Chapter 9: Suite Bergamasque, L. 75: III. Clair de lune On The Sea
"Any way, in a name, she takes shape just the same."
Moxxie felt an infinite pressure collapsing in on him from all directions. It was cold, absolute, but ultimately he felt fine. As if all of that weight somehow wasn't enough to make his body implode like a tin can under the sea. That, instead, it all was only a mild inconvenience.
Between that, and the dissociative filter that blanketed over everything he was experiencing, it felt safe to say he was dreaming again.
Despite how physically present he at least felt, every instant was sluggish and blurred. Just trying to lift his arms felt like swimming against the air. Only inconveniences, but they were frustrating. Add that to the last week, and he was at wit's end.
He'd pinch himself now if it'd wake him up. But, firstly, that's not how that worked. Secondly, there was more to the dream that caught his attention. Just a bit further ahead, there was someone else here too.
Caim. Just like last time, she was here in his dream.
Barely.
Compared to before, everything about her seemed faint, more like an implication of herself than fully present. She sat with her legs crossed, like she was just passing time. She wasn't even looking at him, either unaware of his presence or indifferent to it.
The question was why? Why here? Why now? Why was she just sitting there like that?
Moxxie was under the impression she said everything she wanted to say before, to rub every flaw he had into his face and force him into as awful a state of mind as she could. Every mistake, every poor decision, every detail of his life that added up the mess it was now.
Trying to act like it hadn't gotten to him was pointless. He knew it, she knew it. Even after listening to Huey's last words, trying to believe himself as deserving of any sympathies was difficult. Especially now, here in front of her. But, he had to try. He promised he would.
Moxxie tried to speak, but all that came out was a thought.
'What do you want with me now?'
Caim turned her head just a bit, only enough for her beady eye to lock onto him. The sensation was oddly vivid, like he actually could see it. Her glare wasn't stern, or wrathful, or anything of the sort. She just looked discontent.
"I…don't really know," she said. "I had crafted an entire speech to recite to you, thought of all the ways I could hurt you. But, I don't really know if I care to do that anymore." Her words were slow, carefully selected. He'd wonder if this secretly was the speech, but that didn't seem very likely. She sounded far too exhausted to bother with something like that now.
'Oh. Uhm, thank you?'
"Don't take it as a compliment, I still despise you."
'I can't really blame you.'
She stared at him, trying to decipher his words, or rather just him, like there was some kind of hidden meaning.
'But why are you still showing up in my dream again? If you're not going to just stand there and berate me again, what's the point?'
She didn't respond at first, seeming almost distracted. Just sitting there, fidgeting with the feathers on her wrist, plucking a couple loose ones and picking dirt from the rest. Moxxie wondered if she even heard him before she finally spoke.
"Who knows? Maybe I had a reason and I've simply forgotten…I've been dead for a good many hours now, whatever stain of myself is left on your mind won't be very comprehensive."
'I—I'm sorry, what does any of that mean?'
"Everyone always needs everything explained," she muttered under her breath. "You killed me. Shot me through the head, and I've been dead ever since. Me, here now," she gestured to herself, "I'm just an imprint of myself on your mind."
Moxxie did his best to wrap his head around the concept. Caim was actually dead, so all he was speaking to was the equivalent of burn-in on a TV screen.
"With every passing moment I lose a little more detail. Maybe a memory, or a behavior. Every persona of my being will be cut away, until all that's left is the very core of who I am. And even that, too, will fade."
'So you're dead for good then?'
"Not if my body regenerates. I have a feeling it's not going to work though," she clarified. "Besides, it won't be long until you can do something about it. Though I wonder about my voice in your head."
'Good to know that wasn't me going insane,' Moxxie remarked.
"That voice is more the real me than I am. A perfect captured instance of the last thoughts and feelings running through my mind before I died. It's also separate though, I have no control over it."
'Will I still hear it when you're gone?'
She flinched at the question. Her fingers trembling over her elbow as she gingerly grabbed another feather, plucking it. That one wasn't even very loose.
"I have no idea," she quickly finished. Her voice was hushed.
Moxxie had no idea what to make of her behavior. She must've really meant it when she said this was her "with all her personas cut away," he hardly even recognized her as the same person.
'I'll try to just take some solace in knowing this isn't my dying fever dream then.'
The dream as a whole only became more and more vivid. More real. Moxxie could almost feel himself in it, stale air, feet on a nondescript floor of a blank void. Just him, and Caim, and endless nothingness. Yet his arm was still broken. Dreams couldn't be consistent at all, but sure, he managed to keep that detail. Figures.
Caim sighed, despondent. "Perhaps it's mine."
Moxxie was almost certain she meant it as a joke, but that half-hearted delivery sounded so pitiful he could practically feel it hang in the air.
Pitiful…Did he pity her? He wanted to throw the very notion away. She tormented him, tormented Huey, shot up an entire gathering of Goetia, and now he was going to pity her?
'So what, you just want to talk then?'
"I suppose so."
Shit, he did pity her.
He moved beside the thrush, making sure to leave several feet of distance between them both, and sat down. It felt like wet sand.
"Alright, then. Talk to me. What's on your mind?"
Her eyes snapped to him. Not quite wide-eyed, but definitely surprised.
"You spoke."
"Yeah? What's so…" Moxxie trailed off, remembering it was a dream. "Oh. I did. Is that bad?"
"No, it just means you're lucid."
"Oh. I've never been lucid before."
"Lucid dreams are interesting things. Some people believe they hold deeper meanings of the world, predicting events to come and warning of looming threats."
"Do you believe in that?" Moxxie asked.
"No, dreams are utter nonsense."
"Oh."
"It's really just your mind on autopilot, no intent or motivation behind anything. It'll start somewhere related to whatever you've had on your mind lately. From there, who knows what strange connections your mind will make?"
Moxxie watched as she picked more and more of her feathers, moving on from her wrist and now to her chest and neck, fidgeting to distract herself from whatever it was she wasn't saying.
"But, if you're lucid," she continued, "I admit those ones can be interesting. It gives the dreamer agency over the fragile little fiction they've concocted."
Moxxie remembered one of the kids on his floor, back in the orphanage, that had become obsessed with lucid dreaming for a short time. Always talking about how it was like an endless playground where you could do anything. One day they tried to stay up all night, refusing to go to sleep. When Moxxie asked why, none of their answers made any sense to him at the time. Dreams where they got adopted, where they were rich, where they could fly. How that could possibly have upset them, was beyond him then. He had a better idea of it now, though.
No matter how good the dream was, they always had to wake up.
"Like a glass playground," Moxxie said. "Fun, beautiful, fragile, dangerous when it breaks."
Caim stared at him again, a more curious expression on her face than before. "Yes…that's an apt description. But, lucid dreams are also the one time anyone can ever attempt to understand their own mind."
Moxxie looked around him. It was just more inky darkness, nothing more. "I must not have much of one. All my dreams are empty."
Caim flinched, plucking a feather from her neck that wasn't as loose at all. She turned the feather over in her fingers, groaning. "I can't believe I'm saying this to an imp of all creatures, but no. Yours is quite fascinating."
Moxxie decided to let the casual racism slide for now, she was dying—already dead—after all. Not much value in addressing it now. Besides, he was far more interested with the second half of what she'd said.
"What's so fascinating about my mind? There's nothing here."
"Why does no one ever just look up?" She muttered to herself, sounding vaguely disappointed.
Moxxie took the hint. Far above them both, miles and miles up, was dancing light. Reflections, fading too quickly to reach all the way down to them. It shimmered constantly, always moving. Light pouring in through the surface of water.
"What is…"
Caim already knew his question. "For whatever reason, your mind has decided that you should be submerged under the deep sea. There's something more up there, but it's out of reach. I would imagine your fragile ego and crippling insecurity has something to do with that little allegory."
Moxxie soured, "Oh, so you're still going to be berating me then?"
"Be honest, you've never been very self-assured. Look where that led."
He was inclined to agree, but a certain amount of spite wouldn't let him admit it. That, and a promise.
"No one does anything for just one reason."
"Perhaps."
Moxxie watched in disbelief as her attention returned to plucking her own feathers. She was with the person who took her life, who she swore to endlessly harass and torment for as long as he lived, and instead she was distracting herself with benign grooming. What wasn't she saying? He didn't understand how she could be so dismissive.
He didn't understand a lot of things.
"Why'd you do it?" Moxxie asked.
"Do what?"
"You killed nearly two dozen Goetia. Why?"
Caim's expression grew furious. For a brief moment, she looked as if she was going to throw a tantrum, but instead, her shoulders dropped and all the energy drained from her in an instant. Her voice sounded hollow. "You heard my speech."
"They're self-obsessed, so what? They can still change."
"No, they can't. You don't know them like I do. They'll scorn an outsider simply for existing until it kills them, they already have."
"So that gives you the right to take their lives?"
"Are you really in any position to ask that kind of question? Not even a day after taking my life and you already managed to get new blood on your hands."
Moxxie's eye twitched. "That's not the same. I killed you because I had to. I killed Jackie because he was going to kill me if I didn't."
"You're not fooling either of us," Caim spat, "You shot me through the head in an instant, you could've killed him just the same. I felt you making every mental calculation to do it. And yet, you found the time to wrap your hand around his throat."
Moxxie tried to come up with some answer, but his thoughts kept returning to the memory of beating Jackie's face to a pulpy caved-in mess, replaying in his mind over and over. "He deserved it, for what he did to Huey."
"Indeed, but you savored that moment regardless."
Caim patiently waited for his response, watching Moxxie's lips silently mouth the beginnings of a number of defenses and denials. With a sigh, he relented.
"So what if I did?"
"Had to, wanted to, deserved to. I killed those pretentious shits because of all the same reasons, so don't you dare lecture me. Something, someone had to give, and I refused to be the one who did." She clenched her firsts, "They deserved it after what they did to Orias."
"They?" Moxxie scoffed, "The only one who had anyone killed was Stella! What right does that give you—"
"If it wasn't Stella, it would have been someone else! They're all part of the same problem, sitting by the sidelines and reaping the benefits is no different than endorsement."
"All of them?" Moxxie scoffed, "Even Aamon? He was a friend to Stolas, one of the only people he respected!"
"Aamon was a life-long enabler to people like Stella, he had to go."
"You expect me to just believe every last one of them was the same? Do you realize how absurd that sounds?"
Caim's voice rose to a growl, each word a threat. "They're all complacent, that's all the reason I need! Every last one of them should rot for taking him from me!"
Moxxie flinched, shrinking into his shoulders until those last few words struck him. "Taking him…You mean Orias? I thought you said you were over him?"
She froze, tongue held and gaze averted. "I am, I just—they're corrupt, I can't let them stay—"
"No! You said it was the same as me, that we both reveled in it. You weren't doing the world a service, that was a personal vendetta! You said you were over him!"
She turned away. "…I've said a lot of things. I wanted to think I was over him, but I wasn't. Is that what you want me to say?"
Moxxie wanted to press further, so ready to ride the high of finally having some leg up on her after so long. But she shut down so quickly. Too quickly.
An old, familiar thought crawled its way up Moxxie's spine.
A memory of him and Huey dragging a dead body through the dirt, looking everywhere other than its empty eyes. He didn't know who they were, but he still killed them. Aimed the gun, pulled the trigger, took their life. They could've been absolute scum, or the one person that might've adopted him. He'd never know.
There were a lot of things Moxxie didn't know. He didn't know the nuances of everything Caim had been through, and he never would. He wasn't one of the Goetia, not even a servant, and despite how much he would've loved to be before, he wasn't so sure of that fantasy now.
What he did know for certain was that Stolas is different. And Stolas trusted Aamon. It was only two, now one. But that's different from the "all" she insisted on. And that difference was smaller because of her. Who knows how many other Goetia could have been better, how many might have not shown their differences but hid them out of fear. Who knows how many of those might be gone now.
Stolas was close to being one of them. Moxxie's gut writhed at the thought of him again. The things that poor owl had been through now, and he was part of what made it worse. She was too, now.
"What about Stolas?" Moxxie prodded.
Caim's gaze snapped to his, rapidly shifting from furious, to pensive, then finally a resentful acceptance. Her disdain remained, tainting each word she spoke. "What do you care about Stolas?"
He never wanted to hurt him. He still cared, why did she have to act like he wasn't allowed to care? "What do you care about Stolas?! He loved you, and you were willing to throw that all away just to kill some enemies? People spend their entire lives chasing something like what you two had!"
Caim's shoulders sank further down, her entire posture drooping. At first Moxxie was worried he'd been too harsh, but a longing sigh from Caim made him reconsider. Longing wasn't the right word, it was envious.
"What we had?" Caim repeated. Just saying that out loud hurt her enough to hold her breath. She felt her throat choke, either refusing or straining to answer any further.
Moxxie had struck a nerve. He was upset, but he didn't mean to cut that deep. He didn't even know there was a wound there to begin with. The only possible question he could ask lingered on his mind. He was certain he had no right to even say it, but it escaped anyway.
"What did you have with Stolas?"
"A lie. Two lies, one for each of us, from each other."
He could hear her voice wavering, that powerful speech she had given before truly was an entirely different person. Now she was exposed, a hard exterior cut away with a knife he didn't even know he had. Everything leaked out of her. He didn't even have to prompt it anymore, she spoke on her own.
"When I looked into his eyes, I saw Orias again."
He swore he heard Caim sniffle.
"I just wanted him back in my life, and Stolas was the closest thing to it. I knew it was wrong, but I thought I could make it work, or that it would pass, or just…something." She sank into herself until she was hunched into a ball no larger than Moxxie. "And Stolas knew. I think he always knew it wasn't him that I loved. He knew what was happening, and he just let me—No, made me use him."
Each word was a dagger in her throat, like she was ripping out a piece of herself just to finally look at it with her own eyes.
"It was an addiction for us both. He'd rather live the rest of his life pretending to be someone else if it meant escaping marriage with Stella. But I can't just—I couldn't—I was using him, just to grasp a taste of something else. Every time I tried to stop it, he practically handed himself over to me. How could I say no to him? He was always so scared, so—But I—I couldn't keep doing that! But if I didn't, I was alone, I lost any reason—"
Moxxie wanted to say something to reassure her, anything to make her feel any better. No words came to mind, so he did the only thing he could think of. He got up, and put his arms around her, and squeezed.
She froze up, struggling to process what was happening.
"You don't have to say it," Moxxie said.
"What are you—"
"It's called a hug."
"I know what a hug is, imp."
"Should I stop?"
Caim didn't answer, but she never pushed him away either. After a moment, and a few quiet sniffles, everything felt like it had calmed down.
Moxxie let go, hesitantly. He had been scared to even hug her in the first place but it was all he could think of to help.
"I'm sorry for bringing all of that up, I didn't mean for—"
"I don't understand you," Caim muttered.
Moxxie paused. "…What is there to get? You've seen my memories, you know everything about me."
"I tried to kill you, I cursed you, and you just pry me open and hug me, and apologize. What is wrong with you?"
"A lot, I think." Moxxie answered rather quickly. "But Huey still thought I was worth something, so…"
His mind trailed off, the memory of Huey bringing up a plethora of regrets. More regrets of similar flavors pouring in too, enough to drown in. He had to try and tread the water, for Huey.
"You're not alone, you know. In hurting someone you didn't want to." Moxxie spoke up.
Caim raised her head from her arms, glaring at him in confusion.
"You already know everything about how I treated Huey. But, I lied to Stolas too. I pretended to be a friend to him, just to lure you out and kill someone he cared about. I wanted to be a friend to him. You have no idea how long I'd dreamed of something like…Well, you know exactly how long I wanted something like that."
The thrush stared at him, bewildered by the sudden outpour from him.
"And if I had known you were planning to go there anyways, I wouldn't have had to do any of that. But instead, all I did was rip off an emotional scab of his, and pour salt into the wound."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I—I don't know. I figured since you told me something, it was only fair if I did too. I thought it might make you feel a little better. I'm sorry—"
"No, thank you." She seemed genuinely confused by him, unsure how she was supposed to react now. "You know I won't remember any of this, right?"
"Because your voice in my head is separate, right?"
"That too, but I'm not the real thing either. If my body somehow manages to resurrect, none of these memories will be part of it."
Moxxie gazed up at the distant surface of the water above him. "So I suppose I'll still have to finish what I started then, with your remains."
"That would be the wisest choice, yes."
"And you're okay with that?"
"No, but you don't have much of a choice now do you?"
Moxxie grimaced, "It feels wrong, even after everything you said and did."
"I don't understand why you still insist on caring."
"Bad people are just good people who don't know what to do." Moxxie said. For once it wasn't a quote, not one he'd read anywhere at least. "Sometimes they're too far gone or dangerous to keep around, but that doesn't make it any less tragic."
Caim managed a half-hearted chuckle, "Did Stolas give you that one?"
"No, did he say that?"
"Not word for word, but he's said similar things before. For how offput he is by so many of the other Goetia, you'd be surprised by how forgiving he is."
"Do you think he'd forgive me?" Moxxie asked, mostly joking.
"He wouldn't enjoy it, but yes. I think he would."
Whether or not he deserved it, Moxxie still has doubts. But, for once in his life, he decided to just have some faith that Huey was right about him.
"I hope so."
They sat quietly for a time. Moxxie listened to Caim's breaths, wavering back and forth from feeling a little better to holding back tears again.
He could start to feel it all fading. The lucidity becoming fragile, the glass beginning to crack. Her choked breaths turned to sobs again.
"I miss my husband."
Any second now, he'd be gone.
"You'll be with him soon."
Finally, Caim cried. No stifled tears or sore breaths. Just running tears.
An ambivalent chuckle snuck out between all her sobs. "Idiot."
"What?"
"We're already in Hell," Caim managed, "I'm not meeting him in some next life, don't you get that? This was it."
Everything shattered before he had a chance to speak again.
Moxxie squeezed his eyelids, working out the sleep and gunk until it felt safe to actually open them. He'd been awake for a while now, he just wasn't entirely cognizant until now. As soon as he opened his eyes, all his senses hit him at once. The stale taste of his own mouth, with a tinge of iron—blood—remaining somewhere under his tongue. Not a present injury, just leftovers. Warm air on his face, dry, but clean. Everything caked in the smell of walnuts, lived-in wood, and old wallpaper. It was pleasant.
Not pleasant enough to ignore the throbbing pain in his head and arm, but still pleasant.
He slowly lifted himself up, a long low groan escaping his drowsy mouth. He almost startled himself with it. His voice always seemed to do this in the morning. One of two things would happen: his voice would become infinitely raspier and dry, or it'd become gravely and low. Low relative to him, anyway.
Today was gravely and low. Likely due to the overhanging melancholy that everything filtered through, or all the injuries. Or both.
The stiffness in his own arm got his attention. He couldn't move it very freely. Which was good, because that meant less pain. Broken bones best lay elevated and undisturbed after all. But, it was in a splint now. Tied between two flat wooden boards, wrapped together into a makeshift cast that was slung over his shoulder.
It clearly wasn't the first time whoever did this had treated a broken bone. Moxxie was grateful for it. Perhaps southern hospitality was real, even in their own hellish culture. Though he didn't want to push his luck.
His mind slowly warmed up, bits and pieces returning to the forefront of his mind. Only fragments of a dream he knew he had, but didn't remember the details of.
Thinking of Caim, despite everything, brought up a well of pity in his gut. Sympathies, regrets, all flavors of grief he already had in plentiful stock. There was a decided confidence in those feelings for her too. He wasn't so certain of the reason why.
Even if he pitied her, for whatever reason he did, he still needed to finish the job. If her body wasn't absolutely destroyed, she'd come back. And if she came back, he was as good as dead.
Moxxie slowly rose from the couch he found himself laying on, a coffee table in front of him was littered with bloody bandages and first aid supplies, all of which smelled weird. Leathery, like old people. But they matched the ones on his arm, face, nose, and everywhere else.
More aware of himself, he glanced at his own body. His clothes were stained with blood all over. The majority of it wasn't his, but he recognized more of it as his own than he was comfortable with.
Whoever had taken care of him was kind enough to clean the blood off his skin though. All the cuts on his exposed left arm had been clearly wiped down, scabs formed overnight like pepper rocks on his skin. He'd pick at them if he didn't know how deceptively deep the cuts went.
The woman that had saved his life didn't seem to trust him very much at the time, not that he blamed her. Yet now he was, presumably, in their home. Treated for his wounds and allowed to sleep on their couch. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve hospitality like this. If karma was anything to go by, he figured he should be dead with the rest of them.
'No,' Moxxie corrected himself, 'If karma was anything to go by, Huey should still be here.'
On that solemn note, he tried to orient himself. The room he was in didn't have a window, so he searched around. Just a room over, he found what appeared to be the front door. After several squeaks and cracks of the imp attempting to open the door as quietly as he could, he stepped out of the house.
The front yard was dirt, as was everything else in Wrath. Sand, dirt, and sometimes lava. But it was distinctly unique from the city where Moxxie grew up. It was fertile soil, worn down here or there from walking. Dry on the top, rich underneath. He could tell because even the dead patches appeared more saturated and rich than the sandy backlots in the city. It smelled better too. The difference between sawdust and fertile soil. In the chilly air, it smelled almost crisp, slightly wet from morning dew. The sun wasn't even out yet. The last time Moxxie had properly woken up this early, he was still in the orphanage.
Beyond the yard, there were some animal pens. This was a cattle farm, apparently. Further down the road there were crops, blackened in large swaths that he could only presume were from the fire caused by last night. At least it hadn't burned up everything.
The fire hadn't really been his fault, not that there was anyone else left to take responsibility. Even so, the guilt was just as poignant.
His attention landed on two wrecked cars, just beside the fence surrounding the cattle. A completely decimated one, right-side-up, though clearly it had crashed upside down. There was a chain still hooked around it, Moxxie assumed that's probably how they dragged it all the way over here. The other car was in better condition, despite being smashed in the front and back, with shattered windows and a torn bumper where it had clearly been towed from. Even so, it was defiantly recognizable in its late glory. A 1970 Lincoln Continental, Mark III.
Huey's dream car.
Moxxie hadn't ever given that a proper thought. He didn't blame himself for it, he'd only first seen it while he was busy shoving still-warm corpse parts into the trunk. His focus had priorities at the time. But this had been the car Huey had wanted all his life, ever since he watched those dumb movies on VHS tapes that they'd stolen from various movie rental places. They'd never even gotten in trouble for it since those stores stopped existing several years later.
Huey saw that car in a mobster movie, and quickly became obsessed with the damn thing, refusing to shut up about it to Moxxie. The vehicle's full name was burnt into his memory, and he didn't even like cars to begin with.
Just looking at it made his heart feel heavy.
Worse yet, it felt wrong to be back out here at all. Sneaking around, trying to feed a dead body to a stranger's cattle after all they'd done for him. He didn't even know who they were. Just that they were kind enough to save his life, to treat his wounds, to let a complete stranger sleep in their home despite being suspect number one in causing whatever trouble had crashed and burned right in front of their home.
He made his way to the back of the car, which had been smashed like a beer can. That's where the other car had rammed them, right where they were storing Caim's remains.
Moxxie swallowed, not exactly excited to see what mess those remains had turned into since. The unidentifiable fluid leaking from the busted corner of the back hatch didn't bode well. He braced himself.
Slow inhale, hold, exhale.
He opened the hatch, and instantly gagged. Reeling back as the smell that poured out with the black blood assaulted his senses.
Caim's sour remains had burst from their bags, some pulsing, bits of flesh attempting to fuse together. She was trying to regenerate, but it wasn't working. Likely due to being constrained by the size of the car's storage, or the bullet doing its work, maybe both. Whatever the case, they couldn't regenerate, so the hacked up remains just started to rot.
It was excessively decomposed for only being less than twelve hours old. This was the smell of, at minimum, a week old body. Perhaps the bullet was to blame for that too.
In the worst possible way, it was nostalgic. A rotting corpse had such a profusely rancid smell, never quite the same even within a single species. No matter how much of his childhood he'd spent around them, he never became accustomed to it. No one could just desensitize themself to that revolting scent, every time was like the first. To make matters worse, no matter how far he got, it always smelled like it was right up inside his nostrils.
Moxxie tried to power through it twice before he staggered away. He held himself up against the side of the car trying to endure it, or at least recover. Once upon a time, this was something he'd been able to at least deal with. But it'd been too long, and his mental and physical fortitude was all but spent. He gagged, and his stomach acid ripped through every strained attempt to hold it back.
He threw up, violently.
It didn't stop until his eyes teared up from the acidic sting of the puke. The aftertaste didn't help, only prolonging the experience. The vomit that pooled on the ground beneath him was all empty liquid, a stinging reminder to Moxxie of how he hadn't eaten in the last twenty-four hours.
He looked for anything to clean up with, not wanting to spend a second longer with that disgusting aftertaste left on his tongue. Spotting a hose faucet on the side of the house, he limped over, trying not to dry-heave, and turned it on. The cold water poured onto his cupped hand, he sipped it in, swished it around, and spat it right back out.
It was cold enough to make his hand feel a little numb, but he didn't care. Anything to focus on other than the rotting corpse. He cupped more, rinsing his face to feel just a bit cleaner, a little less filthy from just having seen what Caim's body had turned into.
The water was spilling onto his suit jacket. The tattered thing was a disaster anyways, missing a sleeve, torn at the seams, and stained in blood. There was no reason to wear or keep it.
He had it over his head and stuck on his horns when he heard the front door open.
"Y'know we have a shower, right?"
Moxxie yelped, finally pulling the shirt off his horns, then immediately catching it on his splint, knocking his arm against the wall of the house. He flinched, but tried to play it off, unconvincingly.
Once he locked eyes with the imp at the front door, he froze.
It was the same woman as last night, the one who'd saved him. She was nearly his exact height, but she held her head higher. Messy black hair, unbelievably long eyelashes, and all the southern-swagger in the world fit into one little imp.
"U—Uhm, hello. Sorry, I, I didn't—What was your question?"
"I was just making a—nevermind, what are ya doin' out here?"
Moxxie couldn't help but continue to stare at her. Usually when he froze up like this, it was because he was in danger, caught off guard, or just plain scared. This felt different somehow. He didn't even know what it was he was feeling exactly, but it made him extremely self-conscious about how disastrous he looked right now.
"Are you gonna say anythang or—"
"Sorry! Sorry, I'm just…Uh…Just trying to clean up a bit."
She stared at him, unimpressed. "Yeah, like I said, we got a shower for that."
"I didn't want to impose…"
"So you figured playing with a corpse was a better idea?"
Moxxie jumped at being called out like that so easily. "I don't know what you're talking about!" he shouted. He didn't mean to shout.
"...Right. Listen, I know the smell of corpse pretty well, so I can understand the pukin'. I can smell that from over here." she grumbled, "But ya never actually gave me a good reason not to kill you last night."
Moxxie stood quietly for a moment, it felt like it was impossible to get a read on her. He had no idea where this conversation was going, especially with her talking about killing him in such a nonchalant way. He should be more bothered by that, but for some reason he didn't feel like he was in much danger around her.
'Being direct might clear things up,' he figured.
"Then, are you going to kill me?"
Her eyes ran over him for a second, staring at his arm, his nose, and all the cuts and bruises. "Jury's still out, but I don't like kicking someone while they're down. Ain't no sport in it."
He sighed in relief.
"But that ain't a no, and it still don't explain why ya got a corpse in yer car or what yer doin' with it."
"I'd explain it, I really would. But it's really complicated, and honestly I'm not entirely clear on it either. I just…uhm…" He had this overwhelming urge to actually tell her his plan, which was an awful, stupid, naive idea that only an idiot would go through with.
"I was going to put it in your cattle's feed to make sure she stays dead, and also hide it too, I suppose."
He was such an idiot. She certainly looked at him like one.
"Are you bein' serious?"
'Might as well double-down if she's about to kill me,' he thought. "Yes. Yes I am."
She stared at him for a moment, quietly assessing him. What about him, he wasn't sure. "Stay here," she sighed, before disappearing back into the house.
Welp, that's it. He was going to die. She was gonna come back out here with a shotgun or a knife or whatever, and kill him. It's not like he could outrun her either, or fight her. Last night alone showed how athletic she was, and he was currently beaten half to death and sore in places he'd never felt.
She came back out, Moxxie braced for an attack.
"What're ya making that face for?" she asked.
Gingerly opening his eyes, he watched her step off the porch with a pot full of dark steaming hot liquid.
Was she going to scald him to death or something?
"What is that for?" He asked nervously.
"It's coffee. Really strong coffee. It's fer the smell, so don't drink it. You wouldn't like it anyway, city boy."
She was right, the scent from the coffee was absurdly potent, bitter to a point he could hardly handle. It overpowered everything else…rotting corpse included. It was certainly a far more tolerable alternative.
"City boy?" Moxxie asked.
"You are from the city, ain't ya?"
"I mean, yes, but how'd you know?"
"Ain't nobody who wears a suit 'round here."
Moxxie glanced down at his torn-up, blood stained dress shirt. "Right, yeah. Not a lot of people wear suits in the city though either, truth be told."
"Point still stands."
He shrugged.
Moxxie followed her to the back of the car again. The smell of the coffee worked wonders. Even up close, Caim's rotting flesh was nothing more than a nuisance in the face of overwhelming pure black coffee.
Which, all things considered, was confusing Moxxie. "Are you…helping me?"
"Yup."
"Why?"
She set the pot down on the car, "I always get in trouble fer not hidin' bodies like my sister does. So, I dunno, sympathy I guess? Don't make me second guess it."
"But…you saved my life, and now this. You don't even know who I am, why would you help me so much?"
"'Cause, you seem like an honest fella," she shrugged. "I'm pretty good at telling when a fella's lying, and you ain't lying."
"I suppose, but I'm a pretty convincing liar," Moxxie said, immediately regretting that. "Not that I'm lying—Right now, I mean. To you. I don't know if I could."
"Sure," she teased, "Either way, ya wouldn't be tellin' me that if you were tryna trick me. Don't strike me as the type."
"I never do."
She raised a brow, "I take it you're the underestimated type?"
Moxxie felt his chest welling at that remark. No one had ever even suggested he could be anymore than the wimp he appeared to be. Not anyone other than Huey. "I don't know," he said. "It's not for me to decide."
"Then I will. As far as I'm concerned, ya are. Yer the damn sole survivor of whatever the hell happened last night after all. Ya just need a little help, ain't nuthin' wrong with that."
Moxxie's cheeks were a little warmer now.
"Now then, about helpin' ya…" Her voice trailed off as she stared at the mounds of rotten flesh that spilled out of the bags, pulsing and writhing as bits tried to reform, failing every time. "Is it uh…is it s'posed to be doin' that?"
Moxxie faintly felt his mind becoming a little more cramped as he stared at the body too. "Sort of? It's trying to regenerate."
"I'm pretty sure dead things ain't meant to do that."
"Correct. Which, is why I was gonna dispose of it."
"Huh."
She stared a moment longer, glancing at Moxxie a few times. It didn't read like suspicion, but a question was clearly forming in her head.
It was in the way she furrowed her brow that Moxxie became convinced she knew more than she was letting on.
"Well," she said with an unflattering snort, "Best get started then."
Moxxie watched flabbergasted as, with zero hesitation, she grabbed two of the trashags out of the trunk, carrying the coffee in her other hand. A few parts of a limb falling from the tear as she dragged it over to the fence.
He grabbed the remaining two bags, spare limbs and bits that fell out of the bags, and dragged them over to the fence with her. By the time he sat down beside her, the coffee pot between them. The woman had already started throwing some of the chunks to the other side of the fence.
The wet thunk! of flesh and bone chunks being tossed into the feed woke the cattle up. As far as the animals cared, that sound meant food. They slowly began lumbering over, eating from the slop. They were giant creatures. They looked like a half-bull half-armadillo hybrid, with a little fire for visual flare. As intimidating as they were, the woman didn't seem to mind them, so Moxxie tried not to as well.
He started tossing bits into the feed, one by one. It was a chore, to be sure, but strangely peaceful. The only sounds at all were of the animals eating, and their work. He didn't want it to end, but the way the woman kept glancing at him told him it wasn't going to stay silent much longer. She probably had questions, and how could he blame her?
She grabbed the next bit of corpse out from the bag, testing its heft in her palm. Moxxie watched her lips part, not yet speaking. Her hesitance was like a visualization of her deciding how far she wanted to go. Whatever question she started with definitely wasn't going to be the last.
"So, what's yer name?" she asked, starting with something easy.
"Moxxie. What's yours?"
She kept working, only sparing him a quick glance as she tossed another chunk. "Ah'm Mildred, you can jus' call me Millie."
His heart fluttered again, what the hell was that about? Why was she putting him off-guard so much?
"It's nice to meet you. I'd shake your hand, but…" he gestured at his broken arm.
Millie chuckled, grabbing his good hand and shaking it. "Well, you got some manners at least. It's nice meeting you too."
Moxxie did his best not to appear bothered by the squishy bits of flesh between their palms during the handshake. Even if it was the most disgusting handshake he'd ever experienced, her smile made it pleasant anyway. Especially that cute little gap between her front teeth.
He refocused, getting back to work with the body. "So, are you the one who fixed me up?"
"Yup. Well, kinda. My Ma helped with the splint, but it was mostly me. Pa even got upset about it, said we didn't need to be takin' in dangerous strangers."
"I'm sorry—"
"Nah nah, he's just high strung."
"As in general, or…?"
"He's usually pretty laid back. Last night was uh…it was a lot for him."
Moxxie let out a dejected chuckle, "Him and me both. I'm sorry about your farm."
"Don't mention it. Those fields ain't ours, that corn belongs to our neighbors. Pa just helped 'em put out the fires cause 'a farmer's honor. Ain't nothin' you need to worry 'bout. Unless ya did it on purpose."
Moxxie winced, "None of that was supposed to happen."
Millie weighed his words, that same thoughtful expression on her face as earlier. He'd almost think she wasn't good at hiding it, but it didn't really seem like she was trying to in the first place. In the short few minutes he'd known her, he already knew she was too honest for that. She wore her feelings on her sleeve like a badge of honor.
He figured he could stand to be like that too.
"What did happen out there?" she finally asked.
"A lot. A lot of things happened. I don't even know where I'd begin."
"Then start at the beginning."
Moxxie stared at the piece of flesh in his hand before tossing it through the fence. "I was out in Pride, just trying to make ends meet. An old friend showed up, hired me onto a job to kill someone. And…I did it. It was messy, we had so many chances to fail. But we didn't, I didn't."
"Sounds like you're a talented little guy then," Mille chimed in.
"Maybe. I don't know. Our boss didn't seem to think so. He didn't want us around, so he tried to have us killed."
Millie looked him over, "I had my hunch that's what this was. Pa always did say killin' was a dirty business with dirty people. You don't strike me as a killer."
"You'd be surprised. I've been killing since I was a kid."
"Me too!" She smiled.
It took him a second to recognize that she wasn't mocking him. It wasn't something he was exactly proud of, but she liked it, so maybe it wasn't all bad? At the very least, there was some common ground there.
"I ain't never been paid to kill anyone before," she continued. "Always just killed 'em cause I hated 'em or they got in my way. Kinda how it goes 'round here. But I've always wanted to be a contract killer! An assassin! Hired muscle! Make a livin' off what I do best!" Her excitement trailed off, "Not much of that out in th' boonies, though. My family doesn't approve much, anyway."
Moxxie hung onto her first words. "I don't think I've ever hated anyone I killed." He squeezed his hand, remembering how it fit around Jackie's throat. "Not until last night, I think. Usually it never bothered me too much. Just dissociate a little, try not to think about it, and I was fine. But I had to lie to a lot of good people to kill my target. Stolas said he'd kill me if he ever saw me again, so I've got that going for me."
Millie's eyes went wide, "Stolas. Ya mean, like, The Prince Stolas, of the Geotia?"
"Y—Yeah, I didn't expect you to know him by name. How do you—"
"He's been comin' here every year to summon the harvest moon for a little while now. We all know him. How the hell'd you manage to piss someone like him off?"
Moxxie nodded at the bag between them, grabbing another one of the chunks from the bag. It was a single finger from Caim's hand. He wiggled it for emphasis.
"Ah. Gotchya. Who were they?"
"Caim. She was a Goetia. It's…complicated."
Millie shrugged, "Fair 'nough."
They tossed a few more parts into the feed, emptying the first of the four bags. Moxxie dragged the next back forward, opening it up. The coffee pot between them was starting to cool down, its scent just slightly weaker. It was still enough to mask the putrid rot of the hacked-up body, but not as effectively now.
Millie shifted her posture, preparing. She appeared almost afraid to speak.
"I gotta ask, who were the other two?"
Moxxie's chest felt tight at just the thought of answering. What was he willing to admit? What did she need to know? Why did this matter to her at all? He figured she'd be more concerned with the clearly Goetic feathered corpse, yet she didn't care about it at all. In all this panic, Moxxie hadn't noticed that he visibly froze at the question, forgetting to even breathe.
"I don't mean to pry, just that…well, you show up out of nowhere, two other dead folk on the road, some hellhounds too, and a corpse in yer car. It raises some eyebrows. News don't travel fast out here, we don't care much for gossip 'round these parts. My family 'specially. But people died last night, that's not just gossip."
Slow inhale, hold, exhale. "Right, you're right. I owe you an explanation regardless. They were…Well, one was the guy who sort of raised me into this whole hit-job thing." Moxxie thought carefully about his words, "The other was Huey."
"How'd they get killed?"
"Jackie killed Huey. So I killed him."
As soon as Millie heard Jackie's name, her shoulders dropped. "So Pa was right then."
"Right about what?"
"That it was Jackie's body out there."
If Moxxie wasn't busy doing his absolute damndest to keep himself level-headed, his jaw would've gone slack. "You knew him?"
"Kinda. He was something like an ex-friend of the family, heard about him in passing but never met him. But my Pa was best buds with him when they were kids. Even with his face all bashed in like that, Pa insisted it was Jackie. It had him pretty messed up for the rest of the night. I was hoping you could prove he was wrong, give him some good news, but…"
Moxxie made sure to smother the tinge of regret growing in his heart for killing Jackie. Even if he meant something to someone, someone other than him, Jackie still tried to kill him. He still did kill Huey. No amount of sympathy would ever make Moxxie regret what he did. It was the first kill in his life that mattered to him. The only life he wanted to take, and no one could take that from him.
But it still hurt someone, he couldn't ignore that. He didn't want to ignore that.
"I wish it hadn't come to that. I'm sorry."
She was silent for a minute, just standing up to lean on the fence. She pet one of the cattle that was eating out of the feed already. Moxxie didn't dare interrupt the silence, he could tell she needed it.
"I think it really got to him cause it was a lot like the night before I was born." she said softly.
"What do you mean?"
"From what I was told, it was a pretty bad night for him. Pa and Jackie were old buddies, but they were a trio. Third of 'em was Maisie. They used to all be neighbors, got up to a bunch of trouble, as ya do. But once they all grew up they stopped hanging out as much. Pa ended up resenting Jackie 'cause of his…affiliations. But I don't think he ever stopped carin' 'bout him. Same with Maisie, didn't agree with her choice of husband. Not that he liked her that way, just cared 'bout her safety."
She lowered her head onto the fence post, appearing almost hesitant to say anything else. Not that it was her own pain, but rather she knew how deep it ran for her father. He got the impression talking about it was off-limits for their family. Maybe even a bit more than that.
"The night before I'm born, Pa gets a call from Jackie, and he's askin' for help. Says he needs to get to Wrath quick and quiet. So, Pa asks him what for. Guy hasn't so much as sent a letter in years, then he comes out of nowhere thinking he's got the right to ask for a favor like that at such an important time. But uh…turned out, Maisie…Maisie's husband killed her. She had a kid too, just a baby."
Moxxie felt his gut drop.
Millie continued, "I don't really know what happened between them, Pa doesn't speak much of it. Something about not wanting the kid to grow up with their father. Whatever it was, it got messy. And that tiny little bit of the Jackie my Pa grew up knowing came shinin' through for just a night. He couldn't bring himself to kill the kid like he was supposed to. So, Pa helped him get into Wrath. From there, Jackie dropped the baby off at an orphanage in the city, and that was the last we ever saw of him."
Moxxie did his best to listen, but it felt like every sense he had was failing him. Every thought, every memory, every emotion inside him spinning around one name.
"Until last night, I guess. Shook Pa up pretty bad to be the only one of 'em left I think. He was the oldest by a longshot, probably figured he'd be the first to go, not the last."
Moxxie just kept repeating the name in his head. Over and over, until it crawled its way to his lips.
"Maisie."
He felt himself choke on his throat, but he kept it contained.
"I know, pretty name right?"
"...Yeah. It is."
The air between them wasn't hostile by any means, not tense. But it was charged. Millie clearly had a lot more going on between her and her Pa than she was talking about, no doubt caused in part by that very story she just told. But it was hard to hang onto that, not in the midst of Moxxie being completely blind-sided with a revelation and a grief he never once even considered he'd have in his life.
His mother loved him.
'Maisie.'
That feeling in the air wasn't lost on Millie. She didn't know what it was she said that affected him, but she could tell it was hitting hard. The silent way he sat there, entirely forgetting to keep tossing the corpse parts, staring off into nowhere in particular. For once, the waiting was easy for her. That was new, she'd never had much patience for anyone before, let alone a stranger.
"What happened with them?" Moxxie eventually asked.
"Huh?"
"The bodies. Are they still there?"
Millie shook her head. "Nah. Pa took 'em both and buried 'em in the fields. Makes for good soil." She noted Moxxie's sour expression, "It's not a bad thing! Probably seems lazy to city folk, but being buried under crops like that means a lot out here. It's respectful, goin' back to the land ya came from. And sure, imps are everywhere now. But we came from Wrath, so…this is his home, in a way."
His eyes lowered again, finally getting back to work as he tossed another body part into the animal feed.
"It was our home," Moxxie said softly. "We grew up in Los Satanio."
Millie took note of his choice to use "we," but she didn't press on it. There would be a time and place for that later, if it really mattered that she knew.
"Los Satanio," Millie muttered, "Such a stupid name…"
"It really is." Moxxie chuckled. That was the first thing to lift his spirits this morning.
He was onto the last bag now, untying it and watching the loose bits spill out. The smell was even worse, with the coffee hardly helping anymore. But the rot was fainter with so little of it left.
The horizon was growing brighter, no sun visible yet, but he could feel it. Growing warmer with each minute, the dew on the ground drying up at record speed.
Millie joined back in, helping toss the spilled parts. Working together, the two of them had the final bag nearly empty in minutes.
"I'll let you finish this up," Millie said, standing. "I'll go wash my hands and get the hot water runnin'. After this, we both need a shower."
"I couldn't agree more." Moxxie said. "What…What's next though? After that?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"I mean, where am I gonna go?"
Millie pursed her lips, visibly thinking it over for a solid second. "So long as you do your fair share of work, I figure my family will probably let you stay while your arm heals."
"Aren't they going to want to know why I was here?"
"Like I said, we ain't much for gossip. The only questions they ask are the ones they care about. And, I can already vouch for you, so you're clear." she said, leaning towards him with a friendly wink.
It didn't read like flirting, but Moxxie liked to imagine it was. If anything, it was hard not to imagine such with that dorky smile of hers.
"Though," she added, "They're probably gonna be pretty tough on ya."
"How do you figure that?"
"My Ma and Pa are real stuck-up about bein' tough. Violence is their style, so they'll probably look down on you if you can't hold your own. Which," she gestured at his broken arm, "might prove a bit rough."
"Oh, yeah. If your father really was fond of Jackie, I probably shouldn't mention I killed him then." Moxxie said nervously. "And I can't tell them I killed Caim, either. It'd be better if no one knew that."
"You told me though, didn't ya?"
He nodded, "Yeah I don't know why…I just trust you."
"Oh, well, thank you kindly." she stammered. "It's a shame you can't tell 'em. They'd be pretty impressed to learn you killed a Goetia. My Pa would be beggin' to have you marry into the family if he knew that."
Moxxie's face went red hot. Just the suggestion of marrying her had him second-guessing how tight-lipped he really wanted to be about Caim. Well, she never said marrying her specifically, just someone in the family in general.
Why did his mind go straight to her?
'Oh.'
'Oh crumbs.'
This must've been some kind of transference, right? Or did he just lose too much blood? It'd wear off in time, it had to, right?
He looked at her again. Her gaze scanned over the cattle slowly, such a genuinely happy look in her eyes. She wiped her hands off on a rag before putting them on her hips. She looked back down at him, and his heart skipped a beat.
Maybe it was a little more than a crush.
"W—Well that's a shame, but I can't risk anyone finding out."
She snapped to attention, flustered like she had been caught daydreaming. "Of course. Right. Yeah, I get it. Well, I'mma go get that water runnin'. I'll be back out once it's ready."
"Thank you."
As she strolled off, Moxxie finished up the last of the final bag of parts. Moving a little slower at each rib and limb, until only one piece was left.
He pulled it out of the bag, the final chunk of Caim's remains. It was her other hand, missing a few fingers, but mostly in one piece. He held it, feeling how cold and stiff it was, he wondered how warm it might've been when she was alive. Stolas probably held this hand before. It also held the gun that almost took his life.
Over the time that had passed since he woke up, he somehow remembered more of his dream last night instead of less. It was still fuzzy, but there was a particular memory of watching her cry that was clear to him. That overwhelming need he felt to just be there for her.
He didn't know the grand moral scheme of his actions, or hers, and he didn't care anymore.
'Are you still there?' he thought.
There was nothing in response.
Even she didn't know if the voice would remain or not. If it truly was separate from her, then chances were it would still go out of its way to harass and pester him every chance it got. Despite that, he had hoped she'd remain. He'd seen her for who she truly was, under every mask and facade.
Even when Moxxie thought of himself as the scum of Hell, Huey still had sympathy for him. If he really did deserve that, then anyone did.
'I'm sorry.'
He dropped the hand into the feed, and stood up.
What was he going to do now? In the long-term? He had a place to stay here, until his arm healed. But that wasn't a plan. He was out in the far countryside of Wrath. No car, no money. It was safe to assume he wasn't going back to his job as a ticket receptionist either, not that he was going to miss it. Even if that wasn't the case, it'd be impossible to just go back to how things were. Not after everything he'd been through.
He mulled over it, trying to grab onto any idea that popped into his head. He needed something that'd pay decently too. He didn't need a lavish life, he wasn't some materialist. But he couldn't stand to live that frugal life of fighting tooth and nail to make ends meet anymore. Not again.
A particular job listing he remembered seeing not too long ago stuck out in his mind.
The thought was interrupted by the creak of the front door swinging open.
"Shower's ready! And the folks are up, so…you'll probably have to introduce yerself soon."
"Thank you."
"Oh shush, ya already said that—"
"No, I mean it. Thank you for helping me, Millie. And for saving my life, and hearing me out, telling me what you did, everything."
Her dismissive expression was quickly replaced by a dumbfounded, and somewhat confused, look. Maybe even a little flustered. "Wha—Of course. I, uh, I dunno. It just seemed like the right thing to do."
"You had no reason to trust me."
"Call it faith then. You looked like you needed help, so I had a little faith you were worth the effort."
Now both of them were beet-red.
Millie lowered her voice, "If…If you don't mind me asking, what's your plans after all this. Do you have any family to go home to?"
"No. I don't know what I'm gonna do next, but..," Moxxie paused. "I'm not half-bad at this whole assassination thing. Maybe I'll head to Imp City and do something with that."
"Yeah?" Millie perked up, "I've always wanted to get to the big city. I'm damn good at killin', always wanted to make a livin' out of it.
"There's this I.M.P. job I read about, some guy looking for assassins to go do jobs in the living world."
"Ha," Millie half-heartedly scoffed, "That's gotta be a scam, right?"
"Only one way to find out."
"Well, as long as he's more trustworthy than the lunatic who used a stolen credit card for horse riding lessons, maybe it's worth a shot."
"Who now?"
Millie waved it off, "Just some weirdo, nevermind that. You sure you'll be safe in the city? What about the people who hired you?"
Moxxie thought for a moment, "Most of them are in Greed. And, I'm pretty sure they think I'm dead, so they probably won't come looking. None of them think highly enough of me to assume I survived that. Besides, if they go asking around here, you can just tell them you buried me too."
She nodded, "Easy 'nuff. But what if ya run into one of 'em?"
"Well, they don't know my name—"
"They'll recognize you though, right?"
She was right, more than she realized. The mob might recognize him, but worse yet…Stolas. Moxxie felt his regret eating away at him again.
He remembered the first thing Huey said to him after meeting up only a couple weeks ago now. It was about his haircut, which despite his protests, he only ever got because of his work's dress code.
"I'll grow my sideburns out again. I missed having those."
"You'd look cute with some fancy-schmancy sideburns."
"What?"
"Huh?"
"...I suppose I should take that shower now."
"R—Right."
The two of them walked to the house, taking their sweet time, looking for any excuse they could to spend a little more time alone together. Picking up the coffee pot, making sure the animals ate the body entirely, whatever.
"So, Stolas shows up here every year?" Moxxie asked.
"Yup."
"Crumbs," he muttered, "Guess I can't stay here for very long."
"You're fine, that's months from now. Though, I wouldn't recommend testin' my family's patience."
"Right. I'm grateful they even let me sleep inside."
"Which was mostly my doin'"
"I appreciate that."
"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't. They'll get on your ass and mine."
"Noted."
As Moxxie passed the car again, sniffing the ambient scent of what had been in that trunk, he suddenly remembered something.
"My gun!"
Millie jumped, "Oh! Right. Ya I almost fergot 'bout that. I'm holdin' onto it. Parents probably wouldn't have ever let ya in if they saw you had a weapon. I'm hidin' it under my bed. They never check there after…ahem. Point being, it's safe."
"T—Thank you." He said, his eyes drifting to the glove-box of Huey's car. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna grab a few of my things out of the car before I come in."
"Course, I'll leave you to it. Shower's upstairs, I'll keep my folks occupied for ya."
"You're a life-saver."
"Literally," she said with a smile, before entering the house and closing the door behind her.
Moxxie's eyes lingered on it a little longer than he was willing to admit to himself before he finally turned his attention to the car.
He reached in through the broken window, unlocking the passenger window and tugging it open. It was jammed real snug, but after a few hard pulls he managed to yank it open. He opened the glove box, hoping to hell what he was looking for was still there.
The silver and gold glint quelled those fears. Caim's holy weapon.
It wasn't ever going to be of much use to him. The ammunition size he estimated at first glance was off by a bit, as it had turned out to be something specific to Heaven's weaponry. Something he wouldn't be able to buy through any conventional means. So, for the time being, all he had was the gun itself.
Not that he wasn't already experienced in reverse-engineering it.
But that would have to wait. For now, he was satisfied knowing it was still there. He hid it under the seat, shut the door, and for comedic redundancy, locked the door.
Maybe he could ask Millie to hide it with his other gun, once his living situation was a little more figured out.
As he approached the front door, ready to brace for whatever the next few months of his life were going to be, it suddenly swung open, nearly smacking him in the face.
"Oops, sorry. Nearly hit ya there," Millie said, poking her head out the doorway.
"Y—You're fine. Is there a problem?"
"No no, nothing like that. I just, uhm…Don't mention this to my family or nothing, but this whole movin' to Pride deal…Got room for two in that?"
Moxxie smiled, "Absolutely."
"Smooth." a voice said.
"What?" Moxxie stammered.
Millie just raised an eyebrow, "Whaddya mean what?"
"N—Nothing."
She smiled, "Then c'mon in already, dork."
The End
A/N: I'm grateful to all comments, feedback (critique is especially welcome!), and even kudos. Besides all that though, thank you for reading!
In classic fanfiction author fashion, you would not believe the shit I've gone through while writing this fic. But I don't want to get too personal. What I will say is that I poured a lot of time and effort into this fic over the year it took to write. But if even one of you truly enjoyed this, then that makes everything worth it. I hope you felt something, or maybe even feel inspired to write something of your own.
If you have any thoughts, feelings, or questions, feel free to drop them in the comments/reviews! I'll do my best to answer everyone. (Sometimes I just don't know what to say, but I always read them and I always try to respond.)
Maybe at some point, I'll write up a couple one-shots in the same continuity as this fic. But not right now, this was a lot of work. I'll see you all next time.
I'm gonna go lie down now.