Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s no way to keep track of time on this fucking Beach that stinks of salt and marine life. Maybe you could count to sixty forever, making a line in the sand each time you reached the end. But Higgs doesn’t want to spend eternity like that, he has other things on his mind. As he lays in the sand, he doesn't regret being unable to enact the Last Stranding. He regrets not prostrating himself and begging Sam to take him back, wailing, promising to be good. He couldn’t do that though, no, he couldn't break away from the script like that. He had to play the part of the baddie dutifully until the very end.

He had thought this flagrant obsession with Sam was only transference received from Amelie at first. There were times when he could tell that his thoughts were not his own. He felt like an observer in his own mind, watching helplessly as detached hands carried out atrocities. But there was a point where he could no longer delude himself. This obsession underwent a form of debasement, until it became all-consuming.

Following Sam around everywhere, nipping at his ankles like a forlorn puppy. Snapping pictures whenever Sam did something he considered attractive. Clearly, there weren't many things Higgs didn't find alluring in the man with the sheer amount of pictures plastered up on his wall. All the little attempts on Sam's life weren't made in earnest, he knew that Sam couldn't die. Conjuring up those beasts was more like an excuse to speak to the man.

Could it have been—

Love?

Could a man like Higgs Monaghan even be capable of such an emotion? He hadn't felt the love a parent imparts to their child, the first kind of love a person experiences in their life. He'd found it in the form of fists, broken bottles, cigarette burns, and blood-curdling screams. But what else could explain making the ultimate sacrifice to condemn himself to the Beach?

Before they arrived here, he knew that Sam would be the one to come out victorious. He'd probably always known. But somewhere along the way, the accelerationist maniac hellbent on human extinction simply became a character he was playing. Towards the end, he was hamming it up so much he found it hard to believe that Sam could take him seriously. The mask was slipping, figuratively and literally.

He hopes that Sam got the email he'd scheduled beforehand, and that Sam had taken him up on his offer to see the secrets of his pathetic soul. Maybe Sam would pity him when he stumbled upon those journals left hiding in plain sight. Or maybe Sam would never be able to forgive him, even with context. Higgs has no way of knowing. Never will.

Higgs doesn’t realise he’s crying until a the breeze of saltwater catches his face and he feels cold wetness on his cheeks. 

Chapter Text

I have unlocked the entrance to my private quarters. 

You may peruse my secrets to your heart’s content.

Living here, in the abandoned shelter belonging to Peter Englert never gets any easier. Every morning, Sam wakes to the sound of Lou crying, and the first thing he sees is that wall. All those pictures of himself, arranged so meticulously, almost lovingly, connected by spirals of red thread. He'd take them down, but he feels a twinge of shame every time he has to make an adjustment to the natural order of the shelter. It feels like he's disturbing the tomb of a fallen Pharaoh. 

The true identity of 'Peter' wasn't as shocking as it should be. If this strange man who never showed his face was to be anyone, then it made sense that it would be Higgs.

I don't much care for my face.

Even now, Sam doesn't understand why. Higgs was by no means ugly, and without the scrawl of incomprehensible symbols on his forehead he would look just like anyone else. For some strange reason, Sam wishes he had a photograph of the man. But after looking through every inch of this tiny shelter, he's come up scant. There isn't even a mirror around, and that makes him wonder how on earth Higgs had applied such neat makeup around his eyes.

Lou's finally asleep, that's good. Well, it would be if he could get any sleep himself. He starts to go through the motions of preparing himself for bed nonetheless; going outside to relieve himself, washing his hands, and brushing his teeth. Then he sits himself down on Higgs' cot.

He needs a bed. Sleeping on the uncomfortable, well-worn canvas of this cot that belongs to a dead man feels a little too close to resting in a coffin. It's too small for him, let alone a man about half a foot taller. Closing his eyes would be an exercise in futility, so he reaches under the cot and pulls out Higgs' journals. The same ones he's already read hundreds of times by now. 

The feeling Sam gets when he reads these sombre words is never easy to stomach, but it feels necessary. He always feels like he's mourning the loss of a friend, not a terrorist. If they had met years ago, they could have been friends, that's how similar they were. They'd both started out as porters as a means of survival before finding themselves enjoying the company of their fellow man. Sam wonders if the young man who wrote these journals about community was closer to the real Higgs, beyond the mask and the military fatigues.

Higgs knew he wasn't coming back from the Beach. From his final email, that much was clear. How long had Higgs known? Did he always know, deep down, that he would be the one consigned to the Beach for all eternity? And if he did, why did he go through with it all? Was Higgs always there just to compel him forward? Was he happy with that?

Every question begets another that cannot be answered.

It's always almost too much to bear when he gets to the parts about Higgs' childhood. But he grits his teeth and continues reading. There's no time frame for the events, but Higgs had withstood at least a decade of daily beatings before he snapped and killed his aggressor. Higgs, just like Sam, had gone through a childhood of neglect, founded on lies. His chin starts to quiver as he nears the end of the entry, and then hot tears stream down his cheeks. They're genuine tears, not brought on by the chiral allergy.

His fucking pain and our steel sky.

He holds himself, trying to stop shaking in vain. In this embrace, he doesn't think about Lucy, doesn't think about his father, or even Deadman. He thinks about Higgs Monaghan. Thinks about the way the man had clung to him in those waves of tar, crying and grunting as Sam's fists laid into him. At the time, he didn't think twice about it. But as he reads these entries, he feels like he'd been no better than Higgs' uncle—wailing on a helpless, frightened child.

Sam's always been helping people. That came with the job; whether he was transporting medicine, food, clothes, or somehow saving the goddamn world. But he couldn't help this man—no, this boy—this boy who had suffered the most horrific abuse imaginable.

He couldn't help him.

Just like he couldn't help Lucy.

I will forever cherish the memory of each and every pizza you so kindly delivered to my doorstep.

Sam wonders if Higgs is up there, thinking of him now.