Counterclockwise

"How long are you two in town for?" Rosie asks in the relative calm and silence. Simon can't remember if she already asked. The air is smoky, but it's grey, and Simon takes solace in that. White smoke signals the end, as the entire earth crumbles into the Rift. The very thought makes Simon's grip on Lee's hand tighten. He won't think about it.

Maybe it's just what will happen when Lee dies. Maybe he never opens the Rift on purpose, but his death shatters the universe. Simon can believe that, and there's even a comfort in it, to think that the Rift can't be prevented. It makes too much sense, if Lee is everything, and it means it's not his fault. Simon's lucky there are many reasons for his eyes to be red.

"Probably only tonight," Lee admits. "Gotta keep moving, you know?"

Rosie reclines against the bed; behind her, Mary's laying on top of the covers, gently stroking her hair. "You really fleeing the war in India?"

Lee waits a moment too long to answer. "Why wouldn't we be?"

Rosie waves her hand in lazy circles through the smoke, and it's John Carter who speaks. "We're all running from something, and it ain't just war."

Lee laughs. "I'm sure it's clear that I told a few lies." His voice is picking up that twang of their accent, becoming them. Simon could listen to him speak in any accent for hours, and that's the very problem he's having right now. "The full truth, I couldn't possibly explain."

"If anyone would understand," Rosie says slowly, "...'s probably us."

Lee just smiles. "You'd understand some of it."

John Bonheim's been eyeing their held hands, and when he opens his mouth Simon is a little worried, but his soft gaze meets Simon's and it's not accusatory, not disgusted. "I knew as soon as I saw you," he says quietly, "and I wish you both nothing but happiness."

Simon retroactively puts a lot of pieces together. "Oh."

Lee looks at John, looks at Simon, and then deliberately looks away. Simon's starting to understand that silent communication, too. And it's horrible.

He thought the constricting roots in his chest were about to grow flowers in his lungs, but they aren't. They're just going to tighten, and tighten, and tighten, because Simon knows on what date, a hundred and fifty years from the moment they sit in now, that he's going to lose anything he could hope to gain. Anything he already cares about.

"Happiness is hard to find," Mary says, her fingernails scratching Rosie's scalp, which Rosie gently leans back into. "For people like us, anyhow."

"Oh," Lee mutters, with another drag of smoke that curls from his mouth as he speaks, "we're everywhere. You've just got to know where to look."

Rosie chuckles. "Like cockroaches."

Simon leans back, over, his head falling against Lee's shoulder; sleepiness comes every time he closes his eyes. "We'd survive a nuke."

There's chuckles around him, and he's not sure anyone even heard him properly. Which, he realises, might be for the better. "That friend of yours is prone to a little madness, Mr. Spencer," Mary says, laughing. So maybe they did in fact hear him.

Lee waves them off. "He forgets words in English, don't you worry. What he said- you know cockroaches? Try almost anything to kill them, and they'll survive. Cockroaches are damn hardy. So are we. That's what he said."

"It's true," John Carter says, heavy nods all around. "It's very true."

Lee's head rests on top of Simon's, now, both leaning on each other. Lee never fought the accusation that they were together, Simon realises. Although, of course, neither did he.