FIC: Past Today 2/5
Dec. 27th, 2014 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dollarformynameIt's a bad day. Bad to the bone and rotten to its core.
It takes mere hours for the city to go from a kind of organized alarm, to rioting panic and back-alley witch trials.
At first, it's just the cops out in force, combing over the city grid by grid, knocking on doors and politely requesting permission to search homes and businesses in case the culprit somehow found his way into their basement or walk-in freezer, each section locked down and heavily guarded once it's cleared. News anchors are, of course, spewing fresh, hyperbolic nonsense every twenty minutes and not exactly concerned with keeping the peace, but, while civilians are wary, opting for safety in numbers and more careful about where they step until the situation's resolved, they ultimately go about business as usual.
The search eventually serves its purpose, though, and more transgenics are driven out into the harsh light of the morning news, shot down in the streets like dogs and dragged away. At the revelation that there's more than one renegade monster in the city, the panic level rises, but it doesn't explode just yet.
The official turn of the paranoid tide comes right about the time some random onlooker identifies one of the bodies as "that guy who worked at the coffee shop on 9th and gave me a free donut every morning!" and suddenly the possibilities are terrifying and endless.
The difference between what happened in Seattle when skeletons first came pouring out of Manticore's many closets, and now, is that people are so confident their brutal, zero-tolerance policies and new self-defense laws have effectively rid any and all transgenics of their spines. The freaks wouldn't dare try to fit in now, driven into caves and ratholes like any mutant with half a brain should be, and it's that confidence that has made it so easy for Alec to get by for weeks at a time without resorting to freighthopping or gunfights. When it turns out that the monsters are bolder than people gave them credit for, people get restless, then unruly, and then they start dying.
There's rampant fingerpointing, lynch mobs and riots, and the cops immediately shed any pretense of good manners to get things back under control. There's no denying a few cornered freaks lash out and do their fair share of damage but, by lunchtime, more people are killed by people than by any transgenic.
Not that the facts will actually matter when all's said and done.
Each snatch of a radio report or television screen has Alec flinching, but it's an ingrained reaction he can't afford to let himself really feel. He had to give up on the sewers once it became clear too many other transgenics and cops had the same idea: too many bodies and firearms down there. He did his best to encourage who he could in the right direction but, given his face is so popular right now, he didn't get very far. He headed back to the surface, hood flipped up and conspicuous as hell, so maybe it's better none of them came with him.
He darts from bolthole to bolthole, making his way south again, towards Steelhead territory. The citizens down that way are better armed, sure, and it's not like they'll be on his side if it comes to a standoff, but their tendency to throw a wrench in the authorities' works, just on principle, improves his odds enough to make the risk worth it. That, and the southernmost checkpoints are pretty much a joke, no sense trying for anything more complicated on a day when his luck only comes in one, shitty flavor.
Another failed attempt just to get clear of downtown and that plan's starting to look more and more like a pipe dream. He's been stuck here for hours; the cops are a freaking nightmare.
At the approach of static-blurred voices, Alec ducks down an alley and tosses himself into the first dumpster he sees. The cop doesn't falter, the crackling stream of his police radio flowing right on by without a hitch. Even if he had any reason to suspect the alley, he'd be pretty well distracted by the commotion that erupts nearby, boots clomping off toward the panicked shouts in a hurry.
"Damn it," Alec breathes, really wishing he hadn't been around to hear that—all these years spent whittling his emotions down to nothing and he still hasn't been able to do much about his curiosity.
He flips the lid up and hops out, tightening the straps on his pack before scaling a fire escape to the roof of the nearest building. The sky's bloated with gray clouds, threatening more rain and darkening the edges of the rooftop enough that Alec feels confident peeking over the side to see what all the fuss is about.
It's going down right in the middle of an intersection, cars idling at haphazard angles, some honking, some with the doors left carelessly open while the drivers wander into the gathering crowd to watch the spectacle. There are a few cops there, raised weapons encouraging a pair of transhumans and three transgenics to stay put, but for the most part, they're just watching and jeering while civilians do all the dirty work. There's one transgenic sprawled lifelessly on the ground already, neat hole in the center of her forehead. Seems that method's not good enough anymore, though, because a handful of civilians are bringing gas cans in.
There's a familiar face down there, too, in the middle of the transgenic huddle, little teeth bared and his dirty red sneakers darting back and forth, anxious lunges at the people tossing gasoline on him. A teenage girl tries to wrangle him behind her but he's too worked up, probably from too many guns pointed at his head in one day.
It's the kid from the store, and how the hell had Alec not caught onto that earlier?
Someone starts fumbling around with a matchbook.
"Shit." Alec is on his feet and halfway over the ledge before he catches himself.
He can't.
He wants to help but he's survived on his own long enough to have developed a secondary stop-and-think reaction that usually kicks in before he can do anything too stupid. The specifics of how it went from quick-and-clean kill shots to gleeful cruelty, Alec doesn't know, but he's been unwilling witness to enough public executions by now to hazard a guess. Get enough humans together and give them a common enemy, and it doesn't take long for them to get sadistically creative. He stops and he thinks about this, about all the painful, painful ways helping will surely get him killed, and then he goes ahead and does the stupid thing anyway.
There are certain things he's prepared to live with, and sitting idly by while a deranged mob sets his people on fire isn't one of them.
While it costs him more seconds than he'd like, enough time for a match to strike and fall on the corpse, all that thinking isn't completely useless. Instead of throwing himself off the roof and down in the center of everything only to get his ass shot full of holes, he puts the small arsenal in his bag to good use. Crouches and takes aim, dropping all six cops where they stand.
He's only firing tranqs but the civilians down there don't know that, and promptly freak the fuck out, pushing and running and scanning the area frantically for the source of gunfire. The transgenics waste no time lunging for the nearest fallen cop to snag their weapons and turn them on anyone brave enough to still be hanging around.
And that's it, mission accomplished; Alec can safely say he did his part for his people and move on.
Except the fire is complicating things, eating up the corpse and racing along trails of spilled gasoline to block off convenient escape routes, and he knows it won't be long before the fire department and about a hundred more cops show up to pass ruthless judgment on the freaks trapped down there with a half-dozen unconscious police officers. Some civilians find themselves trapped, too, burning and screaming, and despite the fact that he's waving an automatic weapon at another group of stubborn assholes hellbent on throwing lighters at him, one of the transhumans does his damnedest to try and mime at people to stop, drop, and roll. It's about all he can do, given his clothes are soaked in accelerant and he has to take extra care avoiding the flames.
Alec can't help but think of Joshua. This guy's entirely too short and scaly to look anything like him, but the way he moves to protect his friends while unable to hold enough of a grudge against his tormentors to wish them fiery deaths is all it really takes. The pang of grief on top of the smell of burning flesh and smoke inhalation upsets Alec's breathing.
He chokes out a long-suffering sigh and takes a wide step into thin air.
Down on the ground, everything is louder, more urgent. Bodies are flying every which way, under their own power or being dragged along under someone else's—obstacles and potential casualties, every last one of them. It's like falling back in time. He’s been here before and the flashback is not doing great things for him.
As soon as Alec straightens up from his landing, someone starts firing a weapon and it jars him far enough out of those memories to let him be useful as is immediate priority shifts.
He spots a uniformed arm waving around behind the dizzying flash of police lights, taking cover behind the car and blindly shooting out into the intersection. It’s another cop. Must've been taking a leak or buying a donut and came back to find a different kind of mayhem than he was expecting, because Alec didn't miss, he's not that reckless. This guy wasn't here before, and now he is, and underneath the screaming and the shots and the roar of flames and the pounding of his own heart as he runs like hell, Alec can hear more of that goddamned radio static. The last thing they need is an army of more cops storming out here in riot mode.
Alec makes a circuit of the car and slides up from behind, smooth and silent. The cop is sitting with his legs sprawled in front of him, preoccupied with yelling for backup and shooting at the slightest provocation. When Alec gets him in a stranglehold and the barrel of that gun swings up toward his face, breaking the cop's neck comes easier than anything else Alec's had to do today.
He smashes the radio and moves on, nothing else he can do about it.
He makes it back out to where the fire is raging, and it appears at first glance that all the transgenics are still there, those who are free to move refusing to leave the others behind. Our problem in a nutshell, Alec thinks, quickly looking around.
He sees a flicker of reflective orange about a block or so down, and heads for it. Where there's construction, there's dirt, and, even better, a city pickup truck. Hotwiring the truck is the work of seconds, but plowing through the abandoned cars takes a little longer. As soon as he's able, Alec spins the truck around and backs it up to a wall of flame, hitting the brakes hard so that a big chunk of dirt goes flying out of the bed and into the street. It smothers enough of the fire to make a hole. He gets out to run through it but he's too late.
Has been too late for about ten minutes, because, he realizes as he gets a better look, while everyone's accounted for, they aren't all okay.
There’s a guy around Alec’s age, another X5, twisted in an awkward position on the ground and trying valiantly to get back up. It’s made extra difficult by the bulletholes that have practically shredded his legs, and judging by how rapidly the pool of blood around him is growing, one of those bullets has hit a major artery.
That’s bad enough, but then there’s the teenage girl Alec had spotted from the roof. She’s flat on her back, eyes glassy and unfocused, the front of her jacket soaked red. The boy from the Citgo robbery is on his knees, bowed over her and blubbering nonsense. One of his hands clutches at her shoulder while the other applies pressure, and his hand seems ludicrously out of proportion when compared to the size of the stain—so small, and Alec can’t help but think that’s never going to work.
He moves to help, gaze flickering over the back of the boy’s bared neck out of habit—subconsciously filing away designations and names to add to his mental list of failures—and pauses as it clicks: the reason he didn't figure it out earlier.
There’s no barcode on the kid’s neck. No faint scarring from too many laser removals, either. Alec has become acutely sensitive to that kind of thing, was up close enough to the boy at the store that he would’ve noticed one and he didn’t. It didn’t occur to him at the time that not all transgenics have barcodes these days. He knew the possibility existed, of course, he was just too distracted with all the other stuff going down to think of it.
This kid's the product of good old-fashioned breeding and, crazily, that fact makes Alec feel even worse. What a bunch of naïve, wide-eyed jerkoffs they'd all been to think the lack of barcodes meant freedom for the new generation. Marked or not, they're all still freaks.
The other transgenics have gotten the X5’s leg tied off while Alec has been standing around fucking woolgathering, so he snaps himself out of it. There’s not much they can do for the girl, he doesn’t blame them for not trying anything more than making her comfortable, but he can’t make that logic apply to himself and kneels down to do something. Anything.
Before he can get very far, the boy jumps up, face blotchy and wet and his eyes glittering with rage. He lashes out, kicking Alec in the bicep and then his thigh, starts throwing wild punches and screaming at him to, "Get off, just get off, you did this, I told you not to but you wouldn’t listen and now look! Look what you did!"
"I’m sorry," Alec chokes out. "I. I didn’t mean—"
"Go screw yourself!" The kid hits him again, kicks him again. When he lands a punch to Alec’s brow that splits it open and realizes Alec isn’t even making an effort to defend himself, he seems to deflate suddenly.
The boy jerks away and returns to his friend, pulling her close to his chest.
Hiccuping a little, he says, "Leave her alone and just. Just go away."
Alec nods, feeling a little lost. Lost for words, mostly, because there’s nothing he can say that would make it …
There’s just nothing to say.
Blood trickles into his eye. Alec swipes clumsily at his face, his goddamn hands shaking—
shredded air sound from above
—and looks up.
Beams of light sweep in slow arcs, noise swelling up on them fast. Helicopters. Of course there are helicopters. It wouldn't be worth much if the authorities didn't make as big of a spectacle as possible out of this whole thing, and they have maybe a minute before they're locked in the sights of a rocket launcher or whatever other over-the-top bullshit these assholes are bringing in.
Don't be stupid. Isn't that what the kid had said, back at the store? But Alec's pretty in the mood for stupid just now.
"Run," he tells the lizard guy, who's managed to get the X5 off the ground and has pushed him into the embrace of one of his friends, the girl's near-lifeless body hanging there in his arms while the boy hovers at his elbow. Alec does his very best not to look at her again.
The lizard guy cocks his chin, jerks it sideways—after you—and the boy stops glaring daggers at Alec long enough to turn it on the transhuman, like you must be joking.
Alec shakes his head. "Take your family and get out of here before they see you."
The transhuman can't afford waste anymore time arguing. One last look over his shoulder as he hefts the girl to fit more securely against his chest, and then he herds them all away.
Alec doesn't hang around watch them go. He takes to the roof again, uses that one as a step up to a taller building, climbs as high as he can go before he jumps up and down, waving his arms around. "Over here, you dicks! Come and get me!"
White light floods his vision, and he runs.
They always happen so fast, these kinds of things. Right in the middle of the pandemonium, thoughts and reactions and circumstances all run at different speeds, never lining up right. Keeping himself alive is the easy part. Saving everyone else—that's where shit gets tricky.
That's where shit gets thoroughly obliterated, Alec mentally corrects himself, the wind at his back like it's urging him to go ahead and try to fly, and so he does. Keeps running right off the edge of the building, a little extra momentum at the last second to catapult him through the air and onto the next roof. The choppers are still on him, two of them, big spots of light swinging in front of him to brighten the way, and that's how he wants it for now.
It seems like the thing to do, anyway, even if it's probably not going to work. Witness the dead bodies in his wake in a less-than-24-hour period. Try to do something normal, screw it up. Try to do the right thing and fix it, and there's always an explosion, fire, hail of bullets, something. He should've quit while he was ahead. It was ridiculous to think it could've turned out any other way just because a little time's gone by. A streak like that doesn't come with an expiration date. Fighting past experience, trying to prove himself wrong, it's sort of like trying to cross a tightrope in ice skates over a bottomless pit without once looking down, because if he looks down, that's it, he'll fall endlessly or go mad or burst into flames, or maybe all three. Only worse, because he has to live to tell the tale.
Scowling, Alec takes a hard left and drops sharply, landing on an empty sidewalk. He figures he's played with the choppers long enough. If he keeps it up much longer, taunting them in plain view, they'll call in reinforcements and he'll most certainly lose that race. He should at least act like he's trying to get away.
The act only remains an act for so long, though. Apparently, the authorities organized themselves a lot faster than he was expecting, because every nook and cranny he tries to duck into is immediately floodlit by one chopper or another, ground troops pouring in and the whole night flashing blue-red-blue behind him as he scrambles to get out before they can surround him.
It goes on like that for too long, the pack on his back getting heavier and heavier, and this isn't exactly some abandoned neighborhood he can get easily lost in. All these gawkers spilling out of doorways, tripping him up, slowing him down and giving him even stupider ideas because if one more bystander throws trash at him, Alec is going to stop seeing hurdles and start seeing hostages, and then where will they be.
Last-ditch effort, Alec sees an alleyway and swerves into it, full-speed, throwing himself over the hood of a decrepit delivery truck blocking the way and barely managing to keep his feet when he lands. No time to bemoan his lack of grace, he runs and runs—
Feels like he hits an invisible wall when an arm snakes out of nowhere and yanks him sideways.
Alec goes tumbling in through the side door of a condemned building, that yanking force keeping him upright as he spins around, ready to fight for his life. The door slams shut, yellow slice of streetlights snuffed out and leaving him in the dark. His vision adjusts quickly but it's still disorienting.
"This way, come on," a voice says.
Alec doesn't know whether to be relieved or furious when he recognizes it. "You crazy fuck," is all Alec manages to gasp out before Ben's hand is yanking at him some more, dragging him further inside, saying, "Hurry up, come on, move."
As they hustle through a maze of crumbling rooms and hallways, Alec thinks he recognizes the place to be the hollowed shell of a once-popular restaurant, but he doesn't get much chance to sightsee before he's being none-too-gently ushered down a couple flights of stairs and ends up in a subbasement.
He resolutely chooses not to ask about the days-old, blood-spattered corpse of what is clearly a hobo propped up in the corner.
"Here," says Ben, squeezing himself behind a pile of broken dining furniture that someone was maybe hoping to repair before the whole building fell into disuse. He pushes a table to one side, revealing a pint-sized hole in the wall where snapped hinges indicate a tiny door used to sit. He tugs Alec's arm again.
Faintest sounds of police organizing outside, not enough time for him to stop and think if this is a good idea or not, following his evil twin down into the bowels of nowhere—not a lot of choice, come to that—and so Alec goes along willingly. For now. He takes his arm back, though, jerking out of Ben's grip on principle.
Ben doesn't let it deter him, apparently expecting Alec to follow his better senses for the time being. He disappears into the crawlspace, all hunched back and tightened shoulders to fit himself inside. The way through is long and convoluted, all these twists and drop-offs leading them straight down into Hell, for all Alec knows, and after what feels like forever he's getting pretty goddamn cranky about it.
"Just a little further," Ben says, like he can sense Alec's mood curdling.
A couple more minutes and Alec feels a gust of stale air hit his face, so maybe Ben's insane but at least he's not a liar, and that's something.
He doesn't know what to expect but it's certainly not more darkness. "Where the hell are we?" Alec asks, finally allowed to straighten up and stretch out his limbs.
Ben walks ahead, not answering right away, so sure of where he's going that Alec boggles at it for a minute. It makes him wonder how long, exactly, Ben has been in Chicago. How he knows so well parts of the city Alec never knew existed.
Ben leans down and fumbles with something. "Old subway tunnel," he says, and then a light flares, illuminating the cracked concrete walls and the twisted tracks half-buried in broken up chunks of yet more concrete.
Part of the tunnel is caved in a little ways behind them, the jackknifed wreckage of a subway train wedged in the middle of it all. There’s the faintest scent of old death down here and Alec imagines skeletons trapped deep inside, where it’s too perilous for the living to retrieve them. The Pulse, Alec thinks automatically, because he’s seen enough of the country by now to be familiar with all these mostly forgotten little aftermaths forever frozen in time, and it really shouldn’t surprise him in the least that this is the kinda place Ben chose as a lair.
Ben's holding an ancient-looking oil lantern, talking and still moving forward, giving Alec the tour. Alec follows cautiously until they emerge out onto a boarding platform that looks just as post-apocalyptic as everything else, but is at least more spacious, listening as Ben points and outlines all the escape routes. There aren’t many, the main entrance sealed off with cement and steel, but any crevice or cavity that could lead to a way out, no matter how small or inconvenient, Ben has found and explored already.
Alec does some poking around on his own, anyway, reflexive thoughts filing in one after the other to say this would be a good place to lower supplies through and those holes are perfectly spaced for makeshift bunks and that tunnel back there would be ideal for a last stand in the event of a raid and—
He scowls, firmly pumping those mental brakes. Alec’s not helping to lead a revolution anymore. Even if he’s silently judging Ben for not sharing the wealth that is this spectacularly concealed hideout with others who are are in dire need of it, he has no use for that kind of thinking anymore. He can already hear the very practical argument that Ben would surely have for not telling others, anyway, because if others knew then others would know, and probably they wouldn’t be able to help telling close friends and comrades in arms, and too many ears picking up intel like that makes for bad endings, more often than not.
Shaking it off, Alec lets his eyes keep wandering, catching sight of the nest Ben's made down here. Crammed between a couple of crumbling pillars are some old blankets, boxes and bags full of supplies, a deck of bent cards scattered in what looks to be a hastily abandoned game of Solitaire, and isn't that a sad statement all by itself, Alec thinks. Then he looks at Ben.
Really looks.
Alec had been a little too preoccupied with the run-and-hide state of things to notice before, but Ben is fucked up, no two ways about it. His face is back to being filthy, this look of residual panic settled into it like a stain that's not coming out. He’s not wearing that stupid hat anymore and the clothes Alec had seen him in earlier are down to rags, too much scraped-up skin on display and a mess of old surgical scars showing.
Alec gets stuck on that for a minute, moving forward without really telling himself to, and before he knows it he's tipping Ben's head forward, running a hand over the patches of missing hair and down his neck and upper back, where the scarring is at its worst. Ben jumps a little but he doesn't pull away, and Alec knows Ben had to've been cut open again and again, old paths revisited so many times, for the scars to be this bad. There doesn't look to be any sense to it. What the hell could Manticore have been looking for in there, a Cracker Jack prize?
Coming back to himself and realizing what he's doing, Alec backs away hastily, stomping the guilt that tries to surge up. If anyone should be feeling guilty here, it's Ben. Ben's the one whose brain short-circuited and screwed them both over.
Ben's whole body kinda tilts forward, trying to keep Alec's hands on him for a second without really seeming to notice, and then he stands up too straight, compensating.
"How long have you been following me?" Alec asks, putting some more distance between them.
Ben shrugs and looks away, caught out. "A while," he admits, and it's all he's going to admit. Alec knows that evasive tone as well as he knows himself.
"Why?" Alec persists anyway.
Ben's mouth twists, and he goes to set the lantern on the ground, crouching down to rifle through his stuff as if he's actually looking for something. Some kind of physical evidence to present in answer, maybe, but most likely just hoping to distract Alec from this line of questioning for as long as possible. His search proves fruitful after a tense minute, a small and flat, shiny disc pulled from the pocket of his bag that he rubs between his fingers—nervous habit, if the worn-down etching that can barely be made out is any indication.
He rummages around some more and digs out his beanie next, pulling it tightly over his head before confessing, "I was curious."
"About?"
"Wanted to see how the other half lives," Ben bites out a little sarcastically, and he's not the only one losing patience.
"Great," Alec snaps. "So you came, you saw, why are you still here?"
Ben straightens and gives another irritated jerk of his shoulders, still turned away from Alec and glaring at the wall almost as thoroughly as Alec is glaring at his profile. He opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head. Shrugs again, turning around to look Alec in the eye and gestures vaguely at him, as if that's all the answer he can manage.
Alec sighs. Fucking Ben. Fucking poorly stitched-together Ben with all the stuffing poking out of his seams. There are so many other questions Alec should be asking, so many accusations to let fly and old grudges to air out, but, abruptly, he feels a wave of despair crashing over him and he just. Cannot do it.
"Listen, whatever this is," he motions between the two of them. "You need to let it go."
Ben gets this look like Alec just asked him to cut his own throat. "But I."
He licks his lips, spreading his hands out in front of him a little helplessly. The disc falls, dangling from the end of a gold chain looped between his fingers.
"I don't want to," is what he settles on, eyes all huge and guileless, and Alec—seeing his own face like that, this unnatural naked honesty like Ben is fooling anyone here (all while getting a clearer view of the necklace and recalling the copy that Max kept in her apartment and referred to as exhibit A every time she felt like getting maudlin about her ill-fated big brother)—Alec decides to put it into terms Ben can't misinterpret or argue with in any way.
It's not like he didn't warn him.
Caught off guard, Ben takes Alec's punch full in the face, whirling sideways with the force of it and staggering to keep his balance.
"I told you," Alec spits, punching him again, and this time Ben manages to dodge, Alec's fist glancing the side of his cheek before plowing harmlessly into thin air, "to leave me," Alec recovers quickly, grabs him by what's left of his shirt and shakes him, hard, "the fuck," pushes him down on the ground, all his weight behind it so that Ben smashes bone-jarringly into the concrete, "alone."
Ben doesn't waste much time being stunned by the outburst, his legs kicking out and swiveling, tangling up in Alec's own. Too caught up in his own assault, Alec can't get out of the way fast enough and goes down. Ben scrambles up and over him, face black as a storm as he jams his forearm down against Alec's throat. It's not hard enough to choke him, merely an uncomfortable warning, and Alec goes still, waiting. He wasn't looking for a showdown, just wanted to get his point across and now that he has, he's morbidly curious as to where Ben wants to take this.
Ben is absolutely trembling with defiance. "I don't want to," he says again, like it's all so very basic and why can't Alec just get it already.
Alec doesn’t really think he can get it given he lacks Ben’s particular brand of crazy, but he still finds himself asking, "Then what the hell do you want?"
Ben seems surprised by the question, like he wasn’t expecting Alec to keep trying to have a conversation. But Alec is tired of running. He figures if he sticks around long enough to puzzle Ben out, he’ll have a better chance of shaking him. Threats and violence obviously aren’t cutting it.
Ben backs off, hesitant and watching carefully, allowing Alec room to sit up but staying close. They settle across from each other, legs crossed and postures uncomfortable.
Ben says, "I don’t really know how to answer that," but his expression says different. The uncertainty in it doesn’t seem to be a loss for words so much as fear of revealing too much, too soon.
"You didn’t come here to kill me," Alec asserts when Ben is silent for too long. "I thought that at first because of the whole hating yourself thing. And we share a face. But you’ve had plenty of chances, so … " he trails off, prompting Ben to fill in the blanks.
Ben licks at his split lip as he starts playing with the pendant again, and that seems to help him find a starting point. "I know you think I’m," he points a finger at his own head and makes a swirling motion, "whatever. But I don’t want to hurt you." Ben pauses, frowning like he's trying to pick out just the right words, and settles on, "I’m better now."
Alec regards him dubiously. "Are you?"
Ben sighs, shoulders slumping. He looks every bit the scolded child, caught out before the lie could get off the ground. "No." He blows out a breath. "It's a process, that's what they said. But I didn’t come here to hurt you, that part's true."
Ben eyes him again, searching, and Alec does his best to appear receptive so they can get the hell on with this.
"I went looking for Max first," he goes on, but then he stops, brows and mouth pinched tight like he did something wrong, or he’s stuck, or—
Alec has no idea. If this is Ben feeling remorse, it’s a little weird, and a lot too late.
Or maybe …
Alec knows how things played out last time Ben went looking for Max. And perhaps when he found her in a state that wasn’t capable of delivering a second time, he came looking for Alec to pick up the slack. Maybe he thinks it’s some kind of poetic justice, getting himself to off himself after a life of hunting himself. And if that’s the game, Alec isn’t so sure he’d say no.
"What’s the matter, can’t do it yourself?"
"What?"
"Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for another suicide-by-transgenic."
"No, that’s not. I don’t wanna die."
"Then what?" Alec demands, frustrated.
Ben loops the necklace across his hand again, letting the pendant rest over his fingers so Alec can see the engraving of his "Blue Lady" more clearly. "I know she's not real. I know that. Sometimes I don't really feel it, but I know," he explains. "I blamed everyone else: Manticore, the people I killed, the Lady, but. It's just me. They said I had to learn to cope with what's real. You don’t get to lose your mind just because life is hard. And I tried. I’m trying." Ben's face hardens, and Alec tenses. "But they also said hunting people is bad and I’m being hunted, I’m always being hunted. That's real, too, and I don't wanna fucking cope with that. If I have the power to stop it, why should I have to?" He looks to Alec, then, plaintive, defiant, waiting to be validated or corrected. Waiting for the some magical answer that will unlock this cruel, twisted puzzle that is his life.
Alec’s got nothing, but Ben comes down from his little tirade on his own, lets out another long breath and stares at his fidgeting fingers some more. "Anyway, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect they’re not being a hundred percent truthful. Or maybe they just don’t know as much as they think."
"Okay," says Alec, slow. "So what it is you think I can do?"
"Tell me the truth," Ben says immediately. "You’re real, too. Maybe the most real, and I. I don’t trust myself to know. I don’t trust anyone."
"But you’d trust me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"That kid. Dalton? He told me some stuff. Stories. About you."
Alec stays silent, not sure he wants to hear what anyone from TC thinks of him now. Ben apparently takes that as his cue to continue.
"I didn’t really believe it, at first. Thought maybe he was messing with me. I mean, we’re literally made of the same stuff and I’m … you know. The idea that another version of me could be worthy of the kind of admiration that he had for you? It was fascinating but it was still hard to buy into. I had to find you. Had to see it."
Alec squirms, cheeks heating up. "Sorry to be such a disappointment."
"You’re not." Ben’s eyes brighten; he’s getting a little too zealous for comfort now, and Alec doesn’t want that. He is so far from wanting that. "I saw you. At the store, and after. You kept trying to help even when it was a terrible idea."
"Yeah, because this shit is my fault in the first place. That’s just what you do."
"That’s what you do. I wouldn’t have."
"I don’t—"
"That guy upstairs," Ben talks right over him. "You saw him?"
Warily, Alec nods.
"He tried to take my stuff. He had a knife. I gutted him without thinking twice. I could’ve done something else to stop him, he was hungry and weak, it would’ve been easy. But I couldn’t even consider that until it was too late. And I don’t know how to make that go away."
About ten times more uncomfortable than when this little chat first started, Alec pushes to his feet, needing to regain some distance. But then Ben rises too, closing the gap. It’s fucking ridiculous how awful the guy is at taking a hint.
Alec holds up an arm in warning, and when he moves away again Ben stays put. "Look, I’m sorry things are so hard for you," he says slowly, searching for the right words. "But I. I’m not the shining example of morality you seem to think I am. Yeah, I’ve tried to help people but if you’ve been watching me as long as you say, then you’ve seen how well that goes. I’m the last person in the world to be your life coach, or whatever the hell you’re looking for. I can’t help you."
"Alec—"
"No," Alec says firmly, cutting a hand through the air. "No more talking. No more stalking. Jesus, do you have any idea what you’re asking? You show up, tell me you killed my best friend, and oh, by the way, could you teach me how to stop being psychotic? I can’t be responsible for you. I’ve been there, done that, and I can’t again. I’m barely responsible for myself these days."
"She asked me to," Ben defends, apparently choosing to only hear one part of Alec’s argument.
"That doesn’t mean you should’ve done it!"
"How do you know that? How am I supposed to know that? Max was good, she was a good person and when I asked her to, she did it. She did it, so why was it wrong for me to do it?"
"You were fucked up when you asked for that. You said she was fucked up. And when someone’s fucked up, they usually aren’t the best judges of what’s good for them."
"I don’t understand."
"Of course you don’t." Alec lets out a harsh laugh, shaking his head at how Ben’s already sucked him into playing the teacher without even realizing it. He takes another step back. "Please just leave me alone." It comes out sounding more desperate than he’d like. He gives Ben a look, silently pleading for him to understand. "I can’t."
Ben steps closer. "But I want—"
Alec punches him again, hard as he can, knocking Ben back against the pillar. Ben doesn’t retaliate, choosing instead to gape at him with huge, wounded eyes, and Alec has to look away. He feels so drained, suddenly, cornered and desperate for an out, even if it leads him right back into the sights of a thousand high-powered rifles.
With all the finality he can muster, he says, "You can’t always get what you want."
And before Ben can respond to that stunningly brilliant platitude, Alec spins on his heel, not-quite-running for an exit.
NEXT
It takes mere hours for the city to go from a kind of organized alarm, to rioting panic and back-alley witch trials.
At first, it's just the cops out in force, combing over the city grid by grid, knocking on doors and politely requesting permission to search homes and businesses in case the culprit somehow found his way into their basement or walk-in freezer, each section locked down and heavily guarded once it's cleared. News anchors are, of course, spewing fresh, hyperbolic nonsense every twenty minutes and not exactly concerned with keeping the peace, but, while civilians are wary, opting for safety in numbers and more careful about where they step until the situation's resolved, they ultimately go about business as usual.
The search eventually serves its purpose, though, and more transgenics are driven out into the harsh light of the morning news, shot down in the streets like dogs and dragged away. At the revelation that there's more than one renegade monster in the city, the panic level rises, but it doesn't explode just yet.
The official turn of the paranoid tide comes right about the time some random onlooker identifies one of the bodies as "that guy who worked at the coffee shop on 9th and gave me a free donut every morning!" and suddenly the possibilities are terrifying and endless.
The difference between what happened in Seattle when skeletons first came pouring out of Manticore's many closets, and now, is that people are so confident their brutal, zero-tolerance policies and new self-defense laws have effectively rid any and all transgenics of their spines. The freaks wouldn't dare try to fit in now, driven into caves and ratholes like any mutant with half a brain should be, and it's that confidence that has made it so easy for Alec to get by for weeks at a time without resorting to freighthopping or gunfights. When it turns out that the monsters are bolder than people gave them credit for, people get restless, then unruly, and then they start dying.
There's rampant fingerpointing, lynch mobs and riots, and the cops immediately shed any pretense of good manners to get things back under control. There's no denying a few cornered freaks lash out and do their fair share of damage but, by lunchtime, more people are killed by people than by any transgenic.
Not that the facts will actually matter when all's said and done.
Each snatch of a radio report or television screen has Alec flinching, but it's an ingrained reaction he can't afford to let himself really feel. He had to give up on the sewers once it became clear too many other transgenics and cops had the same idea: too many bodies and firearms down there. He did his best to encourage who he could in the right direction but, given his face is so popular right now, he didn't get very far. He headed back to the surface, hood flipped up and conspicuous as hell, so maybe it's better none of them came with him.
He darts from bolthole to bolthole, making his way south again, towards Steelhead territory. The citizens down that way are better armed, sure, and it's not like they'll be on his side if it comes to a standoff, but their tendency to throw a wrench in the authorities' works, just on principle, improves his odds enough to make the risk worth it. That, and the southernmost checkpoints are pretty much a joke, no sense trying for anything more complicated on a day when his luck only comes in one, shitty flavor.
Another failed attempt just to get clear of downtown and that plan's starting to look more and more like a pipe dream. He's been stuck here for hours; the cops are a freaking nightmare.
At the approach of static-blurred voices, Alec ducks down an alley and tosses himself into the first dumpster he sees. The cop doesn't falter, the crackling stream of his police radio flowing right on by without a hitch. Even if he had any reason to suspect the alley, he'd be pretty well distracted by the commotion that erupts nearby, boots clomping off toward the panicked shouts in a hurry.
"Damn it," Alec breathes, really wishing he hadn't been around to hear that—all these years spent whittling his emotions down to nothing and he still hasn't been able to do much about his curiosity.
He flips the lid up and hops out, tightening the straps on his pack before scaling a fire escape to the roof of the nearest building. The sky's bloated with gray clouds, threatening more rain and darkening the edges of the rooftop enough that Alec feels confident peeking over the side to see what all the fuss is about.
It's going down right in the middle of an intersection, cars idling at haphazard angles, some honking, some with the doors left carelessly open while the drivers wander into the gathering crowd to watch the spectacle. There are a few cops there, raised weapons encouraging a pair of transhumans and three transgenics to stay put, but for the most part, they're just watching and jeering while civilians do all the dirty work. There's one transgenic sprawled lifelessly on the ground already, neat hole in the center of her forehead. Seems that method's not good enough anymore, though, because a handful of civilians are bringing gas cans in.
There's a familiar face down there, too, in the middle of the transgenic huddle, little teeth bared and his dirty red sneakers darting back and forth, anxious lunges at the people tossing gasoline on him. A teenage girl tries to wrangle him behind her but he's too worked up, probably from too many guns pointed at his head in one day.
It's the kid from the store, and how the hell had Alec not caught onto that earlier?
Someone starts fumbling around with a matchbook.
"Shit." Alec is on his feet and halfway over the ledge before he catches himself.
He can't.
He wants to help but he's survived on his own long enough to have developed a secondary stop-and-think reaction that usually kicks in before he can do anything too stupid. The specifics of how it went from quick-and-clean kill shots to gleeful cruelty, Alec doesn't know, but he's been unwilling witness to enough public executions by now to hazard a guess. Get enough humans together and give them a common enemy, and it doesn't take long for them to get sadistically creative. He stops and he thinks about this, about all the painful, painful ways helping will surely get him killed, and then he goes ahead and does the stupid thing anyway.
There are certain things he's prepared to live with, and sitting idly by while a deranged mob sets his people on fire isn't one of them.
While it costs him more seconds than he'd like, enough time for a match to strike and fall on the corpse, all that thinking isn't completely useless. Instead of throwing himself off the roof and down in the center of everything only to get his ass shot full of holes, he puts the small arsenal in his bag to good use. Crouches and takes aim, dropping all six cops where they stand.
He's only firing tranqs but the civilians down there don't know that, and promptly freak the fuck out, pushing and running and scanning the area frantically for the source of gunfire. The transgenics waste no time lunging for the nearest fallen cop to snag their weapons and turn them on anyone brave enough to still be hanging around.
And that's it, mission accomplished; Alec can safely say he did his part for his people and move on.
Except the fire is complicating things, eating up the corpse and racing along trails of spilled gasoline to block off convenient escape routes, and he knows it won't be long before the fire department and about a hundred more cops show up to pass ruthless judgment on the freaks trapped down there with a half-dozen unconscious police officers. Some civilians find themselves trapped, too, burning and screaming, and despite the fact that he's waving an automatic weapon at another group of stubborn assholes hellbent on throwing lighters at him, one of the transhumans does his damnedest to try and mime at people to stop, drop, and roll. It's about all he can do, given his clothes are soaked in accelerant and he has to take extra care avoiding the flames.
Alec can't help but think of Joshua. This guy's entirely too short and scaly to look anything like him, but the way he moves to protect his friends while unable to hold enough of a grudge against his tormentors to wish them fiery deaths is all it really takes. The pang of grief on top of the smell of burning flesh and smoke inhalation upsets Alec's breathing.
He chokes out a long-suffering sigh and takes a wide step into thin air.
Down on the ground, everything is louder, more urgent. Bodies are flying every which way, under their own power or being dragged along under someone else's—obstacles and potential casualties, every last one of them. It's like falling back in time. He’s been here before and the flashback is not doing great things for him.
As soon as Alec straightens up from his landing, someone starts firing a weapon and it jars him far enough out of those memories to let him be useful as is immediate priority shifts.
He spots a uniformed arm waving around behind the dizzying flash of police lights, taking cover behind the car and blindly shooting out into the intersection. It’s another cop. Must've been taking a leak or buying a donut and came back to find a different kind of mayhem than he was expecting, because Alec didn't miss, he's not that reckless. This guy wasn't here before, and now he is, and underneath the screaming and the shots and the roar of flames and the pounding of his own heart as he runs like hell, Alec can hear more of that goddamned radio static. The last thing they need is an army of more cops storming out here in riot mode.
Alec makes a circuit of the car and slides up from behind, smooth and silent. The cop is sitting with his legs sprawled in front of him, preoccupied with yelling for backup and shooting at the slightest provocation. When Alec gets him in a stranglehold and the barrel of that gun swings up toward his face, breaking the cop's neck comes easier than anything else Alec's had to do today.
He smashes the radio and moves on, nothing else he can do about it.
He makes it back out to where the fire is raging, and it appears at first glance that all the transgenics are still there, those who are free to move refusing to leave the others behind. Our problem in a nutshell, Alec thinks, quickly looking around.
He sees a flicker of reflective orange about a block or so down, and heads for it. Where there's construction, there's dirt, and, even better, a city pickup truck. Hotwiring the truck is the work of seconds, but plowing through the abandoned cars takes a little longer. As soon as he's able, Alec spins the truck around and backs it up to a wall of flame, hitting the brakes hard so that a big chunk of dirt goes flying out of the bed and into the street. It smothers enough of the fire to make a hole. He gets out to run through it but he's too late.
Has been too late for about ten minutes, because, he realizes as he gets a better look, while everyone's accounted for, they aren't all okay.
There’s a guy around Alec’s age, another X5, twisted in an awkward position on the ground and trying valiantly to get back up. It’s made extra difficult by the bulletholes that have practically shredded his legs, and judging by how rapidly the pool of blood around him is growing, one of those bullets has hit a major artery.
That’s bad enough, but then there’s the teenage girl Alec had spotted from the roof. She’s flat on her back, eyes glassy and unfocused, the front of her jacket soaked red. The boy from the Citgo robbery is on his knees, bowed over her and blubbering nonsense. One of his hands clutches at her shoulder while the other applies pressure, and his hand seems ludicrously out of proportion when compared to the size of the stain—so small, and Alec can’t help but think that’s never going to work.
He moves to help, gaze flickering over the back of the boy’s bared neck out of habit—subconsciously filing away designations and names to add to his mental list of failures—and pauses as it clicks: the reason he didn't figure it out earlier.
There’s no barcode on the kid’s neck. No faint scarring from too many laser removals, either. Alec has become acutely sensitive to that kind of thing, was up close enough to the boy at the store that he would’ve noticed one and he didn’t. It didn’t occur to him at the time that not all transgenics have barcodes these days. He knew the possibility existed, of course, he was just too distracted with all the other stuff going down to think of it.
This kid's the product of good old-fashioned breeding and, crazily, that fact makes Alec feel even worse. What a bunch of naïve, wide-eyed jerkoffs they'd all been to think the lack of barcodes meant freedom for the new generation. Marked or not, they're all still freaks.
The other transgenics have gotten the X5’s leg tied off while Alec has been standing around fucking woolgathering, so he snaps himself out of it. There’s not much they can do for the girl, he doesn’t blame them for not trying anything more than making her comfortable, but he can’t make that logic apply to himself and kneels down to do something. Anything.
Before he can get very far, the boy jumps up, face blotchy and wet and his eyes glittering with rage. He lashes out, kicking Alec in the bicep and then his thigh, starts throwing wild punches and screaming at him to, "Get off, just get off, you did this, I told you not to but you wouldn’t listen and now look! Look what you did!"
"I’m sorry," Alec chokes out. "I. I didn’t mean—"
"Go screw yourself!" The kid hits him again, kicks him again. When he lands a punch to Alec’s brow that splits it open and realizes Alec isn’t even making an effort to defend himself, he seems to deflate suddenly.
The boy jerks away and returns to his friend, pulling her close to his chest.
Hiccuping a little, he says, "Leave her alone and just. Just go away."
Alec nods, feeling a little lost. Lost for words, mostly, because there’s nothing he can say that would make it …
There’s just nothing to say.
Blood trickles into his eye. Alec swipes clumsily at his face, his goddamn hands shaking—
shredded air sound from above
—and looks up.
Beams of light sweep in slow arcs, noise swelling up on them fast. Helicopters. Of course there are helicopters. It wouldn't be worth much if the authorities didn't make as big of a spectacle as possible out of this whole thing, and they have maybe a minute before they're locked in the sights of a rocket launcher or whatever other over-the-top bullshit these assholes are bringing in.
Don't be stupid. Isn't that what the kid had said, back at the store? But Alec's pretty in the mood for stupid just now.
"Run," he tells the lizard guy, who's managed to get the X5 off the ground and has pushed him into the embrace of one of his friends, the girl's near-lifeless body hanging there in his arms while the boy hovers at his elbow. Alec does his very best not to look at her again.
The lizard guy cocks his chin, jerks it sideways—after you—and the boy stops glaring daggers at Alec long enough to turn it on the transhuman, like you must be joking.
Alec shakes his head. "Take your family and get out of here before they see you."
The transhuman can't afford waste anymore time arguing. One last look over his shoulder as he hefts the girl to fit more securely against his chest, and then he herds them all away.
Alec doesn't hang around watch them go. He takes to the roof again, uses that one as a step up to a taller building, climbs as high as he can go before he jumps up and down, waving his arms around. "Over here, you dicks! Come and get me!"
White light floods his vision, and he runs.
They always happen so fast, these kinds of things. Right in the middle of the pandemonium, thoughts and reactions and circumstances all run at different speeds, never lining up right. Keeping himself alive is the easy part. Saving everyone else—that's where shit gets tricky.
That's where shit gets thoroughly obliterated, Alec mentally corrects himself, the wind at his back like it's urging him to go ahead and try to fly, and so he does. Keeps running right off the edge of the building, a little extra momentum at the last second to catapult him through the air and onto the next roof. The choppers are still on him, two of them, big spots of light swinging in front of him to brighten the way, and that's how he wants it for now.
It seems like the thing to do, anyway, even if it's probably not going to work. Witness the dead bodies in his wake in a less-than-24-hour period. Try to do something normal, screw it up. Try to do the right thing and fix it, and there's always an explosion, fire, hail of bullets, something. He should've quit while he was ahead. It was ridiculous to think it could've turned out any other way just because a little time's gone by. A streak like that doesn't come with an expiration date. Fighting past experience, trying to prove himself wrong, it's sort of like trying to cross a tightrope in ice skates over a bottomless pit without once looking down, because if he looks down, that's it, he'll fall endlessly or go mad or burst into flames, or maybe all three. Only worse, because he has to live to tell the tale.
Scowling, Alec takes a hard left and drops sharply, landing on an empty sidewalk. He figures he's played with the choppers long enough. If he keeps it up much longer, taunting them in plain view, they'll call in reinforcements and he'll most certainly lose that race. He should at least act like he's trying to get away.
The act only remains an act for so long, though. Apparently, the authorities organized themselves a lot faster than he was expecting, because every nook and cranny he tries to duck into is immediately floodlit by one chopper or another, ground troops pouring in and the whole night flashing blue-red-blue behind him as he scrambles to get out before they can surround him.
It goes on like that for too long, the pack on his back getting heavier and heavier, and this isn't exactly some abandoned neighborhood he can get easily lost in. All these gawkers spilling out of doorways, tripping him up, slowing him down and giving him even stupider ideas because if one more bystander throws trash at him, Alec is going to stop seeing hurdles and start seeing hostages, and then where will they be.
Last-ditch effort, Alec sees an alleyway and swerves into it, full-speed, throwing himself over the hood of a decrepit delivery truck blocking the way and barely managing to keep his feet when he lands. No time to bemoan his lack of grace, he runs and runs—
Feels like he hits an invisible wall when an arm snakes out of nowhere and yanks him sideways.
Alec goes tumbling in through the side door of a condemned building, that yanking force keeping him upright as he spins around, ready to fight for his life. The door slams shut, yellow slice of streetlights snuffed out and leaving him in the dark. His vision adjusts quickly but it's still disorienting.
"This way, come on," a voice says.
Alec doesn't know whether to be relieved or furious when he recognizes it. "You crazy fuck," is all Alec manages to gasp out before Ben's hand is yanking at him some more, dragging him further inside, saying, "Hurry up, come on, move."
As they hustle through a maze of crumbling rooms and hallways, Alec thinks he recognizes the place to be the hollowed shell of a once-popular restaurant, but he doesn't get much chance to sightsee before he's being none-too-gently ushered down a couple flights of stairs and ends up in a subbasement.
He resolutely chooses not to ask about the days-old, blood-spattered corpse of what is clearly a hobo propped up in the corner.
"Here," says Ben, squeezing himself behind a pile of broken dining furniture that someone was maybe hoping to repair before the whole building fell into disuse. He pushes a table to one side, revealing a pint-sized hole in the wall where snapped hinges indicate a tiny door used to sit. He tugs Alec's arm again.
Faintest sounds of police organizing outside, not enough time for him to stop and think if this is a good idea or not, following his evil twin down into the bowels of nowhere—not a lot of choice, come to that—and so Alec goes along willingly. For now. He takes his arm back, though, jerking out of Ben's grip on principle.
Ben doesn't let it deter him, apparently expecting Alec to follow his better senses for the time being. He disappears into the crawlspace, all hunched back and tightened shoulders to fit himself inside. The way through is long and convoluted, all these twists and drop-offs leading them straight down into Hell, for all Alec knows, and after what feels like forever he's getting pretty goddamn cranky about it.
"Just a little further," Ben says, like he can sense Alec's mood curdling.
A couple more minutes and Alec feels a gust of stale air hit his face, so maybe Ben's insane but at least he's not a liar, and that's something.
He doesn't know what to expect but it's certainly not more darkness. "Where the hell are we?" Alec asks, finally allowed to straighten up and stretch out his limbs.
Ben walks ahead, not answering right away, so sure of where he's going that Alec boggles at it for a minute. It makes him wonder how long, exactly, Ben has been in Chicago. How he knows so well parts of the city Alec never knew existed.
Ben leans down and fumbles with something. "Old subway tunnel," he says, and then a light flares, illuminating the cracked concrete walls and the twisted tracks half-buried in broken up chunks of yet more concrete.
Part of the tunnel is caved in a little ways behind them, the jackknifed wreckage of a subway train wedged in the middle of it all. There’s the faintest scent of old death down here and Alec imagines skeletons trapped deep inside, where it’s too perilous for the living to retrieve them. The Pulse, Alec thinks automatically, because he’s seen enough of the country by now to be familiar with all these mostly forgotten little aftermaths forever frozen in time, and it really shouldn’t surprise him in the least that this is the kinda place Ben chose as a lair.
Ben's holding an ancient-looking oil lantern, talking and still moving forward, giving Alec the tour. Alec follows cautiously until they emerge out onto a boarding platform that looks just as post-apocalyptic as everything else, but is at least more spacious, listening as Ben points and outlines all the escape routes. There aren’t many, the main entrance sealed off with cement and steel, but any crevice or cavity that could lead to a way out, no matter how small or inconvenient, Ben has found and explored already.
Alec does some poking around on his own, anyway, reflexive thoughts filing in one after the other to say this would be a good place to lower supplies through and those holes are perfectly spaced for makeshift bunks and that tunnel back there would be ideal for a last stand in the event of a raid and—
He scowls, firmly pumping those mental brakes. Alec’s not helping to lead a revolution anymore. Even if he’s silently judging Ben for not sharing the wealth that is this spectacularly concealed hideout with others who are are in dire need of it, he has no use for that kind of thinking anymore. He can already hear the very practical argument that Ben would surely have for not telling others, anyway, because if others knew then others would know, and probably they wouldn’t be able to help telling close friends and comrades in arms, and too many ears picking up intel like that makes for bad endings, more often than not.
Shaking it off, Alec lets his eyes keep wandering, catching sight of the nest Ben's made down here. Crammed between a couple of crumbling pillars are some old blankets, boxes and bags full of supplies, a deck of bent cards scattered in what looks to be a hastily abandoned game of Solitaire, and isn't that a sad statement all by itself, Alec thinks. Then he looks at Ben.
Really looks.
Alec had been a little too preoccupied with the run-and-hide state of things to notice before, but Ben is fucked up, no two ways about it. His face is back to being filthy, this look of residual panic settled into it like a stain that's not coming out. He’s not wearing that stupid hat anymore and the clothes Alec had seen him in earlier are down to rags, too much scraped-up skin on display and a mess of old surgical scars showing.
Alec gets stuck on that for a minute, moving forward without really telling himself to, and before he knows it he's tipping Ben's head forward, running a hand over the patches of missing hair and down his neck and upper back, where the scarring is at its worst. Ben jumps a little but he doesn't pull away, and Alec knows Ben had to've been cut open again and again, old paths revisited so many times, for the scars to be this bad. There doesn't look to be any sense to it. What the hell could Manticore have been looking for in there, a Cracker Jack prize?
Coming back to himself and realizing what he's doing, Alec backs away hastily, stomping the guilt that tries to surge up. If anyone should be feeling guilty here, it's Ben. Ben's the one whose brain short-circuited and screwed them both over.
Ben's whole body kinda tilts forward, trying to keep Alec's hands on him for a second without really seeming to notice, and then he stands up too straight, compensating.
"How long have you been following me?" Alec asks, putting some more distance between them.
Ben shrugs and looks away, caught out. "A while," he admits, and it's all he's going to admit. Alec knows that evasive tone as well as he knows himself.
"Why?" Alec persists anyway.
Ben's mouth twists, and he goes to set the lantern on the ground, crouching down to rifle through his stuff as if he's actually looking for something. Some kind of physical evidence to present in answer, maybe, but most likely just hoping to distract Alec from this line of questioning for as long as possible. His search proves fruitful after a tense minute, a small and flat, shiny disc pulled from the pocket of his bag that he rubs between his fingers—nervous habit, if the worn-down etching that can barely be made out is any indication.
He rummages around some more and digs out his beanie next, pulling it tightly over his head before confessing, "I was curious."
"About?"
"Wanted to see how the other half lives," Ben bites out a little sarcastically, and he's not the only one losing patience.
"Great," Alec snaps. "So you came, you saw, why are you still here?"
Ben straightens and gives another irritated jerk of his shoulders, still turned away from Alec and glaring at the wall almost as thoroughly as Alec is glaring at his profile. He opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head. Shrugs again, turning around to look Alec in the eye and gestures vaguely at him, as if that's all the answer he can manage.
Alec sighs. Fucking Ben. Fucking poorly stitched-together Ben with all the stuffing poking out of his seams. There are so many other questions Alec should be asking, so many accusations to let fly and old grudges to air out, but, abruptly, he feels a wave of despair crashing over him and he just. Cannot do it.
"Listen, whatever this is," he motions between the two of them. "You need to let it go."
Ben gets this look like Alec just asked him to cut his own throat. "But I."
He licks his lips, spreading his hands out in front of him a little helplessly. The disc falls, dangling from the end of a gold chain looped between his fingers.
"I don't want to," is what he settles on, eyes all huge and guileless, and Alec—seeing his own face like that, this unnatural naked honesty like Ben is fooling anyone here (all while getting a clearer view of the necklace and recalling the copy that Max kept in her apartment and referred to as exhibit A every time she felt like getting maudlin about her ill-fated big brother)—Alec decides to put it into terms Ben can't misinterpret or argue with in any way.
It's not like he didn't warn him.
Caught off guard, Ben takes Alec's punch full in the face, whirling sideways with the force of it and staggering to keep his balance.
"I told you," Alec spits, punching him again, and this time Ben manages to dodge, Alec's fist glancing the side of his cheek before plowing harmlessly into thin air, "to leave me," Alec recovers quickly, grabs him by what's left of his shirt and shakes him, hard, "the fuck," pushes him down on the ground, all his weight behind it so that Ben smashes bone-jarringly into the concrete, "alone."
Ben doesn't waste much time being stunned by the outburst, his legs kicking out and swiveling, tangling up in Alec's own. Too caught up in his own assault, Alec can't get out of the way fast enough and goes down. Ben scrambles up and over him, face black as a storm as he jams his forearm down against Alec's throat. It's not hard enough to choke him, merely an uncomfortable warning, and Alec goes still, waiting. He wasn't looking for a showdown, just wanted to get his point across and now that he has, he's morbidly curious as to where Ben wants to take this.
Ben is absolutely trembling with defiance. "I don't want to," he says again, like it's all so very basic and why can't Alec just get it already.
Alec doesn’t really think he can get it given he lacks Ben’s particular brand of crazy, but he still finds himself asking, "Then what the hell do you want?"
Ben seems surprised by the question, like he wasn’t expecting Alec to keep trying to have a conversation. But Alec is tired of running. He figures if he sticks around long enough to puzzle Ben out, he’ll have a better chance of shaking him. Threats and violence obviously aren’t cutting it.
Ben backs off, hesitant and watching carefully, allowing Alec room to sit up but staying close. They settle across from each other, legs crossed and postures uncomfortable.
Ben says, "I don’t really know how to answer that," but his expression says different. The uncertainty in it doesn’t seem to be a loss for words so much as fear of revealing too much, too soon.
"You didn’t come here to kill me," Alec asserts when Ben is silent for too long. "I thought that at first because of the whole hating yourself thing. And we share a face. But you’ve had plenty of chances, so … " he trails off, prompting Ben to fill in the blanks.
Ben licks at his split lip as he starts playing with the pendant again, and that seems to help him find a starting point. "I know you think I’m," he points a finger at his own head and makes a swirling motion, "whatever. But I don’t want to hurt you." Ben pauses, frowning like he's trying to pick out just the right words, and settles on, "I’m better now."
Alec regards him dubiously. "Are you?"
Ben sighs, shoulders slumping. He looks every bit the scolded child, caught out before the lie could get off the ground. "No." He blows out a breath. "It's a process, that's what they said. But I didn’t come here to hurt you, that part's true."
Ben eyes him again, searching, and Alec does his best to appear receptive so they can get the hell on with this.
"I went looking for Max first," he goes on, but then he stops, brows and mouth pinched tight like he did something wrong, or he’s stuck, or—
Alec has no idea. If this is Ben feeling remorse, it’s a little weird, and a lot too late.
Or maybe …
Alec knows how things played out last time Ben went looking for Max. And perhaps when he found her in a state that wasn’t capable of delivering a second time, he came looking for Alec to pick up the slack. Maybe he thinks it’s some kind of poetic justice, getting himself to off himself after a life of hunting himself. And if that’s the game, Alec isn’t so sure he’d say no.
"What’s the matter, can’t do it yourself?"
"What?"
"Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for another suicide-by-transgenic."
"No, that’s not. I don’t wanna die."
"Then what?" Alec demands, frustrated.
Ben loops the necklace across his hand again, letting the pendant rest over his fingers so Alec can see the engraving of his "Blue Lady" more clearly. "I know she's not real. I know that. Sometimes I don't really feel it, but I know," he explains. "I blamed everyone else: Manticore, the people I killed, the Lady, but. It's just me. They said I had to learn to cope with what's real. You don’t get to lose your mind just because life is hard. And I tried. I’m trying." Ben's face hardens, and Alec tenses. "But they also said hunting people is bad and I’m being hunted, I’m always being hunted. That's real, too, and I don't wanna fucking cope with that. If I have the power to stop it, why should I have to?" He looks to Alec, then, plaintive, defiant, waiting to be validated or corrected. Waiting for the some magical answer that will unlock this cruel, twisted puzzle that is his life.
Alec’s got nothing, but Ben comes down from his little tirade on his own, lets out another long breath and stares at his fidgeting fingers some more. "Anyway, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect they’re not being a hundred percent truthful. Or maybe they just don’t know as much as they think."
"Okay," says Alec, slow. "So what it is you think I can do?"
"Tell me the truth," Ben says immediately. "You’re real, too. Maybe the most real, and I. I don’t trust myself to know. I don’t trust anyone."
"But you’d trust me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"That kid. Dalton? He told me some stuff. Stories. About you."
Alec stays silent, not sure he wants to hear what anyone from TC thinks of him now. Ben apparently takes that as his cue to continue.
"I didn’t really believe it, at first. Thought maybe he was messing with me. I mean, we’re literally made of the same stuff and I’m … you know. The idea that another version of me could be worthy of the kind of admiration that he had for you? It was fascinating but it was still hard to buy into. I had to find you. Had to see it."
Alec squirms, cheeks heating up. "Sorry to be such a disappointment."
"You’re not." Ben’s eyes brighten; he’s getting a little too zealous for comfort now, and Alec doesn’t want that. He is so far from wanting that. "I saw you. At the store, and after. You kept trying to help even when it was a terrible idea."
"Yeah, because this shit is my fault in the first place. That’s just what you do."
"That’s what you do. I wouldn’t have."
"I don’t—"
"That guy upstairs," Ben talks right over him. "You saw him?"
Warily, Alec nods.
"He tried to take my stuff. He had a knife. I gutted him without thinking twice. I could’ve done something else to stop him, he was hungry and weak, it would’ve been easy. But I couldn’t even consider that until it was too late. And I don’t know how to make that go away."
About ten times more uncomfortable than when this little chat first started, Alec pushes to his feet, needing to regain some distance. But then Ben rises too, closing the gap. It’s fucking ridiculous how awful the guy is at taking a hint.
Alec holds up an arm in warning, and when he moves away again Ben stays put. "Look, I’m sorry things are so hard for you," he says slowly, searching for the right words. "But I. I’m not the shining example of morality you seem to think I am. Yeah, I’ve tried to help people but if you’ve been watching me as long as you say, then you’ve seen how well that goes. I’m the last person in the world to be your life coach, or whatever the hell you’re looking for. I can’t help you."
"Alec—"
"No," Alec says firmly, cutting a hand through the air. "No more talking. No more stalking. Jesus, do you have any idea what you’re asking? You show up, tell me you killed my best friend, and oh, by the way, could you teach me how to stop being psychotic? I can’t be responsible for you. I’ve been there, done that, and I can’t again. I’m barely responsible for myself these days."
"She asked me to," Ben defends, apparently choosing to only hear one part of Alec’s argument.
"That doesn’t mean you should’ve done it!"
"How do you know that? How am I supposed to know that? Max was good, she was a good person and when I asked her to, she did it. She did it, so why was it wrong for me to do it?"
"You were fucked up when you asked for that. You said she was fucked up. And when someone’s fucked up, they usually aren’t the best judges of what’s good for them."
"I don’t understand."
"Of course you don’t." Alec lets out a harsh laugh, shaking his head at how Ben’s already sucked him into playing the teacher without even realizing it. He takes another step back. "Please just leave me alone." It comes out sounding more desperate than he’d like. He gives Ben a look, silently pleading for him to understand. "I can’t."
Ben steps closer. "But I want—"
Alec punches him again, hard as he can, knocking Ben back against the pillar. Ben doesn’t retaliate, choosing instead to gape at him with huge, wounded eyes, and Alec has to look away. He feels so drained, suddenly, cornered and desperate for an out, even if it leads him right back into the sights of a thousand high-powered rifles.
With all the finality he can muster, he says, "You can’t always get what you want."
And before Ben can respond to that stunningly brilliant platitude, Alec spins on his heel, not-quite-running for an exit.
NEXT
