Try not to worry you.

I will try not to breathe
I can hold my head still with my hands at my knees
These eyes are the eyes of the old, shiver and fold

I love the internet when it serves as a dysfunctional respite, a mirror to my crazy, as since it's spring again the requests for a rundown of my beauty/makeup/fashion routine outweigh any concerns that a mafia henchpin-lynchman-kingturn-head of some syndicate something or other that Caleb is used to be messed up with found me alone and offered me their services after once trying to take me as a payment on a loan Caleb was paying back (on time, I might add. They now say it was all in good fun. What the fuck.), somehow deciding they can protect me better, obviously because, heh, where is everyone?

Newsflash. I don't require bodyguards. 

Maybe you do, they suggest.

Maybe you do, I counter, trying to tilt my head in a slight display of danger that might give them a little doubt but instead they see it as endearing and I can't win so I stamp my feet and that brings laughter. Laughter all around.

My comic instances, always so charming.

Ben, who finds gravity in nothing and nihilism in everything, thought it was sweet that they want to protect me. Like the rest of us, he said in stark contrast to the way he usually talks. Lochlan wants to know why they're back now, what they want, what angle they're working, if they're watching us/me/Caleb. Caleb no longer cares about them and tells me not to worry, that I haven't done anything wrong and he stopped all dealings with them anyway the moment I became a target the very first time and that if I would sleep easier we could go together and explain our history and explain our present and they would know that we've sorted it out.

Batman tells everyone he has it covered.

Does it involve even scarier people?

Oh, probably, he laughs, but they won't come visit you at church. You'll never see them, he promises and I believe that too.