Chapter Text
It was a lot to get used to, the concept of the consistent company of another. Sure, the two of them had already endured a long and harrowing trip through an entire city and part of a forest together, but there’d been no time then to entertain the idea of actually getting to stick around, of what it meant to actually have a companion who mutually insisted on staying together. They’d been focused on just surviving the present, still were in all honesty, but it was no longer just about their own individual goals.
It’d only vaguely been present before, in those times where the two children would split up, voluntarily or not.
(Six lifted Mono so he could reach the next room of the decrepit building. They could hear him run off and suddenly had the sinking nervous feeling that that may be it. Surely, as talkative as this boy was, he’d say something if he was going for good. But, then, Six would have to assume from the tone, wouldn’t they? Uncertain, Six called out a soft, “Hey?” Mono didn’t respond.
There was a pile of televisions, some tied with ropes that led up, too high for Six to trust climbing without slipping. Rationally, Six knew that, if it was too much trouble to do so, there’d be no reason for the boy to come back, but still. They didn’t want for it to be too much trouble, not when they didn’t have any clue still on what they could even do for themself in this strange place.
She stood atop one of the tethered televisions, looking at the upper levels, wondering if they could make it up somehow. They then heard a thud, something creaking. “Heeey?” Six called out, concern blooming. What if there’d been something on the other side and it got Mono? Would it come for them next now that they’d foolishly tried to get the attention of the other child? Were there traps lying in wait?
“Hoiyah!” Mono called back, followed by a mighty loud bang of something falling down and another whistling upwards. Six wasn’t sure what happened, looking down then up at the upper stories nervously. Then, the bag-headed boy appeared, on an upstairs floor looking down, waving at Six. Six waved back, a strange feeling rushing through them, they were relieved.)
There’d been a growing undercurrent of mutual worry, not just for themself but for the other. Not all of those concerns had been positive.
(Mono twirled his newest hat in his hands, showing it off to Six who seemed only slightly bemused. “It’s a trilby, I think that’s the word,” he explained, as though Six would know what he was saying, “There are tons of them all over, they are a really popular style of hat. Or...” He thought about the state of the street, the lack of people in it. “Well, they were?”
Six sighed, which Mono assumed meant they were bored with him speaking, he was thinking of putting the hat back where he’d found it when Six made a motion with her hands, pointing from the hat to Mono’s bag-covered head. ‘Aren’t you going to wear that?’ is what Mono interpreted from that.
A rush of self-consciousness. He’d like to try it on, it was fun, but this style of hat didn’t hide him well, and if Six were to figure out what he was like, then... Then they would hate him, wouldn’t they? Six was looking at him expectantly. Mono was scared, but wanted to try and trust.
He turned his back to Six and removed the bag from his head, folding and placing it into his coat and quickly swapping it for the hat. He pulled the brim of it low, obscuring his face, he couldn’t fully trust they wouldn’t grow to hate him if they knew, before turning back to Six. Six tilted their head, contemplating, and Mono gulped, anticipating the worst. Then, Six shrugged, shaking their head, and pointed at his coat where he’d put the bag.
Yeah, the bag felt better to have on anyways.)
Right now, tucked under the seats, shoulder to shoulder, the reality of the two’s growing concerns for things beyond just the present was a new and intimidating thing. That it was no longer “if only one of us can get out, then only one of us gets out.” It was now, “both of us have to get out, together.”
For Mono, it was settling in how Six had refused to leave without him. His ideas of it being fine so long as Six got to go on had been shattered along with the screens, because Six would not go on without him, not anymore. (It wasn’t that Mono didn’t himself want to go on after the other child, he just found himself feeling like he couldn’t. That, compared to the risk and endangerment of the other, it wasn’t worth it, that he wasn’t worth it.) It was frankly difficult for him to fully grasp that concept, how he now needed to think of being less reckless so that Six wouldn’t needlessly endanger themself for his sake.
For Six, they were confronted with the ongoing puzzle that was how they’d risked their own life for Mono’s. That that had been something Mono had done repeatedly, and now Six would likely need to do the same, repeatedly. (Not just in lingering, it was in choosing to go back, in choosing aggressive defiance against that which threatened the other. A hammer, a pipe, broken shards on the ground.) It was a confusing feeling, because Six didn’t fully dislike the idea of mutual protectiveness, there was some comfort in trusting that Mono inexplicably would always come back, but now threats to their safety were doubly dangerous as she was full of worry about not just herself but also Mono.
Would they heal well, Six thought, thinking of not just the cuts on her feet but also the stretch of bruises across Mono’s side, his ankle. She muffled a cough into her hands, Mono snoring softly where he sat, his coat draped over his shoulders. He’d warmed up a bit, was no longer so cold as he’d been when Six had held him, but was still worryingly lukewarm, Six easily able to tell that with how they sat. Kids who got too cold stopped getting up, she remembered, and didn’t want for Mono to be that cold again.
There was also the issue of how they were going to both slip away unnoticed by the other passengers of this train. Six had seen trains before, toy ones, and maybe even one that had ran above ground long ago, she wasn’t sure, but hadn’t ever ridden one underground. It was worryingly claustrophobic, not in terms of space, Six had room to stand and walk around and jump, but in terms of being in a box inside of another box. Six had to give Mono credit though, they were definitely moving fast, she could see the tunnel walls as a blur through the windows, and despite all the destruction they’d seen before in the Pale City, everything here seemed fully functional. His lack of self-preservation needed some work, or maybe he was just over-confident. It’d been stressful when he started for the next car where the passengers were, like he hadn’t considered that adults like that could be dangerous.
Six hadn’t seen adults she could trust for some time. A very long time. (And the ones they had trusted had...)
Another fit of coughing, which they tried to stifle with little success. Mono stirred, bleary-eyed and making a concerned mumble.
“Six?” Mono queried. Consciousness came with wondering what the noise was, then inward recognition that he knew it already, somewhat familiar. He wondered if Six was sick with something. The cough wasn’t new, something he remembers her having even back in the cabin, in the slower moments where Mono would pause to think of how to navigate the next street or hallway, Six would sometimes cough a bit. It’d been worrying when he heard it in the middle of the rain, Six had been dressed only in a soggy button-up cardigan and shorts. That aspect of their predicament, that the elements can themselves be hostile and harmful to children unprepared for it, had him realize how careless he’d been running through the heavy rain when Six had no defense from it. She had the raincoat now, but was that enough?
Six shook her head slowly, taking a deep breath and resting her chin on her knees.
Mono wished for a way to convey his concern for the other’s health, because now it feels like there’s time to do things like that, but it was hard. In place of words, he shucked off his coat and laid it across Six’s back. It’s her turn to rest anyways, he thought, although, as the new weight on her registered, Six looked him in the face with a surprisingly upset look on her own. The kid, silently but with unexpected force, pressed the coat back onto Mono, with him flinching from both the pressure of their gaze and their hands trying to push the sleeves over his arms.
Maybe, he thought, he was overstepping and making too broad assumptions about Six’s tolerance levels, Mono relenting from his attempted expression of care and leaning further back into his side of their hiding space. The movement left him sore.
Does he -want- to freeze, Six internally asked themself, frustrated that she had even briefly given him the impression that somehow she was worse off than him temperature wise. Sure, the raincoat wasn’t particularly warm, but at least Six didn’t look and feel like they had been on death’s door the way Mono does.
Neither of them fully knew how to go about this, not currently, not as they were.
The chatter in the next car over, grunts and laughter and overlapping conversations, had Six hesitant to fully let themself sleep. She’d close her eyes, but her mind was full of recreations of everything that could possibly go wrong as soon as this train stops. Because it would have to eventually stop, it was going somewhere, and when it did the adults in the other cars would move and come back here to collect their belongings. Six didn’t enjoy the images her mind conjured, of how, if the two tried to hide in place, searching hands may snatch them up, how piles of luggage could be knocked over and on top of them, how they could be surrounded and caught. As soon as it begins to slow, Six thought, they would need to sneak out the back of the car where they’d came from and hope they could slip up onto the platform unnoticed.
Mono busied himself by quietly examining the stickers on the luggage around him and eavesdropping on the conversations of what he assumed were adults in the next train car. For the most part, he could understand their words even if he didn’t know what all they meant by them. “Resources” was oft repeated, along with “Depleted” and “Negligible”. From context, he could gather that they were talking about something running out, that it was simultaneously boring to them and all they had interest in. It made little sense and was somehow unnerving all the same.
The longer he listened, the more it dawned on him that there was something else strange. With all the people he could hear, not one of the voices was that of a child.
His introspection on just why that was upsetting to him was interrupted with a horrible static noise from a speaker above them. Mono tried to somehow retreat further into the two’s hiding space, the sudden movement and sound combining to greatly startle Six, who bumped her head quite hard. The sound was just the intercom turning on, Mono disappointed with himself as Six rubbed the top of her head now very sore and very awake.
“Good afternoon, this is your conductor speaking. We will be arriving at Port City shortly, please make sure your belongings are secured as the train begins to stop.” Mono relaxed. Almost, he thought, to someplace better than where they’d been.
Sure enough, the train was slowing in a tangible way. Six grabbed Mono’s hand and pulled him up, hurrying him to the back door of the car. Following the other’s guidance, Mono helped slide the door open and shut behind them. They were still moving somewhat fast, the ground rolling by.
(His head hurt. The tall Thin Man chasing him took steady long strides towards the boy, like he wasn’t in a hurry at all, even going so far as to tilt his head inquisitively when Mono leapt for the next door. Nothing moved right when he was close to the chasing man, like he was being pulled, ripped apart, space distorting and sounds becoming messy echoes. The boy grasped a lever, pulling it hard to the side, disconnecting the cars, sending his speeding down the rails, away from the tall figure that stared after him.
As though time itself were catching up, the air thinned, going from feeling like thick soup to weightless as it should be, wind rushing past his ears. Just as Mono was letting out a sigh of relief, the car bucked violently, his tiny frame slamming into the train and then falling limply to the ground.)
Six went to lean from the railing, trying to get a look ahead at where they were going, only for Mono to pull them back and away. He shook his head at Six’s questioning look, holding tight onto a support bar and pulling Six’s hands to do the same. The two children braced, the train’s brakes squealing shrilly as it stopped. It lurched forward and then back, Six inwardly thankful Mono had thought of that, otherwise she may well have been knocked off.
Still, this was no time to relax, not just yet. Six motioned for Mono to follow and hopped off the car onto the tunnel floor, a little pained hiss escaping her as her bandaged feet made protest. Mono followed their lead, looking over his shoulder as conversational chatter rose up anew, now filling the air.
The two crept low, Six shushing Mono for good measure, and made their way to the platform. There were many people here, both of the children’s heart rates rising for different mixed reasons. The passengers were preparing to disboard further ahead, lines of waiting new travelers letting their presence be known with footsteps on tile, impatient tapping. Six pointed up, a silent request for Mono to boost them, which he obliged. Six didn’t immediately climb up, instead sizing up the situation presented to them.
There were many adults here, in suits and dresses and skirts and loud clacking shoes. Those that weren’t absorbed in conversation were distracted with the train, doors beginning to open. The activity, while stressful, would offer them an out, Six hoped, as they needed to get up to the stairs that led outside.
Acting more confident than she felt, Six got up onto the platform and quickly sought after a way to get Mono discreetly. It’d be too risky to throw over a cart like they had before. Making haste, Six leaned down, arms outstretched. He needed to jump to reach Six’s hands, just barely making it, doing his best to help push himself up as Six pulled. It wasn’t easy to keep quiet but they somehow managed. Then, holding his hand still, Six led Mono at a brisk pace to the stairs.
He couldn’t help but to gawk. Mono couldn’t remember when he’d last seen people with faces that weren’t twisted in some way, but these were less like stretched spirals and more like ill-fitting covers. Skin could droop, yes, but as the two retreated he found himself seeing it as less folds of skin on these people’s faces and more like loose flaps, it didn’t move right when they talked, a disconnect between these being people who were able to speak thoughts and did normal things like ride trains and how he couldn’t shake this undercurrent of wrongness about it all.
Those concerns took a backseat as soon as the two made it up and out of the subway and into the outdoors.
It wasn’t bright sunlight, the sky partially overcast and a little dim, but it wasn’t oppressively foggy. The buildings here, while untidy and bent looking in some ways, appeared much more solid. The road wasn’t split with cracks, and there were people walking around, rushing to gather in one spot, looking at something out in the horizon. Six had Mono follow and duck behind some cover, a trash bin with boxes stacked around it. The two paused, collecting themselves and their situation.
Mono, against better judgment, peered over the boxes to listen in on what was happening.
“Terrible! How terrible!”
“The light’s gone out of it, who could have let this happen?”
“Now, now, surely it’s just a hiccup. Give it a week or two and it’ll be back as bright as ever, why, I remember sometime back when-“
The Tower. They were talking about the Tower. Mono pulled at Six’s sleeve, wanting to move further away, for them to give him a direction away from the memories of the city that threatened to pull him back. Whatever he’d done, disrupting the Signal, had upset these people, and they likely hated him.
Six, for their part, was quick to take the boy with them as they searched for someplace quiet, away from the growing throngs of people who echoed concern about something in the world changing. Six didn’t know what all was being said, just that something had everyone’s attention, and that was enough to fill them with the confidence to keep going with their companion deeper into this new place.
••
Eventually, Six situated them in an alleyway, one with a chain-link fence that had a hole in it, leading to piles of discarded crates and bits of broken furniture that’d been dumped. Six took a liking to a large crate that was tucked in such a way it made a small fort with a covered entrance. As Six worked at moving debris, Mono picked around, anxious thoughts swirling.
He thought about how Six didn’t seem surprised at all by the state of the people they’d seen. About how, while much better in comparison to the Pale City, things here still felt wrong. About how he was too frightened to try and ask for help from any of these adults, who may take one look at him and Know that he himself was wrong and had caused them some kind of trouble. The Transmission has been stopped now, hasn’t it? He used to think that would make him feel better about everything, to be able to stop it. Now...
A pile of discarded paper bags and strings. Mono pulled one out, the texture familiar and nearly comforting in his hands. He looked at Six. They were busy with their fort making, obviously intending to rest here for at least a while. The kid seemed so used to this, their movements deliberate, not playful or uncertain.
Mono thought of all the people gathered, staring out at where he knew the Pale City had stood. How he had yet to see or hear a single child here other than himself and Six.
He started to make circular marks in the paper with his thumbnails.
••
Six was doing their best to not let disappointment catch up to them. Keeping busy helped, knowing Mono would help helped, but it was still present. This place was already better than Pale City just by virtue of not being soaking wet and rotten looking, but Six could already feel it, even without knowing their words, that even if these adults may not yet be actively malicious towards them, they held no care for children like Six and Mono.
They had a sense for it by now, that aura of indifference to kids who were unhappy, or hungry, or hurt. They’d been surrounded by monsters like that before, it wasn’t so different now.
But, Six reminded themself, they weren’t in a cage. They just needed to keep going was all. The longer they could go unnoticed by these strange adults the better, for her and Mono. She looked at her progress with the crate fort. Old cushions for padding inside, a tarp across the top to keep out water should it begin to rain, enough space to actually stretch out. Pretty nice, if Six had to say so themself.
Mono was sat on an upturned milk crate fiddling with a paper bag.
Six searched his face, wondering where his mind was at, the aura of wrongness that surged when she did so doing its best to dissuade her. Six willed themself to ignore it, understanding it to be a bizarre lie that tried to obscure the boy. He looked to be worried, brows scrunched just a tad.
Six approached him, gauging his reaction. Mono murmured what Six took to be a hushed greeting, or at least acknowledgment of their presence. They really needed to find a better way of communicating. Six could feel themself becoming frustrated, for once having questions they wanted to actually vocalize but having no way to be understood.
As Six thought of that, they saw a flicker of a shadow. Their own shadow, whatever it was had continued to follow, a marker of something Six didn’t understand. It mimed kicking at a pile of garbage, which of course didn’t work as its foot passed right through. It shrugged and then faded just as Six went to look at where it’d been. Among the litter were papers with pictures and what Six assumed to be words, using letters she wasn’t familiar with. They pulled one up and sat on the crate beside Mono, staring at it as though to will comprehension of it by looking at it really hard. They didn’t understand so much, wanted to, but didn’t know how.
Mono took notice, perhaps Six being a little obvious in their stewing. He paused his careful marking of the paper bag to read the poster, because of course he could read it. Six was ready for its contents to remain a mystery forever when Mono pointed at each letter and started to vocalize.
“Res-tu-rahn.” He said, softly.
Six traced where he’d pointed, trying to connect the sounds to the pictures, not knowing what that word even was but wanting to at least have a piece of the puzzle.
Mono tapped their shoulder lightly. “[Restaurant],” he said now having Six’s attention and then mimed biting and eating something.
Six contemplated this, mouthing the syllables for the unfamiliar word. Then, in her own, “<Food?>”
Mono’s eyes went wide, accompanied with a confused head tilt. “Huh?”
That’s right, Six thought, trying to use their own words to ask Mono if they were correct was silly, he didn’t know what she said just as much as she didn’t understand him.
Mono did a thoughtful hum. Then, “Sh... Shee-woo?”
He said it all funny, but he was trying to say <food>. Six snorted. They hadn’t expected him to try. They would try his word too, “Lestoorahn.” Mono giggled.
In hushed raspy laughs, they both found humor for once in their lack of understanding.