Archive of Our Own

Mando has seen his fair share of troubled kids. He was a troubled kid. But when he looks into Finney Blake's eyes in the chapel, he sees a new kind of haunted. A unique kind. Perhaps it comes from becoming a killer at the age of thirteen. Maybe it's a compounding effect of that and many other things. But whatever the case, that look haunts Mando even after Wild Bill no longer does. It reminds him quite honestly not just of some of the campers with rough home lives but of some of the men he saw in jail. The ones who had often been using to try and cope with something far more horrific than whatever landed them in prison.

It's that memory, the dark eyes staring back at him from under a mop of brown hair, that gets him to pick up the damn phone. He calls the home number Gwen had left, her eyes piercing just like her mother's. She's so much like Hope, with her dark eyes and quiet intensity. Always looking at you like she can see straight into your soul. Finney too, in a way.

"Just in case," Gwen had said, handing him that slip of paper.

Her dark eyes studied him with all the deep unfathomable knowledge of someone decades older. Like the women who have outlived both children and husbands alike, and who see you for who you are Eyes that cut straight into your soul, peeling back all the layers.

He had taken the paper. "You two take care," he told her. One hand clasping her shoulder, and she hadn't flinched away but she had gone still. Too still.

He had let go quickly, cataloguing it in his mind. Tallying up some things that make him watch Terrence Blake with a more critical eye. Yes, he drove up here in a snow plow. But there was something ashamed and guilty about the man the entire time. And he sees how neither of the kids get into the plow as they all gear up to leave camp. The active avoidance when in a perfect world they would be flocking to their father for comfort and safety. He doesn't say anything, but he sees it.

He curses himself for not seeing just what kind of monster Bill was. It keeps him up at night, the idea that he could have prevented all of it just by looking closer.

And perhaps a part of him is terrified that if he doesn't check in, Finney will slip down that same path that he did as a young man. He's so angry. Rightly so, but that kind of anger will burn you up until it inevitably finds somewhere to go. It needs a target, and he watched Finney slam Bill into the ice and walk away with a hard remorseless look in his eyes. Like he didn't feel anything about it at all.

So one cold clear morning just as the snow has started to melt, he dials the Blake family's home phone.

It takes a moment for anyone to pick up. He realizes belatedly that perhaps neither of the kids wants to hear a phone ring ever again. He wouldn't hold that against them. But just as he's contemplating putting it down, there's a click of someone picking up.

"Hello?" It's slurred, edgy.

"This is Armando," he says, "From Camp Alpine."

"What're you callin' for?" Terrence Blake asks with surley suspicion.

Mando's dislike for the man grows exponentially. "I wanted to talk to Finn," he says.

"Finney!" the man calls, sharp and loud and not bothering to cover the receiver, "It's for you!"

There's shuffling and sharp, barely muffled words on the other end before Finney says into the phone. "What?"

And he sounds so much like his father in that moment. He's high, Mando knows that much. And he's far from straight laced, but he knows the difference between a teenager having fun and one well on his way to drowning himself in drugs. Weed is one thing, but Mando sees so clearly this kid is teetering on the edge of losing himself completely.

Maybe he already has.

"Finn," he says, "It's Armando."

"No," Finney says, and he sounds afraid under the anger. "No, no, whatever bullshit-"

"It's nothing to do with him," Mando assures him.

Silence for a moment. Unsteady breathing. "Then what do you want?" Again, sharp tongued.

"Well," he says, "The summer season is very far away but I thought I would offer you a job. There's always work around the camp, and I could use the extra set of hands."

"Okay," Finney says. "And you thought, what? I'm the perfect guy for the job?"

Mando exhales. "I found, after prison, that working outside with my hands was soothing. Especially with the horses. I thought you could probably use a way to clear your head. And I will pay you, of course." The last bit is said with a hint of laughter. "Your sister is welcome too."

For a while, he wonders if Finn will just hang up on him. Instead, there's a long pause, and then he exhales audibly. "Fine. As long as I'm getting paid."

"That, and you get more of Mustang's cooking."

✆ ✆ ✆

The only reason Finn doesn't get high on the way up to Camp Alpine is that he's driving himself. Even that wouldn't normally be enough to stop him, but the roads are winding and he knows Gwen would be pissed if he sailed off a cliff. And deep down, he thinks maybe it wouldn't be a bad way to go. Just free falling until he hits the ground. He grips the steering wheel harder, the leather creaking under his hands. Nails digging furrows into it. Sweat beading on his scalp.

He feels like he shouldn't do this. An insistent voice in the back of his head is telling him he never should've agreed to this. That going up to a remote mountain camp with an old man is the exact kinda stupid kid shit that got him kidnapped. Mando was nice, but he knew the Grabber. Some part of Finn mutters darkly that maybe he knew all along. Maybe he played them, and he's going to drag Finn into one of those cabins and lock the door.

He didn't sleep much the last time he was here, and it was only partially due to Gwen's dreams.

Being near Ernesto had felt like cigarettes were being put out on his skin. He looks so much like Robin, even if he acted more like Finn used to. And maybe that's why Finn can't stand him most of the time. Cause he looks at Ernesto and just remembers how weak and stupid he used to be. And something about the fact that he hangs around Gwen sets Finn's teeth on edge. It goes beyond beyond the fact that he hits on her. It's some awful and bitter that stews in his gut. Almost jealousy, but darker. More congealed. He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair as he pulls up to the gate that Mustang had led them through only a few months ago. Sometimes he feels like he's thirteen again, fear bubbling up over the stupidest shit. Flinching whenever Robin's uncle poked his head into the room to say hello. He swallows thickly, eyes suddenly itchy. He pushes that shit way, way down. Hating himself for being so weak.

Camp Alpine seems a lot smaller with all the snow melting away. Less inhospitable, more of a place he can actually understand having fun at, as a kid. He parks next to the main house, and though he turns off the car he doesn't get out. He just stares at the peeling paint on the side of the house, the weather-worn material reminding him of that fucking basement for some reason.

Jesus, he needs a smoke.

He gets out of the car, cracking his back. Rolling the kinks out of his neck after the drive. He shoves the keys into his back pocket and grabs his bag out of the passenger seat. Slipping on his headphones and cranking up the volume to drown out his thoughts. He doesn't hear Mustang until she's right behind him, and when she taps him on the shoulder he whirls around, fist already flying. He's off by a few inches, luckily, and he sees that she doesn't flinch. Doesn't look mad either. Is just watching him, and something about her looks startlingly like Robin for a moment. Maybe it's the fact that her hair is tied back in a bandana today.

Distantly, a part of him wonders if he should think she's pretty.

He stopped really looking at girls after the basement. He had tried, once, at a party. Because he just wanted to feel fucking normal for once in his life. For a moment, it had been okay, lips pressed together. He'd even tried slipping his hand up her shirt, cause that's what you do. He hadn't felt anything, and his whole body had turned to ice when she put her thigh between his legs. He'd shoved her so hard she fell off the couch and hurried off with a humiliated flush to her face, lipstick smeared. Word had gotten around, and for about a day people had tried to make his old nickname stick. It didn't, mainly because he wasn't a chickenshit kid anymore and actually threw a punch when he heard it. Robin's voice flashing in his head.

He looks away. "Sorry," he mutters.

Mustang shakes her head. "My bad," she says, lips quirking up. "I shoulda known better."

He shrugs. He never really talked much to her, when they were here. She seemed nice enough, and she reminded him of Gwen a bit, with her sharp tongue. She's still looking at him, considering, and Finn remembers Gwen nudging him and asking if he'd gotten her number.

He clenches his fists. He sees Mustang's eyes track that.

"Mando said you're here to work with the horses," she starts. "First tip, they smell fear."

She walks away, and Finn stares after her. He doesn't know what to make of that. He's not fucking afraid.

I don't wanna be afraid anymore!

He finds Armando in the main building. He smiles at Finn, and it makes his skin itch. Mando seems to see right through him in a way that makes Finn nauseous. He's put a lot of effort into not being seen like that. In being tough enough that people don't really look at him and see any of the rotting festering mess inside of him.

"You gonna be pissed if I smoke?" Finn asks flatly.

Armando hums. "I'm not going to take it away from you again. Just don't smoke near the barn or in the cabins. It's bad for the animals, and I could lose my license if the cabins smell."

That's good. Finn doesn't plan on being here when any kids arrive. He doesn't think he could handle that. Even passing by the middle school is hard, because all he sees is how small they all look.

"Sure," he says. It feels... weird. Different from the way he and his father regard each other, the way they don't fight anymore because his dad knows Finn can and will put him on his ass if he tries. "So, what? I start working today?"

"No, no," Mando says. "Get settled in, eat, I'll show you around camp. Tomorrow, we work."

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn is... twitchy through most of the tour. He doesn't trust Mando, that much is obvious. He isn't hurt by that. Finn doesn't seem to trust most people outside of his sister. But Mando does make a note of it. He's slowly cataloguing a whole host of things that he needs to keep an eye out for. His current concern is the perpetual smell of weed and the small collection of cigarette burns on the back of the boy's hands that are briefly visible when he tugs at the sleeves of his jacket. He doesn't comment. A man's business is his own, and he could be wrong. Maybe those scars are remnants of being kidnapped. And the weed is something that he can't take away without Finn cut and running. And so, he has to try and be more gentle.

That's another reason Mando doesn't hold Finn's distrust against him. A part of him is surprised Finn agreed to come up to camp at all. He's seen plenty of kids who don't trust authority figures, both boys and girls alike. Most of them don't have quite so... intense of a reason for that mistrust. Though Mando wonders if Finn's father doesn't play a role in the deep-rooted and silent suspicion he sees every time they make eye contact.

He shows Finn the barn, watching how he interacts with the horses. That's something that might be a dealbreaker, if Finn is bad with the animals.

"They get nervous if you're nervous," Mando explains, handing Finn a slice of apple. "Feed Ginny. She's the most mild-mannered. Hand flat, so she doesn't bite you."

Finn glances at him like he thinks he might be crazy, but holds out his hand. Ginny, good girl that she is, leans her head out and eats the apple. Finn flinches back a bit, eyes wide. He looks quite a bit younger, in that moment.

"Mustang said they can smell fear," Finney says, eyes a little wary.

"Somethin' like that," Mando agrees. "Like I said, you being nervous'll make them nervous."

As if to prove his point, Ginny knickers and snorts. He sees Finn move with the noise, always on high alert.

"You'll feed the horses, groom 'em, take 'em out," Mando says, ignoring the way Finney himself looks more like a spooked horse than a teenage boy. "That sorta thing. We're also gonna be cleaning out and repainting some of the older cabins."

Finney nods, shoving his hands in his front pockets. "That it?"

"For now," Mando says. "That's what we'll start with. You hungry?"

Finn shrugs. "I guess."

"Dinner'll be in an hour or so. Go get settled." Mando throws him the keys to one of the cabins. "Cabin 17 is all yours. Don't smoke inside, I could lose my license if everything smells like weed."

"Yeah," Finn agrees, with a lazy wave.

Mando watches him trudge off, his head down and shoulders hunched. He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. Mustang slouches into the barn, leading Pumpkin behind her. Mando joins her as she grooms the horse, grabbing a second brush to help.

"So," Mustang says, nodding her head in the direction Finn went, "What's the real reason you gave that kid a job? You and I both know we can easily handle the repairs and horses between the two of us." Her voice is low, a knowing look in her dark eyes.

"I was worried," he admits. "That boy is like looking in a mirror."

She hums. "You're too much of a softie for your own good, you know that?"

"You've said that before," he reminds her with a grin.

She shrugs. "Cause it's true. If you pay every sad kid to help you out you'll run out of money, old man."

"So you wouldn't do the same thing?"

She snorts. "Course I would. I'm as crazy as you are."

"Never doubted that."

Finn is sitting on the log by the lake smoking when Mando finishes with the horses. He stops to look at the kid. Arms crossed. He sighs, then heads back into the main building. Hoping that a hot meal will be a good way to bridge the gap that yawns between them like sheer cliff's edge, impossible to traverse without pain.

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn stares out at the lake, watching the chunks of half-thawed ice bumping into each other. He wonders if he plunged down there, he could see the Grabber's rotting ghostly corpse. He stares out, and swears he hears laughter.

"Finney," the Grabber hisses in his ear.

"I can't help you," he says. Cranking up the volume on his walkman until it's more vibrations than noise.

He takes another hit, trying to drown out the sensation of hot breath on the back of his neck. It's just the sun beating down, that burning early spring heat that catches you off-guard. Sweat beads at his hairline. Still, he's shivering. Hands shaking until he takes enough hits his blunt. The wind feels like fingers playing with his hair, and he hunches his shoulders against it. Maybe he should go inside. But then, he wouldn't be able to smoke.

Finn huffs a laugh. Since when does he give a shit about rules? Mando wouldn't stand a chance against him if he tried to beat him into submission like his dad did, before Finn stopped fighting back. The way he still beat Gwen until Finn did fight back, and got big enough to slam his head into the kitchen counter, leaving him with a cut that bled down into his eyes. Staring up at Finn with drunken surprise, while Gwen had shrieked behind him. Their dad never layed a fucking finger on Gwen again. And anytime he got drunk enough to raise his hand, he would never land the blow. Freezing when he saw that Finn was already tensing to throw a punch.

Still, there's something about Mando that makes Finn actually give a shit about what he says. Maybe it's just the fact that the old man helped them out with the Grabber. Finn owes him some benefit of the doubt for risking his life out there for kids he barely knew. Since he clawed his way out of the Grabber's basement, Finn has been wary of men. It's purely logical. His dad beat the shit out of him, and the Grabber somehow made his dad look like a saint. Or maybe just not all that scary by comparison. The point is, they both have one thing in common. And so he keeps an eye on the male teachers at school. Not trusting them, or the cops that came to check in on him for the first few weeks after he got out. Sleeping with one of their kitchen chairs shoved under the handle of his bedroom door and a bike lock on his window to keep out anyone that might try and come watch him while he slept. He set the combination the same as Griffin's, because that sequence of numbers has burned into his brain forever. It's comforting, sometimes, to whisper it to himself. Like some kind of magic spell to keep himself out of the basement.

He sometimes wakes up sure there are eyes on him. Hungry, wanting something that he'll never give. That he'd rather die than have taken from him again.

Mando doesn't look at him with that hunger. But the way he looks at Finn burns something awful all the same. It's gentle. A deep understanding that sears into him, reminds him of the way Gwen will look at him sometimes. Like either of them know anything at all about what he's been through. Like either of them will ever get it. The long stretching shadows of the basement that keep trying to claw Finn back with greedy fingers.

A particularly icy wind ruffles his hair and he flinches bodily. Turning his head to scan wildly. He's dead. He's dead, he's under the ice he's not coming back.

But is he really? Finn thought He was gone before, and look how that turned out. He ended up dragging more people into his mess, exposing Gwen and Ernesto to the worst kind of monster. Even if Gwen was doing most of the dragging. Ernesto especially never should've been so close to the man that killed his brother. Robin would never forgive him if he let the Grabber hurt Ernesto.

Abruptly, Finn feels nauseous. He grits his teeth, stubbing out his smoke on the rock next to him. He's not really hungry, and he doesn't feel like talking to anyone. He just wants to lock himself in the cabin and try to sleep. But he doesn't know if Mando will be pissed if he skips. And yeah, Finn can take off if he needs to, can defend himself if he needs to, but a part of him is so tired of having to be on guard. He knows he has to. No one is gonna save him. No one ever came to save him. The cops would've showed up too late. They wouldn't have found him if it weren't for Gwen.

They didn't find Robin, or Bruce, or Billy, or Griffin, or Vance.

Robin.

Sometimes, Finn hears him too. Sees him, flickering in the corner of his eye. It usually happens when he gets into a fight that leaves him beat to shit, and he's staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. Blood on his face and knuckles, and he swears he can see Robin behind him, the way he looked that last day. Grinning at Finn and talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Vibrant, forever thirteen and grinning.

He gags, bile rising in his throat. He bites his fist until he tastes blood, and it doesn't help. He staggers over to the bushes and throws up his lunch. Stomach acid burns his throat and he heaves until there's nothing left. Hands shaking as he fumbles around in his pocket for another blunt. If he smokes enough he won't see Robin in the corner of his eye, staring at him with knowing eyes and blood soaking his hair and running down his face. Won't see Griffin with his back broken, like some fucked up pantomime of a kid trying to do a trick. Billy with his face cut open. He never saw Bruce or Vance, but he still hears Vance screaming.

FUCK HIM!

He collapses onto his ass in the dirt and presses his forehead to his knees, fingers digging into the rough denim of his jeans. It feels like breathing is something he's always conscious of, like if he doesn't remind his body to manually inhale and exhale, he'll stop breathing. Like his heart might stop beating if it isn't pounding in his ears.

He lights the joint with shaking hands and takes a long drag. The wind still feeling like fingers in his hair. He stays down by the water until the sun sets.

"You comin' to dinner?" Mustang asks once, as she passes him on her way to the house.

"Not hungry," he says through chattering teeth. The blunt burning his fingertips the only warm thing about him right now

✆ ✆ ✆

Mustang walks through the door, hands in her pockets and collar turned up against the cold. "He's not comin' to dinner," she says.

"Alright," Mando says. "His loss."

"Mm," she hums, a thoughtful look on her face. "He seems out of it," she points out. "Beyond the fact that he was stoned."

He sighs. Rubbing his face. "Do you think I was wrong to invite him up here? That perhaps it's making it worse?"

She shrugs. "He agreed. He can leave if he needs to. He's not a camper, Mando."

"I know," he sighs. Maybe it would be easier if Finn was a camper. If he was that little boy that he vaguely remembers seeing a picture of on the TV four years ago. Maybe then things wouldn't have had so much time to set. To fill in the cracks with rage and grief.

Mando makes sure to knock on the door of the cabin he's set up in, just in case. Finn is almost an adult, so there's no official lights out, but Mando still has the ingrained instinct to check in borne from years of running a camp. It's a brisk night, and it gets dark quickly up on the mountain. Easy to get lost if you stay out late and aren't careful, if you let yourself stray beyond the clearing and into the woods. The darkness can swallow you up whole, like it swallowed Felix, Spike, and Cal. That was what everyone had thought happened until their coats turned up bloody and stark against the snow. That they just wandered off and never found their way back. In a way, they had been doomed to wander forever.

It reminds Mando of the stories his brother-in-law mentioned about Grand Lake in the Rockies about the Ute spirits that haunt the lake, members of the tribe who drowned there trying to escape a battle. Women and children who wave at you from the shore shrouded in mist. It feels all the more poignant after nearly dying at the hands of a ghost. He'd never put much stock in ghost stories before four years ago, but he's got a new perspective. That's not something that happens to an old man like him very often.

When Finn answers the door, he looks exhausted. Whittled down to his bones, dark circles under his eyes. Smelling like weed and the icy wind that comes off the lake. He leans against the doorframe like he's bracing himself for a hit. Mando has met so many children who stand like that. It hurts each time.

"What," he says, flat and suspicious. Eyes red-rimmed.

"Just wanted to make sure you're settled in," Mando says. Doesn't ask why he didn't come to dinner.

"I'm fine," Finn says. Eyeing Mando with a deep-set suspicion. "Can't complain."

"Good," he says. "Don't stay up too late. We're up bright and early tomorrow. Six a.m. We got breakfast in the main hall, then we'll go out and work."

Finn doesn't complain. Just nods. "Sure."

"Have a good night," Mando tells him.

"Night," Finn says. He looks Mando dead in the eyes, and there is nothing behind them.

Something about that unsettled Mando, rather than putting his fears at ease. He lays awake for a long time, restless. Turning every memory of Wild Bill over in his head. He had seemed so good with children. Wild, yes, but the kind of wild that children find magnetic. He drew the campers in, and always knew how to make them smile. He also was very good at keeping them in line. He messed around, but he could get those same children to behave with just a word. A hum of reproach in his voice, and they would all fall in.

Mando should have seen the danger. It should have been obvious, to a man who has lived the kind of life he has, that someone is dangerous. But Mando didn't see it. In fact, he had liked Bill. Found him charming, and they'd laughed together. Shared a drink, a joke. He was someone Mando never hesitated to give a wave to when they saw each other in passing. He never once suspected a thing. God, how many children could he have saved if he had only looked a little closer?

It takes him a very, very long time to fall asleep.

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn drags himself out of bed for breakfast. He's not exactly hungry, but he should eat something. He's trying. At the very least, he needs something to keep him going while he works. And coffee. Fuck, he wants some coffee. He didn't sleep well, and he's got a dull migraine pounding at his temples, like a fist slamming against a door. Eyes itchy, and he wants a smoke, bad.

But he also has a nagging sense of queasiness at the thought of showing up to breakfast high. It's that same feeling that kept him from just smoking in the cabin last night until he could actually sleep. It's not fear, more like shame. A slinking emotions that coils through him and makes him feel weird and bad. Like he used to when a teacher would call on him and he didn't know the answer. Like he actually gives a damn what Mando thinks of him. It itches, making him angry. Mando barely knows him. Finn shouldn't give a shit what he thinks.

The air is crisp and cold as he trudges down to the main hall. The sun is just peaking through the mountains, burning through the cold. The deep blue shadows surround him, making everything feel like it's underwater. Muted. Or maybe that's just the perpetual way his brain is foggy and slow. It's been that way for years now, and he remembers Ms. Simons pulling him aside after he failed his science test and asking if he needed more time next time he took a test. Finn had just shaken his head. No amount of extra time would help, not when his brain refused to retain anything he'd learned in class.

His grades aren't what they used to be.

The main hall smells like fresh food and hot sauce. Salt and pepper and melting cheese. Despite his general queasiness, Finn perks up a bit. Not eating last night after throwing up his lunch did wonders for his appetite, apparently. The warmth of the building makes him relax a bit too. A little less on edge as he wanders over to grab a plate. Toast, which is something he's eaten a lot of in the past four years. His appetite never really recovered from two weeks of semi-starvation. Some days, he can barely force himself to keep plain bread down. The weed helps with that, too. Helps him actually be able to stomach any food. Lets him feel like he actually wants to eat, for once. He ignores the little packets of jelly, grabbing some butter instead. Again, he really doesn't feel like throwing up at the next bad memory. When he sits down, Mando is waiting. He's got bacon and scrambled eggs and Finn's spine stiffens. He stares down the eggs, chewing the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.

"Finn?" Mando asks.

He fights down a flinch. The copper tang of blood filling his senses and grounding him. Keeping him from falling down into a deep hole of misery and memories. He itches for a smoke, no longer hungry. The toast feels like it's turned to ash in his mouth. He clenches his fists, trying to calm himself. It's an unspoken rule in the Blake household, that you don't eat scrambled eggs. Even their dad doesn't break it. So it's been a while since he's even had to see eggs. Had to smell them. His hands shake, and he's staring, ears buzzing with the sound of a ringing phone. It drowns everything else out, and he drops the toast and takes a step back.

"Not hungry," he manages. Turning tail and almost running out of the main hall.

He doesn't expect Mando to follow him. His dad never followed. Just let him leave the room and calm himself down. It's one of the few things Finn thinks he did right. Because they both know that Finn would never accept his comfort. His father is the last person he ever wants to be vulnerable like this around. Well, not the last. The last living person.

He stumbles out the door into the early morning chill. Shivering, but not because of the cold. Collapsing onto his ass on the steps, trying to breathe right. Clutching at himself in a desperate bid to get warm.

"Finn," Mando says.

He flinches, twisting around. Chest heaving and eyes wide. Bloodshot, but they usually are, some combination of a lack of sleep and weed. Curled in on himself, hand tensing into fists like he might start swinging. He knows he looks pathetic. Mando has an expression on his face that Finn doesn't know how to deal with, and he starts to coil in on himself, ready to throw a punch. He doesn't, not yet, but he's ready to and it's obvious. Mando sits down on the stoop next to him, and he tries not to make it obvious when he scoots to put a bit more space between them, his shoulder pressed to the railing posts. Picking at the peeling paint without even realizing he's doing it. Fingers numb, breathing shaky. He might still throw up. Jury's out on that one.

"What happened in there?" Mando asks. "I would say it looked like you had seen a ghost but… That would be a bad joke." A quiet, huffed laugh.

Finn laughs, even though it's not funny. The laugh doesn't particularly sound like a laugh either. It's low and rough and dry. Bitter. "Yeah, it would."

He hasn't had to tell the story in years. Hasn't had to think about the slimy, rubbery eggs, underseasoned and gritty with drugs. In the grand scheme of what happened to him in that basement, counting the meals among the traumatic shit is ridiculous. They tasted like shit, and they were drugged, but they kept him fed. He should be grateful for those eggs. He's tempted to tell Mando to fuck off, that it's none of his damn business, but again there's that sense of conflict over it all. He wants Mando to respect him. It's stupid. He barely knows the guy.

"I can't eat eggs," he grinds out, staring out at the horizon. The sunrise glittering on the finally melting lake. "I'm not allergic, he clarifies. "That's all He gave me."

His ears are buzzing, heart in his throat.

"I see," Mando says, and his voice is so unbelievably even. "Thank you for telling me. I'll make sure we avoid eggs while you're here."

Finn glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Not expecting it to be that easy. Feeling talked down to, just a little bit. "Just like that?" he asks, deep suspicion obvious.

Mando's brows furrow. Like Finn is somehow disappointing him by asking. "Yes," he says, "Just like that.

Finn doesn't know what to do with that. The easy acceptance. He bites his lip, looking down at his hands. "Oh. Okay." He picks at a scab on his knuckles. "I'm not hungry right now."

"That's okay," Mando says. "Lunch will be in a few hours. You can eat then, and I keep snacks in the office for kids who need something to eat between meals."

Finn feels something sticky and miserable rising in his throat. Mando is making this all seem so easy. There must be some ulterior motive he has. Some reason why he's not snapping in Finn's face. Maybe it's just as simple as the fact that Finn murdered a man, twice.

"I'm not a kid," he says.

Mando glances at him with something sad in his eyes. "Yes you are. You're seventeen, you're still a child in the eyes of the law."  His mouth quirks up.  "And when you get to be as old as I am, everyone your age is a kid."

I stopped being a kid at thirteen, Finn wants to bite out, and the law didn't have anything to do with that.

Mando sits with him for a bit, and Finn can't figure that out either. He chats idly about the work they'll be doing, the things that need to get done before camp opens for the summer season. It's so infuriatingly normal. Like nothing ever happened. It's exactly how Finn wants to be treated, and it confuses him. Leaves him waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But Mando just sits with him, and Finn has no clue how to handle that.

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn seems to take to working with the horses with a surprising level of enthusiasm. Over the next few days, Mando observes him starting to settle into a routine. He still smokes, and Mando is trying to figure out how to broach that in a way that will actually work. At least the horses seem to like Finn, and he loses that nervousness he had on the first day. Mando has seen firsthand how therapeutic animals can be for a lot of children. Caring for something is always helpful. Mando thinks sometimes that it's part of the reason he became so attached to the camp. Children aren't the same as animals, but the principle of caring remains the same.

Putting something positive out into the world is always good for you, he's found. So is hard work and a little sweat.

"Jesus," Finn mutters, wiping his forehead. "How am I sweating this much when it's barely forty-five degrees out?" He doesn't pause, though. That's another thing Mando respects about him. He doesn't seem to mind the hard work.

"We're closer to the sun here," Mando reminds him. "Makes you sweat harder."

Finn scoffs. "That's not how it works. The sheer distance between the sun and Earth means that being up here isn't gonna cause a noticeable change in temperature. It's probably the thinner atmosphere. Less protection from UV radiation." It's said so casually it takes a second to register.

Mando stops and stares at him. Not expecting the way he rattled off the information like it was something anyone might know. "Interesting. Seems like you paid more attention than most in science class."

Finn ducks his head, hair falling into his eyes. "Not really. I just read a lot as a kid. I was a fucking nerd." He sounds derisive, like he resents the little boy he used to be.

"You don't read anymore?" he asks, with genuine curiosity and no judgement.

Finn pauses, shoulders tensing. "Don't have the time for it. With-" he shrugs. "Don't have time."

"You should make time," Mando advises. "It's good for you. Are you planning on college?"

"Don't do that," Finn says. Tone going flat. "Don't get all school counselor on me. I get enough of that back home."

"It's just a question," he says lightly. Not pushing. Feeling a bit like he's soothing a spooked horse.

"Well, don't ask it," is the snappish reply. Finn pulls his head phones back on and returns to shoveling hay with a vengeance, signaling that the conversation is over.

Mando has noticed that Finn never fully turns his back on him. He's angled away from him, but still keeps him in his periphery at all times. The same can't be said about Mustang. Then again, Mustang is a young woman who is shorter than Finn by a good few inches. It's not rare, for Mando to work with children who are wary about adult men. It never means anything good.

He adds it to the list of things that are starting to keep him up at night about Finney Blake.

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn has nightmares, and he's pretty sure it's just because all the cabins look the same as the one Gwen almost bled out in. He remembers seeing her spin through the air, blood spraying out, and thinking her throat had been slit. Thinking he was going to lose her like Mom. Like Robin.

"Finney," the voice hisses in his ear, close enough that he should feel a body pressed to his back. A much bigger one, a familiar one.

He just feels like he's standing with his back to an open door in a snowstorm, and somehow that's worse. Biting wind feels like breath, and the wet flecks of snow and ice like spit.

"You're not there," He hisses. The cold moves over his body like fingers. His clothes do nothing to keep it out. They never kept Him out either. "She's all alone. You know what I could do to her?"

"You're dead," he says, but it's not confident. He keeps his back turned, eyes squeezed shut like a child. "I killed you. I broke your neck, and then I drowned you. You're not real."

"Ice melts," He says, laughing. "The lake can't trap me forever. I know you miss me. That's why you came back here. I might even forgive you, if you beg."

"Fuck you," he says, but it's dull and empty. Meaningless. Nothing he said was ever worth a damn anyway. He just twisted it. Used it to make Finn hurt.

The door to the cabin bangs shut, but the ice remains. Hands on his hips, burning frostbite so he's marked forever. Scarred and never quite free of Him.

Finn's eyes fly open and he gasps, chest heaving. Sweating through his sheets despite the shivering. He's cold, and the sweat sticking to his skin just makes his shivering worse. He chokes back bile. Trying to regulate his breathing. His clothes stick to him in a gross, uncomfortable way, and his skin itches. The stickiness in his pants makes him want to cut his own dick off. He feels disgusted with his own body, like it doesn't belong to him. It hasn't, really, in years. It's so obvious from the way he wakes up from nightmares with clear evidence that somewhere deep down he must have liked it. That must mean something, something He saw in him, because that only happens when you like it, right?

I will never make you do anything that you won't… like.

He has a sudden, wild spike of fear that makes his nausea uncontrollable. He stumbles to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before he's puking his guts out. Hating himself for it, because he actually managed to eat something last night. He'd felt… okay. Normal, at least a little bit. Too tired from all the hard work to overthink the food on his plate. He stopped eating anything he didn't make himself after the basement. He never got high at parties, always seeking out someplace quiet and deserted. Didn't like being vulnerable around other people.

He wasn't much fun at parties.

He heaves and spits until there's nothing left in his stomach, and his vision is swimming. His whole body is trembling, and he slumps next to the toilet, back against the bathtub. Watching the door, just in case. Fumbling for a blunt. Remembers he left them in his jeans. He's started trying to sleep in sweatpants again. He can't ever stand being in just boxers like other guys. He feels too exposed. Needs layers and layers of clothes to protect him.

Like it would make any difference.

Gingerly, he gets to his feet. Remembering the last time he was here, and how his dreams had been different. Choppy and disjointed, impossible to remember with any clarity. What he does remember is waking up to take a piss and staring uncomprehendingly at the hand-shaped frostbite burns on his thighs. Every night they were there, he woke up the next day with a new mark.

He doesn't know how he got them. Well, he knows but he doesn't know. He doesn't dream like Gwen, so he'll never know. He never thought that would be worse than knowing.

Shivering despite the oppressive artificial heat of the radiator, Finn checks himself over for bruises. He might be dead, but that didn't mean much last time. Finn needs to be sure that He didn't pull some magic act and come back again. Clawing His way out of hell to touch him with greedy fingers. Trying to take Finn with him. Hell for Finn would be heaven for Him. And maybe Finn deserves to go to Hell for not fighting it harder.

He finds nothing. That doesn't make him feel better. His mind keeps whispering that he just didn't look hard enough. That maybe the burns aren't even somewhere visible. His stomach bucks and rebels at the idea, and he ends up hunched over the toilet dry heaving.

He's late for breakfast, and he doesn't eat. Mando is looking at him, and it makes him snappy and irritable. But the old man never rises to the bait.

Every year, I meet half a dozen kids like you.

Finn sincerely fucking doubts that. Mando has no real idea what He was like. Or maybe he does. Finn has started to really hope he's not being lied to. To almost believe it. To believe that someone other than Gwen genuinely gives a shit about him. It's painful. It fucking hurts, to want that. He's been comfortably apathetic since he started smoking. Hoping is too much for him, right now.

✆ ✆ ✆

They're cleaning out some of the cabins at the edge of camp today. A quieter task, one that is less sweaty but hell on Mando's back all the same. He hasn't been in some of these cabins in years. They haven't been used since before all the death and misery, and something about them feels frozen in time. They're set much farther out from the rest of camp, and it didn't feel safe to use them considering the walk needed to reach them. He's thinking about turning them into other buildings, perhaps storage.

The dust hangs thick in the air as Mando shoves the door open with a grunt. He's getting too goddamned old for this, he muses as he sets down the bin of cleaning supplies. They've already moved most of the furniture out, and now they're getting rid of the grime and accumulated years.

"You ready?" he asks Finn. "I know it's not as glamorous as the horses, but it's still something that needs to get done."

"Shoveling horseshit is what you call glamorous?" Finn says, and there's snark in his tone but it's less pointed. More playful. Mando feels privileged to see it. A kid who jokes around with you is a kid that feels safe with you.

Mando chuckles. "It has its charms."

He pretends not to hear Finn muttering under his breath about that. Things feel as though they've reached some kind of equilibrium, after a week. He thinks Finn might be smoking less, and he's respected the no smoke in the cabins rule. Unlike most boys his age, Finn doesn't bawk at housework. He seems perfectly content to do the dishes on the nights it's his turn, as long as he gets to have his walkman with him. Mando doesn't see why he shouldn't. Music makes every chore a bit more bareable. The same thing can be said about cleaning the cabins as the dishes; Finn does it without complaint. He's got a better handle on cleaning than most boys his age do.

Good. It's a life skill. Mando never ascribed to the women belong in the kitchen bullshit. Mustang cooks because she's better at it than Mando could ever hope to be, despite the fact that he was the one who taught her the basics. She should be going to culinary school, but she likes it here, and he's never been able to deny his niece anything.

"You can take the back half, I will do the front," Mando instructs. There's a back door to all of these cabins, and he tosses Finn the keys. "For the back door." He doesn't mention that he does this because having an escape route seems to calm Finn down a great deal.

Finn catches the keys easily, and wanders into the back half of the cabin with the other box of cleaning supplies on his hip.

It's been maybe thirty minutes when Mando hears a thud in the back of the cabin. The kind of noise that means something extremely heavy has been dropped, or someone has fallen over. He rises from where he was bent over with a grunt, back protesting. Making for the source of the noise, knocking on the doorway. Finn is jumpy, and he swings if he's snuck up on. He hasn't managed to hit either Mando or Mustang yet, but he would rather not end up with a black eye or broken nose because he spooked the boy.

He stops when he makes it to the last room of the cabin. Finn is on the ground, back pressed to the wall and staring wide eyed at a loose floorboard. Chest heaving, like he's looking down into Hell itself. All defensive posture and genuine terror, in a way that he never was when they were fighting Bill.

"Finn," Mando says cautiously. He gets in his line of sight, blocking the gap in the floor. Whatever it is that set him off is less important than the reaction Finn is having to it. "Can you look at me?"

Finn makes some small sound, flinching. Mando stops, doesn't get closer. Hands raised in a placating gesture. To show he means no harm. To show that Finn has nothing to fear from him, not now and not ever. Finn's eyes seem to look right through him, like he's seeing something that isn't there. Or seeing someone else, in Mando's place.

"Wild Bill is dead," Mando tells him, on a guess. "He cannot hurt you ever again."

Even if he weren't, Mando would put himself between Finn and that monster without hesitation. It's a damn shame that no one had, before. Finn was, still is, a child. A hurt, angry child who has every right not to trust any adult. Why should he? Mando wonders if the fact that he knew Bill is a damning point against him. It feels like one, when he lies awake at night wondering if he could've changed anything. Could've spared Finn so much grief.

"If you try to touch me, I'll scratch your face." The words come out strained and practiced, a mantra. Like some kind of talisman ward the Boogeyman.

Mando recoils. Something about those words feels… off. He pulls his hands back. "I won't touch you," he says. "You have my word."

Something in that must break through to Finn, because he uncurls the smallest bit. Looking less vacant. Like he's actually aware of where he is. And then Mando sees embarrassment flood his features. His cheeks burning red, face twisting with it. He looks very young, like that. He is so, so young.

"Fuck," Finn mutters, rubbing his eyes. "I'm fine. Stop looking at me like that." There's bite in his voice, but it's nearly lost to exhaustion.

"Okay," Mando says. "Do you need some water?"

"I said I'm fine," Finn snaps, arms crossed. It looks more like he's hugging himself, than anything else.

Mando nods, letting him have his dignity. Feeling a sick sense of dread in his gut as he turns to look over the gap in the floorboards.

"Don't-" Finn starts, but he's already seen.

In the gap is a small collection of three objects. Things that tug at his memory. A stuffed dog. A baseball. A copy of the Hardy Boys. The dog is stained, bloody, but also crunchy with something that makes Mando drop it reflexively and curse under his breath.

His mind is spinning. Things clicking into place at rapid speed, leaving him sick with guilt and impotent rage. Things about the boy's bodies, at least the parts they found. About the way Finn has acted the entire time Mando has known him. The way Bill spoke, when they could all hear him. He should have known. Should have seen it. If it had been little girls, maybe he would have. Maybe he didn't want to see. All this time… a children's camp. They were supposed to be a safe place for children. A place where even if their home lives weren't good, they could relax and just be young. And the whole time, a shadow was over this place. Genuine evil, the kind that even men in prison don't tolerate, and he never knew.

"Finn-" he turns to the boy, and in the split second they make eye contact Finn must see it, what he's realized, and he bolts.

✆ ✆ ✆

Finn can't breathe. He fucking sprints through the woods, not caring where he goes as long as it's away. Mando knows. Mando knows and it was written all over his face. Disgust. Shock. Anger. He probably thinks Finn is pathetic. Queer. Probably doesn't want him anywhere near Mustang. Finn is a threat, a ticking time bomb because if He was like that someone had to have made Him that way. You don't just turn out that wrong. That perverted. And if something made Him that way, then He must have made Finn into the same thing. Twisted him into something disgusting and evil. That's why Finn doesn't like girls. That's why his memories of Robin are so tangled up in something he'll never name.

He trips over something and goes sprawling in the dirt, scraping up his face and hands as he tries to catch himself. Chest heaving, dirt in his mouth. Sniffling, mortifyingly. He hates crying. He prefers anger, and in that way he's just like his fucking dad. And he hates himself for that even more.

He shuffles back against a tree, and fumbles for a blunt, but he doesn't have them on him. He left them in the cabin, because he was feeling okay enough that his walkman did the trick when he was hearing shit that wasn't there. He reaches for his headphones, but the walkman must have fallen off him when he was running. The laughter has already started, whispering in his ears, and he covers them desperately. Knees to his chest like that could stop any of it. Like it ever did. Expecting to feel his legs yanked, to get pulled flat on his back. Completely vulnerable to whatever He wants.

"Finn," someone is saying, and he curls lower, the bark of the tree digging into his neck. "Finn, you need to breathe."

His silhouette hovers at the corner of Finn's vision. Laughing. Always goddamn laughing at him.

"It's not real," he tells himself, "S'not real, you're not fucking real!"

The laughter is overwhelming. And the ringing. It's coming from everywhere, bearing down on him like a physical weight. Making breathing nearly impossible, and he gasps for air. It's all ringing, in his head and all around him, mixing with the laughter until he can't take it. Something knocks his hands away from his ears and he lashes out, not even punches just wild hands, but then headphones are being slipped over his head and music blasts, drowning out the ringing and the laughter. Finn trembles, latching onto the familiar track like a lifeline. Letting the loud, angry music wash over him, sweeping everything else away until he can actually think. Once again, embarrassment and shame trickle in until his face is burning.

Mando is crouched across from him, brow furrowed. Finn instinctively shies away from his eyes. He doesn't want to see it. The expression he saw on the faces of the cops that interrogated him, on the faces of the nurses who made him relive it all in the name of medical attention. Poor fucking Finney Blake. He killed the Grabber, but He got the last laugh. He always does. He turns down the volume. A silent say what you want gesture that he doesn't really mean.

"Finn," Mando starts, "I-"

"No," Finn cuts him off, stubbornly grasping for control. "I'm not doing this."

"Finney," Mando says, soft.

"Don't call me that!" The snarl rips through the quiet of the woods. "Don't ever call me that."

"Okay," he concedes, "Okay. I won't. But I need you to know, it doesn't… whatever he did, it doesn't make you less of a man."

Finn laughs, raw and bitter. He's been a man since he was thirteen. Because that's what happens when you lose your virginity, right? You stop being a kid. When you kill someone with your bare hands, that's adulthood. You don't get to go back to glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and model rockets. That's all kid shit. And Finn hasn't been a kid in years.

"What do you want, Mando?" he asks, and he sounds angry and exhausted and cracked in half.

"To talk. And only if you feel comfortable with it. I just…" he drags a hand down his face, sitting down fully. Facing Finn, and it almost feels better, than he can see all of him. "I didn't know."

Well, that's obvious. Finn likes it that way, no one knowing. His dad didn't even bother to ask, and Finn is glad for it. People knowing just makes him feel like it's happening all over again. Like he's some freak on display, or some poor pathetic animal that's been hit by a car and is dying on the side of the road. Something to coo at in pity or recoil from in disgust.

"What's there to talk about?" he says, fiddling with the headphone wire. "It happened years ago. It's over. He's gone. There's nothing you can do about it."

Mando's face does something complicated. "I can still help you."

"No you can't," he breathes out, staring up at the canopy. "I'm never gonna be like I was and that's fine. That's… that kid is dead."

He's never said it out loud, but he's known it. That part of him really did die in that basement. Maybe it's poetic, being buried alongside Robin. Losing Robin was losing his childhood, the good parts of it anyhow. Him and Gwen, they were it. And Finn knows Gwen was never the same after he got kidnapped either. She grew up, because she had to save him. Your baby sister isn't ever supposed to have to save you, not like that.

"You're not dead, Finn," Mando insists, leaning forward a bit. "You have your entire life ahead of you. You can heal from this. There are people out there trained to help with this sort of thing."

"Yeah, for girls, maybe. The cops knew," and this is more than he's ever talked about it with anyone, "The doctors knew. And they had no fucking idea what to do with me."

They all treated him like a wounded animal that might bite them if they got too close. And he decided he preferred that to the cop who had told him it was okay if he liked it, with a joking smile, like it was all in good fun. The cops that were useless at best and assholes at worst. The doctors were all frozen, placating smiles and horrified eyes.

"Then they failed you," Mando says. "They failed you, and you are doing your best."

It doesn't feel placating, coming from Mando. It feels sincere. And Finn never knows what to do with sincere. It always itches at his skin like a too-tight sweater. Like it might suffocate him, if he lets it in. If he believes in it.

Finn doesn't say anything, just stares up at the sky.

"What about your father?" Mando asks. "You're a minor, they must have told him. He didn't try to get you help?"

"He never asked," Finn says. The sky seems real far away. "He started drinking again a month later."

He's never told anyone about his dad drinking. Scared they would take him and Gwen away, separate them. But it feels like there's no point in not being honest.

"I see," Mando says, carefully. "He drinks a lot, your father?"

"Mm," Finn hums. He almost feels high. Like he's out of his body. Numb. "Since mom died." This feels like giving up. And it's not so bad, really.

"My father was a mean drunk," Mando says. Open-ended.

"Yeah," Finn agrees. "So's he. So what? I can't change it." He never could.

"You can choose something else. Go to college. Have your own life. I think it would do you good. I have people I can talk to, if you're behind in school."

"Why do you care so much?" Finn asks him. Horrified to feel tears springing to his eyes.

Mando is quiet for a while. Then, he says, "Why do I need a reason to care? You're a child. I'm an adult, it is my job to help you. And I'm sorry no one helped you. I'm sorry you were failed continuously. That is not your fault."

"Don't say that shit," Finn says, throat tight. "It's my fault. I was stupid, y'wanna know how he got me? He acted like he needed help. Asked me if I wanted to see a magic trick. I was a stupid fucking kid with no common sense."

He's never told anyone but the cops that part. And the cops had looked at him like he was stupid for it. What kind of idiot doesn't know stranger danger?

"It sounds like he took advantage of your kindness," Mando tells him. "And that is on him, and no one else."

"C'mon, stop lying to me. I know you think I'm fucked up," Finn hisses at him, digging his nails into his arms. "I'm a fucking pussy. I let him-"

"You didn't let him do anything," Mando says, steel in his voice. "You were a thirteen year old child, and he was a grown man. No matter what he told you when he was touching you, that is not your fault and nothing you did could have made it so."

His mouth clicks shut, and he goes hot with shame. A reminder that Mando knows. Mando fucking knows. Finn is shaking, just a little bit. Almost expecting… what? For him to want a piece too? He feels like a wounded deer that got away, but is still bleeding out. Waiting for the next predator to see his weakness and use it to their advantage.

Mando isn't. Mando doesn't track with anything Finn has come to rely on from people who hold power over him and it pisses him off. Or maybe it scares the shit out of him and anger is just easier.

Maybe he is his father's son in all the worst ways.

"You don't get it," he says bitterly.

"No," Mando agrees, "I don't. And I wish you didn't 'get it' either."

"Too late for that." Another bitter, mocking laugh. Then, a whole lotta quiet when neither of them speak.

"I will finish cleaning out that cabin myself," Mando tells him. "You should clean those scrapes. I would help, but I don't think you want me to. I will walk you back to the main hall, and show you where the first aid station is. Alright?"

No, Finn definitely doesn't want Mando touching his face and hands. That might make him actually vomit.

"Sure," he agrees numbly. He feels hollowed out, empty. His biggest fucking secret, and Mando just… doesn't care. Isn't treating him like some fucked up freak.

He cranks the volume on his headphones as high as they can go, drowning everything out. A clear signal to Mando that he doesn't wanna talk anymore. Mando doesn't push, and when they get to the main hall, he gives Finn the first aid kit.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asks.

Finn shakes his head. He's not a fucking baby, he can handle it. Even if he feels a little more empty and small when he is finally alone. It starts to catch up with him, and he sobs. Heaving, gasping breaths as tears pour down his cheeks. More like vomitting than crying, with how hard he heaves. Choking on it all, on the memory of the stuffed dog's crunchy fur between his fingers.

By the time he manages to get himself patched up, it's nearly noon. He's tired, and Mando takes one look at him and tells him he can go lay down in his cabin if he needs to. He spends the rest of the day curled up on the mattress, like he's thirteen again and having an episode. That's what his dad called it, drunkenly. You're acting like your mother. He always tried to make it up to him when he was sober, which was new. It hurt worse, actually, than the complete lack of interest before the basement.

The next week passes weirdly. In a haze, and Mando is nice. Treats him like before. Doesn't ask, but he's there. Finn knows he wants to know. And maybe he's exhausted. Maybe that's why he sits next to Mando in the same spot they had their first real conversation all those months ago.

✆ ✆ ✆

Mando doesn't expect Finn to talk about it. Doesn't push for it, because at the end of the day Mando still isn't someone he knows very well. He is still an adult man, and this is… it's a lot. Finn's reluctance makes perfect sense, even if it makes Mando's chest ache fiercely.

He doesn't tell the parents of the other children. He considers it, but decides that it wouldn't do any good. The boys are dead regardless, and know that their last moments were so awful would only cause the families pain. But he does sit with the knowledge, staring at their photos. They were so young. Most of them not even teenagers yet. Would never get to be teenagers. It settles over Mando like it's new, like the police have just decided to call off the investigation and label it a cold case.

He doesn't expect for Finn to sit next to him near the lake. Finn hasn't been avoiding him, neccessarily, but there's a heaviness to the air between them. Like exhaustion. Mando doesn't push. He's worked with so many troubled kids, but this is different. This is something he has no training on, no prior experience to guide him. Just intuition.

"Hey," Finn says. He seems… restless. He stares out at the water, not at Mando. "I'm all packed."

Mando feels something in his chest twist. "Leaving bright and early then, yes?"

"Mmhm," Finn hums. Huddled in on himself, and only partially due to the cold. "Gotta get back to Gwen. I don't usually leave her alone this long."

It's a casual offering of information that wouldn't have happened before the cabin. Like Finn has decided that if Mando knows about the worst of it, he can be trusted with other less intense information.

Is there something you want to tell me? Mando thinks but doesn't ask. The asking usually scares children like Finn away. The expectation of an answer spooking them. Like a stray cat, you have to let them come to you. And invariably, they do, if you've done all right.

God, Mando hopes he's done right by Finn.

"I, uh, I had a friend, once," Finn starts. He rubs at his nose, staring resolutely out at the water. "You remember Ernesto?"

"I do," Mando confirms, even though he knows the question was rhetorical.

"He was his older brother. His name was Robin," and the name is said with a cracked kind of reverence and deep, deep pain. "He was my best friend. My only friend, actually."

Was. It sits heavy in the air. Mando doesn't point it out. He knows he doesn't have to.

"He was the kid before me," Finn says. Hands folded, eyes on the horizon. "We were supposed to go see a movie with his uncle. We, uh, never got to. Obviously."

That strikes like a punch to the gut. Mando exhales, heavy. Feeling the weight of it all press down on him.

"I'm…. so sorry," Mando says. It never feels right. Not enough. Too… self-centered. You are sorry. It asks for reassurance in return.

"Yeah," Finn hums. "He looked just like Ernesto, is the thing. Longer hair, no glasses. Not a wimp." He laughs. "He taught me how to fight. I was such a fucking wimp. Everyone thought I was a fag." His jaw tightens. "I, y'know, I wonder if he could see it on me."

"You're not- What happened to you doesn't change who you are," Mando says softly. "It doesn't make you a homosexual."

Finn's leg bounces, knuckles tapping on the ground. He won't look at Mando. "He knew. He saw it on me. They all did." He's squinting into the dying sunlight. "Robin was…" he swallows, "Doesn't matter. Doesn't fuckin' matter."

And Mando doesn't know what to say to that. To the confession that's between the lines. You don't have to be. Maybe. Maybe Finn always was. Maybe Bill made him that way. It doesn't quite matter. What matters is that Finn told him at all.

"I think Robin would have wanted you to be happy," Mando says carefully.

"He told me to get out for him," Finn says. "I did, and I feel like I'm just fucking it up, and it would've been better if I died down there. And then I feel fucking selfish for that." The words come fast, like Finn is trying to force them out.

"You're not selfish, Finn." The boy next to him is the furthest thing from selfish, and Mando wishes he could see it. "You're surviving."

"S'not enough, though, is it?" Finn's voice is rife with self-hatred. Disgust. "I should be better by now. He didn't even do anything this time. It was just handprints. Just fucking frostbite."

Mando doesn't know what he's referring to, but he thinks that asking might make it worse. "He tried to kill you and your sister, I think that's plenty reason to be shaken up."

Finn smacks his fist against his knee. "I'm sick of being shaken up. I hate being like this, man." He finally looks at Mando, and his eyes are watery. "I'm so tired of this shit."

Hesitantly, Mando reaches out a hand. Keeping it in Finn's line of sight, and letting it comes to rest on his shoulder. "I think you've been running from all of this for the past four years. I think the only way to stop feeling this way is to stop running."

"I fucking hate that advice," Finn laughs, choked. He doesn't shrug Mando's hand off, and that counts as a win in his book.

"I know," Mando tells him, "Everyone always does."

✆ ✆ ✆

Leaving Camp Alpine feels nothing like it did last time. Finn doesn't regret it, exactly, because Gwen needs him back, but he thinks he wouldn't mind coming back sometime. It's unfamiliar, having a place where he feels a pull to return to that isn't rooted in his sister. Last time he had that, he was thirteen and Robin was still alive. He hates that Mando knows what happened to him, because he hates anyone knowing, but it could've been worse.

He still doesn't know why Mando acts the way he does. It reminds him a little of Robin's uncle. A little of his sixth grade science teacher. People who were kind to him, for reasons he can't fucking fathom. He's not built to receive kindness, lost that ability when a man in a mask dragged him into his van and then down into his fucking basement.

So he doesn't know what to do with Mando's offer to come back anytime. But he has it. And maybe that can be enough, for right now.

He pulls into the driveway and Gwen is waiting, like she dreamt it. Or maybe she just knew. She knows things, intuition that goes a little further than most people's. And Finn only realizes that he hasn't smoked all day when she hugs him and her eyes flicker to his and there's something like hope, like surprise, like a smile in her gaze.

Like she knows something has changed, and that it could be okay. Maybe.