silverhammer | For Lucy [ Dated 11/01]

He loses count of how many looks he gets on the way back to Oceanview. But it makes sense: his face is smeared with blood, one side of his face is all bruised and swollen and he's limping from where the faceless soldier fucked up his leg. He ignores the few people who manage to ask him if he's okay, mostly because he can't decide whether or not they're real or in his head.

He's not crazy enough to talk to people who aren't even fucking there. He's not.

Max hobbles through the complex to his apartment, leaving a palm-shaped red smear on the door as he pushes it open.

It's like it should be. Like it was that morning he got into his cab for his shift, before the ash. There's no overturned candle on the floor, no bullet holes in the walls from where he should have died.

Maybe he's so goddamned crazy he imagined it. Maybe that copper taste in his mouth and the pain in his leg and side and hand and head... maybe it's not even there at all.

"...fuck," Max breathes, and his voice is shaky and strained, his throat raw.

He walks back to his bedroom and curls up on the bed, the softness of the blanket feeling weirder underneath him than he remembers. He closes his eyes and tries to make the world go away, if only for a little while.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

radicalize

After a few days, Lucy doesn't really feel anything close to alright yet, but she's at least pulled herself together enough to act like she is. It helps, at least, to not be entirely on her own here, having Jake, who needs her, and Sybil still so thrown by what happened to her, things Lucy can't quite begin to wrap her head around, though they're far from the strangest thing she's heard about. Mostly, what she gets stuck on is how, after all this time, she should be used to this by now, not so crushed every time she loses someone. It's not like it will ever stop; that's the nature of this place, and the one where she was before this. Even if she could, though, it's different when it's her brother, when she'd only just gotten him back.

She doesn't really want to be going to his building at all. She can't just leave all his shit in his apartment, though, and with Neil a floor up, she figures she might as well stop by and see him first, if only so it feels like there's more purpose to her being here than just taking care of what's left behind of Max's. That changes when, on her way past Max's apartment, she finds the door unexpectedly open. For a moment, she thinks it might be the landlord or something, but she's wary even so, lingering by the door frame, her worry only exacerbated by the unmistakable sight of blood on the door. Whatever's happening here, she doesn't know, but for all that it's unsettling, that's also all the more reason why she can't just walk away.

"Hello?" she calls, taking a couple of steps inside, not yet seeing any other signs of anyone else around. (She shouldn't hope, she shouldn't, she shouldn't. It never ends well.) "Is someone here?"

From:

silverhammer

He's not asleep, not really. His eyes are closed, but there's too much pain for him to nod off. Max's stomach still hasn't settled, and it's probably a good thing that he hasn't eaten anything in a few days, because otherwise there'd be a puddle of something on his carpet.

There's a voice somewhere far off, in the next room somewhere, but Max isn't sure it's actually there. It sounds a hell of a lot like Lucy, but he's probably just hearing voices. There's a good chance he's still back on that sidewalk in the dark.

Max stirs and curls himself up more tightly into a ball and the mattress springs squeak.

From:

radicalize

There's a sound like movement not far off, though Lucy doesn't think it's footsteps or anything like that. For that matter, she still doesn't know what anyone would be doing here at all. If it were the landlord, he would have answered her; anyone else might be trying to keep quiet, but as far as she can tell, nothing else seems off. It should be reassuring, like somehow, this is all a misunderstanding, and the door just happened to be open, a bloody handprint on it for no real reason. It's the opposite.

Hands twisting at her waist, she draws in a deep breath. Though she knows better than to let herself be wishing for the best here, she can't entirely shake what she wants to be the case, either. If nothing else, it won't hurt to find out. Swallowing hard, she takes a few steps farther inside, trying to keep her voice even when she speaks again, and to not let herself sound too hopeful. "Max?"

From:

silverhammer

Too many times since he got back, he's been jolted out of sleep by the imagined sound of a gunshot, by the buzz of a mosquito near his ear that's not really there. So it makes sense that the first time he hears a voice that sounds like his sister's, he thinks it's all in his head. The piece of him that keeps everything together is still back there in the mud, and he still doesn't know how the hell to get it back.

But this time she says his name, and it sounds like a million other times she's said it, and maybe this one time, it's not the fucked up part of him making him hear voices.

"Lucy?" he croaks, and his throat fucking hurts.

From:

radicalize

Hoarse or not, Lucy would know that voice anywhere. Despite the fact that she's the one who called his name first, it comes as a surprise anyway, her breath catching in her throat at the sound of her name. Somehow — and had she a few spare moments or the presence of mind to stop and consider it, she would probably be able to figure that out — her brother's here, when she knows he was gone, when she didn't think she would get him back. That's not the kind of luck that people get more than once.

"Oh, my God," she says on an exhale, and then she doesn't bother trying not to hurry in the direction of his bedroom and the voice, stopping once she's through the door. He looks like shit, and that in itself would be just about enough to wreck her, but for the moment, at least, it's such a relief to see him that she can't make too much of it. She can't keep her eyes from brimming with tears, either, no matter how hard she tries, face falling, though it's nearly all from relief. "Max, you're — you're here."

From:

silverhammer

He looks up and his sister's in the doorway.

Lucy's standing there, and she's real and not just some voice he's hearing in his head. There are tears in her eyes and just the sight of it sets him off.

"Shit," Max says, and the next thing he knows, he doubles over in a sob, his shoulders heaving as he tries to catch his breath. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry," he barely manages, because he's been gone for fucking days, and she probably thought he was dead or worse. Because he killed those guys on the street, and he's still wearing their blood. Because he killed those guys in the jungle and he can still see their faces.

From:

radicalize

Though, deep down, Lucy knows she's more relieved just to know he's here than she could ever begin to say, it wrecks her even more than thinking he was gone did to see him like this now. She's seen him pretty fucked up before, but this is something else entirely. Even without knowing what's happened, though, or how it is that he's here now when he's been gone for days, she wouldn't keep a distance now for anything. Nothing good would come from that for either of them.

Heading towards the bed, she crawls in beside him without a second thought about it, like back when she was a little kid who'd woken up from a nightmare and didn't want to go to their parents. This time, though, she thinks maybe they've both done that. "Shh," she says, doing her best to sound as reassuring as he can when she knows she's just only just managing not to fall apart, too. "It's okay, it's okay. You're here now. You have nothing to be sorry for, Max."

From:

silverhammer

He doesn't want her to have to see him like this. Maybe Lucy doesn't remember it, but they've done this before. She's already helped put him back together when he didn't know up from down and she shouldn't have to fucking do it again.

Max shuts his eyes tight and clenches his fists, even though his knuckles still burn from where his hand scraped against the pavement, leaving some of the skin behind. At some point, he'll have to get up, have to take a shower and find some food, but he can't wrap his head around the idea of moving just yet.

It's another few minutes before he calms down, catching his breath and turning his face away from the mattress where he'd pressed it to try and muffle his sobs.

From:

radicalize

There's not really anything Lucy can do but stay here close beside him, doing her best to fend off tears of her own, but for all that she doubts it's actually going to make much difference, at least she doesn't feel entirely useless. She can't fix this, can't take back whatever happened to him, not least when she can't even begin to imagine what that might have been, but she would if she could, and she can stay here beside him until then. Besides, it isn't as if she needs something to fight against when she wouldn't want to be anywhere but at her brother's side, her hand moving slowly over his back, touch featherlight.

She wants to ask who hurt him and where he was, but she doesn't. For one, she's pretty sure she knows the answer to the second. More importantly, though, he shouldn't have to talk about it if he doesn't want to. The details aren't what matter, not at a time like this.

"Hey," she murmurs when he turns his head, her stomach twisting when she gets a better look at him, though she doesn't let on as much. "Do you need — can I get you anything?"

From:

silverhammer

Max wants to just tell her to go, because all of this is shit that she shouldn't have to deal with at all. It's shit she shouldn't even have to see. But the only other option means he's by himself for God only knows how long. Back in the jungle, back in the dark waiting to die.

He breathes in, and then out, long and drawn out so he can bring himself to speak.

"Can you just stay here a minute?" he asks.

From:

radicalize

Without hesitating for so much as a moment, Lucy nods, blinking hard to try to clear her vision. (It doesn't work.) Even had he not asked her to, she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else, and not just because it's been days since she's seen him, since she thought he vanished. Seeing him like this, it would only have hurt to leave his side. Given the shape he's in, though, it wouldn't have felt right not to ask. Now that she has, she doesn't have to worry that there might be something she's missing instead.

"Of course," she murmurs. "I'm not going anywhere." There are other things she should probably be dealing with, that she'll have to before too long, but right now, she isn't letting herself worry about that. It can all wait a little while longer, and then she'll figure it all out, make sure she can stay as long as he needs her.