GOOD LORD. I cannot believe I'm doing this. I swear, this character grabbed my muse and and just wouldn't let go until I wrote something.

I'm never going to live this down, am I? Yeah. Never gonna live it down. Oh well. At least I'm getting my awful fanfic writing stage out of the way now so I can look back and feel shame later instead of being older and doing this. Bleh.

Anyway, I shouldn't be angsting much in these chapter notes because there is plenty of that ahead, trust me.

Hope somebody out there enjoys!

Crowd of Two

For the first year, the last thneed ever made lay untouched, in the farthest corner of the top room where no light could reach.

Under different circumstances, it might have been very easy for the Once-ler to forget it was even there. This was reality, though, so once in a blue moon, while life or an imitation of it tried to go around it, the pink bundle just had to catch his eye like a spark in the distance.

Ignoring it most of the time took more effort than expected, but he managed. There was always something else that needed to be done whenever he let himself look at the thneed, like trying to keep the bugs out of the little kitchen downstairs, or inventing a filter-thing so the shower wouldn't spew black water anymore, or sitting, which was what he usually did. Sitting, staring out the window at nothing in particular, thinking dimly of a time long ago when a dark sky meant rain and nothing else.

Or working on the Unless.

That's what he figured the Unless was, at least. A thing. A tangible, actual thing instead of the vague idea he, like everyone, had assumed it was before he'd gotten the chance to cradle a little seed in his hands, his gloves stained with grime, asking it to please grow for me please like a madman. He'd been so sure, then, that a little dirt here and a little water there mixed with something like love (?) would bring the trees back. People grew things all the time, didn't they? Why should a tree be any different? He was the one who'd ruined it all; shouldn't he be the one to fix it?

It was logic. It was obvious. It didn't work.

The Once-ler fell asleep outside, once, next to the little stone monument with the seed at his right, covered in a little mound of loose, damp soil that could have passed for sand. In his dreams, a bushy mustache mumbled things about nature's forgiveness and rejection, that the Unless was not for him. But it wasn't as if he ever remembered his dreams when he awoke, other than the fact that they were far too bright and peaceful to be real, these days.

So for those first year, while the thneed sat being useless in its corner, he worked and pleaded every moment he could. That is, until that one time when the seed didn't grow and the thneed caught his eye on the very same day and suddenly, he realized that he'd had it all wrong. Maybe the Unless, he reasoned, was an object. Something he could operate to force the seed to take root. His greatest invention. The answer to his biggest mistake.

And that mockery of an epiphany was what brought him all the way to now, to the planning of the great Unless. Granted, the blueprint stage hadn't progressed much past scratching the title out with a pointy rock on his bedroom wall, but it was something. Gripping the rock like a lifeline, his hand twitched in anticipation. This was it, this was it, this was it.

Except it wasn't, or it wasn't yet, since his mind was giving him visions of a young man with a smile and a guitar in a forest rather than anything resembling an Unless. Trying to force something out, he brought the rock to the wall again, carved out the word again just to give his body something to do.

UNLESS

The person in his head who did not exist anymore whistled a terrible, made-up tune, strumming along with his instrument.

UNLESS

He was leaning against a tree, breathing clean air that could have lasted forever if certain things hadn't happened.

UNLESS

The man turned his head up, looking at wisps of pink and orange waving smoothly in the breeze like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and all at once the Once-ler wanted to grab him and tell him to never let what he felt at that moment become anything less or more. To always stay the same, no matter what.

UNLESS

But that was silly for more than one reason.

UNLESS

The young man looked surprised, his strumming hand falling into his lap. His smile disappeared as he turned his head, staring directly at the Once-ler in wonder.

"You understand?"

UNL-

The rock clattered to the floor. The Once-ler's empty hand curled into a fist, which he pressed against the wall to get a grip on himself because he was absolutely not hearing things. Breathing hard, he pressed his chapped lips firmly together, but closing his eyes only made colors of the scene before him sharpen, so vivid they could blind a sane person.

The young man started playing his guitar again, and the trees swayed to the beat.

"You don't have to talk. I'm just glad you get it."

The Once-ler squeezed his eyes shut harder, hard enough that now he can see the stitching on the man's clothes and the texture of the grass beneath them. Harder, and the other individual seemed to get closer, so close that the Once-ler towered over him but cast no shadow. Instead of his money-green fist balled up against the wall, it dug against the Truffula tree, which stood firm and alive against the pressure.

"I get it?" he echoed, his voice rough and scratchy from lack of use. The other nodded, smiling too serenely to be sincere.

"You get why it's silly. I know how much I love these trees! That will never change. I need these." The trees closest to them bobbed their tufts in agreement, but the Once-ler hesitated.

"You... you love them."

The young man nodded.

"Yep. Just as much as you do. For all the wrong reasons." He stopped strumming again, looking up at his counterpart with big, clear eyes not dulled with regret or sorrow.

"Do you get that?" he asked. The Once-ler blinked down at him, at a complete loss what to say. This was not happening. This was not supposed to happen. His younger self was supposed to be furious at him, at what he'd become. He was supposed to yell and scream, not set his guitar down calmly and stand up, dusting off the Once-ler's suit like a mother or lover.

"C'mon, we never changed. Well, scratch that, we did, but still not for the best, right? 'S just as good as not changing at all."

Finally, finally he'd said something that the Once-ler could argue against, something he made him feel defiant rather than ill.

"I have changed for the better," he muttered as the other man straightened his tie with a gentleness he didn't deserve. "I-"

"Would've you have ever understood if you'd done if you'd found an alternative to the Truffula trees at the last minute? I mean, if the company hadn't gone." His counterpart's hands went from the tie to resting flat on his chest. His voice lowered a bit. "If you were still Mom's favorite."

The Once-ler's mouth dropped open to reply as he tried stepping back from this invasion of personal space, only to be followed and closed in on and oh God, he was being hugged by some insane bastardization of his past self. The one that was supposed to be innocent and... cute. Anything instead of this self aware delusion in gray. Or maybe he was the insane one, or maybe they both were, or maybe he didn't even know anymore.

"If the Lorax hadn't made me promise, do you think I would have stopped chopping them down for as long as I did? I am you, after all. Just... not as big."

Not having cried over everything that had happened for the past year, not even when he was alone, wasn't exactly something the Once-ler had prided himself on, but now he found himself on the edge of panic as he stood there in his own embrace and tried to keep it that way. Any moment now, he thought, those gray and white clothes of his other self would fizzle into green, and a top hat would fall onto his head from nowhere, and it would be his mirror image staring back at him. Because that's what this was, that's what he wanted it to be. His greedy self in hiding, masquerading as someone he'd be more inclined to listen to. Someone he could fight.

The person whom he used to be would never have felt this way.

But of course nothing changed as his other self smiled that same, dopey smile and playfully snuck his fingers down the front of the Once-ler's suit, leaning in.

"Me? I'm not much just yet. But you... look at you." The other man sighed like he was talking to his idol, his kisses no less than reverent. Little pecks on his neck, one on each cheek, a firm one on his lips.

"You're a king."

King of a wasteland.

"You're a legend."

A cautionary tale.

"You got to have it all!"

And lost it.

"You're the man I just know I'm going to be.*

"No!" Something snapped inside the Once-ler's head, sending his mind reeling and his body barreling forward, gripping the other man's shoulders as he backed him up against the tree. Tears pricked at his eyes, finally able to slip down his cheeks without being choked back.

"You don't want this. We never wanted this. How could you be happy about this? Why are you smiling!"

He chuckled. His former self actually had the gall to chuckle and brought a hand up to cradle the Once-ler's face, eyes going soft and sad. At the breaking point at last, the Once-ler's eyes went wide as he reached up to grasp the other's wrist.

"Because I know this is what we both deserve," said the young man.

And as they kissed and sighed and moved less than gracefully against a Truffula tree that might have been a wall in a different situation, a lone thneed and a little seed sat in a corner somewhere facing a few UNLESSes, unaware and uncaring as any inanimate, inconsequential objects could ever be.