Tim
Animal
Harris’ Forest Retreat, Hope Springs, West Virginia
12 PM, February 15th.
12 PM, February 15th.
Harris had taken to sitting silently. No movement, no noise, just sitting simply and listening as thousands of horrible things happened that he could no longer stop without potentially making things worse. He watched as the gathered transients lived their lives off of the fruit of his connection with The Green. Homeless, penniless, all living their lives simply, and all because of him. He felt a sense of pride, but also a sense of melancholy; he couldn’t do any of this again.
Well, sitting here and being sad never helped anyone, he’d always gotten over difficulty before, and this would be no exception. The Green would fix itself, it had been around for millennia before he showed up, why would that change? He just needed to wait a little while, that was all.
His attempts to calm himself were unconvincing, but maybe he just needed to take his mind off of it and wait. He’d only killed a few people, that was no big deal, right?
The world almost seemed to turn black for a second, but he smiled the best he could anyway, and started walking in no direction in particular.
”Aw, man, who cut this watermelon into a heart shape and just left it overnight?! … Even if it is really cute …” Surprisingly, Josh had taken to the gathering of people rather well once introduced. At least, once they got used to him. Being used to strange beings was probably a prerequisite for living with Mr. Harris, after all. So even if some of the people only skirted around any discomfort the ten foot tall ‘Demon’ brought, it was never spoken out loud - to Josh, it was a definite improvement!
Even if he was kind of jealous to find all these people in his forest home initially.
Still, Josh did his best to help those there. Including cleaning up discarded pieces of fruit, it seemed. He wasn’t nearly as useful as Mr. Harris, but when all your powers centered around destruction and you were scared of leaving your home…
Well, Josh made himself useful.
”Mister - Mister Harris!” The surprised exclamation was accompanied by the teenager jumping up, his long navy ears shooting skyward akin to a dog’s. ”Are you, uhm, done ‘meditating’?”
Harris turned to face Josh, his quite obviously fake smile distorting half of his face. This fake smile quickly faded into a real one when Harris made eye contact with Josh.
”Yes, I suppose I am. At least for today that is,” Harris said, scratching his chin. ”What have you been up to, Josh? Just cleaning up like usual? Have you been talking to anyone your age?”
Harris couldn’t help but flood the poor kid with questions. He was a little insular, and Harris thought he should try to break that, encourage him to get a few friends, take his youth back. Harris had found it easy to get used to this new life as soon as he had found himself, but he got the feeling Josh never had.
Maybe helping Josh out would take his mind off of The Green’s problems.
”Uhm,” Josh shifted on his bare feet, nervously scratching his thick nails against the black scruff on his jaw. ”I’ve just, you know, been up to the usual… I don’t, I don’t really talk to people much - oh, but the old blind lady likes telling people stories about the Actor Activists! So, I sometimes listen to them so she’s not lonely…” The boy trailed off, only to clear his throat and offer a toothy smile to Harris that didn’t seem entirely sincere.
”But that’s okay! I’m happy just being back home.”
Harris nodded in acknowledgement, keeping down a sigh, he was a good kid, but he really needed human contact.
Not that Harris was an expert on human contact or anything, but his point still stood.
”You know, maybe you should walk over to Hope Springs every now and then, talk to people, they already know you’re a good person, but if you actually care and get involved then they’ll see you as a superhero, like me!”
Harris realized after he finished speaking that he had another reason behind saying that. He was worried that he might die if The Green didn’t fix itself, and he wanted Josh to… not so much take his place, but at least be capable of doing some of what he had done.
Maybe he should have told Josh earlier, when he had started meditating. A voice in the back of his mind told him that there was no time like the present. Harris didn’t much like that preposition. He tried to keep his face at least neutral, but it was probably clear that he was in conflict.
Harris swallowed. Josh had to at least know what was going on. He couldn’t keep hiding this from him.
Harris opened his mouth a moment and then closed it suddenly. Finally he was able to sigh away his bubbling stomach just enough to be able to get a word out.
”There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, alone,” Harris said grimly. Too grimly. Oh god. His brows lifted and he offered what he thought was a comforting smile. ”Wait, not like that, I just want to chat is all! Yeah, come on, let’s talk.”
”Well…” Josh had initially been hesitant, not wanting to deny Mr. Harris - even if he was talking of leaving the forest to go to Hope Springs. However as the Vinestalker continued talking, the teenager’s glowing eyes widened, and he began to fidget nervously. Mr. Harris was not good at this, if it was supposed to be comforting!
Still better than Miss Lady Arcana, though.
”I… Of course I’ll walk with you, Mr. Harris,” Josh finally said weakly. What else could he do? He would never deny his mentor. The teenager stood to his full height, abandoning the little compost bin he had been shouldering during clean up. ”If, uh, if this is about the three I’m really, really sorry - I didn’t mean to drool on it while I was sleeping….”
”No, no, it’s nothing you did. Just follow me.” Harris said again, gesturing for Josh to keep following. He made his way over to the largest tree in the small forest, the one he slept in and stored his things in. He pulled it open, letting out a characteristic crackling noise that reverberated through the trees.
”Come on in,” Harris instructed, placing his arm around Josh’s massive shoulders and lightly pushing him in before pulling the tree closed behind him.
He sighed, and finally turned to look at Josh.
”There’s something I haven’t told you,” he said solemnly, avoiding eye contact. His face turned from a clearly fake smile to a very hard frown. He stammered for a little bit, sighing quite a bit, before one final sigh, combined with a groan and a hand on the face, ended his stuttering. ”Right, here’s the truth...”
”I might be dying.”
”Wh...What?” The nervous shuffling stopped, the giant teenager having been glancing around curiously - as he did every time he was in here. Now his glowing white eyes were focused intently on his mentor, fanged mouth opening and closing slowly. After a long moment he finally took a step closer.
”You…” Another step, then another, until Josh was directly in front of Harris. His hands gripped onto the man’s arms, a pained noise escaping him. ”You can’t be dying! You’re - you’re Vinestalker! You’re with Mr. Green and you said he’s been alive like… forever! How?!”
If Harris had been a human he probably would have started crying then. Thankfully he wasn’t, and thus was incapable of crying unless he wanted to. If that was something to be thankful about. Whatever the case, his heart felt like it had exploded in his chest when Josh grabbed onto him. He softly placed a hand on Josh’s head, trying to comfort the best he could.
”It’s not a guarantee, best case scenario we wait a while and everything turns out okay. However, back when I was working with Ka-... Lady Arcana, she needed my help in order to transform. Doing that for her had some unforeseen consequences. The Green is a mess right now. It’s not quite apocalypse-level yet, but I’m worried it may get there. If it does… I’m going to have to do something. I either wait and die with the rest of the planet… or do… something… something that I probably won’t survive.”
Before Josh could say anything, Harris held up his hand.
”Of course, Lady Arcana isn’t to blame. The only person to blame is myself, and I’m fine with that. I guess what I’m saying is that I might be gone soon, and when that happens… well I’m not going to choose for you. You make your decisions, I’m not demanding you take my job when I’m gone, but I do want to be sure you’re stable, you have somewhere to live, you have people to support you. I don’t want your life to end because I’m not there, that’s all I care about.”
Harris moved his hands to Josh’s shoulders, having unconsciously grown to be slightly taller than Josh as he always did when someone needed comforting.
”I’m going to talk to Lady Arcana, Emerald Knight, all of the Justice League. They’ll take care of you. I promise.”
”I don’t want to be taken care of!” Was the immediate response, blurted out without thought. Now tilting his head up to look at Harris, the white eyes beginning to shimmer with tears. Josh was always prone to crying. ”I… I want to stay here, with you! Anywhere with you! You took me in, Harris! You’re the one who cared enough to and … you … you’ve been …” He choked on his words, taking one of his hands to scrub at his face with a blue palm.
”... I know it hasn’t been long, but … but you’ve been like a father to me.”
Oh God. Oh good God in heaven.
This had to be the most difficult thing Harris had ever done. He felt like his stomach was about to explode and he had no idea what to say. His mind raced and he knew inside that he would have been reduced to a blubbering mess were he human. Finally he grabbed the back of Josh’s head and held him for a while.
”I know… trust me I know,” he said. He stood with a pained look on his face and collected himself. ”If it were up to me I wouldn’t change a thing. But it’s not, so I’m doing the best I can while I still have the chance. You’re my… you’re like a son to me just as much as you think I’m a father to you… if that makes any sense.” His words were coming out jumbled and his voice weak, but he kept going, because he worried that if he stopped he wouldn’t be able to start again. ”Just trust me, Josh. I can’t know everything, but I know for sure that you can be happy without me. I love you Josh. Nothing will ever change that. If there’s any chance I will take it, not for me, but for you. For now, I’m going to be at your side every moment of every day. And… I know that The Green will always have a place for you too, even if it complains… and moans… and cries.” Harris managed to make himself smile despite all of it.
”Do you want a hug?”
Instantly Josh launched himself at Harris, throwing his immense weight into hugging the other man tightly. He was openly crying now, words coming out in a blubbering mess as he rambled and choked on them. Still, he made an effort to say the most important ones clearly - and to not hug so tightly he split Harris in half.
”I… I love you too … and I’ll - I’ll make you proud! I’ll be, I’ll be the best hero, and I’ll protect Mr. Green too!”
Harris didn’t waste a second.
”I’m already proud, Josh. I know how hard you have it, I went through the exact same thing, and you’ve gone through even worse after that. You’re so strong, Josh. I’ll never stop cheering for you.”
Harris held him tight, not saying anything and keeping his eyes closed. He didn’t need to breathe, but he took deep breaths anyway to encourage Josh to do the same. He knew this was going to be hard, but not this hard.
But at the same time… he was so glad to have done it.