arrival (closed to Curtis)

[silenttrainbaby]

The pain wasn't bad, not really. As he'd trained, he'd been hurt a lot, muscles and joints bruised and bones nearly broken. He's used to pain. This - this pain he felt now - was nothing new, not really. It was just more final and Grey knew it. Since Gilliam was dead, this - death - was nearly a relief. He'd done what he could to help Curtis, to avenge Gilliam's death. Nothing more could be done. As he felt the knife press into his chest, he sank into oblivion.

Only to wake up with a start at the train seeming to have stopped. He was on the floor, of course. The pain woke up a second later and he hissed out between clenched teeth. He pulled and realized that the knife was still lodged through his right hand. That hand throbbed and his entire body felt as if he had been been through too much, worse than any training session. His left hand hung from his wrist uselessly. He forced his eyes open and stared at the ceiling of the steam car of the train.

Where was the old man in the suit?, he suddenly wondered, the one who had been fighting him? Grey's vigilance forced him to sitting, ready for more fighting despite the pain. He pushed the knife from his hand and held it, even if the pain seared through his palm, his left hand still hung loosely; the wrist was broken. It didn't mattier. Surely, if the train had stopped, he must be ready for anything. He pushed to his feet and forward in the train, it not yet occurring to him to go outside the car. After all, wasn't the world still frozen?

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[manwiththeknife]

Stepping up to Grey's side, Curtis slipped his good arm around the boy's frail middle, taking as much of his weight as he could.

This close, the stench of the train flooded his senses and Curtis clinched his teeth against an unexpected wave of nausea. Shit and piss and stale bodies, grease and filth.

The train rolled to a stop and Curtis stepped forward as the doors open, bracing for Grey's reaction to the warmth and noise of the world outside.

[silenttrainbaby]

Grey had expected to be cold. So cold. He forced his eyes open as they stepped out, as best to prepare for it, but -

He inhaled sharply. What was this?! What was this?! His feet dragged as he almost felt the impulse to flee back to the known.

[manwiththeknife]

"Hey, whoa," Curtis said, tightening his hold on Grey when he felt the younger man tense.

They were still blocks away from the hospital, but it meant switching lines or grabbing a cab. Cabs were expensive and getting Grey into a car might prove difficult.

Glancing at the digital arrivals sign hanging overhead, he saw that they only had a few minutes to wait.

Huffing out a breath, Curtis turned toward a bank of benches nearby.

"Come on, we're gonna sit."

[silenttrainbaby]

His broken wrist was the one he needed to pull up a sleeve of his coat. He couldn't show the words he needed without it and with a hiss, even as he fell back onto a bench, he used that forearm to bare his inked arm.

What? Where? How?

How were they outside the train? How was he here? How did Curtis lose his hand?

[manwiththeknife]

"Don't. Just keep it still," Curtis insisted. He could easily guess the questions Grey had without having to be asked.

"We're in a city called Darrow. I don't know how. I woke up, and I was here. So far, it's been me and Yona, and now you," Curtis said, keeping an eye out for their train. "Wilford's train... it's gone. The engine's crashed north of here, but the train's just fucking gone."

Good riddance.

[silenttrainbaby]

But why wasn't it cold? Why was it like this? Where were the others? Gilliam?

Grey's head hurt; he was confused. How could the train be gone? How could Grey be here?

[manwiththeknife]

"I don't know," he said, coughing out a strangled laugh, "I don't fucking know."

Their train pulled into the station and Curtis got to his feet, reaching down to haul Grey upright.

"We're here now, it doesn't really matter why," he said, more to himself than anything.

[silenttrainbaby]

There was a logic to that. Grey grit his teeth as he was pulled to his feet.

The air smelled so different.

When they were on this new train, he nudged at where Curtis's hand used to be. What happened?

[manwiththeknife]

Heaving a sigh, he lead them to a pair of empty seats, cutting angry looks at anyone who wandered too close. By the time the train lurched forward, there was a wide radius of empty seats around them and a car full of uncomfortable people averting their eyes.

The arm... it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. The damage to the joint had been extensive, and by the end of it, the doctors had made their amputation above the elbow. He looked at it and was reminded of Gilliam, a connection he had a new found hatred for.

"I was... I was trying to get to him. To Timmy. We found him, in the engine," he said, gritting his teeth. "I guess I couldn't get out of there without leaving something behind."

[silenttrainbaby]

Curtis got to the front of the train.

That idea cut through the haze of pain and Grey turned to look at him. What did that mean? Did they have control? Did Grey do what he did for a reason?

[manwiththeknife]

Grey looked at him with those wide, expectant eyes and Curtis tampered down a wave of frustration. Teeth gritted, he said again, "There's no train. There's no..."

There was no revolution. There never had been.

"There's just us. There's nothing to fight for anymore."

[silenttrainbaby]

So, that meant what? What was Grey to do? All he knew to do was fight and take care of Gilliam. Gilliam was dead and there was no reason to fight.

His head ached so much it brought tears to his eyes; the pain seeming to increase exponentially. He didn't understand anything: what this place was, what Curtis meant, what he was to do, why he was alive. Nothing.

[manwiththeknife]

There wasn't anything he could say. Darrow wasn't a place you could be told about. You had to live it, to figure it out on your own. Or maybe Curtis was just as useless as a leader as he'd always suspected.

Grey deserved better. They all deserved better.

Dragging in a breath, Curtis pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the twinge in the tendons and bones, still newly healed after being shot through.

"We're going to the hospital," he explained flatly. "Where they can patch you up. Then we'll... We'll figure out where you can stay."

He'd have an apartment of his own, but there was no way the kid could be left entirely to his own devices.

[silenttrainbaby]

Hospital? Any scars Grey had were dealt with by one of the elders. A hospital was a vague concept.

Left to his own devices might mean that Grey became entirely feral.

Either way, he sat, slumped low in his seat, dirty, smelly, and injured. He dragged his eyes up to look around, to take in the train, the people, what was outside the windows. He hadn't dreamed much on the train. Maybe this was a dream.

[manwiththeknife]

Falling into silence, the trained carried them toward the hospital, the rumble familiar under their feet, but while it might've been a comfort to Grey, it made Curtis' skin crawl.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited until the polite, automated voice over the loud speakers announced that they were approaching the stop at Darrow General.

"Come on," he said, climbing to his feet, and after a moment of hesitation, he rested his hand on Grey's shoulder. Comfort was something that came rarely, in the tail, but Curtis knew that Grey was used to being close to someone. Close to Gilliam.

Gritting his teeth, Curtis lead them through the door and onto the platform. It was a short walk to the sleek, automatic doors of the ER. As they walked, they passed cars, pedestrians, a hot dog cart. Curtis kept Grey close. No matter how capable of protecting himself the boy might've been, there was no way he was prepared for all of this.

[silenttrainbaby]

No, he wasn't. Curtis was right. It took a great deal of effort just to walk, but as he did, his vision hazy from the pain, he looked around.

The smells alone discombobulated him. It was good that no one, aside from Curtis, tried to touch him. Inside the hospital waiting room, it was a new set of smells: antiseptic, dry and terrifying. He squeezed the knife, making his hand bleed, his jaw set.

[manwiththeknife]

That fear, that constant vigilance, was what had kept them all alive for eighteen years. It was good, it was smart, but Curtis still found himself giving Grey's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Wait here," he said, lowering him into one of the uncomfortable, plastic seats. "I'm going right there to sign you in," he said, pointing to the nearby window, behind which a nurse was currently eyeing them skeptically.

"Don't stab anybody while I'm gone," he said, and it might've been a joke, had he said it to anyone else.

[silenttrainbaby]

If he - or Curtis - wasn't threatened, he wouldn't stab. In that way, Grey's life was simple, even here.

He squinted at how white it was, how clean everyone was. Was this like the front of the train?


(ooc: good grief. Sorry about that!)

[manwiththeknife]

After a curt exchange with the nurse, Curtis sank down into the chair at Grey's side, heaving a sigh and letting his eyes fall shut for a brief moment.

Head lulling in Grey's direction, he looked the kid over, noticing-- really noticing all the grime, the scars, the marks of a lifetime in the tail. Curtis was clean, was fed, but there were some scars that would never fade.

"They'll take you back in a few minutes," he explained, "They're going to want to set that wrist and do something about the hand. I'll..." He paused, lips pressed into a line, "I'll come back with you."

There was no fucking way he was letting them take the kid out of his sight. Not yet.

"You're gonna need to keep that knife away. They call the cops on us and we're fucked."

[silenttrainbaby]

Grey didn't need a knife to defend himself; Curtis knew that. So, slowly, he leaned forward, face creased with the effort, to slide it into the makeshift sheath on his rope-belt (as long as no one took it from him, that would be all right). He fell back with a hiss. He held the hand out, trying to flex it again; it hurt. A lot.

But he looked over at Curtis, too, then, how clean he was, indeed. He wanted to understand. That was all; he wanted to understand. He wasn't sure he could. He nudged up a sleeve. Die!. His brows were knit. Was this whatever came after dying?

[manwiththeknife]

Lips tugging into a line, though not quite a smile, Curtis lifted his own hand, holding it alongside Grey's, showing the scar that pierced through his palm. A bullet wound, instead of a knife, but not so different.

"I don't know. Maybe," he answered. Yona had told him she'd seen his body, lying there in the wreckage of the engine. Who's to say she hadn't died out there in the ice, too?

"Whatever happened, we're not dead now."

[silenttrainbaby]

Philosophical discussions of life and death and their meanings would have to wait, not that Grey was the right person to have them with. There had been no talk of Heaven and Hell on the train.

He let his pierced hand fall to his knee and closed his eyes, just for a moment.

[manwiththeknife]

Curtis let the quiet stretch on, keeping his eye on the door, the exits, a habit he'd probably never break.

When a nurse finally stepped out, frowning at a file in her hands, and called for a Mr. Grey, Curtis huffed out a breath, something almost akin to a laugh, and got to his feet.

"Come on," he said, hand on Grey's arm to help him up, "That's you."

[silenttrainbaby]

Eyes opening, Grey pushed himself to his feet, hissing out another sound. The ache seemed to be settling into his bones. The coverings on his feet slid along the shiny tiles as he moved as directed.

At the sight of the nurse, he stiffened, just a little. A stranger.

[manwiththeknife]

As soon as they were through the door, the nurse started asking questions and offering sympathetic platitudes for Grey's current state. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a reply, her eyes flickering nervously toward Curtis' looming presence.

"He doesn't talk," Curtis said flatly. Wouldn't, couldn't. He'd never known why, had never asked. Someone knew, Curtis was sure. Probably Gilliam. Probably Wilford, the bastard.

"Oh," she said, frowning as she jotted something down on her file. "Are you his...?"

"Friend," Curtis said, even though that wasn't entirely true. There wasn't really a word for what they'd all been to each other. "I'm his friend."