front door. “Skizz?” he calls as he pushes it open. “Do we have guests?”

“Oh—yeah! In the kitchen, Impulse.”

Impulse turns into the kitchen to see Skizz at the table, a stranger across from him and papers across the table’s surface. “Who’s this?” he asks. 

“My lawyer, dude.”

Impulse swallows. “Oh, for the—for the trial.”

“Yeah.” Skizz offers a small, closed-mouth smile. “Have you spoken to yours yet?”

“N-No. Not yet.”

“You should get on that, man, we’ve only got a couple weeks left.”

Impulse’s hands shake. He shoves them in his pocket. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“Apologies,” the lawyer says, “but you’ll have to leave the room, we can’t be discussing case matters in front of the opposition.”

Impulse subdues a flinch. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, let me just—I’ll grab a drink, and I’ll head upstairs.”

Skizz winces. “Thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it. Uh, good luck?”

And with that, he practically flees the kitchen, racing to his room and locking the door behind him. He collapses against it, back against the wood and knees against his chest, and buries his head in his hands with a groan.

He can’t do this. 

It’s not so much a sudden realisation as it is something he’s known all along, finally crystallising and coming into so much focus that he can’t ignore or deny it any longer. This is—this is real, and Skizz is probably going to prison, and Impulse is going to be alone, and as much as—as much as having Skizz around is sometimes stifling, being without him?

Impulse can’t do that. If he’s learned anything from last time, he’s learned— he can’t do that.

…So what can he do? How can he stop Skizz from— from—

He needs to make the court listen to him. He needs to…

Miracles don’t happen to normal people, Impulse. If you want one… well, you’re probably gonna have to do something ridiculous for it.

But what ridiculous thing can he even do? 

When it occurs to him, he dismisses it. It would be—impossible, frankly, with being in the front of a crowd that big. People would see, if he tried. And then—another idea, adjacent to the first one, and—worse, if he’s being honest. Riskier. But—people wouldn’t see, is the thing. They’d…

An older version of himself, the one that had died with the surgery fourteen years ago, would have done it in a heartbeat. No hesitation. For that Impulse, it would have been two birds, one stone.

But he knows better now, and it doesn’t sit right with him. He can’t. He can’t.

…But he can’t let this happen, either.

He digs his nails into his scalp, shaking his head. He can’t. Not anymore. Literally. He can’t do that anymore—

But he knows someone who can.

And after everything that’s happened, she probably owes him a favour or two.

“Am I really doing this?” he asks the empty room. “I shouldn’t do this. I… I’m not that person anymore. I can’t…”

He can’t lose Skizz. And if it comes down, Skizz or some strangers? Skizz or himself?

…Well, it’s not a contest. Skizz wins every time.

Impulse pulls out his phone, opens up maps, and types in an address. 

20 hours. He’s done it before. Really, he’s done all of this before.

He can do it again.

He doesn’t sleep on the way to Battle Ground this time, no longer under the false impression that it’s something he needs. He’d left in the middle of the night, after Skizz had gone to bed, and if everything goes well, he’ll be back before Skizz gets back from work tomorrow. Like he’d never even left in the first place. 

That’s what he tells himself, anyway, eyes on the road, ignoring Skizz’s calls. If he stops to answer, it’ll take him longer to get home, and talking and driving is—

He turns up the radio to drown out the ringing, and drives.

He’s tired by the time he makes it to Joe and Cleo’s place, a little past 8PM. It’s dark, and there are warm lights glowing through the windows of the little shack. The house has a new wing, clearly newer wood joined to the side of the house, giving it a different shape than Impulse remembers. He sits in his car for a moment, staring at it. The ever-so-subtle reminder that things have changed.

He takes a steadying breath and gets out of the car.

It’s colder up in Washington than it had been down in the desert, and he shivers, pulling his jacket around him as he makes his way to the door. He hasn’t even knocked when the door bursts open and a familiar voice is threatening, “If you don’t give me a valid reason for being here or get off our property, I assure you, my partner is armed and we will —Impulse?”

He raises a hand in an awkward wave. “Hey, Cleo. Uh. How’s it going?”

Cleo stares at him for a long, long moment, then turns to yell over her shoulder back into the house. “Joe, put the broom away, it’s fine!”

“Like, fine, or actually fine?” he hears Joe’s muffled shout from within.

“Actually fine!” Cleo yells back. “Probably!” She turns back to Impulse. “Well, are you going to stand on our doorstep all night?”

“Uhh…”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, for god’s—come in.”

Impulse finds himself practically dragged inside the house, the door slammed shut and locked behind him. He tries not to feel threatened by that. “I see you’re, uh, working on your social skills,” he comments. 

She scowls. “Don’t you start.”

Joe leans back out of the storage cupboard, eyes wide and magnified by the lenses of his glasses. “Impulse! What’re you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you, or you’re not welcome—y’all’re always welcome—but this is unexpected.”

“I need to talk to Cleo,” Impulse says. 

The two of them exchange a glance. “To me?” Cleo echoes, like she can’t quite believe it.

“Yeah? What, is that a surprise?”

“You’re Joe’s friend,” is what Cleo says. “I just figured—you’d be here to speak to him?”

Impulse doesn’t deny it, because after everything, he would consider Joe a friend—and, after everything, he wouldn’t extend the same honour to Cleo. If he’s honest, even just looking at her is making him angry in a way he’s not sure he could ever put into words—that simmering in his stomach that makes his smiles forced.

But smile he does, forcing cheer as he replies, “We have some things in common, though, Cleo, wouldn’t you agree?”

Cleo’s expression darkens, just slightly. “You didn’t have to come all the way here for that.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“There are other ways to call.”

Her mind stirs against his, pointed. It takes far too much effort to force it back, like his mind is an angry cat that’s forgotten how to hiss. “I need to be good with my words,” he says, equally as pointed as her mental reminder had been. 

“...Right,” she says, mollified slightly, and that surprises Impulse. “I—forgot. Right, yeah, of course.” She shakes her head. “Remind me after this to give you my number. So you’re not driving twenty-odd hours every time we need to have a chat.”

Impulse is—thrown. He’d expected her to be… well. Scornful? Disappointed? Frustrated? He hadn’t expected this, this quiet acceptance, the offer of help.

He thinks, again, of the extension added to Joe’s house. Things have changed. Maybe Cleo is one of those things, as well.

“Thanks,” he says at last. It sounds inadequate, in the face of Cleo’s change of face, but he can’t think of anything else to say.

She nods. “Right. Okay then. You came all this way—what do you have to say?”

Impulse glances at Joe, still standing quietly in the corner of the room, just watching them. “Um, can we…?” He gestures towards Joe.

“Oh!” Joe blinks. “I can leave, if y’all need?” He steps back towards the back door. 

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous, this is your house, Joe. I more meant… can we go into another room…?”

“Come with me,” Cleo invites, and leads Impulse towards the house’s new extension, through a door splashed with soft green paint. The room beyond is simple, wooden walls painted with pastel paint, a rug laid across the floor to hide the bare floorboards beneath. There’s a bed shoved into one corner, laden with blankets, and a half-broken old wooden dresser pressed against the wall. Most of the room is taken up with easels bearing canvasses and pedestals for half-finished sculptures. In the midst of it all, there’s a small table containing a cup full of brushes and a cup full of paint water, and a small plastic chest of drawers filled to bursting with art supplies.

Impulse realises, belatedly, that Cleo has invited him to speak in her bedroom, and it throws him off enough that he misses her first statement. “Can you repeat that?” he asks. 

She sighs. “Go on, then,” she says, gesturing. “Unload it on me. Say your piece.”

He blinks at her. “What?”

Now it’s Cleo’s turn to look confused. “Isn’t that why you came here?” she asks. “To yell at me?”

“No?” Impulse scrambles to keep up with this turn in the conversation. “I mean—I am mad at you! But I don’t—I didn’t come here to yell?”

“Then… Why did you come?”

“I need a favour,” he says quickly, relieved to be back on the right track. “And after everything that’s happened, I feel like you owe me a few.”

“...Yeah, probably,” she says after a moment. “What do you need, Impulse?”

Impulse takes a breath. He could back out, now, if he wanted. This is it, his last moment with plausible deniability. He could say something else, or not say anything at all, but—he came all this way. And he wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t the only option that didn’t make him feel like he was at the precipice of a rollercoaster’s largest drop with no seatbelt on.

“I need grubs. With instructions. And no questions.” 

The room is quiet for a long, long moment as Cleo stares at him. Impulse can’t read her expression. He tries not to sweat. She could say no, he realises as the silence stretches on. She could say no, yell him out of her house, tell everyone what he’d asked for—

“Done,” Cleo says at last.

Impulse blinks. “Really?”

“I do owe you one.”

“Several.”

“We’ll see.” She snorts. “But—yeah. I can do that. Do you need them now, or…?”

“In the next two weeks.”

“I can make that work.” She nods. “They’ll find you. I’ll tell them to be sneaky about it, but who knows if they’ll listen. And I’ll give them instructions to follow your instructions. Will that work? Or do you need me to…?”

It’s nice of her to offer. It’s also— weird. Impulse isn’t used to Cleo being nice. It sets him on edge. “I can do it,” he says. “Thanks, Cleo.”

“Don’t mention it. Did you want to stay for tea? We can put you up on the couch for the night, if you like…?”

“I really should be getting back,” Impulse says, glancing back over his shoulder. 

“Right. Okay, hang on, before you go—phone. Numbers.”

“Oh! Yeah, one sec—”

He pulls out his phone, and she grabs hers from her bedside table, and the two of them exchange numbers. When they’re done, she shows him back out into the main room, where Joe is depositing blankets onto the couch.

“Impulse!” he greets brightly. “I got beddin’ for you—it’s not much, but it’ll hopefully be a little nicer than your last accommodations here.”

“Oh, no need,” Impulse says. “I’m heading out.”

Joe blinks. “It’s late,” he says.

“And I don’t need to sleep,” Impulse says wryly. “And I really ought to be getting home. Thanks again, Cleo—and it was nice to see you Joe.” He waves at the man, who’s still frowning at him.

“Are you sure? It really ain’t a bother—”

“It’s not about being a bother, Joe.” Impulse smiles at him. “I just wanna get home. You know?”

Joe sags. “Well, I guess I understand that,” he says at last. “Safe travels, Impulse. Keep adventurin’.”

“You too, Joe.”

And with that, Impulse is venturing back out into the night, beelining for his car and pulling off onto the first road of his long drive home.

It is, as Impulse predicted, mid-afternoon when he gets home. He’s exhausted as he pulls into the driveway, limbs aching and stiff, and even though he doesn’t technically need to do any of the bodily functions he’d neglected, doing so has still made his head pound. He groans, rubbing at his eyes, and climbs out of the car.

To his surprise, Skizz is waiting for him when he opens the door.

He blinks. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“And where the hell were you?” Skizz demands. 

It takes Impulse just a little too long to answer. “I was visiting Joe.”

Skizz stares at him for a long moment. “You were visiting Joe,” he echoes, voice tinged with disbelief.

“Yeah…?”

“And you didn’t tell me. You didn’t even think to send a text, or answer my phone calls, or—do you know how worried I’ve been, dude?”

Impulse does know how worried he’d been—knows it from the thirty-six missed calls on his phone’s lock screen, if nothing else. Knows it from the deep stress lines around his eyes, the bags beneath them, the desperation within them. Knows it by the fact that Skizz is here, and not at work, where he should be.

…He’s really messed this one up, huh?

“Okay, so I should’ve called… Or answered one of yours—I’m sorry, man, I wasn’t thinking.”

(He had been thinking, actually—thinking that surely Skizz would hear the guilt in his voice. Would know what he was doing even without seeing his face. He’s still worried, even now, in the face of anger-desperation-worry that Skizz somehow knows.)

(A distant grub nudges at his mind. He can’t hold Skizz’s gaze as he bats it gently away.)

“You should have called? I’ll do you one better—you shouldn’t have gone at all!” 

It’s like a record scratch. Impulse’s heart, thudding too loudly in his ears, suddenly goes silent.

He blinks. “What?”

“You can’t just go—what, go driving for twenty hours cross-country? What the hell were you thinking, man?”

“...That I wanted to see Joe,” Impulse says slowly. There’s a knot behind his sternum, old and half-scarred, and every word out of Skizz’s mouth presses it further into the bone. “I can go do that, you know. I’m not a child.”

“But you are a moron!”

“Excuse me?”

“What if something happened, huh? What if you got into a car accident, or you broke down, or—or if you got sick, or something—”

“Then I could handle it.” Half-scarred and half-weeping, the knot burns like a bloody wound. “I’m perfectly capable of dealing with my own emergencies, thanks.”

The next sound out of Skizz’s mouth is something that Impulse has never heard, an ugly sort of bark-laugh. “Really, dude? After everything that’s happened, you really think I can trust you to handle that by yourself?”

The knot snaps.  

“After everything that’s happened, you really expect me not to?” Impulse cries. “I’m not a child, Skizz, and I’m not—not incapable, or whatever else you think I am, and last time you were in charge of my wellbeing you put a hole in my head, so yeah, I think I can handle anything bad that happens by myself! And if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t fucking call you!”

Skizz reels back like he’s been slapped, and all the anger in Impulse’s veins turns to ice, dread pooling in his stomach. He slaps a hand over his mouth. 

“I’m sorry,” he stutters out after a too-long moment of silence. “Skizz, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“No,” Skizz says, and his face is blank, his tone cold. “No, you did mean it.”

Impulse closes his mouth. The silence stretches on.

Skizz, finally, lets out a shaking sigh, running his hand through his hair. He looks tired. He looks old. God, when did they get old? 

“You don’t trust me,” Skizz says at last. To his credit, his voice barely shakes.

To his credit, Impulse wants to cry, just a little. “I love you?” he offers, and he means it.

“But you don’t trust me,” Skizz says, and Impulse doesn’t deny it. Skizz closes his eyes. “I don’t trust you,” he says. Impulse swallows. “I love you, but I don’t trust you.”

It’s quiet again. Impulse is so damn sick of the quiet. He finds himself longing for laughter, for the background clamour of a football game on the TV, for the tinny crackling of radio static. For anything other than this heavy silence that hangs between them, several football fields too wide to cross.

“So what do we do?” he says at last, voice hoarse from the shouting. God. Why were they shouting?

Skizz opens his eyes and looks over at Impulse. There are tears overlying the exhaustion within them. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding just as wrecked as Impulse does. “I don’t know.”

The silence stretches on, one minute, and then two. 

Skizz steps to the side without a word when Impulse tries to walk past him, and doesn’t protest when he shuts himself in his bedroom for the rest of the evening. The podcast he sets to play from his phone’s shitty speakers fails to drown the silence out.

The grubs come in their ones and twos, flopping up to Impulse’s windowsill, and it’s awfully reminiscent of times long past. He ushers them inside, instructs them to hide in various nooks and crannies within his room, and shuts his door fully to prevent Skizz from catching a glimpse. If he ignores the fact that it’s a different room, on the wrong side of the house, the whole situation is so familiar that it almost hurts.

Pearl’s voice rings in his head. Do you ever think that—it doesn’t change. Sure, things are—things are better, and I’d never say that they’re not, but—I’m. I’m still the same. I don’t change. 

Impulse has changed. He has. Back then, he’d thought that he was doing—if not the right thing, then a good thing. He’d believed in what he was doing. He’s grown enough now to know that he was wrong, that this is wrong. 

…He’s still doing it, though. What does that mean, if he’s changed enough to know that he’s doing a bad thing but not enough to not do it?

He tries not to think about it. He doesn’t do a very good job.

Skizz is gone a lot in the evenings, these days. When Impulse had asked, he’d said he was meeting his lawyers at their office—said he didn’t want to upset Impulse by bringing them here, because he could tell that it had upset him. Impulse thanks him, and secretly feels bad about it. 

Yet another thing to feel bad about.

One night, Skizz is home later than usual. Impulse sees him come in from the kitchen, where he’s finishing up the dishes. “Lawyers again?” he asks as Skizz shuffles in and makes a beeline for the fridge. 

Skizz cracks open a soda. “No, actually,” he says after a moment of hesitation.

“No?” It’s a question. It’s a question that Skizz can choose not to answer, if he doesn’t want to. Impulse is giving him an out. 

Skizz doesn’t take it. “No, I… I started seeing a therapist, actually.”

Impulse goes still. “A therapist?”

“Yeah,” Skizz says, after another too-long moment and a swig from his soda. “It’s not—I mean—I’ve got problems, man.”

Impulse can’t help but let out a snort. “Doesn’t everyone we know?”

“Zedaph,” Skizz rebuts. 

Impulse thinks about it for a moment. “What does it say that Zedaph is the sanest person we know?” he asks.

Skizz snickers. “Right? But, like—it’ll be good for me. I think. I hope. I don’t—I’m all messed up, dude, and I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be—” He cuts himself off, and takes a swig so big he nearly chokes.

“Don’t want to be what?” Impulse echoes.

Skizz doesn’t have to answer. He doesn’t look like he wants to. He does anyway. “I don’t want to be scared of my best friend.”

Impulse swallows. It feels like he’s swallowed burning ash. “You’re scared of me?” he says softly.

Skizz doesn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t want to be,” he says, and his voice is thick. “I don’t wanna be—because I love you, dude, and I wanna trust you, and— therapy. It’ll be good for me.” 

“Okay,” Impulse agrees. “I’m—happy for you?” He frowns. “Is that what you tell someone, when they start therapy?”

“Well, what did you tell Tango?”

“‘Be careful,’ I think.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, you know—therapy.” He gives an uneasy, uncomfortable shrug.

“What about it?”

“You know my history with it.”

“What— oh. Right.” Skizz lets out a long breath. “Man. I guess suggesting you find yourself a therapist is off the table, then, huh.”

Impulse snorts. “Yeah, no, I’m good, thanks.” At Skizz’s melancholy, guilt-tinged expression, he adds, “Hey, I’ll be alright. Pearl doesn’t have a therapist either, and she’s doing okay.”

I’m just—a mess, a right old mess, and no matter how good things get I’m still just going to be—this. A bloody wreck.

Pearl’s voice, ringing in his head again.

“Right,” says Skizz, and he sounds like he doesn’t believe it.

Impulse feels bad again. He takes the bad feeling and squashes it down with all the other bad feelings and ignores them all the same. 

He and Skizz head to the courtroom in separate cars. It’s something about—well, Impulse doesn’t know what, actually. Some legal requirement, something about conspiracy and evidence. As if they don’t live together, as if they haven’t had every opportunity to conspire. Not that they have, but—

Impulse is nervous. 

That’s what it comes down to, at the end of the day, sat in the back of the too-fancy cab and picking at the skin on the back of his fingers. Next to him, Tango frowns.

“Don’t do that, man, c’mon,” he says, batting Impulse’s offending hand away from the other. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” Impulse says, apropos of nothing. He isn’t, but—he feels like he might be. 

Tango retracts his hand like he’s been burned. “Well, if you’re gonna throw up, don’t do it on me!”

Impulse nods. He swallows loudly. The buildings slowly drift past through the window as they crawl their way towards the courthouse. He’s sitting in his best suit, and there’s a briefcase down by his feet, a fancy leather thing he’d inherited from his father.

It’s full of grubs, of course, but no one needs to know that.

(He’d told the grubs that, too, told them to make no contact with Tango. They seem to be obeying, for now—Tango doesn’t seem to have noticed them, anyway.)

They pull up on the sidewalk outside of the courthouse. “Here y’all go,” the cabbie calls.

“Hey, thanks man,” Tango says, leaning forward to slip the man a fifty. “Come on, Impy, up and at ‘em.”

Impulse stares up at the courthouse through the car window. “I’m going to die,” he protests faintly.

Tango rolls his eyes. “No, you’re not. You’re gonna be fine. If I can survive a hell moon that’s trying to kill me, you can survive a day in court. Come on, get out of the nice man’s car now.”

Impulse gets out of the nice man’s car. The cab driver drives off. “That’s not a fair comparison,” he says, as he follows Tango towards the doors. “You had Bdubs on your side. And me.”

“And now you have me,” Tango says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You’re gonna be just fine, buddy, I promise. And, hey—if you need Bdubs’ help, you could try, y’know, praying for it.”

Impulse pulls a face. Tango barks out a laugh.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. C’mon, let’s get inside.”

They bump briefly into Skizz in the hallway outside of the courtroom. Their lawyers glare at them as they beeline towards each other. Impulse and Skizz and Tango all ignore them.

“Hey, homie-buddies!” Skizz greets brightly. He’s nervous, Impulse can tell—tell by the too-big gestures, the overly-wide smile. “Ready for the big day?”

“No,” Impulse says.

“Ready as ever!” Tango says with a grin.

Skizz grins at him. “How come you’re here, Top, anyway?”

“Moral support, you know.” Tango sighs, shoving his hands in his suit pockets. “Impulse just can’t get by without me.”

Impulse pouts at him. “I can un invite you, you know.”

“But you won’t.”

“...No, I won’t.”

Skizz places a hand on Impulse’s shoulder, solid and reassuring. “It’ll be over before you know it, Dippledop,” he promises, and then he’s pulling away and heading back over to his displeased lawyers. Impulse watches him go, suddenly feeling unmoored, unstable.

Skizz’s lawyers pull him away from Impulse’s side, and if he’s not careful, he’ll be pulled away forever.

“Come on,” Tango says softly at Impulse’s side, tugging on his elbow. “Let’s get to our seats. We’ve got a long day ahead.”

And the day is long. 

The legal proceedings stretch on, witness after witness, cross examination after cross examination, and Impulse spends most of it in an anxious, foggy haze, unable to process the words he’s hearing. He drums his fingers against his knee, watching stranger after stranger take the stand, and then suddenly they’re not strangers any more. 

He recognises his old therapist first, and suddenly his blood runs cold, and his fingers go still. His entire body goes still, and he can’t hear a word she’s saying, just the rushing in his ears. He’s half sure he doesn’t breathe the entire time she’s up there, and then she’s gone, and he lets out a breath only for it to catch in his throat as a doctor he recognises takes her place. Then another, and then another, and then there’s the doctor, the one who had overseen his treatment, the one who’d—

“Dude,” Tango whispers, his hand on Impulse’s arm making him jump. “Breathe.”

“Sorry,” the word tears itself from Impulse’s throat, too loud and too high, and he ducks his head, closing his eyes and sucking in another breath. His next attempt is quieter, barely a whisper, “Sorry.”

Tango squeezes his arm. It would almost be grounding, if Impulse wasn’t halfway to the ceiling and halfway in hell. “They can’t hurt you from here,” Tango says softly.

“Mm-hm.”

“And if they try, I’ll fight ‘em.”

That gets the barest laugh from Impulse, and he blinks open his eyes to send Tango a sideways glance. His lips feel numb as he mumbles, “Yeah? You?”

Tango scowls, but his tone is light when he grumbles, “I resent that.”

It takes Impulse a few more minutes to catch his breath, and when he looks up, the doctor has vacated the stand, and a woman with red hair has taken his place. She feels familiar, and it takes Impulse a few moments to place her— Gem. She looks like Gem.

So this is Gem’s mother, then.

It’s—weird. She looks just like any other fifty-something woman, hair greying and eyes lined with creases, smart pressed suit and a polite smile sitting on her face below her square glasses. If Impulse saw her on the street, he’d never take her for a woman who had gone to great lengths to have her daughter tortured.

Then again, if there’s anything he’s learned, it’s that nobody really looks like the things they’ve done. Nobody who sees him on the street knows about the crimes he’s committed, or the crimes he’s planning to commit, either. They see just some guy— and Impulse looks at Gem’s mom, and sees just some woman. 

Does she even know her daughter’s dead? he wonders, and then his brain fills with fog again, and he stops wondering.

He blinks, and Skizz is on the stand. He sucks in a breath, and it’s like the bubble in his ears pops, and suddenly he can hear what’s being said.

“...in Alaska?” the prosecutor is saying.

“We were mining for and experimenting on tunguskite,” Skizz answers. He doesn’t seem phased at all by the questions, nor by having to answer them in front of the crowd and the many cameras clustered around the courtroom.

“And what was your role in these experiments?”

“Project Management. I don’t have a scientific background, so I was mostly managing people, timelines, and signing off on what was advised by our science division.”

“I see. And as someone with no experience with the scientific and pharmaceutical work PWG was doing, both in Alaska and Arizona, how were you qualified to be making the decisions that you were?”

There’s a slightly too-long pause, before Skizz answers, “I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t qualified to do the job that PWG hired you to do?”

“No.”

“Then, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you come to be in the position you were at PWG without the necessary experience, skills, or qualifications to be in that role?”

“I began at PWG straight out of college. It was mostly low-level admin work I was hired for, but I—well, I’ve been told that I’m a natural leader, and I worked hard. So I started moving up the career ladder. I was given training, allowed to oversee some labs. All within the open departments of PWG, of course.”

“Then how did you get moved to the tunguskite research arm which, as established, was highly classified within the company and unknown to even those among leadership?”

“...That would be through Project Wynn. Uh, the extraterrestrial parasite experiments, that is.”

There’s a rock on Impulse’s chest the size of a car crushing his lungs beneath the weight. Tango’s hand is on his arm again, squeezing comfortingly. Impulse grabs his hand and squeezes back.

“Expand on that.”

“I stumbled in there by accident. I was looking for someone from my team who had been moved to the project and accidentally stumbled upon some research documents. And I had some prior experience with the, uh… the parasites.” Skizz pulls a pained face as he says it. It’s the most expressive he’s been so far. “They seemed much more interested in having me on board once I mentioned that.”

“Prior experience?”

“A friend of mine was… infected.” Again, that same pained look flashing across his face, then disappearing again. “He… wasn’t well. I became his conservator after his parents died. It was… hard on me. It was hard on both of us.”

“Right. I take it that this friend of yours was Patient SV, as mentioned by previous witnesses?”

Impulse flinches.

Skizz answers, “Yes.”

Breathe, Tango whispers to him again, through the hivemind this time, and Impulse finally sucks in a full breath as the world goes out of focus again. 

“I need to go,” he whispers. “I can’t—I need to—”

Tango looks him up and down, then nods. “Yeah, okay. Let’s get out of here.”

And so Impulse spends the rest of Skizz’s testimony having a panic attack in the bathroom.

He presses himself into the corner between the wall with the hand dryers and the wall with the sinks, knees pressed to his chest and hands clasped over his ears, desperately trying and mostly failing to count his breaths. Tango stands nearby, anxious and awkward, pressing a comforting presence into Impulse’s mind in lieu of having any other way to help.

Finally, after what feels like hours, Impulse breaks through the other side, breaching the surface as airless gasps become shaky half-sobs. “Sorry,” he mumbles to Tango at last.

“Dude, you don’t have to apologise for that,” Tango says. “I’m the last person who’s gonna judge you for having a panic attack. I have, like, six of those a day.” He snorts at his own joke.

Impulse flinches at it instead. “Sorry,” he says again.

Tango sighs. “Hey, Impy, c’mon. We’ve been over this. I’m not mad at you.”

“I know,” Impulse says, but it doesn’t quell the guilt roiling in his stomach.

Tango sighs again.

Impulse’s own testimony and questioning passes in a dissociated haze. His testimony is supposed to be at least somewhat anonymous, so there aren’t cameras pointed at him as he speaks, but there are plenty of eyes, and there are questions that fill his brain with static, and he trips over his words every time he overcomes the insurmountable challenge of getting them out of his throat.

It’s hard to remember what he needs to say, how it fits into the narrative they’d all crafted after PWG’s crimes went public. No occupier wanted to admit to the whole world domination thing on account of holy hell that’d be a bad idea, and Xisuma (uh—the Red one) had pointed out that a parasitical infection that replaces all your internal organs including your brain would also likely result in mass panic. So they were all treading a very careful line, here, between letting people know that they exist and not freaking everyone out.

Impulse hopes he manages that despite barely being aware of the words he’s saying.

It feels like it lasts forever, but when he checks his watch after getting off the stand he realises that it really hasn’t been that long, and then he starts to wonder if they let him go early because he was so clearly a mess, and that makes him feel inexplicably worse.

He doesn’t bother to head back up to where he’d been sitting with Tango, instead leaving the room and sitting in the hallway outside with his knees pulled up to his chest again. 

Several minutes later, someone sits next to him.

“Hey, Dippledop.”

“Hi, Skizz.”

“You did well up there.”

“Did I? I felt like I could barely talk.”

“You did fine,” Skizz reassures. “Can I touch you?”

(Skizz never really used to ask that, because for so many years Impulse hadn’t minded physical touch quite so much as he had when he was younger—but for all those years, there’d been a gaping hole in Impulse’s head where his connection with the hivemind should have been, and he’d had to fill it with something.)

He shrugs. There’s a moment of hesitation, and then Skizz’s arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling Impulse into his side. It has the added side effect of pulling Impulse’s face out of his knees, and he lets his head loll against Skizz’s neck. 

“Just a couple more testimonies,” Skizz promises. “And then we break, and then it’s the jury’s decision. Not much longer now.”

Impulse snorts. “Not reassuring,” he mumbles.

Skizz sighs. “It’s almost over, Dippledop. You don’t have to be here much longer.”

“Yeah,” Impulse agrees, and bites back, what about you?

Because Skizz won’t be here much longer either. Because Impulse has a plan, and—

Impulse has a plan, and it’s a terrible idea, but it’s the only plan he’s got.

He enacts the plan during the break, when Tango and Skizz are grabbing food, and Impulse eats two bites of his own sandwich before excusing himself to the bathroom. He doesn’t go to the bathroom, instead wandering the courthouse halls and trying not to look suspicious. He’s got his briefcase full of grubs in his hand, and he’s on the lookout for—

There.

One of the jurors, in a quiet hallway, on the phone and talking to someone quietly as he rubs at his face exhaustedly. Impulse slows as he approaches him, the juror not having noticed him, caught up in whatever conversation he’s having. He reaches down, cracking open the briefcase, and pulling a wriggling grub into his hand. 

The briefcase snaps shut, and the noise is enough to cause the juror to glance up at him, confusion morphing to recognition as he recognises Impulse and gives him a nod—

Impulse slams forward, trapping the juror against the wall, and grabs the phone out of his hand to hang up before the guy can cry out. He then muffles the cry behind his free hand, blinking red back into his eyes as he meets the Juror’s terrified, confused gaze.

“I am so sorry,” Impulse says with a wince as the guy’s body goes lax, and he drops his hand to raise the other one in its place. “It’ll all be over soon, you’ll understand, I’m sorry—”

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Impulse freezes. The juror pushes him away, grabbing his phone from Impulse’s hand and stumbling back down the corridor. Impulse turns, slowly, to see Tango standing there, staring at him with eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Tango,” Impulse manages, “I can explain—”

“Explain? You better have a damn good explanation that you weren’t doing what it looked like you were doing, because it sure looked like you were about to Claim that guy!”

Impulse snaps his mouth shut. He doesn’t meet Tango’s eyes. The grub in his hand writhes, glowing bright red against his pale skin. 

“Un-fucking-believable,” Tango says. “I genuinely can’t believe you right now, dude.”

“What the fuck,” says the juror, “is going on.” 

“Nothing,” Tango says quickly, and then his eyes are red and meeting the juror’s. “Forget this ever happened, okay? Just—don’t think about it. Everything’s fine. You just dropped your phone, and my buddy—” the word comes out tainted with bitterness and disgust—“helped you pick it up. Alright? Got that?”

The juror, expression lax, nods. “Got that,” he mumbles.

“Alright. Run along now, then. Court resumes in thirty minutes, you know.”

“Right,” the juror says, and leaves, tripping over his feet as he goes. The silence stretches on as the juror’s footsteps fade, leaving Impulse staring at his feet, and Tango staring at Impulse with utter disgust. 

“What happened to not without your consent?” Tango says at last. Impulse doesn’t answer, swallowing harshly against the burning lump in his throat. “What happened to—god, what happened to any of it? Did you learn nothing? I thought you’d changed, man.”

“I know,” Impulse snaps. “I know, okay! I know that it’s wrong, and that I shouldn’t be doing it, and it’s a terrible fucking idea, but—”

“But what? What makes any of this better?”

“...I can’t let Skizz go to jail.”

Tango stares at him. “You can’t be serious. That’s it? You’re willing to go back on everything you’ve ever fucking said, because Skizz might go to jail for a couple months? That’s somebody’s whole life, Impulse!”

Tango’s right. Obviously Tango’s right. A couple months of Skizz being gone is nothing, he should be able to handle this, it shouldn’t make him panic this much—

(Why is he panicking this much?)

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” he blurts. He feels too small, trapped in too-large skin. His chest feels too tight. 

“No shit,” Tango snaps. “Y’know, most people deal with their trauma by talking to a therapist. Or their fucking friends.” 

“Tango—”

“I don’t wanna hear it. Give me those grubs.”

Impulse holds out his hand, and then, after Tango’s taken the grub he was holding, offers up the briefcase too. Tango puts the grub into the briefcase, then turns on his heel. 

“Tango—” Impulse tries again.

“Don’t talk to me,” Tango snaps, and then he’s gone, stalking back down the corridor.

Impulse stands alone in the hallway, feeling his whole life fracturing around him, and he thinks that at this point, he probably deserves it.

Skizz does not go to jail.

That is, probably, the most surreal part of the entire day—that when the jury gives their decision, Skizz is one of the few people in his brand of middle management to not get jail time. Impulse watches the entire scene with disbelief from the stands.

Tango doesn’t make a reappearance. Impulse wishes he could say that he’s surprised. Instead, the relief that he should be feeling is drowned out by a low dread and regret churning in his gut.

Impulse meets Skizz outside. Skizz seems just as stunned as Impulse does, gaping mouth turning to a wide grin upon catching sight of Impulse walking towards him.

“Dude!” he yells, pulling Impulse into a half-hug. “Dippledop! Can you believe it?”

Impulse shakes his head, lacking Skizz’s enthusiasm. “No, I really can’t,” he mumbles. “Congrats, man.”

Skizz frowns at him. “You okay?” he asks, voice softening. 

“I’m just… tired,” Impulse half-lies. “Can we go home?”

“Yeah, buddy.” Skizz’s embrace tightens, then loosens, allowing Impulse to slip away from his best friend’s side. “Let’s go home.” Then, as they begin to leave, “Hey, where’s Top?”

“He left, I think.”

“What? Why?”

Impulse just shrugs. Skizz looks at him for a long moment, then sighs. “Yeah, okay. C’mon, I’ll call us a cab.”

Impulse is pretty sure he didn’t organise a party for when they got home. He thinks he would have remembered doing that. Skizz, too, seems confused, when they open the door to find Grian, Pearl, Zed, and Tango all in their living room, Tango pacing lines into the carpet while the others lounge across the couches.

“What are you guys doing here?” Skizz asks, bewildered.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Grian chimes in dryly. 

“Finally,” Tango snaps, coming to a sudden halt and turning to face the room, arms crossed. “Took you guys long enough.”

“There was kind of a court case going on,” Skizz says wryly. “Got something you wanted to say that couldn’t wait until tomorrow, Top?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to say congrats on getting off scot-free, Skizz, good for you.”

“Thanks?” Skizz’s expression screws up in confusion. “Weirdly aggressive, and I didn’t even have change to tell you, but—”

“Second of all,” Tango interrupts him, “Impulse. Do you want to tell them, or do you want me to do it?”

Impulse’s stomach drops. “Tango,” he says, a note of disbelief in his voice. “Are you seriously doing this?”

“What do you expect me to do?” Tango snaps. “Just—keep my mouth shut like I didn’t see anything? I’d do a lot for you dude, but I won’t just sit around in silence while you hurt people!”

“Hurt people?” Skizz echoes, taking a step away from Impulse’s side and sending him a confused, concerned look. “Dippledop? What is he talking about?”

And now Impulse is alone in a room full of people he loves, all of them staring at him, angry and confused and expectant, and he can feel the old anxiety rising in his throat as dread pulls him down into darkness. 

“Tango,” he tries again, voice wavering. “Tango, c’mon, we don’t have to—”

“Yes, we do.” Tango’s jaw tightens. The room is silent for a long, long moment, as Impulse stares at Tango, and Tango stares back. Finally, Tango sighs. He reaches down to grab the briefcase that’s sitting by the wall and opens it with a click. 

A small wave of grubs falls to the floor.

The room goes dead still.

Skizz is the first one to recover. “Impulse,” he says, lowly, slowly, keeping the grubs in his peripheral vision as he turns his head towards Impulse. “What’s this?”

“I—I couldn’t—” Impulse sucks in a shaking breath and forces his words out slowly despite the irregular pounding of his heart. “I couldn’t let you go to jail. So I… took drastic measures.”

“Drastic measures,” Skizz echoes. “Please tell me you didn’t—”

“I didn’t let him,” Tango interrupts. He kneels down to the floor, scooping the grubs back up into the briefcase as he speaks. “All the jurors left the courthouse alive and unharmed and human.”

Another long moment of silence. Skizz buries his face in his hands. Tango shuts the briefcase with a snap. 

“Okay,” Skizz says at last. “Okay. This is… Jesus Christ, Dippledop. Why couldn’t you just…?” 

Skizz doesn’t finish that thought. Impulse isn’t sure he wants him to.

“Okay,” Pearl says, standing, “we’re leaving.”

Grian blinks up at her. “We are?”

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” she says. “I don’t…” She looks up, meets Impulse’s gaze, and he flinches at the hurt in her eyes. She looks away. “Come on, Gri, let’s go.”

She leaves the room. Grian glances around at the rest of them with wide eyes, shrugs, and follows her out. The sound of the door closing echoes throughout the house.

“Tango,” Zedaph says softly, “maybe we should also go.”

Tango glances at Skizz. “You got this?” he says quietly.

Skizz is quiet for a moment. Contemplative. Then, he nods. “I got this,” he says. “You can go, Top, Zed. Uh, thanks. For letting me know.”

And doesn’t that just sting?

Tango nods back. “I’m taking the grubs,” he says, hoisting up the briefcase.

Skizz nods. “Probably for the best,” he agrees.

Tango begins to leave the room, stopping as he passes Skizz and brushing a hand against his arm. He leans into whisper, voice not quite quiet enough, and Impulse tries not to flinch at the words. “If you need a place to stay, our couch is always open.”

“I appreciate it,” Skizz mumbles back.

Tango and Zed leave, and then it’s just Impulse and Skizz in the living room, the weight of the world bearing down on them.

“I’m sorry,” Impulse chokes out. “Skizz, I—”

“Are you actually sorry?” Skizz says, voice suddenly harsh. “Or are you just sorry you got caught?”

Impulse doesn’t know how to answer that. “I knew it was wrong,” he says instead. “I knew I was doing a bad thing.”

Skizz lets out an exhausted, half-sobbed laugh. “That’s worse,” he says. “You get how that’s worse, right?”

“Yeah.” Impulse swallows. “Yeah, no, I know.”

“So you knew it was wrong. And you still did it.” Impulse doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to. It’s not really a question. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to lose you.” 

“Dippledop. You were never gonna lose me. They weren’t gonna, like, serve me the death sentence—”

“But you were gonna go to jail.”

“I was prepared for it. That’s what I was telling you, that you should prepare for it—”

“But what am I supposed to do without you?” It comes out louder than Impulse had intended. Tears sting at his eyes. “I can’t—I don’t know how to— Skizz—”

“It wouldn’t have been forever.”

“I still can’t.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Finally, Skizz says, “You can’t live like this, dude.”

“I—”

“No. You can’t. You can’t—and I can’t—we’re messed up. We both know it. And this—this codependence, or whatever it is, it isn’t healthy. We can’t live like this anymore.” 

“I don’t know how else to live,” Impulse manages, voice barely above a whisper, sore in his throat.

“Then we’re just gonna have to learn.” Skizz turns away, running a hand through his hair. “Because you can’t do this, and I can’t do this, and all the innocent people that get caught in the crossfire can’t do this either.”

He begins to walk away. Impulse’s heart seizes. “Where are you going?” he calls, as Skizz reaches the doorway.

“To pack a bag,” Skizz says. “I think we both need some time away from each other.”

“But—but they didn’t sentence you, so you get to stay—”

“And I really need to go.”

Skizz leaves. Impulse stands in frozen silence as Skizz packs his bags and heads out the door. It’s only when he hears the sound of Skizz’s car starting and pulling out of the driveway that it hits him that this is really happening. 

Impulse’s knees buckle beneath him as he falls to the carpet, one hand pressed over his mouth, and sobs so hard it hurts.

Impulse doesn’t leave the living room floor until the next morning, when he needs to get up to find his phone and call in sick to work. He doesn’t want to see Tango today. He doesn’t want to see anyone, except maybe Skizz, and he keeps listening for the sound of the door—

Skizz doesn’t come back. Not that day, and not the next day, and not the day after, either.

Impulse keeps calling in sick. He spends most of his day in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing—

For what, exactly? Skizz to come back? His friends to not hate him? To not have been such a monumental idiot?

It’s too late now. This is all he has—an empty house, an empty head, an empty chest, and guilt filling every inch of that space.

Almost a week after the hearing, there’s a knock on the door. It’s not Skizz—Skizz has keys. Impulse doesn’t move.

There’s another knock at the door. From his open window, he hears a muffled, familiar yell. “Impulse, open the door! I will warp my way in there, Mister, don’t try me!”

…Well. Impulse really does know better than to try Pearl.

He makes his way downstairs and opens the door, wincing as the bright sunshine hits his eyes. Pearl looks him up and down.

“You look like shit, mate,” she says, and then squeezes past him into the house.

Impulse can’t help but bark out a laugh. “Thanks,” he says wryly. “Can’t imagine why.”

“Have you eaten?” Pearl asks as he follows her through to the kitchen.

“Uhh…”

“It’s lunchtime,” she says, by way of explanation. “Wait, did you even have breakfast?”

Impulse stares at her for a long moment, then says, “I don’t think I’ve eaten in a week?”

She squawks. “Impulse!”

“I don’t technically need to! I’m fine!”

“Sure, you’re not gonna drop dead, but I know enough to know that you still get hungry.” She drops the grocery bag that he hadn’t even realised she was holding onto the counter and begins to unload food. “Right, I’m definitely making lunch then.” 

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I do.” She scowls as she begins to rifle through his cabinets, pulling down dishes and utensils. “You need to eat. Three meals a day, Impulse.”

“I mean, it’s not like you haven’t skipped meals before,” Impulse mumbles.

“Yeah, because I was broke and homeless and couldn’t afford to eat. Now I can. So I eat.” She sets her jaw and begins chopping vegetables. “And you, sir, have a house and a car and a nine-to-five, so you can definitely afford to eat.”

“What if I didn’t want to?”

“Why?” Pearl’s voice comes out sharp. “Because you’re punishing yourself?”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t need to.” She sighs. “Can you boil some water for me, please?”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He pulls out a pan and fills it in the sink before setting it on the stove. “Salted?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He does so. For a while, the only sounds are the hum of boiling water and the thump of Pearl’s knife as she chops. 

“You’d think,” Pearl says at last, “that after everything we’ve been through, you’d know better than to think that hurting yourself will make anything better.”

He snorts. “Clearly not,” he says. “Clearly, I haven’t really learned anything.” He scrubs his hands across his face. “It’s just like you said.”

“I… did?”

“Yeah. The other month. No matter how things change, I don’t change. I’m just always going to be this.” 

“And what is this?”

Impulse shrugs. “A monster?”

“You know that’s not how any of this works.”

“Well—I don’t know! I did bad things. On purpose. At least the last time I had good intentions. This time—I knew I was going to hurt people and I did it anyway. What else does that make me?”

Pearl’s quiet for a moment. She takes a bag of pasta and tips it into the boiling water. “It makes you a person,” she says at last. “A person who’s made mistakes, and who’s done bad things, sure, but you’re still a person.”

“Great,” Impulse says wryly. “I’ve upgraded from monster to really bad person. That sure makes me feel better about everything.”

“Stop it,” she snaps. “You’re not the only one who’s done bad things, you know! Skizz lobotomised you, I banished Grian to the freakin’ shadow realm for a decade, hell, False is a serial killer!”

“That’s different—”

“No! It really isn’t! We all do bad things! We all make mistakes! We all mess up really, really badly sometimes, and a lot of the time it’s because we’re messed up really, really badly, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we hurt people! Or that we wanted to hurt people! You don’t just wake up one morning suddenly being a good person! It takes time, and it takes work, and it sucks, to feel like you’re climbing up a mountain just to fall down over and over again. But you have to climb it. You can’t just—there is no invisible line that you cross and suddenly become an irredeemable monster. You messed up, sure, but you can’t just sit and wallow in self pity about it forever. It won’t make anything better, and punishing yourself won’t make it right.”

Impulse feels like all the air has been squeezed out of him. It takes him a moment to remember how to breathe. When he does, it comes out as almost a laugh. “When did you get so smart?” he manages.

“Learned it from a friend of mine,” Pearl replies. “He’s pretty cool, actually. He’s got a house and a car and a nine-to-five and he was still nice enough to drop everything to help an unstable homeless girl like me.”

“I dunno, he sounds kind of crazy.”

“Sometimes crazy is a good thing.” Pearl turns to smile at him. “A sane person would’ve left me to die, probably.” She snorts. “You should meet him sometime. I bet he’d have some good advice for you.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t place my bets on it.” Impulse, despite himself, smiles back. “Thanks, Pearl. I needed that.”

“I know.” 

“I… Ugh. I don’t even know how to fix this.” He swallows. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I don’t think any of us do,” Pearl admits with a shrug. “We’ve all been… yeah. It’s been rough. We just… gotta climb the mountain.”

“I dunno, Pearl. It’s pretty steep.”

Pearl turns back to the bowl of chopped vegetables, tossing them with some kind of dressing. “Less steep with a friend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Guess it’s maybe worth a try, then.”

“That’s the Impulse I know. Take the pasta off for me?” 

He does. Pearl strains it and combines it with the veg-and-dressing, then serves up two large bowls of pasta salad. Impulse takes it, and feels strangely like he’s going to cry.

“Thanks, Pearl. Really. Thank you. I don’t know…”

She smiles down at him, resting a hand against his arm. “I know,” she says. “Come on, let’s eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Impulse’s first few days back at work are quiet and dull. He avoids the cafeteria at busy times, and takes his food back to his lab to eat rather than stick around in a place where someone might try and talk to him. He makes sure to arrive early, and leave late, just to make sure there’s no risk of running into Tango in the parking lot. 

It works, for about a week, until he’s biding his time after work one evening and the door opens and Tango is there. In his lab. Staring at him.

Impulse’s mouth goes dry. “Hi,” he manages, after a long moment.

“Hi,” Tango says, staring back at him. 

They’re quiet for a long moment.

“Did you, uh, did you need something?”

“Yeah.” Tango shuffles uncomfortably. “Zed, uh, dropped me off this morning, but he can’t pick me up, and—could you give me a ride home?”

It takes Impulse just a little too long to answer the question, taken aback at the olive branch Tango is extending to him. “Yes! Uh, yeah, sure, I can do that. No—no problem.”

“Great. You got your bag?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Cool, let’s go.”

Impulse follows Tango out of the building, and then Tango follows Impulse to his car, sliding into the passenger seat as Impulse starts the engine. They pull out of the parking lot in silence, and things feel oddly familiar, oddly stifled, comfortable and uncomfortable in the same measure.
Tango’s the one to break the silence. “So…” he says after a long moment. “How’ve you been?”

Impulse shrugs. “Uh. Fine? I dunno.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“Well, you know.” His hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“Right. Yeah. Pearl told me that you weren’t doing too hot, is all.”

Impulse glances at Tango out of the corner of his eye. “You talked to Pearl about me?”

“She may have chewed me out. Just a little bit. Uh. Told me I should talk to you.”

“She did?”

“Mhm. She was honestly kinda scary about it? But she was also right.” Tango snorts. “Hey, since when did Pearl become the most put-together of us, anyway?”

“She’s doing better,” Impulse agrees softly. “I’m glad.”

“Yeah.” Tango sighs. “But we’re not, and we should probably…”

“Yeah, probably.” At the intersection, Impulse takes a turn.

Tango frowns. “Wait, where are we going?”

“I’m getting us tacos,” Impulse declares, “and then we’re going back to mine, and we’re gonna talk.”

“Well. I won’t say no to free tacos?”

“That’s what I thought.”

So Impulse buys them both tacos, and drives back to his too-empty house, and parks in the garage. The engine switches off, and Tango unbuckles his seatbelt, ready to get out, but Impulse doesn’t move. His gaze is caught on the workbench on the opposite wall, the single shitty desk lamp standing over a discarded pile of tools and screws.

“Uhh, Impy? You good there?”

Impulse blinks, glancing over at him. “Yeah, uh, I’m good.” He swallows. “I was just thinking, is all.”

“Thinking about what?”

“This is the place where I met you.” He lets out a weak laugh. “Right here, in this garage. And now you’re here with me. It’s just… weird.”

Tango is quiet for a long moment. When Impulse glances over, his gaze is faraway. “Yeah,” he says at last. “It’s been nearly a year, huh? It feels like a decade. So much has changed.”

“Yeah,” Impulse agrees, then clears his throat. “Come on, we should get inside.”

They do, ending up on opposite sides of the kitchen table as they devour their tacos. The silence is less awkward than it had been in the car, punctuated by the obnoxious sounds of chewing, which slowly trail off as they finish their food.

Finally, Tango speaks. “If I had said no,” he says, “what would you have done?”

Impulse doesn’t need to ask what he means. His throat goes tight. “I wouldn’t have done it,” he whispers.

“No?”

Impulse shakes his head. “I don’t—I couldn’t—I didn’t want you to die. But I couldn’t have done that to you. Not after everything.”

Tango lets out a breath and a slow nod. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. So—it’s because they were strangers, then? You didn’t care about what you were doing to them, because you didn’t know them?”

“I cared about what I was going to do to them.” The words feel like glass, cutting up Impulse’s throat, making the words come out hoarse and iron-scented. “I just… didn’t care enough not to do it.” He swallows, looking down at the table. “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“You know that doesn’t make up for it.”

“It’s never made up for it. I—I’ve done bad things, and I hurt people, and I know it doesn’t—I can’t make it better. I can be better, but I can’t… And let’s be honest, I messed that one up too.”

Tango sighs. “Yeah, kinda.”  

They’re quiet for a moment. Impulse says, “And I feel stupid, because it was never actually a problem. Skizz was fine.” 

“Uh. Yeah. About that.”

Impulse glances up. Tango isn’t meeting his eyes, a faint flush across his cheeks. “Tango?”

“I may have, uh, you know.” Tango blinks, and his eyes are red. “A little bit of hypnotism. To the jury. Swayed their decision a little bit.”

Impulse gapes at him. “You did what?”

“Okay, you don’t get to—you were going to grub them, a little bit of hypnotism isn’t—”

Impulse can’t help himself. He laughs. “Oh my god,” he breathes. “You—holy shit, Tango, I— thank you.” 

“Well, y’know. I couldn’t let Skizz go to jail. Despite everything, I kinda like the guy.” 

“Thank you,” Impulse says again, laughter fading back into a smile.

“Yeah, well. I’m not—I won’t pretend I’m not angry. Because I am. But I’m not—not friendship-ending angry. I just… maybe need a little space. And a few more therapy sessions. But we’re good. Okay?”

“Okay.” Impulse takes a sip of his soda. “On the plus side, I’m never gonna do this again. So that’s not—it’s not anything you have to worry about.”

Tango gives him a sidelong look. “Okay, so—like, not to make assumptions, but if being in a bad mental place usually translates to you going full supervillain—”

“I don’t know if I’d put it that way—”

“—if it does happen again, next time maybe, just, I don’t know, talk to us about it?”

Impulse pouts. “You make it sound so simple.” 

“It’s really not that complicated.”

Impulse sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Sure. If I ever feel the need to start shoving grubs down people’s throats or, or the urge to take over the world, or whatever, I’ll let you know.”

“That’s all we ask, buddy,” Tango says. “That’s all it takes.”

And for a moment, it really does seem that simple.

Impulse is woken in the middle of the night by a strong prod at the back of his brain. He groans, rolling over to stare at his ceiling, feeling another insistent tap against his mind.

Tango— he groans internally, pushing the presence away—

That’s not Tango.

Impulse is on his feet immediately, rushing to the window and wrenching it open to glance down at his front yard.

Cleo stares up at him, her arms crossed across her chest. “So far, I’m not impressed by your hospitality,” she calls. 

He stares blankly down at her. “Why are you at my house?”

“To talk,” she says.

“But you… have my number?”

“...Can you just open the door?”

Impulse goes downstairs and opens the door.

“Thanks.” Cleo lets out quiet laugh as she shuffles inside. “Sorry about it being late—well, I’m not actually that sorry. It’s a long drive.”

“You drove all the way here to see me?”

“No, I drove all the way here because Tango told me to come pick up some grubs. And when I did that he tried to yell at me for giving them to you—which, where does he get the audacity, I swear— and then he said I should talk to you.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “So, here I am.”

“Right. Uh, about that—can I ask a favour?”

She sighs. “I probably still owe you one. So, sure.”

“If I ever make a request like that again, say no.”

She bursts out laughing at that, wheeze-like giggles leaving her throat in a stream as she wipes at her eyes. “Yeah, sure, yeah,” she manages. “I can do that. Easiest favour of my life.”

Impulse shuffles uncomfortably. “Ah, uh, good. Um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She frowns at him. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Honestly, I’m still trying to process the fact that you’re in my house.”

“Yeah, fair. People tend to have that reaction to me.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Impulse comments dryly, and Cleo snorts. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I feel a little nervous saying yes, but yeah, sure.”

“Why did you give the grubs to me?”

“...Because you asked? Is this a trick question? Like—was I not supposed to?”

“No, I just… I don’t know. You didn’t think it was at all suspicious?”

“I always think you’re a little suspicious, Impulse. I also don’t see you as a threat, like, at all.” 

“Hey!” 

“I’m sorry, are you trying to be intimidating?”

“...No.”

“Well then!” She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, I thought… I don’t know. Knowing you, were probably trying to do something noble with them.”

“Noble?” Impulse raises his eyebrows.

Cleo flushes. “You know what I mean!”

He doesn’t, but… “Nobly stupid, maybe,” he mutters. “I was just… being selfish, I guess.”

“Been there, done that.”

Impulse swallows. “Cleo,” he says. “How do you… How are you… I mean…”

“You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that. What are you asking me?”

“When, uh, everything happened. And you were… I mean, you were Queen, and then the world ended, and then you stopped trying to take over. And you just… went home. How did you…”

“Move on?” Cleo suggests. Impulse nods, throat tight. She sighs. “I don’t know? I just… went home. Let everybody go. Went to therapy, did some art. I just… lived about it?”

“And it doesn’t… I mean, it doesn’t haunt you?”

“Of course it does.” She snorts. “I know that I’m not—I mean, I don’t really deserve a clean conscience. But none of us really deserve anything, you know? I just… I try to wake up each day and be a little better than I was yesterday. And maybe sometimes I’m worse than yesterday. Maybe some days I wake up and I just feel evil. And that’s… that’s fine! As long as I don’t act evil, what’s the harm?”

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits. 

Cleo sighs. “You’ll figure it out,” she tells him. “Or you can keep beating yourself up about it forever. Your choice. I know which I’d choose.”

“...Yeah,” Impulse says. Then, “Do you want to stay the night? My roommate’s away at the moment, so I have room.”

She thinks for a moment. “Yeah, okay, sure,” she says. “Joe’s not expecting me back for another day at least. And I think he’ll get all mad at me if I drive for forty-eight hours straight. Not that I’m worried about Joe getting mad at me, but I may as well save him the effort.”

Impulse snorts. “Yeah, let’s give Joe a break. He deserves it.”

“Deserving is fake,” Cleo reminds him. “And I need Joe to give me a break. Have you ever lived with that man? He’s exhausting.”

Her tone is fond, however, and Impulse also feels fond thinking of his friend, and Cleo maybe isn’t a friend—and certainly isn’t someone he can forgive—but he thinks that maybe, one day, she might be. 

Two months after the trial, Impulse is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping his morning coffee and scrolling through his phone, when the front door opens. He stiffens, panicking for a moment that he’d forgotten to lock it last night, when a familiar voice calls—

“Dippledop?”

He rushes to the hallway so fast that he nearly knocks his coffee mug over. 

“Skizz?”

And there’s Skizz, standing in front of Impulse, for the first time in two months. He’s got his bag hiked over his shoulder, a nervous smile on his face. “Hey, homie-buddy,” he greets. “I’m… back? Uh. If you’ll have me, that is?”

Impulse blinks. “Of course I’ll have you,” he says softly. “You’re my best friend.”

Skizz’s face crumples in relief, and he steps forward to pull Impulse into one of his patented too-tight hugs. Impulse, for once, doesn’t protest, and almost misses the pressure when they pull away. Almost. 

“We should talk,” Skizz says. “There’s—I’m sorry I left for so long, but I had to get my head sorted out, and you—”

“I get it,” Impulse says. “I, uh, also had to get my head sorted out, I think. And we do need to talk. About a lot. You were right, we can’t keep on like we were before. We should… Some things have got to change.” He smiles at Skizz. “But I’m so glad you’re back, dude.”

Skizz grins back, bright as the summer sun. “I’m glad I’m back, too.”

And they both know that it will take work. There are years’ worth of issues, layered all over them and the relationship between them, and they can’t all be removed in the course of a day or a night or two months apart. The distrust, and the fear, and the codependency—that’s going to take years to chip away.

But they’re going to do it. No matter how painful it gets, no matter how much they may not want to—they’re going to do it. And they’re going to do it together. And when Impulse thinks of the future stretching out ahead of him, a lifetime in his parents’ old house, with the man who used to lock him behind a steel door to sleep at night—well, he doesn’t feel quite as sick as he used to. 

(And when he thinks of a life without Skizz, quiet and independent but surrounded by friends still, he feels sad, but he doesn’t feel terrified.)

And that’s good. That’s a start. 

And it’s a road that he’s hopeful about travelling down, one step at a time.