FicWad

THEN

The van sputters dangerously, coughs, wheezes, and goes on to eat up yards and yards and yards of asphalt without complaint. Go fight win. Keep running.

(oh god there was so much smoke in the air)

They don't look at you. There are three of them in the car and they don't look. Showpony wears his helmet like its a fucking fourth wall, like he can't be fucking touched when he's wearing it. He sits gingerly on the seat next to you, arms flopping like noodles when you go off-road. Dr. D is in the back, his face unreadable behind his aviators and you want to jump back there, grab them off his face and scream, do something to crack his marble mask.

You are filled with so much hate, so much fucking anger.

(there was heat in the form of bright colourful CHEERY AS FUCK, HAVE A BETTER DAY bolts of light and those bolts of light hit people and those people fell so many people falling)

There is a woman in the front of the van, the pilot, the driver, and you don't know her. it is frustrating and you want her gone, who is she to be a stranger here, on this day of rage and grief? And so nonchalant, too, as if the most wonderful men you'd ever known weren't

(they fell, too. like dominoes)

(and just like that it was over and they were dead as fucking doornails)

You're ten years old and your world is shattered, glass strewn on the floor. the van speeds on.

/

LATER

The woman is called Bliss and after your rage subsides, she holds you while you cry. The van is parked behind two dunes and about ten miles out of an encampment you'll be staying at for the next few days before they can pass you on further north.

You had thought you'd be staying with Dr. D, but evidently you thought wrong.

(he won't get up he won't get up and you are screaming and he just lays there)

He says he needs to go to ground for a while, keep his boots tight and roll out to the dust bowl, get lost with the other rats. He doesn't say how long he'll be gone, if he'll come back for you, if he'll come back at all. He's the closest thing you have to an uncle and he is abandoning you in a hive of strangers.

Bliss is kind, and you wish she could stay, but she's going south, to find her old crew and shake things up again in the city. See if she can't rustle a few feathers.

She'll die. You can see her laid out on a pristine sidewalk, blood ruby red and fading fast. Her eyes are so blue and her hair is burning. You mourn her already, curled up in the soft lines of her chest. Her heart beats under your ear and you start crying again. She starts sketching out smiling faces in the sand, sings in her soft, smoker-raspy voice. If you close your eyes and imagine its leather under your cheek and not canvas, you can almost believe its Poison singing. You can almost believe he's alive and so vital, not dead and alone with his glorious mane shaved and dyed, laying in a bag in a cold white room.

Almost. But not quite. Bliss's voice is too high, her accent too prevalent, and the van smells nothing like the Trans AM.

It hasn't even been a day and you are already forgetting what the Trans AM smells like. They'll turn it into scrap metal. Maybe you'll meet it again someday in a pack of batteries or a new raygun, but you won't hold your breath. BLI wouldn't take any chances with something so shiny. It'll be melted down and buried deep, deep below the ground.

Your fingers twist in Bliss's jacket, and you tuck your face into her collar. She smells like ten different kinds of smoke, three kinds of booze, and something sweet and comforting that you can't put your finger on. It's probably her shampoo. Her fingers pull you closer, and she gently works at the tangles in your hair. She reminds you of your mother. You say as much, and she freezes for a moment, turning bone-stiff, before loosening and holding you tighter. She kisses your forehead and her breath is warm when it touches your skin.

“Wish I could stay, motorbaby,” she murmurs. “Wish I could. You'll like TP and SR, I think. They're good people. Golden hearts, they've got. They'll look after you, raise you up right and good. You're going to them after this next stop.”

You nod with some difficulty, and try to calm your hiccuping breaths. The fire is warm, staving off the cold of the desert night, and Dr. D's radio hums a soothing static. You are so heavy, so tired. If they dropped you in the ocean you would sink to the bottom like a sack of stones.

You fade out.

You dream of colour and dead men.