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The end doesn’t come with a bang. It doesn’t happen with a whimper either.
There is a soft, quiet pop that is felt more than heard, and that’s it.
The end starts with Dix falling out of his chair whilst Liv is eating cereal. Given that he’s been buried in blankets for the better part of two years now, this is something of a surprise.
She screams.
She’s still screaming, babbling panicked nonsense as she drops her spoon and vaults over the kitchen island to where her teammate is trying to get free. It’s a matter of moments to peel away the mass of blankets, but those moments stretch out like something infinite under her hands.
“Holy shit,” they breathe at last, voice finally back under control. “Dix? You’re awake?”
He just grunts back, bleary eyed as he looks around. “Mhmphg?”
“Right, right, I should - water. I’ll get you water. Stay here.”
It’s a stupid thing to say. His legs are still half swaddled and he’s not even fully awake, but they’re running for the sink and almost two-step back across the apartment in their haste. They’re got to - the team. Esme. Everybody. Liv needs to call everybody to let them know, they need to find out how many other buried players are suddenly awake again.
She tries to be gentle about pressing the rim of the glass to his bottom lip, and watches every detail as he closes his eyes and drinks.
“Olive,” he rasps, pushing the cup away and reaching for them.
She dumps the cup on the floor and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. His arms loop around her back, and they feel so oddly light there that it takes all she has not to cry.
There’s a group chat for all the current thieves and ex-thieves. Liv sends a shitty selfie of him and Dix together before packing his teammate off to the bathroom to shower. He explains how to work it as quickly as he can as Dix starts to lean on him less and less, and by the time he closes the door to let the man clean up in privacy he’s - he’s not fine, not really, but he’s also not needing to support himself on anything either.
She has no idea what the fuck she’s meant to do. Where did they put all his stuff? Somebody put it in storage but she can’t remember who has the keys. When was the last time he ate? Is he hungry? Is she hungry? She never finished her cereal. Is this a post-necromancy situation where she has to try and worry about whether his body is going to be able to handle solid food for a bit or should she be expecting him to start chowing down on pad thai in a minute? Or is this just a post-feedback notes situation where she just has to worry about things like his clothes and a phone and stuff? Is Dix allergic to peanuts? She can’t remember if Dix is allergic to peanuts. Somebody is knocking on the door. Shit, she sent him to take a shower but she hasn’t got any clothes that will fit him. Somebody’s at the door. Who’s at the door? He needs clothes. She needs to answer the door.
They very nearly break back down into tears when they open the door to find Alex and Esme there.
“We were about to pick the lock,” Esme says, lowering her hand from where she’d been knocking. “Where is he?”
“Bathroom,” he says, pointing.
“How about we sit down and figure things out?” Alex says, gently laying a hand on his shoulder, and Liv loses his fight not to tear up again as they do so.
The moment is slightly interrupted by Ankle and Ivy appearing in the doorway behind them, panting from what experience tells Liv was a very rapid two-step.
“The Black Hole died and now there’s ghosts everywhere!” Ankle shouts.
“I CAN FEEL MAX AGAIN!” Ivy belts out.
Liv finds their attention very firmly diveted, and then all their priorities snap into place in the blink of an eye.
“Ankle is going to kill us,” Ivy says quietly from the passenger seat.
“They won’t,” Liv says, glancing in the mirror to check for traffic before the van pulls away. “They say they will, but they won’t.”
“I don’t feel right leaving them behind,” they say, looking down at their phone.
“I know. And I’m sorry. But the van only has four seats, and we’ve got two people to pick up. Besides, Ankle’s going to have their own reunions to set up.”
Ivy’s mouth twists at that. Liv could’ve worded it better, she knows. Maybe she could’ve been nicer about it. But she’s really not got the energy for that right now. Not with the Black Hole emptying itself all over the place. Frankly, they’ve been lucky enough as it is with the fact that Max apparently landed in America and not somewhere where they’d need to rush plane tickets to get to xir.
Okay. Okay. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” Ivy sighs. “Max says the two of them are on their way up to Seattle.”
“Tell them to go to Ohio instead,” she says.
“...Ohio.”
“Yeah.”
“Ohio of the Worms fame Ohio?”
“The very same.”
“Why are you asking the ex-Seattle Garages players to go to Ohio, Ollie?”
“Because that’s where Arturo is,” she says as she flicks the indicator on, “And Teddy’s going to drop everything and head for his husband the second he finds out where he’s at. And Max isn’t going to leave Teddy, so it’s easier to just point them there in the first place.”
“....I forgot those two were married,” Ivy admits quietly as their eyes slide closed once again. Liv shuts up so they can focus on their newly awoken mental bond with their sibling. It’d been hard on them when NaN had suddenly vanished just before the games had restarted, and whilst they look overjoyed to have this back it’s still pretty obviously an adjustment. He’s not going to get in the way of it.
Her mobile buzzes again where it’s sat in its cup holder. There’s messages from the Thieves, and from the Garages, and in the other cupholder Ivy’s phone chirps with messages from what she can only assume is probably the Spies. If anybody can track all the rapidly dropping players and alert the right people, it’d be them. One of them should really check their messages.
Ollie’s apartment is in a Charleston that’s usually situated in South Carolina, depending on the tides. The drive from South Charleston, Ohio to Wapakoneta takes roughly an hour and a half on a good day. Getting the van through Sunken Charleston would usually take her about twenty minutes, but she’s not sure how much she wants to bank on that - between Sunken Charleston being deeply unhappy with the state of things, there’s also everybody else and their dog currently two-stepping around. There’s no space for a car in that equation without it spelling out “IMPENDING TRAGEDY” in neon lights.
According to the maps app he’s using, they’re looking at an eleven-hour drive.
They reach over and fire up the CD player. Might as well.
They’re somewhere south of Charlotte when they pull into a rest stop.
“We should’ve grabbed water before we left,” Liv groans, leaning against the driver side door as he stretches one leg out and then the other. “I’m a moron, I didn’t even finish breakfast.”
“I didn’t exactly have any either,” Ivy says, squinting at the vending machines in the sunlight. “Doesn’t look like they have water. Is blepsi good with you?”
“Do they have diet?”
“Didn’t think you were the sort to worry about that,” Ivy says as they start punching the numbers in.
“Hey, I gotta look after myself somehow.”
Ivy silently tosses the bottle over. He catches it without needing to look, tilting his head back to look at the trees instead and rest his eyes. It’s a beautiful day, bright and sunny with the horizon only distorting the sky just a little, and with the slight breeze he can get away with rolling his sleeves up on his shirt and leaving his jacket in the back of the van. Ivy’s coat is back there too, folded up far more carefully, but they’ve kept their sunglasses on. Liv can’t help but feel like Ivy’s the smarter of the two of them for this choice.
“...Are we going to talk about it?”
“We probably should,” she sighs. “The Agency tell you anything?”
“Nothing. The Magic are coordinating divination attempts, last I heard. Chicago’s dispatch is still making a lot of noise directing people around, apparently. Anything from the Thieves?”
“Nothing that Ankle wouldn’t have already told you. Is it just chocolate bars in there?”
“Chocolate and chips.”
“Flan’ll kill me if I breakfast on chocolate bars. We’ll get a proper lunch somewhere up the road.”
“It’ll probably be cheaper than this,” Ivy says, looking at the machines dubiously as they start back towards the van. “Sure you don’t want to wait a few minutes more?”
“I’m sure.”
“Max’ll understand you taking more than a ten-minute pitstop, you know.”
“Maybe,” Liv says, swinging the door back open. “But you can hear xem to find out, and I can’t.”
Ivy doesn’t say anything as the van pulls away from the stop and starts driving north up the I-77 again. It’s not long before there’s a new CD in place, music filling the air as they go back to keeping their eyes on their phone, sending message after message. Their hands keep wandering, fingers drumming on the dashboard or on the side of the door next to them, and Liv hums and nods along with it as she listens.
170-something miles and two and a half hours down.
They do, in fact, stop off for proper food in Charlotte before they keep going. Liv pulled off a junction and firmly ignored the Wlaffle House in favour of a Dennys instead, and Ivy had laughed their head off at whatever expression he’d pulled.
The I-77 keeps winding its way north. For all their urgency, it’s still a surprisingly pleasant trip so far. The lake they’ve just crossed was something that two-stepping would’ve had them miss completely, and it’s sparkling and gleaming in the sunlight. The same with the trees lining the four-lane highway they’re currently hurtling down. Oh, it’s certainly going to take them far longer this way, but all the two of them would’ve had to look forward to on the other side of the shortcut was anxious waiting or driving out to go find Max and Teddy but with Arturo backseat driving the whole time.
Or, gods help her, Derrick. You hotwire a guys van one time and it’s apparently open season for the rest of time.
“I think we’re getting close to Virginia now,” Ivy says, checking their map as Liv keeps driving. “I know I’m not insured on the van or anything, but it’s got to be safer if we switch for a bit instead of you trying to manage the whole thing. We can get some documents faked up quickly if it’d make you happier about it.”
“Please don’t get the other Spies to just add you to my driving insurance, Ivy.”
“You can’t do this whole thing alone, Olive.”
“I am most definitely not,” He says, glancing sideways.
“You know what I mean,” Ivy sighs, folding their arms and staring forwards.
“I do. And I’m not trying to do it alone. I was planning on taking a break before we start trying to go across the Appalachias, and there’s a Charleston on the other side where we can take another break after.”
“We should’ve just taken the spy tunnels,” Ivy groans. “Why didn’t we just take the spy tunnels?”
“Because everybody and their left leg is going to be hitching a ride through the spy tunnels, or two-stepping around, and the Thieves used to be a prehistory team so there’s probably like a bunch of people taking all the paths I don’t know and this is a van.”
“Why didn’t we just take a plane?”
Silence rules over the inside of the car, interrupted only by a muffled rendition of Eyes in the Dark and the engine.
“Liv,” Ivy says slowly. “Olive. Ollie. Ollie Ollie Oxenfree. Did you-”
“Shut.”
“-forget about planes?”
“Shut!”
“You DID!” they crow, leaning forward with bloodthirsty glee. “You forgot we could’ve just flown to Ohio!”
“Ivy Tacos Mason, nobody made you get in this van. You chose to get in this van. Do not slander my darling van who has done nothing but faithfully drive us so far.”
“Yes you did! You told me to get in the godsdamned van!” they wheeze, squeezing their eyes shut.
“What the - stop telling Max, you snitch!”
The path towards the mountains continues to be a smooth and steady one outside of their ongoing conversation and arguing. The rise in elevation and the turns are both gentle, and whilst Liv hasn’t stopped paying attention to the road it certainly isn’t exactly a challenging drive. It’s almost certain that she’s going to need to take a break before too long, though. The whole journey is meant to be about ten hours total. They set off at, what, some time just after nine in the morning? There’s plenty of daylight left to burn.
Ivy steals her map and sends them on a detour to a place called Max Meadows. They take a photo together in front of the sign declaring the place name before they fill up on gas, restock on drinks and snacks, and take a twenty minute break before driving on.
Ivy is only a little outwardly smug about taking the keys off them and commandeering the driver’s seat. Liv might forgive them after all.
It gives her a chance to actually catch up on her own chat messages instead of just getting everything second-hand from what Ankle is telling Ivy about the Thieves. She’s got a half-dozen new voicemails; The first one says it’s from Esme, but it’s Dix’s voice that greets her when she starts playing it back.
“Hey, kid,” he says, voice scratchy and warm. “The team’s been catching me up on what I slept through. You’ve been looking out for them, huh? I’m...You should be proud, Ollie. You’ve done good. You’ve done great.”
Liv quietly saves that one.
“Hey! It’s me, Simon - there’s a whole load of stuff going on and I’m not in the shadows anymore I think? Call me back when you get this!”
There’s always been something comforting about the sound of Simon Haley’s voice, even when ce’s excited.
“Hey, it’s Simon again. There’s a load more stuff going on than I thought. All our buried folks are up and moving around. Is - do you know if Dix is okay? Can you call me back when you can? Sorry, just, yeah! Yeah. I’ll speak to you soon, Liv.”
“I can’t believe you left me at the mercy of the Games husbands,” Derrick grouses in the fourth voicemail. “Warn people before you go bolting across the country next time. They’ve stopped hosting the reunion in your flat, by the way. ”
“Hello Olive, this is Flan speaking. I’ve just been told Beef’s shown up in Dallas, so - well. I’m not the only one after a reunion right now, I suppose. I’m closing up the restaurant for the week at least, so there won’t be anybody in if you try and swing by. Best of luck, by the way.”
“Liv,” Malik’s voice says on the final voicemail. “I need you to put this message on loudspeaker. Okay. Aaand - there we go, that’s both of you now. Okay. Precog hasn’t done much for me for a while, but I’m going to need you to trust me for a minute, okay? Two players have dropped down nearby. You need to go pick them up from the side of the road. It’s important. It’s really, really important. I’m counting on you both, nyeah? You’ll see! Take care!”
“I swear ae learned how to be cryptic from Luis,” Liv sighs. “If we start pulling across now we should have a pretty good view of the roadside. I’ll keep an eye out.”
They aren’t kept waiting particularly long. Liv raps her knuckles on the dashboard to let Ivy know she’s spotted someone, and she’s got her window down to wave before they’re even done swapping lanes to the hard shoulder. The two players are just waiting at the side of the road ahead of them, one sat and one stood up, and they’re both looking at them now. The standing one starts tentatively waving.
“Shit. Shit, Ivy, he’s got three thumbs!” Liv says, leaning forward in his chair. “Holy shit, Ivy, pull over faster!”
“What are you talking about, pull over faster? Thumbs?”
“He’s got three thumbs, Ivy! Mike! HOLY SHIT, MIKE!”
The spy swats at Liv’s hand as he starts scrambling for the belt, and now the car is just full of incoherent yelling. They pull to a stop as the two players start towards them, one jogging and the other still trying to scramble upright, and Liv ends up just climbing out the rolled-down window in his haste to try and get to them.
“MIKE!” she yells. “You’re back! You’re here!”
Mike gives them a hug, brief and tight, and then his hands are on their shoulders and pushing them gently to look left-
“Olive?” says Ollie Muller. He looks bedraggled and tired and exhausted and suddenly blurry, so fucking blurry, and her lungs make a noise she didn’t know she was capable of making.
She does not remember letting go of Mike. She does not remember stepping forward, or Ollie moving either. She doesn’t remember these things but they surely must’ve happened, because that’s the only way she can explain how they end up with their arms wrapped around each other with their heads buried in one another's shoulders. They must’ve moved. But that doesn’t matter, so what’s it worth remembering next to this? What could matter more than this right now? Against all hope, against all odds, against everything -
It’s almost enough to make her believe in a good miracle.
The road trip continues with the addition of two formerly redacted players. Ivy ends up having to take over the duty of bullying the three of them into the frame of one photo to send around, and then back into the van so they can get going again, and judging by the sound of their notifications the news is spreading like wildfire.
Mike and Ollie are both going through the song and dance of wanting to speak to anybody who isn’t each other whilst not wanting to let each other out their line of sight, which is working interestingly with how Ollie and Liv don’t really want to let each other out of sight either, so it ends up with the three of them crammed into the back seats.
They don’t really end up talking. Mike is chatting to Ivy quietly and Ollie is slumped into Liv’s side, their hands clasped together. His hands are warm in hers, and rougher and more calloused than they used to be. His head ends up on her shoulder, and she ends up tilting hers gently against his in turn.
“We’re headed for Ohio,” Ivy is saying somewhere else. “We’re meeting up with Max. Where are you two aiming for?”
“Anywhere,” Mike says. “Gods, just - somewhere. Anywhere warm.”
“Home,” Ollie rasps. “The team. I wanna see the team.”
“There’s a Charleston in Washington,” Liv says quietly. “I - I really need to see Max again. But I can ask somebody to get you guys home to Seattle.”
“Why Ohio?” Mike asks. “Wouldn’t xe be headed for the Garage?”
“Max is with Teddy,” Liv says. “And Teddy’s gonna go to Arturo no matter what.”
“Yeah, but that’s because they’re married. Why is Max going to Ohio too?”
“Because Teddy and Arturo are xir dads.”
Even Ivy looks surprised by that.
“Oh. Did that happen after...?” Mike makes an awkward throwing gesture, eyebrows knitting together.
“Yeah,” Liv says, hand coming up to fidget with his earring as he keeps talking. “It was, uh - it happened after the end of season twenty-four. We killed the Coin - she’s dead, by the way - and we ended up in the Black Hole because it ate everything? But then we were all fine inside it, mostly. The last person Max echoed was Teddy, and Teddy had been doing kind of rough after Tot died but then he started doing better and they realised they genuinely enjoyed hanging out? And Teddy’d been keeping an eye on us both, and Arturo and Max started doing spraypainting together, and the three of them just sorta....Fell into it.”
“...It took him years last time,” Ollie says. “Teddy, I mean. When he got burnt out and needed to recover, that is.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“We were in the black hole for fifty-something years. I can’t really remember the exact number anymore.”
“I didn’t know,” Ivy’s voice drifts in from the front. “You never said. Neither of you did.”
“It kind of slipped my mind you wouldn’t have known,” they admit. “I know time in the Vault was different for you, but it’d been years for me. It was just...A part of life by the end. Salmon swim, the sand shifts, Max is Teddy and Arturo’s kid. They fell out the sky together, they’ll be going together.”
“Liv?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re taking Ollie and Mike to Seattle, and then we’re cutting to Ohio.”
“Okay.”
“We’re going, okay?”
“Okay.”
Ollie and Olive both end up crying again when it’s time to part again. Hank ends up slinging an arm around Ollie’s shoulders to lead him away, grinning and waving over a shoulder as they head away.
“I’ll get them phones, don’t worry!” ce yells over cer shoulder. “They’ll be back in touch in no time!”
It turns out that Derrick left Liv another voicemail telling him to call him back at some point. Shaq sends a picture of him standing looking out a window with his hands on his hips just captioned “old man moments lol”, which does make her laugh a bit. Ivy drags them to get gyros before they’re willing to let her two-step them anywhere.
Ivy is a little traitor of a best friend who also calls Simon Haley on them anyway midway through the gyros and Liv loves them and also is never, ever going to forgive them for this. He hasn’t needed help two-stepping for decades.
...Though it is kind of nice to have someone to rely on when their eyes start tearing up again. Maybe.
Simon wraps her up in a hug before taking his leave - reunions are underway all over the place, and Simon has people of vims own. They left the van in Charleston, West Virginia, but Ivy just grins and shrugs and says it’ll be handled so Liv doesn’t bother arguing. It’s probably a Spy thing. What it does mean though is that they end up having to rent a car, and after another argument Liv ends up back behind the wheel and in charge again.
Ohio is a stunning contrast to the mountains they’d left behind what felt like such a short time ago. It’s flat. It’s just flat. It is mile after mile of endless flatness, broken up only by trees, houses, and corn fields. His sense of time has been utterly obliterated by jumping time zones and driving for hours. He’s got a rough idea of how long it usually takes to drive to Arturo’s where it’s taken over living in what used to be Tot and Luis’s place - oh, shit, Tot and Luis are totally going to be here too aren’t they - and then Liv decides to very quietly ignore that estimate and start breaking the speed limit just a little. Neither of them move to turn the radio on, and Liv knows that he’s gripping the wheel tighter than he really should and he’s going to regret it later when his back murders him but he can’t let himself unclench his hands either.
They’re close. They’re so close now.
Ivy’s eyes slip shut next to him. “Half an hour, they estimate.”
“On it.”
There’s nothing between them now except distance and time. No black hole, no gods, no stupid weather, nothing that matters, nothing that’ll count. They’re close. Liv can sustain themself on that idea for the rest of this drive.
Arturo welcomes them with a hug, and Tot and Luis are indeed waiting on the porch like a pair of ancient bastards who have seen things like this countless times before and who are still gunning for front-row seats for the latest round. Liv hugs Luis and nods to Tot. Tot nods back. A beetle is hanging onto the front of hir jersey.
“If you don’t all go inside right now, I’m going to start hunting you for sport,” Luis says gleefully. “Which will be a much bigger problem for you than it will be for me, I think!”
“It’s good to see you too,” he grins. “That bad?”
“Arturo’s cleaned the house three times,” Tot says, eyes and voice both flat. “It’s putting a hole in my carpet.”
“They don’t even have carpets,” Arturo sighs. She heads back inside, waving Liv and Ivy to follow. After all the frantic motion of getting here, it feels like a weird limbo to be in. Stuck waiting for something they all know is coming, but with no real idea as to when. The three of them end up traipsing into the kitchen together and then back again, drinks in hand this time.
“You might want to try sitting down!” Luis’s voice floats in from the front porch.
The three of them sit down.
“Now I’m just anxious but in a chair about it,” Arturo mutters.
“Why do none of your chairs match?” Ivy yells back towards the porch.
“There is no second chair!”
“The ACTUAL reason!”
“Tot thought it would be funny to set the matching ones on fire when we were drunk once!”
“I did not say that.”
“But you didn’t stop me, did you?” Luis trills.
The unrelenting drive to get here is fading as they relax and listen to the bickering, and it’s left them feeling drained. Hours of driving are starting to catch up with them, particularly in their legs, and it aches. They haven’t ached like this since....Well, since they fell from the sky into the Choux, if they’re honest. The only other thing that springs to mind is the consumer bite.
It’s after a few more minutes of shooting the shit that Ivy’s head suddenly snaps up and around.
“They’re here,” they gasp, and suddenly the three of them are back in motion again.
Ivy’s got the window open before Liv is even done getting up out of his chair, and the two of them are throwing themselves through it, an awkward knot of limbs and momentum. The front door slams open beside them and bounces on its hinges as Arturo storms through, and that’s the last point Liv bothers paying attention to ner. All of his attention is pinned on the body running in his direction, the car abandoned behind xem as Max Mason is finally there again.
Xir arms close around her and Ivy both, one each, and xir body is warm and solid and smells like the sharp burnt metal of the Black Hole. The three of them collide and Liv clutches onto xir jacket desperately as they end up sprawled out on the ground. She hangs on for dear life like maybe if she holds xir tight enough, the separation will have no choice but to retroactively have never happened in the first place. Max’s arm is wrapped around her waist just as tightly, xir fist bunched up in the back of her shirt in return. Max knocks xir forehead into Ivys, magenta eyes wet with tears, and Ivy is brokenly laughing as they curl up into their sibling’s embrace and burrow their head down into xir chest.
The sky spinning overhead is bright and blue and the sun is starting to sink lower in the sky, dragging out the shadows across the ground. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky, and there’s dust fucking everywhere now, and Liv could not give less of a shit about how they hauled ass all the way up here without change of clothes. Not now. Not when he’s finally got his best friend back.
“We bought pizza with us!” Teddy booms. “Beer too!”
Liv cranes their head around to see he’s just picked Arturo up with one arm and is grinning wider than they’ve ever seen. Arturo’s wrapped buns arms around his neck and shows no sign of letting go, and Teddy doesn’t look inclined to let go of bun either.
“Finally!” Luis calls, beaming at them all. “Somebody with manners!”
The evening is warm enough the group collectively ends up just staying outside as they eat. Max, Ivy and Liv end up just sitting on the bare ground with a pizza box parked in their midst. Luis and Tot stick to their porch chairs (“It’s their porch, they get first dibs,” Teddy had shrugged) and Teddy just stays standing with Arturo hanging off him like a koala. Luis keeps passing the pair slices to eat, which also means Luis gets to pretend to pick all the goods bits off first whilst everybody else pretends not to notice.
McDowell Mason swings by midway through with more pizza and beer because McDowell is Liv’s new second-favourite Worm. Ivy starts yelling in delight and maybe being slightly too drunk for “upsies”, and Max takes the moment to nudge Liv with xir knee before jerking xir head at the beer and then towards the house. Message received loud and clear, the two of them quietly thank McDowell as they take the bottles off him and carry them through to the fridge inside. Max leads the way, calm and confident, and Liv finds herself content to drift along in xir wake for the moment.
“How’s it hanging, minimalist?” xe says, leaning against the kitchen counter and watching Liv.
“Pretty good, maximalist,” she says, knocking the fridge closed and taking two steps to the left to where she knows Arturo keeps the glasses. “Lot better for having my best friend back. We should probably get some water in us before we end up as giggly as Ivy is.”
“They’ve been okay?” Max asks, xir voice going soft. “I mean, actually okay?”
“Landed with the spies,” they say, handing xir the first filled glass. “Settled in pretty well, actually? Really took to the whole thing. They’re dating Ankle Halifax now.”
“Ankle?”
“Uh - this tall, has an anglerfish lure, was on the Georgias and then went to the Lift? They’re a Thief now, they landed down just before I did.”
“When you say landed...” xe frowns.
“Landed. The Black Hole spat us out years back. I was the second wave.”
“I remember.”
He looks down, fiddling with his drink. “Max-”
“I woke up and you were gone,” Max says. Liv can’t bring themself to look up at xir face to try and understand what that tone of voice means. Max carries on, slow and steady. “You were right there, and then just...Gone. No note. Nothing. I didn’t realise what it was at first.”
“I didn’t want to go,” he protests feebly.
“It scared the shit out of me, not being able to find you. I was used to always knowing where you’d be, you know? You were gone. Even Elsewhere, I knew where you’d be. I’d been there too. When you were shelled, I knew where you were. When you were on the Thieves, I just needed to look at the schedule.”
Liv swallows, throat suddenly dry despite the glass of water she’s increasingly clasping onto to ground herself. There’s a gentle brush of fingers against her wrist, and her head snaps up to look at Max again at last. Brown eyes meet solid magenta, and the gentle touch turns into the two of them holding hands, the room only lit by the weakened sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. The last time she saw xem, xe’d styled xir hair into a bright pink mohawk. It’s grown out now, xir hair limp and plain brown again, and it’s kind of falling into xir face. Max is the same height as they are now, perfectly eye to eye, and Liv-
Liv wants to ask Max if xe wants to dye xir bangs with them, pink for xem and green for them again. Liv wants to ask Max if xe wants to get matching undercuts like how the two of them used to joke they would one day. They want to ask if xe resents them for falling and wants to ask if xe would forgive them for something that wasn’t entirely their choice but was, actually, a little bit their choice at the end of the day. For forgiveness for not missing xir the whole time despite being best friends and the fact they should’ve.
“You know if they have a bath here?” Max asks, yanking him out of his spiralling thoughts.
“I - yeah. They do. It’s upstairs.”
“Cool. I’m kind of - can we - ?”
Liv puts the glass of water back on the counter and squeezes xir hand gently. “Yeah. C’mon. They’ll understand.”
There’s other toilets. The house is big enough due to the number of guests the immortal formerly-dead duo used to entertain that there’s certainly more than one bathroom. It makes Liv feel a little better about occupying this one, the deadbolt clicking into place behind the two of them. She feels better again when Max shucks xir flannel and pulls the blinds, dropping the room into darkness. She hadn’t realised she’d been getting a headache until the light suddenly left the equation.
“It’s been a while.”
“Too long,” Max says, kicking xir boots off. Liv sighs and collects them both, leaving them next to his own shoes by the side of the bathtub as Max starts lying xirself down and getting comfortable. “Too long.”
A hand reaches out to grip theirs as they step into the bath with xem and tentatively set about lying down, and then it gently tugs them down a bit more firmly. Max waits for Liv to be lying down before xe sits back up a little, pulling xir flannel into place and arranging it so it drapes over both sides of the bath and blocks out any further light from reaching their heads. Xe drops down with a satisfied sigh, xir arms snaking around their waist as theirs to the same to xem. It’s dark, and it’s quiet, and it’s just the two of them for a little bit.
Xir embrace isn’t quite a perfect replica of the way the giant peanut shell had pinched in the middle and never gave the small of her back any peace, but that’s fine. It’s better like this.
“Too long,” Max mumbles again. He can’t see xir eyes, but he thinks they just squeezed shut.
“Let Ivy know you need a break if you haven’t already,” Liv whispers back. “They’ll tell the others.”
Max mumbles something else and falls quiet.
Liv takes the chance to let his eyes slide shut as well. Max’s breath keeps brushing against his bangs. It smells like pizza and beer and general mouth smell, and it is both gross and something he’s missed violently. Listening to the rhythm of it unknots something that’s been tangled up in his chest since this morning and which still hasn’t fully unwound, and the quiet and the dark soothe senses that have been long overstimulated throughout the day without him realising.
Time slips away for a little bit.
But eventually Max squirms and moves, pulling her back out of the light doze she’d slipped into, and her movement in response just wakes xem up in turn.
“Feeling better?”
“Too long,” Max yawns. “Mmm. Better.”
“Wanna go get more pizza?”
“Sure.”
He sits up and immediately hits his face into where he’d forgotten about Max’s flannel. He splutters as he shakes it off, and it lands on Max’s face and muffles xir snickering.
“Come on, then. They’re probably going to run out soon if we’re not quick,” they say, holding a hand out to help Max up and out of the bathtub.
Xe takes it and squeezes it gently. Xe continues to hold on as Liv moves to adjust the blinds to let more light in, and the touch lingers and breaks as they both turn their attention to getting their shoes back on. Liv is done and waiting when Max reaches back and taps their hip, pulling their attention back.
“Hm? What’s up?”
“Uh.” Max blinks at him, still down on one knee from where xe’d been lacing one of xir boots up again. “This is - shit. Fuck it. You wanna get hitched?”
It’s Liv’s turn to blink. “What?”
“Do you wanna get hitched and shit? Like, for real?”
Max reaches up and grabs their hand again, lacing their fingers together gently. Liv stares at this. Xir hand is warm in theirs, xir grip loose enough they know they could pull away from it if they really want, and they end up looking back at xir face again. There are words. They need to say words. They need to say something.
“Max?” he croaks.
“I had a whole plan,” Max says, eyes darting off to one side before looking back. “This - this whole plan, in my head, what to say to you now. One of my best friends. You were there and then you weren’t there and all I could think was how much wanted my friend back. All the jokes wanted to tell. All things to do together. Been years, Oliver. Too long. Too long. Do want- do you want to? To get married and shit?”
Can he imagine his life without Max in it? Sure. He’s done that. He’s been doing that for years.
Does he want to?
“Yeah,” they say, squeezing xir hand. “Shit, yes, I - wait, lemme just-”
Liv pulls their hands free and scrambles for their left ear, fingers shaking as they take the back off their earring and hold it out carefully to their - their fucking fiance, holy shit. Max is laughing, light and breathless and giddy as xe takes the silver stud and puts it in.
“You kept your piercings?” she asks dumbly, reaching out to brush xir hair out the way to admire it in the low light. Xe hums and tilts xir head a little to show it off, and she laughs a little as xe does.
“Healed over a few times,” xe says with a shrug, reaching up and laying a hand over his where it’s resting on the side of xir face. “Had help. Forgot to put any in today.”
“Then that’s our luck there, isn’t it?” Liv laughs. “Come on, let - let’s go, oh my god. We’re engaged?”
“If anybody asks,” Max says as xe stands up. “I did this somewhere more scenic than Luis Acevedo’s bathroom.”
“How about the back garden?”
“Back garden works,” xe says, wrapping xir flannel around his shoulders.
There’s a significantly higher percentage of former Crab, Worm and Garages players outside than when they left. Tot’s the first one to notice them; Ze takes one look at the two of them re-emerging into the evening light, looks at Liv’s earring in Max’s ear, Max’s jacket around Liv’s shoulders, looks down at where they’re still holding hands, and silently raises both an eyebrow and a beer in their direction.
The sky is blue still but fading fast into something a little darker than before, staining lilac as the evening continues to approach as it always does. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky, and those that are present are all stained cotton-candy pink.
There’s no event horizon overhead.
The Black Hole is just...Gone.
“Now what?” he asks the open air.
The air is thick with the sound of people talking to each other and sharing the food and drink they’ve brought. Somewhere nearby but not quite in line of sight, someone is playing an acoustic guitar. Someone is laughing. It’s not a direct answer, but it is an answer.
Then there’s a noise like somebody gargling radio static and spitting it into a garbage disposal unit which is accompanied by the sound of Max and Ivy both yelping and Max crushing his hand in xir grasp a little, and both the Wyatts are suddenly staring at the horizon. He’s forced to let go as his fiance suddenly takes off at a sprint, babbling madly, and then his brain catches up and he goes tearing off after xir.
“NaN! NaN! Where are you?!” Ivy calls.
“NaN!” Max bellows. "All of them, they're all here, NaN where are you-"
“We have CARS!” Liv howls, sprinting after them both. “We can drive there!”
“But NaN-”
“GET IN THE GODS-DAMNED CAR!”