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It was a room made for authority disguised as humility, candles burned low inside rusted holders, papers stacked in unstable towers over every available surface, weapons hung beside scripture with no distinction between sacrament and violence, because in this place there had never really been one.
Outside the high slit of a window, Lost Temple disappeared into mist and darkness, the enormous bones of the cathedral groaning around itself whenever wind pushed through the mountains, and somewhere in the halls below came the sound of chanting, low and endless, like breathing.
Medkit hated this place.
She always hated this place.
The hatred sat inside her ribs with such familiar exhaustion that she had stopped recognizing it as anger and instead treated it like background noise, the same way one stopped noticing an old wound until somebody touched it too hard.
She stood near Rifle’s desk with a needle held between two fingers, stitching repairwork into the torn fabric of the older woman’s uniform sleeve because Rifle had somehow — somehow — managed to rip it again while supposedly attending “peacekeeping” for Father Overseer, which usually meant threatening somebody until they remembered fear. Her shoulders ached from the bus ride back through Crossroads. The skin around her ruined left eye tugged unpleasantly whenever she frowned, which meant it hurt almost constantly, and tonight it hurt badly because Rifle would not stop talking.
“Now listen Father Overseer says morale’s improvin’. Family’s stronger’n ever. Folks’re finally rememberin’ what loyalty means.”
Family.
Medkit’s fingers stilled around the thread.
She did not answer immediately, because if she answered immediately she was afraid she would say something ugly, something dangerous, something that would not stop once it started. Instead she continued sewing with precise little movements that bordered on irritated violence, eyes lowered, mouth pulled thin enough to disappear.
Rifle either didn’t notice or chose not to.
“Y’know,” she continued, “it’s nice, havin’ order again. Me, you, Broker, Father Overseer— family oughta stick together.”The thread snapped.
Family.
Right.
Rifle, who stood in the center of it all like some tragic monument to devotion, too brainwashed to recognize her own suffering anymore.
And herself.
Still patching Rifle together every time the Church broke another piece of her and called it holy.
“How sweet,” she muttered finally, voice dry enough to crack. “Really touching. The family.”
Rifle tilted her head.
“Oh yeah,” she continued before she could stop herself, exhaustion spilling out ugly and sharp, “Father Overseer, Broker, you. Such a wonderful little family. Never mind Broker barely comes around because he thinks this place is insane and never mind Father Overseer isn’t even—” she stopped herself, jaw tightening. “Whatever.”
“Boy,” Rifle said quietly, and the word hit like habit, like correction, like expectation. “Now what kinda tone’s that?”
The fragile shape Medkit allowed herself in private folded inward again, tucked away into muscle memory because Rifle was talking now and Rifle still knew her as him, and some weak miserable part of him had stopped fighting that battle a long time ago.
She—He looked away.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Don’t ya ‘nothing’ me.” She stood with effort from the chair, frame moving slower than it once probably had, and crossed the room until she stood in front of him, close enough that he could smell old gunpowder mixed with medicinal salves he himself had applied days ago.
“That face right there?” Rifle said, pointing vaguely toward him with her remaining hand. “That’s your annoyed face.”
“I always look—“
“Listen here,” she said, voice lowering, serious now, “Father Overseer gave us purpose. Gave ya purpose too. Don’t matter if ya don’t like every piece of it. Family ain’t supposed t’be easy.”
As if devotion erased suffering. Medkit stared at the floor because looking directly at Rifle while she said things like that hurt in ways he hated naming.
“You really believe that.” he said eventually, tired more than angry.
“Course I do.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I mean really. You really believe they care about us. I’m tired, Rifle. I’m tired of stitching you back together after every mission and hearing about Father Overseer like he’s family when he wouldn’t even blink if they buried you under this church tomorrow.”
“You best quit that talk.” He went silent. “Y’hear me?” she continued. “Ain’t gonna sit here in my dorm an’ listen t’you disrespect Father Overseer after everythin’ he done for us.”
“For us?” he laughed once. “Rifle, he—.”
Medkit couldn’t continue — that awful certainty, that devotion wrapped around Rifle’s throat so tightly she no longer knew where the Church ended and she began.
“We’re family,” Rifle said quieter now, annoyed in a way that sounded almost pleading. “Me. You. Broker. Father Overseer. Folks don’t gotta understand it. But we got each other.”
“You really don’t get it,” he whispered.
Rifle frowned. “Get what?”
But Medkit only looked back down at the torn sleeve still unfinished in his hands, thread hanging loose, because explaining it felt impossible when Rifle stood inside the cage and still called it home.
—
The balcony outside Rifle’s dorm looked less like architecture and more like an afterthought the mountain had reluctantly allowed, a slab of stone jutting crookedly from the side of the church where cold iron rails struggled against rust and gravity, suspended high enough above the lower sanctuaries that the world beneath dissolved into fog before it ever became comprehensible.
At night, the desert felt impossibly large. The cigarette balanced between his fingers burned unevenly because wind kept stealing the flame before it settled, the paper dampening faintly where cold desert air touched it. He leaned against the balcony rail with one shoulder, posture exhausted in a way that no amount of sleep could correct, He hated smoking, honestly.
Hated the taste, hated the smell, hated how it settled into his clothes and hands and lungs, but Rifle smoked when she was thinking too hard and Medkit had learned years ago that if he wanted silence from her for more than thirty seconds he had to tolerate.
Not that silence was happening tonight.
Rifle sat in an old metal chair dragged halfway onto the balcony, one boot propped against the railing, cigarette hanging loose from the corner of her mouth glowed every time she inhaled.
Smoke drifted between them.
Rifle exhaled slowly through her nose and said, voice rough around the edges in a way it only became late at night, “Y’ever think folks don’t really die proper?”
Medkit didn’t look over immediately. “What does that even mean?”
Rifle shrugged one shoulder. “Dunno.” Another drag. “Just feels like some people stay.”
Because Rifle rarely talked like this.
“Who?” he asked carefully.
“Hook.”
Ah.
Grappling Hook. He hadn’t heard Rifle say their name in months. Maybe years. The cigarette paused halfway to his lips. “You haven’t talked about them in a while,” he said quietly.
Rifle leaned back harder into the chair until it creaked alarmingly beneath her weight, exhaling smoke toward the stars. “They talked too damn much,” Rifle continued, shaking her head faintly. “Couldn’t sit still neither. Always movin’, climbin’ things, swingin’ off roofs like they wasn’t born with sense. Damn near gave me a heart attack every week.”
Medkit looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. He knew bits and pieces. Wranglers. Civil war. Scorch.
Death.
The Scorch wasn’t history so much as scar tissue — the fire that tore Lost Temple apart, burned people alive, split loyalties until blood drowned faith and the Wranglers turned against what would become the Church of the True Eye.
“What happened?” Medkit asked softly.
“The Scorch happened. Firebrand hit Lost Temple harder’n anybody expected,” she continued after a while. “Everything burned. Hallways, camps, people…” Her eye unfocused slightly. “Couldn’t see nothin’ through the smoke. Folks screamin’. Wranglers split up tryin’ t’get survivors out.”
She paused. Took another drag. Long enough the cigarette crackled. “Hook stayed behind.”
Medkit said nothing.
Rifle muttered, but there was something trembling beneath it now, hidden carefully under irritation. “Said somebody had to stay safe. Fire was spreadin’. My arm was stuck.” Wind swept hard across the balcony.
Medkit watched her stare into nothing. “They said I was more useful alive.I didn’t wanna leave.”
“And?”
“They never found the body,” Rifle said suddenly, voice dropping rough around the edges. “That’s the funny part.”
And Medkit, because he knew her well enough to understand some wounds only survived through selfishness, didn’t tease.“They stayed,” Rifle said eventually. “In my head, I guess.”
Another drag. “Sometimes I still hear ’em. Katana used t’get mad about that.”
Medkit frowned. Katana. He remembered him.
Barely.
“He hated hearin’ me talk ’bout Hook,” she muttered. “Didn’t say it outright, but hell, you could tell.”
Smoke curled from her mouth slow and silver. “Katana weren’t bad,” she admitted after a while. “Just…” she sighed. “Didn’t understand me much.”
“He tried,” Rifle continued. “Wanted me t’let things go. Said dead folks stay dead.” Her jaw tightened. “I ain’t ever liked that.” “Overseer kicked him,” Rifle said eventually, bitterness slipping unexpectedly into her tone. “Said he wasn't devoted enough.”
Rifle finished her cigarette. Started another immediately.
“You miss them,” he said eventually.
Rifle didn’t ask who.
Hook.
Katana.
The second cigarette burned slower than the first.
Maybe because the cold had settled deeper into the mountain now, pressing itself into stone until even Lost Temple seemed quieter for it, prayer bells fallen silent somewhere below and the endless murmuring of acolytes reduced to distant movement swallowed by fog.
The balcony had become its own little island suspended above darkness, lanternlight spilling weakly from Rifle’s dorm behind them and catching in smoke that curled lazy and silver into the night before disappearing into mist.
Medkit had stopped smoking halfway through his cigarette.
It sat forgotten between his fingers, burning crookedly while he leaned harder against the iron rail, exhaustion sinking into every angle of his body until even standing upright felt negotiable. The stitching around his ruined eye hurt worse in cold weather.
Everything hurt worse in cold weather. Made every thought too loud, every feeling harder to bury properly, and Rifle—Rifle always had a bad habit of saying things at night that cracked people open without meaning to.
She exhaled smoke through her nose, “Are ya always this mad?” She pointed her cigarette vaguely at him. “Think it’s ’cause you ain’t got nobody.”
“What?”
“Ain’t hard t’see,” she said casually. “Everybody else got somebody at some point.”
“Do they.”
“Broker got his weird little situation.” Her expression shifted briefly there, softened by memory before annoyance shoved it away again. Then she waved smoke dismissively. “But you?” she continued. “Hell, ‘Kit, I ain’t think I’ve seen you look at anybody.”
“Maybe y’oughta find somebody.”
He scoffed outright.
“Right. Wonderful idea. Between work—church work, acolytes trying to die every week, and you showing up half-dead every other day.”
Rifle barked out a laugh. “Oh c’mon now, don’t act like I’m high maintenance.” He looked away again before she could notice himself softening. Then Rifle leaned forward slightly in her chair, eye narrowing in exaggerated suspicion. “Ya ever think about marriage?”
“Rifle. You are forty. You should not care this much.”
“C’mon,” she pressed, cigarette glowing brighter when she inhaled. “There gotta be somebody. Someone ya wanna kiss?”
It has been yes for years. In quiet unbearable ways.In ways he hated. Ways that lodged under ribs and refused to die. He wanted Rifle.
Shame.
Wanted the woman sitting six feet away rambling about dead partners and family like love had never once reached for her and stayed. Wanted someone already broken. Already loyal to a church that would rather kill them both than allow something like that.
Rifle would never understand it.
Would never see him that way.
Would probably laugh.
Or call him family.
God.
Family.
“Drop it.”
Rifle laughed softly under her breath, shaking her head. “Alright,” she said eventually, pushing herself upright from the chair with the familiar old groan of sore joints. “Keep your little secrets.”
“Probably oughta sleep anyhow.”
The night had deepened without him noticing. Medkit stayed leaning against the rail while Rifle stretched, frame casting long shadows beneath lanternlight.
“Hm You ever think ’bout growin’ your hair out?”
The question landed oddly. “What?”
“I’unno.” She shrugged casually, already halfway toward the dorm door. “Think it’d look nice. Like—long hair,” she said thoughtfully. “Would suit ya.”
The world tilted. something in his chest twisted so sharply it almost hurt. Recognition. The kind he spent years shoving somewhere dark.His throat tightened unexpectedly.
Rifle kept talking. “Would soften ya up some,” she added with a lazy grin. “Make ya look less like ya wanna kill somebody all the damn time.”
Because the image came uninvited, immediate and cruel. Closer to—
No.
He hated this. Hated the sudden awareness of himself. Of the shape he occupied. Of wrongness settling too loudly against skin.Hated how easily one stupid throwaway comment dug claws into things he spent years pretending weren’t there.
Rifle didn’t know.
Still only saw him.
The cigarette had burned all the way down between his fingers.
“‘Kit?” Rifle paused near the doorway. “You alright?”
He swallowed once. “Fine.”
“Aight,” she muttered. “Don’t stay out here too late.” Then, softer— “Night, boy.”
Door shutting behind her.
Leaving Medkit alone on the balcony with smoke, mountain wind, and the terrible ache of wanting something he could neither name nor survive losing.
Below him, Lost Temple disappeared into fog.
Above him, stars hid behind ash.
Medkit stood frozen against the railing, pulse strange in his throat, staring at the dark reflection in the glass door and trying very hard not to think about the version of himself he never allowed to exist for more than fleeting, painful moments in the privacy of his own mind.
—
The nightmares always came worst when Rifle slept alone.
But often enough that she had stopped pretending surprise whenever sleep turned cruel and memory dressed itself up as prophecy again.
Sometimes it was the Scorch.
Fire splitting the Temple open like rotted bone while smoke swallowed names faster than screaming could hold onto them. Grappling Hook disappearing into impossible heat, Lost temple collapsing again and again and again no matter what choice Rifle made differently this time.
Sometimes it was Father Overseer. The kind that settled inside ribs and whispered that everyone she loved had already started leaving.
Tonight she woke gasping.
The dorm dark.
Sheets tangled around her legs. Heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
For several long seconds she just sat there breathing hard in the dark, one eye adjusting slowly to moonlight filtering through the narrow window, shoulders tight beneath sweat-soaked sleep clothes while wind rattled old stone outside.
Rifle scrubbed a hand over her face. “ kinds’a pathetic,” she muttered to nobody.
She should’ve gone back to bed. Should’ve prayed.Should’ve smoked.Should’ve done anything other than what she ended up doing.
Instead, before she really thought herself out of it, she grabbed her coat, shoved one arm through awkwardly, and left the dorm.
Hallways hollow with sleeping silence while candlelight burned low inside prayer alcoves, shadows stretching strange against ancient stone carved long before the Church of the True Eye ever existed. Toward Medkit.
She was already outside his dorm.
The door wasn’t fully shut. “Boy’s gon’ get robbed,” she grumbled.
Not that anyone would rob Medkit.
Rifle pushed the door open carefully. Warmer than expected.The dorm looked lived in the way hers never managed to—messy but functional, shelves overflowing with medical notes and dismantled gear pieces, mugs abandoned in questionable states of cleanliness, blankets thrown carelessly over chairs. The smell hit first: faint smoke
Medkit.
Asleep.Half sideways across the bed like exhaustion had knocked him unconscious, blankets tangled around long limbs while one hand still rested near papers scattered across the mattress.
Rifle paused.
Her first instinct was immediately guilt. Maybe she should leave. He needed sleep. Probably hadn’t gotten enough in weeks. Her eye caught the notebook. Carelessly abandoned beside him.
“…maybe just check he ain’t writin’ dangerous shit.”
She moved closer. Sat carefully at the edge of the bed. Looked.
Words uneven across the page. Messier near the edges like written too fast. Private. Then her eyes moved before she could stop them. Lower. Another page partially folded beneath.
‘Sometimes I think maybe I’d be happier if people saw me differently.’
Her throat tightened.
‘Maybe if I looked softer.’
‘Maybe if Rifle had meant what she said about long hair.’
Something awful twisted painfully in her chest. The next lines came harder. Like they hurt to write.
‘I hate myself for hating it because I don’t know what that means anymore. Sometimes I think maybe I’m her.’
Rifle stopped breathing for a second. The notebook blurred strangely. Rifle had just kept missing it. The word echoed ugly in memory. She shut the diary gently.
Medkit stirred. He jolted awake instantly. Half upright before consciousness fully caught up. “What the—” His voice caught. Eyes widening immediately. “…Rifle?”
Everything clicked horrifyingly fast. The blood drained from his face. “Oh my— you read it.”
He sat up too quickly, blanket catching around his legs while one hand instinctively moved toward the notebook like maybe he could erase reality if he touched it fast enough.
“Rifle, I—”
“I had a nightmare,” Rifle blurted suddenly.
“What?”
“Didn’t wanna be alone,” she muttered. “Didn’t mean t’read,” she admitted finally, voice rough. “Just…”
“I’m sorry.”
Medkit looked away immediately.nHumiliation crawling over him fast. “No, it’s fine,” he said too quickly, which obviously meant it wasn’t. “Forget it.”
“Can’t.” That made him freeze. Rifle looked exhausted suddenly. Still sitting awkwardly at the edge of the bed like she wasn’t sure she deserved to be there anymore.
“I ain’t gon’ yell,” she said quietly. “Or make fun’a you.”
“Can we just pretend this didn’t happen?”
“…Can I stay anyway? Don’t—Can’t sleep alone tonight.” She sobbed. The admission sounded embarrassingly vulnerable coming from Rifle of all people. Something about it disarmed him immediately.
Nightmare still lingering somewhere in her expression.
“…Fine.”
Something small softened in Rifle’s expression. Warm. Medkit reluctantly shifted over to make room, Rifle laid down carefully on top of the blankets without argument for once, keeping respectful distance even as exhaustion finally settled heavy again.
—
The room settled into that strange, fragile kind of silence that only existed somewhere between exhaustion and morning, when the night had technically begun loosening its grip but dawn still felt impossibly far away. Medkit’s dorm sat wrapped in shadow, dim moonlight leaking Neither of them had slept properly.
Rifle laying stiffly on top of the blankets near the edge like she was afraid taking up space might somehow become unforgivable, shoulders tense beneath borrowed quiet while Medkit faced the opposite direction pretending sleep came easier than humiliation. The diary existed now between them like a wound neither had touched again. Too much had been revealed accidentally. Too much still sat unsaid.
Something broke the silence.
A sharp inhale.
Medkit woke slowly. For a moment he only lay there listening to the darkness.
Crying.
He pushed herself upright too fast, sleep evaporating all at once. “Rifle?”
Moonlight barely reached far enough to see her properly, but Medkit could make out the outline of shoulders hunched inward impossibly tight, head lowered, one hand pressed hard against her face like she could physically stop herself from falling apart if she just held herself together hard enough.
Scythe didn’t answer.
Which terrified Medkit more than if she had. “Hey,” Medkit said quieter now, careful, voice rough with sleep. “Ri—Scythe.”
“Didn’t mean t’wake ya.”Moonlight caught briefly against the glass eye when Scythe finally looked over, and somehow that made everything worse — because she looked scared.
“What happened?” Medkit asked quietly.
Scythe wiped harshly at her face immediately, “I read that damn diary,” Scythe muttered suddenly.
“Scythe—”
“No, lemme talk.”
Her voice thickened strangely around tears, rough and uneven where emotion dragged at every word. Scythe sat up slowly at the edge of the bed, shoulders heavy beneath exhaustion.
“I been thinkin’,” she said quietly. “I ain’t good at this kinda thing.”
Outside, wind rattled faintly against old stone.
“…I loved ya too. Been damn near ten years now,” she admitted quietly. “Maybe longer. Thought it’d pass.”
Something in Medkit’s chest cracked painfully open. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Medkit asked softly.
“Father.”
The Church.
Always the Church.
Always fear sitting between everything soft enough to matter.
Scythe stared down at her own hands. “You know how they are,” she muttered. “Me an’ you? That ain’t somethin’ they forgive.” Her voice dropped lower “And you…” A pause. “You matter too much.”
Medkit’s throat tightened painfully.
“I kept thinkin’ if I ignored it hard enough,” Scythe continued, words stumbling now, messy and exhausted, “if I just called ya family enough, maybe it’d stop hurtin’.”
The thing Medkit had hated hearing all these years.
Scythe had been trying to survive it.
“I got scared,” Scythe admitted finally, voice trembling enough now she sounded angry at herself for it. “Thought if I told ya, I’d lose ya.”
Her hand settled lightly over Scythe’s.
“I’m scared,” Scythe admitted suddenly. “Of losin’ you.”
Something inside Medkit melted painfully around the edges. Without really thinking, she reached up carefully, fingers brushing against the side of Scythe’s face. Scythe froze immediately. Like she hadn’t expected gentleness.
“You’re not losing me,” Medkit said quietly.
Scythe’s shoulders sagged. Relief and grief mixing together in something heartbreakingly vulnerable.
Too close now.
Scythe leaned forward slightly.
Scythe hesitated only a second longer. The kiss came tentatively. Almost shy in a way Medkit would’ve never imagined possible from someone like her. Warm. Lingering.
The kind of kiss built from years of wanting and never allowing it shape. Neither pulled away immediately. Didn’t need to. The room stayed quiet around them, the church distant for once, fear momentarily smaller than relief.