the challenges of the _______

“Hey, guys, how about we stay here a couple weeks extra? Good with that? Then let’s unpack and—”

“What!?”

Lucian shook his head. His creepy mother finally fucked off, leaving them to enjoy their comfortable inn room on their lonesome. And, given the price (nothing), they had a decent spot, though the heart shaped decorations and fluffy bed brought to mind something more—raunchy than a hotel room for travelers.

Yeah, no wonder this place had so few rooms and a freak of a woman running the show. Zane and Shay opted to sleep on the floor after finding a weird stain on the bedsheets.

“We can’t stay, though! I know you said yes, but—we really, really can’t stay.”

Zane shrugged. “Go on without me. Or run in circles for a bit, and I’ll catch up when I’m done.”

“But that could take months!” Lucian shouted, pacing back and forth. “Even years! We can’t wait that long, there’s too much at stake, and—”

“Dude, I only offered to help for two weeks,” Zane said. “I know you really didn’t wanna stay, but if there’s something shitty going on in town, then I wanna help. She’s got ways to keep me on the down-low too, it’s foolproof.”

Shay narrowed his eyes, as if trying to see into Zane’s heart. “Don’t tell me you’re doing this to woo her.”

“Yeah, the overalls had me at first sight.”

“I knew it!”

Zane groaned. “No, I was joking. It’s called—”

“Having a bleeding heart, I get it.”

Zane stopped. Shay fiddled with his beard, rambling on. “I understand, kid. You see someone in distress and you wanna help ‘em, everything else be damned. Just can’t turn away from trouble when someone begs you enough. It’s a part of you, can’t fight it. Like how Lucian’s stutter is a part of him.”

“I, um, it’s not—”

Shay stood up, stopping Lucian before he paced into a wall. “Listen. We’re staying. Look at Zane. You really think he’s gonna back down? Didn’t you nab him because you wanted a guy who’s gotta help people even if it makes your life worse?”

“Hey.”

“What, Lucian said leave by tonight, dolt, it’s on you for ignoring that.”

Lucian bit his lip. Zane hated the pain he brought to the other man’s face after everything Lucian’s done for him, but at the same time, Effie needed this. The workers of Orie needed this.

Zane loved this city, even after all this time. And he wanted to see for himself how he could help instead of running off. Lucian said he liked how heroic Zane was, right? Maybe that speech got to his head sooner than he thought it might.

Lucian met his eyes.

“…I—I guess… okay. Okay. You’re right, we—if things are so bad, I wouldn’t want to leave either. Especially if it means leaving you behind. I don’t know… how much help I’ll be, but I…”

Zane relaxed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “Don’t worry about it. You two can stand there and watch, I’ll take care of everything else. Promise.”

Droplets of blood pooled down Lucian’s lips as he pulled a smile. “Okay. I’ll… I’d still like to help, somehow. Can we meet this woman?”

“Yeah, of course. She was gonna show me her rally headquarters tomorrow. I’m sure it won’t take too much effort to wrap this up. I’ll give some speeches, people’ll join, and everything else’ll happen naturally. Or something. Just don’t worry too much.

—————————————

A near empty, rotting warehouse. Forgotten fish stinking up the place that Shay went to work throwing out once they entered. Not to mention the suspicious blood stains, the broken door, and the moldy boxes in lieu of chairs. Zane learned quickly why not many people showed up, and maybe he got his hopes up too much with how much they could achieve in two weeks.

“I’ll help Shay with cleaning!” Lucian ran to grab boxes, while Effie gawked.

She turned to Zane, mouth wide. “Is that Vitam’s Avatar? And some guy?”

“Some guy!?”

“Wow! You have super cool friends! Who’re you again?”

“Zane.”

“Nice to meet you!”

Shay groaned, dropping a crate. “You didn’t know this guy’s name ‘till now? Anyone ever told you about stranger danger, kid?”

Effie pouted, hands on hips. Shay yelped and went back to work. Satisfied, she turned back to Zane, grinning. “Thanks for bringing your friends along. They’ll do clean-up, and we’ll strategize. That cool with you?”

“Sure.” Zane perched on the only clean crate around. “So, when’s your next meeting?”

“Tomorrow.”

Wow, that sucks. “Plenty of time. You got a speech penned?”

“I’ve got…”

“…”

“…Noth—”

“Nothing, gotcha.” About what Zane expected. Didn’t make the disappointment hurt any less, though. “Okay… okay, the thing with speeches is that penning the whole thing the day before isn’t a great idea. We’ll just rely on some improv. Gimme some of your usual talking points, and I’ll see what I can cook up here and now.”

Effie clapped her hands together. “…Should I just like, repeat everything I said yesterday?”

“Is yesterday’s stuff all you got?”

“Kinda.”

Zane’s mouth went dry. He blamed the seawater, but in reality every word out of Effie’s mouth made him want to chug seawater. “Okay, so you’ve got… some ideas, lots of rambling, passion, all that good stuff. And I just gotta—work with that, and…”

No, this wouldn’t do. Even if he interrogated Effie for ages, he’d never understand the depths of her passion and experience. She didn’t seem awfully great at expressing any of it either. If Zane was to give speeches in her place, then he’d need to mesh her personal understanding with his own articulation and charm.

And he wouldn’t find any of that sitting on his ass and waiting for it to find him. “Hey, who wants to go on a walk?”

Shay stopped—he’d finished moving a good number of crates and just came back in to grab more alongside Lucian. “Me. Dunno what you’re talking about, but me. Lucian, get back to work.”

“Okay! Please, go on without me.”

Effie sighed. “Aw, and he’s so cute too… wait, why are we running around?”

“Ground research,” Zane said. “I wanna talk to some of these dock workers myself. It’ll help me figure out what to say.”

A day’s research. Then, he’d nail this. Zane knew he could.