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ladytrelaw · 4 years

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Chapter 4: To Survive in a Cruel World

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432372/chapters/62799148

(sorry for the weird formatting tumblr is having a moment but here! is chapter 4!)

At that moment a voice rings out from behind him, a stranger’s voice. All thoughts of Crimson Lethe or sinking ships or even Grinpayne himself are wiped from his mind as he registers the strange accent, and whirls around to meet its owner.

“Crack the skies…”

Ursus scrambles to his feet almost before his brain has registered the threat. Grinpayne stays on his hands and knees, still disoriented from the crimson lethe and making a groggy noise of questioning at Ursus’ sudden movement, but Ursus ignores him, planting his body between Grinpayne and the stranger who has appeared as if from smoke. He’s probably half Ursus’ age and slightly taller, dressed in a dark shirt and trousers that seem to have been patched several times. A ragged maroon cloth is knotted around his neck in a loose impersonation of a tie, and he’s staring past Ursus at Grinpayne as though transfixed. There’s a look in his eyes that Ursus has never seen anyone direct at Grinpayne before. As though he’s almost… impressed.

“Your face…” he breathes, and Ursus hears a sharp inhale behind him as Grinpayne finally registers that they’re no longer alone. “Incredible-”

“Who are you?” Ursus interrupts tersely, blanching a fraction of a second later what he registers what the man had said. The stranger looks at Ursus as though just remembering he’s there, and smiles widely.

“They call me Osric! Well, they call me lots of things, but Osric’s the one I like best.” His eyes dart back to Grinpayne, who has forced himself up on unsteady legs behind Ursus.

“Have you always been like that, laddie?”

It’s absolutely not what Ursus expected him to say, and certainly not in a voice so strangely soft, strangely kind. Nonetheless he feels Grinpayne freeze and duck a little further behind him automatically, the tension rolling off him in waves. He squares his shoulders protectively, glaring at this stranger whose empathy is so unsettling.

“He was cut as a boy, if you must know.”

Osric raises his eyebrows a little, but nods, taking the hint from Urus’ gruff tone not to press for further details.

“I was born with mine!” he says cheerfully instead, holding up a hand. Ursus tries not to recoil as he realises it is a shrivelled, deformed thing; three fingers curled over in a permanent claw and the skin twisting around his wrist until it disappears under his shirtsleeve. He shrugs, smiling gently at Grinpayne in a way that makes Ursus’ hackles rise. “I have a friend like you though, she doesn’t speak either and she taught me some-”

“I’m not a mute.” Grinpayne interrupts in a quiet, clipped voice, and Ursus is relieved that he’s lucid enough to be offended. Osric is thrown for only the briefest of moments, barely blinking in surprise before he recovers and holds up both hands, shrunken and normal, in apology.

“My mistake, lad, no harm meant-”

“Who are you?” Ursus interrupts, watching Osric’s eyes flick up to meet his own. He laughs slightly in confusion.

“I told you, I’m-”

“No. I mean, who are you? What are you doing here?”

Why are you being so gentle towards him? The unspoken question hangs in the air, borne of years of Ursus doing his best to protect the boy behind him from angry words and horrified stares. Why aren’t you afraid?

Osric blinks. “I was trying to hunt, although I think there might be a deer 10 miles away that didn’t hear you two havin’ a square go at each other, in case you wanted to scare that one off too.”

He offers a smile that Ursus does not return, and after a moment of heavy silence he answers Ursus’ real question with a strange hesitation.

“I run a... fair. A travelling show, for people like us.” He gestures at himself and Grinpayne, and it takes a moment for Ursus to understand what he means. When he does, his blood runs cold.

“A freak show?”

“Well, I don’t like to call it that, but-”

“Stay the hell away from us” Ursus growls, tightening his grip on his bow as his heart rate skyrockets. “We’re armed, if you even think-”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Osric says quickly, taking a step back and holding up his hands in supplication. “What do you think I’m going to do? Stage a kidnap?” He laughs a little nervously, as though the idea is absurd. Ursus doesn’t move.

“Look,” Osric says in an overly level voice, as though he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not… interested.” He looks at Grinpayne again, addressing him directly, though Ursus notices he keeps his eyes slightly lowered. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, and trust me, that’s saying something. If you wanted to, you’d do well in the fair.”

Behind him, Grinpayne shifts uncomfortably, although Ursus couldn’t begin to guess what he’s thinking. Osric sighs.

“I promise, I just came about the noise, I didn’t mean any harm. Sorry to have startled you. Just, keep it down, alright?” He smiles gently. “I’ve got a lot of wee mouths to feed and they’re not gonna be best pleased if I come back empty handed.”

He inclines his head politely and turns to go, but falters, as though he’s remembered something.

“By the way, I wouldnae go back to the road for a while. When I left, the Duke’s men were harassing some lassie in another cart. It’s probably for the best if they don’t see you.”

“Lassie?” Ursus questions, the word strange and unfamiliar on his tongue, even as his heart is already sinking because some part of him already knows…

“A girl,” Osric clarifies. “They’d only just got there by the looks of it, still all on their horses. I’d have got involved but besides the fact it’s not worth it on my own, she seemed to be holding her ground. Quite fierce for such a tiny wee thing, and she had this huge dog with her...”

Ursus turns, and Grinpayne’s wide eyes reflect the abject terror already coursing through his veins; a horror so strong it is almost paralysing.

Dea.

***

The undergrowth is thick and cumbersome, fingers of brambles and thistle snagging Grinpayne’s clothes and pulling him backwards, but he crashes his way through like a creature possessed; faster than he’d run from the soldiers at the river; faster perhaps than he’s ever run before. He can’t catch enough breath, and his heart is pounding a frantic, bruising beat on his ribs, but none of it matters. All he can see is Dea.

Dea, dragged crying from their cart. Mojo, dear brave Mojo jumping to defend her, and the terrible howl as he lands on a soldier’s sword. Dea in chains, Dea with a noose around her neck, a sword in her heart, Dea, Dea, Dea...

Something bangs against his arm, pulling him backwards and jolting him so violently out of his thoughts that he yelps in shock. He stumbles at the sudden jarring stop and almost crashes to the floor, but the hand that grabbed him yanks him upright and before he can process anything he’s pulled sideways and slammed into a tree. His quiver crushes painfully into his back and he struggles, snarling in fury, but the strange man from the woods - Osric? - cuts him off.

“You cannae come screaming out of the woods and hurling yourself straight at a Duke, are you mad?!” He’s panting, and it’s making his strange accent even harder for Grinpayne to make out. Behind him, Ursus staggers to a stop, holding up a hand to silence Grinpayne’s protests before he’s even given them breath.

“He’s right, lad, and you know it,” he says, urgency and fear blending together in his voice. “We’re no use to her if they shoot us on sight.”

I’ll kill them, Grinpayne thinks wildly, chest heaving. I’m armed too; if they’ve hurt her, if they’ve so much as touched her, I will kill them even with a thousand arrows in my heart.

But he can’t deny the truth of what Ursus said, and when Osric warily lets go of his arm he resists the urge to sprint towards the road again. The three men move through the woods as fast as they dare, purposefully standing on dead leaves and branches so that their approach is audible, stepping nimbly between the briar patches that are at least growing mercifully thinner as they approach the road. Grinpayne strains his ears, listening for any sign, any signal that might tell him if Dea’s ok, but in the end he sees Ursus react before he hears it himself. Barely there, at the edge of hearing, the low rumble of a wolf growling, and the distinctively high, familiar voice growing clearer with each hurried step.

***

“-don’t even know what a ‘familiar’ is!”

“Well I don’t care what your kind call them these days, if it comes one step closer then I’m going to-”

“Good evening, my lord!” Osric calls as he steps out of the forest, Grinpayne hot on his heels. His heart gives a sickening lurch as Dea’s pale face turns towards the unexpected voice. She’s standing a little way behind their cart, silver eyes wide, hands sunk deep into the scruff of Mojo’s neck where he’s crouched before her on the dusty road. His teeth are pulled back in a snarl, hackles raised, and Grinpayne is flooded with a fierce affection for the creature that has saved their lives more times than he cares to count. Standing before them on the road are two men: the soldier who gad threatened Mojo standing with his hand on the hilt of a frighteningly large sword, and a large red-cheeked man with a pinched frown sitting astride the fattest horse Grinpayne has ever seen. The second man is dressed far too flamboyantly for the road, in a crushed velvet gown that skims the edges of his calf-length leather boots and sweeps down over the haunches of his steed, a silver wig completing the look as it wobbles precariously atop his head. The Duke.

But not, Grinpayne realises distantly, the Duke of Oxford, who he’d assumed Osric had been referring to. They must have crossed into a new territory without realising it; so eager to put Oxford far behind them that they’d travelled faster and further than usual. Behind the Duke are a further two soldiers, picking like vultures through the contents of the green cart that have been strewn carelessly about the road. There’s something heart-wrenching, something degrading and offensive about the sight of a stranger pawing over their possessions, but Grinpayne ignores them for now, turning his attention back to Dea. She’s not bruised or bleeding as far as he can tell, and she’s holding her chin up fiercely towards the men that she can’t see, her mouth set in a firm line. Still, he knows her well enough to read the things her face isn’t showing; the tension in her shoulders, her tight grip in Mojo’s fur. She’s terrified. He longs to run straight to her, to slip his hand into hers and tell her with a touch that everything will be alright, communicating in silence in the way only they can. But the soldier is still holding his sword half-raised in the direction of Mojo’s snarling fangs, and Grinpayne dare not move until he knows he won’t be seen as a threat.

He could call out, should call out. Dea must think she is completely alone among strangers and Osric’s voice with its unfamiliar twang will have done nothing to reassure her. But as the Duke and his soldiers turn to see the group of men emerging from the woods, a familiar tightness spreads through Grinpayne’s chest, quickening his breath. He watches their eyes slip quickly from Osric to Ursus before landing on him; familiar expressions of shock and fear and suspicion flying in tandem across their faces as they register his bandages. The shame of cowardice burns in his cheeks as he drops his eyes, and says nothing.

“Can I help you with anything? My wagon’s not blocking your way is it?” Osric continues cheerfully, climbing the last few steps up the grassy bank to the road and pausing a few feet away from the Duke. Grinpayne feels a thrill of frustration at his words, watching as Dea blinks in confusion and surprise as this unfamiliar voice confidently claims all of their worldly possessions as his own. He doesn’t trust this stranger, who appears to be attempting to improvise his way out of a situation that doesn’t even concern him, but it’s too late to backtrack now.

"Your wagon?” The Duke sniffs pompously, staring down his nose at them from atop his huge white horse. Behind him, the other two soldiers have abandoned the cart and are skulking up to the road, drawing their own swords almost lazily. Sweat drips down the back of Grinpayne’s neck.

“Well,” Osric laughs, the very picture of relaxation, as though he likes nothing more than to return home to find his cart being raided by armed soldiers, “I suppose technically it belongs to my friend here, but I run the Fair so in a sense, all the wagons we travel with are mine.”

“It’s mine,” Ursus offers gruffly, “I’m the druggist.” Across the road, Dea visibly startles at the unexpected familiar voice, and Grinpayne’s pounding heart clenches.

“Wait, wait,” says the Duke, flapping an impatient hand. “What do you mean, what other wagons? What fair? All I can see is this little witch selling potions and voodoo dolls on the roadside.”

Grinpayne forgets how to breathe for a moment, but Osric seems unfazed.

“Witch?” he scoffs, letting out a barking laugh so sudden that it startles some birds into flight form a nearby tree. “Nae my lord, she’s no witch, she’s a…” he pauses for a fraction of a second, and Grinpayne sees him read and register the lettering on the side of their cart and change tack without missing a beat. “A performer!”

“They’re not dolls, they’re puppets, I told you.” Dea cuts in, folding her arms over her chest and scowling. Fear and pride rush through Grinpayne in equal measure; she’s being so brave, but he wishes she’d stay silent. She might not know the level of danger she’s in, but if they think she’s a witch…

Osric laughs again, a little more nervously after Dea’s contribution. “Exactly, she’s my best, ah, puppeteer! No sorcery or witchcraft to it, none at all, so if you wouldnae mind lowering your weapons there…?”

The three soldiers shift uneasily, sharing glances, but they don’t sheath their swords. The Duke, however, looks intrigued.

“What is this fair you speak of?”

Osric grins widely. “The Stokes Croft Fair, m’lord! I’m known as Osric the Freak Wrangler, for what I hope are obvious reasons!” He gestures to Dea, and Grinpayne watches, horrified, as Osric’s shrunken hand sweeps back to include him too.

“We’re a travelling freak show. The rest of the wagons are just up the road a little way. We stopped to hunt so we left young, eh, Mary here to look after the cart.”

The lord nods thoughtfully.

“A silly thing to do, that. A creature like this left alone with all of these tonics and that frightful animal, there’s the obvious assumption-“

“I see that now, my lord, an easy mistake to make,” Osric interrupts, bowing graciously. “But I assure you, she’s just a puppeteer.” He pauses, a charming smile spreading over his features, a glint in his eye. “If she was a witch perhaps we’d have had more luck in our hunting!”

The lord doesn’t laugh, and turns to look at Grinpayne, who drops his gaze to the floor, his heart thumping.

He knows what’s coming, but maybe, if he doesn’t catch his eye-

“And who’s this? Another of your… acts?”

“Quite right, my lord!” Osric says cheerfully, clapping Grinpayne’s shoulder. He tries not to flinch. “A-”

“Another puppeteer” Ursus steps in, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “My son.”

Grinpayne tries not to focus on the way his heart thumps a little harder at that.

“We perform Beauty and The Beast together” Dea pipes up, and for a moment the Duke looks at her blankly, clearly having completely forgotten she was there. Then he roars with laughter, his piggy eyes squeezing shut with the exertion of it.

“Of course you do, of course.” He wheezes, chortling. “So this is yours then, is it, boy?”

Grinpayne looks up, keeping his hands from curling into fists of anger with some difficulty as he sees the Duke holding out puppet of the prince, his puppet. He nods mutely, and the Duke raises an eyebrow.

“And what’s wrong with your face?”

Grinpayne opens his mouth, but the tightness in his chest has spread to his throat, and he realises with a sluggish panic that the words won’t come. He looks helplessly to Ursus, but it’s Osric who steps in, a flair of showmanship about him. Distantly, Grinpayne wonders if there is some part of him that’s enjoying this.

‘Disfigured as a child, my lord! Of everyone in my fair he’s-”

“Show me.”

Grinpayne feels bile rising in his throat, but Osric has already clamped an arm around his shoulders and is marching him forward, towards the Duke. “Of course, your lordship!”

“No!” Grinpayne mumbles desperately, pulling himself out of Osric’s grip, dimly aware that his fingers are shaking. “No, I don’t-“

“I know you don’t want to, ah, spoil the surprise, laddie” Osric cuts him off, a warning glint in his eye as his smile becomes slightly fixed. “But this is the Duke we’re talking about…?”

They’re close enough now to the Duke in question that Grinpayne can smell the sweat rolling off him as he smirks down at them, a scent poorly concealed by cloying wafts of lavender perfume. Grinpayne shoots a glance at Ursus, then at Dea, whose face is pinched with worry. There’s something about the set of her jaw that grounds him though, and he steels himself. She’s barely more than a child, and she’s been so brilliant, so brave. He can be brave too. If this is what keeps her safe, then so be it.

With trembling fingers he reaches back to the soft fabric nestled in his hair, the knot slipping undone easily under his hands. He turns away from Osric, facing the Duke and the Duke alone, and lets the bandage fall softly into his palms.

The Duke’s reaction is instantaneous. He recoils, then, like any child who has ever tasted something horribly sour, comes back for more, leaning precariously over the neck of his horse for a closer look. “Fascinating,” he breathes, his eyes roving over the jagged nightmare of Grinpayne’s face, taking in each twist of flesh, each bulge of scar tissue. Finally, after what feels like an age, he leans back, looking over Grinpayne’s head to Osric.

“So the witch and this freak are both part of your fair?”

Grinpayne ignores the familiar jab, taking the opportunity as soon as the Duke’s attention has shifted to tie his mask back over his mouth. His fingers feel oddly numb. Osric, meanwhile, is nodding.

“Aye, my lord, though, as I said before, she’s not a witch-“

“When you come to Swindon, you will perform in my court.” The Duke says decisively, silencing Osric with a flick of his hand. “My jesters grow boring and tiresome; they need inspiration, something new, something unique.”

He adjusts his seat, and motions to his soldiers, who sheath their swords reluctantly and slink to the edge of the forest to untie their own horses.

“I look forward to seeing the rest of your band of monsters, sir.” The Duke says, smiling icily as he inclines his head in what could almost be a respectful nod. “An unexpected pleasure.”

With that, the Duke takes off at a lumbering trot down the road through some considerable effort from his potbellied steed, his men following behind him. “Of course, your lordship!” Osric shouts cheerfully at their retreating backs, his good hand raised high above his head to wave them off.

***

Barely have the soldiers moved away from their cart before Grinpayne is rushing to Dea, taking her tiny shoulders in his hands as his voice returns to him in a frightened, garbled flood.

“Dea! Are you alright? Did they hurt you? Did they-”

“It’s ok, I’m alright, Grinpayne I’m alright,” she soothes, snatching gently at his hands as he fusses over her, checking everywhere he can see for injuries before pulling her into a hug and closing his eyes, burying his nose in her hair.

“We shouldn’t have left you.” He murmurs, squeezing her even tighter. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, if anything had happened-”

“A blind puppeteer?” Osric says in disbelief, staring bemused from Grinpayne and Dea to Ursus. “You have got to be joking.”

Ursus, ignoring his question, turns on him with a wild gleam in his eyes.

“What the hell was that?!” He snarls, a crackling thunderstorm of a man. “I told you we want nothing to do with you, and then you go and tell the Duke that we’re part of your fair?!”

“I was trying to help,” Osric counters quickly, raising his hands placatingly but standing his ground. “I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to plan and, by the way, some warning that your daughter was a blind puppeteer would have been helpful-”

“Who are you?” Dea interrupts, squirming out of Grinpayne’s arms, much to his disapproval.

“He’s nobody.” Ursus spits, glaring at Osric like he’s something vile that he’s stepped in. “A vulture, someone who preys on people down on their luck.”

Osric’s eyes harden, his gaze growing cold. “If you’re talking about the acts in my fair-“

“Of course I’m talking about your acts!” Ursus explodes, jamming a finger at Osric’s chest. Osric, to his credit, doesn’t back away. “I’ve met men like you before, men who make money from other people’s misery, who parade cripples and broken souls around like you own them! You knew exactly what you were doing when you told the Duke they’d perform for him, you wanted Grinpayne from the second you saw him, well you can’t have him! You can’t have either of them!”

None of them move for a moment, frozen by the tension between the two men who seem moments away from a fist fight. Unconsciously, Grinpayne brings his hands to rest on Dea’s shoulders.

“I promise” Osric says slowly, “I didnae have any sort of grand plan. I couldn’t have known that the Duke would ask them to perform; I just know from experience that people like him prefer it when people like us all stick together in one neat little group. I was right; you saw how he relaxed when I said you were with me.” He pauses, and when he continues there is a steely undercurrent to his voice, something fiercely protective that Grinpayne hadn’t anticipated.

“The ‘freak-wrangler’ thing, it’s an act for the rich, it’s not real. My fair is nothing like that, not on the inside. We’re a family. We look after each other.”

Well,” Ursus says, scoffing, “we already are a family. And we don’t need looking after by the likes of you.” He pushes past the younger man and trudges towards the edge of the road where their horse is grazing quietly by the trees, unperturbed. “Grinpayne, Dea.”

Grinpayne takes a step towards the cart, understanding the unvoiced instruction, but Osric’s sharp rebuttal stops him in his tracks.

“You can’t leave.” He says, in a voice of barely disguised frustration. “The Duke will be expecting you when we get to Swindon; if you’re not with the fair, he’ll send his men after you. You heard what he said, didn’t you? If I hadn’t covered for you he would have arrested you all for witchcraft.”

“He won’t bother with us for long.” Ursus says gruffly, trying unsuccessfully to untie the thick rope tethering their horse to the tree. Osric is unimpressed.

“You already can’t go back to Oxford; that much was clear from your wee domestic in the woods. Do you want to add another city to your list?” He snaps, taking an angry step forward. “He might not send men, if you’re lucky, but word will definitely get around, and you do not want an accusation of witchcraft following you around the country, trust me. Not to mention that the next nearest cities to here are twice as far away as Swindon, and seeing as your hunting trip went so spectacularly well I get the sense you’re not exactly stocked up on supplies!”

Ursus says nothing, his hands stilling on the rope. Grinpayne, suddenly reminded of the fact that he hasn’t eaten a proper meal since they left Oxford, swallows nervously.

“Come and stay with us tonight, do one show with us in Swindon, and then you can leave.” Osric continues, his voice softer now. “But I want you to consider that we could really help each other out here. I promise, performing with us, owning the thing that makes them fear you, taking back the control… there’s a power in it. A strength.”

Something in his words makes Grinpayne feel odd, like something is coming unstitched in his chest and floating away from his body. As Osric continues, Dea’s fingers silently edge towards Grinpayne’s, finding his hand and squeezing it.

“We don’t have anything like these two in the fair. They’d be a huge draw, and we’d both make more money, plus you get the safety of travelling in numbers. It’s a win win.”

He hesitates, watching Ursus’ back with cautious eyes.

“I’m not going to force you to join us permanently; no one in the fair is there by anything out of choice, no matter what we tell the customers. But I meant what I said in the woods. You’d do well in the fair.” His eyes flick to Grinpayne, who shifts uncomfortably despite himself, subconsciously edging closer to Dea. “Really well.”

Ursus, having finally untied their horse from the tree, lets out a long, slow exhale.

“I’m not the one you need to ask.” He says eventually, turning to face them with a furrowed brow.

“Grinpayne, Dea. It’s your performance. What do you think?”

Grinpayne feels his heart clench, surprised at Ursus giving them, giving him the choice. He’s more exhausted than he ever remembers being, and the emotional and physical toll of the past few days is making it difficult to think clearly. The thought of performing their little puppet show for someone like the Duke, as part of a travelling freak show of all things, is frightening. But Dea’s hand is so small and delicate in his, and he worries about her when the summer starts to fade like this, when the freezing wind and the rain threaten to bite. She needs food, real food, not the tough dried meat and watered-down oats that they’ve been rationing for the past few days, and Grinpayne can’t pretend that the thought of a hot meal for himself is isn’t tempting.

He taps the back of Dea’s knuckles with his finger; a question. She rubs her thumb gently against the side of his palm in response, her touch feather-light.

That’s settled, then.

Grinpayne looks up, meeting Ursus’ gaze and holding it.

“I want to go with him, Father,” he says softly, and Dea nods her head to show the agreement already silently made with Grinpayne. “It’s only one performance.”

Ursus nods slowly, then sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright, my boy. If you’re sure.”

Osric grins. “You just wait till you see how much money you can make from gullible idiots with more riches than sense. Then you’ll change your tune.”

He turns, clapping his hands together before gesturing up the road as if announcing a headline act. “In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, may I be the first to issue you the warmest invitation to all the glory and madness that is dinner with the Stokes-Croft Fair!”

#Ursus' lotions potions and puppetry #potions and puppetry #tgm fic #the grinning man

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waveridden · 5 years

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FIC: i want so bad to feel steady

This is why he knew that Max didn’t die when he disappeared. (Neoscum/Alice Isn’t Dead AU, Tech/Dak, 1.7k)

(With all my love to Tam, who suggested an Alice Isn’t Dead AU a while ago.)

AUcember || read on ao3 || title lyric

“So,” Dak says, “where are you from?”

The guy in the passenger seat doesn’t really say anything, which is kind of par for the course. He’s barely said a word since Dak picked him up on the side of the road. But he does shift in his seat where he’s looking out the window, which Dak takes as a sign that he can keep going.

“Me, I’m from Chicago.” He drops his right hand and leans back to rest his elbow on the center console. “Big city! All the people, all the things happening. Thought I was gonna have a life there. Thought I was gonna do okay.”

Passenger Seat, who still hasn’t given Dak a name, curls in a little on himself. He seems like a nice guy, all considered. Sweet, round face. Nice beard. Old hoodie. Beat up sneakers, the kind that look like they’ve been worn pretty much every day since the guy bought him. He smells like… something weird, something specific, and his hair is covered in oil.

There are also tears streaked down his cheeks. Dak didn’t ask about that.

“I tried,” he continues, because hell, if he’s got someone there, he might as well talk. “I really did, you know? But you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him… settle down. That’s the thing about settling down, is it doesn’t just happen. It’s a choice you gotta make every day, to be settled in, and I got tired of making the choice. And so I went back to the road!” He lifts his hand, wiggles his fingers towards the magic emptiness of California. “Where I always belonged.”

The guy doesn’t respond, and Dak lets his hand drop to the wheel. “I got lucky, though. A lot of people never find anything or anyone they love the way I love this road. I’ve seen some great things out here. Some horrible things, but some great things.”

And then, a miracle: the guy says something. It’s muffled because his mouth is against his elbow which is against the window, but Dak can hear him answer.

“Gotta speak up, buddy,” Dak says cheerfully, adjusting the brim of his cap. “We’re all about open communication here! And by open I mean the kind of thing you can understand easily, all things considered.”

The guy props his chin on top of his elbow, still facing the window. “I said, mostly horrible things.”

Dak glances at him. He sees the bruises on the guy’s arms now, the way one of his hands is resting on his fanny pack like he’s protecting something. The reflection of his eyes in the mirror, not like he’s just staring out the window but like he’s watching.

“Oh,” Dak says quietly. “You mean the thistle men.”

People tend to assume that Dak is stupid.

Which, okay, it’s not like they’re wrong, by some ways of measuring smartness. Dak can’t do math much harder than figuring out how much gas he needs to get. He can read, but it’s not easy, because he gets letters and words backwards more than he gets them right.

But he can drive. He can drive faster than most truckers, and he’s done this job for a long, long time. He knows how to get shipments where they’re going.

He’s also good with people, which nobody ever seems to expect. They think he doesn’t pay attention, but really, he just knows what’s worth paying attention to. Someone’s favorite food or favorite color is nice to know, sure, but it’s nicer to know when a friendly hand on the shoulder is going to be that missing piece to helping them relax. It’s nicer to know that someone really needs one less thing to worry about, so that he can offer them leftover food or a ride home from work or things. He’s not good at social rules, but he’s good at reading people.

This is why he knew that Max didn’t die when he disappeared.

Granted, it’s not like Dak saw the kid that often. He got a job straight out of high school, saving up for his sister’s medical bills and for college and for whatever the hell else he wanted. Dak had some money set aside, too, because he always had a soft spot for those kids. Especially Max.

And then Max had vanished one day. At first people thought he ran away, but Dak knew he wouldn’t. That kid wouldn’t leave his sister for anything less than the most important thing in the world, anything less than her absolute safety. But he’d also known that Max hadn’t died.

His family ushered him to support group after support group, and after a while Dak stopped saying he knew Max was still alive. The kid was eighteen, he was young and it was tragic and whatever the hell else people wanted him to think, but sometimes people disappear and die. Sometimes people die.

The part that Dak won’t tell strangers in the passenger seat of his truck just yet is: settling down is a choice, but chasing after the ghost of your sister’s kid when you see his face on a national news segment is a choice, too. And hell, it’s hardly a choice to make.

The passenger calls himself Tech Wizard, which Dak’s not about to question because it’s hardly the weirdest name he’s ever heard. He’s also from Chicago, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. And the thistle men killed his parents when he was four years old.

(“I didn’t call them thistle men,” Tech says, after Dak explains what exactly a thistle man is. They’re men, sort of, but they’re… wrong. They eat people, for one thing. They walk kind of like marionettes with a stick up their ass and half the strings cut, for another. And they smell weird, which Dak hopes he’ll never remember again, because he never wants to be that fucking close to them.

“What did you call them?” Dak asks, curious despite himself.

Tech shrugged. “Nightmares, mostly.”)

He’s trying to get out of California. Which is a coincidence, because Dak is trying to get out of California. Specifically, he’s trying to drive his shipment to Kentucky, and if they take the right route that takes them through Colorado. Through where Tech says his parents died.

They stop for the night in northern Nevada, somewhere in the desert where nobody is going to bother them. Dak takes them to a truck stop and Tech doesn’t complain, just rubs a little more of the oil into his hair as he sets up shop in the back of Xanadu.

“What’s with the oil?” Dak asks by way of conversation, because he’s no expert but he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to keep your hair from getting oily.

“Heather oil.” Tech holds up a little bottle of it. “Keeps the thistle men away. Don’t know why, but I always carry some on me. My nana taught me to.”

“Your nana?”

“And it works.”

Dak nods. “You got enough to share?” He holds out a hand, palm up.

Tech taps a couple of drops out of the bottle into Dak’s hand. “What I’m doing is overkill,” he says, a little sheepishly. “That’s enough that if you slap them it’ll sting.”

“If I slap someone, I want it to sting.” Dak winks, and Tech inexplicably blushes. “So now you’re, what, roaming the country looking for thistle men to sting with your hair?”

“Not really,” Tech says, although he doesn’t sound upset by how grossly Dak has misestimated what his life is all about. “I just got tired of being one place. But I couldn’t do this without trying to… to… protect myself.”

He’s lying, at least a little bit. But it doesn’t sound like he’s lying about any of the important parts, so Dak lets it go. “What are you going to do if you find them?”

Tech goes still. He’s sitting on Dak’s futon, wearing a pair of Dak’s sweatpants that are too short on him, wearing the same hoodie that he was wearing when Dak found him. He doesn’t look vulnerable but he looks like he belongs, and like he doesn’t know what to do when he feels like he belongs.

“I don’t know,” Tech says at last. “But I’m gonna make it fucking hurt.”

Dak barks out a laugh at that and sinks down onto the futon next to him. “You and me both, my dude,” he says, and Tech half-smiles at that. “Let me fucking tell you, I’m ready to give those thistle men some hell when we find ‘em.”

“You’re looking for them?”

“Not them.”

“Someone?”

“My sister’s kid,” Dak says, and hell, he wasn’t expecting to bring this up, but he’ll see it through. “Max.”

“He’s missing?”

“Disappeared about five years ago.”

“And you think you’re gonna find him?”

“I think-” Dak exhales, as measured as he can make it. “I gotta try, you know?”

“It’s a choice,” Tech says softly. When Dak turns, he’s looking at him like he understands. Like he, more than any other person in Dak’s whole life, understands why Dak uprooted his life and his relationship to try and find a ghost of Max in the wind. “And you made your choice.”

Tech doesn’t look too surprised when Dak reaches a hand out and hooks it behind his neck, but he still breathes in sharply before Dak’s lips meet his. He smells like heather, so much that it’s overwhelming. He also tastes not like heather but like essential oil, and it’s kind of gross, honestly. But his mouth is slick and warm against Dak’s, and his lips part into a sigh as Dak kisses him.

“That was a choice, too,” Dak says, more or less mumbling against Tech’s mouth. “Thought we could use it.”

“You thought right,” Tech says, and then he’s kissing Dak again. Because even if the rest of the world is open and terrifying and full of thistle men and things Dak can’t understand, they can still have this. They can have heather oil and each other, a shield against the danger.

#neoscum #neoscum fic #dak x tech #aucember18 #waveridden.fic #i've had a long day so if this doesn't make sense........ neither did half of last year's #also tam fully did recommend this au a while ago which is wild because they don't listen to alice isn't dead OR neoscum #i cannot find the texts in my phone for some reason??? but they suggested it and i sort of. took it and ran with it.#anyways i'm going to go find something chocolate to reward myself. have a good night y'all

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