5.22

“Stand with your shield brothers and sisters or you are lone meat.” - Orc saying.

“Well, he’s gonna be useless for a few minutes…” Noam muttered his breath. “Are we safe right now Dustin?”

The myconid pondered over it for a few moments, “Probably, leaning towards likely.”

“Good enough for me,” the tiefling replied as he grabbed his friend by the arm and started dragging back into the tower.

“What’s his deal right now?” Tai asked. Eyes still cautiously scanning the perimeter. She’s heard of men going insane upon seeing certain things, Dustin wasn’t babbling of eldritch powers, but the sudden… lack of being creeped her out. As if the myconid had suddenly ceased being there.

“He’s in one of his moods right now,” Noam replied, a slightly worried look to his face, “hasn’t had one for a few years, but at least he’s not pushing us away.”

“Pushing us away?”

Noam shook his head as they reentered the doll room, “It doesn’t matter, at least he’s still here.”

Gently glancing around, he asked, “Ghost in here?”

Tai shook her head, after which Noam gently knelt down beside the doll. “We’ll come back for you. Stay safe.”

Standing back up, he grabbed Dustin again, “Let’s move, Dusts, can you think of any safe places?”

“Physical barriers should still impede it,” the myconid replied. “You could just board up any room.”

“But we’ll constantly need to check for leaks don’t we?” Tai said.

The myconid nodded in affirmation.

Goal now in place, they escaped the tower, breaking into another emptied house, one that thankfully held a silver mirror.

“Tai, can you push that table over there?” Noam said, directing at the door they entered.

She was already moving and as she did that, Noam leaned into Dustin and whispered a question,

“Why do you want to kill me?”

Something simple couldn’t have done it, Dustin accepted loss easily but he was stubborn when there was still a faint chance of victory, so why did he accept defeat so soon? Why did he want to run? Right now was the best time, when he simply didn’t care enough to not answer.

The myconid simply answered thus, “Do you remember what my real name is?”

“Of course it's-” Noam’s thoughts paused midway, as he realised he could not grasp a name. No matter how hard he tried, his mind simply misfired, clawing at mist and falsehood.

“Damn you,” he muttered before he moved away to help Tai.

Dustin didn’t know what he was facing. He didn’t know what happened to his real-world self. Going by the patterns he saw and the information he knew, in addition to the fact things in Indiri have been leaking into the real world, Dustin considered the worst possibility, that his real-world self was dead and deemed that the opponent wasn’t unbeatable, but not worth fighting.

Underneath his breath, Noam gritted his teeth, “I don’t need your damn protection.”

The myconid didn’t seem to respond to this, simply looking off someplace far away.

“No, you do not.”

It took him two hours to fully come back.

Two hours in the night spent staring at a silver mirror and blade. Two hours of pacing the perimeter of the same small room. A quiet tension between the two humanoids, all the while the myconid stayed silent until finally, he spoke.

“So now you know.”

Tai jumped at this, the tension within her shot like a released bow. “Bastard…”

“Yeap,” Noam answered as he leaned on the wall. “I know now.”

“Will you be convinced now that you know my side of the story?”

“For a person who values logical debate, you sure didn’t bother to come to me on such terms.”

Dustin sighed, “Because I know you too well.”

“Because you know me too well,” Noam affirmed.

“Is there any more need for words then?”

Noam got off the wall, “I always have words to throw down. It’s in my damn family. Hells, one time Denise eviscerated a-”

“Can you stop that?” Dustin rudely interrupted, “Stop trying to tell me more about you, I refuse to listen.”

“Why not?” Noam shot back, walking to directly face the myconid.

Dustin looked up, “Because the more I know about some, the more I see them as just a complicated set of levers to induce certain reactions.”

“That’s how relationships work,” Noam replied, not even missing a beat. “You learn about someone else, you share interests and you realise the other is a person you wouldn’t mind spending time with.”

“That can be achieved without more than a shallow understanding of someone else. A friendship can be formed on the simplest of things and end on that.”

Noam closed his eyes and took a single deep breath, a technique, a habit of calming he had caught on from the very person before him. Then he stared at Dustin straight in the eye. “That lever shit, knowing how to interact with people by pushing the right buttons, who the fuck do you think you learnt that from?”

Dustin did not answer.

“I’ve been with you for years,” Noam practically snarled, “I was there at your worst, laughed with your best, I know you better than you do. So believe me when I say, I can break you and your fragile ego, expose all your logical inconsistencies despite claiming you're a bastion of logic, with less than a fucking paragraph.”

He raised a hand as Dustin opened his mouth to speak, “I know, I know. You’ve never verbally claimed it, but don’t deny that you don’t think you’re the one sane person in this entire world.”

Dustin did not answer.

“I want you to know, that for all of your damned stupid inconsistencies and flaws, you’re still my fucking friend,” Noam spoke with absolute conviction. “A person who knows my own flaws yet still goes along with them, just as I do you. I’m your friend not because you’re some smartass, but because I realise you’re still a stupid dumbass underneath all that.”

The tiefling grabbed the myconid by the shoulders and hung his head down, “And I thought you knew that as well.”

“So why,” his voice cracked, “did you not think to rely on me when you were so worried?”

For the first time, Dustin saw eye level with Noam and realised there were tears in his eyes.

“Was I that unreliable?”

Dustin didn’t answer, because he genuinely didn’t know the answer to that question.

But he had to, so he just admitted it. “I don’t know.”

He continued to speak, just letting the words flow unimpeded, “I think… I prioritised the ideal of our friendship, over what we actually had.”

“I saw it as just a commander piece relationship, not thinking about it any more than that.”

A gentle hand ruffled his cap.

“And it’s fine because I know you’re an ass, but to fail is not to fall down.”

“But in refusing to get up,” Dustin finished.

He smiled, “You're a bundle of contradictory issues shambling roughly in the shape of a human, having more complexes than I can list or remember.”

“You’re a psychopath battle junkie who would murder people for an adrenaline high. Yet somehow still agonises over dealing the last blow to someone you hate.”

Together they spoke, ““You’re my friend.””

They shuffled apart, the short moment of intimacy finished as they turned their attention to the third person in the room.

… who was staring at the both of them wide-eyed and red-cheeked.

“Just to confirm, you’re both males right?”

“Yeah?” Dustin asked, just as Noam slapped his face.

Tai nodded sagely as if she had just obtained enlightenment, “Thank you for showing me that.”

“You’re welcome?” Dustin replied.

“So umm…” Tai shuffled awkwardly, “What now? There’s still… it on the loose.”

“It’s pretty simple actually,” Dustin began.

“Almost elementary,” Noam added.

“Now is when we begin the counter-attack.”