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Most people, Bloom thinks, would be running in the opposite direction, which is to say: away from the explosions.
Stephen is still ten feet ahead of him, though, and not slowing down, and Bloom would be demanding what on Earth he thinks he's doing, but it's breathe and run, or stop and talk, and if he stops, he knows Stephen wouldn't.
(Yes, he would. Stephen would never leave him behind, no matter what.)
The next blast sounds entirely too nearby for comfort, so Bloom finds some last reserve of strength and propels himself forwards, to grab Stephen's arm and make him slow down.
"Think," Stephen says dreamily, "just think of what stories we could write if we could include explosions."
Bloom has written prologues, interludes, the occasional sentence in the grand epics they call 'life'. "Sounds dangerous."
"Not if we get someone who knows what they're doing."
And how would you know that's them? Bloom wants to ask. How?
He doesn't ask, though. Stephen's already started running again, and Bloom - well, Bloom knows Stephen wouldn't write something where he gets left behind, or put aside, or where they have a falling-out over some third person. Stephen's plots always work out, in the end.
