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Thud,
Thud,
Thud,
Thud goes Clancy’s skull against the wall behind him. There isn’t much to do in his cell except stare at the cold, gray walls, or as he was proving, play chicken with a concussion. He’s stuck up scribbles, drawings, anything he’d been able to scratch onto paper up on the walls around him, but none of it has really helped him at all.
He misses Trench. The last time he’d been out had only been a couple of days, but in the weeks since he’s grown restless again, longing for the cool winds and soft sunlight. In Dema, it was all neon all the time, a constant buzz paired with the always-off air that filled every empty space. A pollution that infected more than the environment, instead focusing on the citizens within, slowly eating away at Clancy’s mind. In a way, he almost wishes it ate away at others, just to know he isn’t crazy—that he’s not the only one awake, and seeing through the relentless lies all around them.
“You just gonna keep banging your head into that wall until you black out?”
Clancy’s motion stops just before he hits the concrete again. He’s alone in his cell—the Bishops never allow for a moment of community if they can help it. Sticking two people who both want to escape the city in the same room, relatively unsupervised, wouldn’t be their smartest move. So who the hell did he just hear?
He looks around, first outside—maybe it was a guard, unusually conversational for once—but upon seeing no one, he scans his cell. And there, in the corner, sits someone new.
Clancy’s honestly not sure how he missed him before, since his hair is such a bright yellow. Now that he has seen him, he can’t stop noticing it sticking out from under his backwards hat. He sits cross legged, and extremely relaxed for someone who isn’t supposed to be here. Clancy’s eyes drop briefly to his black muscle tee and the tattoos adorning his arms before he drags them back up to his face, which is no less distracting to look at. Clancy gets a familiar feeling as he looks at him, although he can’t really place it yet. Maybe it’s just that the yellow reminds him of Trench.
“What?” he finally asks, genuinely unsure of what he’s supposed to say. He’s not even sure if this is real, given that he’s spontaneously appeared in Clancy’s prison cell.
The guy simply gestures to the wall behind Clancy. “You’ve been sitting here, smacking your head against that, for a while now,” he says, as if that’s a full explanation of what he said.
“Well, yeah,” Clancy says, and it does briefly dawn on him how odd this scenario is, “what else am I supposed to do?” He points vaguely at the papers behind him. “Out of those right now, and the only other thing is sleeping.”
“You could break out of here,” Guy says plainly, like it’s the same level of average as the prison scheduled meal times.
Clancy laughs before he can form a better reaction. “Break out? Are you serious?”
He shrugs. “Why not? You’ve done it before.”
Clancy hoists himself into a better sitting position and rakes a hand through his hair. “I mean, yeah, I guess so, but not from here . I always—I mean, it’s always been from the city itself. I wait until they let me out of this,” he flails a hand toward the bars of his cell, “and I never even last that long, anyway. They— he always finds me and brings me back here.”
He’s got no idea why he’s telling this random person he’s never met before any of this. He’s never told anybody anything about his escapes, even as surface level as he’s been so far. This guy could be some ploy of the Bishops, and he’s just giving them things to use against him like it’s nothing.
But Clancy gets the feeling that’s not true, and something about this guy just…gives him a sense of comfort. A safe space, despite his hostile surroundings. It makes him want to know more, experience more of it.
“First time for everything,” Guy says, getting up and looking at Clancy’s nonsense scrawlings like he lives there.
Clancy watches him for a bit, taking in more of his features and trying to figure out what to make of him. He studies his hair, which looks extremely soft despite the dye in it, the arc of his nose and the glint of the ring in the side, the stubble along his jaw.
His face heats when Guy looks down, catching his eye and smirking once he sees that Clancy’s already staring at him. Clancy forces his gaze away in response and looks down the hall outside, checking for guards or anyone who might also be seeing this new person in his cell. Oddly, he’s relieved no one’s there—he doesn’t want the guards to catch this guy and do god knows what to him for infiltrating their prison. Clancy wouldn’t wish the Bishops’ torture on anyone short of the Bishops themselves.
Clancy looks back up at him, where he’s still studying Clancy’s notes like they hold the secrets of the Bishops and aren’t simply the scribblings of Dema’s most notorious lunatic. He stands with his hands behind his back, like he’s in a museum or something. “How’d you even get in here?”
Guy shrugs, not looking away from the wall. “Does it matter? You want me to leave?”
Clancy pauses. It does matter, he thinks. “Well, no, I guess not.”
“I’ve got a better question, anyway: how are you going to get out ?” he continues.
“Why do you want me to break out of here so bad?” Clancy asks.
“Why do you want to stay so bad?”
“Are you just going to keep dodging my questions?” Clancy says, turning his body to face him better. “What’s your name, anyhow?”
Guy smirks again, like there’s an inside joke Clancy isn’t in on. “I am if you keep asking dumb ones.”
“Does this usually work for you?” Clancy asks. “Being vague and off putting? Does that get you whatever results you’re after?”
“Yeah, most of the time,” he answers without missing a beat. “You’re an outlier here.”
Clancy laughs despite himself. Maybe it is working on him. “Okay, smart guy, how do you think I should break out of here, then?”
Guy shrugs, remaining silent and sitting down again, this time on the floor in the corner next to Clancy.
“It’d be easiest to just wait this out, wouldn’t it?” Clancy says. “They’re not going to keep me here forever.”
Guy stays quiet, only shrugging again in mild agreement.
“Although…” Clancy continues, thinking out loud more than anything. “I mean, there’s other people here, too, right?”
He’s actually not one hundred percent sure. He can’t see other cells from his own, and meals are brought directly to him. Each time he is let out, it’s to be marched down long hallways with only a few guards around him, taking him to face whatever “corrective lesson” the Bishops had decided on for that day.
“They’d want to get out, too, wouldn’t they?” he goes on. “I might be able to get them in on something, I guess.”
Guy nods a bit, like Clancy’s getting warmer in a game of hot and cold. “How are you going to get to them?”
“Well, I don’t know, I guess I could—”
“Hey!”
Clancy jumps at a voice and loud knock on the bars and looks back at the hallway. There’s a guard now, face blurred behind a veil meant to imitate the bishops, hood black instead of blood red. Even though their face isn’t visible, Clancy can feel the irritation radiating off them. He doesn’t know what they’re mad about, just that he’s probably going to pay for it soon enough.
“Quiet down. If you keep talking to yourself, it’s not just going to be a warning.” They give the bars another hit, the sound clanging and echoing as they walk off, muttering something about crazy inmates losing their minds.
Talking to himself? Clancy wonders, before he turns back around to find his cell empty once more.
He stands up instantly, looking around like the guy is just hiding under his pillow. When he obviously doesn’t find him, he collapses back onto the bench that serves as his bed, head knocking against the wall once more. He sighs loudly. He’s finally lost it.
— — —
It’s another few days, maybe even a week, before Clancy sees him again.
When he does, he’s once again sitting in the same corner of the cell, holding one of the newer drawings Clancy hadn’t been able to hang up yet. Same hat, but his muscle tee is white this time. Clancy still can’t place the warm feeling in his chest he gets when he’s returned from today’s corrections and sees him there.
The guard doesn’t seem to notice him, weirdly enough, and leaves like normal after dropping Clancy off. Clancy doesn’t say anything for fear of ruining that, only sitting down on the bench heavily.
Guy looks up, brows immediately drawing together once he sees Clancy’s state. “What did they do to you?”
Clancy’s not really thought about it, if he’s honest. He’d been kept from sleep, this time, for a few days prior to the session, and the session itself had been pretty standard. The normal medication, although he doesn’t really know what it was, meant to numb his senses and keep him compliant. It blurred his memory of the experience, but he remembers being knocked upside the head plenty of times.
He shakes his head, trying to ground himself, and shrugs. “The ye-ewj,” he says, slightly separating the sounds, even though it’s one syllable. He’s still coming down from the meds, he thinks, and the lack of sleep probably isn’t helping.
Guy only looks more concerned, setting Clancy’s drawing down on the other bench in the room—meant for another person, but never used by one. He gets up, stepping forward to stand in front of Clancy, and gently tilts his face up to inspect him.
Clancy lets himself be looked over, staring up at the guy’s face as he checks him for…something. He’s not sure what. He’s pretty sure the only visible injury is still just the forming scar on his nose. Nothing would show on his face, anyway, his aching arm from the needle earlier is the real scene of the crime. He hates needle days; at least when it’s pills it feels like he has a choice in the matter, even if he knows he doesn’t.
Guy’s brow is still furrowed, and now his lip’s been pulled behind his teeth. He looks really upset, which Clancy thinks is odd since this is the second time they’ve met, but he kind of likes the feeling of being worried about.
He finally lets his face go, taking a small step back, and Clancy instantly misses the contact. Guy lifts his hat, running a hand through his vibrant hair before placing it back on his head. Clancy kind of wants to run his own hand through it, and that’s when he really knows he needs to sleep this off.
“What’s the diagnosis, doc?” he asks, trying his hand at lightening the mood.
Guy shakes his head, but Clancy can see a soft smile betraying him. “We’ve gotta get you out of here. Soon.”
We . For some reason, it makes Clancy giggle. “We?”
The guy shrugs. “Why not? You see anyone else in here?”
Fair enough, Clancy thinks. “I guess you’re right.”
“I usually am,” he says, hand coming back up to comb through Clancy’s hair. He does it casually, like they’ve known each other for years rather than days. If it even qualifies as days.
Clancy grins up at him dumbly. “Maybe I should break out of here, then, like you said. Start a prison riot or something.”
Guy laughs, though it’s more of a small huff and smile than anything, and rakes his fingers through Clancy’s hair again. “Maybe. Why don’t you think about that one, hm?”
Clancy giggles again. He feels ridiculous, but he’s too tired to give it much care.
The guy seems to notice this, and gently guides Clancy to lay down, something he goes with easily. “Why don’t you get some sleep, huh? I think you might need some.”
Clancy nods absently, focusing instead on reaching out to grab his wrist. “Will you stay with me?”
The guy pauses, seemingly caught slightly off guard by the request. Which Clancy thinks is fair; they don’t know each other, and he’s not really sure why he’s even asking. But it’s miles above being alone, and for some inexplicable reason, him staying feels right.
Clancy’s almost given up when he finally speaks, voice soft among the sharp edges of the prison. “Of course.”
Guy’s voice, and the faint warmth of his wrist under his fingers, are the last things Clancy remembers before falling asleep.
When he wakes up, hours later, he’s alone again. An ache in his chest sets in once he realizes it, and he feels like an idiot for the entire thing. Of course he’s tried connecting with what was probably just a figment of his imagination anyway. Crazy fuckin’ Clancy, slowly losing his mind whether he’s locked up or not.
He spots the drawing on the other bench and feels anger replace the ache, leaning over to snatch it up. He’s just about ready to tear it to shreds when he realizes there’s writing on the other side that he certainly hadn’t put there. He turns the paper over, rage subsiding slightly.
Riot’s not a bad idea, you know. Who knows—maybe you’ll be so annoying they have to take you outside the city themselves.
Something to think about.
— TB
All his anger evaporates as Clancy reads the last letters over and over again, pinching himself a few times to make sure he’s not dreaming.
TB . A name. Kind of.
Maybe he isn’t totally insane.
— — —
Clancy wakes up several days later and finds him— TB —back in his cell once more.
Instantly, he wants to tackle him in a hug, but he forces himself to remain calm. “You’re back.”
He shrugs, once again perusing the loose papers strewn about. “I am.”
“Where do you go?”
“You’ll see,” he says, before quietly adding, “Eventually.” He lifts one of the pages, a pen drawing of some flowers Clancy had drawn to make sure he remembered something about Trench, and hands it to him. “I like this one.”
Clancy takes it and looks it over. It’s not much, really, he thinks as he passes it back. “You can keep it if you want.”
He sets it down, with more care than Clancy ever would have. “Why don’t you bring it to me, instead?”
Clancy scoffs lightly, leaning his head against the wall but still trying to look at TB . He can only really see the top of his head, down to the eyes, without straining. “Well, where are you?”
He hums softly. “You’ll have to come and find me,” he says, smiling playfully. He sifts through a few more papers. “You’ve got to get out of here first. You thought any more about our idea?”
“Idea?” Clancy almost laughs, assuming it’s a joke, before he remembers. “The riot? Are you serious?”
“Why not?” he asks. “You could really make a statement.”
“Yeah, well, statements don’t usually go over well for me,” Clancy says, eye flicking up to the ceiling.
“I mean, they’re not supposed to,” he says, pointedly looking up from his spot on the floor. “It’s supposed to cause waves. Otherwise it’s not a statement.” He shrugs again. “Besides, you’ll be outside, anyway. They can’t do anything to you there.”
“You’d be surprised,” Clancy says with a bitter laugh, tilting his head back down normally. “Am I supposed to do this by myself? Or, what, are you gonna help me?”
“I can,” he replies. “If you’d like.”
Clancy is taken aback by the casualness of it. “Okay, since you seem to have it all figured out, what are we gonna do?”
“Think about it. What’s the one thing they hate more than you escaping?” he asks, leaning his weight onto one of his hands behind him.
Clancy looks at the pile of papers gathered on the floor. “That, I suppose,” he says, nodding at it. “My writing.”
He cracks a smile. “Exactly. So use it!”
Clancy shakes his head, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “I don’t write prison riot songs, dude.”
He shifts onto his other arm. “Anything could be a riot song, if you want it to be.”
Clancy just looks at him for a moment. “You’re strange, you know that?”
“Yeah, well,” he says, leaning over to poke Clancy’s knee, “you’re in here, so I don’t think you’re any better.”
Clancy pushes his hand away, even though he’s not really annoyed. “You still haven’t told me how or why you got in here with me.”
“Mmm,” he hums. “I’ll tell you sometime.”
“You said that already.”
“‘Cause it’s true,” he says. “But like I also said, you have to get out first. That’s the deal.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to a deal,” Clancy says, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them.
TB gives him a look. “Well, it’s your choice.”
“Prison riot…” Clancy murmurs. “You’re something else.”
“Think about it, man,” he says. “Think about what people would do if they got ahold of this stuff.” He lifts a couple pages, on which Clancy can see his scrawled handwriting. “There’s real shit in here.”
Clancy scoffs, trying to hide his reddening face behind his knees. He’s never let anyone read his work, and he only writes anything down at all because if he didn’t those songs would never give him a moment of rest in his own mind. “Sure there is.”
“I mean it,” he says, straightening up and pointing at some of the lines. “More people would resonate with this than you think. You have a gift.”
“I’ll think about it, okay?” Clancy says, shifting his gaze down and wishing he wasn’t the lone focus of his attention. If he looks at him any closer, Clancy’s afraid he’ll see right into his soul.
He sets the papers down and pushes them aside, then pulls himself up onto the bench next to Clancy’s balled up form. He doesn’t say anything, but sure makes himself comfortable, stretching his arms out and letting the one closest to Clancy drop behind him.
Clancy looks over, watching him lean back against the wall like he lives here. “You’re so weird.”
“Feeling repetitive today, are we?” he asks, reaching up to take his hat off, setting it next to him. Clancy’s eyes follow his hand as it drags through his hair, and he honestly can’t be bothered to hide it.
“Maybe,” he says, scooting closer to him, trying to be at least a little subtle.
He doesn’t comment on it, although he does shift his arm to make room. He goes quiet, and Clancy takes the opportunity to get even closer, leaning his head on his shoulder.
He’s testing the waters, really, trying to find the boundaries in their odd relationship. TB remains silent, only resting his head on Clancy’s in return. They’re quiet together for a long time, and Clancy mulls over the idea of breaking out. He’s right; it would be a statement, and getting the Bishops to remove him themselves would definitely be a new approach. It might be worth a shot. It’s not like he has another idea, and this could help other people in the process.
He lifts his head suddenly, looking out to the hallway, then back at Clancy. “Soon, yeah?” he says softly, breaking the silence. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
Clancy looks up, catching his dark eyes and finding a genuine plea in them, one he couldn’t say no to if he wanted to. “Yeah. Soon.”
— — —
The icy wind cuts through him like a knife, his jacket trying its damndest to keep him warm. Somehow, it still seems to breathe new life into him with each harsh gust.
Clancy can’t believe it worked. That highlighter haired bastard had been right about starting a riot being his ticket out of the city. He’d been right about getting the car to blow up, too. Of course he had.
He wishes he were here now. If there was ever a time Clancy needed his help, it was probably right this second. Or at any point in the past few days of aimless wandering. He stumbles through the thick woods of Trench, only knowing he’s headed away from the highway and hopefully the city as well.
He trips on a loose rock and nearly faceplants, hands going in front to break his fall and coming up scraped and dirty. He dusts them off on his pants and presses on, one hand coming up to make sure the folded page is still in his pocket. He keeps trudging, seeing a break in the trees up ahead.
There’s no way the paper could have slipped out. The pocket is buttoned, and it’s not like Clancy would’ve missed it falling. But feeling the outline is reassuring, means more to him than it should. He’d made a promise, and he’s going to deliver this damn drawing if it kills him.
And it might, he thinks as he trips again , falling fully on his face into the shallow stream running through the canyon he’s found. He’s finally reached the trenches the continent is named for, and they’re already smacking him around.
He pushes himself up into a sit, staring up at the cliffs and squinting in the light of the day. It’s cloudy, but the sheer reflection of the sunlight is blinding. He almost thinks he sees someone moving atop one of the cliffs, but the motion is gone so fast he must’ve imagined it.
Clancy climbs to his feet, starting his journey once more. He checks over his shoulder a few times, feeling as if someone’s back there, but no one is.
He’s getting in his own head. It’s only been a few days. The Bishops probably barely even know he’s missing by now. They’re not after him yet, and if they are, they can’t possibly have found him so fast.
He sees more motion on the clifftops, and this time he knows something’s actually there. He squints up, slowing his walk, and spots a few people, the yellow decorating their forms sticking out from their surroundings. Banditos .
Clancy’s heard of them before; most kids in Dema had. But in time, most of them had also given up on the legend of a mysterious tribe wandering the wilderness outside the city. No one knew if they were even real, much less if they were there to help, like some whispers said, guiding citizens out of the city towards true light. Or if they were lying in wait, biding their time until they could take down the Bishops and Dema, disrupting the calm, consistent lives of its people.
Maybe neither goal was that bad, Clancy muses to himself, trying to find the figures again.
Either way, Clancy had always wanted to believe in them, but as many times as he’s been outside of the city, he’s never seen them. He’d always kept an eye out for the fabled torches lighting the way to their camp, but his nights in Trench were always dark until he was inevitably dragged back to the familiar buzz of neon.
Before now, that is, as he follows the Banditos marching far above him, their unlit torches sticking out of their packs. More begin to appear around him, and he starts to stumble again, going faster to try and keep up. He’s got no idea if they even know he’s there, but he needs to find where they’re going—he has to see if they’re somehow leading him home the way a small voice in his mind is telling him.
He spies one of them ahead, seemingly the leader: a hooded figure, face masked and obscured from what Clancy can see each time he turns to check on the others. An x adorns his chest, crossing over his heart, and there’s a magnetism to him Clancy can’t quite put his finger on. He needs to find this person, he has to figure out why he’s so drawn to him even from this distance.
He’s so caught up in the silhouette ahead of him that he doesn’t register the sound of hooves chasing him until it’s too late, and the horse and its rider stop in front of him.
Nico.
Clancy freezes like he’s back in his room in Dema, paralysis overtaking him like it did each time he woke up. He looks up, trying to ignore the scene unfolding before him, and sees the Banditos now stopped and gathered, watching him closely. He feels shame at being so easily rendered helpless in front of them. Nico’s not even gotten to him, and yet he can’t move, held in place by his own fear.
When those hands reach his throat, marking it with every negative thing he’s ever told himself, he very nearly breaks down. He’s honestly not sure why he doesn’t. Each feeling held off by the pure adrenaline from the past few days seeps into his very skin, and they act as a leash around his neck, dragging him in a daze behind Nico’s stark red robe and white horse.
Clancy squeezes his eyes shut, falling fast and grasping for a handhold within his own mind. He searches for anything to keep him afloat, but wave after wave seems to drag him back down and fill his lungs with the same ink coating his neck.
His hand lifts to pull at his collar, desperate to relieve the suffocation closing around his throat like a vine, and he feels something shift in his pocket.
The drawing.
The drawing he’d promised to deliver. That’s his goal. He’s trying to get to him .
His face appears in Clancy’s mind, blooming like the very flowers he’d sketched out, and his eyes fly open, searching the cliffs. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, but he finds the hooded figure from before and feels his gaze already locked on him even across the gap separating them.
There are no words—how could there be?—not in his mind, or exchanged around him, as the man simply stretches his arm out and lets something rain down into the trench.
Petals, Clancy realizes, feeling an incredulous smile grow on his face. Yellow petals, meant for him. More begin to drift down, chiru , he thinks is the word he’s found in books. Never the ones in Dema libraries, but ones passed among the citizens, with well worn covers and faded pages, ink smudged from years of fingers running over the words. He can’t recall the language it comes from, but it speaks to him. The petals are being thrown for him , these people he’s never met—they want him to fight.
So he takes in the deepest breath he can manage, fighting his closed up throat. He sees Nico’s horse become irritated, feels his fear’s grip weaken slightly. His walking stops, the ink’s weight on his neck lightening, and he turns and stumbles backward, breaking into a sprint away from Nico.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, just trying to get as far from Nico as possible. The further he gets, the easier it is to breathe somehow, despite his speed increasing as well. His gaze climbs to the cliffs once again, trying to find the Banditos, hoping they might guide him to a safe haven.
His lack of focus catches him first, and his foot catches on a rock sticking out of the shallow water. The icy cold of it sprays into his nose, and he chokes and coughs on it as his leg throbs. He’s probably sprained it, not that it’d be the first time. He feels the newly formed scrapes on his hands sting in the water as well, his fingers already aching as he tries to turn himself onto his back. One of his hands slips, and his head hits the ground again, his vision going black for a second. His hands shake as he pushes himself up again, blood leaking out onto the rocks beneath him.
When Clancy finally lands on his back with a harsh thud , he blinks slowly and squints up at the sky. The clouds are beautiful still, at least, he thinks dazedly as his gaze drifts down to the cliffs once more.
The Banditos are gone now, he realizes. Except the hooded figure, who is closer now, as if he followed Clancy while he ran. Clancy looks away, ashamed as disappointment washes over him alongside the stream under him. He shakily reaches for the one thing he can clearly focus on—a bright yellow flower growing amongst the stones. He pulls it out of the ground weakly, clutching it to his chest like it’s a lifeline.
A shadow clouds his vision as Nico reaches him, and Clancy can see the disdain in his eyes even through his veil. He looks away, back toward the cliffs, shrinking under the weight of his stare. Clancy’s eyes fall shut, finally succumbing to his exhaustion and everything else, as the figure continues watching him, gaze unyielding.
— — —
They didn’t stick him in prison this time. Huh.
Maybe they’d just gotten sick of him talking to himself last time. Which is exactly what he’s just about convinced that whole thing was.
No, unfortunately he has not seen TB since their last encounter within the prison. Not while he was in Trench, and not since returning to his cold, cement room in Dema, either.
There was always a let down sensation each time he entered the room again, the hum of neon reminding him just how empty the place was. His box of flowers wilted more as time passed, and as he had placed the newest addition among them, he wondered if he’d ever truly escape this place.
The feeling was only enhanced as he continued to be alone, scribbling away in his journal to distract himself. He misses the bright hair and even brighter smile, as well as the company itself. With each new journal entry came a new escape plan, the promise he’d made well over a month ago now nagging at him the longer he went in the city.
He’s being heavily monitored—Keons might’ve let him return directly to his apartment, but the Bishops would never let Clancy out of their sight completely—so he can’t sneak out again. At least, not for a while, and a while is longer than he’s willing to wait.
He sighs, blowing the air out of his mouth in a way that resembles more of a groan than anything else, and tears the page in front of him out of his journal. He’d tried another drawing, then some writing, and it had all been shit. He balls up the paper and chucks it behind him in the direction of his trash can. He hears it miss and sighs again, leaving it for himself in the morning.
He rakes his fingers through his hair a few times, yanking at it harshly. He can feel the gaps in his memory eroding at him constantly. It happens every time he’s smeared, and god knows he’s smeared enough to know, but it never gets easier. He hates that they can just take his memories as they please, leaving him with a lingering worry he’s always forgetting something important, or that the memories he does have aren’t real.
The one thing that’s remained this time is the hooded figure. He can’t place why, exactly, but he can’t shake the image of him on the cliffs, staring down at Clancy. The rest of the experience eludes him—he tugs at his hair again, like it’s got the memories stored inside it and if he just pulls it hard enough, it’ll all make sense. The only thing he can clearly remember is the magnetism he felt, and the man he felt it toward.
He gets up and walks to his window, reaching into the drawer of his nightstand next to it. The bottle of sleeping pills is cold in his hand, both in its temperature and its familiarity. He looks away from the city, its grayness and harsh light reminding him how much he hates living here, and how much he wishes he didn’t.
He shakes a few pills into his hand, staring at them for a minute until he drops the bottle back into the drawer and walks over to his sink. He bends down to the faucet, holding the pills in his mouth as he tilts his head to get some lukewarm water, then leans his head back to swallow. It’s his routine every night that he’s in the city. He can’t seem to fall asleep on his own here, even though his reliance on the pills probably doesn’t really fix the core issue. Even in Trench it’s difficult, likely due to his dependence, but a few hours out there are still enough to fuel him more than ten in Dema.
Clancy collapses onto his bed, mattress unwelcoming as ever, and throws his arm over his eyes. The neon in his room shut off hours ago, but the light coming from his window won’t let up at any point of the night. The Bishops keep it going at all times, filling every space with harsh brightness and a constant buzzing.
As the pills kick in, he keeps a hand over his eyes and curls into fetal position. His room is always cold, but an unnatural kind, one that makes him miss Trench’s breezes and chill. It feels alive there, where here there’s intention, meant to keep places sterile and uninviting. In Trench, at least you could always warm up if you kept moving. Here, there’s nowhere to go.
Clancy doesn’t know how long it is until he wakes up, but it’s daytime when he does. He lays there for a while, and considers doing so all day, but eventually drags himself up. He pushes back the curtain over his window, squinting as the light hits his eyes roughly. He looks down, trying to blink away the sting, and finds a folded paper on his window sill.
He picks it up cautiously, recognizing it as another torn journal page, and lifts the top half.
The Assemblage is in three days. We’ll be there, district square.
– TB
Clancy stares at it, reading the simple words over and over again. He recognizes the handwriting, of course, had burned it into his mind deep enough the Bishops couldn't touch the memory trying to convince himself the first note was real.
We . He doesn’t know who he means. The only thing that comes to mind is the figure from the cliffs. Are they in contact? He’s already so weird, Clancy wouldn’t put it past him.
TB , he muses, wondering if he’ll ever get to find out what it stands for. Despite the shortness of the note, it brings him more comfort than the first one.
Three days. District square. He’ll be there, too.
— — —
He shouldn’t be here.
What is he even doing? He should be in his room, forgetting anything had ever happened. This is so stupid.
He stands in front of the statue in the center of his district, rocking back and forth. He idly wonders about its outstretched arms, what they’re reaching out for, if anything.
It’s not the thing to focus on, though, as the group marching toward him gets closer. The jolt of fear that goes through him is instinctual, and he can’t fault himself for once.
The x on the leader’s chest makes his heart still for a moment when he spots it. The sight puts Clancy at ease ever so slightly, and he starts scanning the crowd for a familiar head of yellow hair as they fan out around him. He grips the straps of his backpack nervously as the hope of seeing him dwindles.
The leader steps forward, and Clancy immediately looks back at him, locking eyes. Eyes Clancy would recognize anywhere. He carries a torch in one hand, its orange glow covering the group in a way the bright white neon can never reach. He lifts his other hand to the yellow bandanna covering the rest of his face, and pulls it down slowly.
Of course , is the first thought Clancy can form. Of course it’s him, he thinks, taking in the face he’d gone over and over in his mind for fear of forgetting it entirely. He catches sight of bright hair poking out from the hood now that the bandanna isn’t keeping it back anymore.
The strange magnetism pulls at Clancy as he steps forward again, sticking his hand out and watching expectantly. Clancy immediately puts his own out in response, letting himself be guided through a handshake, one he’d tried teaching Clancy once back in the prison. The smile Clancy gets fills him with instant warmth—he’s missed it even more than he’d realized.
He leaves their hands together just long enough to notice, before he hands his torch to someone else for a moment to reach into his bag and hand something to Clancy. A camouflage jacket, somehow just his size as he pulls it on.
It’s the perfect canvas for the tape placed over his shoulders and around his arm. He may not remember the faces decorating his sleeves, but he knows that he once knew them, and will again.