Morning
Disclaimer: I own nothing save the thoughts in my head.
Author's Note: If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'm afraid this is full of spoilers. One also wonders WHY you're looking for fanfiction about a movie you haven't seen yet!
This story is rated "M" for the obvious reason that it's set in a reality where Silent Hill exists. The violence might be stylized, but it's still certainly violence, and much of this story centers around cleaning wounds and remembering how said wounds got there. The squeamish will not enjoy it. For the rest of you:
Starks in Silent Hill. For the night is long and full of terrors.
Sharon asked to borrow the first aid kit when they stopped for the night.
It surprised him, the firm, calm way she laid her hand upon his arm to stop any protest. How did she even know he'd try to refuse help?
For that matter, why did he want to refuse? This place wasn't home; who knew what kind of infection could—He exhaled, examining the surroundings rather allow the thought completion.
The diner perched in the middle of the flatlands like a lone, square glow amidst endless diamond-pricked sky. The attached motel was little more than darkened boxes tacked on later; a service provided to the truckers who were the bread and butter of the establishment. Whipcord neon signs glowed. Moths danced under the lights even in the chilled blue dark, and though dust had collected upon rusted tin advertisements, it had the distinct brown tinge of dried mud rather than ash.
Vincent felt uncomfortably lost.
The driver didn't reply with questions, just pulled out the old box by the handle after he grabbed his pack for the night. "Anything you use, replace."
Sharon's hand had slipped from his arm; her fingers played with his, cool and real. Cautiously he made the interlacing solid. She didn't pull away. "Yes, sir."
"You can buy them before we leave in the morning." The proprietor of the diner also kept a 24-hour gas station nearby stocked with essentials. The bright light of the towering sign had been the first thing on the horizon besides darkening sunset. "Be on time."
A fingernail briefly touched the tender inside of Vincent's ring finger when she released his hand to take the medic box. He joined her in speaking, though. "Yes, sir."
And the trucker disappeared into his quiet, utilitarian room, furnished with a bed, a bathroom, and not much else. The two hitch-hikers turned to theirs, equally exhausted as the driver but glad in a way the trucker could never be that someone had seen to it that every lick of paint in that little room was fresh and unpeeling.
The bed was even spread with an old quilt. Vincent smiled quietly at the traditional patterns before flicking his gaze towards the cross-marked box in Sharon's hands. "So. That's for me?"
She nodded, gently prodding him forward with her shoulder, a nudge of the hip. "Go shower. I'll lock the door."
Against the world? He wondered, wandering back to the simple bathroom.
It was a shock of the familiar, tiny tiles (a few missing) on the floor and exposed lime-covered pipes, but no rust. There was space only for the essentials: toilet, sink, and a skinny tiled shower with a plastic curtain that must be one half of a full-width curtain if the subtle jagged edge on one side was any indication. A thick bar of soap rested in the shower. A stack of linens waited on the rack over the toilet.
Vincent counted them, frowning. "Sharon?"
"Hm?" Bottles clicked from the main room.
"There's only one towel." And only one bed, but I can always sit watch…
"Is there soap?"
"What—yes, there's soap."
"As long as there's soap, I don't care."
He poked his head out to stare at her. She'd stripped out of her vest and shoes (he could see the boots leaning against the foot of the bed) to pad around in stocking feet. The quilted spread now bore a neat array of medical supplies: gauze, swabs, pills, and disinfectant each in a carefully appointed place.
She'd even moved the clock to the floor to make room on the miniscule bedside table, was gnawing her lip in an attempt to make a decision about some other placement of some other thing when she finally noticed he was looking at her.
And she looked so young and surprised it took most of his self-restraint not to smile.
"Really, Vincent. I don't mind."
"What about washing our clothes?"
"I'll just use a sheet." She gestured to the object-occupied bed, ignoring Vincent's expression of wide-eyed disbelief. "Really. Go on."
When he still didn't move, her eyes softened.
"You're the one who's hurt. I promise if I ever get sick or injured, you can boss me around to your heart's content and do whatever inconvenient thing you want to make me more comfortable." The yellow light from the bedside lamp glowed in her blonde hair and upon her face, illuminating a dark smudge upon her cheek that he wanted to wipe away.
Yet what could he say to that? Especially the way she'd said it. He tried anyway. "Promise?"
He couldn't bring up the vow he'd made to her father, not so soon. Now that he could see her in the light, Sharon looked close to tears. Worn. Not threadbare, but so tight that just the wrong pressure would make the strings break.
Apparently that was the right thing to say (Or maybe he'd said it the right way) because even though her eyes were still too bright, she had to cover her smile to keep it from erupting into laughter. "Yes. Promise."
"Okay."
He turned into the bathroom. Everything but the boots could go into the shower with him. He sat down on the lid to unlace them, finally frowning as the cuts pulled and met. Whatever ritualistic power they had contained was gone now, leaving only the sacrifice behind. He'd had to button the vest to hide the first effects on the T-shirt, and he wasn't sure what the underside looked like now. Probably not too bad.
Boots done, Vincent stood to unbutton the vest. The right placket fluttered open, but the left appeared to be stuck to his body… With lazy blooms of watery red and crusty yellow spread out upon the formerly white cloth of the T-shirt beneath.
Damn. Soaked through.
He stripped off everything but the shirt, turned on the water (ignoring the first icy blast), and stood in a puddle of wet clothes until the T-shirt was completely sodden. Breathing calmly and evenly, Vincent ripped it off.
As a testament to his mother's skillful bladework, every angry wound re-opened at once.
Vincent stood with hands braced against the tiled wall, only slightly dizzy as he watched blood and pus swirl down the drain in the one pool he'd left free of clothes. A cursory examination of the T-shirt suggested that even by the scavenger standards of his previous life, it was no longer wearable. A mirror image of the sacred symbols to escape purgatory clung to the fabric in hard bloody crusts that might never soften. And perhaps he'd been a little too eager to remove it; amid the evidence of a thousand cuts he could see what seemed to be strips of skin.
Yet after all, what difference would a few more tears make to his abdomen? Light-headed, he stared at the bloody wash of himself, only vaguely aware that he'd fallen to his knees.
At least my body isn't sprouting blades. Blood swirled through his hands as he cautiously cleaned what little he could see. Small mercies.
He sighed and leaned over his knees, protecting a raw and tender belly from the needle-like rush of the shower. Mother, were you always like that and I just couldn't see it? Or were we all doomed to become creatures in a mad place?
Could I have saved you?
There was no simple answer to that question. Every answer felt like selfishness incarnate. For all his life, he'd been raised to chase the roaming half of raging Alessa, a creature so profoundly evil she had nearly supplanted faith itself in power. He was the savior sent to find the Chosen Child, who must also be wicked, wicked, wicked. Any sacrifice would be worth the defeat of Alessa, and he had repeated the words of his mother and borne the pain with utter conviction in his heart.
He had not expected to find a girl so compassionate to others that she was willing to make herself into nothing to keep innocents away from the terrors stalking her shadow. He had not expected her to be afraid of the darkness. He certainly hadn't expected her to be lonely enough to talk to him even as she tried to push him away.
And never, not even when he knew this act of cunning to be what he must do to lure the Chosen Child back to hell, did he expect her to trust him.
But the moment she curled up and slept, exhausted, less than three feet away from him, Vincent had come completely undone. To betray faith was blasphemy and damnation, but to betray the trust of an innocent would have been obscene.
So far, damnation hadn't been that bad.
And he felt terribly guilty about it.
"Vincent? Are you all right?"
He sighed. Attempting to the staunch the flow of racing thoughts seemed to be as fruitless as staunching blood. "Sorry…"
"Do you need help?"
He eyed his stomach, then the ruined shirt. At least the back side was clean and could be used as stoppage. "No, just give me a minute—"
He wrung out the water, folded the fabric, and pressed hard before standing up and turning off the spray. Wincing, Vincent clutched the knob until the blood in his head readjusted itself. He'd just managed to get the towel around his hips with one free arm when it dropped. Then he lost grip on the blood-staunching T-shirt. It fell into the circle of the towel with a messy splat, and evermore helpfully, thick black wet hanks of hair got in his eyes when he attempted to retrieve it. He swore.
Muffled feminine chortling came from beyond the bathroom door.
Instantly, he decided it was better to clothe his nakedness rather than attempt to hide the ugliness of the cuts and the religion they represented, and tucked the towel as tightly as he dared around his hips, hoping not much blood would trickle down to stain it…
She was kneeling at the side of the bed, hand over her mouth and head bowed over the gauze. Next to the boots, the orange hoodie was piled on top of the vest with something black on top of the hoodie, and with the layers gone it was easy to see the ashy marks of his hometown upon her. Face and hands were more gray (darker in the nails) than cream like the skin shown by her sleeveless top. More distressing were the darkening marks on her arms that had nothing to do with fire. She stood, and her knees were masses of purple, yellow, and green with no stockings to hide the bruises. Did something drag her? What horrible things did she experience before slipping past the nurses in the asylum? He remembered seeing blood in her hair…
"Hey." The softness of her voice startled him more than a sudden scream, and he stared into her eyes, totally unprepared.
"I'm sorry." There was no way it could ever be enough, but it was all he could say.
Impossibly, unreasonably, she said, "If you're really sorry, lie down on the bed. I have to wash my hands."
Vincent did as he was bid and listened to her move around in the bathroom, heart sunk in bitter shame. He'd made a mistake. Better to come out naked as a man than leave his zealotry so disgustingly on display.
These marks will scar. There's no avoiding that. And to think I once believed the holy circle would be a badge of honor, a talisman against evil… I'm no better than those lost creatures that have torn their bodies in an agony of vengeance.
No. My sin was pride, which can be worse than vengeance.
Too exhausted to think clearly but too awake to stop thinking, his thoughts ground hopelessly while water droplets slowly evaporated from his skin.
He yelped when big, decidedly cold drops of water smacked him in the face and upper torso. Sharon smiled at him, her face and hands at last the same color as the rest of her though the blonde hair still bore a tinge of gray. "Hello again." She moved to her knees, reaching across him for cotton balls. The smile faded. "Did you really have to rip it off?"
"Sorry."
"There had to have been a better way." He carefully watched her face as she moved, delicate as a bird on eggshells, picking up bottles and putting them down after a few moments' consideration.
"It needed to come off," he murmured, observing her fathomless eyes with fascination. "Better to do it all at once."
She rocked back on her heels, pale fingers fluttering against his bare shoulder and the hand holding his hip knot in place, looking at his wounded torso with something he could only describe as a determined despair. "There's no way to do this without hurting you."
"That's okay." It's nothing less than I deserve. Suddenly struck by inspiration (and perhaps largely the desolate look upon Sharon's freshly scrubbed face), he blurted, "Hold my hand?"
The immediate effect lay in losing physical contact with her entirely when Sharon jerked her hands away to her lap. Initially bereft, Vincent watched with growing amusement as she tried her best not to smile. "Your lines haven't gotten any better."
"That wasn't a line!" He forced as much somber dignity as he could muster into: "That was a genuine request."
And she did smile. "What are you, twelve?"
Vincent replied with a tiny smile of his own, feeling ridiculously triumphant and hoping it didn't show.