Nothing But Bones

20: The Joker Goes To Tim Hortons

It's not a secret. It's just a thing she doesn't talk about because it's going to bring the mood down. Like her parents, like the death of Duke Reginald Winger, like what she did to the bear: there's no need to get into it, right? If you were there for the gunshot and the lasers scorching the trees, then you know and there's no need to talk about it. If you don't, there's no need to learn and grieve for an animal that was going to die anyway or a relationship that didn't really matter.

She watches the rain fall, chews the inside of her lip, and bites the bullet. "He didn't say anything else, did he?"

"I assume he told me everything he knew." Elton fiddles with the wiper blade controls, turning the speed up. The rain keeps coming down harder and harder. "Whatever else there is, he hasn't been made aware. How much more is there, Tiff?"

It takes her a moment to answer. "A lot. I'm not a good person, Elton."

He sits with that for a moment. The not-quite-silence hangs between them as he drives down the road to Kelowna. They still have close to 45 minutes of left.

It isn't quite silent. The playlist moves on; the road buzzes beneath them. Sunny Day Real Estate probably isn't the best thing to listen to at this moment, but "Pillars" feels oddly-fitting for whatever the moment he needs to think. He would change it if she asked. Slouching down in the passenger's seat, curled slightly into the window, he doesn't think she's going to.

It takes Elton another few minutes before he speaks.

"I don't know you all that well, Tiff. Hell, I don't really know you at all."

"I know," she mutters.

He keeps speaking. "All I can base anything on is what you've presented to me today. You've dodged questions and omitted facts. You've lied."

More muttering to the diagonal raindrops on the window. "I told you. I'm not a great—"

"And despite that, I'm driving you an hour away from my house in pouring rain to buy you dinner before we drive back to a house owned by a necromancer so we can stake it out. I thought about this earlier. Honestly, it's fucking weird." He laughs, eyes firmly on the road in front of him, watching through the storm. "It is so fucking weird. It's wild and it doesn't fit into what life should be like. So why? You want the honest-to-god fucking truth?"

"Do I..." Eyes still on gray clouds, she furrows her brow. She doesn't look at him. "Do I want the truth? What do you mean?"

"Well, it was mostly rhetorical and for dramatic effect, but sure. Do you?"

"About what? I already have a lot of it. A view of the universe, a confluence of planes and realms. Fucking... wonder. What else is there?"

"I'm sure that's a lot to take in for one person. It's a lot for me to hear. I guess I have a glimpse of that as well, knowing a dog from Hell. But I'm not worried about any of that. I want to know all of it and experience everything, sure. I do. What really matters, though, Tiff... are the people. My mom, my brother, my aunt, Ben, my stupid cousins. Even you." When she opens her mouth in objection, he repeats, "Even you. The people matter. It matters who we choose to surround ourselves with, even if some of the truths about them are hard to think about. And you have such an aura of... greatness."

Kepler pats Tiff on her arm. She freezes under it.

"But again, that doesn't matter to me. Be great, I don't fucking care. Do you. What matters to me? Dingus likes the way you smell. That's why we're going to dinner tonight. My dog likes you."

"Why does everything like the way I smell?" she mutters, like that's the thing that matters here. "I don't get what that means."

Again he laughs, this time with less of a heaviness to it. "I can't speak for anything else other than Dingus. What that means for you, my American friend, is that you aren't evil. He can smell it."