Chapter Text
The pain of what feels like his fucking throat being ripped to shreds is indescribable. The white hot blood streaming down his hands as he scrambles to stop the sudden rush of it is making him panic. He doesn’t usually panic at the sight of that much blood. Then again, it’s not normally his. He’s drifting, he feels. Just on the brink of being alive, but only just, the darkness gathering around him. His eyes won’t open no matter how hard he tries. He’s trying to focus on the sounds around him, but he can’t make anything out, except for an agonising wail at some point. He feels a presence, but the darkness is spreading, and soon he feels nothing.
Until he does. And he fucking wishes he doesn’t.
– – – –
Lemon is on an adrenaline high as he runs over the Diesel. He’s filled with grief, and guilt, and sadness, and anger all mixed up into one giant ball and it’s threatening to all come out if he stops to think about it, so he just doesn’t. He does stop the truck though, and he takes a second to look at the trainwreck in the rearview mirror. He has half a mind to go back and look for Tangerine, but Japan being Japan, there’s already sirens in the air, and flashing lights in the distance, and he knows that if he goes back now, the police will sweep him up and it’s done and over . He’ll just have to find Tangerine in the morgue.
Lemon swallows.
He puts the truck back into gear and starts driving. He’s basically on auto-pilot: he knows where he’s going, but he’s not actively paying attention to anything. He’s also not really thinking about anything, it’s all white noise and adrenaline. They had a safehouse set up in Kyoto: they were going to deliver the case and the Son to the White Death, and then head up to their spot, lay low for a couple of days and then catch a flight back to London.
Suddenly Lemon snaps out his auto-pilot/trance and realises he has to ditch the truck. And he does just that. He pulls up on the side of the road he’s on, and wipes the truck down completely. Which honestly won’t do much seeing as he’s been bleeding all over the fucking seat. Doesn’t matter. Tangerine taught him to always wipe shit down, so he does. Tangerine.
He makes his way to the safehouse by hot-wiring a car. Something else Tangerine taught him.
He punches in the passcode to the flat on the keypad, “ This is next generation, Tangerine, I’m telling you!” “Yeah yeah, sure thing, Lemon ”, and enters the apartment. It’s small but spacious, and neat like all things in Japan. He’s tired, he feels then, as the adrenaline leaves his body in one wave. Exhausted would be a better word. He moves through the flat, gathering the things he needs; first aid kit, bottle of water (a closed one) and as he opens the wardrobe to get some clean clothes his eyes fall on the pressed suit Tangerine had hung up. He reaches out, but stops just short of touching the fabric when he sees his bloodstained fingers. ‘ Tangerine wouldn’t like it if his suit got dirty ’. He moves to the bathroom then, all set on taking a shower and tending to his wounds, but when he looks at himself in the mirror over the sink, he freezes. He doesn’t see the blood, and there’s a lot of it. He doesn’t see the cuts, and the bruises already turning purple. He doesn’t see the bullet holes, and the tears in his clothing. All he sees is the golden necklace dangling from his neck.
It shouldn’t be there. It shouldn’t be around his neck.
Lemon breaks.
It’s tears and snot and screaming , and waves upon waves of nausea, and he has to physically drag himself over to the toilet when he pukes up everything his body holds. Mainly blood. He sags down next to the toilet when all his body produces are dry heaves. He’s shaking like crazy and he feels hot, and he just can’t seem to stop crying. He has no idea how much time has passed, sitting there, sobbing next to the toilet, but eventually the tears dry. He’s still shaking, and still feels hot, or maybe cold now, he’s not sure and it takes a lot of effort to stand up. He tosses a towel over the mirror, doesn’t need a repeat of what just happened, and he sets about removing his clothes. His movements are slow, definitely not helped by the constant fucking shaking, and something pulls very painfully in his stomach as he removes his ( Tangerine’s ) vest. He just then notices the bullet wound just shy of where the bottom of the vest was. ‘ False sense of security ’. He feels around his back, but notices no exit wound, so fucking great, the bullet is still in his body.
He flips open the first aid kit, a very professionally stocked first aid kit, and pulls out the tweezers. He curses when he realises he needs to look in the mirror to do this and he takes a deep breath as he removes the towel, purposely not looking at the necklace. There’s a little trickle of blood oozing steadily from the wound, and he has to hold his hand at a weird angle to get the tweezers in, and it smarts , and the shaking does nothing to help get a grip on the bullet. It takes entirely too long for him to get the bullet out, and he can practically hear Tangerine scoffing. Tangerine.
He steps in the shower then, sets the spray to this side of too hot and just stands. Lets the water wash away all the blood and grime and grief and guilt. He reaches for the body wash, and slowly lathers up his body, helping the water along. It takes a while before the water turns clear and he feels that his body is starting to get stiff from all the bruises, and pulled muscles, and you know, being in a train crash, and the bullet wound hurts more than he would like. He stays under the spray a while longer, hoping the shaking will subside, but when he realises it won’t, he gets out.
When he opens the shower door he’s hit with a sudden wave of dizziness, and the next thing he knows he’s waking up on the floor. He has no idea how long he’d been there, but his skin is dry, and as he glances out the window he sees the sky has darkened. He scrambles up, shaky like Bambi on ice, and realises the bullet wound is still bleeding. He gets a washcloth and wipes it over the wound, hissing as it pulls, and fishes a bandaid out of the first aid kit.
He drapes a towel around his waist and shuffles out of the bathroom. He’s still feeling woozy, and hot and he’s still fucking shaking , but he’s also feeling empty, so he goes to the kitchen to riffle through the cabinets, looking for anything edible. He finds a packet of crisps, and settles for that.
He moves to the couch and slowly sinks into it, that wound is way more tender than it needs to be. He registers a mobile sitting on the coffee table, can’t remember putting it there and he reaches for it, but his vision is starting to swim and he completely misses it by about a mile. The room starts to spin then, as sweat breaks out all over his body. The dizziness is just the cherry on top and it’s about three seconds later that he blacks out again .
He feels a weight on him, it settles across his lap where he sits on the couch. It’s a comforting weight and he reaches for it as he slowly opens his eyes. As he looks down at his lap he sees a blue clad thigh on either side of his legs. The pinstripe fabric is pulled tight over the muscular thighs, and Lemon’s hands move to them automatically. The sight gives him a warm feeling inside. His eyes travel up, following the pinstripe to a waistband, a pressed shirt tucked into it, a matching pinstripe waistcoat adorning a muscular frame. As his eyes move upward the crisp light blue fabric of the shirt turns red, the pinstripe indiscernible beneath the stains of blood and the warm feeling inside Lemon turns to ice. His heart starts hammering in his chest, and not in a good way, as he looks up at the face of the person sitting in his lap.
“Allistair?” he squeaks out.
Tangerine doesn’t reply, just looks at him, or through him, his usually icey-blue eyes have a gray sheen to them, and there is a tear in his neck that should be bleeding but it doesn’t. Lemon holds his breath as Tangerine leans forward, the unseeing eyes boring into his own, coming to a stop millimetres from Lemon’s face.
“Why’d you let me die, Lemon?”
Lemon squeezes his eyes shut.
“I’m sorry, Al. I’m sorry…” he starts, tears welling up in his eyes, “I didn’t..-” he stops talking when he opens his eyes, Tangerine nowhere to be found. He blinks a couple of times as he looks around, his head and vision swimming.
“What is happening ?” he mumbles to himself as he slowly gets up off the couch, swaying as he does, looking to see if Tangerine wandered off somewhere.
“Al? You here?” he calls out into the apartment, but there’s no reply. He rubs his eyes, hoping to clear his vision, but it only seems to make it worse. He looks down at his stomach, the band aid he’d put on the bullet wound having come off with his movements. The edges of the wound are a bright red, infection clear, and it’s still bleeding. He’s shaking again or still probably, and tries to clear his head, but it’s murky, like the water of the river he fell into. He takes a deep breath in, and sits back down on the couch.
“Get it together, Lemon” he tells himself, as he reaches for the water bottle on the coffee table. Twisting the cap off he pauses a second, eyeing the inconspicuous bottle for a moment, before putting the bottle to his lips and chucking the contents of it in one go. He had not realised he was this thirsty.
He feels marginally better after drinking the water, even though he’s still shaking, and he picks up his mobile from the coffee table. The time says it’s about three in the afternoon, and the date tells him he’s been in the flat almost four days. Four days . He looks out the window, a blue sky with a scattering of cotton candy clouds. Four days. He feels a sense of urgency come over him, like he’s meant to do something, but the sluggishness of his mind is not helping in figuring out what it is, and it takes entirely too long for him to come to the conclusion that he has to go find Tangerine in the morgue. Tangerine.
He shoots off of the couch, dizziness and shaking be damned, and he moves to find his clothes when there is a rattling at the door. Lemon freezes mid step, and turns, listens for a sound. There is a rattling again, and Lemon moves to the cabinet on the wall, knowing there is a gun in the drawer. He pulls the gun out, doesn’t need to check if it’s loaded and levels the barrel at the door, having to shake his head a few times to clear his vision, but his hands are steady, the alertness drowning out the shaking.
The door doesn’t open, even if the doorknob rattles again, and Lemon can hear a voice from the other side of the door, muffled by the thickness of the wood. There’s a loud thump then, as though someone has kicked the door and Lemon slowly moves toward it, gun still raised and he stops right in front of it. More rattling, more sounds. Lemon places the hand that isn’t holding the gun on the doorknob, counts to three, takes a breath and swings the door open, aiming the gun at the guy’s face.
The guy’s eyes widen at the sight of the gun, and Lemon can see him look past the barrel at Lemon. The eyes widen even more, and it’s almost comical. Almost. For Lemon knows he probably looks much the same: eyes wide, jaw slack. Lemon slowly lowers the gun, to take in the full body: pinstripe slacks, a once crisp light blue pressed shirt covered in blood, a waistcoat in much the same state, a jacket that’s very unlike him, a moustache only he can pull off and icey-blue eyes, clear , safe for the tears forming.
“Marcus?” Tangerine’s voice sounds small, unlike himself, and it’s filled with disbelief, and relief and something else that Lemon can’t place at the moment. Lemon can feel his head nodding without his permission, but he can’t seem to find his voice. They’re both just looking at each other, eyes roving over each other’s body, and Lemon can see Tangerine’s eyes widen again, and his hands reaching out before he feels himself sway, legs buckling. Tangerine catches him, and Lemon can hear him curse before they both topple to the ground, the darkness welcoming him in again.