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."

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"We gotta go quick," he says, taking a step back towards the stairs, his hand on his gun again and his voice distant in his ears. On autopilot. Running on a pattern until the rest of himself can process. "'S not just the fire. We probably didn't get all of 'em and they might be coming down here to check on their--" His mouth twists sharply. "--Merchandise."

"Yeah, I got it," I insist, even though just standing is taking more effort than it should. My head is pounding, blood pulsing behind my eyes, heat flaring up in my swollen cheek, one eye open to barely a slit, and I don't even wanna know what I look like right now.

Stepping carefully away from him, I make my way toward the stairs, trying not to wince at the word merchandise, even though it's pretty fuckin' perfect.

"If you don't let us help you," Tom said firmly, going around and slipping an arm under Neil's shoulder, taking as much of the other man's weight as Neil let him, "It's just going to be more dangerous for all of us."

He looked at Neil, which was almost hard to do. Beaten, battered, eye swelled shut and clothes in obvious disarray. Jesus. Who knows what would have happened if they'd been later, what had already happened that they hadn't been here for.

"Don't argue," he said softly, starting to help him up the stairs.

He moves ahead of them, attention at once scattered and focused. The air is starting to darken with smoke, though that's no sure sign that the fire has spread this far. He glances back, catches both their faces, Tom tired and drawn and Neil bruised and filthy, walking somehow in spite of everything.

God, I'm so sorry.

"This way," he says, motioning down towards where he thinks the side entrance is. If he can focus on that, on getting them all out of here alive, he won't have to think about his bloody hands, about how much he doesn't even feel like he belongs here with them.

But he knows now: he doesn't belong out there anymore, either.

"I just wanna get outta here," I say, barely even a whisper, my arm curling around his waist and taking the offered support without argument. I'm too fuckin' tired to argue, anyway.

There are no bodies. The only sign that anything happened up here at all, when we step up out of the stairwell, are the bullet holes, the scattered furniture and the splatters of blood on the floor and walls.

I don't wanna know how many it was. Honestly, I don't really care. Not about them, but...

"What 'bout the others. There were kids up here."

"Florence got them," Tom said reassuringly, "Before everything got messy over here. I don't know if she's even going to meet us back at the car. Knowing her, she'll get the kids someplace safe and meet up with us a few days from now."

If they were still here, a few days from now.

"We went to the room where--where they were," he says haltingly, glancing back again. Absentmindedly, he touches a wall and leaves a long red smear. "It was empty. Like he says, Florence got 'em out."

The hallways are thick with smoke and heat and the distant crackling sounds of fire, distant but not as distant as he'd like. The rear of the theater hadn't been far from the fire, and he'd been expecting it to catch, sooner or later.

"Here," he says, turning left abruptly, stepping through the crack and, forgetting himself momentarily, reaching back to help Tom and Neil through.

It's a reflex... instinct that has me curling my hand around Mike's and letting him pull me through and into safety. My eyes meet his for a moment, but then drop away, feeling something wrench behind my ribs at what I see there. The emptiness on his face.

I wanna hold on to him, feel that he's real like I got to do with Tom, but it doesn't look like that's gonna be in the cards just yet.

"Does she remember us?" I ask, and what I really mean is, does she remember me.

"No..." Tom said after a pause as he got through the fence, watching Neil and Mike before tugging them both along. Through the haze, he can see tints of orange, and just because the ants weren't in the hill anymore didn't mean they weren't lurking around the outskirts. The car was getting closer, but it was too soon to feel relief.

"She knows that something's wrong, though. Different." He glanced at Neil as he looped his arm under his shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"I need to talk to her," he says softly, mostly to himself. If that's even possible anymore, if they'll see her again before they leave. Assuming they leave.

More and more, despite what Tom says, he's beginning to believe that this may be all they have left, now. When he looks at Neil again, he sees the congealing blood smeared over his right hand and he feels like crying. He should be happy. Neil is safe, they're getting out, they're going to be together again. But happy is about the furthest thing from him.

He turns again, looks back. The warehouse is half collapsed, the flames dying down, but the back of the theater has indeed caught and smoke is billowing out of several of its windows. Another building is also beginning to smoke. Even from here the heat feels like a physical force on his skin.

"Jesus," he whispers.

Looking back over my shoulder, the smoke pluming out of the top of the theater, the warehouse collapsed behind, I feel nothing but a cold, hollow sort of triumph. I want the place to burn to the fucking ground. I want it to have never existed in the first place.

"Don't be," I mutter to Tom, looking away. There's nothing to be sorry for. Not for that, anyway.

Mike's barely even looking at me, and there's something different in his eyes when he does. It's like having my heart ripped out of my chest. Everything was supposed to be okay now. Why does it still feel so wrong?

"Come on," Tom said, refusing to look back. There was nothing back there for them. All they needed was the car, the road, and a merciful morning after, waking up in the cradle of the World Tree, at home.

He had to believe that, even now.

"We're not home yet."

Derailment

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