He shouldn't be back here. It's a refrain that's been playing over and over in his head since he left, and he shouldn't have even come this far, not on a regular pass, not when he's not sure what's even at the end of it, but it's been a week and a half, and he should be over it by now. Quick grope in the cab of the truck--this truck, borrowed again ( Read more... )

People come and go. Things keep growing. It's the kind of constant he thinks he's always taken a kind of comfort in, even before Eostre, even in the Realm, where stunted life beat its own path through most places regardless of what was thrown at it or how much it was stepped on. There's a kind of fatalism in it, probably, a sense that it works that ( Read more... )

He opens his eyes, not in his bed, but in his garden, flowers bobbing gently over his head, and that--and the fact that he opens both eyes--is how he knows it's over ( Read more... )

When he wakes up, his head is hurting. That isn't entirely new--he's been waking up with headaches more often lately, and this one isn't even the worst one he's had. But the room is unusually dark, smelling strangely musty, and he groans and rolls over, his hand going instinctively to his face ( Read more... )

Somehow he knows it's happened before he opens his eyes. It's hard to say what's changed--a quality of the absence of light behind his eyelids, something in the very weight of his head, or something even deeper and more primal. But he knows it. He turns against Tom's back, presses close and tries to breathe ( Read more... )

He knows he hurts. It's one of the few things he's sure of, and the other things he knows aren't good. They've cleaned out the wound, stitched him up. They've gingerly felt his eye socket and withdrawn their hands when he winced sharply. They've shone bright lights into his eye ( Read more... )

Sometimes, he thinks he was made for this. Or maybe not quite this, but things like it. It's not something he's proud of or something he'd really talk about, but on days like this--good days, really good days--he's got the weight off the gun in his hands and prey somewhere in front of him, and the warm presence of Tom Hobbes next to him and waiting ( Read more... )

Something is pulling at his hair ( Read more... )

He knows he has no reason to be nervous about this. It's not like it's an offensive question, and fuck, it's not like Lennox is even likely to say no. But he's never asked a question quite like this, not even proposing, if what had happened on the beach could even properly be called a proposal, and his fingers are feeling a little twitchy as he ( Read more... )

"Daddy, found tarfish," Mack calls merrily, crouched down in her sundress and poking at something in the sand. Mike leans over to peer at it, a greenish round thing, and shakes his head, grinning. Beside him, Flo is filling her hat with sand and shells with extraordinary concentration ( Read more... )