Prologue


He looks like shit. Like he got run over by a derailed freight train and then hit by a wrecking ball, like he got into a fight with a horde of steroid-fuelled drubbers and barely made it out alive, like someone tried to kick, choke, and punch him to death. He looks like they almost succeeded, the animals that fell upon him when he was too busy staring into the beckoning light of late cognisance.

But they didn't.

They didn't succeed, even though his face is a mess, a rutted landscape, stitched together and covered with pale band-aids that bear a painful contrast to his tanned skin. They didn't succeed, even though his breathing is shallow and tinged with a feeble whistling that soars up from the bottom of his lungs. They didn't succeed, even though he's wearing a nasty chain around his neck, deep blue and purple, recklessly carved into the base of his throat.

He's lying on his side, one arm slung over his upper body, the other one wedged between the pillow and his cheek. His eyes – puffy and defiled by dark circles – speak of weariness and defeat, his lips – split and terribly chapped – stretch into a tired grin, and his chest heaves and jerks with every word that rolls off his tongue, slurred and wheezy and sent off on a staggering whisper that makes her reel with concern.

"What", his voice breaks around the syllable and his brows snap together when he clears his throat, "What happened?"

She doesn't tell him to shut up, doesn't tell him to stop, doesn't tell him to pace himself. It wouldn't pay because he's as hard-headed as they come. In fact, his stubbornness is one of the fragments of his nature that appalled, perplexed, and captivated her from the very start. It's a rare quality, often slaughtered by furtiveness and the common need to pursue an ulterior motive, but he's an exception. He's good and honest, he's genuinely interested, and he deserves an answer that isn't shaded by empirical distrust.

"They tried to kill you and I stopped them."

He stares at her, his mouth curved into a tentative smile as if he's waiting for the punchline, but soon there's a hint of horror washing over his features, a hint of compassion and sympathy and mournful realisation, and suddenly, she wants to lie and tell him that she's indeed joking, that she didn't do anything at all.

"How?"

She remains silent.

"How did you stop them, 'Chonne?"

Her heart skips a beat because he really wants to know, and for a second or so, she doesn't know what to tell him. She takes a moment to tear her gaze from his sad eyes and focus on the small patch of crisp white linen between them. She mirrored his position when she joined him and waited for him to talk – because she knew he'd want to talk.

She takes another moment to think about what happened in the past couple of hours. The cold wind that scratched and clawed at her face when she was out there, chasing monsters through the woods, the weight of a gun that felt foreign in her left hand, the tower of flames that erupted from the carbonised ruins of a 1974 Winnebago Chieftain. The sharp sound of glass splinters cracking under the thick soles of her boots. And the screams. The faint, horrific screams that reminded her of a similar scenario, long gone but never forgotten, dead and buried by time yet bright and vivid before her eyes.

"It's alright. You don't have to tell me any –"

"I watched them burn", she says and the words taste like clay in her mouth, "I could've saved them but I didn't. They're gone now."

"Oh."

No gasp, no twitch of an eyelid, no signs of fright, disgust or disbelief, nothing. Much to her surprise – much to her confusion – he doesn't ask any further. He's just looking at her, his expression seemingly caught somewhere between awe, acceptance, and pride which doesn't make any damn sense.

He should be scared, traumatised, gorgonized. He should be hell-bent on leaving this place. He should go to the hospital. He should run back home, back to his son, his friends and family. But instead, he wants to talk as ever, only slightly handicapped by his current inability to get out more than two sentences without breaking into an excessive coughing fit.

His fingertips are hot against her skin and she tries to flinch away. Unperturbed by her reaction, he keeps his hand close to her cheek and his smile becomes a bit apologetic as he slips his thumb down to the corner of her mouth and gives her a gentle pinch that turns her insides into a buttery mess. The heat that emanates from his body, the chemical smell of ointments and dressing material – it's drilling holes into her chest and stuffing them with rough-grained chunks of panic and relief.

"Thank you."

"For what?" she sounds a lot harsher than she wants to.

"For saving me."

"I didn't –"

"Yes, you did", his smile doesn't falter, "You saved my ass. Again."

She swallows – hard.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His thumb settles at the point of her chin.

"I'm gonna tell you if you're willing to do me a favour and stay for a while."

Drowsiness is already drenching his tone and deepening his drawl. The first signs of a high fever are foaming up behind his bright blue eyes and she doesn't have the time to reach up and stroke his bruised jaw. She doesn't have the time to weave her hand through his soft, silver-splashed curls. She doesn't have the time to seek comfort in the fact that he didn't die last night. She doesn't have the time to take a breath because he's so stubborn and he won't stop. He will never stop. Not today, not tomorrow. Not until the case is solved.

Staring at the angry cut that adorns the bridge of his nose and the sheen of sweat that's glistening on his forehead, she shudders and starts to wonder if his fierce sense of justice makes him a true hero or a self-sabotaging lunatic. Either way, she has to stop him. She has to prevent him from killing himself in his need to make things right.

"We're out of Reese's Puffs", she says mechanically, nudging his hand away and pulling herself into a sitting position before she leaves the bed and makes her way to the door with her heart shrinking in her chest because he could've died last night, "You should get some sleep."


Quotes/References

1) The overall title of this story is a direct quote from alt-J's Nara (which is, like, the greatest song ever).

2) Winnebago is a manufacturer of RVs.

3) Reese's Puffs are addictive, unhealthy, and God's gift to the world.