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The afternoon was bright with blue sky and trailing clouds, and Bdubs’s hands were warm as they scooped up another handful of soil from his bag of compost. He lifted it over the table and into the next ceramic pot, dirt spilling from between his fingertips and landing neatly inside.
I still don’t know how you do that.
Bdubs laughed. “You just filled half of these pots, what do you mean?”
Half the table turned into a garden when I did it. How do you make all the dirt actually go in?
“It’s just practice. You’ll get there eventually.”
As Tango watched, Bdubs carefully patted the soil down and shifted the pot aside. He picked up the next pot and then held out his hands, ready for Tango to take control.
“Alright,” he said. “Your turn. Be gentle with it. Like water — you need to handle it like something you need to hold carefully.”
Okay.
Tango cupped his hands around the next portion of compost. At this point he likely should have been used to feeling it soft between his fingertips, but each time he was in control of these hands he found them a surprise.
He picked up the soil, trying to imitate the feeling of how Bdubs had done it, and poured it into the next pot. Only a little escaped his intended target, and he celebrated the small victory with a smile.
“There you go,” said Bdubs, and as he took back control the smile didn't fade. “You're catching on fast.”
The reason that he was sitting here — inside of his house, filling small pots at his kitchen table as Tango peeked on from his mind — was to plant a new batch of strawberries. They would be sold at the markets later in the year, as many of the fruits in the garden were, but Bdubs had suggested Tango take responsibility for these.
He said it was so that Tango would have something to do. It was no secret between them that this was not the only reason.
Once Etho had left for work earlier in the day, Tango had finally agreed to help out, and Bdubs had sat them both down and started explaining the process for growing strawberries. Tango listened carefully and Bdubs unwound the explanations of runners and parent roots, of slugs and pests that dove for the tiny fruit, of warm months of harvest and cold months of dangerous frost.
To Bdubs's credit, he was a very good talker. He could make Tango feel as if there was nothing at all out of place. Like he belonged here, watching him fill in new pots and explain how to look out of the life that would grow from them.
Bdubs picked up the next handful of dirt to even out the top layer of dirt in the pot, and as he did so there was a sound from outside as a car drove into the driveway.
Instinctively, Tango retreated into the back of Bdubs's mind. Bdubs frowned.
“You'll need to say something to him at some point,” he reasoned.
He shouldn't know I'm here.
“He likely already does. Where else could you be?”
Tango didn't answer. It wasn’t the first time Bdubs had raised this point. Garret was gone, and there was nobody else to host him — and Etho was smart enough to put the pieces together.
If Tango really had to say something, it wouldn't be today. The sun was too bright, and Etho looked too pleased as he shut the car door behind him.
He remained silent as Bdubs patted down the soil in the pot and, when that was done, got up to greet Etho at the front door.
*
The strawberry plants were flowering by mid-May.
Bdubs let Tango carry them over to the greenhouse and keep them in a corner he’d cleared out; they looked small and hopeful in the corner of the warm room.
Against expectations, Tango had started to grow fond of checking in on them. It was as though they were a tiny secret he got to keep against the rest of the world.
The day they first began to bloom, Bdubs knelt down to check on their health. After peeking at each budding flower, he beamed at the empty air — a habit he had picked up to convey to Tango his expressions, through muscles and the occasional glimpse of a reflection rather than a quick glance.
“They’re doing well,” he said. “We’ll need to keep an eye out for the fruits when they start popping up.”
Is that soon?
“It’ll be in a month or so, I think. I wonder if we still have nets to protect them…” Bdubs trailed off, staring out at the house. “You wouldn’t mind a detour, would you?”
Tango pushed the vague sentiment of amused assent over to him.
It’s not like I could stop you, right?
Snorting, Bdubs stood up and brushed some of the soil from his trousers. “That you couldn’t, mister.”
He headed back inside and Tango let himself bask in the lingering warmth. The weather had been just pleasantly warm for days now, like the edge of either the summer months or a week of showers.
Both would be good for the garden. Bdubs didn’t seem bothered — that much was clear — and so neither was Tango.
They re-entered the house and Tango brushed his shoes against the footmat, Bdubs rolling his eyes at the action. He waited for him to finish, dirt scattering over the worn mat, then headed towards a door in the kitchen and opened the door to the staircase beyond.
Tango knew these stairs.
We’re going to the basement?
“I usually keep the out-of-season things down there,” Bdubs explained. “Pretty sure we still have leftover nets there.”
If Tango’s soul had a heartbeat, it would be racing. He squashed himself backwards, like a goldfish in a tiny bowl squirming to avoid a swooping net. He didn’t want to show his hand, but more than that he did not want to be anywhere near the iron-clad cell down there.
Do we need to go down there? Can’t we go to — we could buy more or something, couldn’t we?
Bdubs slowed at the sound of his hesitation, halfway down the creaking staircase. Tango could practically hear the cogs in his brain spinning, and then the click as he came to a realisation.
“You were down here,” he said, voice suddenly quieter than Tango had ever heard it. “Weren’t you?”
Staring into the darkness — where the warm light of the house tapered off into utter black — it was almost too easy for Tango to nod.
Bdubs hovered for a few seconds, seemingly unsure as to what to do. For a moment, Tango thought that he might be considering what alternatives there could be to going down there — perhaps asking Etho for help, Tango thought with a hopeful leap of his heart, which would take away any need to go there at all.
“Did he… force you to stay?” Bdubs whispered, words slithering into the dark. “Were you locked down here?”
I don’t really want to —
But Bdubs continued, “I really haven’t been able to get anything from Etho. And between the two of you it — it always feels like I’m trying to figure out what was happening here.” His voice raised out of a whisper unconsciously. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? He wouldn’t do that, of course, but I still — I mean — I mean, why won’t either of you tell me anything?”
Tango shrunk back, and Bdubs took a step forward as if on instinct. A moment passed, during which Tango managed to gather up a few functional words.
Please. Can we not talk about this?
“But I—”
There was a long pause, tension swirling in the stale air around them. Tango wondered if it would just be easier to tell him everything, and almost immediately knew that would just make everything more difficult for all three of them.
Bdubs let out a slow breath.
“Fine,” he finally said, “I’ll just check on those nets when you’re off doing your sleeping thing, then. Would that be alright with you?”
It was a fair compromise. As long as Tango didn’t have to be too close, he decided that he would be fine with letting Bdubs go alone. The risk of returning too early was likely low, assuming that Bdubs didn’t linger too long in the basement.
Besides, those strawberries really would need a net.
Okay.
And then, after an extended pause:
Can we go back to the house?
“Of course we can,” Bdubs replied hurriedly. He turned and headed back up the stairs, shutting the door tight behind him. “We won’t go down there until you… feel ready.”
Thanks.
The silence that followed bordered on awkward, which was a feeling Tango had not acquainted himself with in some time now. It probably would have lasted even longer than it did had Etho not appeared in the kitchen at that very moment, looking surprised to see Bdubs directly before the door to the basement.
His eyes narrowed momentarily, darting from the door to Bdubs and back again, and then he flinched in a way that Tango would have labelled comical if he wasn’t currently flirting with an oncoming panic attack.
“Oh, hey, Etho. Give me a moment,” said Bdubs, incredibly casual. “I just need to take a quick wash, I’ve been crawling around the garden all day.”
“Sure,” Etho replied slowly, eyes darting from the door back to Bdubs, looking directly into his eyes as if he’d see Tango lurking there.
Ignoring his stare, Bdubs turned and took the few confident paces out of the room, posture relaxing as Tango did once they reached the hallway.
“See? He’s chill,” he said. Tango hummed his vague disagreement. “Nothing to worry about, really.”
Etho's voice made Tango jump — he must have been watching from the doorway to the kitchen — as he called, “Bdubs, is that…?”
He stopped sharply. Bdubs turned and raised a brow.
“Is that who?” he repeated.
Etho met his eyes, and once again Tango felt as if he was being searched for. Bdubs didn’t even flinch, just waving his hand for Etho to get on with what he was saying.
“It’s nothing,” Etho eventually said, and shook his head. “Have a good shower.”
It would be easier for both of them if he’d just finished the question. Tango did not intend to be the one to break the news to him that his best friend was still being possessed by the demon he’d caught. Instead, Bdubs just walked on.
For the rest of the day, Tango couldn’t get Etho's piercing stare out of his brain.
*
Tango did not see even a glimpse of the hunter that Etho was before — until, that is, he did.
It had been a quiet day, Bdubs working on some documents that Tango couldn’t be bothered to read. He was sitting at the back of his mind, thinking about some plan or other he had for optimising Bdubs’ watering pipes, when the car door slammed outside and he instinctively turned his head to check.
“It’s just Etho,” Bdubs said, but Tango kept an eye on the window, waiting to see Etho pass by. “He’s probably trying to get through the rain quickly.”
As he spoke, a shape passed by the glass, too shadowed from the dark sky for any expression to be visible upon its face. All Tango could make out was the form of someone hunched up against a storm.
Tango sat tensely, the pen Bdubs had been writing with gripped in his fist.
There was a knock at the door. He didn’t move, plastered to the seat, even when Bdubs coughed quietly to ask him to release his taut muscles.
After another knock, the lock to the front door rattled loudly, and the door swung open. Someone stumbled in with a grunt and a series of loud footsteps. The door shut again.
Tango — Tango couldn’t move. It didn’t matter if he was halfway across the house from him; he couldn’t move.
Heavy shoes shook themselves roughly against the mat by the front door. There was a huff, and then the sound of something being thrown haphazardly. The footsteps returned, now out of the front room and towards the kitchen.
“Tango,” murmured Bdubs, softly enough that only he could hear it. “Could you let me go and greet him?”
He pulled back immediately, letting Bdubs get up from his seat and re-orient himself.
He went to the kitchen and Tango waited as he exchanged a few words with Etho. There were a few minutes where he could only see the increasingly deep crease between Etho’s eyebrows and hear Bdubs talking about something or another to do with taxes, and then it hit him very suddenly that Etho was about to lose his patience.
Bdubs, we need to get out of here.
Something in his tone must have caught Bdubs’ attention, because he immediately stopped speaking and pushed a concerned feeling in Tango’s direction.
He’s mad, we need to — we need to get out of here, please.
Bdubs didn’t leave, but he seemed to step back a little. He glanced at Etho, as if he wanted to say something to Tango yet finding himself entirely unable to without Etho hearing every word. When Tango still didn’t seem to calm down, he moved his hands behind his back and wrapped one around the other, like a vague imitation of comfort.
The thin silence broke harshly as Etho sighed into the air, a rough and frustrated breath.
“I’m sorry, Bdubs. I might have to head to bed early, I need a nap or something.”
“Everything okay?” Bdubs asked, still gripping his own hand somewhat awkwardly.
“Work was — it was tough. I want to —” Etho broke off and buried his head in his hands. “We found a werewolf, living alone. I didn't… manage to get them out of there in time.”
Tango’s spiralling thoughts paused. It wasn’t that Etho sounded upset — he sounded quietly devastated.
“Oh,” Bdubs replied, voice gentle.
He took a small step forwards, unclasped his hands, and opened his arms to Etho for a hug.
It was sweet. It was needed. By the time they made contact, Tango was already gone.
*
He returned while Bdubs was still mid-conversation.
“—he’s always so scared of you, and I just want someone to rip the bandaid off and tell me what happened,” he was saying. “Don’t you think I should get to know? It’s — it’s because of me that this even—”
“What happened is not your fault,” Etho replied firmly.
“Sure, great,” came the sarcastic reply. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
As Tango adjusted himself to the scene, he noted the way Etho was leaning against the kitchen counter, his fingers gripping the edge of the table.
“If I didn’t know better,” Bdubs carried on, “I’d think you…”
He trailed off, and a surge of regret entered the space of his brain that they shared. Right. He'd realised, now, that Tango was back.
At the sudden pause, Etho glanced up and frowned at the weight on his brow. Tango could feel the discomfort Bdubs was sinking into after having been found talking about him while he was gone, and see the calculation in Etho's eyes as he worked out the same thing.
Tango took over without really thinking, filling in the gaps in his muscles where they’d gone stiff. He wasn’t sure how to quickly move the conversation on — how to skip past the obvious fact of his own existence — and so blurted out the first thing he could think of.
“Do you want to see the strawberries?”
The words took both of them by surprise.
Tango cleared his throat. “I mean, we — I’ve been growing strawberries. Do you want to see?”
“Okay,” Etho said slowly.
“Great! Great,” Tango replied, keeping his voice as light as he could, as if his windpipe wasn’t tying itself up as he spoke. “Let’s go.”
He wasn’t sure what was driving him to do this; it wasn’t Bdubs, and it certainly wasn’t his own intent. But here he was anyway, shrugging on a raincoat and then leading Etho through the gardens.
In the greenhouse, rain muffled the world around them out, only the patterns of water made against the glass visible from within. Etho looked like a natural ornament among the collections of plants. Tango watched as he checked some of the other plants along the way, recognising some with a nod and pausing for longer on those he didn’t.
Bdubs seemed to have recovered, though for now he seemed willing to let Tango drive the interaction. The magnitude of the situation felt larger to him than it must have seemed to Bdubs.
He tilted the stems of the strawberries up to reveal the tiny green fruit that was beginning to appear along the stems, and Etho leaned in accordingly, taking the stem from him with a carefulness that allowed their fingertips to slip past each other untouched.
“These look really good,” Etho finally commented, and his voice was quiet. He stood up again to meet Tango’s eye. “Have you ever done this before?”
Tango wasn’t sure if he meant gardening, or growing this specific plant, or just doing anything that he felt a part of. There were different answers for each.
In the end he settled on: “It’s new to me. But I enjoy it.”
Etho nodded, and turned back to the little strawberries. Somewhere at the edge of his soul, Tango could feel Bdubs poking to be given control again.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Etho asked almost absently.
“Nothing I can…” Tango stopped. There was, he realised. “Nets. We need nets. Can you go down to the basement and get us some, if there’s any there?”
“Sure,” said Etho. “Why do you need me to — oh. Yeah.” He let the stem go and stood up fully. “I — uh. Thank you for showing me this.”
Tango shrugged, the side of his lips pulling up into a half smile. “It's just a plant.”
In lieu of an answer, Etho straightened up one of nearby bamboo canes, an expression on his face that Tango wished he could get used to.
“Well,” Bdubs said, “thank you in advance for handling the nets. Once the fruit become riper, we're going to get all sorts of pests around here.”
Etho gave him a sideways look. “‘Course, Bdubs. I'm more than happy to help.”
He spent a few more minutes showing Etho some of the roses that had been terribly mangled, and then waved him out of the garden to go back inside and wash up after work.
Sorry about that.
With a small exhale, Bdubs stepped back into the house and shut the door behind him. “You're alright. I shouldn't have been… talking about you, just because you weren't there.”
I get it. You just want to know.
“Yeah, I — I do.” Bdubs kept his eyes fixed to the door handle. “But I can wait. You can tell me when you’re ready.”
Tango didn't know how to let him know that he wasn't sure he ever would be, and so he didn't say anything at all.
*
The storm took them off-guard.
It had been rainy for a week or so by now, but they had expected the skies to clear rather than grow darker. Instead the sky began to rumble lowly, flashing intermittently like distant radio static.
Bdubs was practically itching to go outside. Being cooped up didn't suit him well; Tango could feel the frustration building beneath his skin, and was unsurprised when he became rather a lot more snappy.
It seemed Etho was also used to this sort of behaviour. He gave Bdubs his space. Flowers made their way into various corners of the house unexpectedly. Tango appreciated it, even if Bdubs was too irritated to at present.
Hail began to hurl itself against the glass by late afternoon, the wind howling a little louder through the cracks in the house and the slits in the windows. It felt as though the whole house was about to rattle off its hinges, and Bdubs's stress was beginning to peak. As much as he didn't want to intervene, Tango felt useless simply watching in silence.
You should really try to sleep through this.
“That doesn't work, I've already tried that before,” Bdubs muttered through gritted teeth.
Across the room, Etho ducked his head further behind the old newspaper he'd picked up.
Or maybe try talking to Etho? Take your mind off it?
“I don't want to end up snapping at him.”
Read a book? Watch a movie? Something other than just sitting here, surely.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” he said sarcastically, “is my head not interesting enough for you when I'm not perfectly happy?”
I didn't mean that.
“Can you — go away for a bit? I don't need the thing in my brain after my ass too.”
The statement hung in the air. Tango twisted uncomfortably.
Maybe it would be better, he thought, when nobody said anything more to that. He could already feel the beginnings of guilt begin to stir in Bdubs's gut, but —
Well. It would just make it easier.
He didn't think about leaving. He just thought about hiding away, and leaving was the natural consequence.
*
The air was stagnant and familiar. There was little light, and he wondered if they had maybe wandered into the eye of a storm, quiet and still as it felt here.
And familiar. It was most definitely familiar.
He was standing at the centre of a small room. The sink was dripping slightly; his feet stood on concrete flooring; there was a toilet and a sink and a bolted-down cot. There were wiry green nets gripped tight in his hand, but he could barely think about it when everything else here lay around him like a nightmare.
He was in the cell. After all of this, he was back here.
Had he ever even left? Had they really managed to heal Bdubs? Or had all of this — leaving Garret, staying with Bdubs when the hunter's body died, every day and night and memory since — been some fabrication to just get a moment of peace?
He thought of how comfortable it had felt, lately, to wake up and feel Bdubs brightening up at his return. He thought of how he could look at Etho without flinching some days, could even imagine a future alongside him.
The faucet dripped water onto the dull white of the sink.
He was back.
Somehow the realisation sank in deeper this time, and he could feel his own breathing start to accelerate. He was saying something — mumbling, or yelling, or maybe even that was just his imagination — but he couldn't hear it over the horrifying thought that he might just be stuck here until he died.
He took a few steps towards the sink and felt his entire body resist the movement, ending in a stumble that sent him careening in the opposite direction from where he intended to go. He could barely feel his limbs. His hand moved to his chest without him willing it to and — was Garret still there? Was that him, waking up finally to put an end to him?
It had been such a relief when he died. Losing a body of his own was like a corridor caving right as he walked through, but at least what came after had been familiar. It made it feel easier to breathe.
He couldn’t breathe now. His lungs ached. It felt like he had been yelling.
The door to the cell opened, breaking him from his spiralling thoughts.
It was Etho.
Of course it was Etho. Who else would it be, down here? But he looked more imposing than usual — taller. That was certain, Tango realised; Etho looked taller.
“What do you want?” he managed to say, and it felt like a terrible instinct.
Etho stared at him, eyes wide yet clouded.
“What did you do?” And that wasn’t Tango, but the words came out of his mouth all the same. “Etho, why is he—?”
In a moment, Tango reached out for the other presence in the body to try to quiet it, to push it into a corner where it wouldn’t try to regain control. He couldn’t have Garret back. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready yet.
His eyes widened, panic growing in his chest like static.
Before him, the door pushed further open, drawing his remaining attention. Etho was taking a few steps forward, feet careful on the stone floor, before he thought better of it and stopped a foot away. He didn’t close the door. It stood open behind him, gaping like a lost puzzle piece.
“Tango,” said Etho. Tango felt his breath catch. “You need to breathe.”
“I am breathing, or I'd be dead,” he responded, before stopping to cough. Saying that alone had winded him, he realised.
Etho’s tone shifted, a little lighter now. “Sure, you’re breathing, but you’re not doing it right.” He drew a little closer, then indicated the hand still on Tango’s chest. “Slower.”
“I don’t need breathing lessons from you.”
“Slower.”
It was strange that he wanted to listen to him. His body worked with him as he tried to slow the next breath he took in. And then it held it, the next step suspending itself long enough for Etho to nod and indicate he should breathe out again.
This alone seemed to be slower than he’d thought possible — but then his next breath was longer still. He worked through the breaths on the coattails of the other soul in this body, until his heartbeat was the loudest thing he could hear.
Etho’s hand was on his own, resting against his chest. He was doing his utmost not to pull away from it.
“Do you remember who you’re possessing?” he asked, unnervingly calm.
It was Garret — no, it wasn't. It was Bdubs.
Several thoughts fell through his mind like sand. A flash of mossy skin, a warm voice, hands that carefully sifted through soil.
Sharp teeth.
He winced. “Yeah. I remember him. Of course I do.”
“Good.” Etho breathed slowly, and Tango copied the rise and fall of his chest. “Do you — can you think of the garden? You were growing strawberries. Think about those.”
The image constructed itself in his mind: the greenhouse, always close to sweltering without crossing the border into uncomfortable; small green fruit growing day by day; burying bare-root runners into small pots. He would check on them every morning, watching the leaves shiver in the air, real as anything else.
He’d been proud.
It was like easing open a floodgate, the rest of the path to the greenhouse lighting itself up in his mind, an anchor for the reality he’d stepped into after leaving this cell. He had managed to get out of here after all. And there was Bdubs, too — the other soul in this body.
There were wiry nets in his hand, and the reason why washed back into his mind.
“There you go,” he murmured. The voice wasn’t Tango, and it wasn’t Etho, and it was endearingly familiar. “Can you hear me, Tango?”
Bdubs? Why are we here?
“I wanted to come and see this place for myself, I – I thought you'd be gone longer, and — I'm sorry.”
Something was painful. Tango couldn't put it into words, exactly.
You said you would wait.
“I know. I'm… I should have. But you're doing so well. Keep breathing. We’ll get out of here, okay?”
It was easy to let Bdubs flood back into control of his body, to feel his lungs fill with fresh air. Some part of him was disgruntled that he had gone back on his word, but most of him was glad it had only been that.
The change must have been physical, too — a change in stance or expression, as Bdubs returned to form — because Etho looked relieved.
“You don't need my permission or anything,” he put in, “but you can leave whenever you want. I won't do anything to hurt you.”
There was a sincerity in his eyes that Tango could recognise as clearly as if it had been spelled out across his face. The thought that he might mean it was strange and hopeful.
“Alright,” said Tango, “I trust you.”
And somehow, despite every step that had led him here, he found that he believed it.
*
It was a good day.
It was good in that it was sunny, and pleasant, and Tango was glad for the first time after the heavy storms of late. The turn in the weather was like a blessing, the sun on his back as he set up the nets around the strawberry plants.
It was also good in that he was in wonderful company. Bdubs was chattering away to Etho, who looked nearly domestic as he cut the ends of the net into shape. Tango manoeuvred them around other plants, stepping carefully over patches of dirt where he knew new plants were hiding just beneath the surface, listening in on their back and forth.
It felt like an endless sort of morning, in a way, with clouds spinning like distant silk across the horizon. He was impossibly close and impossibly far from the cell now; and even then it felt like an empty threat, a room with a door swinging open.
As he tied off the last part of netting and stood up to stretch in the midday light, he yawned and looked out at the garden. At Etho sat cutting up wire and laughing nearby. At Bdubs’s hands, gesturing enthusiastically as he narrated some story involving one of their friends. At the strawberries, growing healthy and bright and red in the warmth of the greenhouse.
The future spilled out ahead of him like a path finally lit by the sun.