Derailment

[forthedog]

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."

Comments

[m-pinocchio.livejournal.com]

"Maybe he... maybe he went back to the car," he says slowly, and he supposes that it's technically possible, though he doesn't really believe it at all. "Or the underground. Maybe he's there."

He reaches out, lays a hand on Tom's shoulder again, though he's using it to steady himself far more than he's trying to impart any comfort. Over the ruined skyline, the greasy sun is setting.

"C'mon, we'll check. But we gotta..." He steps away again, hands helpless at his sides. Dexter comes trotting up, somehow not trampled and snuffling hopefully, and in spite of himself Mike bends and picks him up, and when Dexter licks frantically at his face he barely seems to notice.

"Yeah. Shit."

[out-of-realm.livejournal.com]

"Okay," Tom said, latching on to that meager plan like it was a masterpiece, something they could follow until the rest of the world came online again. It was something, a start, and he knew by now that Neil wasn't anywhere near the beached whale bones of Millennium Stadium.

The cars. Yang. Yang might be a good place to start...

On impulse, he grabbed Mike's wrist and hauled him close, briefly resting his forehead against his jaw.

"...thank you."

[m-pinocchio.livejournal.com]

Something in him seizes and twists, maybe contrasts and maybe just blind terror, but he sets Dexter down again and pulls Tom closer and ignores the staring eyes of the bum a few yards away, reaching up to cup Tom's cheek. There's fierceness saturating every touch, though he's keeping himself gentle. For now.

"You just stay with me," he whispers. "Okay? You stay with me and it'll be all right."

[out-of-realm.livejournal.com]

"Lets go back to the cars," Tom said, pulling away, all business again, hard and cold. He sighed, rubbing one hand down his face.

"Back to the cars, ask around and work block by block if we have to."

[m-pinocchio.livejournal.com]

He nods, turning, looking back for the way they'd come. At some point, he knows that they have to get off the street. And he knows that they won't, not until Neil is safe with them again.

"This way," he says, nodding down a broad street, the el tracks rickety and half-collapsed in the distance. If he focuses on a single point ahead of him, he doesn't have to think about how terrified he is. he closes his eyes momentarily, sends a thought out into the ether, though he has no reason to suppose that it'll be heard. Florence has many powers, but he's never supposed telepathy to be one.

But still.

Florence. If you can hear me, we need you now.