I'm in a vacuum that very well may be outer space with the lack of anything that could signal me to a location, but anyone would assure me that I'm only in front of the Caribou home, that I should know this information, yet it's apparent that I don't, for I'm wandering aimlessly with my feet contradicting that idea as they evolve towards the structure, but maybe this is where I need to be.

The note is still a fleck in the snow, and I stoop to discard it, tossing the scrap into my pocket without bothering to dry it off and trekking to the house, where the windows drip with soot.

Once left and once right the knob twirls, and the car keys are placed upon the table to the side of the entrance with a prompt click and a nervous spin of the head.

A figure reclines on the couch, a dazzling smile valuing the mirth on him as he stares up at the vast ceiling without a clue as to what he's doing, but perhaps that's why he's so jocular. The man doesn't know what doom awaits him, and even that doesn't dampen his mood, because all he understands is that the melancholy isn't present at the current moment, so he is content.

It's so different from how it used to be, because in earlier years, looking at him was like looking at a corpse who was persistent on living, but to anyone else, to anyone who didn't grieve with him, who didn't suffer with him, who didn't tear their heart out for him in the hopes that he would do the same, this man appeared as happy as it gets. And perhaps he could've been, deep down in that unpredictable soul of his, but that was a while ago, because yes, you may have found him a cheerful person, and I wished I could believe it, too, but against the other odds, there was still the undeniable notion that he was dying, and I couldn't do a thing about it.

I'm not sure whether it's refreshing or troubling to see him so jovial, but it's a shock nevertheless, and my gait languishes in the dimness of the room because of it.

Upon hearing the noise of my ordeal, however faint, Dallon pivots from his position on the settee to identify the intruder, his smile dissolving along with his fun. "Where were you?" he catechizes, standardizing a governmental approach to someone whom he would never want to harm in any way (oh, how the tides have turned).

"That's none of your business."

Dallon turns completely upright, legs dangling off the edge of the sofa with a matter of fact demeanor to his posture. "For all I know, you could be shooting up on drugs, which can kill you, by the way."

"I don't do drugs. You know that." My voice is flat and dull like the pencils I run dry trying to document the possibilities of everything I see while avoiding the people who tell me that they don't mean anything, and Dallon frowns at the lack of life.

"I wish I could be certain of that." My old friend's words are excruciating, fermenting a darkness upon the area as the ambiguity floods back.

"Did you ever even trust me at all?"

"Of course I did," he heartens, tone suddenly brighter, though it's clear that it's all just a passive-aggressive scheme. "But as you said, we're not the same people as we were two years ago."

I rock back onto my hips, a breathy laugh being harvested in my lungs. "Sometimes I feel like we use that term to further our stances, but what does it mean?"

"It's perhaps the only truthful maxim we've stumbled upon to describe this woe." Dallon commences a ponderous silence, and eventually he rises. "I'm going to bed. You deserve a reprieve from me."

I nod, exculpating a rush of air in relief as my old friend vanishes from the room, and I follow the same direction he had taken, feeling tired myself.

The unneeded desire to apologize for Christmas Eve dinner storms inside me, and I swivel to traverse towards Dallon's chambers, but the man stops me with a hollow premonition of death in his usually sapphire eyes, now acidified into ebony.

"Can I help you?" I extend, barely backing up when I should be miles away by now from the intensity of his stare.

The man pauses for a few seconds, succeeded by a chasse of the garnet lips upon his skin as his oxygen dashes through the night. "Run."

Without thinking, just acting upon the reflex that Dallon granted me when we first met that soon threaded into a routine, I sprint down the hall, sliding past him without a trace of his contact on me.

"Patrick, you worthless little nub!" the man howls, the crashing of his body against the walls audible from yards ahead as he torpedoes towards me in a pursuit of which no one knows.

My panting indoctrinates any steady inhalations in its favor, and my trachea flames with fatigue, but I have to keep on going. I have to escape, and I have to do it for my fifteen year-old self so that at least one of us emerged victorious.

The perfect solution comes to mind, manifesting in the chamber closest to me in the hopes that it'll provide me with a quick getaway, and I sprint towards it as the door blocks me from the hallway. The lock to the bedroom remains to be unsealed, but with the fumbling nature of Dallon's ambitions, he won't find me in here anyway.

My respiration battles the interior of my windpipe, teeth scraping every wall with an unmatched velocity that never ceases...until someone walks in.

"Patrick?" a mouse yelps, pinching the larynx of none other than Dallon Weekes, who was chasing me only moments before.

"What are you doing here? You-you're..." My brows tighten the strings around them, my breathing becoming more and more forced with each second, and it seems like I'm going to collapse and pass out, but then Dallon would be free to mutilate my body without any protest from me, and I can't let that can't happen, so I lean on the wall for balance, because if my lingual functions are out the window, I hope to preserve the other ones.

"What are you trying to say?"

"You were just running around the house in search of me, but you seem so docile right now," I narrate through labored panting as my hand wrestles with the wall.

The man cocks his head and points down the hall, perplexed. "I was in bed."

True enough, Dallon's hair is typical of someone who just rolled out of bed in a hurry, with its unruly tufts and curls that are never visible once combed through, and a t-shirt thoroughly cherishes the tiredness weighing down his lithe figure.

Yet it's not like I can judge him for being so unkempt, considering he discovered something extremely remote in his heart to jolt from his sleep and aid me, and I don't know if I should be thankful or terrified by the nonsensical vantage of all of this.

But this is all preposterous, because Dallon was just now sprinting through the halls in a mad pursuit of me, and though I have no idea why he was doing such a thing, it transpired nonetheless, and it should be regarded with a fresh and unbiased view, so if it looks as though Dallon just flayed the sheets from his body after a deep slumber, then perhaps he did.

On the contrary, this doesn't appear as something that Dallon would do, checking up on me and all, but how could my mind envision a person with such depth and detail? However, I can't recall the earlier version of the man, so there's no saying which one was more realistic.

Still, he continues to talk to me through my existential crisis, asking, "Patrick, are you sure you're okay?"

My head whizzes all around, twitching and flailing in the paramount confusion. "Uh, um, y-yeah. I'm fine."

"Do you want me to stay with you?"

Do I? On one side, Dallon James Weekes has been proclaimed the evilest person I've ever met, but on the other hand, he did come to set things in order after he detected a suspicious anecdote scalping the air, so I might as well enjoy the opportunity.

Even so, half the population of humans only investigate strange matters to soothe their minds, meaning they don't give two shits about what's happening to other people and would just as easily kick dirt in someone's face when the show isn't as dazzling as they had anticipated, and Dallon Weekes is no exception, primarily because I hate him, he hates me, and we're both engrossed in a melting pot of derision.

So my emerald irises flick back and forth, wobbling towards the sapphire deities with a misplaced captivation, but I quickly snap out of the affair and facilitate my answer. "That won't be necessary."

The emotion that bayonets the man's eyes is so fleeting that I can't identify it, but the simple way he turns himself away from me suggests that he's disappointed. "Just..." His fingers enrich the threshold, paused in a glimmer of time that he'll never be able to acquire again. "Take care of yourself. If you won't open up to me, open up to Pete, or maybe even yourself."

I only study the echo of gunfire before a track race that fills my heart's atria, neglecting the man that once neglected me, because it's what I need, and if he's so determined on having someone take care of me, then this is it. At least it's something, and he knows that I've reached the bottom of deeper holes, that this is a start.

Because I'm not anxious, and I'm not shaking, and I'm not drowning — voluntarily or otherwise — and that may be because of Dallon, and it may not, and if my heart has finished its track race with only the petrichor of gunpowder linting the air, then it's as if I'm safe.

I'm still not safe enough to allow Dallon access into the room with me, but I'm positive that he's already grateful.

"But I see you're already taking care of yourself," Dallon contradicts, and a smile is the zenith of his performance before he goes.

And I am left to ponder the mystery.

~~~~~

A/N: mmm what the fUCK was this

also sorry for the late update

current vibe: when my history teacher brought out baby photos of him, and everyone crowded around to laugh at them

~DaffyDuckota