Quoted By:
"Out there? You're asleep." You tilt your head back. "Or not asleep anymore, I guess. Probably freaking out. I told you I'd be on a heist, but I thought I'd be back before you woke up, not... hey, would you be staying at Earl's, or would you be going back to camp? If you woke up and you knew I was going on a heist but I didn't tell you where it was, and I hadn't come back from it yet. And Earl was gone too. Gimme your gut reaction."
"Earl's gone too? Uh, I-I'd— I'd go back. I think." He grimaces. "Do you need me to go out there? I-I-If you're in a bad spot, I don't want to..."
"I'll be fine," you say, and semi-believe it. "I don't know what body you'd use, anyhow. That was all I really need to know, the— where you'd go. So thanks."
"You're welcome...?" Gil looks up into the boughs of the tree. "Um, I-I-I should stop bothering you. And go make sure Richard isn't messing with, um..."
"I think he's just sitting down there." You sit up, swaying the hammock, and shield your eyes. Richard is halfway down the hill, indeed sitting. A cloud of cigarette smoke wafts from him. "And anyhow, he wouldn't mess with your stuff. He's nice now."
"Or lobotomized, or something. I-I-I don't... we don't have to talk about it now. Good luck, um, napping." He winces. "Or have fun, or..."
"Thanks," you say, and lay back down, and put your arm over your eyes, and sleep.
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>[SOMEWHERE ELSE]
"Hey, Bug Man! Watch your step!"
You are Gil Wallace, and you are not in your own locus... um, manse, you guess they call it out here. Fuck. Whatever. If only you were in your own manse. If only you weren't trapped on a steamy morning death-march through the most unpleasant terrain you've ever laid eyes on, manses included, with a pair of some of the most terrifying women you've ever met, one of whom you <span class="mu-i">were,</span> a couple days ago, and the other of whom shot you in the head, and both of whom will not stop calling you "Bug Man," despite the obvious fact that you possess zero visible bugs right now.
And no Lottie. None. Which is why you're <span class="mu-i">on</span> this death-march, so you do blame her for it, then blame yourself for blaming her for it, since <span class="mu-i">you</span> were the one who let her head off god-knows-where in the middle of the goddamn night, with that asshole Earl, whom you never trusted to begin with— who lets a bunch of strangers stay in his house with zero advance warning? A psycho, apparently, because <span class="mu-i">he's</span> gone too, probably off nutting it over Lottie's dead body— says the less reasonable part of you, with the more reasonable part of you holding the stance that you've thought she was dead probably a half-dozen times since you've known her, which has not, in real-time, been any length at all. And she was still kicking it after all of those. So probability is on her side, plus she has Richard, and that sword, and technically you, even, though you can't imagine you'd be any help at all. You useless asshole. Sound asleep when she left.
(2/3?)
