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You&& (working title) is a queer novella about when home is other people, including the monsters lurking in the woods. Check out the about page here. You&& is a sequel to Sometimes The Mountain Buries You.
Basin helps you move to the bedroom that smells less of them. You considered declining the assistance but the splitting pain in your head increases as you consider changing location—more new things, everywhere. Hall, bedroom, bed, blanket, bedside table, lamp. Your groan turns into a bugle and Basin stands outside the door for a minute cradling their mug of tea until you call, "Yeah, sure, okay."
They tell you you're not their first. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
It calms your residual anxiety about being so close to a human. About the danger that was someone stitching you back together. You know it's dangerous, it's lethal. You know you're dangerous. You're lethal.
"I've been here about as long as you."
You sip chamomile. You taste when in the plants' cycle they were picked, early in flowering. You like the taste.
"I've been a vet for a little while now but the last place I was at—" They're struggling. They're thinking of people and it hurts them to think of them.
You wait, letting the splitting pain in your head die down rather than peer through their mess of thought and emotion for the story without their halting words. There are no waterstains on the ceiling in this bedroom; a corner has been patched, under the patch and plaster it smells like squirrels.
"His name was Sheppard. He died when I figure you uh... began." They frown, you watch the steam of their tea roll against the furrows of their brow, press condensation against pores and fine short hairs.
"I'm the, new one."
"Yeah." They press their lips together again. Do you, are you though?
You breathe long and slow, like Basin had before. You feel this room, feel Basin leaning against the wall by the door, feel the rest of the cabin, the birds and insects outside, the other structures on the dusty road, the lack of the things around that you have the innate drive to place within your maw and consume.
"Anyway, that's how I knew how to safely patch you up." Basin is preparing to move along, to explain more things to you.
"I do, am."
Their whole body hesitates. There's something too familiar to them about you responding to the things they weren't saying. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
"The things, in the places no one lives, the ones that shouldn't be there. I do, eat."
The grip on their mug of tea becomes precarious as their fingers curl, pressing fingernails against ceramic glaze.
You learn what a fist is. The thing Basin's hands would be if it weren't for the mug. You say nothing in the span of time it takes Basin to compose themself. You bear the splitting pain in your head digging in, to stay out of their head while they recover.
When they exhale a final shaky breath, you apologize. They mutter a quiet "fuck" and reconsider what they've been building towards. "You need to stick around until night. To avoid being seen."
Your call, "Yeah, sure, okay" is automatic. Basin is concerned about their human neighbours seeing you. You've been avoiding humans. Something tells you the things you eat are concentrated in the places no one lives; something tells you to avoid humans, to avoid that service road.
Something else tells you that you're dangerous, you're lethal. You'll hurt them.
You don't want to hurt things you don't intend to hurt.
You want to leave as soon as possible. You consider the window.
"And it's probably for the best. I don't know how long it'll take for you to heal," I'd like to know how long it'll take for you to heal, "but it's best you heal before, uh, bounding off into the woods." They tap their fingernails against their mug; their tea is finally cool enough for them to drink.
You know exactly how hot it is. You can feel it from across the room. From in their head, you sense the edge of its heat warming Basin's mouth nearer burn than body temperature.
From in their head, you sense more of what they want to say. The anxiety returns.
In a desperate attempt to calm yourself, you smell the squirrels that had been in the ceiling, you know the impulses of the insects on the branch the pine tree reaching for the bedroom window, you feel the thrum of water deep underground.
When you next look at Basin, you wonder if it's possible for them to bruise their lips by pressing them together so hard all the time.
You know they don't want you to be here. You know they're thinking of Sheppard when they say, "Look. It's better if you spend more time 'eat'ing than lying in ditches."
Your facial expression is unimpressed. You do try to avoid the service road.
"I can stitch you up. Relocate bones. Put you back together." They were pitching their offer, what they've been building towards, what they want to say.
You really look at Basin. You see pigment coating the cuticle of their hair, scarred empty holes in their skin, scarred metal-filled holes in their skin, the rise and fall of their chest from their slow measured breaths, the pinch of their face as they don't actually want you here. They don't actually want to help you. It hurts them to help you. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
You remind them of things they've lost.
"I'd rather you stay in one piece, be able to do what you're here for as much as you can."
Basin is doing this for Sheppard. For the the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard. For the memory of them.
It feels difficult. The mess of thought and emotion—the pain, heart-weary and heat-ache—is a rock wall with no purchase, a pit of boulders, a particularly sharp break of branch on a log. It feels like you're in a desperate scrabble of limb over rock, boulder, branch, without end.
Even when the clarity of what they feel is a duty fronts above all else, it's still from that place.
There's nothing that's quiet in their head. Everything thought is attached to a complex blend of emotions, of experience, of memory.
You pull forward Basin's memories of elk and of fields of long grasses, chamomile, and clover. You consider maybe returning, if you have to.
Basin helps you move to the bedroom that smells less of them. You considered declining the assistance but the splitting pain in your head increases as you consider changing location—more new things, everywhere. Hall, bedroom, bed, blanket, bedside table, lamp. Your groan turns into a bugle and Basin stands outside the door for a minute cradling their mug of tea until you call, "Yeah, sure, okay."
They tell you you're not their first. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
It calms your residual anxiety about being so close to a human. About the danger that was someone stitching you back together. You know it's dangerous, it's lethal. You know you're dangerous. You're lethal.
"I've been here about as long as you."
You sip chamomile. You taste when in the plants' cycle they were picked, early in flowering. You like the taste.
"I've been a vet for a little while now but the last place I was at—" They're struggling. They're thinking of people and it hurts them to think of them.
You wait, letting the splitting pain in your head die down rather than peer through their mess of thought and emotion for the story without their halting words. There are no waterstains on the ceiling in this bedroom; a corner has been patched, under the patch and plaster it smells like squirrels.
"His name was Sheppard. He died when I figure you uh... began." They frown, you watch the steam of their tea roll against the furrows of their brow, press condensation against pores and fine short hairs.
"I'm the, new one."
"Yeah." They press their lips together again. Do you, are you though?
You breathe long and slow, like Basin had before. You feel this room, feel Basin leaning against the wall by the door, feel the rest of the cabin, the birds and insects outside, the other structures on the dusty road, the lack of the things around that you have the innate drive to place within your maw and consume.
"Anyway, that's how I knew how to safely patch you up." Basin is preparing to move along, to explain more things to you.
"I do, am."
Their whole body hesitates. There's something too familiar to them about you responding to the things they weren't saying. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
"The things, in the places no one lives, the ones that shouldn't be there. I do, eat."
The grip on their mug of tea becomes precarious as their fingers curl, pressing fingernails against ceramic glaze.
You learn what a fist is. The thing Basin's hands would be if it weren't for the mug. You say nothing in the span of time it takes Basin to compose themself. You bear the splitting pain in your head digging in, to stay out of their head while they recover.
When they exhale a final shaky breath, you apologize. They mutter a quiet "fuck" and reconsider what they've been building towards. "You need to stick around until night. To avoid being seen."
Your call, "Yeah, sure, okay" is automatic. Basin is concerned about their human neighbours seeing you. You've been avoiding humans. Something tells you the things you eat are concentrated in the places no one lives; something tells you to avoid humans, to avoid that service road.
Something else tells you that you're dangerous, you're lethal. You'll hurt them.
You don't want to hurt things you don't intend to hurt.
You want to leave as soon as possible. You consider the window.
"And it's probably for the best. I don't know how long it'll take for you to heal," I'd like to know how long it'll take for you to heal, "but it's best you heal before, uh, bounding off into the woods." They tap their fingernails against their mug; their tea is finally cool enough for them to drink.
You know exactly how hot it is. You can feel it from across the room. From in their head, you sense the edge of its heat warming Basin's mouth nearer burn than body temperature.
From in their head, you sense more of what they want to say. The anxiety returns.
In a desperate attempt to calm yourself, you smell the squirrels that had been in the ceiling, you know the impulses of the insects on the branch the pine tree reaching for the bedroom window, you feel the thrum of water deep underground.
When you next look at Basin, you wonder if it's possible for them to bruise their lips by pressing them together so hard all the time.
You know they don't want you to be here. You know they're thinking of Sheppard when they say, "Look. It's better if you spend more time 'eat'ing than lying in ditches."
Your facial expression is unimpressed. You do try to avoid the service road.
"I can stitch you up. Relocate bones. Put you back together." They were pitching their offer, what they've been building towards, what they want to say.
You really look at Basin. You see pigment coating the cuticle of their hair, scarred empty holes in their skin, scarred metal-filled holes in their skin, the rise and fall of their chest from their slow measured breaths, the pinch of their face as they don't actually want you here. They don't actually want to help you. It hurts them to help you. Pain; heart-weary and heart-ache.
You remind them of things they've lost.
"I'd rather you stay in one piece, be able to do what you're here for as much as you can."
Basin is doing this for Sheppard. For the the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard. For the memory of them.
It feels difficult. The mess of thought and emotion—the pain, heart-weary and heat-ache—is a rock wall with no purchase, a pit of boulders, a particularly sharp break of branch on a log. It feels like you're in a desperate scrabble of limb over rock, boulder, branch, without end.
Even when the clarity of what they feel is a duty fronts above all else, it's still from that place.
There's nothing that's quiet in their head. Everything thought is attached to a complex blend of emotions, of experience, of memory.
You pull forward Basin's memories of elk and of fields of long grasses, chamomile, and clover. You consider maybe returning, if you have to.
