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They've been watching him.
It was obvious from the moment Ash had come back; a glimpse of white in his peripheral, footsteps where there had been no other soul around—though, he supposed the Feds (they weren't human, they were barely comparable to any living creature) didn't have souls, so it figured—and, lastly, the sky.
The Island was known for its radiant weather. A dream come true for any client travelling all-inclusive. It never rained. Clouds were a rarity as well, as if whatever being that has been looking down at them needed a full, unrestricted view. It’d felt mocking, in the past, like when Son passed and the sun kept on shining. As if nothing happened. As if the world hadn't dimmed.
So, when the sky turned gray, Ash had his suspicions.
He didn't voice them. It would only cause others to worry, unnecessarily planting seeds of anxiety among his very content Regime residents. There was no time to contemplate what it meant anyway. He went about his responsibilities, busy as ever now that everyone seemed to want a piece of the Supreme Leader. He was back and kicking. Then, Ewron happened. And when Ewron happened, he always did in the worst possible ways—thundering, storming into Ash's life and stomping through it as if he exchanged impulsivity for oxygen.
He could tolerate that. Hell, Ash had grown to be fond of the bastard and his tantrums. Except, the latest one blew out of proportion just brutally enough to leave their relationship in shreds.
Now, Ash held many titles, like the golden badges on his vest. He was a force to be reckoned with, a face on a poster, the Regime itself and many other epithets that all led to the one carrying the heaviest weight: Supreme Leader. But beneath all the flowery prose and songs written to praise his name into holiness, he wasn't anything more than a man. When a man needed to take the edge off, there weren't many places to go. One of the few he was welcome at was the Dutch Cafe.
His legs took him to the desired destination before his brain caught up with the instant Warp Stone teleportation. From there, it was easy. Finally, he thought, something simple. Something he knew how to do. Step by step.
Except, he stumbled over his own feet.
Rule number one of using substances goes: do not let the intoxicated person leave your sight. You're their babysitter now, have fun, and make sure they don't throw up all over themselves.
Ash hadn't puked. He had, however, sneakily gone off. For the rule to apply though, there had to be someone taking care of him, and he made the utmost effort to make sure nobody cared when he slipped through the cafe’s door.
He warped from place to place, searching for something or someone, he couldn't tell. A gnawing feeling of loss ate at the spot between his ribs, was all he knew. The scenery changed, all of it a blur, until it didn't. Until he couldn't teleport anymore, because his exp bar had gone as low as it went.
Ash cursed under his breath and examined the surroundings; some field in the middle of nowhere. Sweet.
Walking had never been such a gruelling task. Foot after foot after foot after rock on the road, funnily shaped. The sky above rumbled with a promise of rain. Ash did not care. He was just beginning to feel good again, his thoughts becoming clouds passing by. Fluffy, all so faraway and unreachable, almost unreal, how summer, dripping hot and orange, seems distant during winter.
“Ey,” Ewron called out, and Ash wanted to assume it was a Fata Morgana.
“What,” Ash began, but are you doing here died on his tongue, which could've as well been made of cotton.
“What the hell are you up to—I saw you from down there. Don't you see the weather's gone to shit?”
“Down there,” he parroted, then looked around. They were near a cliff, indeed. He must've teleported to Grzegorz’s burial site.
White, hot lighting struck in the distance and that was their last warning. Rain poured down hard like arrows shooting from a guarded bastion.
“Kurwa,” Ewron grunted through his teeth. He raised his arms; the material of his cape was darkening. “Boat?”
“Uhm,” Ash searched his backpack, which was becoming increasingly wetter. His grip was unstable, slipping.
“Nevermind, just—do you have exp?”
“No.”
“Not even bottles? Okay, so we're fucked. I don't, either. Great, great, great.”
Ash was being led somewhere, his wrist was being tugged by this amusingly shorter, ever-annoyed creature. He found himself lacking the strength to protest.
A cave, secluded and not leading any further than a few feet down, was where they ended up. Their steps echoed against the stone walls.
Ewron stretched, turned away from Ash.
“I hate you.” Ewron sighed. “I actually hate you, you know that?”
Ash rolled his eyes, already having had enough.
“If only you let me—”
“Sure, sure. Put your goals above me, whatever, I don't care. Why would I care? Blow Żabka up to dust, I don't give a fuck.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, code glitching with pent-up nerves. “Ewron, stop.”
“Really, all the moments we spent out in the ocean—did it mean nothing to you? You called me your blade, I thought—fuck, was I stupid? Was I stupid to think you meant it?”
“Ewron.”
“Fuck off,” Ewron spat, pacing back and forth now. Ash remained static. “I hate you. You wasted my time, you know. Guess I'll just go and… and fuck off. I guess.”
“Enough.”
“I—”
“Yes, yes, you hate me,” Ash mocked, voice raised and final. “Come on, Ewron. Get it all out so we can focus on more important things.”
“More important—” Ewron turned on his heel, seething, marching closer to face Ash. “—what the fuck do you think is more important? You—do you not—fuck, fuck, do you—don’t you… I thought we had a plan, Ash, a vision.”
“And we did!” Ash croaked out, head swimming. The ground under his feet was warping, swaying when he thought he got the balance right. “But you didn't let me speak; that's what's wrong with you, you just talk and talk and talk and never let me get a word out! If only you listened, you'd know KFC means nothing to me. It's all part of an economic chain, all a way to make the Regime stronger, the server dependent on it, just a ploy, Ewron, just—a ploy. I would've thought you'd know me by this point.”
Ewron fell quiet, for once. It should've been satisfying, shutting him up, but Ash only felt unnerved.
“I trust you.” Ash stepped forward, noting the way it brought Ewron out of a rapid train of thought. “But trust is for after all the wars. After economy and military power both succumb; that's the time for trust.”
Tension stretched between them, taut and ready to snap.
“Just a ploy, you say.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I guess I'm…” he trailed off, a hint of remorse around the edges. Then, like it took genuine physical strength to muster: “I'm sorry.”
Ash's eyes narrowed. “Are you?”
“Yes. I'm sorry. I still… we're back to zero, aren't we? Just like with the Grzegorz situation, and I fucked it up. I'm sorry.”
Ewron fiddled with a loose string of his assassin robe. He looked small, soaked from the downpour, with his head hanging low.
“...Will you forgive me?”
“It’ll take time. Maybe if you give me a laurka,” Ash admitted, putting his arm against the cave’s wall to prevent a very ungraceful fall. Cold. Soothing. “Sorry. I'm kinda. Out of it.”
Ewron furrowed his brows, scowling. “I can tell.”
Ash didn't respond. He closed his eyes. A kaleidoscope of shapes and colors bursted under his eyelids, a personal show just for him.
“Hey, all good, man?”
He slid down, letting his entire back feel how nice and cold the wall was. “Yeah. Just awesome. Awesomesauce.”
It struck—a lightning, sharp and booming, right outside. Ash jolted. They were there, out there, or even next to him, they had eyes everywhere. They were his own eyes, watching him through a chip placed in each iris. Ash pressed his palms hard against his eyelids—fireworks of colors exploding—and he contemplated how difficult it'd be to scoop them out.
“It's only getting worse out there,” Ewron mused, sitting down beside Ash. Far enough to feel too far, like the gap between them still hadn't been breached.
“I noticed.” He stiffened, back straight. Tried to listen for footsteps. Any audible tapping came from the rain thumping outside.
“Don't like the thunderstorm?” Ewron queried.
“Not my favorite.”
“Are you… scared of it?”
“I'm not—I’m a grown man, Ewron. I do not get scared becà̶͇͇̯͎̣͖̩̫͋̇̏̄̔̀ǔ̸͔̄s̶̥̗͑ě̵̼̖—”
Crash.
He jerked upright, against an instinct telling him to curl inwards. Dear gods, if there were any above or below or around; the Feds were out to get him, and only a benevolent god could be of any help.
“Hey,” Ewron murmured, afraid to make a noise any louder than a wind’s blow. “It's fine, it's just a little rain.”
“I know.” Ash clasped his fists, focusing on the pain of nails digging into the flesh of his palms. It did not help. He was struggling to remember to breathe.
“It's out of your control,” Ewron said, and it was meant to be a consolation. An objective observation, something obvious.
“Yeah,” he wheezed, his lungs suddenly too small.
This made no sense—he knew how to breathe, his body knew how to—just in and out, goddamnit, he'd done it all his life. But the walls kept getting closer and this is what they waited for, just now they could murder him in the middle of gods know where, his throat was parched, the air was tight and smelled like burnt hair and too much of everything and Ewron.
He took Ash's shaking hand, intertwining their fingers. He was speaking. Not with his voice. A stranger, a stranger of many eyes and an ugly tongue wore Ewron's skin and it was speaking to him in a language he didn't understand. Ash floated outside of himself, observing the vessel of his form shake and whine like a wet dog. Cold, so very cold, freezing. He was going to die from hypothermia.
“Ash?” Ewron called out, like a spell meant to tap him out of a trance. “Ash. Ash, osz kurwa, Ash—hey, hey, Ash—”
His eyes went glassy, vision obscured and dimming. Another strike, ground shaking, and Ash jumped, not making any noise anymore.
“Fuck, is this okay? Look, I'm just gonna—” Ewron untangled his hand from Ash's grip (he was clawing at Ewron for dear life, how did he not notice?), and put his palms on both ears respectively. “You're fine, you're fine, I don't know how else to…”
It wasn't that Ewron's grand plan worked, but rather his audacity and the shock that came with it was what made Ash come back to himself. Bit by bit.
The drumming in his ears synced with Ewron's pulse. Blooming heat spread from his temple and washed down, nerves rebooting.
“I̶̻̎'̷̹̀m̶̳̆ ̸̳͝o̶̥̔k̶͍̒a̸̢̐ȳ̵͉,” Ash tried, then cleared his throat. “—I̶̻̎'̷̹̀m okay.”
Ewron took his hands away, unsure what to do with them now that they weren't useful. Ash peered at him, heart still threatening to burst out of his chest, and reached out to intertwine their pinkies. Ewron settled next to him. Close enough for Ash to feel his warmth this time.
“What was that?”
“A panic attack, dumbass,” Ash retorted with no bite. “Don't tell anyone. No one would believe you anyway.”
“I wouldn't. I never—whatever. Never mind.”
He was hollowed out, all emotions carved out of him with a spoon like nothing more than a pumpkin's pulp. His limbs were made of gum, sticky and numb, sweat having his clothes feel like a cage clasped around his torso. How human, how fragile. Ash's face twisted into grief disguised by thinly veiled indignation.
“I used to—” He shut his eyes tight, nose scrunching, then let out a long exhale. “This isn't what I'm used to, Ewron. I could've become god on a whim, back where I come from, I could've killed with no repercussions, and it was so easy and… and addicting, in a way. I've told you this. You know this. When I ended up here, I guess I thought—I did what I always do. What always works. But it doesn't work, Ewron. Why doesn't it work?”
Something broke. A punch to a mirror, shattering glass across the floor. Sharp edges. Imperfect. The image of Ash that has been curated in Ewron's mind wrecked against boulders, merely a blind ship in the night.
“Do you miss it?” he asked, unusually careful. “Being god?”
Ash laughed mirthlessly, dragging his free hand down his face.
“Everyday.”
A quiet filled the space between their bodies, providing space to fall back onto. Ash tried to search his mind for any answers as to what made Ewron the way he is. Flamboyant and arrogant, lashing out and throwing tantrums yet somehow still getting his way.
“Do you miss… wherever you came from?”
“There isn't anything left to miss,” Ewron clipped back, a tight smile a striking contrast against his quick tone.
“Damn. Jealous.”
He yawned, muscles protesting with cramps as he shifted in place.
“Tell me, are all Poles so bitchy?”
“Hey.” Ewron nudged him with his elbow half-heartedly. “Most of us, yeah.”
He looked at Ash sideways. Studying. Broad shoulders caved in, the shell of a Supreme Leader that shielded a vulnerable man finally down. Unguarded. The high of an argument and narcotics both was dissipating.
“I'm tired,” Ash admitted, almost surprised at himself.
“Yeah. Same.”
The weight of exhaustion settled on his shoulders properly, making his head tilt until his entire body went horizontal, the side of his face smushed against Ewron's thigh. The rolling thunder ran—wild horses, grumbling with the sprint of hooves.
His breathing evened out. Sleep crashed into him; he was out in an instant.
When he awoke, the warmth of a body was a faraway dream, swapped for sunrays climbing their way up the Regime's walls. Ash flinched as the belated aftermath of a teleportation settled in his bones.
The sky was clear that next day.
Back to duty, then.