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The Hanks had been holding it together lately. Fathers, ghosts of their old selves trying to live clean in a dirty world.
But H2nk was slipping again.
Writing had worn him down. His eyes burned, his joints screamed, and every sentence he forced out felt like peeling off another layer of skin. The cigarettes helped, at least for a while. He’d promised himself he’d quit, but promises never held much weight when the night started talking.
He stood on the porch, cigarette trembling between his fingers, smoke cutting thin lines through the dark. The stars hung above him like holes punched through black paper. Everything was still.
Too still.
The wood beneath him was cold and rough. He didn’t bother with a chair. He liked feeling the bite of it under him, it reminded him he was still here. Everyone else was asleep, except H3nk, stuck working another graveyard shift. Lucky bastard.
H2nk inhaled deep, the smoke biting at his lungs. For a second, it almost felt good.
But then his brain started turning again.
That always ruined it.
He looked up at the sky, empty, endless, uncaring and felt that familiar hollowness crawl up his spine. He was alone. He took another drag, exhaled slow, and let the silence swallow him. Then something moved.
A flicker in the dark.
His eyes darted down, a toy. One of H0nk’s, left in the dirt. A little red bowl from a plastic cooking set, half-buried in the mud.
He got up and walked over, cigarette hanging from his lip, ash falling onto his shirt. He picked it up. The bowl was scratched, filthy, stained brown from the soil.
He turned it over in his rough hands, the scraping of calloused skin against plastic sounded too much like flesh against pavement. That sound. That memory. He blinked hard.
“She doesn’t know…” he muttered, voice low, raw.
He kept fidgeting with the toy, the way an addict twitches for a fix. His thumb ran over the edge again and again, each drag of it sparking flashes of the past he was trying to bury.
Then the air shifted.
Colder.
He froze.
Something was standing at the edge of the yard. A tall shape, too tall. Still. Wrong.
A red circle glowed where its face should’ve been, censoring it.
H2nk stumbled backward, heart punching against his ribs, clutching the toy bowl like it might save him.
They stared at each other, silent. His breath came out ragged, white in the night air. Then, through the circle, he saw them. Two small gleaming eyes. Black and wet. Watching him.
He couldn’t look away. The eyes pulled him in, endless pits of onyx that felt older than god. He stepped forward without thinking.
Then the world screamed.
A sharp, electric screech tore through his head. Static and agony and something that sounded almost human. He dropped the bowl and grabbed his ears, stumbling back, the sound slicing through his skull like glass. He slammed against the porch door, gasping for breath.
The figure didn’t move.
The eyes didn’t blink.
Then it spoke.
“Are you happy?”
The voice slid under his skin like a needle. Soft. Smooth. Too calm.
He shook his head, trembling. “Wh-what are you talking about?” His voice cracked like old wood.
“Being alive,” it said. “Being human.”
He froze. He knew that voice.
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking. “I’m sorry… I didn’t want it to happen!” His words came out strangled, desperate, useless.
“It’s not fair.” The voice grew louder, heavier, until it filled the air.
Hands, cold, unseen, pressed against his back. Too many of them. Six.
He screamed and bolted for the door, fumbling with the handle, bursting inside. The toy hit the floor with a dull clack.
He slammed the door shut, chest heaving, lungs burning.
He collapsed onto the couch, clutching his head. His mind spun. Images, sounds, guilt gnawing at his ribs like rats. Three lives gone.
Why was he still here?
Why the hell did he get to breathe while they didn’t?
Maybe if he stopped trying... Maybe if he just-
“You okay, brah?”
The voice cut through the noise like a blade through fog.
H2nk looked up, eyes wide.
H3nk stood across from him, hospital badge attached to his sunflower lanyard glinting faintly under the thin wash of moonlight. His hair was a mess, eyes heavy with exhaustion. He looked too real to be anything else.
H2nk swallowed hard. “Cyeah… yeah, dude. Just... Just a bit under the weather. Get me some water?”
H3nk frowned, but nodded. The sound of the tap running filled the silence, grounding the world again. He handed over the glass, watching his husband closely.
“You’re pale as shit. Why’re you still up?”
H2nk didn’t answer. His throat was raw, and words felt heavy. He stared into the glass, watching the water ripple slightly from his shaking hands.
After a moment, H3nk sighed and dropped onto the couch beside him.
“Sleeping here tonight?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I could just crash in my room.”
“I was thinking the same. Guess you beat me to it.”
“We could just… share it,” H2nk muttered, voice quiet, almost pleading.
H3nk raised a brow but shrugged it off. “Couch or bed?”
“Couch. Feels safer.”
H2nk leaned into him, letting his head rest on H3nk’s chest. H3nk’s hand found its way to his hair, brushing it back in slow, tired motions. The tension started to melt, replaced by that fragile, almost sacred quiet.
His breathing steadied.
The golden hue crept back into his skin.
The guilt didn’t leave. It never did. But it dulled, just enough to let him rest.
Outside, the wind whispered against the siding. Inside, two hearts beat in sync and for once, there was peace.
It wouldn’t last.
But for tonight, it was enough to survive.