Karen
Jessie nodded and scurried up and into the house, gently placing Owen's jacket over his shoulders as they went. He wasn't able to offer his nibling so much as a greeting, though, as his focus had gone from Rhett to the cat that nuzzled his hand. Without thought, he turned his hand this way and that so Spider would have a better time getting the rubs she so craved. Yet, even as he lavished her with attention, his face remained hollow.

"Of course," His voice cracked, eyes remaining fixed on Spider, "Go right ahead."

As Rhett came closer, Owen's body began to tense. It seemed involuntary; a learned response, almost, to the man who had taken a piece of Owen's heart in his absence. The said piece had been given willingly- they had been *Friends*, after all. Still, after all these years, he wasn't sure if that rang true anymore.

"I... Didn't think I'd ever see you again." His tone was softer as Rhett sat down, but still cracked at some of the words. "Mama told me before she was gone that you were back, that you'd *Been* Back and she'd kept it from me-"

Owen's words cut off with a choked sob, and his free hand flew up to muffle the sound.

"I'm sorry-" Another sob interrupted his words, followed by the trembling of his shoulders. "I don't- I can't-"
Joseph
The air was thick with tension and Rhett felt like he could hardly wade through it. He leaned his crutch against the side of the porch and clambered up to sit a healthy distance away from Owen, perched just off his right shoulder, watching the other man all the while. This was the first time Rhett had been able to see him proper since he'd been home. This was the first time he'd seen Owen's scars, but they didn't bother him– the imperfections seemed like just a hazy overlay, and Owen was still whole and unmarred beneath them. They weren't just skin deep, though. Rhett could feel it, how the milky white haze of Owen's bad eye changed not just what he saw, but the *Way* He looked at things. Rhett had missed so much, and he would never be able to recover it all. His heart rolled in his chest like an off kilter grindstone, milling down all his jagged feelings all uneven and coarse. 

Owen's admission seared through Rhett's already aching ribs like a bullet, and he froze, barely able to make out the next sounds through the ringing that started up between his ears. Something had been uncorked, and the pressure was building, building–

Owen began to cry. Moments later, so did Rhett. Gracelessly, he scrambled himself to Owen's side and hooked his good arm around his friend, Owen's blond head slotting into the crook of Rhett's neck, Rhett's cheek pressed to Owen's crown.

"Hey, hey," Rhett croaked, failing to sound soothing. He sniffed, and squeezed Owen's shaking frame. 

"I didn't wanna stay away, Owen. I hope you kin believe me. Your mama– she only wanted the best things for ya," He sniffed again, and tried to shrug his slinged shoulder up to his face to clear away the stream of tears at his cheek. 
_ _

"When I came back, she told Bonnie 'n Linda it'd be best to leave you be. I'm sorry, Owen. I'm so–" Rhett closed his eyes, aiming for even the slightest shift in composure. One of them needed to be stable, and Rhett elected himself the most fit for the job, being the one who hadn't just said goodbye to a mother. His breath was shaky, but he drew one in all the same.

"If you want me to keep away, I'll go, I jus'... When Jessie come callin' for me, 'n after all this time that I been wantin' ta see ya I jus'..." He heaved air, and air out, "I jus' couldn't keep stayin' away." 
_ _
Karen
Rhett's arm slung around his shoulder, while it was a comfort to Owen, it also made his heart clench painfully. He couldn't understand it- his mother knew he struggled with making friends, and Rhett was one of the few he had- why would she keep him away? Of course, he'd been hurt by his leaving, but he'd forgiven him a long time ago.

Owen's heart had always been soft, and his forgiveness easy, but he'd only just learned that his mother's was not.

"I don't want you to go, and I'm not mad." He fought down the sobs that threatened to slip past his lips, and continued, "You're my *Friend*, Rhett- that hasn't changed, even if Mama kept you away."

"You could have stayed away for a decade, even longer, and you'd still be my friend." Owen rubbed at his good eye, careful not to get any of the tears on Rhett's shirt. "We don't need to talk about it anymore if you don't want to, we don't even need to talk about anything, I just... Please, stay."
Joseph
With Constance, it had always been easy to shrug out of the hard times. She had patterns that he could drink through, glaze over through with the help of some substance or other. If she ever caught him lucid, he had the faculties to slip out of her chokehold, his consciousness fizzling and blurring on automatic pilot, as it did under the influence. There were always only two choices, anyway, and even those were constructed by Connie herself to contribute to an illusion of freedom: running towards, and running away. With her, she always made sure he was running towards her, even in his attempts at escape. She always made sure his world seemed big enough to find spots to hide, all the while keeping it small enough to reach him in any corner. 

The way he'd received her abuse had felt something like penance, but in the years since then that he'd spent out from under her thumb, he'd begun to realize that there were countless ways to counter conflict. Still, after all his learning, his favorite method continued to be running away. He had Alma to thank for trying to teach him there was merit in standing still: in steadying his shoulders to weather the pain. There was meaning in a fight. It didn't have to be all fear and defenselessness. 

In Rhett's experience, he could find no better heading to suit what was happening between him and Owen than "Fight." It wasn't that, though. Maybe each of them were fighting themselves, all the while within each others' reach, but they weren't fighting each other. His miscategorization of the situation made it all the more difficult to navigate. He was silent for too long as the breeze dried his tears. 

_ _

"You could be mad, if you wanted ta be. I'd understand it if ya were." He finally said, and it was nothing but the truth. He'd understand Owen *So* Much better if he lashed out with anger. Instead, his sadness was an inconvenient and amorphous thing, and it saw into Rhett's eyes with a disturbing clarity, begging him for a balm he didn't understand how to give. 

"You're my friend, too, Owen. I– I missed ya. I thought about you so much while I were away. I thought about you so much when I come back, too, I jes'—" He turned his head to the side, worried the tears were returning from the way his throat constricted. 

"I shoulda come 'n seen ya. I was worried you'd be angry, but even if you was, I shoulda come 'n felt it. I'm sorry." The urgency of tears had passed for the moment, and he looked back at Owen, his eyes roaming the man's face with a desperation to make up for years of absence. 

"We should talk 'bout it more. I mean– if you want. I been learnin' not ta run away from things that hurt ta say. Or. You know. Things that take work ta say out loud." He swallowed, suddenly nervous to cross this boundary with Owen. With Alma, he could know what to expect, to some degree. He understood the ways her eyes broadcast what she was feeling. He understood the different sounds in her voice. With Owen, it had been so long since he'd been able to claim true understanding of the man. What if he'd changed beyond recognition? What if all the little ways he projected himself were confusing and illegible to Rhett, now? 
_ _

Some of those worries were unfounded. As soon as Rhett'd seen Owen today, there was familiarity. There was comfort in an old friend. Surely, most of the Owen that remained since Rhett's absence would be the familiar parts. The unfamiliar parts could be understood in time, like knowing the difference between a busy, well-trod road, and the little paths through the grass that folks wore down into the dirt over time. There was a hopefulness in learning Owen's new pathways, and Rhett clung to it as he breathed through the discomfort of their reunion. 
_ _
Karen
Something about the two of them sitting there reminded Owen of broken toys; of broken porcelain, frayed cloth arms, and missing button eyes. They both went about their jobs as best as they could, led by someone they knew (or had thought) they could trust, but something along the way had seared into them both and left them changed. He didn't know exactly *What* Had happened during Rhett's absence, but there was now an uneasy edge that he didn't remember in his friend's eye.

"Why would I be mad at you?" He sniffled but offered Rhett a shaky smile. "I can't be upset with you when you were chasing after something that would make you happy, even if it took you away from here."

Would it have been different if Owen was the man he was before the fire? Most certainly. He would have ranted and raved about how *Stupid* It was for Rhett to leave, only to come back without the very same beau he chased after. It would have passed fast enough once he saw his friend's tears, but his heart's first response would have been anger.

The pyre that had been the Barnes' farm that horrid night had done more than just scar him- it reduced his capacity for anger to near ashes. Owen never got angry, never yelled. Even if the stirrings of frustration began to rise within him, it was always *Small* And manageable.

A blessing, he had come to think of it.

"You're here now." Owen slunk his arm around Rhett's waist and gave him a half-hug. "I accept your apology, too, though you don't need to be. You're alive and breathing, and that's all that I can ask for."

His brow furrowed a small bit, and the question weighed heavily on his tongue. Rhett opened the floor to speak about it, but as injured as his friend was, it almost felt wrong to ask. He *Needed* To, he knew, and he hoped that his expression was as non-judgmental as he could make it.

Owen took a break, then spoke, "What made you come back?"
Joseph
Rhett had been cautious about centering his full attention on Owen, as if his friend had told him he didn't want to be looked at. Somehow he felt like he barely deserved to be sitting here, let alone to watch Owen's face as he spoke. That smile, though– that watery, shaky smile, caught out of the corner of Rhett's eye– felt like an invitation. Finally, Rhett turned fully, committing to memory every detail in Owen's expression, the rough skin at his jaw, and the fair blond hair that peeked around the nape of his neck. 

"You *Can* Be mad– 'n I guess I should thank ya that ya ain't. But it don't feel right. *I'm* Mad at me– at how I could jest *Leave* Like that. It seems lazy ta say I don't remember the boy I was who'd'a done a thing like leave a town fulla people I loved to follow just one I *Thought* Did." He paused, not having looked away from Owen, just focused on his friend's hands as he spoke. He considered reaching for one. He didn't. 
"But I don't. I jes' hope I turned inta a better man than him." Rhett only met Owen's eyes again just before he was pulled into a hug, and now it was the crown of Rhett's head tucked into the space between Owen's jaw and chest. It felt safe there. Time paused. The breeze fell still, the birds silent. Rhett breathed, and for how long he didn't know, before the rumble of Owen's voice drew him to sit upright again. 
_ _

"What made me come back," He parroted, a bit hollow. He turned to face forward again, as if the shame in his answer brought back that undeserving feeling of beholding the face that welcomed him. Maybe he couldn't bear to see his own shame reflected in Owen's eyes. Maybe it was easier to *Speak* That shame when he pretended it was only to the tangle of grass around the foundation of the porch.

"What I were chasin'... Stopped makin' me happy." He confessed, his eyes hardened and far off. He'd unraveled most of the story of his time away to Alma, albeit in fits and spurts. Some of the words he'd strung for her sat ready and willing on his tongue to offer themselves to Owen, but was that what he'd asked for? He wanted to know why Rhett had come back, and all those horrible things, well- they were only the reasons why he'd *Left.*

He could have lived his days in Cleveland, together with his found family, the hum of the shop's diesel generator replacing the warmth of home and any semblance of a heartbeat. He could have fled elsewhere, could've kept sinking into other folks' shadows so he never had to measure up to the darkness of his own. 

But he'd come back. Why? 
_ _

"This is where home is. In... In all the people here, in the dirt, in the river. Fer some reason I thought I deserved ta know what home felt like again. I was too scared ta keep runnin' away forever, e'en though I knew it meant remindin' the folks I'd run from in the first place how much I mighta hurt 'em leavin'." He shook his head– just a tick to the left, "Selfish." He tutted, and peeked over at Owen, his brows knit, desperate to know his friend's expression. Would it hold contempt, pity, anger? For some unfathomable reason, could it possibly hold understanding? 

Rhett's insides did an odd dance between his hunger for forgiveness, and the nausea in his belief that he didn't deserve it. If Owen followed through on his acceptance of Rhett's apology (that is, if Rhett allowed himself to believe it), what then, would he owe the man? And how many years of his life would it take to pay him back?
_ _