Worth paced down the pier - parts of it soft with balding red carpet, all of it wooden echo over air over water, the swamp still and dark and thick. At some points, the pier was nothing more than an aisle between rows and rows of theater seats, the swamp on both sides nothing less than the dark of floor under red plush seating. Reptiles twisted between the seats and through the water, flat tails thumping the underside of the pier should passing footsteps disturb them.

Beyond the end of the pier, a sweeping movie screen flickered with a static image; a circle of bone and wooden diadems, feathers and stained bits of cloth. The sides of the pier were littered with the daily survival of a vacationer or camper, bedroll and stand-alone grill and cooler of mostly empty wrappers and water bottles. Worth was dirty and haggard and over-heated and under-fed, but a light shone just under the runes he'd carved down his arms and he'd managed to make it this far and bring so much of the real world over - that is to say, him, he did. He did that. With words and blood and drawing and knowledge and will.

Worth was nearly there. He almost had the gap closed, almost could reach his goal, but the last stretch of pier that was supposed to reach the theater screen instead disappeared into swamp and he'd not yet been able to bring the theater floor completely into being because, well -

"You're disgusting," the Boggart hissed from the end of the pier, hands on hips, perfectly coiffed, nose in the air. Its green eyes flashed, always following. "Everything you do is backwards, and there is no reason for anybody to love you. Ignorant piece of shit. Selfish. You don't have any control." It fixed its glasses and straightened its sweatervest, sneer curling. "You are a drug addict and a pervert and you can't even have a civil discussion with me because you aren't even kind to the people you love. What is wrong with you? Are you even human?"

Worth muttered oaths under his breath. His pack lay opposite the modest camping spread, shotgun having already been emptied at the thing. There was no killing it, no passing it - it was strong, and had nearly thrown him into the water last time he'd tried to brush past. What it was saying, was even starting to get to him.

The Boggart grinned, feeling Worth's exhaustion. "You can't argue with me anymore, because we both know it's true. You're hardly human, and you only help those who are selfish and small, because you are selfish and small. Hah! 'Doctor', what a fucking crock. You just left the green man on the road for the raccoons to nibble. What would Hanna say about that, you conniving two-faced asshole?"

Worth scratched a bare shoulder, black wifebeater near soaked through from his exertions. He fished a beer from a small cooler, wicking icewater across his brow. The other crossers, they were all right people. Just helping each other out, trying to get to wherever, whatever. Some of them were inveterate shamans, even, and didn't have to wait for the seventy-second moon to get in. They would sell concessions from a cabin. Some of them, like Mr. Green back on the path phoning Hanna, were just plain dead.

Worth sipped his beer and dragged a heavy, broken theater seat into the aisle and onto the pier, not entirely trusting the rest of the floor to its permanence. When he sat, he thought maybe the Boggart had followed him, glancing the figure at his elbow.

"Worth." Conrad greeted. Red eyes narrowed.

Worth glanced down the pier - the Boggart had either retreated back to its inky waters, or was right there in front of him. He uncurled across the seat, long leg thrown over the arm, boot wagging. It took a few tries to clear the cobwebs from his throat, but eventually he prompted, "Say somefin' nice."

"Er..." Conrad looked around. "Why?"

Worth made a gun of forefinger and thumb. "Say somefin' mean."

Conrad's expression screwed up in confusion. "You smell?"

Worth chuckled, setting his beer down to stand, arms open. "Connie! You got red eyes! The fuck you doin' here!" He claps a hand against the side of Conrad's neck, squeezing his shoulder briefly, leaving a smear. "And in polo yuppy shit, just like I sawr. Heh."

Conrad had backed up uncertainly, startled by Worth's good mood, suspicious of his manic energy and too confused by his affection to give the usual vicious rejection. He speaks slowly and clearly, "Eyes are red, yes. Good, Doctor. Nice doctor. Let's maybe sober up and get back to Hanna now, yeah? I've got non-yuppy shit alllll the way back in the city, where things are normal and pastels are out of season."

"See, that's what I like about you," Worth wags a finger. "I says it's you settin' yerself up fer ridicule, but what it really amounts to is yer goddamn fine security 'a self. That, or you honestly trust erryone around you at all times ta not think on what yer knowledge of pastels says 'boutcher masculinity. There you have it." Worth opens his palm towards Conrad, "Either really goddamn trusting, or really goddamn educated, or just really goddamn brave. Not like yer leavin' yerself wide open in the hopes someone petty enough is gonna call on it. Not like ya passively pick fights thatta way, 'cos you reason with yerself like maybe the instigator is gonna deserve yer venom, 'cos you was playin' dumb and nice and ig'nrant 'a social norms."

"Uh," wide-eyed, Conrad lifts a hand as if he'd just been shoved. "Excuse me, even? What?"

"Yeah," Worth bends to his pack to rifle out a cigarette and lighter. "I mean, at least you ain't some sorta self-deprecating fag actin' the ironic sorta asshole that gets ta blame erryone around him fer bein' lonely. I betchu ain't. Really."

Conrad has removed his glasses. Rubbed his eyes. Replaced his glasses, eyes still shut, fingertips pinching his temples. "Masculinity is a social construct. The vikings' most masculine color was hot pink!"

Worth stabs his lit cigarette Conrad's way. "See? See? Yer just one educated motherfucker!" he crows, arms open wide again, laughing.

Conrad can see Worth is missing a molar. He can smell the open wounds, see the light flashing under the blood of the runes. "Thaaaank you?" he hazards. "Yes. Thanks. You're plenty smart, yourself. Let's both do the smart thing right now, okay?" Though second-guessing his promise to strong-arm the man, Conrad approaches. Was Doc Worth always that... long? And flaily?

Worth nods, eyes shining, grin sharp around his cigarette. " 'Ere," he offers, once Conrad is close enough, cigarette held out filter-end between thumb and middle finger.

"Thanks," Conrad repeats with the usual hesitation, taking the cigarette and pulling once on it. The filter is slightly damp from Worth's teeth, and Conrad exhales sharply to dispel the idea of Worth's teeth anywhere near his own mouth. The smoke glances hot and thick over his chin and Conrad coughs, the damp in the air rattling through his lungs. "You're going to get sick out here, you know."

Worth has knelt to his pack as if in search of something, grumbling under his breath. He stands again, empty-handed, and accepts the cigarette. "Yer so goddamn concerned. That prolly says somethin' good, too."

Conrad's mouth pulls back. "Not really," he admits. "I like being right. And I have a nervous disorder, so I like being right about the worst possible outcome." He crosses his arms, chin tilting. "I'm not a very good person, really, so maybe we should listen to me right now when I promise that I will drag your loony ass through the whole entire goddamn bog and all the way to the airport if I need to? To get you back home? What are you even trying to do here? Why's it taking so long?"

Worth has stilled, watching Conrad with a slowly descending calm. A light leaves his eyes as his gaze flickers to the dimly running screen looming past the end of the pier, its image dusting the surface of the swamp in garbled reflections. "You go ahead an' drag, Connie. I'm never gonna beat this."

Conrad's foot is tapping, but his curiosity had been lit from the start of Hanna's request and he wasn't going to pass through an entire freaking dimension (or whatever that place was) without remark. "Beat what?"

"That shitting fuckheaded cupid's arrow, 's what." Worth scoops his pack up, marches to the bedroll to slap the empty canvas bag down atop it. "Anythin' else. Aaaaanythin' else, shows it face up in fronta me? I know how ta solve it. I know. Riddles? Internet. Fear trial? No fuckin' fear here. Purity test? Pff, I ain't ever been nothin' but honest, curious, an' fair. But that -" he thrusts an arm out toward the end of the pier - "And you? Between that pushin' and you pullin', I just gotta determine I ain't s'pposed ta triumph. This was jus' one big-ass lesson in humility."

Worth kneels to the bed wrap, pulls out a notepad, scrawls a rune on a page with a gnawed-up ballpoint. "I'mma go with you, but you gotta know it weren't no kinda right defeat. If it weren't you standin' at that pier it'd be someone else, then you here I coulda maybe said no to, right?"

"I'm... I'm over here? Um. Worth, let's just -"

Worth wheezes a laugh, tearing the page free and approaching Conrad, straightening, patting the air down as if to calm himself. " 'Ey," he grunts, the back of his throat burring with a hum, eyes merry and appreciative. "En't I said you call me Luce?" He pats Conrad's chest, the note page sticking to the front of Conrad's shirt.

Conrad blinks, shakes his head. "Okay. Luce? I'm sorry if you're in love with me. That's... that can't be good for anyone. It actually, uh, helps to talk about it, right? If that's what you think you need to 'defeat'? Bloody hell, ask Hanna; he told me that you can't wilt a flower until you grow one first -" but the metaphor is cut short, as a weight is coming from the note page, which Conrad's fingers cannot seem to pry loose. "Hey, urh -" the weight bears back and down until Conrad is forced to his knees, then a hard sit, then at last he is pressed to the soft damp wood of the pier, unable to do more than squirm, as if an elephant were sitting on his chest. Conrad's voice wavers with panic, deepened by anger. "What did you -"

Doc Worth kneels beside Conradc, mouth set in a grim line. "Yer fine." He squeezes Conrad's shoulder, leaving another bloody smear. In a lower voice, as if the Boggart might overhear, "I told you, an' I tell ennything what asks, I don't gotta do what any old arrow says so. That shot was taken outta turn and that ceraph fukkin' knew it, so us? We're void." Another pat, as if to reassure. "I'd kill ya soon as let ya take innocent life. No qualms. That ain't love."

Outraged - "I would n-" breath cut short, strangled into a pained grunt.

"Fuck's sake, I'd kill ya soon as let ya ruin this, even. That ain't love, neither. That arrow? You?" A swallow that saw Worth's throat work. "Just a fukken nuisance. Just one more thing in my way." Resolved, Worth stands. "I'll letcha up once I'm past this and got what's mine come ta get."

Distantly, Conrad recalls Hanna's trepidation; The Doc's got his own agenda. He can only watch as Worth strides to the end of the pier and a stranger appears from the water. Conrad squints. The stranger is wearing his face, and using his voice -

"You're a pathetic coward," the Boggart hisses, sneer flashing a fang. "I wouldn't trust you to try and talk anything over anyway, since you can't find your way out of a sunday morning crossword. Seven year-olds have better grammar."

"Hey," Conrad chokes out. He struggles more as the stranger insults Worth, as Worth shakes his head and holds his fists out, runes humming, world going dim. Eventually Conrad manages to wriggle out from under the weight of the rune (and out of his shirt, now pinned to the pier).

Standing, Conrad is furious. He approaches the end of the pier in a silent sharp-fingered stalk, but as he's searching the back of Doc Worth for the best place to grab-and-drag, his attention is snagged by the creature whose chin is just barely over Worth's shoulder, even as Worth's lanky arms quake with effort to hold invisible forces.

It is him, green-eyed and rosy-cheeked, however fanged. Conrad. It's his face, and his voice, and even some of what he says, maybe, Conrad had said, or implied, but even in the spirit of their verbal sparring, Conrad never meant -

"I don't sound like that," Conrad argued hotly behind Worth. "What, is this supposed to be your demoralizer? You love pissing me off; and I never sound like that even when you're pissing me off!"

Luce glances over his shoulder, grin wry. "I know, babe. I'm gonna ask you ta take about ten steps back, 'cos this is fer my ears only. Nothin' personal, but," a hard sniff, a roll of a bony shoulder. "'S personal."

The Boggart grins, barking a laugh. "Nobody else needs to hear what an aggravating sore you are? How I only talk to you because you feed me? And I only bite you because I know you deserve to be in pain? What, you think I do that because it tastes good, or because I know you like it? I bite you because I'm angry and starving, you sick fucking -"

Conrad crosses his arms, wishing he had a shirt. "Well, no, because if this is supposed to, what, distract you or whatever? It's just wrong. If I told you the truth, would this thing go away?" Stepping forward, Conrad argues over Worth's shoulder, "I bite him because I'm starving and angry and he doesn't tell me not to. Whether or not he likes it, is none of my business."

"See," the Boggart purrs. "I don't even want to hear about your pathetic fetish."

"Not helpin'!" Worth snaps, and drops his arms. The darkness recedes, theater-swamp landscape misted from the heat. He rounds on Conrad. "This thing right here in fronta me is supposed ta be my greatest fuckin' fear; at least that's what they tol' me! But all I got was a molly earful from a limp-dick version of someone I don't actually give a shit about!" Face and neck red from yelling, Worth rakes dirty fingers through the greasy shear of his hair. "I can't fix what ain't fuckin' exist ta be broken in the first place. Are you hearin' me on this, Connie? That creature is confused."

"All right," Conrad answers evenly. "Luce. All right. But I've had a lot of practice dealing with impossible and also bad and also recurring thoughts that don't reside in logic. You need to sit down, drink some water. You need to breathe and you need to listen to me." He closes his eyes, steels himself, and opens his eyes to find Worth staring off into the middle-distance, mouth working in a silent mutter.

Conrad snaps his fingers in Worth's face until he gets eye contact. "Hey. I said listen. I don't think you're stupid or perverted or whatever. I think it's really fucking unfortunate what happened to us."

The Boggart oily added, "I feel sorry for youuu -"

Conrad reached down to chuck a beer bottle at the nightmare version of himself, then yanked Worth by the shirtfront to face him. "I don't know you very well and I've taken advantage of your hospitality because, yes, I assume you're a jerk and a criminal and I can go ahead and not feel guilty accepting favors that might or might not be the fruits of our unfortunate fucking circumstances. If your biggest worry right now is that I think badly of you? Or that I'm taking advantage somehow?" Conrad's chest quakes, indecision giving way reluctantly to pragmaticism. "Well, there you go then, I guess it's true. So you can stop worrying about it; I'm no bully."

Conrad releases the thin, damp fabric of Worth's undershirt. "I'm just, I don't know, as self-centered as anybody else; and I don't try to pretend otherwise."

The Boggart coos, "I take advantage of you because I know you're a desperate cretin."

Conrad growls, "Worth, if I thought that in any capacity of sincerity, you'd hear it - and not just when you're poking at my temper. Ass." He shuffles the few steps back down the pier to tug at his shirt until he could slide it out from under the impossibly weighted piece of paper.

Worth had wobbled in place, then woozily sank to the broken theater seat, huffing a sigh.

Conrad's head clears the neck of the shirt and he crams his dislodged glasses back up his nose, tugging the shirt down over his paper-white chest. "And you should know that I would sooner remove myself from your day to day life, before I'd waste the energy on genuinely hating you. You have to credit my proactivity, at least."

Worth snorts, grin brief and lean. "You don't gotta try an' talk sense inta me. Fears are never rational." Another grunt, leg kicking out. " 'Sides that, I dunno what this thing is on about. I like yer temper."

"Oh my god," Conrad rolls his eyes. "No. Wow. No. You do not like my temper. You like the excuse of my volatility to keep an upper hand whenever I react to your insults. Which, you know, thanks, and. Fuck you."

Worth's lips are bitten shut. "Fine," he drawls eventually, waving an open beer lazily. "Think that if you wanna, but don't boss me on what I like or not. Ya do get mad easy and I ain't using it fer an excuse. I like yer temper an' I like when ya show proof of havin' a fuckin' spine, Connie. An' maybe I ain't afraid 'a you bein' mean, but afraid instead of the day as to when I might think I'd wantcha ta be nicer. The day, maybe, I'd even need it." He pulls from the bottle, mumbling against the glass mouth, "Would friggen scare anyone, christ." Then, louder, bottle pointed at Conrad, "I didn't ask for this. Ceraph, Bogeyman, they just up an assume you are supposed ta be front an' center priority-wise. It's bullshit. Ain't cute."

Conrad's stare had gone flat, arms crossed. "Is that supposed to make either one of us feel any better, really? The situation is what it is, Worth. The sooner you can accept that, the sooner you can overcome it. I told Hanna I loved him the first time he mentioned it, and we figured it out that neither of us wanted to, er, be anything. To one another. Other than friends." Arm unfolding, wrist up. "Just say it out loud; so a cupid's arrow says you're in love, so what. It doesn't bother me, and we can both be adults about this and maybe get you past that, uh, that thing over there. Which I sound nothing alike, by the way."

Worth is hunched forward, eyes bruised with exhaustion. "It doesn't bother you?" he echoes woodenly, recalling a line in a dream.

"It doesn't bother me," Conrad reiterates, calm and a little sorry that he hadn't forced the issue earlier.

"Connie," Worth's grin holds a level of familiarity Conrad can't quite understand.

"Well, so," Conrad scuffs a canvas shoe against mouldering carpet, clearing his throat. "Just tell me how you, er, feel so we can graduate through the rejection and you can declaw your, ah, beastie. I need to call Veser in about ten minutes or he'll freak."

Worth's eyes go sly. "Rejection?" he grunts, lighting another cigarette. "That how it works, huh?"

Conrad rolls his eyes, exhaling sharp. "Sure, I guess. Honest sake, man, I'm not gay and I still want to move Hanna into my apartment and give him a little blue fucking apron and some fuzzy slippers. You're not alone in this debacle, Luce." Conrad claps his hands, impatient. "Three words - subject, verb, particle. Rip the bandaid off. It'll hurt less if you do it fast." Was he helping the situation? It felt like something important was getting done, even if he had to -

"That's what she said," Worth cracked, chuckling into his beer.

Conrad drew up short, then shook his head to dispel the urge to actually smirk - his more stoic sense of humor weakened by months living alongside a teenager. "Er. I think I'm actually supposed to call Hanna, too. For you, I mean." Conrad chops his hands through the air to indicate Worth should wait, then digs the phone out of his pocket. "You can take his word for it, about dispelling the arrow. Christ, if I thought -" Conrad continues to mutter, holding the cellphone up, searching for a signal.

"I'm the one that's bothered," Worth rasps to himself, chest hitching in silent laughter.

Conrad, in search of a stronger phone signal, approaches the end of the pier where his double stands watching.

" 'Ey now, don't get too close to that thing. It turns." Worth stands, cigarette flicked over the water to land with a hiss of dying cherry.

Conrad snorts, eyes on his phone. "What? It'll probably turn into my mother."

Hotly, "Don't get cute. Green man approached the Bogey an' it turned into a sweepin' great lot of void. Nearly sucked us both through."

"Mm. Existentialist. Fitting." Conrad lowers the phone, curious as to exactly what, or whom, the thing might reveal to be his greatest fear. "Starting to look like my dentist."

Scratching the back of his neck, Worth slouches nearer. "Actually, Connie, if you can hold this thing's attention that'd be a mighty help. Since Green couldn't do it."

Conrad, feeling brave and unaffected, shrugged. "If it'll get you out of the swamp without me touching you. Of course. What do I do?"

"Jus' keep eye contact."

Conrad sighed, and kept eye contact. The Boggart hadn't yet settled on any one thing, but once its height and weight had settled and details started to form - "Uh. Luce?"

Worth was directly behind Conrad, arms held up, runes glowing. "Just keep starin'. It cain't hurt you."

"I think it can, though." There, before Conrad, red headed and masked, was the vampire hunter what had once grieved Adelaide. Gun at the ready.

Through the hiss of its mask, goggles alight, the hunter rasped, "I'll give you a running start, dogbait."

Conrad's shoulder bumped against Worth's chest, having taken a reflexive step back.

Worth grunted, then shoved Conrad forward. "Cut it out."

"How," tremulous, Conrad seethed, "How was your greatest fear not something that could actually kill you?" It was unfair, then, that Conrad would have to stand shivering in front of the very real possibility of perma-death as he'd once seen; when all Worth seemed to have dealt with was, what, cattiness?

Worth made the noise in the back of his throat that he liked to make when he was being obvious. "'Cept you can kill me, Puppy." His hand shoves between Conrad's shoulderblades once more, then returns to its cast. "Stay."

Conrad manages to keep his eyes glued to the eerie blue of the hunter's goggles, despite his irritation. "I would never -"

"Hey," the hunter interrupts. "What's the complaint? Don't you want to die? I'll even do it kindly." The gun barrel tracks up, nudges Conrad's chin. "Quickly, so you don't feel it. Do everyone else the favor you never could."

Conrad's stomach drops.

"Not like you're doing anything with this second chance," the hunter reasons. "You were a slug and a waste when you were alive, and nothing's changed at all since you've turned. You don't go anywhere for anything but your career; you don't forge relationships so much as suffer through them until your friends lose hope."

This time, when Conrad's back meets Worth's chest, Worth is too occupied to shove him forward - arms held out in their runic glow, world dark and humming around them.

Something inside of Conrad that used to be alive now clenched, stirred. An old terror.

The hunter chuckles, lowers its gun to stand more relaxed. "You're a bitter mockery of a human being, consuming resources and glorifying selfishness. This is a thing you have known to be true for years, and yet you've done nothing to remove yourself nor improve."

Conrad's thoughts are spiraling. The body at his back is warm and living and rank and he wants to push through it to get away, but is stuck in shock and terror.

The theater floor appears under the Boggart's feet, the path to the flickering movie screen now solid.

The hunter shakes his head, chin tilted in pity. "Not even the power of the seraphim could convince the lowliest druggard to love you."

Conrad could feel every word dig deep inside of him, even if the claims themselves were sterile. They were true enough to himself, those words, things he'd often thought on the bad days. Worth's inability to surpass the Boggart didn't feel so ridiculous in that moment; though the heat left Conrad's back and he could watch from his peripheral as Worth grabbed up his empty pack, passed the Boggart, and climbed up to the screen, knifing open the canvas.

Worth disappeared through the gap and Conrad kept his attention dutifully on the Boggart, feeling sick.

"And why should he?" The hunter continues conversationally. "He's actually a better person than you. Unwashed, underfed, likely an addict - worldly, intelligent, charitable. Not even his bad qualities could trump your uselessness, because he does something with his life. And he knows it. Knows the difference." Quieter, as if imparting a secret, "They all know the difference. And your strutting around pretending good oral hygiene somehow determines you to be a better man than a doctor? Tch."

Conrad doesn't have anything to say in his defense, eyebrows stuck in a collision over a wrinkled nose. Weakly, "Do I do that, though? I don't strutt -"

"Nose in the air," the hunter confirms, hand out to indicate the whole of Conrad's currently frozen posture. "Nobody allowed to touch you, as if they're the taint. You're so wound up in your own point of view that you don't even realize you are the pathetic stain. And when others show you pity, like a child you throw it back in their faces. How dare they acknowledge your lesser nature. How dare they try to help."

"I'm not - they're not - mph, nobody is w-"

"Don't try to argue your way out of this, vampire." The hunter's voice hardens. "You're even less of a human being now than you ever were. And you're going to use that as an excuse to take advantage of the people in your life - but the narrative will remain the same. You don't deserve it. You don't deserve them. And they do not deserve the grief of knowing you."

Conrad's chest works in panicked, hungry breaths. "I don't even ask -"

"You don't ask, so that it frees you from the responsibility of acknowledging their kindness. You are a worm who complains about the fingers pulling it off the fishing hook. You will spend your life alone at a desk, hating everyone who does not do the same - and hating those who do the same, but are happier."

The rattle of bone and wood narrates Worth's approach. The bits of theater around them are starting to shake, crumble, drop into the water. "C'mon," Worth shoves at Conrad's shoulder to shake him out of his paralyzed reverie. When Conrad doesn't respond, or turn, "C'mon, then. What, he giving you the riot act? Illustratin' yer midlife crisis? Predicting yer future kids gonna be fat and depressed? Let's go, snagglepriss."

Woodenly, Conrad remains facing the Boggart. "You can go. I did what Hanna needed and that's... you can go."

Worth leans his forearm on Conrad's shoulder, then drops his forehead to his arm, sighing heavily. He straightens, removes his arm, and punches Conrad square sideways in the jaw.

Conrad's attention snaps, furious, to Worth, hands balled into fists; Worth is already tugging, pushing, moving them both down the pier and onto the cool-packed dirt of the shore as the theater collapses behind them.