sʟᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ʟᴀsᴛ | ʙᴇ ᴀᴜ

sʟᴇᴇᴘɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ʟᴀsᴛ - ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ

In every literal sense of the word, Glenn knew that what he was doing was crazy. It didn’t matter your rank or your reasoning, the Butterfly Corps were excruciatingly prepared for any scenario presented by their ‘workers’ -- he knew that all too well. He had been in the labs before, seen computers he’d never even have fathomed displaying spreadsheets jam-packed with information moving at a mile a minute, documenting even the smallest jump in time. He knew that what he was doing was crazy, because people didn’t just leave the Corps. Deserters and rogues were tracked down and made to stand trial -- hell, you’d be lucky if they killed you quickly then and there -- and he had just put himself on the blacklist.

The watch around his wrist was beginning to grow warm from overuse, obviously not strange considering the ever growing frequency of Glenn’s jumps between universes, but it was still the first time he had found anything the Corps issued to even be on the cusp of overheating. In any case, it would have to do -- taking wild leaps through time and space was the only defence he had against the Corps’ ability to track him down. Muddying his tracks by frequently doubling back or looking for last ditch alternate forms of multiversal travel meant that, while his heightened activity may turn heads back at the HQ, his trail would be near impossible to follow clearly, buying him time. 

Granted, with the numerous jumps he had made in the past few days, the pressure of his emancipation had all but worn off. He’d go so far as to say that in the week or two that he’d been on the run, he’d spent more time travelling through universes than he had in the entirety of the time that he’d worked in the Butterfly Corps. The liberation was a breath of fresh air, though quickly soured by even the smallest suspicion of nearby Corps activity, in which case he had made certain to vanish without a trace.

Now though, it felt like his journey was coming to a head. He had fled with no long term solution in mind, and had resigned himself to the abnormally long life of an agent on the run, without any alliance or backup. This left him with an ultimatum: to continue leaping from universe to universe on a whim, or to find somewhere to settle down and recuperate -- knowing that either way he would have to stop and rest, with the toll of near non-stop travel becoming exhausting. 

The face of his watch seemed to taunt him the more he stared at it, as deep in thought as he could be. A partial reflection stared back at him, unkempt hair obscuring his vision, and paranoid eyes struggling to stay in one spot. Of all the technology that they’d been able to marvel at in the HQ with morbid curiosity, the watches had captivated Glenn the most. They were mostly small, practical and all unique in some way, but were centuries more advanced than anything from his old life, mandatory for every single member of the Corps to own. Thinking back to his time at the HQ, he remembered being too afraid to even remove his, eternally unsure of what they even considered to be insolence or taboo. 

The watch itself could hold entire petabytes of data, and tinkering with it enough allowed for an easier time bypassing restrictions, especially with the strain he had been putting on it for the past several days, giving him a much clearer vision of his surroundings, the exact documentation of the universe he was in, and practically limitless exploration when it came to where he was headed next. In his mind, he was formulating a plan, whether it be temporary, or more of a semi-permanent solution to his situation. Whatever the case, he couldn’t stay in the open, and he couldn’t allow himself vulnerability to the Corps.

While self preservation was ultimately his first instinct, he couldn’t help but think about Micah and Nico as well. The three of them had been dragged into this hellhole together, but Glenn had been the first to turn tail. He felt himself beginning to cave in to this small, selfish desire -- that he should be allowed a normal life with his brothers, even though he had left them to face what, for all he knew, was a fate worse than death at the HQ. Even still, he found himself delving deep into a myriad of universes, all of which nearly identical, searching for one exactly like where he, Micah and Nico had all come from, with the crucial difference he needed.

Being so frequently on the move had allowed him, at the very least, to remain entirely unattached to his surroundings, which at least provided Glenn the general ease to move on from them. The emotional weight behind his inputs on the larger holographic screen that his watch displayed felt heavier though, and he found himself forcing the second thoughts from his head as he consolidated his destination, closing his eyes, and opening them to find his feet on soft grass. Above him sat the gentle overhang of trees, burdened by the coming Autumn and slowly shedding orange leaves. He found himself involuntarily taking slower breaths to calm his escalating heart rate, struggling to be back in the woods that he was all but raised in.

It had been -- well, technically had been, but considering the discrepancy of time never passing in the HQ, it was difficult to accurately gauge its flow, -- months, since he had even thought about what it felt like to be back where he had come from, and suddenly seeing it as a welcoming reality was sobering. For a few minutes, he could barely bring himself to move from his stance, processing his surroundings like it was some kind of conditioned response, instead of the second home he had always known it as. 

For a moment, he was so lost in thought reminiscing that he almost forgot that his work was far from over -- there was a reason why he picked this specific timeline, and he couldn’t miss his opportunity. He took off through the woods, shrugging off the waves of nostalgia as he worked his way around the winding paths, cutting through bushes and bracken until he reached the base of the tallest cliffside Half Moon Bay had to offer. It had always been too dangerous to climb, and local kids were told to stay away from it, the jagged and uneven rocks adorning its side being notorious for causing injury due to their instability. Glenn had listened for the most part, but today, it looked to be his undoing.

A brief flash of red -- he always had worn red, hadn’t he, -- at the top of the cliff drove Glenn into the shaded overhang of the trees, making sure to stay out of sight. It was a small revelation though, he hadn’t dressed like himself in what had to be a year, only now wearing a grimy white button-up and dark jeans, with the addition of a lightweight bomber jacket he had picked up on the run. Another sobering conclusion to reach, he ignored the thoughts of himself no longer being the boy he was only a year ago.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to think in silence for much longer. A cry from the top of the cliff told him it was time, and he emerged from the shade, keeping low and refraining from intervening. The watch’s intel was certain that for the next several hours, there would be nobody around the woods, and with the tell-tale sound of impact against the rocks, he knew that the time for waiting was over, segueing into a far more unpleasant task. 

Now running out into the open, he found himself, for a split second, maintaining eye contact with the alternate universe version of himself, his double’s body now limp as it came to a rest on the grass, clothes torn and splattered with blood, glassy eyes focused upwards, without even so much as a final shuddering breath. Glenn couldn’t help but pause in a moment of pensive silence as he considered the gravity of what had happened -- or perhaps more specifically the conditioned apathy he had been taught to feel about what he was seeing. It was necessary for the commitment that he was about to make, but he still found himself swallowing a lump in his throat when truly thinking about what he was setting himself up for. 

This alternate Glenn had lived a happy life -- one far brighter than everything that the Butterfly Corps could have put him through, but in this particular universe, it was destined to be cut short. There was destined to be an absence, a gap that would normally never fill in the hearts of his parents, his brothers, his friends even. In some twisted, warped mentality, wasn’t he doing the right thing? While the alternate Glenn had to die to fulfil the timeline’s expectations without anomaly, was it not kinder to provide this alternative? Nothing had to change -- not for his family, and not for Glenn. He could insert himself into this situation, taking his double’s place, and reclaim the life that the Corps stole from him, even if it just had to be for a little while. 

Granted, that wasn’t to come without its challenges, and with daylight not on his side, Glenn swallowed his doubts and got to work, struggling to lift his own corpse from the ground as he shakily hauled it through the forest. He would have to bury it -- tossing it to the sea had too much of a chance of it washing back up on the shore, which would definitely leave him with some difficult questions to answer should it be found. If he was to bury it, then he would need to find a secluded enough area, and a way to actually dig a grave. At the very least, there had always been a worn down shed somewhere in the middle of the woods, which was still likely to be stocked with gardeners’ tools. It was just a matter of getting to it. 

As time ticked by, and the sun worked its way further across the sky, Glenn found himself forcing himself to pick up the pace, sitting the alternate Glenn’s body against a tree and marking the location on the small map view his watch offered, as he knew time was of the essence, opting to simply run to where he knew the shed was, finally starting to to feel himself slipping, and growing more exhausted. Still, he pressed on and entered through the creaky wooden doorframe, letting out a resigned sigh of relief as his eyes fell upon a rusted shovel -- far from perfect by all means, but better than nothing. 

The next two hours were steadily whittled away, progress marked by shovel-loads of dirt and a gaping 6ft deep grave. For once, Glenn was grateful for his smaller stature, meaning at least he didn’t have to dig as much space for his alternate self’s body to fit into. By the time that the grave itself was finally ready for its occupant, his hands were an aching raw red, and if not for the back of his hair that he had let grow out some, the back of his neck would have definitely suffered a sunburn. His arms ached and complained as he trudged back to where he had left his body, alternating between carrying it over his shoulder, and taking short, gasping breaks to keep from collapsing.

He could have wept when it all finally came together, and the grave came into view. Without any hesitation, he rolled the alternate Glenn’s body onto the ground, collapsing nearby while taking short, panting breaths. If not for his own undying sense of immediate urgency, he could have easily stayed like that for hours. Once he had finally recuperated enough, he hauled himself up from the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead, ready to finish the job. Kneeling over the body, he searched the alternate Glenn’s pockets for anything recognisable, finding his phone and ID, and pocketing things like his piercings or bobby pins. The corpse’s clothes were too torn to salvage, and the blood on them wouldn’t have been easy to explain, so he left them, but opted to switch his own tattered shoes out for the body’s hiking boots, tossing the shabby old pair into the hole. With everything else in place, he finally rolled the body into the grave, using the shovel to fill it back up quickly, packing the earth look as tight and naturally formed as he could. 

Shabby, dirty and exhausted beyond belief, Glenn hadn’t had to physically exert himself to this extent in quite a while. Eventually in the Corps, missioned had dulled down to merely travelling to a point in time, carrying out a task and returning to the HQ. This felt almost like a trial -- having pushed himself to the limit after weeks of being on the move almost non-stop, it was exhilarating in a way. In the sense that he was finally in control of his actions, at least. 

He shook any of the remaining dirt from the shovel by swinging it against a tree, then gathered up everything he had collected from the body, marked the location of the grave on his watch and made his way back to the shed, walking on shaking legs. At some point while he was digging, he had had to remove his jacket to cool down and had worn it tied around his waist since then, but as the sun now was well on its way to its descent, he slipped it back on as the cold began to settle in. He left the shovel leaning against the wall of the shed outside, too tired to break from the path he was travelling completely, now more interested in getting home - home. A place he was told time and time again that he would never return to.

There was a curious in-between that separated the forest and the roads leading into town, where the trees began to thin out and you became fairly limited for walkways. Hell, this was the first time in a year that Glenn found himself actually having to be wary of cars, as he stuck to one side of the road headed up the hill where the town finally came into view. Sundown had all but passed, but it couldn’t have mattered less. Each light from a house, a street lamp or a neon shop sign stood out like it was its own twinkling night sky, and Glenn its liberated stargazer.

Perhaps he was just growing delirious, or all of the memories of his home town flooding back to him seemed to negate the idea of time passing, but in the time where he was practically zoned out and walking, he found himself standing in front of his house -- the home that he grew up in, which he was now returning to. The realisation dawned that he was to claim this life as his own, and a brief wave of cluelessness washed over him. How was he even to go about this? Was there even any way to play these cards right? How could-

Glenn’s thoughts cut off as the front door opened, Nico’s quizzical face staring him down. There was a prolonged silence for a good few seconds before his brother spoke. 

“Uh,” He began, not in an uncertain manner, but speaking as someone with genuinely no reaction to what stood before him. “-You okay…?” He raised an eyebrow at Glenn’s dishevelled appearance, and what could be considered to be a complete lack of a reaction.

Glenn walked towards the door, and Nico moved to the side to let him in, still staring at the dirty shirt and trousers, the sound of his thinking reminiscent to that of a 2009 PC running Windows 98, and not doing a good job of it. Savouring the sight of the hallway like it was a plate of birthday spaghetti, Glenn pulled Nico into a hug and then withdrew, heading up the stairs towards the shared attic bedroom. 

“-I’m better than okay.” He replied to Nico, charging up to the second floor without a second thought, leaving Nico to stand in the hallway, completely baffled. Being back home felt more than surreal, as if he had just returned from a holiday or something. The banister creaked as he swung around it, just like it always had, and the staircase felt so foreign and much shorter than what he had grown used to. The sudden sense of permanence began to dawn -- that this was his home, and for all intents and purposes, he was planning to stay.