# Chapter 8
# Chapter 8: The Walk Home
Ripon at ten o'clock on a weeknight was exactly as dead as it had always been, which Michael had decided was one of the more underrated things about it. Empty sidewalks. Sprinklers ticking on timers nobody remembered setting. The occasional dog barking at nothing behind a chain-link fence, offended on principle.
William was still holding the laundry basket.
"Why do you have that."
"It's evidence." William turned it over in his hands, inspecting the crack running down one side like a man appraising a family heirloom. "Someday, when they write the official history of the Wrench Network, this basket is going in a display case. Little plaque underneath. *First Confirmed Kill, Michael Mueller.* Maybe a little laminated info card about the raccoon thing."
"It wasn't a raccoon."
"It had raccoon energy."
"It had *possession* energy. It had *this thing wants to wear your skin* energy."
"See, that's exactly the kind of quote that goes on the plaque." William hugged the basket to his chest like it was a trophy and not, in fact, someone's laundry equipment. "I'm framing this. Emotionally. Spiritually. Whatever the non-crime version of framing is."
They cut through the empty lot behind the hardware store, the shortcut they'd been taking since they were nine, back before either of them had a reason to think about what might be waiting in the dark behind a dumpster.
"Can we talk about the mop," William said.
"No."
"Mike. *Mike.* Your dad fought his first monster with a *mop.* Do you understand what that means? That means somewhere out there is a story where your dad — your *actual father,* the man who once explained to me for eleven minutes why synthetic oil was morally superior to conventional — beat something with too many teeth using janitorial equipment."
"I don't want to think about my dad fighting monsters."
"Why not, it's *awesome.*"
"Because it means he knew this was coming and never told me." Michael said it lighter than he meant it, and it came out heavier anyway. William, to his credit, didn't push. He just adjusted his grip on the basket and let the silence sit for exactly as long as it needed to, which was one of the things Michael had never really thanked him for and probably never would, because that wasn't how they worked.
"For the record," William said eventually, "I would've used the mop too. Efficient reach. Built-in bludgeoning surface. Extremely underrated."
"You'd have lost the mop in the first three seconds."
"I would have *thrown* the mop, strategically, and then run, which is a valid combat tactic that you, personally, have never once considered."
"Running's not a build."
"Running is the *only* build with a hundred percent survival rate, Mike, that's just math."
They came out onto Fig Street, past the dark windows of Coach Reyes's gym, past the shuttered taco truck spot that had apparently once fed an entire alley's worth of interdimensional monster hunters, and Michael found himself doing the thing he always did on this stretch of sidewalk — glancing toward home, toward the porch light his father left on even when nobody was out, toward the ordinary yellow glow of a house that had no idea what had crawled out of a laundromat dumpster an hour ago.
"You're doing the thing," William said.
"What thing."
"The staring-at-your-house-like-it's-going-to-disappear thing. You've done it every night this week."
Michael didn't deny it. There wasn't much point. "I've got eleven months."
"Eleven months and change. And a wrench. And a spooky old man. And a laundry basket with combat experience." William bumped his shoulder against Michael's, the same casual, unthinking gesture he'd been doing since the sixth grade, the kind of thing that didn't mean anything and meant everything at the same time. "You're not doing it alone. I want that on the record too. Somewhere less humiliating than the basket."
"Noted."
"I'm serious, Mike. Chaos Generator and Overpowered Idiot, back on the case. Whatever's coming for your dad, it's going to have to deal with both of us. And frankly, given the two D-tier threats we've handled so far, I think it's going to have a *rough time.*"
Michael huffed something close to a laugh. "You hid behind a laundry basket."
"I *strategically repositioned* behind a laundry basket. There's a difference. It's called tactical awareness. You should try it sometime instead of just — " William gestured vaguely at all of Michael. "Catching things with your bare hands like an idiot with a death wish."
"It worked."
"It *always* works, that's the problem, if it stopped working *once* you might actually learn something."
They stopped at the corner where their paths split — William two blocks north, Michael one block south to the house with the porch light on — and stood there for a second in the specific, comfortable quiet of two people who had done this exact goodbye a thousand times before and would probably do it a thousand more.
"Same time tomorrow?" Michael asked.
"Obviously." William hefted the basket under one arm. "I've got a theory about Defense stats. Involves a baseball bat and considerable emotional damage to you personally."
"That's not a theory, that's a threat."
"In this economy, they're the same thing." William was already walking backward, grinning, basket swinging. "Sleep well, Mr. Aberration. Try not to save the world without me."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Michael watched him go — a gangly kid with a stolen laundry basket, humming what was almost certainly a Final Fantasy victory theme under his breath, utterly unafraid in a way Michael suspected he didn't fully understand yet — and then turned toward home, where a porch light was burning for a father who had eleven months left and no idea he needed them counted.
The wrench, tucked in his backpack, hummed once, low and warm, like something settling in for the night.
Michael let himself in quietly. The house smelled like dinner and dish soap. Upstairs, faintly, he could hear his father's laugh through the floorboards — some rerun on low volume, some joke only half-heard — and he stood in the dark hallway for a moment just to listen to it.
Three hundred and fourteen, he thought, and went up to bed.