Lucas Bray & Grace Kennison
Outside Pointe Bordeuax playing damsel in distress
Collab with
@Atrophy
Desperate for any foothold beyond his mind, Lucas' nails were drawing blood beneath his hair, but he wasn't brave enough to open his eyes. Cities hid pockets of bad memories the way mines hid bad air. Moments of an individual's terror, scattered pieces of lives dragged away screaming, the clatter of guns or a single, sharp retort ricocheting off walls, and the final silence of no one left breathing. Sometimes, he stood inside them for a while when he found them. Losing himself in the streets and walls and never needing to imagine dying alone. More usually, he tucked in his chin and walked through them. Traced the route in broken words and tears when someone was willing to listen, or just found another way.
He'd had Toronto mapped out in colour coded lines on his wall before all this, filling in the holes and building on the layers sunk into the stones throughout the years. For easy reference, Mark had told him, so he wouldn't forget. He never did.
This was just another memory. Frantic, frenetic, fractious... Familiar. Too much, too fast.
Flooding empty space and filling every dark corner of his mind even as it swept out again. He couldn't hold himself against it, and letting go just left him falling away from his own mind.
Dragged down and drowning...
Drowning even as every gasped in breath rushed through his head with the rasping wail of a stormwind. All of it caught up in echoes from his hands pressed so close to his ears. His body was rocked by the beat of his own heart and it was all the comfort he could find.
The last thing the man had been waiting for just then was an unexpected brush against his shoulder and Lucas started violently, spinning towards the touch on instinct. Eyes wide and balance lost, he sat in the mud and stared through the girl first. She didn't look threatening at all and it took him a long moment while her lips shaped hopeful platitudes he wasn't hearing to really see her. Little girl lost in desperation he could feel clawing through his gut, but desperation was not despair and he clung to that feeble difference the way she clung to hope.
The offered hand from Grace, his grace, shook as he looked at it uncomprehending, mouth opening, throat working, but nothing came out. There was nothing to say. Behind her, beneath the weight now pressing him down and squeezing but holding him steady, he could see nobody had time to listen. This world frightened him. Too heavy to lift his arms if air was all she had to offer. If he just closed his eyes again he could give in, give up, let go. But he didn't want to stay here, didn't want to be left behind or caught in memories. And finally, the slightest shift, her standing between him and that world, meaning well, meaning to
do well, gave him the strength to bring his own hand up.
He grabbed for her wrist though, trembling fingers trapping the cuff of her sleeve between them and her skin. A second later and his fingers tightened, free hand back against his head, heedless of the mud, expression twisting as a solid impact thundered through bones that felt like jelly. Lucas could only wheeze through the sensation, lucky not to feel the bruises though it made his head ache, and take refuge behind the heavy edges pressing into cloth, scraping on his skull, holding back the tide enough, just enough.
"Don't let me go. Don't leave. Don't. It's filling up with screaming, scared. I'm scared." The words emerged with a breathless disregard for clarity as Lucas found his voice. It rasped from a dry, closed throat, and he didn't care that he should have been the responsible one. He just wanted everything to stop.
"I'm here. It's going to be okay," she said, uncertain in her words. Truth be told, she was scared, too. Real scared. Yet, she didn't let Lucas know that; she couldn't. Grace sighed. She'd have to pretend to actually be in some sort of control. It was easier said than done. "Look, do you know..." She shook her head. "Can you walk, can you move? Do you want me to carry you?"
"Okay," An empty word, filling space, he was just echoing her. "Alright, okay, dunno." He had to fight to figure out what she wanted, too busy trying not to notice anything to listen. But his confusion wasn't just lack of understanding when she asked her final question. And the furrow between his eyes was all for her and the idea of being carried anywhere as he worked towards getting up with something pressing him down. He wasn't letting her go though, couldn't.
She returned his confused look with one of her own. She couldn't decide if his words were in actual response to her questions or the rambling of a frightened man. She decided it didn't matter, knowing that being anywhere but here was the best choice of action. Pulling herself—and inadvertently tugging Lucas, too—up to poke her head over their cover, she scanned the chaos in the hope of being hit with some kind of eureka moment. If the clouds above were to pull away and a beacon of light was to shine down to show Grace the way, then now clearly was not that moment. The sound of a ricocheting bullet rang out; it was too close for comfort. She ducked back down.
"Lucas, I have a plan," she said, lying through her teeth and hoping that the look she had on her face was one of stony confidence instead of a frightened rabbit. "Are you ready?"
Up, then down and that was his name. He stared at her, she looked at him. Scared together was easier than scared alone. But ready for what? "Okay." No time for questions, no time to find the words. He shook his head even as he agreed.
It was a good enough answer for Grace. Grabbing the man, she effortlessly lifted him out of the dirt as she cradled him in her arms and ignored his surprised yelp. She made sure to keep his head pressed into her chest in case a stray bullet missed her and hit him. Taking in one final deep breath, she pulled herself out of the mud and bolted for the next car and prayed that she was heading deeper into the convoy.
The ground was gone... He was floating in that hard metal hug he didn't know how to explain and Grace was holding him. He forgot to question how in his surprise, just grabbed her shoulders and hid his face and found a few prayers ready to hand when he wanted them. Breathless voice and quiet muttering, they belonged to her, so he borrowed the words for them both. No one else was listening, he didn't know if God would, but the litany came easy.
"There, not too bad, right?" she said, huffing despite not really being out of breath. She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince Lucas or herself. "Okay, we're going again. Three, two..."
She lifted herself up on one, bolting to the next vehicle. The sounds of guns cracking rang throughout the air; each one gave her a mini heart attack. Her feet pounded through the mud, kicking up filth all over the place as she sunk further and further into the mire. She felt her foot catch on something and lost her balance. Knowing that landing on Lucas would spell the end to the man's life, she twisted and gave him a lit toss towards the cover. Hopefully, the mud would cushion his blow. Pulling herself back up, she scrambled over to the man.
"Sorry, sorry, oh man, are you okay? Please tell me you're okay?" she said.
"Ow..." He'd gone flying. Landed hard, tried to roll, run out of breath instead and skidded. The mud was cold, but shock had broken him out of the cycle, and he rolled over with a groan. "Okay, ow, ha." His head wasn't any clearer, but he'd found the foothold she'd almost been. Still scared, oh, who wasn't? But his reaching hand was steadier, and he tried a sorry smile at the girl kneeling beside him while sitting up. "Good plan."
He meant the words sincerely. And, despite the mud now covering over half of him and the stinging on his arm where he'd tried to catch himself, Lucas believed them. They'd moved at any rate. Better than he'd managed.
"Yeah, it was really well thought out," she said, frowning as she lifted him into her arms again. "Since it hasn't failed us yet..."
However, she did not know where to go. Her tumble had disoriented her already lost sense of direction. She looked around, trying to make the growing look of alarm on her face appear more like alert watchfulness. A human blur ran past the two, carrying what Grace believed to be another person on its back. Either that, or it was the quickest hunchback she had ever seen. Regardless, a few moments later and the blur ran past them once again minus its hump. Nodding to herself as if she knew what she was doing, she moved towards the blur's first destination.
After what felt like hours (but was really more like a minute or two) of trudging through the muck, the two of them came onto a van. Grace could still hear the sound of gunfire and tasers discharging, but they did not feel as close as before. Stopping outside of the side door of the camper, she couldn't help but feel like the vehicle deserved more to be at Woodstock than a plantation in Louisiana being sieged by a crazed mob.
As strange as it felt to be cradled by a girl smaller than he was, Lucas didn't protest the arrangement until he realised where she'd brought him. Then he scrambled out of her arms, flailing to get his balance and stand up straight enough to bang against the nearest window. "Serena! Serena, it's all coming into here. Can I come in?" Was she still safe? He'd walked away and everything had changed. "We found mud and flying. It's all leaking in the windows."
Lucas tugged at the door handle when he finally remembered her voice inviting him in. Whether it was echoing her now or from any number of earlier invitations he didn't care. He just pulled it open and almost fell into the safety of a van he knew that wasn't quite as full of fright as the others. But... With his foot up, he paused and turned. "Thanks, thank you, come into the-in. Come in, too?"
Looking back at Grace, mud washing off in the rain, blood flowing from a scrape when she'd tossed him, he made a rather disreputable sight, but she'd gotten him here safe. Brought herself here, too, and inside was safer still.
She wanted to get in the camper and curl up into a ball until they drove away or the rioters overran them. She really, truly wanted to, but she couldn't. Maybe it was a sense of duty; maybe it was just that guilt. She thought back to that blur. Others were trying to help; she couldn't stop now.Trying to give Lucas a strong smile, she shook her head no.
"I have to make sure that the others are okay," she said. "It's...it's important, I have to go. But I'll be back, okay? I'll be back."
Not coming in? Back? She had to go back. "Okay, no. No. There's scared and scared together making too much noise it hurts. You can stay scared here." He didn't mean to deny anyone else her help, or tell her she wasn't allowed to be brave, he just knew how hard that smile was to find. Thought someone needed to say she didn't have to lift anyone else. Was that bad?
"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them," she said, throwing on her best Thumper voice. It felt weird to do it without the mask. She turned away from Lucas and started walking back to the front, muttering to herself. "Or something dumb like that."
Lucas watched her go, unable to hide or ignore his worry, until another rash of gunfire made him duck inside, breathing back to ragged. One hand over an ear until the door clicked shut. “She’s scared to death and dying. Of dying. Everyone’s scared to piss their pants…” Someone needed to know. He didn’t think Serena needed to be told, but when he turned to look for her, he found other eyes in huddled together faces and tried his own smile this time. It wasn’t half-made before it was already fading, and he shook his head at the memory of what he’d found in her clothes. That much force… “And she won. She won chicken with a car.”
