2017 - Little Lights in the Darkness

It is some amount of time ago and the Seven Ages Theater Company had been in Phoenix for a brief stay. It's Halloween-ish, so Maddie's particular variety of shows is getting more play than the Shakespeare crap. In the audience tonight is that rare beast in a place where the Veil is distant: someone like the company, someone else with Glimmer, a bright face in a sea of dull ones who are busy eating up the tricks of the troupe.

Duncan isn't a fan of cities at this point in his life. He just stops in them sometimes to pick up a few bucks so he can get to the next place, and that's what he's doing here: taking a job for the parks department, cleaning up after whatever this festival is. It gets him some cash and free admission, so yeah.

After the show, while all the other boring people stroll out to whatever else there is to do for the evening, he moseys on up toward the stage, leaning across the front of it onto his elbows, calling, "Hey, hello!" Because he can hear people milling around back there.

It was 'Evil Dead: The Musical' for the next several nights - traditionally campy horror, the Seven Ages took some 'creative licensing' with the script to give it a fear factor, particularly with the random Deadites that terrorize the crowd. Maddie played Annie/Shelly, which means by the end of the show she's in olive drab short-shorts and a tank top that gets partially ripped to show off a racy red lace bra. It admittedly wasn't her favorite role, but it was by far her favorite show, with all the gore and copious amounts of fake blood that gets thrown around. On stage that night, it was hard not to notice the brightness in the crowd, though Maddie would have far preferred her audience to stay nameless, faceless shapes in the dark.

She was one of those people milling backstage when Duncan calls out. And she's the only one who bothers to poke out from the curtains. Still covered in drying fake blood, still in that get-up, she's tossed her hair back with a headband so it stays out of her eyes. "Hello?" she blinks, brown eyes settling on Duncan, her lips pulling into a small frown. With the bright stage lights dimmed, she can see him easily. Him and his Glimmer. "If you're waiting for an encore, you're going to be here all night."

He's in one of those brightly-colored yellow t-shirts that say STAFF on them in big letters and some jeans that probably haven't seen a washing machine for at least the last three weeks, so they can fight over who looks nicer right now and both lose.

"Hi! Hello!" It's not a stretch to say that Duncan smiles from ear-to-ear when Maddie's head pops out, delight writ large. He tries to do something cool and hop up onto the stage, but it really winds up more like he - hold on, he's got his foot up there now, he just needs to... leverage... flail on his stomach, slip his palms on the ground, lose his footing once, there! Ta-dah, he has accomplished climbing onto the edge of the stage and stands up, dusting himself off like that was totally cool what he just did and didn't look stupid and incompetent.

"Hi, I'm Duncan." He marches toward the gap in the curtains with his hand out. His hand has lots of dust and a smear of stage-blood on it. This is starting out exactly as he planned.

Pretty sure that Maddie, with the hot red bra that's currently playing peekaboo under her white tanktop is hotter. Definitely hotter.

"Uh, hey," she says again, though the ear-to-ear split of his smile turns her own frown upside down. The smile she shows back to him is far dimmer, but present! So that's a step in the right direction. So is the fact that she moves beyond the curtain, towards the middle of the stage. She might've made her way to the edge had he not made his attempt at looking wicked cool. "Err.. uh, do you want some he.." she starts to offer as he drops his foot up onto the stage and struggles to pull himself up onto his stomach, shuffling to the side of the stage. "Let me just.. no, okay," she stoops down to help as his foot slips, jutting a hand forth, but he gets up there on his own accord. "There were stairs, you know."

It's at least spoken with a hint of laughter, extending a finger to point to the stairs as she hops back to her feet. There's a glance to his hand, but, well, it's not covered in anything worse than was currently already smeared all over her. So handshake it is. "Hi Duncan. I'm Maddie. Uhm. Are you..staff?" Sure, that's what it says on his shirt, but that could mean anything.

During his awesome stage-climbing, there were some 'no i got this' noises among the 'ow this is going badly' sounds. But now Duncan is on his own two feet again, and he shakes Maddie's hand for a pretty long time. Like, way longer than is socially correct. In fact, he's still shaking it, covering the back of hers with his other palm and everything. "Maddie. I like that. Hey Maddie, it's nice to meet you." He stops just short of adding 'i'm duncan' again, but it's totally right on the tip of his tongue.

Is he staff? He looks around over either shoulder and answers, "I don't think so?" But it doesn't sound confident. Also, he's still shaking her hand. "I really thought your show was pretty good, though. You're a terrific actress and singer."

This was an extraordinarily long handshake, and there was really only two ways this could go. She could kindly take her hand back and put it somewhere, like behind her or in her pocket, to cease the pleasantries. Or she could make things more awkward and cover the back of his hand with the palm of hers, so they were double-fisting this handshake together. Let's just say that Maddie doesn't even consider the first option before she goes full weird and goes for the second, and there they are, all their hands, shaking away. "It's Madeline, actually, but I don't go by that. I've always gone by Maddie. Or.. Mads, actually, but I prefer Maddie. But thanks. Duncan's a nice name, too, like the donut place," she beams, and it's the sort of smile that lights up her whole fake blood soaked face.

There's an old saying that compliments get you everywhere, and that's proven here in a way. If she was at all awkward about the fact that they are still shaking all the hands, it disappears in a hint of laughter as she drops her eyes briefly to the combat boots she's wearing. "Oh, thanks, I'm not really as good as everybody else in the troupe but I really enjoy my job. Ah.." she bites her bottom lip, sheepish as she looks back up to him. "I"m pretty sure handshakes are supposed to end."

Nifty! They're holding all the hands! This is going great!

Duncan continues shaking her hands and nodding, leaning forward on his feet a little because he's really listening super-intently. "Madeline. Maddie. Mads. They're all pretty good. I like Maddie, too. Maddie the baddie." He brightens up even more when she gets to the donut thing, and he doesn't have to - or maybe it's just him warming to her big smile - or could be both.

"You should!" Enjoy her job, he means, since that's when he throws that comment into the conversation, with exuberance. "You really should enjoy your job. You're really good at what?" Yes, he was just talking right over the top of her comments about handshakes and so has to ask, "What's that now?" While still shaking her hands. It's good for the arm muscles.

Oh, see, this was a misstep. His smile beams brighter and the light of her own very quickly extinguishes when he calls her 'Maddie the baddie'. "Erm, I guess it does rhyme, but I'm not really.." she drops the hand covering the backside of his, and starts to wiggle her other hand out of his grip. She continues on with her train of thought as she pulls her hand, ".. not really bad, it's just a stage show. An act! And I was a good guy in this one. Mostly, I think," she furrows her brow. "I'm glad you liked the show though," gimmie my hand. "Are you with the.. the park? Your shirt says staff."

It should dawn on him silently and he should nod and let go; that's how this should play out. But Duncan says, "Oohhhh! Oh, you were talking about handshakes. I understand now." He gives hers another couple of pumps, since it takes that long for it to really sink in that he should let go. So he does. Let go. And, since he now has both his hands back, he shoves them down deep in his pockets and lifts his shoulders, still sort of pitching forward like it's helping him listen better.

"It does?" He tucks his chin against his neck and reads his shirt. "Would you look at that. It does. Uhhhh, not really. I mean, just for today. Or a couple days. But enough about me. What's your whole story, how long are you guys gonna be around?"

At least Maddie doesn't frantically wipe her hand on the side of her shorts or anything once the handshake is finally over. She just drops her arm to her side, crossing the other over her waist. He keeps himself leaning towards her, and she subtly curves her back the other way, brows hiking when he reads his own shirt. "You didn't realize what it said when you put it on?" a laugh bubbles up, snorts through her nose, and results in a faint grin pulling up the corners of her mouth. There were probably a hundred questions she should have about his his shirt and whatever his job might be, but he asks his questions first, and she lifts her slim shoulders in a shrug.

"I mean, we're just.. you know. Actors," she lifts a hand to vaguely wave it about the stage, taking half a step backwards and easing towards the edge. "We've got another couple of days, then we start heading east. Is this ah.. your first time?" Pause. "At one of our shows?"

Duncan makes a psssh noise with his mouth and says in a way that makes it very clear that the exact opposite thing is true, "Of course I read my shirt before I put it on, what kind of person doesn't read their shirt before they put it on." While she is waving vaguely, he sneaks one more quick peek down at his shirt, which really does say STAFF on it (on the back, too), and his brows raised like this really is news to him. Anyway, he puts his big smile back on quickly.

"Yeah, I really liked it a lot. I don't meet a lot of people, y'know, like us in places like this, so this was pretty good for a surprise." He doesn't immediately take a half-step forward after hers backward, but the body language is there: he probably will follow her if she goes anywhere. "You were really terrific, the best part, I thought." He just plows right on ahead. "Hey so, do you want to go get a hamburger or some spaghetti ice cream or fried jelly beans with me?"

It's some kind of fair. They probably sell food like that. Or else he made that up?

Maddie doesn't catch him doing the double-take at his shirt, as she was taking another half-step towards the stage edge, though his 'like us' comment earns him some side-eye. "Mm. Yeah. We're just a small group, we sort of just... found each other," she remarks, folding her arms across her chest like she was embracing herself. "Lights in the darkness," there's a distant smile with the words that don't seem to be coming from her; at least, they aren't words she came up with, they are someone else's words that she's repeating. But she shakes her head the next second, dropping to sit on the edge of the stage with her short legs dangling in the air. When he calls her terrific, she utters another small laugh, a few faint streaks of pink painting across her prominent cheekbones. "I don't know about that," she remarks of being terrific.

The question of food has her craning her head to look up at him, and she shrugs. "Sure. But I like the cotton candy tacos best. Or the deep fried oranges." Putting either hand to the side of the stage, she pushes herself off. It's a long drop for her, considering her short little legs.

But she sticks the landing, and gives a twirl to look back at him, trying to coax him down with a wave of her hand.

"Lights in the darkness." Duncan repeats that with the first shift in his smile since he put it on at the start of this scene, the comment pulling his lips askew briefly, though they straight back out when she tries to diminish his compliment. "I liked how you were - oh, whoa. Really?" She said 'sure' to getting food and just threw off his whole game. He gawks at her, back to leaning forward pretty far as if his ears must surely have deceived him.

But okay, cool! He can get down off this stage, too. There's a small chance it will go horribly awry...

He is slightly less awesome about the dismount than Maddie, stumbling forward several steps once he hits the ground ('cause it ain't like he's got a lotta leg beneath him, either) till his momentum checks itself. "Okay, cool, I could eat some deep fried taco candy." In his STAFF t-shirt. With someone that looks like she's covered in blood. This'll be great.

Maddie's brows climb up-up-up after she whirls around to look back up at him there on the stage. "Yes really. I want to eat, and you don't seem like a huge creep, soooo.." on she coaxes him, flashing him a broad smile. Hopefully he won't notice the qualifier there - he doesn't look like a huge creep. He sort of looks like maybe a little bit of a creep. She brightens as he climbs down, another bubble of laughter breaking out of her as she turns on her heel to start towards the dim glow of lights in the distance. And as she goes, she cants her head, keeping him in her peripheral.

"Are you from around here?" It's a pleasant sort of inquiry, one of those getting-to-know-you sorts. "Have you.. you know.." she wiggles her fingers at him, motioning around his outline, as though she were trying to trace the 'glow' of him. "Been bright for awhile?"

Duncan doesn't seem like a huge creep. His smile is enormous. 😃 He shove his hands into his pockets and manages not to say anything hugely creepy in response to that, just leans into whatever door there is so he can open it with his back and keep it open, complete with, "After you, madam."

Then she's asking questions, and he flicks a look off toward the lights where the food is. "Nope, I'm from those flat states in the middle of the country. And yeah, for a little while. But what about you, though? Is Phoenix your hometown or somewhere else and where will you guys go next, do you think? You said east, right? Whereabouts, do you figure?" Yes, these are stalker questions. Yes, he's ruining his lack of being a creep.

There's a tip of an imaginary hat as Duncan holds the door open, an amused sparkle in those expressive brown eyes of hers. "Thank you, good sir," she remarks in an unnecessary southern drawl that's touched with a giggle at the end as they head out towards the festival lights.

"One of those flat states in the middle, hm?" The faux southern accent is tucked away as the conversation continues. "There's quite a lot of those. Are we talking straight middle, like Kansas? Or upper middle, like Iowa?" she wonders, and then does a bit more side-eyeing as he turns the questions back on her. A hand slips into her back pocket, her brows arching at him. "You're the curious sort, huh? I'm not really from anywhere, I've been all over." She decidedly doesn't answer his 'whereabouts' question. Instead? "Why are you out here, if you're not from around here?"

omg the hearts in Duncan's eyes at her drawl and the giggle are so enormous that they want to pop out of his eyes, sprout wings, and fly around his head. It takes him a couple seconds to make up the lost time that manifesting those <3s required, but he falls back into step before Maddie gets too far ahead of him, and he nods along with her guesses about which one of the middle ones, like she's right about all of them! Far be it from him to suggest she's wrong, she's obviously correct about all the things.

"Me, too!" He's very excited that they've both been all over. "I travel a lot? Kind of pretty much wherever the wind takes me, I guess you'd say."

And he will tell her a little about his travels while they eat the world's worst food. But also keep doing 'but enough about me, tell me more about you, what's your whole thing, where are you going next???' Because when they leave Phoenix for their next stop...

Because when they leave Phoenix for their next stop... the truth is, Maddie all but forgets about Duncan Fletcher.

It wasn't that he didn't leave an impression - he left a rather interesting one - it was just that Maddie left Phoenix under the assumption that she'd never see him again. It'd been an altogether pleasant evening in spite of the awkwardness and ungracefully dodged questions about their next stop. Maddie never got around to being forthcoming about where they'd go next, not out of concern that he was some kind of creeper stalker but rather out of concern that he would follow and get mixed up with the troupe. She understood what she was doing; it didn't mean she liked it, or actively wanted to recruit others - that was a job for the others, they were better at it anyway. So the evening ended after a half dozen cotton candy tacos, some light conversation, and a shoulder hug that didn't linger.

Two days later, the troupe packed up the tents and hit the road, leaving Phoenix and Duncan in the rear-view mirror.

They wound up in Augusta, Georgia. Tonight was Shakespeare in the Park, and that was Keene's show. Even now, Maddie felt distinctly uncomfortable in his presence, a gnawing in her gut that something just wasn't right. She's fond of Polly, but she's never stuck around to watch the finale - Macbeth. Instead, she's far from the festival lights and stage tent, in a corner of the park illuminated by only the stars. She sits on a swing that she's propelling not with her feet but with her mind, slowly tugging on the chains to drift her back and forth. It's quiet contemplation, her pale cheek against the metal, brown eyes distant and unfocused.

It's not hard to follow a troupe of actors. Just ask around to find out where they're going next. If the girl you're absolutely convinced you're in love with crushing on won't tell you - well, someone will. Duncan's a persistent guy; plus, he has that sparkle to him, so unbeknownst to Maddie, he and Megan had a lot to talk about after he parted ways with Maddie. Granted, she doesn't just sign him right up, but there's a lot of weight to the 'maybe we'll see you again' conversation that he has with that fucking mentalist.

Which is how he knows where the company are. He doesn't know where Maddie is specifically; it's just dumb luck that has him cutting across the park, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. But that's the thing about people like them: there's no hiding. From a solid fifty yards away, his steps slow down, and he swings his head around like someone sniffing the air or trying to pinpoint the source of a sound.

And there she is. He unstuffs a hand, lifting it in a wave. Maybe she'll come out of her reverie and see him; maybe she won't. The point is, he saw her, and that's kind of his whole raison d'etre at the moment.

Maddie saw him, it would be almost impossible not to, considering they were the only two people in existence in this tiny spot in the world. The swing keeps on going, the chains quietly creaking against the metal bars, but Maddie straightens. Her eyes are already accustomed to the darkness which surrounds her; thus, she focuses on the shape of him, on the glow of him, her lips pressing into a flat line. "Duncan?" It's not a tone of uncertainty, but rather confusion. Though, there's a subtle lilt that suggests it's pleasant confusion rather than 'omg wtf stalker' confusion.

"We're a little far from Phoenix. What're doing all the way out here?" The swing keeps on swinging; she doesn't disembark.

Okay, cool. If she doesn't freak out and run, Duncan will just interpret that as a 'come on over,' and veer his steps away from wherever he had been going toward the swingset. It's a bit of distance he has to cover, so it takes some time, even at the slow jog that he assumes, leaving him a little out of breath to answer, "Indeed, it is I." It's hard to be grandiose while running out of breath jogging, but he really tries.

"I go all over the place. This is a place, so I'm a-going. What're you doing all the way out here? And all by your lonesome?" Yeah, that could come across creepily, but he asks it like he's surprised and impressed and happy to see Maddie rather than like 'oh cool, glad i brought my zip-ties and rag soaked in ether.'

Maddie's brows climb as he slow-jogs over, lifting a hand to comb it through her hair and brush it back away from her face. "Indeed, it is you," she replies with a quirk of a smile, leaning back slightly in the swings with her hands clasping the chains. She's so short that her feet don't touch the ground; even if she tries to stretch and point her toes, it probably wouldn't reach. Which.. likely explains why she's using her brain to control the momentum, which slows as he comes. "And indeed, this is a place. But far from the place you were," she points out.

But why is she here, all by her lonesome? "Mm," she cants her head and shrugs her shoulders. What was she doing? "Thinking." And all by her lonesome? "I'm not all by my lonesome now. Want to swing with me?" The question is met by the rattling of the chains in the swing beside her, the leather sling of a seat shifting backwards and sagging invitingly. All he has to do is put his bum in it. "Where's your next stop on your tour of a-going places? No, wait, let me guess."

She pitches forward, hands still on the chains to hold herself steady, squinting a look at him. "I see.... Nashville in your future."

"Heck yes, I wanna swing with you." There's not even a suggestion that Duncan means that to be a double entendre. He literally means he wants to swing. The last step of his slow-jog sees him jumping right on into that empty swing, revving it back while he grabs the chains in either hand, then lifts his feet, and gets that swing going. A couple extra kicks get him some decent momentum, since he has to swing the old-fashioned way instead of with his brains.

"Nashville, huh? Is that where you guys are headed next? Music row?" He bends his knees back, making his swing go higher, and hums a few bars. "Something something something something, I was on my way to Nashville, I just couldn't hardly wait, till I could sing my songs, to the folks down on Music Row." He can carry a tune. Not like Dolly Parton, but - even half outta breath - he knows his way around music. And CERTAINLY wouldn't bust out that skill on account of he knows Maddie's a singer, that'd just be cheating.

There's a warm laugh as he leaps into the swing, though she waits until he gets his momentum going before she cheats and uses her mind to swing herself, legs kicking out even if they don't need them to be. She matches his speed and height effortlessly, leaning back as they fly, relaxed in the moment. "Mm, are you sure you wanna be where I'm going? You might not like where you end up," she comments, a subtle warning that's ruined by the pleased little laugh as he sings to her. She releases the chains for just a risky second, to put her hands together in an anxious clap. Hopefully she doesn't fall!

Nah, she just wobbles a little whilst she claps mid-flight, before she yanks the chains back into her hand and tilts her head to grin at him. "I didn't know you could sing. Is that why you're following us around? Looking for your big break?"

An unreserved nod, wordlessly enthusiastic about that: yep, Duncan is sure he wants to be where Maddie is going. Right now, that's just about swinging higher, putting a few strained puffs into it, like man! he's really having to work over here to keep up with her! "Pssh, me? Sing? Naaahh, that's for the professionals, like you and Dolly Parton herself. Plus, I wasn't following you." Past tense. He wasn't before, but he is now.

Confessed like it's not weird, like this is how everyone's life operates, "I met that girl from the plays, the other one whose name starts with an M? We had a good chat, and she told me you guys'd be here. So I figured, hey, why not? Turned out pretty good, right? 'Cause now we're riding the swings together and singing Dolly Parton."

Maddie snorts a laugh through her nose when he compares her to one of the 'greats', brown eyes rolling. "I'm not Dolly Parton level, not even close," she laughs. "Just like singing. Always have. But thanks, I think." The compliment does bring a smile to her lips, and she gives his swing a mental push, helping him climb greater heights without sounding like he just ran a fucking marathon.

She might've put forth some effort to match this new height of his, had he not brought up the girl whose name starts with an M. Her own swing slows - his jerks back suddenly while he's on an upswing, so hopefully he's holding on. "You talked to Megan?" The smile's gone. The swings have stopped.

"Well, now, don't sell yourself short, Maddie the baddie. I bet Dolly Parton wasn't Dolly Parton level right when she first started. You gotta pay your dues, then you get your comeuppance." He definitely doesn't know what the word 'comeuppance' means, which is fine, since - just after it comes out of his mouth - his swing arrests its forward momentum, and he was not holding on enough.

He sails forward without the swing, makes a short arc through the air, and lands directly on his face and chest in the mulch they put on kids' playgrounds to supposedly soften falls like his, but really it just means he gets splinters in his palms. So he misses her question about Megan entirely, too busy eating dirt. "That was pretty weird," he says, ptooey-spitting out a piece of mulch off the end of his tongue while he pries himself up to his hands and knees, at least.

From Maddie's perspective, what happens happens in damn near slow motion. He starts to pitch forward and sail through the air like a slightly chubby, far shorter Superman, and the swing falls back stiff and frozen, empty. And all Maddie can do is watch, eyes bulging, until he hits the ground and eats the dirt. She's out of the swing the next second, once everything's sort of settled. "Oh fuck, oh gosh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" she comes down onto her skinny-jean-covered knees, scrambling across the ground to get over to him. "That was my fault," the admission is sheepish, embarrassed, and she reaches to brush off some mulch from his cheek with a quick sweep-sweep of her fingertips.

"Are you okay? Did you hit your head?" she wrinkles her nose as she looks him up and down, trying to assess the damage. "I thought you'd hold on," which sort of doesn't make this any better.

"No? Yeah, I mean, I'm okay, no, I didn't hit my head." Duncan lifts the collar of his shirt up enough that he can wipe his tongue on it, scraping some of the grit off while he adds a couple extra spit-spit-ptooeys. It's worth mentioning that, somewhere in all this, he has time for a dreamy smile 'cause Maddie's touching (the mulch that's on) his cheek, so worth it?

Worth it.

He gets his butt under him after some scrabbling, brushing his hands onto his jeans, and his jeans with his hands, so he's mostly just transferring the dirt and wood-chips back and forth between the two in an endless loop. "Howcome you made the swing stop, though? I mean, I'll definitely hold on next time, but wow, you sorta threw me for a loop there." Errrr, "Except without the loop." So she just threw him.

"Are you sure?" Maddie didn't seem so certain that he didn't knock his head into the ground, considering he starts licking his shirt, so there's a furrow of her brow. But the touching goes from (the mulch on) his cheek to his forehead, very tender as though she were trying to inspect for some kind of soft spot or lump. There's nothing there, and he's wearing that weird smile of his, so she takes her hand away, leaving it floating in the air for another half second before it hits her thigh with a slap of the jean fabric.

"Ahm, I just.. you kinda caught me by surprise.. and I was thinking we should probably talk about.." But she doesn't finish; on the festival grounds behind her, a firework goes up, exploding into the sky in a pop of gold and purple. The boom is quiet this far out, but the flare of light sparkles around them, briefly illuminating the playground and one another. She looks over her shoulder, and then back to him, apology in her eyes. "Nevermind. I should go, they're gonna miss me back there," she murmurs as she leans away, preparing to hop back to her feet. But she stills, if only for a moment.

"You're a good guy, Duncan. And you probably shouldn't follow us to Nashville," she levels a look on him, a quiet smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. And she leans forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Then she hops to her feet, brushing the mulch off her jeans. "But if you make your way out there, we'll go get some fried chicken. It was nice seeing you again!" And whether or not he has something to say to that, the end result is Maddie turning heel to jog back towards the big giant tent in the distance.

But fireworks, Maddie! Actual LITERAL fireworks! Unfortunately for Duncan, he does not have the wherewithal to point that out to her, especially not after having been thrown out of a moving swing and eating mulch. "Or you could..." But there she goes, leaving him to say, "...stay?" all sadly and by himself. Oh well, he'll just sit here in the mulch and watch her run off, then maybe remember the fireworks and watch those for a little bit.

And then he's going to have to get a ride to Nashville. To show up for fried chicken. Because that's important. And wherever comes after Nashville, and wherever comes after that, until Halloween is long gone and they're on the other side of Christmas, in the lull leading up to the new year, and somehow Duncan has just sort of unofficially attached himself to the troupe. He's handy, he can fix (some of) their shit, and he can play a couple instruments for the musicals, so that helps.

Quietly, over the course of those weeks, Maddie is bound to realize he's... kind of more in-tune with Keene and his friendliness with THEM than his hapless earnestness might imply. His isn't the overt cruelty of Megan, Sarah, and Polly, but he's definitely willing to sacrifice a lamb or two to save his own skin. Despite that one thing (which is admittedly pretty fucked up!), he seems like a decent weirdo underneath it all, and is blatantly sweet on Maddie to the tune of bringing her random flowers and eating about a million cholesterols with her.

Now they're somewhere Boston-ish, snow on the ground, and he crunches around in the place they all park the trailers for the night, coming to rap-rap-rap on the door of the one where Maddie stays. "Hey, you in there? I was kinda hoping maybe I could talk to you a little bit?"

Admittedly, Maddie feels extremely guilty when he shows up in Nashville, knowing she left that door open. But they have fried chicken and talk, surface level conversations of music and movies, nothing too personal. After fried chicken in Nashville, it's mudpies in Mississippi, and crawfish in New Orleans. By the time they hit deep fried strawberries (dipped in freshly whipped cream!) in Oklahoma, the surface conversations have moved to more personal things - likes and dislikes, where they've been and where they're going. She avoids conversations about her life before the troupe, and she learns with only some subtle dismay that he's more like her than she would have preferred; but they bond over that, too, in ways unspoken. The troupe never stays in the same place for long; a few days to a week at most. By November, they were eating BBQ all across Texas, and Duncan was quickly becoming Maddie's favorite friend.

She knew he was sweet on her; Polly brings it up to her attention almost constantly. She dismisses it easily, avoids the conversation, puts his random flowers in little mason jars around her camper and dodges the rest. Yes, he was cute. Sure, he was charming in his own weird little way. It was true, he did dote and would make the perfect boyfriend. Just not for her, not for Maddie, who still struggles with the loss of her mother, who wants to avoid commitment and feelings, who just wants to laugh on the outside and feel numb on the inside. That was just fine for her.

Tonight, Maddie was laying on her stomach on the bed in her trailer, in a long t-shirt and short pajama shorts. It was pleasantly warm in here from the space heaters, and she was writing in her journal, a few tears having left wet marks on the page. When the knock comes, she scrambles, sitting up and pawing at her cheeks to make sure they are dry. "Yeah?" she clears her throat, swings her legs off the edge of the bed, and shoves her journal under her pillows. "What's up, Duncan? Come in."

First off, Duncan comes bearing gifts. He has two very badly made gingerbread cookies; they're bloated and misshapen, and their frosting is goopy and irregular, but he seems pretty pleased with them when he makes them dance their way in the door of the trailer, singing, "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime summertime gal, send me a - whoa there, everything okay in here?" He shifts gears pretty quick, lowering the dancing cookies and looking beyond them at tear-stained Maddie.

"What, uh, what's going on, what happened, what's with the - " He waves one of the cookies vaguely in the direction of her face. While he stands in the doorway and lets all the heat out of the trailer.

Give her some credit - Maddie wiped her face before she told him to come in, and it wasn't like she was actively leaking or anything. She even laughs as he sings his way into the door, though the sparkle in her eyes is probably more intense because of their wetness rather than her being actually hilariously amused or anything. "What?" she blinks when he waves a cookie towards her face, shaking her head. "Nothing, it's nothing," she wipes the back of her hand against her cheek before she gets to her feet. "I was just watching some sappy movie," on the television that isn't even on. "I'm fine," she lies, and finds a smile to match the words. "You brought me cookies. I've got milk," she proceeds to the fridge...

...and pulls out a carton of goat's milk. So. She's got kind of milk? "Trying something new," she shrugs, as she pours it into two plastic cups that she brings down from the cabinets. "What did you want to talk about?"

Yes, but Duncan was alert enough to notice the brightness, so give him some credit for being so awesome as to notice and also for having memorized what Maddie looks like normally so he can mentally compare it to what she looks like when she's hastily making it look like she wasn't crying. And yet, he seems willing to believe the TV thing, giving it a glance and saying, "Oh! Okay then."

Hum hum hum hum, "baby my heart's on fire," and he sticks one of the cookies out at arm's length toward her, eyeballing the goat's milk warily. "Wait, someone's job is to milk goats? Man, that seems like the sorta thing the PETA people would have a real problem with. Unless the goats are into it, I guess." He trails off, biting the leg off his cookie and thinking for a minute about the whole issue of consent as it pertains to goats.

What did he want to talk about? "Uhhhm, I was just thinking about going over to Centralia while we're sorta on the east coast. You ever been there? Super spooky."

Duncan totally gets credit. He gets all the credit! So alert is he. But he's also kinda not so bright, and Maddie casts a guilty look over to the television she just lied about. "Yeah," she remarks, turning up the brightness on her smile another notch. It helps that he's funny, another short laugh escaping as she casually avoids his 'hearts on fire' humming and instead focuses on plucking the cookie out of his outstretched hand, eyeballing it. "I mean I think they use machines, like when they milk cows?" she shrugs her shoulders, "But I can imagine worse jobs. Goats are cute. I " She passes him one of the glasses and nibbles on the corner of her cookie, licking some of the goopy icing off with a quiet, pleased hum.

But Centralia? "Hmmm," she takes a bite out of her cookie as she shuffles to the small table in her camper, sliding into the bench seating. "I haven't been. It's on the list," he'd know 'the list'. The bucket list of spooky places she wants to see. "I'm down. When are you thinking about going?"

Machines? To milk cows? Duncan listens to this with his head leaned forward in that 'really focusing intently' way he's got, then pulls it back and smiles a sage smile. "You're messing with me, aren't you. I'm wise to your antics." He taps the side of his nose before he takes the cup of milk. It gets a wary side-eye and just to get it out of the way? He's going to hold it without drinking it from here on out.

"It's pretty cool." Centralia, he means. "I went a couple times. It's all derelict and there's graffiti all over. Like Pripyat just a lot less Russian." He expects that to mean something to her, to paint a vivid mental picture. Having not been expressly invited to sit down (and being something of an odd person so he's not going to presume), he continues standing by the door that he still hasn't closed. When? "Oh, uhhhm, I dunno. Maybe right now sounds pretty good? To me. I'm not really doing anything else, but if you're doing something else, then maybe a little later?" Read: whenever Maddie wants to go~! "We'd catch up to everyone, obviously."

Maddie neither confirms nor denies that she's messing with him - she just picks up her plastic cup, tips it at him, and winks as she takes a long sip. Mm. "You're missing out. Freshly-squeezed-by-machines-goat-milk is the best milk," she snickers under her breath, breaking off a piece of the cookie to hold it under the milk until it softens.

She doesn't invite him to sit. Not because she's rude, but because when she was about to? He's talking about Centralia and she's distracted. "That sounds amazing. You'll bring your nice camera? My phone takes shit pictures," she pops the softened bit of goat-milk-cookie into her mouth and chews, brows going up when he suggests they leave right now. "Right now right now? But it's the middle of the night," this was not her saying no. She flicks a glance out the window, then shrugs her shoulders. "But okay. I'm not doing anything tomorrow anyway, and I did my part helping break stuff down. Want to just take the camper?"

Leaning low over the cup, Duncan takes a careful sniff of the milk, then reels his head away from it quickly. "I gotta give it to you, you almost had me. Milk from goats, who even heard of such a thing." He trails off into a laugh, like this is the best joke he's heard all day, and takes a big bite out of his frosting-coated gingerbread man.

"Okay?" he repeats around the mouthful, clearly surprised. "As in," he really needs somewhere to spit out the bite, but there's - oh, here. He spits it into the milk. "As in, okay, right now? Great, that's perfect. Uhhhhh, stay here." Both hands gesture to where she's sitting down, like he means right here exactly. "And I'll just go grab my stuff, and we'll be off!" He dashes out the door that he was smart enough to leave open!

Maddie just shakes her head, smirking into another swallow of her milk. "You caught me. I mean how could goats even make milk? They aren't cows," she teases, managing to hold back the giggles, but only just barely. She finishes off her cookie, licking some icing from her thumb and forefinger as he seems shocked by her response about Centralia, blinking back up at him. "Yeah, as in okay right now. It's on the list, Duncan. Of course we're going right now." And she's about to get up when he gestures for her to stay in her seat, brows climbing as he dashes out the door.

She watches him run across the yard through the blinds before she grins to herself, laughing a little as she gets out of her seat. She can't just stay right here, she needs to at least put on a pair of jeans, which is what she does while he's gathering his gear. By the time he comes back, she's in real clothes, tying her hair back in a bouncy ponytail.

No worries. Duncan is back in two-shakes, with a backpack that has pretty much all his worldly possessions and a camera bag that has - er, the rest of his worldly possessions? Also, he has a Ziploc baggie full of the body parts of gingerbread men who were not fit to be eaten. "Okay, perfect, I'm all set. You all set? Where're the keys?"

Because check that driving roll! Next stop... Centralia~!

A couple mandatory snapshots transpire in between Duncan jumping behind the wheel of this camper and the point at which these two roll into Gray Harbor. They meander off to Centralia, the first of many adventures. Every time they're within reasonable driving distance of a thin point, they veer off and explore, taking pictures, sometimes falling right through the Veil itself and seeing all the weirdness.

Despite having looked like he was trapped in the friend-zone for life, Duncan's dogged persistence turns out to be kinda charming? Hands get held, cheeks get kissed, and eventually sparks fly, and the two have been inseparable since. Most of the company finds them cute, these two mini-people who have found each other, but Jimmy was pretty much always their biggest fan. He plays the music for most of Maddie's performances and - while there were rumors way-back-when that he was kinda sweet on her - the middle-aged guy never made so much as the faintest overture and has since settled into a sort of cool-buddy role over the past months.

But he's also starting to slip. He's lost his taste for the business of feeding monsters, having mentioned it quietly on more than one occasion to Duncan and Maddie. The last time was last night, when they were all hanging around in Maddie's trailer. He said he was ready to move on, but it was one of those "might be tipsy" conversations, and it was late, so no one really took it seriously.

Now, in the cold gray light of morning, Maddie wakes to the sound of a commotion outside the trailer. It's springtime but chilly, and they're somewhere in the southwest, cold in the desert before the sun comes up.

If Maddie were to look back at the snapshots of her life, Centralia would be where she first began to see Duncan differently. It hadn't just been a random walkthrough of weird; it'd been an adventure, the kind of horrifying exhilaration that makes one feel truly alive, even someone like Maddie who'd been working so hard to keep herself numb. And for Maddie, it felt good to feel alive again - and it took her by surprise that it felt better to be alive with Duncan by her side.

So little by little, she began to let him in. On long road trips to the Veil, she told him of her mother, small details of her life before the troupe. The first time they held hands was at the Trans-Allegheny, and in the midst of falling through the Veil in the depths of the Shanghai Tunnels, she surprised him with a kiss. And the rest, they say, is history, though that was perhaps the start of their story rather than the end.

Maddie wakes up in his arms that cold gray morning. They weren't yet sharing a trailer but Duncan spent the night with her more often than they slept alone; it was probably only a matter of time before he moved the rest of his stuff over there. "Hey," she nudges him, blearly eyed, as she gets up to crawl over his prone body and peek through the blinds at the window above the bed. "I heard a noise." She yanks the pillow out from under his head with her brain; wake up, sleepy head, sleep time is over.

"Hey, what the - ow!" Duncan isn't actually hurt. He just says 'ow' out of reflex when his head drops back onto the mattress instead of the pillow, and he's trying to blink himself awake. She heard a noise? "That's no reason to rip the pillow out from under me and probably give me a concussion," while he knuckles his eyes, squinting unprettily at the peek of gray light through the blinds. "It was probably just a raccoon or where are we? Or a rattlesnake or a coyote or a scorpion or a - "

His laundry list of possible suspects is curtailed even while he's scooting to sit up with the blankets all pooled on his lap. Outside, the commotion is getting more pronounced, enough so that it penetrates the haze over his brain, and he tilts his head, listening hard.

"...gone, all gone!"

"Check who else. I want a head-count now."

And then there's a BANG BANG BANG on the door of Maddie's trailer. Duncan, with the huge eyes, starts flailing for his pants.

"You weren't waking up," says the woman currently climbing over top of him since he sleeps on the window-side, and not in that sexy way. In a very unsexy way, actually, considering her knee goes squish into his thigh. It was a rude awakening, but she does it all with a smile; and really, who could be mad at a girl with a smile as sweet as Maddie's? Not Duncan, so he shouldn't even try.

"It's not an animal, somebody's pissed out there," she wedges herself between him and the window, her feet on his calf, fingers separating the blinds so she can peer through. "I definitely don't see any trash pandas. Or coyotes. Maybe a rattlesnake? But why --" she's started by the sudden BANG BANG BANG! and, in her current position, gets shoved into the window in his sudden mad flail for his pants, the plastic blinds rustling.

It was probably well-deserved, considering. She makes a lot of 'ooof, hey, watch it!' noises anyway. But she falls off the edge of the bed afterward and tosses him his pants, while pulling some leggings on. "One sec, we're coming! Duncan wouldn't wake up," she shouts to whoever is at the door, bounding to her feet afterward. He better get those pants on quick, 'cause she's going to open the door regardless of whether or not he's rocking out with his whatever out.

Not mad, of course, because who could get mad at a girl with a smile as sweet as Maddie's? Not Duncan; he wouldn't even try. But he does go hiss-hiss-hiss, "Why are your toes like ice cubes!" That comes before there's a lot of wild flailing and flopping, him trying to hop-pull on his jeans frantically before she swings the door open. His t-shirt goes on inside out, and he winds up stuffing his hands down into the pockets of his jeans, since there was no time to put on his sweatshirt. (He is TECHNICALLY homeless, after all.) He's also barefoot when he stumbles after her.

The person that banged on the door was Polly, but she's already moving on to banging on another door. People fall bleary-eyed out into a scene of chaos. One of the trailers - the one full of costumes and props - has driven off in the night. Its space is empty, and people are milling around in the cold morning while Keene surveys this mess. It will take a couple minutes, with Duncan looking increasingly alarmed as the second tic by, for the writing on the wall to resolve itself: The only person missing is Jimmy.

Maddie at least had enough wits about her to shove her feet into her floppy bunny ears slippers before she stumbles out the front door, but god damn was it cold out here. It explains why she immediately attaches herself to Duncan. "Polly? What.." she starts, but Polly's already marching herself to the next trailer over, leaving Maddie shivering beside Duncan and raising her eyebrows at him.

It takes her a good minute to realize there's one very important trailer missing. Actually, it takes someone else mentioning it for Maddie's focus to settle on the distinct gap in the trailer line, and then her own eyes go wide. "What the fuck? Where'd the costume trailer go?" She joins in on the rabble-rabble until all the trailers are empty. They aren't a huge team. It's easy to see which pair of bleary-eyes are missing from the group, and Maddie's heart is quick to sink.

"You don't think.." she hisses a whisper to Duncan, biting down on her bottom lip as she shakes her head. "He wasn't serious, he was drunk, he couldn't have.."

"He couldn't have what?" Not Duncan, because Duncan would know what she means. It's Megan, that troublesome bitch, that caught the tail-end of Maddie's whisper. She materializes in that creepy way those three have - Polly's the least freaky of them, Megan's the worst - looking curiously between the pair.

Duncan is a horrible liar. He's also cold. These two things combine to leave him clinging shivery back to Maddie, and making noises with his mouth that fail to become words. "Ah, uhm, er," while he hops from cold-foot to cold-foot. "Jimmy," is the only intelligible thing he says, blurting it out and then hastily buttoning up his lips.

Leaving Megan, with her brows raised, to peer intently at Maddie. "What about Jimmy? Is there something you two need to share with the group?" And by 'the group,' she obviously means Keene, since that's where her eyes roam once those words leave her lips. << It's always better to be honest. >>

"He couldn't have.." Maddie hisses another whisper to Duncan, about to explain, when that creepy bitch comes out of nowhere. At least she doesn't leap out of her skin, but the tension is immediate; she snaps to attention, while Duncan makes noises beside her. Maddie's whole attention pulls towards Megan though (sorry D), her big brown eyes watching Megan as she peers back at her.

She remains sucessfully composed, though her nostrils flare with a quickening of her breathing - not from Megan's verbal question, but from the words that rattle through her brain and run in a shiver down her spine. But she follows Megan's roaming eyes to Keene, and visibly flinches.

"He.. was drinking," she starts, "We were drinking. I didn't think.." She keeps her focus on Keene as she detaches herself from Duncan, hugging her arms around her from the cold. "He said he didn't agree with what we were doing anymore. But he was drinking, Keene, he didn't mean it."

How Duncan doesn't just come unraveled is a mystery for the ages. Sure, he and Megan get along surprisingly well, but that bitch is still creepy, and he has made it a point to stay out of Keene's radar. So when Maddie starts over there, leaving him peeling his arms away and shoving his hands so deeply into his pockets that they disappear up beyond his wrists, it's enough that he manages to take a few steps after her. But Megan is smart - way smarter than he is - and she's all about 'divide and conquer,' so she snags him by the elbow and says something in his brains that delays his advance.

Leaving Maddie to answer Keene by herself. "When was this?" he asks crisply, colder than the morning, that one question. He stands in the space where the costume trailer should be, already dressed for the day, perhaps the only person really put together in the face of this rude awakening. If she tries to lie, Keene is going to know it. He reiterates the thought of his little lackey: << Be honest with me, Madeline. >>

Though she does not look for him, Maddie feels the break between herself and Duncan as Megan sweeps in. She wants to look back at him, her head even slightly tips as though she might cast a glance over her shoulder; but her eyes are locked on Keene. Besides, Maddie knows what will happen if she looks back - he'll know Duncan was part of this.

So she swallows a lump in her throat and takes another purposeful step forward, slippers crunching in the dry desert ground. Just enough distance between herself and Duncan so that she stands alone, fingers digging into her upper arms as she hugs them around herself tighter. "Last night," she responds evenly, "He said it to me." It wasn't a lie, it was an omission of the truth. "But he was drinking, and he always gets weird when he drinks. Melancholy. I asked him if he was serious and he said he wasn't, he said it was just a joke." And that was the truth. At the very least, it was the way she remembered the conversation. "If I had thought he was serious.." she doesn't finish the thought.

Yeah, 'cause Keene will never figure it out with Duncan back there instead of over here. He's definitely not smart enough to put together that any drunken conversation last night between Maddie and Jimmy almost definitely included Duncan.

Oh wait, he totally is!

But he pretends otherwise (ACTING!), looking intently at Maddie. When she lies right to his face. "If you thought he was serious... Finish the thought, Madeline. You would have come and told me immediately?"

Look, Maddie was trying okay?! She furrows her brow at Keene's next words and lifts her chin, tensing her jaw. The answer that comes out of her earns a gasp from a couple of the people around her.

"No."

She knows she can't lie to him, not outright. She thinks she can omit things, but flat out lie? To his face? That wasn't possible. The embrace of her arms tightens, until she's practically squeezing herself, and she finishes her thought. "But I would have told Polly." And that's the truth, because Polly's the least freaky. "And I was going to talk to her about him today, anyway. I didn't think he was going to do anything."

Having gone around and pounded on all the doors and made all the noise, Polly is of course now standing around this half-broken camp, so she makes a meep noise when her name gets dragged into this. She starts to say something - probably about how she would've gone straight to Keene because she doesn't have a fucking deathwish! - but Keene holds up a hand to stay her blabbering. Which doesn't work on Duncan, who blurts out, "I would've told you though, ahhh, Mister Keene." (He's never really figured out what to call this guy. Keene? Mister Keene? It's awkward.) "I mean, if we thought he was serious, we would've told you."

Did Maddie hear those the 'we' that got used? Twice? 'Cause Keene did. It's the reason he smiles at Duncan, the village idiot, and the reason the smile doesn't touch his eyes when he looks to Maddie. "It would seem we have our work cut out for us this morning, ladies and gentlemen." He starts issuing orders - this person needs to call the local police to report the stolen vehicle, that one needs to start looking for their lost colleague, and Maddie? "You can find lost things, can you not?" Sure, Polly can do that - probably even better than Maddie - but he adds, "Let's hope Jimmy hasn't had time to get very far."

Maddie does hear that word - we - and she flinches each time it's used. She looked so tense that she might actually snap; she doesn't look over her shoulder, she keeps her attention level on Keene until he decides what to say next. The breath that she holds is only released when he addresses her again directly, head bobbing weakly in response. "Yes, yes I can," she furrows her brow, frowns to herself, as her jaw tenses with determination. "I will. I'll find him, he couldn't have gotten very far."

And with her task handed down, she turns on her heel right back into Duncan, snatching him by the arm and dragging him bodily towards her camper. He was the better driver, she could be the GPS, it only made sense. Only when they were alone, does she finally look at him, her eyes soft but her tone sharply edged, "What did you think you were doing? I was trying to keep you out of this!"

Everyone watches them go, of course, and would be whispering among themselves already but that they don't want Keene catching them doing that. Duncan stumbles the first few steps after her, because now HIS toes are like ice cubes, so much so that he shoves them against one of Maddie's space heaters, making ahhhhhhh noises when some heat seeps back into them.

"Wha?" He is genuinely confused about this, and distracted by his defrosting tootsies to boot. "Why would you do that, we're in this together, aren't we?" He holds a hand out for the keys, smiling over at Maddie - not quite vacantly, but the full gravity may be lost on him. "It's no big deal, we find Jimmy and get all the stuff back, and everything goes back to normal."

"This isn't the Titanic, Duncan, just because the ship is sinking doesn't mean we both have to go down with it," Maddie slams the camper door as he sticks his piggies in front of the heater; it definitely does not smell like bacon in here as he starts to warm up. But the displeasure on her face isn't entirely from the scent of his toes getting warmed up by the heater. "We should've said something right away, I didn't think he would do anything! How could he be so stupid?" she rubs at her face, heading over to the rack to grab her keys down and toss them over to him.

"We need to find him before he does something to the trailer, I don't even.. I've never even looked for anything bigger than my keys," she admits, slumping against a wall. "What if I can't find him? What if he.." she swallows. "You shouldn't have said anything, Duncan, you should've just let me deal with it."

"Well, now. You don't know that he did anything. Let's maybe not rush to judgement here. For all we know, he's just putting air in the tires." Duncan catches the keys in between the cup of his hands and his chest, accidentally sticks his toe to the actual heater, yelps, and plops briefly on the bed to blow on his burned foot. He's going 'foo, foooo' at the burn and looking up at her with big, confused eyes while she's talking about letting her just deal with it, and he exhales a sound like a sigh at the end.

"Okay, well, maybe I shouldn't've said anything, but I did, so that's sorta done. We'll just have to move on from that." Pushing his foot off his knee, he makes a gesture like he's putting that issue over here, in the 'done' box, and then he twirls the keys around the end of his index finger. "You can find him, don't worry. We'll find him, and then - uhhhhh." He lets his mouth hang open, waiting for her to finish his thought for him: And then what?

He was really a big, beautiful dumb idiot wasn't he? But he was Maddie's big, beautiful dumb idiot, and it's not like she could really fault him for trying to have her back in the heat of the moment. Of course, when she realizes she should probably apologize to him, he goes sticking his toes in the heater, and she both cringes with concern and rolls her eyes. "Jesus, you've got to be more careful," is followed immediately thereafter by: "Are you okay?" and she goes to slump beside him on the bed, dragging his foot at an odd angle so it winds up in her lap and she can blow cool air on his burned tootsies.

She doesn't go as far as kiss his feet though, 'cause that's gross and he probably has nasty callouses from walking around barefoot. She just releases him afterward, looking down at her hands when he invites her to finish his sentence. They'll just find him, and then.. ".. Then I'll handle it from there. Jimmy's our friend, he's everybody's friend. Keene'll probably just.. talk it out with him, make him realize we're just.." She swallows. "Trying to survive. Little lights in the darkness, that's all we are." Who was she trying to convince? She slips an arm around his shoulder to squeeze him into a hug, before she hops to her feet. "Let's go. If we waste any more time, they'll start banging on the door again."

Even though the meta knows how much talk of calloused feet is avant garde these days... Suffice it to say, Duncan's feet aren't kiss-able. But he smiles his smitten smile at Maddie when she blows on his toes, and he leans across his own legs to gather up her face in his hands and kiss her on the mouth, mwah. "I'm okay, it's just one toe outta ten." He can count!

She's on her feet. He's on his feet a second later, slumping over into the driver's seat and getting this search party started. "Little lights," he agrees and turns the engine over. He gets them out of the mess of the encampment and on the open road, heading in the likeliest direction for Jimmy to have departed. More than ten miles must've been put between him and the camp by the time everyone woke up, because there's a long stretch of open road where Maddie's not getting a goddamn thing in response to her search efforts. But then comes the first ping - and then another - and another.

And they find Jimmy and the stolen camper at a gas station a little over an hour after they both got woken up by all that noise outside the camper. Somehow, they must prevail upon him to return to the troupe, if only to make sure to give back the stolen camper - "You don't want the cops on you, buddy," is Duncan's contribution. Jimmy clearly doesn't realize how much trouble he's in when his camper follows theirs back toward the broken encampment.

Those ten miles feel like ten hundred, and Maddie sits in the passenger seat wringing her hands and trying, desperately trying, to feel that little 'ping' that would tell her they are on the right track. When it finally comes, she breathes a ragged sigh of relief; though she didn't feel relief when they tracked Jimmy down.

Maddie does most of the talking - of course she does - pulling out all the acting skills she could muster in the moment. She'd talk to Keene, she promises. This was just a little blip, a momentary lapse in otherwise good judgment, after all. And they were helping people, weren't they? They had helped Jimmy. They had helped her. Little lights in the darkness; together, they keep the monsters away. And if they feed them in masse, it means that They're less likely to prey upon any single individual; little nibbles from the many, rather than big bites from the whole. But while her rationalization to Jimmy gets him to agree to go back to camp, doubt begins to gnaw there in the pit of her stomach.

They tow the stolen camper from the back of her own. Jimmy sits at her kitchen table with his head down, he doesn't say a word. Towing the stolen trailer means it takes twice as long to get back to camp, but when Maddie sees the trailers in the distance, she asks Duncan one thing. A quiet whisper, her eyes straight ahead, watching the campsite becoming steadily larger the closer they draw near.

"We're doing the right thing, right?"

Keeping the rear-view mirror tilted to watch Jimmy at the table isn't the most road-safe way to drive, but it makes Duncan happy, so that's what he does. He bounces in the driver's seat while they rattle down the road, looking frequently to their crumpled buddy, his own forehead drawn into a deep furrow. "Yeah," he whispers back, nodding over the steering wheel while he turns-turns-turns it, taking longer than is strictly necessary to get the thing backed into the spot where the purloined trailer had been at the outset. "Look at it this way, he stole a whole trailer. It's not like he was gonna be able to hide that from the actual normal cops. This way - "

But there's no chance to say what's better about this way. When the trailer eases to a stop, the door swings open immediately, and all three of those awful witches pour in, making shhhhhhuuuussshing noises at Maddie and Duncan while they merrily team up to escort poor Jimmy out the door. Where everyone is waiting for him!

Duncan stays in the driver's seat a minute, looking across at Maddie. Like he just realized that this could all go sideways for Jimmy. He swallows hard enough that his Adam's apple bobs in his throat and looks very afraid.

"Duncan, that's not --" What's not never makes it into being though, words left unspoken as the door bursts open and the three merry witches come to escort Jimmy away. Maddie sees it all unfold through the angled down rear-view mirror, eyes widening in absolute horror. She should move, she needs to move, Jimmy is her friend; but she sits in the passenger seat as though someone's poured superglue on it.

<<Out>> That single command rattles through both of their minds. Maddie looks blankly over to Duncan before she swallows, rising to her feet. She holds out her hand, and if he takes it? She laces her fingers with his, gripping so tight that her knuckles turn white. But she doesn't dwaddle. She exits the camper, back into the small ring of campers, into the growing heat of the desert now that the sun was rising.

Out into the proceedings already in progress, Keene at the head, "... not doing the right thing? And what is the right thing, Jimmy?"

So OUT Duncan goes. He absolutely takes Maddie's hand on the way, dragging his fingers through hers. He must've gotten his shoes on at some point, because he's not doing the barefoot thing again. But he does try to walk through the door at the exact same time that she does and - regardless of them both being mini-people - that's just not physically possible. He draws back a step, lets her go first, smiling a twitchily nervous smile.

It would take a braver soul than Duncan's to so much as whisper a question into these proceedings. But there's massive sympathy in the sad green eyes that he turns upon poor Jimmy, who is too nice a guy to so much as cast an accusing look at Duncan and Maddie for selling him out. His voice should be low and defeated, but instead it's quiet and calm when he answers, "Stopping you, by whatever means necessary." It's an answer that doesn't go over well, sending ripples of disapproval through the assembled.

Maddie was a bundle of nervous energy, and Duncan would be able to feel it once they wedged themselves out the door and into the group. There's a harsh inhale of breath that staggers through the crowd at Jimmy's words, but Keene seems so calm and collected. He casually adjusts his tie, looking down at Jimmy as though he feels nothing but sorrow for this pathetic excuse for a human.

"Stopping me? From saving you? From saving each and every one of you," his eyes lift, and they seem to stop on every single person in the campsite. The three witches nod emphatically - yes, they've been saved! - and the others bob their heads as well. When his gaze settles on Duncan and Maddie, Keene's smile grows into something with just a hint of sadistic pleasure. "Saving those you love. Like your mother, Madeline, that poor tortured soul. You gave her some peace until her dying days, didn't you? A little light in the darkness."

Then it is back down to Jimmy, his gaze hardening. "You betrayed us. Your family. We should let Them have you, but that would be unfair to the people you tried to harm, wouldn't it?" The crowd bobs their head, murmurs of agreement whispering through the crowd. "Far more fair to give your punishment to those who you would see harmed," he says to Jimmy, in a voice that seems almost oddly soothing. To the group: "You all know what to do."

But to Duncan and Maddie, his attention returns. "But you two will do it first. It is what you would've done, yes? Had you known he was serious?"

"Do what? What's he talking about? What're you talking about?" Duncan blabbers out these questions unchecked, unwilling to let go of Maddie's hands but also unwilling to look at his buddy there, getting berated. "I mean, I might've tried to talk him outta stealing a whole trailer and running off, but c'mon, Mister Keene, eventually - " Man, his mouth gets dry every time Keene so much as glances at him, and now he's trying to explain himself in front of everyone. "Eventually, everyone loses their taste for this kinda stuff. You gotta have some sorta way to just gracefully exit, right?"

Cue the nervous laugh, the look around at everyone that already knows that there's no graceful exiting from this company, the tightening of his hand on Maddie's till it's a painful squeeze. "I mean, you guys, this can't be the first time someone's been ready to throw in the towel. Sure, he stole the trailer," STOP BRINGING THAT UP, DUNCAN, "but we found him and brought it back so that's fine, right? Right?" He's devolved into a sort of hysterical giggling now, like it's just some hilarious misunderstanding.

It trails off slowly 'cause, uh, no one is laughing with him. That's awkward.

Keene lets Duncan talk. His face is a mask of emotion, his gaze steady on Duncan through his blabbering. The man has no tell - the only reaction Duncan gets is a flat look from Keene, and silence from the crowd. Maddie herself says nothing at all; she wraps her hand around Duncan's all the tighter, trying to squeeze his fingers and encourage his silence. But it doesn't work, and Duncan says his peace.

"Yes. An excellent idea, Duncan," Keene remarks. "This will be exactly that, then. Jimmy's graceful exit," he fits a too wide smile as he motions to the pair. "You will show him to the door. Allow him his graceful exit." It's not a question. It is not an invitation for further discussion. The last look that Keene gives is to Maddie, before he turns on his heel and leaves for his trailer. The witches will supervise; in fact, it is Megan who materializes in her creepy way to put hands on either Duncan and Maddie's shoulders, pushing them forward. <<Open the door; show him the way>> she invites them, though it's rather evident which part is directed to Maddie (open the door) and which is to Duncan (show him the way).

Maddie casts a terrified look to Duncan; she was shaking almost uncontrollably. But even on legs that have turned to jelly, she walks forward to the costume trailer, managing not to weep as she lays her hand upon the door. When she pushes it open, the door swings inward, and it is not the costumes that can be seen within, but the hellish lands of the Dreamscape, the shadows writhing.

It shouldn't bother him this much. After all, how many times over the past fifteen-ish years has Duncan pushed some poor soul not unlike Jimmy in front of the proverbial bus? But it bothers him tremendously, based on the way he all but jumps out of his skin when Megan touches his shoulder, stiffening and jolting upright, making a heebie-jeebies sound at her. Their tentative friendship is TOTALLY OVER! He even says that, breathing it out quietly after her telepathy-thing: "Friendship totally over."

He looks at Jimmy in the eyes, his own large and troubled, and then he leans forward, sticking his head through this newly opened door. He's been through doors like these more times than he can count; one shove from someone who knows the way, one desire to get there when the door is open, and voila. They made Maddie open the door, and here comes Polly to be sure everyone who needs to go through it can go right on through it, standing attentively next to her, uh, sister. Or whatever those fucking witches are in relation to each other.

Jimmy should kick or scream or rail, but the guy's been around this crew long enough to know that there's no way out of this. He's surrounded by people that can annihilate him on a whim. So he just lowers his head in a silent nod, offers a handshake to Duncan, a kiss on the cheek to Maddie, and follows Duncan through the door into the hell that awaits. These shadows aren't there for Duncan, but he can feel their hunger like it's his own, and he can smell the way they want to feed on something, sniffing curiously at the offerings. The second Jimmy's through the door, they descend on him like buzzards.

It's not pretty.

Duncan is absolutely going to wind up losing his shit over this.

Maddie was fine, FINE, until Jimmy comes to kiss her on the cheek. The response is immediate, visceral, her stomach twisting as a sob chokes through her. She turns into him and seizes him into a fierce hug, murmuring something in his ear as she kisses his cheek. And then she lets him go through the doorway - though Duncan and Jimmy won't go alone. She doesn't look at Polly - she just turns, and before anyone has a chance to stop her, follows Jimmy through the doorway to watch in abject terror as the shadows descend to rip Jimmy apart.

They rip and bite and tear, and Jimmy never once screams. They suck out his eyes and slurp down his veins like spaghetti. They chew through the muscle, and gulp down the fat, until all that's left of Jimmy is a pile of bones. This is the kind of sight that sticks to you, that stays with you always, that wakes you up in the middle of the night and haunts your dreams.

The shadows don't need to eat at Duncan and Maddie. They are full from their meal; their dessert is the pain of the two still linger. The doorway behind them remains open, but Maddie makes a grab for Duncan's arm. "We can't go back through there," she utters through tears. "We need to find another door. I won't go back there, Duncan, I won't."

At some point, it's just enough. All his skin and all his meat and all his blood is gone, and one of the things cracks into a thumb-bone like it's about to start eating the marrow, and that's when Duncan - who just heaved up everything in his stomach into a pile that one of the things is OM NOM NOMMING right now, because they're gross disgusting nasties! - gets up and stomps his feet and waves his arms, shouting, "GET OFF! Go on, go away, get lost, hah! HAH!" Like he can scare away the buzzards the way he would real buzzards.

It doesn't work exactly like that, but it does work to make one of those nasty things a taste of its own medicine, slicing it right open. It squawks and peels away, then screams at him in the voice that Jimmy never used, making horrible death-gurgling cries. This starts all of them doing it, using Jimmy's voice to scream and cry while they hop-fly backwards.

"We can't just leave him here!" Which isn't Duncan disagreeing with Maddie, just him freaking out a little (okay a lot). "Can you find another way out? That's a thing you can do, right? Get us out? I'll just - " Pick up this skeleton.

The sudden screeching cries in Jimmy's voice makes Maddie scream right back, while Duncan starts chasing off the shadow-buzzards. The slice to one gets them to start hop-skipping backwards, but one shadow gets particularly gluttonous and tries to grab himself another tasty snack. It leaps from the retreating pack right for Duncan as he stoops to collect bones - and that's when Maddie gets pissed.

"He's MINE!" she sneers, "You can't have him!" she pushes Duncan behind her, and from somewhere comes a rock - small, pebble sized, passing straight through the shadow harmlessly. But what follows next is a practical storm of rocks, floating up from the ground and launching forward, raining down upon that shadow monster and the next and the next. They hiss and they scream but they run, retreating into the hellscape, until there was nothing but Maddie, Duncan, and dem bones.

She sucks in a staggering breath, then sweeps the rest of Jimmy off the ground. She grabs a femur, a thigh bone, and chokes back another sob when she finds his skull. These bones are precious to her, she cradles them and the others in her hands, as much as she can carry - the rest are left for Duncan. She says nothing at all about the bones. Instead, she cocks her head away from the gaping doorway, and nods. "That way. RUN!" she shoves him with her shoulder, and takes off in the direction, chasing through this hellish landscape that seems to go on forever and ever and ever. What they come to is not exactly a door, but a slice in the air that seems to darkly shimmer.

"WHY ARE YOU ALL FALLING APART, JIMMY?! KEEP IT TOGETHER!" Duncan despairs briefly when he picks up Jimmy's hand-bones (the one now missing a thumb because one of those fucking unbirds ate it) and it detaches from his arm-bones. It never occurred to Duncan that skeletons in classrooms and stuff? Are all screwed together, and that they were going to have to carry pieces of Jimmy. But he makes do somehow, shoving some bones into his sweater pocket, some into his jeans pockets; they stick up weirdly, and the rest bounce around in his arms while he runs after Maddie.

At some point, he falls down and the bones go flying every which way, but they manage to get all the pieces back, so that's good.

Ahead of the slice, there are two paths. They have different starting points, but they appear to both converge at the same place. They look identical. Without breaking stride, Duncan leads them straight toward the one on the left. But the second they step onto the path, the fall dizzily through nothingness.

And land in a heap of living people and scattered bones, right at the edge of that path again. "Holy shit holy shit holy shit, I am so tired of these STUPID GODDAMN PUZZLES!" He'll just be here, picking up bones.

Again.

Maddie really needs to do more cardio. She's huffing and puffing by the time they get to the paths; this was a hard work out, what with Duncan dropping his share of the bones everywhere and them both having to scramble to keep Jimmy together. Why didn't either of them bring a bag?! Really, this was ridiculous. It was made worse by the fact that Maddie trusted him to know his way and they both fall through a hole and into nothingness, Maddie landing on her stomach in the ground, bones everywhere. "COME ON!" she pounds the ground with her fists, then makes the mad dash to pick up all the fallen bones, shoving some in her bra and down her leggings, and boy did she wish girls clothes had better pockets.

But whatever. She's got this. "I've got this," she sounds confident enough, "We gotta both take one of the paths, okay? Okay. Listen, listen," she grabs Duncan by the cheeks and forcefully turns his head to meet his eyes, her own wild and full of emotion. "I'm not going through this door without you, okay? We're gonna take the separate paths and we're gonna come out the other end together. Together." She's so sure of herself. She kisses him full on the mouth - MWAH! And then she hits the starting point of path #1. "TOGETHER!" she says again, and then takes off running towards the slice in the wall as soon as he does.

She was so sure of herself. But she winds up boned. Literally, 'cause they both fall back through the nothingness and land in a heap, and she takes Jimmy's femur (that she shoved down her pants) right in the crotch. "Ohmygodmyvagina," she collapses.

SO CLOSE, but no. They tumble back out, and Duncan gets the wind knocked out of him, but that's a secondary concern: "What - " Wheeze. "What happened to your vagina, is it okay?" You know what shouldn't be an afterthought? "Is the rest of you okay?" He's okay, he dusts himself off, still wheezing when he comes over to see if all Maddie's collective parts are okay. With bones all sticking out of his pockets at random, one of which drops out of his pockets and hits her on the head while he's offering her a hand up.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you're okay, though, right? This is okay, we're doing great." His vacant smile convinces no one.

But they're going to put their heads together and SOLVE THIS. It's going to take some trial and error, because the thing is: they gotta walk those paths step-by-step identically. And they can't see each other or hear each other between the two paths. So it comes down 'every three Mississippis, we take a step.' Which Duncan fucks up the first two times, because - as he insists while he's flat on his back at the starting point AGAIN, "I'm telling you, it should be a state that's easier to say, like Michigan or Alaska or that place that got fucked up by the hurricane. Puerto Rico!"

"Nnghhh, no, Jimmy's bone's in me," Maddie whines, she whimpers, saying things probably no one wants to hear about another man's bone being anywhere near the vicinity of his girlfriend's body. But whatever. She gets over it eventually, jerking Jimmy's bone out of her leggings. "God damn you, Jimmy! Why couldn't you just be happy! We were FINE, we were JUST FINE!" she yells at the thigh bone, and then collapses into Duncan for a minute to sob. But the shadows that are growing suggests now is not time for tears.

So they run. They tumble down the path, over and over, until they figure out the trick, which Duncan keeps fucking up. And she's so over this, she's tired of picking Jimmy up off the ground. She's tired of arguing about the GOD DAMN MISSISSIPPIS! "Puerto Rico is not any easier to say than fucking Mississippi!" she snaps at Duncan, but she just has to pass one look into those big dumb eyes of his that she sinks, slumps, and shakes her head. "Fine. We'll go every three Puerto Ricos, okay? Every three Puerto Ricos. Let's just do this. I'm so. So fucking tired."

And maybe it's the Puerto Ricos instead of the Mississippis. But they make it to the slice in the wall, and Maddie pushes him through it before she leaps through it herself ... and they tumble into her camper, coming from the cabinet underneath the sink. They sprawl, bodies and bones everywhere. It is incredibly dark outside, and it's freezing cold in here. But when they peek through the windows ... the rest of the camp ground is empty.

Wow, Jimmy almost gets left behind for that one. At the very least, Duncan jumps up and down on the offending bone a couple times, then he'll just be keeping this one, trading her for the thumb-less hand.

However many Puerto Ricos later, Duncan and a bunch of Jimmy's bones fall into the freezing night air, and he reaches back through to drag Maddie out after him, collapsing on his back in the narrow ground-space available in a camper. Huffing and puffing and staring up at the ceiling, he declares, "Holy shit, a lot of stuff just happened to us!"

He shifts, pulls a bone out from his back pocket. It's a foot. "Wow, that really kicked my ass." Ahaha? Crawling over to the door, he pushes it open and leans out, looking around before saying in an awed whisper, "We're alone. They left us."

The giggles. "Maddie, we're alone, they left us, they think we died in there with Jimmy, we're out!" Yay~!

"Ohmygod. Ohmygod, we made it. We're home, we're back," Maddie collapses on the floor in the trailer, onto Duncan, clutching him and pieces of Jimmy and trying to find her breath again. She lets him peek out the door, into the emptiness around them... and when he says that they are alone? She starts to laugh. It's the kind of bubbling giggles that suggest she might've cracked, following quickly by a roar of laughter as she lays on the floor. "We're out! We're alone! Oh my GOD, Duncan, those fucking idiots! It's only been a few hours." And she laughs, and she laughs, and she laughs, and she winds up collapsing ontop of him again and laughing as she rolls around with him on the floor.

And it's going to take awhile until she finally calms down.

But when she does? And they find their phones? They realize it hasn't been a few hours.

It hasn't been a day. It hasn't even been a few days.

They've been gone an entire. fucking. month.

Well, it's a good thing they don't have real jobs or people who check in on them or anything. And also that no one came and towed their camper. But these are little mercies for which they can be grateful later, after Duncan is able to get the long-dormant camper running again, so they can warm the fuck up.

Plans will have to be made. Where do they go? What do they do? Also, they need a guide for how to put together a human skeleton - one that's got more details than Duncan's suggestion ("The head bone's connected to this bone! This bone's connected to this other bone!") - so Jimmy can start riding shotgun. On their way up to the Pacific Northwest.

Because sure. They just got out, but it seems like maybe those assholes owe Jimmy an apology. Or maybe it's just important to keep your enemies closer? Whatever the reason, they heard the Seven Ages is going to Gray Harbor. And they heard Gray Harbor is a thin point, so this camper's heading northwest.

Maybe they heard all those guys died and just want to go be sure which is going to suck since they all died in a Dream so there are no corpses but whatever.

So the arm bone ends up connected to the knee bone, and at least some of Jimmy's toe bones end up connected to his hand bone (and vice versa). But goddammit, they get him together well enough, and they put the head bone on the neck bone. Somewhere in Oregon, they buy Jimmy a hat and a pair of sunglasses, and they make their way further up the coast.

"Mom never wanted to go back to Washington," Maddie murmurs when they cross the state line. "I wonder what she'd say now." This isn't a question that can be answered though, because Maddie's mom is not a ghost.

By the time they get to Gray Harbor? There's no sign of the Seven Ages troupe, and no idea where they went next. But they do find a really nice place to park their camper. So maybe they'll just stay here awhile.