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The stars are blotted out by the lights that line the highway, making the sky look like the inside of a body bag. In the shine of the streetlights, the highway next to them shines like fresh tar. Myriad runs his fingers over the street lights as he walks by them. If he didn’t focus on that feeling, the frigid bite of the metal, the constant wind, he’d melt from exhaustion. He’d love to melt. To let the cracks in the highway flow with him like a river of red. Myriad rubs sleep and mud from his eyes. His companion seems more awake, at least. A car zooms past them, and Agent Ukulele snaps his teeth at it. It doesn’t do anything, but it reminds Myriad of a dog biting at the spray of a hose. He chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” Ukulele snaps.
Myriad answers with a few soft giggles, watching Ukulele’s face grow redder and redder, until he had to glance away again.
“You should be the one sticking your thumb out— turn into Windstalker or something, a big guy, that’ll get people’s attention
Myriad extends his arm. It immediately starts sagging and dripping liquid flesh.
“Don’t think I can,” Myriad mumbles. Ukulele’s brows pinch together. He looks from Myriad to the horizon, where the light fades and turns to empty fields. Off in the distance, there’s a light, caught in a dreamlike haze. Myriad blinks. The world is soft and loose in his eyes, sliding around like an ice cube at the bottom of a glass. Maybe it’s just his eyes that are sliding.
“I’m gonna go to that light. I think it’s a house. We can see if they have a shed or something.”
Myriad answers with a soft hum. Ukulele looks back at him. The shadow cast over his eyes made it hard to figure out what he was thinking.
“What is it?” Myriad asks.
“We’ve been walking for hours, and were doing shit for a while before that. Do you want a piggy back ride or something?”
Myriad responds by throwing his arms over Ukulele’s shoulders. He starts melting almost immediately, draping over Ukulele like a shawl. Ukulele relaxes slightly, patting the flesh starting to rest on him.
“Yeah, get some rest.”
Ukulele turns, and starts walking into the field. He immediately steps into a deep mud puddle. It’s a shame he was too tired to laugh at Ukulele’s plight.
They’d been on a mission for the past few days, nights of sleepless stakeouts and days of combat. When they’d finally, finally, got to leave, their driver drifted off, and the car leaned over a bridge, and for a moment Myriad was weightless because he hadn’t worn his seatbelt, why would he, and he was a drifting satellite, a star, a comet fated to orbit the same planet over and over again, returning, returning—
The car hit the ground with the force of a bomb and his head had cracked into the seat in front of him, and the door had folded and crushed him, and he would’ve been very, very dead if it weren’t for the fact that there was no conceivable universe where Dr. Myriad could truly die. Despite this, he’d let himself stay human for a bit longer, relishing in the precariousness of his body. The scrap of metal in his torso could’ve punctured his lungs and heart. The glass in his face could’ve blinded him. He imagined a life like that, where he could’ve died right then, exactly as he was, for real. Who would hold his funeral? What would they bury his body in?
With a hideous shriek, the car curled open like a flower, and Ukulele stared at him, panting, teeth bared. It didn’t surprise Myriad that Ukulele was the one to save him.
Ukulele bleats out another curse as mud squelches up to his ankles. At least he was wearing combat boots. They were closer to the house now. Myriad coils himself around Ukulele’s fingers, weaves himself in his hair, holds him as close as he can. Ukulele mumbles something Myriad doesn’t pick up. There’s a fenced off field; the fence sags into the ground, barely kept aloft with some stands of sturdy wire. Horses sleep ankle-deep in mud, noses almost brushing the ground. The house they approach is an aged farmhouse, lit up warmly against the night. A red barn sits next to it. Less inviting, but safer to stay the night in.
“How do you like the smell of hay?” Ukulele asks. Myriad hums.
“It’s alright. I have a horse form, anyway.”
“When the hell did you get anywhere near a horse?” Ukulele snorts.
Myriad wracks their brain, fatigue bogging down their thoughts.
“I don’t think you were there for that,” he admits. Ukulele scoffs.
“You’ll have to tell me that story, sometime.”
“I’ll tell it right now,” Myriad slurs, “we were out in the country, and there were all these horses… all these horses, with their manes all pretty and braided… I think I killed some girl’s pony.”
“God, Myr. What the hell do you want me to say to that?”
“I don’t know.”
The silence between them lingers on.
“Fuck, Myr, that’s the most fucked up thing you’ve ever told me.” Ukulele’s voice is light, teasing. “She could’ve won the big race on that pony, y’know? Saved her small farm town from the big evil corporation that wants to mow down all the farmland and put down a factory or something, but then you killed her horse. You better have turned into that horse and won her that big race, Myr. Otherwise, that’s unforgivable.”
Myriad can’t stop himself from snickering. Ukulele shh’s him.
“Could you imagine? Me, as a horse, with some kid on my back… even if we did win, I don’t… I doubt the Foundation would let the victory stay on record. Since I’m not actually a horse. You know?”
“I’m glad you’re not. If you were, you’d be a hell of a lot harder to carry.”
“What would winning the race even do?”
Ukulele shrugs.
“I dunno. Maybe give people hope. Something corny like that.”
Ukulele’s made it to the barn. It’s postcard perfect, red as a ripe apple with pristine white siding. He awkwardly wriggles the door open. They’re struck with the rich earthiness of hay and mildew. All the stalls are empty, filled with freshly raked hay. Ukulele grabs a pitchfork from the wall, looking at it with a sharp toothed grin. He almost looks like the devil with it in hand. He snickers, and sets it back down. The barn is eerily quiet. No horses.
“Why aren’t the horses in the barn?” Myriad asks.
“I’m sure they like it out there,” Ukulele hisses. Myriad grumbles, pressing their face into the crook of Ukulele’s neck. Ukulele huffs, quietly walking through the dark barn. He goes to one of the stalls in the back, with a high pile of hay in the back corner. He kicks around the hay a bit. Like a nesting bird. Myriad snickers at that connection, imagining Ukulele with big hawk wings and sharp little talons, a beak in place of his maw. The thought makes him melt a bit more in Ukulele’s hold. He’d miss those teeth. He’d miss how they could rip through any wall. Any fence.
“Maybe, but… they’re all locked in. They don’t get to wander.”
Ukulele goes quiet. He rolls his shoulders, sending more of Myriad’s mass into his arms.
“Isn’t there an island with horses?” Ukulele asks, “like, wild ones. It has some long name. I can’t pronounce it.”
“Chincoteague?” Myriad asks. It comes out garbled, his mouth half dissolved into goop. Ukulele sits down in the hay, and pulls some over himself like a blanket.
“If you’re awake enough to know that off the top of your head, then why the fuck was I carrying you?” Ukulele asks.
The answer hangs in the air. They both know it, they both refuse to say it. Ukulele wriggles deeper into the straw.
“That doesn’t sound right. Chin-co-te-gue. I can check when we get back.”
Myriad curls around Ukulele’s form, a massive swathe of flesh covering him like a blanket. He can hear the horses outside in the cold.
“Would you want to be like that?”
“What’re you talking about?” Ukulele asks. Myriad shifts a bit, forcing eyes to form. The shadow over Ukulele’s eyes has lightened to soft gray.
“Would you want to be a feral horse on some island with me?”
Ukulele blinks. He seems to consider it for a bit, looking up at the rafters.
“…horses are fuckin’ weird, but… what the hell. Sure. Why not. With the foundation’s bullshit, the odds I get turned into a horse aren’t too slim. It happened with Crow, you know?”
“He must be a pretty small horse.”
Ukulele snorts.
“He's a dog, but my point still stands.” Ukulele is quiet for a few long moments. A truck blares its horn, far off in the night. It almost drowns Ukulele out when he speaks.
“It wouldn’t be too bad to get stuck with you. Even if I was a horse.”
Myriad smiles. It doesn’t last long, his mouth quickly sliding down his messy form. He garbles out something else. Ukulele pats where his head might be. The goop sticks to his hand.
“I know, Myr, I know. Get some sleep.”
Myriad lets his eyes dissolve into nothingness, surrounded by warmth.
In the morning, they’ll be chased out of the barn by the farmer’s son, and run past the horses, paying no mind to their huge doll-eyes staring them down. But tonight, Myriad is shapeless in Ukulele’s arms, sleep slowly, slowly, dragging him into its depths.
He dreams they're horses on some far off island. They’re free, they’re together. He couldn’t name a better dream.