Uhhh author's note, right... I have no words. I'm tired and I started a new job today and... just... look, I hope y'all like Scott angst because yeesh
Scott had gotten his pilot's license before he could legally drive. Somehow this made the entire process of passing his test and buying his first car even more of novelty. He passed his test during spring break, which meant he didn't have to ferry little brothers to school or to swim meets or art clubs. For an entire week he had the car to himself – simply him and the open road – and it had been magical. It was not a word he used lightly. It was a word reserved for precious memories or moments such as seeing a night sky without any light pollution, or taking that solo flight for the first time, or finally kissing a certain cheerleader he'd been on-and-off flirting with for weeks.
Driving couldn't possibly compare to flying but it offered a certain degree of freedom which quickly became addicting. So, for that week, he drove around the streets he had known his whole life and felt strangely emotional about the entire thing. Stores, houses, the old cinema complex – details that usually faded into the background rose to the front in a sea of colour, woven together by the soundtrack of songs drifting from the radio.
Now, in the midst of the apocalypse, the radio bleated constant static. Alan, cross-legged on the passenger seat with his knee sticking hazardously over the parking brake, scrolled through the channels, carefully tuning into each frequency. His hair fell low over his face to conceal his eyes – haircut, dammit, Scott reminded himself for the hundredth time – but the tension in his jaw spoke volumes. He lowered the radio to a quiet hum. Static hissed back in jolts and jumps.
"There's no one out there." Alan kicked his boots into the footwell and curled into the door, pressing his cheek against the glass. "No one broadcasting, anyway."
"Of course not," the Hood piped up in the backseat. He caught Scott's warning stare in the rear mirror and dropped the patronising tone. "Any survival colony would be idiotic to broadcast their location. They have no idea who's listening. We could be dangerous. We could be looking to steal from them. Which brings me to the most crucial point – they'll be running on limited supplies and inviting newcomers to join them would only put more pressure on those resources. And yet you wonder why no one is advertising their coordinates on the radio?"
"Watch it," Scott muttered.
The Hood heaved a sigh. "It's a simple deduction to make."
"I don't like your tone."
"You don't like anything I have to say."
"Exactly, so why don't you sit there nicely and keep your damn mouth shut."
Alan stifled a laugh. The Hood shuffled back, grumbling all the while, but didn't voice any complaints. This was a wise decision given that they had left the city well behind them by now and so, technically, as they were away from the heart of the danger, Scott would be well within the terms of their agreement to pull over and dump the Hood on the roadside. As it was, he was already sorely tempted, but he kept his hands on the wheel and his sights on the horizon and just kept driving.
Unlike in the city, where the streets were clogged with wrecks of ruined cars, mangled infected and discarded debris, out here, the further away from the built-up areas that they drove, the roads were clear. The odd infected lurched out from the undergrowth but it was far too slow to pose a threat.
Alan rolled down the window. Scott glanced over at him and double-took.
"What are you doing?"
"Chill, it's safe."
Alan lifted a hand and let the rush of air trail through his fingers. He grinned, ducking his head out of the window and closing his eyes in the sunlight. The wind ruffled his hair. He craned his neck to examine the sky, relaxing in his seat. There were too few infected on this empty rural road for the smell of rot to be prevalent. Instead, there was the sweet scent of fresh soil and grass. Crops waved in their wake. Alan lifted his feet onto the dash and rested his chin on the rim of the window, watching the world sweep past in a blur of muted colour and cool breeze.
A brief squeak came from the window in the backseat as the Hood copied Alan. Scott examined him in the rear mirror. The Hood seemed almost content. A rare smile – genuine, not shark-like or cunning – drifted across his features as he propped an elbow on the open window and let the air wash over him. For the first time, he appeared human. Scott hated the thought. He turned his attention back to the road but rolled down his own window too. At the very least the cool air was refreshing and at best it felt like freedom and tasted of hope.
Driving was repetitive on the open road like this. The fields rolled into one another without any distinct line and had he been alone Scott would have started to question his own sanity. But he had Alan there to ground him in the present, in the form of little reminders such as a casual kick against the dashboard as he attempted to stretch his legs or pointing out shapes in the clouds or swearing blind that he'd spotted mothman or some other obscure cryptid in the passing fields.
As late afternoon drifted into the realms of early evening, it became obvious that they were approaching a town. It was only small – tiny, really, barely anything to speak of, just a few houses and a gas station – but there were more cars deserted on the roadside and Scott slowed to avoid a puncture from any of the shattered glass or twisted metal littering the site of a crash. An infected – pinned beneath one of the battered cars – snarled as they passed.
Alan rolled the window back up. "Are we stopping here?"
Scott checked the gauge. "We could do with topping up on fuel."
He followed the signs towards the gas station, eyeing the abandoned buildings as they cruised by. Doors banged open and shut. Strips of blooded curtains billowed in broken windowpanes. An infected was crouched over a mostly consumed corpse in the gutter, tearing strips of rotting flesh away from the bones.
Alan buried his mouth and nose in his elbow. "I was going to say I'm kinda hungry," he said plaintively, fighting the urge to gag. "But now I think I might puke."
"Don't," Scott replied as if it was that simple.
Alan reached across the seats to flick him on the temple. "Thanks, I'm cured. You're a miracle worker, Scotty, how do you feel about that?"
"It wouldn't be the first time I've been described as such," Scott mused, mostly throwing it out there so that he could laugh at Alan's reaction.
Alan frowned. "Wait, what? How… when… Oh. Right. International Rescue."
A low snore rumbled from the backseat.
Scott couldn't look at Alan without laughing. "So, uh… reckon he does that on purpose?"
"Oh, absolutely." Alan draped himself over the dashboard. His grin reflected on the windscreen. "I mean, he was silent this entire time, but the second we mention IR he starts snoring?" He sighed dramatically. "This is a hate crime."
Scott let out a surprised laugh. Alan, looking very pleased with himself, returned his attention to the road ahead. The gas station was a little way out of town, so they were free of the main horde of infected by the time they pulled over. A single creature skulked by the fuel pump and Scott slowed the car to a halt a short distance away.
"Do we shoot it, or do we wake the Hood up and get him to do his weird mind trick again?" Alan drummed a hand against the dash in thought. "I feel weird about killing them… is that bad?"
"No." Scott released his tight grip on the wheel. "Actually, I think that's a good thing. If you didn't feel bad, I'd be concerned." He barely got chance to twist in his seat before the infected suddenly struggled upright with a series of painful clicks and staggered away. The Hood's cybernetic eye gleamed in the rear mirror. Scott gritted his teeth. "Thanks."
The Hood dipped his head, mouth a thin line of pleasure. "Always happy to help a Tracy."
"I hate you," Alan informed him. "Just in case you didn't already know."
The Hood folded himself into a corner of the backseat. "Honestly," he sighed. "Isn't that getting rather old now? Scott, reign in your brother. He's most aggravating."
Scott didn't dignify that with a response. He emptied the rucksack into the footwell and handed the empty skin to Alan. "The store looks safe. Grab as much as you can find while I fill up the tank. If there's any trouble, even just a strange noise, come straight back. I'll try to keep an eye on you from here but be careful, alright?"
Alan shot him a sunny smile. "When am I not careful?"
Scott just looked at him, deadpan.
Alan relented. "Fine, I promise to be careful." He flipped the knife up and into his hand. "See? I've even got a backup plan."
Scott inwardly cringed. "Just watch your back," he said instead, and swung out of the car.
Away from the city, in the midst of the rural landscape, it was colder. The temperature was still moderate, placing them firmly towards the south even with all the atmospheric disturbance caused by the smoke and debris thrown into the air, but there was that faint bite to the wind which reminded Scott that it was still January.
He wished he'd thought to pick up a coat back at the house before they'd made their hasty retreat but while hindsight was a wonderful thing it wasn't exactly useful. He settled for rubbing his hands up and down his biceps in a feeble attempt to evoke some warm. This was what he got for wearing a thin shirt that had since become stiff with dried blood. A slight shiver ran down his spine. He forced himself to start moving, checking the levels on the pump and breathing a sigh of relief when they showed as just under half – more than enough to fill the tank.
A bell chimed as Alan pushed the door open and cautiously vanished inside. Scott rose onto his toes to see through the cracked windows, but there were no sounds of commotion, so he told himself to trust his brother's instincts and ability to handle himself. The paranoid parent in him longed to dash in there and double-check but no. He tightened his grip on the pump.
The wind was picking up, blending the bar between a breeze and a proper gale. Darker clouds were gathering along the horizon, threatening rain before sunset. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. Scott shivered again. He naturally ran hotter anyway, so he dreaded to think of how John would have coped with it. The thought led onto a certain topic that he'd been doing his hardest to avoid and he tipped forwards to rest his elbow on the roof of the car, pillowing his chin in the crook of his arm.
A cluster of crows were squawking as they pecked at the remains of some very-human-looking-roadkill. Scott shifted his gaze to the sky. Once upon a time, he mused, he would have been able to count on a single hand how many days it had been since he'd last flown. Now, he couldn't recall even how many months it had been. As much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to forget the finer details – the exact feeling of breaking the sound barrier, cruising at hypersonic speeds, as in tune with One's movement as if they were one mind. There was something deeply unsettling about the realisation. Flying was such a massive part of his identity that it was almost as if he was losing sense of what it meant to be himself.
The Hood rapped on the window. "Tank's full."
"What?" Scott recalled the task at hand with a jolt. "Oh, shit. Right. Yeah." He was loath if he was going to say thanks to the Hood twice in an hour, so he simply returned the pump and locked the fuel cap back into place. The Hood remained perfectly poised in the backseat, eyes watchful and calculating, occasionally flashing yellow as shapes shifted within the treeline.
Alan hadn't yet emerged from the store, so Scott propped himself on the bonnet of the car where he had a clearer view and waited. The crows had finally fluttered away. He tipped his head back to watch the clouds drift closer. His back was throbbing again. He probably needed to change the dressing. He ghosted a hand across his spine and felt dampness seep through his shirt.
"Fuck," he muttered faintly. Oh well. It could wait. It wasn't too urgent. He'd pull over later when Alan was asleep and try to patch it up himself. He was determined to keep the kid's trauma points from tallying any higher, even if that meant struggling with a first-aid job that would be far easier with a second pair of hands. A voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Virgil whispered that he was making things needlessly difficult and that replacing a few bandages would likely be the least traumatic experience Alan had dealt with in months. Scott, as ever, chose to ignore this logic, although he would quite happily have asked for a hand if Virgil had actually been present. It was strange how missing someone could manifest as actual physical pain. He rubbed his chest absently.
"Hey!" Alan bounded down the steps in a single leap, rucksack swinging from his hand like a pendulum. He shook it at Scott with a grand grin. "Guess who got lucky? There was even dried fruit left!" He yanked open the door and dropped the rucksack into the footwell. "I picked up packets of jerky too, even though it's gross and no one likes it other than Gordon 'cos he's a weirdo."
"Dad used to like it," Scott recalled, still stuck in that strange, almost nostalgic sense of sadness that he hadn't been able to shake all afternoon.
"Well, there you go then," Alan announced, swinging into the shotgun seat. "That's where Gords gets it from." He patted the dashboard. "C'mon dude, let's get this show on the road. I wanna get to…" He censored himself at the last second, remembering the Hood's presence. "…our destination so I can chat to the others again." He flaked across the seat, arms flailing. "I miss having constant comm links."
"You and me both." Scott cast a final glance over the darkening countryside. "Alright." He exhaled slowly until his chest ached with a pain other than grief for family he hadn't even lost. "Let's get outta here. And for the final time-" He swatted his brother's shoulder. "-don't call me dude."
It began to rain as they crossed the Nevada state border – yet another sign of how messed up the atmosphere was as it never usually rained this heavily here. They had left sunset far behind them and the darkness consumed the world quickly, but the headlamps lit up the reflective sign and Scott thought to himself, huh, look at that, remembering the last time he'd driven cross-country like this; back when John had still been in college and they'd taken a trip during his summer break.
He glanced across at Alan, about to point out their new location, but the kid was fast asleep, curled against the window with his head pillowed on his shoulder. His neck was bound to complain about this position come morning, but it had been a while since Scott had seen his brother this peaceful, so he let him sleep on and kept his musings about Nevada and road trips and memories of a brighter time to himself.
The rain picked up. Scott shifted the wipers onto the highest setting as he drove further into the heart of the storm. Water streamed across the windscreen, lashing down so thickly that he could barely see anything. The headlamps struggled to penetrate the rain. It fell from the sky in sheets as if someone had emptied a bucket. The sound was relaxing, but the driving was stressful. Scott rolled his shoulders as his hand threatened to cramp and checked the time. He'd been driving for hours without a break and in these conditions he couldn't afford to lose concentration. It was time to find a place to pull over.
Open road weaved through an endless expanse of desolate desert. Strange rock formations loomed in the distance where the headlamps ran out. It wasn't as if anyone else was on the road, so Scott pulled to the side and cut the engine. The sudden silence was jarring, and he was grateful for the steady drumming of the rain. He switched off the lights and sat there for a moment, unmoving, unspeaking, simply breathing. Alan was still out for the count and a quick glance in the rear mirror revealed that the Hood was in a similar state.
The rain showed no signs of letting up any time soon. Scott folded over the steering wheel and rested his head on the rim. He had a headache, everything ached from so long cramped in a car, and his back was on fire which didn't promise anything good, but mostly he was just tired. And sad. A different sort of sadness, one that was almost like grief. Out here, far away from anything he knew, Dad's loss somehow felt rawer, more poignant than it had in years.
He watched rain trickle down the windscreen without truly seeing it. He was disconnected from reality, from himself, as if he weren't real, as if all this were simply a movie in someone else's mind. Most of all, he felt alone. Not the accepting solitude that led to quiet introspection and a rare sense of peace, but the sharp fanged loneliness that hurt. Despite the rain, he reached for the handle and silently slipped outside, closing the door behind him.
The rain was warm. He leant against the side of the car, face turned to the heavens, and let it wash over him. His shirt was drenched in seconds. Water slicked hair against his forehead and he clawed it back before it could drip in his eyes.
The weather was wild and furious and freeing. One of his favourite flights had taken him over a thunderstorm and he recalled it fondly now as lightning forked in the distance. The ache of unknown emotion stirred in his chest, all coiled up between organs like a sleeping snake, venomous if he dared to poke it. There was a reason why he'd chosen not to address most feelings over the years, even some of the good ones. His instinct was to turn to his left, to let Virgil or John read the thought off his face so that he didn't have to voice it himself, but he was alone and all that greeted him was empty space where there should have been a brother, a friend.
Thunder grumbled. It was far-off still, like the distant rumble of a returning Thunderbird, and he was struck by such a fierce sense of longing that it nearly took his breath away. He closed a hand around his wrist and squeezed. His own pulse pounded against his skin. Rain cascaded over everything and dripped from his chin onto his bloodied shirt. He felt too small and yet too much simultaneously. Thick cloud hid the stars from view. Alone, alone, alone. His wrist stung hot and angry, and he released his grip, surprised to realise that he had broken the scabbed wound left over from the ropes. It was weeping, great crimson rivulets mixing with the rain as it ran down his arm.
Shit.
There was too much pain and too much fear and he didn't know how to fix any of it. He wasn't even sure if he could. But there was Alan, sleeping peacefully, so trusting that Scott would just know the right answers to the right questions, as if Scott had the slightest idea what he was doing. It had been difficult enough before, sneaking a read of parenting manuals between Tracy Industries paperwork and legal documents, trying to figure it all out, but now it wasn't just a matter of raising a teenager, it was a matter of keeping a teenager alive and finding a way to provide a world that wasn't in the throes of death. And then there was Gordon, who'd feared this all along, who'd said at the very beginning that Scott would find himself back on Earth and out of his depth and unable to breathe and now here he was, in the middle of the desert, on the floor – when had that happened? – with his hands fisted in his hair and blood on his skin, overcome by the paralysing terror that he hadn't ever fully shaken since they'd lost Mom.
And John. Who may have been harbouring a killer parasite within his veins despite his own immunity and despite the test results because this thing was sneaky, it was clever, it may well have been adapting and if John found out, if he somehow got hold of the puzzle pieces and fitted them all together, if EOS had relayed that conversation with Maya back to him… and John was cleverer than Scott - always had been - so if Scott had figured it out then John definitely would… He'd been prepared before to take himself out of the equation before he could harbour a risk to his family. Scott didn't trust John with his own genius because sometimes it blinded him to other things, such as sentiment, and how he was too precious to them to make losing him an acceptable outcome, even if it was the safest move left on the board.
Rain thundered around him. Scott knocked his head back against the car. Pain radiated down his spine. He stifled a scream in his wrist and only recalled the injury when he tasted copper.
He wrapped his arms around himself and held himself together until he could breathe again and then, banishing the exhaustion and the chills from a soaking in the storm to a place in his mind where they couldn't bother him, he clambered back into the car and drove on until he physically couldn't go any further, at which point he pulled over, checked everyone was still asleep, and collapsed back over the wheel.
There were two types of people in the world – those who openly revealed their hurt and asked for help, never fearing that it may not be offered because they had always been freely loved and supported, and then there were those who had learnt from an early age to mask their pain because it was simply an inconvenience and the little voice in their head whispered that maybe they didn't even deserve to ask for comfort in the first place. There were those who cried freely and those who cried silently.
Scott had always been in the latter categories.
When he glimpsed his reflection in the window – bloodshot eyes and pain – he told himself that it was merely the rain on his face over and over and over until he'd convinced himself that it was the truth. Then he took a breath, reached for the first-aid supplies, bandaged his wrists and held pained hisses behind gritted teeth until he'd patched up his back too. As the clock turned over with the devil's hour, he tipped his head back against the window, and finally let himself sleep.
When he woke again, Alan was beginning to stir and the Hood was working his way through a packet of jerky, and nobody noticed a thing.
Why would they?
There was nothing wrong with him.
That was a lie. There were so many things and he hated himself for them.
But this? This wasn't important. Besides, he'd always been a master at hiding pain and the only people who'd ever been able to see through him were hundreds of miles away straight-up, unreachable.
He forced a smile onto his face.
"Mornin' Al. Time to rise and shine. Hungry yet? How d'you feel about dry cereal for breakfast?"
Nevada was, apparently, never-ending. The road snaked beyond a horizon that never seemed to come any closer. It was as if they were making no progress at all. Alan's console proved otherwise – it may not have been receiving a signal from Five, but it was still able to triangulate their location, which put them somewhere on Highway 50 – which wasn't exactly helpful given Scott already knew that.
"Did you know-" Alan piped up, somewhere around the Hour Three mark – although even this was indiscernible because time was getting hazy again. "-that Highway 50 is sometimes called the Loneliest Road in America?"
"Delightful," the Hood quipped, and was promptly ignored.
Alan, draped over the dashboard with his suit rolled down to his waist so that he could bask in the sun like one of his precious bearded dragons, flapped a hand as if to emphasise how irrelevant the Hood's comment was.
"It does seem lonely," he mused, scratching at the stray grains of sand that had found their way into the car at some point and were now clinging to the sticky residue left by a can of coke in the drink holder. "Don't you think?"
"Sure," Scott replied without paying his answer too much thought. He wasn't doing much thinking about anything really. He was driving mostly on autopilot, keeping the wheels on the road but not a lot else. It was getting hotter too, without any respite from the merciless sun, which always made concentration a challenge, but he refused to switch on the aircon – they couldn't afford to waste that much fuel.
It hadn't escaped his notice that the Hood hadn't made any requests ever since they'd first set out on this drive. They couldn't bring him with them all the way to the ranch, but equally they couldn't abandon him in the middle of the desert. Scott was beginning to wonder whether the Hood actually had a plan at all. Maybe this was a try-on to see how far he could get.
"That's a cool rock." Alan sat up and nearly bonked his head on the roof. "Isn't that a cool rock?"
"No," the Hood muttered.
"You're a murderer," Alan snapped back. "You don't get an opinion."
"I'm heartbroken," the Hood drawled, clasping a hand to his chest as if he'd been brutally stabbed by Alan's remark. "Truly. How will I ever recover?"
Alan turned back to the windscreen with a huff. "Hey, can we pull over soon? I'm like…" He flexed a hand. "I have a lot of energy. You could probably hook me up to the engine and it would still run. I'm like a battery right now. It's actually pretty annoying."
They were, admittedly, due a break. And by that Scott meant that he was overdue a break himself because he was the only one trusted with the car – given Alan had taken exactly two lessons and neither had ended well and no one was about to let the Hood take the wheel – and his vision was beginning to get sort of blurry and the road surface was blending with the sand as a consequence which wasn't ideal to say the least.
Alan tumbled out of the car before they'd even come to a full stop. His boots crunched in the dust, sending tiny tornadoes in his wake. He scrambled over the sloping sand and lifted a hand in acknowledgement when Scott shouted for him to stay within sight. Not that there was any activity out here – the last zombie they'd seen had been miles back when they'd cruised through Eureka. The creatures had mostly been clustered around buildings and their reactions had been slow enough that by the time they stumbled into the road, they'd already been left in the dust. It had been unsettling to see children amid the crowd though. Some had clearly been tourists – come for a holiday but destined to never return home.
Scott walked a short distance up the highway, mostly to stretch his legs but also to get away from the Hood's gaze. There was an undeniable presence about the man – a sense of danger, tension that crept into everything and everyone and whispered warnings which couldn't be distinguished as set words but put a threatening slant on the situation anyway.
The atmosphere grated. Everything did. Thoughts were flimsy and fleeting and Scott couldn't pin down a single one long enough to untangle it. He put one foot in front of the other and kept walking. The sun beat down, utterly merciless. He couldn't tell if his shirt was damp with sweat or blood. Perhaps it was both. The wounds were certainly stinging fiercely enough to suggest this was a likely possibility. The sky was a desolate blue – vast and endless – and it was a relief and a terrifying thing to feel so very small in the face of an uncaring universe. His existence was fleeting at best and pointless at worst – a mere speck in the endless flow of reality. Time was like a river – it couldn't be beaten into submission - all you could do was give into the current and pray not to drown.
Anxiety crept under his skin. It was a physical being, constricting around his organs until he felt sick with it. The landscape remained still. He slowed to a halt and, without the steady drum of his heels against the tarmac, everything fell so silent that his ears rang. That strong sense of disconnect was back with a vengeance. If he tipped backwards - let go - he had the strangest feeling that he would just keep falling and never reach the ground.
What was reality? What was the point in any of this? The world was dead. He was trying to save something that was already lost. For all he knew, there could be no one left up there. The elite on their satellite could have fallen foul to a failure or some sort of rebellion by their crew. Thunderbird Five could be cold and silent – it could be too late, the infection could have slithered from its host before anyone had pieced together the puzzle and recognised the full picture and those with immunity could be lost in a sea of guilt and the impossibility of grief with no one to guide them back to shore.
He sank to the ground. Splayed his hands across the tarmac. Grains of sand dug their way under his nails. He tipped backwards and let gravity drag him down. The sky watched on. The sun glared. Waves of heat trickled into a lying lake in the distance where the road dipped. There were no sounds. The car lay out of sight. Alan's footsteps had long since faded. There was nothing but eternal, unbearable solitude and the scream caught up in his chest that longed to break it.
There was emptiness in the sky and across the land and it could have filled the void in his soul only there was nothing to fill it with. Everything and nothing all at once – totality – without any compass to find his way back to safety. Because at the end of the day, he was just tired and hurt and he had been for a very long time and if there was a way to fix this that held the price of his own life then frankly that would be easier. He hated this and he hated himself, but he had made a promise to his mom and then to his dad and then again, to himself, when he'd signed those papers that legally declared him a fit guardian, and if the only thing he ever did right was keeping Alan alive then maybe, just maybe, all of this pain would be worth it.
His voice was all caught up somewhere between the silent scream and the ache in his heart that battled with the numbness for control. He clasped a hand to his shoulder where his radio had been for so many years and let the sky listen to his secrets, because the sky was his oldest and dearest friend and for a while it had let him be happy, let him fly up there, let him just be Scott and had dared to let him believe that might be enough for once.
"International Rescue," he murmured. His voice cracked. He couldn't recall when he'd last drunk something. "Can anybody hear me?" He was struck with the hysterical urge to laugh, because no, for the first time, nobody was listening out for a distress call, not that he was even speaking into a radio, just whispering to the abyss. "I'm sorry. You can't hear me, but I'm sorry. I'm so, s-so fucking sorry."
What are you sorry for?
Everything. Everything, ever.
It had crossed his mind briefly, in that escape pod, during the descent back to Earth, that maybe only one of them was going to make it out of this hellscape and if that was the case, then he was going to make sure without a doubt that the survivor would be Alan. Alan, who still saw the possibility of humanity in monsters.
He lurched upright and folded over his knees. Kept breathing. You can't let go yet. The job's not done. Get up.
"Aren't you ever scared of falling?" Gordon had once asked, at a very young age, still suspicious of flight because the physics of it was confusing and it didn't seem natural to him, not like swimming did.
"No," Scott had said, not needing to even think about it. "Because falling is just another less graceful form of flying, really. I'm not scared of falling. It's never the fall that kills you. You shouldn't be scared of falling, you should be scared of hitting the ground."
Just how far can you fall?
He'd walked further than he'd realised. He broke into a jog and then a run and then finally into a sprint, reckless and wild and breathless and maybe he was running away from something but maybe he was running towards something – no one could ever tell the difference these days – but it still wasn't enough. He'd left half his soul in the sky – of course he would never be able to find it on the ground.
Alan was perched on the bonnet, skimming flat stones across the land. The Hood leant against the side of the car, humming to himself. Scott slowed to a casual stroll.
Alan looked up sharply at his approach. "I thought you got lost or something."
"Just fancied a walk."
"Long walk," the Hood remarked. He yanked open a door and retreated into the relative shade of the car.
Alan remained still, frozen on the bonnet. "What do you say," he asked softly, "to someone if they're hurting but there's nothing you can do to make it better or even make it easier?"
Scott reached for the door handle. "Tell them you love them, I suppose." He was too tired to think about it or try to work out exactly who Alan was referring to. "Even if you can't fix them, loving someone regardless is a pretty powerful thing."
"I'm not trying to fix them," Alan muttered. He knocked his heel against the grate. "Fixing suggests they're broken. There's no such thing as broken, only hurt." He slid off the car with a heavy sigh. "I love you," he whispered. "I just… I want to be sure that you know I love you."
Scott observed him across the roof of the car. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Alan scuffed his shoes. "Uh… I'm kinda…" He tilted his head back to face the sun, squinting in the harsh glare. "Mercury. That's… yeah."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Keep driving," Alan said simply. He hesitated. "And… keep talking. Please."
