QLFC: Chaser 2, Harpies, Finals round 1.

Optionals - Disgust / antique white / "What, have you changed your mind now?"

Piers just wanted to be alone.

It was stupid, mostly.

He doesn't even remember why they were fighting, not really, but he does remember some of the things they screamed at each other with a cold, terrifying clarity.

Dean had been just as vicious, but that didn't ease the guilt in Piers' stomach as he thought about some of the poison he'd spat out.

He can still feel the word "freak" as it tripped out his lips, a word they both hate, a word they've both had weaponized against them.

He wonders if he'll ever stop doing things he regrets.

He wanders aimlessly for a while, the familiar streets of Surrey welcoming him. He'd spent his life on these streets, knew them so perfectly that he could likely walk them with a blindfold wrapped around his eyes.

He paused on his old street.

Rosewood Drive.

It's still achingly familiar. It's the first place he ever had a home. Age seven and taken from everything familiar, adopted by a cousin he'd never met, orphaned by parents who'd never wanted him to begin with.

Dying was the best thing his parents had ever done for him.

It had given him Max.

Max, who was twenty-three when he'd been saddled with a cousin he'd never asked for, but who never once complained. Who made him cookies and expected him to be better than he was and always asked the most of him.

Max and his boyfriend Liam were probably fast asleep now, though, and he didn't really want to disturb them. Piers was too old now to run home whenever things got tough. He passed the house, sighing when he saw it was shrouded in darkness.

Yeah, definitely asleep then.

He continued on his way, pausing again when he came upon Mrs. MacDonald's old house.

She'd been his primary school teacher when he was twelve and stupid and reckless. He remembers many a night in his misspent youth in her garden, breaking in so they could use her hot tub.

When they were young, Piers had thought she had no idea, but looking back, he knew that she'd known they were there. They'd never really tried to be quiet.

Now, he hated to think that they might have scared her. Not that it would have changed much then; he'd been a shit who didn't care. They all had.

He wonders if she still has the old tub, and before he knows what he's doing, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he sneaks up the driveway. This is ridiculous; he doesn't even know if she still lives there.

She hadn't exactly been young when Piers was a child, and he's decidedly not a child now. He should know better than this.

The gate isn't even locked though, and Piers slips through into the familiar garden. Sure enough, the hot tub is still there in all its antique white glory. It's sparkling in a way it never did when he was younger.

And he wonders.

He wonders if maybe it's a new one. He wonders if she replaced it when they stopped coming around.

He doesn't really know what prompts him to sit first on the edge, pushing back the cover, and then to slide into the tub. He's fully dressed and it's stupid, but it's like his body is moving without his permission, sinking into the warm water.

He feels lightheaded, dizzy in a way that usually means he's been working too long. He tilts to the left, gripping the side of the tub but it doesn't stop him from splashing face first into the water.

He sucks in, but instead of inhaling water, he's breathing air and the world is tipping and he's sitting up.

Oddly, when he sits up, he feels fine. He climbs out of the hot tub, exasperated with himself and confused. He really doesn't know what compelled him to do any of that, and now he's going to have to walk home with wet clothes and no explanation for why.

Except his clothes are dry.

Except he's not alone in the garden and yet, he doesn't think the others can see him.

Dudley is there, except that Dudley doesn't look like he did when Piers saw him last week. This Dudley is shorter and squatter and he looks so goddamn young.

Piers looks around, and realizes he remembers this moment.

Remembers being twelve years old and picking the lock on Mrs. MacDonald's fence to use her hot tub in the middle of the night, remembers Dudley and Malcolm and Gordon crowing, remembers laughing even as he shushed them.

He remembers how it ends, too. Remembers getting out of the hot tub, getting ready to leave when Malcolm had turned back, said, "I have an idea." Remembers laughing uproariously as Malcolm pulled his dick out and pissed into the hot tub.

Piers remembers being the first to follow, remembers laughing even as he pissed.

He remembers Gordon, the last of them, and always a little quicker to be cruel. Gordon had been ready to join the rest of them when the cat had showed up.

Mrs. MacDonald loved her cats. Loved them so much half their primary school class hated those cats just on principle.

The four of them had laughed hysterically as Gordon turned to the cat.

Piers cringes at the memory. He can still hear the cat's yelp echoing in his ears, can still see the way Gordon has grinned as he turned back to them. His aim was shit, but there was still a damp patch on the cat's back, and Piers remembers thinking it was hilarious.

He's not sure why it was funny, now.

It's not.

He knows it's not. It's cruel. And unnecessary. It's everything every dumbass kid he defends in court these days has done, everything Piers tells them they're better than.

God, he was a shitty kid.

But knowing that now doesn't stop the fact that he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be in this moment. He shouldn't be able to see himself, twelve years old, less freckles but more pimples, without the muscle he put on when he took up boxing at age eighteen. It's like looking into a funhouse mirror, distorted, broken.

And he hates it.

He's moved past this kind of behaviour, doesn't want to see the evidence of it again.

He's already been through puberty, already done his growing up. He's still working on the repentance thing, but he's trying.

He shouldn't be here.

And he's not even sure how it's possible.

He looks at the hot tub and then looks away, shaking his head. Time travel isn't a thing. His boyfriend may be a goddamn wizard but that just makes Piers more sure. People don't get into hot tubs and wake up in the past. That's not how their world works. Magic is wands and incantations and deliberation.

Not this.

He wonders if maybe he hit his head when he pitched forward. If he's really lying face down in the water and this is the last thing he's going to see before he does… whatever you do when you die.

He thinks that, if that's the case, the afterlife is a bit shitty too.

The boys, himself, which is every kind of messed up, laugh loudly and it's like nails on a chalkboard to Piers' ears. He doesn't want to see this again, doesn't want to hear it.

Disgust for himself is welling inside of him and he doesn't want to deal with this again. He's working past this. He's been through uni and law school and he's thirty years old, in a committed relationship; he's better than this. He can't change the past but he's rewritten his future and it doesn't include this.

He leaves the garden on a whim, his legs moving quickly on the streets once more.

And this isn't an aimless walk.

He just wants to go home and tell Dean that he's sorry for being horrible.

The lights are on when he passes by Max's and he hesitates. Max was asleep when he passed before. He walks over to the house, peering into the window. He wonders at the curtains because he remembers them, ugly blue and green plaid things that both of them hated but they came with the house. Max had changed them years ago.

Piers shakes that thought away because time travel isn't a thing.

Except Max is sitting on the faded yellow sofa of Piers' youth, and he's tapping his fingers against his knee and he's biting his lip and he looks so sad. This is the Max that rescued Piers, the Max that helped him be better, that never pressured him but offered quiet support that made Piers want to be better. This is Max at age twenty-eight, always worried but never willing to show it around Piers.

This isn't the Max that Piers was laughing at a few hours ago because he was having a meltdown about the bakery he's owned for six years now.

This isn't the Max that had a flour fight with Dean two days ago.

This is… Piers doesn't know what this is but he doesn't like it. He runs again, because this is a past that he doesn't want to re-live. He heads for home, but when he gets there it isn't home because it doesn't even exist yet.

There's a wasteland where his home is supposed to be because he and Dean live in one of the new builds and it's not here yet.

The home that he spent so long working towards is gone. He feels cold.

There is ice in his veins.

And Piers doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know where to go because he only wants to go home and he can't because home isn't here anymore.

He stays there for a while. He doesn't know how long. He doesn't know where else to go or what else to do.

The boys in the yard didn't see him, so he can only guess that nobody else can see him either. Is he a ghost? Did he die and now he's going to be forced to relive the many mistakes he made in his life?

Is that the afterlife?

It does kind of feel like hell. Or maybe some kind of poetic justice.

He starts walking when he can't look at the emptiness anymore. He passes Dudley's house just in time to see Dudley swaggering up the path. He looks pleased with himself, smug in a way he hasn't looked for years. Back home, Dudley's smugness has long since faded into a smooth confidence.

Piers keeps going because he can't stay still now. He finds himself back at Mrs. MacDonald's garden and he goes in because where else can he go.

He stares at the hot tub. And he thinks the hot tub did this to him.

It must have, right? He was in the hot tub when the shift happened.

But it's just a hot tub.

The water is disgusting, he knows what he did, he remembers what he did, but honestly, what else has he got to lose?

It's better than living in this hell.

He climbs in, and he sits in the dirty water and he cries when nothing happens.

He just wants to go home.

Except then he's lightheaded, dizzy and tilting to the right and then he's wet. He can feel the water soaking through him, thankfully clean this time, and when he climbs out of the hot tub he's dripping onto the floor.

And Piers runs.

He runs home, so grateful to see the brick building standing proudly that he almost sobs. He opens the door with shaking hands closing it behind him with a soft snick and everything is fine, wonderful even, because this is the home he knows.

This is the home he's built.

"What, have you changed your mind now?" Dean calls, his temper clearly not sated yet.

Piers doesn't even know what he's talking about, the row seems so long ago. He walks into the living room and Dean is there, sitting on their couch, and it doesn't even matter that he's mad because he's there.

"What the - why are you so wet?"

"I'm sorry," he says, kneeling down in front of Dean and taking his hands. Dean is warm, and he's soft and he's here, and Piers could cry. He leans down pressing his forehead to their joined hands. "I'm sorry," he repeats softly.

There's a puddle on the floor but Piers doesn't care. He'll clean it up in the morning, because at the moment, Dean is warm and that's all that matters.

Dean squeezes his hands and pulls one of them away to run through Piers hair. "What happened?" he asks, because it doesn't matter if he's mad, Dean always knows when something is wrong with Piers.

Piers shakes his head.

He can't tell Dean, doesn't want to sound crazy, so he says nothing and just relaxes under Dean's gentle touch.

"You're freezing, idiot," Dean murmurs, and he pulls Piers up, pushing them both to their feet. Dean helps Piers strip his wet clothes and then he leaves for just a moment to put them in the washing machine.

When he comes back, Piers leans into his side. "Can we just go to bed?" he asks, because he's tired and he needs to just keep Dean in his grasp so he can't go anywhere without him.

"We've still got to talk about this," Dean says gently. "You can't keep walking out when things get a little difficult."

"I know," Piers replies, because he does know that. "Just… tomorrow. Can we talk tomorrow?"

Dean stares at him for a long moment and then he nods, because Dean is perfect and he knows what Piers needs.

"Okay. Okay, come on, sweetheart, let's go to bed and get you warmed up."

Ten minutes later, wrapped in blankets and Dean, with his head pillowed on a steadily moving chest, Piers finally relaxes. He doesn't know what happened, doesn't know what that hot tub is, or why it did… that.

He just knows that this is where he belongs.

Where he's happiest.

This is where he wants to stay.