[Silent Darrow] For Lucy

[silverhammer]

Brian hasn't come home. He's not answering his fucking phone either.

From the way Brian goes out, from the way he's always working or doing something or someone, some people might think it makes sense that there'd be a night every once in a while where he was MIA. But even if it's late, he comes home.

And ever since people started disappearing, showing up again days later with stories about sirens and static and ash, Max has been on edge. He hasn't been sleeping and more often than in a long time, his heart starts racing and he can't breathe, remembering faceless soldiers and nearly being left for dead in the street.

He's convinced he's going back, and unlike This Man's Army, there's no jail or Canada as an alternative.

Max sent Kimmy home sometime after she put Gus to bed, but now he doesn't know what the hell to do. He paces, he smokes about three cigarettes in a row even though he remembers how Colleen would give him and Brian shit for doing it with a kid in the apartment.

Finally, he pulls out his phone and dials a familiar number, even though it's late and Lucy's probably at McCormick's. But his hands are shaking and he feels like he's about to sink into the mud.

Comments

[radicalize]

When she gets Max's call, Lucy doesn't need to hear much before asking the bartender on duty if he can stay to close up for the night, and getting her things so she can head out. In a way, she thinks she's been waiting for this call for a while, since she first started hearing about people vanishing and coming back like they did a few years ago. She remembers too well what it was like when Max came back from that other place, just as bad, in some ways, as when she'd thought he was gone for good. Now, there's some relief in the fact that he's still here to be calling her at all, but she can't pretend she hasn't been uneasy, or that she isn't more so now.

If there were some way of knowing, she thinks — some way to tell if someone has really disappeared, or if they're likely to be back in a few days — it might be a little easier. Then again, when there's nothing good about either option, she's not sure it really matters. What she does know is that, if Max needs her, then there's no way in hell she isn't going to be there.

It doesn't take her too long to reach his building, and she taps her foot impatiently as she takes the elevator up, then makes her way down the hallway to knock on the door of his and Brian's apartment. "Hey," she calls through the door. "It's me."

[silverhammer]

In the time since hanging up with Lucy, Max has tried to convince himself that he's being fucking crazy. He's overreacting, flipping out because he's convinced he's going to end up missing himself. Brian works all fucking hours of the day, and it could be that. Maybe his phone's off, maybe it's like that night Max got stood up and found Brian screwing some guy in the kitchen.

But it's been a long time since he pulled something like that. Going on a year, actually.

He doesn't know whether it's better or worse than being sent home, Brian ending up in the ash.

He's pacing, and startles when Lucy calls through the door, pausing for a moment before he actually crosses the room to open it.

"He's fuckin' gone, Luce, I know it," Max says, jumping right into it, even before his sister's walked in. He feels like he's on the verge of losing it again.

[radicalize]

At first, Lucy doesn't say anything, mostly because there's not really anything she can say to that. Taking a moment, closing the door behind her and walking a little ways inside, taking a deep breath, it buys her some time, lets her collect her thoughts. The truth of the matter is, she's pretty fucking shaken by Brian disappearing, too, whether it's from Darrow altogether or to that other place. There's no good outcome here, and it kills her, seeing Max this shaken. It's the latter she makes herself focus on, crossing slowly to him and resting her hands gently on his shoulders. For Max's sake, she can keep herself together. He's got enough to deal with without having to worry about her emotional state, too.

"Hey," she says quietly. She's not stupid enough to tell him it's alright when most of the options here are anything but. She does, however, want to try to calm him down if she can, to get all the details of what's going on. "Slow down. Start at the beginning. How long has it been since you talked to him?"

[silverhammer]

"Jesus. I don't know, yesterday?" Max says, because he doesn't remember waking up this morning when Brian left for work. Maybe he got up and left just like every other morning, or maybe he's been gone since the two of them fell asleep last night.

Lucy sets her hands on his shoulder and he should feel steadied, but he can't make himself calm down. He knows if he keeps this up, that he's gonna freak out again, and as much as he's tried in the past to calm the hell down when that starts to happen, he's never actually been able to do it.

"He's not answering his phone and he's not home. He always comes home, Luce. Fuck."

[radicalize]

It doesn't exactly bode well, but Lucy wouldn't have expected it to. They've both dealt with shit like this before, and even with as worked up about it as Max seems to be now, she can't imagine that he'd just jump to conclusions about it any more than she would. It's largely for that reason that she's not quite sure what to do now, what the next steps should be. If there's a chance that Brian is still around, then she doesn't want to just carry on as if he's gone, never mind the possibility that he might come back, but she doesn't have it in her to give Max false hope, either.

"Is any of his stuff gone?" she asks, though that's not exactly a foolproof way to find out, either. Gus is still here, or at least she hasn't been told otherwise, but kids have stuck around without their parents before. "Have you tried calling him at work, seeing if anyone there has seen him?"

[silverhammer]

Max shakes his head. "Office is closed," he says, because even though there are times when Brian works into the night, the place isn't always open. Tonight happens to be one of those nights.

Brian's stuff hasn't gone anywhere though. Not his clothes, not all his product and shit, not Gus either. But even though Max knows his sister has seen a lot of people disappear and knows how all this works, at least as well as anyone can, he can't shake feeling like he's about to jump out of his fucking skin.

"But no, his stuff's still here," Max goes on to say, running one hand over his face, "Fuck."

[radicalize]

It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it's at least a point in favor of Brian not being gone for good. Under any other circumstances, it would be a relief, to be able to say that he'll probably be back. Instead, Lucy isn't sure what to think or what to say, how to tell Max what she thinks is more likely going to turn out to be the case here. If just hearing about what's happening has been unnerving for her, she can only imagine how much more so it is for Max, and that won't be helped by the possibility of Brian being stuck where he was a few years ago.

"Okay," she says, nodding slowly, reaching over to take Max's other hand in her own. "It's okay. We'll try the office in the morning and see if anyone's heard from him. Maybe... maybe he'll have turned up by then." She doesn't think he will, and that much is abundantly clear, but it's not like it isn't a slim possibility. She'll kick Brian's ass if that does happen, but it's better than either alternative. "And if not, we'll deal with it."

[silverhammer]

Her answer makes sense. And any other time, if Max wasn't freaking out, he'd probably agree with her. But all he can think about now is what happens to Brian down there with the faceless soldiers. Or what happens if he's next. He barely escaped last time, and Max still doesn't know how the hell he managed it. There's no way he can do it again.

"Deal with it? What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, "Jesus, Luce, what if it's me next? What if it's you?"

The words come out without thinking, even though he knows all the shit his sister's been through. But at the moment, it's about all he can think of.

[radicalize]

It's the prospect of Max going down there again that shakes her more than the idea of being there herself. If it is her next, then she'll deal with it, the same way she's dealt with everything this place and the one before it have thrown at her. The prospect of Max having to go through all of that again, though, is more than she can adequately come to terms with. She almost lost him then, and she remembers too well how fucked up he'd been when he finally made it back. He deserves a fucking break.

"It's not like there's anything we can do about it one way or the other," she says, and though her voice is quiet, steady, it's nevertheless clear how much she hates the fact of that. There's little she hates as much as feeling so helpless, and in a place like this, it's inevitable. After all this time, she should probably be used to it, but she doubts that will ever actually happen. "If there were, you know I'd do it."

[silverhammer]

Brian might be the only one who really knows the extent of it, that even now, Max can still wake up in the middle of the night after being sent back there in his dreams. Sometimes it's the other Darrow, sometimes it's Over There. Either way, he wakes up and he can't breathe, can't fucking think straight.

Sometimes it feels like he never left, like he'll never get to leave. At least, not really. He's always going to feel like, at any time, he'll end up back there in the dark.

Still, he knows his sister means well, because she's put him back together twice, never gave him shit for how fucked up was when he came back both times.

"Yeah," he says, but Darrow has a way of making them all feel like they've lost control of stuff they shouldn't, "Yeah, I know."

[radicalize]

For Lucy, it's the worst sort of position to be in, one as ineffective as this. If she were the one going through what he is, no matter how bad it may be, it would still be preferable to having to watch it happen and not having any sort of solution, to not really being able to help him at all. The most she can do is be here, and while she'll do that gladly, it's not like it makes any real difference. There are times it occurs to her that this shouldn't be hers to take on, but she doesn't know what else she could do. There's nothing she wouldn't do for Max.

"You want me to stick around?" she asks. "I don't have anywhere else to be."

[silverhammer]

"I'm... I'm no good with Gus without Brian here," Max says, and it's not much of an answer, but he thinks Lucy'll get him. It's not like Kimmy won't be back tomorrow— she's supposed to be— but he doesn't think he's ever done a night alone with the kid. Lucy, though... she's a hell of a lot better at all of that than he is.

[radicalize]

"Okay," Lucy says, nodding. It may not be a direct answer one way or the other, but it's easy enough to make sense of it, and it's about what she would have expected, too. She wouldn't have wanted to just leave Max here alone with Gus unless he outright told her it would be alright to. Besides, in spite of the circumstances, crashing at Brian's is a step up from her shitty apartment, and familiar besides. "I can help with Gus."

[silverhammer]

"No, you've got shit to do, Luce," he says, even though she's said she doesn't have anywhere else to be. It's probably bullshit, so he doesn't feel bad about asking her to deal with his crap again. She's gotta be sick of it by now, he's sure.

Besides, Kimmy's gonna be back in the morning.

Shit, he's gonna have to tell Kimmy that Brian's gone.

[radicalize]

"It's fine," Lucy says, shaking her head. "Anything else can wait." She's not about to just leave him alone with this, especially not when there's Gus to look after. The rest of the staff at McCormick's will be fine without her for the rest of the night, and there's really nothing else pressing she needs to worry about. This takes precedence. Max always does. "I said I can stay, and I meant it."