look at the faces, listen to the bells

[bossymarmalade]

Kate is getting ready to wander up to the Persian as the three of them are coming down. Her hair’s tied back firmly in a messy bun (like nearly everyone else, she hasn’t bothered to cut it) with a bandana wrapped around her head, and she’s got a t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts on, less style and more Going To Do Some Work.

Dickiebird laughs. “You’re just jealous because you never saw one of my forts! Maybe I’ll build one under the siren tower.” He waves cheerily at Kate when she comes in view.

"I guess there could be." Because who even knew things appeared and disappeared all the time. "I don’t know why you’re saying that like you’ve never been in a fort before." She says as they enter the longhouse and waves at Kate. "Hey."

Kate quirks a smile (it’s about as close as she can get to that lately) back at them. “Hey. Did someone say something about forts? Ram and I built an epic one once.”

"I’ve been in real forts before, they’re not much fun. More like boring." Kyle looks surprised, when he sees Kate. "You’re up - you’re - how’re you?"

Mia nods, “I’m staying up in a fort in the Persian now. You can go in if you want. So can Ramsey. But don’t knock it down.” She wasn’t really planning on sleeping anywhere else.

Kate says dryly in response to Kyle, “Si, claro. Contrary to popular belief, I do get out of bed on occasion.” She was sleeping a lot more than she would, though. A lot more than she should, perhaps. It was hard to say if it was a sign of depression or lingering fatigue from whatever they’d done, or of—no, it definitely was NOT that. “Thanks, Mia, let Ramsey know? He might be worried about sleeping by himself.” And probably wouldn’t want his mama telling people that.

Dickiebird gestures at Kate. “See? She understands the awesomeness of forts. You’re just missing out, Kyle.”



Kyle grins, although it falters a bit, when he thinks of all the people webbed out from her. Paperdolls, all connected. Waynes and Queens, and then there is Kate. He thinks about the last time he’d been up to the Persian, Bruce holding onto Queen’s neck, like people do with their possessions. Belongings and belonged, Kyle supposes. It’s overwhelming, in a place like this. Kyle looks down, and blinks. He then nods to Kate, leaving Mia and Dick as he turns and heads into the kitchen.

Kate looks sidelong at Kyle as he turns to go, mouths, ‘what’s up with him?’ at Dick and Mia. Though around here, who the fuck knew?

Mia takes a moment to actually wonder where Ramsey is staying and thinks maybe he’s staying with Connor, or maybe in the Bungalow with Lian. She didn’t know but she nods her head, “Alright.” She says and watches Kyle then turns back to Kate and shrugs. “I don’t know. Kyle look to see if there’s cake mix!” She calls after him.

Dickiebird shrugs, pulling a face. Moods hit fast here, faster than one could even begin to feel them sometimes.

Because it’s what she does, Kate says, “Back in a minute, he and I gotta talk,” then waves at them with raised eyebrows before ducking back into the kitchen. “No es capaz de mirar a mí ahora?” she asks, lingering in the doorway.

"No! Por supuesto no…" Kyle unloads the boxes of pop tarts onto the counter, lining them up next to each other. He pauses and smiles at her. "I’m so happy you’re here. I just…there’s so much that comes along with you, I…" He shakes his head, words failing. "I don’t know. It just feels different. I keep wondering if she’s taken your place. Zee, I mean. With the Things. I keep thinking about what you said in your journal. I read it, I couldn’t help it, and - four of them left? Three now, maybe. We took one out from Roy yesterday, it was like it nearly killed him, Kate. I keep thinking about Queen - and - and -Bruce. They’re not hiding that - the - your - you guys - and - I don’t know. There’s a lot of things to think about, but, it’s like. It’s just stupid thoughts, just spinning wheels. You know what I mean."

Kate tried to parse out all the different bits of Kyle’s thinking—which was classic Kyle, though lately she had a hell of a lot harder time trying to do it. It was as if she couldn’t get her thoughts in order as fast. “So much that comes along with me?” she echoes, then settles down on a chair. “I thought that too, about Zatanna, god, I hope…” It would be the best and the worst place for Zee to be. “She’s doing something. They’re edging up their attacks, it’s reactive. But I didn’t mean four of…those. I meant four terminals—” She’s cut off by a hard sneeze, hard enough to rocket her head back against the chair.K ate continues after a second, shifting topics to something that she could speak about without pain. “Does it bother you?” she asks. “That we’re together, the three of us?”

"Jesus —!" Kyle comes around to her side, but she seems to recover just as fast as the violent sneeze. "Terminals? Four terminals. I thought you meant the four things, like the black goopy insect monsters, because…hmmm." Kyle frowns. "So seven terminals." He thinks of the structure at the lake, wondering if that could be another one. He needs to go back and look at it, but her question throws him off, and he laughs. "No! God know, I don’t care. Well - no, I mean - I DO care, but I guess it’s just a matter of reshuffling the, ah, the friend levels." Kyle sits by her, wanting to explain this. He knows that she can get a little tense about delicate things, like personal stuff. "It’s nothing bad. If we were back home, it’d probably be easier, but. You’ve changed, all three of you have changed, and like duh - that’s normal too. But you’re the only one I’m actually invested in, like, y’know. Knowing what how it feels for you, and…what it means and." Kyle thinks about Mar’i, what she’d said about her and Roy. "And I’m sure you’re still sorting stuff out too, so. It’s all good. It’s exciting! And I hope you’re all happy. Because god knows we all need happy, hah."

Kate blurts out regarding the creatures, “Probablemente siete de los que son demasiado.” She winces and waits for the pain to come, but after a moment the tickling at the back of her throat eases. “Reshuffling the friend levels?” she decides to say instead, looking bewildered, and lifting a brow. “So like moving Kate from sexy friend level to adorable girlbro level? Or…I just want it to work. When we go home. That’s what I want.”

Kyle blinks at her. “¿En serio? I’ll keep that in mind….” Kyle looks over at the boxes of pop tarts, the ugly-ass brand emblazoned on them. Seven terminals, seven insect monsters…that freaking ugly, ugly brand. Kyle kinda hates it, he has to admit. It might have been one of his main reasons for avoiding all the Cache branded food. Aesthetic snobbery. He grins. “Kate you’re like never not sexy friend level. I’m not moving you anywhere. Are you moving me?” He looks rather astonished. “And of course it’ll work! Why wouldn’t it? You’re all painfully sensible. Well, not Queen, and maybe that’s a good thing. Because I can totally imagine you and Bruce both out-sensibling each other out of things, but then there’s that Green Doofus. You all balance each other, like a really cool triangle. Penrose.” Kyle grins wider, sitting back and folding his arms in triumph, as if he totally solved something.

Kate rolls her eyes. “You’re the one saying that you’re reshuffling friend levels, ay ese,” she feels compelled to point out, then sobers a little, feeling her face heat as Kyle says what the three of them had thought amongst each other but hadn’t said to anyone else. It must have been painfully obvious, then, for Kyle to notice, because /Kyle/. “Penrose?”

"No, I’m not. I was wondering how you — ah forget it. Not the time or the place to be talking about this." Kyle stands up and goes around to where he’d lined up the pop tarts on the counter. "What’re you gonna be doing today?"

Kate says, “I’d rather talk about this than any of the other shit going on,” and watches Kyle reorder the boxes of Pop Tarts (or rather, Cache brand toaster pastries). “Going to go explore a bit in the Persian. Inside.”

"There’s a lot of stuff in there," Kyle says agreeably. "And Mia’s little fort. And I dunno, if you wanna talk then that’s cool. I’m yammering on about your personal life, which is pretty rude of me." He opens the boxes, pulling out the foil packets. Two tarts in one wrapper.

"I’d rather you asked what you want to know than not asking," Kate notes, dry but not cruel. "It’s not like we’re not friends."

"I don’t want to know anything, I’m not burning with sordid questions, Kate, geez," Kyle responds, similarly dry. "You’re happy, right? That’s pretty much the extend of my curiousity. If you’re cool, then it’s all cool. The rest’ll work itself out, it always does."

Kate gives him a look. “You said you were wondering how we SOMETHING, then cut yourself off.”

Kyle leans his elbows on the table and tears open a packet, pulling out what looks like a chocolate icing tart. Kyle sniffs at it, then takes a tentative bite. “They’re not bad. Want one?” He breaks it apart and looks inside it - there seems to be some sort of fluffy white filling. Maybe marshmallow. “I said I was wondering how you…um…” Kyle thinks about how to phrase it. “…how you were…handling it?” Kyle ends on a question, more because he’s not sure that’s the right word. “How you were…figuring it all out? How you were…sorting it? Catch my drift?”

Kate looks a little suspiciously at the Not Pop Tart. “I prefer mine toasted,” she says. Also the s’mores kind were always nasty. “No, I don’t catch your drift. Handling it how?”

Kyle stares at her, poptart halves in both hands. “That’s what I’m asking.”

Kate groans, “I mean in which sense. In terms of relating to each other, emotionally, in the bedroom, division of time—or do you mean all of it?”

"Oh, uh. I dunno." Kyle grins, amused as he keeps eating one half. Kate and her need for specificity, relevant even in this hell-place. "Sure - all of it?"

Kate considers him, trying to think of answers, then realizes she doesn’t really know. That it’s…instinctive, this. All of it. There’s a bewildered expression on her face. “If I said trial and error and a lot of really hot sex, would you believe me?”

"I’d believe anything you said, really." Kyle responds congenially, but he can’t help but grin a little wickedly at the last descriptor. "Good for you. Also eiiiiiiwwwww. But good for you, hahaha." It’s wasteful, but he flicks a bit of the pastry over at her anyway.

Kate rolls her eyes and retorts, “It is so not ew. SO NOT. I’m damn hot and my boys are just as hot.” She picks up the piece of not-pop tart and eats it, finding it’s just as gross as anticipated. “Ewwww.”

"You’re hot, yeah duh. I have no opinion about the other two scallywags," Kyle snerks back. " I suppose strictly in appearance, Bruce was a handsome dude. People love swooning around him and shit." Kyle looks at the half-eaten tart, flipping the piece back and forth in his hand. "Yeah. It is pretty gross isn’t it. I was gonna serve these up for Steph’s birthday but maybe I’d be better off making an dense eggshell goop-cake for her instead." Kyle eats it all up anyway, because he’s a dude.

Kate says, “I am so not swooning,” but it’s a rote protest as she considers the pastry and startles. “It’s Steph’s birthday? Oh, jesus, that’s…” Kate isn’t sure WHAT it is, actually. The antithesis of fun, most like.

"You’re not people, you’re Kate," Kyle says like it’s obvious. "And yeah, she - well - she’s had a rough time, Kate. Okay we’ve all had rough times but…" Kyle isn’t sure how to complete that sentence. It’s not like Steph needs coddling. And he doesn’t feel pity for her just…he huffs and looks at Kate, figuring she’ll understand what he means.

Kate says, “Kate Spencer, swoonproof.” Though it’s not exactly true, not considering what she’s been feeling lately about Bruce. A tail end of a dream, emotion, flicks against her memory; she tries to grab at it and misses, frustrated. “And I know she has. She doesn’t deserve this. And then her birthday, isn’t she 21 now?”

Kyle smiles, nodding in some relief. “Twenny-one, a-yup.” Kyle’s fingers draw against the counter, shapes with invisible lines. “Anyway. You caught up on reading the logbook?”

Kate flicks her fingers against the edge of the chair. “Close enough that I know what happened,” she says, and it makes her feel sick, all of it. That she couldn’t stop it. That their actions are accelerating, growing wilder and fiercer.

"Well," Kyle says, because there’s nothing really he can think of to say about it. She knows things, but…violent sneezing. "Want some help in the Persian? Maybe I can find something nicer for Steph up there, than these things."

Kate nods. “Kyle,” she starts, trying to tell him, brow furrowing. “I wish I knew what to do,” she finishes.

"Well…we all wish that. Unless you’re talking about something specific…" Kyle looks wary, not wanting to send her into some sort of fit of pain, talking like this.

Kate says, “There has to be an easier way to get them out. When they’re in people. You went to mass, you know the stories, Legion, the herd of pigs.”

"I’m…I feel it depends on the person, that’s the problem," Kyle frowns and he starts to head out of the kitchen, out of the Longhouse so they can go back to the Persian. "I’ve been thinking about it, y’know. The way the Things take from our own brains, make it real. Good and bad. It’s not so much religion, more like…I dunno. Fairy tales, urban legends. Mythology."

Kate considers this, then nods. “The more metaphorical demons we have, the harder it is to eradicate them from their nesting places in our heads,” she says. “Yes. That works. That works in words, that makes it right.” She follows Kyle, adjusting her hair. “That’s right about them. It’s an interpretation, Kyle. Of what we know. The reality isn’t something we can comprehend.” She is clear, now, for a second or two, clear as day, without the pain.

"I agree. That’s the sci-fi part of it," Kyle says, almost relieved to be talking like this. "Because they’re not from here - but they’ve been here, like you said. All this was here before us, it wasn’t created for us." Kyle scratches the back of his head, easing an itch on the soft scarred over scalp. "It’s so metaphysical, it’s hard to even explain. But we don’t really need to comprehend it to get out, do we? I mean, I was trying to, but…maybe that was the wrong way about it. There’s just too many possibilities, ahhh. It’s so overwhelming."

Kate says, “No, we don’t have to understand all of it. I don’t think we CAN understand all of it, ese.” She takes his hand because she really needs to, for reasons she can’t articulate. “But we need to figure out a way. soon.”

"We will," Kyle says with a smile, and he squeezes her hand. "The tables are turning, faster than they can handle, I think. They just can’t deal with all our awesome, amiga. We’re Americans, for one; not like those lousy French. I was thinking of renaming the town ‘Freedom Pit’. What do you think?"

Kate groans, rolling her eyes as she keeps walking up the path. “Freedom Pit, mission accomplished,” she drawls in a really poor imitation of a Texan accent. Just as quickly, though, she segues into Spanish, because she can get the words out en Español if she says them quickly. “/The others tried to use them. Didn’t want to escape. And they died for their foolishness./”

Kyle doesn’t realize she’s switched languages, replying back to her in Spanish as they approach the Persian. Kate’s voice has dropped low, though, almost in hissing, hurried whispers as she says what she needs to. The goats bleat in earnest hellos. “/Some of us want to hurt them. But I don’t want to fight or get vengeance or anything. I just want to go back./” Kyle looks over at her. “/That’s what you were trying to do too, right? Bargain with them? Trade…find a way to just let us go back?/”

Kate says, “Kyle. /they weren’t trying to hurt them. The French…or Quebecois or whomever…were doing tests on people. That’s how they drew their attention. That’s why there was all that shit at Raven./” She even says Raven in Spanish, Cuervo, so worried is she that she will lose the right to speak soon too soon. “/The humans kept on trying to do it here. It seemed perfect. And they, the demons, they learned even better how to fuck with people’s heads, how we tick, what are the breaking points./” Kate has to pause and rest against one of the fence posts outside the goat pen.

"The torture room, you mean? The incinerator? Geez. So what you’re saying is that this place is…a real place created by the humans who were here before us?/" Kyle stops and stares at her as she rests. "/What we did - what Bruce and me did with the HSR at Queen Tower - that attracted the demons too. That’s what brought them back./" Kyle sighs roughly, raking his hand through his hair. "Not that it really gets us any more closer to home, but. Nice to know we’re not just a repeat performance."

Kate fumbles for the bag slung over her shoulder, then flicks her composition book open. It’s almost completely covered in writing now, but she finds another page. /This is like the camp the French had. On Earth. Then when they got brought here, they kept using it, on their subjects. But they were being experimented on too. by Them. And they tried to use Their tricks, to use Them as tools. They didn’t like that, not even the ‘good’ ones. They’re beyond us, not servants. And when it got intolerable…they had to die.”

Kyle reads it about five times over before he can process it; and even then, he’s not completely sure he understands. “Okay. Okay. We aren’t doing any of what they did, though. The French. We have good ones and bad ones here. Not just demons, but angels too.” The terms are unsatisfying and far too limiting, but it’s all Kyle can think of. Religious tropes of good and bad. “There are ones who’re trying to help us, even if we didn’t ask, y’know?”

Kate groans, scribbles down, /so they’re not going to kill us. but they will make us hurt. there are more of the ‘bad’ than the ‘good’. how much more can we take?/

Kyle reads and looks up at her again, nodding. “But we’ve been making strides, don’t you see? My powers, Mar’i’s, Clark’s - and then there’s your disappearance and Zee’s and Cass’. Mar’i killing that demon. As much hits as we’re taking, we’re striking back. Soon we’ll meet Ewoks and it’ll totally turn the tide, you’ll see.” He makes it as a joke; but seriously, Ewoks make everything better, he can’t even lie. “The Things’re not gonna kill us and we’re not gonna kill each other.”

Kate says aloud, “The last part’s what I’m worried about, cariño,” as she shuts her book, eases back to fully standing and walking with him to the building. “It’s still not an answer for getting out of here, either. Though I think I know the key.”

"Ewoks?" Kyle says hopefully. "They’re so cute."

Kate groans and rests her head against the door before she opens it, feeling vaguely nauseous—but not the familiar kind of the geas. Clearly she’s been out in the sun too long there at the fence or something. “We’ll make our own damn Ewoks. The last thing we need is them pulling that out of our brains and setting little aliens on us.”

"I’m not down with alien parasites, no," Kyle agrees, his tone trying to be light, but it falls flat. He holds her elbow, getting her into the cool of the warehouse. "Dios mio, Kate - here - sit down and just…take a breather. The last thing we need, is you pushing yourself to collapse. I already got suckerpunched by Queen, you’re not gonna swoon on my watch. Swoonproof Spencer, remember?" Kyle takes her notebook and fans her, handing her a canteen of water.

Kate eases down to sit on an empty crate, and gratefully takes the canteen from Kyle. “Gracias,” she says. “You don’t want me to pass out so Ollie won’t punch you again, that it?” she asks, grinning so he knows it’s a joke. “We’ve got enough parasites around here as it is,” she adds, and shoves the dream memory out of her mind.

Kyle pulls his sleeve over his hand and mops her brow, carefully pushing her sticky hair back from her face with his thumb. “Yep. All I care about is my gorgeous mug being marred, dontchaknow.” Kyle grins back. He keeps fanning her, looking around in the warehouse as she rests. “So….you got some idea what you’re looking for? Or you just wanna window shop? I’ll hold your purse while you try things on, I don’t mind.”

Kate reminds him, “You need to find Steph a birthday present,” as she slurps some more water, then surveys the boxes, though she won’t mess with Mia’s fort. She gets the feeling she knows what she’s looking for when she finds it, but doesn’t know what that is.

"Okay," Kyle hands her back her notebook, urging her to keep fanning. "Rest and wait here until you feel okay to get up. I’m gonna look around, but I’ll be here so just call me, okay?" He grins. "Well - don’t call be ‘Okay’ you can just call me ‘Kyle’."

Kate groans aloud at the joke, shaking her head. For a moment she’s basically Real World Kate, exasperated with him. “I’ll be fine, I swear. Just a little woozy, it’s better now I’m inside.” Or sitting down. To placate him, she starts fanning herself.

Oliver has a solitary meal of rice pudding at the longhouse (it’s all he feels like eating, and he can’t find any tapioca pudding) before wandering slowly up to the Persian. He tries to find the circle that Mia mentioned, the one she’d seen her mother in, but the grass is still too tall. Maybe he’ll come back later and scythe it, Ollie muses, as he creaks open the big doors. The movement hurts and he winces, wishing he’d thought to take some aspirin before trekking up here. Maybe there’s some kicking around in the warehouse…

Kate looks up as the door opens, surprised and startled to see Ollie there. “Cielo?” she asks, still fanning herself a little with Kyle’s notebook. The box under her creaks and thumps a little as she shifts—it doesn’t sound quite as empty as she thought.

"Kate??" The sound of her voice rejuvenates him, almost, and Ollie trots towards her when he hears her moving. They’ve been sleeping together, yes, crashing back together every night on their big bed with Bruce, but aside from that it feels like they’ve been at cross-schedules, somehow always ending up in different place across the camp, mis-timing their naps and errands. "I didn’t know you were here, sweetie! What’re you looking for?"

He’s beautiful, somehow, even worn and drawn and scraped and bruised, and seeing him makes Kate’s face light up a little. “I was just looking around. Kyle’s gone hunting for a birthday present for Steph. I’d say an Abba album but I think she’s got them all…” Kate stands up to meet Ollie and accidentally shifts the crate as she does, a slat or two shifting and cracking to reveal packaging material inside.

Oliver wraps his arms around her, snuggling into her hair and inhaling her scent before the crate catches his attention. “What’s in there?” he points. “Christ, even with what Mia destroyed, we haven’t figured out half this stuff. There might even be more up on the ramparts, since this place was obviously a fort.” He reaches into the crate, inserting his hand between the slats to break the pieces smaller and remove them.

Kate shrugs a little, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against his neck, though she’s still grasping Kyle’s notebook tightly, and feeling a little dazed at standing quickly. “No idea, I thought it was empty. It felt empty, anyway…” Kate kneels down, setting the notebook and her bag down on the floor, and pulls some of the packaging out once Ollie’s revealed enough space. Oliver curls over Kate, hand along her shoulder (now that they’re awake and together he finds he can barely stop touching her, feel the familiar curves of her sliding against his palm), peering into the crate. “What is it?” he asks, impatiently. “Something good?”

Kate rummages for a moment, then pulls box after white box out of the crate. Oliver watches, and then his face lights up as he sees the printing on the boxes. “Oh, maaaan,” he says, already reaching out to grab one. “Polaroids! I took so fucking many of these when I was young and douchey enough to think taking photos of passed-out drunk people was artsy.” Kate frowns a little, but only because she’s surprised at all of what’s in there. “Seriously, I thought this was empty,” she says, blinking and looking at each of the boxes.

Oliver turns a couple of the boxes over in his hands. “Well, empty or not, I’d say you’ve found Stephanie the perfect birthday present,” he observes cheerily. “She’s probably itching from snapshot withdrawal by this point.” He puts the boxes down then, though, and sinks to his knees next to Kate, drawing her into his arms. “Don’t mind me,” Ollie murmurs against her ear, her neck. “I’m just getting reacquainted.”

Kyle returns to Kate, tensing a bit when he hears another voice, but he sees it’s Queen and relaxes. Kyle approaches, ruefully holding up a movie-sized bag of Cache-brand Skittles. “All I found was the — heyyyy, what’d you guys find?”

Kate nods. “I’m keeping one of these for myself, though,” she says, definitively, leaning into Ollie’s embrace hungrily for a second before looking up and laughing at Kyle. “Nice,” she says. “Check this out—Polaroids. Six or so, I think, of the cameras, and loads of film.”

Oliver grins. Even Loonasaurus Rayner can’t dampen his mood right now. “The kiddies’ll be chomping at the bit to get their hands on these,” he remarks. “Although they could really come in handy when it comes to the weird shit we have trouble explaining to each other.”

Kate hadn’t even thought of that. “God knows if they’ll come out in pictures, but it’s worth a try,” she says. She can’t really explain why she wants one for herself, she’s never been into photography much. But she wants it. Needs it. “One’s for Steph, though. With the Skittles.” Kate pauses, then amends wryly, “I mean, the Cache brand fruit-flavored candy.”

Oliver snorts. “Yeah, better respect the branding.” He looks at the bag of candy with sudden longing, though. Candy seems like it would be really nice right about now.

"Ayyyy muy chido," Kyle tucks the skittles in his carry-sling and picks up one of the boxes, looking at them curiously. "Yeah, camera and - rainbow candy. Can’t go wrong there, right?" Kyle grins, packing a camera away for Steph. "Thanks Kate." He nods at Queen and steps away from them, heading towards the exit. "I’ll see you guys later, okay?"

Kate hands Kyle some boxes of film as well. “Lots of rainbows,” she says, gesturing to the outside of the box, though she’s stood up a little too quickly and sways just a bit before steadying. “Oof, madre di dios, better sit down again.”

Oliver tugs Kate back down to nestle against him when he sees her wavering. “You okay, sweetheart? Unsteady on your pins, there?”

Kate hands Kyle his notebook before he goes, then presses her head a little against Ollie’s shoulder. “Fine, just a little dizzy,” she says. “I was out in the sun a little too much, I think, still getting over it.”

Bruce makes his way up to the Persian, staff in hand, a repurposed duffel bag slung around his chest, and back staff in hand. It’s a difficult image to get away from, but making his way through the tall grass, hair long and curling, he looks the part of a shepherd, making his way to the warehouse. Kyle strolls out, seeing Bruce. “Kate and Queen’s in there,” he supplies, as he trots along the path, back to town. “And don’t touch Mia’s fort!” Bruce looks over at Kyle, eyebrows arching, silently. Kyle keeps eye contact with Bruce for as long as Bruce looks at him, making Bat-ears with his fingers at him until Kyle rounds the corner, the Persian gone from his sight.

Oliver presses his mouth to her forehead, arms around her. “Maybe we should find you something to drink. Tepid Cache-brand root beer, mmmm, hydrating.”

Kate groans, “God, just hearing about it makes me want to puke.” She eases over to sit on a definitely empty crate this time, pulling Ollie with her. “Distract me?”

Bruce stares at Kyle while he makes the bat-ears, as he exits, before he looks over, to where he hears the two of them—‘Kate and Queen’ talking—back to what he was doing. He rummages through the dry stores that Mia and Ollie had salvaged, pulling the cylindrical cartons of salt, baking powder, into his makeshift bag.

Oliver grins, hands sliding up her back, down to latch onto the swerve of her hip. “I think I can manage some distraction,” he says, and kisses her, licking along her bottom lip before sucking it. The inside of his mouth tastes raw, hot, and milky-cinnamon from the rice pudding; it’s a strange combination but Ollie’s not aware of it. For his part he’s more interested in the taste of Kate’s mouth, the freshwater lake taste of it, small dark pebbles of secrets. When he pulls out of the kiss, hearing rummaging, Ollie looks over and spies a familiar dark head. “Look who,” he says, hand braced against the back of Kate’s neck.

Kate kisses Ollie back, making a little pleased noise at what she finds in his kiss, warm and spice and blood, before she pauses and nods as well at the noise, finally following Ollie’s gesture. “Bruce,” she says, and smiles softly in pleasure at the name, though if he’s pulling that third wheel bullshit again…

Bruce pauses what he’s doing, slinging the bag back, over his shoulder, entering the space they are in. He looks down at Kate, reaching out to cup the side of her jaw, thumb skating over the slope of it, looking to Ollie. He nods at the other man. “Alright, Queen?”

Oliver raises an eyebrow and nods back at Bruce. “As well as can be expected,” he says, and although he doesn’t move away or seem like he doesn’t want Bruce there, there’s a cool tone to his voice. Ollie isn’t a dissembler by nature, and even though he’s not making A Thing out of it, it would be impossible for the other two to miss that slight drop in the level of his usual intimate speaking voice with Bruce.

Kate eases out of Ollie’s embrace and huffs faintly from her nose, easing to stand just a bit away from the both of them. “Resolve it,” she says simply, though standing up too fast was a bad plan.

"Don’t leave," Ollie says to Kate. Not as a protest to her edict, but he really doesn’t want her moving away from them. "Please?"

Bruce looks over at Kate when she makes that noise, much like a queen with kittens, and when she sways, a touch, he is by her side, gripping her elbow. He looks down at Oliver, frowning.

Kate says, “Then work it out. Beat the shit out of each other, that seems to be everyone else’s method of solving interpersonal issues.” She’s upset with both of them, really, a little. Kate doesn’t wrench her elbow out of Bruce’s grasp, but gives him A Look, because she can handle this herself, she is her own person, she is /fine/, goddamn it, she’s fine…

Bruce looks to Ollie, inhaling once. He doesn’t say anything, but not to be contrary. He doesn’t release her elbow, not noticing her Look.

Oliver sighs. “It’s not that,” he says. “It’s not like that. It’s…” He stays sitting where he is, looks up at Bruce and at his hand supporting Kate, and he smiles a little before sighing again. “You left me,” he says after a moment. “And I know, logically it makes sense and I can’t blame you, your granddaughter needed you and in the end you helped my own son, too. But I just can’t … I was begging you not to leave, Bruce, and you /left/ me.” Oliver shrugs. “It doesn’t make sense. I know.”

Bruce ‘s expression grows dark and he states: “You wanted me to ignore her screaming?” Kate eases gently out of Bruce’s grasp, shifts over to open another crate, because she doesn’t know if she can watch this.

Oliver winces. “I said it’s not logical, okay? I don’t have any right to be mad at you, and if you gimme a day or two I’ll go back to normal. I’m just…” he trails off, shaking his head. One hand rubs bracelets around the rope abrasions on the other wrist.

Kate rests one shaky hand on top of the crate, finding a few boxes of breakfast cereal in it, not wanting to interrupt, terrified this will end poorly between her boys, angry that it might—though angry at who she doesn’t know, this place—and not feeling that great either.

Bruce looks over at Kate, but then, immediately back to Ollie. There is a long moment where he listens, remembers what had happened, in perfect detail, from the night before. He shifts, moving his weight from one foot to the other before exhaling in a rush, murmuring: “..I wouldn’t have left you alone, Queen.”

Oliver gnaws his lip. It’s not one of his usual habits but after a year of kissing Kate’s bitten lips, and now months of Bruce’s chapped lips as well, he’s started to do it himself, nothing if not impressionable when it comes to the two people he loves. “All right,” he says, eventually. “It’s okay.”

Kate should be paying attention to their conversation and usually would; instead, she is looking at the cereal, because one box has opened at the corner with her opening of the crate and she can smell it, and it smells sickly sweet, Froot Loops, or maybe just Cache brand fruit flavored cereal—and it’s fine, it’s normal. But it makes her feel even sicker, and she knows something is wrong, something is very wrong, not with Ollie and Bruce, but with her. She bends over a little further, turns away from the box, on her hands and knees, and gags. Kate is trying desperately, wretchedly, NOT to puke, but she does, a little, in her mouth, and rushes, unsteadily, outside.

Bruce is about to respond, when Kate turns and rushes outside; all points of conversation void his head, and he moves to follow her, picking up his bo staff as he follows her, on the alert for an attack. Oliver looks up, alarmed, and runs after Kate and Bruce as well. “Sweetie?” he calls, darting back inside to grab a bottle of water and a towel when he hears her making painful, deep-bellied retching noises.

Kate spits what little is there out onto the grass. It’s black and muddy and utterly /wrong/ in ways she can’t quite explain, and it’s moving.

Bruce takes over, watching over Kate, the staff in his hands, as he surveys the area. He does not turn his back on her, but monitors, allows her privacy, his frown deepening. He speaks quietly: “..Kate

Kate stares at the grass in abject horror, silent, then eases back to sitting, drawing her knees up to her chest, rocking a little. Oliver skids up with the water bottle and towel clutched in his hands, staring at the black thing that Kate has vomited, and does the first thing he feels on impulse: he stomps on it, hard, the blackness squelching up around the white rims of his sneaker.

Kate still feels faint and pukey and wrong and leans her forehead against her knees, softly moaning. “No, god, no, not this.”

Bruce looks over when Oliver steps on the grass, the sharpness of his motion telling him that something had come out of her and he, instinctively, moves. He bends at the waist, securing an arm around her shoulders, pulling her back, away from what Oliver is killing.

When he’s sure the glob has stopped moving for the time being, Ollie grimly hands Bruce the water and towel and goes back inside the Persian. He’s back a moment later with a bottle of bleach, which he uncaps and pours onto the splattered remnants of the glob, then the sole of his shoe.

Kate lets Bruce pull her back, but she eventually wrenches away from him again, has to vomit again—this time, it’s mostly normal, just freckles and specks and bits of black that, after a moment, start to move together. Kate doesn’t bother to scream. Doesn’t need to. This is not the end of it.

Bruce holds his staff up, kneeling against the ground as he takes the towel, the water. He attempts to hand her the bottle, his arm still woven across the woman’s shoulders, but when she moves, he watches, his expression hardening as she vomits. He looks up at Oliver.

Kate murmurs, “No, this isn’t happening. It wasn’t real.”

Oliver meets Bruce’s eyes, bleach bottle poised in his hand. “It’s all right, Kate,” he says. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Just need to get it all up. Get it all out, and we’ll kill it dead with the bleach. It’ll clean everything. Right, Bruce?”

Kate is suddenly terrified they’ll think it has her, that it has her mind, and she looks up at them from where she’s sitting, shakes her head at Ollie’s statement. “It’s not…” she starts, and cuts off with a tearless sob. “It’s not coming out like that, Ollie.” Kate spits, clear, onto the grass, trying to get the taste out of her mouth. “This isn’t where it ends.” Bruce settles his hand against her back, between her shoulders. Her sobbing noise makes his hackles rise, and he continues to watch Oliver, the short well of words he has on reserve drying up.

Oliver lets the bleach bottle dangle as he takes this in. Then he says quietly to Bruce, “C’mon, let’s get her more comfortable,” and nods around to the side of the Persian, where the orchard is. Plenty of cool green grass to lay Kate down in, the clean smell of the fruit trees, away from the starkness and the evidence of her sickness.

Kate breathes in shallow pants—inside she is trying to make this work, to find any other answer that ticks the boxes, and none of them fit. She reaches out as they pick her up, claws a little harmlessly at them. “Don’t you dare fight,” she says, throat raw. “I will fucking kill you both, I swear to god…”

"We’re not fighting," Ollie assures her, and glances at Bruce with a rueful smile. "I’m a little needier than usual, is all. I can’t fight with either of you here, not with everything else trying to tear us to bits."

Bruce holds Kate easily with Oliver; they work in sync to get her over to the grass under a tree, nearer to the windowless side of the structure. He doesn’t speak, looking down at Kate as he settles the woman against the tree. He pulls the towel, the water, pouring some onto the fabric; he tucks the staff under his arm, dragging the cloth against her forehead. “Symptoms?”

Kate shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Not about that,” she says, and god, she can’t give Ollie what he needs right now, and that is fucking killing her almost as much as the certainty in her gut. “Dizziness,” she says to Bruce, toneless. “Nausea, vomiting. Physical exhaustion, tiredness, goddamn it Bruce, I know already, I’ve been here before!” The last sentence makes her choke up.

Bruce goes very, very, very still.

Kate reaches up and presses the towel to her forehead, glad for how it cools as well as the fact that it covers the heat of her face.

Oliver slides behind Kate on the grass, between her and the tree; he takes the towel from Bruce momentarily, tearing it in half. This part is the kind of thing Bruce is good at, so he lets the other man do the inquiries. Ollie lifts Kate’s hair, twisting it off her neck so he can press the cool, wet towel there. His hand freezes when she says what she does, and Ollie raises his eyes to Bruce’s. “See if you can feel anything,” he tells Bruce, urgently.

Oliver knows there’s no way you could feel a baby at this stage, if it were a baby. But this … is something entirely not that. Bruce is staring at Kate, unblinking. He doesn’t move when Oliver speaks, forgetting to breathe.

Kate says, basically babbling to herself, “It was a fucking dream, there are dreams all the time, this can’t be happening.”

Oliver hisses. “/Bruce/.”

Bruce moves down, onto his knees, slowly, settling his staff to the side. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react to Oliver’s hiss, and settles into the dirt, the knobbly roots underneath them. He leans both hands, unoccupied now, hover over her body. Hiccuping a breath, he drags his eyes to hers, questioning. Asking permission.

Kate has her eyes squeezed shut, toes curled in what’s a horrible mirror of how she looks in the midst of pleasure, but opens her eyes when she can feel them staring down at her. She nods a little, breath catching ragged in her chest. She needs to to be certain. Oliver kisses her head and catches up her hand, squeezing it as Bruce moves down to her abdomen. The three of them make an awful parody of birth, under the trees with the wind suddenly silent.

"Extend your legs," Bruce murmurs, his voice trying and failing to be rough: it comes out hushed, quiet, his tongue flickering out to swipe at his lips. When she does, he brings his fingers to undo her jeans, pressing his fingers in against her abdomen, tugging her panties down so he can press his touch in. He does not look up at her, concentrating on what he does.

Kate clenches Ollie’s hand tightly with her own, nails digging just faintly into his as she follows Bruce’s instructions. His touch is clinical, entirely, utterly cold, and that feels almost as wrong as the rest of it. Oliver stays quiet for as long as he can before demanding, “Do you feel anything??” It’s entirely beyond his ability to wait patiently for this, not with Kate’s rabbit-quick breathing, the marker of her anxiety.

Bruce , suddenly, exhales the color draining, alarmingly, from his face. The noise that bursts, rough, his hands stilling over her belly. His brow connects, with an almost audible click, as he snaps one hand up to scrub at his face, leaving pressure streaks of white across his face. He pulls at his mouth, at his cheeks, lips slapping against his teeth as he grits them. His other hand shifts, but his touch that yes—had gone cold, clinical in his apprehension—suddenly softens, drifting over the relative softness of her belly. His fingertips skirt into the beginnings of her pubic hair, pressing in against the hardness of her uterus; he exhales, again. “..a few weeks, a month.” Bruce’s voice is barely above a whisper.

Oliver makes a choking noise, burying his face in Kate’s hair, wrapping his arms around her tight. Bruce looks up at Kate, his other hand—that had dragged against his face—curls against her cheek, her jaw. “When was your last cycle, querida?”

Kate barely makes any sound at all, drawing in on herself, even amidst Ollie’s embrace, Bruce’s touch. She answers by rote, “Last week.” Bruce watches her, carefully, listening. He does not nod.

Oliver says harshly, “Does it matter? We don’t even know if it was us or them that did this.” He scrunches his eyes tight after saying that, after speaking its implications out loud. Bruce looks up at Oliver, hearing the harshness in his voice; he pulls his hands back, away from Kate’s belly, not pulling her panties up, nor re-buttoning her jeans. He blinks.

"I was with them a month ago, Oliver." Kate’s voice is a low growl. "I was fine yesterday. I don’t know. I don’t know…"

”..it’s.. It’s possible to menstruate, throughout the whole—” Bruce speaks quietly, looking to Kate. “Did you spot with..—” He trails off, his expression leveling, slowly.

Oliver shakes himself out of it. “Look,” he says, voice more firm. “Nothing is what we expect here. There’s no reason to try and figure out how it happened. That won’t help Kate any.”

Kate hisses, “It was normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t right. It isn’t right.”

For one excruciatingly ugly moment, Ollie considers the bleach bottle.

Kate turns out of their touch and curls up against the ground, not caring about where her shorts may or may not be, how she’s covered or not. “I don’t want it in me,” she whispers, moans. “Why is this happening?”

Bruce presses his teeth together slowly, fitting the rows perfectly against each other. He looks to Kate, his eyes emotionless, slipping into a more normal look for him: stoic. He tugs her shorts up as she turns, buttoning them up. “..there are things that can be done.”

Kate has, after a moment or two, a sudden realization of what the reasoning might be, though she can’t say it aloud, knows she’ll fall to pieces if she tries. Kate rolls away from them both, is able to get to her feet, walk over to a tree and look out over the pasture. “With the Raven gone? Not much that wouldn’t likely kill me, would it.”

Oliver stays where he is, slumped against the tree. “Stop trying to make it conform to logic, Bruce,” he says. “There’s nothing in the realms of conventional medicine that can be done. It’s … it’s out of our hands.” Bruce stands slowly, but does not follow her. “..I wouldn’t let it.” His hand clenches at his side, into fists.

Kate feels, for the first time she can think of, dirty, degraded. She’s not certain anyone will want to touch her now, Ramsey’s hugs or Kyle’s squeeze of her hand or Steph’s fierce hugs, much less either of these two wanting to be near her physically.

Oliver lifts his heavy head, looking over at Kate. “Sweetheart,” he says, “Katie, whatever you want us to do, however you need us to be for this, we’ll do it. You want us to find a way to stop it, we will. You want us to be your backup while you take it down yourself, we will. We’re not going anywhere.” He gets to his feet and goes past Bruce, taking the other man’s hand to pull him along over to where Kate’s standing. “You’re not alone in this.”

Kate barely hears him. She somehow finds it in her to turn and run, bolt past Ollie and Bruce, down to the path, down away from the Persian, feeling like she’s going to be sick again but certain she won’t be able to throw up.

Bruce follows her.Ol iver does not.

Kate makes it only as far as the main path before she has to stop, put her hand against a tree, and start to cry.

Bruce hasn’t abandoned the staff, but he leans it against the tree, moving to Kate. There is a moment where he isn’t sure what to do, his hands hovering above her back. There is no invitation here, in fact, it is the exact opposite: her shoulder blades, angled and stark—she is getting thin here, too thin—nearly ward him off, from touching her. He steps forward, slowly, setting a large hand against her back, tracing her spine. Bruce doesn’t speak.

Kate He won’t touch her. Kate knows it, can sense him there, is certain he won’t bring himself to do it, not until she’s clean again. Bruce steps forward, his other hand winding around her waist, and he pulls her, easily, back against his chest. He shifts his hand from between her shoulder blades, over her chest, securing her.

Oliver goes back inside the Persian to collect one of the Polaroid cameras, an extra blanket, some ginger ale. He stands in front of one of the shelves for a few minutes with all these things bundled in his arms, staring, unmoving, and when he finally re-focuses and shakes himself out of his trance, he finds he’s staring at rows of tiny jars of baby food.

Kate finally shatters, though, when he does, and rocks back into his touch. “Take me home,” she says, eventually. “I want you both to take me home.” Bruce nods, kissing the darkness of her hair, inhaling the smell of it, nodding again. He moves his hands in tandem, pulling and pushing her body so she is facing him.

Oliver turns and heads out of the Persian at almost a run, the images of the suns — just like the nursery sun — on the baby food labels chasing him out. Suns on swings, suns in sandboxes, suns flirting and capering and laughing. He slows once he hits the head of the main path, feet skidding in the loose gravel, and readjusts the bundle in his arms as he heads down.

Kate turns and presses her face against Bruce’s shoulder. She can hear the sound of the gravel as she does and reaches out with one hand even as she holds onto Bruce with the other.

Oliver joins them as if they’d arranged to meet up here, as if it were some clandestine romantic rendezvous. He moves into the embrace seamlessly, kissing Kate’s cheek through her tumbling hair, kissing Bruce’s shoulder. “We have each other,” he says. “That’s all we need to make it through this fucking thing.”

Bruce moves one of his arms out, to put his hand against Oliver’s hip. He kisses Kate’s hairline, over and over, softly. Nodding, Bruce glances to Oliver, his expression level and curiously sane.

Kate nods, hand clasping and fisting in the fabric of Ollie’s shirt. “Take me home,” she says again. “Both of you. I have to think. Don’t leave.” Bruce nods and pulls back, to retrieve his staff, guarding the journey back to the camp with it.

"We won’t leave," Ollie assures her immediately,and puts the blanket around as they start making their way back to camp. He catches up with Bruce and leans in to kiss just under his ear. "Neither of us will leave, ever." He grins a little at the other man, the same ruefulness to the expression as earlier.

—- —- —-

Clark Kent works in the garden shed, gathering bleached bits of animal refuse into a large garbage can, using the same jug of bleach that ruined the deer meat to scour the blood from the stone.

Kyle quietly trots down to exit the bunkhouse, headed to the pool where all the decorations are. He pauses when he sees Clark. “Hey man. Clark - hey. You, ah, coming to Steph’s little birthday party thing? Just a little celebration for her. By the pool.”

Having left Oliver and in the bungalow some hours before, Bruce moves to the shed, where he barely flinches at seeing Kyle and Clark. He sets to work, silently.

"Hey Bruce," Kyle looks over idly. Then almost as an after-thought, Kyle also asks, " feeling better?"

Clark Kent looks up as Kyle and Bruce pass by the open door of the shed. “Her birthday! Oh, I completely forgot. Poor sweet girl, having her birthday in— yes,” he cuts off quickly. “Yes, of course I’l come. Bruce?”

Bruce doesn’t respond, moving to the rope that he had tied around the exposed rafter of the shed, pulling it down.

Clark Kent waves to Kyle and promises to join him in a moment, lingering behind as Bruce moves about the shed in silence. “Can I give you a hand with anything?”B ruce still does not respond when Clark speaks, not for a long while, until he is sure Kyle is out of earshot. “..I..” He blinks, looking up at the rafter, his hands still coiling rope.

Clark Kent closes in, the corners of his eyes creasing in concern. “Bruce, what is it?” Bruce blinks, and looks over at Clark. There is the customary weighing of words, of things to say, and ultimately, Bruce can only go with what he knows. “She’s pregnant.”

Bruce goes a bit rigid when the words leave his mouth, he looks back up at the rope, stuck on a nail int he rafter. He pulls at it, steadily. Clark Kent takes in this information quietly, no gasping or gawking, just the sound of his steady breath in the otherwise silent shed. A long moment passes without either of them speaking. She’d been gone for several weeks, and she’d been recovering since then. “We’ll take care of her,” he says finally, not prodding Bruce for further information.

Bruce , however, gives the information readily, needing Clark to understand; he continues to pull on the rope, his gaze going distant as he speaks. “..it isn’t.. It isn’t medically possible.” He blinks, slowly, the muscles in his arms bunching, hard edges rippling under the hem of his sleeves. Pausing, he continues: “..I don’t know what it is.”

Clark Kent adds his strength to the rope, his hands clutching below Bruce’s to pull at the thick cord. He begins to muse to himself in a worried tone “She must be so—” but he stops, steadying his voice. “I don’t think ‘impossible’ is an absolute here, Bruce. Does she know how far along…?”

"She had her period last week and by my estimate, she’s almost a month along as of this afternoon," Bruce states, not harshly. No, the admonishment is gone from his tone, the timbre stripped of the astringent notes. Bruce sounds.. oddly calm. "..for a moment I—"

Clark Kent shakes his head at the information. “That can’t be right,” he says instinctively, but waves it away like he’s dismissing his own words— he knows Bruce wouldn’t say anything if he weren’t certain. He lowers his hands from the rope, still not sure of Bruce’s goal in the first place but willing to help him along either way, until he feels his grip is better placed on the other man’s shoulders instead. “It could turn out to be a good thing,” he says softly, though his voice carries in the hollow expanse of the shed. “It could.”

Oliver skirts around the partygoers, the people in the kitchen, dragging something large and heavy with him. He gets to the garden shed and freezes, seeing Clark and Bruce in there. “I didn’t think anybody was in here,” he says.

Bruce looks over at Oliver, his countenance brightening for a split second at the sight of him—then, his eyes dart to what he is carrying. “..what do you have, Ollie?” Bruce’s voice is quiet, as he abandons the rope; he turns, and as his arms drop, he catches Clark’s hand at his waist, gripping his wrist for a moment. Squeezing.

Oliver grunts, twists his hands and heaves his burden into the light spilling from the shed; it’s another stag, a younger one, about half the size of the one Bruce had brought down. “To, uh, replace what I ruined,” Ollie says sheepishly. His fingers open and close on the antlers as he looks from one man to the other.

Clark Kent smiles warmly at Ollie. “Oh, that’ll be good eatin’!” he says, a bit too exuberant and loud in his eagerness to soothe them both somehow. He circles around the stag and whistles his appreciation. “I bet the meat on this one will be much more tender, it being a bit younger.” Clark Kent pats the flank of the deer, focusing on it to give Bruce and Ollie their moment after what he knows must have been a trying afternoon.

Bruce ‘s expression softens, and he moves over, away from Clark and towards Ollie, not looking down at the stag, but at the other man. He stops, just a few inches from the archer, and reaches out to wrap his fingers over his partner’s hand, where it holds the stag by the small, felt-covered antlers.

Oliver returns Clark’s smile thankfully, moving the deer to display its flank more. It’s been killed with a single arrow placed in the heart, and Ollie looks at Bruce when the other man’s hand touches his. “Yours has a nicer hide, though,” he says. “Once we break this one down for meat I’ll take care of tanning it. While you two are expeditioning.”

Bruce releases Ollie’s hand after a moment, shaking his head. “..you’ll be going instead.” He moves back over to the rope, and instead of pulling on it, whips the length, to get it off the nail, protruding from the rafters.

Oliver looks perplexed and shifts his gaze to Clark. “You’re not going anymore? Howcome?”

”,” Bruce responds, simply. Clark Kent nods in understanding. “I’ll take Kyle with me. We’ll be fine.” There’s a beat and then Clark adds, “You can both stay with her. I rather you would, actually.”

Bruce shakes his head. “Ollie, too. I can manage here, if we are attacked.”

Oliver scratches the deer between its antlers. “With Clark and Rayner going, I dunno if I’d be much more than a noisy burr under the saddle, B. Especially if this sojourn is Zee-related somehow…”

Clark Kent quickly points out, “It is.” He frowns at Bruce. “We can manage ourselves, I promise. Kyle will be alright. He’s just as invested in finding Zee as I am.”

”..both of them without their powers and with barely half the hand-to-hand combat skills you have,” Bruce points out, staring at the two of them like they just suggested they go blind folded. “..they can learn to tune you out. I have.”

Clark Kent grunts and shakes his head. “I’m going to wish Steph a happy birthday, and then I’m going to find my wife,” he says pointedly, and he exits the shed. Oliver raises an eyebrow at Bruce. “Well,” he drawls, “you just made this expedition a lot more awkward for me. IF I choose to go,” Ollie adds, looking down at the buck.

Bruce exhales. “..you’d think his pride would be the last thing on his mind,” Bruce explains. “If I felt like anyone else were medically competent to deal with what could— what could happen to , I wouldn’t insist on anyone else needing to go.” He folds his arms over his chest, shaking his head. “Kyle isn’t equipped and Clark..” He trails off, exhaling. “Why wouldn’t you go?”

Oliver lets go of the deer’s antlers, allowing the carcass to sink to the floor as he puts his hands on Bruce’s hips. “Because, man o’mine,” he says gently, “there’s some things that people would rather handle themselves. And if Clark wants to take Kyle and only Kyle on a trip to save his wife, I’m inclined to let the man have his way.”21:59

Bruce frowns. “Even if it results in both of them getting killed?”

"Bruce. They’re not gonna get killed. They even know how to come in outta the rain, believe it or not."

"I’m not attempting humor, Oliver."

"Neither am I!" He rubs Bruce’s arm with one hand, clasping his elbow. "Look, they’ve managed to survive this long, in this place. It doesn’t want us dead. What’s important is that people follow their instincts, because /that/, the gut feelings, those are what’s gonna help in the long run. If Clark feels in his bones that he needs Rayner — of all people, Bruce, considering! — he needs Rayner to come with him, then there’s a reason for that." He leans in to press a kiss to the side of Bruce’s nose. "And even more importantly, they’re our friends and colleagues and if they say they can do it, we need to trust them."

Bruce moves his mouth so he can feel Ollie’s lips against his mouth, stifling a soft groan at the sensation of it. “..you say it doesn’t want to kill us, giving this place a certain amount of autonomy, and if that’s so..” He pulls back, looking at Ollie, measuring his words carefully. “..then it knows that there are things for each of us that are worse than death.”

Oliver balks slightly at Bruce’s words, remembering ‘s body rigid against him, the sight of Bruce’s fingers pressing low into her belly. Worse things indeed. “Yeah,” he says. “But you can’t control everything. And if Clark says he doesn’t need me to help him look for his wife, then I’m gonna take his word for it.” He gives Bruce a scolding look. “I mean, come on, chinquapin. You think Clark wouldn’t take me with him if he thought even the slightest frigging bit that it would help him find Zatanna? That man would move mountain ranges for that woman! He’s not gonna sabotage his own mission to find her, c’mon!”

Bruce won’t be cowed that easily, however: “..And you’re saying that, here, especially here, and in regards to Zee—” Bruce licks his lips. “—Clark is going to be rational enough to see the best path?”

"Some things you just shouldn’t question. Clark Kent’s innate desire to find his beloved wife is one of those things."

Bruce exhales, roughly. “Zatanna is missing, Kate is—” Bruce brings his hand to his face, scrubbing roughly, roughly at his features. “..Cassandra is—” He stops, unable to finish anything he is saying. He looks back to the deer, and leans over to grab it, by its head, hauling it into the shed.

Oliver follows Bruce in, getting the knives from the worktable. They’re meticulously clean despite the earlier butchering, and although Ollie doesn’t know if it was Clark or Bruce who came back to clean up, he’s glad that somebody did. The thought of the bucket of cleaned intestine and dirty equipment sitting around in the shed in puddles of bleach would be too much to handle. “I know how to dress a deer,” he says, watching Bruce handle the carcass. “It’ll go faster.” Bruce looks over at Oliver, his eyebrows tenting a touch on his brow, and he steps away from the deer, placing the knives down for him to use.

Oliver picks up one of the knives and starts his work, in strong deft motions. He’s slower than he would normally be, moving gingerly due to various bruises, the ache in his shoulder (oddly, the worst of his injuries — the dislocated shoulder — has healed fastest), the abrasions and minor wounds. “This is nice, me getting to show off for you,” he says cheerily. “Very macho, dontcha think?” Ollie pauses in slitting the deer’s skin from around its ankles. “I sure was admiring all your muscles yesterday when you were breaking down your stag,” he smirks.

Bruce doesn’t speak on yesterday, focusing on the task at hand. His mind drifts, away from the stag, the bleach, the knives in Ollie’s hands to the feeling of Kate’s tummy under his hand. Soft, and then, hard, the hardened ridge of her uterus under his fingers. Unconsciously, his fists clench, slowly, as he thinks, as his mind spins, pupils contracting to pinpricks in the dark blue of his irises.

Oliver natters on blithely as he works, step by step, speculating on how Bruce first learned to field dress game, on his dress code while doing it, on how many other things he could multi-task at the same time. The buckets from yesterday are still set up and he makes use of the receptacles, hardly looking at Bruce while he works. It feels good, to be doing something familiar, something requiring his skills and his sweat and muscle behind it.

Bruce listens, but does not speak, allowing Oliver to do what he needs to get the task done; he leans back against the work table, arms folded, head slightly bowed as he thinks. Out of nowhere, he speaks: “..we’ll know soon enough what’s inside her.”

Oliver pauses, his arms bloodied to the elbows; his hands curl over the haunch of the deer. “That’s not exactly good news,” he says, scratchily. “Bad enough that she has to carry whatever it is, that she’s been impregnated by Them, without having to see some monster come out of her.” He turns his head slightly, enough to see Bruce’s shadows over his shoulder. “She’s had a miscarriage. Not ours, it was before we met. But she’s already had a traumatic experience with pregnancy, Bruce. I can’t stand the idea of this happening to her.”

Bruce ‘s voice is quiet. “You’re positive that it was.. Them.”

Oliver turns. “It has to be. Kate’s had her tubes tied. And on top of that, I’ve had a vasectomy.” He eyes Bruce after this statement, mouth skewed to the side.

Bruce meets Oliver’s eyes, evenly, and his words don’t falter, despite the implications woven in between them. “Before we arrived here, we stopped using condoms.”

"That doesn’t mean anything. Not with how fast she started showing symptoms, not with what she’s throwing up, for fucksake." Ollie gestures with the gore-caked knife. "For fucksake, Bruce, it almost sounds like you WANT one of us to be its father!"

Bruce ‘s eyes flicker, away from the knife that Ollie holds, then back at him, “..if the alternative is the idea that something violated her to put its creation inside her, Oliver..” His gaze hardens. “Are you telling me you’d choose the latter?”

"The alternative I’d fucking choose, Bruce, is that she not be bloody pregnant IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Ollie stabs the knife into the exposed leg of the deer, breathing rapidly in his stirred emotions. "No, I don’t want Kate to have been used as a eugenics experiment, of course I don’t. But I also don’t want to be responsible for bringing one more unplanned child into this world. I understand that you don’t have that kind of baggage, Bruce, but forgive me if /I do/."

Bruce narrows his eyes a touch, but stays silent, watching Oliver. He remains, arms folded, leaned against the edge of the table, as Oliver stabs the deer, explains what he does. And, with an unusual amount of hardness in his voice, Bruce states: “..For the record, I’d want the same thing, for Kate’s sake..” He shrugs. “Who knows.” Bruce’s eyes narrow. “..maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be a tumor.”

Oliver bares his teeth, his nose wrinkling as he rears back, slightly. “That’s a terrible fucking thing to say,” Ollie tells Bruce, voice low and shaking. “Why would you /say/ that.”

Bruce bares his teeth right back, standing up straight, his arms unfolding. His voice is low, heated, but not with arousal: with anger. “You should listen to yourself, and the way you’re going on.. as if..” He inhales, siphoning a breath in through his mouth, his teeth. “If nothing changes tomorrow, the day after, if there is no..” Bruce exhales. “No darkness inside of her, your baggage would still remain, make it black, make it..—” Gritting his teeth, his lip curls. “.. you egotistical, selfish bastard.”

For a moment it seems as though Ollie’s going to haul back and punch Bruce; his face goes pale, then beet red. But then his hands relax out of the fists they’d clenched into, and Ollie closes his eyes, accepting this assessment. “Well,” he says when he opens his eyes again, “I never claimed to be anything otherwise.” He turns back to the deer and yanks the knife back out, attacking the animal in long, deep jags of the blade.

Bruce doesn’t seem satisfied, though, and nearly uncharacteristically, continues to speak, to Oliver’s turned back, even though the anger drains from his voice: “..I would have paid every cent, in every account, to have been present for Damian’s birth.” Bruce doesn’t realize how soft the words fall, how deeply they strike until they are out of his mouth. He’d never said it outloud, but it was true, vibrated true down to the marrow of his bones.

Oliver drags the knife too deep and hits a bone that he should have skirted around, just like every other time he’s dressed a deer, and he stares down at the slit he’s opened across the back of his forearm. It’s clean and neat for about two seconds and he can barely tell the cut meat of his arm from the cut meat of the deer, but then it fills up with bright, high-smelling blood and Ollie makes a sound in the back of his throat.

Bruce is used to Ollie making sounds. Ollie makes sounds for everything. So when he makes this noise, Bruce exhales, holding back the desire to roll his eyes. Bruce folds his arms again, leaning back against the table, as he looks over at the other man through his peripherals, the desire to speak fleeing.

Oliver says quietly, “I guess you’re a better person than I am, then.” The blood wells right to the top of the wound, the parted lips of it, and Ollie holds his breath until it spills over in dark, fast rivulets down to his fingertips, drippity-drip.

Bruce does roll his eyes, now, looking back over at Oliver: “You—” He stops, however, his brow furrowing when he sees the darkness of the stripe, the gash on Ollie’s arm. He stutters and exhale—“Ollie—”​— before he moves, over, to grab at his forearm. “Idiot. Idiot.” He pulls his shirt off, up over his head, tearing it at the hem to make strips, binding his arm tightly, applying pressure. He looks up at Ollie. “Talk to me.”

Oliver stares down at Bruce’s motions, fingers splayed stiffly as blood drips off them. “He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” Ollie says. “You know how some babies are serene? Connor had them all beat. He was like this tiny bundle of — of the calmest summer afternoon you can think of. I held him and he was quiet and he smelled like sunshine, and sandalwood, and I knew I could never be there for him, not if I wanted to be Green Arrow. I knew I wouldn’t be any good at it and I’d end up … I’d end up throwing him away in some fucking prep school. But he could have my money.” Ollie makes that sound again, in the back of his throat, but stickier.

Bruce exhales, roughly: “I need to stitch you up.” He begins to move, out of the shed, and the things that could continue to hurt Ollie, and towards the bungalow, to where he’d find the tools to fix this.