Archive of Our Own

Constance lay flat on her stomach, a comic resting open on her pillow. She squinted at it and cocked her masked head, scratching her ankle with one bare toe. Scout hadn’t shut up about the latest edition of Femvaders From Mars ever since they had found out it would launch a month after summer ceasefire started, but if Constance was being honest with herself, it had been a big punctured balloon wheeze of a letdown. The plot had gotten even more difficult to follow and her favorite Femvader had died, something which had made her so upset and irritated that the comic had been banished into the pile of scrap wood from the old shed Engie had redone at the start of summer. A day or two later the comic was back on her bedside table, plucked from certain death by burning, as it was Constance’s job to dispose of the old rotten boards once he was finished adding to the pile. The message was clear without Engie having to say anything, without him having to puncture his air of certain innocence she had surely merely misplaced it - she should finish it, give it another go. Constance had rolled her eyes really hard, but she was reading it again, wasn’t she? Well, it was still shitty, but Scout would also certainly stick his lip out and pout for weeks if they went back to work and he found out she hadn’t read it. She wasn’t ever up for a critical literature review of the type that Heavy and Spy had, over wine and a haze of thick cigarette smoke, a review that she only knew about because having a fire in a fireplace anywhere in the base was like ringing the dinner bell for her to come lay on the rug and stare - anyway, she didn’t ever want to discuss anything to that extent, but Scout would interpret her page drawings and doodles well enough.

The only sounds were the rustling of the pages and the sound of buzzing summer bugs, and here and there, snatches of the barn radio drifting on the breeze up through her second-story window. The sensation of air on her bare legs and feet was so new and foreign and weird and it kind of hurt, like the air was full of tiny scraping fingernails, tiny kissing bugs that she had to swat away and holler that she would like to be left alone, please! It was not too warm today, not so warm that they had to shut up the house and make it like a fridge.

It gets hot up there, Engie had said, doing this funny thing where he seemed afraid to meet her gaze for too long whenever they got on the subject of the house, heat rises and all. It was because it was an old farmhouse that he had spent a lot of money and time on air conditioning, no other reason, not because last summer he had looked pale as a ghost and awful wry every time he’d spot her slumped and silent and halfway melting on some piece of furniture, wilting like an underwatered plant. If Constance had been any less exhausted by the heat she would’ve curled her lip and growled at him. Just because he had invited her here didn’t mean that anything would change, it didn’t mean that she would have a sort of chrysalis transformation to showing skin like the Femvaders! She was prepared to bite over it!

To his credit, Engie had never suggested it, never dared to mention that she might think to change out of her heavy clothes that obscured her body like a thick blanket of snow over the ground. Two weeks into that first summer he’d just gone straight to the fridge and scribbled a list on a notepad stuck fast there by a magnet - Pyro Projects. A list by which the mere existence of it implied a permanency of her, here, in his house. That summer had been the air conditioning, this summer was the shed, and the amount of projects that were continually there made her worry there were not enough summers in the world. Constance suspected that if she went in the kitchen now there would be something else - pool - because the other day they’d had a sort of standoff in the stairwell, him coming out of the bathroom and locking eyes with her coming upstairs, her bare legs wet and dripping a puddle on each step, her baggy long-sleeved shirt going plink plink plink as more water flicked off the hem as she moved. She’d come upstairs to retrieve some of the rubber ducks out of the bathtub to enjoy the swim as well. How did she get so wet, Engie had wanted to know, torn between a grimace and a laugh, and so Constance had gone back down the stairs and out the door, backwards all the way, and gone around the side of the farmhouse to show him the hose she’d stuck in one of the garbage bins. Aw, that’s gross, Pyro, he’d said, while she stood with her bare wet toes collecting dirt and grass, and decided not to tell him that she’d been taking sips of the water, pulling out the neck of her mask and letting the waterline rise in the dark like she was on the Titanic. If she gulped fast enough, she could maybe drink the whole ocean. The supply store’s got feed troughs that might work just fine, better’n somethin’ plastic.

If Engie was mad about all the trouble he’d gone to with the air conditioning last year just to see her start walking around in his taking-out-the-trash sandals, too big for her feet and slapping like flippers on the ground - oh - that was an idea, she should see if the store had flippers and a snorkel, especially the snorkel because it had kind of felt like she’d been drowning a little in her mask when she couldn’t drink quickly enough, it felt like when the enemy Medic was steaming mad and held her head under the water - anyway, her usual big long shirt but with his sandals and the thin shorts that she usually wore underneath her fireproof suit, if he was angry at the sight of her legs, he didn’t show it. 

Her being here in this house used to be like a penny on the train tracks, a shiny little disturbance that Constance didn’t know what to do with after it was all smushed and reformed, and her unease stemmed from her distillation that her presence was making Engie uneasy. She didn’t want to, he who was normally so unflappable when it came to her; Constance didn’t think she could bear it if he grew sudden wings and flapped away without her.

Last year, a few months away from summertime, Miss Pauling had come and told them that they would have a week off in the summer while some things were being figured out. There was more information than that, but Constance couldn’t remember well. What mattered was she suddenly had a problem dropped down her front like steaming bird shit - if they were shuttering up the base, where was she supposed to go? She had forced down the slight lump in her throat even though it made her esophagus balloon and hurt something awful. Of course she had money now, more than she knew what to do with, she would go into town and into the motel and shove cash at them until they said yes, and if they said no, she had spent a lot of time living outside on the lam, a week would be nothing! Constance was fairly sure that if she even decided not to leave the base and merely squirrel herself away in some corner of the ceiling, they’d never find her.

But then Engie had been very kind, and the next time they were alone together he had offered it, so casually, as if her was not tossing her a life preserver of an idea - well, I was hoping you’d come stay with me in Bee Cave, I got an old shed to take down and it’s really a two person job, especially to mind the fire. They didn’t end up getting to the shed that year, but Engie didn’t seem to mind. And so she had gone with him, in his pickup truck, all the way to Texas. Engie was chatty enough in the car, but when they pulled in the gravel drive and he hopped out of the truck to disable the security measures at the gate and hopped back in, and driven further and then they’d gotten out and stood in front of the big old yellow farmhouse with a porch, he had seemed nervous, and wrung his hands. Well, he’d said, all casual and quiet like this wasn’t some sort of palace of homeliness, this is it. Make yourself at home. Nausea and upset had stricken Constance, same as the quick onset of an illness you would get from eating something out of the trash. Nora had said that to her, once, and Constance had gone through it like a dust devil, it was her home as much as Nora’s and then she had brought it down on top of the both of them when she’d invited fire inside. Fire was the only friend that she’d had left that had roared to life when she’d needed it, after all the awful cleaves of her soul in two until surely it must be shreds, it had licked at her skin and brought the smell of cinnamon and chocolate.

Constance had a home, now, a moving roving home with wherever her team was, but this was a real home, a proper house. More lived-in and comfortable and picture-book than the one she’d grown up in. Engie pointed out the room that would be hers on the second floor, it was neat and cozy and when her bag thumped down on the floor there was a shower of pink and blue fizzling sparks, and the gingham lines on the bedsheets went licorice-wavy to say hello. She waved back, somewhat nervously. 

The first night Engie had said lovely night to eat outside and came to join her in the yard, and when Constance closed her eyes she could still remember the sound of forks rattling against plates as he carried them, the smell of cornbread, the sound of crickets, the crackle and pop of the fire she’d set and the stone grind of the bricks she’d set into place to make a little doghouse for her friend, where she could call it out to play.

Engie was always asking if she needed anything, if she wanted anything, like he was sure that she must have an answer for him. When she would shake her head because she still wasn’t used to asking and would only take if it was there, or go find where it was, well, maybe it was easier for her to come to the store with him and have him ask this or that, firebug to an amount of things to excessively personalize a room that was only meant to hold her for a week. There was also a closet in the hallway that maybe Miss Pauling, summering somewhere too, had magic access to - because it was always excessively full of tubes of toothpaste and other sundries, and over time the toothpaste flavors changed from peppermint to bubblegum, just like hers at the base. Magic!

The week-long ceasefire turned into two weeks, then three and four, and then they were supposed to come back in a couple months. Constance wasn’t sure if it all meant that the war was going good or bad, that so much time was being spent figuring out how best they could win it. She squatted in the yard and felt much like the blades of grass she would patiently and carefully cleave in twain with her axe. On one hand, it was great, a sort of perpetual heavenly oven of being at Engie’s house, but she also felt somewhat gloomy that he did not seem to be himself and neither was she. After how close they’d become at work, how much they helped each other in the field and how much time they spent together just existing easily in the same space, it needled at her something awful. He was the one that understood her garblings and inclinations and feelings best, that had stuck by her side in the most stalwart way, who had wanted to know her and now did, and Constance liked to think that she knew him best too, in ways the others didn’t. He hung out with Medic when he was ponderous or in an excited science mood and Soldier when he was testing something explosive and fun and with the others, always happy or bright, but Constance was pretty sure that she was the only one that he still hung out with if he was sad. It didn’t seem to matter what sort of mood she or Engie were in, it was just expected that they were together.

The first couple weeks were very awkward - Engie clearly didn’t wish to disturb her at whatever it was she wished to do, but Constance wasn’t sure what it was she wished to do and was sure she wished to be disturbed. There were things to do if she wanted to busy herself but mostly a total absence of things she absolutely had to do, and Constance had not bathed in leisure of that sort since she was a child. Now she feared she might drown in it. When she had been on the run there was also nothing much to do sometimes, but she had always been on high alert, looking over her shoulder, and that was a sort of hobby itself. The long summer days stretched and blurred, a big pulled taffy of free time. There was not a lot of time that they weren’t fighting RED and so it gave their recreational time a sort of valued meaning, but now she was being overfed and almost sick with it. Engie said she could do anything, that she didn’t have to clean or cook, that she was his guest and it wasn’t like at work while they were all on rotation to do those things and maybe it would just be a good idea for her to do her own laundry. In those first couple weeks she did a lot of looking. There were a lot of pictures in Engie’s house, a lot of memories whispering across the floor like dust bunnies, a lot of personal touches that were so very Engie or maybe the touches of others that had become his. Lacy tablecloth, a hand towel patterned with chickens, cream-colored heavy ceramic plates. Sometimes she would weed even though Engie told her it might be futile to try and keep a sense of order about the landscaping when they were away most of the year. They, he’d said, like she’d always been a fixture and always would be. Well, Constance had never been able to weed a yard before, and it was hot and sweaty work but she was bettering something.

She had brought crayons for the walls of her new room and fire and of course he had a television, but without any work she tired quickly of doing things to pass the hours and had to get creative. She was not much used to being alone anymore, there was always another member of the team to hang out with, or Engie himself in his workshop. But Engie was apparently used to being alone, in this house, because Constance kept accidentally scaring him. That first summer she’d crept downstairs when she couldn’t sleep and heard the television still on, and the staircase creaked and Engie’s eyes had shot open from where he had been dozing on the couch and gone straight to the reflection of her lenses in the dark and he’d gone Lord have mercy on my soul before he remembered she was there now too. And one time she’d jumped down from the hayloft chasing iridescent dragonflies and didn’t realize he had just come into the barn, and his hand had flown to his heart like an old woman with his eyes as big as plates. Constance had stood up slowly and decided not to tell him it felt like she had rolled her ankle.

At least he had gotten used to her presence quickly, because Constance did not much feel like changing her schedule at his side whenever he was in the barn. The barn was something else, absolutely stuffed to the gills with projects and blueprints and tools like a fish ready to roast and choking on herbs. Engie spent a lot of his time there, when he wasn’t in the kitchen or in the house, and she wondered if he missed work. She did, sort of, but it would also be fine if the world ceased to exist outside of the electric fence. 

As the ceasefire stretched on, they slowed their dance of this awful oscillating jig that had reminded Constance of when she’d first started working at BLU. She took a lot of walks around the perimeter, short ones in her heavy thick clothes. She sat outside in the shadow cast by the old farmhouse and dug holes to find bugs, she watched television and cleaned and crawled around the hayloft of the barn, she weeded and colored and handed Engie tools and burned newspapers in her pit, her head in the evenings went slack against the back of the couch or against his shoulder because he loved to watch truly awful boring movies, they played cards and she read and drew in her comics. A lot of the evenings they would eat outside by the fire and Engie would play the banjo or the guitar, and Constance would look up at the moon or out across the yard, her gaze out of focus. It was a loose ooze of aimless time around delicious meals and board games and sometimes going for car rides when Engie needed to go to the hardware store or the regular store. He did say that they could go places, see things, and Constance would shrug and say maybe because the yellow farmhouse was really all she needed in her vision. And at some point it just became normal, him steering the cart around the frightened faces of mothers with giggling babies, did you finish these off yet, well, let’s get more they’re on sale, Constance trailing and lugging a big old case of beer with a pair of flippers on top. It was something special, just the two of them. Constance thought she could quite get used to summer after all and they might have to pry her away and back to work like a wet cat clinging to a shower curtain.

The best and worst day of the whole summer was Engie’s birthday. Constance had only found out about it when she’d been leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for biscuits to come out of the oven and flipped through the thing on the wall - and it hit her like a train that she must do something to express the intensity of her gratitude for his existence, that in a little over a year he had become the person she was closest to in the world, and she had to make up for her missing of last year’s birthday as well because it had happened right after they had started work. Constance had a whole lot of money and not a lot to do with it, but the panic had set in of what to get him - what did you get a man who could build or buy himself whatever whim crossed his mind? She had really panicked about it, her mind frustratingly blank at the most important time. In the end she had gotten him a mug, one she’d snatched from the shelf when they were at the store - yes, of course she had the money to pay for it, but how was she supposed to get to the store when Engie wasn’t there, and she couldn’t have him seeing it! It had two check marks that said hard at work and hardly working, with the latter checked, and it had made Constance laugh when she had first spotted it. She had also filled the trash can in her room all the way up with half-burnt paper because she kept restarting her attempt at a card. She wished she had long hair to grasp and tear out, not short tufts that her fingers would slip through! It was impossible to pluck the right words out of the air on a normal day and here she was trying to solve some kind of formula that perfectly and correctly expressed the depth of her affection - but she was awful at math!

Engie had laughed out loud when he saw the mug, and nodded, and grinned. I love it, he’d said, and chuckled again. And then he’d read her card, and she’d watched his face go soft and his eyebrows draw up like he was upset and then back down again, and the lines around his eyes crinkled, and he’d just looked at her and smiled, and then gotten up and cleared his throat.

Happy birthday, Constance had mumbled, fighting the urge to breathe fire, because when she was that upset it felt like if she shook herself around enough the right things inside her would click together and create a spark and it’d happen. She hadn’t accomplished her objective, it was a shitty gift and he deserved so much more, he deserved her brain to work right and think of something better. She was glad that Engie was distracted after dinner with a movie, one of his favorite westerns, because she sat there on the couch and clamped her lips shut against the vicious bile of disappointment.

Then they went back to work, with a lot more traveling bases that year, and stories to share with their teammates about their summers. It felt a lot like coming back from summer vacation to school, if school was them all being teachers on how best to kill somebody.

They found out earlier that year that they would be doing the same thing over the summer - there would be another ceasefire. Oh, sparks shot from the ceiling lights so fiercely! Her vision went dark and Constance somewhat distantly felt her body crash into the kitchen table like a breaching dolphin among many shouts of irritation and protest that she was messing up the card game. To have such a summer again!

This time, it was even better because it was like one of the beaten-up puzzles that was shoved up in a closet in the base. Everything was well-used to fitting right where it should be. Constance had thrown herself down onto her summer bed with such gusto the wooden frame made an alarming creaking sound. Engie squatted in the hallway rearranging the stuff in the closet and tossed out some things behind him - oh, forgot this was in here, old soft sweatshirts and a shiny new squeaky pair of sandals in her size. 

The first week of the second summer, Engie had set down his fork on his plate and licked his lips of bacon grease and gone all right, firebug, I’ll get the crowbar and you get your sledgehammer, and the two of them had planned to rip and smash at the shed with gusto, her in her squeaking sandals and new old sweatshirt that hung down to her knees, skinny scarred legs sticking out - well, they were not skinny anymore, she’d gained weight and muscle from all the food and running and kept it at the end of the year respawn update, and the summer absence of all the running was new, but she was not willing to look any more closely than that. She’d ignored Engie’s suggestion to wear her boots in case of splinters and rusty nails because she wanted to wear the new shoes, and then he’d insisted, not loud but firm, respawn can’t get us all the way out here, firebug. He was being ridiculous to suggest she could die from a splinter or a nail! But she’d gone back to the house, squeaking and sulking petulantly all the way. Building the scrap wood pile had been fun and they had decided to save the burning for Engie’s birthday that year. His birthday would be especially exciting, because some of the mercenaries were either coming back from their home countries a little early or had never left at all and were vacationing somewhere new, and they were going to come over for a barbeque! And they could make lemonade and bake a cake. Sometimes Constance wondered how much better life could get.

But there was the buzzing-fly issue that she was unable to swat away that she needed to do better about his gift. She had all year to think about it, all year to ask Scout and Medic and fuck, she was about to climb up the wall and hug the security camera and garble out to the Voice that watched them all that surely, surely, there would be something that would express everything she wanted to express, something that it would have picked up on that she hadn’t. Scout, at least, agreed that Engie was hard to shop for, and that his mom was really easy to shop for so he couldn’t be of any help. Heavy had said something cryptic like Pyro’s presents is enough, which no, Heavy, that was the whole problem, her presents weren’t enough, and besides she’d only gotten him one thing last year, hadn’t he been listening?

Smissmas was easier, because this year they did Secret Santa and she got Soldier, and all she had to do was buy him an alarm clock that played the national anthem really loudly, and Spy’s room was next to Soldier’s and he wouldn’t stop giving her the stink eye over their morning coffee. Last year she’d made an impulse purchase and bought Engie a desk lamp that was just a huge lightbulb on a big arm that clamped to the desk, and one time in the workshop he’d looked up from his blueprints so seriously at her and pulled the big lightbulb behind his head, and said, I’ve got it, and hit the switch. She’d laughed and laughed and clapped her hands. This year all she could think of was stupid things, this year it didn’t matter how many nights she sat in bed and rolled around like a bowling pin, her head narrowly missing the wall, her soul missing the yellow farmhouse, she couldn’t think of anything.

There was the sound of crackling and gravel pinging against metal from the driveway.

“Firebug,” Constance heard Engie call cheerfully from the barn, “Team’s here!”

Constance threw down the comic and shot out of bed, her thumbs hooking around the waistband of her shorts. She shimmied out of them and back into a pair of sweatpants, jammed her feet into socks and then she was out the door, her feet jackhammering on the stairs, only stopping to pull on her boots by the door. Through the living room windows she could see Engie already standing in the yard, his hands on his hips, his head thrown back in laughter. Constance pulled open the front door and leapt, sailing over the porch with her arms outstretched.

“G’day, Pyro!”

Her arms locked around Sniper’s middle and she squeezed until he emitted a sort of choking noise, patting her on the head. He looked more tan than usual and winked at her behind his orange-tinted lenses. There was another car pulling up behind his camper van, a small compact one with two occupants, one with a smile bright and big enough to rival the sun and the other who looked very grumpy and ready to leave the vehicle. Soldier saluted and Medic waved, and Constance jogged over to give them each a hug, Medic’s the shortest because they had settled like sediment into a friendly relationship but she was still a little wary of him and maybe he could tell. It was still so odd to see her teammates in their non-work summer clothes! It was their first time at Engie’s house, and so Constance trailed behind the group as Engie gave them the tour. It was weird seeing their eyes rove over things that had previously just been her and Engie’s. There was where she normally sat on the couch, marked by her bunny slippers halfway under the side table, there was the spare bathroom, where scissors were still hanging over the side of the sink from when she’d hacked at her growing hair again recently. It made Constance feel sort of prickly, and so she went back outside.

She didn’t often go into the barn without Engie, because it was just better with him in it, but everyone was in the house so she went there now. The guts of an old box fan were strewn out over the workbench and there were all sorts of things strewn here and there, a field ripe for picking beneath the big sloped roof. Constance wandered over to one of the tables - there was the mug she’d gotten Engie last year, full of cold coffee, and one of her pencils with a rubber doughnut eraser on the end. A bookshelf full of blueprints like the scrolls of some ancient monastery, extension cords, the radio. And underneath the blades of a fan - a catalogue.

Constance pinched the edge and tugged it from out underneath the part. It was from some sort of outdoor store, the cover had a mountain and trees on it. The pages it was open to were about jackets, really nice and expensive ones, waxed cloth and lined, a big thick collar and lots of pockets, there was one of those circled in bright red marker and then as she flipped through Constance saw other things. Engie had used firm, confident pressure to circle these, and Constance traced the shapes with one gloved finger. Reinforced, heavy-duty overalls, thick wool socks. Why hadn’t he bought them for himself? It wasn’t as if the money they made every month wouldn’t cover it, and Engie wasn’t a frivolous person but he was like her, he liked his comforts, and was never shy to requisition his favorite things.

Constance flipped through the catalogue some more and then at the back she found a description about this store - it was in Colorado. How far away was that? Constance scratched the back of her masked head as she tried desperately to recall. Not far? Engie’s birthday was at the end of the long weekend their teammates had come down for, and surely she would be out and in as quick as a mouse. But - no, it would not work, she could not bear to risk missing the cake and lemonade and barbeque. She would go after his birthday and her gifts would be so good and perfect because she would be certain it was exactly what Engie wanted that it would be the best of his birthdays. But how would she get there? Well - she had two feet, didn’t she? 

Constance stood there and gripped the catalogue, and nearly crushed it in her grip, shuddering against the violent thrill that went through her. A plan was developing in her mind, one that seemed to drip golden sugar, that seemed to fling it with its oscillation around the sun, and little shiny spun thin threads formed a soft cloud that lifted her up and away.

Constance sat and brimmed with glee, she was nearly rigid in her attempt to not spill the cup of it. It had already been such a good birthday for Engie, and they were all sitting full of barbeque and cake and warm by the big bonfire that she had set, and drinking beer. Constance hoovered her own through its straw. The straw crackled loudly as she slurped all the remaining liquid up out of the bottle, and Engie looked at her, his face half-caressed by the night and half-bathed in the light of the fire. He smiled at her, his face all soft again. He was kind of drunk, they were all drinking a lot, so much that it felt like some of the fire had gone down their throats and inside their bodies. Constance wanted to seize the front of Engie’s flannel and shake him, she could nearly not contain her secret! But she had to remain vigilant - her plan would not work if she was in too much of a stupor.

She had given Engie her gift that morning, her placeholder gift, which was an especially pretty flower growing near the fire pit that Constance had scooped up and rescued out of the ash and plopped down on the kitchen counter. Engie had put it in a pot and watered it and said it was real pretty. She could not wait to go to bed and for tomorrow to come, despite how much she was enjoying today! The catalogue crinkled in her pocket enthusiastically! 

When she had been helping Engie and her teammates make dinner, they were all talking about the rest of the mercenaries’ summer plans before they had to go back to work, and Sniper had mentioned his big old road trip up to Montana, and Constance had spotted Colorado on the map that he had laying on the kitchen counter! Oh! Her balloonicorn had come down from upstairs and sailed above all their heads, whinnying in jubilation and releasing waves of sparkles that Constance reached up to touch at. This was absolutely perfect! She hugged Sniper because he did not yet know how much he was helping her, and then hugged Medic too because he was there. Medic chuckled and patted her shoulder. You look well, he had told her earlier, fixing her with a sort of knowing x-ray smile. She was!

The next morning came, the slow silent rise of the sun, and Constance was quiet as a mouse and also like a mouse, the only one awake. She had dressed and packed her backpack and then stuffed a bunch of her plushies underneath the bedcovers so it looked like she was still there, sleeping. She would be back before Engie even noticed she was gone! She crept down the stairs, well-used to which steps creaked, and ghosted through the living room, and out the front door where she could feel the chill of the morning air through her clothes, and across the yard, her boots careful on the gravel, and-

Constance stopped, one boot raised, and then lowered her foot. She held the straps of her backpack and stared - fuck, she had forgotten that despite Engie offering all of her teammates rooms there was one of them who would have preferred to sleep in a familiar space, and he was probably in there now, and he would surely wake up if she came in, and ruin everything. So instead, she dropped down into a squat and then on her belly and shimmied and crawled underneath the car, her backpack pressing her ribs uncomfortably into little bits of rock, but Constance drew her lips over bared teeth and glared imploringly at the ground underneath her lens - it was being ridiculous if it thought such a thing would make her give up! Engie was worth a thousand bits of gravel, even the shiny gold gravel that Soldier hoarded and thought no one else knew about.

She might have laid there for a few hours before she heard the van start to move, and the aquarium noises of Sniper inside. Constance could hear the floor shift, his cough, the clearing of his throat. She had to wait several moments more before finally, finally, the door creaked open and she saw his booted feet step onto the ground. Sniper retreated away from her and towards the house, probably in search of some breakfast.

Constance latched onto her chance with fanged teeth. She burst into action, squeezing and squirming out from underneath the van and into the camper, and for a moment she stood there breathing, in a wide stance with her arms outstretched. She had been inside Sniper’s camper before but it looked more lived-in, probably because he had been living in it while he had been road-tripping. Sniper was messy! There were clothes scattered everywhere, and beer bottles and chip bags, and a few balls of yarn. Constance paid the clutter little mind. She beelined for the table and squirreled herself underneath it and held her backpack against her chest. There was a comfy pile of toilet paper rolls to sit against, at least. She had chosen one of Engie’s hoodies for this trip that was a dark blue, and a pair of dark blue jeans that she was still getting used to and truthfully didn’t much like - the texture of them was too rough against her skin - but they were dark and more suitable than her sweatpants. It would hopefully be very difficult to spot her, especially with Sniper’s height, unless he squatted to look at her. Constance could not help but release a wild giggle. She was good at hiding when she wanted to, and oh, what a good way to use her skills! Excitement rippled through her, raspberry flavor. Her trip was about to begin!

Constance was dismayed to admit that her excitement was somewhat wilting. She rested her head glumly against the camper wall, and there was another bump in the road which in turn bumped her and her sore ass. It seemed that Sniper had been driving for ages and ages and ages, sort of longer than Constance thought. She did not have a very good sense of how long it took to drive places or how far away places were, she had either walked or hitchhiked or train-hiked and that had been years ago, and when they went as a team to new bases she was usually busy scratching pictures into the seat cushions with Spy’s knife, which he was always angry to find out she had, and then he’d take it back from her and she’d get mad and there had been a few times where someone had lost a finger or a hand, but overall they were great trips.

At least there were snacks and water in here, and she had brought some more snacks in her backpack, but she really had to pee. Constance was afraid to leave the van if Sniper did stop, however, because what if he drove off without her? Well, of course she had thought of that - she would just steal a car, how hard could it be to drive one? Right before they’d had summer ceasefire, Medic had gotten his hands on an old decommissioned ambulance that he was fixing up for some mysterious purpose, and Constance had gotten to sit in the front. It had been fun to seize the gearstick and wrench it, to turn the wheel. Medical emergency! She would have made an amazing ambulance driver because she would not be afraid to keep her foot down on the gas always. She would do that or hitchhike or she’d walk. She’d done it before. But it would be better to stay with Sniper, of course, because he was her friend. How thrilled he’d be when he found out the part he’d played in her plan! Constance hugged her knees and backpack more tightly. It would all be over soon!

It was not, as it turned out, over soon. Constance had lost track of how much time it had been, but it had become worryingly really dark in the camper before Sniper stopped, and she worryingly ravenous. She had eaten all her snacks and had to pee so bad it hurt. Anger and upset sparked away within her like the lighter clutched between her gloved fingers. Clink. Clink. Clink. What the hell? Was Sniper driving them to hell? Well, with all they had done, even that shouldn’t have taken so long. 

But eventually, he did stop. Constance felt the camper slow, and then there was a jolt as it parked. A good deal of her irritation fizzled out - they were here, at least! It was so goddamn dark that the store was probably closed by now, so she would wait until the next morning. Constance shifted as best she could to give her muscles a stretch, and ignored the plaintive yowl of her stomach. Spoiled, her mother’s voice shrieked somewhere distantly, and for once, Constance could not help but agree. She had once survived off of so little, couldn’t her stomach wait a little longer to start complaining?

A bolt of fear shot through her when Constance heard the door to the camper opening and someone stepping in. Well, of course - this was where Sniper slept, too, of course he was going to be in here with her. Constance watched his tall skinny legs move around. He was muttering something to himself, and she heard his joints pop as he stretched. And then, to her utter terror, Sniper squatted right in front of her, and his hand shot out and bumped into her knee. Constance saw his eyes go wider than she’d ever thought anyone’s eyes could go, just like Engie’s had gone that one night, and his mouth wrenched into a crooked, jagged scar, a gasp escaping from between parted lips. He fell on his ass and scrambled backwards on the floor away from her, his sunglasses askew on his nose.

“Bloody hell! Pyro!”

They stared at each other, Sniper’s chest heaving and Constance’s heart hammering, and she raised a gloved hand in a small, tentative wave.

“What,” he said slowly, as if he might have missed her clear objective, “are you doing? Get out from under there!”

Constance obeyed. She pushed her backpack out and then scooted out from underneath the table, pressing her hands to her lower back as she stood and stretched. Oh, it felt good to stand! Sniper got to his feet, too, but he was still eyeing her warily. “You gonna give an explanation for scarin’ me half to death?”

“Are we there yet?” Constance asked, a bit impatiently. “I have to pee.”

“Are we…” his eyebrows scrunched together as he worked at understanding her. “Are we where?”

Constance, well and frustrated, pulled the crumpled catalogue from her pocket. She slapped it down on the table and tapped it impatiently. “I have to pee,” she repeated.

Sniper seemed to squint at the catalogue for an infinity. Finally, Constance could wait no longer. With a huff, she dropped into a squat and retrieved one of the squished rolls of toilet paper, barging past Sniper to leave the camper. “Don’t leave,” she shouted over her shoulder.

When she came back, feeling much better, Sniper had his arms folded in a way that Constance did not like. He was sitting in one of the built-in seats and when he saw her come back in he gestured for her to take the other one. She sat.

“Why the hell do you want to go here?”

“You’re going there.”

“Right. So you…you stowaway in me camper, because…you aren’t runnin’ away, are you?” He looked stricken at the very thought, or perhaps the thought of being involved in it. Running away? Why the hell would he think that? Constance released a short bark of a laugh and shook her head. 

“It’s for Engie.” Constance opened the catalogue and found some of the things that he’d circled, and she tapped them again. She huffed a breath. “Are we there yet?”

Sniper pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, Pyro, we’re not, and we’re not gonna be for…for at least another day! And now I got to turn around and bring you back. You’re ruinin’ me road trip schedule, you know that?”

His words stung her like he had set a bee inside her clothes. Constance sat still while her fingertips dug into her thighs. 

“Don’t,” she said.

“You know that Truckie’s got to be out of his bloody mind by now,” Sniper replied sharply, “Please tell me you at least left a note.”

When she did not say anything, Sniper sucked in a breath and dragged his hands down his face. “Right, then. We’re turning around.”

“Don’t!”

“Pyro-”

“I’ll go anyway,” she half-shouted, getting to her feet. “I’ll find a way to go there anyway or I’ll walk, and it’ll take longer, but I wanted to go with you!”

It was unclear how much of her impassioned speech Sniper actually understood, but he muttered something under his breath and stood up too. “You can stay,” he said, jabbing a finger in her direction, “But I’m gonna find a pay phone and-”

“You can’t! It’s a surprise. For his birthday.” Constance snatched at the catalogue and waved it in front of his face, leaping into the air with tremendous force channeled by the tips of her toes. “Please! Please! Please!”

Sniper, aghast, watched her jump, his eyes tracking her up and down. Shaken by her jumping, her backpack fell to the side, and perhaps within the opening he spotted the shiny polished blade of her axe. He finally plucked the catalogue from her hand. “Fine! Fine, don’t throw a bloody tantrum. But we’re going straight there and straight back. And you’ve got to tell Truckie that you’da chopped my head off otherwise. Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Constance cheered.

Sniper allowed her to sit up front in the cabin of the truck the next day. He was really grumpy because he’d taken the floor of the camper so she could have the bed and Constance guessed it wasn’t very comfortable. She’d offered to switch, telling him she’d spent plenty of nights on the floor, but he refused. She kept quiet and silent until they had passed by a roadside diner and Sniper got out to get them some coffee and breakfast to go. Constance turned away from him as she vacuumed up the contents of the container and drank her coffee. It was much nicer up here than under the table, where she could see the sights!

Of all the surprises to pick, Sniper grumbled once or twice, pointedly avoiding looking her way, or acknowledging the swing of her legs, or the incessant pressing of her finger on the radio buttons. But eventually the heat of her warm happy soul warmed the stiff glue of him and he sagged and softened and became normal again, tapping a finger against the steering wheel to the beat of the song they were listening to. It was a long drive and Constance dozed off once or twice, a lot of endless stretching road, and would close her eyes against the sight of galloping deer and shiny bunnies and glittering rams trotting beside the car.

But! Eventually Sniper flicked the turn signal and the tick tick tick foretold the completion of her journey. His hands crossed over one another on the wheel as he turned the camper off the highway and down small town streets. The scenery had completely changed from Texas - now big trees curled inwards over them, leaning with the most benevolent and serene of smiles. Welcome, Constance, they seemed to whisper, and one gave a knowing wink - welcome back. No, it was not really welcome back, she had never been here before, but the woods always reminded her of Nora and dirt underneath her fingernails and the smell of burning cabin and her salivating half-rabid mouth. Sniper drove, checking his map, and Constance pressed her mask up to the window and looked at every store they passed, feeling her heart beginning to thump in anticipation. And finally - Sniper turned into a little parking lot!

“This is it,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily, and rubbed his eyes. “Could use a bite to eat.”

Constance was hungry too, but the grumble of her stomach was lost in the cacophony of the rush of blood in her ears. She pushed open the door of the van and forgot about her seatbelt as she tried to leap out, ensuring she was caught in a sort of snare, her legs scissoring in the empty air as her hand slapped at the release, and then her feet were on hard ground and crisp tree-smelling air was coming in through her filters, oh, she was a bit stiff but her joyful blood would cease to be sluggish soon enough! Sniper said something, but Constance was already bolting to the back of the van to grab her backpack, and then she was sprinting like they had seconds left on the clock to deliver the payload, Scout would be proud of how fast she ran.

A moment or two later, her and her skedaddling heart had nowhere else to go.

Closed, the sign in the window read, propped up in contradiction against the other sign that proclaimed they should be open. The store was all dark, and Constance fogged the glass with her slowing breath, cupping her hands around her lenses and trying in vain to see something, anything, except mannequins who were beginning to turn their heads and mock her.

This could not be happening.

All of the other stores on the street were open! There were a few people looking curiously at her, in her hoodie and jeans and backpack and mask, and Constance’s mouth wrenched into a woeful line, her upper lip beginning to tremble. What was she supposed to do? She had not counted on them being closed! A tidal wave of immense despair rose over her, the cold, moist shadow of failure making her skin ripple, her throat constrict. Constance slid down against the glass window, tucking herself within the alcove of the door, her face uncomfortably hot and warm. Tears were brimming and falling and it felt like she would cry enough to feel like she was swimming in the garbage bin again.

“Pyro?”

It was Sniper, approaching her on the sidewalk, one cheek bulging like a chipmunk’s as he chewed on something. She saw him squint at the shop, and spot the sign.

“Aw,” he said, clearly somewhat uncertain regarding how to console her, “They’ve probably just gone for lunch.”

She buried her mask in her hands.

“Let’s go back to the van and wait there. Come on, don’t sit on the ground.” Sniper nudged her leg gently with his boot when she didn’t move. “Come on, it’ll be all right. We can eat our lunch while we wait.”

To persuade her, Sniper crinkled the paper wrapping of a sandwich. Constance did not very much feel like eating anymore, and in fact thought that she would go dig a hole under a tree and curl up in it and die and be excavated thousands of years later as the fossil of the saddest girl in the world, but something within her obeyed the command, and she dragged herself to her feet. She glumly and hollowly followed Sniper back across the street and to the van, her vacant gaze on the back of his legs, every breath a severe shuddering effort.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze. Sniper left the van a few times to check, but he always came back with his mouth like a flat line to mirror the missing beat of her heart. Constance saw him examine his maps a few more times and felt even more awful. She was keeping him from the rest of his trip, but she could truthfully not bear for him to leave her now, even if he did not seem inclined to give her a hug. She sat for so long in the front seat that it got dark, the curtain of the most awful day closing around her, the streetlights popping on like mocking applause.

Sniper stretched in his seat next to her and removed his hat and glasses, glancing out of the corner of his eye at her. “You hungry?”

She wanted to eat whoever had closed the goddamn store. She wanted to introduce them to a barbeque of her own. But that only made her think of Engie, and something in her stomach wrenched painfully. Yes, she was hungry. 

Constance only watched as Sniper left the van and the parking lot, and then she watched as he came back and jerked his head for her to join him in the camper part, and she watched her food grow cold in her lap. She watched the world grow cold and still around them, she listened to the eventual marching procession of Sniper’s snores, she buried her mask in the pillow and thought it might be best to suffocate herself here and now rather than return empty-handed. Her idea had been so perfect and great it was unfathomable that this was happening. She thought it might be very well possible that Sniper would grow tired of waiting and bid her to find her own way back while he went on the rest of his trip, even though - spoiled! - yes, she had grown spoiled to really not want to be alone. 

But in the morning Sniper showed no such inclination, and in the morning the closed sign was still up. He displayed a saintlike sort of patience for merely sitting there and waiting, while she grew fidgety and restless and tired of counting the wrinkles in his shirt. Constance decided she would rather spend her time walking laps up and down the street, her neck whipping to the side every time she passed the store with hopeful, fruitless speed, and with every pass her rage and despair built upon themselves like bricks. Despite the light slowly disappearing from her vision as she was sealed away by the stone and mortar and inside with her feelings, it did not stop her from noticing that there was someone looking at her across the street.

There was a well-dressed man with freckles standing outside another store with a shopping bag, and he did not stare in the way that a lot of the passersby did, with a bit of fear, he stared like he knew her. But Constance was sure she did not know him. She stopped and stared too, her fingers curling in her gloves. Then a woman came out of the store, with smooth and shiny black hair, and she went up on her tiptoes to kiss the man on the cheek. Evidently that broke him out of his staring and he took the woman’s hand and the two of them went down the street the other way.

Sniper came and found her outside the shop when he wanted lunch. They went to a burger place, and it was not busy so they sat down inside and Constance dejectedly plucked at the fluttery leaves of lettuce on her food, her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. Sniper was watching the street outside the shop, and took a long drink of his soda and nudged her untouched strawberry milkshake closer to her.

“Listen, mate,” he began, “I’m not sure what’s going on with the shop-”

His gaze flicked to the curl of her hand around a fry, squishing it into a pulp.

“I know you’re upset, but-”

There was the jingle of the bell above the door and a rush of air behind her back, and then came a loud, exuberant voice that Constance knew well.

“Snipes? Mumbles?! Yo, what are you both doin’ here?”

Constance twisted in her seat. It was Scout!! He was wearing jeans and a varsity jacket and a ball cap and behind him was the pretty lady and the man she had seen yesterday, who was now really staring, like a hawk honing in on its prey. He had bright green eyes and a very pointed nose and it did look like he was about to dive, claws outstretched. Constance flattened herself against the booth.

“Hi, Scout,” Sniper said, an easy smile flitting over his features, and he returned Scout’s outstretched fist with a bump of his own. “Fancy meeting you all the way out here, and your…?”

“This is my ma,” Scout said, scratching the back of his head and turning his torso to look back at the pair, “And her boyfriend Simon.”

Ugh, he mouthed, sticking his tongue out.

“It’s so nice to meet some of your colleagues!” Scout’s mother had dimples and kind eyes and she came over to them and pumped Sniper’s hand enthusiastically, turning to Constance with a twinkle in her eye. “You must be Pyro! I’ve heard so much about you!”

“It’s nice to meet you,” the boyfriend said.

“Yeah,” Sniper said after a moment of silence, and snorted loudly. “Nice to meet you, Simon.”

“Actually, I will use the restroom before we order,” the boyfriend said, in a light and careful tone.

“Me too,” Sniper said, and scooted out of the booth. “Pyro?”

She did not have to go, but Sniper waited until Scout and his mother were looking at the menu and not at them and gave a pointed jerk of his head. 

Was this some special friendship thing she did not know about?

Constance left her untouched burger and scooted out of the booth too, and followed Sniper and the man past the rest of the tables and the counter into the hallway and into the men’s bathroom. The man checked that the stalls were empty and then wheeled on them, his face contorted in irritation. Sniper had shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and was wearing a rapidly widening smirk.

“Wipe that look off your face,” the man snapped. “What are the two of you doing here?”

Sniper jerked his thumb at Constance. “Taking this one shopping.”

“Shopping,” the man repeated derisively. “You have come all the way from Texas for shopping.”

“Well, no, I had me own road trip planned after Truckie’s birthday, this is just a stop on the way. Bit of an unexpected one, considering Pyro decided to play stowaway.”

Constance waved.

“And the laborer knows about this.”

“Well,” Sniper said again, scratching the back of his head, “Not exactly. It was meant to be a quick trip, but the shop’s been closed, so…”

“You idiot,” came the snappish reply, “Do you or do you not know how to work a phone?”

Constance did not like the way this man was talking to Sniper, nor understood what was going on whatsoever. Her mask turned back and forth between the two of them like she was watching Scout hit a baseball against a wall.

“Course I do,” Sniper said casually, but his eyebrows had begun to descend down his forehead, “I-”

“When were you planning on using yours?” The man seethed. “Wait, let me guess. You do not carry one.”

“Course not. The government triangulates-”

“Oh, yes, the government, pardonne-moi. Have you forgotten pay phones exist?”

“Look, mate, I’m not sure why it’s got your fancy French underwear in a twist, but-” Sniper gestured wordlessly, and he looked sort of sweaty and shiny in a way that suggested he knew exactly, “-you get back to your bloody burger and we’ll get back to ours, yeah?”

“I would love nothing more than to stay out of your business, bushman, but it has become mine. Because you would not place a phone call and you did not leave a note, the Engineer has been calling me. I made the mistake of sharing my personal itinerary for this summer and he correctly assumed you and I might cross paths at some point and incorrectly assumed that I might care to look over my shoulder at every moment to see if the little bug-eyed beast was with you. I have other things to focus on.”

“Like Scout,” Sniper said, somewhat slyly, “and his mum.”

The man began to slowly redden, although his face remained a blank mask. It hit Constance suddenly like she had jumped in the road, that facial expression, though the features were different. Jubilation gave her light fairy wings to leap forward and wrap her arms around the other man’s middle.

“Spy!”

He, surprisingly, did not pry her off, but merely held still and rigid while he continued to glare at Sniper over her head. 

“It’s a surprise, that’s why I didn’t call,” Sniper muttered defensively. “I was just trying to help.”

“It is not the sort of surprise Engineer would enjoy, not anymore,” Spy said coolly, and opened his mouth to say something else, but the door to the bathroom opened and Scout was standing there, looking at them all suspiciously. His eyebrows shot further into his hairline when he saw Constance hugging Spy. But he only went oof as Constance turned around to hug him too, more tightly.

“Your friend is very affectionate,” Spy said by way of explanation, with a neutral smile, and then he breezed past all of them. Sniper gave a bark of a laugh that he disguised by clearing his throat, and followed Spy out of the bathroom.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Scout said, punching Constance in the shoulder, his voice echoing as he went into one of the stalls. “Like, what a coincidence! Are you here to see the national park too? I gotta admit, I was kinda like, ooh, trees, mountains, yeah, what’s the big deal? But we saw a bear, Mumbles, and a huge fuckin’ moose. My mom got us all disposable cameras, so that’s been pretty cool, and we’re gonna drive all day tomorrow and meet up with some of my brothers and try to find some snow.”

He continued chattering away to her about Femvaders and the rest of his summer with his mom’s pompous boyfriend who was originally not supposed to come with them at all and he was pretty annoying but he made Scout’s mom laugh a lot. Scout and Spy and Scout’s mother had gotten a booth next to Constance and Sniper, and they all talked as they ate their food and Constance slurped her milkshake through its thick straw underneath her mask and watched Spy pretend like he did not know them. She was not exactly sure why he was doing it or wearing a face that was clearly not his own even without the mask on, only that it must be some game she did not quite get. Scout’s mother was really nice, and the lunch made her feel a lot better, although when it was over and they parted ways she remembered that the store was closed again and she still had a big problem.

Sniper had mentioned during lunch that the store they wanted to go to was closed, however, and Spy had asked why don’t you just break in, and Scout and his mother had laughed, and Spy had smiled too like he was joking, but his eyes were cool and serious. Well…yeah! Why didn’t they just break in? Constance hadn’t broken into anywhere in a long time, and she had been so caught up in her despair and the normalcy of not being a runaway that was constantly stealing and breaking into places that she had forgotten that was an option. So when they said goodbye to Scout and his nice mother and Spy with a formal handshake because they were playing pretend, she was rocking on her heels and hopping from foot to foot and excited again, and she closed her hand around Sniper’s wrist and yanked and dragged him so quickly back down the block he had to hold onto his hat.

“At night,” Sniper yelped, “Not now!”

And that was how they found themselves creeping down the street like raccoons, Constance brandishing her axe and Sniper looking furtively to and fro, even though there was no one about in the middle of the night. 

“Okay,” he kept muttering under his breath, “In and out.”

And then suddenly Spy materialized out of nowhere in front of the store, and Constance’s gaze tracked the click and spark of his lighter in the dark as he lit a cigarette.

“Put that away,” he scoffed, gesturing to her axe. “It’s open already. And I have gone to the trouble of disabling the security system. I was fairly certain you two would find a way to fumble a simple burglary.” 

“Aw, real charitable of you, spook,” Sniper said, grinning. “Thanks.”

“It’s not charity,” Spy replied, rolling his eyes. “If you end up in jail it will only be a further disruption to my vacation.”

Constance placed a tentative hand on the glass door and pushed. It opened soundlessly, and then she was in the store!! It smelled so nice in there, like the outdoors, like sawdust. Constance glided through with her fingertips outstretched, touching all the racks of plaid-print clothes and the shelves of equipment and fake plastic deer, and even Sniper was interested, rubbing the material of a display tent between his fingertips. 

“Nice stuff,” he admitted. “Did you figure out why they’re closed?”

“The owner is out of town.”

“Huh.”

The sound of their conversation faded behind Constance, and she went in circles a few times, a bit star-struck, before she remembered the catalogue that had not left her pocket. She fished it out and smoothed the pages with circles on them and smiled back at the plastic deer.

About twenty or so minutes later she returned to Spy and Sniper with her arms full of clothes in Engie’s size and beaming! They both looked down at her, Sniper with some picks of his own and Spy with his arms crossed.

“That everything, Pyro?”

Yes it was, they’d had everything on her list!! Oh, Engie was going to be so happy! She could and would skip! Spy accompanied them back to Sniper’s camper, and Constance put everything in the back and shut the door, and stood looking at her teammates while the crickets in the lot cricketed.

“Can we go back now?” she asked. 

“In the morning. I’m beat.”

“I will see you both when we return to work,” Spy said, lighting another cigarette. “And not a moment before. Goodbye.”

Constance waved at him enthusiastically before he disappeared before both their eyes. Sniper yawned and patted his mouth.

Engie was waiting on the porch wearing his straw hat when Sniper’s camper van pulled into his driveway. It was dusk and the string lights they’d put up just last week were on, casting the porch in a golden glow. He stood up and hurried down the steps, his mouth a flat line, a deep furrow between his eyebrows. Constance had been half out of her seat already, but she felt like her boots were being weighed down with rocks, and she slowly sunk back down. It struck her suddenly - he looked upset, not happy.

“He’s mad,” she said out loud.

Sniper parked the van and then turned his head to look at her, his hands resting on his thighs.

“Nah,” he replied. “I’ll get all the stuff out the back.”

There was the squeak of the door and the shifting of the van as he got out, and then it was only Constance, staring at Engie over the dash and through the windshield. Numbly, she fumbled for her seatbelt and the door handle and then slid through air for a brief moment before her boots landed on familiar ground. She took one tentative step, and then another.

“You have fun with Stretch, firebug?” Engie’s voice was all weird, all light. 

She did not know whether to nod or shake her head.

“I’m glad you came back,” he said, still in this strange way, “You gave me a fearsome scare, findin’ out you were gone.” Engie gave a laugh that sounded a little forced. “But of course you got no obligation to stay here. You can go wherever you feel like, whenever you feel like, and you don’t got to let anybody know. And I know you can take care of yourself and all. I just didn’t know if I’d…done somethin’, or you weren’t happy, or…”

Sniper had finished retrieving everything from the back of the van but he was taking a very serious interest in the gravel.

“I’m sorry,” Constance said, her lips buzzing and numb, and her head had begun to swim because she could not comprehend having made him feel this awful or having foreseen that he might have this reaction, this wringing of his hands, this pinch of his face.

“I’ve just gotten used to you bein’ here, I suppose,” Engie said wryly. “Makes an awful impact when you’re not.”

It was evident he had not been trying to make her cry, because he looked shocked and even more upset when she did start heaving great big guilty sobs, unable to tell him at that very moment that it had all been for him and that she had just been trying to show him that he had made an awful impact on her, too, and all she could choke out was that she was happy, really, even though it probably didn’t seem like it with her crying and clinging to him like that. 

The three of them had a nice dinner, at least, and Constance took a shower and removed her mask and scrubbed harshly at her head and face and body before putting her mask and towel on, and stood in the landing eavesdropping while Engie and Sniper had a raised-voices conversation in the kitchen. She dressed in a new old hoodie and her sweatpants and fuzzy socks and came down in time for Sniper to meekly scuttle out and bid her a hasty goodbye. It was time for them to eat cake leftovers and for her to show him all she had brought! They decided to go eat their dessert outside, and Constance hummed to herself as she squatted by the bricks and set a small fire, and cupped her hands around its familiar warmth, as if it, too, was saying welcome home.

They went through everything on the picnic blanket, and Engie looked utterly stunned and lost for words as he thumbed the logo of all the clothes, because Constance had done magic and made them materialize out of the catalogue pictures just for him! The grass had never felt so comfortable and cake had never tasted so good, and she sucked on her fork before deciding to start on Engie’s own forgotten piece. Her vision was blocked as she pulled her mask up a little to eat but when Engie re-appeared he was looking at her.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” he said, quietly. “To go all that way.”

“It wasn’t that far. Sniper drove, I didn’t have to walk.”

“Well, it was still pretty far,” Engie said, and huffed a laugh. “Means a lot you'd do somethin' like that for me. Thank you, firebug. It’s exactly what I wanted.”

Constance leaned over to give him a tight hug. “I know! Happy birthday!”

They sat in silence for a while and listened to the night bugs, and Constance watched Engie’s face and the way the firelight danced on it as he looked up at the stars, and then he gave a soft chuckle and jerked his chin towards the yard.

“Look,” he said, “Firebugs. Just like you.”

Constance turned her head to look. There they were, indeed! The night was as thick and dark as the ocean, but they were little lights, lamps held by boats crossing the water safely and illuminating the way, and they danced and danced. She was utterly entranced by the sight, and speechless, and her gloved hands curled in the grass.

“Next summer,” she said, “Can I have a snorkel?”

"Of course," came the reply, easy and warm. "Anythin' you like."