Doppelbänger

Chapter 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

MAYBE NOT ALWAYS SO COMPLETELY

GOOD AUGUST

Do I feel bad for shooting myself? Twice? Yeah, I feel like shit. I also feel like shit for killing all those other people in those other universes. And I also feel like shit for August feeling like shit for killing all those other other people.

But above all that? I feel good.

If what these Augusts said is true—and with nothing to lose, why wouldn’t it be?—this really is it. End of the line. There’s no going forward now, only facing what’s behind us.

“What’s your plan then?” August, walking faithfully by my side, asks. “You wouldn’t have shot them if you weren’t sure you could fix this. I know it.”

His voice is so firm and resolute. It’s nice he thinks I’m that certain or that good. I wish I could tell him I was sure my idea would work. All I can do is tell him what I’m thinking and hope he goes along with it. “There’s nothing else in this direction, right? We’ve hit a wall.”

“And nothing back the way we came either. Except the remains of every galaxy I tore apart on its way through to annihilate us.”

“So, what happens if we…” Here goes nothing. “What if we fuck this one up?”

He stops dead in the already weirdly frozen street and blinks at me. “I… I don’t… What do you mean?”

“What would happen,” I nod my head slowly and meaningfully, “if we fuck this one up?”

“I don’t know what would happen. The energy has nowhere to go. So I guess, in theory, um… maybe we would just… die more horribly?”

Not what I wanted to hear. But also, not what I believe will happen. “That past, all the worlds, all the memories—they need to be pushed back into place by an equal and opposing force, right? Just like we said.”

His brow furrows. “Yes, but you heard the Augusts. We can’t break through to any fledging universe. Apparently, it’s not where we’d hoped it would be. Bloody ‘paleo quantum physics.’ What a prick.”

“He is but…” Deep breath. “What if we don’t need to do that after all?”

August’s head tilts, his pretty hair shifting to the side. “I’m not following.”

Yep, that’s fair.

“We want raw energy, right? We want power. We want defiance—an opposing force.” I take my chance, taking his hand up with it. “August, that’s us.”

His lopsided smile displays his confused disbelief in full, like this is some cute party trick I’ve come up with. “We’re the opposing force?”

“What else could it possibly be?”

He lets out a soft, sympathetic half laugh, then tries to turn away.

Clearly, I’m not doing a great job of explaining this.

I wrench him back. “Listen. The universe isn’t just random particles floating about, correct?

It’s ordered—a perfect symphony of shape, and colour, and sound, and life.

Things don’t just happen for no reason out there.

One thing feeds into another, creating solar systems, galaxies, universe after universe.

There’s atomic memory. Quantum entanglement.

Patterns everywhere. August, it’s like a song, don’t you think?

It’s the precision beauty of maths, the way everything can be explained with an equation, neat and tidy, that it all makes sense and holds and never falls apart no matter how extreme the physics. ”

“Well, yeah. It is. Or it was.” He gives a sad, soft little shrug. “In fact, it was lovely until I fucked it all up.”

“There! That’s the key.” I grin at how astute he is, even if I don’t think he’s got the full picture yet.

“The key is that I fucked it up?”

“That’s exactly right.” He stares into my eyes, searching, so I prompt, “What’s the opposite of order, August?”

Those gorgeous eyes widen, and I watch the spark light. “Chaos.”

“Chaos. That’s us. That’s you and me. What we create together… We’re chaos.”

He laughs louder than before, an edge of avoidance in it. “That makes no sense.”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense!

Everything worked to keep us apart, reality itself, hundreds of universes separated us.

But you found me. You moved worlds to come to me.

Don’t you see? This whole time, you’ve been concentrating on finding a world where the physics are just right, where you could slip in seamlessly, buy time, find calm, do your work.

But that’s not us. That’s not how we work. ”

Rattled, he pulls away from me, walking a short distance down the street.

I step after him, still trying to get my idea out.

“Our love is strong enough to rip holes in the fabric of reality. We’ve changed the course of worlds, we’ve taken on the multiverse and pulled it apart.

August, why wouldn’t we be able to do this? ”

“Because… because this is madness. We’re a time bomb, August, not a solution.”

“You’re wrong. We’re the one anomaly in this collapse.

All this time we’ve been going where the universe blows us.

But not anymore. Now it’s time for us to push back.

Backs to the wall, nowhere else to go, ‘Blaze of Glory’ style.

” My fingers grasp his. I take a hand to his cheek and force his eyes to meet mine. “This time, we don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop?” He knows exactly what I’m saying. I can see it in his eyes. “August, if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about—”

“You know I am.”

His head shakes against the palm of my hand.

“That’s not science. That’s not something we can control.

What if we make things even worse? What if we burn alive, along with everyone else?

What if we find one of those other dimensions, smash into it, start this whole process in another direction, and wipe them all out too? Take a new multiverse, wreck it all?”

I hit him with my hard data: “We won’t.”

“You can’t know that. This could spell catastrophe.

” He turns away and, dropping his hands to his hips, he lets out a long breath.

Just for a second, I think he might be considering it.

Then he rebounds softly with, “And that’s not you.

You’re the Good August. I’m the Bad August. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. ”

“No. No, that’s where you’re wrong. Didn’t you see me shoot those guys just now?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Would you have shot them if they weren’t literally you?”

“Yes! I’m very bad! I’m a very bad man!”

“Slayer, you’re not.” He laughs gently, then his voice drops back to sad. “You’re loving and desperate, and gorgeous and brilliant. But I know you won’t do this—maybe put even more universes on the line. The things that could happen to these people—”

“If you really believe that, then you still don’t know me.

Even after everything we’ve been through.

But I think I get it now.” I pull his two hands over my heart.

“I’m just August. I’m good August and I’m bad August. August who’s sweet, and August who’s abrasive.

I’m August who’s stupid, and August who’s clever.

August who fucks up sometimes, and who tries his best to fix it.

And that’s okay. All of it. I’m August. And so are you.

And there’s nothing wrong with any of it.

If you could stop hating yourself for five minutes, you might realise you’re the one trying to convince me not to do this. What does that make you?”

He averts his eyes, looking for a way to deny what’s happening right in front of us.

So I tell him, “You know what’s funny? I spent years feeling guilty about the mistakes I’d made.

About Jon, about spending all the inheritance, about not going to university.

But then you came along. And you had fucked up on such a monumental scale that all other fuckups in human history pale in comparison. ”

“Thanks for that,” he mutters, colour rising to his cheeks.

I lift his hands a little higher, dropping a kiss on his fingertips.

“But you didn’t give up. You fought on and on.

You never gave up because your heart is good and pure.

And when you had more right to be a more horrible, nasty, miserable person than anyone else who ever lived, you chose to spend your last mortal days making me feel better for the tiny, inconsequential things I’d done.

Saying all those amazing things to me. Holding me and making me feel like I mattered.

You’re not bad. You have so much capacity for love.

We both do. We all do. Don’t give up on me now, because I’m not giving up on you. ”

His hands wrap tighter around mine, and he comes closer, chest to chest. “Slayer, if I could, I’d smash through that wall with you right now, and go on and on, let destruction chase us across the stars.

I’d throw it all in for another minute with you.

You know that. But I don’t believe you’re going to be okay with mass destruction if this goes wrong. ”

I place a slow and gentle kiss on his lips, then meet his eyes.

“This can’t be destructive, what we have.

I don’t believe that. I know destructive.

I know loss. I know giving up, and I know feeling hopeless.

I know when the universe has a miss and your whole world falls apart because of it.

But chaos doesn’t have to be destructive.

Chaos is beautiful. You and me, we’re the patterns in the clouds of Jupiter.

We’re the snow falling on Enceladus. We’re the perfect accident of a beautiful constellation stretching across the night sky. We are the beauty that comes of chaos.”

His eyes flutter closed, so I kiss him again, even as his shoulders dip, as the strength of the fight leaves him. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s true. Every word of it. You can’t tell me we’re inconsequential.

You can’t tell me that what we have isn’t sublime—that it isn’t a force powerful enough to reshape the universe.

Our lives, everything we went through, what’s coming for us now…

We can fight this. Together. I believe we’re stronger than all of it.

I don’t just love you, August. It’s beyond that.

Come with me. I want you to take this leap with me.

Maybe we are impossible. But that doesn’t make us any less right. ”

He returns my kiss so ardently it makes my heart ache.

“There’s nothing I want more than to be with you.

I never had a thing to believe in until I met you.

You’ve taken every broken piece of me and pulled me back together, better now than I was before.

” His long eyelashes squeeze, hiding his thoughts, hiding the struggle within.

Until he opens his eyes again, piercing and bright.

My heart leaps with the small nod he gives me.

“I believe in you so completely. I’ve always known you were brilliant.

And to see you now, saying these gorgeous things…

I don’t care what comes next. So long as I get to spend this with you, it can be the end of existence. ”

“It won’t be. I promise you. You’re the one thing I wouldn’t risk.” I almost kill the poor man, throwing my whole body at him to kiss him and kiss him again.

He stumbles, then finds his footing, holding my face and my fate in the palm of his hands. “And you’re the one thing I wouldn’t risk. I believe in you. I believe in us.”

I lean into his touch, feeling more complete and certain than I have in all my life. “Then please, will you come cause some chaos with me?”

His own smile widens to match mine. “There’s nothing in this universe I’d rather do.”