Interior decorating, the mail again, and cracking façades.
(In the attic)

The increasingly heavy snowfall covers their tracks, hiding the tell-tale story of their hesitation, the pauses they took to reconsider, the differences in pace and gait.

Glæpur is―of course―a pathological jaywalker, which in itself is not the littlest bit surprising. The streets are empty, anyway, and Íþróttaálfurinn still doesn't feel like himself enough to remind anyone of any rule.

So, happy to be dragged along and walk at one tenth of his preferred speed, the elf contemplates the hand holding his.

Step after step, Glæpur's hand slid from his wrist until it came to curl over his fingers. It's cold, and bony, and oddly rough. Brittle, is what comes to mind, and Íþróttaálfurinn holds it without gripping, with the same care he has for children's tiny fingers. Intermittently, he lifts his free hand to rub at his neck. From pleasantly warm, the patch of skin the man touched started feeling tingly, even a bit chafed.

"Your hands are really dry," he observes, scratching absentmindedly.

"Well, pardon me," Glæpur sneers, at ease again. "Couldn't exactly lotion up while on the run, could I? Hell, I could barely shave."

Siggi's grandma lives around here, Íþróttaálfurinn recognises the area now. The address on the key tag must be hers, and step after step, the realization dawns on him. After missing his nemesis viciously for most of a month, Íþróttaálfurinn is going to spend the night with him. It feels odd, almost too direct, too far from the playful familiarity of their game—even without the implications of human culture. He will enter another space that Glæpur will instantly claim, and the man's gravity will pull on him and he'll say things that should stay hidden, compromise himself further and further. Comparatively, the blizzard seems less dangerous.

Lost in thought, it takes him a moment to notice that they have stopped, and that the man's hand is not around his anymore.

"… Glæpur?" he calls, swirling on himself a couple of times.

"Hush! I'm up here," comes the answer, drawing his gaze up. His nemesis is perched atop the wall that divides Siggi's grandma's garden from her neighbour's, clearly calculating the jump to the nearest windowsill.

"Wait, are you trying to break in?" he asks, to his own puzzlement, in a loud whisper.

"What does it look like?"

"Gl―you have a key!"

Glæpur's concentration breaks, almost visible as he looks down at him, freezing where he crouches.

"That's true!" he laughs, pulling the key from his pocket and smacking his forehead. "Hah! Habits, am I right?"

Still up on the narrow wall, he springs to his feet, looking up at the sky. Íþróttaálfurinn watches the bag dangle off his back as he puts one step in front of the other, clothes fluttering in the snowy wind. It's nothing particularly dangerous―the wall is lower than eye-level―yet Íþróttaálfurinn feels a prickling of sweat on his back, the hair at his nape rise like hackles.

"Hey, Íþró," the man calls in a distant, pensive tone, looking up instead of down, walking like he's on a catwalk and not a tightrope. "If I fell down, would you catch me?"

"Of course I would," he gasps. But be careful, he wants to plead, but it snags in his throat like a kite between branches. Be careful, I might be late again.

Glæpur doesn't fall. He just smirks and dashes forward in a sprint to the end of the wall. In one fluid motion, he grabs the railing of the narrow metal staircase and vaults his long legs over it, reaching the landing. He bends at the waist in a flourishing bow towards him, but Íþróttaálfurinn is busy trying to keep his heart from hammering its way out of his ribs.

"Glæpur, I just told you―" he scolds, even though he didn't tell him, taking the steps three at a time. "That was unnecessary! Everything's covered in ice, you could have slipped, you could have―"

"I thought you were all about unnecessary stunts, Sports Elf."

"I am not about recklessness!"

What's even more frightening is the near-panic that seizes him at the mere thought of Glaepur getting injured again. And even worse, right on Íþróttaálfurinn's watch.

The man scrunches up his nose, in uncaring impertinence. "Reckless is, quite literally, my first name."

At the top of the stairs, there is the low door that must be the attic. Glæpur turns the key with a sleight of hand, and the rusty metal thing opens soundlessly in his hands, like he's been living here for years. Íþróttaálfurinn ducks after him to enter, a little impressed.

There is no light switch: he comes close to tripping on Glæpur's shoes and bag while taking off his boots. Before he can protest, a rustle followed by a hushed cry of triumph alert him that the other has found something of interest.

"A-ha! Candles." Glæpur lights one, apparently out of nowhere, bathing the attic in its soft glow. "Wow. Charming."

He passes an unlit candle to Íþróttaálfurinn, then tugs him near to light it with the flame from his own. His grip is back on the elf's wrist, firm and chafing, tilting at just the right angle. The little flames flicker vivid in his transparent eyes, when he looks up and grins and releases his hand, walking backwards into the darkness. Íþróttaálfurinn swallows a lump of nothing, looking away.

The attic does have some sort of appeal to it, in its own way, the elf muses.

The ceilings are so sloped that a man of Glæpur's height has to watch his head as soon as he moves away from the middle. It's an open space, the only door leading to a tiny bathroom, only place where a lone light-bulb hangs bare above the door. The bathroom itself is more of a corner with sink, bowl, and shower than anything else, crowded with what looks like a disassembled wardrobe. The kitchen area is nothing but a camp stove on a coffee table, where they set the mugs, next to a pair of faded kitchen rags. Old paint peels from the walls, old floors creak, and old furniture crowds the low space under the eaves. Charming, apparently.

The wind's howling sounds amplified in here, and it doesn't look like it would be too bright, even in daylight. It probably suits Glæpur, Íþróttaálfurinn considers, this shadowy stone burrow. Concerning himself, it is with fierce relief that he spots the skylight almost directly above a bare, moth-eaten floral couch.

In turn, the couch in question seems to be puzzling Glæpur. He has halted in the middle of the room, staring down at the mismatched set of sheets folded on one of the armrests. The old faded pillows look like a valiant attempt has been made at fluffing them up.

"Hello," Íþróttaálfurinn calls, after a full minute of silence, "you all right?"

Glæpur lifts his candle towards the ceiling, illuminating the beams overhead, without looking up. "You sure I'm the one you wanna ask this question to?"

Íþróttaálfurinn glances, letting out a sigh of impatience. Yes, the beams are creaking, yes, it's dark and tight, yes, there is only one window. It's bothering him less than expected, he considers, and though he yearns to, he will not be mistaking deflection for actual concern.

"Yes, I'm quite sure."

Glaepur shifts. "I didn't think… I wasn't expecting―this."

Íþróttaálfurinn perks his ears at the intriguing meekness in his voice. His nemesis stands there, looking at it all, not daring to touch.

While it is clear nobody spent money to put this together, a great deal of care obviously went into it. There is even a small, ancient-looking space heater right next to the couch―though the elf isn't sure it could ever work. Stay a while, the room murmurs, in the children's happy voices. At least stay the winter. You're welcome here.

"What were you expecting, instead?"

"… no idea," the man says, with a small, helpless shrug. "A corner with a blanket… or a mattress on the floor, at best, maybe? You know, like a hideout."

"Is that the sort of place you usually—"

"You live in an air balloon, you have no case."

"I don't live in it." A little drily, he says, "The Mayor and my kids are kind, generous people. They wouldn't put you on the floor."

"They―uh. Still, this is… a lot, that's all I'm saying."

"Didn't you stay in the best hotel room at the Mayor's expense, last spring?"

Glæpur has the grace to cringe a little. "That was different," he sputters. "I was in a disguise, Rikki Ríki was nice, andlikable―anybody would have paid for his hotel room. They didn't know what I was―what I am. I mean, who I am. Oh, whatever."

"Glæpur," he says, resisting the impulse to reach a hand to his shoulder. He sounds desolated.

"Exactly."

"Why is it so hard to accept they know now, and still want you here?" he asks. "That they really want you to be safe and welcome?"

The man outright squirms, taking a step to the side, like he said something offensive.

"Because…!" he starts, gesturing emptily to anything and everything, shaking his head. "They have no reason to… it just makes no sense―"

He presses his lips together, trapping something, and Íþróttaálfurinn could swear he can see the cogs turning in his head, calculating a debt that he alone sees, planning escape routes for traps nobody has set. The tangled ropes of his balloon come back to mind, and bring sadness with their usual uncertainty.

"Glanni," he calls then, noticing something as his eyes trail down the man's twitchy figure.

He rolls the first name in his mouth like a food never tasted. There was something oddly intimate in the way the man lit his candle, that makes it strange to keep the kind of distance a last name implies.

"What."

"Why… are you missing a sock?"

Glanni―and maybe he can call him that, since he answered, and didn't sneer―uncannily, flushes a uniform pink under the residual patchy redness from the cold outside.

"Well, uh… they made me hang it to the fireplace―because that's a thing you do on Christmas, apparently―and…" He briefly buries his face in both hands. Íþróttaálfurinn coughs down a snort. "I didn't know how to get it back… oh, don't laugh, I've had these on for days and I draw the line at murder, Íþró―I said stop laughing!"

But the elf can't help it. Every time he glances back at the man's feet―shifting, toeing the floorboards, one bare and one not―the laughter bubbles out of chest like a hot spring. Glanni throws his remaining sock at him, bouncing daintily on his bare foot, he pretends to faint and the man, too, cracks a grin. Soon, the candlelit attic fills with barely stifled laughter, tension receding in the dark corners, like skittering mice.

"No wonder your toes were cold," Íþróttaálfurinn says, looking up at him from the floor, some more of that unguarded tenderness slipping in his voice. Apparently, enough of it to make his nemesis shy his eyes away.

"Let's… just get this couch ready, yeah?" he grunts. Out of an open box in the corner, Glanni fishes some cracked decorative dish to stick the candles on. The wax drips on his fingers, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Help me out, elf," he says, calling him back to attention. "Or you will know the hideout life."

Íþróttaálfurinn rolls to his feet. "Aye aye."

It takes him the whole process of making the improvised bed―complete of shaking out the sheets, fitting the pillowcases, tucking in the corners―to come down from the surprise.

Without even questioning it, he had assumed he himself would take the proverbial blanket on the floor. Instead, Glanni wants them to share the couch, though its length and width would barely let a person of Íþróttaálfurinn's height lie down comfortably.

Maybe it will work, he muses. Maybe they'll take a side each, tangle their feet in the middle, half-heartedly kick each other's shins before settling down. It will be fine. It isn't the first time they had to squeeze together in the same room, after all: the chase-game had them finding themselves in a couple of situations.

They had taken their little squabble somewhere they shouldn't have, and Íþróttaálfurinn had accidentally blown Glanni's cover on dangerous turf. But, quick to think on his feet, the man smoothed a smirk over his face, and pulled the elf semi-effortlessly into his con.

Somehow, it ended with them spending the night in a small guestroom, presented with a single, twin bed. Íþróttaálfurinn would have shared it, at the time giving little thought to proximity―as long as Glanni agreed to leave his switchblade off reach. The man had scoffed like Íþróttaálfurinn insulted his lineage to the seventh generation, then plopped unhappily on the uncomfortable-looking armchair and claimed it as his. There, under the elf's intrigued stare―like a child at a magic fair―somehow the man folded all of his long limbs under the sole cover of his jacket, and went to sleep.

Íþróttaálfurinn had stared morbidly for a little while, in disbelief and, in hindsight, a little in awe too. Glanni seemed so small, curled up in the cradling arms of the chair, his ever-moving hands clutching the jacket intermittently, like a kitten kneading. Even in the apparent ease of his sleep, his deep frown didn't leave his face. It put something in him, some odd tingle in his stomach and, lying on his back on the made bed, he had the hardest time falling asleep. Glanni had on some nice perfume, too, fruity and fragrant, and by the stroke of midnight it had permeated the whole room, and finally lulled him to sleep. It was probably laced with something, come to think of it, because he―unsurprisingly―woke up alone. Even at the time, he had the feeling of having enjoyed it all a bit too much.

Now, in this new situation he ended up in, he watches his nemesis dig out a couple of blankets, and spread them over the mismatched sheets.

"Why did you say…" Glanni starts suddenly, smoothing down the fabric then bunching it up, tucking and un-tucking, in a tide of hesitation. "Out on the bench, you said―but what reason would you have to be worried about me?"

The elf tenses, drifting back to the sense of loss that hit him when he first woke up in the empty basket, with only the crashing waves for company. He concentrates on the blankets, anchoring himself to the present: they look warm and comfortable, smelling freshly laundered, like the sweater, and a bit like territorial male cat. Oddly, it works.

"I just was," he admits over the expanse of shared fabric, shared turf. Glanni is here now, and it's a balm to the aching memory, easing the words out of him. He draws in a shaky breath, distractedly pushing his palms together. "I didn't know where you went, I didn't know if you were safe, and you were hurt―"

"Psh. I don't get hurt, I get inconvenienced," Glanni clips, in a voice that feels like a swat on the hand. "I couldn't stay, you must have known that―everyone knows you, you attract attention… I needed to cover my tracks."

"Yes, I know now. I didn't know then." He watches the man start to pace, with little aim.

"I even sent you your scarf back! As soon as I could, like, stand up."

"I got it just today."

Glanni stops in his tracks. "Shit." He lets out a sort of groaning huff. "Well, the postal service is beyond my control."

Íþróttaálfurinn tries to put aside how, if he didn't know better, it would sound like the man is trying to justify himself.

"There were rumours," Íþróttaálfurinn explains instead, hoping the man isn't already regretting sharing his shelter with him, all the buried things he's digging out. "Lots of contradicting stuff―but mainly, that you were in debt with the wrong people, and as good as dead. I know you didn't do it on purpose. It just happened, the circumstances had me worried."

"So you do know. You know that staying dead is the only way I can stay alive, for now." He merely nods, and after a moment Glanni speaks again. "I still don't know how you played this round of the game. Tell me about it?"

"About…" he hesitates. He got used to not considering it part of the game anymore. "About what happened overseas? Why?"

Glanni shuffles over to the decrepit space-heater, pulls the dish with the candles near, and starts tinkering with it, taking off the back panel to reach inside. The thing creaks, as if in pain.

"Humour me," he says, and Íþróttaálfurinn stops himself from asking him if he's sure, really, really sure. Maybe he just wants to gauge how much the elf knows, confirm the discretion of his return. He sighs, gathering himself.

"Well, your scheme here in Latibær was supposed to get you out of debt," Íþróttaálfurinn starts, "but only made it worse. Orders made the rounds, and you weren't safe anywhere here anymore." He dares a glance in Glanni's direction, and the man gestures for him to go on, eyes down on his candle-lit work. "Not a lot of places to hide over here, aside from the wilderness."

"You would know, hidden folk," Glanni says. The little machine gives a spark, and an ancestral shiver runs up the elf's back.

"So you ran," he continues, voice catching. "You found your way across the Ocean. My sources can't say how exactly. There's no trace of your crossing, no record."

It crossed his mind, at times, that he might have dreamt the whole thing up. It was more plausible than a human traveling 3,000 miles and leaving no trace, somehow, even if that human was Glanni Glæpur.

"I stole a ticket," Glanni says simply, lifting the veil of mystery to reveal the trick underneath. "I'm a good impersonator."

"… of course." He should have known, he guesses. He clears his throat, and continues, "Then, you either got caught, or let yourself be caught."

"Second one," the man says with a lopsided smirk. "I was after some information. Wasn't worth it, let me tell ya."

"You couldn't find your way out in time" Íþróttaálfurinn finds that he can't really look him in the eye saying this, can't allow himself to really think about all the ways the unthinkable could have been avoided. "The reach of your collectors was longer than expected."

Glanni only smiles, his tilted face catching the light, sunken with demonic shadows. The thing gives another wheezy, pained spark. "I swim with long-finned sharks."

The elf inhales, exhales. "The oath-breakers picked up the orders." He swallows, not caring anymore if his voice wavers and cracks. "Then you ran, and let me find you. Then ran again."

How strange the world has gotten, he thinks, drying the sweat from his upper lip, that he would come to talk of horrific violence so nonchalantly. He watches the light liven Glanni's eyes again, after they had gone flat and distant for a moment.

"What they did wasn't even in those orders, you know? They were only supposed to, ah, threaten me. Maybe rough me up a little. Nothing specific." Abruptly, the old space-heater comes alive in his hands, front glowing red in the half-light. "But I was lucky, everything considered. I'm always lucky."

Íþróttaálfurinn remembers his feverish eyes, so bright in the low light of that alley, and wonders if Glanni's sarcasm has become too subtle for him to detect, like the smell of his scarf for human noses.

"Lucky," he echoes, voice trembling.

"Yes, I still have all my useful bits about me, see?" Glanni says, rocking back to wiggle his toes and fingers. "Could have been broken bones, could have been a fat meal for the dogs―" He shudders. "Well, it's more convenience than luck, actually. Can't have a debtor run off or die of sepsis―gotta hit that sweet middle, you know? And it won't reform a criminal, but sure does a good job at breaking one's spirit." His shoulders drop. "Well, most spirits."

Íþróttaálfurinn's guts twist into knots, that sickly urgency upon him again. He wonders if he, too, had something hidden in his tone, that compelled the other to tell him all this when he clearly doesn't want to.

"It's just so unbelievable that―" he halts, realizing he sounds naïve and, worse, disbelieving. "I just would have never thought… that humans who took an oath to protect would just―break it like it means nothing."

Glanni just shrugs, the gesture derisive, somehow. "They can't be all Lolli, can they?" he says, sneering almost affectionately. Colder, he continues, "No, human police will never be the Elven Guard or whatever. An oath is a promise, nothing more than a given word."

"Heroes League," Íþróttaálfurinn corrects automatically. "We give our word, too, and nothing more."

"Humans don't do well with those, never have. Some other shit always gets in the way. Money, or power, or what have you. Mostly money."

"Even with something so evil?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, always darkly impressed that such a simple thing can move so much, and bring so much suffering. From the miner, to the oath-breakers' ring, to Glanni's own trade, it all circles back to that miserable flimsy paper.

"Especially for that. It was nothing personal." With a strange glint in his eye, Glanni says, "Maybe I should take it as flattery, even."

"How could―how could such a thing ever be flattering?" the elf gasps, the mere idea making his skin ripple with revulsion. He cannot imagine anything more personal, and less flattering.

"Well," Glanni says, lifting a hand to scratch behind his shoulder, "Mr. Biter here, was into it. Can't really say for the other two, but him―well. And it makes it easier, when it all goes back to plain old fucking, you know? That's always been easy―you can just numb out if you get bored. That's why I'm like, barely affected."

For a long moment, the elf just looks at him, brain scrambling for something to say. He knows exactly who Mr. Biter is. The other two, as well, he knows their names and knows what they've done and what has been of them. He wonders if numbing out if something the other has to do often, to stay alive, in all senses of the term. He wonders if the bluntness, too, helps him go on.

Barely affected. Low and charged, he says, "You almost died."

Glanni shoots him a startled look. Íþróttaálfurinn gathers that he's doing something wrong, contradicting him as he tries to fold the unthinkable smaller and smaller until it's not there anymore.

"But I didn't." He grins that wide, stretched grin that hurts somehow. "Nobody knows, but I'm still here."

Mr. Biter isn't the oath-breaker's actual name, of course. But it might as well be. An unremarkable man with an unremarkable foreign name, printed on a neglected newspaper page. If Íþróttaálfurinn had grown to feel a begrudging respect for Glanni Glæpur's criminal trade, to recognise the skill and art of it, then a man like that would be at the opposite end of the scale. A crooked cop, ear pressed to the earth for every rattle of the criminal underworld, reaping what benefits he could, protected by his order and the false words he has given, taking none of the risks.

At least, Glanni acknowledges his occupational hazards, the degree of personal risk that comes with his line of work. That's why Íþróttaálfurinn had to go behind his back to find more about what happened, keep everything vague with the League's representatives to protect his nemesis' privacy. It was sad and yet convenient, that so many other victims came forward and were willing to testify, and that heroes are not supposed to pick favourites regarding who to help: the welfare of prison inmates still falls under human welfare.

It didn't take long for the League to confirm his word and make its intervention, and to mail him back a newspaper clipping with three small mugshots. The three oath-breakers, two guards and a cop, almost offensive in their dullness, were found guilty. Their system blown to the light, the men and their associates had passed to the other side of the bars, where they belonged. Justice was done.

Once he saw those faces―they branded his memory in a way faces rarely did―like a delayed explosion, all the fury that didn't hit him before mounted inside him. His heart raced, his vision tunnelled, he felt his teeth bare in a snarl. Every ounce of discipline he had, he used to stop himself from making the trip back and, literally and metaphorically, take the matter into his own hands.

Sometimes, he will admit, he had wanted to bash some parent's face down in their gross dinner―but it was rare and unwelcome. As a hero, he is happy to fix crises, provide means end teachings and encouragement, and forgo the long-term maintenance. Most of the time. It is a dangerous game to play, for a hero to shift his priorities. He knew it then and he knows it now that everything is resurfacing. Yet, it was so sweet to imagine, showing those men exactly what he thought of their methods. Sweet and frightening, in the way power-fantasies usually are, giving him the same fierce joy that thoughts of escape used to give him, when he was a number.

In this fantasy, he is there, physically, he gets to get his hands dirty, he gets to fix it. His hand clenches around the oath-breaker's windpipe, hard enough to crush. How dare you, he'd hiss, allowing himself to be vicious and careless, like the ancient ones of his kind. Allowing himself power over life and death. How did it even cross your mind, that you were worthy of touching him?

It puzzled him, this question that he kept finding in himself. Did he expect flair and glamour from these oath-breakers too? Like they could somehow be more worthy of hurting his nemesis, had they oozed less squalor? The mere thought made him sick. And every time the vision visited him, he would see Glanni's pale form, lying on his side in a painful knot of limbs, covered in coal handprints.

But justice is already done this time―and it holds no satisfaction―and heroes can't afford to be careless, cannot claim that power for himself. This could never be about revenge, he tells himself once more, once again. It couldn't be a matter of worthiness. He doesn't know which upsets him more: the killing instinct, awakened, or the dark possessiveness of his yearning, awakened. Compromised, his file would say, if the League could see into his head.

"I shouldn't have been surprised, that you thought it was all a trick."

Glanni's voice, a little less sure after his long silence, pulls him back to the present.

"So many bad coincidences―it does look arranged," he continues, letting out a small, nervous laugh. "Shit, maybe I'm the one who got conned and I don't even know."

Íþróttaálfurinn starts. "No, really, that was all me," he says, shaking off the stormy, swirling thoughts. "You were right, I didn't expect seeing you here. It made me wary of your intentions. Not my brightest moment."

"Íþró," Glanni says, kind of earnestly, "I couldn't be in your debt any more than I already was. Besides," he says, forcing a smile, "I always know when I've overstayed my welcome. I'm overstaying here too, as we speak."

Íþróttaálfurinn shoots him a glance. "You just got here. Nobody wants you to―"

"I lied, earlier," Glanni says out of nowhere, cutting him off. "I was trying to rile you up. Find out what you really think. Find out if you would do something stupid."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't borrow any time, in Storíbær."

Íþróttaálfurinn imagines his own face as the epitome of confusion, because the man elaborates, "I couldn't, even if I tried," he says, speaking to the heater. "And believe me, I tried. Nothing's working."

There is a distant ringing in the elf's ears, like a sheet of icy rain coming down at once.

Somehow, he finds it in himself to ask, "Why… why would that… rile me up? It's your business, I was just concerned about your health, that's all…"

At the look Glanni gives him, equal parts calculating and exasperated, his voice drifts off by itself.

"On my side of the game," he starts, "my acquaintance wasn't happy to see me at all, let alone thrilled. I just called in an old favour. She's a med student, knows her stuff. Got some bloodwork done, antibiotics, painkillers―the usual. I crashed in her basement to sleep it off for a couple of days." He lets out a small, mirthless laugh. "Then I resuscitated her old wreck of a car, to secure my next favour. There are many ways to buy time, you know."

A flock of images rise in Íþróttaálfurinn's mind at that simple, rattled off description of what has surely been a hellish time. A part of him is relieved that the man has at least sought out medical attention. Not so reckless, he could remark. Why are you telling me this, he mainly wants to ask. Why are you still justifying yourself.

"Well, I know now," he says evenly.

Glanni doesn't seem to have heard him. "I mean, who do you think stopped that godawful noise your hot-air fart was making? You zoned out and pedalled between gears for I don't even know how long―gave me motion sickness, on top of everything else."

"That was you?"

"Who did you expect? Santa Claus?"

"No, I―" He halts, shifts, mumbles. "Thank you, then?"

"You're welcome."

There is a stretch of silence, charged, uncomfortable. As Glanni picks up his box and rustles in it, the elf notices his own socks are a little damp with sweat, and will easily also murder someone by morning. The rest of him, too, cooled sweat a now dry film in the dusty air of the attic.

"Go test the shower, will you?" the man orders, reading his mind, shoving a bundle in his arms. "Check if the water pressure is good."

The now familiar mallow-scented soap, loose slacks and a plain white t-shirt. All from the Mayor, as he is the only man in town rivalling Glanni in height. And here it is again, the absent-minded kindness, sharing what little he has.

Or maybe, Íþróttaálfurinn wonders, he just wants to have him out of his sight for a moment.

The water pressure is a disaster.

As if to compensate, the smallest nudge of the faucet handle turns the water near-boiling. The old pipes groan reproachfully at Íþróttaálfurinn as he washes up quickly, the yellow scarf brought along with him under the weak lukewarm stream. He can scrub the alley smell from the fabric, but he cannot shake the fear that the other will disappear while he mucks about in the tiny windowless bathroom.

He dries up and shrugs on the borrowed clothes as fast as possible, and all but yanks the door open. Glanni is there, pushing the couch forward, away from under the eave, until it's directly under the skylight. Relief floods his senses for a brief, intense moment.

"Better, right?" Glanni asks, looking up. "I just thought that—ears!"

The elf has no time to notice anything else. His nemesis is leaping towards him, whispering can I, can I, can I, and wiggling his nimble fingers, and it should be terrifying. It isn't. Íþróttaálfurinn bows his bare head for him, even if there's no need, and both of Glanni's hands skitter into his hair, thumbs stroking the tips of his ears and behind.

"Always good to see them… why are they going all red?"

"Because you're touching them."

Glanni gives a devious smirk. "Kinky."

The elf snorts. "You know it's not like that."

"Oh, it never is," the man says, with an eye roll.

It is pleasant—when someone trusted does it—but it's a back-rub sort of pleasure. Makes him want to reciprocate, to wrap his arms around the other and rub him in return. To let his forehead nuzzle in the warm folds of his sweater, in the crook of his shoulder. He lets out a long sigh, and picks up something unfamiliar on his next inhale.

"Have you… been out?" he asks haltingly. The man stops his attentions, muttering fucking elven nose, under his breath.

"Yeah, I went downstairs to meet our host," he explains, stepping away before the elf can do anything to keep him there. "And before you ask: no, I didn't wake her, she's reading. And no, I didn't rob her, she wanted me to take the carpet upstairs."

"Carpet?"

Íþróttaálfurinn finally takes a new look around the room, and feels like he stepped out the bathroom into a different dimension. He hangs the scarf to dry from one of the beams, and folds his day clothes inside the breastplate, taking in the space around him.

The room now looks like something from one of those weird minimalist catalogues Nenni's mom keeps at her studio. There is an old carpet under the arranged sleeping area. The coffee table has been moved in front of the couch, the decrepit heater seems to be running, optimal angle spreading a pleasant warmth. The boxes and furniture are pushed back out of sight.

"We have to tell Siggi to bring her some Christmas cookies, she says, by the way," Glanni adds, shaking the elf from his momentary stupor.

"Hmm, better not too many, though," Íþróttaálfurinn says automatically, still marvelling at the room. "Siggi and his grandma are very alike."

"Let the woman have her cookies, elf, she's ancient." Then, in a quiet and pensive tone, he says, "Man, I'm gonna miss playing house with you, when we go back to normal."

Distinctly, Íþróttaálfurinn feels his heart fall. He makes it sound like they've been playing house for years, falling into habits and routines, tag-teaming life like a mission.

"Back to normal…" Searching for the man's gaze, forcing himself to be direct, he asks, "Do you want to go back to being enemies?"

"I want to go back to the game!" Glanni says with a strange cheerfulness. "To fun things! We're always talking about work anyway. We aren't that good at this truce business."

"I thought we were doing okay," he says timidly, and the man just tsks.

The elf looks at him, thinking of occupational hazards, of words uttered between laughs and sobs. He tries to imagine it, the normal. Giving chase again, giving Glanni a head-start, following him through all the dirty city undergrounds. The dingy bars and fancy penthouses, the familiar stage of their strange dance. He tries to imagine tipping off his location to the police, like he used to do, back when the idea of armed men busting in on Glanni in the middle of the night was just part of the game, instead of the stuff of nightmares. He imagines calling him Glæpur again.

"Glanni," Íþróttaálfurinn stammers, the name alone pulling everything out of him, already tinged in apology. He breathes out, "I… don't think I can play like that anymore."

Glanni's face transforms, the look of challenging, humorous stubbornness melting into anguish in the blink of an eye. The lost man blinks at him with his transparent eyes, going wide with surprise, even hurt.

"You backing out now?" he asks, in a loud forceful whisper. "Why―wasn't it good fun? Don't you want to go back to how it was? To this summer?"

Íþróttaálfurinn thinks back. The wild banter, the disguises, the odd places they found themselves in, like in the world's strangest game of hide-and-seek. The mental challenge of being one step ahead, only to discover the other was three steps ahead in the other direction. The schemes built and crushed, like sandcastles. The secret, knowing smiles.

He thinks of that touch of undercover complicity, when chance brought their interest to align and they would, for a brief moment, be allies, dance their secret dance at someone else's expense. Work together, win together. He had grown to like the way Glanni looked at him when they weren't enemies, even back when he didn't know what to make of the uncomfortable warmth in his gut.

It was a glamorous, exhilarating handful of months, and he got so addicted to it he started to resent when his crystal would call him elsewhere, when Glanni wasn't involved. It was the kind of thing that couldn't last, and the kind of thing that would drag on until stopped, even if they never wanted it to stop.

"It was… different," he admits. "I never had a nemesis before. The older guys talk about how it is, when you find one, how it changes… everything." He gives Glanni a nervous smile, that Glanni doesn't reciprocate. "It was good. It was challenging. But it has to stop, because now―"

Glanni bristles, expression hardening in a moment.

"Now what?!" he hisses. Agitated, he puffs up like a scrawny cat trying to look threatening. "Is some roughing up all it takes to make you go all softon me? Should have paid somebody to deck me in the face ages ago."

Íþróttaálfurinn thinks of the squalid reality of both their lives, belonging nowhere, nose deep in other people's business to put aside their own, strays of a different breed, of the same lonely strain. Part of the land but lost somewhere, chipped off, untethered.

Then, Glanni's voice lowers, colder. "Or what, I'm just not good enough anymore, now? You think I'm weak?"

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "No―it's not you. I just can't trust these people's oaths anymore. I can't put you at that much risk again."

He looks up at him, hoping to find understanding, finding a wall. And underneath, that visceral fear that soaked through the yellow cloth hanging behind him, like a defeated flag.

"Put me at―? I hate this," Glanni hisses, pushing his jaw forward in that stubborn way of his, words sharp between his teeth. "I hate this. You're a goddamn coward."

The elf exhales, chest aching. A while ago, he would have retaliated at that insult. Now, he knows it's not the time, not the way. Something makes a noise like a rain-stick, maybe the snow on the skylight.

"If you want to call it cowardice, then yes," he says heatedly, arms trembling at his sides. "How can I chase you down and bring you to justice, if all I want to do is―"

"You can't do this!" Glanni jumps over his words, almost yelling. "If I'm your nemesis, you can't just toss me aside like this, you can't let a single, meaningless thing just change every―what's that damn noise?"

Íþróttaálfurinn finally registers that his crystal has been calling him from the bundle in his shed armour for the past few minutes.

"It's my mail beacon," he answers grumpily, looking around for a way to get the mail to reach him.

Then the sound from above becomes more insistent, and he sees the mail-tube tap into the glass with pointed insistence. He opens the skylight, letting in a whirl of snow and crisp winter air. The mailer settles in his hands, and he scrambles to open it as soon as he notices the League's crest at the top.

The man asks, "Is it some hero emergency you have to go fix?"

Íþróttaálfurinn's heart clenches at how… angrily hopeful Glanni sounds. He wants him to leave, and he shouldn't have come here with him, in the first place. He shakes his head no, for honesty's sake if nothing else.

He finishes unrolling the tube, letting a small, passive-aggressive Christmas card rolls out in his hand, and a foreign newspaper clipping flutters down to the floor.

He has barely the time to register that the card is in English―and look closer at the seal to confirm: overseas division. Shit.

"Wait―" He lunges forward, but Glanni has already bent to pick the clipping up.

It seems that, festivities or not, his community has his back: one of the newspaper scraps he followed overseas has now followed him back, and elves are known for their many talents, but good timing isn't one of them. Glanni turns the clipping in his long fingers, and freezes.

Íþróttaálfurinn holds himself back from ripping it from his hands, even though his instincts are screaming at him to make the familiar three mugshots stop staring back at Glanni with their sullen, indolent inky eyes. Glanni's breathing has halted.

"This… it's―them," he rasps, drawing in a shaky gulp of air, face gone ashen. "Why would your people send you this?"

In a spark of clarity like a lighting spearing the night, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes the other doesn't know anything about the oath-breakers' fate―and Íþróttaálfurinn never thought he would have to be the one to deliver the news.

"And why here…? Wait." An immense horror dawns on him. He spreads his arms, encompassing the whole attic with a horrified gesture, waving the paper wildly. "Does… does everybody know? Is that why they're being nice to me?"

"What―no," Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to say, alarmed. "No one in Latibær knows. None of my people either. I haven't told anyone―I never made your name for the investigation, I swear."

"Investigation―? What have you… oh no." Íþróttaálfurinn has never seen instincts conflict so clearly on someone's face before, as he watches Glanni discard fight and shock and contemplate flight, eyes darting up to the still-open skylight. "I'm dead―they know I'm here, I'm dead―was this a trap? All along?"

Oh no, the elf's mind echoes. "No, absolutely not!" Íþróttaálfurinn gasps, a painful twinge in his stomach. "When have I ever set traps for you? Just let me―"

"I knew I shouldn't have come back, I knew it―" he repeats frantically, voice going lower, sentences less constructed. "It's not safe here, I've got to go, I've got to hide―they're gonna be here any minute, they―"

"Listen, no one is―"

"Not even a day to rest―how long do I have to―"

Íþróttaálfurinn leaps, shutting the skylight with a piercing clack.

"They're dead, Glæpur!"

It wasn't really a shout. He hopes. Everything goes still anyway, and Íþróttaálfurinn feels his own voice echo, rippling like shock-waves in the small attic. Stunned into silence, the man blinks slowly, looking from him to the window, to the newspaper, back to him.

"… d-dead?" he whispers, looking like he might wake them up if he speaks too loud. "What, all of them?"

Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to nod. "All three." He points at the paper. "Beaten to death. They don't know who, yet―other inmates, probably. I doubt anybody is going to look into it too close."

Glanni frowns. "The other inmates? Were they in jail as in… in jail? Like, locked up?"

"Yes. The League found all their other victims, and got them convicted."

"I knew there was something I was missing…" Glanni trails off, pulling away from the elf, swaying a little on his feet. He covers his face, newspaper clipping fluttering to the floor. "All this time… they've been locked up all along…"

"Glanni," Íþróttaálfurinn says softly, inching closer, as though trying to coax a wild animal. "I wasn't keeping it secret―I didn't mean for it to come out like this, really."

The man's shoulders are shaking hard, and he mentally prepares to see him in tears again. He gives his arm a gentle nudge, trying to move his hands away. A huge, maniacal grin flashes white at him.

"I knew it!" Glanni announces gleefully. "Hah! I knew my boys wouldn't let me down!"

He lets out one of those broken, raspy laughs that takes the elf right back to the alley, to the red tinge of his desperation.

"What are you talking about?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, a little terrified. "You… planned this?"

For a long, uncomfortable moment, Glanni just laughs.

"Oh, I wish," he says fiercely, a wild light in his eyes, the storm awoken. "Boy, they would eat that sad choir stuff right up in that prison, these burly convicts just bawling, I had so many fans―it was glorious. Someone was bound to avenge my tragic demise."

A golden throat, that one has.

"You sang for them," Íþróttaálfurinn says, incredulous. "And the alliances you formed were strong enough for them to kill for you?"

"Yes, well." Glanni's ear-to-ear smile fades a bit. "I just vanished, they must have thought they shot me behind the barn, or something. And it's not like anybody liked those officers, in the first place… they treated everyone like shit. Targeting everyone's favourite entertainer was a stupid mistake." The grin falls, leaving a strange haunted look on his pale face. "Their last mistake, hah. Dead."

Íþróttaálfurinn squints at him, trying to see past the oily film of shock-induced cheerfulness. Something's wrong. Glanni isn't just pale, he looks queasy. And in a moment, Glanni lurches forward, then dashes off, hand clamped on his mouth, running for the bathroom like his life depends on it.

The elf goes after him, but the bathroom door slams shut in his face, sending him flat on his back. As the door bounces back open, creaking, he just lies on the floor rubbing his forehead. He cringes in sympathy at the sound of retching and breathless coughing.

"What a waste," he hears Glanni say, not bothering to close the door again. "These assholes just don't want me to keep food down, do they? Even from the damn grave. Ew."

Íþróttaálfurinn scoots on the floor, sitting just outside the bathroom threshold.

"It's… it's over now," he tries, not knowing how helpful it would be. His body itches to lean forward, and rub his back in soothing circles, dry the sweat from his forehead. Instead, he says, "Nobody knows you're here, nobody can come get you. You're safe."

The man nods, his hand running through his hair absent-mindedly, elbows propped on the bowl like a bar counter. He spits and reaches for the rusty chain, looking down into the swirling depths of the toilet bowl, like it can bring him answers.

"I need to shower," he says coldly, just as the elf inhales to speak.

Íþróttaálfurinn pulls the bathroom door shut.

Instead of getting up, he rolls on his back, lifting his legs and hips up in a straight line, until he can imagine he's touching the ceiling with his toes. He does this a few times, balancing up on his nape and shoulders. He sighs.

Should he go? He contemplates the prospect of solitude, wondering why it feels like ice in his guts. He hears the water start running, with a groan of old pipes.

The newspaper clipping finds its way into his hand when he stretches his arms back, mocking.

Notes: in turn, getting Glanni to open up is (quote) akin to peeling an onion while wearing oven mittens.
Chapter title from Vienna Teng's Drought.