forthedog | Derailment

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Derailment

He's not sure what wakes him. It could be any number of things. It could be the light on his face, the air moving over him, the shift of cloth against skin where before it had just been the cool of the sheets and the heat of two bodies. It could be the hard ground under his back, which would also explain the aches in him as consciousness drifts closer. He's gone soft, he thinks sometimes, fallen out of the habit of sleeping well on the ground, lost in the embrace of Tom's big bed. But he still roughs it sometimes, so at first the fact that he's clearly outside doesn't sound any alarms.

But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.

There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.

His gun.

There's no mistaking what this is.

He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.

"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."

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At the checkpoint, I stay silent and slouched in my seat, mindful of the eyes that flicker over me. It's nothing new, but it's been a while since it's felt like this. Even aggression on the island tends to come off as teasing, and this is anything but.

There are hollow-eyed children hovering along the side of the road, lost even at their mother's side, and I'm suddenly, overwhelmingly relieved that the girls aren't here, no matter how much I wish we weren't all apart. I don't think I could see them in a place like this.

Just driving down the street's like going through a fuckin' gauntlet, silent as a goddamn funeral march.

"We're gonna have to go to ground," Tom murmured, looking through the destruction, still trying to orient himself. When they came to Chicago, they hadn't stayed long.

"And I want us to stay out of Grant Park, if we can," Tom murmured, cutting a look over at Mike. "Think Yang still has that Motel 6 operating out of the old El cars?"

"He might." He turns down a smaller street, wanting to get away from the main thoroughfares and any extra attention, and down here the trash and the debris is piled higher but there are fewer people, and he feels a little less uneasy. "We can head over that way, check it out. He wouldn't rat on us, at least." Not out of the goodness of his heart. Yang isn't stupid, and he wants as many friends as he can get. Or he did, assuming he's still alive.

He glances up and catches a glimpse of Neil's face in the mirror again, pale and set, and he reaches back again and lays a hand on his knee.

"We're gonna be okay," he murmurs. "We're all gonna stay together." And offering comfort of any kind is something he never would have done before.

Edited 2009-07-09 14:19 (UTC)

"I know," I mutter, rolling my eyes a little bit, but still inexplicably grateful, just for that one little touch. I can't help but resent the fact that they both think I need to be coddled, but at the same time... Well, I don't exactly shove his hand off of me, that's for sure.

"I'm not havin' a fuckin' meltdown, you can relax."

"I'm having a melt down," Tom muttered, glaring out the windows at the dirt and destruction, mouth twisted in a harsh line.

"Lets find Yang, find some real food, some water, and just take it from there."

He looked back at Neil, grinning slightly when he saw Mike's hand. Jarring, even after a few years on the Island, out of place against this setting.

"It's not far now, anyway."

He manages to laugh at that, though it's dry and thin, giving Neil's knee a quick squeeze before withdrawing his hand. As long as Neil sounds like that. he can worry a little less.

"Just up this street, right?" He turns onto it, even narrower with the rusted pylons of the tracks standing in the distance, skeletal. Some of the trains fell, some were pulled down, but Yang has a decent setup and it'll be shelter and safety of a kind.

Sitting forward in my seat, I slide an arm around Tom's chest, hand splayed out over his heart, and part of me's just trying to test the waters... seein' if this blatant a show of affection is too dangerous in a place like this.

But more than that, it makes me feel better. The world around us is crumbling to pieces, but at least one thing's still the same.

The touch surprised Tom and it showed. He wasn't used to being touched, here, and the Island was less than a day away but sense memory was a powerful thing. He tensed at first, but relaxed after a moment, fingers lacing through Neil's over his heart.

He squeezed the flesh between Neil's thumb and pointer, letting out a slow breath. He looked back over his shoulder, eyes meeting Neil's. Thank-you.

"He's gonna want five shells a night," Tom said, closing his eyes. "Three to forget we're there, and two to not ask question about Neil. Think we got that much?"

He watches them, glancing away from the street just for a few seconds, and he feels himself loosening still more. And through it he feels the old fierce protectiveness reasserting itself, doubled now. Anything for them. Absolutely anything, to make sure they're safe.

"We'll make it work," he says, bringing the car slowly to a stop. Ahead of them the street opens up again and there are the cars, but the ones in front of them are dark and dead. The tracks dip down and down, into the ground, and it's there that light shows. In front of the opening with fire burning in a metal drum sit a few men, also with guns, but they don't look like the thugs prowling the streets.

Check-in. He almost smiles. He's never liked this place all that much. They've been here, but he never liked it.

"C'mon." He pulls the keys out of the ignition and shoves the door open.

I climb out of the back seat, standing with my chin jutted defiantly in the air and my hands shoved deep in my pockets, gun holstered and a heavy weight at my hip.

I've always been good at showing a hell of a lot more confidence than I really feel, and it comes back easily. Like an old habit. Something ingrained in me that I never really lost. But after three years on the island, nearly that long of not needing the walls around me to be so damn high, it feels like playing a part. A game. This isn't me. Not anymore.

Before they can say anything, I walk out ahead, even though I know I shouldn't. It's not the kind of skin I can just slip into half way. It's all or nothing.

Three of the guys loitering at the mouth of the tunnel were guards. One was the house's hook up to coke, crack, and hookers. A fucking disheveled, Harsh Realm concierge. The fifth man was an obese old man, settled on a stool in front of the oil bin, white hair smeared with grime and worse, the four teeth visible in his leering smile the color of coffee and nicotine and rot.

He snickered as Neil came strutting up, eyes glancing over him and dismissing him in one smooth evaluation.

"You two taking turns or going in together?" He called, noticing Tom and Mike following after him. "Either way, rate's an ounce of gas an hour." He reached out for Neil with dirty hands - three nails were dark with bruises, the fourth had fallen off completely. "Or you could just this little piece of ass wrap his mouth around my dick for a little while, eh?" The old man laughed wheezily and the other men followed suit, giving Neil utterly transparent looks. In the shadows just outside the rim of firelight, the dealer regarded Neil with new interest, a different kind of smile all together pulling at the corners of his twitching lips.

"Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you, you little whore-"

Not that much makes him truly angry anymore. When Mack had been taken, that had been something, but the terror and the desperation had masked the rage. Now there's nothing to mask it at all and it's stunning and huge and immediate. Once he wouldn't have batted an eye at this kind of talk.

Once I used to talk like that.

His hand is already moving towards his hip and his gun, though he knows it might be the second stupidest thing he's ever done, but there's a soft touch on his arm and he swallows it all back, feeling it pressing against the inside of his skin like magma against a rock dome, still threatening to blast free at any time.

It's been three years since he's killed anyone. He doesn't want to pick up the habit again. But now he's pretty damn sure he could.

He digs in his pocket for a second or two and brings up five rounds, tossing them at the man with a single careless gesture. Careless, though it's all an act. Once he was a good actor, too.

"We'll take a night," he says coldly. "Together." And let them think what they want. He reaches into his other pocket and tosses down three more rounds, leaning in closer and dropping his voice into a smooth growl. "We aren't here. And if anyone fucking touches him, if anyone looks at him funny, you got a whole fucking world of trouble."

It's not surprising. Part of me was expecting it. Three years isn't enough to completely erase something so ingrained. It's a part of me that'll probably never be wiped clean, and all the scumbags and assholes of the world -- anybody with a hard cock -- fuckin' flock to it like a goddamn moth to a flame.

Teeth bared, there's something incredibly stupid surging up on the tip of my tongue, but thankfully, Tom's there and Mike jumps in before I can step forward and cheerfully claw the fucker's eyes out.

Not too long ago, I probably would've let it happen, but there's no fuckin' way I'm letting him touch me.

Stepping back between the two of them, I don't say a word, but the look I give them all is startlingly clear -- I'm spoken for. Back the fuck off.

Tom's face was dark as he went up to the old man, giving nothing away except anger and resentment, making it very clear that they weren't afraid.

"Yang's an old friend," Tom said, holding out a hand until the man grudgingly dropped a key into it. "Tell him we're here and maybe we'll forget that you forgot your manners."

Tom dismissed the guards easily enough, eyes sliding over them like they weren't there, gaze lingering momentarily on the dealer, just enough to let the man know that he'd been sighted and cataloged and that it would a bad thing if he ever found himself at their mercy, and waved Neil and Mike ahead of him down the narrow foot path that ran between the train tracks and the wall of the tunnel. Car after car were stalled on the tracks, lights and sounds drifting from the windows as they passed. Children crying, women moaning, men's voiced pitched like a fever dream...

And the walked down into the dark, single file, and the daylight faded behind them.

It's the smell of the place that he remembers most strongly, and it's the smell that comes back to him now. Almost everywhere populated in the Realm stinks, but down here is a stench, contained and concentrated by the walls of the tunnel. Unwashed bodies and clothes, sickness, gutters at the side of the tunnel used as latrines. Once he would have accepted it as a matter of course, this is just how things are here, but now part of him recoils and almost wants to run for the surface. Except that the surface is just as bad.

He walked into this place, once upon a time. Voluntarily. It almost seems beyond belief.

"Here?" he asks when they reach an empty car, glancing over to check the number scrawled on the key in Tom's hand. He looks back at Neil, feeling like he should apologize, though he's not sure for what.

"It's shitty but it's marginally safer down here. Yang has an interest in keeping his... guests from killing each other."

I wasn't expecting it. Not really. Focused on everything I'm seeing, it didn't occur to me that it might fuckin' stink too. It hits me square in the face, and it's all I can do not to stumble back, a gag working its way up the back of my throat and my eyes practically watering.

"Jesus," I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face and peeking inside the train car. Rolling one shoulder in a careless shrug, I mutter, "It'll do."

The lock wasn't anything more than a chain with a padlock that held the sliding doors closed. Inside, Tom relocked it on the inside of the door, bringing them as close to privacy as they were going to get.

The bench seating had been ripped out of the car years ago, leaving a few poles and empty brackets on the floors and walls. There was an attempt at a mattress against the far wall, a basin of dingy water in a corner. Most of the windows had been blocked out with black paint.

It was muggy and close and awful, but with the door shut, Tom sighed a soft sigh of relief.

"Sorry about -" he said, gesturing abortively in the direction of the tunnel. He gave Neil a pained look. The Realm, the destruction, all the piss and fear and dark, closed spaces.

"I'm just...sorry."

He grunts as he looks the place over, mixed resignation and disgust, and sits down on the mattress. It smells of mildew and there are a couple suspicious stains, but otherwise it doesn't seem untouchable. Inside the car the smell is a little better. There are a few candles in one corner and he reaches over, produces a zippo from his pocket and lights them, casting a flickering glow around the car.

He would have picked somewhere better if there was anywhere. But if Tom is right, if they can just make it through a couple of days.

Tom has to be right. There's no other option.

"We're here," he says flatly, arms resting on his knees. "Nothing to do about it now."

For a moment, I'm not sure what to do. I stand in the middle of the car, hands hanging limply at my sides, just watching the two of them in the low light. This place, awful as it is, has so much history... so much happened between the two of them, here, and I feel unavoidably out of place. It's endless and untouchable, the vast and fuckin' legendary -- fuckin' prophetic history of Mike and Tom.

But finally, I sink down onto the mattress beside Mike, my shoulder brushing his, and after a long moment of hesitation, I let my head tip over on his shoulder, just taking that little bit of comfort while about thousand things clang noisily inside my brain.

Tom eased over to them, rubbing his thumb over the arch of Neil's eyebrow, fingers digging into the short hair at the back of Mike's neck.

"We got this," he said, and he believed it. Right up until Tuesday morning, he refused to be afraid. He dropped into a low crouch in front of them, blinking up at them with wide eyes, slipping a hand onto each of their thighs. "It's different, this time."

A lot of the rules felt like they'd changed.

Edited 2009-07-11 21:52 (UTC)

He sighs quietly, pressing his lips to the crown of Neil's head, leaning a little into Tom's soft touch. Without them... he's not sure what he would do here. He would give anything for them to not be here, for Neil to never have seen this at all, but he might give even more to just not have to be alone.

So it's good that he doesn't have to.

"I know," he whispers. It's different. He slides an arm around Neil's shoulders and looks up at Tom. He doesn't have to hide from him, and that's one thing that's different. He doesn't have to hide anything.

"I fucking..." He laughs roughly. "I wish Florence was here."

"She is, though, isn't she?" I point out, leaning a little more heavily against Mike, my hand curling loosely around Tom's wrist and my chin tilting up so I can graze the palm of his hand with my lips.

"I mean, somewhere 'round here, she should be..." She hasn't been on the island for a while, and I don't want to think about the possibility that people don't go home after they leave here. Even if home's a fuckin' awful place like this, at least it's not a pitch black fuckin' void of knowin' fuck all.

"She comes and she goes," Tom said, nodding. "She used to get this...call, sometimes, when someone needed her, but she always found her way back."

He rubbed his hand back across his mouth, rolling to his feet with a thoughtful look. "We should've checked the trunk for her pack," he muttered. "She's never gone long when she leaves it behind."

"We'll have to do the best we can without her," he says, looking down at his boots on the dirty floor. Old boots, scuffed and worn. Those are the same as on the Island, anyway. "We might run into her."

He looks up at Tom again, and there's a strength in him that he doesn't remember seeing before. It must have been there before now but he's only now noticing it, a kind of warm determination behind Tom's blue-green eyes. He'd always been so afraid of what the Realm would make him into. But the Island must have changed him too.

Changed all of them.

"We should find some food," he says. "We can't afford to weaken."

Edited 2009-07-12 18:14 (UTC)

"You two are gonna have to lead the way. I dunno what the fuck I'm doin'," I point out with a smirk, turning to press my lips against Mike's neck, tasting salt and sweat and unwashed skin but it's still not unpleasant. Finally, I push to my feet, tired enough that even that stained pallet on the floor looks really fuckin' comfortable.

Holding out a hand to help Mike to his feet, I say, "Let's go, old man."

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