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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."
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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She nods, then finally looks at him. There's no demand in her expression, but she does want to know whatever he's willing to tell her.
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So just pretending like I'm not listening'll have to do.
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He almost feels as though it isn't his to chase.
You don't have to go, he thinks but doesn't say, and turns to Florence again.
"We're from... somewhere far away from here," he says slowly, wondering how in the hell to even explain this to someone who hasn't at least seen it once. "An island. before that, Hobbes and I came from the Realm... but it was another time. Hell, maybe another Realm. It all gets pretty confusing once you end up there." He smiles ruefully. "You were there too, for a while."
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"I never been here before. I came from... someplace else. The island's home, though. Is for me, anyway."
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He pauses, looking into the fire again, fiddling with a blade of dead grass by his feet. "I have children back there," he says. "Twin girls. They just turned two." He smiles thinly. "So this has been kind of an adjustment."
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If she's surprised by the revelation that Mike has children, she doesn't show it, just a sudden concern for the girls and for everyone who is here when they're supposed to be there. Reaching over, she grasps Mike's arm hard and looks at him. You're going back to them.
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I find myself angry -- furious at Tom for leaving, 'cause I know he'd be the one to insist that we're going home. There'd be no question. There's something comforting about that, even if it is naive.
"Their names are Mack and Flo," I murmur, voice quiet and hoarse, distant somehow and muffled by the hand I scrub over my face. He has children back there, but in a way, so does Tom. So do I.
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It's very hard to doubt her.
"I don't know what happened to... to your versions of us," he says quietly, and manages another thin smile. "I hope they aren't running around here somewhere, 'cause that'd be really fucking awkward."
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What's important now is that he understands that they are going back. She doesn't know how she'll make it work, but she will.
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Distantly, I wonder if there's another version of me out there, too. There's supposed to be copies of all of us, right?
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He glances over at Neil again, sees some of the tightness in his face, something that looks like moisture around the eyes, and his heart breaks a little. "Hey," he says softly, reaching out and touching his shoulder. "Get some sleep."
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All I've wanted since we got here was to be near them, but now that I've got at least half my wish, I don't know what to do. Nothing here feels right.
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Either way, he loses. A little.
He glances over at Neil, feeling an unwelcome tightening in his middle. He hadn't dared imagine this moment, hadn't dared to hope for something that might never happen, but if he had, he thinks he would have imagined more than this. An embrace. Quiet words of reassurance. Something more than this awful feeling of distance.
"Get some sleep," he murmurs again, hand on Neil's arm but clearing his throat and turning away to the fire.