Chapter Text
Sometimes, Couriway wished he had someone else’s life.
Couriway loved HBG, he loved his friends, and he loved this city.
But sometimes he wished he could have more.
Couriway, even before he’d met HBG, had been confined to this place. He had tried to free himself - multiple times - but in the end, he always returned. His ‘obligations’ would pull him back like the ocean's tides and he'd heed their order like a dog to heel.
He was the perfect weapon. The flawless blade that the city had shaped him to be - one for their use, and their use only.
The thought made him gag.
There was something about this city - it sunk its teeth into you and never let go. He was addicted to the constant fear this city lived in. The paranoia that would buzz in the back of his head when he walked to the shops; the way he would scan for the exits when he entered a building; his inability to go out without some sort of weapon on him, even if it was just his garden. It was a thrill he had yet to find anywhere else.
His dependency on it disgusted him.
There was one exception to this rule. Feinberg. Feinberg was not what he’d call a ‘standard citizen’. He’d only arrived a year ago, and unlike the rest of the city, seemed to have no qualms about leaving. If anything, he seemed to want to leave. He was tied to someplace else, and it was constantly trying to reel him back in. He seemed to be perfectly willing to go along with it, except an unspecified force seemed to prevent him from following it. He yearned to return to this unknown location, something that existed only beyond the walls, past the bounds of this universe.
Feinberg refused to elaborate on this unexplained goal of his. Feinberg would tell him that it wasn’t yet, that one day he would know, but it wasn’t that time yet. It was coming, he promised, with a hint of trepidation in his eyes. He didn’t know when it would come, but Feinberg assured him that it was soon.
Couriway lived his life, knowing that one day, it would change, for better or worse. That one day he could lay down his worn-down, chipped sword for good and never have to pick it up again.
It couldn’t be long now.