"Bro," I call to Will.

Will, who I don't often invoke the sacred ritual of 'bro'ing with, startles like a small deer, and the DS he's been playing since seven in the morning clicks shut. "What's wrong?" he asks. "Was I breathing too loud?"

"No," I say. "Hey, would you say a girl taking you out Christmas shopping alone a lead-up to first base, a step there, or after first base? If someone was to hypothetically ask you to go out Christmas shopping, would that be a sign you're on your way to getting some, or a sign that you got friendzoned?"

Will stares at me blankly. "Do you ever just treat people like people, Adam?"

"Can you answer the question?"

"It's... probably a good thing?" Will says. "Wait, what did you do?"

"She asked me to go Christmas shopping, and then I was thinking about her, and then I asked about flavored chapstick and if she wore one, because I was thinking about kissing her, and she asked me if I wanted some, and I said pineapple would be great, thanks, but I have no preference." I don't add, I almost bit my tongue off ten times trying to get myself to stop talking, but I think, through the shambles of our mangled twin ESP, Will can sense that energy coming off the conversation.

"She being Megan?" asks Will.

"Yes," I say.

He rolls his eyes. "You know, this was a really weird one sided conversation, and I'm glad I'm now getting contest for why you said, 'Banana, no wait, pineapple,' because given your narrow, basically non-existent range of interests, I thought I was listening to a different kind of conversation," Will says, his knuckles tapping his closed DS. "I don't know why you're asking me about romance. Until last year, I thought 'hitting the bases' with someone had to do with some weird kind of couple's baseball."

I mean, you could think of it that way. Refraining from an extended, crude metaphor with which to torture my younger brother, I say, "You're right. You are hopeless. I should have asked Evan... nope, wait, that's worse."

"Are you two fighting over her? That's novel." Will says, then corrects himself: "Sorry. That was mean."

I close my eyes and try to reconcile my dozens of contradictory feelings about Evan Drake, whose messy hair and tight ass make me question my masculinity more than Christmas shopping sans the romantic aspect ever could. I honestly have no idea what we both are in regards to her. "We're not."

"Mhm. What do you guys do together, then?" asks Will.

"Wouldn't you like to know," I say, thinking about what seems like ages spent traversing the woods, crawling through the depths of the Delegation, wresting our lives away from the mouths of robots.

"Can't be any crazier than what I've been doing," Will suggests. As someone who's seen what he's been doing, I have to say that my life is a little more high-stakes right now than cardboard sword battles with a host of screeching, obnoxious nerdy girls who haven't grown up since the fifth grade and Megan's horrible, obsessive ex who can't get a handle on herself without Megan around.

"I guess not," I say, but even he can hear sarcasm, my second-favorite sword, edging my voice.

"One day you're going to have to take me seriously," Will says, getting to his feet.

"Doubtful," I say.

Will looks back at me with unfettered disgust. What the hell's gotten into him? "You'll be surprised. Anyways, I've got some pretty high-stakes shit to do, so have fun with the girl who deserves better than you, but..."

"Uh huh. What would your high-stakes activity be?"

"Climbing the Smash Bros 4 ladder online," Will says. "We're trying to beat a ranking of--"

"That was a rhetorical question, Will."

Will's eyes fall. "Right. Bye, Adam."

I think I want to tell him everything, but I don't know if that's because I want to have a pissing contest about how heavy our lives are or because I want help. Probably the former. Definitely the former. I hear knocking from downstairs right after he exits the room, and brush past him to the door with an impactful tap. Megan Briggs stands just outside in a rainbow scarf that tucks itself around her face and a thick, puffy coat. She grins, holding a satchel at her side. "Ready, Adam?"

"See you at the Brigade later, Megan," hollers Will, even though he's right there.

"Right! Of course!" Megan hollers back, because Megan Briggs will never be outdone. "I'll be there!"

No.

"Someone's busy," I say as I enter Megan Briggs' mom's gingerbread-scented car, littered with magazines for small children and filled to the brim with the overwhelmingly saccharine sound of stereotypical Christmas music from one of those stations that starts blasting Walkin' In a Winter Wonderland the day after Thanksgiving.

I try to sit still through the placid conversation, occasionally offering a "Thank you, ma'am," or "yes, ma'am", and we pull up to an indie store just in time for me to, in the most dignified fashion possible, remove myself from the car and inhale deeply. Megan pops out of shotgun and drags me inside by the arm.

"You're going to love this," she says, and we emerge upon rows of stuff: overpriced trinkets ranging from napkin rings to sassy sayings printed out on black wood like 'The difference between pizza and your opinions is that I asked for pizza', an entire shelf of candles, heaven knows how many throw pillows, a whole room of pet accessories, and pungent handmade soap just about everywhere. We are treated to the second go-around of Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland, and let me just say, I am listening, and those sleigh bells are ringing off the walls.

"Wow," I say.

"Yeah, I know right? My mom loves this place," Megan is grinning ear to ear. She's still got my hand, and I'm not letting go if she's not. As she drags me down isles she asks, "I need your help. What do we buy for Evan?"

"Wrong store," I respond. "It's Evan Drake. He probably wants a katana or heavy metal music."

"Oh gosh, you're so right," Megan whispers under her breath as she ruffles through the shelves. "I usually make things for people or buy off Amazon, but I know all their fandoms or at least what kind of art they make, so this is new and a little difficult. I mean-- not that you're difficult! Come on, Adam, what would you do?" She grabs my other hand. She has my other hand.

I keep looking her straight in the eyes. The thing with Megan is that I wish I could have every second we've ever shared together individually packaged, so I could enjoy them at my own pace, but time keeps rocketing the two of us forwards, and I'm never sure I'm on board with where it's going.

"This is probably a really weird date," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Is it... a date?" I ask.

"I couldn't think of anything else to do," she admits. "But I figured you're probably a sentimental guy, so maybe you could get some Christmas shopping done anyways?"

"You could not be more off the mark. I get Will the same thing every year, and it's a gift card, so he can get whatever he wants from the video games department at Target."

"That's not too bad," Megan says. "It's not good, but you value his autonomy, so it's not horrendous--"

"He's the only person I get a gift for."

"Alright, maybe it's pretty bad."

"I--" Don't say anything. Stop talking. Chief's going at my head with a sword, and I'm trying to close my own mouth, but I don't know if I can not say anything to those eyes. No. I know I can't. I have to say it. She has to know. Make it romantic. Make it smooth. Come on, Rosenbloom. Come on. "I don't know who you think I am, Megan, but you've seen me, for all the time we've been together, at my best-- no, better than my best. I'm not a superhero here. I'm not even a competent human being. I can't even treat you like a person half the time! Honestly, when I'm out of costume, I still think... I feel like I'm lying to you, just being here."

Megan's face puckers. "Don't say that."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because," she says, so close to my face I can feel the heat of her burning around me. "I don't want to be falling in love with a lie."

I lean in. She smells like gingerbread. All the marked-up glass vases around us shine with light from the sun, from the cars on the road, and glance back off so that she is lit up with every color known to glassblowers and rich suburban moms and potentially every color known to the whole world, and I can feel them stain the blank slate of my soul-- her hand presses into my chest, and then she slams me against the wall of throw pillows behind us.

"Adam," she whispers.

"Megan?" The clerk's watching. We should really get our shit together.

"Adam?" Megan asks, wiping water away from her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Megan," I say. She's really going to cry, isn't she? Her eyes are watering up behind her fogged-over glasses. I lean in again, this time to hug her, pause a little bit outside the hug, and then she drags me in with a soft sniff. "Are you?" Whatever facade I was attempting to carry must have dropped with the speech. Thank goodness.

"I'm great. I'm so sorry. I couldn't even pretend to be normal there for a second--"

I grip her tighter. "Then forget normal. Let's just be us. We're pretty great."

She nods, burying her face in my jacket. "Us," she echoes. The two of us look out towards the center of the store, but there's nothing there but refracted light and a space where a shadow should be.

"I'll buy him something off Amazon," I say. "What are the chances he gets in-school suspension if I buy him a katana?"

"High," admits Megan.

"Did you... ask him to go shopping, too?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I was over at his house last night, actually, after that last mission. Things aren't going so great, y'know... and then I felt bad we'd been hanging out alone, like it had been something illicit, and then we ended up talking about you, and I felt jealous the whole time he talked about you, even though I was the one sitting there, next to him. Is that weird?"

I plant my face into both my hands. "Meg."

"What?" she asks.

"I think that's all of us right now."

We laugh until the clerk almost comes over to get us to stop disrupting customers, until we're practically crying instead of laughing, and then we pick out scented candles, using 'most pretentious name' as the base criteria for every choice. We pick out 'Rustic Forest Cabin', 'Moondrop of Paradise', 'Christmas Kitchen', and a variety of extras, just in case, including one for me to take home for Will.

Megan holds up a candle. "Do you think there's something wrong with us?"

"I think things have never been right before," I say. "But maybe they're getting better."

She smiles, earnestly. "I can live with that. You two should come over sometime. Then we'll see who's jealous of who, huh?"

"When?" I ask. "We won't get many more break days, if things keep up like this."

"You think they will?" asks Megan.

I nod, and she pulls this face like she swallowed a lime, distressed, sure, but ultimately, it's all just one big game.

After we check out, while we're waiting for her mother with several triple-bagged (not very environmentally friendly of you, indie store) candles, Megan presses a stick of pineapple scented chapstick into my hand. "Hey. This stuff tastes terrible, by the way. You can't kiss with it on."

"Great, thanks. Why are you giving it to me then?"

"It tastes terrible on other people's lips," she explains. "On the other hand, you can totally eat it."

I smirk, running a hand through her hair. "You're ridiculous."

"Thanks, Chief," she says, with a quick upwards glance in my direction, and my heart flutters. "but I prefer 'obnoxiously quirky'."

I have one hand around her and one on the Diosite, in my pocket. She holds her other hand in her own pocket, and we are a matched set, two interlocking puzzle pieces in a five-piece puzzle. We watch the snowfall until her mom comes, when the moment disappears like snow against hot skin.

---

I'd considered calling some kind of meeting in the Veins just to see them again sooner, but that's stupid. I'm being stupid. Instead, I spend the dusk hours of my weekend thinking of side chats stocked with emotional confessions of mutual fear and respect alike, scrolling up and down, eventually coming to terms with the fact that I need to see them face to face.

That Monday before school, I find Evan on the second floor hallways, which is harder than it sounds like it should be. He keeps his hood up, protecting his spiky hair from view, and his gait is different, more like stumbling or scuffling than Onyx's prowl, and he's a ghost in the school hallways, the kind of person you would never find if you weren't looking for him. Evan Drake doesn't look like he should exist here. Even before all of this started, Evan was part of this: a premonition. A warning. He is adrenaline and fire, bright things burning to dust, and this is a sterile environment where you can't even burn the paper.

When his eyes catch mine, I don't know if I'm upset at him or Megan for meeting without me. His dark eyes spark off like lit matches, and as we move out of the slowing flow of people, I find myself removing the jacket hood from his head, revealing an ink-black fire upon his head. The frayed jacket, which can not be less than three years old, hangs loosely around his scrawny form. "What's up, Rosenbloom? Trying to ditch class again?"

"Sounds great." I say under my breath. "Let's do it."

His eyes stare up into mine, brown and unblinking. "Really."

"No." We're too close. I scan the halls, wonder if anyone's seen him and I standing here. We look like the couples who french kiss after school until the janitors make them leave. I am overwhelmed with sudden claustrophobia.

"Then what do you want?" he asks, misreading my face. Imperceptibly, he pulls away from me, and I realize for the first time how small he is when he's not in the padded suit, how he looks like he's been consuming himself as sustenance for his own fire, yet I know it's him in the same way you'd recognize your own hand, and I want to grab him back. "Fuck, are you still mad at me?"

"It's really hard to stay angry with you," I admit. "Although you make it really easy to generate reasons as to why I should be."

"There's the smartass I know. Hail to the chief," Evan says, pressing his hands together, as if in prayer.

"Heard you and Megan were talking about me," I say.

"What about it?" he asks. "What'd she say?"

I shrug, which hurts my shoulders. "Not much. If you want to talk about something I've been doing or failing to do as a leader, though, you can come to me first. It's not like I'm going to bite anyone's nose off. I think that's your job."

"I'll bite it off right now. Get a little closer."

"That's a little spicy for public school, Evan."

"Ha ha. Fuck you."

The bell rings. He looks down the hall. "We're late. I don't care, but you should."

"I don't."

"You still do."

Evan's already walking down the hall, but he can't help but glance back over his shoulder. "By the way, what we were talking about had nothing to do with your leadership skills. So don't worry about it."

"So what was it?" I ask.

Evan's already dashing down the hall. I can not believe he runs between his classes. I can't believe no one stops him. I can't believe I'm letting him go.

"What was it?" I yell again, but I'm thinking about my options, wondering what they might have to say, and even here, at the end of the world, when we have legitimate things to worry about, when by all counts I should be thinking about Serena and the Delegation, I can't even pretend that it's only the thought of them that's enough to fill me with this stupid, giddy, petty adrenaline.