Heathens Chapter 11

This one is really turning into Lullaby the Second in terms of having no plot and then still continuing and having like 5k words a chapter. Got carried away writing this and had to split it up into two chapters. Here's the first part. 

XI. You're My Best Friend

They’re quick to move for Oregon after breakfast. The doctor’s not going to be following them around, and B’s technically going to be able to take the sling off in two days time, so taking it off early should be fine as long as he doesn’t do too much heavy lifting. When A looks at him disappointedly he just says, “We’re going to Oregon, so.”

Since they’re not taking a plane (because of the ankle monitor, and when B had offered to take it off, A had cut him off with a flat “No.”), they’re going to be travelling by car again, for around two days. 

It’s a different car from the one they came to the hotel in, and B gives A a raised eyebrow, to which they simply stuff their suitcase in the trunk and say, “We have to be as careful as possible. They know how I look like. You still have to tell me what went down on your end when you were looking for me.”

“How many cars do you have?”

“Oh.” A laughs, and shuts the trunk, patting it almost fondly. “This one’s not mine, it’s a friend’s. I called a favor.”

“You’re allowed to do that?”

“If Wammy’s knows who I’m calling. Relax, I’ve been working with these guys for more than two years.”

They don’t say anything else when he asks again, so he doesn’t press, and instead just settles in the backseat of the new car after taking his painkillers for his leg, placing his crutch inside carefully, with its new driver, and its new seats - or, well, it’s not actually very new. It’s clearly used, but it’s not abused. It’s well cared for, even with the obvious signs of age in the leather of the seats.

A sits in the passenger seat. There’s a small divider between the backseat and the front.

B raps his knuckles against the glass less than an hour into the ride, waiting for A to open the small window between them up. He could do it himself, but this is funnier. A glances at him from where they’d been talking to the driver, their conversation muffled by the thick glass (and that’s surprising - they never talked to their previous driver), and he gives them a small wave.

They slide the window open. “What is it?” 

“Do you happen to have chips?”

A slides the window close and he bursts out laughing.

“A, I’m serious,” he says. A doesn’t hear him, of course. He knocks again.

When they don’t open the window, he knocks again, and this time he doesn’t stop. 

A slides the window hard enough that he’s surprised the whole thing doesn’t get ripped off. The driver glances at them.

“What.”

“I’m bored,” he says. “There’s nothing to do here.”

“B, I let you keep your laptop. MONIKA’s fine with letting you run rampant,” they say, “That’s plenty to do.”

“I’m bored,” he says again instead of providing an actual counterargument.

“Then you’re going to be dead of it when we get to Oregon then,” A says, and then moves to close the window, settling back in their seat, when the driver says something that’s enough to make them pause.

“Are you sure about Oregon?” he asks.

The window gap is small, but B can still hear them. A sighs.

“Yeah, I’m...sure,” they say. 

“...you don’t seem very sure.”

“I’m gonna be when we get there.” A laughs. A small bit of tension leaves their shoulders as they do. “Anyway, we’re already en route.”

They start closing the window, and B catches the driver saying, “We can always just stay at another - ”

B pits his fingers against the small gap between the window’s frame and its cover and shoves it back open. A looks surprised.

“What’s up with Oregon?”

“Gravity falls, that’s what,” A says.

B keeps his hand on the window’s panel so A can’t close it. They just frown at him, although they look more tired with their pout than actually angry at him. 

The driver is silent, and he keeps his eyes on the road, immediately detaching himself from the situation. Smart man. At least A knows how to choose their employs.

“What’s with Oregon?” he asks again. 

“It’s Oregon,” A says.

“Well, something about it is clearly a problem for you, so what is it?” he asks. “Did you get shot there?”

A wrinkles their nose. “Dear god, no,” they say, “Thankfully not.”

“So?”

“So what?”

Running circles around people by evading the subject is all fun and games until he’s not the one doing it, he realizes. His frown deepens.

“So why are you hesitant with staying in Oregon?” he asks. “And you can avoid the subject all you want, you know I can keep pestering you all day. You want that kind of stress?”

“That’s new, threatening to be the stressor,” A says. “You want a megaphone with that?”

“Just talk.”

A huffs and laughs. “I could tell you but it’s not going to make sense to you,” they say, “Not much.”

He shrugs. “What’s the harm in it, then?” he asks. “At best, I’ll put it together; at worst, I’ll try to put it together while you watch from the sidelines.”

“That sounds like it’s the wrong way around.”

“Perspective.”

“Yes, well.” A settles back in their seat and drops their hand from the window panel. “I have a house in Oregon.”

B waits for them to continue. They don’t. 

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. I have a house in Oregon. That’s where we’re going to be staying.” They cross their arms and look out the window. On their lap, they have a box of photos instead of their laptop. B tries to get a look. It’s all crime scene photos. 

“No hotels?”

“No,” they say.

That’s not that unorthodox, for detectives to stay in houses rather than hotels. He drops back into the backseat, but leaves the window open. 

“That’s not that odd,” he says. 

“It’s not,” A agrees.

They don’t say anything else after that. He closes the window, and they don’t disturb it. 

Since they’re not interested in talking to him, he turns his attention to his laptop for the next few hours, eyeing the battery (full) and hoping it’s going to last long enough for his sanity to survive until Oregon.

It’s really just standard murders and standard burglaries, even with the high body counts and the methods of murder, though he supposes it’s a little difficult to top eels when he’s started with that. He solves two of the cases in four hours, and they stop by a little diner to eat. B charges his laptop, and they eat in silence - it’s a little awkward for B seeing as he doesn’t know the driver who’s eating with them, and just contemplative for A since they seem to be spacing out and thinking over things even as they eat.

He takes his painkillers when he’s supposed to. They make him a little drowsy, but not enough that he’s useless.

He closes two more cases before midnight. He tries to strike up a conversation with A, mostly out of boredom, but they’re fast asleep in the passenger seat. 

Well, they did say they’d let him help on the cult case if he finished his work load, he might as well plough on with the fifth case. He’s exhausted from the ride and his eyes are tired from constantly staring at the screen of his laptop (and arguing with MONIKA on-screen) but he can’t sleep.  It’s most likely just roadtrip cabin fever than nerves.

Their driver is still surprisingly functional despite the fact that it’s already very late, but that might not be the case very soon, so in case of emergency, he’d at least be awake. 

He works in silence for most of the night. The case is simple - murder of seven children, all from the same town; murderer left no evidence, and no murder weapons were found. All the murders appeared to vary from child to child: oe was carved up, another shot, another had his head bashed in, another was decapitated, another was torn open, and another was bled out. All the kids were from well-to-do families, all with rooms of their own in which they were killed in, and the rooms were very clean even as the kids were put on display for their parents to find.

Not unlike his case, but not quite. 

The crime scene photos all make him grimace with distaste at the decor of the rooms - he tries to be respectful of the dead, but that’s not going to stop him from critiquing their living spaces - as they’re all too bright for his liking. It’s like a paint store threw up on the walls, a gift shop following on its heels. 

The photos of the bodies are more helpful. The cuts made on the first victim look like they could have been done with an ordinary kitchen knife, there were no bones that had to be damaged that a hunting knife would have been necessary. The one that was decapitated didn’t have their neck cleanly severed so that was several whacks, maybe by an axe - maybe it was an Axe Man situation. The one that was torn open had no bones damaged either, only had cuts on their skin that was then pulled back, and the one who was bled out similarly had no bones damaged and was only cut at veins and arteries. 

So, surgical knowledge, and simple tools. 

Following the Axe Man theory, he lets MONIKA search for if the parents of the third victim kept an axe in their house, and if they did, if it’s still there. The rest, he asks for the detectives to search if there’s anything in the house that could have been used as murder weapons that are now missing.

Their reports aren’t going to come in for a while, of course, but he still can’t sleep. His eyes droop, but he’s still aware of his surroundings, and as this just exhausts him more, he takes to staring at the ceiling of the car, lying down on the backseat, trying to see if he can see knife scuffs on the surface.

He hears A stir, and then they sneeze, once.

It’s cold, and they’ve left the car’s A/C on for all their sakes, so they’re probably just a little chilled, but then they sneeze again, and again, and again. They start to wake up, mumbling a nasally, “Oh god,” and let out another sneeze.

B sits up. He peeks into the window. 

“Do you have a blanket?” he asks.

A motions to their suit jacket, which they’ve turned around so they’re wearing the back part on their chest, their arms still slipped through the sleeves; makeshift blanket. “Not really.”

“Turn off the A/C, you’re going to keep sneezing.”

“I’m fine,” they say, and they sound like they can’t breathe. They clear their throat and wince. Probably a cough on the way too. “It’ll be too warm if we kill the A/C on my account.”

“Except you’re sneezing,” B says.

“Not to overstep my boundaries, but he’s right,” their driver says, and B nods to his direction as if to say, ‘See?’.

“It’s just a cold, it’ll pass in a few hours,” A says. Their voice is croaky. It’s too dark to see clearly, only the small orange light from B’s end of the car illuminating the cramped space, but B thinks they’d probably have tears in their eyes right now, from how uncomfortable they are with their throat and nose. 

“You’re getting sick,” B says. He tries to reach his hand through the open window and A leans back, a little surprised.

“What are you doing, get back in there.”

His arm barely fits, but he manages to touch their neck.

“You’re burning up.”

“I’m alright - ” A starts coughing, harshly. B pulls his hand back. When they’re done, they lean back, collapsing like the whole ordeal had taken out a lot from them. 

“You could at least do yourself a favor and move to the backseat,” he says, “Less colder here.”

“More cramped,” A says, laughing. B gives them an unamused look.

A is about to say something but then starts coughing again. B rolls his eyes this time. 

They spend a few more minutes stubbornly refusing to move to the back, until the driver actually slows their car to park on the side of the road. A gives him a betrayed look, and he just shrugs, and B decides the guy has more sense on his shoulders than most and that he’s passable, as far as his list of tolerable people goes.

A immediately curls up into a petty ball of sick and tired as soon as they’re in the backseat.

B closes his laptop and leans as far away from them as possible, because he’s not too eager to start sneezing anytime soon.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” he asks. He hears the glove compartment open, items tumbling out,  and turns just as the driver waves a tiny plastic box at him before tossing it through the window. He hums, shooting A an appreciative glance. “Prepared for once.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” they grumble, their voice already fading out. The driver shoves everything else that fell out back into the compartment and closes it.

“It should be next time, you know how you can get,” B says, and then hands them the plastic box. A just stares at it. “Take it,” B says.

“No water.”

“No - oh, god damn it, can we stop at a convenience store or anywhere with a vending machine?” The question comes out more of a snap at the driver, but thankfully the man just takes it graciously and nods.

A murmurs something into their knees, but it’s too soft for him to catch. B pockets the plastic box.

All three of them are silent until the driver pulls them up into the parking lot of a gas station, nodding towards the store, still alight and open with the most bored-looking cashier who B can’t blame because the job is shit although it has the perk of being quiet due to the odd hours. 

B gets out of the car from his side, leaning on his crutch although it doesn’t really hurt that much with the painkillers - the driver starts to get out to help him, but he motions for him to stop; A makes no move, probably asleep, and he opens up the car door from their side and has to catch them when they tumble sideways, his crutch clattering to the ground. This time the driver does get out.

“Would you get up,” he hisses, moving his arms so they’re under theirs and he can heft them up to stand. A just leans their weight on him out of spite. He’s dangerously close to falling over because of his leg, and he doesn’t want the driver to hover, so he shoots him a glare before he can get close.

“No.”

“I will carry you undignifiedly to that store if I have to, I swear to god.”

“Do it then, coward,” A says. Their eyes are barely open and their speech has taken on a bit of a sleep-drunk quality. “You don’t even need to carry me to the store, all you need is one bottle of water.”

They have a point. He’d just thought to drag them with him in case MONIKA was hyper-vigilant. Still, though, he’s just as petty as they are, if not more, so he has a choice here. 

Of course he makes the one that ends up with him hauling them up like a sack of potatoes over his good shoulder, picking up his crutch so he can lean on it and tries to balance. A lets out a surprised noise, a small breathless one when their stomach hits his shoulder, and then a long groan that tapers off into delirious giggling by the time B steps into the store, their driver worriedly following behind them.

“Sir, I must ask - ”

“It’s fine.”

The cashier looks up at them, mouth open, which just looks disgusting since he’s got a half-eaten donut in hand and the half-chewed part in said mouth. 

B doesn’t even stop, instead going for the fridges. 

He’s aware that the cashier is staring at them as they move, and he feels A shift, but he doesn’t say anything. He grabs a nearby basket as he passes by them, releasing A in the process, which makes them yell and grip onto his clothes as tightly as they can. The driver pries the basket from his hand, long-suffering despite the few hours he’s been around them both, and B lets him have that. Otherwise A might bolt and he’ll lose his entertainment. He goes straight for the fridge with the water bottles.

He hears the sound of a phone being picked up. In the reflection of the fridge door, he sees the cashier trying to dial someone, probably the cops.

“Don’t bother,” B says.

The sounds stop. 

A giggles and snorts. “You don’t have to make it sound so ominous, the poor guy looks like he’s going to have a heart attack.”

B sees the reflection relax, hopefully he’s just mistaking them for a bunch of weird college students, although if he looks outside, he’s going to notice the car they have isn’t normally anything college students ride in. 

He checks A’s clothes. Turtleneck, suit jacket worn wrong, slacks, dress shoes. Fancy enough to balance out his sweaters and pajamas. Rich kid and decently off kid, then. The decently-dressed driver just completes the image.

“Are you - ” The cashier points to the three of them.

“We’re fine,” A says. 

B starts grabbing water bottles and chucking them into the basket the driver is carrying, snaking his bad arm through his crutch to lean on it and use it at the same time. He’ll have hell for this when the painkillers wear off, but it’s a small price to pay for A’s delirious mumbling. He slams the door close once there’s enough water bottles and stalks off for the next fridge. He opens that and goes for the Gatorade. 

“O-okay,” the cashier says, placing the phone down, slowly, and going back to his donut, even when he’s still  staring at them.

B tosses the grape Gatorades into the basket.

A fakes a gag. “Gross.”

“It’s Gatorade.”

“It’s grape,” A says.

He pauses. “What do you have against grape?”

“Nothing, I’m just petty right now.”

He jostles them so their torso drops down a little further towards the floor, earning him an “Ow!”

“You wouldn’t drink unless someone forces you to, might as well get as much electrolytes into you as possible.”

“It’s just soda,” they say. “Sugar.”

“You would need it,” he says. “How low’s your blood sugar right now?”

A is silent.

“See?”

“Fuck off.”

“You are lucky we are not in a pharmacy right now,” he says. He closes the fridge, going towards the aisles this time. The driver follows. “Although I doubt you’d tell me your prescriptions, so I’d just buy every awful gummy bear vitamin pack there is.”

“You just like making my life miserable under the guise of taking care of me,” A says. He stops walking to glance at them, although he’s not doing so very well.

A groans again and he feels them bunch up his sweater in their fists, pressing their face into his lower back. “I’m dizzy, I think I’m going to hurl.”

B sighs again and heaves them off his shoulder, setting them on the ground. His shoulders thank him for the sudden lightness, and so does his leg since he no longer has to deal with leaning on it for too long. 

A immediately nearly falls over and has to grip onto the aisle shelf of Oreos. “That’s better.”

“Well, walk, we’re getting food,” he says, turning them around and pushing them by the shoulder with a hand. A huffs but takes packs of Oreos and boxes of Hello Panda. They pause appreciatively at the green tea ones before hoarding some into their arms. B just watches them drop their sweets into the filled-up basket, which the driver puts down, excusing himself for a moment, and then he comes back with an empty one for A to fill.

“How long have you been sick?” B asks.

“I’m not sick,” they say. He raises an eyebrow. “Yet,” they correct.

“How long have you been feverish?”

“A few days into being kidnapped,” they say, “Although I might have just been uncomfortable.”

“Were you feverish when you got back?” 

“Not really,” they say, “I think it started up a while after we got released from the hospital.”

“Stress crash, then,” he says. “And lack of sleep.”

“Fuck off, will you?”

“I will when my welfare does not depend on yours, you tiny anemic bastard,” he says. “As it stands, they’re probably going to send me back to jail if you land in a hospital.”

“Oh, now you’re worried about that and acknowledging it,” they say, “That’s new.”

“It’s true,” he says.

“Gone through the five stages of grief now over it, have you?” At his flat look, they laugh, grab a pack of Kitkats, and drop it into the new basket. “No worries, I went through it too.”

He snorts. “Whatever, you get my point. You know it as much as I do; you’ve been stressing over the same damn thing lately.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll get my pills, I’ll get some sleep, I’ll play shots with the bleedin’ Gatorade if it makes you happy. Crush the iron tabs and snort it up,” they say, waving cheesecake Oreo around. He notices the driver snicker as their accent shines through, too tired to put up the usual act. “Satisfied?”

“Not until you actually do it.”

“God, the amount of hoops I have to jump through,” A says, and then laughs. They drop their last box of cheesecake Oreo, stare at their hoard, and then nod. B hobbles over to the cashier, one hand pushing A towards it to make sure they don’t just stop in the middle of the store and parody Blair Witch. Their driver reaches the counter first and starts unloading their items.

The cashier still looks concerned - and shit, he probably heard their conversation - but he starts ringing up their items anyway. B waits, not patient but not impatient either, while A just smiles sweetly at said cashier, too out of it; they just look high, or sleepy.

“A-are…” The cashier points to A and then immediately regrets it at B’s questioning look. Still, since he’s started, he continues. “Are they okay?”

“They’re sick.”

“I’m high.”

B closes his eyes and thinks of the ten most creative swears he can come up with on the spot. The driver chokes down a laugh.

“They have not been sleeping well,” he says, when he’s calm enough. “And on top of that, they didn’t say they had the flu.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re delirious,” he says. “And you need sleep if you’re going to function in the morning.”

“I have functioned fine on worse,” they say, crossing their arms, childish.

“Yeah, well, this isn’t school, you’re not getting a do over this time if you fuck your job up because you refused to take a fucking aspirin.”

A goes silent.

Shit.

The cashier speeds up scanning the items at the sudden drop of awkwardness. The driver equally hurries just so they can get out already before they both start yelling.

B pinches the bridge of his nose. 

A continues to be silent, saying nothing and instead looking upset, hurt shining through their expression which is already open enough on days they don’t have to bullshit their way through anything. Hearts on sleeves just get worse with fever, apparently. Hearts on sleeves get hurt more delirious.

The cashier tells them their total. B realizes his credit card has just shut up and is currently looking like they’re going to cry.

He taps their arm gently. Thankfully they take out their wallet, hand their card over to the cashier, and input their pin when he asks them to.  He doesn’t give them the usual “Have a nice evening,” when the driver takes the bags, A and B following him out the store.

He heads straight for the car to put their items in the backseat, but not before B grabs one of the water bottles to take to A.

Who’s just standing by the store, arms crossed, pouting at the asphalt like it’s the one that’s upset them.

He holds the water bottle out to them while he leans his other arm on his crutch so he can try to fish the plastic box out of his pocket while not putting too much weight on his bad leg.

A stares at it..

“Come on,” he says. “You know what I meant.”

A looks up at him, and he freezes in place at the emotion in their eyes. It’s never directed to him often, and it hasn’t been directed him in three or so years, so the sudden expression catches him off-guard.

They look angry. Maybe that’s too warm a word to describe it. Furious. Livid. He actually pissed them off enough that they look like they’re going to pull a gun on him and shoot his spine out.

They snatch the water bottle from him with enough venom that he thinks their nails scratch him.

“Didn’t make it suck any less,” they say, voice low and cold. They open a hand out for the plastic box, and he tosses it to them. They pop it open with a thumb. 

“Okay, I could have said it better.”

A rips the bottle cap off. “If you’re not going to apologize, then just shut the fuck up before I break your teeth in,” they say, “I don’t need the pandering, Birthday.”

Ah, they’ve reached the last name basis stage of the wrath. He’s really fucked this up, huh. 

At least they take their medicine and empty the whole bottle, shooting it towards a nearby bin (and missing), before shoving the medicine box at his chest and then stalking past him, their hands in their pockets as they head for the car. 

“You can’t be serious.” He tries not to, in case MONIKA takes note of the rigidity of his body language but he pockets the box with equal anger.“It was one thing.”

“One thing - “ A spins on their heel to face him, and yeah, if they had a gun, he thinks he wouldn’t have an eye right now. If their don’t miss out of sheer willpower, that is. Hopefully the fever will keep their aim off. “ - which you know that I am deeply affected by.”

“You still do it,” he says, “Submit yourself to the pressure.”

“At my own pace and for a reason,” they say, marching forward to get in his face. “And this isn’t about the pressure, B, it’s - ”

“Because you fear failure?”

“Because I’m expected to not fail,” they spit out, standing on their toes to sneer close. “Despite the fact that I will. And I know that. I’ve accepted it. I’ve made my fucking peace with it, which is hilarious because that was what drove me to death the first time. The fact that I’m made to feel like I owe perfection is what I hate, Birthday, and you’d do well to know I have a shorter fuse than I did years ago.” 

They shove him back, and he staggers, taking a moment to right himself with his crutch.

A is still glaring at him, fists clenched tight. 

He licks his lips. “What happened to your fuse?”

“Blew its head off and burnt it in a fire years ago.”

He looks away. Nods. “Okay,” he says, “How’s that working out for you?”

“Better than it did for you,” they say, and it’s his turn to frown, whatever last shred of patience he’d had gone.

“Three years,” he says, “Three years, you goddamn twat.”

A laughs, throwing their arms up in a scoff. Look at the nerve of this guy. “Are we finally doing this?” they ask, “After a year?”

“I said one thing and you had to blow it out of proportion,” he says, letting go of his crutch to storm forward and jab a finger into their collarbone, harsh, pain be damned. MONIKA beeps. He ignores her. “You know what I meant.”

“And I’m not happy either way.”

“You are slowly killing yourself,” he says, “Again. And sure, your numbers aren’t that - ”

A starts laughing. “Let them go down, you hypocritical fucker, you don’t give a single shit! You have never given a shit.” A steps forward; he refuses to move back. MONIKA beeps again, twice this time.

“Oh, let him be, MONIKA,” A says. “Let him snap. Let him do it. Because I could slit my wrists right front of him and he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it..”

“You’re the only thing keeping me alive and I’d like to stay that way right now,” he says, anger condensed into a soft-spoken sentence.

A  smiles. “Proved my point, B,” they say, “I’m the only thing.”

He grits his teeth. 

They’re sick. They’re sick, they’re delirious, their emotions are all out of whack. Of course they’d blow something out of proportion especially if it’s been simmering under their skin for a while. Of course they’d be upset over something that’s easily triggering to them. Of course their stress would blow up, and he just happened to say the wrong combination of words at the wrong time.

It’s just the flu.

It doesn’t make him want to punch them any less.

“You don’t even have a plan, B,” A says, leaning in close, dropping their voice to a whisper. “I’m going to stop humoring you for five minutes, because even though you’re a bastard, you deserve that much. I’ve been around you for the past year and do you know what I see? A poor, suicidal bastard who couldn’t die right and now doesn’t know where to go. But he keeps going, because he doesn’t want to lose the game.”

His frown deepens. 

“Because God fucking forbid, B,” A says, “God forbid you stay second best all your life.”

He snaps, grabbing them by the collar and lifting them up, their feet leaving the ground. MONIKA is steadily beeping now, although she doesn’t zap him, due to A’s earlier instructions. He hears the car door open and sees the driver look at them, one hand reaching for the gun in his holster. 

B doesn’t back down. He just keeps A at eye level.

They just meet his stare, equally stubborn.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” they ask, “People pointing out you’re never good enough.”

“If you say one more word,” he says, “I can guarantee you are going to regret it.”

The gun gets drawn. B ignores it.

“You want a knife with that?” A’s so close their noses are touching. “Ready to commit your first murder involving actual emotions?”

The second sentence throws him off before he remembers. Right, they read his case file. They seem to read the brief second of confusion that flits over his face.

“Didn’t need to see past the cliff notes version to see you,” they say, “For someone who prides himself in being so repressed, you sure do wear your heart on the knife handle, B.”

“You didn’t study the case,” he says.

A shakes their head. “Read the case file,” they say, “Just that.”

That hurts, somehow, and the admission surprises him enough to drop them. A’s knees buckle, of course, and with them standing so close, they knock their head into his chest when they fall forward. His hands steady them by their shoulders on automatic, even as he stares far away from them, at the lights of the parking lot, at the road beyond that, at the other side.

A pushes him away, gently, like all the fight’s gone out of them too. He lets them go.

“Let’s just get to Oregon,” they say, making their way to the car. 

B’s ankle monitor beeps one last warning. For the first time he’s had it, he doesn’t feel worry. He’s not sure he feels anything at all, right now.