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There was quite possibly nothing Travis had ever longed for more than living alone. It had seemed like a wild fantasy the likes of which he could never grasp, but there was no reality he’d sought more.
He’d never been quite as desperate for it either as the night he left.
An entire life spent knocked down takes a toll on a person, but develops callouses that are difficult to pierce. Even when they’re picked at with concerning fervor, only so much will come off. It was for this reason that Travis let himself justify leaving the only love he’d ever known behind.
Sal didn’t know the real him. Nobody could ever know the real Travis - not even himself. That was a person buried too deep to bother unearthing. And it wasn’t the soul the Devourers of God had ever been concerned with.
No, all they’d ever wanted was his body. And that body they took, over and over again - used it, abused it, to extents that Travis refused to remember. It had been regular for him, yes - normal, even. But he knew nobody else lived a life like that.
And God, that made him angry as a kid. It made him angry enough to justify becoming the local problem child, because all of the fight he’d had pent up over the years needed an outlet.
Travis didn’t need an outlet anymore, though. He was two states away in a two-room apartment that he kept as empty as his heart.
Sal’s entrance into Travis’ life was unceremonious and unexpected. It was the most discordant strum within the already chaotic symphony that was Travis’ life, and yet Sal refused to let go. Sal refused to rebuke Travis and refused to believe that the person he showed the world was the person inside.
Sal had gotten closer to unearthing the real Travis than anyone ever had. And, for a long time, Travis had struggled with the guilt knowing he’d taken that opportunity away from both of them.
But he knew that Sal was a smart guy. He was smart, and caring, and it was Sal himself who’d put the idea in Travis’ head.
Why don’t you run away?
…What?
Make a getaway, Trav. Collect your documents, start saving cash, and get the fuck out of here.
Pft. Your idealism cannot and will not rub off on me, Sally Face. I’m stuck here.
Sal didn’t know a lot about Travis’ home life. Sal had taken more time to observe Travis than most people, and had discerned that everything was certainly not okay at home, but Travis had gone to excessive lengths to prevent Sal from finding out any details.
Travis would find out on the night he left that Sal had been going out of his way to collect those details on his own.
During the six months Sal and Travis dated, 5 of them had been spent compiling some master plan to get Travis out of the Phelps household. He’d exhibited great unease at first - such a great act of disobedience was sure to have consequences, but Sal had waved that away, stating I’ll make sure they won’t have a chance to.
The other reservation Travis had was not so easily quelled. His little sisters, who lived free from the cult’s influence - for once, Kenneth’s blatant sexism serving a better purpose - but still walking on eggshells for every second they spent in the Phelps household.
Sal skirted around that reality every time Travis brought it up. Travis didn’t want to be the one who abandoned them. Not like their mom had done before.
Because even though Mary and Madeleine hadn’t been old enough to remember their mom, Travis was. And remembering someone leaving was far worse than living in that shadow, he was almost certain of it.
Still, Sal had taken several risky endeavors to help Travis gather his legal documents and medical documentation in a hidden but easily accessible place so Travis could grab them and run. He helped Travis get a job at a library outside of Nockfell - which took a lot of loopholes to get Kenenth to approve, but in that journey Travis had acquired his driver’s license - to start saving money.
Sal had once suggested that Travis pack up anything that was important to him early on, but Travis had just snorted. It was moments like those where their polar opposite realities were made very clear. Travis wasn’t allowed to have any cherished items - if he did, they’d have been broken a long time ago or been used as leverage. As bait.
Travis learned very early on how to avoid being baited.
He learned how to keep himself low to the ground and free from unnecessary suspicion.
Still, sometimes Kenneth would choose to break him just because.
Just in case Travis had gotten away with something.
The night he decided to leave was one of those nights. Despite his faith in God being tenuous at best, he’d prayed not that it would stop but that his sisters were asleep. That they’d never face a reality like this, and that they’d never find out just how bad it could get.
When Kenneth left Travis alone - one of the days, it would be to die - it was like the last rope tethering himself to that awful place snapped. He felt his own gaze harden as he, with more finality than anything he’d ever done in his life, began silently writing letters to his sisters.
Kenneth couldn’t find them. And it might be a long time before they find them, but he knew he couldn’t abandon them with nothing.
Not like her.
His important papers were already organized in a file, and he slipped it into his backpack. He’d never had many clothes, but he haphazardly threw what he did have onto a sheet that he tied up into an effective enough sack.
For a moment, his gaze lingered at his bed. Not because he’d miss it, but because he had a box of old journals under there. He didn’t have a single desire to take them with him, but he could not let Kenenth rifle through a single page.
There was too much ammo there.
Travis stayed up that entire night. He did not dare to sleep because he didn’t want to waste a second of the time he had, and when he heard his father leave, he sprang into action.
What time had it been? Maybe 5:00 in the morning? Travis didn’t know, didn’t remember, and didn’t care. All he’d known is that if he was lucky, he’d have 30 minutes maximum. He slipped his letters to his sisters inside books on their shelves they wouldn’t pick up until they were much older. The two of them were sleeping softly in their room, and Travis took just an extra moment to look at them.
That was a mistake. Mary’s eyes fluttered open, and even though Travis was barely over 18, he knew that he looked so old to her.
“What is it?” God, her voice had been so quiet, so high, so soft, and even now, looking back, Travis wondered that girl’s voice was a semblance of what it had been.
Madeleine shuffled, too, and Travis cursed himself silently. “What time is it?” She asked, the tone of her inquiry mirroring her sisters.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Travis began rushing, “I need you two to know that I love you. Okay?”
Mary’s eyes furrowed at him and she sat up. “Why-”
“Please. Tell me you know.”
Every second was another waste. He stared at his sisters, now both awake, staring right back at him with understanding he hated to have put there.
He pulled Madeline out of her bed and tugged her to Mary, hugging them both - they were so fucking small - as long as he could make himself.
“You two need to pretend this never happened. You didn’t see me, and you have no idea.” He shuddered a breath. He could not cry in front of them. “I’ll find you again.”
He pulled away and looked at them. They were both silent, because of course only Travis had been the Phelps child to inherit a motormouth.
He rushed out of the room and grabbed his files, his clothes, his journals, and his carabiner with his wallet and keys. His junky, hunk-of-metal car would have to survive a long trip as he dumped everything into the backseat and took excessive backroads on a drive to Addison Apartments.
Travis knew Larry would be awake. Their relationship was contentious, but by no means was it as explosive as it had been once. Still, he was nervous thinking about just how far back Larry was willing to put them in the name of Sal’s feelings.
He parked his car and practically flew out with his journals, rapping on Larry’s basement door with enough force to be confused for the IRS.
He heard a mumble of What the hell, from behind, and it opened.
Travis had expected to see Larry, yes. He had not expected to see Sal, Todd, and Ashley also staring at him.
“What the hell-” Larry repeated again, but Travis’ gaze flitted to Sal, who was the last person he’d wanted to see.
“Travis?” He’d asked dumbly, and fuck, Travis really wished he’d just left the interaction there. Dropped his journals, mumbled an apology, and booked it out of Nockfell without any other memories to follow.
Instead, Travis stepped inside cautiously, getting a sinking feeling he’d intruded on something he was not supposed to. Larry shut the door behind him.
“Travis,” was what Todd began, oddly enough. If his nerves hadn’t been so shot, he might have gotten annoyed at how everything everyone was saying was occurring in twos.
Instead, he forced out, “I can’t leave these at the house.”
This time, Ashley responded, and Travis let himself wonder for a moment what had Sal so quiet before he was hearing, “Why? Is it something with your dad?”
He rolled his eyes. “No, Ashley, it’s something with the mother I haven’t seen since I was seven - yes, it’s my fucking dad.”
“Okay, okay,” Sal started to placate, “Travis, what’s going on?” It was a question, sure, but the delivery sure did not make it seem that way.
He huffed. “I’ve been playing the risk game long enough. Just take them.” He dropped them on the ground to emphasize his statement.
Again, Sal didn’t add anything of substance - instead, Larry started probing. “And you were going to drop them off here?”
“I don’t have a lot of fucking time, right now, Johnson. As long as no word of any of this reaches my dad, we’re fine.”
He turned on his heel to go, but as he wrenched the basement door open, there was a firm tug on his sleeve accompanied by a voice he’d know anywhere. “Travis.”
“Sal,” he responded, not looking back.
“What are you-”
“I’m doing exactly what you keep telling me I should do. Beat it.”
He wrenched himself free, storming to his car.
It was completely stupid to think Sal Fisher, King of Never Leaving Anything Alone, would let the conversation end there. Travis had the mind to be grateful Larry, Ash, and Todd had remained in the basement, but he was being followed by confused and concerned shouts from his boyfriend.
“Travis- you can’t just leave like this, what will-”
“I’m fine enough. You’ve done plenty to that end. Thanks, I guess.”
“Yes, okay, but- now? Travis, what’s going on, talk to me-”
“Do not get involved, Sally Face,” He gritted, opening the door to the driver’s seat. He would have stepped inside, but Sal’s next sentence had him dead in his tracks.
“What will the cult do when they find out?”
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
Travis forced himself to turn around. It would have been easier if he hadn’t immediately started shaking. “What?”
“I- Travis, listen-”
He made himself step forward, and it closed the space between them very effectively, because of course Sal had been tailing right behind him without a second thought as to what personal space meant (let alone the force of a car that was about to be driven). Still, Travis let himself be a real Phelps for once in his life. Maybe his dad would have been proud of the way he loomed over Sal, eyes cold and hands death gripping his shoulders. “What do you know?”
“I…We don’t know a lot, there’s a lot of unanswereds, but-”
“How the fuck do you know, Sal?” Any desire to make a subtle retreat was forgone the second the shout left his mouth.
“We- I, um, we-”
“You what.” He spat. He leaned down to Sal’s face - the same way he’d done many times, but without a single trace of the desire that usually accompanied the motion. “I will ask you again,” he growled. “What have you been doing? Where have you been prying?”
The boy Travis showed to the world was there. He was not a fake shell. This is who Travis was - violent, mean, willing to press to get the information he wanted. He would scare anybody, and he could beat their ass if needed.
He knew that was the person Sal was seeing right now as he stuttered out, “Well- I, well, we found some stuff here at Addison’s and it all…just kind of…” He trailed off. It didn’t matter. Travis knew. He didn’t need to hear anymore. He let go of Sal’s shoulders, moving his hand to fist his shirt instead.
“Stop. Fucking. With forces you will never understand,” he forced out, his voice low and gravelly.
“S-so you know, then?”
Travis barked a cold laugh. “This is my fucking life, Sal. If you thought I didn’t know, you’re dumber than I thought,” He added for extra punch, using the force of his height to push Sal away as he let go of his shirt. “I can’t believe you thought I didn’t know and tried to keep it from me.”
And then, a silent thought slipped in. It was cold. It was simple. And it pushed Travis over the edge.
“And I can’t believe you forced your way into finding out the worst parts of my life just because of your stupid fucking savior complex.”
“I didn’t- we didn’t mean to-”
“I don’t know what you know. For both of our safety - which you’ve completely fucking disregarded, by the way - I don’t want another word out of you. But to violate the privacy I’ve kept cultivated this whole time, knowing that it’s the one thing I've always wanted - ever dared to want - and never had?” He let his incredulous words ring through the air. “That’s lower than low. See you in hell, Sally Face.”
He slammed the car door and swerved onto the road, determined never to hear a thing about Nockfell again.
It’s funny what finds its way back to you, though. Not instantly - nothing in life is ever that fast. For example, his run from Nockfell took about 3 weeks to fully settle. He was essentially homeless for a while, sleeping in his car and buying only a bit of food a day to stop himself from starving. He drove East, toward the rising sun every morning, almost grateful for the way it blinded him.
His car did not have a radio, so all he had to keep him occupied were thoughts.
Thoughts about how he’d left things with Sal, guilt and regret eating away at him one day at a time.
Thoughts about his sisters, a sour taste in his mouth when he remembered what Kenneth had been like to him.
Thoughts about Kenneth, and the Devourers of God, using their ever-growing influence to find him and bring him back, crawling and kicking and screaming.
It was thoughts like those that made him push harder against the gas pedal, determined to get as far away from Nockfell as he could before he had to fully commit to starting over.
He ended up in a middle-of-nowhere town. It was everything and nothing like Nockfell. He had enough petty cash to secure an apartment, which to this day was the only place he’d ever been able to call home.
By no means was the Phelps residence ‘home.’ Travis refused to buy any furnishings or personal items in case he had to run again, but the feeling of entering a place where you could really exhale was something he’d never known.
He hopped around jobs in that town for a little bit, but he found himself circling back to what he’d done back in Nockfell - working at the library. It was quiet, Travis got money, and he was able to work with kids. He saw Mary and Madeline in each one.
But they weren’t there. And Travis would never go back, not now. The library was a good starting place - his boss was a kind, middle-aged woman, with no kids of her own that she ever let on. If Travis looked just right, he thought he might recognize her from somewhere, but he couldn’t place it and neither of them were especially chatty.
Still, he’d been given information on how to legally change his name and open a bank account not associated with ‘Travis Phelps.’ He’d wondered, briefly, if going by a different name would be difficult at first - but he’d never thought about it again.
He didn’t talk to anyone as/is. He never introduced himself, really, because the younger kids just called him Mister and the older kids would just ask him questions without formalities. Every time he ordered anywhere, he’d give a different name, just to be safe, and he took to wearing scarves and medical masks to obscure his face when the waves of paranoia got just strong enough to stop ignoring.
And, with every week, Travis forgot. He let himself live in the present moment for once, living a life as someone nobody would ever know again. It wasn’t an empty existence, but he was purposeless.
Being purposeless after years of being told exactly what your sole objective would be was absolutely delightful.
All of Travis’ days looked the exact same, and he knew he’d never want anything else. Travis got to lead a regular life, for once.
He ate because he was hungry, not because it was a weapon. He read the Bible at work because he wanted to know how doctored his existence before had been (as it turned out, it was not nearly as cruel a standard to live by as Kenneth had implored). He cleaned because he needed to, not because he was forced.
And a day came by, after a year and a half of letting himself forget, where he took a once over at his car and decided that he’d clean it after work. He’d always been good enough about the upkeep - he’d gotten the thing when he was 17, and it was already old then, but for simple drives around town it was just fine.
It was still light when he got home, courtesy of it being summer. Travis checked his watch - a gift from his boss, for reasons he couldn’t place, but he’d never have bought something like that himself - and it read, August 16th. It was about 8pm. The date made him shiver, and he made himself forget. He took the watch off and dropped it on his kitchen counter before rolling up his sleeves and working to get all of the junk out of his ride.
Mostly, it was useless trash. A lot of it was picked up by the vacuum, and the bigger pieces went into the bin without greater issue. But, for some reason, Travis wanted to do a deep clean. He opened the glove compartment and rifled through his vehicle registration and insurance papers - just to be sure. He’d never been pulled over, thank God, so he’d never had much of a reason to double check - but what was the harm in it, really?
There was nothing wrong with the papers, as anyone could have predicted, but when he went to put them back he noticed a small rectangle on the bottom of the glovebox he hadn’t previously noticed. It crinkled when he grabbed it, and he flipped it over after he put his documents back to see-
Sal. Him and Sal, what seemed like lifetimes ago, with Travis smiling with a popsicle and Sal holding a smiley ice cream pop over his mask in place of one.
Travis expected that, if a day like this would come, he’d have broken down on the spot. It was true that his chest started aching, but he sighed and stuffed it in his pocket for the moment, returning to the more pressing task.
The distraction didn’t last long enough, because he was sitting on his carpet sooner than he’d liked.
Travis hardly recognized the boy in the photo. He didn’t try to look in the mirror much anymore, but the fully bleached and well-kempt head of hair in the polaroid was a far cry from the shoulder-length curls Travis maintained with just some of the bleach curling around the base of his neck. The rosary and pink sweater weren’t his ‘staple’ anymore - the sweater was buried deep in his dresser, and the rosary hung limply on a random drawer handle.
A lot can change in 18 months. A person can go through a million lifetimes and shed them all in the same time it takes for another’s world to crumble entirely.
The silence of Travis’ apartment rang loudly as he kept staring at him and Sal. They’d never officially broken up, but Travis had physically forced them apart with multiple state boundaries between them.
He couldn’t say he regretted it for a second, but when he looked at the familiar smiley-squint of Sal’s eyes looking over at him…
He sighed. Sal was the first person to ever encourage Travis to do something for himself. The life he’d built was evidence of the lasting effect Sal had had on him.
Travis couldn’t erase that, as much as he tried.
His eyes flitted up to the fridge, which had accumulated a few freebie-magnets. He crossed the short distance and used a few - they weren’t strong enough to support the weight of the photo alone - to pin the old picture up.
There. One personal belonging to make it look like a person really lived there. He felt like Sal deserved at least that.
And then Travis went on to keep forgetting. Resuming the same beautifully mundane routine he’d cultivated for himself. But sometimes, when he’d idly sip water while filling out his W-2, he’d see the photo. And he’d have to pause and push his glasses up to his hairline, so the distance would blur it and he could keep working without distraction.
Travis did not get lonely. For a long time, being alone was the only solace he could get, so no, living his life in this way did not get lonely.
But sometimes he’d remember. He’d remember that glistening moment in time when it felt like everything could be okay, not because it was, but because there was someone beside him who believed it enough for the two of them.
And then he’d remember the night he left. The way that Sal had stuck his nose where it didn’t belong, finding out more and more about the horrors Travis had witnessed since the day he’d been cursed to be born.
And then he’d wonder, just for a moment. A moment too long where he’d remember just too much about the past he’d sworn to himself never to return to.
He’d wonder what Sal had done next. If the damage was too late, and if Sal…
Those were the moments when he’d take melatonin and rest in ambiguous unconsciousness, waking up and choosing not to remember the night before.
Nobody could ever forget Sal. But God, Travis could try.
And he was mostly successful. The next 2 years came and went just as uneventfully as the first year and a half he spent in his new life. His 21st birthday had no fanfare - nobody even knew it passed. What a blessing that was. The birthdate on his ID matched up with the day he left - as far as the law was concerned, he’d been 21 for 3 months already (not that he’d taken advantage of it - he didn’t have an interest in drinking).
His next birthdays didn’t have any meaning, either. He kept living the same life, the same day, every day, for 6 years. Nothing had to change. Nothing needed to change.
But then, he got a glimpse of a newspaper at the library. It wasn’t where he normally worked - they didn’t keep the intense stuff where the kids stayed. But it was a slow day, and he’d gone into the back for a split second, and the bright blue on the cover photo seemed so familiar.
Sally Face Murderer Kills 12
The thoughts from the day he left echoed through his mind again.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
Travis knew the game. And he knew Sal. His stomach curled with dread, his mouth filling with bile knowing that his Father had gotten what he’d wanted after all.
A scapegoat.
He anxiously came up to his boss, forcing out that he’d have to leave early. She offered him a sympathetic look and didn’t press - come to think of it, she looked nauseated, too - but Travis didn’t dwell on it as he drove back to his apartment, jankily parking his car and swinging the door open. It slammed shut behind him, and fuck, Travis was mad.
He didn’t know at who.
He didn’t care.
He knew Sal shouldn’t have pried, he knew nothing would end well, he’d just wanted to protect him, and of course he’d been right because Sal never knew when something was going to hurt him.
And now…
Fuck. Travis couldn’t ever have escaped Nockfell. Not really. Not his father, not the Devourers of God, everything would always come back to haunt him, he was just so. Fucking. Stupid.
Travis didn’t own a lot. He made a point not to. But sometimes, you get an urge, and Travis hadn’t gotten an urge in a long time. He forgot how to say no to it. Time stopped making sense, really - it could have been an hour later, more, less, but he’d gone out to a random store and bought ceramics nobody would miss.
And now he was here. Back in his kitchen, staring at the tiled floor, under the fridge that had his stupid fucking polaroid that he really should have torn up and thrown away.
But Travis couldn’t do that. So he lifted up the first plain mug, with the price tag still on it, and threw it at the ground full force.
It shattered below him, pieces exploding outward.
And, oh, Travis needed this.
He threw another piece - a plate.
A bowl.
Every piece of the haul he’d bought, thrown once by a potter and thrown violently now never to be whole again. Shatter after shatter, piece after piece, Travis went breaking each one until he was standing in front of a sea of hazards.
And he did not clean it up. He turned on his heel and left it there, taking double the melatonin dose and knocking himself out.
He still showed up to work. He never spent a cent on anything extraneous, but he needed the routine and he needed the money. His boss commented, once, that he wasn’t himself, but he brushed it off and kept up an act that was just fine enough. It would pass in a week, just like before.
It didn’t, but Travis didn’t remember how long it was supposed to take, so he kept waiting for it to change. Waiting to forget, willing himself to forget, but how could he do that when he knew that at any point, they could find him next?
Kenneth never forgot, and he never forgave. It was only a matter of time.
Travis was getting really sick of time.
It didn’t make sense to him anymore as every day seemed like it could feasibly be his last. The shards on his kitchen floor collected dust and the carpet of his bedroom was hardly visible beneath the clothes he refused to put away. Papers he’d normally file were left on counters, and he didn’t pick them up if they happened to fall.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The next headline shattered him all the same, but he was already too broken. Already too far gone for Sally Face Killer Trial to Start to ring any more alarm bells.
He refused to think about it. Refused to think at all. He responded to people on autopilot and did nothing but sleep, work, and eat if his body demanded it enough.
His hair got longer, more tangled, so he threw it into a ponytail and kept it that way. He refused to think about the boy who did it first.
Another while passed like this, and another headline surfaced: Sally Face Killer Sentenced to Capital Punishment.
Travis didn’t have to read that one. He was there. It had been dangerous and insane, but it had made him feel alive, and that had been enough to compel him to see Sal’s hearing.
He didn’t stick around long after the verdict was announced. He could only pray Sal had been the same - Travis didn’t want to wish for a life like it on Sal, but he couldn’t stand the idea of Sal knowing. Besides, he’d hardly been present during the portion of the trial he’d been present for. It hardly counted.
The gravity of it all hadn’t sunk in until he’d been in the middle of recataloguing books.
Although, come to think of it, that didn’t sound too bad a fate. Travis would love for an end like that.
The apartment got messier. His life became duller. He was too settled here, in the town whose name he didn’t bother to commit to memory - he wasn’t giving his address to anyone, anyway - to leave. Maybe this is what his life would have been in Nockfell, but Nockfell was away, far, far, away.
He tried to believe that they wouldn’t find him here. He tried choosing to forget that he’d breached enemy territory for a stupid, stupid reason - young love? To feel alive? It didn’t matter.
It was really hard to believe it would all be okay when you’d not just been on the inside, but had witnessed the levels of command. The levels of power.
They had to know now.
Kenneth was just letting him stay here. Kenneth was just using him as a puppet, like normal, right? He could and would come take him away when he decided it was necessary. Travis’ life was always a ticking time bomb. Nothing would ever change.
The image of him and Sal faded on the fridge, but he didn’t notice. He might have cared, but he hadn’t set foot in the area because he at least still had enough self-preservative instincts not to try to cut his skin on broken ceramics.
Another headline. Sally Face Killer Escaped.
How long had it been? What year was it now? Travis racked his brain, trying to piece together a timeline. He left when he was 18…1993? 1994? It was…a long time later, now. 2001. Sal killed…was reported to have killed…in 1999. Two years ago.
Two years? That didn’t seem right. But he’d only just recently been sentenced…did Travis really remember being there at all? He thought court proceedings had taken a long time, but that was standard procedure for most cases…
Come to think of it, Travis didn’t even know what day of the week it was. He didn’t know anything anymore. He knew that they were coming for him, sooner or later.
He leaned against the ever-blank wall of his apartment, sitting down atop the papers that covered his floor. Nothing was anything. Everything was something.
He just sat there. He sat there and stared forward, thinking about the time when he’d let himself believe he’d been free.
Travis Phelps would never be free. All he had now was a waiting game, and he wasn’t interested in playing. Cat and mouse was his entire life for 18 years, and the brief reprieve wasn’t long enough.
He painfully turned his neck to the right, glaring at his door, willing it to open. When are you going to take me away?
The knock that followed startled the life out of him, and panic immediately started coursing through him.
Fuck. Okay. Now? Now. Okay. We knew this was happening. I asked for this, why would I ask for this? Why, why, okay he’s here, Kenneth, and he is going to be angry-
Travis desperately tried rationalizing to himself, tried calming himself, but as much as he liked to hide and pretend, there was one thing Travis would always be, and it was a victim of his father’s abuse.
He took a steadying breath, sticking his hand out and turning the knob of his door, keeping his lips shut, waiting for the onslaught that was surely waiting for him.
Of all of the outcomes Travis had considered, this was not one of them.
Sal Fisher, staring at him, eyes dead behind his prosthetic.
“You can be a real hard guy to find when you want to be.”
Well, what the fuck is he supposed to do now?
Staring dumbly, Travis sidestepped as Sal took a step forward, and he took a second to wonder where Sal had gotten clothes that were very much not prison clothes when Sal continued, “You live like this?”
Finding his voice, Travis sputtered, “What- what the fuck? What are you-”
Sal met his gaze and Travis stopped. This was not the Sal he knew. Looking him up and down, he realized that much was obvious - the pudge was gone and his frame was lean. Gaunt, even. He was short as ever, but his spine was rimrod straight - not nearly as laid back as it had been when Travis knew him.
This, for all intents and purposes, was a stranger. A stranger in his apartment, where he’d never had anyone but himself stand.
New experiences all around.
Sal was still looking at him. Travis stared back at him. “You know.” Sal said simply.
Travis felt his face twist into his familiar scowl, despite it having been years since he’d had to hide behind it. It wasn’t right anymore. It fell almost almost as soon as it formed. “Yeah,” he confirmed simply. “I know.” He took a sharp intake of breath, “How did you even-”
“Ghosts talk.”
Once again, Travis returned to a mantra that seemed to apply to much of his life regarding Sal: What the fuck.
He watched, frozen in place, as Sal idly walked around, surveying the small apartment and picking it apart with his gaze. Travis couldn’t bring it in him to feel shame - in a way, he almost felt vindicated. Look what you’ve done to me.
As soon as he had the decency to think, I really hope he doesn’t look at the fridge, Sal stopped at his counter, staring ahead.
Travis pushed his glasses up again and turned away, not wanting to see even an ounce of Sal’s reaction.
“You found this?”
Travis didn’t look at him, instead sitting down on his floor and silently surveying the damage that had been done over the last…however long.
“Travis, look at me.”
“That’s not my name, and I don’t know you,” Travis said coldly, choosing instead to start sorting the papers that should have been filed long ago into piles.
“And yet, here I am, and I seem to recall you letting me in.”
“Well, they’re saying you’re a psycho.” It wasn’t an insult, but it wasn’t not an insult, either. It flew out of his mouth cooly, and he almost hoped it punched Sal as much as it had hurt him to read.
Sal didn’t respond to him, and Travis didn’t look over his shoulder to check his physical reaction. Travis didn’t want to care. This wasn’t his Sal.
“...I was so sure that you’d mention it to me when you discovered this.”
“What, your crime?”
“The fucking picture, dickhead.”
Travis knew what Sal had been talking about, but he reserved the right to be a ‘dickhead,’ as Sal put it. He wasn’t supposed to see him ever again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sal asked again.
Travis sighed, annoyed, and spun around while remaining seated. “With what fucking contact information? I don’t know if you noticed, but I didn’t exactly try to leave a paper trail.”
“So…you found it…not at home?”
“This is my home. I found it…God, I don’t know, years ago during a deep clean.”
“And you put it on display.” There was no tone or emotion in Sal’s voice at all. It seemed like he was trying to poke and prod until he found a piece of Travis’ bones that would react the way he wanted him to. If Travis didn’t know better - and he didn’t - he’d guess Sal was trying to provoke.
Travis glared at the man before him. “I don’t know what the fuck you want or what the fuck you’re getting at, but I don’t see a single reason why I shouldn’t turn you in right now.”
It was a bluff. It was completely and utterly a bluff, and he knew Sal knew. Travis could lie without guilt, but that didn’t mean they were always compelling.
Even when they were, they had to be rooted in a level of truth or desperation.
Travis didn’t have much of either at that moment. He looked at Sal, really looked at him, as much as his nearsightedness would allow.
God, he was so tired.
Sal moved again. He ventured to the left around Travis’ counter, presumably to survey the kitchen, when predictably, Travis heard a,
“Woah.”
The ceramics were still there. It had been a long time, but Travis was not going to clean it up. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Sal didn’t ask, but the question hung in the air. Travis sighed. “The news really upset me.”
“The…news?” Sal turned around, and Travis didn’t believe his ‘confusion’ for a second. He stared right back at Sal, eyebrow cocked. “Travis, it came out…years ago.”
He looked around his living space unfeelingly. He heard more than saw Sal come closer to him and sit across from him, the papers crunching and shuffling under his feet.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Travis muttered.
The atmosphere was tense. It was so thick, enough to rival the Phelps’ residence in Nockfell.
“I know,” Sal whispered after a few minutes. It was the first glimpse of the real Sal Travis had seen yet.
It occurred to him that Sal might have had to create the same protective layers he’d developed a long time ago.
“I know they made you do it,” Travis blurted. “I don’t…I haven’t read a lot,” Don’t remember a lot from the hearing, “I haven’t been able to stand it, but I know them. I remember it.”
I didn’t want them to get to you, too. And you chose for it to happen. Even with those thoughts unsaid, it was the most Travis had spoken to Sal since he’d come in.
Travis busied himself tidying the papers again. It revealed more of the carpeted floor than he’d seen in years.
“I never took you for much of a hoarder, Trav,” Sal said with a forced chuckle. He was trying to lighten the mood, fucking bastard. The use of the nickname made him sickeningly confused - happy, giddy, angry, saddened. Fuck Sal, genuinely.
But then again, he’d been fucked up enough as/is.
This whole situation was fucked. Travis was sitting in his den of depression with the man who’d inadvertently caused this spiral and had also been the one to push him to get away from his abusive living situation. And it was a convicted serial killer, on the run from the police.
Travis had no choice in his next action. He had to laugh from the absurdity of it all. He had a feeling he looked wild and frantic, and Sal’s stunned silence accompanied by vague confused noises only exacerbated the theory.
Even still, he couldn’t stop. It was completely and utterly ridiculous and fucked. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes and he tried fruitlessly to press his palms there to stop them from forming.
Warm, calloused hands covered his own, pulling them away. Travis blinked, and Sal’s permanent ambivalence was looking at him. Close enough that Travis could make out the details of his prosthetic and the eyes underneath, even though this whole time he’d been trying to maintain a large enough distance that he wouldn’t be able to properly look at himself at all.
“You got glasses,” Sal murmured finally.
Travis scoffed. “For a convicted murderer, your priorities are shockingly jumbled,” he spat, tearing his hands away and getting up, leaving Sal sitting on the floor.
For all Sal had changed, he wasn’t rash. He didn’t become like Travis. He didn’t turn to insults, or mockery, or any of Travis’ tried and true methods of How To Shove People Away So They Don’t Hurt You.
“Finding you was my priority. I don’t know what to do now.”
If Travis had an ounce more of fight in him, he’d have whipped around, glared at Sal incredulously and started chewing him out. He probably should have done exactly that. Instead, Travis’ mind started swimming at such high speeds that he couldn’t form a single sentence that could communicate any of the gravity he’d been hit with.
You wanted to find me?
Why?
I ran away.
I yelled at you.
I thought you’d hate me forever.
Why would you want to see me again?
Why would you come here?
What do you know?
How the fuck did you find me?
Are they going to come for me now, after they trace you?
Did you put me on death’s door?
How long have you been searching for me?
Why me?
Travis snapped his mouth shut after a minute too long of it hanging open. He turned his attention to the counter, organizing the miscellaneous papers there.
He was keenly aware of Sal beginning to move behind him. Years of abuse will teach you to switch between predator and prey instincts on a blink’s notice. Travis tracked the noise, and eventually the visual movement, as Sal knelt at the tiled kitchen floor in front of him and began using his bare hands to gather the shattered ceramics.
“Wh-”
“I’ve had worse.”
And that was that. Travis didn’t want - didn’t know what - to say, so he kept sorting the documents while Sal worked to reveal the tile that had been hidden for…maybe years, at that point.
It was the kind of shared domesticity Travis had dreamed about having with Sal, once upon a time. But he hadn’t envisioned it like this. He hadn’t wanted it like this.
There weren’t any words to say. When Sal silently finished his task, he moved to continue sorting the papers that covered the floor. He didn’t ask questions. The aloofness he’d presented during his entrance had ebbed away. Travis wondered if that’s how nerves manifested in him now - in being rude and curt instead of the stuttering he’d been accustomed to as a teenager.
Travis moved to his bedroom and started folding his clothes. It was a while later when Sal followed suit, so Travis mentally filed that it was likely that Sal had finished stacking papers in the main room.
So Sal helped Travis fold his clothes on the floor, a task that had been procrastinated for far too long, just as all the others. It didn’t escape Travis’ notice that Sal didn’t seem to begin anything that could be possibly perceived as invasive - he didn’t start putting the clothes away until Travis had already been well into doing it himself.
He’d finally gotten used to the silence when he heard Sal chuckle beside him - not the same forced one from earlier, but a real one. It was different from the laugh he’d been familiar with as a kid, but the same elements were there. The notes were all there.
“You still have your sweater,” Sal supplied when he caught Travis’ eye alongside a quirked eyebrow.
Travis followed his eyeline to where, indeed, his old magenta sweater was shoved without second thought into the furthest corner of the dresser drawer. In all honesty, despite it being in plain view had the compartment been opened, Travis hadn’t seen it in years.
He hadn’t worn it - hadn’t even looked at it - since the hearing.
He gently took it out and laid it flat on his lap, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was as threadbare as it was the day he took it off for the last time, and smaller than he remembered it. Maybe he’d grown since he was 18.
Travis stared at it for longer than a normal person might have. Sal seemed to be looking at it, too, but there was that feeling.
He was being watched.
Sal was looking at him.
Travis turned his head to meet Sal’s eyes. He didn’t seem to expect this, because he blinked and turned back to putting the folded clothes away. Still, eyeing Sal up and down, Travis couldn’t help but notice a similarity in build.
Without thinking much about the implications, he took his old sweater and handed it to Sal. He got up clunkily, supplying a, “I don’t know how long you’ve been in those clothes,” before leaving the bedroom to survey the damage (or lack thereof) in his main room.
It looked like it did when he was 20.
It was a stupid thing to lose breath over, really, but it was the same fresh start feeling he’d had at 18.
He couldn’t keep looking at it. It almost hurt his eyes. He made a beeline for the bathroom, leaving the door open as he sat on the sink counter and stared into his own dead eyes.
What a mess. He’d been completely helpless until Sal came and magically picked up the pieces - literally - for him. For the second time in his life, Travis had to credit Sal for righting him. That was two too many times for anyone desiring to be self-sufficient.
He saw Sal appear behind him in the mirror, sans prosthetic, hesitating but meeting his eyes in the reflection. He was wearing Travis’ sweater, and Travis let himself crack a tiny smile at it.
This was ridiculous. This whole thing was utterly ridiculous.
Sal stepped forward into the small space, fingers swiftly locating the dangling rosary that Travis hadn’t bothered to glance at in who knows how long and clasping it around Travis’ neck.
“‘S Just not you without it,” he said softly.
Travis frowned, furrowing his eyebrows. “You don’t know me.”
Sal’s lips - the remainder of them - smiled slightly as he hugged Travis from behind and rested his chin on Travis’ shoulder, humming softly. “I might.”
This was so wrong. It was so right. It was everything he’d forced himself not to want, everything he made himself forget could ever have existed, here and real.
“You…have so much to explain to me. You can’t just show up here- with no explanation, after my entire life has been torpedoed a million times over, not after I was finally able to escape it all-”
“Why’re you the only one who gets to escape?” Sal whispered.
Now that, Travis knew without a doubt, was not Sal. He tensed, jerking away and walking stiltedly to sit down on the floor outside again. He leaned against the wall, in the same place he’d been when Sal had first knocked on the door.
Sal sat next to him, but Travis kept staring forward.
“Your hair’s long,” Sal tried.
“No shit.”
“You’re upset.”
“No shit.”
“Is it with me?”
“What the fuck is your deal, Fisher?!” He snapped his head toward Sal, patience being tested. “I have a life that’s entirely my own. I can’t just halt everything for you. You and I,” He emphasized by gesturing between them, “Do not know each other. Not anymore. Because,” Travis laughed coldly, because now that he’d started he really couldn’t stop, “Let’s not forget what drove me away in the first place-”
“I don’t know why you left.” Sal said calmly. It was too calm, and forgive Travis for his suspicions, but he just didn’t believe it.
“You know exactly why I left. You were forcing every reason down my throat like it was the only thing I could have possibly done.”
“Well, you did do it, so I was right about something, wasn’t I?” This time, Sal’s voice was rising, and now without the prosthetic blocking his face Travis could see the frustration boiling over. Me fucking too.
“God forbid something not be about you.” Travis gritted out, leveling Sal with a glare. There were levels to what he said, and he hoped that Sal was able to discern every single one.
Sal chose to uproot Travis’ life by tracking him down, removing his last delusion of safety he could have possibly held.
Sal had taken it upon himself to fix Travis.
Sal had made it his own responsibility to unearth the secrets of Nockfell, and now he had 13 counts of homicide on his name. And he’d insisted, per his testimony, that he had to do it.
Travis knew that Sal would have struggled with the guilt over his disappearance. He knew that he would blame himself and probably had to be restrained again and again in fits of despair not to try to follow him.
Lot of good that must have done.
Sal was silent beside him, having broken eye contact and instead choosing to stare forward at the kitchen counter ahead.
Travis kept watching him, a lick of suspicion coursing through him at all times.
Sal brought his knees up and tucked his head between them, wrapping his arms around and holding himself there. It was reminiscent of the way he’d found Travis in the bathroom stall back in high school.
With his skinny, bony frame being adorned by Travis’ old sweater, he looked like a child.
Travis had to strain to hear what was said next. “I don’t want to do this.”
Neither did Travis. Travis had gone a long time without fighting with someone, but he felt like he had a right to be angry. After everything, he wasn’t going to let Sal tell him not to be upset.
But Sal didn’t tell him not to be upset. As Travis replayed the previous events in his mind, he found that Sal hadn’t once even alluded to the idea that Travis shouldn’t be angry.
Travis was an angry person. Had been for a long time. And it was familiar, it was easy, to make Sal know just how angry a person could be.
He’d learned that from Kenneth. Travis had been shown, over and over, that violence and anger could solve any problem if you tried hard enough. Travis had believed that, for so many years, until someone had shown him it could be different.
Until Sal showed him it could be different. And, true, maybe this was a completely different Sal sitting beside him - but in all of the time Travis had been on his own, he’d never resorted to chewing out a stranger.
This stranger didn’t have to be the undoing of his progress.
“Okay, Sal,” Travis said slowly. “Then we won’t. Not right now,” he added quickly, because he wanted an explanation at some point or another, but it didn’t have to be now. It didn’t have to happen the way he’d been forcing it. “But I really need to know what you actually want from me here. I mean, you realize how-”
“Yeah, yeah, Travis, I know. It’s all I thought about on the way here.”
“Then why,” Travis pleaded, “have you been so woefully-”
“Woefully?” If he’d looked, there was a near guarantee that Sal’s face would’ve had a shit-eating grin.
“Shut up, Fisher.” Travis muttered without malice, shoving him.
“You’re right, though,” Sal sighed. “I…Okay. What do you want to know?”
What didn’t Travis want to know? His mind had been swimming with questions since the second he’d opened the door for Sal. Still, if there was one thing that had been weighing on Travis’ mind the heaviest…
“Did you blame me?”
This was apparently not the question Sal expected, because a moment of dumbfounded silence preceded the tastefully worded response of, “What?”
“Did you blame me,” He repeated. “When I left…when I did. The way that I did.”
It wasn’t time for Travis to dive headfirst back into everything that had been going on. As much as he wanted - probably needed - to understand the depths that he was bound to plunge back into, this was the same question that had been haunting him for years. No matter how hard he’d tried, it kept coming back to haunt him. To hurt him.
And now he had an opportunity to know. He had an opportunity to fix something he’d sworn up and down that he didn’t care was broken.
“Travis, I…that was years ago. I wasn’t even an adult yet- I mean, hell, you and I were pretty much both still kids.”
He was dodging the question. He’d offered, whatever you want to know, I’ll give, and he was dodging the fucking question. Travis huffed and stood up, answer clear. He should’ve known better, he really should’ve known that nothing would ever be easy for him and that nothing would ever-
“Trav.”
Man, fuck Sal Fisher. Fuck him and the hold he had on Travis even as a grown man. He turned around from the path he hadn’t planned, giving Sal a flat stare. “Did you hate me?” Travis asked again, being more direct this time.
“No.”
Well then.
“Okay…” Travis said slowly, moving to sit down again, this time across from Sal. “But you…”
Sal was pointedly not making eye contact. “I mean, it was hard. Really hard. I didn’t…” He sighed. “You never believed me, but you were so important to me. I think…I think I’d always just assumed that I was going to go with you. And- with everything I found-” He cut himself off, biting what was left of his lip nervously. He looked up at Travis, who realized suddenly just how small Sal had been making himself. Upon further examination, he realized that Sal had essentially wrapped himself up into a ball.
Where did he learn that? Why did he learn that?
It wasn’t the time. An old surge of protectiveness flared within Travis, but it wasn’t the time. He instead opted to finish the sentence Sal abandoned. “With everything you and your friends found by snooping into a life that wasn’t your-”
“Travis!” He snapped his mouth shut. That was new. Sal, yelling his name with a sharpness he hadn’t known possible, was certainly new. “Fucking- listen, Travis, okay? I’m not in a great spot right now. I have nowhere else to go and nowhere else to run, and quite frankly, I was perfectly happy to take the fate that was served to me. I fucking deserve it, and I know that. But you- you’ve haunted me since the day you left, and fucking hell, they might be saying I’m insane, but they don’t know the damn half of it. I- I don’t know if you’ve really noticed, but your daddy dearest made it his personal mission to puppet me and my life, and he only honed in on that tenfold after you made your getaway.” Sal was death gripping Travis’ wrist. Sal Fisher had an iron hold on him, and was pulling him closer in a way that was too threateningly familiar to Travis. “So sorry, church boy, if I fuck up my sentences a little and trip over my words. Fucking, sorry, if my decorum isn’t up to par. I’m just-” He took a breath. And then, he took another breath. His fingers loosened around Travis’ arm and, against his better judgement, he pulled away in favor of sitting against the wall with Sal.
“Yes, Travis, I blamed you. It came and went, but I’m not an angry person and I didn’t know what to do with any of it when it really came. I don’t know what I used to want, but it cycled between you coming home to me, and me running away, too, just to find you, or running into you and getting to cry and scream until you knew it all. But I couldn’t do any of that.”
Travis’ gaze flicked down, for a moment, to the arms he’d known once upon a time to hold many old reminders of anger. Sal’s self-conscious hands fluttered up to them, and Travis’ heart broke just a little knowing that there were new ones, now, too.
There were too many layers. There were too many possible wrong decisions and not enough certainty to make any right ones. Travis wasn’t built for this - 6 years in pseudo-isolation is already bad enough, but he’d always been emotionally stunted.
He gently reached his arm around and wrapped it around Sal, pulling him in. It was a position they’d rehearsed so many times - even as adults, their height difference made it so Sal could lean comfortably on Travis.
“I know too much now, Travis. You were right.” Vindicated. “But of all the things I know, I know that what you did makes you a lot like me. We’ve never been as different as they wanted us to think.”
“You mean, as different as I wanted to believe.”
“I mean a lot of things, Travis.” Sal murmured. “And I know a lot, too. I know that you didn’t have a choice. I didn’t, either. It’s different, but I know now that it was the only option for you. I also know you came to see me,” Travis inhaled sharply, “But I mean it when I say I didn’t find out until I’d been told.”
Travis swallowed down his uncomfortable mix of nervousness and guilt. “How’d you…when’d you-”
“Your father.” That was enough to shut Travis up, and it was more than enough to get his heart racing. “A letter from him got to me, that you’d snuck under his nose, and he taunted me that even you couldn’t save me. Even his own…”
“Pet,” Travis finished.
“I wasn’t going to-”
“But it’s the truth.” He sighed, rubbing his face. “How long ago?”
“...I don’t know how long I was on the road. But, uh, that long ago.”
Again with the implications. Again with the layers that Travis didn’t know where to start with.
“Sal…”
“Travis.”
“I don’t know you anymore. You don’t know me anymore. And this…this is all so much-”
“You’ve said this already.”
“I don’t know what else I can possibly say to convey to you that I am fucking terrified right now.”
This seemed to give Sal pause. For what reason, Travis could not discern, because while he was many things, fearless had never been one of them. Indirectness had also proven never to get him anywhere, and as much as he’d tried, bluntness seemed to always be the only way with Sal.
“...Are my sisters okay?”
“All I know is that they’re not with him.” Travis exhaled at that. Thank fucking God. “But honestly, Trav, do you think you’ll be able to say the same about yourself soon enough?”
“Don’t,” he warned. He wasn’t trying to be mean - he didn’t want to be. Leaning against Sal, with Sal leaning against him, in an apartment that was clean with a tomorrow that was guaranteed, was the kind of dream he’d never dared to behold. He didn’t want to shatter it. Not yet.
“I’m not going to ask to stay with you, Travis. They know everything - they see everything, and I can’t lead them to you.”
“But they already know-”
“Exactly. And I don’t want you to see what they do to me when they find me.”
Travis huffed. “Why are you here, then, Sal? You keep saying you had nowhere else to go, but then you said that you’re here for me, and I just…please. Just be frank with me.”
Sal sighed. “Finding out you’d come made me think for a second there could still be hope for me. And a few days out, so did it. But I’ve never, in all this time, stopped thinking about you. I was already out, and if nothing else, I just needed to get to you. Just for a second.”
Travis had to steel himself. The tension in the air now was different. It was completely electric, and given the circumstances, it was completely not the time to start acting like a lovesick, hormonal teenager.
But he looked down at Sal, who was already looking up at him, and when they started kissing, whose fault could it really have been?
Travis, for the first time in his life having the opportunity to be forward, was able to lift Sal up and carry him to his bed, but that was about as risque as it got. It might’ve been the place, but their time was short. If Sal was being serious about not staying, it wasn’t worth playing that game.
They ended up face-to-face on the twin bed, arms touching and legs tangled. Travis was once again reminded of how, if everything had been different, this could’ve been them. For a moment in time, long ago, it was them.
Sal broke the comfortable silence. “I can take you to them the same way I found you. You won’t be found.”
“But what about you, Sal? Are you going to…”
“I’ll show back up the way I left.”
“That’s so fucking stupid.”
“In a charming way?”
“Stop, Sal. In a stupid way. We could…we could go, together. Find them. We’re already two runaways, we can do it again, we can-”
“We can’t.” Sal was resigned to his own fate when he spoke, but he didn’t even seem sad. Travis thought briefly of how Sal had said he’d deserved the punishment he got.
His heart broke all over again.
“If you…Sal, if you’re going back to your prison, what if I went back to mine?”
It wasn’t often that Sal was left speechless, but the way he was staring right now was a visual equivalent to What The Fuck, Travis.
“What the fuck, Travis?”
“No, no- I can, I can take them down from the inside, I really can-”
Sal took his wrists again, like he’d done earlier in his mania. “I can’t let you do that, Travis. I’m not letting him put his hands on you again.”
The plan was already forming in Travis’ head. The gears were turning, and for once, he could do something about something, he didn’t have to be a pawn, and he didn’t have to escape and leave a wreck in his wake. If Sal could really find his sisters, he could write to them, just once, just the once, explaining everything - he’d tell his boss, give her the information, in case they wrote back - and he could surrender himself to his Father, Kenneth was going to come after him, anyway, so who cares-
“Travis, no.”
He bit his cheek and looked at Sal, whose gaze was firm despite his glass eye making up 50% of it. “Then just stay with me. Fuck, hide out here while I get everything settled, and then you can hightail it with me, for real this time.” Travis’ hands found places on the small of Sal’s back and on his unmarred cheek. “Please.”
Sal sighed. “Can we just stay like this? For right now? And work this out tomorrow?”
His voice was soft. It was the least fight he’d had in him all day, despite the fact that with every passing second Travis was raring more and more to go.
But then again, Sal always had been able to keep Travis wrapped around his finger. He deflated and pulled Sal’s head in to be tucked under his own chin.
“Alright,” Travis conceded. “Tomorrow. For now…” He trailed off into silence, letting their impossible reality speak instead.
Really, man, fuck Sal Fisher.