In Time, Death
By Alesyira
Summary: Time for a damned nap.
Break
- 1660 -
"We really need to take a break for a few hours," she muttered. After all the excitement, she was feeling dead on her feet and wondered if a strong breeze might actually be able to tip her over.
"R-right," Koenma sputtered. He'd noticed her stumbling more often as the hours had ticked by, but seeing her expression now in the late afternoon light made her exhausted pallor seem a hundred times worse. He took her hand to lead her down the road toward the obvious signs of human settlement on the horizon. "Come on, we were going to get details from this place up ahead, anyways. Maybe they have a room we can rent for the night."
She resisted his tugging insistence. "No, we can't rent a room. I'm fine just camping out in the woods."
He frowned at her. "Don't be silly. If amenities are available, I fully plan on making use of them."
She shook her head. "I don't carry money to pay for those sorts of things. I'm used to roughing it," she said, digging in her heels.
He rolled his eyes and easily pulled her along. "I'll cover your expenses this time, especially since you're doing us a favor. Consider it part of your payment for services rendered."
Her stubborn refusal diminished with her surprise and she allowed him to lead her to his intended destination. Payment for her services? She hadn't considered the possibility of anyone paying her for doing the right thing.
At the outskirts of the medium-sized town, they found a path with a sign that clearly labeled the entrance to an inn for travelers. The path was just long enough to keep the building tucked out of sight, and Kagome's nose picked up the telltale scent of a nearby onsen. Her inner excitement bubbled, but she stubbornly smashed it down. She didn't want to appear too excited for a hot bath and a soft place to rest.
A few people entered ahead of them as Koenma and Kagome removed their shoes. He tugged her along and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, giving her a firm look to not argue with what he was about to say as he turned to speak with the hostess.
She pursed her lips and glanced away with mild irritation, missing the old woman's amusement. Koenma made simple arrangements for their stay before the hostess bowed and guided them down a passageway.
At the end of a long hall, she pulled open a sliding door and gestured them inside. It was simply furnished, but every fiber of Kagome's being slumped in relief at the sight of a place to sleep.
She bit her lip at the thought of a long soak, first. She closed her eyes, mentally weighing her options. Would she be able to stay awake through such bliss, or would there be a very serious risk of drowning?
She murmured her thanks to the hostess and pulled away from his arm to slip off her belongings with a long sigh of appreciation. Maybe a little bit of rest first and then a soak before they left.
He leaned toward the old woman and exchanged a few words before she left, sliding the door closed behind her.
He turned and watched as Kagome carefully arranged her supplies next to her sleeping spot, at a loss for what to do with himself. "Er," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Um, how long do you need before we can head out again?"
"I haven't quite ascended to the top-tier trait of never needing sleep." She grinned at him and rubbed at an eye as she sat at the edge of the futon. She stifled a yawn behind her other hand. "A few hours, at least." She leaned forward and tugged off her socks, wiggling her toes with relief.
Koenma looked away with a reddening face, and Kagome had to force back her amusement. After so freely invading her personal space and the unexpected kisses, the sight of toes made him blush?
She shook her head and loosened some of the fastenings on her traveling clothes. "I had a long day of training before I arrived in this time," she explained. "It's just been going on and on since then." She stretched a little. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain like this, but humans need sleep every so often to remain useful."
He waved off her apology. "I'll make good use of some down time by taking care of some tasks that don't require the judgment seal."
She blearily blinked at the soft cushion beside her. "I…" she trailed off. "Thanks," she muttered.
"Eh, don't worry about it," he said with a little grin.
Kagome yawned again, then frowned with sudden realization. "Why did she leave you in here with me? Every inn I've stayed at in the past required the males and females to sleep in separate rooms."
He smirked. "She thinks you're my wife."
Her mouth fell open and her cheeks turned pink. "You lied?"
"Nah, I just didn't bother correcting her when she assumed, and I absolutely refuse to leave you unaccompanied in a strange place like this."
She puffed out a long sigh and gave him a look. "Okay, fake husband."
He settled down at the edge of a low table and held out his hand expectantly. She jumped in surprise when a stack of papers materialized, fluttering into place over the smooth surface before a pen shimmered into view. "Sleep. I'll wake you if anything is worth mentioning," he said, not looking in her direction as he scribbled on the top sheet. After a final swoosh of the pen, he flicked the paper off the stack and it vanished in a small shower of sparkles.
She yawned again and clutched at the blanket with one hand. Could she really sleep with him in the same room, just the two of them together? She'd fallen asleep with him nearby before, but that was when she'd had a little bit too much to drink and had been under the watchful gaze of Sesshoumaru. She had trusted Inuyasha's older brother to not let anything bad happen to her, no matter the company.
But just the two of them?
When they'd met on other occasions, his limbs had still seemed intact (from what she could tell), and he hadn't shown any odd behavior like she'd nearly murdered him for bad behavior in the past, so maybe she was safe enough to relax.
His repeated statements that he wished they'd eventually be together in some capacity implied that he was interested but she'd kept him at arm's length. She wondered what it was that made him hope for more.
She was only a tiny blip in his long life. How many thousands of other potential partners had he met?
He sighed and turned to give her a chastising smile. "If you're going to just stare at me instead of getting this rest you claim is needed, then maybe we should take care of the next location first to really make sure you're tired enough to sleep."
She gave him a weary frown. "Just so you know, further uninvited kisses will result in injury," she warned.
He chuckled and flicked his fingers at her. "I fully expect you to break my arm if I make any bad choices before you've fully rested. Please, don't let me keep you up."
She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, but he'd already looked back to his paperwork. She wasn't sure if he was teasing her or not, but…
She leaned back against the futon and pressed her fingers to the floor, pulling up a simple barrier that made her feel a bit more enclosed. They'd fought side-by-side, but sleeping alone around someone she didn't completely trust was a little too much to ask of her at that moment.
He'd shown he could be trusted to an extent by keeping her safe when she was incapacitated and vulnerable in the caves. In the future, his behavior seemed normal enough in his attempts to get her to date him. Not too desperate or creepy, despite his insistence that they'd make a good pair.
Then again… she bit her lip as she wiggled to get more comfortable. Maybe his mild regret during their date at the cafe was a huge red flag that he'd murdered her in the past and hid her body so well that no one knew he'd done it.
She paused, wondering where the heck that morbid thought had come from. Her exhausted brain was coming up with some (probably) ridiculous and (hopefully) impossible scenarios.
She yawned one more time and tugged her blanket a little higher, closing her eyes as she relaxed in her little bubble of protection.
The trees around her were thick and tall, but the grasses were sparse and grey, much of their color leeched away by the area's harsh conditions. She stood there for a while, breathing in the chill air as the late afternoon light dwindled, fading from a scattered vibrant orange to the periwinkle blue of twilight.
The place seemed familiar. She'd been here before at some point in time, although she couldn't quite remember when or why. She turned in a slow circle, looking down the mountainside at the vast green landscape far below, eventually turning back to the small clearing a few dozen steps away.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she moved forward, wondering at the strange silence. It was unsettling to stand near the top of a mountain and have no wind rustling through the flora.
Jagged gouges tore up the edges of the clearing. A few trees had been left in rotting splinters. Enough time had passed between whatever happened here that new plants had taken over the old destruction, leaving only small signs of the battle that had taken place.
Why would anyone fight up here?
A sparkle in the dirt caught her eye a short distance ahead, and curious, she approached to take a closer look. A dingy ball roughly the size of the old Shikon no Tama laid amongst the roots of a scraggly weed, just a hint of one edge still smooth enough to catch a shimmer of light. She reached down to pick it up, but a sharp crack nearby startled her into a cautious crouch.
She paused and listened, looking around for any sign of someone or something nearby, but nothing moved through the trees surrounding the clearing. After a short while, she began to notice odd brownish-grey things, like weirdly shaped tree trunks without foliage. The closest one was about a dozen feet to her left. She squinted through the diminishing light to try and understand why it had caught her attention.
She froze with realization that it was an old, dried corpse stuck in an upright position. Its skin had withered into stringy connections that barely clung to its discolored bones.
She stared with morbid fascination. She'd seen this before, hadn't she?
But when?
A subtle sense of dread began clawing its way up her back as she stepped a little closer. This particular corpse-tree, because she couldn't think of anything else to call it, had a partially collapsed skull and a wide chunk of its torso torn away, exposing a dark chasm of glistening, blackened innards. The sharp white edges of its demolished ribcage stood out in stark contrast to the rest of its body, and she wondered if the destruction to this particular corpse had happened more recently than whatever had aged the rest of it.
She didn't want to get any closer, but it seemed like she was drawn toward the horrific gaze of its empty eye sockets. She heard a creak and swallowed back her mounting terror. Another snap startled her into looking toward the new sound, and she realized that a different corpse-tree seemed to have turned in her direction.
She took a step backwards, then choked on a gasp as the corpse-tree she'd just been staring at a moment before moved. Grisly knuckles cracked and groaned as the leathery hand twisted, lifting a rusted weapon in her direction.
Her eyes widened as she backed away quickly. New rustling sounds caught her attention as thin bushes shook under sudden movement, and from the darkening foliage a few aging nightmares crawled toward her with jerky motions. She tripped over something behind her right foot and screamed in surprise as a corpse-tree loomed into her view, its wide mouth split in a rotted grin as its jaw opened wide to take a bite—
A few hours into his paperwork, Koenma noticed something felt a little strange. The air in the room seemed thick, so he'd opened one of the doors leading outside to allow in a gentle breeze. This only helped for a little while, though, and eventually he noticed a slight rumble shivering through the tatami mats lining the floor. He frowned in thought, then glanced back at the girl sleeping a short distance away.
He dropped his pen with surprise at the sight of her hair swirling amongst eddies of pink light. "Kagome?" he said, getting to his feet. Her face was scrunched with what looked like anxiety, and he managed to take one step toward her before a wall of pressure knocked him backwards.
He blinked with shock from his spot sprawled on the floor. The contents of the room had been scattered, his papers strewn in complete disarray, the table overturned, and his tea cup shattered. She twisted slightly on the futon and he could feel the pressure of her magic building once more.
"Kagome!" he shouted, scrambling back to his feet. He rushed toward her intending to try and help, but he bounced unexpectedly against a barrier and fell backward with a muffled thump and smoking hair.
He stared as her head twisted back and forth, her lip trembling as a tear slipped over her cheek. He grimaced in frustration and tried shouting her name again, but she couldn't seem to hear him. Panicked, he carded his hands through his hair and cast his mind around for anything he could do to bypass the wall keeping him away from her, then remembered the charged stones in his pocket.
Surely one of those had enough of her freely given magic to allow him passage. He quickly fished one out and pressed it against the flaring pink barrier. He sighed in relief as his fingers slipped through, then it promptly gave way to his force and he sucked in a startled breath as he tumbled past her protections, landing face-first in the futon at her side.
With no time to waste, he got to his knees and gripped her shoulders, shaking her roughly to try and wake her.
Her eyes popped open and she screamed in surprise, because the last thing she'd seen was a half-rotted face in the dark looming in front of her about to take a bite. Suddenly freed from sleep paralysis, she thrashed an arm out and punched Koenma in the side of the head, then scrambled backward from the tangle of blankets to put some space between her and the perceived threat.
Shaking and soaked with sweat, she stared across the room at his shocked expression as he held a hand to his injured face. It took her a few moments to realize that she'd been dreaming, and she pressed her hands to her mouth with chagrin. "Oh my… oh my gosh," she stammered. "I didn't mean—"
He blinked and pulled his hand away to check it for blood, then winced and rubbed at the spot. "You're welcome?" he grumbled, immensely thankful that she didn't sleep within reach of some kind of deadly weapon. He dropped onto his butt, gingerly patting his hair back into place as he looked away.
She rubbed her hands down her face with a muffled sound of dismay, appalled at the amount of damage she'd done to the room. She should have remembered to protect the room from her dreams, but she'd been more worried about protecting herself from an ally…that could apparently get through her barrier anyways.
"How did you…" she started to ask, then stopped herself mid-question. "I'm sorry. Thank you. That… was something I really didn't want to experience."
He nodded with a short sigh. "Bad dream?"
She hid her face behind her hands, wishing she could wipe the images from her head. "Walking corpse about to take a bite out of me."
He made a small sound of understanding and turned to start putting the room back in order.
She looked around at the scattered mess and blew out a long sigh. "Well," she said with a little frown, "this probably explains why you aren't very surprised the next time that I destroy my room overnight."
Koenma stacked his papers with a few pats, then turned to grin at her. "With you, I imagine very little could surprise me." He watched as she twisted a lock of hair between her fingertips. "I'm guessing this happens pretty often?"
She nodded as her frown became more pronounced. "The only way I've been able to avoid making a mess is to have someone wake me up before the dream gets too intense." She glanced up at him. "How did you get in to wake me up?"
He shook his head and picked up the little stone he'd dropped. "I'm not really sure, but I used one of our stones to push through the barrier. I'm really surprised it worked."
She pursed her lips in thought. "All of this magic working together is capable of more things than we realize." They both looked at the rock in his hand for a few minutes, deep in thought about the possibilities.
He stood and stretched with a wince at an ache he hadn't noticed along his side. "I don't know about you, but after that mess, I could go for a soak in the onsen."
When she didn't say anything in reply, he shrugged and walked toward the partially opened door leading outside. He pulled it open completely, and she clapped her hand over her mouth in surprise. How much had he paid for the night?
Their room exited onto a narrow patio with a small cleansing area. Along the wall were sets of simple white yukata and towels, and wide stone steps made a short path down to a private spring.
Without another word, he walked just out of sight.
She turned red at the sound of fabric rustling and the splash of water as he washed, and then he padded past the doorway robed in soft white fabric that made him seem ethereal under the pale moonlight. She crept to the sliding door and peeked past the edge as he walked down the stone steps toward the spring, then blinked in surprise when he slid into the steaming water without removing the robe.
"Koenma," she hissed, "you're not supposed to wear those in the water!"
He turned to look at her over his shoulder, but while it was too dark for her to make out his expression, it was impossible to miss the amusement in his voice. "Did you want to see me naked?"
At her silence, he whispered, "I won't tell if you don't."
She sighed in exasperation. She was a little distressed that he'd done something so frowned upon at an onsen, but felt a little bit of relief that she wouldn't be presented with the tempting sight of a flirty and handsome male dripping naked in a steaming spring.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks and frowned. What was she doing?
She could just go right back to sleep now that she'd been pulled from the last nightmare. She could put up a better barrier to contain any further outbursts and hope she got enough sleep without additional scary images. She swallowed nervously, thinking back to her dream. She was certain she'd been there before, but…
She stilled, suddenly remembering the day her spirit had been split into so many pieces.
She'd stood on a mountaintop with the corpse-trees.
She'd spotted an aged glittering ball in the dirt under a mid-morning sun.
She'd seen the rotted and rusting weapons, witnessed the signs of old destruction, and shivered in the utter stillness.
She had been just a piece of herself, lost in strange places as she observed (or ran away from) things far beyond her reach. She'd been scattered all across the world with little understanding of how she might make it back home.
Nothing had moved on that mountainside that day. All had been still and silent until some gentle tugging along an invisible thread made her feel like she should go somewhere else.
Why had her brain come up with such awful imaginings in that dream?
She scowled, immediately blaming Yusuke's joke about possibly having to deal with zombies during the upcoming eclipse. And then she shot an irritated glare at the back of Koenma's head, remembering his future complaints of the paperwork involved with walking corpses.
The stories were getting to her. A hot soak might be just what she needed to take her mind off the madness.
A hot soak with a handsome guy. She swallowed nervously. Dressed, she reminded herself. She could be dressed. No one else would see that they'd snubbed one of the cardinal rules of the onsen by wearing clothing.
She bit the tip of her thumb, wondering how long he might take. She could just wait until he'd finished and then take her turn the correct way. She'd feel a little less guilty about it, at least.
He flicked his hand out to conjure a new pen and one of his papers, and she rolled her eyes in realization that he meant to do paperwork during his soak. Grumbling with irritation, she decided to throw caution to the wind.
She stripped quickly and quietly, washed off, threw on one of the yukata, and twisted her hair at the top of her head as she hurried quietly down the steps.
"I'll try to not disturb you," she murmured as she touched her toe into the pleasantly hot water.
He hummed and rolled his shoulder in a shrug, his attention on the paper before him.
She eased into the hot water with a small sound of relief, the warmth seeping in to fill her mind with pleasant fuzzy thoughts. She dipped down to submerge herself to her chin, her eyes closing with bliss as the soothing sound of his pen scratched along paper.
"What are those?" she asked, feeling a little drowsy as she peeked over at his work.
"Supply requests, personnel inquiries, and a few suggestions for improvement of the Reikai, like this one for a garden," he said, flipping the paper around so she could see the fine script printed across its surface.
It was completely illegible, written in a language she'd never seen before. She quirked an eyebrow with interest, but didn't want to distract him from his work with more questions. He scribbled a mark along a margin and swirled his pen tip near the bottom edge before it vanished in a fresh shower of sparkles.
He similarly flicked his pen away and leaned back with a long sigh.
"You're such a workaholic," she muttered.
He glanced at her with a look of mild confusion.
"You work too much," she clarified.
"You work too much, too," he replied with a smile, turning his attention back to the stars emerging above them.
"Why me?" she asked, surprising herself. She hadn't meant to dig right into his reasonings, but now that it was out in the open…
"Hm?" he replied.
"Why are you interested in being with me?"
He looked at her from the corner of one eye. "There's never a dull moment when you're around."
She shook her head with a small grin. "You've only been around me when things are crazy and life as we know it is practically falling to pieces. I'll have you know I'm more than a series of crises."
He shrugged. "You remind me of what it's like to care. That mortals matter."
She rolled her eyes. "I won't be around forever. Those are really flimsy reasons."
He leaned sideways to look at her with a growing smile. "You harbor a cursed item that really should be locked up in one of the vaults. Your magic makes me feel new and exciting things. You're very cute." His grin widened further as he glanced away with a reddening face. "I may have had a dream or two about us in a hot spring just like this one."
She rolled her eyes again. She would have loved to have had a dream about a cute guy in a hot spring instead of a nightmare about corpse-trees wanting to bite her.
He shrugged half-heartedly. "It might just be a temporary thing. You're something new and shiny, and every time you're here you turn my life upside down."
She hummed quietly and draped her arms over the stones behind her, tilting her head back to rest against the cooler surface. "You insist that we should be together every time I meet you in the future."
Water sloshed quietly and she opened her eyes, watching in mild alarm as he slid toward her and stopped just out of reach. His damp hair was in disarray as water dripped down the side of his face. "Why aren't we?" he asked, his gaze searching her face.
"Well," she swallowed. "Because I'm seeing someone. That's not you."
He nodded seriously. "In the future," he reminded her.
"Right," she replied.
"But he's not here. Is he even alive yet?"
What is he getting at? She sat up and pulled her arms to her chest with concern. "What?"
"He's not alive yet, is he? You're human. Your life is so short, despite all this time that you skip around. Do you plan on marrying this one you're seeing?"
"I…" she began, then trailed off. She had briefly thought of what it might be like to marry someone, but she was too young for a permanent partner like that, not in the traditional sense at least. Too much of her life was in turmoil, and with the frequent dangers she found herself in, it just didn't make sense…
"You look so troubled," he murmured, bringing her attention back to his earnest expression. "Why deny a personal moment with an ally, something to ease your spirit, even if it's only for an hour?"
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as her heart caught in her throat.
He leaned forward, still not quite close enough to touch, and said, "We have an interesting connection." He lowered his voice and whispered, "I'd like to see our magics dance together in the darkness."
Her mouth felt completely dry, and she tried to moisten her lips without drawing attention to the movement.
He glanced down at the slight motion with a half-smile. "Wouldn't you like a kiss?" He was less careful about hiding his action as he briefly caught his lower lip between his teeth. "An invited kiss… might be a heavenly distraction."
She clutched the front of her yukata and stared at him with wide eyes.
Her relationship with Hiei was too new and still wildly exciting.
Her thoughts flickered back to the last time she was with him and the ideas he'd shown her. Tangled limbs, the broad shoulders of another male with them, his hand fisted in short red hair as they joined in impossible and delicious ways. She might have never considered such things until he'd introduced them directly into their activity like an erotic video playing behind her eyelids. She'd been so busy telling him yes and more in those moments that even now, his ideas were still very yes and more.
Despite that, though, she didn't know if he actually wanted to include other people in their relationship.
They needed to talk.
Immediately.
She wasn't even sure if they were committing to an exclusive relationship, and she really didn't want to feel like she was cheating on someone without knowing for certain where they stood or what they expected.
She glanced down at Koenma's parted lips for the smallest of moments, her cheeks flushed pink.
He caught her looking and grinned, then leaned back with a sigh of mock resignation. "Well, you know where to find me." He stretched his arms above his head and then climbed out of the spring, the thin fabric of his wet yukata sticking translucent to his skin.
Kagome pressed her lips together and glanced away quickly, but she'd seen more than enough to burn the image of his butt into her memory.
"Come on, you need to get some rest," he said quietly as his hand slid into her view. He kept his sight politely averted as she accepted his aid from the water, and she did them both a favor by magic-poofing the water from their clothes.
As she began to pull away to head up the stairs, he held firm to her hand. "Why not me?" he asked, turning her question around from earlier.
She paused and looked back at him. She had a few responses about her misgivings, but really, the only thing that mattered at that moment was simple. "I don't know you well enough to answer that."
He hummed, a smile spreading across his face. "That can easily be remedied," he said, continuing to hold her hand as he walked up a few stairs to her side. "Ask your questions. Let's get to know one another. One day, you might decide you know enough to accept me."
She smirked. "Or turn you down."
"If that's what you wish," he said, walking ahead of her up the stairs.
"You shouldn't waste your days waiting for me to say yes. There are so many other people out there."
He chuckled as he stepped back into their room. "I don't waste my days being lonely. Anyone else I've asked says yes."
She wasn't sure if she should be amused or irritated by his boastful response. "You sound a bit like a spoiled child."
He hummed with amusement and flopped onto the floor as she hid behind the the door to change.
She pulled on her bodysuit and then remembered something else Yusuke had said. "I've been told you occasionally look like a toddler?" Her fingers flew up the fastenings on the side. "It would make sense that you'd be so spoiled if you could cute your way into getting whatever you wanted."
He sighed loudly. "The only thing I get when I'm that small is the chance to freely cuddle."
She bit back a smile and peeked around the corner at him. "And punished, so I've been told."
He grumbled and rolled over to look in her direction. "Why have you been talking to people about me being spanked?"
She pressed a hand to her mouth and choked back a laugh. She hadn't really believed that such a thing could be true. She gathered herself and tied the rest of her clothes into place before walking back into their room. "You can't be serious. How old are you? Why would you let such things happen?"
He frowned and looked at the floor. "I'm not the biggest and baddest in the Reikai. My power is still occasionally trumped by my father's."
"So you don't control when you turn into a little guy?" she asked, feeling bad for bringing up what seemed like a sore spot.
"I can, but he can, too," he grumbled.
"Is it easy to change back and forth?" she asked, insanely curious. Shippo was the only other person she knew that could shapeshift.
He peeked at her from the corner of one eye. "I could show you…" he said, frowning in thought. "Could I cuddle?"
Kagome pursed her lips. "Depends," she replied. "Could I trust you?"
He laughed. "Yeah, I'll behave. I swear."
Between one blink and the next, he completely changed. Gone were the long lean limbs and perfectly tousled hair, replaced with a face round with baby fat and huge brown eyes. He reached up with stubby outstretched fingers and a widening smile.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. "You're very cute," she admitted, picking him up. He sighed happily and pressed the side of his head to her chest. "Er…" she said, a little embarrassed.
"Shh…" he whispered with a cherubic voice. "I wanna listen to a mortal heart for a minute."
She furrowed her brows and settled on the floor with the little demigod cradled in her arms. This is so strange, she thought.
Nothing else was said for a while as she gently patted his back.
As the minutes ticked by and she began to get bored, one of his hands slipped from her shoulder and fell lax into the crook of her arm, and then she heard a distinct snore. She blinked in surprise and adjusted him carefully as his head lolled to the side, realizing that he had fallen asleep.
She rolled her eyes skyward with a short request to anyone listening to please help her understand the weirdness of her life.
AN: right after Shippo finds Hiei and Kagome at the end of ch42, (and just before they come out to find him waiting) Hiei and Kagome have another short time together, and while they're in the middle of doing things, he's also showing her VERY dirty thoughts that include a third person in their activities. I had planned on adding a recap of that moment to one of the chapters when they're back at the apartment, but I'm not certain where that flashback fits with the story anymore. It will for sure be posted though, as either part of a chapter in the fic or as a one-shot in the outtakes.