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”So, do you lot know what you’re doing?”
Cube’s voice was bored as it came through their comms, and Branzy privately rolled his eyes. 4C seemed to do something similar, mocking their tech teammate who got to stay back at base, while Squiddo was the one who actually replied.
“Yep. You two?”
She shot them both looks, like they weren’t all next to each other on this rooftop, just above reported villain activity.
Rolling his eyes, Branzy raised his hand to his comm—he didn’t have to, but he neither had faith in Cube’s technology nor any ability to stop himself being dramatic—and replied.
“Tickety-boo, as far as I know.” Branzy grinned, shooting Squiddo a look to see if she noticed the mockery. She had, and didn’t looked happy about it. “4C?”
“Yep. Checking in, one two three, ready to go kick some villains into next week.”
”Just one villain, you should know that.” The sound of Cube leaning back in his chair could be heard down the comm line, and Branzy was fairly sure they all collectively rolled their eyes. ”Clown. That’s why you’ve got Branzy.”
“Gee, way to make me feel wanted.”
“We’re honoured to have you, Branzy.” Squiddo was still determinedly cheerful, punching his arm fondly. “Clown’d kill any of us in a heartbeat, but with you it might be two.”
4C sniggered. Branzy pretended to be unbothered. He’d only worked for the villain for like- a year. Which was nothing. He barely remembered it. Except when his team needed intel, then he was an expert on all things ClownPierce.
“Mhm. See? I’m important, don’t mock me.”
”Oh, I wasn’t.” Cube’s voice had turned barbed, and his yawn in the middle only made more heat creep up Branzy’s neck. ”I was just saying what we all knew. He’s eye candy for the mass murderer, and you two actually try and take him out. I’m getting snacks, once I’ve organised your getaways.”
Branzy’s cheeks were burning red now, and 4C muffled laugh didn’t help. Squiddo looked away, glaring at the ground as she bit back at Cube.
“Cube. Professional, please. Everyone’s important.”
She didn’t deny it. And, honestly, Branzy shouldn’t mind. Not many vigilante teams wanted him, with the ever-present worry that Clown would come after him for real, so it was nice just to be wanted at all.
But... it was embarrassing. He had other things he could be known for. And Squiddo was rumoured to be dating Ashswag, and she never got mocked for it.
Plus, it always brought up things Branzy preferred not to think about. Like Clown being a person, not just a codename and a villain. Things he’d tried to forget, like how Clown had been his villain, his master, and how Branzy tried not to draw his attention wherever possible. He was more worried about what he himself might do, to be honest.
”Alright, alright. I’ll lay off the murderer’s puppy. Squiddo, you’re on point, your gear looks good from where I’m sitting. 4C and-“ There was a tense moment where Cube seemed to genuinely consider what to call him, then carried on, with an audible smirk. ”Branzy, you two flank. There’s windows on either side. Make yourselves noticeable, why not. One of you’s there to be noticed.”
Branzy was staring at the ground, trying very hard not to feel anything, including Squiddo’s eyes on him. 4C radioed in instead, carefully professional as he watched the two of them.
“Sounds good. We’ll go in in a minute.”
“Branzy-“ Squiddo took a small step towards him, and her mirrored lenses glinted, her voice soft and sympathetic and that flavour of sweet Branzy knew far too well meant manipulative. “Ignore Cube, ok? You’re great. And you’re great for your experience with Clown, and for yourself. Ok?”
“Mhm. Sure.”
Branzy was robotic as he checked his taser, and his flare gun. He wasn’t given a real gun. No training, no experience, never mind he’d built a dozen different prototypes of the ones Clown used, when his sword failed him.
Squiddo seemed to consider carrying on, but dropped it, instead clapping with a cheer Cube had sucked from the air, and hopping on the spot.
“Ready to go?”
“All good here.” 4C clicked his rifle together with a finality that spoke of confidence, slotting his throwing knives into his belt. “I’ll take east.”
“Branzy, you’ve got west then. I’ll take the south entrance.”
Branzy nodded. Looked up, and smiled at both of them. It wasn’t their fault. It was hardly even Cube’s, for stating the obvious.
“Mhm. Ready here.”
His body armour shifted, as he looked over his shoulder at the edge of the rooftop.
“Great! Go team!”
With that, Squiddo shot them a grin, and dashed off, vaulting over the edge of the building with ease.
4C gave him a quick salute, and backflipped off the side. Branzy could see him honing in on his target window, rifle slung across his chest as he drew his rapiers for a confident entrance.
Branzy sighed, and turned around, walking over to and sitting down on the ledge as he psyched himself up.
Clown. His whole life seemed to be about Clown, these days. Avoiding him, telling others where and how to find him, wondering why the villain let his intel remain accurate, after all this time.
Honestly, Branzy sometimes wondered why Clown hadn’t just killed him off, months ago. When he’d betrayed him, jumped ship after months of careful planning, leaving everything with post-it notes on his machines on how to use them, and a notebook blank except a note he’d erased from all but the deepest corners of his mind.
Branzy hadn’t wanted to hurt Clown. Had hardly wanted to leave, really. It had just seemed like the only choice left, when the rumours and paranoia got too much. Clown had no reason to keep him alive. Branzy was giving him nothing except moral support and half-hearted designs for things he’d already perfected. He’d outlived his usefulness, and all there was left to do was be mown down or run before it was too late.
On reflection, Branzy still didn’t know if he’d been right. Should he have blown up Clown’s base on his way out? Give himself a reputation as someone dangerous maybe gotten a spot as a real hero, not this shady vigilanteism. Or maybe he shouldn’t have left at all, carried on working himself into a state of anxiety about how Clown treated him more and more like a person, waiting for the ball to drop and to be disposed of entirely.
He just didn’t want to die. That was all he’d wanted. And Branzy really, really hoped that he wasn’t about to die tonight, for a team that saw him half as a whore, half a traitor, and entirely as someone or something to be pitied, only useful for one thing.
Branzy stared down into the street below him, and sighed.
Turning around, he shimmied over the ledge, holding on just by his fingertips before letting go, and landing on a nice, secure windowsill. No fancy backflips for him. Just the barest human capability, hardly enough to qualify as skill at all.
Still, he managed another window. Then another, although there was a nasty moment with a pebble and a cobweb that almost sent him plummeting down another story in free fall.
Branzy crouched on the old stone, fiddling with the rusted latch until it snapped, and he slipped through the window, now seated inside an alcove, and grateful to Cube for tidying up Clown’s effort to cut all alarms into and out of this place.
It was a bank, he was fairly sure. But more than money. Clown didn’t deal in money. No, there was something more here, something important, probably precious and ruinous to someone.
Hey, Branzy didn’t know. He was just here to look pretty and distract a villain he saw every night anyway.
4C was in the window opposite, crouched like a secret agent, his cloak fluttering in the slight draft he was letting in. He caught Branzy’s eye, and gestured to the ground.
Yeah. The ground. Where stuff usually happened. He was so smart sometimes.
Branzy looked down, and tried not to slip off the ledge entirely.
Clown was there, scythe on his back, somehow looking unimpressed, even with his mask and elaborate costume. He looked the same as always. Ruffled sleeves, elaborate clothes, sword on his hip and guns on his arms.
Squiddo was stood in front of him, hands raised, no weapons visible. Yet. Branzy had seen what she could do with her hands alone, particularly with the fancy gauntlets Cube had rigged up.
If he listened closely, he could hear what she was saying, in that chattily friendly way she always dealt with threats. Almost sweet enough to disguise the danger. Branzy knew Clown would see through it. You couldn’t charm a siren, after all.
“-no one has to get hurt. We won’t even stop you leaving. Everyone just walks away, and you let these lovely people-“
Without any warning, one of Clown’s guns was in his hand, and a recoil of smoke was curling in the opposite direction to a spatter of blood from one of the poor, unfortunate lovely people face down on the floor with their hands behind their heads.
Branzy didn’t flinch. He glanced up, and saw 4C looking horrified, even behind his goggles. He’d never seen Clown before. Not in person.
“Have I made my point?”
Clown’s voice sent tingling up Branzy’s spine, the accent lodging itself deep inside his mind like a forgotten, unfinished jigsaw. Still smooth, more eloquent if anything, not a trace of the slight hesitations he’d had around Branzy.
“O-kay… yes, I- I think you have.” Squiddo laughed breathlessly, hands cracking with electricity as she took a small step away, and glanced up at 4C. “Not coming peacefully then?”
Clown pulled his scythe off his back, tilting his head mockingly. Well, Branzy knew it was mocking. To Squiddo, it was probably just intimidating.
“No.”
”That’s your cue, idiots.”
Branzy didn’t need Cube in his ear to tell him that. In fact, he yanked his comms out entirely, letting them dangle around his neck and from the pack on his hip as he leapt downwards, trusting himself for once to stick the landing.
He did, although his ankles hurt like hell and all the air left his lungs. But it was alright, because Clown had seen 4C first, and had gone for him without hesitation, which meant Branzy had a chance to catch his breath.
As he was struggling just from his opening move, Squiddo was darting across the marble floor, light on her feet and metal baton charged with sparks coming from the grips on her hands.
Clown was on 4C before Squiddo got to him, knocking his feet out from under him and kicking him against the wall. Then he whipped around, locking handles with Squiddo, unreadable and unrelenting as he drove her backwards, and nearly twisted her staff out of her hands.
Branzy finally clicked back into the moment, and followed his teammates, getting behind Clown as soon as he saw the head tilt that meant he was focused on searching for Squiddo’s weak points, and nailing him with the taser on his shoulder. It hardly made contact, through the layers of fabric, but Clown’s own armour must have been at least a bit conductive, because he flinched away, then froze entirely, for half a second.
“Branzy?”
“Branzy- run!”
Thanks for affirming his identity, Squiddo. Branzy couldn’t really blame her, not when all he’d done was change his brand to slightly more purple, but it still wasn’t appreciated by his shrieking nerves.
He did as he was told—story of his life—and bolted halfway across the bank floor, letting 4C go in with his knives, and relaxing a little as Clown’s eyes were torn away from him.
But that wasn’t his job here. Branzy was meant to keep his attention, no matter how nerve-wracking it was.
So, he plunged back in, working as best he could with a flare gun he kept the safety of on, and a small taser he was sure he’d already gotten in his one hit with. He didn’t get lucky like that twice. Clown didn’t let people get lucky like that twice.
It didn’t matter. Branzy hardly needed to try, really. He could feel Clown staring at him, even as he weaved between his teammates, hardly doing anything except getting in everyone’s way.
“Jeez, Branzy, watch out!”
4C swung a rapier directly over his head, and Branzy yelped, flinching away just in time for Clown’s scythe to catch him around the chest, throwing him bodily out of the way.
For a moment, Branzy fully expected the next sensation to be a sword through his neck. But Clown didn’t seem interested, now that he was out of his way, and was focusing on 4C instead, drawing blood from his hip and shoulder before Squiddo got another hit in.
Branzy watch, breathless, on the floor where he’d landed, tailbone and hands stinging. Behind him, he could hear panicked whispers, of the civilians who actually knew when to stay well enough away from what would kill them.
He wasn’t helping. He wasn’t a distraction, he was distracting himself more than anything.
Squiddo’s staff came slamming down just inches away from his hand, and the next thing Branzy saw was Clown going for her neck, shoving her away with the blade of his sword. He stared, both at the limb he’d nearly had electrocuted, then at the villain just a metre away from him, but facing the other direction entirely.
He could just… hit Clown. Frankly, Branzy could reach out and grab his ankle. It was too easy. Far too easy. Clown didn’t make mistakes like that.
It was a test.
Branzy got a swooping feeling like he’d just fallen off a cliff, making his head spin with vertigo. Not again. He’d been done with tests, he’d been done with trust and all of it.
But here Clown was, a wordless challenge in his vulnerability. Asking Branzy if he was still deserving of trust, despite everything.
And- Branzy should trust his team. Trust them to protect him, to make his loyalty worthwhile.
Branzy turned the taser over in his fingers, almost missing having Cube’s snide comments in his ears. Maybe his teammates were yelling at him, through their comms. Maybe they were telling him to take the shot.
Clown pushed forwards a step. Squiddo was holding up well, but her footing was becoming frantic. Branzy’s body ached, from hitting stone a few too many times than he’d like, but he was fine. He could take Clown down, maybe even out.
“Branzy!” Squiddo’s voice cut through the sounds of fighting, and Branzy flinched. “You going to help?”
No, actually, Cube had said he was just eye candy. Branzy bit it back, and forced himself to his feet, holding his taser like it did anything.
They hadn’t even given him a gun. Clown had had the decency to give him a sword, and laugh when he fell over trying to use it, but they didn’t even pretend he was capable. Just a distraction, a runaway inventor, a lost puppy far from his master who’d never quite recovered.
Still, Branzy was on his feet, and was moving forward before he gave his thoughts time to catch up.
Clown was raising his scythe. That meant Squiddo should be ducking already, he wouldn’t have time to manoeuvre too far out of the way. But it gave Branzy a clear shot between his shoulder blades, where he never wore armour because he didn’t like things on his back.
Branzy punched him. No taser, no training, just a weak hit to the back of his neck that got him off Squiddo, but did precisely nothing else.
Clown hissed, whipping around, and for a second, Branzy could feel pure irritation in his glare. Not anger. Not pain. Just annoyance, like Branzy was bothering him. And a hint of pride.
He didn’t think about that too hard. Just ducked out of the way, exactly like Squiddo had been about to not do, darting under and away from Clown’s blade, his breath already catching in his throat.
Clown called out to him. Branzy heard, as he bolted to the other side of the hall, passing 4C, who’d just recovered enough to be heading back in. He gave Branzy an odd look, looking over at the villain he was jogging towards.
“He talking to you?”
“Uh-“ Branzy hesitated, then shook his head, and waved 4C to carry on. “Go. Squiddo can’t hold him.”
4C nodded slowly, then froze. For a horrible moment, Branzy whipped around, wondering if Clown was about to drive a sword through his back. But there was nothing.
He turned back, and felt all the air leave his body.
4C was halfway back up the wall, coat swishing as he climbed a ladder propped almost under his open window. Branzy was vaguely aware of himself making a small noise, confused and scared, taking a step after him before looking behind.
Squiddo was gone. Just- gone. Clown was looking upwards, which didn’t leave him any clues. The world had slowed to a snapshot per second, and Branzy could hear his panicked breathing. Where had his team gone?
Fumbling around his neck, he found one of his earpieces, and shoved it back in, sending pain stabbing through his ear.
”-nd you’re out, great work, team.”
“4C, check in?”
“I’m here.”
Branzy couldn’t breathe. They’d just left. Bailed on the mission, on something, and left him.
Alone. With Clown.
He was going to die.
And Branzy meant that very literally, he was gasping for air and it wasn’t enough, he was genuinely going to pass out and hit his head, or something equally stupid.
He needed to be able to see Clown.
Branzy turned around, backing up until his shoulders hit the wall, eyes fixed on the villain still looking around like he was a tiger.
It was quiet.
Then shots rang out, and Branzy flinched, squeezing his eyes shut as a his head pounding with each shot. One. Two. Three.
Getting closer. Four. Five.
Six.
They stopped. Branzy cracked his eyes, hyperventilating, shaking as he searched for what had changed.
Blood. Blood had changed. So much blood.
Branzy whimpered, audibly, vision flashing with spots and pools of crimson, from so many limp bodies, scattered across the floor.
One more shot. Branzy hit his head on the wall as he flinched, making some gasping, keening noise, because that one had been close.
“That’s all of them.”
No. No, no no. Not happening. Not now, not here, not- not at all.
Branzy didn’t hear footsteps. That was how he knew Clown was focused on him. It was like trying to focus on a single flame, you could only see it in the corner of your eye, if you weren’t actively looking at it. If the flame was focused on you, you’d never see it coming.
Maybe the metaphor broke down. Branzy felt like he was breaking down, remembering too late he could use his eyes, then not wanting to, because he knew it was too late.
“So, Branzy…”
Close. Far too close. Branzy pressed away, whining in fear, pleading with his teammates to come back, or just to give a reason why they’d left him with this.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
Within arm’s reach. Branzy felt his body going limp, either shutting down or accepting he couldn’t stop Clown anyway. His head was pounding, his throat was tightening, he was shaking and bruised and trying not to cry.
“Show me your neck, Branzy.”
Branzy made some pathetic, mewling noise, terrified of how he relaxed, recognising Clown’s way of asking him to pay attention. It wasn’t a threat. He knew it wasn’t a threat, and that made it worse. It was just another test, asking if he remembered how to obey.
Swallowing hard, Branzy tilted his chin up, feeling the rough stone scrape against his head, tangling his hair against the grain.
He wasn’t letting himself think. His teammates had left him, there was nothing left. Just him, and Clown, and dead bodies that wouldn’t be witnesses to whatever happened next.
Clown’s fingers traced down his throat, gloved and gentle as they lingered beside his pulse.
“You remember.”
Of course he remembered. Did Clown think Branzy could ever forget? He clung on to those memories, if anything, of when he had a place in this world, one where he was happy and everything felt right. Until it had started feeling too right, and he’d run for the hills.
“Branzy…” Clown sighed, and for a moment, all Branzy could hear was an exhausted villain, home late, pacing up and down his lab just for the sake of them being near each other. “Why?”
Branzy didn’t open his eyes. If he didn’t look, Clown wasn’t real, wasn’t resting his hand on his neck like it belonged there. Squiddo was just near him, chatting with 4C about something, and Cube was about to hum through his comms with some sardonic but interesting fact.
“I- I thought you- you didn’t want me anymore.”
His voice was almost a whisper, pitchy and terrified and breaking on every other word. However human Clown might feel, Branzy could feel the power emanating from him, the way he was nothing in comparison to the villain.
Another hand found his cheek, and Branzy almost melted into it, frayed nerves desperate for any human contact to send sparks through to his heart.
“When, BranzyCraft, did I ever give you that impression?”
Clown’s voice had dropped to match his, low and dangerous. Branzy swallowed, feeling now like to open his eyes would be a betrayal in its own way, an attempt at level footing he had never deserved.
“I- I don’t know.”
His throat hurt. Breathing was hard. Staying upright was hard, when Clown was close enough for him to collapse on, out of sheer exhaustion, like he’d done before.
Clown hummed. Two of his fingers rested against Branzy’s jugular, not quite pressing down, but testing his vulnerabilities.
“You’ve been running a while. They just left you, didn’t they?”
Branzy whimpered slightly. He didn’t need the reminder. Their loss was an ache in its own, wondering if they knew what Clown could do to him, if they thought that excused their betrayal or made it worse.
“Poor konijntje.” Clown’s voice was dripping with derision, and Branzy tried not to shiver, but failed miserable. “So unappreciated. They don’t even know what you can do…”
Clown tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear, removing his earpiece at the same time. There was no blood, on his hand or Branzy’s face. Just the ghost of it, blood they’d spilled together, blood Branzy had tried to pretend wasn’t on his hands.
“I still want you, Branzy. I’ve been wanting you back for a while.”
His legs were shaking. His heart was shaking, trembling in his ribcage like a rabbit in a trap. His throat was shaking, vibrating with the effort to breathe and sob shallowly, trying not to disturb Clown’s touch.
But Branzy wasn’t dizzy from panic, or pain. It was a want, a need, something desperate and lonely that wanted Clown back more than anything, to be safe again, trusted and trusting.
“I’m going to knock you out.” Clown spoke in his ear, like he thought he might be misunderstood, mask distorting his voice now Branzy could hear it so clearly. “Don’t fight me now, konijntje.”
Branzy couldn’t fight anyway. His body wouldn’t let him, responding to Clown like a magnet, a dog to heel.
Something chemical stung at his nose and eyes, and Branzy had nowhere further to cringe away, no air to hold in his lungs as fabric pressed over his mouth.
He breathed in, the heady spinning of sedatives almost a relief, the tension of keeping himself upright snapping like strings behind cut.
He’d been right.
Clown caught him, the moment he started to fall.
——————
“You- you haven’t moved out.”
“I have not.”
“C- Clown, I sent- so many people here-“
“None of them made it.”
Branzy laughed, breathless, turning to run his hand over his benches. It felt dusty, despite being immaculate.
He looked up, craning his neck to gaze around the greenhouse that housed his lab. The windows were slightly warped, a little yellowed, but still fitting together intricately, befitting the regency mansion perfectly.
Vines crept up the glass walls, flow beds overflowing with things Branzy half-remembered planting. His beakers were tidied into glass-fronted cabinets, elaborate equipment laid out and pristine on benches around the edge.
The sunshine filtered through the trees outside, and the overgrown walls, tinted yellow and almost watery by the time it reached him, but still washing through and over the two rows of benches, dappling across the dusted bookshelves behind him.
Branzy had forgotten how big this place was.
Clown hadn’t changed a thing. Even Branzy’s notes remained, and certain of his equipment gleamed with recent use. Nothing had been moved, nothing had been used without replacement.
“You- you didn’t move anything.”
“Didn’t want to disturb it.” Clown sounded like he was smiling, squeezing Branzy’s hand gently. “Your room’s the same. And the dining room.”
Branzy felt like he’d been winded all over again. His head was still a little dizzy, a hangover from the sedatives that hadn’t worn off, but it only made everything seem more beautiful.
“S- so- we can carry on? It- I haven’t-“
“You’ve got time. As long as you need. It’s just nice to have you back.”
“…it- it really is. To be back. It’s- it’s nice. Thank you.”
Clown laughed, and he’d never sounded more human, even through his mask. He hadn’t taken it off. Branzy knew it was a dig, a consequence of his betrayal, and it lodged exactly on target next to his heart. He’d lost that.
But he could get it back. They could go again.
“Glad you’re alive, Branzy. Just… glad you’re alive.”
Guilt swelled like an impenetrable raindrop in Branzy’s gut, and he nodded, blinking fast. He hadn’t realised. How suddenly he’d disappeared, how untraceably he’d vanished into the night. Clown hadn’t had anything to assume but that he’d run away, and gotten himself killed. All while Branzy gave away his tactics to heroes, trading the best years of his life for scraps.
“Can- can we go? I want to- to remember. What this feels like.”
“Of course.”
Clown guided him gently, and Branzy felt like he’d stumbled through a mirror into the past, where everything felt underwater and yellow with age, but still immaculate.
He really had forgotten. Clown’s base was beautiful, a countryside mansion, built from the ground up for eccentric science. He’d made it his own, of course, but the rooms remained twisting iron and pale wooden conservatories.
Branzy saw the kitchen, the parlour, the rooms Clown hadn’t known what to do with so had left empty, and remembered them planning together what they might do.
They’d wanted a gym, had converted the ballroom except for the giant chandelier in the centre, sparring underneath glittering crystals. They’d wanted a games room, and had begun to build a collection of board games. They’d wanted to renovate the garden, Clown for flowers, Branzy for exotic poisons he’d read about.
Branzy caught a glimpse of a doorway that made something inside him ache, and tugged lightly on Clown’s hand, making him stop instantly.
“Can- can I see the library? Please?”
Clown nodded, and pushed the door open, holding the dark wood out of the way as Branzy followed him through.
He didn’t always read. Clown read more classics, romances and tragedies and plays. Branzy read old comic books, encyclopaedias and articles.
But he’d always loved the library. The bookshelves went to the ceiling, almost as high as it had been in his greenhouse, with ladders propped against the walls of literature. It was almost a maze, nothing too sharp to disturb the idea that by being here, you’d stumbled into another world, where the only limitations were how far you could go before you didn’t recognise the words on the spines anymore.
Branzy felt himself smiling. He saw the desk he’d perched on, swinging his legs as he bothered Clown late into the night, because neither of them could ever sleep.
“I- I missed you. Clown. I missed you a lot.”
It felt like the sort of thing he could only say now, when he wasn’t looking at him, when Clown was just a presence at his shoulder, a relentless constant.
“Me too. I knew you couldn’t be dead. No one else knew what those heroes knew.”
That made something close to warmth bloom inside Branzy. His intel had been a message to Clown, secrets carried by word of mouth and the screams of tortured heroes, a coded reassurance that they were both still alive, and out there.
“I- I’m sorry.” Branzy looked over his shoulder, at Clown, eyes wide. “I shouldn’t have-“
“No time for apologies, konijntje. The world doesn’t stop turning because you tried to run from it.”
Clown stared at him, hard, and Branzy felt like he was melting inside. Months, almost a year, that now felt wasted, because he hadn’t been here.
“I don’t- I don’t know why I ran.” Branzy’s smile turned almost bitter, as he ran his free hand along a bookshelf containing every documentation of tidal-powered display screens. “You- you didn’t do anything.”
“I scared you. I knew what I was getting into.” Clown was still watching him, inexorably fond as Branzy traced spines he could remember reading, in window seats and on the carpet, leaning on Clown’s knees. “You’re skittish. You expected me not to care about you enough for you to have something to lose.”
“…yeah. That- that was it.”
“I care about you.”
“I- I know.”
Clown hummed, and came to stand next to him, still not looking at the books.
“Do you want to leave?”
Branzy shook his head. Quickly. His throat tightened again, at the mere idea of how stupid he’d been to leave in the first place.
“I- I’m happy here. I know- I know I’m meant to be here.”
“Good answer, konijntje.” Clown’s voice had dropped to a murmur, and his hand trailed up Branzy’s arm, then down his side. “Because I don’t want to let you go again.”
Branzy felt his cheeks glowing, and glanced at Clown, head cocked like an unasked question.
Wordlessly, he nodded.
He’d stay.
Somewhere he had always belonged.