14. CORROSION

fourteen

CORROSION

B y now, Benjamin was accustomed to time being at a standstill. According to his calendar, six days had passed since his return to the mine. The nightmares he'd endured, however, stayed sharper than a paring knife.

Anywhere he went, wherever he turned, he would catch flashes of red, of twisted shadows. Of innocents begging for his help, whom he had refused. Their cries echoing, whispers of the infernal carried on the wind pulling through the passageways.

He heard noises in the distance, his heart raced. He was ready to run for his life. Then Benjamin would look, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. The mine was as he'd left it, more or less. The silence that had befallen it was unsettling, the stark shadows thrown across faces of guards, standing below Fae lanterns, no less so.

Benjamin walked toward Sticky's—no, Oliver's hovel, and his thoughts strayed to the child and his grandmother by the waterfall. He hadn't spared them much consideration. Not until his safe return.

Now, he couldn't help but question what it had all been for. Benjamin knew himself to be no more than a sliver of his former self. What had he lost himself for?

Samuel was alive and well. Had been, for the entire time Benjamin endured hell. And all Samuel wanted to do was return to those responsible for such horrors. Had said so the moment they were left alone inside their hovel.

"I want to learn more," he'd said, while Benjamin battled against the guilt and the nightmares and the terrorised looks of those slaughtered.

Samuel was nearly as he remembered. Strikingly handsome, still as wilful and pragmatic as ever. The sweet, caring man Benjamin loved, however, didn't appear to be there any longer. Replaced by someone hungry for knowledge despite its cost.

His feet scraped across cold stone, coming to a stop. He stared at an old door in numb surprise. He'd found his way to Oliver's hovel already. Benjamin knocked, flakes of grey paint scattering under his knuckles. He watched the chips flutter to the ground, jumping at Oliver's voice, shouting to come in already.

The tarnished doorhandle stuck slightly, the door itself squeaking as Benjamin opened it. His gaze fell to Oliver, dark ashen hair tousled, cheeks rosy. The sheets barely covered his slender frame, nestled against Tau, whose long arm lay intimately curled around his stomach.

Benjamin remembered to close the door before anyone saw inside, and leaned against it, watching in detachment as Oliver struggled out of bed. He was dressed only in an old white shirt, unbuttoned, the right sleeve fluttering about while he gathered his clothes off the floor.

Oliver had wrecked his arm for the sake of someone he loved. Just another awful thing Benjamin had to witness, all while Oliver toed the line of death with a satisfied smile on his lips. Satisfied, because his sacrifice hadn't been for nothing.

Benjamin wished he could say the same. For the past few days, he and Samuel had spent the nights together in bed, just like before. They ate together, much like before. Samuel had even come down to mine with him yesterday. But things were not the same, and Benjamin feared they might never again be.

"Ugh, Ben. Please, help me," griped Oliver, sitting on the bed's edge, laces of his new boots still undone. "I'd ask Tau but he'll just shred them."

It took a moment for Benjamin to move, as though he'd forgotten how to. When he did, he knelt in front of Oliver and took more time still, staring at the undone laces.

Lucetta had come into his hovel that morning, telling him to eat and that Oliver needed someone to help stretch his legs. Benjamin didn't know why, but Lucetta had volunteered him to help with that.

"You okay?"

Oliver's voice stirred Benjamin into motion, piloted by an outside force to tie the laces. He stole a glimpse upward.

A strange sight, the Sentinel sitting in a tiny bed, Oliver beside him, just as small in comparison. Tau needed to rest. If he did so with Oliver, there was nothing Benjamin could do about it. No matter how much it unsettled him. He supposed, after everything, their peculiar relationship was the least of his concern. He ought to concern himself with Samuel. Not with Oliver.

He tied the bow double, fingers drifting past leather, stiff from unuse, to similarly rigid denim. The leg under his closing touch shifted.

"Thanks."

"Not too tight?" Benjamin caught another glimpse of the Sentinel. The strong sense he was being scrutinised pricked his skin.

"Nope, perfect." Oliver leaned forward, adjusted the pipes of his overalls, then raised his eyes a fraction to meet Benjamin's.

No longer basil green, but dark olive. Unusually penetrating. Benjamin couldn't hold his gaze for long.

"How are you?"

"Alright." Benjamin pushed himself back up with a strained grunt.

Oliver didn't believe him, he knew, but thankfully didn't push it. In that same, benumbed state, he witnessed Oliver lean over to press a kiss to the lower part of Tau's mask. He whispered against it, his smile coquettish, the way the Sentinel's claw curled around his backside too intimate. As if they were truly lovers.

Benjamin cleared his throat, tight with discomfort.

"I won't be long." Oliver kissed the mask several times more. "You'll be okay, just rest."

Fortunately, they were soon out the door. Now that he was back outside where the air didn't smell so strongly of Oliver's musk, Benjamin's head cleared enough to falter on what to do.

"I'm so in love with him."

Instinctively, he caught Oliver's hand when he made to comb fingers through his hair, remembering too late that with the fur mantle, he didn't have to worry about the curse. Oliver, however, didn't seem to mind or even notice, holding his hand while leaning against the door, looking utterly besotted. Awkwardly, Benjamin released him and ignored the chill that claimed his palm so quickly.

"You've…always been, haven't you?"

"Well, yeah," replied Oliver. "But it's… You know, we're actually together now and I–I don't know what to do. Tau's been trying… things . I just–I don't know —"

Oliver cut himself off, his wild gesturing unspecific. Benjamin didn't know what he wanted, or why he'd gone so red in the face. There wasn't an answer he could give, unwilling to consider what his young friend meant with things .

Instead, Benjamin asked, "Where do you want to go?"

"Want to go see Luce and Maji? They told me they're going to work today. I wanna know how things work without a Sentinel."

"Are you alright to walk that far?"

Oliver cast him a look. "I don't walk with my arms— arm ."

Since he couldn't argue with that, Benjamin only shrugged before leading the way to the cage lift.

"Nice of Pavlov to let me keep working while they sort stuff out," Oliver continued, chipper. "I can't wait for things to get back to normal."

The cage clanked as it rose upward, shoving Benjamin head first into bloody marshlands, snarls and wails and the echoing tick-tick-tick of moving gears. He failed to respond in between ragged breaths, metal bars cold under his clenching grip. He shook his head to clear his vision, blurry with panic.

"It's been a few days, right?" Oliver remained mercifully unaware.

Staggering inside the cage, Benjamin slammed his hand down on the button to get it moving.

"Whoa, hang on." Oliver swiftly shut the gate as the cage shook and rattled, those shadowy green eyes finally glancing up with a concern Benjamin refused to acknowledge.

"Makes you wonder what he's up to," said Benjamin quickly, hoping the shakiness in his voice wasn't as obvious as he suspected.

"How long does it take to find out your wife's dead?" Oliver snickered, and Benjamin stared at him, horrified. A smile teased rosy lips that he had thought about far too often. "At least I can still count the people I've killed on one hand. Good thing too, since I only got the one left." Said with a nonchalance to rival Samuel's.

The cage jerked to a stop. Benjamin pushed the gate open to walk down to the next lift, unsure of how to respond to such lack of remorse, to the realisation that maybe he didn't know Oliver as well as he'd thought.

"How's Sam?"

He said nothing, unwilling to talk to the lovesick quince about it, but as they turned into a short crosscut, Oliver stopped directly in front of him and pinned him with a scrutinising gaze.

Benjamin sighed.

"I don't know," he admitted, fixating on the surrounding stone. "We've been apart for so long, it feels like we have to start all over again." Two miners passed by the crosscut on the other end. He didn't recognise them. "Part of me thinks the Sam I knew is gone. He can't understand what I've been through in Malimoure, and before this."

"I can't believe you survived that place on your own," said Oliver. "Didn't think I could admire you more than I already do, but here I am."

They were kind words and Benjamin wanted to take them as intended, but the weight of them made him shrink. He shook his head, his voice growing hoarse.

"I don't deserve your admiration. I've been a horrible friend to everyone, but to you especially. I didn't even know you hated being called ‘Sticky.' If Lucetta hadn't told me, I would've still been calling you that. I'm sorry I started that."

"Doesn't matter." Oliver gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I was just too milky to say something about it."

Benjamin's face tightened at the twist in his heart. "I… I did things I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. And it was all for nothing. Sam wants to leave."

A quick look around before Oliver stepped closer. "Like what? Tell me what you did that could possibly be worse than anything we saw in that hellhole."

Again, Benjamin shook his head, gritting his teeth. Shame boiled his insides, its pain excruciating. He stared at the stone floor, would have done so for an eternity were it not for Oliver reaching up.

Knuckles grazed his cheekbone, the touch so gentle, so foreign, it felt like a fist slammed into his chest.

Benjamin dropped to his knees, gripped Oliver's overalls, pulled him close. He buried his face into denim, heard himself sob, his sorrow a horrifying echo he couldn't stop. The arm wrapping around his neck, holding him tight, only worsened the shake of his shoulders. He cinched Oliver's waist in a vise-like embrace and held on, desperate to keep himself from unravelling entirely.

Among his sobs, he continued to hear whispers and wails. The stench of metal was permanently trapped in his nose. But he took comfort in Oliver's warmth, grateful to be held, for the fingers combing through his hair. Until he'd calmed himself, and they moved to sit with their backs against the cool walls of the crosscut. So close, his arm touched Oliver's, their thighs pressed together. Benjamin drew strength and comfort from the contact, his breaths trembling with every inhale.

"There was an old woman and her grandson," muttered Benjamin, his croak loud in the surrounding silence. "They begged for my help, but I…refused."

Oliver looked at him. Light pouring in from the drift beyond cast his face in pale yellow light. "You must have had a reason."

The intensity behind his eyes was too much, like Oliver could see straight through him. Benjamin stared hard at the wall across.

"I thought I did. When I first fell in, I was lucky enough to find a group of fourteen people. They wanted to fight in the war and were well equipped. They had guns, rations, and water. Two of them went mad. They just…ran out into the open and let themselves be torn apart."

A warm hand snuck around one of Benjamin's when he paused. He held it tight.

"Eventually, we found a cave behind a waterfall that supplied us with shelter and the only drinkable water around. We managed to scale the wall once, but there was some kind of invisible barrier and it didn't take long for us to get attacked. We were down another person. So we worked on mapping the area. It was just one giant circle. The only place we hadn't tried was the centre. They convinced themselves there was something there."

"They weren't wrong," said Oliver when Benjamin's silence lingered for too long.

"Something told me it was a bad idea, but there was nothing left for us to try. There was something—it looked like a Sentinel. It killed everyone in seconds . The only reason I'm still alive is because—"

Benjamin squeezed his eyes shut against the memory, the painful lump in his throat. "I was a coward. I dove into the water and hid under their bodies. And I kept doing it. I saw other people who needed help and ignored them. Usually used their bodies to hide under if they weren't immediately eaten, or to distract things. I left that old woman and the kid to fend for themselves and then didn't even think about them afterwards. They might have still been alive before we left!"

He buried his face in both hands, dug his nails into the skin to ground himself. Oliver stayed quiet beside him and he couldn't blame him. He was likely disgusted, as he should be.

But no, Oliver had the gall to stroke his forearm, offering further comfort.

"You did that to survive, it's an instinct. It's not something you can help. Luce, Maji, and me, we would have died during the first few minutes had Ta—Sunshine not shown up. To say anyone's chances would've been better with you around is kind of daft."

Benjamin raised a baleful look at Oliver.

"Sorry. I just meant, unless you had Sunshine with you—"

"I know what you meant, and I appreciate it."

"Good," said Oliver. "Now look, if Sam doesn't get it, then make him. You know he hasn't seen the same awful shit as you. You can't really blame him for not getting it when that place is just—I don't think anyone could imagine it. You finally have Sam back, Ben. Do what you have to for him to stay. Make him understand."

"When did you get so sensible?" asked Benjamin with a strong twinge of annoyance.

Oliver made a dismissive noise. "Lost an arm and got some sense in exchange, I guess. Either that or Sunshine swived some smarts into me."

"Oliver!"

A hearty laugh, and Oliver rose to his feet. He wobbled, tried to regain his balance with an arm he no longer had, and slammed into the wall. His swear echoed, pain twisting his features as he dusted off his backside. Benjamin watched him for longer before hesitantly speaking up.

"It hasn't really gone that far, has it?"

"What has?"

"You and— him ."

Even in the low light, Benjamin caught the pink creeping up Oliver's face.

"Depends on what you mean by that far, I guess."

Although Benjamin was sure he didn't want to delve that deeply, he asked, "Is he kind to you?"

To which Oliver looked confused. "'Course he is. You know, you could do with a haircut. It's weird seeing you this messy. How about we go to the market instead?"

"If you want," Benjamin muttered. He supposed it was a good thing he still had money left from selling the last of the gemstones.

The Tesera Mine's modest market lurked a few levels above the lodgings, the walk there made mostly in silence. There were fewer stalls since last he'd been there, the turquoise dripstone once occupying the cave's centre broken off. The bottomless well directly below it remained, transformed into a memorial for those lost to the Wandering Horrors. Someone had meticulously carved their names into stones now surrounding the well, illuminated by Fae lights fluttering aloft like butterflies, uncontained.

With so little energy to spare these days, Benjamin found relief in the market's flurry. If he hoped Oliver was done talking to him about his Sunshine though, then he was regrettably mistaken.

Stuck in the barber's chair within a rocky nook, there was nowhere for Benjamin to escape to while the swooning quickly became intolerable.

"He's so damn gorgeous," Oliver crooned, stroking his stomach as though ill. "Every time I think about him I feel sick. I start to shake when I'm not with him. See, look?"

Watching the visible quiver in the outstretched hand, Benjamin swirled his tongue inside his mouth, recognising the bitter taste of jealousy. He longed for those days with Samuel, where just the thought of him brought fondness to swell his heart.

"You've got yourself a boyfriend?" asked the barber, dusting hair off Benjamin's shoulders. Something about their tone was off, angry even. "Does he know you're an arsonist and a murderer?"

Oliver's mood visibly soured. "You shut your gobble, I don't even know you!"

Benjamin rose out of the chair and glared at the barber, who held a mirror up for him. He avoided looking into it, afraid of what he'd see. He paid them, then ushered Oliver away, stopping only once they reached the bottomless well.

"Even the tool dealer gave me the stink eye, and I was his biggest customer." Oliver looked glum. "Maybe we should go to Plainwall instead."

"I'm not up for the trip," said Benjamin right away. Oliver gave him a knowing look, and he turned away to avoid it.

"Marcy would be happy to see you. She's been worried."

"I'm not ready to face her."

"What, like you've anything to answer for?" Oliver once again invaded his line of sight, determined. "The only thing you need to feel bad about is running off without us."

"You had your hands full from what Maji and Lucetta told me," said Benjamin, walking past him to leave the market. He had enough of being sociable.

"Oh, yeah. That was great."

Benjamin fell silent. Oliver didn't seem to mind, his gait careless, the constant scuffing of his boots filling the void between them as they strode through the passageways, side by side. Not until they reached his hovel and stopped before its burgundy door did Benjamin turn to look at a face he had thought about far too often.

His stomach took a guilty tumble as he allowed himself to scour those features while Oliver glanced elsewhere, distracted. The Fae lights illuminated his bone structure in spills of yellow and pink, dancing across straight brows, high cheekbones, and fretting lips. He'd always been slender, but with no one to look after him, Oliver's lissom frame had become so meagre, Benjamin longed to invite him in and cook—even if his own stomach protested at the very thought of eating.

"Okay?"

Benjamin started, blurting, "He spotted me sneaking out, you know, and followed. Gave me a lift out." Unsure of his own point, he forced his focus back to the door, opening it. "If I had known what he'd do, then…"

"What, you would've stopped him?" Oliver huffed in dry amusement. "Sunshine does what he wants, even if he doesn't know what he's doing, bless him. Besides, I'm not so sure Emergence had the wrong idea—oh."

On the corner settee inside, Samuel sat with a book in hand. Oliver stopped by the doorway and reached out, squeezing Benjamin's hand before muttering a goodbye and leaving him alone with the one other person he didn't want to face.

Samuel's dark gaze flicked back to the book the moment the door shut. "He's gotten very affectionate with you. I don't recall him being like that before."

Tension drew into Benjamin's jaw. "He wasn't allowed to be affectionate with anyone because of the curse."

"Right. So he's cured?"

"No, the mantle he wears represses it."

A non-committal noise was Samuel's response, which suited Benjamin just fine. He wasn't here to discuss Oliver, even though his words rang inside his head like a loud, annoying dinner bell. Make him understand . How he could make anyone understand the incomprehensible was beyond Benjamin, but he owed Samuel an attempt, at the very least.

He walked to the hearth to fill a kettle from a water jug nearby. Instead of placing it on the fire, he set it aside and sat down next to Samuel with a respectable distance between them. He hesitated. Samuel had yet to look back up from his book.

"I'm trying to see if I can find any of the items I saw in the Wandering Horror realm," said Samuel.

In glinting silver lettering, the book's title read The Unofficial Encyclopaedia to Magical Artefacts , which meant it would include a list of illicit items. He wondered where Samuel might have gotten it from in such a short time. As far as Benjamin knew, his husband hadn't left the mine once.

"I think we need to have a conversation," said Benjamin, heart slamming his ribcage when Samuel closed the book, put it aside, and shifted to regard him.

"Alright."

With his forearms resting across his thighs, Benjamin clasped his hands together, needing a moment to gather clamouring thoughts.

"I don't want you to go back there."

His lips pressed into a line. He hadn't meant to say that.

"I'm fairly sure you don't get to decide that."

"No, you're right. I don't," said Benjamin. "Please, hear me out. I know you've been stuck in the Horror realm for years with no one for company aside from those Proxies, but you've got to know they're bad news?"

"They're the reason I'm back here with you."

That was giving them far too much credit, although Benjamin didn't want to argue the point. "They're also the reason we've had to face several wars with other worlds, why we have the Wandering Horrors to begin with, and so many other awful things."

"I don't want to argue with you, Benji, but that's not their doing."

"You weren't there. When they all came out and killed everyone here and in Plainwall. We only had fifteen miners left afterward."

When Samuel remained quiet, he took it as a signal to proceed.

"That's not to mention they have this landfill of monstrosities they're not even doing a proper job disposing of. They're just letting people wander in to get slaughtered. I've seen such awful things, you can't imagine what it was like."

"I know, I can't," murmured Samuel.

"And… I'm just connecting some dots here, but I'm thinking the whole reason we're even mining is for those Proxies. Lucetta told me Ondine was the one who discovered magical ambits. At least, she seemed to have been the first to start sending people in to mine for magic, and it didn't go well."

"What does Luce base this on?" Samuel interjected.

"That's not the point," said Benjamin. "Having seen that woman in Sentinel Tau's homeworld, it's got to be connected somehow. What was it Tau did with you?"

A pause. "He transported me there by accident, I believe."

"Right. We always thought Sentinels killed all Dire things, but what if they bring the worst to the Proxies instead to study , as you put it?" The more he spoke, the heavier his theory became, the less it felt like a theory. More like a fear his subconscious had been aware of long before. "What if we're the ones who have been supplying them with everything they want, all these years?"

He recalled how that old man Jacob had worded it: he'd called Mystical Miners truffle hogs for the transmundane. It all seemed to fit, and that made Sentinels as guilty of Malimoure as the Proxies. They were all working together. And that meant Tau was not to be trusted either, regardless of what Oliver said.

His fingers turned white where he had them around his knees.

"We've seen awful things during our years as miners," he continued, strained, "but Sam, please believe me when I say that what I've seen in Malimoure was so beyond horrific,it makes me want to jump off a cliff, knowing I might have helped create such bloodshed."

Finally, he'd managed to put it into words. In a terrible, ironic twist, he had contributed to the nightmare he'd endured. To think that becoming a Miner of the Mystics had been a lifelong ambition… It roiled his stomach with a nausea that worked upward into the back of his throat.

A hand reached out, placed atop Benjamin's own, the touch gentle. Before he could curl his fingers around Samuel's, he pulled away.

"Thank you for telling me," said Samuel. "I didn't understand before, but I believe I do now."

"You won't go back?" Benjamin asked, but was afraid of the answer.

"I'm not sure. Part of me wants to find out what else there is to it. You said yourself, you're only speculating."

"That's not what I said."

"We haven't got all the facts. If what you're saying is true, then wouldn't it be better to dismantle this system from the inside, to try and do better?" Samuel's tone was collected, as always. "Emergence's plan of just murdering every single one of them is senseless. What would that do to our world if all magical things, including the Dire, the very same things you've faced in Malimoure, were suddenly left for us all to deal with, everywhere? Without the help of Sentinels? You know people will continue to look for magic, with or without guidance. This mine right here is proof of that!"

"They need to be stopped." Benjamin kept his voice quiet in an attempt to match his husband's frustrating calm. "If that means killing them, then so be it. Oliver is right—"

"Blessed Sentinels, that boy has got so troubled. Again ." Samuel scoffed, his nose wrinkled with disgust.

Benjamin bolted upright. "This isn't about that!"

"You're right, it's not," said Samuel. "This is about you, thinking murdering hundreds of innocent people is alright. How does that make you any better? There are more than the few people you saw there, and most of them have nothing to do with the landfill." He too stood, stalking toward the door. Then he paused, turned, and faced Benjamin with a look of utter neutrality. It hurt more than anything else. "I owe my sanity to the Proxies. Do you know how lonely I was in those years? Never knowing whether it was day or night, how long it had been since I got some silence ? I was there for an eternity for what it felt like!"

"I know, I wish it was me who—"

"Spare me. You know that's not the issue at hand. I'm telling you, the Proxies aren't what you think. For as long as the portal stayed open, they talked to me. They kept me from going insane. I learned so many things. They could have asked me to collect all the artefacts that were lying around, but they didn't because that's not what they're about."

Benjamin wanted to shout at him. He wanted to grab Samuel by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Make him understand . Well, he couldn't. Because Samuel chose not to.

"Then, I guess I have my answer. You don't want to stay. I can't make you."

The words settled around them like the ashes of a house fire. He didn't know what he expected or wanted to happen, but Samuel leaving wasn't his intention.

What was there to do? They had grown too far apart.

As he watched the dust whirl around the last echoes of a slammed door, Benjamin was certain of one thing. He turned to the encyclopaedia on the settee and ripped out a back page. Wrote inside it with Samuel's old fountain pen. Didn't wait for the ink to dry, snatching it up in a fist. He packed his clothes and left the hovel without a backward glance.

His footfalls were loud as he stomped to the cage lift, stopping only when he caught sight of a familiar face among a few other miners. He shoved the letter against Helen's chest.

"Send this to Pavlov for me."

Helen blankly stared at him.

"Hi, Benjamin," said Anna, impassively.

Metal rattled and shook as the cage made its way up.

Through its bars, Benjamin saw Helen read his resignation letter.