Work Text:
“Some things don't pass,
the injuries don't heal they merely find a place in our guts and in our bones where they fitfully rest,
tossing and turning between our knuckles and ribs waiting to wake as the shadows grow long.”
Toby Barlow; Sharp Teeth
They make it to a parking lot on the outside of the rail yard; a necropolis of metal, abandoned vehicles with smears of blood on the windows, others with doors left open and a couple - miraculously - still idling with keys in the ignition.
It’s an easy pattern to read - and he hates how he can recognise it now, less than twenty-four hours after he stumbled into this waking nightmare with little more than a bad feeling. But he can tell by the line of cars, starting neat, ending crumpled and broken, and the trail of blood and gore that a swarm had descended on the lot, people had abandoned their cars when they realised there had been no way out, and only a few of them had made it.
They pile into one such car, doors left wide open, keys still in ignition. Almost a full tank of gas. He can see a heap of blankets in the trunk, and Claire reaches back for one to give to Sherry, who’s already buckled into the backseat without so much as a word.
( “Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend?” she’d asked.
“Woulda been one hell of a first date,” Claire had said, and while he’d responded easily enough, inwardly he’d balked at the notion, because how could they even think about dating when an entire city was gone to hell, when-)
But it’s behind the wheel Leon finds himself again, Claire next to him, a mirror of their first meeting, except now they hold an equal amount of answers to questions.
“Where are we going?” Sherry asks, as he pulls them onto the main road, trying to ignore the fact the turning of the wheel pulls on his injured shoulder; a slow throb that's long-mingled with the other myriad aches of his body.
“Somewhere away from here,” he says, because that’s the only answer he’s got for now.
He drives, only stops when Claire asks him to, and only after the fourth time she asks, when the slow exhaustion that’s dogged him since the city finally rears its head too long for him to ignore it. They don’t have to go much farther before he’s slowing the car to pull into the parking lot of a dirt cheap motel somewhere along the highway.
Sherry’s long ago fallen asleep, the sun is low on the horizon and he’s dragging himself out of the car before he’s quite aware he’s doing it.
“Stay with her,” he says to Claire, nodding to the small, sleeping form on the back seat; fumbling in his pockets for his wallet, or- something.
His fingers brush a crumpled piece of paper, bloodstained and damp with water, but still legible.
“Oh-” he remembers finding it in the station, reading the signature and realising- “I found this. Earlier- last night - it’s-”
It’s from her brother, a note that reads like it was written by a frat in college, but a tangible link that hopefully means Claire’s brother wasn’t one of the officers he’d had to put down in the station.
( Again, and again, and again-)
He leaves her with the paper, heads to the clerk’s desk, aware of his state of dress but hoping that the battered police uniform under all the grime will still carry enough clout to get little questions asked. He’s fortunate, in the end. The amount of sewage he’s accumulated - and its accompanying smell - means the clerk’s more concerned with getting him to leave the office more than anything, directing him to a room and their stores of lost-and-found clothing.
“Anywhere we can get some food?” he asks; he’s not hungry, not really, but he knows he needs to eat. Claire and Sherry too.
He’s pointed toward a fast-food place across the street, warned that they probably won’t serve him if he goes in “smelling like something crawled into a storm drain and died there” (and he has to stifle a laugh at the bitter irony in that, because something did die there, something died and wouldn’t stay dead and just kept coming back and-).
He heads there anyway, knows that once he stops moving he won’t be able to start again. Thankfully the place is empty - the motel doesn’t seem to get much traffic as it is - and the kid behind the register is more occupied with looking at the TV mounted on the wall than the man in front of him ordering cheap, grease-soaked food.
As he leaves, he catches a glimpse of what's on - a muted, overhead shot of a vaguely familiar city, a towering column of smoke and a burning orange glow of fire.
He doesn’t stick around to read the crawl along the bottom.
Claire and Sherry are where he left them - Sherry’s up and out of the car now, Claire’s holding a carefully wrapped bundle of blanket that he realises is hiding all their weaponry. The rational part of his brain knows that it’s probably safe to leave most of it locked in the trunk of the car, but the part that currently rules him right now is still running on conserve, take anything you can carry, don’t let yourself be caught empty handed.
The room’s small, tidy, plain. To be expected. Two beds, a bathroom, a table with some chairs. A Bible on the nightstand.
It’s amazing how he can consider something so small and impersonal a safe haven, but the sheer sight of a room that doesn’t carry the lingering tang of death and decay almost brings him to tears.
Instead he sets down the bag of food on the table; Claire stows the bundle of blanket and guns on top of the wardrobe, out of the reach of Sherry (who he doesn’t think is the curious sort to mess about with guns, but he’s glad for the reassurance all the same).
He portions out the food, in the end he’d had to get some of everything and hope that they didn’t mind; pushes a cup of soda toward Sherry and takes a bottle of water for himself. Sherry’s meal also comes with a small, stuffed toy; he’s not sure whether she’s too old to enjoy them as much now, but she clutches it to her chest all the same. He briefly remembers when he was a kid, how the toys would be faintly warm and smelling of salt, and how he’d place them all carefully on the shelf by his bed.
It’s Claire that breaks the silence. She’s been idly picking at her food, whereas Leon has taken his police-academy drive to force himself to eat everything that’s before him. It’s mechanical, with a vague detached air about it, as if he’s a kid spoon feeding air to a toy doll.
But Claire picks up a fry, sets it down again, and says,
“What do we do now?”
He doesn’t reply for a long moment, makes out he’s finishing his mouthful of food when in actuality there’s nothing there.
“I don’t know,” he admits finally, quietly. “For now we get some rest and see what the morning brings.”
“If it’s not over, we’ll stop them,” Sherry cuts in, decisively, and Leon finds himself smiling despite himself.
“Not smelling like this, we won’t,” Claire says, rising. “C’mon Sherry, let’s get you cleaned up.”
They both shut themselves bathroom, but not before Claire passes him out a first aid kit retrieved from the cabinet. After a moment, he hears the shower turn on, and then he’s left figuring out how he’s going to put himself back together again.
He doesn’t make it very far before the bullet wound in his shoulder announces itself again - it had been bandaged well enough before, but that was several hours ago in less-than-sterile conditions. Now he can barely lift his arm to get his shirt off around it, and it’s a very long, painful tug-of-war to do so.
He’s still figuring it out when the pair emerge again, dressed in not-quite-fresh but clean clothes salvaged from the motel’s lost and found.
“Pass out your stuff,” Claire says, as he makes his own way to the tiny bathroom, “I’ll see if I can get it cleaned.”
He’s surprised when he looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t look any different. He’s not sure what he was expecting - some sort of sign that he’s a different person, maybe, a hard glint in his eye to reflect the amount of lives he’s taken ( or hasn’t, he doesn’t know anymore, doesn’t know where to draw the line ), or a palpable sign that he’s somehow marked.
He’s covered in blood and grime, there are dark purple bruises around his neck in the shape of a hand, and he can see traces of more on the rest of his torso that’ll undoubtedly rise within the next few days. There are dried and crusted pieces of- of something - clinging to his neck. The bullet wound is a streak of crimson on his shoulder.
But other than that, all he sees is the same rookie who decided he was going to do his job, damn whoever told him to stay away. Same hair, same eyes, same everything.
Somehow, that’s worse.
He stands in the shower for a long time, long after the water’s run clear, and he wonders how much of himself he’s washed away with it.
He thinks that maybe this is how it is, that it’s less about putting himself back together than it is being able to deal with a self in fractured parts, sharp splintered edges that tear and threaten to create more holes. He can’t put himself back together because he doesn’t have enough to do it with. Instead he just has to cobble along with what he has until the edges are smoothed over enough that they won’t hurt anymore.
The room’s dark when he finally leaves the bathroom, the curtains are drawn and he can tell that the small form huddled under the bedcovers is a now-asleep Sherry. Claire’s stood by the door, and she gestures with her head for him to join her outside.
Outside is colder, night has fallen and the world is streaked with the glow of neon lights and street lamps. It’s clear out, the rain has long cleared away to open sky and a moon that’s still clinging to the horizon. The occasional long-distance truck roars by, in the distance he can hear the high, mournful wail of a coyote, but other than that the night is quiet and theirs to have.
“Got you a drink,” Claire says, holding out two paper cups. “I wasn’t sure whether you liked tea or coffee so I got both, I’ll have whatever you don’t want.”
“Either is fine,” he replies.
He feels her gaze rake over him for a moment, analytical, almost as if she’s deciding which she’d rather give him.
The warm cup that’s pressed into his hand is full of tea; he contemplates what she saw that decided he would be the one to receive it, but the anxious tapping of her fingers on the edge of the cup distracts him from lingering on the thought any longer.
“Thank you,” she says suddenly, and he startles, because he’s not sure what she’s got to thank him for, he was the one who brought her into the city, who drove them headfirst into danger and then left her at a moment’s notice-
“For keeping the note, from Chris,” she follows, pulling out the piece of paper. Her face turns quizzical, pensive. “It’s his writing, but- but it doesn’t sound like him. D’you think he’s trying to say something?”
He knows what she’s referring to, they know too much now to not see the coincidence in the word Umbrella and the over-the-top tone of the letter.
“Maybe,” he says, “I don’t know him like you do.”
She nods, her hands are still clutched around the cup like a lifeline, one wrong move and he knows the paper will come apart in her hands.
“What happened to you?” he asks, filling the silence again. “After we split, in the city.”
The story’s long, but it’s similar to his own. He’s surprised to find how much their paths almost crossed, likely a few minutes or a couple of hours in it.
The recognition of Sherry falls into place, he’s not surprised to learn of her connection to William and Annette Birkin. Instead, all he feels is a deep, deep sadness for her. Her entire world is turned over and the only tethers she has to before are two people she barely knows. Two people who barely know each other, barely know what they’re doing, attempting to make the best out of what they have.
Claire’s revelation about Chief Irons is a mixed blessing. Some part of him is relieved that the man is no longer living; the way Claire’s hands shake as she describes the scene in the orphanage is testament to the man’s depravity.
(He wonders if Marvin knew, or suspected; if this was what Ben in the lockup wanted to reveal; if this is a good enough reason to not feel so bad about the man’s death.)
He fills her in on his own experiences, on his discovery of the fate of the police station and those who resided inside; of his own skirmishes with Annette and William Birkin.
(He doesn’t mention the man in the gun shop, his dead-already daughter, and the way he can still hear the sudden sharp retort of a shotgun, and the long silence that followed it.)
He tells her about Ada, and he finds that he can’t look her in the eye when he does it. Instead he grips the long-empty paper cup, feeling the material crumple in his hand, clamps his jaw hard against the feelings that are churning low in his gut and the phantom sensation of a hand slipping from his grasp; and turns his gaze to the highway.
Nothing’s passed them for a while; the parking lot is empty save for their stolen car, the fast food place is long since closed and while the light’s on at the motel reception he doubts anyone is going to come by to rent a room.
He and Claire don’t say much more after that, and after a while she snags the now-crumpled cup from his hand to dispose of it in the trash.
“We should get some rest,” is all she says, and he has no choice but to follow her into the room.
“You take the bed,” he says immediately, holding up a hand when she turns back to argue. “I’m not tired yet. Too much caffeine in the tea, I guess.”
It’s a lie, a useless one that he knows she sees through. But she doesn’t contradict, instead gently squeezes his forearm with her hand before she’s turning to the bed and crawling under the sheets.
He turns back to the table, sits down heavily in the chair and does his best to focus on anything else except for the city behind him, and the day before him.
Suddenly, he’s instantly awake, roused from a doze that’s not so much restful as it is added static to his mind.
Thump-thump-thump.
His heart is racing, he’s reaching for his gun as his eyes and ears fixate on the source of the noise, just outside the door. He holds his breath, raises his gun an inch above the table, as his mind flits back to the constant pursuit of the day before, to a gargantuan grey-skinned man, to an abomination made of meat and bone and-
A shadow passes behind the door, pauses, and the door handle rattles. His breath freezes in his lungs, and before he knows quite what he’s doing he’s clicking the safety off and rising from his seat, ready to-
The moment passes, the thumping steps retreat and he hears the sound of someone fumbling with a door to a room a few doors down. A distant, muffled curse, a key in a lock, a door slamming shut.
He manages to place the gun down on the table, despite the shaking of his hands. Doesn’t manage to pull his mind far enough away from the past, from the hollow, lingering fear that had chased him all around the police station and beneath it. Instead he finds himself gripping his forearms with a white-knuckled grip, feeling hands grabbing at his ankles, his shoulders, his-
He doesn’t know how he manages it, stumbling into the bathroom, mind buzzing and out-of-focus. He’s pulled abruptly from the feeling when he throws up into the toilet, and the next few minutes are spent blissfully unable to focus on anything except the heaving of his stomach.
He’s still clutching the seat of the toilet when he feels a cool touch on his arm; flinches involuntarily until he recognises the quiet murmur of voice as Claire’s. A hand briefly strokes his hair, but retreats when he finally pulls back to lean against the wall.
When he finally opens his eyes, its to Claire’s worried expression, but she doesn’t say anything in lieu of pressing a soda cup now filled with water into his hands.
“Rinse first, then slow sips,” she advises; he can still taste the lingering sweetness of the soda when he does, but he dutifully follows her instruction. The cup trembles in his hands, and it’s all he can do to keep it steady right now. The cold tile beneath him is uncomfortable, but he uses it to ground himself, find himself again in the present and not get lost in the past again.
“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, mumbling it into the rim of the cup. His voice is quiet and rasping, teetering on the edge of fading completely.
“Don’t be,” she replies, easily; his gaze darts up to affirm that she’s sincere and he’s almost surprised by that.
He can feel whatever facade he’s built up crumpling, the splintered edges of himself are threatening to tear. The empty cup drops to the floor, his body still heaves but now it’s with shuddering, heaving sobs that grate abrasively on his lungs.
(He’d been so close, so close to ending someone’s life, to- )
He feels Claire move, she sits herself down next to him, leaning against the wall and pressing her shoulder into is. Doesn’t say anything, just wraps an arm around his shoulders and holds him for however long it takes for him to stop.
“I heard- I thought I heard-” he tries, wants to explain, but she shushes him with a wave of her hand.
“It’s alright,” she says. “It woke me up too.”
She leaves the rest unsaid, and he’s unconsciously reaching out to grasp at her forearm with a shaky hand. His limbs are uncoordinated; he feels dry, wrung out. His head is buzzing again but its muted, less flashes of what was and more just static, like a TV caught in white noise.
“Claire?”
The quiet murmur from the door draws their eyes - Sherry’s stood in the doorway, a shadowed form in the dim light of the room. She’s still clutching the stuffed animal from the fast food place, and her gaze is worriedly tracking between the two of them.
“Hey,” Claire says, “you alright?”
Sherry nods, her gaze is drawn to Leon, leaning against to the wall next to the toilet.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she admits.
“Yeah,” Claire agrees. “Neither could we.”
She rises, holds her hand out to Sherry. “Can you stay with Leon for a moment? I’ve got an idea.”
Sherry nods, sandwiches herself into the space Claire’s just vacated; Leon finds himself lifting his arm to better accommodate her as she leans into his side.
“Are you sick?” she asks, timidly; he turns to look at her. Her eyes don’t linger on him long, they flicker away to the wall behind him, to the empty cup on the floor, to a myriad of other places before settling on her hands.
“I’m okay,” he says to her, gently patting her shoulder in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “Think I ate the food too quickly earlier.”
She nods, buries her head into his chest. He’s distantly glad she’s a slight weight, because otherwise she’d be pressing uncomfortably on his tender ribs. As it is, he’s glad for the contact, a warm body connected to his own to ground him in the now.
Claire returns, reaches down to pull Leon and Sherry to their feet; now his heart and mind have stopped racing he feels heavy and listless, but he hauls himself upright anyway.
Neither she nor Sherry let go of his hands, and he’s lead back into the room, suddenly glad to be out of the cold, damp bathroom and onto a carpeted floor.
It takes him a moment to figure out what’s different. The arrangement of the room has changed, and he eventually realises it’s because Claire’s pushed the twin beds together and arranged all the blankets and pillows into a vague, nest-like shape.
“Now we can all stay together,” she announces.
They end up putting Sherry in the middle, making sure that they pad the gap between the beds so she can still lie comfortably between them. Sherry curls into Claire’s side; she and Leon form a protective ring around her as they all try and arrange themselves under the blankets.
After a few seconds of quiet, he slowly reaches up and lays his arm across the pair; a reminder that they’re both still there and breathing next to him. He feels Claire briefly squeeze his hand, and can just barely make out her soft smile in the half-light of the room.
He closes his eyes, and breathes, and finally lets the stillness of the night take him.
He doesn’t know what they’re going to do tomorrow, doesn’t know who he will even be tomorrow.
For now, he simply is.
“The world, however, did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It’s courage that had brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none.”
Dead Can Dance; How Fortunate the Man With None