Chapter Text
Dance wandered the perimeter of their apartment like a wraith, barefoot, the cheap carpet grinding soft grit into his phalanges. Every other step, his bell-collar rattled—a sad cat toy for an audience of none. He kept his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed in his hoodie, not from cold, but to keep them from shaking. In the old human country, you wore white for mourning. Here, Dance wore blue, faded and pilled, like a bruise you couldn’t massage out.
He made it halfway past the TV stand before a snapshot snagged his attention. Lust, grinning hard enough to threaten their own cheekbones, with an arm around Red’s neck and a plastic tiara jammed over one eyelight. The photo was stuck in a frame shaped like a heart, an ugly garage-sale find Lust had insisted was “aesthetically wonderful.” Dance pressed his palm to the glass. It was colder than the air, colder than his bones. He imagined the memory underneath radiating warmth, and the tremor ran all the way to his fingertips. He bit back the whine that tried to escape.
The apartment was full of Lust. Not just the artfully scattered accessories—sunglasses on the cupboard, the dumb moose head on the hallway hook—but in the arrangement of the furniture, the crooked alignment of the rugs.
Red watched from the kitchen archway, as still and gray as a moonlit statue. He had two mugs in his hands—iced tea, clinking with the last of their fancy freezer cubes. The condensation slipped down the ceramic, gathering in a ring on the counter before Red moved, slow and deliberate, to set both on the coffee table. He left a trail of droplets like breadcrumbs. Dance heard the click of ceramic on wood, and the careful exhale Red used when words weren’t working.
Red cleared his throat, a sound that could have sandblasted the enamel off the teacups. “Figured you might want something cold,” he said, low and weirdly formal, like a waiter at a funeral. “Neither of us has been in the mood. I’m sorry, kitten. I’ll take care of you tonight though.”
Dance drifted to the couch and sat. The cushions let him sink deeper than physics allowed, like the whole thing had gone soft from grief. He wrapped his fingers around the mug’s rim and stared at the melting ice, letting the chill seep up his carpals. He tried to say “thanks,” but it came out a half-rattle, half-laugh, immediately devoured by the room’s hush. He tried again. “Thanks, Red.” It was the first words Dance had managed to say in days. His voice sounded like a stranger’s.
Red hovered a second, then settled next to him. The springs groaned. The tips of Red’s shoes—one untied, one double-knotted—knocked against the table leg, a sound like metronome ticks for the world’s slowest breakdown.
They sat side by side, hips nearly touching. Heat almost bellowing off Dance, but neither reached out. The only contact was Red’s knee, which, after a moment, found Dance’s slipper and rested against it, the pressure tentative as a child’s first handshake. Red looked down at the floor, teeth pressed together in a hard line, and spoke to the rug. “We don’t have to talk,” he said, voice even lower. “If you can’t.”
Dance’s foot kept tapping, a slow Morse code in the silence. The smell of herbs—sage, maybe, or something else Lust had claimed to “liberate the aura”—hung in the air, faint but everywhere. The diffuser was off, but the scent lingered, as if the air itself was stubbornly refusing to forget.
They could go days like this, Dance knew. Moving through the apartment as shadows, orbiting each other, only occasionally colliding. They’d never been good at explaining themselves. Lust had always translated for them—unpacking Dance’s emotions and silence for Red, distilling Red’s gruff actions for Dance, knowing when to push and when to leave well enough alone. Now, without Lust, the air felt crowded with unsent messages.
Dance sipped the tea. It was too cold, and he’d loved watermelon, but right now everything just tasted like ash, but he held it in his mouth anyway, just for the icy chilly feeling. “You don’t have to babysit,” he said, as softly as possible.
Red snorted. “Shut up,” but there was no bite in it. He leaned back, arms folded, gaze locked on a spot six inches above the TV. “S’my house too, and you're my pet.”
Dance, let that sit. He watched the ice bob in his mug. “You ever think Lust is watching us?” he said. “Like, literally? Just judging every single thing we do, now?”
Red’s eyelights flickered, but he didn’t look over. “Nah. Lust would haunt the strip club, not us.”
This got a ghost of a smile from Dance, just at the corner of his jaw. “Fair.”
They sat some more. The clock on the microwave glared 4:32, the digits green and unforgiving. In the old days, 4:32 to day was the plan for pre-party for their disaster-versary. Lust would be in the shower, Red would be in the kitchen prepping snacks, and Dance would be setting up the movie. It was supposed to be their disaster-versary. Instead, they were a party of two, commemorating with silence and tea.
Dance couldn’t stop replaying it—the alley, the sirens, the dust. Lust had died as they’d lived: too bright, too sudden, and with a bouquet in hand. Red had tried to save them, had nearly destroyed downtown doing it. Dance had arrived too late, and now every tick of the clock felt like a penalty.
Red finally broke the quiet. “Do you want me to call your brother?”
“No,” Dance said, too fast. He regretted it, but didn’t correct it . The last thing he wanted was pity. Or worse, company. He just wanted, Lust. Will Red and Lust.
Red nodded, like he’d expected it. He reached for his own tea, stared into it, and set it down again. It wasn’t his favorite tea. He had made it to cheer up, his kitten. Then he did something—he reached over, placed his hand on Dance’s thigh, and left it there. The chill of it shocked Dance more than any hug could have.
“You’re allowed to be fucked up, you know,” Red said, not looking at him.
Dance blinked. “You too.”
Red’s grip tightened a fraction. “...”
Dance looked down at the hand, the big clumsy bones, the way Red’s thumb flexed against his jeans. It would have been easy to make a joke—something about hands-on therapy, or how Lust would be jealous—but the words formed and dissolved like smoke. He wanted to pull away. To just wallow in his misery, yet did neither, letting the weight rest there, too exhausted to decide if the contact was comfort or intrusion.
He let his foot tap, slow and steady, until the rhythm matched the pulse of magic in Red’s wrist. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince him they were both still here. It helped just a bit to ease his soul.
The sun shifted outside, painting the room with pale, washed-out light. The photographs on the mantel looked back at them, endless grins and garish frames, and for a moment, Dance swore he heard Lust’s laugh in the way the pipes knocked under the floor.
He finished the tea in two long swallows. Red’s hand stayed where it was.
He squeezed Red’s hand, just once, and let his head rest against the back of the couch. The world outside was still broken, and Lust was still gone, but here, at least, there was company in the emptiness.
They stayed like that, silent and side by side, until the clock on the microwave hit 6:00 and the sun went down for real.
Red kept the house moving. He kept Dance from melting. Now Dance was living in the shower, using every towel in the house, as a coping skill, as he tried to stay cool. Red didn’t mind at all. The washing machine became his punching bag, a way for him to cope; every armful of towels heaved into the drum was a small-scale exorcism. The hallways grew humid with the scent of wet cotton and detergent, a cheap, chemical armor against the persistent sweetness of Lust’s diffusers. Red sorted the laundry without thinking, never mixing Dance’s hoodies with his own shirts, never letting Lust’s old clothes into the load. The purple vest stayed on the hook by the door, untouched and somehow heavier than everything else combined.
At 11:00 sharp, Red rapped on the bathroom door. “Lunch in fifteen.” His voice had a sadness in it, even when he tried to sand the edge down.
Dance emerged a few minutes later, hood up, jeans slouching low, a belt only half-threaded through the loops. He felt empty inside. Dance knew he shouldn’t, but he did. Every time Red took care of him, it felt like a knife. He should care. Grief was a bitch. His face was scrubbed clean, but there were ghostly streaks down the zygomatics—a trail of tears, or maybe just sleep-deprivation. He hovered in the doorway, refusing to cross into the kitchen, like there was a force field around Red’s territory.
Red was making Dance want to live. It felt like a betrayal of Lust. Even though he knew Lust would want him to live after their death.
Red filled the silence by clanging every pot in the house. He dug out a saucepan, boiled water, and spooned in the instant porridge Lust had insisted on bulk-buying, “for when i need to cook only.” This seemed Red wanted Lust here too, but Red still muttered curses at the bland, pasty slop as it burped and popped on the stove.
He split the meal between two chipped bowls—blue for Dance, white for himself. The blue one had a spiderweb crack down the side, courtesy of Lust’s attempt to teach Dance how to juggle. Red set it across from Dance’s seat, then banged his own bowl down, harder than he meant to. The sound echoed off the kitchen tile, sharp as a slap.
Dance didn’t move. He was at the windowsill, tracing infinity loops in the layer of dust that had already resettled overnight.
“Eat something,” Red said, not quite a command. “You’ll feel better.”
Dance shook his head. “I’m not hungry. Besides, I’ll just get sick again.” The depression was making it harder to keep food in Dance. His voice was threadbare, the vowels stretched out like a slow-motion car crash.
Red’s jaw flexed. He wrapped both hands around his own bowl and shoveled in a bite, chewing as if it were penance. “Suit yourself,” he managed, but he didn’t finish more than a quarter before pushing the dish away, then pulling Dance into his lap.
“What the fu-?!” Dance protest was cut off by a spoonful of goop being shoved into his mouth.
“Yah, need to eat, kitten. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of ya.” Red said.
Embarrassment painted Dance's face. “Asshole.”
Red offered anther bit, and Dance took it resentfully. Honestly, he just couldn’t bring himself to fight right now.
They spent the afternoon in separate orbits. Dance retreated to the bedroom, or the balcony, or sometimes just the floor. Red kept himself busy: folding, cleaning, stacking, resetting the same three objects on the entryway table until his fingers went numb. He fixed the broken latch on the bathroom door, using up half a tube of glue and cursing the entire time. The work helped, but not enough.
At dusk, Red found himself standing in front of the hall closet, hand on the doorknob. He debated for a long time before opening it. Lust’s shoes were lined up on the lowest shelf, four pairs—platforms, boots, scandalous heels, even a pair of sequined sneakers. None of them would ever move again. Red stood there, silent, until the chill of the hallway bit into his legs. Then he shut the door harder than necessary.
Dance was in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the rug. He was building something—a tiny tower of bottle caps and coins, balanced on a coaster. It listed to one side, but Dance’s hands were steady. Red watched him for a full minute, then walked into the entryway and yanked on his own boots.
The leather jacket went on last.
Dance didn’t look up, but his voice followed Red down the hallway. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Red grunted. “No promises, kitten.”
He stepped into the alley, the city pressing in on all sides. Rain had fallen sometime in the afternoon, and now the asphalt glistened under the streetlights, every puddle a cracked mirror. The neighborhood was quiet—too quiet, considering the news cycle and the fact that monsters had a fresh bullseye painted on their backs.
Edge had told Red a monster hate group member had killed Lust. Red remembered a human with a leather jacket with writing on it. At the time, he had been too busy looking for Lust to realize what that meant.
Red stalked through the maze of back streets, ignoring the way every window seemed to squint in his direction. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets, but inside, the magic prickled, eager for a fight, looking for the human protesters.
He hit the old district first, the bars and corner shops that hadn’t bothered with renovation. The monster district. Lust had liked this part of town. Red checked the alleys, the dumpsters, the shadowed doorways where scumbags liked to smoke and gloat. He moved with purpose, checking each haunt and dead end.
Nothing. No scent, no scrap of fabric, not even the adrenaline taste of violence still hanging in the air.
He pushed on, letting instinct guide him. Every so often, he’d see a spray-painted symbol on a brick wall: the “PURITY NOW” logo, sometimes X’d out with monster glyphs, or the delta ruin. Red spat at each one, just on principle.
He made it to the warehouse district as midnight rolled in. The sky was the color of old bruises. In the distance, police sirens flared, then faded. Red walked the perimeter of a storage lot, eyeing the loading bay where Lust had once talked a nicecream vender into selling him a few bars. Just by flirting and a five-dollar bribe.
He missed them so much it made his dust hurt.
He paced the block, then doubled back. He saw nobody—no stalkers, no gunmen, no ghosts. Red dug in his pocket and fingered the strip of purple leather he’d brought from home. Lust’s collar, powdery at the ends. He held it to his face, inhaled, and let the anger roll through him, raw and electric.
He’d find the bastard who did this. He’d make them regret it.
Red took the long way home, through the park where Lust had once tripped and faceplanted into a flowerbed. He paused by the playground, staring at the empty swings. The wind made them creak, an eerie, bone-on-bone music.
He imagined Lust sitting beside him, legs kicked out, head thrown back in laughter. He could almost hear them. “Stop brooding, sweetheart,” they’d say. “It’s not a good look on you.” Red smiled, then let the image dissolve.
He made it back to the apartment just before dawn. The city was waking up, or maybe it never really slept. Red slipped inside, boots silent on the mat.
Dance was sprawled on the couch, hoodie pulled over his skull, one hand cradling the remote like a security blanket. He was asleep, or as close as a grief-filled monster got to it. His face was slack, peaceful in the predawn gloom.
Red took off the jacket and dropped it over Dance. He watched Dance for a moment; the skeleton sighing and cuddling into the jacket, then Red crossed to the windowsill and wiped away the infinity loops. He drew a heart in the dust, just for the hell of it, then sat down at the table and waited for the sun.
He’d keep the house moving. He’d keep Dance safe, even if it meant burning down half the city to do it.
The rest could wait.