Chapter Text
What was that smell?
Nothing.
No, it was definitely something. Something faint. Maybe sweet?
Maybe sour. Fresh?
Maybe something like gasoline?
Something shook his arm.
“Dad.”
The one voice on planet Earth that could get him up in an instant.
His body forced a deep breath through his nose, waking up his lungs before his brain could catch up. The act lifted his head despite the warmth swimming around it. He blinked in the blackness.
“Dad, wake up.”
“’m awake.” His room, near dark. Covers on the floor. His bed, his house. Such that it was.
“Are you?”
“Yes, I’m awake, look how awake I am.” He turned, getting off his stomach and stifling a yawn. Her golden hair shone haloed in the light from the livingroom. “What’s wrong, sweetheart, why’re you wakin’ me?”
“There was a phonecall.” It had been a long, long time since she had brought him simple problems, like ‘nightmare’ or ‘can’t sleep’.
“Are they still on the line?” He sat up the rest of the way, fondling the lightbulb of the side lamp for a bit before managing to click it on.
Now lit, Holly shook her head. “It was from the Brig. Someone that looks like you is there.”
“Like… a lot like you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just said—”
“No, why are you telling me this?” His heart began to calm. Being woken from a dead sleep was something he’d gotten used to, but that ever-piercing paternal alarm tuned to one, thirteen-year-old frequency always set his adrenaline off. “What do I care?”
“I dunno. Just… sounds like he’s in trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“He doesn’t have shoes on. And doesn’t know where he is. He might need help.”
Holland leaned back against the headboard. “Why’d they call, anyway? Why’d they call to tell me someone that looks like me is there, they think it’s my brother or something?”
“They thought it was you.” She was looking sideways now, avoiding eye contact.
Great. “So they thought I was there, barefoot, no idea where I am, and they called the house, where they knew I wouldn’t be, because they thought I was in front of them.”
“Yes.”
“So they were calling you. On purpose.”
Holly straightened her mouth out, lips pressed together tight.
“And it’s not the first time they’ve called you.”
Guilt? No, no, it was sadder than guilt. Shame. Right. He’d work on that later.
“Well, whatever. I’m sure the guy’s fine. Lots of weird people hang around Venice, he’s just one of them.”
She came back closer to the bed now, willing to look at him again. “But what if he needs help?”
“So what? I got some kind of loyalty cause he looks like me? Mick thinks anyone with a goatee looks like me—“
“It was Rhia.”
“It was Rhia?”
“Yeah.”
A great wealth of information on patrons, he’d learned. Especially when it came to faces. “Fuck.”
“That still doesn’t mean anything. I still don’t see why you woke me.”
“I…” Okay, now it was guilt. Eyes sideways, jaw tight, lips close to her teeth. “...kind of told her I was sending someone to come get you.”
Oh, even better. Just keeps getting better, and better, and best. “You told Rhia you were gonna send someone to come pick me up, because I’m barefoot and confused, all the way at the Boardwalk.”
“Yeah.”
And its Rhia, so if no one does and she holds on to fake-me, she’ll be pissed off at real-me for wasting her time. “So I’ve volunteered, then.”
“Maybe a little.”
He let his lungs fill again, letting the breath out slow. The world was sharp and jagged, and she was going to rock up against it soon enough. There was no point in crushing out her sense of doing the right thing; it was a good foundation. A naive foundation, and one that often got him in trouble, but decent conceptually. A sense of right and wrong, an urge to help people that needed it without wanting anything in return. Something he was proud of her for.
Still annoying as shit when it yanked his leash too hard. “Sorry.”
“What time is it?”
“Little after eight.”
“Little after eight?” That got his feet on the floor.
“In the evening.”
Thank God. “Oh. Wait, that’s not better—why didn’t you wake me up?”
She gave him a little glare—precursor to surly teen years. Fuck, his genes really lost out on that little expression. “You were out all night. If someone falls asleep, you should assume they need it.”
“Don’t use my own logic on me. It’s bad manners.” He grumbled, patting at his sweat-speckled undershirt. Late lunch around two in the afternoon, he’d gone to lie down and let his food settle and now it was eight. “Did you eat?”
“I made a sandwich.”
“Okay. Fine. Fine, where’s—”
Holly was already off and out of the room, hopefully reading his mind.
Shoes, that was the most important thing to find. Couldn’t have two shoeless Holland Marches. That would be ridiculous. “I might be gone a while, can you stay at Jessica’s?”
“I’m almost fourteen!” Her voice carried well through the house. “I can stay by myself.”
“I don’t want you by yourself, sweetheart—”
“Jessica’s mom hates you anyway.”
“And I hate her right back.” He fumbled slacks up his legs, followed by slipping on some loafers.
“I just wanna go to sleep in my own bed. Come on.”
He readied another protest as she walked back in with his holster, coming over to help him fasten it on while he messed with a button-up.
“I’m not a baby.”
“Yeah, well, you’re my baby, so I’m gonna worry about you. And it would make me feel better if you had someone else watching you.”
She shoved on his arm, making him turn and allowing her to reach a buckle to tighten the straps. “And it would make me feel better if someone watched you.”
“Now that’s unfair.”
“It’s fair.”
She spun him back to face her. Her face was screwed up angry still, but also a bit pleading—she had pride, but wasn’t above a please please please routine if it got her what she wanted. More and more every day, she got better at negotiations. Her arguments were getting more thought-out. Still a lot of personal attacks, but now it went beyond basic ‘you’re the worst and I hate you’ stuff to stuff that got him. She was getting harder to direct wherever he needed her to be, and it was becoming a huge pain in the ass.
Something else to be proud of her for.
“Fine. But don’t answer the door for anyone—or the phone. Unless it’s me.”
“How will I know it’s you if I don’t answer?”
He grabbed up a tie. That might’ve been one of his fastest dressings yet. “You’re getting smarter every day, you know that?”
She smiled.
“I’ll go down and see whoever this guy is, see his deal, and if it’s more than just a drive home for him, I’ll drop him off at a church or something. Okay? Is that acceptable to your standards, your Majesty?”
“If you bring home burgers.”
“You said you had a sandwich.”
“It was a little sandwich. And you haven’t eaten.”
Proud. I’m proud of her. Not annoyed. “Okay. But only burgers.”
“With a drink?”
“Of course with a drink, who do you take me for? Expect me to choke down a dry piece of beef without a drink?” He reached for the lamp, grabbing the little knob.
She’d wrinkled her face up, like she bit something bitter. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Are you the fashion police, now?”
“You smell sweaty.”
Now it was his turn to glare. He opened the side-drawer, rummaging around for the little tube he needed. “You watched me put on all this just to tell me at the end that I stink.”
“Sorry.”
He rubbed a few swipes under each arm. “My new friend is just gonna have to put up with it, I’m not getting dressed again.”
Holly stepped backwards, letting him walk out of the room. “I mean, he doesn’t have shoes. I’m guessing he doesn’t have a lot of room to say stuff.”
“Good point.” He grabbed his keys from the dish, already regretting the decision to follow-through.
But God dammit, Holland March did have follow-through.
Sometimes.
He did right now. He’d go see whoever this probably-on-drugs guy was and get him out of the bar, and drop him at a church, or a fire station, or whatever you did with people that needed help but were too much to deal with.
No, fire station is babies. This is a grown man. Presumably.
“Drive safe.”
He took one last look at her, already dressed in pajamas, ready to lounge around until his eventual return with fast-food, about to stay in the house alone, all alone.
“You know you call the cops if there’s trouble, right?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Or Jack? Fuck, not or Jack, and Jack.”
“I know. Go.” She pushed at him, moving him towards the door. He took the contact opportunity to grab her into a hug.
Thankfully, she wasn’t old enough to start rejecting those.
“No pickles.” Her voice muffled slightly in the fabric of his shirt.
“I’ve known you your whole life, Holly, I know your burger order.”
“God, you reek.”
He patted her back, letting her go and heading for the door in a swift motion. “Okay.”
“Drive safe.”
“Love you too, sweetheart.”
He made sure to lock the knob and deadbolt.
“Don’t get too crazy.”
“Love you too.”
~~~~~
Eight-fifty-seven.
Not bad time. A bit of a drive, but there was less traffic after the sun went down. He’d spent time going nowhere on account of rubber-necking, because some people had seemingly never, not once it their lives, driven in the rain, and therefore completely lost their minds as soon as the road got a little wet, but he was, finally, here.
Of all nights for spontaneous rain, of course it’s the one where I have to go out in it.
He stared at the entrance to the bar, sighing. The way over had left him plenty of time to think up a gameplan, but his brain hadn’t kicked up into higher gear until he was already out of the car. All he’d come to do was to go in, assess the guy and see if he was anything to worry about, and then, if he was uncooperative, say he’s a detective and ask the guy to come along. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was close enough that he could get away with it.
‘Course, that last part depended on what kind of strung out this guy was. Might be squirrelly, and the kind that wants to run from a cop. Last thing he wanted right now is to end up in a chase.
What he would tell Rhia was something he hadn’t figured out. The truth seemed easiest, but she might not believe the truth. Of all the bars he’d patroned and questioned, he’d narrowed down a neat list of bartenders he could rely on to place someone, and unfortunately, she made the cut. If she thought someone looked enough like him to call the house about it, the guy must really, really look like him—
Did a glass just break?
He pulled the door open.
Atop one of the booths was a man, maybe six-foot, average build, around one-eighty-five, blond hair, scruffy, dressed in a wool cardigan and white sweatpants, and wearing Holland’s face.
And glasses, too. He had glasses on.
There was much commotion happening – one of the boys in back had come up and was standing on the ground looking up at the troublemaker, and a patron was trying to talk him down from his perch. His arms were spread out against the wall, hand placed haphazardly on a decorative shelf, several tchotchkes now on the floor, hopefully intact. The glass, definitely broken, had been knocked off the table as he scrambled up onto the seat. Customers were murmuring, some were shouting, and most weren’t being very helpful.
“March, get the fuck off my table and get out of my bar!” And Rhia was also not being helpful.
“I’m over here, Ree.”
Her neck nearly snapped with the quickness she looked at him. The anger on her face didn’t lessen, but a heaping helping of confusion splatted on top of it.
He took advantage of the lull, hurrying over to her. “What happened?”
“Is he your brother or some shit?”
“No, he’s not my brother, but I’d like to help get him out of here—”
“You’d better—”
“So I’d like to get filled in on what’s going on, and I can sort this out.”
The bartender huffed. “He came in and asked where he was, I figured you’d gotten a bad haircut and needed a shave, so I told him to sit and drink some water and I called Holly. He sits there like a good boy for a good while, and then he goes to the bathroom. He takes too long, I send Bruce in to see what’s going on, and next thing I know he’s screaming and hollering and climbing my furniture and breaking my shit.”
God knows what he did in that bathroom. Given his behaviour after his break in there, Holland had a few guesses and sighed. “Right. Okay. Thank you.”
“Get him out of my bar.”
“Nice seeing you.” He took a breath before stepping over a spilled drink, not at all relishing the sound of his rubber soles ripping off the barfly-tape floor.
As he approached, the panicked stranger locked on to the movement. His eyes went wider, and he fixed his glasses.
Healy was the one that usually tackled de-escalations nowadays. Mostly ‘cause he was better at ‘em. “Hey, dude. What’s uh, what’s going on?”
“Where—when—who are you? What do you want?”
Oh he’s really strung out. He did his best to offer a smile that looked genuine. “Holland March, I’m a detective. I’m here to get you home, or… wherever you’re trying to get to. Someplace that’s not this bar, hey?”
“How are you gonna get me home? Why do you look like me?”
“Can we just come down off of the booth? Come on.” He took a step closer, hands up and spread. The guy didn’t seem dangerous overall, but Holland knew better than to get within striking range just yet. Scared, cornered animals often bit, and under that faded striped shirt and cozy outerwear, this stranger had some decently coiled muscle. Might even have a weapon.
Seemed like hands-up was the wrong move. He clung harder to the wall, one foot up on the table now, like just a little more height would keep him safe.
“Hey hey—” To compensate, Holland took another step forward,
which was also the wrong move.
The stranger leapt over the back of the booth, hitting the ground feet-first and hard. The suspension in his knees blew, bringing him down the rest of the way before he scrambled to get his socked feet under him. The glass scattered out as he shot over it, sloppily getting to his feet as he ran, desperately moving, fleeing like the reaper followed. The door banged against the wall as he flung it open, cloaked by rain.
Apart from a woman that shrieked when he initially fell and a few gasps, the bar was eerily silent. There was even a lull in the music.
Holland sighed. “Well, I got him out.”
“Get out of my bar.”
His new friend wasn’t getting anywhere fast. From his vantage point under the pavilion, he could tell the guy had probably hurt his ankle or something on the way down from the way he was limping like a motherfucker. Adrenaline was powerful, but it wasn’t magic. He was getting smaller and smaller—slowly.
He could always just lie to Holly. It wouldn’t be the first time, and while the success rate wasn’t that high these days, it would probably still be a higher success rate than trying to tackle this guy. Let him loose onto the beach until he tires himself out, let the beat cops pick him up if he causes too much of a ruckus, go get a burger, and go home.
But he was hurt.
He was hurt, and it was kind of Holland’s fault he got hurt. He was scared, he was hurt, and Holland was trying really hard to not be that bad of a person anymore. And sometimes, not-that-bad-of-people had to chase potentially-dangerous strangers and tackle them onto the concrete for their own good.
Besides, the guy had adrenaline and whatever else he was on, but Holland had two perfectly-working legs. And shoes. It couldn’t take that long.
It shouldn’t have taken that long.
Holland puffed and huffed. Something about the predator approaching the prey made the guy do double time, making the chase double the length it was supposed to be. The detour into the sand didn’t help.
Now, though, he was within striking distance. He was breathing too hard for talking, and talking hadn’t worked out so swell anyway.
No more thinking. Just do.
He put the rest of his juice on his next step, sending himself forward with one last desperate grab and snagged the back of the man’s collar. A strange hiccuping sound came out, a panting breath snapped shut, and Holland moved quick to grapple the guy to the ground before he could start swinging with any force—though he did catch Holland in the jaw on the way down with an errant elbow.
His voice muffled against the sand, sounding squished out of him and breathless. “Let me go—”
“Shut up! Shut up, just can it.” His throat burned with salt, lungs and mouth aching. Was he really that out of practice? “Stop talking. Catch your breath, we’re both gonna—gonna sit here, and catch—our breath.”
At the very least, the guy listened now. The hand Holland was holding behind his back didn’t try and fight him, and the one on the ground grabbed a fistful of sand.
“Don’t you dare throw that shit at me.”
“I won’t.” From the sound of things, the guy wasn’t in much better shape than Holland was. Also sounded a little too wet in the sinuses.
“Good. Good.” Something felt like he really meant it.
They both held there, still as they could, getting progressively wetter as their bodies slowly calmed down from the impromptu relay-race.
“Are you crying?”
No answer.
“Are you gonna be good?”
“I’m good. I’ll be good.”
Holland let go.
True to his word, he was good. He got off of his stomach, but he just sat up and tried nothing more.
“Your glasses.”
The stranger panicked before picking them off the sand, shaking them clean.
“Look, don’t—unless you know someone’s trying to get you, don’t run from people. Alright? It’s bad manners.”
“I didn’t know if you were trying to get me or not.”
“Well I’m not. Long story short is the bartender called me to come give you a hand and get you back wherever you need to be. That’s it. And now you panicked and fucked up your foot and we just had this lovely little run-around for no reason.”
Ew. Ew, ew. This guy shouldn’t be making that face. He didn’t know why, but Holland hated whatever he was doing. Brow slightly furrowed, eyes askance, lips slightly tucked in with a tight jaw, looking like a dog that made a mess on the carpet. It was disgusting.
“Stop with the face on your face. Did you roll your ankle?”
“I think I stepped on something.”
Holland glanced. There was faint red smudges around from where the man had squirmed. “Probably the glass you broke.”
Eugh—
“What did I say about the face?”
He half-crawled to get a look at the injury—his pants were already gonna need a good washing anyway—and sighed again. Well, the glass had fallen out or never stuck in at all, but it left behind a mess. Stitches, maybe, but at least some gauze packed on.
He sat back on his haunches. “Where are you from?”
The hesitation was worrying. “San Francisco.”
Dammit. “How the shit did you end up all the way down here?”
“I don’t know. I went to sleep in my own bed and I woke up on a bench here.”
That’s too far of a drive for tonight. I’m not leaving her alone that long. “Great.”
“I don’t want to get back to San Francisco.”
“No?” Might make things more simple.
“I mean, that’s where I’m from, but it’s not home. I live somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“It’s uh…” More hesitation. Saying he was a detective was definitely the wrong move. “I’m—I live very far from here. Too far to drive. What um—what year is it?”
Oh boy, great. “Why?”
“Just… the fashion looks very ‘70s. Breaching ‘80s.”
“That’s ‘cause it’s 1978.” Whatever break from reality this man was having could wait. Looked like he aged a decade after hearing the year, though. “How about we get that foot looked at?”
“Where?”
“Well, the car would be a good start. Stop the bleeding and wash the sand out. “
The man wasn’t running, but that didn’t mean he trusted him.
I don’t have time for this. Fuck my jaw hurts. “Look, we’ll wrap your foot up, and then… get burgers.”
“Uh—bur—I don’t um…”
Holland stood. “What, allergic to beef or some shit?”
“No, just…”
“We’ll patch up your foot, then swing by Big Boy and get burgers and figure out what to do after that.” He held out a hand.
The guy was at least of sound mind enough to grab it, letting Holland help him to his feet.
“Now lean on me, don’t make that foot worse.”
“Thank you.”
“Shut up.”
They hop-walked off the sand, damp and probably smelling like mold, if he remembered what wet wool became. Had to dry that out. It was a nice cardigan, if a little old. Would be a shame to have it ruined.
“Got a name?”
“Grace.”
“Your parents wanted a girl?”
No laughter. Eh, people rarely did. “No, uh—well, I mean, maybe, I never knew if they did. Ryland Grace. Dr. Ryland Grace.”
Oh, so he was a smart lunatic. “Well, nice to meet you, Doctor. Don’t bleed all over my car.”
~~~~
There was little else to do on an open road but talk.
Well, that’s true for most open roads. The plains type between the places people actually wanted to be, where there was corn, or cows, or whatever the fuck else people were trying to grow out in the middle of nothing. Out there, the most excitement you could hope for was a slightly bigger foothill rolling off some mountains somewhere – or if you were lucky, a deer could try a suicide jump into your windshield and really give everything a little spice.
That was true for those roads.
This open road, this little winding miserable thing between dead or dying trees all slickered with rain and stinging like cigarette smoke, this beauty was something you needed to pay attention to. One side was occasionally a sheer cliff face that you couldn’t climb even if it wasn’t piss-wet, and the other could either be a swath of uninteresting greenery or a drop-off – not far enough to kill you, but definitely far enough to hurt your body and your wallet. The rain itself wasn’t too heavy, but the fact there was rain at all this time of year felt either cruel or supernatural – or if patterns were consistent, just horrible luck that was somehow his fault. Something that called for a slow, steady pace.
Naturally, it required a bit of focus. Not like it was hard, but it was annoying.
“I guess this just came out, didn’t it?”
So hearing that droning, too-expressive, overdoing-it voice once again start gearing up for how did I get here, this shouldn’t be possible, what am I going to do just barely loud enough over the radio definitely made it all a little more irritating.
“Could you give it a rest for the time being, maybe?”
“What?”
He spared a sideways glance, seeing the light catch his co-pilot’s glasses as his look was returned. His hand was still in the paper bag from the drive-thru, fishing for a fry. “It came out last year. Or a few months ago, I haven’t been counting. Doesn’t matter. Who fuckin’ cares?”
“It’s—it’s just weird. Interesting I guess.” Holland focused back on the road. “Just trying to make conversation.”
“I’m not a big conversation guy after midnight.”
“Is it really that late?”
“Yes, it’s that late.” He rapped his fingers on the dashboard clock briefly. True to his word, it pointed to a quarter after. “Damn line was forty years long for everyone that wasn’t freakin’ the fuck out.”
“Oh.”
The windshield squeaked as the wipers scraped across the surface. Annoying, but not annoying enough to get them replaced just yet – especially here, where every precipitation prediction felt like a joke and summers scorched all the picture-perfect lawns yellow if you didn’t water them yourself.
“If you’re tired, I could drive a little, or something. I’m a little out of practice—”
“You don’t know where you’re going—and y’know something, I don’t know how much I trust a guy that fell out of the sky behind the wheel.”
The passenger suppressed what sounded like a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t fall out of the sky-”
“Semantics, you get my point. My car, I’m driving.”
His passenger slumped against the door, glasses gently touching the window with a soft tap. Another fry vanished up into the void. Bad manners to eat the main event before you got home, but fries were for grazing, and the guy ate like he hadn’t had a hot meal in a decade.
Holland continued driving. It really was a full body activity, bracing against the cars force on each turn, trying not to roll around like a loose flask under the back seat. Not to mention the attention required on a road this slippery, with not another soul in sight—
“Did Rumours come out already?”
Holland sighed, letting his head fall back against the top of his seat. “Is that... not what we’re listening to right now?”
“Oh. Right, my—my bad. Sorry.”
He had to put it out of his mind right now.
It was weird – guy shows up, looking like he just walked out of the sea onto a new planet, asking what year it was, all while wearing Holland’s face – but it was too much to think about this late at night. Tomorrow, they could talk, and tomorrow, they could figure it out. Maybe Healy would have an idea of how to deal with whatever break from reality this guy was having, or a reason besides ‘Mom decided she only wanted to keep one of us’ as a reason for the whole Doppelganger situation.
The fucking outrageous line for a goddamn burger made it impossible to drop him off anyplace safe without leaving Holly even longer, and she’d hate him double if he just set the guy loose in a random neighbourhood to get nabbed up by a paranoid civilian. Plus, there was the matter of the soaking-wet cardigan that would need some help to keep it fresh, and there was sure as hell no one else who would give him help with that.
And he was safe to be around. He’d become certain of that. Said he was a school teacher, and he acted the part – soft. The cheese had fully slid off his cracker, but it was definitely the ‘I think the moon is made of cheese’ kind of mental break, not the ‘everyone’s a lizard-person and I have to get my hands on a gun’ kind. The kind that could spend a night in his house and he wouldn’t be up half the night making sure he wasn’t up to no good.
“Do you have a favourite?”
But he was the sort that couldn’t sit with himself for too long if someone else was around to see it.
“Song, I mean. From the album. Or I—I guess I should ask if you like Fleetwood Mac—”
“Who doesn’t like Fleetwood Mac?” Holland clicked the wipers off. The noise was more annoying than the rain at that point, and it was dying down enough now anyway.
“...I mean, no one I’ve met. But I don’t like to assume things about people.”
“...so you don’t have a favourite?”
“This one’s fine.”
He could see his passenger turn to look at him just out of his periphery, smiling.“Yeah, it’s a good one.”
“You know, a lot of people think Stevie wrote it for Lindsey to sing after he cheated on her, and it was her way of getting revenge, but that’s not true. Lindsey wrote it about her.”
Back with the neat facts. The road was turning less, the rain was letting up. Maybe talking would tire the guy out the rest of the way, and make things easier. “Did he cheat on her?”
“I don’t… think so. But y’know what people say about that kind of stuff?”
He felt the smile on him more than he saw it. Holland readied himself for the stupid punchline for whatever joke he was setting up.
“It’s all just Rumours.”
“Wow.”
His passenger sat up a bit, reaching for the dial and turning it up one notch.
“Did you come up with that one on your own?”
“It’s not clever enough to get it anywhere else.”
“At least you own it.”
Holland tapped the steering wheel to the beat.
“This is—I’d call this their biggest album. People still listen to Landslide, but most of their biggest hits are off this one.”
“The whole album?” Best to just play along with the delusion for now. No one would get hurt, that way. In honesty, the teacher was more likely to get hurt by any refusal to roleplay, and Holland didn’t want the poor guy hurt. Because he was a nice guy.
“I guess not, but a lot of them. This one, Dreams, The Chain… I like Silver Springs more, personally.”
He would make Holly sleep in his room though. The lock on the door was better. “Never heard that one.”
“It gets released later. More band drama. Stevie did write that one about their break-up. And Dreams, obviously.”
“So you’re a music guy? You seem invested in this stuff.”
“Oh, no. Just um… just a trivia guy. Pick up all sorts of little facts.”
“Gotcha.”
“You’re fine sleeping on a couch, right?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s- yeah. I don’t mind that. Nothing I haven’t done a few times before.”
“Good. Too much shit in the guest room, and I’m not cleaning it out for one night. No offense.”
“None taken.”
The road was tiring, but at least it wasn’t boring. Boring roads made you sleepy, boring roads made you doze off. Wouldn’t be making that mistake again—especially not here.
“One night—am I on my own after tonight?”
“No,” Holland winced at the sudden sternness in his voice. The guy clearly needed help. He wasn’t kicking him to the curb anytime soon—at least until he could find whoever his caretakers were. “I’m just operating under the assumption that tomorrow’s gonna be a lot better, and we can figure all this out.”
He looked over in time to catch the tail end of a nod.
“Then you can get out of my hair.”
His passenger continued looking forward, face sullen. It was that same look Holly got anytime he made her stay home from a job – y’know, like a normal dad would do – and it always prickled at him.
“Hey, look at me.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the teacher listened, meeting his gaze. Other than the way the glasses sat sorta low on his nose and the lack of a moustache, it felt like looking in a sad mirror—or… a sadder mirror, really.
God damn that’s creepy. “We’ll get you back to those little snot-nosed pricks in no time, right?”
A little smile tugged at his lips.
“Right?”
“Right.”
“Good. Cause I don’t need any m0re—”
“March!”
The road, the road—
The bright headlights washed over a figure for the briefest moment before it came up over the hood, thunking hard against the windshield as Holland stood on the breaks. It rolled back down with the sudden lack of movement, thumping onto the pavement with a strange squishy sort of sound, muffled.
Fuck.
“...you hit someone.” He felt Ryland’s voice rumble softly from the arm still flung across the teacher’s chest.
“Shit.”
He opened his door, stepping into the weakened rain. He heard his passenger do the same, then stop.
The night seemed too still.
Neither of them wanted to move.
“It could be a deer or something, who knows—”
“Holland, you hit someone—”
“You don’t know that,” Holland pointed an accusatory finger. His other hand rested on the door, unwilling to verify his claim, “it’s probably just a deer. No one’s gonna be out this far.”
“That was a guy, that wasn’t a deer—”
“What do you know about deer, you said you were from San Francis-”
“I know what a human being getting hit with a car looks like!”
“Fine, then you check—”
“You hit them! You check!”
“Fine! Fine—” He held his eyes on his unwilling accomplice another moment before working his jaw and turning his attention to the space in front of his car. The hood occluded the actual landing site, so it took a few slow, very hesitant steps forward to actually see the damage.
The damage came in the form of a slumped heap of muddy, wet cloth. Clothing, clothes. Not fur. Two hands, two feet, with arms and legs to match. A human head with a human cheek resting against the shining pavement, turned away.
“Yeah…” Fuck. “Yeah, that’s a guy. That’s a guy.”
The teacher darted forward at that. He, too, saw the human body laying on the ground, bent only in the right places but still clearly not well, and looked… not quite horrified, more heartbroken.
Holland rested his hands on his knees, turning away. “Oh my God, I think I’m gonna puke—”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know, Ryland, I’ve never hit someone with my car before! Not like this!”
“Is he dead?”
Uneven footsteps and a little grumbling exhale meant Ryland had crouched down by the victim, probably giving him the once-over. A beat of silence followed.
“Hey, he’s—he’s got a pulse, he’s breathing hard, he’s not—”
Something like quick-shifting leather sounded, and after came a shrill, terrified shriek. It pierced through the night air in a violent, embarrassingly familiar way, and forced Holland to see what sort of mangled corpse face Ryland had probably just pulled off the pavement.
Well, he wasn’t dead.
The bile rising up into Holland’s throat rocketed right back down as a stone in his belly. A muddy, pavement-scuffed hand was wrapped around Ryland’s wrist.
Ryland looked stuck in his own sort of rigor mortis, staring bug-eyed at the pile of limbs on the ground. The man – it was a man, after all, in jeans and a leather jacket and running shoes – was starting to get up, groaning like the living dead.
Holland reached for his holster, preparing for him to be angry about the attempted vehicular manslaughter.
Ryland reached for his shoulder, sitting him upright and making an attempt to swipe a stuck leaf off out of his hair. “Are—are you okay?”
The man responded with a too-enthusiastic thumbs-up, shaking his head like a wet dog.
“Good, ah—”
“Is that wool? You probably shouldn’t be out in the rain, that stuff stinks when you get it wet—” The stranger continued to sit up, now firmly upright and rubbing his knee. Wait, his voice—
“It’s—yeah, it’s—” Ryland looked to Holland for… something. Backup? Explanation? A soothing word? All he could offer back was a bewildered shrug.
The stranger nodded, interrupting again, “don’t feel too bad about that, it’s not the first time.”
Holland approached a bit more, fingers dusted over the top of his holster. This guy definitely got thwacked pretty good. At least he’s up.
Ryland put up a hand to stop him, keeping his eyes on the man on the ground. “Uh… you get hit… often…?”
“We probably shouldn’t stay out here, can you give me a ride somewhere… not in the woods?”
His passenger gave March a small look – asking permission, but it was more of a demand. He rolled his eyes and waved a hand. This guy was not spending the night, but he’d at least like to get the guy off this no-where road. He’d sleep better.
“Sure.” Now the not-corpse was reaching out to touch Ryland’s face, smudging mud on it. Served him right for getting so close. “Sure, we can see a doctor and it’ll all be… good, we’ll get you checked out—”
“Cool, uh—“ Mr. Roadkill retracted his hand, and his head tilted to one side. “Probably a crazy question, but tonight’s crazy so who knows, so I’ll just ask anyway; is your name March?”