How do babies get made?
The question had followed Bruce Redford all day like a loose screw in his pocket—annoying, obvious, still unsolved. Yesterday, at Frank's house, Frank's wife had set a tiny red stocking on the mantel with a folded sonogram tucked inside—"Merry Christmas, it's another one." Everyone laughed and hugged; Bruce laughed too, late and too loud. When he finally asked (again) how, even the kids giggled and called him silly. His face burned, and he let it die there. Now, as the world outside blurred into white, the question bobbed back up because that's what questions do in quiet.
Christmas night. Northern Vermont. The east shoulder of Mount Mansfield lay hushed and heavy, spruce boughs bowed under fresh snow and a sky the color of wet steel. A charcoal‑gray Ford Interceptor Utility—Frank's pride and joy, winterized and spotless—climbed the switchbacks, tires whispering over powder on a packed base. A northwest wind tested the seams of the doors in small, needling breaths; the air bit the nose and made sound travel clean and thin. Somewhere far off, a barred owl did it's hooting call, which sounded like someone asking who cooks for you, and he was answered by nothing at all.
Bruce himself rode shotgun, six‑eight and about three‑fifty, overflowing the seat, knees jammed against the glove box. His head was bald and egg‑shaped, the kind of shape school hallways never let him forget. He wore cheap, scratched sunglasses even at night because Neo and Morpheus wore them and nobody laughed at Neo; in Bruce's calculus, dark lenses meant cool and less scary for kids. Under a thrift hoodie sat a black plate carrier with bright POLICE panels; one strap was snugged with duct tape where it had frayed. Frayed jeans and white sneakers splitting at the seams finished the uniform of a man who spent his money on other people. Across his thighs lay his AR in a soft case—Happygun—with a Yoda decal on the receiver and a row of smiling bunnies along the stock. He thumbed the safety twice, then once more, because it made the bunnies brave.
Frank drove like he did everything: precise. He was muscular, like captain America muscular, also nearly as tall as Bruce, but handsome in a way that got free coffee without asking unlike Bruce who never got free coffee except if Frank was there. His Golden‑blond hair clipped short, icy blue eyes on the road. A dark wool coat—good cloth, good fit—under a high plate carrier with POLICE front and back; Glock 19 on his hip; M4 racked near his knee. No dome light. Dash glow killed. No rattle. No wasted anything. He was the type of man who didn't say much, and he kept his life squared away because the world refused to be.
Then suddenly a white flicker cut the beams.
"OH—OH, STOP!" Bruce braced both hands on the dash.
Frank eased pressure on the brake; the Interceptor slewed true and settled. In the wash of the grille a snowshoe hare froze—white as a lie, black‑tipped ears sharp. It did the dumb, typical animal thing—stood there, as if it wanted to be hit—and only when the SUV stopped did it kick free, stringing neat commas of prints across the powder into fir shadow.
"You screamed like it was a toddler," Frank said.
"It's a r‑rabbit," Bruce murmured, soft and earnest. "B‑but he m‑made it. Brave little b‑bastard."
"No Bruce, it's not a rabbit. It's called a Snowshoe Hare, remember" Frank corrected, flat as the road.
Bruce's mouth tugged into a small, embarrassed smile. "S‑sorry. S‑still nice when s‑something makes it. You k-know, s‑some folks get highways. C‑clear lanes. Some of us j‑just cross when we c‑can and hope the t‑tires miss."
Frank let out a long breath that fogged the glass. "I'll keep an eye out for any other cute little forest creatures," he said, dry but not unkind.
Bruce brightened. "Th‑thanks."
They rolled again. The road pitched steeper; snow thickened. As they rounded the last bend the trees thinned and hints of the place pressed through the gloom: a smear of warm window‑light uphill, the faintest bass pulse swallowed quick by wood and insulation, and—when Frank blanked the high beams for a heartbeat—the ghost geometry of parked metal crowding a ridge.
"Vests stay on," Frank said, not looking away. "If tonight goes bad, I want POLICE big enough for panic eyes to read."
"Y‑yes, sir."
"Don't 'sir' me. You make me sound old."
"You're n‑not old," Bruce said, earnest and enormous. "J‑just… p‑perfect."
Frank almost smiled.
He let the Interceptor coast the last fifty yards dark, then nosed‑out into a spruce clump on the southeast treeline, sixty‑odd meters off the front porch with a clean oblique on the left wall. From here the timber lodge filled the clearing—a deep front porch, a single broad balcony, and almost no windows on the sides. Between treeline and house sprawled a glittering mess of thirty‑plus vehicles at bad angles: lifted SUVs, muscle, even a couple exotics that made no sense in a Vermont mountain winter. Temp tags iced, dealer placards, bare frames where plates should be, two windshields with the VIN tab taped. The lot looked less like a party and more like a secret parade of stolen things.
They cracked the windows an inch. Weed and cologne leaked and vanished in the cold. A motion light blinked, died. A cheap trail cam sat zip‑tied to a birch, aimed at the lane like a bored eye. Inside, a muted cheer rose and fell—the sound of too many men going quiet again. No women tonight; leadership nights didn't bring them. Bruce tugged his vest straight, the POLICE panel settling like a promise, and pushed his Matrix sunglasses up his bald head and back down as if courage had a switch.
Frank watched the house, then the lot, then his watch. "We sit and watch," he said. "Two‑of‑three and we call it—plates or faces, plus a voice tag. Observe and report. No shortcuts."
Bruce nodded, large and solemn. "C‑copy."
Wind combed the spruces. Snow sloughed off a branch with a soft whoof. In the cab, the heater whispered and the question that had haunted Bruce since yesterday—how do babies get made?—floated up and away again, replaced by the rhythm of Frank's breathing and the small, important noises of a winter stakeout at the edge of a bad idea.
Then Bruce noticed the lodge door breath warm air, as three men came out onto the porch for a smoke. They had storybook‑gangster energy:
— a tall Black guy, chin high, pants low so his boxers could be seen;
— a shorter, bearded Brit, shoulders hunched in a puffy jacket, accent sharp as glass;
— a face‑tattooed Mexican in a bomber, jaw working while his lighter fought the wind.
They passed a single pack, cupped flames, and drew long. From the SUV, windows cracked an inch, Bruce and Frank heard three distinct voices—Black American, British, Mexican Spanish—thread together and then flatten back into winter. The trio flicked their butts into the snow—little orange eyes hissing out—and slipped inside, the door thunking shut.
Bruce made a face. "S‑smoking kills," he muttered. "A‑and it's b‑bad for deer. A‑and rabbits. A‑and the snow." He looked genuinely wounded by the cigarette stubs melting into white.
Through the front glass, gear was everywhere—plate carriers, helmets, NVG shrouds tossed onto couches and shelves, even a couple rigs left leaning right in the windows. No women anywhere. The bodies moving inside moved like men who came to plan and then drank too much to finish planning. "Leadership night," Frank said under his breath, more conclusion than guess.
He scanned the lot again, slow, mapping edges: thirty‑plus cars, wrong makes for winter, wrong plate stories—temp tags iced, dealer placards, bare frames, two windshields with the VIN tab taped. The house itself had that front‑loaded face—deep porch, a single broad balcony, and almost no windows along the sides.
"Yeah," Frank said, certainty casual. "This is the place."
Bruce's gaze drifted and stopped. The long red fuel tank hugged the left wall, snow shouldered on top, the stencil DANGER—FLAMMABLE. NO SMOKING. ghosted under frost. It looked to Bruce like God had dropped one of those red barrels from video games exactly where Bruce needed one.
"No," Frank said immediately, as if he could hear the thought forming. "Whatever you're thinking: no."
Bruce didn't look away. In his head, it played like every game shortcut he'd ever learned: one clean bloom, then quiet—no blue funerals, no weeks‑long standoff that ended in a bargain. "B‑but it's r‑right there," he said, almost reverent. "F‑fast. C‑clean. N‑no g‑good cops dying for nothing. They won't even f‑feel it."
"This isn't a cutscene," Frank said. "It's arson and it's murder, especially if anyone innocent is inside. We call it in and we hold. That's the job."
Bruce turned those earnest eyes behind scratched plastic. "W‑what if S‑SWAT gets stuck? W‑what if they spray from the balcony? S‑somebody's dad d‑dies in the yard and the rest plead out. Y‑you know I'm not wrong."
Frank let out a long, small sigh that said he'd heard Bruce's movie‑lines‑as‑logic a hundred times. He understood the heart behind them; he just had a different job tonight—get home, and get Bruce home. He thumbed his mic. "Bravo Fourteen—"
Bruce's hand—gentle and huge—settled on his glove. "Y‑you always say big picture. W‑with great power comes great responsibility. Th‑that tank is power." He swallowed. "A‑and we have responsibility."
For a breath the only sound was snow whoofing off a branch and the faint bass inside. Frank looked from the plate‑less lot to the POLICE panel on Bruce's chest and back again—the wrong kind of Christmas everywhere he looked. He shifted to the voice he used for rookies and five‑year‑olds with bloody knees. "Eyes on me. Hands in your lap. We're not blowing up a house because it makes your heart feel tidy. Stay put. That's an order."
Bruce nodded like he understood—then he opened his door. Cold rolled in over their boots.
"Bruce—don't," Frank said, half rising.
Bruce paused in the frame, trying to look braver than he felt. "I‑I hear you," he said. "I d‑do. B‑but I c‑can't watch another kid c‑cough p‑pink foam because we waited r‑right. F‑fortune f‑favors the b‑brave." He winced, aware it sounded corny even to him. "A‑and the p‑prepared. I'm k‑kind of both."
Frank closed his eyes for one count. When he opened them, the promise that had ruled his life since age eight sat there again: don't leave. Apply pressure. Don't leave. He would not let Bruce go alone, just like he had done back then when he saved Bruce's life and made a promise not to.
Bruce stepped out, the POLICE panel flashing once in the dying dome light. He shouldered Happygun like a sleeping child and started angling through the cars—big man trying to tiptoe—toward the red tank tucked along the siding.
Frank stayed a heartbeat, flipped down the visor, and kissed the photo tucked there—Sarah, two kids grinning in knit hats, and last night's ultrasound taped beside them. He left the picture on the dash, a tiny ritual that made the air thinner in his chest. Then he was moving: trunk up, helmet on, extra mags pocketed, M4 shouldered. He shrugged his coat open so POLICE read clean in the glare if he needed it. He slid car‑to‑car until a black SUV swallowed him into silhouette.
"Red, check," he whispered into the PTT. "Your six is covered."
Only the snow answered. Frank's mouth thinned. "Of course you forgot your radio again," he said, equal parts anger and affection. He shifted for a better angle—porch/balcony to his front, left wall and tank oblique—counting windows, counting feet, counting all the little things you count when you plan to bring a man home alive.
Across the yard, Bruce passed between a lifted Ram and an AMG, shoulders brushing mirrors, boots whispering on crust. He muttered the mantra he used when courage felt pretend: "B‑be a h‑hero, not a h‑headline. B‑Bruce and Frank: A‑army of T‑two." He winced. "N‑not an actual army. J‑just… two."
He reached the shadow of the tank. Up close it was bigger, and wronger looking, not like those clean red barrels from the games he knew. Rust bit the flanges; a thin ridge of refrozen spill ringed the overflow lip; the stencil peeled to pink but still felt like a shout against his face. He set a palm to steel—burn‑cold through the glove—and looked back once. In the trees, the Interceptor sat dark. Inside the car and on its dash, a small picture of a happy family smiled into the night. And off to the side in the dark, Frank's silhouette peeked out from behind a car.
Bruce dipped his chin in a huge nod only a man that size can make… and eased his other hand toward the valve wheel. He put both hands on the wheel and applied force for it to turn. It grudged a quarter‑turn and then screamed—a long, chalk‑on‑bone shriek that knifed through the snow‑quiet. He froze, that sound was definitely too loud for a clean stealth mission.
Inside the mansion, a small man caused a muffled thud as a chair fell on the wooden floor, then a voice with a British accent was heard that was pissed. "Oi! Who's scratching my motor?"
"Shit," Bruce breathed. He slid to the corner, pressed flat to the siding, reached for a radio that wasn't there—empty fabric—and swallowed. "D-damn Frank's g-gonna kill me."
The side door banged open. Warm, boozy air knifed out. A short, thick shape stepped down into the flood of porch light—four‑and‑a‑half feet of compact muscle in a too‑big leather jacket. Gold chains winked. Forearms were corded and veiny, traps riding high under the collar. His pupils were huge; jaw grinding. High on something, angry at everything.
"Which one of you muppets touched my car?" he barked to the dark. "I'll peel your fingers off like prawns and post 'em to your mum, yeah?"
He turned toward the lot and began walking towards Frank's position, boot‑heels crunching in the snow. Bruce's stomach dropped, if the small man went there and Frank shot him then it would be all over. Soon everyone would be awake and the mission would fail, Bruce couldn't let that happen. Thinking quickly he then remembered, Assassin's Creed, Hitman and all the other stealth games he had seen. In those games the characters would lure the target to them, thus separating them from the other's, and lastly quiet hands would put them asleep.
Thinking this to be a perfect plan, Bruce cupped his mouth and pitched his voice sideways, sort of like the walkthroughs taught him.
"M‑moo. M‑moo… o‑over here, y‑you gangster cow." And because his humour was horrible, he added. "And you're m-mother is a hamster."
The small man stopped, clearly hearing something, but not enough. So Bruce hissed again, louder, from the corner.
"H‑hey, hey! O‑over here, t‑tough guy!"
The head snapped his way. The little man stalked closer, squinting across the snow and into the shadow towards Bruce. "What are you, a lamppost in sunglasses?" He stopped three paces out, chest heaving, breath sour with booze and coke. "Come on then, show yourself and face me like a man. I ain't got all night."
Bruce stepped out without thinking—huge, bald, POLICE panel dull in the moonlight. For a heartbeat they just stared: big man, little man; one earnest, one vibrating with spite. The thought leaped out of Bruce's mouth before he could catch it.
"Wow, y‑you look like the d‑dwarf from Game of Thrones."
The man's face went black. "Say dwarf again, you fucking gorilla. Go on." His gaze dropped, caught the slanted POLICE, and snapped back up, delighted and lethal. "Oh so you're a fucking cop, come here to take us down have you? Well not on my watch, you pig."
His hand dived for his waistband.
Bruce saw it and out of instinct surged forward like a silent avalanche of muscle, he hit the little man and together they fell into the snow. Bruce on top, the little man on bottom they hit the ground. The little man fought like a bad memory—strong, mean, elbows spiking, thumbs hunting for eyes. Bruce pinned a palm over mouth and nose and pressed him into the drift, forearm across the neck, body weight like a landslide.
"Shh—s‑sorry—j‑just sleep," Bruce panted. "D‑don't make it hard, j‑just don't breathe and fall asleep…"
But the little man didn't give up, and then his teeth found the web between Bruce's thumb and forefinger and bit down. Hot pain detonated up his arm.
"Ah—stop!"
Bruce's body answered before his brain could: like trying to shove a hurtful thing away, he gave the little man a short, panicked right hook, more flinch than punch. Knuckle clipped temple; skull hit a buried paving stone under the snow with a dry crack.
And for a moment there was only silence, and stillness.
The man's jaw went slack under Bruce's palm. Eyes stared past him at nothing. The roar in Bruce's ears faded into the muffled thump of bass inside.
"I— I d‑didn't m‑mean—" Bruce slid two fingers to the little man's neck, too hard, then a bit lighter, then even more lighter, but he couldn't feel a pulse, there was nothing. He tried again, but nothing. He swallowed hard and tasted blood in his own mouth, copper and bile. Grabbing the small man's shoulders Bruce shook him and spoke pleadingly. "W‑wake up, ok. P‑please, it's not funny."
Then footsteps came close to the front door of the mansion, and another voice called out. "Oi? You good out there?"
Bruce didn't move. Snow dusted his shoulders. His bitten hand throbbed. Shame crawled up his throat like he'd swallowed a live thing. He looked down at Happygun—the bunnies, Yoda—and then at the unblinking eyes.
"I'm s‑sorry," he whispered to the face that couldn't hear him. "C‑can we j‑just say it was Happygun? N‑not me?" The plea sounded stupid and small in the cold. "I'm s‑sorry, may the force be w-with you in the c-cloud's."
The front doorknob rattled, the hinge squeaked.
Bruce stayed kneeling over the dead dwarf, pinned between guilt and the rising sound of a house waking up, and then a tall silhouette leaned out of the front door, squinting into the cold. He saw Bruce hunched over the dwarf's body and managed to say, "Oi, what the fuck, you a fucking cop—" before a single shot from the car line popped his skull back and made his brains pop out. He hit the threshold and folded inward like a hinge.
"Bruce, move!" Frank's voice cut across the lot—command, plea, and promise in one line.
Bruce didn't move away. He slid back behind the corner of the house and to the fuel tank, set both hands on the valve, and torqued. Rust screamed. Then the wheel gave and fuel bled into snow, black veins wriggling downhill as the reek slapped the air.
The house woke like a kicked nest. Shouts, boots, a chair skittering. Floodlights punched on beneath the eaves—blue‑white glare flattening shadows, turning the yard to glass. Two front windows starred and then blew out as muzzles shoved through the frames. The first volley was pure panic: drunken, coked‑up spray‑and‑pray that stitched the sky and smacked hood steel into ringing bowls.
Frank ghosted between fenders, sending semi‑auto bursts of fire back at the gangsters in the mansion, firing only in measured bursts, never staying where he'd just been. A bare‑chested Brit in socks tried to bull through the front door; Frank cut him down in stride and was two cars over before the balcony gunners found the space he'd left. Another man leaned out from a window with an AK-47; Frank hit the man's shoulder and the man pinwheeled out the window, weapon clattering after him. Then the weight of fire swelled—so many barrels at once—that even Frank had to sink deeper, pinned by volume as glass snowed the row and rounds drummed roofs and pillars.
Behind the left wall, Bruce worked in the stink and hiss. The spill was spreading, quickening where the grade dipped toward the parking ruts. He dug into his hoodie with a shaking hand and came up with the lighters he should have wrapped last night:
Darth Vader—Your Empire Needs YOU—meant for Frank, because Frank pretended not to like Star Wars and liked it anyway.
One Ring—black enamel and gold script—for Emma, the older kid, who'd read the first book with him on the couch and fell asleep halfway through.
Gandalf vs the Balrog for Ben, who kept a stick staff and said you shall not pass at the dog.
Work Hard & Be Nice to People—plain, black‑and‑white—for Sarah, because she lived that sentence better than anyone.
Light the Way to Your Dreams—polished, earnest—meant for the new baby whose life was sure to be bright.
Bruce's throat went tight. "S‑sorry," he whispered, the word fogging the metal. "I'll b‑buy b‑better ones. P‑promise." He flipped Vader and the One Ring and set them away from the tank in the drift where the fuel would reach, not bathe—timers, not fuses. Their flames hunkered low in the wind, tiny and brave. He pocketed the other three like talismans, tapped them once against his vest as if that could count for Christmas.
The flood of fire from the front peaked, then steadied—a rhythm of reloads and shouted angles. Frank answered with his own rhythm: thup‑thup… slide… thup‑thup, keeping windows honest, refusing door charges room to breathe. But a heavier voice joined from above—belt links chattering—and the balcony spat bullets from a belt-fed general purpose PKM heavy machine gun that turned a row of car hoods into tin confetti, showering Frank's cover with glittering fragments. But Frank merely slid again, lower, POLICE stark on plate, alive because angles love men who respect them.
"Flank around the back side, you idiots!" someone barked from inside. The mansion's backside mudroom blew open and a handful of men spilled out in a bad, brave clump—one in a helmet and no shirt, one in boxer briefs and boots, one in pajama bottoms with a plate carrier flapping loose. High and moving too fast for their feet, they saw the big silhouette at the corner and howled: "Cop! Pig!"
Their first burst hammered the siding and rang the tank—donk‑donk‑donk—throwing sparks that skittered like fireflies that shouldn't exist in winter. Wood splinters kissed Bruce's cheek. He pressed into steel and touched the stickers at his grip with two fingertips, like prayer beads.
"H‑Happygun," he whispered, "p‑protect, n‑not h‑hurt. L‑little green g‑guy—m‑maybe a l‑little Force would also h-help?"
He leaned out just enough to make a shoulder and let the front sight eat the nearest shape. The boxer‑clad man buckled mid‑stride and sat hard. "S‑sorry," Bruce breathed. Another leaned from the hip with an AK; Bruce pressed again, saw the thigh kick sideways and the man tumble into the snow cursing. "S‑sorry!" He meant it. He always meant it.
"Kill the cop!" someone screamed. The rest finally remembered cover—a grill, a planter, the mudroom frame—and started hosing blindly around the corner. More sparks crawled the tank's flank; Bruce tucked lower and felt the air change—vapor lacing the cold, the spill wriggling faster toward his tiny flames. He slid the bitten hand against his vest, winced, and peeked beneath the tank's belly: the slick had found a seam downhill and was walking toward Vader and the Ring in a thin black snake.
Across the yard, Frank snapped a pair into a balcony silhouette and ate glass dust; the PKM tore again, angry and wide. He was busy—exactly as Bruce expected. Frank was a badass on nights like this, a metronome of angles and breath in a blizzard of stupid bravery. Good. Alive. Busy. That was the job.
Back left, the blind fire clanged the tank again and ticked sparks into the drift—too close to the spill for Bruce's comfort. He pressed tighter to steel, huge and suddenly small, the nearest usable cover a row of cars ten meters out that might as well have been a field away in this light and lead. The men at the mudroom kept shouting, kept shooting—"Pig!" "Come out and die!"—their courage chemical, their aim loose and jagged. Bruce stroked the stock once, and petted the bunny stickers like calming a skittish horse.
"H‑hey, y‑your underwear's c‑cold," Bruce blurted, because he wanted to be mean and didn't know how. "Y‑you'll c‑catch a c‑cold. P‑put pants on."
They answered with another ragged volley that sang along the tank and stitched the snow at his boots.
Bruce stayed put, pinned behind the red steel, timers flickering in the drift, the slick inching closer—with Frank locked to the front fight and the cars a long, loud ten meters away. He blinked fuel sting from his eyes, set his jaw against the chatter and sparks, and told Happygun, very quietly, "J‑just be c-calm, ok. We g-got this."
It was ten meters to the car's. Normally ten meters was no big deal, just a few steps and maybe a jump and a swear, and they would be there quick. But for Bruce—six‑eight, three‑fifty, clumsy in winter boots and a vest that pinched—ten meters looked like a calendar crossed with a firing line. Between him and the row of cars, the snow lay ribbed with footprints and brass, the air slick with vapor that smelled like a bad decision. Floodlight glare made every flinch feel like a confession. Somewhere out front, Frank traded measured pairs with lunatics behind blown glass; out back, men in boxers and boots hurled slurs and lead at the tank like volume could replace aim.
He swallowed. The lighters winked in the drift—Vader and the Ring hunkered low, tiny and brave—waiting for the slick to find them at the wrong second. He'd meant them for Frank's family, not for this. He touched the other three once more and felt relieved that they were still safely in his pocket, Gandalf holding the line against evil, Work Hard & Be Nice being his motivation, Light the Way to Your Dreams just being there like a forecast of what was to happen when the tank explosion, and then he whispered a quick apology no one could hear. He'd buy better gifts, maybe if he got a promotion after this and his girlfriend Amber didn't take all his money again. He would, if there was a later.
The PKM on the balcony planed another zipper across the car line—wide, angry, high—and Frank answered with two shots that silenced the PKM and then he vanished between the cars again. Bruce felt relieved, it was good, Frank was still alive and well, but busy. That was expected. That was Frank.
Bruce exhaled then, now it was his turn to move. He couldn't stay here forever and they couldn't take out the entire mansion om their own and, stupidly, his brain dragged up a memory of a gymnast—the one he kept circling back to when nights were quiet and he tried push‑ups in the kitchen until Amber told him to knock it off. She was not some average high‑school girl on local TV turned superstar, but an slightly older one, a woman and already a world‑stage pro with platinum ponytails, bright blue eyes, and a smile people clapped for. She'd moved through air like water, flips and twists and tight little landings, a body that read like poetry while crowds stood up to cheer. What lodged in his mind wasn't the look though—it was the mystery of grace. How a person that small could be that strong. How something that looked so fragile could move so effortlessly like the people in the Matrix.
He also remembered, the way she looked powerful across the chest despite her petite size. Her chest was round and soft looking, and bouncing with each step. But soft as it might have looked, her chest was still slightly larger than his chest was, which made him think that she must have had a better bench record than he had on a bad day at least. To Bruce large breasts were intimidating thing's, because from what he knew from the gym a large chest meant more power, and that gymnastics girl probably had that, after all how else could she have moved to effortlessly. It scared him sure, but in a good way; it made him think there were different kinds of strengths in this world he didn't understand yet, and women seemed to have it the most.
Honestly he didn't understand any of it, even in the gas station back in town, the night clerk always kept a hand near the counter where the pistol was hidden when Bruce came in for jerky sandwich and some apple juice. Why did the clerk do that with him and look at him so suspiciously while not even glancing once at the other people in the store. Even kids acted strange usually on sidewalks calling him Hodor and running away laughing or just afraid for whatever reason. He couldn't figure it out. He wore all black along with sunglasses usually at night, because Neo did and nobody laughed at Neo or acted scared towards him, but for whatever reason when his large figure was seen especially at night people flinched and got scared, or just simply turned and walked the other way. But the gymnast only had to wave and a building loved her, just like that female clerk usually smiled at the other customers and they smiled back but she never smiled at him.
And then the other mystery tagged along—the one about babies and milk and why women had what men didn't. He felt heat from embarrassment rise in his face even now, behind a fuel tank under gunfire, because he still wasn't sure how it all worked, and yesterday's mantelpiece sonogram had made everyone laugh when he'd asked. But he quickly pushed these thoughts away as they weren't being helpful at all, not now.
Another ugly volley rang the tank, tossing sparks that skittered like fireflies that shouldn't exist in winter. Bruce tucked tighter, big body trying to be small.
"P‑please," he whispered, not sure if he meant it to the Force, the bunnies on his stock, or a woman on a screen who would never know his name. "L‑let me be g‑graceful. J‑just once."
Backyard voices stacked—English, Spanish, angry Vermont vowels—men calling him pig, cop, dead man. Blind fire chewed the corner again; chips of paint and frost peppered his cheek. He flattened a glove to the tank and felt the cold bite through the leather. Ten meters to the cars, and after that the trees and safety in the darkness there. He worked the problem because Frank would have worked it:
Weight to the balls of the feet.
Sling shorter by a palm so the rifle hugged.
Elbows in. Muzzle down until the break.
Don't drag the mag through the snow.
Read the rhythm: window guns bark‑bark… balcony drums… back‑door idiots huff and hose. There's always a space, a moment of silence when the people shooting have to reload and thus cannot shoot for a moment at least.
He pressed his bitten hand against his vest until the pain steadied him. "N‑Neo, y-yes be like N-Neo, I am t-the one, j-just have to believe," he muttered, feeling dumb and steadier anyway. "I have s‑sunglasses and everything, I can d-dodge bullets also, r-right. Mmm and p-pain is only t-temporary, j-just like flying b-bullets are," He let a tiny, helpless grin show for half a heartbeat. Then his face went calm again, as calm as it ever got.
The gunline stuttered—a magazine dry, a belt end rattling, a yell to "push left" that no one obeyed. Somewhere, a man slipped in his own puke and cursed God in Spanish.
Bruce turned his toes toward the cars. He lowered his center. He listened.
Here came the momentary hush he had been waiting for.
Bruce pushed off the tank, huge frame coiling and uncoiling all at once. He drove through the first two strides like a lineman and then tried—God help him—to be light.
The bullets from a fat man hiding at the back corner of the house found him on the third step.
A 7.62 round kissed across his face—an oblique graze that tore the nose clean at the bridge, cartilage shredding, hot red splashing the snow in a starburst. His sunglasses flew. The world detonated into salt and iron; breath hitched; tears came whether he wanted them or not.
He staggered, kept going.
Another round scalped his right ear—half‑sheared lobe spinning away like a leaf—and the next punched his right knee from the side. The joint unraveled—ligaments parting with a wet, rubbery pop—and he went down on that leg with a sound that wasn't human.
"F‑fuck," he sobbed, surprise more than anger. "S‑sorry, that's a b-bad word—!"
He crawled. One hand dragged Happygun; the other clawed snow and gravel; his boots thrashed useless dead weight behind him. The house hosed the yard. A hard round hammered low into his back, just above the waistline—soft armor meant for pistols giving like paper—and a hot nail drove through his spine. Feeling vanished from hips to toes. His legs went quiet, heavy and not his.
He kept going anyway with only the strength of his upper body, kind of like Ivar the boneless—elbows and fingertips and stubbornness—leaving a thick, steaming red that the snow couldn't drink fast enough.
Another five feet left to go, then three. For Bruce the world was just white and breath and the metal belly of a sedan coming closer like a harbor. He hooked his dead legs with his heel, pulled once more with everything that was left, and slid under the rocker panel into dark oil‑smelling safety.
He lay there and shook, breath ticking like a bad bearing, blood pooling warm under his ribs.
"L‑little g‑green g‑guy," he whispered to the Yoda sticker as if he could feel it through the glove. "I f‑feel dumb a‑asking, b‑but… a Force heal? J‑just a l‑little? That w-would b-be nice."
Nothing came but steam and pain. He breathed once, twice, then nodded to himself, accepting the answer. "O‑okay. M‑maybe l‑later."
Boots crunched toward him—half a dozen maybe. He saw shadows moving towards his position from the back of the mansion, trying to sneak up close and personal. Elsewhere broke gunfire rang out from the blown front windows of the mansion, someone had grabbed the PKM on the balcony again it seemed by the sound of it, but quickly Frank switched it off with another two flat notes and vanished somewhere in the dark as bullets chased him across the front yard. Frank would live it seemed, and that was all Bruce needed to know.
Then he heard them coming closer. A pair of ankles in boxers and boots chugged past the bumper of the next car over, their owner screaming something in Spanish about pigs. Bruce fell to his back and rolled the rifle, tucked the buttstock hard under his cheek in the grime, aimed and sent three flat slaps low under the cars and across the snow—shins and ankles were hit—the men folded shrieking, and he quickly put them to forever sleep with two quick headshots. Another pair of boots came soon, yelling and wearing a black bulletproof vest that was all black just like the man's clothes were, that made him look like Swat, but Bruce only paused to aim. Then once more he shot the Achilles and calf, and the man crumpled. Bruce slid two inches, found the near head, and tapped once, clean. "S‑sorry," he breathed. "H‑Happygun did it. N‑not me."
Two more rushed—Frank's chaos up front had them panicked sideways—and Bruce crawled on his side while looking under the car line, then he popped a kneecap, popped an ankle, then popped a temple as the face dipped into view. Another one backed away on his hands, shoes squealing on ice; Bruce's third shot faltered and hit the man's arm; his fourth found the forehead. The man fell quiet on the ground, looking all ugly and with deep bloody wounds.
Then Bruce coughed, and tasted warm copper, and heard blood bubble in his throat. He explored his face with dumb fingers and found space where his nose should have been, a slick canyon of heat. His right ear was just wet thread. He looked down his own body and couldn't find his right knee in the shape it had been five minutes ago—just meat and strings holding a shin at the wrong angle. From the waist down, he was a story someone else told.
"Y‑you d‑did good," he told Happygun, because it steadied him. "B‑be quiet now, okay? U‑unless they m‑make us."
The house roared to his left; Frank answered where he could; brass pinged and skittered under cars like hot rain. Bruce checked the drift through a crack below the rocker: the slick had slithered far; Vader and the Ring still burned small and brave. He could feel vapor now, thin edges in the breath. Ten meters might as well have been the moon.
He pressed a palm to his vest and felt the other lighters—Gandalf, Work Hard & Be Nice, Light the Way to Your Dreams—still there, warm from his body. "S‑sorry, S‑Sarah. S‑sorry, k‑kids," he whispered, the words tiny in the chassis echo. "I think I w-won't be able to b‑buy b‑better ones after all. I'm not d-doing too g-good."
He thought of Amber next, because that's how unfair brains work. She'd be pissed about the rent; she'd say this was dramatic, even for him. "L‑life insurance'll f‑fix it," he mumbled, fog opaquing the oily smell. "Y‑you made me g‑get it. S‑see? Y‑you were r‑right."
The yard lulled and spiked in waves. Between the waves, memories arrived without knocking, he saw a Brooklyn kitchen with a police radio cracking and a mother too tired to look up. Then gunfire and a porch slick with blood, and then Frank's hands pressing down on his wounds and pleading, the memory of that was old but still fresh in his mind. Next, Lake Mansfield glittering, two kids running laps in rain and swearing they were soldiers already;
— the first time he realized singing made the stutter run away;
— road trips with Frank and Sarah and the kids, food challenges lost with dignity;
— gardens coaxed from bad soil; money mailed to trees in Greenland and Iceland because he liked the idea of more green in the world;
— games he never finished, kingdoms he never built, max levels he never saw.
He smiled despite the blood. "S‑should've b‑been a gardener," he whispered. "O‑or a bard. L-less need to g-get good grades, a-and use b-brain."
Pain came in surges, then drifted back like a tide. The edges of the world feathered. He checked the drift again: the slick was inches from his little flames. He did the math even he could do: no time. Not for him.
"G‑good," he said, meaning Frank. "Y‑you'll r‑run when it goes. Y‑you'll live."
He thought of the gymnast—the tiny, unbreakable coil of grace—and wondered how it would have felt to move like that just once, to thread the needles instead of snapping them. "W‑what's it l‑like," he whispered, "t‑to be small and liked, and not s-scary, b-but approachable?" Not bitter—just curious, the way he'd been about everything he didn't understand, which was a lot.
"I d‑didn't even g-get to show Frank's k-kids the extended editions of the L-Lord of t-the R-rings," he remembered suddenly, and it should have been funny. It almost was. "M‑maybe l‑later."
He eased the rifle into his chest, hugging bunnies and Yoda, and felt the trigger with a fingertip, not to shoot—just to know it was there. His heart slowed. Warmth was leaving him in ribbons.
"F‑Frank," he said to the dark undercarriage, as if the steel could carry it. "I d‑did okay, r‑right? I-I t‑tried. S‑sorry for the t‑tank. S‑sorry for the d‑dwarf. I-I just w‑wanted to do s‑something good."
A voice somewhere shouted reload and was cut off. The house was still loud; the cars rattled; glass rained in tinkly afterthoughts and somewhere far away he swore he could hear police sirens coming.
Bruce's vision tunneled and brightened at the edges, a winter sun coming through thin clouds. He watched the slick reach out like a black hand toward Vader and the Ring, flames tiny, stubborn, sure.
Footsteps hurried through snow. A shadow broke the light at his bumper, a shape dropping low into his thin strip of world, and Bruce blinked, eyes wet and wide, not yet ready to know who it was.
Then a shape dropped into Bruce's thin strip of world, gloved hands holding a M4 rifle. It was Frank, still wearing his black helmet, bulletproof vest, eyes hot with focus.
"Bruce, eyes on me." He hooked two fists in the torn vest, dragged Bruce behind the car so no one from the mansion could see them. "Stay with me."
"N‑no, F‑Frank— g‑go," Bruce coughed, voice shaking. "T‑tank's g‑gonna go boom… p‑please—"
"Not leaving." Frank's tone snapped like a tourniquet. "Army of Two remember."
He went straight to work—first aid skills in muscle memory. He placed a tourniquet high on the thigh above the ruined knee, tightened it until Bruce bellowed and the bright red stopped blooming below. Then a pressure bandage clamped the ragged joint; combat gauze disappeared into what was left of a channel that used to be a knee. He ticked Bruce's pupils with a knuckle‑light; airway was noisy, bloody, but open. Chest rose. Good enough for hell.
"B‑breathe with me," Frank said, stealing a glance toward the house. "In on me, out on me." He put Bruce's bloody hand on the rifle. "Hold Happygun. Let him do the scary parts."
"L‑little g‑green g‑guy c‑couldn't h‑help," Bruce whispered, dazed. "S‑said m‑maybe l‑later."
"When we get out from here, tell him he owes you." Frank slid a gloved palm under Bruce's neck, felt the dead line below the belt where sensation quit, swallowed the curse that wanted out. "Spine's bad," he said, more to the night than to Bruce. "We should immobilize. We don't have time."
Bruce blinked through the blood. "N‑no. D‑don't—Frank, l‑listen. Y‑you have Sarah," Bruce croaked. "Emma, Ben. A n‑new baby coming. I—I got nothing. A‑Amber'll be f‑fine either way." The words came raw and ugly. "D‑don't die f‑for me, I'm not worth it."
Frank turned Bruce around and grabbed a hold of Bruce's vest, and prepared to pull. Rounds snapped over their heads and chewed into the door metal of the car. Somewhere up front, a man in Jean's howled a curse in English and fired blindly into the night.
"Twenty meters to the trees," Frank said, voice low and ironed flat, the way he talked to Bruce when he needed the world to shrink. "Breathe Bruce, and just hold on, I'm going to drag you now, ok."
"I‑I'm f‑finished," Bruce whispered. "Y‑you know I am."
Frank glanced once at the mansion—a black mouth coughing flame blindly towards places they still thought he was hiding behind, and then he said to Bruce. "Enough talk, you're my brother Bruce, not by blood but by choice and I'm not leaving you for anyone." His breath fogged. "If you go, I go. I'm not leaving you behind, Bruce. Not ever."
Bruce's eyes watered for reasons that weren't pain. He nodded once, small. "Oh o‑okay."
"Now just focus on me." Then Frank began to dragg. Bruce helped—elbows, forearms, dead legs pinwheeling like someone else's. Frank dragged Bruce, when more shapes poured out the mansion and into the yard and came running after them. Frank stopped and lifted his rifle, and fired one‑handed in tight pairs that cracked like a metronome—doorframe, porch mouth, balcony flash; the shapes flinched and folded, and still more poured out, shouting and blind.
They didn't make it far before they either fell to the snow unmoving or were forced to go for cover. Bruce could see that Franks vest had no more mags on it, his ammo was nearly gone as was his own.
"L‑leave me at the t‑tree line," Bruce said. "P‑promise you'll keep going."
"Shut up and breathe," Frank said, but something in his throat made it sound like a prayer.
A burst stitched the bumper above them and blew safety glass in a glittering curtain. Frank hunched, spread himself wider over Bruce, took the cut of it on his shoulders and neck. He jerked the rifle up again, fired twice, and the gun in the distance fell silent.
They moved again—drag, plant, haul—two big men smearing a red path through blue-white glare. Bruce fired when he could—awkward, apologetic little barks under the axle line.
"S‑sorry," he whispered each time someone dropped. "I'm s‑sorry."
They continued moving, but just as the tree line was but a stone throws away, finally the fuel licked at the engraved black lighter of the one Ring, then the Vader lighters flame bent toward it like a tiny priest hearing a last confession.
Frank slid his hand to Bruce's collar, tested the drag angle under the axle. He could make one hard pull, maybe two, before the line caught.
"On me," Frank said. "Deep breath. Now—"
The fuel's black tongue touched the lighter with a soft fuff, and a line of blue‑orange ran like a match struck sideways. It skittered up the slick toward the tank in a hungry ripple that reflected in both men's eyes.
Frank didn't waste the heartbeat to swear. He threw himself over Bruce, chin on head, plates making a wall, arms tight as bands. "Eyes on me," he said, calm as a prayer. "Don't blink. I've got you."
Bruce blinked through brightness. Frank's face hung a few inches away—grit‑streaked, lips drawn tight, eyes so blue they looked cold even in the fire. There was a lot he could have said. He didn't. He mouthed okay? and didn't wait for the answer.
The blast wasn't a fire; it was a verdict. As the tank vent up in a flash it caused a chain reaction that caused something illegal in the basement room to go boom in a chain reaction. The entire house lifted and broke into pieces, doors blew open; something heavy scythed through the air and never landed. It was a BOOM—the kind that turns seconds into miles. Fifty meters of world ceased to be particular and became light.
And in that last moment Bruce felt Frank's arms tightened. He felt the squeeze, the deliberate, last grip of a man choosing. He tried to answer, but his mouth filled with heat. He used his eyes instead.
Thank you, he tried to say, and a sorry one last time.
Frank's mouth didn't move before the light took them.
Then the world turned into white.
That was the last thing he remembered—white as a lightning strike, white as winter sun in a windshield. There had been a hand over him—Frank's weight, Frank's breath—then a roar that swallowed everything.
But it wasn't his end, only a new begining.
The mansion or what was left of it, the mountain road, the snow, the world as a whole it all peeled away like film. What was Bruce folded into a hard, bright round ball, a warm bead of light, and the world rushed forward. The ball of light flew up and seasons changed, snow's melted away and warmth came again and in a blink it happened again and again. Time rushed forward, cities also changed and grew until the ball of light was so far away that only the cities lights were seen, then fires erupted around the world, light's like those of explosions and soon the world shrank to a marble as the spear of light flew further away. The earth turned from a marble to a bead, but before it was fully lost in a black river of stars, a single massive ship of metal could be seen flying away from the earth. It was like the ones on earth were racing to catch up with the ball of light, but not fast enough.
The ball of light moved faster than anything else without even moving, only being pulled by some unseen force. The stars around it became a blur and wheeled past until they fell behind and empty darkness came before the ball of light. Space bunched; time thinned. The bead of his old sky was far behind now and another wheeling disk of stars shouldered into view—colder, stranger. The light flew within, and there it found more stars much like before until it finally came to a stop. Below it turned a blue world like a tossed coin. No necklaces of satellites girdled it; on the night side there were no city scars of light. Only green folded under clouds, dark water, ice at the rims.
He should have been afraid. Instead, there was a quiet awe and question's. How am I seeing this? What am I?
The answer glowed back at him from the inside. He was the thing he saw by: a white core, condensed and gentle, warm as a cupped lamp.
Something down there reached for him the way a life reaches for the light of the sun.
So he fell.
Down through star‑cold, down through cloud‑white, down across wind‑bitten islands toward a lake rimed in ice and a cottage with smoke smudging a crooked chimney. The pull narrowed to a needle of warmth, to a hollow inside a young woman's body, to a waiting circle—a small, perfect egg bright as a secret.
He touched, and the world sparked.
Another light—another life—met him there. Two halves locked; two became one. A rhythm began. Split, and split again. We became I and I became a body beginning.
Time after that was mostly haze. He slipped in and out like a diver in warm dark water. Sometimes the world was only the drum—thump‑thump—filling everything; sometimes there was another drum nearby, slower, deeper, calm. Sometimes a rush of motion, the whole sea around him rocking as if someone walked and laughed and then grew still, hands folded over a curve. Once there was music, not words, just a tune hummed through bone.
He did not know days or names. He knew growing. Arms budded and curled. Ears unfurled like shells. A small mouth practiced swallowing. The drum above grew thunder‑sure.
Cold gathered beyond the walls he could not see. Air outside stiffened; whatever lay beyond the warm red world hardened and creaked. He thought of Frank and tried to hold on—but the thought slid like a fish through his fingers and was gone.
Then the walls tightened.
Not the kind of dark that lets you sleep—this pressed, hugged, squeezed from every side. He floated and turned and bumped soft, slick walls. Sound came crooked, as if traveling through a river: voices far away, metal clinking, fire snapping, wind crawling under a door. Another heartbeat nearby, slower, deeper—someone else's life answering the drum above him.
He tried to move.
Arms like oars that weren't his. Fingers like little clams. Nothing obeyed. Panic rose—Frank!—but thought unraveled into heat before it finished forming. A ripple ran through the dark. The walls squeezed harder, then harder again, and the drum above him commanded without words:
Go. Out. Now.
Pressure became a tunnel. Cold teeth of air nipped his face. The weight holding him gave way and the world shoved him forward. Noise sharpened—winter wind, wet sounds—and work‑rough hands caught his head and pulled.
He tried to yell "Frank," but his mouth didn't know how to make the word. A raw, ragged sound split out of him instead—thin, shaking, embarrassingly small, a baby's cry.
"G‑g—gaa… b‑baa… waaah—"
The hands pulled again, gentle and sure. A woman laughed through tears.
"Lo, mi lord, Crist yow save; a fair childe is y‑bore!" The voice was firm as oaken boards, breath quick with work. He didn't understand, but something in its vowels rang older than anything he knew—English bent different, older.
The squeeze tightened. He turned without willing it; shoulders compressed and popped free; rough hands pressed his skull. The black tunnel broke—cold air cut like a knife, wet light struck his skin—and he burst into a room that smelled of smoke, iron, and blood.
The hands that lifted him felt overlarge, almost giant, yet slender and knowing. Linen rasped his cheeks. A cord tugged at his belly and was severed with a quick iron snip. Straw rustled underfoot; somewhere a rooster gave a wary cough.
Leather creaked. Wood groaned. Metal tapped like a small bell where it kissed the rim of a helm. A heavier presence stood near the bed: a man whose nearness made boards complain and the fur blanket dip with his shadow. Oil and steel and horse clung to him. His voice filled the cottage as if it were a hall.
"What childe is this? Sey quicke. A sone?"
The woman—midwife—tucked him and turned, words crisp as frost. "Nay, mi lord—ywis, it is a mayde; hool and sounde, and greet of cry."
Armor shifted. A long, steel‑edged sigh. "Allas! A mayde eft? Ever Fortune pleieth me fals."
Leather creaked. Plate rasped. The big man shifted nearer until his shadow cooled the firelight. A buckle popped; a glove came free. A bare finger—broad, calloused, warm—touched Bruce's cheek.
He huffed once, approving despite himself.
"Hir face is hool—faire made, like hir moder," the midwife murmured, pride slipping through her work‑voice. "No bruys ne blemys."
The big man's finger hovered to test a palm.
Something inside Bruce answered. He willed motion into clumsy oars and clam‑fingers—and by miracle or stubbornness, one tiny hand closed around the man's finger. Not much. Enough.
A breath caught in the armor.
"Byr Lady… lo this grip." The approval in his voice was a gravelled thing, grudging and real. He let the baby squeeze until the small hand tired, then eased free.
"Kepe hir sauf, goodwyf," he said at last, steel returning to the edges. "Though but a mayde, yit may she availe—pees, covenaunt, what God shal sende." His hand settled the fur blanket higher under Bruce's chin with a carefulness that didn't fit the weight of him. One final nod—half to the child, half to the woman sweating on the straw—and the glove went back on.
He turned. Boards complained. The cottage shrank a little as he took himself toward the light.
Bruce chased the sound with his whole body, forcing his eyes to cooperate. Lids trembled. Then there was a flare of brightness, he saw a huge frame of a man that needed to walk sideways to fit out the door, short golden blonde hair, smear of a golden helm held in a gloved hand, a dark blue cloak, the shine of a lion headed shoulder armour—and then the doorframe filled with dark and emptiness as he moved through it.
At the threshold the midwife bobbed after him, skirts gathered, voice quick and dutiful:
"God yelde yow, mi lord. I shal clense and set alle to right."
Cold reached a finger in; snow hissed under boots; tack jingled. The midwife's last call from outside—"Maken faste the dore! Hie thee!"—and the door thumped shut, the latch kissing home. The cottage exhaled.
Then soft arms gathered him, and for the first time he really saw her.
Her eyes found him—deep blue, too bright to be normal, a lake lit from below. In them he caught a small reflection of himself: a wrinkled, blinking normal baby face—his—with the same impossible deep blue eyes, already clearing, already right. The egg‑squash to his skull had smoothed, the strange angles ironed away; the light at his core seemed to keep knitting edges neat. And amazingly, although he seemed to be a baby now, he did seem kind of cute like Frank's children when they were born.
She smiled and the blue warmed. Her voice came low and singing in a tongue he didn't know, but the meaning walked across anyway: my baby… my beautiful baby girl.
"Lítla mín… fallega dóttir mín…"
He didn't have all the words, but he had enough to stack the pieces: he hadn't ended—he had arrived in a new begining, his second chance. This young woman was mother now, by some sideways miracle. She wasn't large—petite, really—but in his arms‑like‑oars world she was vast. And funny—there was a flash of something familiar in her face, that TV gymnast who smiled like the sun at the crowds. He had wondered what it would be like to be like that—light, small, loved and most of all not feared or looked at with suspicion. The thought struck and left a small, shocked laugh inside him. Well it seemed that maybe, possibly he could now get to experience that for himself, or at least try again to not be scary this time, but just nice.
He tried to ask what this place was, why the door leathered against drafts, why the roof stooped, why chickens muttered indoors like his girlfriend Amber did at his place. He tried to ask where Frank was and if the big man was a gang boss or a knight or both. He gave it everything.
"G‑ga… b‑baa… waaah."
It was nothing. It made her grin and tuck him nearer.
He tilted just enough to take in the room again—smoke‑black beams, mud chinks, a stingy flame under the iron pot, straw islands, a bucket by the door where the birds drank. The look of it tugged at old half‑memories: a behind‑the‑scenes shot from a fantasy show, an anthropology doc's one‑room hut, a game of civilization before you finish enough research after clicking, "end turn," enough times. He thought, irreverently, of the small man he'd hurt—the one who looked like Tyrion Lannister—and wondered if this whole reroll was a curse muttered in a last breath or a blessing that came out crooked.
A bubble rose in his chest and escaped as a surprised burp.
His mother blinked—as if a string on her wrist had been tugged—looked from the door to him, then nodded to herself. She shifted him, tugged the neck of her simple dress aside, and bared a breast. It was not a moment for modesty or mystery. It was a moment for keeping a human alive.
Bruce froze. In his head, chests were for muscle. Big chest = big bench. Big bench = don't mess. This was… not that. He tried to roll away, to protest with dignity that he wasn't here to compare anyone's pecs like a couple of gym bros.
The protest went unheard by the person who mattered and unmade by the body that needed things. His palm met her skin. Soft, warm, nothing like the granite of his old sternum. Surprise loosened his jaw; instinct found its own map. He latched.
Milk came—sweet, animal, shockingly alive. The world's noise faded to three things: the drum under his ear, the hiss of the pot, his own small swallow. Her hand cupped his head. She watched him with that blue‑bright patience that could make a winter room feel like noon.
Her voice lowered to a murmur, then to a whisper shaped like a promise.
"Nefni þik… Lili," she breathed. A breath of laughter, soft with mischief. "Já. Tvær Lili."
Two Lilies.
He understood it perfectly and tried to object. No—I'm Bruce—
"Ga… goo."
Useless. It only pleased her. She kissed his forehead, a quick press like a seal. The name settled on him like the fur she'd tucked to his chin—light, warm, inarguable for now.
The edges of the room went dark at the corners. Sleep shouldered in. He clung to one thought, one face. Frank in the car looking at him as he left the car and probably made a huge mistake. The lighters, cheap and silly in his pockets.
Sorry, Frank, he told the inside of his skull. I think I blew it. I didn't make it to buy new ones for the kids. I hope… I hope you get a good Christmas without me.
Maybe Frank was still out there—because Frank usually was, and maybe he would keep Happygun safe for him. Maybe Amber too, maddening and fine, still taking up space he'd kept empty for her, and now she would at least have a lot more space when he was gone, so that was good, right?
The drum steadied him. The fire ticked. Chickens arranged themselves like small, soft machines near the straw bed. Wind tested the door and decided against coming in.
And finally before he slept, Bruce thought of the rabbit, or the Hare that had gotten away. B-brave bastard, at least he made it if nothing else.