"Nobody can tell what I suffer!

But it is always so.

Those who do not complain are never pitied."

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Chapter Two

Forgiveness of Pride

A fret played along thin lips as Moe eyed the other, watching with intent as Waylon futility tried to ease the pain of his head with the tips of his fingers.

"Youse sure youse don't wants me to get youse sometin'? It ain't no trouble," the barkeep assured with a forced smile and a cautious hope resting within his eyes.

The scowl from the suited man was piercing, narrow and weak eyes digging daggers into the other man's flesh. Waylon held his head downward, eyes tilted upward above the brims of his glasses in order to see where he was going. A hand fell limply from his forehead and formed around the knob of the office door, his fingers feebly gripping the brass without turning the object.

"I said I'm fine," he grumbled in Moe's direction, shoulders drooping with a sigh. His forehead fell to rest against the cool wood of the door, something he often did when he wished he could slouch into total disappearance.

Waylon's heart was tugged by varying emotions, arteries and veins seemingly being yanked in an array of directions, causing his chest to ache just as horribly as his head. He drew in a hefty breath before sensing the warmth of another body leaning against his own at the door, a body which he quickly turned to face and shrug away from.

"Stop worrying about me," he spat despite his tongue's unwillingness to unleash the vile taste that coated it, the bitterness sounding more like that of surrender. "It's not like you cared that much after Burns di – um, well, passed…"

"Died," Moe bluntly corrected, ignoring the hurtful words spewed in his path and wriggling into the back of his mind. "Face it, Waylon, he's dead. He ain't on some fancy-schmancy yacht cruise or whateva da hells it was he did with his life – he's dead, and he ain't comin' back."

"You think I don't know that?!"

Ire – pure, horrific ire that caused Hell to pale in its very presence. Waylon's voice held a strength it hadn't known in years, one he hadn't used since his ex-wife had spoken (in a round-about sort of way) poorly about Burns.

While Smithers had been questioning his feelings, which were just as unrequited in death as they were in life, since the passing of the elderly tyrant, some small part of him still bled, still riddled him with agony whenever the obvious was stated. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn't the best at dealing with death in general, or perhaps he just didn't care to have what would never be brought to his attention, or maybe he simply didn't have the patience for his own foolishness to be shoved down his gullet time and time again; either way, the very mention of Burns or death or any sort of relation thereof infuriated him.

His face blushed soon after once he'd realized the hastiness of his actions, and his glasses slipped to the tip of his nose when his head tipped downward to face the floor for what seemed the millionth time that afternoon.

"I'm sorry, Moe," he uttered in a half-hearted apology, turning the brass knob after an infinity of simply tapping it with his fingertips, "I guess I'm still sensitive to the whole thing. It's not that I can't face it, it's just-,"

"Youse can't face it," the other interrupted with smug arrogance, excusing his actions by holding the weighty door open for the man shooting spiteful glares at him.

"Yes, I can! Damn it, Moe, do you always have to be so-," the words wouldn't come to him. In spite of his strained efforts to find a definition suitable of the greasy barkeep at the door, none were delivered. It was a wonder if they were hiding from the boiling frustration or if some splinter of his mind knew that there weren't many hateful words he could conjure to describe someone that treated him as equally and as well as Moe had.

"So's what?" Moe pressed with a twisted expression, the one he often held before a harmless bar fight would sweep through his tiny tavern. "What am I's, huh? C'mon, Waylon, dere ain't nothin's youse can say ta me dat I ain't heard befo's."

Despite the irritated facial expression, there was a playfulness lacing the verses. If there was nothing else to call him, Moe was certainly a walking contradiction.

"Why do you have to be so damn nice?!

Moe's lips fell agape as he stammered, stunned by the words, "w-well, I was wrong, I… I ain't neva heards dat one befo'."

Their conversation had sustained as they walked through the overstretched hallway, Smithers a good few steps in front of Moe. Regardless of the miniscule gap between their strides and the sometimes spiteful tones in their speech, employees set ablaze a wildfire of gossip about the two (partially from out-of-context information from the mouth of Homer Simpson).

The tension-laced banter had slowly begun to dissipate as the men exited the facility and entered the parking lot. Moe's steps had grown closer; the toes of his scuffed shoes nipping at Waylon's heels, resulting in nothing more than stirring further aggravation for the latter.

Once he'd reached his vehicle, Waylon's hand splayed along the door handle, his head twisting to glare maliciously at the man that loomed uncomfortably close.

"Would you please stop following me? I get enough of that from Hercules; I don't need another puppy on my heels all day."

The mention of the rambunctious pup caused a faint grimace to sprawl across Moe's face, remembering all the times the mutt had shown him a vicious side that was never revealed to Waylon.

"Yeah, well, dat flea bag-,"

"Don't talk about him that way!"

"Sorry, sheesh…. Anyways," his tone took on the same seriousness as it had back in the office, and suddenly Waylon's spine shivered and his heart sunk downward in a combination of bitterness and fear, "I, uh, I think we's should talks. Ya'knows, about why youse hasn't seen me around much lately."

"Don't," Waylon responded, his voice harboring the same urgency as the other's, only delivered in a quaky whisper. His tongue had grown numb as his mind forced him to swallow the fragments of memories from recent times, and his stomach lurched on the remembrances, causing him to double over at the car. To avoid further tension and the possibility of being ill, he swallowed roughly and clambered into the vehicle, cranking it for the only purpose of rolling down his window to continue the conversation that he'd just moments earlier attempted to end. "You said you weren't going anywhere, and I was dumb enough to fall for it again. It's okay, really, I'm used to it."

"It ain't like dats, Waylon-,"

"Then what is it like, hmm? Look, as much as I like talking about how stupid I am, I should really get home and fill out the rest of this paperwork."

In a gesture, Waylon patted a stack of papers resting in the passengers' seat, hoping to pass off the unimportant assignments as something of greater urgency in order to separate himself from the awkwardness that wedge between the two of them.

Moe nodded in understanding, the desire to further press the issue burning in his chest as his heart throbbed, and bit upon his lower lip to hinder the intended words from seeping into the air. He, however, replaced them with a hasty parting, "yeah, right. Well, uh, I guess I'll's see ya around or somethin's…."

"Sure, Moe," Waylon returned the nod with a phony smile raising the ante as he returned the window to its proper position, sealing off any words that may have come to follow.

Anxious hands and trembling fingers worked feverishly at fastening the seatbelt and adjusting the mirrors according to his driving needs. It took but a moment for regret to flutter through his chest, which was already flooded with the concentrated emotions abandoned by the barkeeper, as he fixed the rearview mirror; a glimpse of Moe caught his eye, the mirror showing the disheveled tavern owner slinking on-foot toward the exit, nearing the gates quicker than what was to be expected of his poor posture. Heart strings snapped - a broken heart abruptly crammed within the aching chest cavity of the driver, who once again rolled down his window and beckoned to the opposite in a strained shout, "Moe! Wait!"

It took what felt an eternity for the cries to capture Moe's attention, but finally he turned and his clods started in Waylon's direction. Moe's face was pinched red from the cold, which had come to blister his cheeks after only a short time, and his broad nose trickled; his expression made it nearly impossible to decipher if that, too, were merely from the cold or from a moment of weakness and tearshed.

"Wh-what's? It's freakin' freezin' out heres, so's say what youse gots'ta say and let me go home, would ya?"

"Um, where's your car?"

"She's in da shop, what's it to ya?" A lie poorly covered by a snappy, hateful retort.

Waylon sighed, regret and guilt bubbling at the back of his throat, "o-oh, sorry about that… do you – I don't know – want a ride home or something?"

Moe's brief sourness had sweetened somewhat and his posture perked to prove so. A ginger smile tugged at the corners of his paling lips, yet he shook his head in a nonverbal declining of the invitation.

"Nah, it's probably outta your ways; youse gots all dat paperwork ta do and whatnots, and I don't wants'ta be no trou-,"

"It's fine, Moe. Really, I want to, to pay you back for all those rides you gave me when Mr. Burns was sick."

"Well, if youse insist," the barkeep chortled smugly as he swiftly shifted from one side of the car to the other, climbing into the passengers' seat and settling into the warmth chipping at the redness of his face.

"Well, I didn't exactly insist, but what does it matter?"

"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."

― John Green, Looking for Alaska