Chapter Text
People, Sam had found, were most generous when good deeds have been done unto them.
It had been a five-day hike from Mountain Knot City - plus another three days if one were to count the delay getting to the city due to timefall - just to get to the secluded, barely-there settlement that had placed an order for two vehicle repair kits, satellite equipment, and a standard shipment of medical supplies. The settlement itself only housed twenty people, all of whom, Sam discovered, were highly distrustful of him and watched him from their bunkers the whole time he unloaded the packages into the delivery slot. On the bright side, once they were one hundred percent certain he wasn’t a MULE, Homo Demen or another asshole who stole from the less fortunate, they allowed him to pass out in an empty bunker for the night as a thanks for their supplies. Being a porter meant making trades - and to be honest, this was a good one. It was the first time in the months-long journey of reconnecting America that he’d slept somewhere that wasn’t under a timefall shelter, in a cave, or in a Bridges private room. The place was small, older than any private rooms and therefore less technologically advanced, but after months of going to sleep dressed and waking up in his underclothes with no recollection of ever changing, the lack of cameras was a godsend.
Lou hadn’t been happy to be sat on a table for the night - she spent at least an hour crying about it, just to make Sam feel bad - but she calmed down eventually. When she fell asleep, it was just Sam, alone in a stranger’s room, sitting on a bed well worn with time and watching rain run in rivulets down a sloped glass window. The silence was, for once, peaceful, until an all-too-familiar crackling noise split the air and Higgs Monaghan stumbled into existence with all the grace of a dying deer. Had he been there to kill Sam, it was likely Sam’s last words would have been “Oh, fuck off”. Luckily for both of them, Higgs was drinking heavily out of a golden flask and was in no shape to fight or kill anybody. He’d collapsed against the concrete wall, brandishing his flask in the air like a sword, dressed in an out-of-character ensemble consisting of a black, sleeveless turtleneck, cargo pants, and a black jacket that gave Sam an uncomfortable look at how skinny the man really was. “Been thinkin’,” he’d drawled, slouching against the wall, “Why’re we...why’re we doing this?”
Sam’s grip tightened around the chiral blade hidden in his cuffs. His gaze kept flitting to Lou, curled in her pod, asleep a few feet away. “Chill, Sammy,” Higgs scoffed, “I ain’t here fr’ your fuckin’ kid. ‘nd put th’ knife away. ‘S not like it’d do anything.” He flung his arms out, grinning at Sam with half-lidded eyes and a crooked, not-quite-genuine smile. “I’m fuckin’ immortal, sweetcakes! Didn’t ask to be,” he added, quieter, “But here we are. See, cuz that’s the thing, Sammy, that’s the thing. I didn’t ask for any of this, y’know.” Higgs chuckled, sardonic, before taking a deep, long swig of the sterile-smelling alcohol he’s been downing. Sam just watched, gradually inching closer to Lou. “No shit,” he said, “Don’t think any of us did.”
Higgs clicked his tongue and shot a wink and finger gun in Sam’s general direction. “See wha’ I mean? Been fightin’ this war way too long.” He laughed, the sound bitter and cold and surprisingly, if Sam heard it correctly, sad. “It ain’t mine, it ain’t yours,” he continued, with his head resting on the wall behind him, “Don’t you want it to just... end ?” At that, he’d shifted, so he was facing Sam, looking for all the world like a child hunkered down in a corner after being yelled at. It was the first time Higgs had actually seemed human, stripped of his mask and cowl. He was just a regular, fucked up human like everybody else in this godforsaken world. “Yeah,” Sam had admitted, because what the hell, right? Higgs probably wouldn’t remember this anyways, with how cloudy his eyes were getting. “Yeah. Sooner this is over the better.”
Higgs smiled down at his flask. He traced the engraving with his beat up hands, wrapped in bandages and covered in tiny scratches left in various stages of healing. “I used to be better, y’know,” he said softly, gazing down at his reflection with a dazed sort of sorrow in his blue eyes. “Used to want different things.”
Sam sat back down on the bed. Higgs paid him no mind. “Fragile told you ‘bout us, yeah? Two little fuckups who jus’ wanted to see the world put back together.” He laughed again, this time allowing it to dissolve into a half-sobbed hiccup. “Now all ‘m tryin’ to do is tear it apart. Well, fuck me, I guess. Universe never did like this broken bastard all that much. Two of us’ve got that in common, at least.”
Higgs held out the flask. “To ending it,” he suggested. Sam hesitated. This was, after all, Higgs. The man who had been actively trying to murder him for the past six months, give or take. Sure, he might be drinking it, but Sam had seen his self-destructive tendencies first hand. It could, for all intents and purposes, be very, very poisoned and this was just Higgs’ clever way of killing him off before the big finale. Sort of redundant, though, given Sam’s status as a repatriate. In the end that’s what convinced him to accept the flask. “To ending it,” he agreed, with a tip of the flask, “However that may be.”
“Hear, hear,” Higgs responded. “Whatever it takes.”
Four days later, Higgs was dead.
Whatever it takes, indeed.
Fragile never talked about her relationship with Higgs before his betrayal. Sam doesn’t pry; he knows enough. Through the years they’ve lived together, raising Louise to the best of their combined ability, Higgs is the one thing that remains taboo in the household. He’s only mentioned during fights, which are rare, and even then his name is spoken in a hushed tone, like saying it aloud will somehow summon him back from the dead. All Sam knows is that they were close, and Higgs used to be a good man. Pretty much all of Sam’s encounters with the guy were a display of the complete opposite - except for the once, in that old bunker. For a brief moment, Sam could see the man he’d left behind. It...hurt, honestly, more than he expected. And that was without knowing him before. It hurt in the way seeing BTs hurt - not because they were people Sam once knew, but because, once upon a time, they had been people. What remained of the past, torn and warped into something unrecognizable. Higgs, Sam had come to realize, was himself a Beached Thing, in his own way. Broken and lost, lashing out because he believed it was the only thing he could do, barely a shadow of his former self. The thought isn’t enough to quench Sam’s hatred of Higgs, but it’s enough to dampen it just a little. Innocent before proven guilty and all that.
Sam teaches Louise to always give people a second chance. Maybe Higgs is the reason why.
***
What’s left when everything ends? Does anything matter? Do emotions matter? What is still considered important, in the long run? When the world ends, people grab what they can’t live without. Food, water, weapons. Personal items to remind them of a better place, a better time. A book, a necklace. Pictures of loved ones. Things that, for a moment, make the end of the world a little easier to deal with.
Lou can one hundred percent guarantee math homework would be the last thing she’d grab if another Stranding happened.
Look.
It’s not that Lou thinks education isn’t important. It’s just that in a world that has literally gone to shit, she believes that maybe learning to defend herself is a little more important than learning how to multiply. Her dad and aunt clearly don’t share the same sentiment, though, seeing as she’s seated at the kitchen table with a worksheet in front of her. The teeny-tiny numbers have begun to float off the page and flit around like tiny butterflies as Lou slowly zones out. She scratches her pencil across the paper again, doodling a senseless picture that somehow morphs into a stylized version of Henry’s sleepy kitty face he gets when waking up from a long nap. It’s the newest addition to a steadily growing assortment of mindless doodles that are creeping over the worksheet. Flowers, feathers, beetles with shiny wings. Anything that’s even remotely more interesting than multiplication.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Lou last visited Peter. After reappearing in her bedroom following her last visit, when Peter actually smiled, who should be there but her overprotective father and equally protective aunt. Apparently they’d realized she was missing only a few seconds after she left. The earful she’d gotten from the pair of them - Lou doesn’t think she’ll ever forget it. To make a long story short, they’d flipped out, and Lou has essentially been on house arrest for two weeks. “ We just want to keep you safe,” her dad had said, doing that thing where he cups Lou’s face with his hands like it’ll get her to calm down. It worked when she was six, and always wanted her dad, but now when he did that Lou almost punted him in the stomach.
The math question she’s staring at seems to mock her.
If Lucy buys seven books for 11.49 each, it reads, but the store has a “Buy Two Get One Half-Off” sale, how much money is Lucy spending?
Lou feels her pencil snap in half as her grip tightens.
Figures.
She opens her hand to dump the shattered pencil from her palm, and pauses when the thin, ragged scar from Peter’s Beach glints up at her, the healing skin shiny and pink. Lou thoughtfully runs her opposite thumb across the raised bump across her palm. It’s healed nicely, she supposes, and although her dad had fret about how young she was to have such a nasty scar, she’s secretly a little proud of it. Her dad and aunt both have the coolest scars; her dad is covered in ones that look like hands, from the BTs he encountered during the harsher days of the Stranding. Aunt Fragile, of course, is aged from the neck down, which is cool in its own way, but she’s also a patchwork of smaller scars from years kicking ass across New America. The most interesting scar Lou had up until her first visit to the Beach was the small X-shaped one on her lower belly where the umbilical cord that attached her to her BB tank had been cut out. Sure, falling against that rock and tearing her skin open hurt , a lot , but now that it’s healed and doesn’t itch all that much anymore, it’s a neat little trophy. Her first battle scar. A symbol of triumph over her parents, who still seemed convinced she was a baby who needed protection.
Looking down at it now, Lou wonders why she’s even bothering sitting here, actually trying to do homework. She’s broken through the veil that separates life and death! Why should she care how much money Lucy spent on books when Lou can travel to another world?
A mischievous grin finds its way onto Lou’s face and she gingerly slips from her chair. Her slipper-clad feet pad quietly against the dining room’s tiled floor, edging her ever closer to the sliding patio doors that lead to the surrounding yard. She kicks off her fuzzy blue slippers and pulls on the sneakers left on the shoe rack by the back door. They automatically tighten around her feet as she pulls her raincoat from the asymmetrical coat rack propped next to the door. That takes a moment to put on; her wild bush of hair decides to get caught in the ties and a battle ensues as Lou tries to wrestle herself free from a blue vinyl prison. With an appropriate pop, Lou emerges, hair significantly messier, and slides the door open to hop out onto the cobblestone patio behind the house. Cool mountain air hits her, smelling of dew and wet dirt. Lou breathes it all in, relishing the feeling of a breeze ruffling her curls. On the horizon, a flock of birds takes flight, singing their merry song of freedom. Lou listens carefully for any indication that her guardians are outside; gravel crunching under boots, maybe, or quiet conversations on the front porch. She’s delighted to, for once, hear nothing. Nothing except the wind and the birds on the horizon. The silence sounds like freedom.
Lou takes off toward the force field. Her feet carry her over the poured stone walkway, to the quaint oak wood bridge built over the stream that runs through the yard, upon which she pauses to admire the foreign fish swimming in the small pond just under a small waterfall. Koi fish, Aunt Fragile had called them. Imported from one of the overseas countries. Their orange and white scales shimmer as they glide freely through the clear, cold water. Lou scoops a handful of fish feed from the bronze bowl bolted to the railing and carefully sprinkles it into the pond. The fish thrash their tails and eagerly snatch up the crumbs, tumbling over one another in their fight to get to it first. “You’re welcome,” Lou tells them cheerfully, giving them a wave goodbye. The fish continue their feeding frenzy as Lou skips off, back on her path to the force field.
Lou only recently started wearing a pair of cuffs. Her dad had been highly resistant to the very idea - for good reason, Bridges was constantly attempting to find both Sam and the BB he disappeared with - and it wasn’t until she’d gotten lost with no way to contact home that he gave in and allowed Deadman to send them a modified pair that suited Lou. Her cuffs were dark purple, and didn’t have any connections to Bridges or any larger corporations emerging from the darkness of the Stranding. She could contact anyone on her personal contact list, but they couldn’t contact her without first receiving a message from Lou herself. (This was, of course, not the case for Sam and Fragile.)
As Lou nears the edge of the lawn her cuffs let out a sharp beep. A blue light flashes near the holo projector, one she’s never seen before. Low battery? She wonders, tapping at the flashing light. It doesn’t go away. Lou shrugs, reasoning that since it didn’t start blasting off an alarm, it probably isn’t important. Or something to worry about right this minute, at least. Half a step further and it turns itself off. Huh. Maybe she’ll pop by Deadman’s lab to get it checked out; he’d probably appreciate the visit, since it’s been nearly a year since they’d actually seen each other in person. And it must get lonely sometimes, working alone in that lab. Yeah, if Lou can squeeze it in, she’ll go say hi.
The force field looms over her, ominous only in its staggering height. Between the tall metal beams positioned a few metres apart, a thin web of blue light is spun, shimmering like sunlight through water. This section of the field, in the back where nobody ever enters from, is devoid of the screens and statistics that litter the front entrance. Here it’s just the light, and the endless stretch of bright green grass and rocky trails beyond it. Here, the light is sort of beautiful. Quivering with anticipation, Lou reaches out and pushes through the field. The first shock of electricity sends a shiver up Lou’s arm; her fingertips twitch from the odd sensation as it travels through the rest of her body. Another step, and she’s almost through. She’s drawing her other hand through, her right one, when the cuffs fashioned to her wrist touches the field.
The effect is instantaneous.
Lou is pulled back inside with an appalling amount of force. Electricity arks up her spine and she screams, less from pain and more from surprise. Her shriek is cut short as she collides with the wet grass. A dull ache blooms from her left shoulder, up her neck to her head and down her arm, which she cradles with a stifled sob. The force field flickers, colour shifting to red as a huge, flashing screen splashes text across the length of the field.
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. ACCESS DENIED.
Clouds drift across the blue sky. Through Lou’s groggy brain she thinks she can hear far-away voices growing gradually nearer. Using her good arm, she manages to right herself into a sitting position. Her back gives a twinge of complaint at the movement. She ignores it in favour of glaring at the reddened force field.
A hand grasps Lou’s shoulder. Spins her around. She’s looking into the concerned face of her father. His lips are moving but no words are coming out. Lou squints at him. “What?” she says, or at least, thinks she says. She can feel the word in her throat and on her tongue, but her ears are ringing something awful and any sound that makes it past the horrid buzz is vague and muddy-sounding. Sam’s hands are on either side of her face now, brushing her hair back, wiping bits of grass and mud from her cheeks, turning her head side to side to check for bruises, and he must still be talking because his mouth continues to move. By the frustrated look on his face Lou thinks he’s probably scolding her.
“-how badly you could have been hurt? That was a stupid, stupid thing to do!”
Oh lovely. She was right. At least she can hear again.
“Dad,” Lou snaps, batting away his hands with her own, “I’m fine. What just happened?”
Sam smooths down her mess of curls like it’ll somehow make her less furious with his response. She waits expectantly, eyebrow quirked, mud smeared across the left-hand side of her face in a lovely brown-gray arc.
“My goodness,” Aunt Fragile says, announcing her arrival while sparing Sam from the wrath of his fuming daughter a moment longer. She rests a hand on his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Louise. Are you alright? We didn’t think you might actually run off. Does anything hurt? Here, let me-”
Lou slaps her hand away hard enough to leave a red welt on Fragile’s wrinkled skin. Fragile freezes, shocked, as her niece kicks away from them and huddles up by the humming force field. She glowers out at them under her long lashes. “What the hell,” she snaps, and Fragile and Sam are both too concerned-slash-speechless to reprimand her for cursing. “The security system is never on! You could’ve killed me!”
“Lou,” Sam begins. He moves closer to his daughter, carefully and slowly, holding his hands out in surrender. “We just needed you to stay inside. I know we should have told you about the system, in fact, we were going to, but then Fragile got a call and you were absorbed in your homework, so we just...forgot. After you tried to disappear last week we got worried. Please, Lou. Come inside. Get warm. You can skip out on schoolwork for a bit, okay?”
But Lou hasn’t listened to anything past that first bit - that they needed her to stay inside.
“You locked me in here?” Her voice is flat. Steady. A thinly veiled threat unnervingly barbed for a child. Her hands twitch in her lap. A sudden wave of anger crashes into her. Sam moves back, disconcerted, when her eyes darken a shade and her mouth tightens.
“We had to, Louise,” Fragile says gently. “You would not listen to us; you were going to hurt yourself, running off like that.”
“I can handle myself,” Lou bites out. Her nails bite little crescent moons into the soft skin of her palms.
“I don’t doubt that,” Fragile soothes, kneeling down so she’s at eye-level with her niece. “In fact, I know you can. But-”
“But what? ” Lou shoots to her feet suddenly. Her eyes are beginning to redden as tears begin to well. “If you know I can handle myself, then why are you keeping me locked up?”
Sam and Fragile exchange worried looks. Lou fumes silently across from them, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. “We just worry,” Sam says finally. “Please, Lou. You’ve gotta understand, you were so pale and sickly when you first jumped. What would we do if you disappeared out in the world somewhere and we couldn’t find you?”
“I can handle,” Lou seethes, “ Myself. ”
Now it’s Fragile’s turn to speak. “Louise,” she begins. “This is only temporary. A safety net, if you will. When I first learned how to jump, I could pass out for days at a time. A...friend of mine, found me collapsed in a truck two miles away from my starting place; I could have died out there had he not come searching. You must understand this was for your own safety.”
Lou bares her teeth. For a brief, horrible moment, Fragile doesn’t see Lou standing there, but Higgs, a petulant, stubborn individual with no real concept of self-preservation. “I’m not you, Fragile!” Lou all but yells, and Fragile flinches at the sudden cold edge to Lou’s tone. It’s the first and only time she’s been called Fragile, not Auntie or Aunt Fragile. Sam glances, wide-eyed, over at her, and Fragile can tell he’s thinking the same thing.
“I’m me!” Lou is yelling now, tears flowing freely from her pretty eyes, hair slowly rising to wave about her face like she’s underwater and gravity is meaningless. “So just leave. Me. ALONE! ”
Time stops.
Lou screams. In a flurry of tar, rocks, and torn up chunks of grass, her handcuffs are blown off and thrown in a mangled heap to the ground. She screams, and keeps screaming, until tar is running down her face as heavy as the tears, and as Sam and Fragile watch in stunned terror, she disappears in a clap of chiral thunder.
***
“Ever think the BT’s can hear us?” Higgs shucks a slimy glob of tar off his boot and watches it splatter across the stones. “When we’re cursin’ n’ shoutin’ at them. Like they’re conscious or some shit.”
Fragile shoots him an odd look. “Really?” she says, shaking her head, “We get attacked and that is what’s going through your head?”
Higgs shrugs. His hair is plastered to his head, wet and dark. Fragile reaches up to brush it out of his eyes. “I just wonder, is all. Maybe there’s some humanity left in ‘em, or somethin’. You never know.”
“Good point,” Fragile deadpans. “How about you try reasoning with one next time we take your “shortcut”? Then we’ll really know.” She breezes past Higgs, shouldering her stuffed pack to the best of her ability. Higgs opens his mouth to talk, but can’t find a witty enough response to retort with and snaps his mouth shut with a scowl. Okay, maybe it was his fault they ended up in BT territory, and maybe he totally froze up when the first one reared its head, but honestly, Fragile couldn’t have done better. Probably. Maybe. “Hey,” Higgs shouts, as he jogs to catch up with his partner, “This was fun! Like an adventure, or somethin’. Right?”
“There is mud,” Fragile says calmly, “In my shoes. My socks are wet. My cargo is also wet. This is not fun. Your fun is not fun.”
Higgs makes a dismissive noise. “Ah, come on, Frage. You’ve gotta live a little! This! This is what it’s like to be alive! ” He flings his arms open, to the sky, the clouds, the few birds who dare venture into BT territory. “This is freedom! This, right here, is why I’m still kickin’. Smell that air, Frage! We’re free! Ain’t got nobody tellin’ us what to do out here. It’s just me, you, and the wide open air.”
“And the BTs,” Fragile reminds him. She’s smiling, though Higgs can’t see it. He’s dancing around, laughing, those beautiful blue eyes reflecting the sky and sparkling brighter than the sun. His face is dirty from the mud and tar, but those eyes shine just as bright. “Of course the BTs,” he laughs, “We wouldn’t be having fun without ‘em! God, Frage.” He catches up with Fragile and clumsily intertwines their fingers. “Who would ever wanna give this shit up?”
“Who’re you talking to?”
Higgs snaps his eyes open and Fragile disappears. He’s on the beach again. The sun is gone, replaced by grey clouds once more. It’s freezing. And wet. Higgs scrubs a hand over his face and scowls when it comes away shiny with tears he didn’t know had been there. Chiral allergies, he tells himself, which is bullshit.
The little red-haired girl, Lou, is standing a few feet away, the remaining sparks of chiral dust popping around her feet. She looks, for lack of a better word, like shit, hair let down from its usual style, dressed in what looks like pyjamas underneath a baggy, navy blue raincoat. Her eyes are red and watery. There’s some part of Higgs that, for a moment, is concerned, because children crying are rarely a good sign and those are definitely not chiral tears running down Lou’s freckled cheeks. For a moment, they both just stare at each other, until the contact is broken with Lou wiping her arm across her face with a loud sniff. “Ah,” Higgs sighs, “This gonna become a frequent occurrence?”
Lou doesn’t respond, at first. She glances around, gnawing nervously at her bottom lip, unsure of herself and her surroundings. Her hands are restless in her lap. She’s not scared, or at least doesn’t look it, but her behaviour seems out of place even though Higgs has only known her for a short amount of time. (Well, not known her, per say, but was aware of her.) “Hey,” she hiccups. Her hand rubs away the tears still shining in her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to...I thought I was headed someplace else. This was a mistake. Sorry. Again.”
Higgs watches Lou awkwardly shuffle her feet. He’s still seated on the sand, water lapping at his worn-down boots, and right now he’s just been made painfully aware that his own eyes are still watering. Damn mirages. “Fucked up the jump, huh?” He grunts. Turns back to the horizon line, and the thick wall of fog rolling in over it. Great. Another blind night, lost in the mist. “Must’ve been real off target, if you’re cryin’ like a baby over somethin’ so damn easy to fix.” His words, perhaps a smidge colder than intended, fall on empty ears as Lou sniffles again and wanders over to plop herself down next to him, uninvited. Higgs instinctively shuffles a foot to the right. When Lou still doesn’t say anything, Higgs finally looks over at her. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, head resting atop folded arms, staring glumly out at the approaching fog. “O kay ,” Higgs says, and turns back. Maybe if he ignores her, she’ll just go away. They both sit in silence, Higgs gradually nodding off, Lou staring morosely at something far off in the distance. Twenty minutes later, she’s the first to speak. “Are you alone here?” she asks. Her focus doesn’t shift from its fixed point on the horizon, now lost to the fog.
Higgs glances at her from the corner of his eye. Her tears have dried up, leaving only the redness of recent distress in her eyes. Her voice is dull, monotonous, devoid of emotion. Higgs feels that one in his gut. “Obviously,” he says. He can’t really help the laugh that gets forced out with it; sour and sharp, his own bitterness at his isolation accidentally slipping through just enough for Lou to catch wind of it. “I ain’t seen nobody ‘cept you since I arrived in this shithole.” He leaves out the bits about seeing his own death or reliving memories. Kid’s clearly got enough on her plate. And, though he would never actually admit to it, given that she’s the only real person Higgs has talked to in years, he doesn’t really want to scare her away. Not yet, at least. Lou glances over at him with a shockingly judgemental eyebrow quirk. “So then who were you just talkin’ to? Cuz it didn’t sound like you were talkin’ to yourself. Was it one of your ghosts? Did you see one?”
Right. Kid’s smart. With a good memory, too. God knows Higgs forgets half their conversations, given the amount of time that passes between each one. Lou’s hand seems to be healed, which means it’s been at least a couple weeks since she last showed up. Feels like more than that, at least on Higgs’ end. Time is a harsh mistress and all that. “Yeah,” he admits. “I did.”
Lou’s eyes widen with interest. The distress wrought into the soft lines of her young face evaporates as curiosity floods in, that now-familiar inquisitive glow reignited. Briefly, Higgs envies her, and her supposed ability to forget whatever was previously nagging at her enough to spark up an onslaught of tears. “Who was it?” She demands, leaning forward and getting way too close for comfort. Higgs makes a half-assed attempt to scoot away, but Lou follows, effectively cornering him despite being on a wide open stretch of land. “Well, that just ain’t none of your business, now, is it,” he replies coolly. “Shouldn’t you run along? Get back to your daddy?”
Higgs (almost) regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. A flash of hurt flickers across Lou’s fair features, followed by a tensing of her shoulders and tightening of her jaw. “I am not, ” she spits, “Going back to my dad right now.”
Ah. Now there’s something Higgs can understand. Dads - gotta love ‘em. “Got some issues with dear ol’ pops, huh?” Higgs laughs, the sound cold and empty just like everything else in this damned place.
Lou scowls.
“He’s being an overprotective jerk again. I got a bit sick after jumping, he flipped out, and then him and my aunt banned me from jumping and put me on house arrest
.
”
“And yet,” Higgs deadpans, “Here you are,”
“Here I am,” Lou concurs with a shit-eating grin that disappears as quickly as it had come. “Doesn’t change the fact that my dad still sees me as a defenseless little baby.”
“Maybe he’s just worried,” Higgs grunts, disinterested. That’s a thing parents do, apparently. Worry about their kids. This isn’t a field Higgs has expertise in; if Lou had been crying about tar monsters? Well, that’d be a different story. Whatever this is? If Higgs had the ability to jump away from this conversation, he’d already be long gone.
Apparently, Lou’s heard the he’s worried excuse one time too many, because as soon as Higgs says it she’s on her feet, steam coming out her ears. “Don’t you even start!” She snaps, hands balling into fists at her sides like it’ll make her more intimidating. “Don’t you dare! You know how many times I’ve heard that?” Lou throws her arms out. “Too many! If he’s so worried, maybe he should let me learn so I don’t hurt myself again! But noooo! No, he’s gotta butt in whenever I try and teach myself something. I try and get better and he just gets mad!”
Higgs makes a bored hm noise. Lou starts pacing, gesticulating wildly with her hands as she launches into a rant, most of which Higgs tunes out. Finally, apparently getting all her rage out of her system, Lou’s legs buckle and she falls to her knees in the sand. “They think I’m too young to understand all this,” she whispers through new tears. Higgs wonders if he could scooch away without her noticing. “But I lived through it, same as they did. Why do they haveta be so protective?” Lou’s hands curl into fists, raking deep lines into the wet sand. A tear falls from her cheek. “So what if I’m a kid? I just want them to talk to me!”
The smallest bit of alarm rises somewhere deep down in Higgs’ subconscious; it’s enough to prompt him to stand, and move away, an action that saves him a whole lot of hurt. “Why don’t they just TALK TO ME? ” Lou’s sobbing crescendos into an ear-splitting wail. Waves and sand around her explode in a tornado of water and sediment, shooting out sideways fast enough that small, sharp rocks pellet Higgs’ face, peppering his fair skin with tiny, painful cuts. He flings an arm up in a vain attempt to shield himself from any more projectiles, eyes stinging from the sand and salty water stirred up in the pint-sized hurricane.
Curled within the crater that remains, Lou lets out another wailing cry. The ground rumbles as a second wave rears its head - a tsunami of tar, roaring into existence while the small girl cries into the collar of her coat. Higgs finds himself unable to move as the wave bears down upon him. Be it fear, or confusion, or just plain shock, his feet stay stubbornly rooted to the spot as this massive, ink-black wall descends over him. Just before it hits, when Higgs feels the spray coming off it as it moves, he throws his hands up and pushes. Flashes of pain shoot up his arms as unused muscles are forced to move again, but he fights through it, pushes away the tar and flings his hands out to either side, sending the wave sprawling into little more than black splatter on the rocks.
The beach falls silent.
For a fleeting second, all that can be heard is Higgs’ own heavy breathing, rasping for air in his tattered lungs, and Lou’s faint sobs. A semi-solid blob of black tar oozes off a rock and plops into the sand. The steady drip of tar sloughing off the rocks joins the first few noises, and finally, Higgs regains some feeling in his legs, and as the tingling of muscles waking up begins, he falls forward, barely catching himself on his hands to avoid smashing his face into the ground. When he manages to struggle back to his feet and find his balance, there’s a definite shift in the air around him. This child, this Lou, is curled up in her crater, quivering like a leaf, like she hasn’t just displayed the most powerful use of DOOMs Higgs has seen since himself. Hell, there are jagged shards of black glass sticking out of the sand from where Lou’s fury apparently melted sand into weapons. Higgs is, he hates to say, impressed.
His boots come to rest at the edge of Louise’s crater. She seems to sense his approach, carefully lifting her head from her hands and looking up at him.
If he had to breathe, Higgs probably would have gasped.
It was nothing new for tears made from tar to streak one’s face after a particularly taxing use of DOOMs or encounter with Beached Things. Higgs is certainly no stranger to it. Those black tears had become somewhat of a staple for him, as iconic to his men as the tattoos across his forehead or his grinning golden mask. The stronger the encounter, the darker and messier the tears got. Now, Higgs has had some nasty cases of black tears, where his eyes clouded with black spots and the tears were so thick he almost looked like a BT himself, but this...this is something new.
Lou’s eyes are completely black when she pulls her hands away.
Watery, brackish tar drips from her blackened hands, which are so coated Higgs can’t even see her skin colour beneath. Her face is ghoulish, washed out by viscous grey fluid while black as pitch slime oozes from her eyes, nose, and mouth, dribbles down her cheeks and chin. Her thin shoulders shake as she hiccups through her tears. She’s practically exuding tar at this point, from her pores and mouth and eyes. It could not feel pleasant in the slightest.
“Please,” she begs, as more tar drips into her cupped hands. “Help me.”