so lost to the vanity of staying

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<<set _countersum to $sunday + $monday + $tuesday + $wednesday + $thursday + $friday + $saturday>>\ <<if $night gte 3>>The house is quiet. \ <<elseif _countersum is 0>>You arrive at Scott’s place on a Sunday afternoon, a yawning summer one that’s dipping sleepily toward evening. He lives on a peaceable little side street where the enormous front window faces the sunset, and the light paints his upright piano in gold. You’ve tried to make yourself look presentable. He makes you take off your shoes before you step on his precious hardwood floors, and the way he says it is exactly the way he always says things like that, for as long as you’ve known him, since even before Ren. You kick them off, and you’re pretty sure he makes a face at the grime and holes. You stick your tongue out at him just in case, and join him in your socks, which also have holes in them. His socks are green, and as unmarred as if he bought them earlier today.\ <<else>>You’ve returned to the front room. You don’t get this kind of luxury much. The golden light through the big front window, the low windowsill cleared of knick-knacks so you can sit on it even though Scott would rather you didn’t. You’ve promised him you’ll fix it if it breaks. Can’t be that hard; there’s a hardware store a fifteen minute walk away. You sit on the piano bench. You try to satisfy yourself with the dregs of sunlight leaking over the rows of houses, puddling in your lap. <</if>> \ The calendar on the wall claims that it is... <table style="width:100%"> <tr> <td>[[Sunday]]</td> <td>[[Monday]]</td> <td>[[Tuesday]]</td> <td>[[Wednesday]]</td> <td>[[Thursday]]</td> <td>[[Friday]]</td> <td>[[Saturday]]</td> </tr> </table> <<if (_countersum gt 0) and (_countersum % 7 is 0) and ($visited is false)>>\ <p class="cent">[[???]]</p>\ <</if>>\

other possible character notes: - something about scott having always been totally self-sufficient? - martyn itching from the lack of movement, lack of action -- contrast to ren's wildness - martyn more possessive + touchy-feely - can you add cycles to things? try it out??

<<if $sunday is 0>>For dinner, it’s fish and potatoes. Not chips, but roasted potatoes with the skins a little burnt. Not— however they do the fish when you order fish & chips, but fried whole, head and all, in the pan. You learn this later. First, you catch him with his arms up to the elbows in his neat, stainless steel sink, spilling fish guts into the strainer. “Oh, wow,” you say. “You got that one //really// fresh.” Scott startles and the knife he’d been using clatters. There’s a pop song playing on his phone, facedown on the countertop. “Er, sorry,” you mutter. “No, that’s my bad, I forgot you were—” Scott lifts his hands and you look, but he doesn’t seem bloody. “Erm. You got everything sorted?” You crack a grin. “Not sorted, but if you wanted my things //sorted,// you’ll have to give me another ten to forty business weeks.” Scott smiles and you are reminded you were familiar with his smile once. Now that it’s possible to compare, you can see he looks tired. “I don’t know what I expected.” You bob your head at the sink, where the fish’s belly gapes, carved out. “You want help with that?” “You don’t mind some blood and guts?” Then he shakes his head at the same time you say, “Nah, getting squeamish was always Jimmy’s thing, wasn’t it? I’m good; just tell me where to point the knife.” Scott grins for real at that one, and for a moment you think he’s actually going to hand the knife over. “Right, //you’ve// never minded getting your hands dirty. You should’ve heard Jimmy the first time I brought one of these home. You’d think it was still flopping around in the bag, the way he went on and //on…//” But Scott doesn’t give you the knife. Scott turns back to the sink and scrapes at the pinkish cavern of the fish, making a nearly pleasant sound with the blade. “You can go chill in the dining room,” he offers. “I should be fine; I’m used to doing this alone.” He starts the water running, lifts the fish, and pulls apart the cut to rinse it out. “You’re doing the dishes.” You sigh. “Yep, there it is.” “What, you thought I would give you food and a room for free?” Scott says, mouth pulling sideways. “It’s funny that you don’t mind fish guts but you hate wet food. You really haven’t changed.” You lean over to watch him work. “[[You think so?->Center]]”\ \ <<elseif $sunday is 1>>The walls of Scott’s house are pale blue and sparsely decorated. You nudge Scott as he dumps an armful of books in front of you, and nod at the patch of wall by the dining table. “It looks like the sort of painting you’d find in a waiting room.” Scott looks up at it, then back at the books. “Yeah, kinda.” He splits the books into two piles and picks one off the top. “Do you care about… architecture?” Sound of a few pages flipping. “Why did //Jimmy// have an architecture book?” You blink. “Well, I do want to know the answer to that, but first, what’s so special about that painting?” This time, Scott squints at you for a moment before turning his gaze to the painting. “Nothing? Just wanted something pretty to fill space.” He starts a third pile of books. “What about… Hm. This looks like a bad crime novel.” “All crime is bad,” you answer immediately, thoughtlessly. “You don’t believe that,” Scott says. “You think any crime should be allowed if it’s funny enough.” You take the book he hands you. “I’m surprised you still remember I said that. D’you reckon this one will be funny?” Scott’s already flipping haphazardly through another one. “Probably not. I don’t think Jimmy thinks crime is funny. Thought? You know what I mean.” “How come you haven’t got any pictures of either of you hanging up?” It occurs to you as soon as the words leave your mouth that you’re nudging a bruise, but you don’t let regret touch you except when you’re up so late you’re seeing the sunrise sober, so you just set the novel on top of the architecture book and tilt your head to look at Scott, who’s still standing. “No vacation photos? No //honeymoon// photos? C’mon, you must have one. Or do you not show up in photos? You are looking very pale.” Scott’s eyebrows go up; he gives you a sliver of a smile.. “How do you know I don’t have any photos?” You’ve never been great at making him angry. “You’ve been in my room?” “Nope, but now I know there aren’t any in your bedroom either!” you crow, slapping the next book he gives you onto what you’re assuming is the discard pile without looking it over. “Seriously, what gives? I thought you two were having the time of your lives out here, doing lovey-dovey couples’ shenanigans.” “We were,” Scott says dryly. Then he breaks eye contact to tap his nails against the slim softcover he’s holding. “I think this one’s mine.” You pull it down to see the title. “Poetry? You’re a romantic after all!” Scott’s laugh is sharp and louder than you were expecting. “Well, I don’t want it anymore. Do you?” You thumb through it just to be a good sport. “Nah, I don’t think so. Cover’s pretty, though. Could put it on a shelf somewhere, add a pop of colour.” “You really don’t like what I’ve done with the place, huh?” “//Have// you done anything with the place? From here, it just looks like a lot of empty space.” Scott shrugs. “I’ve been cleaning up. [[I’m not gonna live here forever.->Center]]”\ \ <<elseif $sunday is 2 or $sunday gte 4>>The fish is called tilapia. Scott tells you this. He even shows you how he likes to cook it. “What if I commissioned you?” you ask him. “For something to hang on the walls. Force you to decorate.” “Better get your order in quick,” he says with a smile. “I don’t usually have slots open for very long, and [[I’m closing commissions soon.->Center]]”\ \ <<elseif $sunday is 3>>Scott’s at the dining table, the afternoon light indirect but illuminating. His overshirt — one of them, anyway, huge and bluer than the walls but only barely — is slipping off his shoulders. <<nobr>> <<switch random(2)>> <<case 0>> “Lobster,” <<case 1>> “Babybel,” <<case 2>> “Pistachios,” <<default>> ERROR <</switch>> <</nobr>> you suggest, and he snorts without bothering to pick up the pen. “I said //fruit,// Martyn. What do you think a fruit is?” “It’s colourful, it’s got bits you gotta peel off?” You lean back precariously and then yelp as you catch yourself on the heels of your palms. The floor, you’ve been insisting to Scott, is much cooler than the miasma you exist in when you’re standing. “Fine, fine. Apples. The yellow ones. None of this red delicious nonsense, I won’t stand for it.” “Then sit.” You bark a laugh. “You almost sounded like me for a second there!” “I learn from the best.” He’s scribbling something fondly onto his shopping list. Folds the paper, shoves it into his pocket without grace, and offers you a hand up off the floor. “//Your// schedule’s too full to come with me to buy any of this again.” Not quite a question, but you sing-song, “I’ve got places to be, people to see! You won’t be too lonely without me, will you?” “//I’ll// be fine,” he says, chin up in that way he does when he’s acting superior. “Will //you?// Do you promise the house won’t be burned down when I come back?” Scott’s already moving past you, shrugging his overshirt all the way off and dropping it on the piano bench. You catch him by the elbow, [[fingers digging into the crease.->Center]] He makes an indignant noise and you drop it, forgetting what you were going to say.\ <</if>>\ <<set $sunday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $monday is 0>>Mondays are for cleaning. You learn this because Scott smacks your ankles with the broom when the time comes, and you yelp at him. “You couldn’t wait until I was out?” you demand. “I didn’t know when you’d be out,” he answers, reasonably. “I sweep on Mondays.” “I’m literally putting on my shoes.” “That could mean anything.” The corner of his mouth twitches, a whip-crack glimpse of satisfaction. “Where are you going?” “Not telling,” you chirp. “You have your secrets, I have mine.” “There’s only two directions to go from here,” he says, turning his gaze back to the floor, to the small heap of dust he’s collected at his feet. He sways vaguely. “Unless you break into someone’s backyard. I would say please don’t make the neighbours come complain to me, but I don’t think you would listen.” His mouth twists, a little despairingly. You laugh. “I make //no// promises! Poor old Marjorie from across the way is going to come knocking at a very reasonable two PM and ask you about that peculiar blond fellow she spotted in her tulips—” Scott groans, thumping his forehead against his hands resting on top of the broom handle. “Don’t say that like she’s going to try to //proposition// you—” “Goodness,” you say, standing there on the rug in front of the door, grinning, your expedition into the great outdoors forgotten for a moment. “I was just going to say she wanted to lodge a complaint! What have you been thinking about me and your neighbours?” Scott flutters a hand at you. “Okay, get out.” “Love you!” you sing over your shoulder. It comes out too fast and too easy, and the toe of your shoe catches on the threshold as you go. Scott just laughs, a brief, mean bark of joy. “Karma!” he shouts as you skip the last two steps down from the porch. [[He slams the door shut behind you.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $monday is 1>>This wasn’t very soon after you met him, and it wasn’t very soon before you saw him last, so you remember the details impressionistically, all blurry background. Dark wood, dim light. Even your own hands are a vague idea. You were standing together just outside a student-run cafe on campus, where a couple mutual friends of yours worked sometimes. You nudged, with the toe of your shoe, the plastic bin on the floor by the entrance. “This is just asking to get kicked,” you said. “It’s been kicked before,” Scott said, taking an amused sip of something he only barely seemed to like. “I know a few people have been asking for a bigger bin so stuff doesn’t fall out and break so much.” “Don’t tell me that,” you laughed. “Now I want to shove it around a little, see what happens!” The surprise of this bit still gets you, like a splinter you hadn’t realized was still stuck in your skin. Scott said, “Nah, if you really want to be mean about it, you should just take one. One every couple of days. No one would notice until suddenly they don’t have enough during the lunch rush and they realize half their mugs are gone.” You both laughed. There was a sign, decorated with hearts and a beautiful teacup holding up a beautiful swirl of steam. You nudged that with your foot for good measure too. //Please return mugs here!// The bit that’s the splinter, really, the reason this memory sticks in you, is that you weren’t surprised in the moment. You crouched to look the bin over, to see if you could guess which one would be missed the least, and Scott sipped his drink until Jimmy showed up, and then he left his mug there in the bin. [[Didn’t even look at you; just waved as he left.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $monday gte 2>>\ <<set _tempchoice to random(2)>>\ Your throat is filled with the taste of smoke. Leftovers for lunch, and then you step into the backyard like you’re chasing memories. It’s summer, but all the grass out here is yellowing and whatever climbing thing that once lived against the far fence has withered. You keep forgetting it’s //hot// outside. Scott comes to find you, eventually. He opens the back door and you get a snatch of some bouncy chorus before he shuts it again. He’s holding a glass of pale purple. “I made smoothies.” “Is this all you do?” you ask. Scott does something to you, makes your mouth move before your brain does. He makes you want to kick a clay flowerpot into a million beautiful pieces. “What, make smoothies? No?” “No, I mean this— Like, I feel like I’ve never seen you do anything for fun. You’re like a househusband but you don’t even have—” You stop. “I never said sorry, did I?” Scott’s just holding the glass full of lilac goop. Just standing there. “Sorry for what? Jimmy’s the one who <<nobr>> <<switch _tempchoice>> <<case 0>> walked into traffic.” <<case 1>> got stabbed.” <<case 2>> drowned in five feet of water.” <<default>> ERROR <</switch>> <</nobr>> You hiss through your teeth. “Is that how he went?” Scott holds out the glass to you. “It’s still cold. Do you want it, maybe before it turns into warm sludge in the sun and starts attracting wasps?” The vague, distant drone of insects in the suffocating air gets louder. The plastic of your chair is sticky. You take the glass. “Why haven’t you got your own?” Scott tilts his head away from you. “Inside. Just wanted to bring you yours. Bring it back when you’re done?” “Yep,” you say to the closing door. You sit outside, even though it’s hot and sticky and dead quiet. Even though the sun sears your neck and then slips behind clouds. You sit there and let your drink get warm. You think about dropping the whole thing at the roots of that withering plant on the other side of the backyard, and you imagine Scott kneeling on <<nobr>> <<switch _tempchoice>> <<case 0>> asphalt, <<case 1>> dirt, <<case 2>> sand, <<default>> ERROR <</switch>> <</nobr>> [[picking up glass shards.->Center]]\ <</if>>\ <<set $monday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $tuesday is 0>>Apparently, the piano isn’t just for show. Scott embroiders by the light of the reading lamp clipped to the top. You had seen, tucked into the corner of the front room, between the wall and the instrument, a low shelf stuffed with books, a metronome, and an analog clock. You had wondered when he learned to play, and especially when he learned to tolerate children. “That doesn’t look comfortable,” you say to him. He’s got his elbows up on the lid, ankles crossed under the barely-cushioned bench, and a clear plastic box of compartments just a few centimeters too wide to look comfortable on its perch. Scott doesn’t even look up, flipping a needle’s trail of orange around between his fingers. “I like having the light.” “Can I see?” you ask, being cheeky and knowing you’re doing it. You nudge into his personal space, over his shoulder. It’s a burning house, pitted with fire so bright the threaded flames are cored in white. You whistle. “A //house fire?// That’s morbid.” Scott shrugs, which pushes his shoulder against your stomach, but isn’t the same as a shove to get you away. “I don’t ask questions, I just take commissions. Maybe they want to burn their ex’s house down. Maybe they already have.” “You’ll get paid in arson money!” you exclaim, having leaned so far forward now you could tilt your head and nestle your cheek in his hair. His shampoo reeks of artificial flowers. It has occurred to you, once or twice, that if you keep borrowing his, you’ll smell like them too. “Implying that you can get paid for burning someone’s house down,” Scott says, tilting his chin up to give you a sardonic look. “If someone’s put out a hit on them,” you point out. You nudge him. “Lemme sit. I wanna see.” “I didn’t know you cared,” he says, but he picks up the earbud in his lap and offers it to you with a smile. You sit and take the earbud. “I can enjoy a bit of needlework! What do you take me for, Scott, some kind of heathen?” “No,” he says, never one to let you get the last word in. “Just thought you had other things to focus on. Jimmy would always call this stuff my little old lady hobbies, like he wasn’t just as bad.” It’s not the classical music you were half-expecting at this hour, but some nostalgic, peppy song ricocheting past the tip of your tongue before you catch its name. “Do you play?” you ask, adding your elbows to the weight the piano has to bear. Scott taps his needle’s point on the lid. “Does it look like I play.” “So it was Timmy’s. I did wonder who would want you as their music teacher.” Scott huffs and mimes biting you. He almost gets a mouthful of wire for his trouble and just looks rueful. You didn’t know it was possible for him to get better at this, at pretending to be a different kind of annoyed than he is. You’re shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He won’t yield his spot on the middle of the bench, and the bench doesn’t leave much space for you. “And he didn’t come pick it up? You reckon he’d come back if he knew you were using it like this?” Scott shrugs. So the trouble is you can’t tell anymore, what he really isn’t bothered by and what he’s just pretending about. “You know how you get, after. He didn’t even say goodbye.” You wouldn’t really know, about Jimmy, specifically, but if you say that, you’ll have to answer anything he asks about Ren. “What got him?” you say instead. It probably came up, somewhere in the spiderweb of connections that joins you all, but you were busy. In goes the needle, down, then up and out. In again. Up and out again. It pulls slightly at the fabric each time it punches through, a little cone appearing, stretching, pierced, fading. The music in your ear rises to chorus, and you don’t hear the breath Scott lets out so much as feel it. “Something dumb,” Scott says. The words crack on the quiet fluorescence of the reading light like a joke, so you laugh, both of you, as if it is one. The reading light is steady. The room is clean. It is like a bubble, and you can’t see outside. The curtains are drawn, so you watch him until you get bored and make him show you how he did those pretty curling knots for the rose bushes, [[not yet touched by the threaded fire.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $tuesday is 1 or $tuesday is 3>>[[Ren always had ideas.->Center]] Making them happen was part of the joy. You were never happier than when you slipped into the passenger seat of Ren’s car, because he’d shown up and said, //Come with me. I’ve got something I want you to help me with.//\ \ <<elseif $tuesday is 2>>[[Ren always had ideas.->Center]] You’ll admit now you would have done anything he asked, even if the command was only //Come with me. I’ve got something I want to show you.//\ \ <<elseif $tuesday gte 4>>Scott comes home with something in an opaque bag that jerks around, makes a jagged baseline of rustling plastic you can hear from your spot at the dining room table. [[Two hard thuds->Center]] that rattle the picture on the wall, then silence.\ <</if>>\ <<set $tuesday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $wednesday is 0>>He doesn’t eat much, though he always makes enough for two. “Breadcrumbs?” you say, sticking your fork into the morass of cheese. “Fancy.” Scott shrugs, picking at his own meal. You spear a bit of broccoli and hold it out to him. His mouth curls. “Eat your vegetables, Martyn.” “I //could// do that.” You wave the tines of your fork in a circle over his plate. “Or you could do it and enjoy them better than I ever would.” “I have mine,” he says, making eye contact as he demonstrates, crunching through a piece. Scott doesn’t pick fights he can’t win, and you should really know better by now. He’s changed, but not that much. “You always make so much,” you mutter. “It takes so long and we never finish it anyway.” “Don’t want it?” Scott asks, tone unreadable. He’s generous. You can’t say he isn’t generous. “We could share mine, save yours for tomorrow since you’ve barely touched it.” “I won’t be home.” His foot kicks against your leg under the table. “You just want me to eat your broccoli.” “Well, that too.” He grabs your hand, pulls until you relinquish the fork, then holds up the broccoli. You laugh; it looks like a plucked flower. He nibbles at it like a prey animal that hasn’t seen you yet, intent on [[pulling petals off the plants.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $wednesday is 1>>“You’re a bit—” Too close, is what you mean to say. Scott’s very nearly in your lap, genuinely playful in a way you’re just now realizing you haven’t seen him be since uni. “You’re a bit needy, aren’t you?” “Says you?” Scott laughs. It occurs to you in this moment that there isn’t a TV in this house, because Scott glances at the blank wall and then back at you, and you don’t have anywhere to look but at him. “Because you were //soo// normal about Ren.” He pinches your cheek just a little too hard. “I called you puppy even back then.” You’re both sitting on the floor because Scott doesn’t even have the grace to provide your impromptu little party with a couch. You could let yourself feel the pang of longing that hits you square in the chest, or you could lift the fancy glass Scott produced from a dusty corner of his cabinets, half-filled with some kind of too-sweet wine, and clink it against Scott’s. The latter sounds a lot more fun. “I don’t remember you calling me that,” you mutter into your glass. “Not to your face,” he says breezily, shoulder against yours so you feel it when he stretches out to put his drink down. You copy him, then grab his face in your hands. He yelps, eyes going delightedly wide, and you can’t help yourself, you like him so much. It’s so easy to like him like this, when he really wants you to and isn’t shy about showing it. You want him to keep looking at you and smiling, puzzled, just like that. “You’d let me do anything to you right now, wouldn’t you?” you say. He blinks, fluttery. “What? No, I wouldn’t.” His smile gets a gleeful edge to it. “//I// know better than that, Martyn, come on.” You’re not uncoordinated, exactly, probably won’t get to that point tonight, but you feel light and warm and alive and some part of you doesn’t understand how he’s real. “I want to kiss you,” you decide, out loud, still holding him in place. Scott giggles, cheeks flushing. “You can’t just do that. You have to… You have to win. You have to //make// me.” “Win what?” you demand. “You can’t say that and then not tell me why or how. That’s— That’s cheating.” “Your breath smells like wine,” he says, pressing his palm over your mouth. Predictably, he pulls back when you lick, but then he pauses, staring down at his hand. You have no idea what to do with the brief glance he throws your way before he brings his hand to his own lips. How he lowers it again to show off his pale skin, [[shiny with his spit and yours.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $wednesday % 2 == 0>>You sleep through a whole day and wake up to the sound of someone knocking on the bedroom door. “You in there?” Scott’s voice calls, made shivery by the wood between you both. “Yeah,” you call back. “Sleeping.” “Really? Have you been asleep all day?” You haven’t. You woke up a little past seven this morning and heard the soft scuffle of Scott leaving. You itched and itched and itched, the curtains of your room too light to block out the rising sun, and then you suffocated yourself under the blankets, having nothing better to do. “There’s nothing to //do,//” you shout in the general direction of the door. Some kind of shuffling, maybe, and then he’s gone. [[You decide you don’t care to where.->Center]]\ \ <<else>>Ren always had [[ideas.->Center]] You put your nose to your wrists and smell fake flowers. You go into Scott's room and search through his shelves, leaving a mess on purpose. The next time you go back, everything is back where it was originally, pristine. <</if>>\ <<set $wednesday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $thursday lte 1>>You have no idea why you stand to attention when Scott creaks the front door open. You should know better than to act like you’ve done anything wrong. “Heya,” he says, low and fond like he always greets you these days. He didn’t do that before. You wonder if Jimmy would know when he started that up, or if that memory has been tossed away after floating for a while, unweighted by emotion or resonance. “Hi,” you say, blinking against the slanting sunlight in your eyes. “You’re like a cat,” Scott says to you instead of //how are you// or //wanna know why I was gone all afternoon.// “You know there’s more light if you go out on the porch? I bought chairs specifically so you could do that.” “Just for me?” you exclaim, filching the bag — reusable, the unbearable man — and peering inside. He doesn’t even try to get it back from you. “I knew I liked you for a reason.” “They could be for you,” he says, going to the kitchen. You trot after him curiously, and he smirks when he turns and you’re right there. He looks so much like his old self you forget to be offended. “Give me the bag? I’m making dinner.” “You always do,” you say, saluting. You hand the bag over. He slides past you without touching to reach into the fridge. You grab his shoulder and shake it, and he grumbles the start of a name that isn’t yours, [[then stops.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $thursday is 2 or $thursday is 3>>Back here in the kitchen, the light doesn’t catch Scott as well as it does in the piano room. You hop up on the counter by the stove to sit, swinging your feet just a little. “Oh my god,” Scott mutters, eyebrows raised like he would when you were younger, when he caught you trying to swipe chocolate out of his bag. You hadn’t even wanted the chocolate much; you just wanted to see if you could. You wanted to see if Ren would like it, and you shared with Scott in the end anyway. “If you have to watch, can you at least go sit on the stools, Martyn?” “Nah, I like the view from up here,” you say, leaning toward him, hooking your hand around the back of his neck, so your forearm almost touches his throat. “You just want dinner sooner,” Scott says, after a moment, eyes half-shut, fingertips just on the edge of the stovetop. “And so what if I do? You’ve spoiled me, Scott, now sunset rolls around and I start //expecting// home-cooked meals.” “You’re going to help,” Scott decides for you, pulling out plates and spices, leaning into your personal space so smoothly it’s like he does it every day. “Get me the pan from under the microwave?” You get him the pan. You watch him splay out two salmon filets on a piece of paper towel in a plate, and hold his palm, fingers splayed, over the pan as it heats. You think about the pan getting hot enough to sear. You don’t even lean toward him before he’s pulling back, eyes flicking to you only for a moment, fast as a minnow among the reeds and algae of a pond. One flash of a fin, there, then gone. It’s nearly the same way he looked at you at that picnic table, not so long after you first met. You spent your university days calling yourself a jack-of-all-trades, and you even nearly were. You threw your voice around any half-listening auditorium or dim, subterranean warren of department offices you could wriggle your way into, and the first time you summoned your best rattling, rasping voice over Scott’s shoulder, he sat up ramrod straight for a barely an instant before his eyes narrowed at you. He watched serenely on when you pulled the exact same trick on Jimmy. Scott adds oil, and his mouth is almost smiling. It is one of those things so well-practiced you think you could copy it, and then you know you can’t. “You’ve gone soft,” you say to him, and hear how it doesn’t come out wondering. That breaks the facade a little, but only because his brow furrows. He still smiles at you, all confused condescension. “I found a nice place and decided to settle down. Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?” Then, he picks up the salmon with his bare hands and drops it in the pan, one, two, and the oil crackles and spits. “//Settle down,//” you scoff. “What happened to your sense of adventure? Where do you even go these days, other than the supermarket down the street?” Scott says, “You know, there’s a graveyard down there too.” “So?” You almost stutter on the syllable and decide not to risk another. “So there’s more stuff than just a supermarket.” Scott watches the salmon, illuminated by the overhead light of the stove, and the wild pink flesh goes paler as it cooks. “You visit?” He shrugs. “Once? It was nice. Quiet.” “Only once? Spooky place to be, huh?” “Not really.” Scott flips the first slab of salmon over in the chittering oil and the pink flesh is golden-brown. He hums, pleased. [[You look away before he flips the second.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $thursday gte 4>>You get back to the house to the smell of food. “Didn’t bother to wait for me, I see!” you call. Scott doesn’t even poke his head out to greet you. “You’re the one who disappeared all day. Not even a note, Martyn, I was worried sick!” “Yeah, yeah,” you say, kicking off your shoes. He still teases in the same tone of voice. He smiles crookedly at you when you poke your head into the kitchen. He’s wearing an apron, and there’s someone strumming squeakily through guitar chords on his phone. The scene is so perfectly arranged it’s like he was waiting for you. Can’t have been, though. Stove’s still going. He taps a wooden spatula on the side of the pan. “I’m almost done here. Can you grab me a plate?” “You’re closer,” you say, doing it anyway. When you pause, standing just a little bit too much in his personal space, he leans against you, trusting you to take his weight. He is a warm body, pressed against yours. He’s cooked enough for you too. He’s holding a single, perfect slice of lemon, and for a moment you’re ready to be angry that he’s going to do this flawlessly on top of everything else, but he doesn’t. The slice crumples between his fingers like a breaking halo, dropped carelessly amid pink flesh. The music kicks up into something bouncy, [[loud enough you could swear it echoes on the tiles.->Center]]\ <</if>>\ <<set $thursday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $friday is 0>>“Are the eyes opaque? That’s how you know—” “That they’re done, yeah, you’ve told me.” You lift the lid and peer into the pot to check. “And no. Just like they weren’t the last fifteen times you asked.” Scott looks over his shoulder from the sink. “I did?” It is the clearest his voice has come out of him today. Maybe it’s just that he’s actually bothered to turn his head in your direction this time. “You’ve been repeating yourself all day, dude.” You slink over to him, nudge your shoulder against his, and his hands glide idly over the blade of the knife that pulled out gills and scales from your dinner-to-be with the ease of long practice. He elbows you hard in the stomach and you bash your head into his arm in retaliation. “You’ll make me drop the knife. If I cut my finger off because of you, you’re doing all the cooking.” He taps the tip of the knife against the side of the sink, a hollow, metallic sound. “You’ll have to spoonfeed me.” “Yes, sir, and I’ll sit in your lap while I’m at it.” You glance at the pot. Scott snorts and goes back to cleaning the knife. He’s been cleaning the knife ever since he pointed at you and said to keep an eye on the clock. “How was it, then?” “How was what,” says Scott. “After Jimmy died.” In the back of your head, you hear a faint echo: the version of you who could say these things more kindly. You’re not sure Scott cares how you phrase it. “I heard it was just you in this little house for a while.” “Where’d you hear that from?” You shrug, and the water from the tap keeps running. He must be done with that knife by now. The steady rush of liquid hitting steel. “Just… You know. Around. Grian might’ve mentioned.” The sound of the water becomes a trickle. “Did you hear about what Grian did after Scar died?” You don’t like looking at Scott’s back from this angle, so you stop. You lift the lid again and squint at the steam, thin rivulets of it rising, rising, into the noise of the range hood. “Not just heard. I wasn’t too far away when he jumped. It was — and trust me, I do know this is a horrible thing to say — kind of funny. Didn’t get there in time to tell him to do a flip though.” Scott hums, a feline twist to his mouth. Like a needle into your palm, he says, “[[That was after Ren left you, right?->Center]]”\ \ <<elseif $friday is 1>>Scott does most of the work of making the soup. Your job, he tells you, is to stand nearby and look pretty. You don’t mind terribly because //look pretty// isn’t strictly at odds with //heckle,// and Scott never kicks you out, just stops answering or gives you another order when he’s bored. There’s not much to do in this house unless you feel safe going anywhere near the piano, and you don’t, really. Scott always laughs at you for turning down the horror movies he offers, but you don’t touch hauntings. “You want the eyeballs?” Scott asks. He holds up a huge, dripping ladle of fish heads in varying states of disassembly, his own head cocked sweetly. You click your tongue. Scott’s eyes are a shock of blue. In all the years you’ve known him, you’ve never found that blue anywhere else, not even on the saturated, painted stares of dolls still in their packaging. “I’ll take one if you take one.” He smiles. “You sure you don’t want both?” “How about this: we both try one, then we can talk about another.” You wink. You can’t help liking him when he sounds hungry like this. “Done,” Scott says. He gets you a bowl, small enough to fit neatly in the curve of two hands. He pokes out one eye, adds a splash of soup, and says, “Tell me how it tastes.” Then he goes to the cutting board. Lays out the snapper heads. Begins methodically disassembling them, practiced fingers, [[dim evening light through the window.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $friday is 2>>He always looks so at home in this kitchen, moving through it as smoothly as though it’s an extension of him. Sometimes, he directs you to rummage through the cabinets, and he’s told you where he keeps everything, but still you’ll push a little bag of spices aside, and find three more containers you’ve never seen before, unlabelled. //What’s this one?// you ask him sometimes just to see if he knows. Sometimes, he hisses and tells you to throw the whole thing out. Most of the time, he has an answer. You watch him, taking a pinch of this, adding a teaspoon of that. //How do you always know?// you ask him. He bumps you out of the way to reach into the cabinet behind you. //[[It’s just muscle memory->Center]] at this point.//\ \ <<elseif $friday gte 3>>It’s just muscle memory at this point. [[It’s just muscle memory.->Center]]\ \ <</if>>\ <<set $friday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $saturday is 0 or ($saturday gt 2 and $saturday % 2 == 1)>>“I bet you could be good at this,” Scott says, turning a skewer over on the little grill he’s set up on the back porch. “Why?” you ask, lounging in one of two faded plastic chairs, sipping on a beer. Scott offered to make something prettier, but the thought of drinking a cocktail alone while Scott poked at charcoal, watching the smoke blend into the clouds, made you sort of desperately sad. “Just a feeling,” Scott says. “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else,” you chuckle. “I’m usually not a fan of things being on fire.” “Really?” “Ren would— He’d get really excited about toasted marshmallows, and drag me down to a beach somewhere and make me help him start a fire. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t really want to.” “But anything for your lord,” Scott says. You laugh into the back of your wrist, [[trying not to choke.->Center]] “You do //one// LARP as a stupid little first year— There’s no need to be mean about it!”\ \ <<elseif $saturday is 1>>You’re watching him work through his golden-brown thread to stitch some kind of songbird, snatching things off the table when you get bored so he’ll have to say something to you. This time, you’ve got his phone in hand; you flip it over to look at the adorable little column of forest animals dancing up the back of the case. “If this were mine,” you say, “the screen’d be cracked to shit by now. How have you never dropped it? I’ve seen you put it on the edge of the //sink.//” Scott’s eyes flick up from his embroidery — he’s deliberately not looking directly at you, the way he always does when he’s wariest about what you’re up to — and says, “I get the protector replaced when it cracks.” Then, scolding: “Martyn.” “What?” you say innocently, dangling the phone between two fingers. “I’m being careful!” He hums doubtfully. “I am!” He goes back to his needle and thread. Says offhandedly, “I dropped it off a roof once.” “Well now you’re just giving me ideas.” You toss the phone in the air, add an exciting little spin, and immediately regret that you were too busy making sure you caught the thing to see if Scott flinched. “I’m not saying you should //do it,// Martyn. You’re the one getting ideas. It would be your fault if it broke.” “It would be your fault, too, for suggesting it.” This time, you do drop the phone, and it clatters on the table. Scott narrows his eyes at you, needle halted partway through the fabric. “Look! It’s fine! Completely unscathed.” You waggle it in his direction for good measure. “And when was this, anyway? What were you doing up on a roof?” Scott takes the phone back. “Having an adventure,” he answers, expression pleasant again. For dinner: soft white flesh, with thin black lines like snapped threads, [[or veins.->Center]]\ \ <<else>>Scott sits back on his heels, blinking unhappily as the wind changes and smoke blows in his face. “Jimmy used to do this. He was bad at it, but he always insisted.” “Yeah, that sounds like him,” you laugh, lifting the can to your lips. Scott gets up, steals it from you, and gulps half of what’s left before pushing it back into your hand. “It’s exactly like him,” Scott says, grinning down at you, ignoring your offended protest. “[[You get it.->Center]]”\ <</if>>\ <<set $saturday += 1>>\ <<set $visited to false>>\

<<if $night is 0>>He lets you touch him. You can’t tell if he ever likes it, but you think he of all people would make a bigger fuss if he didn’t. Your thighs bracket his hips. The guest room feels hollow in the colourless dark. “You weren’t here when I left this morning,” Scott says, barely breathless. “Did you even sleep?” “What’s that got to do with anything?” you ask, nipping at his lips. “It’s good for you,” he says dryly, getting a mean bite in so smoothly it could be an accident. “Sleep. You’re not tired?” Except it’s Scott, and he doesn’t do that kind of thing and fail to apologize by //accident.// “I can look after myself just fine,” you say against his mouth. He smells like— lotion. Whiff of fake flowers and an advert’s idea of clean. You kiss him slow because he’s tempting like this, laid out under you. The way he arches up into you is deliberate and delicious, and you want to tempt him in return. “I know you can,” Scott says. He’s always been more patient than you. He slips his hands under your shirt, drags nails down your sides, and despite everything, you are weak for that low undercurrent of fondness in his voice. Warm breath against the shell of your ear, warm body between your legs. Each piece of this, separately, you like. “You’re not sleeping either,” you point out. He tilts his head back, gives you access to his neck. You bite down just to hear him sigh, then bite down harder to hear him go tellingly quiet. You let go because you feel bad. “Hope you weren’t planning on going anywhere tomorrow.” Scott laughs and you feel it against your tongue, your cheek. “At this rate, we really are going to still be here tomorrow.” “Oh,” you say, picking yourself up to look at the curves and hollows of his face in the dark. His hands are still roaming, taking their time along the waistband of your boxers. You’re not ticklish, but you feel the threat of it where he grazes nails across your skin. “What did //you// think we were doing?” Scott asks, amused. His touch goes sharp and you jerk, collapsing into him. You bite and feel the way he goes limp, full-body, on purpose. You think of dinner, a fish fat enough and long enough it had to be cut in half to fit on the plate, the fan of its tail chopped off and discarded. The slits Scott carved into its sides that he sprinkled with salt, with thin slices of ginger and orange peel. “I think,” you say against his skin, pausing to worry at it, to feel him twitch, “we’re doing what I want to do.” You sit up and he goes still by degrees. You plant your hands on either side of the solid column of his throat, and he smiles at you for it, lips peeling back to reveal teeth. “What do you want to do?” he asks, soft like you’re being gentle with each other. “You wanna hurt me?” You still taste smoke in the back of your mouth. Scott’s palms are soft; you could chew up his fingers, mangle tendon and ligament. His lips are parted, so you could push your tongue into his mouth when you kiss him. His hands rest unresisting just over your own. Salt, ginger, orange peel. He must have dug in harder than you really felt, because the ghost of his nails lingers under your ribs, over your hips. “I bet you could,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the inside of your wrist. “I bet you’d be good at it.” He is utterly serene. You hate him a little. [[You kiss him again.->Center]]\ \ <<elseif $night is 1>>“Troublemaker,” he accuses you fondly, syllables going crooked while your teeth are still in his neck, just high enough he’ll have trouble hiding it when he goes out tomorrow. “That’s me,” you murmur, smiling so your teeth dig in deeper. He hisses and clutches at your shoulders and you almost let go with an instinctive apology. He doesn’t let you, though, and that makes you find a new place to pull up a bruise. You make sure to add an extra vindictive edge of canine to it. “All you do is go chasing after trouble,” he sighs. Something about the way he says it. He only flaunts what he knows like that when he’s feeling mischievous or miserable. Fifty-fifty strikes you as pretty good odds, so you give him a brief kiss, closed-lips. He gets your face between his hands, forces you back and up to look at him. You’d be gratified by the implied admission but he presses just a little too hard when he rubs his thumb over your cheekbone. “Do you like it when I bite you?” you ask. “You didn’t really strike me as the sort.” His expression twitches, though you’re missing a lot of the details in the dark. “Do you think I would let you if I didn’t want it?” It’s a fair enough point. He always flips the both of you over once the game’s done, once he’s gotten whatever it is he wants from you. You say, “I think you like acting like I’m some kind of misbehaving dog just for wanting to cuddle.” Your palms are always burning hot, even with the air conditioning cranked up so high it gets Scott muttering about the chill. He hisses, then whines, if you try to put your hand on his back. You almost like the whining and you’re sure he knows it. He snorts, which is good, because you were telling a joke. <<nobr>> <<switch random(9)>> <<case 0 1 2 3>> Very rarely, you get him pliant, and then he’ll giggle sleepily in the dark for you. <<case 4 5 6 7 8 9>> <<default>> ERROR <</switch>> <</nobr>> You’ve come around on the artificial smell of his hair, on his smooth, soft skin. “Aren’t you?” he asks. “I heard you were got up to all kinds of shenanigans after uni. Do you like this?” He pulls your hair. You dip your head down to kiss him, and it makes the tug on your scalp harsher. He laughs at you, into your mouth, quietly enough that it’s nearly not jarring in the dead silence of this unmoving little house in the middle of this unmoving little suburb in the middle of this ruin of a place that used to be — or so Scott says — this city’s industrial sector. <<set _temprand to randomFloat(1.0)>>\ <<if _temprand lte 0.44>>“All you do,” you whisper, “is [[ask me to hurt you.->Center]]”\ <<else>>“All you do,” you whisper, “[[is—->Center]]”\ <</if>>\ \ <<elseif $night gte 2>>No, no. He cradles your face in his hands and tells you <<nobr>> <<switch random(2)>> <<case 0>> he loves you <<case 1>> you’re doing so well for him <<case 2>> //good boy// <<default>> ERROR <</switch>> <</nobr>> with an expression so stray-dog sincere it cracks open a thin vein of honesty you didn’t know you still had in you. [[No, you hate him a lot more than a little.->Center]] <</if>>\ <<set $night += 1>>\ <<set $visited to true>>\

<<silently>> <<set $sunday to 0>> <<set $monday to 0>> <<set $tuesday to 0>> <<set $wednesday to 0>> <<set $thursday to 0>> <<set $friday to 0>> <<set $saturday to 0>> <<set $night to 0>> <<set $visited to false>> <</silently>> \ \ <h1>so lost to the vanity of staying</h1> <p class="cent">[[Center<-Open the door.]]</p>