Chapter Text
When Edgar is four, he crawls onto Curtis’ lap for the first time.
It’s a day like any other, Curtis is just sitting at an improvised table made out of two barrels and a wooden plank, with Gilliam, who’s explaining Malthusianism to him. And then Edgar’s head pops up, between the bunk beds, the freckled face and slightly jug ears, and he crawls onto Curtis’ lap.
Gilliam. It should have been Gilliam. But no, it’s Curtis. And Edgar buries his head in the fabric of his shirt. Curtis stares alternately at the boy, then at Gilliam, who does nothing but smile. And Curtis doesn’t know what to do with his hands, has never been good with children, didn’t anticipate the weight of Edgar against him to be so unbearable.
“How long have you been hiding?” Gilliam asks. The boy looks up, smiling through the dirt on his face.
“So many years.” He hold up his hands, showing all ten fingers. And ten years ago, he didn’t even exist, Edgar didn’t. He’s never seen trees, he’s never seen the sky.
Gilliam looks over his glasses. “Good, strong hands,” he says.
Curtis feels like throwing up, but Gilliam’s eyes speak volumes, of caring and debt and responsibility.
So gently, carefully, Curtis puts a hand on Edgars head, feels the softness of his hair in his palm. And Edgar curls up, like a cat. Falls asleep. As if he trusts no one more than Curtis. No one on the whole, wide train.
When Edgar is six, his hanging on to Curtis has become permanent. He’s grown so much, he no longer fits into a barrel, and Gilliam suggests Edgar take the bunk under Curtis. To which Curtis says no. Absolutely not. What the hell are you thinking, old man?
And Gilliam smiles as if he can see into his soul and says: “Curtis, someday you will have to get over it. Don’t be unkind. The boy has to sleep somewhere.”
Not here. Everywhere but here. He doesn’t say it, though. He swallows and nods. This is Gilliam. He knows what’s best.
Edgar can’t contain his happiness. Carefree Edgar. Stupid Edgar.
The first night he’s sleeping there, on the hard surface, and his soft breathing is mixing with the rattling of the train in Curtis’ ears. Curtis can’t sleep. He listens to the boy’s lungs, filling with air, letting it go again. Listens to the faint rustling of his clothes. Imagines he can hear Edgar’s heart beating. He buries his face in one hand and tries to think of nothing and fall asleep. Of course it doesn’t work.
“Hey, Edgar,” he whispers. “Are you asleep?”
It takes a while, but then a tiny hand comes to grip the metal bars on Curtis’ bunk. And another. Edgar’s face appears in the darkness, only visible because Curtis’ eyes have gotten so used to it. The boy looks sleepy, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
“Hm?” he mumbles. Curtis looks at those slightly jug ears and feels a knot at the back of his throat, that makes it difficult to speak.
“Don’t you think it would be better to find someone else to hang around? Someone closer to your own age?”
He hates himself for saying it, but he can’t deal with this. It’s too much. It’s not Edgar’s fault, it’s completely and utterly his own fault, but that makes it even worse.
Edgar looks puzzled, the same way he does when he sits on the floor at Curtis’ side during story time, when all the Tail Sectioners gather around Gilliam, make a circle, as far as that’s possible, and listen to whatever he has to say. Edgar is still too young to understand grown up talk, and when Gilliam tells stories about the world outside, Edgar can’t tell them apart from fairy tales. The sun seems no more real to him. Most of the time, he puts his head on Curtis’ lap and listen, and watches Curtis’ hands twisting his beanie.
Edgar cocks his head. The whites of his eyes shine in the darkness. “How old are you?”
Curtis groans. “Twenty three.”
“Gilliam is older. And he has Grey.” Six. Edgar is six years old and already stopping to fall for his bullshit.
“In the old world, children used to play with other children,” Curtis says. But this is not the old world. Things have changed.
“I’m the only child,” Edgar says. Curtis feels his heart being torn out of his chest.
There are babies, all right. There are now. He hopes to god that Edgar never asks him to explain why that is.
“You’re right. Go back to sleep,” he says, and turns around.
When Edgar is ten, it’s as if a switch has been flipped, and suddenly, he wants to know everything. He wants to know what trees are, what seasons are, all the things he’s heard the grown ups talk about that he can’t make sense of. And he always asks Curtis. Curtis, Curtis, Curtis.
“Curtis, where did you live before the train?”
Edgar is juggling around the ball they’ve made out of spare scraps of fabric, stuffed with trash. He’s gotten quite good at it, bounces it from one foot to the other, then kicks it up high and catches it with one shoulder. Had he been any normal boy in the old world, he could have joined a football team.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Curtis says, more gruffly than he intends to.
“Tanya said she had this trailer, and that’s kind of like a train?”
“It’s a vehicle, yes.”
“Did you live in a trailer?”
Curtis shakes his head and rubs down harder on the shoe between his knees. The rag he’s using is hardly clean, but it’s all they’ve got at the moment, and until the Front Section bastards bring them some new cleaning tools, they’ll have to live without shiny boots. Next to Curtis, Andrew is replacing another shoe’s sole, cutting up an old tire to fashion a profile. Curtis is so sick of it, playing doctor to all the stuff the Front Section manages to break. Having to breathe in the stink of some spoiled brat’s feet. What do they even need shoes for? It’s not like they’re going outside.
“Where did you live then?”
Curtis sighs. Edgar just won’t let it go, will he? How many more years is it going to take until he reconciles with the fact that Curtis does not, will not talk about his past? He shuts down any thoughts, focuses on something in immediate vicinity, unwashed faces, the ceiling of his bunk, until the memories fade and look like old photographs of people he’s never met. Until he can’t remember his parent’s names. Until he can’t say what his favourite colour was anymore. In his memories, everything looks as grey as the train. It hurts less that way. It hurt less that way. Because now Edgar is pulling it all back. Looks at him with curious eyes that aren’t grey but green. Forces Curtis to think of the small Washington D.C. apartment he had for a year, before it happened. Of the small potted plant by his windowsill. The suburban semidetached house his parents owned. Green curtains always drawn. Always dark. His mother never went outside without sunglasses.
Curtis rubs the shoe so hard it’s a miracle he doesn’t scratch through the leather.
“Have you asked Gilliam?”
Edgar nods. “But I’m asking you now.”
“Still don’t want to talk about it.”
When Edgar is twelve, he wants to know how sex works. It starts all harmless.
It starts with a simple: “Where do the babies come from?”
“From the mum’s belly.” That’s okay, right? That’s easy.
After he barges in on Grey sucking Gilliam off in the secluded end of the Tail Section though, harmless questions turn into plain awkward ones. And of course people are having sex all the time in the Tail Section, grunts and stifled moans mixing with the rattling of the wheels at night. Or as Curtis always tells Edgar: grown ups get a lot of nightmares.
But this is different. This is an actual nightmare. How the fuck is he supposed to explain a guy having another guy’s cock down his throat?
“It’s…um,” Curtis clears his throat. “That’s between Grey and Gilliam.” He’s a second from pulling his beanie down to cover his face. But Edgar is merciless.
“Does it hurt?”
“Does what hurt?”
Edgar doesn’t even blush. He’s all big, curious eyes.
“When you eat…”
“Oh, god no. He didn’t eat…” Curtis’ voice cracks, breaks right through in the middle. He’s back with his hands around her throat. She’s screaming. Struggling. He’s back with the knife in his hands and the knife in her side. She’s not screaming anymore.
“Curtis?”
He breathes in and breathes out. “Why don’t you go and ask Grey?”
When Edgar is fourteen, he wants a revolution. He’s grown taller and his mind has grown broader. Broad enough to grasp that “It doesn’t have to be like this, it wouldn’t if those damned Front Sectioners pulled their heads out of their arses and started treating the rest of us like human beings for once. It wouldn’t if it was the other way round, if we made it to the front…”
“Shut up, Edgar. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Curtis grunts.
“Damn right I know.”
But he doesn’t. He wasn’t there during the McGregor riots. Probably doesn’t remember how they planned it, Gilliam, McGregor, Curtis, all the others who died, poring over maps for days, weeks. Only to watch it turn into a bloodbath. Curtis thinks he’s seen enough blood in his lifetime.
Edgar keeps his hands busy, but not his thoughts. Sometimes he’s stitching up the rags they call clothes, sometimes he scrubs the floor, but mostly he’s got cabin fever. Haven’t they all? Still, Edgar is a boy. He is not patient.
And now he’s driving Curtis up the walls.
“Will you stop that?” he says as he hears something screeching from Edgar’s bunk again. The sound of metal grinding down on metal. He’s trying to sleep.
Edgar pretends he hasn’t heard. Curtis leans over the side of his bunk and stares down into the darkness.
“What are you doing there anyway?”
Edgar’s voice comes back bodiless. “Making a weapon.”
Curtis sighs, lets his head fall back on the bundle of clothes that’s his makeshift cushion.
“Can’t you do that tomorrow?” he asks, but it’s not what he thinks. What he thinks is: You’re too small. You won’t stand a chance in a fight. I don’t want you to fight.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow. You always say that. When are we getting protein bars? Tomorrow. When are we planning the next revolt? Tomorrow. When are we going to attack? Tomorrow. Do you want it to be like this for the rest of our goddamn lives?”
Curtis thinks of the life Edgar could have had if none of this had happened. He sees Edgar on the old swing set in front of his parents’ house, swinging back and forth, making the chains creak like the metal screeching under his hands.
“Do you?”
“Go to sleep Edgar.”
Let me fight for you.
When Edgar is sixteen, he wants Curtis. It’s obvious from the way he looks at him in the moments they’re not fighting, when his face goes soft and dreamy, the way he looks when he’s asleep. Curtis knew this was going to happen, of course it was. Edgar had to fall for someone eventually. Just which cruel god devised to make him fall for Curtis, of all people? Curtis, who’s double Edgar’s age. Who’s a man. The man with the knife.
And it’s not that Curtis doesn’t like Edgar, really, he does. Maybe he likes him too much.
It’s nothing new, the two of them sleeping in the same bunk. Edgar’s smaller frame enclosed in the space between Curtis and the wall. Curtis’ subdued breath hitting the back of the boy’s neck and making his hair stand on end.
They used to do this all the time, or rather Edgar used to do this all the time, crawl in with Curtis after he had another one of his nightmares. Edgar doesn’t get nightmares, but he’s smart enough to know that they’re not pleasant. Now that Curtis thinks about it, he’s glad Edgar was too focused on him to try to comfort the others. Who were most likely not having nightmares, but with what he told Edgar…
“What’re you thinking about?” Edgar asks.
God, Curtis hasn’t got laid in seventeen years.
“Nothing. Trying to sleep.”
Edgar yawns and wiggles against Curtis, trying to get comfortable. Comfortable is not what Curtis feels like. He scoots away until the metal bar of the bunk digs into his shoulder blades.
“You got enough space?” Edgar asks.
No.
“Yeah. Just go to sleep.”
The unsteady breathing coming from Edgar, even ten minutes later, tells Curtis that Edgar still isn’t sleeping. And he hopes to god that it’s not due to his massive boner poking Edgar in the back.
“Can’t sleep,” Edgar mumbles. He starts moving again.
Curtis growls. It comes out feral, deep from his belly. “You either stop that wiggling or go back to your own bunk.” This has never worked. Edgar is just like a monkey, clingy and needy and he’d rather go hungry for protein bars for a week than starve for human contact. But that night, he climbs over Curtis and down the bunk into his own bed. Curtis hears fabric rustling, then skin palming skin, and a low whine building up in Edgar’s throat.
Curtis wants to tell him to shut the fuck up, but his tongue is tied in his mouth. It’s so wrong. He shouldn’t be turned on like this, not by a sixteen-year-old. Still, his dick is straining against his pants, leaking and throbbing along to the rhythm of Edgar’s hand.
And when Edgar comes, biting back a moan that turns into a choked sob, Curtis thinks he’s gone to hell already.
He tries not to look at Edgar the next day. Not to notice the dirty skin peeking out of the holes in his shirt. Pretend he doesn’t hear when Edgar clambers through the whole Tail Section calling for him. And when Edgar finds him helping Timmy sew up the ball he’s managed to tear, Curtis doesn’t look up. “I’m busy.”
He can’t really deal with hormonal teenagers right now.
Edgar still climbs into his bunk that night, without touching Curtis. He’s crammed against the wall now, and there’s space for at least an arm between them. Curtis never knew his bunk was that big.
“Did I do something wrong?” Edgar asks, still looking at the wall, Curtis looking at the back of his head.
“What?”
Edgar turns around then, and their knees touch.
“You’ve been ignoring me the whole day.” Edgar’s eyes are glinting in the dark. With no visible light source it looks like they’re glowing on their own. He looks so vulnerable, it makes Curtis’ fingers itch to touch his face and stroke his cheeks.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why’ve you been ignoring me?” The hurt in Edgar’s voice is almost palpable. They stare at each other and Curtis tries to come up with an explanation that doesn’t consist of “I really really shouldn’t be attracted to you, because I killed your mother, and I tried to eat you, and if you knew I don’t think you’d still want to crawl into bed with me. So it’s complicated.”
Before he can articulate any thoughts though, Edgar suddenly leans in. He’s contemplating for a second, eyes flicking to Curtis’ mouth. And then he kisses him.
Edgar tastes of protein bars, bittersweet. A taste Curtis is so used to it almost tastes like home. He pulls Edgar closer, moves his lips against his. He tastes so good, he tastes like…
Sixteen years ago. Salty juice is running down the corners of his mouth. He’s sinking his teeth into soft, warm tissue. The monster in his belly is growling, screaming, cheering. His fingers are sticky with blood.
Edgar’s green eyes are suddenly wide, and far away. Curtis is standing in the middle of the train. He realises he must have jumped, pushed Edgar, who’s feeling a spot at the back of his head, where he’s hit the wall. His fingers come away red.
Bile is filling Curtis’ mouth. He swallows it down. Doesn’t look at Edgar any longer but turns around. His feet carry him further and further away from the shrunken figure in his bunk.
Edgar starts sleeping in his own bed. Curtis should probably say something. A simple “How’s your head?” wouldn’t be a bad start. But the words never sound right, in his imagination. And Edgar just stops.
Everything.
There’s no more cuddling, no more talking, no more following Curtis around. He stops smiling too. Hell, most of the time, Curtis doesn’t even know where the boy is hanging about. Which says something, in this cramped space. It says Edgar doesn’t want to be found.
“Grey,” Curtis calls, a week in, or maybe a month. He’s lost track of time, stopped counting the nights that are worthless anyway now.
Grey dangles from the ceiling upside down, blood shooting into his face. Curtis wonders how he’s gone twenty years without popping an aneurysm.
“Have you seen Edgar?”
Grey nods.
“Where is he?”
Grey shakes his head.
“What does that mean?”
Complicated. Grey shows him the tattoo on his collarbone. It’s hard to read upside down. Curtis hasn’t done a lot of reading since he boarded the train. There’s only so many times you can read The Origin of Species, the single battered book that Gilliam brought aboard, and fought tooth and nail for.
“What’s complicated?”
Grey rolls his eyes. He reminds Curtis of Spiderman, hanging upside down like that. Then Grey starts climbing across the bunks, Curtis follows close behind. It’s as if the boy’s never learned to walk normally. Grey leads Curtis to the place they use for sanitary purposes, and soon the familiar stink climbs up Curtis’ nostrils.
“Here?” He wrinkles his nose, looking around for a trace of Edgar.
Grey shakes his head again. He points. There. But makes no move to go himself.
Behind a shelf stuffed full of broken parts and spare barrels, Curtis sees Edgar’s mop of hair peeking out. Grey is gone in a blink, back to his own little ceiling world. So there’s no one around when Curtis climbs over the shelf.
Edgar is slumped against a barrel, head thrown back, hand spread open on the ground, two small cubes in his palm. His eyes are Kronol green.