"𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕔𝕜 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕨𝕒𝕪."

Conciliate

Mark was wrong for hoping. First, it was once a month, then, once a week. It got to the point where he could expect a new alternate in his house every day.

There had been multiple close calls, but at the end of the day he'd always been the one to come out on top. It had made him quite the good shot. It also made Mark great at getting blood off of difficult spots, like his clothes. It did come with his favorite sweater being sacrificed until he actually got the hang of it, but it wasn't like that was the only sweater he owned.

It was on one of those days when he was cleaning up that he started to think. Why now, after so much time without a single attack? It had been almost six months since... Oh.

He couldn't fucking believe this. So, the reason that every alternate was on his ass now is that since Cesar's killer had left, he was just fair game? Fuck. Of course.

So it was either keep killing alternates, or go find that son of a bitch and make it stay. He needed to rationalize this. It made sense to assume that the alternate had been pretending ever since that phone call, considering how odd it was in retrospective. So... two years, then. Two years without it making any action towards him. Besides, he didn't find out by it showing its true colors, more by something that looked like it was an accident.

It wasn't ourwardly malicious towards him, then, which is more than he coukd say for all the other alternates he'd encountered. Damn, he was really desperate enough to consider going to get his friend's killer. But, at this point in life? He was tired. Tired of fighting for his life every day, just because some stupid alternates decided that he was prime hunting material, despite the accumulating corpses of their kind. For all he knew, this was some revenge thing, too. They certainly seemed like the type to do so, or at least intelligent enough for it to be a possibility.

Fuck. Well, he better rest well tonight, because he had an alternate to tail tomorrow.

3 was starving. That wasn't new nowadays, it'd grown complacent with Mark, taking the other's affection and care for granted. Now, it was back to what it should have been doing. If he could be doing it, that is.

But, every time it started to stalk someone, it could only picture them as Mark. Every time it was about to go in for the kill, their terrified faces shifted to Mark's, full of hate. It taunted 3, reminded it that it wss nothing more than an alternate.

It just wanted to make him happy. So, it hadn't been able to get a single kill in. That wouldn't have been an issue if it still had other reliable methods of getting food, but seeing as Mark had alerted the authorities of its long-kept disguise, it couldn't even go into populated areas as Cesar anymore.

3 had been reduced to having to steal food from supermarkets to survive, its form even more scrawny that it already was. It could barely do much of anything nowadays, not without feeling the strength slowly leaving it.

The alternate had not doubts that, if this kept up, it'd be dead before the year was up. It had made its peace with this, as much as one can with their slowly coming demise, with knowing death was right around the corner, steady and unchanging.

Still, it wished it could see Mark again before it died. The person who'd been responsible for changing the course of its life forever, its best friend. Former best friend. It was getting harder to make that differentiation, to remember what was and what is, distinguish the past from the present.

It knew that wasn't a good sign, but, what else was it supposed to do? Killing someone would fill it up, 3 knew that, but it couldn't do that. Not again. The alternate curled up tighter around itself, one of the spider legs pulling the blanket it had fished out of the trash a few days ago up a bit, trying to get it to cover it a bit more from the cool night air.

It was then, when 3 was close to getting some sleep, that it heard the rustle. It sat up with a start, much more awake than it'd been moments prior. Was it Father? An alternate who'd seen its multiple failures and figured that it'd takes its shot in killing 3? Or... Was it just being paranoid?

It wouldn't know unless it actually got up to check. Slowly, it moved the rest of the blanket off of itself, spider limbs tensed. It looked around for anything off, anything that it knew wasn't there previously, but... Nothing seemed to be moved.

"... Hello? Who's-"

Suddenly, it felt something cold and solid on its back. A gun. It made a move to turn around, but its mystery assailant dug it deeper into its frame when it did, making it stop in its tracks.

"Hello, friend killer. I'm not here to kill you, so don't look too frightened."

... Mark? 3 wanted to turn around even more now, but the looming reminder of the smooth metal kept it from going through with that wish.

"W- What are you doing here? I thought you-"

Another sharp jab of the gun shut it up.

"I'm the one talking here. So, ever since I chased you off, there's been a lot of alternates trying to test their luck. You have anything to do with that?"

"... No. They don't really like me. Not... After I gave up on killing you."

Mark's eyes widened, something that the alternate couldn't see. Well, he'd definitely ask about that later, there were bigger fish to fry.

"So, not revenge then. Why the fuck are they coming after me? You got any clues?"

"I... Guess you're a sort of alternate hotspot? You did tell me you had encounters when you were younger."

"... And when you were around, my alternate quota was all booked. Of course."

Mark sighed, and 3 felt the metal go off of its frame. It turned around to look at him, confusion clear in its gaze.

"Since they're going to annoy me unless they can sense another one of their kind around me, and you didn't kill me all that time... You're sticking around with me for now on."

"You... Do realize you made me a wanted 'man', right? Probably not a good idea to keep me around."

"And that's why you, Mr Spider, are going to be living with me for the foreseeable future. Come on, let's get a move on. Don't want to be walking around a forest in the dead of night for too long."