Arlene
Gabriel D. Trahan [Link to Patreon] was many things. 

Tired was usually one of them. 

It's not a fact many people knew about him— indeed, even Blanche and his father never saw the full extent of his lethargy. How the ever-demanding routine of being both a son, a babysitter, and a provider made his shoulders sag with fatigue. How ||the grumbling of his stomach felt like praise he so desperately craved, even if he could barley muster up the energy to move some days.||

Sigrun and Sergio knew, maybe. They saw the looks that would occasionally cross his face, bright brown eyes turning murky and dull when Gabriel worked especially hard. 

Still, he did his best to make sure exhaustion was an indulgence he partook in behind closed doors. Sigrun might have invited Mimir to their shared room (for reasons that made Gabe horribly impatient at Sigrun's relative cowardice), but little people frequented the common room this late at night. Or was it early? Gabe couldn't tell. 

Time ticked. Gabriel tilted his head away from his extra credit homework, and his already-clouded vision started to blur. A nap would be unbefitting of him, but...
Nellie
Upon their arrival at Newton's Cradle, Mattias had been wary. Like a cicada discarding its shell, watchful of a world all the more dangerous for soft skin. Intimidated. Cautious. 

They had not been angry, resentful, or remorseful. Not homesick, not wistful, not grieving. Moving meant gaining new surroundings, new dangers. Nothing was mourned because nothing was left behind. Nothing was left behind because Mattias Gates *Had nothing*. In that sense, even when homes turned empty, when lives turned cold, when they left the only place they'd ever known, they had never truly *Lost*. 

Long days spent in a strange facility, in a foreign room, with suspicious figures claiming concern *Should* Have felt similar. At the very least, Matti had greeted the change with the same wariness. But as time crawled forward, on bent knees and bloodied hands, the quietness reached within them and found something it hadn't before: loneliness. It gnawed at them when hunger didn't, roused their mind when paranoia slept. The lack, alien and painful, drove those first few conversations, first few confessions, first few steps towards healing. 

Then, towards a familiar room.

A strange woman had answered, pointed them with vague directions, and their feet moved without their mind's input as a strange sort of buzzing built in their chest. They rounded corners with precise steps, energy just barely contained. Eyes flickered over scattered tables, until- 

A figure, slumped with a tiredness he rarely let show. 



Their first true, perhaps only, *Friend*. 

"Gabe!"
Arlene
The story of sirens was a well known one. 

Hapless sailors stuck at sea would hear the tantalizing voices of those whom they loved crying out to them. Beautiful notes shrouded ghastly appearances and sharp fangs; for, when a sailor would swim too close to the source of the noise, the sirens would descend upon their prey and devour it whole.

Gabe always thought he knew better than those poor sailors. However, his head still swung up at the familiar cadence despite his better judgement. Reason and rationale dictated that it was most likely a mirage, a figment of his imagination haunting his tired mind. 

His heart— what remained of it— thought otherwise, hammering in his chest alongside his pounding headache. Was this a trick? Was that.. Mattias? *Were they back?*

Well-worn joints turned stiff as Gabriel craned his head towards the blur at the edge of his vision. Despite logic telling him otherwise, the figure did not scream of static and terror, nor was it Hatzume playing a trick on him, or the shadows of guilt that plagued his mind in the twilight hours for abandoning Matti, for failing him, for *Not doing enough.*

It was a blur of pale skin, dark hair, and a wide brim hat. 

Gabe squinted, attempting to see through the static that clouded his vision. 

It wasn't him. It couldn't be. 

And yet, he still called out.

"Matti...?"
Nellie
Matti had never been on a roller coaster. But they had been in a car, parking on a steep hill. They imagined it might be similar, the incline, the mounting anxiety. The second before the parking break kicked in, where they had thought *This is it. We're going to slide backwards. We're going to die.*

The giddy, dreamlike haze over their mind froze. And so the there was a moment where they paused, and were struck with the sudden loss of momentum, like a rollercoaster, or the parked car, or missing a step on the stairs. Freefall. They worried they would say the wrong thing, that their voice would be too flat, that maybe that dark and strange magic that keeps them always Watching, only Witnessing, had snuck in to Gabriel's mind like a parasite (and oh, how they would agonize later, that even the *Thought* Of their god near Newton's Cradle hit them like a blow). A thousand worries greased their stomach, clamored for voice. But the echo of Gabe's words shattered the thought, and so what Matti said instead was-

"I have been eating sandwiches for every meal, every day, since I left."

It was a poor way to convey *It*. The *I have missed you* And *I have never missed anything in my life* And *I am sorry for leaving* And *I did it to protect you* And *To me 'Gabriel' is not a name, but a word, and it means brother, friend*.

It was, however, a way to break the cousin of awkwardness, lingering in the air. They took a step closer, allowing their glasses to slide down, if only to better *See*-

.

The Mattias Gates that stood in front of Gabriel was not new. They were, however, cleaner. Softer. They took in how his shoulders slumped, how his hair was uncharacteristically imperfect, how his voice wavered in a way not lyrical but strained. The wild dog in them was *Furious*. It snarled and thrashed with pointed teeth, demanded to know what had happened, what they should hunt for, who had done this (*This*- the way Gabe's eyes wavered, how they fogged with a static that left their ears recoiling from the screech of a broken radio). The rage breathed in them, not yet biting, and flickered. Like a candle flame losing oxygen. 

There would be answers, later. Something at their core demanded them. But this was Matti. Cleaner. Softer. They would not let the dog rot the sanctity of their reunion. 

"I have also," They added, voice finally free from choking emotion. "Missed you."
Arlene
Mattias Gates was back at the Cradle. 

It was not an act, or a figment of Gabriel's imagination, nor was it a spiteful specter born from Gabe's nightmares to haunt him. Matti was *Back*, and they were never one for smiling, but capital-G *God* Did he smile at the crack of emotion tainting their voice. It was instantaneous; one moment, he was sitting on the couch, looking frozen at a face that had long since been been resigned to nothing but a bygone memory, and the next Gabriel had taken Matti in his arms and *Crushed* The latter in a tight, all consuming hug.

Times like this, Gabe was grateful for his height. It allowed him to wrap around the child he once swore to protect, chin resting on top of the other's hat. Perhaps he was too weary to feign any sort of mask over his stretched-thin emotions; the too-hard *Smack* Of an emotional chisel hitting a vein of marble perfectly, leaving an otherwise smooth marble statue of a façade broken and *Weak.*

Perhaps, in the late of night, with no one but an old friend — no, family— around, Gabriel did not mind how his heart soared with emotion, or how his hands gripped Mattias too tightly.

"I've missed you," He choked out, burying his head closer to the tiny boy. "I was worried about you. I— I didn't know if you were safe." Another squeeze, and the sour, vile corner of his brain instinctively chided him for the action. It was *Vulnerable*, it reminded him, *Embarrassingly so.*

But if Mattias was going to be vulnerable, then *Goddamnit* Would he be too.

"Thank God," He whispered. "Thank God you're back."
Nellie
Hat knocked eschew, the frames of their glasses pressed into their face, none of it mattered. Their body automatically moved to return the hug (strange, how once touch burned and now it was a *Reflex*), hands curling in the fabric of Gabe's shirt, but their mind went fever-chilled and frantic. 

*He didn't know. He didn't know. They didn't tell him* 

It seemed absurd to be upset about it. Of course the Cradle would assume no-one cared- *Matti* Themself had never once considered that they could be the subject of this kind of selfless, crushing concern. No-one, not even Jakal (a name that tasted like dust, like disuse, like abandonment once again), had worried about them. Not enough to be broken the way Gabe so visibly was, a beehive split in two, inhabitants swarming, honey bleeding like a gut wound. 

"I didn't want to go." The words forced themselves out, rounded into marbles by the pressure of the hug. "They said it was 'strongly recommended'. I thought it was a poorly-concealed threat, otherwise I," They wavered, paper on a precipice. "I would have told you. Said goodbye. Explained myself."

Matti exhaled, pulling back slightly to slip their glasses from their face. It *Was* The truth, except it wasn't, not all of it, and the rest followed like vomit forced from the pit of their stomach. 

"At first I thought they might try to take you. That they would keep you away from your family. Hurt you. Then, later." Their mouth dried, tongue like the clumsy corpse of a bolder splitting a snake. "You remember the dog. If I was so unstable that those who'd never met me noticed, noticed and *Remembered*- I could be a threat. To people." *To Uriel. To Margo. To you*. They blinked away the needles-pricks at the corner of their eyes.

"But I *Swear*. On everything that is bold and true. I swear I would have told you."
Arlene
"It's over with now. You're here." He hushed, soothing the other.

Dwelling on the past was never something Gabriel enjoyed. The present and the future were all realms Gabe was comfortable indulging in, but the past held regret and emotions he'd rather not remember. It held versions of himself that made him ill to think about— weaker past selves who cracked and crumbled and ultimately worried itself to death when it was alone in its bed. 

"You're not a threat. God, I'm... I'm just so happy you're back. There's so many people I have to introduce you to— I have a *Roommate* Now, and people who you'd get along with, and..." 

*I didn't replace you.* Despite all of his eloquence, the sentiment was a confusing creature Gabriel couldn't wrangle into words. Replacement... All his life, he focused on feelings, not people. There was an endless rotating door of so called friends and vague love interests that entered his life, leaving just as quick when the splendor had worn off and the *Game* Had been won. 

Matti was not a friend to Gabe. Somehow, the hat-wearing nerd had wormed his way into a closed off part of his heart, one only reserved for a handful of people. Mattias was family, and while everything else in Gabe's life was disposable and cheap, family was the one thing that lingered and clung onto him still, for better or for worse. Family grabbed at his shoulders and clawed at his skin, but it also was the only thing that could touch Gabriel.

"But, this whole time, I've been thinking about you." Gabe's voice cracked.
Nellie
Matti had never understood the term "*Companionable silence*" Until now, not really. But the quiet that breathed in the common room settled, like a hermit crab into a new shell. It surrounded, didn't smother, draping as if a blanket over a sleeping figure. The last of the loneliness scattered, and they allowed their legs to fold, falling into the couch.

*You're not a threat. I'm happy you're back.*

They turned Gabe's words over in their mind, feeling the strange new shape of them. There seemed to be a current underneath each syllable, steady and strong. Absently, Matti remembered the woman who often sang as she waited for the bus. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the same route as them. Her voice had the same kind of cadence to it- she'd called it overtones. The higher note- *I've been thinking about you. It's over with now. You're here*- clear, resonant, vibrant. And below it- *I didn't forget you. It's okay. I didn't forget you*- the heartbeat. The rolling beam of a lighthouse. *Safe, safe, safe.*

"Your roommate is the tall woman, correct?" They tried to keep their voice quiet, to avoid shattering the warm comfort they'd stumbled into. "She told me where to find you. I appreciated it."

It was like waking from a dream. The tentative excitement holding them up until now had collapsed, folding into friendship like Matti themself curled into the couch. And as much as the loathed to poke the bruises, written in invisible ink throughout the tension of Gabe's body, there were things they had to know. 

"How are you?" Soft, clean, or as much as they could make it. "I can elaborate on my condition later. What happened when I was... Absent?" *What happened to you*, they wanted to ask. They were sure some of it leaked into their tone, but they knew the walls Gabe hid behind, and knew holding the words back amounted to some measure of kindness.
Arlene
"You've met Sigrun then? Or, at least talked to her?" Gabe mused. "Good, good. She's... She's nice, really. A little scary, but I don't think that'll bother you. If anything, it might make you like her more..." 

Gabe chuckled at his joke, trailing off into silence as Mattias asked another question, this time burning and uncomfortable. Something within his stomach squirmed with displeasure— as if flipping the script back on him was a deadly allergen for the actor. 

"Well." He starts, the word rolling off his tongue alongside an empty laugh. "My eyes are fucked up, but it doesn't take a genius to notice that, and it's certainly no problem for the *Ceaseless Watcher.*" Another dark, depressing laugh— the laugh of a man with nothing to laugh for, but who was unable to bear the burden of sympathetic silence. The laugh didn't make the corners of his staticy, hazy eyes crinkle, nor did it quell the distortion that still flickered across his iris and pupil. 

"...Yeah. They're, um, getting better, but I haven't been able to see so well. An eldrich horror at the Cradle got pissed off at me, and it fucked up my eyes, and—" A gulp for more air was the only sign Gabriel was even slightly uncomfortable, the actor able to only barely rein in the shaking of his voice. "— and it took my Mom's rosary, which *Sucks,* And it's stolen things from other people, and it's apparently like, this gay couple in a black hole, and it's *Awful,* And I'll kill it if they blind you." 

His shoulders are shaking, he realizes. A familiar self-pacifying impulse takes control of Gabe's hands, running his fingers down his arms and scratching the kinky coils of hair by his ear. 

"So, um... That's it, really." It wasn't the time for jokes, and yet Gabe still cracked a smile. "Nothing much, honestly."
Nellie
Like a breeze bringing a storm, their first thought was one of embarrassment. *Ceaseless Watcher*: a childish nickname they'd mentioned offhand, babbling in the safety of Gabe's room under the white noise of reality TV. As much as it fit them, a creed they lived (*Had* Lived) by, it seemed now as dramatic and cartoonish as the clearly-scripted fights they half-watched out of the corner of their eye. It was a fleeting moment, the flickering of mock-shame, and also the death of any levity that had built in the room.

"*I haven't been able to see so well.*" 

And-

"*Eldritch horror*". Images and feelings flashed, disorienting like the bright light of a camera might be. The grave-like silence of the woods, the *Thing*, the ***Dog***. Blood on their clothes. Blood on their face. Blood drying under their fingernails. The static whine in their ears brought with it red clouding their vision, candle-fury fanned once again into an acidic blaze. The eyes- the eyesight was bad enough. The thought that someone, some*Thing* Had hurt Gabe (because they weren't there, it was *Their fault*, worse, the eyes- a message from an angry god, a *Warning*) almost intolerable on its own. But the *Rosary*. Mattias had a feeling, unconfirmed and unpleasant, that Gabriel would bear any physical pain with an actor's masquerade of grace. The rosary had hit something deeper, though, and far harder to conceal. They'd seen those kinds of wounds, had inflicted the like themself, and saw the symptoms they wrought. Gabe's hands endlessly searching. His shoulders shaking. 

*I wonder if it will be poetic*, they thought idly, *When I put my flashlight through the throat of that lightless wretch*.

"Where did this happen? When? **How**?" Matti pried a breath from their lungs, grappling the air with a twisted clawing in their throat. "You don't have to answer, if you can't. Only, are you- you're not alright. What do you need?"
Arlene
"I *Am* Alright." Gabe asserted stubbornly, jutting his chin out in a reaction that surprised even himself. The feeling of being fretted over made him uncomfortable and, more than that, *Angry*. Not at Mattias— of course not at Matti, how could he ever be angry at them? No, the spiteful, vitriolic energy growing in his stomach was all directed at himself.

"It just *Happened*. I insulted it on the intranet, and it took my fucking eyes." A long, slow exhale escaped Gabriel's mouth, and he once again returned his hands to Matti's shoulders. 

"What I need is for *You* To settle in again. I'll be fine— just trust me on that." The conversational ping-pong of Gabe worrying about Matti and Matti fretting over Gabe made his head swim, but if Gabe was good at anything, it was strong-arming the other into changing the subject. 

*Sorry, Matti.* 

"Have you moved back in? Do you need any help carrying boxes? *Have you even eaten recently?*"
Nellie
Perhaps Gabe *Had* Forgotten. Not everything, but some things- the way Matti's irises ringed with gold, a flash like scales disappearing under water. Their mouth set in a tense line. The idea of fighting with arguably their only friend made them sick to their stomach. But it was clear from the easy way he'd redirected the conversation like water- no-one had bothered to call Gabe out on his lies in a long time.

"I haven't, I came here first. I don't have anything packed- I took nothing with me when I left. I haven't eaten- *Gabriel*." A fish out of water, they paused for air and found none. Their voice flatted like a rabbit in the brush. "You *Promised*. You said you wouldn't lie to me. They couldn't fix me. Say you don't want to answer. I can respect your decision. Just don't lie. Going back to not trusting anything- I couldn't do it again. I couldn't come *Back* From it again. Please, understand." *Please, listen to me*. 

Silently, with a voice lost long before Mattias Gates had ever gotten on a plane, something mouthed words within their mind. *I saw, I watched, I always watched.* Trapped in the audience, looking up at actors on a stage of nails. Dancing to death. A play they saw repeated hundreds of times. *They destroy themselves, in the end. They **Destroy** Themselves.*

Hands curled into the fabric of the couch. Shoulders rose like hackles. Dying eyes bled gold.
Arlene
*He failed Matti.* 

Stupid, stupid. Sometimes, the powers Mattias wielded made Gabriel curse in his head. *Goddamnit.* How had he forgotten those golden eyes? 

"Alright, so, I'm a bit worse for wear. You caught me." Gabe was too skilled for the words to come out as jumbled and rushed as he felt. Perhaps if he was Matti's age, they would have fallen from his lips like the torrent of a waterfall- but that was long, long ago, and Gabriel was not that child anymore. 

"I'm..." The words come out slowly. Carefully. Fearfully? "I'm not fine. But I'll *Be* Fine, given enough time. Probably. Hopefully." 

Gabriel's strong hands drift towards Matti's shoulders, squeezing the other as if Gabe expected them to disappear in his hands ~~again.~~ 

"I'm still worried about you, though. You really should eat. I'll be fine once my eyesight is back to normal, but time only makes a grumbly stomach worse." He chided, poking Mattias in the stomach. 

*Please, just... Let me take care of you now, if only because I'm afraid you'll disappear again.*
Nellie
Truth sang a bright and brilliant light as Mattias allowed their eyes to dim. They'd been worried- an impossible fear, it seemed now- that Gabe would deflect. That whatever thrall cast by his web of lies would be too strong, that Mattias would be too weak. They knew Gabe took comfort in the façade, that allowing others to see him, even if they'd had to use their Sight, was difficult. 

"Thank you." They rolled the words over in their mouth, trying to find the right inflection, whatever kind of magic would convey their sincerity. "*Thank you.*" The last of the sudden rush of stress fled them, replaced by a fumbling fondness. "And thank you for reminding me, about eating. It helps. Likely more than you know." Because food- of course, of all the things Gabe could offer it was always food- was trust. In one's skills, perhaps. But even in those early legends, drinking sips from the same glass to prove it wasn't poisoned, food was recognized: to be brought low by it, to be bound in trust. Matti's own unusual eating habits had no doubt not gone unnoticed, the same way they watched passerby carefully each time Gabe left food unattended, shot critical glances towards those (truly, *Truly*) awful smoothies but held their tongue. 

"Choice might be overwhelming for me, right now." The phrase alien on their tongue, so clearly *Not theirs*, yet there was a safety in the repetition. If Mattias had claimed weariness, that there was just *Too much*, it would be an excuse. Using Blazer's words felt like holding an echo of her authority, just clinical enough to be accepted as justification. "Is there a particular realm-" (genre? Domain?) "-of food you think would be a good decision? I'm only wary of sandwiches." Across their face, small but sincere, flickered a smile. Acknowledgement of their joke, and a small attempt at breaking any residual tension.
Arlene
*Comfort food...* Yeah, that's what Mattias needed. A nice, big bowl of comfort food. The only thing that could come to mind is... A faint memory, one of a tinier Gabe watching in awe as his then-healthy mother cooked a big pile of something that smelled *Fantastic.*

"Sit down and watch me cook"— *I know your weird thing about cooking*, a voice in Gabe's head silently utters — "I'm making you some New Orleans style gumbo. It'll make you feel nice and fuzzy inside, and if you even lift a *Finger* To help me, dear god, I will pin you to the ground." Gabe held a wooden spoon and pointed it at Mattias with mock sternness, as he was a disgruntled housewife. 

He wouldn't make it *Too spicy*. Spiciness was good for the soul, Gabe always thought— the fire in your belly meant that you were alive, and it was also good for the pores, or so he read in a gossip magazine. Still... He didn't want Mattias to *Faint*, for god's sake.
Nellie
**// Reference to food-related anxiety/paranoia.**

As they settled into the communal kitchen, Matti pulled up a stool, back to a wall and head turned halfway between the assortment of cooking utensils on the counter and the open doorway. Instinctual stiffness in their shoulders rose and fell in waves, arms curling into their body before they seemingly remembered themself and forcibly relaxed. 

Conversation didn't flow easily- it never had, for them, and in all likeliness never would. Words stumbled, or long pauses of time would stretch like sleeping cats in between topics. But by this point Gabe was, they hoped, accustomed to the more unstructured aspects of their speech. The quiet could be awkward, but not uncomfortable, as Matti occasionally pitched in with commentary. A quick "What is that?", a muttered "You left the sink on", or, memorably, "Why are there so many different spices?" (a question they would research on their own time, instead of trying to process whatever kind of devastated expression Gabe reacted with). 

Their watchful gaze did not falter as time passed, but with each step of the process they grew more accustomed to the idea of eating. It had been years, nearing a decade, since Mattias Gates had eaten food cooked like this, not made in a far-away hypothetical location or thrown together with their own passable skills, but cooked in the assumed definition of the word- providing, comforting, sharing spoils.
Arlene
"Here. Eat up, alright?" 

After twenty or so minutes of odd silence, Gabriel pushes a bowl of delicious smelling food over towards Mattias, alongside a fork and a spoon. He could have said something. *It tastes like home*, maybe, or a lengthy explanation of how they learned the recipe, or if they liked the taste. 

For once, the words didn't flow freely from Gabriel's throat. Not because there were anything wrong with the words, per se, but because he didn't need to speak. 

It was silent, and it was alright. Instead, he stared at the other intensely—cheek resting in an open palm, eyes half-lidded as he simply opted to watch Matti eat something. 

He could have said something. And yet... Gabe did not particularly care about the sound of his own voice, right now.
Nellie
The food was finished. And then it was in front of them. And then they were eating it. 

The actions crept up on them with an unexpected and almost terrifying simplicity. The fear lingered, like a shadow it *Always* Lingered, but for once it remained in the corner of their vision. Not hiding, but presence muted nonetheless. 

Matti looked up, eyes hovering just over Gabe's left ear; the closest they ever got to looking someone in the eye, at least without Looking. As food settled in their stomach (and they resolutely tried *Very hard* Not to cough, even if they knew they'd failed) their thoughts settled in their mind. The right words, or at least the ones they could muster, felt entangled with the food, falling back into hibernation with every swallow. It wasn't until their bowl was empty that they finally spoke. 

"It's good." 

The soft silence of the kitchen air. The uninterrupted peace of the night. Warmth filling an empty stomach. Safety. 

*It's good.*
Arlene
*It's good.* 

Gabe smiled. 

They would be alright. 

————————-