It took him two days to find the water, following the edge of Caldera’s volcanic wall, and only when he saw the horizon did Adon sit on a rock and dissect every angle of the memory of Lu looking up at him as an adult. He’d grown into the sharp lines of his face, softened so he was more sculpted than intimidating and sharp, and his hair was long, tied back and tossed over a shoulder. He looked tired. Adon wished he’d looked longer, collected more details, enough to send himself stomping into the waves for good. 

He stood at the shore, letting the icy water wash over his boots until he couldn’t feel it soak in anymore, toes numb, willing himself to take the next step before his continents collided in something that would only be devestating. Aphy had a good job, Mess would graduate and follow her soon. He had no reason to hesitate, except that he didn’t know which was freedom anymore, the tether pulling him away, or the temptation beckoning him in. 

He screamed and wailed at the elusive horizon, the grey sun sinking behind ash clouds, kicking at endless waves as the tide rose to his knees without an undertow to accidentally sweep him away. 

Lu had smiled, but he hadn’t looked happy. Not gloating and entitled the way Adon expected.

There it was. 

Remorse, betrayal, bitter spite, a perfect staircase assembling in his chest with a red-carpet welcome to his rage. Adon glared down at the dark water. If Lu was going to betray him so thoroughly, sell him to the Pits to be dismembered one piece at a time, on accident or purpose, then the least he could do was dance gleefully over the grave of who Adon used to be. If he was going to keep the one-sided promise Adon had dared out of him, to never die by his own hand, the least he could do was be happy about it. They shouldn’t both suffer the same way, what a boring tragedy that was. 

Adon laughed at himself until he cried, rocking back and forth on the jagged stones, the sound of his sorrow drowned by the crashing waves as the rain began. 

He did not test the water a second time. The dogs would be hungry again. 

Adon returned home, sneaking in carefully when he saw the lights, but it was just Y, come to feed the dogs. She said nothing but hello, and when he finished washing up, she took his arm too gently and added a twenty-seventh tally. 

“Thank you for surviving again,” she smiled, placing his finished arm in his lap, then pulled out the clippers to cut his shaggy hair out of his face where his half-ear couldn’t hold it back anymore. 

Adon admired the new tally line with a snort, “thanks for gamifying it for me.” 

Y thought of a dozen jokes about gambles and bribes, but she and Adon were too similar in their broken parts. She ruffled his remaining hair with a smile and handed him the dustpan, making him clean up the pile of hair beside her, “do you think Igor still exists?”

Adon frowned at her, tossing the dustpan contents into his compost room without giving too much thought to the pink dyed ends that had been shaved off, listening to Y yell from the loft.

“Like, do you think it’s still like… whole? Or you think it rotted by now?”

Adon jogged back up the stairs to the balcony, pausing halfway up, “ew, you mean my ear?!”

“Yeah,” Y shrugged, unfurling new blankets over the mattress, “we named it Igor.”

“Gross.” Adon flopped onto the bed, curling under the covers as a dozen dogs and one cat sniffed at Y folding beside him before settling into the nooks and crannies of elbows and knees.

“I’ll look into Gideon and Sias, Doni,” she petted his peach-fuzz head with a smile, “I won’t let him hurt you.” She pulled Adon tight to her, wishing he would cry, thaw enough to be human. “We’re not in the Pits anymore,” she whispered, but he only nodded and stared at the ceiling, eyes vacant. Y poked at Adon, seeking small reassurances that he was okay, annoying and provoking him to make his face twitch away from that defeated absence. 

In the cold ways, they were the same, but Adon scared her sometimes. She wondered if he didn’t turn that anger on himself, who he would aim it at, how powerful it would be, and if Adon would survive the blow. She wanted to protect him in all the ways she couldn’t protect herself once, but Adon had already suffered, already froze, and she knew that if he didn’t learn to thaw a little, he would either shatter or melt entirely. Either way he would lose his form and she would lose her friend, her only witness of their truths that had become legends, the Hell they had survived and escaped together. He was her people, and she didn’t intend to go through all the frustrations of X’s plan to change the Wells if it wasn’t so her people could live warmly. 

Y bit her lip, hugging Adon to her as his breath grew even and heavy, wondering if there were words to explain to him that he still tethered her there. She didn’t like thinking about it, but in a world without Adon, she would be alone, not understandable even to herself, and that was a defeat she wouldn’t survive for long. 

She sighed heavily, her breath clouding above the bed, several dogs shifting and huffing in response. She pulled a hat over his bare head and patted it as she drifted to sleep beside him, “I think people are infinite, Doni. I think that means we’re only really made of our anchors. We’re only as safe as our mooring places, only as reliable as the ships we build, only as strong as the storms we weather, or as clever as the routes we take. You… you need more anchors. You can’t survive alone, you’ll become cracked. You’ll become Medo. But you… you’re an anchor for me.” She swallowed a surprising tear, laughing at herself, “if I lose you, I lose the shape of me…. Do you remember how much we fought to keep our shapes, Adon? I know you’re tired of this one, but it can change. We can change it.”

Adon nuzzled his head into her shoulder and Y smiled, drifting off to sleep beside him, one hand set protectively over his ear, like she might stop him from hearing the rain pounding the tin roof or the screams that still haunted his nightmares. 

☆☆☆