Doe rolled into a more comfortable position, his mouth resting against his good paw, listening quietly. He’d never heard this much about Chim’s life before, had never heard him talk so openly; it felt private and sacred and forbidden. He stayed silent through it all, not wanting to break anything - this spell of honesty borne of final hours and goodbyes. Even just hearing Chim say something like ‘Mom’ made Doe’s heart twist, and he smiled softly against his paw - it was the remnant of some cat who hadn’t existed in a long, long time. But he liked the cat Chim was now. Again he ached with that familiar fear, panic, yearning - he wanted to know everything about him, wanted to drag the night out and push back the dawn, wanted the Chim the other tom kept below the surface, the one that was still so heartbreakingly innocent despite all the abruptness and the growls. He felt like he knew Chim better than almost any cat ever had, save for Pygmyprawn and Tuskblood and a pawful of others; the thought of losing that - that intimacy, that knowing - was heartbreaking, but at the same time he was so deeply honoured to have been able to understand him at all.

The story played out behind his eyes, and again he felt that gratefulness that he was able to visualise the WaterClan camp and BrookClan territory as they had been - many cats nowadays couldn’t say that, and it made him feel closer still to Chim and his past. They shared something that was gone now, swept away by floodwaters and collapsed monarchies. As he listened, part of Doefreckle was engrossed in the story, his heart clenching in sympathy and horror and grief, and resentment washing over him at Stormshelter’s betrayal, and his breathing halting every now and then as he waited for the next word; the other part of him was captivated by the one telling it, his eyes wandering over Chim’s face as he talked, half of his own face hidden behind his paw. At lines like ‘and we wouldn’t all die’ - just so… Chim, so to-the-point - he had to swallow back a quiet breath of fond laughter. His thoughts drifted away like smoke - what would it have been like, what would have happened, if they’d met each other sooner, if the age gap was slimmer, if Chimerapaw met Doepaw before either of them was broken. He tried to imagine it, but he couldn’t, and he didn’t really want to. Everything had happened as it was meant to, as much as his heart was shattering at that moment. He loved the Chimerastar he’d met that morning in WaterClan, and he loved the Chim lying in front of him now. Every scar, every harsh word, every shy, gentle smile, every horror and every kindness. She refused to put my sorry ass out of my misery. Despite the terror of that sentiment, Doe smiled against his paw. He’d miss dry little jibes like that. Few cats, especially in SummerClan, had a sense of humour like Chim’s. No cat was like him. His heart ached again with fresh grief, fresh loneliness. What if he never fell in love again? What if he’d been spoiled by this grumpy, gruff, sweet tom? He couldn’t stomach outright sunshine like he used to be able to; his tastes had been skewed towards the quiet, the taciturn, the churlish and crabby. He liked Chim. He wanted Chim. He couldn’t have him. He was fine with that. He wasn’t. His heart was breaking. He’d survive, he’d thrive. He wouldn’t. StarClan…

He wanted to say something sappy like ‘I meant what I said the first day we met - your scars are beautiful’, but he didn’t; he knew Chim wouldn’t believe him, and it isn’t what he wanted or needed to hear. He kept the thought to himself. See? He had grown up. Next he wanted to say ‘thank you for telling me’, but that didn’t need to be said, and he’d said thank you enough times that night already and meant them all. Instead, Doefreckle pulled himself to his paws and set himself down closer to Chim, sides pressed together, ginger fur interweaving softly with calico. He rested his chin on Chim’s forepaws, looking up at him past his own ears. “Screw Mercenary Evelyn to hell,” he murmured quietly, voice edging against a gentle purr and expression wisping over a smile. “And honestly, screw BrookClan while we’re at it. They might not be the villains of this story but their monarchy was garbage and I don’t miss ‘em. Cheers, I’ll drink to that.” Still looking up at Chim with his chin on the other tom’s paws, his smile grew at the edges. He raised his head and bumped his forehead against his cheek, giving his damp fur a gentle lick before settling back down on his paws. He was silent for a long time, his smile slowly fading, just listening to Chim breathe and feeling the rise and fall of his ribs against him. 

“I’ll miss this,” he said softly, the sound of his own voice vibrating up through Chim’s paws and tickling his own ears. “Just… being quiet. With someone who knows me. No one else remembers me from before, or at least not many, and none that really mattered. I have to explain, over and over and over, till everything is just a script I’ve rehearsed a thousand times over and all the words have lost their meaning. Just… not even in a romantic way, even though, obviously, yes that too,” he exhaled a breath of laughter against Chim’s paws, “but just… the companionship. I talk a lot, in case you haven’t noticed, but even that’s like… I don’t, really. Not anymore. Now I’m more like you.” He tipped his cheek, smiling up at the other tom for a brief, teasing moment before rolling his head again to gaze down at the straw. “I’ll just miss having someone who knew Doefreckle, and then Doestar. Without me having to explain it, or give up explaining it, or try to be happy and fail. I can just be quiet. And it feels more real than I’ve felt the whole time being back in SummerClan. And I’m not trying to guilt you into staying or anything like that, and I don’t want you to worry about me when you go home to Pygmyprawn, I’m just… I hope whoever I end up being won’t be terrible. I hope I’ll be something like the me I am when I’m with you. Calm, even if it doesn’t seem like it.” He smiled again, looking up at Chim with a soft shine of amusement in his eyes.

Doe drew his tail closer to the other’s tom’s across the warm straw and rested the end of it on top of his, not quite twining them together but gentle all the same. The night was now cold and black, a thin, icy wind seeping in through the gaps in the barn; outside, the stars would be bright white against the the endless, empty sky. It was slipping into the early hours of the morning, everything tired and slow and sleep-warm. His own limbs and muscles felt sluggish, his breathing calming into a heavy, quiet rhythm. He wasn’t asleep, his eyes still wandering over the straw as he thought, but it wouldn’t be long. He didn’t want to, was terrified of waking up and seeing dawn light filtering in through the dusty windows and fading the orange glow of the lantern, but at the same time the thought of sleeping beside Chim one last time when Pygmyprawn would get to do it for season after season and night after night, the thought of soft, meaningless words that came from nothing but familiarity and tiredness murmured in the dark, made his heart squeeze with warmth, with sorrow, with love. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered, voice choked up from sadness or from sleep, eyes still on the ground in front of him and expression sinking into a small, wretched frown; he didn’t mean ‘don’t leave me ever, don’t go’, though part of him did; he just meant ‘don’t leave me till morning comes. Stay close to me. Be with me. Hold me.’

I think sometimes you forget how old I am. Doe gave a sleepy smile, reaching up with one paw to push against Chim’s grey muzzle with a gentle touch of his pink pads. “How can I forget, when you’re so obsessed with reminding me?” he purred, quiet enough to be little more than a murmur in the dark. Like if you say it enough I’ll go ‘oh wait yeah, you’re right!’ and run away; he had no clue if he said that out loud or in his head - everything was swimming, everything was Chim, there was no difference between the waking world and everything he could have dreamed. “And you’re not that old,” he added in a rumble, rolling onto his back just enough to half-close his eyes and lean his cheek against the other tom’s chest, under his chin. And I’m not that young. He looked up at Chim with love in his eyes.

At the ginger tom’s attempt at a pep talk, he almost let out a drowsy purr of loving amusement, too tired to feel any more than a brush of grief over his heart at the bit about him being a reminder of his death - how many cats could say they’d had Chim hype them up? It was unpracticed, and messy, and as awkward and stilted as he was, and the gentlest thing in the world. He’d miss that more than pretty much anything, that honesty. But he stayed silent, just leaning his cheek against Chim’s chest and watching him upside down with slow, soft blinks. When Chim twined their tails together his heart flooded with warmth, too lost in making these final moments happy to feel sad; he inattentively twined and untwined the tips of their tails as he listened, like the thoughtless tenderness of brushing your thumb back and forth over your lover’s hand.

I am an exile. Doe’s head half-perked up at that, ears pricking heavily for a moment before succumbing back to fatigue and sinking back down. He must have missed that. “Is there any Clan you haven’t managed to piss off?” he purred, barely more than a breath against Chim’s fur; there was nothing but fondness behind it, nothing but the aimless, nothing words whispered in the safety of the dark that tasted of familiarity and exhaustion and love. All the same, he felt that old twinge of bitterness, of unease, of jealousy; all that had happened while he was gone… Another sliver of a wedge lodged itself between Doe and SummerClan. The knowledge that Chim hadn’t left of his own accord, he’d been chased off, made a dark sort of irritation stir in his stomach. Every day was showing him SummerClan wasn’t the eden he’d thought it was, like the universe was waving about a nasty little joke at his expense, at his naïvety. I didn’t think it was possible to piss of SummerClan, he might have said, with all the innocent love in the world; what do you do, trample their flower patches? But they were just as bad as any cat, just as cruel and corrupt. There was no magic. If he had been there, if leaders like Fairystar hadn’t taken his place - if, if, if… He forced down the knot in his ribcage, forced away the torture of what might have been, and resumed his hoarse purring, leaning his head more heavily against Chim’s chest and breathing in his scent to soothe his heart. After a moment, all that pain melted away into the dark; softness bloomed in its place, warm and melancholy and determined, so sleepily, quietly, lovingly determined, to feel nothing but peace in these final hours before dawn. There was just him, and the tom he’d love until the end of time, and his heart beating steadily against his ear, and the ruddy glow of the lantern washing over it all.

Doe’s breath felt cool and weighted in his lungs. He shifted back onto his side, cheek resting on Chim’s paws and muzzle buried in his ginger fur; his own breath washed over his face, warm and slow. His white underbelly was pressed against the length of Chim’s side, his paw forgotten on the other tom’s shoulder like he’d been trying to hold him closer and fallen asleep before he could. “I love you,” he mumbled again without realising it, eyes closed and mind already drifting away to darkness; it was just a quiet, thoughtless instinct, as indisputable as breathing. It was one of the last times he could say it. He loved him. These were simple facts.



Dawn light, warm and golden and smelling of sweet grass and orange groves, filtered in through the slats in the barn door. The shadows of the night had been diluted, softened and chased to the corners. The lantern on the wall had faded in the sunlight, now no more than a fragile glow and a quiet electric hum; it had done what it could when it was needed, and now it gave way to the dawn. The first birdsong drifted in through the crack beside the door they’d slipped in through last night. Doe was still fast asleep, clutching Chim with one paw and breathing deeply into his fur.

Chim shifting against him made Doe stir. At first, still wreathed in the fog of sleep and warm to the bone, there was no distinction between dream and reality - Chim was there, he didn’t question why, it was right, it was where he was supposed to be; he was comfortable, and Chim was warm and soft against him, and it was home. Eyes still closed and head fluffy with sleep, his heart swelled with happiness. Gradually sinking back into his own body - the straw beneath him, the sun on his fur, dawn birds singing from the orange trees beyond the walls, muffled and summery - Doe slowly blinked open his eyes and met Chim’s gaze, shifting his head back a little to free his muzzle of the other tom’s fur. He smiled, a little sheepishly, a little drowsily, caught in that space between familiarity and pleasant embarrassment at the intimacy of having spent the night together. He stayed like that for a little while, his eyes travelling unhurriedly over Chim’s face. Drinking everything in.

Then, like the last grains of sand running through an hourglass in a rush, it all came seeping back. Horrible panic flared in his gut; his eyes widened and flooded with grief. “No,” he said shakily, pushing himself up into a sitting position; his fur still felt damp and warm from the rain and Chim’s body heat. His eyes didn’t leave Chim’s, brows pushed up. “Chim, it’s dawn.” The words were said like it was the most terrifying thing in the world, like it was the end of everything - and it was. It was. All the peace of the night, all the acceptance - faced with the reality of letting Chim go forever, of saying goodbye within the hour and meaning it for the rest of their lives, of the enormous finality of what that meant, it all turned to ash and slipped away. He trembled under the weight of it, eyes undone with the same fear as when he’d felt the car’s headlights washing over him. He realised he was actually shaking, with that terror that came as much from the conviction he was going to do the honourable thing and uphold his promise as from the anticipation of that final moment looming ahead of them, and looked down in confusion at his forelegs; he was so present in the moment, in his own head, every smell so clear, that he’d forgotten his own body and was dazedly, almost childishly, bewildered by it.

Doe looked back up, eyes wide and face desolate. His worst instincts - his selfishness, his need to have what he wanted - warred with his gentleness, and for a long moment that silent battle showed on his face as he met Chim’s gaze; finally, letting out a breath, his expression softened in the saddest, emptiest sort of way. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the other tom’s. It wasn’t even a choice; his unselfish love for Chim, his care for him, would always win out over what he wanted for himself. He brought out the best in Doefreckle. Shifting closer to Chim, still sitting up, he murmured with tired, frail mock disapproval, “you can’t go back to Pygmyprawn like that.” He began to gently groom the mud out of Chim’s fur, smoothing the tufts that still stuck up. “She’ll wonder what I did to you.” He passed his tongue gently over Chim’s face, carefully avoiding his missing eye; the soft fur behind his ears, his neck. After a little while, he gently lifted one of Chim’s paws with his own, their pads touching, and eased away the mud like a mother would a kit. It was loving, sad, lifeless; a final act of devotion, of quiet service. If he couldn’t take care of Chim for the rest of their lives, he could send him on his way loved. “Then we’ll get you some breakfast,” he continued without looking up, working around Chim’s dew claw, tilting his head back and forth. “You have a long walk ahead of you and I don’t want you to be hungry.” He spoke with quiet efficiency, humourless and slow, eyes dull - if he thought about the reality of it, he couldn’t cope; all he could do was make sure Chim would be alright. It was the purest way he could think of to say goodbye.

For a little while, wherever he traveled now, Chim would carry that part of Doe with him - the way he cleaned his fur, the tufts curled or swept or softened in a way unique to his way of grooming; for however long, he’d have been cared for by Doefreckle.

Doe held Chim’s gaze for a long, silent moment, his head tilted slightly and a small, gentle smile on his face. Finally, he offered him a slow blink, sad and tired and peaceful and everything in between - I know.

He was grooming the matted fur around Chim’s throat when the other tom spoke, the rumble of his voice so close to Doe’s ear making him shiver. He swiped his tongue over his muzzle daintily and raised his head, giving Chim a mocking little smile. “Good thing I wasn’t offering to hunt, then,” he replied tauntingly. “You can hunt for yourself, if you’re not too old and frail.” He gave Chim a crooked, purring grin. Rising to his paws, he sank into a quick stretch before slinking behind Chim, pausing to give some errant tufts of ginger fur on the back of his neck a few quick licks, and limping towards the barn door. When he reached it, he stopped and looked over his shoulder, eyes traveling over the golden light misting in through the roof, the cobwebs in the corners, the dusty windows high up on the walls, the patch of straw where they’d spent the night, already cooling after the loss of their body heat. He drank it all in - the dim shadows and the red glow of the lantern, the faint sounds of bird claws tapping on the roof as they walked, the scents of warm straw and fading rain water and Doe and Chim combined; his gaze was tender, his smile a rosy brand of heartbreak. Then, with a quiet exhale of breath, Doefreckle turned and slipped out of the barn.

Outside, the rain of the previous night had given way to a perfect, hazy dawn, all dark skies and blue air and glittering light. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the heavy clouds, making the raindrops clinging to grass stems and the gutter of the barn sparkle. Puddles dotted the landscape, bright where the sun hit them and dark as thunder where it didn’t. It felt close, intimate, secret, like all of creation was confined to them; it wouldn’t rain again, not yet, and the world left behind was cool and fresh. Doe stood outside, waiting for Chim and breathing in the chilly air. “We can go to neutral territory to hunt,” he told the ginger tom softly. “I’ll walk with you past SummerClan and then…” He trailed off, offering Chim a small, sorrowful smile. Then we say goodbye.

"But his family and his clan were half as stubborn as he was, and every time he tried to run away, they followed. Chim suspected this time would be no different." chim unintentionally and unthinkingly calling doe his family has me clutching my heart

When Chim started again on his self-pitying babbling, Doefreckle fixed him with an exasperated smile and listened; glistening raindrops dripped from the barn roof behind them and everywhere more dawn birds were beginning to stir, the world waking up through the golden mist and the damp-heavy air. And for StarClan's sake, look out for monsters this time. He let out a purr, flicking his tail. "When are you going to realise you're not a burden?" he replied at last, voice quiet, gently reproachful. "It's not about whether I've done enough or not. Loving you isn't some quota I have to fill - I've done a few niceties for you so now my duty is done. I want to be with you, Chim. And if I can't have forever, I'll take this morning." His head tilted to the side, eyes sombre and full of devotion. "If I can give you anything, it's the hope that you'll stop trying to protect cats from loving you. It's our decision, Pygmyprawn's and mine. Trying to take that from us because you think there's been some mistake, or because you think you'll hurt us, is just wasted time. You're safe, Chim. Whatever life you've made with her, you're safe. You can stop running from being loved."

But if you really want to come... I'm not really ready to say goodbye yet. And I would love to have you. Doe's smile grew, poignant and small. A part of him - all of him - yearned for Chim to say those last words and mean forever. But he couldn't, and he wouldn't ask him to. It was enough to be with him then, with the world unfurling to life around them and the sadness of goodbye making every sound, every scent, every feeling mean a thousand things more. His broken paw cramped in the cold morning air; for once, he didn't mind the reminder that he was alive. "Come on, then," he said quietly, tipping his head in the direction they'd be heading and limping into the rain-drenched grass.

The green, misty meadow was quiet, save for the gentle sounds of nature - birds singing from the grass, their songs painted for a moment in the air by their warm breaths against the cold; the burble of the river in the distance; their pawsteps on the damp earth. Doe could see his breath in the air. It should have reminded him of being a ghost, but instead he felt the most peaceful he'd ever felt. When they arrived at a log bridging the river, Doe stopped on the grassy bank and hopped up on his hindpaws, resting his good forepaw on the slick bark and blinking softly at Chim to tell him to go first. Did he just want an excuse to look at him? Maybe. "Or you can swim," he purred a little coquettishly, voice quiet and alarmingly loud at the same time amidst all the mist. The other tom's swimming ability had always been strangely attractive to Doe. He always did like foreign things.