Chapter Text
Clancy settles himself atop the cliff, adjusting his position to ensure that there are no rocks poking into him. It’s early morning, and quite cold, but considerably warmer than the nights spent on Voldsoy under a sky blanketed with ice and speckled with stars. His hands shiver involuntarily and he glances down at them, tired eyes meeting the black, charcoal-like stains spattered across his fists and lodged under his cuticles. Years ago, when a day such as today was a mere dream, a ludicrous fantasy, Josh would trace his thumbs over the smears on Clancy’s hand, trailing over his knuckles and brushing his fingers over the blackened mess.
“We’re gonna get these marks off of you one day, even if it takes years and years,” he’d say.
And now here they are, six years later. Preparing for a day that was once a ludicrous fantasy .
He lifts his eyes again and is greeted with one of the most breathtaking sunrises he’s ever seen, which isn’t saying much as he hasn’t seen many sunrises. An overwhelmingly vibrant array of peach-gold clouds. A sky the colour of honey, dripping down into the ocean below, which reflects its beauty perfectly. A mirror image.
Clancy feels a dull thump somewhere inside him as he remembers the mirror image of his own. Two Torchbearers. One a perfect mirror image of the other. One real and warm, the other cold and emotionless. A sheer equivocation. A lie .
He exhales loudly. Too many thoughts, not a single one of them linear. He had hoped that his extended stay in Trench - away from the suffocating clutches of Dema - had helped him to compartmentalise his mind better, but obviously not.
Carefully, so as not to lose his balance, he turns and grapples around behind him. His hands quickly collide with the smooth, cool wood of his ukulele.
The whole world seems to go silent as Clancy’s fingers dance along the neck of the instrument, finding the perfect tune. And instead of playing something old (as he was initially planning to), he decides to play a new song. One that was written less than a day ago, beside the dying flame of a once roaring fire as the rest of the camp slept away the black night.
Clancy’s voice rings out, bright and loud, a stark contrast to the lyrics that are being sung. His voice bounces off the cliffs around him and the low humming of his ukulele sounds down the mountain range of his skull.
I can’t be alone
Guess I never told you so
Making my way towards you
Tracing out a line
A route I’ve mapped a thousand times
Making my way towards you.
He knows that there is a camp of sleeping Banditos nearby. He knows that he could wake them, and be met with tired glares for the rest of the morning. But he has to get this out. Even if the only things that listen are the cliffs, and the yellow daisies next to him, and the honey-coloured sky. Today is a day of finishing. Finishing his song, finishing his story. Finishing what was started all those years ago when a curious boy decided to look beyond the malice-studded walls of the city and out to the rest of the world.
Clancy looks up again, his eyes brushing over the vast expanse of ocean in front of him. Voldsoy is out there, somewhere.
I would swim the Paladin Strait
Without any floatation
Just a glimpse of visual aid
Of you on the other shoreline
His voice catches slightly, hitching on an invisible blockage in his throat. But the wind dislodges it and reels his words out like a fishing line.
Waiting, expectations
That I’m gonna make it…
Clancy closes his eyes and continues to brush his hands over the strings of his ukulele, but stops when he feels someone’s gaze on the back of his neck. It’s not an uncomfortable feeling; instead it is a rather consoling one. And Clancy knows exactly who is behind him because there is only one person in this world who can console him in such a way.
He turns around, and there he is.
Torchbearer. Josh.
But it isn’t the one that was on Voldsoy with him, or Not-Josh, as Clancy had started to call him. Not the cold, unfeeling projection that had accompanied him across the Strait. Clancy remembers that he tried to touch the projection once. He was freezing cold, and he felt light and unreal. He shudders as Josh sits down next to him and gently lifts the ukulele out of his hands.
“Hey,” he says, a small grin lifting the corners of his mouth. His eyes squinting slightly, like they always do when he smiles. Clancy wants to kiss him. “What are you doing awake? You were s’posed to rest up for today, you know.”
Clancy still can’t comprehend that Josh - living, breathing, not-projection Josh - is sitting next to him, so instead of answering him, he wordlessly reaches out and presses a hand against Josh’s shoulder. When his fingers meet real warmth instead of sheer ice he’s pleased, but then he has to remind himself that Not-Josh doesn’t exist anymore and that this Josh, the one sitting next to him radiating warmth and squinty-eyed smiles, is the real one, and this Josh is going to stay with him until the end.
“Sorry,” Clancy grins, seeing Josh’s eyebrow raise quizzically. “Just making sure you’re… you.”
Josh’s squinty-eyed grin falters ever so slightly. Clancy sees it in the crease of his eyebrows, the marginal drop of his smile. Josh’s expression fills with remorse, but only for a second, and Clancy is immediately regretting opening his mouth.
At first, when he realised what Not-Josh really was, he was angry. More than angry. There had been a fight. One that had ended in black eyes and tears and harsh words spat through bleeding gums. It had taken Clancy two weeks to calm down, and Josh forgave him as soon as he had apologised, but after that something had always felt a little wrong between them. A puzzle piece that had once clicked, but not anymore.
But Clancy is trying to mend the warped puzzle piece. All it takes is time. And every day, he tries to think of one more way to help make it up to Josh.
Although today is different, because today might be the very last day of making things up to Josh. The very last day of Josh. And this thought scares him so much that he suddenly whips around and hugs him tightly, clinging on for dear life.
Seeming to understand, Josh secures his arms around Clancy and pulls him closer, not needing words to convey his current emotions.
And finally, Clancy lets exhaustion overcome him and his brave, cold demeanour falls away as he whispers softly into Josh’s chest.
“I’m scared.”