Xol stood with his back to Morgan in silence while Morgan kept his hand extended, waiting for Xol to turn around and take it. But instead, Xol placed his hand on his head and began dragging it slowly down his face in a gesture of frustration or exhaustion, tilting his head upward.
— Do what?
(Xol muttered, irritated.)
— Join me. Help me.
Morgan said without lowering his arm, his voice firm but without hostility, almost offhand, even innocent.
Xol let out a short, dry laugh with no humor in it. He crossed his arms and shook his head as if what he had just heard was the most absurd thing anyone had ever said to him in a long time.
— Sure. And now that you ask me like that, that way, with that hand stretched out there like it's the most natural and generous thing in the world, I suppose you think we'll also be friends. That you'll reach out to me every morning, that we'll have schedules for playing, that we'll share our free time and talk about our feelings and a whole bunch of that nonsense, right?
(Xol said, mocking Morgan.)
— That's what you imagine would happen, isn't it?
Xol began to laugh softly.
Morgan lowered his hand slowly. He didn't pull it back entirely, he left it suspended halfway, like an unanswered question.
— If you don't help me, we both end up dead. You know that. You know that if you don't help me you won't have a body to inhabit. You know that, don't you?
There was a silence. One of those silences that weigh more than any word.
— Maybe.
(Xol said after a moment, his voice low, almost to himself, smiling.)
— But I'd rather die than take the hand of someone like you. I'd rather let the worms swallow my flesh than help an idiot like you. But above all else I'd rather cease to exist than even consider that I need help from someone like you.
Xol was furious. In his eyes you could see that darkness, that refusal to reconcile.
— This isn't the moment for this. We can't waste time fighting each other.
(Morgan said, frustrated.)
— You think? For me there's always time to fight.
(Xol said with defiance and mockery.)
Morgan clenched his jaw. He breathed slowly, controlled, trying to keep his emotions from clouding his judgment and taking hold of his words.
— So what then? Do you plan on keep running? From this, from everything that's happening? Do you plan on keeping that attitude of the world doesn't matter, only I matter?
The question landed slowly, with an edge. Xol didn't respond immediately and in that silence, both stared each other down with defiance, as if at any moment they might come to blows.
— Me? Running? Stop joking, kid.
(Xol said, laughing.)
— Then prove it.
(Morgan said in a serious tone.)
— I don't have anything to prove to you. Or to anyone.
(Xol said, threatening.)
— Not to me. Not to the world. To yourself.
Morgan looked at him directly, without detours, coldly and seriously.
Xol clenched his teeth. He crouched down and began pulling lightly at his own hair, his rage barely contained, smiling with fury.
— I hate you. I definitely hate you.
He said it with a terrible, clean clarity, as if he had been keeping those words somewhere for far too long and had finally decided to let them go.
Morgan didn't respond, didn't react. He simply smiled.
— No. You don't hate me.
(Morgan said, smiling faintly.)
— What? Are you deaf now? I just told you I hate you.
(Xol said, very irritated.)
— You said the words "I hate you." Feeling hatred for someone and telling someone you hate them are two completely different things.
Xol opened his mouth to respond and Morgan continued before he could, without raising his voice, without losing the thread.
— You don't hate me because you don't know me. And I don't know you. That's what's between us, Xol, that and nothing more. Not hate. Distance. And distance, if one wants, can be crossed.
(Morgan said in a soft voice.)
— How convenient, your philosophy.
(Xol said in a mocking tone.)
— It's not philosophy. It's the only real thing we have right now.
Morgan extended his hand again. This time without urgency, without the tension from before. Simply there, open, like something offered without guarantees and without conditions.
— If you truly feel what you say, if you truly believe you know me well enough to hate me, then help me. Let's work together. And at the end of all this, when it's all over, we'll both know exactly who is who. But for that we have to know each other, Xol. There's no other way to get there.
The silence that followed was different from all the ones before. Less charged with fury, more filled with something nameless that dangerously resembled surrender, though Xol would never call it that, not out loud, not even to himself.
He looked at him. Looked at the extended hand. Searched Morgan's eyes for something false, some crack, some reason to keep refusing.
He found none.
Slowly, with the same deliberateness with which he had dragged his hand down his own face moments before, Xol extended his and took it.
The handshake was brief. Firm. Real.
— Fine. I accept.
Xol began to laugh in an ironic way, as if that was the only reaction he had left.
— But I hope you're ready. For what this involves. For what it means, because from here on out we're going to have a lot of fun.
He let go of the hand. Took a step back, keeping his smile, but it was a smile that stirred something like concern in Morgan, because now he looked like he was planning something.
— See you when you wake up.
Xol waved goodbye to Morgan with his hand while laughing.
— Wait, what?
End of chapter.
Next chapter: My New Friend.