Archive of Our Own

The death of Vitalasy is quick, savory, and painless enough to be amoral. It leaves Clown’s scythe coated in viscous red, his mask impassive. Branzy watches, because who is a tourist to disturb an animal in its natural habitat? This Clown is instinctual, natural, and real. Branzy’s pulse thuds loudly in his ears, and not because of the adrenaline.

With a care unknown to most predators, Clown kneels down and gingerly removes one of the hearts pinned along the hem of Vitalasy’s hood. It comes away stained on the edge, marred by the trickle of blood making its way through Vitalasy’s hair and dripping onto his forehead. In Clown’s gloved palm, it is perfect.

Branzy descends from the observer's balcony, slowed by the trance-like haze that comes with assisting in a murder for the first time. His footfalls are too loud for this moment, but he can’t hear them. All he sees is Clown, bent over the body, heart charm proffered like a ring. He touches it with the air-soft brush of a lover, sensation tingling up his arm.

“I believe this belongs to you,” Clown says, oblivious to the drip drip drip of blood from his scythe and the drip drip drip of Branzy’s plausible innocence. He reaches into one of his hidden pockets and pulls from it a silver chain, something that would look cheap if it weren’t for its blue blush. In two short breaths, he has the heart strung through it and is leaning over with his hands held out to Branzy’s neck, either an angel’s halo or a suffocation manifesto.

Branzy doesn’t remember how to be anything but a marble statue, letting Clown clasp the chain under the wisping ends of his hair. The second the necklace falls against his shirt, the silver making constant contact with his skin, the rush hits. It’s like breaking the surface after nearly drowning, without the ache in his lungs. It’s feeling the sun after the longest winter, it’s coffee after an all-nighter. He breathes it in, laughing gas, nitrous oxide. And everything is okay.

“You start keeping the new ones hidden now,” murmurs Clown, hands drifting just enough to brush Branzy’s collarbone. “So no one gets any ideas about what they can take from you.”

Logically, Branzy knows he’s trekking down a horrible path, that addiction doesn’t start and end with substances. He’s not forgetful, not about Clown, and he remembers his warning that this life was dangerously alluring. Because rollercoasters must warn their riders, and beaches must warn their swimmers, and Clown must warn his Branzy. No one reads the signs by the rides, though, and no one decides against swimming because of the yellow flag out, and Branzy doesn’t want to get off this high.

He still waits out Vitalasy’s slow awakening. At the end of the day, engineer or alchemist, Branzy is a scientist, and he gets whatever information he can firsthand. Clown returns to the main rooms of the Funhouse, promising that Branzy is in no danger from someone just coming back from death. He tells Branzy to draw whatever picture he likes with Vitalasy, that he can even walk him out if he so chooses. Any story is a plausible one from someone with no history in Vivol.

It takes half an hour for Vitalasy to come to, and Branzy hungrily watches every part of it. The way his blood congeals and scabs over the long wound in his head, the way color slowly seeps back through his pallor. Around the thirty-first minute mark, Vitalasy starts drawing breaths again. The rise of his chest heralds the rise of his head, and lethargically, he blinks awake.

Branzy waits patiently while Vitalasy collects himself. His bearings must be scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind, and it’s a slow process for him to sit up. His eyes clear, and like the flick of a killer switch, they lock onto Branzy.

“You took one of my hearts,” he says, not accusatorily.

Branzy smile-grimaces, his tongue coated silver as he slips into the story he’s ready to write. This is his part of the Funhouse. Where Clown drives metal home, Branzy is ready to clean up the mess. He knows himself, knows he’ll never earn fear the way Clown has, so he doesn’t try. It’s much easier to turn words into writhing snakes when he’s not afraid. Clown has made him afraid; Zam has made him afraid. Vitalasy has not.

“Clown did,” he responds, consciously soft. He does not check to make sure that his newly acquired heart is out of sight under his collar. It’s integral to his narrative that he does not draw attention to it, lets Vitalasy assume Clown wears it instead. “It’s the price of the roulette wheel, I told you. Clown, um . . . likes to make sure he gets what he’s owed.”

Vitalasy sighs, the weight of dead air leaving his throat. “I didn’t even see it happen. How did he . . .” He reaches back, feeling the new tissue under his hair. His mouth twists downward. “I should have known this would happen. Stupid.”

“I’m sorry,” Branzy says meekly.

Vitalasy’s gaze lifts. He squints, scrutinizing. “What did you say your name was? Branzy? How long have you been with Clown?”

Branzy raises one shoulder halfheartedly. “I don’t know. Not long. He liked my experiments, came in with a scythe and said he’d be using them. That was, um . . . a couple months ago.”

The expression on Vitalasy’s face is nothing short of pity. It’s a knowing look, a I’ve seen this before and I can guess where it’s going look. With the evidence Branzy has handpicked for him, it’s the perfect conclusion.

But then he goes off script. Vitalasy improvs, and Branzy panics.

Branzy does his best to block the rest of the conversation from his memory.

. . .

After opening night, the Funhouse is the smashing success no one except the owners expected it to be. For two weeks straight, they entertain a full house, cards flying between hands and dice rolling like heads. Bets are placed, credits are opened, and debts are collected. The entire thing comes together with Branzy’s machine poise and Clown’s deadly grace.

A few regulars are established: Reddoons, mainly, with Ash not far behind. A man with a scarred-shut eye tattooed over with ‘LW’ comes in to win big a couple of times, and a few people Clown seems to be friendly with—Ro and Planet—visit just to have a place to hang out. Clown happily accepts the money all of them throw at his feet, but behind closed doors, a simmering frustration overtakes him.

“I’ve told them it’s unassociated,” he mutters to himself when they’re closing up. “It’s not Foundation, it’s not PMC, it’s just ours. Mine and yours. That’s it.”

Branzy, in his lake of ignorance, doesn’t understand the fuss. Legally, the casino’s his, so does it matter who thinks they have the right to loiter? With Clown around, it isn’t anyone’s territory without his consent. He can’t say he knows who or what the Foundation is, and he only barely knows about the existence of the PMC, but surely the world knows that this is his and Clown’s place. They can’t be that deep in the dark, not when Vitalasy went home with one less heart.

“What makes them think it isn’t?” he asks softly.

With his mask tied on, as it always is at the newly conspicuous Funhouse, he’s perfectly blank. No one except Branzy could see the tension in his shoulders, the strung-up way he resides in his own skin. “They’re desperate,” he says after a moment. “Desperate for somewhere that’s safe from the bedrock breaker. Some of them have been dangled over holes in the world basically in their basements, Branzy. It means more to them than one Prince Zam party. They want me to have invested as much as they have. They wish I’d built a solution instead of a casino.”

Branzy doesn’t have a response to that.

He guesses that’s the whole point. Neither does Clown.

Since its inception, the Funhouse has always been a mix of them both. Clown takes care of almost everything related to the gambling side of things, and Branzy gets to while his time away in the labs in the back, selling the fruits of his labor near the front door. He’s too cautious to have much hired help with the experiments, but the professional setup is miles better than the makeshift alchemy station in Rek’s apartment complex basement. His tools are sharp and his equipment is clean, letting him slice runic incisions into the iron base and measure exact milligrams of blaze powder.

He no longer has to use quite so much excess redstone in each infusion, which does wonders for keeping his supply stocked. Aside from saving him business expenses, it lets him know that he’s making marketable, substantial progress. A change in his recipe, his practices, is a mark of scientific headway. It means he’s doing something, no longer just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Clown still helps him with any experiments worthy of a test subject. He’ll dip into the lab occasionally during their self-assigned shifts, a quick brush of gloved fingers against the hairs on Branzy’s neck, and he almost always sits patiently with Branzy for a bit before or after hours, depending on the day. Sometimes, he perches himself on one of the tables, feet swinging before a single guest has entered the premises. On nights he isn’t too tired, he’ll linger afterward instead, sitting on whatever stool Branzy directs him to and trying out any charm Branzy hands him.

Branzy doesn’t know which version of Clown he prefers. Energetic and sharp afternoon Clown, or worn down, compliant early morning Clown. He very pointedly does not think about that information and when he could use it.

“Hold this,” says Branzy tonight, using tongs to press a maroon-tinted charm into Clown’s bare hand.

Clown goes stock still. “Branzy,” he says slowly, carefully. “I cannot see a single thing right now.”

For his part, Branzy clicks a stopwatch into motion. “Yep! It has blindness on it. Sorry. It was either this or asking you to dunk your face in a sink full of water and seeing how long you could breathe in it. This is better, right?”

The mask is as blank as ever. “It is not.”

“Really? Well, I just want you to tell me when it wears off. Normally, blindness only goes for about forty seconds, and I have a theory that it’s an exponential trend, but I need more data for that, so–”

“Branzy,” Clown interrupts. “Take this back.”

He frowns. “What? Why? It hasn’t got binding or anything, you can just put it down.”

“If you do not take this charm right now, I am going to snap your wrist so messily and so painfully that you’d prefer having the bone removed than reset.”

Branzy’s face does not heat up, and if it did, it wouldn’t be for any particular reason. He hurries to take the charm back, fumbling slightly with the tools. As soon as it’s no longer in Clown’s palm, the worst of the tension dissipates.

They’re both quiet and unmoving as the cheetah waiting to pounce and the gazelle hidden in plain sight.

At some point, Clown soundlessly slips his glove back on, fixedly staring at it. A long second passes, in which Branzy fiddles with his sleeves and bites his lip. “If you’re looking to graph the length of the effect in terms of redstone, you’ll want to look into enchantment webs. It’s the only way to get the data points you need.”

He blinks. The change in tone is as sudden yet underlyingly predictable as a riptide. Expecting the unexpected with Clown is more of a fundamental understanding of his nature—almost all of his actions can be summed up with pride, protectiveness, or the pursuit of one of the two. If Branzy had thought about it at all, he would’ve thought of Clown with a little alcohol twisting through his liver, the way the former turned into the latter with soft eyes and softer words. If Branzy had thought about it at all, though, he would’ve had to think of his own cursed reaction, and then the question flips on him. Which one does he prefer, sweet and private Clown, or cold, razorblade Clown? Does he want his predator with retractable claws or not?

The beauty of playing the part of prey, he thinks, is that it isn’t for him to decide.

“Enchantment webs?” he asks, forcing himself back into some semblance of normal functioning. “I’m . . . um, not familiar.”

Clown’s chin dips. With ceramic coating his expression, it’s impossible to tell if it’s in forgiveness or judgment. The two might be the same thing with him. “You are, you just don’t know the name. I have a very small one in my costume. The Abyss has a much larger one that they use in their bedrock breaker. They’re very useful, albeit expensive.”

“So the Abyss is . . .”

“The name of Zam’s group, yes.”

“And they use this enchantment web to destroy something previously thought indestructible.”

Clown nods, once. He points to another stool nearby. Branzy pulls it over and takes a seat, leaning his clasped hands over his knees. 

“How?”

Drumming his fingers, Clown pauses to think. “Imagine a strand of Christmas lights,” he says after a second.

Branzy bobs his head. “Christmas lights imagined.”

“They work just fine for the first few years you have them up. Then, one day, you pull them out of the box and one of the bulbs has burnt out. Over the course of the season, several more go dim. By the time you put them back in your attic, you’re wondering if it’s worth using them again next year. Why?”

“Well, they’re broken, aren’t they?” he answers with admittedly a shot of confusion.

Clown lifts a single finger. “But they aren’t, are they? It’s just a few bulbs. Why is it worth getting a new strand?”

Branzy lifts a shoulder. “Beeecause the effect isn’t as impressive?”

The pleased lilt in Clown’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed. “Very good, Branzy. Yes. When too many bulbs go out, then what’s the strand even there for? The effect you’re going for is gone. Now, imagine those bulbs are charms, and the wiring is lapis. Together, the strand is very impressive, but when you begin to lose the individual charms, it falls apart.”

“And in this analogy, the bulbs are . . . different colors?”

“Usually. There doesn’t tend to be a need for several of the same, unless you’re researching, like you are. If I were to guess, I’d say the bedrock breaker is made out of a web of things like breach, sharpness, efficiency, piercing . . . that sort of thing. None of those on their own could ever chip even a single piece of the bedrock, but woven together, their individuality combined into a focal point, it’s an entirely different beast.”

Branzy studies the edge of Clown’s mask, definitely not thinking about hooking his fingers underneath it and tugging, and definitely not thinking about the focal point type of building they’ve built here. “I like that,” he says, unconsciously quiet.

Clown only misses one beat before he’s back for the count. “I’m sure you do,” he returns.

A thought, barreling in quicker than a baseball headed for a home run, crosses Branzy’s mind. His lips tighten as he thinks, and even masked, he absently registers that Clown’s head tilts downward just slightly. 

“Clown,” he says. “Do you think hearts are made with enchantment webs?”

The response from Clown takes a second, as if his thoughts are elsewhere. “It would have to be exceptionally small.” Then, in the space it takes for Branzy to open his mouth with more speculation, he cuts to continuation. “Oh, I almost forgot. The strength charm you made finally gave out. Here.” He fishes for something in his pocket and drops it onto Branzy’s lap.

Lying there, against the seam of his redstone-dusted pants, is the first enhanced charm he ever made. It’s just as ruddy in color as it was on day one, but the luster of enchantment is gone, rendering it into essentially a watercolored rock.

“Oh,” Branzy says dumbly. “Thank you.”

Clown stands, crossing the short space. When their sides are parallel, he reaches out and ruffles his hand through Branzy’s hair. “Of course,” he responds cheerfully. “I have some work I need to get to, now. You’ll be good while I’m gone?” he teases.

Branzy gets remarkably close to choking on his own breath. “I– um, yeah, you can . . . you can count on me,” he coughs. 

“Good!” Clown says brightly, already on his way through the door. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Despite his best (and majorly successful) efforts to addle Branzy’s train of thought, he can’t quite stop him from taking note of the topic change away from the inner workings of hearts. Away from his panic toward the blindness. Even the wonder of his strength charm’s lifespan can’t distract him from the fact that Clown has just taken a swift exit.

Sometimes, Vivol is like a puzzle piece, and sometimes, Branzy just has to slide the tabs into the blanks.

. . .

The culmination of it—all of it—is eating away at him. Not only do Vitalasy’s utterly unthinkable words at the door keep him up at night, but when he finally does manage to sleep, it's fitful and disruptive.

When Branzy wakes up sweaty and disoriented, reality riddled between dreams and wakefulness, Clown traces lines on his wrist and swears the Abyss won’t touch him. The message they sent with Vitalasy is supposed to be enough to keep them at bay, to say back off, or the dogs bite. And surely, surely, Clown knows better than Branzy about these sorts of things. It’s more logical to trust in Clown’s reasoning than to doubt it, but Branzy . . . well, there’s a reason Branzy is able to swim through a gambler’s den without getting drawn in himself. He understands that blood debts never really get paid.

And it feels a lot like they’ve just landed themself in a cycle of owed violence. He doesn't know if Vitalasy was the right pick for the message they wanted to send. He doesn't even know if Zam got the message.

Branzy breathes, and he goes back to sleep, but he never forgets.

So, Branzy, what about a deal? ring the words of a skull-slitted gambler. He screws his eyes shut and rolls over, sheets tangling his ankles. His chin digs into Clown’s sleeping shoulder, and he bars out the treacherous words.

. . .

The thing is, Branzy is used to being scared.

He was scared when he dropped out of school, he was scared when Clown broke through his window when they met, he was scared when he saw the broken bedrock for the first time.

What Branzy isn’t used to is being uneasy.

Rek’s continued absence makes him uneasy, Kaboodle’s stories about other Vivoleurs make him uneasy, hearing the patrons talk about Clown makes him uneasy. He feels it when he passes a man with blush-blue leather bracelets intertwined with hearts in the gas station at night, he feels it when a waitress bends to pick up a napkin and a heart slips out from under her shirt. He feels it when he helps to kill Vitalasy.

The worst part is that he doesn’t feel it with Clown himself.

Clown is . . . interesting. He’s poised, graceful, and deadly, but poison turns to honey when he’s speaking to Branzy. He goes out of his way to prove his harmlessness when it’s just the two of them, he listens to Branzy’s ideas and ramblings with rapt attention. It’s disarming for sure, and Branzy is a little embarrassed to realize he’s never really minded.

From the very beginning, this journey wasn’t a hero’s one. It couldn’t have been, not when Clown shattered glass and Branzy chose to make him a strength charm of all things. Each step down the gravel path is just another closer to hell. Opening the Funhouse only cemented how deranged and spiraling this plan was, because really, when was there a plan? Branzy’s never been so unprepared in his life. He’s taking this day by day, week by week, thrilled by the ride but ignorant of the steep drop coming up. Everything he does is to impress someone who kills for a living, hoping for just a little more time with the mask off and a few less centimeters between them.

It’s a little screwed up.

He really hopes Rek won’t mind.

(But who is he kidding? With Rek’s secrecy around his job and his continued absence, combined with his connection to Clown, Branzy can’t claim cluelessness anymore. Rek hid a lot from him, but that can of worms doesn’t feel the same as Branzy’s. He gets the feeling Rek isn’t going to like what he comes back to, and that more than anything eats away at his resolve. Then again, leaving Clown hadn’t been an option from the first day they met. Unless–)

There are times—a lot of times—most times—that Branzy feels he’s gotten himself into something he can’t climb his way out of. He’s too reliant on Clown, for one, and the events with the Funhouse have only nailed them together as a pair. He’d needed a teenage girl to explain how this underground world works, and people have begun to add his face to their mental address books. A patron of the casino has greeted him by name more than once now. For where he is, that’s the kind of recognizability that secures him an ephemeral permanence here.

It’s largely due to Clown, of course. His introductions, his presence, his reputation—all of it adds up to create a larger image of Branzy than actually exists. Or maybe it does. He did flick a lever to get Vitalasy killed, after all.

Somehow, though, he’s earned a ration of respect. Maybe it is Clown, maybe it’s word of the roulette wheel kill, maybe it’s the redstone charms he sells in a little side shop of the casino. His corduroy vest and the cream dress shirt he wears beneath it, always one button off and seasoned with redstone and machine oil, are a look that people know as him. It’s exhilarating, he can’t deny it. Everything about what Clown has led him into is exhilarating.

When Vitalasy died, the tectonic plates underneath them buckled and cracked. The stars above shifted into new constellations, painting connect-the-dots of scythes and masks and charms and wheels. It sets about a churning in his stomach and his heart, leaving room for memories of conversations he does not want, goddammit.

Branzy breathes. It’s not real if he doesn’t take Vitalasy up on it.

See, the real uneasiness comes from deals proposed in the dimness of the roulette theater. It comes from the way Vitalasy looked at him so earnestly, a real payment ready to be settled. His words, his plans, his hopeful outcomes—they’re all far more concrete than anything Clown has offered, and Branzy hates it.

“Clown,” he broaches one day, when the evening is winding the sky black and their calves are touching from opposite sides of the couch, “do you know—I mean, maybe just throw out an estimation here—do you have any idea when hearts were invented?”

The look Clown gives him is acute, sheathed, and world-tilting. There is no translation in any language Branzy knows. He sets down the business ledger he was penciling through. “What an interesting question. Why do you ask?”

He’s entirely aware that that isn’t an answer, is closer to an exit than an entrance, but he presses onward. Doesn’t he have a right to know? Why should Kaboodle, nineteen, get to know these things and he can’t? He decides on a segue. “I mean, it’s just so insane, isn’t it? Like, why aren’t there hearts in any other part of the world?”

“The same reason there aren’t charms in other parts of the world. We have the only Nether portal, Branzy.” Clown’s attention drifts back to his paperwork. False alarm, say his uncovered features.

“Well, sure,” Branzy agrees, happy to let that guard drop. “But I mean more why news of them hasn’t spread. Or why people haven’t been using them elsewhere. That kinda implies they’re not all that old, doesn’t it? But then you wonder, who came up with them? And what’s in them?”

Clown’s eyes snap back up, coal-dark but hard as a carbon lattice. “You have a question you’re getting to,” he notes. Carefully not answering any of the questions Branzy’s already posed.

Branzy graciously lets him get away with it. “I’ve just been thinking, well, the way the redstone enhancements work—they’re sort of like glowstone, you know?—they should be applicable to just about all charms. I haven’t had one that isn’t affected yet, although the results vary depending on the natural longevity of the effect. Health, you know, only works a few extra times with the redstone. So—of course, this is considering the crazy long lifespan of hearts—I just wonder . . . what would happen? If I added redstone to them?”

Silence is a stretching, warping thing, and it bubbles like a pot past its boiling point between them. It isn’t hostile; Clown’s long declawed for Branzy. It just . . . sits.

“I don’t want you to experiment with hearts,” Clown says slowly, eventually. His tone is too neutral to give anything away, because everything is a bid or a win with him. It’s just final.

Branzy blinks.

“You don’t . . . want me to?”

“No,” Clown confirms. His voice gets progressively friendlier. “I don’t want you to, Branzy, and I trust that that can be enough for you.”

He doesn’t get why Clown can sound so much like a warm campfire at autumn’s dusk when his words offer no kindling for continuation.

The ledger is tossed to the coffee table as Clown crawls closer, nudging his hip bones perpendicular to Branzy’s. He leans most of his weight on the sliver of space between Branzy and the back of the couch, but his jaw comes to rest near Branzy’s thumping heart. It’s a faster heartbeat than it has any right to be, thrown into vertigo-inducing speeds by both Clown Clown Clown and the heart charms he’s gifted him.

“You’re asking questions people have killed to keep the answers to,” he murmurs. His breath skates against Branzy’s throat, and it’s all he can do to keep the words from flying out the other ear. “If you can trust anything, trust that hearts were never made to be dissected.”

Branzy swallows. The weight of a cubed organ is suddenly pounds heavier than any love he’s ever cradled.

. . .

A rusted brass bell that hardly works dings Branzy into the corner store alchemery like a butler announcing guests into a ballroom. The early evening breeze follows with him, hitching a ride in his vest pockets and staying there. He inhales dust and nontoxic fumes with the reverence of a chainsmoker, ploughing past the entryway and making straight for the shelves he’s visited so many times.

“Welcome in!” calls the employee on shift, one of the only two people Branzy’s ever seen working here. Her caramel colored hair is pinned behind her ears from the strap of the goggles she has on. They’re one of those fun pairs that high school chemistry students get to wear, tinted an obnoxious orange that lights her face on fire. Every time Branzy sees her, he gets this itching familiarity he just can’t tack down. He’s probably seen her at the grocery store or something; the Orbital Alchemery is just two blocks down from Rek’s apartment, making it the easiest convenience store of all time for someone in his line of work. Maybe he should have considered that it would have been useful for Rek, too.

(He’s questioned Clown about where Rek is and what he’s doing countless times, but Clown always shuts him down, saying that Rek’s secrets wouldn’t sound like confessions from my mouth, now, would they? He punctuates the sentiment with an upturn of his lips, which definitely doesn’t do anything to Branzy’s rosy cheeks.)

On his usual trips here, Branzy tends to buy bulk kits of ingredients. They have everything in these tiled aisles, from powdered nether wart to liquid pufferfish poison. For a small business competing with the near-monopoly that is the Nether Company, their prices are surprisingly reasonable, thanks to the framed permit hanging above the checkout that allows the store’s owner to go into the portal himself and gather his own resources from the wastes. Branzy doesn’t actually know what the inside of the portal looks like, but its enormous frame in the center of the city is intimidating enough to keep his feet safely on Earth, thank you.

Today, though, he isn’t here for a regular restock. He squeezes past the plastic shelves and makes straight for the back wall, where a community bulletin board and a glass case stuffed with one ingredient sit on their lonesome.

The Orbital isn’t a very long building, but even with that restriction, Branzy has never had much cause to pay attention to the back. Thus, he can’t say for certain whether the enormous faux-newspaper taped up has always been there or not.

THE PEACEFUL ENDING, it’s titled, bold journalism font drawing him in just enough to read the first few lines. In a country built around an all too recent revolution, blood transactions are far from uncommon in Vivol. Whether or not they’re backed by the heart, anarchy runs rampant on our streets, with no force strong enough to counter the disputes that erupt from charm usage. Some may argue that it’s better this way. Vivol is the way it is because of the overbearing governance from the mainland only thirty years ago, and the strong independence from and distrust of larger ruling systems is a core part of Vivolian identity. For Vivoleurs, however, this is a risk I and many others are no longer willing to take. With so many other options exhausted, it may be time to consider a democratic approach to–

“Are you looking for some glowstone dust?” comes the voice of the cashier, bright in the way a muted trumpet is. They materialize behind Branzy, a dull key in their hand.

He startles. “Oh, um, yes! Yes I am.”

With her orange lab goggles pushed up to the crown of her head, it’s easy to see the way her eyes slide to the posted article. “My friend wrote that. I owed him one, so I said he could hang it on our board. The only reason my boss allowed it is because he’s thinking of running.” She snorts, glancing briefly at the charms dangling from Branzy’s ears. “An election seems a bit much to me, but who knows? I’m no expert.”

Memory trickles through Branzy’s nervous system, a river he has no sway over. “Have we met before?”

The bell dings again.

Her face goes carefully neutral.

She smiles, wide and false. “Oh, Zam, hello! I’ll be right with you, ‘kay?” Branzy watches, his stomach dropping dropping dropping while she fiddles with the key and removes a little paper bag from the display case, stuffing it in Branzy’s hands. “Let me ring you up.”

It’s not fast enough, though, never fast enough compared to gravity. Zam intercepts them both on their way to the register with the undeniable pull of the sun. His grin is all teeth. “Squiddo, Branzy! Gosh, what a coincidence this is. I didn’t know you shopped here too, man. That’s awesome. I’ve really been meaning to talk to you, so why don’t you wait for me to finish buying the ingredients for my bedrock breaker and then we can head out together?”

The cashier—Squiddo—shoots him a look that says run, sprint, do not go with him. For a wavering, long second, her lab coat turns into an orange suit, her goggles replaced by sunset colored glasses, the shop morphing into the roof of Zam’s penthouse. The same sort of ozone tension crackles the air.

“Anything else I can help you with today?” they ask, sounding far more at ease than they must be. When Branzy shakes his head no, they scan a barcode at the bottom of the package and hand it back to him. “Right, I’m sure I don’t need to warn you, but just keep in mind that glowstone’s hefty stuff, okay? A pinch is more than enough.”

He pays and waits, anxiety tossing the order of his organs out of whack. If he opens his mouth, something rotten is going to come spilling out, high-pitched and incriminating. He’s all too aware that every single one of them in this room wears hearts, that both of them have far more experience in it than he does. Sure, Squiddo seems nice, but how can he really judge that? It’s so much easier when Clown is next to him, telling him who they’re friendly with and who they hold a grudge against. 

Zam takes only a few minutes to grab what he needs, and by the time he’s done, Branzy’s certain he’s going to throw up. Stupid. Maybe he should have Clown on speedial, except, no, Clown doesn’t have a phone, does he? The best he’s got is a card with Minute’s number on it, but something tells him that isn’t for petty scares like this. Branzy has two of Clown’s hearts on and one of Vitalasy’s. He isn’t going to die here.

“Ready to go, Branzy?” Zam chirps. His pupils are impossibly large, like little black holes leading straight into the void.

“Yeah, ready, so ready,” Branzy stammers, feet tripping over themselves as he hurries to the door after Zam. “Um, where are we going, exactly?”

Squiddo frowns a pinched goodbye as they sweep and stumble out of the store. A plastic bag swings between his fingers in a battle between gravity and inertia, a grin that never seems to go away on his face. The door shuts behind them. “Who knows? I'm going back to my apartment and getting to work. You might do the same, knowing you. But we can go on a stroll first! Man, I haven't seen you since the party. I want to know just everything you've been up to.”

Branzy swallows. There’s no way he’s leading Zam back to Rek’s place, and in his dithering, Zam takes the steering wheel. Like a gosling, like a cub, like a puppy, Branzy chases his heels.

“I’ve not been doing much, just stuff, uh, here and there, you know?” Branzy laughs nervously. He wrings the top of his paper bag. 

“Aw, I’m sure that’s not true,” says Zam, managing to sound both encouraging and patronizing at the same time. “I mean, you’ve got that whole casino gig going on! That’s pretty cool. What’s it called, again? The Circus? No, it’s— the Funhouse! That’s it. Mm. I haven’t been to visit, as you can tell. Doesn’t seem very friendly to the Abyss.” He turns a sharp eye to look at Branzy, a steady stare that defeats all laws of eye contact. “Not after your stunt on opening night.”

Branzy’s heart stutters, stops, and clenches. He doesn’t want to do this without Clown here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Zam makes a sound like a coyote. It takes a second for him to realize it’s a laugh. “Playing innocent doesn’t work when you’re sweating bullets, man. You’re not very good at it. It’s okay, we’re just talking, right? I would really appreciate it if we could be honest with each other. Rumors spread, you know? They catch like fire. Everyone knows you killed Vitalasy.”

“I didn’t–”

“You, Clown, what’s the difference? When you’re in a team, the blood’s on both your hands. It takes both of you to wash it before it’s gone. So in my books, and in Mapicc’s, and in Bacon’s and Pentar’s and Jumper’s, you killed Vitalasy. And the funny thing is, I don’t think you even know why you did it! Isn’t that funny? Do you know, Branzy?”

Branzy tries to lift his shoulders. “I know– enough.”

Zam snaps, grinning. “That’s a no, then. Maybe the most you know is that Vitalasy mattered to me at some point. Because you didn’t pick him at random, no, Clown’s too smart for that. You wanted to send a message, didn’t you? Which is sweet. So sweet, you just digging and digging into sentiment like it’s going to get you to bedrock. Well, you got my attention. Good job! Now, I’m just wondering what Clown wants to do with it.”

They take a right turn at the intersection, Zam’s steps rickety but sure and Branzy’s bursting like blood from a wound.

“I’m curious, though, which one of those earrings is Vitalasy’s heart?” Zam continues, musing. “I’d rather like to take it back. What do you think Clown would do in that situation? Tell me what you think, Branzy. Or we’ll find out one way or the other.”

I’m not going to die here, Branzy thinks fervently. It rattles like a mantra between the sides of his skull. Saliva deserts his mouth. “He– he wouldn’t let you. And if you did, he’d take it back.”

Zam raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? You know, Branzy, last time I saw you, you didn’t have any hearts at all. You have two now. Did Clown give you the other one? Or do you have another kill under your belt?”

There’s no way to tell which answer is going to earn him more points, so Branzy, like every other time he’s scared, tells the truth. What an awful habit to have in this turn of the game. 

(Not the whole truth, though. That one is reserved for Clown, and Rek, if he ever comes back. Zam doesn’t need to know that Vitalasy’s heart is the one on lazuli string under his vest, that the two he lets the world see are both from Clown. There’s something there, he thinks absently, about how he’ll only display what Clown gives him.)

“It’s– it’s from Clown. After your party.”

Zam hums, shooting a meaningful look at his ears. “What, he pierced them for you, too? To be really honest with you, man, you rocked up without any sort of jewelry, let alone hearts. You talked about engineering. Clearly hadn’t been to many big-time parties before. I seriously had you pinned as a straight guy.” He whistles. “But there’s something less than heterosexual going on here. I mean, piercing your ears. For Christ’s sake.”

Branzy chokes on thin air turned thick. “No, it’s not like tha–”

A high-pitched laugh spirals out of Zam’s throat. “You don’t gotta lie to me, man. I don’t really care. It’s just, hey, no one shares hearts around here unless it’s family or kissy-kissy. And I haven’t seen Clown this attached to a contractor, like, ever. I don’t think he even gives as much of a shit about Leo or Minute.”

There isn’t a single response in the entire Enchanted Country to that.

With a shrug, Zam continues. “It doesn’t matter, I guess. I just like to know what I’m working with. Would you take a message for Clown for me? Okay, great. Right, so I just want you to tell him exactly this: you’re fucked, your boyfriend’s fucked, the whole city’s fucked. Get comfortable with emptiness, because the amount of bedrock breakers we have stationed around the city? The Foundation doesn’t stand a chance. They can try, though. They can murder my ex teammate, they can go after whoever they want, it doesn’t matter. Vivol’s going to fall.”

It’s at that moment he comes to a reeling halt, sticking his ankle out and catching Branzy’s shins. One second, Branzy’s looking at the spread of the city before him; the next, the skyline is plain sky. His lungs heave, the wind knocked out of them, and Zam’s laugh rings out above.

“Just like that, Branzy,” he says, mirth grating every syllable. “Just. Like. That.”

. . .

He waits until Clown is more asleep than not.

It’s a harder task than it sounds, because he’s not even sure that Clown sleeps when he climbs into Rek’s bed with him. They only lay next to each other a few nights a week, because Clown has somewhere else to return to and the reminder that neither of them own this room buzzes like a mosquito. When they do, it’s usually in the waning hours of the night, closer to dawn than dusk, exhaustion piling on both their shoulders.

So he waits until four in the morning, when Clown’s breathing is slow but not quite steady. In the lightless muddle of a descending moon, Branzy whispers, “If I could get more hearts, you’d want me to, right?”

Clown shuffles. With his face mashed into a pillow, legs tangled under sheets, he’s an entirely new person. He doesn’t open his eyes when he speaks, the syllables drawn out with tiredness. “Of course,” he murmurs, half his mouth covered. “That’s what I’ve been doing for you, isn’t it?”

A dull metallic pang hits just under Branzy’s ribcage. His face, tenser than he realized, relaxes into something fond. “Of course,” he says back. “Thank you. Goodnight, angel.”

Slipping out of bed is the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He pads his way to the kitchen, the skin of his feet frozen by the fake wooden boards. After a moment of rummaging through the drawers, he finds a stack of post-its and a pen. The note he writes is short and sweet, punctuated with a heart instead of a period. Maybe, when Clown realizes what he’s done, that heart will assault his conscience like hornets. But it’s written with a pen, and Branzy can’t erase decisions he’s already made.

Instead of the bedroom, he dresses in the living room, clothes laid out earlier. He purposefully picked his least favorite shirt and a pair of time-torn jeans, a business card already folded in the pocket. Branzy inhales deeply. Once he does this, there isn’t a path back. He dials the number on it.

It rings three times before the call connects. “Hello?” says the voice on the other end.

“Hey,” Branzy greets softly. “I thought you might be up, based on our last meeting. Um. I have a favor to ask.”

There’s movement on the other end of the line. “What is it? Is Clown alright?”

Branzy reminds himself to breathe. “Oh, he’s perfectly fine. He’s sleeping, I hope. He mentioned you have another one of your meetings tomorrow?”

“Yeah. At eight.”

He knew that. It’s scheduled to end at nine, he knows that, too. “That’s great. So– it’s just, well, I have a plan, and I need you to be the messenger.”

. . .

[JumperWho whispers to you . . . ]

Foundation meetings are the most stressful part of Jumper’s month.

First, she has to come up with some new excuse for why she won’t be available to help the Abyss that day. Last time, it was a dentist appointment, and before that, it was a visit to her aunt. She’s running out of good reasons. Today, she was supposedly meeting up with a friend from college. She didn’t go to college.

Even though she isn’t required at any of the meetings—Minute is a good enough handler to get her whatever info she needs—it’s worth it to sit in and find things out firsthand sometimes. She likes going about once a month, at wildly variable dates, to keep it on the down low. The Abyss is maybe one of the most paranoid groups of people she’s ever met, and she’s saying that as a friend of the PMC’s.

Unlike most meetings, the entire group is here. She and Minute, of course, along with Planet and Ro. Ash is sitting in his usual spot near the front, and shockingly, even Rek made it. He’s twitchy and as close to the exit as anyone could be, but here nonetheless. Clown hovers near him in a manner distinctly un-Clown-like.

Not that Jumper knows Clown all that well, but he’s been acting strange, lately. It’s the sort of strange that’s too slippery to be nailed down to a corkboard and tied up with red string. It’s just . . . a difference.

She’s more acquainted with the reputation than the person, really only knows him from the time she’d placed a hit on Mapicc and Bacon, but it’s enough to note the change. Back then, he’d been liquid, easily darting through alleyways and melding to the moment. Now, though, he’s solidified in places, like he’s got something worth holding onto. Like his ribcage finally decided to hold his heart in place.

He and Rek are conversing in the sort of hushed tone they should know draws Jumper over, ear tilted like a satellite dish. In the miniature board meeting room in the PMC headquarters, there’s nothing to cushion their whispers, and it’s with a practical ease that she slips into the airwaves between them.

“ . . . haven’t seen him since last night, we’re not attached at the hip, Rekrap.”

“Really? Because with the way you’re keeping him from me, you’d think you never leave his side.”

“I’m not his keeper. If he wants to get started on work early, that’s his prerogative.”

“Oh, working at the business you’ve always wanted? Yeah, I see why you’re not concerned.”

“You know he owns as much of it as I do.”

“I can’t believe you seriously don’t find it strange. Branzy stays up late, sure, but he doesn’t get up early. It’s weird if you’re both living at my place and you didn’t see him in the morning.”

Jumper tunes out when Rek’s eyes narrow and he starts asking where are you sleeping, anyway? She’s a thief who only takes what’s relevant, and the personal issues her teammates have isn’t that.

‘Branzy’ is another name with which she’s only acquainted with through reputation. She’s never met the guy, not officially, but according to Minute, he’s Clown’s boytoy. The way Zam talks about him, too, paints him as a total tool—the legal face for all of Clown’s shadowy endeavors, stuttering and flustered when it comes to social interaction, Branzy isn’t given a lot of dimension when the others talk about him. And she can’t read Clown, not really, but she can read people, and the change in his stature indicates that he does find Branzy’s matins absence unusual.

She gets the feeling that if Clown were to talk about Branzy, it wouldn’t be one dimensional at all.

The clock hits eight, and the meeting commences. As per usual, it starts with everything Jumper already knows: general updates within the group followed by the information she’s brought them. Rek offers an account of a run-in he had with Mapicc, and Ash mentions the now-infamous flooding incident. Most of what’s said can be summed up as a game of cat and mouse that never quite gets resolved.

“It just feels like every time we think we’ve made progress, we find out that they’ve fixed our breakages or irrigated the water out. It doesn’t end,” Ro says at one point. His eyes are red with lack of sleep, his long hair hastily and hardly brushed. He looks like he’s just come out of the dryer, in all honesty, lint still sticking to his sweatshirt. Jumper can’t help but sympathize. She’s heard all about Mapicc’s side, which is to say, she can guess at all the pain he inflicted on Roshambo. That breakup was messy.

She understands his frustration, too. It’s worse when she’s the one staying up all night with people she can’t actually stand, draining water and repairing redstone for a cause she doesn’t believe in. Those are the nights her mask wears the thinnest, her patience one cut away from snapping. Those are the nights she risks everything afterward just to call Minute and hear somebody else’s voice.

“I get it,” she sympathizes, “but also, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t take it out on me.”

Ro shrugs. “Look, if you want special treatment so much that the Abyss gets suspicious, then I guess I can spare you in fights.” His eyes dart around, fingers on the proverbial trigger. He doesn’t quite meet her gaze. “But if you want to keep your cover, then you’re gonna have to get killed sometimes.”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Jumper scoffs. “You chased me through half the city for no reason!”

Clown’s interjection is announced by his subtle shift forward in his chair before he even speaks. His delicate fist under his chin, propped up on the table, is all the displeasure he needs to convey for the entire room to feel the effects. “Not to mention Branzy stumbled across her body. So he’s well aware of hearts now.”

“And wears them!” Rek all but shouts. His exclamation sounds like it was punched out of him, his stress meant to be contained to his chest. “Don’t act like you weren’t going to tell him anyway.”

Minute taps his fingers on the table, and the argument is well and truly outside of Jumper and Ro’s jurisdiction. She’ll settle it with him later. “Yeah,” he says, slow as the drip of syrup down the bottle. “Why did you kill Vitalasy, Clown?”

And of course, Clown is cool, collected, and lethal when he says, “Personal business unrelated to the Foundation. You can carry on the meeting now.”

Silence follows the statement. Raw indignation eats up Jumper’s stomach acid, and one glance at Minute tells her that he’s feeling it too. Clown and Leo might take point on PMC matters, but the Foundation is hers and Minute’s, theirs to take the lead on and theirs to take the fall for. It is a blatant overstepping of power, and with the mask on, Clown looks entirely serene with that.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Minute says eventually, looking for all the world like he’s holding something back. The corner of his lip disappears as he chews on it, glancing at his watch. 

The meeting continues without much else of note. After their display at the gala, the Abyss has been pouring most of their energy into following through with their threats rather than posturing. There isn’t anything to report except hurry.

At 8:58, Minute sighs, looking long and hard at his watch. He must not find what he’s searching for this time, because his mouth twists. He hems and haws for a moment before clearing his throat. “Alright. It’s . . . probably a good time to mention that, uh, Branzy is currently engaged in a hostage situation with Vitalasy. Sorry. He wanted me to wait to tell you.”

Jumper doesn’t get a lot of chances to be proven right when she’s as deep undercover as she is, but watching Clown scramble like a startled gun? It’s one of the most satisfying moments of her life.

. . .

The hostage situation, in reality, isn’t much of a hostage situation. Branzy meets Vitalasy at a set of coordinates he struggles to input into his GPS, and from there, he’s driven to a second location that bears no resemblance to any part of the city he’s ever been to. For what it is, the ride is surprisingly cushy. Vitalasy even offers him a soda.

They rehearse the plan again on the way there. It’s simple in the way a finished tapestry looks simple, when the viewer doesn’t know all the painstaking color switches the weaver sunk hours into. Which is to say, none of it will matter when Branzy’s finished with this.

Vitalasy takes him into a box that looks like an unlit Nether portal. The ceiling is about as tall as a shipping container and just as wide, but the entire thing is lined in indigo darkness. Branzy would hazard that it’s been soundproofed to hell and back.

Another man joins them, who Vitalasy introduces as Subz. The two of them are a matching set, purple drapery making up their extravagant streetwear. Whereas Vitalasy wears his hearts on his hood, regal and intimidating, Subz has adorned his along a faux collar dripping down his shoulders like the world’s shortest scarf. “We just want to make this easy for you, Branzy,” he says, and it sounds nothing at all like the kindness he means to inflect.

After a quick nod between them, both of his non-captors reach up to their arrangement of charms and remove three. Vitalasy has it the easiest, merely unclipping them from the edges of his hood, while Subz has to snip away the lazuli thread that had sewn them to his top layer.

Branzy slides all six of them onto the blue chain around his throat. This time, the rush of attaching a heart is concentrated in a six-part symphony that rattles off like a cacophony of adrenaline and encroaching terror. He wishes it was Clown handing them off.

Nine lives work for a cat, so why shouldn’t it for him?

“You know how this goes, right?” Subz says, sending a leveling sidelong glance at him as he adjusts his gloves. “You know it’s going to hurt.”

Vitalasy shushes him. “Don’t scare him. We’re only doing it as much as Clown makes us, okay?”

Branzy believes him.

Or: he believes that Vitalasy believes it.

The two of them begin discussing with each other in hushed tones, juggling a conversation Branzy doesn’t care to tune in to. The fear is beginning to sink in now. He’d said before he’d been able to act in front of Vitalasy, because then, there had been no reason to be afraid. There’s a reason now.

Their discussion ends when Subz removes a machete from his belt. Branzy hadn’t even noticed it before.

“We’ll keep it to three deaths,” Vitalasy promises. His tone isn’t rueful, but it could be, if Branzy was fool enough to pretend. “For all Clown knows, that’s all you have.”

Subz lifts the machete. “First one’s for posterity,” he says. The weapon crashes down. 

The last thing Branzy feels is the sharp jolt of a fear vaccine and the premonition of pain around his neck.

. . .

Death is dark, it turns out.

Really, really dark.

He doesn’t go anywhere when he dies, no, that wouldn’t make any sense for a soul tethered by charms worn like baubles. It’s simply . . . blank. Like going under anesthesia, there’s nothing there. He’s alive one moment, dead the next, and there isn’t anything else to mark the occasion except for the moment he realizes he’s awake again.

It takes a second. His body is awake before his mind is, sound filtering through his ears before he understands that he’s meant to be deciphering that sound into words. He’s slow to blink, slow to get up. There’s something caked on his throat.

“Welcome back, Branzy,” says Subz. A note of amusement vibratos in his voice. “You took it well.”

Even with his eyes open, it takes a second for Branzy to process the room around him. It’s as obsidian-black as it was before, but this time, there’s smears of blood on the floor next to him. He brings a cautious hand up to his neck. Seamless skin, but iron paint.

“How’d it go?” Branzy gets out, hoarse. He’s so thirsty.

Vitalasy grins. “Good. We sent the pictures to the PMC line and let them know that for every thirty minutes we don’t get eleven hearts from Clown, you lose another life. All they’ve responded with is the word ‘no’, but I think they’ll come around.”

“You said you mean something to him, didn’t you?” Subz says, eyeing him suspiciously. “So they’ll come.”

Branzy coughs. A small amount of blood flecks his lips. “Enough. I mean enough to him. He’ll come.”

They exchange a glance. “He better,” says Subz.

Vitalasy claps his hands, once. The echo resonates between the walls and lands in their clothing. “Well, his thirty minutes are up. Ready for round two?”

. . .

Branzy dies, for the second time in his life.

Die once, die a thousand times. There’s nothing new for him to describe.

. . .

Upon awakening, Branzy is met with laughter. He pries open his eyes to see Vitalasy and Subz holding a phone between them, delighted with whatever they see on the other side. 

“Are you taunting him?” Branzy rasps. His chest hurts this time.

They glance up. “To be honest, yeah,” says Vitalasy. “Don’t you think we deserve to?”

It isn’t a matter of deserving, Branzy thinks. They’re still in a basement with someone they regard as innocent, a machete between them and their human payback.

It’s fine. Just make it through this. Just make it through.

He really hopes Clown will understand.

“What has he said?”

Subz shrugs. “Mostly that he still won’t do it, but that if we lay another finger on you, he’ll dismember us piece by piece. Does that sum it up, you think?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Vitalasy nods thoughtfully. “But also some insults about our mothers and the way we were raised. Which is really rich, coming from him.”

“So it seems like it’s death time again,” says Subz, phrasing it like a suggestion. There’s a sparkle in his demeanor. He’s enjoying this.

Branzy holds up a hand, panting. “Just . . . Just a second, please. I’m– recovering.”

Subz raises an eyebrow. “Does it matter, when you’ll just need to recover again?”

A beat passes, in the long and waiting way a stone skips.

“I guess not.”

. . .

The next time he wakes up, it’s to a muffled war happening just outside his field of view. In the little black box, there’s no way to tell what’s going on until Vitalasy greets him again.

“Clown’s here. Subz is fighting him right now, just out there. If he breaks in, I’m gonna take another one of your hearts.” He grimaces, but not in the way that means he’s apologetic. Still, he says, “Sorry, Branzy. It’s only because he isn’t giving us the eleven, remember.”

But Branzy knows better. It isn’t Clown’s fault that Vitalasy and Subz are slitting his throat over and over again; it’s not even theirs. It’s his own damn idiocy, accepting the whispered proposal Vitalasy had given him in the roulette theater. He’s the only one he can blame for this death loop.

You don’t have to do what Clown makes you, Vitalasy had said. With one charm missing from the apex of his hood, he’d looked off-centered, genuine. Clown traps people, makes them feel like he’s the only one that can protect them, but that isn’t true. If you help us, we’ll give you enough hearts to buffer whatever he tries, and we can get you in hiding or something. Whatever you want. Just help us take him down.

In Vitalasy’s eyes, Clown is a sort of kidnapper, a coercer who picked Branzy up from the gateway to the city and forced him to work as a subordinate. Which isn’t . . . true, but it’s close, maybe close enough to hit the outer rings of the dartboard. Clown did break into Branzy’s lab, he did idly threaten him for his experiments, he did send him to a viper’s nest of a gala. To someone else, maybe, that isn’t forgivable. It’s just that Branzy isn’t someone else.

When Clown had said he wouldn’t have hurt Branzy in the initial days, Branzy believed him. Because Clown never had truly injured him, never had explicitly said that he would. He operated under shadows and assumptions, and how can Branzy blame him for his own anxiety and terrible self preservation? After all, Clown had followed him to the party, had kept him from falling down the winding stairs to the void. He’d taken off his mask and pierced Branzy’s ears and kissed him with lovesick fervor. There isn’t any world where Clown is able to pretend he cares for Branzy like that when he doesn’t, and maybe there isn’t any world at all where Clown doesn’t care for Branzy in the first place. 

Vitalasy’s deal had been born with genuine worry, but Clown’s protection was threaded through with genuine everything. He’s a liar, he’s a snake, he’s the poisonous part of this city, but not to Branzy.

Of course Branzy had called Minute and asked him to give Clown a heads up. Of course he’d needed to delay that warning, keeping Clown in the dark, because there’s no way Clown wouldn’t have chased him through hell and heaven to keep him from endangering himself. 

Of course none of this is Clown’s fault.

“I get it,” Branzy replies, because he does, just not in the way Vitalasy assumes.

So they prepare the final stage of the scammer’s scam. Vitalasy settles down on Branzy’s left, a simple knife in hand, waiting for the sound of clashing metal outside to make its way in. Every now and then, the scrape of steel on steel carves right through the death box they’re in, curdling Branzy’s eardrums and stomach alike. He knows Clown is good, so why is it taking so long?

It takes ten minutes before the constant sound turns into an ear-ringing sort of silence. Branzy doesn’t need any sort of detective skills to know that someone has died.

Vitalasy’s muscles tighten. He raises the long long knife, wrapping an arm around Branzy’s neck. 

Someone steps through the door.

Branzy barely has time to whimper “I’m so sorry, Clow–” before it’s lights out.

. . .

His captors had told him they’d keep it to three deaths, and it seems they’ve at least allowed him the dignity of honesty until the forced end.

This time, when his eyelids peel apart, he’s alone. The only company he has is the blood on the floor and on his throat, his own spattered DNA the last trace of humanity in the abandoned room. 

Slowly, warily, like Subz could jump out at any moment with a machete, Branzy picks himself up. Everything rushes to his head as he stands, his vision browning out for a full thirty seconds. When he feels like he can walk without doubling over and losing his guts, he leads himself out the door he barely remembers coming in. Climbing up a flight of stairs with the speed of a sloth, he finds himself on the other side of an employees only door, an electrical hazard sign deterring anyone from poking their noses in a killer’s business.

The room, it turns out, is under a sports stadium. It’s too early in the day for any sort of game to be going on right now, so the place is deserted. Branzy stumbles his way to an empty bathroom and splashes water on his neck, wiping away the blood with paper towels.

He looks at himself in the mirror and sees someone different.

He squeezes his eyes shut and hurries out.

The only thing left to do is wait for a cab and pay for a ride back to Rek’s apartment with the few bills he had the foresight to stick in his pocket before he’d left home. With his soiled hoodie tucked over his elbow and the evidence folded away, there’s no reason for the driver to think about calling the cops.

It’s an uneventful ride, and Branzy doesn’t remember much of it by the time he’s dropped off in front of the achingly familiar building.

He’s rather proud of himself for not immediately collapsing onto the couch when he gets inside, and instead grabbing his phone from where he’d left it on the coffee table and dialing Minute.

“It’s over,” he says when Minute picks up. He can’t help the exhaustion from seeping into his voice. “I’m back home. Can you get Clown for me? Just . . . just Clown.”

“Sure,” Minute says easily. “I think he’s regenned by now. I got him out after he died, but I couldn’t find you. Are you doing alright?”

Branzy laughs through a sigh. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Minute chuckles. “True that. Pretty sick, isn’t it? Alright. You should rest. I’ll go get him, just sleep for now.”

He does just that. The sleep is dreamless, his body too broken down to produce images and stories when it needs to repair itself first. 

Conditioned as he is now from today, waking up is a nervous, flitting thing, hammered with jugular veins and hearts taken from his corpse. It's only when he hears a second “Branzy” that he gets the will to focus on where he is.

Kneeling at the side of the bed, hands hovering inches from Branzy’s skin, is Clown. His mask is off, as it so often is when it’s just the two of them, utter stress drawing every ligament tight. The ghost of a bruise paints his jaw, healed enough to be invisible in the right lighting. His mouth curves as he invokes Branzy’s name again.

“Clown,” he responds. “Clown.”

A longheld breath escapes Clown’s lips. “You’re alive.” The instant he says it, frustration passes over his face. “Of course you are, you wouldn’t be– of course. You’re alright?”

Branzy smiles. It can’t be much of a reassurance, fatigued as he is. “You were worried?”

“Branzy Craft,” Clown repeats, and this time, it sounds like a curse. “You thought I wouldn’t be?” He sounds . . . astonished.

He shrugs with one shoulder, the other still buried in the mattress. “I made the deal. I was always going to be fine.”

“You’ve never been killed before!” Clown argues immediately, the snap-back of a rubberband. “What made you think it was a good idea to let yourself go and get murdered four times, back to back? What they did was– it’s frowned upon in Vivol, don’t you know that?” He shakes his head, anger flashing across it for a lingering second. “No. You wouldn’t know. Well. We call it heart farming, and they– to you– they had to have known you haven’t been–”

“Clown,” he interrupts. “I’m fine. See?” Branzy extends a hand, lacing their fingers together. 

Automatically, Clown’s thumb rubs the back of Branzy’s hand. He softens, the jagged parts of his emotions leaching out through human contact. “But you might not have been,” he sighs. His eyes flicker to the ground, like they want to escape but can’t decide between humility and the assurance of Branzy’s health. “What if Minute was jumped before he could tell me? What if he used it to his own advantage? What if I couldn’t find Vitalasy’s base? What if they thought you had more hearts than you did, or you dropped one, and you didn’t come back?”

His voice gets more hysterical the longer he talks, and it ends with his mouth parted and his gaze locked on Branzy’s. Even if he wanted to, Branzy doesn’t think there’s a way in this world to tear away from their gravity.

“That wasn’t going to happen,” Branzy says, softer than cotton. “The deal was only three deaths. They gave me six hearts before we even started.”

Clown shakes his head. “They didn’t stick to it, Branzy, they were never going to. It’s the only reason they gave you so many. They were trying to scam me, Branzy, what makes you think they wouldn’t scam you? When you were at their mercy, your only protection someone that they thought you were betraying? They were trying to get you away from me, and what would they have done when they thought I didn’t care anymore?”

“I . . . don’t know. I’m sorry.”

He sighs. “No, don’t be. You can’t have known what I haven’t taught you. Just . . . You understand how dangerous today was, don’t you?”

It takes more energy than it should for Branzy to sit up, the sheets bunching around his crossed legs. He reaches out with his free hand, cupping Clown’s cheek reverently. “Yeah, I know,” he says, a wry smile twisting up on command. “My throat feels it.”

“That’ll happen when it gets slit four times in a row.” The tension visibly drains from Clown’s posture, sand through the hourglass. “As much as hearts can regenerate you, that many times in succession leaves a mark.” His hand lifts, tugging Branzy’s collar askew and tracing the site of the most recent kill. Branzy’s heartbeat has never been faster.

“Can you see it?” he asks, emotion lodging next to his airways. 

Clown regards him softly. “There’s a scar, yes,” he admits, following up that horrible tidbit of information with another gentle touch. The skin is raw enough that every nerve ending is dulled, but they do their best to trigger anyways, registering straight oxytocin in Branzy’s stomach.

“Does it look cool, at least?” Branzy teases.

The way Clown blinks, slow, implies a lot more than cool. “Yeah,” his mouth forms eventually. “It does.”

A fickle sliver of a memory suddenly connects. Branzy nearly hits himself with the oversight. His hand tightens on Clown’s jaw, holding him in place as he inspects, temporarily ignoring the pale redness that falls like snow over the crest of his nose. “Oh, gosh, wait. Minute said you died. Are you okay? What happened?”

Clown smiles, small and fond. “I’m alright, Branzy. They took a heart from me, that’s all.”

Alarm turns everything fast. In half a second, Branzy is bent closer, searching every visible inch of Clown’s skin for a sign of something gone wrong. “Oh,” he whispers. “Oh, Clown, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want you to get hurt–”

Clown pushes him back, just enough for his personal space. He begins the complicated magic of undoing the belts and buckles and zippers that keep his costume in place. “I know,” he assures him. “I know. It’s okay. I still have nineteen.”

Branzy shakes his head furiously. “No. No, you’re not going to be down a heart because of me.” His necklace is off in an instant, fumbling fingers pulling the clasp free. As soon as a heart falls from the chain, he shoves it toward Clown, waving it insistently. “Take it. To be at twenty.”

Both of them simply stare at it at first. “Branzy–” Clown starts.

“Take it,” Branzy repeats. “Consider it a– a return on investment. You gave me two. Just take this one, please.”

Eventually, Clown relents. He takes the little blood charm, finally untucking his shirt and pulling a flap aside to reveal his string of nineteen. Branzy’s breath catches, hard, in his throat. Because there, at the base of the strand wrapping his waist like a belt, is a modified belly button piercing.

He looks up, catching Branzy’s frozen eye. “Oh,” he says, as if it’s just occurred to him, which it can’t have, that Branzy just might be distracted by this sort of development. “Hm. I did tell you I would show you one day, didn’t I? It seems a bit cliché now that I’m older. I got it when I was eighteen.”

“You got a belly button piercing when you were eighteen,” Branzy says faintly. “I’m normal about that.”

Clown flashes a wicked grin and replies, “You don't have to be.”

Waiting becomes an impossibility. Branzy hauls him up, yanking him into a half-standing position just to kiss him as stupid as he can before Clown stumbles.

He rights himself, perching on the bed beside Branzy instead of crouching. “Thank you for the heart,” he murmurs, already leaning back in. “You’re just too sweet. Sweeter than . . .”

The interruption comes in the form of his wandering eyes, which have found an interest in Branzy’s newly shiny lips. “Than?” he prompts.

“Than something fucking sweet, Branzy Craft,” he finishes, closing the distance with the patience of a cat after a mouse. The contact is searing, dark, and long, only daring them to break it with their human need for oxygen. Inhalation is restricted to gasps, each of them tugging the other back the second they break apart. Clown loops his arms over Branzy’s shoulders, the finest suit Branzy’s ever worn, and Branzy responds by circling Clown’s hips.

All it takes is existing together, their bloodstreams becoming one and their lungs heaving in harmony, to destroy Branzy’s sanity. This is what living is meant to be. How can he ever leave, when Clown’s tooth snags on his bottom lip and he shuffles closer, closer, his leg on top of Branzy’s? He could live through anything if it meant coming home to a touch-mad Clown.

There isn’t anything he has to say for himself, except thank God Rek isn’t home, as he opens his mouth to worse crimes than these.

. . .

The next time Branzy finds himself in the Orbital, he’s wrapped in a scarf mottled with melting snowflakes, standing next to the bulletin board in the back. He’s far enough from the door to undo his winter gear, but the damning scarf stays, just to protect any modicum of professionalism he possesses here.

On the board, there’s a notice—and it is a notice, not a message or an advertisement, but a deadline. There is no author, no publisher, only a curlicue date and time written atop gilded cream cardstock. An anchor drops in Branzy’s gut. He’s boarded this ship before.

“Zam’s,” comes a voice behind him. He turns, unsurprised to see Squiddo in a labcoat and orange safety goggles. “But you probably know that already.”

He swallows the apprehension of conversation. “Yeah.”

She fixes him with an x-ray kind of stare, not looking through him, but in him. Whatever she finds of his skeleton must be enough, because she says, “It’s their ultimatum day. Where they quit barking and start biting, y’know?”

Anxiety settles deep in his cells. “The void hole,” he realizes.

Squiddo dips her head. “Has Clown told you he’s on the front lines for that fight?”

“What?” Branzy has to stop himself from physically stumbling. “No, he didn’t! I thought– I thought we were getting them to leave us alone.”

“To leave you alone, maybe,” she says. “But he’s Foundation. So’s my friend. I’m guessing Clown’s trying to protect you, keep you out of the fight? I mean, I know he’s deadly and all, but don’t you want to protect him too?”

He shouldn’t listen. He shouldn’t. Getting pulled into Vitalasy’s scheme was enough, he doesn’t want to invite that back. But Clown, desperate hands and sweet kisses—he can’t lose that. Can’t lose him. “How?”

Squiddo grins, feral and manic. “Have you ever wanted to dissect a heart, Branzy?”