forthedog | 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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tom winced and quickly looked away, but a moment later he was back in the game, Neil's face flashing in front of his eyes, brief and scared.

"He's not kidding," Tom said flatly, going into a crouch, looking down at the man's face, covered in bloody spittle. "Usually, I play good cop, here. I tell him to be nice. To give you a chance. But here's the thing, you're standing between us and something we want very, very badly." He picked up one of the man's teeth off the ground and threw it at his shirt. "That's not a safe place to be. Tell us. About. The vans."

The man spit up at him, bloody and awful, and Tom just turned away abruptly, and said to Mike. "That's it, shoot him."

"Wait!" the man garbled, suddenly apologetic and desperate. "I...migh' remember...thomthing...today? You want to know about today?"

In spite of everything, the order startles him him, and he has time to wonder briefly whether or not he's really going to do this, shoot a man in cold blood and not only in front of Tom but at Tom's word--and then the man speaks, and Mike manages to hide the wave of relief that sweeps through him.

He'll wonder about the relief later.

"Today," he says coldly, staring down. "This afternoon, fuckwad. Out in the park, where the assembly was. Start talking."

The man's beady eyes danced around the ally, flickering from corner to corner, pile to pile, remembering. Tom stood behind him impassively, trying to keep Neil's face in the forefront of his mind. Neil and Mike necking on the bed in the middle of the afternoon, Mike's hand drifting between Neil's legs, the amber fall of sunlight, the big, plush bed. Life has been better than it is right now.

And it will be, again. He had to believe that.

"Bosco," the little man managed, shoulders hunched. "Slaver. Keepth the skin outside town until sale day." Suddenly eager to be helpful, he glanced back at Tom before continuing. "Old Order gets first dibs. They want...um...you know. Bed warmer'th. And anyone that they could use...ah...politically."

He eyed Mike suspiciously, as if he'd just suddenly become familiar. "You're not political, are you?"

Mike rolls his eyes. "If by 'political' you mean 'completely ready to murder your ass,' then yes, we're extremely political." He leans in a little, still holding the gun up, but the gun isn't even the real threat. He's done things to people that had them weeping, begging, and a gun never had anything to do with it. Part of him is dead and cold and always will be, now. He doesn't need to see himself to know that it's showing in his eyes.

"Where outside town?" His free hand moves, and it settles on the hilt of his knife. "You tell me now, you walk away. You might even do it in one piece." His gaze hits the man's bloody chin and he remembers the sound of teeth hitting the pavement, and to his own horror he feels himself grin. "Mostly."

He never wanted Tom to see him like this, no matter how many times he already has. Maybe it's a blessing that Neil isn't here.

"Aurora," the man breaths, spraying blood, He sagged on the asphalt, palms bracing himself against the oil slicked ground, breathing in gasping, thick noises.

"Old Paramount theater..." He looked up at Mike, bleary eyed. "You're already dead if you think you're getting in there," he said, sounding satisfied. "You go there - death th'entence. You won't even get to go on the stage. Best guarded buildin' outside Santiago City. You're already dead."

Tom spat angrily, bile surfacing in the back of his throat. He leaned down and pressed the muzzle of his gun against the back of the little man's head. Who was he in the real world? What had he done in a world that wasn't ruined by all this? Father? Husband? Son?

"You mention this to anyway, we'll find you. Tell people you got mugged. Tell them you cheated us at cards. Tell them anything. But tell them what we came for, and we'll find you. We will find you."

They've been already dead before so many times, more times than he can count, and he only snorts disdainfully and lands a sharp kick to the side of the man's thigh. No permanent damage, but enough to leave a nasty bruise, and the man yelps again and clutches at his leg with a bloody hand.

"That was just on principle," Mike growls. "You heard the man. Get the fuck outta here."

The little man gets to his feet, looks from Tom to Mike, and clearly he expects to be shot in the back the second he turns it. But finally the chance of escape is too much and he turns and hobbles away, whimpering quietly and shooting murderous glances back over his shoulder.

"We shoulda killed him," Mike says, watching him go. Suddenly he's just tired, deeply weary. They'll have to rest soon, before they do anything else. "He'll blab."

"We're going home on Monday," Tom said, with the desperate, unwavering conviction of true believer, like he'd boiled the whole world down to that one simple truth.

"Lets see what his blabbing can do before then."

His shoulders sagged and he looked immeasurably tired. He gave Mike a fleeting, exhausted grin.

"Aurora, huh?" He stretched, holstering his gun. "We better get moving."

When she finds them, they're moving, headed somewhere and she feels their urgency, but doesn't know the mission. Not yet. They'll tell her, as they always have and she'll help as much as she can, as she always does. Gun in hand, tucked carefully against her side, Florence falls in step beside Tom and looks across him at Mike, at them both.

Questioning. Asking, Where are we going? Because it's the three of them now, whatever they need.

This isn't where she thought she'd find them, but they always move on without her if she needs to leave and she always finds them.

When he turns to her, he's barely surprised. He should be, but he isn't; that she should be here now seems only right and proper and what anyone could expect. Part of him wants to smile with relief and embrace her, hold onto her, because he's lost her once and in wanting to leave here he can only lose her again.

But this isn't the Florence he remembers, and he couldn't even begin to explain what's happened. What's happening. So he gives her a grim smile, grips her shoulder briefly in the closest thing to an embrace that they usually reach.

"One of our... friends got snatched up by skin traders," he says simply. "We gotta try to bust him out." He nods down the street, towards the car in the distance, a low hulk in the dimness. They don't have to go back to the El cars. There's nothing there for them.

"We gotta get outta town first."

Something gets equally tighter and easier when Tom sees her, the familiar short hair, expressive silence, semi-automatic strapped across her back. He smiled briefly, but looked away quickly, unable to handle the moment so easily as Mike.

She'd held the twins, played with there hair. They'd laughed together in the late, humid evening, watching Pinocchio be a father like he'd been born to it.

Now...now was too hard to imagine.

"Bosco's the trader," he said gruffly, talking to the sidewalk and looking at her over his shoulder. "Know anything about him?"

Florence considers the name for a moment, searching her mind, trying to find something about the man in question, then shakes her head. She's heard of him before, it's impossible to have not heard of him around these parts, but she doesn't know much of anything. Nothing they probably already don't know from their own search for information.

Her eyebrows lift questioningly, though. Friend? Mike doesn't make friends, he barely tolerates Tom's presence most of the time even now, even after all this time.

Derailment

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject