Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Buzzing in his head, loud, constant. White lights flashing at the back of his eyes, dizzying, blinding. A dull pulse deep within his body like a heartbeat, but it couldn't be, it didn't feel like one, there were too many cold bits of lead stuck deep inside his flesh. Yet Miles Upshur was moving.

It hurt. Fuck, did it hurt.

He kept moving. The huge, dark mass swirling around him was intangible and asphyxiating all at the same time and it thrummed like sluggish viscous blood through his veins. It wasn't just there; it spoke to him on some deep, inhumane level, and Miles couldn't understand it, but he did anyway. He wasn't alone with himself anymore.

Miles wasn't dumb. He knew this mist obscuring his vision was the Walrider, that just as Wernicke had uttered with a horrified curse, Miles was now its host instead of that poor Billy fucker. He'd thought he was free when he pulled the plug and caused Billy Hope's death. Ha. Fucking fool he'd been.

The Walrider had never been unmade, it probably couldn't ever be. All Miles had done was make it angry, or desperate, or just intent on finding a new host. It had thrown him around violently and effortlessly in a disorienting and painful dance, and then it had lifted him high up in the air. Miles had felt his body pulled apart in every direction like he was being quartered on some invisible, unyielding wheel, punishment too great for any sin he might have comitted and yet which he felt he'd somehow deserved after seeing what he'd seen in that hellish place. And then, suddenly, nothing. Just Miles dropping to the ground like the broken doll he was and no black cloud in sight. Just Miles, dragging himself forward, stumbling towards a hopeless escape, feeling himself fading. Just Miles, and his breaths echoing through his brain, and his vision blurring, and his body agonizing.

Until the soldiers, and Wernicke, and the first bullet which Miles had both seen and felt but had been unable to believe had just penetrated his body. Then the spray of lead, the pain on top of the pain, the shock that left him no other option but laying mortally wounded on the ground as he bled out and his surroundings dimmed.

Finally, the unearthly screech, screams, gunshots, terror.

And now, somehow, Miles was moving again. The Walrider was there all around him but it didn't feel like a threat anymore. It felt like... Miles didn't want to delude himself into thinking this, but he knew he'd already gone at least half-mad from his stay here, and maybe he just didn't have the strength to fight anymore. So fuck it. Delusion, then, at least half-accepted, that the Walrider was now by his side instead of against him. Miles wasn't gone far enough to indulge in the fantasy that it was an ally; he could feel in his flesh and marrow that this entity was neither man nor beast, just cold impersonal nanotechnology. The Walrider had no conscience that Miles could feel out alongside his own. But he wasn't alone.

He knew it was the Walrider that was somehow enabling the movements of his body which, by all accounts, should have been a lump of raw meat lying on the cold floor of the sublevels of Mount Massive Asylum by now. He couldn't run, his body wasn't responding to that kind of command; it was just moving forward. Miles was covered in his own blood from head to toe but the spurting of the bullet wounds littering his chest had stopped. He'd checked: they weren't closed. This was just another detail that defied sanity which he couldn't be assed to dwell on right now. He just wanted to put an end to this hell. He just wanted to get the fuck out of this god forsaken asylum.

Miles quickly understood that while he didn't feel that he was controlling anything at all, his involuntary emotions were apparently in charge. He walked past two, three solitary variants which didn't notice him, but then came the moment when he was inevitably noticed by a small group, and they all turned to stare at him with their deformed sewed-up faces, their hands clenched around metal pipes and boards and glass shards which they weren't feeling the cut of, one of them slurring words that sounded too much like "get the whore!" Miles felt his guts crystallize with cold terror because he couldn't run, there was just no way, and all he wanted was for them to leave him alone so he could just get out-

And then the black smoke billowed out in the space around him, fanned out towards them with lethal intent, and Miles stared wide-eyed and insensate at the screaming explosions of bodies. Wet, crunching, bloody chunks splattered all over the ground and walls and ceiling. The Walrider returned to him, silently and neatly retracting into shadows that only swirled close to his skin. Miles stood there for a while to try and make sense of what had just happened. He'd seen it happen to Walker, he'd thought it would happen to him, now it had happened to them- and the Walrider was just waiting. On standby. Something tickled and itched down Miles' cheek and he lifted an arm to his face to wipe at it. Blood glistened on his sleeve. Projections from the bodies.

Miles started walking again.

And as he walked through the dirty, stinking, gore-covered rotten halls, Miles understood that he was powerful. More powerful than any motherfucker left alive in this shitty asylum. The realization sunk in like a cold certainty, and Miles might have felt relief somewhere in there but really, he felt empty. Stony.

His shoes squelched wherever he stepped. Dark red puddles everywhere. It reeked of urine and shit and sex and death. Bodies. He kicked in some wayward limb and didn't give a fuck. It was just exposed bone and nerve and muscle. It didn't feel like a big deal. Felt normal.

A dry laugh escaped Miles and he made no effort to stop it, he couldn't say he'd even been surprised to make that sound. He stopped in his tracks. His body shook with twisted mirth, and his fingers hurt and his head hurt and his chest hurt and fucking everything hurt and he should've been dead but he couldn't stop laughing. The darkness thickened around him and he welcomed the reprieve against the ugly yellow lights of the hall. All of this. All these bodies, all this gore, all this horror. All of this, for what? It didn't even mean anything to him anymore.

Just a casual Sunday stroll. Fine day to shake hands with a severed arm. Careful not to splash in the bloody puddles, now, don't want mom to get mad.

Miles tipped his head back and laughed louder, finding his thoughts and the whole situation so funny that he had to lean against the wall to steady himself. This was his life now, this was his damned life. He'd come here to expose Murkoff's dilapidated ethics and he had his evidence, yeah, shit, the camera, left it behind, but it's fine, he had the fucking evidence, files and documents in his torn jacket- but he couldn't possibly show himself like this. There were only two options he could see happening to him if he did: captured and experimented on by another sick fuck like Wernicke, or live on the run and be a danger to society.

Going outside... Outside sounded like a fever dream at this point. He knew he'd had a different life, once, but it didn't feel real. It was like all that had ever existed was this place. Miles Upshur wasn't even sure that he was Miles Upshur anymore. He was carrying the Walrider around, was an unwilling host to it and could probably qualify as a zombie or something along the lines, and he'd seen his reflection in the broken windows. He didn't look human. He couldn't even begin to describe what he looked like. It was hilarious. Beaten down by this hellhole and its monsters just to come out of it a monster himself, and a fucking powerful one at that. Powerful enough to pulverize three grown men at once in the blink of an eye.

Miles stopped laughing and slowly looked ahead.

Oh, he was powerful all right.

The decaying joy inside of him coagulated into frigid ire, like a twitching muscle in his head had suddenly gone into rigor mortis. The anger wasn't loud or caustic, but it throbbed dark and oozing inside of him and Miles knew what he had to do. If he couldn't get out to prove the existence of Murkoff's fucked-up experiments to the world, then destroying everything in this fucking place sounded like a plan. End these miserable poor sacks of shit.

Not a lot of time left.

Miles had no idea how long the Walrider would keep him together, or maybe it was the opposite that was happening. He didn't know how long he'd stay alive. 'Alive'. He had to move.

He moved. Swept the halls and killed, again and again and again. Ended all the tortured mindless lives he came across, even those peaceful, because even if they didn't hurt anyone they were all unwilling monsters just like him. Insane and already dead inside, leaving behind only remains of what could've once been human. Maybe they'd all been a sort of criminal but Miles was deeply convinced no one deserved this fate, and if they'd deserved to suffer, they'd suffered more than enough already. At least death by the Walrider was swift.

He killed soldiers on the way, too. Some out of a dirty sense of revenge and betrayal that had stuck with him since the sublevels- he'd thought they'd been there to save him. Too fucking naive, too fucking desperate to live after everything. But they'd shot him without a moment's hesitation. So he did the same. Others he didn't even see, but the Walrider killed them without him. It must've registered that they were an unconditional threat.

Miles' anger gradually withered into some kind of numb fog of indifference. He'd thought this kind of power would be exhilarating to wield, after all the shit he'd had to helplessly wade through, he'd expected to feel some kind of grim satisfaction like he had when Trager had been crushed to a pulp. But maybe this place had dug itself too deeply inside of him to feel anything positive anymore. It was so easy to end their lives. It shouldn't have been this easy.

The Walrider had nothing to say to any of this. Miles felt nothing, not a trace of emotion coming from it. He couldn't help but wonder if it had been this mindless a swarm when Billy had been its host. Had all those killings solely been Billy's initiative? Had it been his final revolt against the asylum's treatment of him? Maybe he'd only started what Miles planned to finish. Miles felt like Billy had had the right idea and he'd been the fucking dumbass journalist to stop his rightful revenge. Ultimately, every single one of Miles' efforts in this place had been useless. He couldn't expose Murkoff. He hadn't been able to stop the Walrider from existing in this reality. He was just picking up the killings again. It wouldn't have changed a thing if he'd been there or not.

Miles felt tired.

He'd find a way to end this, too, once he'd have ended everything around him. The Walrider couldn't keep him alive forever, and if Miles locked himself in before he died, then it would have nowhere to go once hostless. No choice but to go back to where you came from then, asshole.

He heard a grunt from afar, the soft thump of a body collapsing. He automatically headed in that direction to snuff out whatever life remained there as well. There was golden light pouring through the glass panes as he approached the wide hall which he noticed was the main entrance to the asylum. His steps were unhurried as he went to stand above it and gazed down below. He saw a patient, dirtied orange jumpsuit and green sleeves drenched with blood, dragging himself backwards as he pressed a hand to his stomach. He saw a man in a dark blue suit, too sharp and neat to be anything else but some higher-up running this place.

"No one can know!" Suit yelled at the patient, stalking up to him.

There weren't a million possible reasons for him to be saying that. This man knew, then. Wanted for all the horrors they'd let happen in this place go untold. Light glinted off the shank in his hand and it was clear he'd stabbed the patient in the stomach with the intent to shut him up forever. Miles didn't need to move a muscle for the black swarm to start slipping through the broken glass down towards the human shitstain, and his gaze slid off to the side to look at the man's victim. Still struggling to back away with one limp leg, panting, fresh blood staining his jumpsuit. Face whole, not disfigured like the others. Eyes wide and very much lucid in their terror.

And he had a goddamn camera.

Suit grabbed the patient and threw him all the way to the ground, looming over him as he lifted his weapon to deal the lethal blow. "No one!"

The Walrider shrieked its hunting cry and closed in on them both. Miles watched in distant surprise as it wrapped only around Suit and started shaking him in the air like a dog ragging on its toy. The patient stared, silent and immobile and slack-faced, as Suit screamed.

"Oh, God, oh Christ in heaven how did it get out! No- No please, no, God, NO-"

His voice reached its highest pitch right before the gruesome ripping sound cut him off. Then it was just the usual shower of torn limbs, torso halves, broken bones, glistening globs of muscle, and rain of blood all splattering down. The patient lifted an arm to protect his face, an instinct which confirmed Miles' suspicion that this wasn't one of the variants. Variants weren't afraid of a little blood on their face. Variants didn't go for the exit of the asylum. Variants didn't have a goddamn camera. The swarm dispersed and returned to Miles, and Miles watched the patient check Suit's remains, heave a great gasp, expel the air on a shaky breath and then never stop shaking as he grabbed at his stomach and struggled to get back up amidst the broken glass.

It was obvious all he wanted was to escape just like Miles once had. He'd need help to leave. Miles turned around to take the stairs, and suddenly he could feel a sense of urgency, faint but there all the same, pulsing softly in his core like... Like hope. There was someone else. There was someone else with a camera, someone whose head wasn't fucked up beyond all repair, someone who could get out and survive and show the world what had happened here. Miles urged his legs to move faster. He stepped over and on the corpses and body parts as he made his way to the light.

Day. He'd forgotten there could be anything other than night, even though he couldn't feel the sun on his skin or be blinded by its rays because the swarm was so thick around him.

Miles wanted to go with that patient. He wanted to leave too. He'd thought for a second- hoped- that they would both do that. He'd somehow forgotten that he was a monster now. He'd forgotten his goal was to wipe this place clean and then kill himself. He'd die soon anyway, when whatever it was that was happening between him and the Walrider ceased. He felt like he was constantly on the verge of dying. He knew he would, when the Walrider left, because of the bullets and all the rest of the damage that had been inflicted on him.

Miles heard a car door open and slam shut and his focus zeroed in on none other but his own bright red Jeep, where he saw the patient sitting at the wheel.

Oh, come on, you asswipe. You had to take my car.

Miles walked forward without any real purpose, down the steps, and felt the Walrider get more agitated as if it was discontented that he was exposing it to natural light. It whirled around him so strongly that it was ripping leaves off the nearby bushes in a dark tornado. Miles saw the patient lean forward, then lift the camera in his direction. He saw the way the patient's shoulders hunched, how clearly alarmed he became. He saw the patient throw the camera to the side and struggle with the gear.

The gate was closed and he couldn't take the chance for the sole remaining survivor to hurt himself even worse while ramming into it, so he sent the Walrider forth to do his bidding and watched it wash over the distance, past the car that the patient had hastily and clumsily turned around, into the gates. It felt as natural as breathing now. Miles didn't know if it was normal that he'd acquired mastery over the swarm so fast. It didn't matter. The gates violently clanged open and the red vehicle burst through.

Tell the world what they did, thought Miles as the patient vanished down the road beyond. The Walrider returned to him, and the black vortex widened for several long moments as Miles Upshur prepared himself to lay waste to the entire hill of Mount Massive Asylum.

A loud crash rang out from a distance.

Miles stood completely still and then slowly turned around in the direction of the sound that had sounded suspiciously similar to a fucking car accident.

"You've gotta be shitting me," he rasped.

Chapter Text

Waylon groaned low in his throat as he painstakingly tried to straighten in his seat, head throbbing and ears ringing. He felt completely disoriented. There was a distant burn in his gut but he didn't look down, didn't want to, and his gazed wandered around to assess the situation. He was hanging from the inside of an unfamiliar vehicle. It took him a moment to remember that he'd been driving and that the car he was in was now laying on its side. He'd gotten into an accident. Waylon did the first thing he thought to do and reached for the seatbelt buckle to undo it. It gave after three attempts and Waylon let out a scream when he fell, flailing, and then he slammed into the opposite door below with a grunt.

He stayed there, stunned, until his mind started working again. This was the red Jeep he'd used on his way out of the Mount Massive Asylum. He was supposed to be on the run. How long had he been driving? How far had he gotten?

His stomach hurt.

Waylon finally looked down at himself and saw the wide dark brown stain of his orange jumpsuit, then recalled that he'd been stabbed. By Jeremy Blaire. His shitty boss. Waylon was losing blood. He suddenly felt very faint. His elbow buckled beneath his weight without warning and he collapsed on his side against the cracked window. His leg hurt too, his foot, his head, everything hurt. He could see blood and the shine of wet viscera on the edge of his vision. He was supposed to be escaping. Instead, he stared emptily ahead and shivered.

A loud thud brought Waylon back to awareness. It could've been seconds or hours. Before he had the time to adjust his position from slumped over to sitting up, the entire vehicle creaked and the world outside started moving. Waylon was unable to understand what was happening and felt gravity slowly tug at him as if to flop him over, and he was too shell-shocked to even think of grabbing onto something to stop his fall. Waylon unceremoniously landed in the seat with an explosive exhale that was forced out of his chest.

Something thumped against the roof of the now upright car and he would've startled if he hadn't felt so dazed. There was a dark shape on the other side of the door and sounds in his ears. Waylon's vision eventually focused on a dark, shifting, unnatural face. Something at the back of his mind screamed at him to get away but Waylon was physically incapable of freaking out, despite the static filling his ears, despite his surroundings graying out all around him.

"You can't drive a car? What are you even good for?" the monster was saying, its strong voice distorted and somewhat infuriated, and then it brutally pulled open the door and grabbed him by the arm to pull him forward.

Waylon staggered out of the car. His hurt foot jarred against the ground and his injured leg had no chance of holding him up. He collapsed with a cry of pain and shock, but the same hand jerked him by the arm to hold him up.

"Come on," growled the monster.

Waylon's breath shuddered in his throat as shadows swirled around him. His brain felt numb. He barely reacted to the manhandling when the monster dragged him off towards another car, one of the armored vehicles that had been parked in front of the Asylum near the Jeep, and shoved Waylon in the passenger seat. The door slammed shut. Waylon closed his eyes to try and ward off the dizziness and pain assaulting his senses, his breathing labored, his pulse thudding away at his neck.

He heard more slamming, a shift of sliding papers, soft thumps and louder ones coming from the back of the vehicle. He thought about moving, sliding out of his seat, escaping, escaping, escaping, the mantra still thrumming in his head just as it had for so long now. Too long. His body didn't respond to the instinctive sense of wrongness and urgency that pulsed through his blood. Waylon felt weak. He wondered if he was going to finally die. He heard the door to the driver's seat open and cautiously turned his head towards the sound to peer at the monster.

It climbed inside and he felt distant confusion as to how this being wrapped in darkness and insanity could look so human in the way it grabbed the steering wheel, and lowered the brake, and checked the gear box. There was a string of guts hanging somewhere above Waylon's head but when he looked up, he found nothing. It was dark. It was very dark and Waylon felt very tired. The static was getting even louder in his ears. He realized that the monster was staring at him. Waiting for something.

"What?" Waylon tried saying, but it was a gurgle rather than a word. He felt something warm and thick wetting his lips. He heard the monster say something that sounded like a curse.

Then another wave of static and dizziness pulled him under, and Waylon faded out.

Chapter Text

To be completely fucking honest, Miles had no clue if it was sheer willpower or simply the Walrider that was allowing him to go on and at this point he didn't give a damn. The only person in the world who was in the same mess as him and who'd be able to fix it was currently dying in the passenger seat. Miles had to get him to a hospital stat.

Originally, when Miles had arrived on the scene of the car crash, the plan had been to yell at the escaped patient who apparently couldn't drive for shit (who the hell drove out of a straight lane right into the only bump of the roadside that was high enough to send the car rolling over?!) and then proceed to hide someplace safe and secluded; so he'd stepped out of the armored vehicle he'd stolen, he'd made the Walrider push his red Jeep the right side up, and he'd watched his totalled vehicle land on its tires with a tired series of creaks and mechanic groans. Some glass had shattered, too.

Miles had started striding towards it while going over the driest, snappiest, sharpest reprimands he could possibly throw in the moron's face. He'd slapped the roof of the car to lean in closer to the shape hidden behind the jagged and bloody window pieces of the passenger side, where Miles' irritated gaze had crossed that of a wide-eyed numbskull. The expression on the patient's face was so dazed and confused, and so clearly disconnected, that it had instantly aggravated Miles into feeling the highest degree of spite bordering on hatred. He wanted to rip the patient's dumb fucking face off just to spare himself the sight of it; that would've been counterproductive, so he'd held back the Walrider and had resorted to verbally spearing the other man with all the contempt he could muster. Which was a whole fucking lot. The patient hadn't answered and then it had quickly become obvious that he wasn't going to survive for very long without the appropriate care.

Miles figured that as long as his body and brain kept holding up then he'd do whatever he could to push this one survivor to do what he couldn't. Miles would die when he died, he was prepared for that, but until then he'd need to guide this guy through the motions of exposing the Murkoff Corp. Yeah, originally when he'd arrived on the scene of the car crash, Miles had thought they would just go into hiding then and there. Unfortunately, the guy in question was in way worse shape than Miles had thought. So, change of plans.

The closest hospital was located in Leadville which was more than forty minutes away from the Asylum. Miles would have already called an ambulance if his stupid phone hadn't been acting up. He'd tried looking for one on the patient but of course he'd found nothing there. All the guy had on him was that camera and some papers. He was clearly bleeding out from the stab wound in his stomach but Miles also suspected that he'd sustained some other kind of trauma severe enough to alter his consciousness, either in the car crash or in the asylum, maybe even both. The blood spurting from his mouth when he'd tried to talk had not been reassuring.

Miles' attention was currently divided between the road and making sure that the Walrider remained tightly wrapped around the patient's midriff to quell the bleeding. It was essentially like having a second pair of arms, though it was harder to manipulate the nanocloud for this kind of operation rather than simply tearing bodies apart and flinging them in the air. Miles felt his control slip a few times and the patient's skin was visibly getting paler and paler against the gray upholstery.

Crummy bastard upstairs better not take this one too, I swear.

The guy did stir awake once or twice but he always looked completely out of it and Miles didn't manage to get his name. All the patient ever mumbled was stuff like "I'm cold" or "It hurts" or "Too loud." It never looked like he was actually listening to what Miles was saying. Nothing indicated that he even heard.

Miles knew he couldn't just drive to the hospital with the way he looked, and he didn't want to attract too much attention to the suspiciously armored vehicle. There was a chance that the police would get involved if people noticed. What he could do, however, was drop off the guy on the way by. He'd need to ditch the car after that.

By the time Miles reached St. Vincent Hospital's whereabouts and found the ideal spot to dump his charge, the patient was unresponsive even when shaken by the shoulder and slapped. Miles still hadn't gotten anything worthwhile out of him and he didn't think there were many options for staying in touch besides leaving him his number. Miles had no idea if he'd even get the goddamn phone to work again, or if this patient would trust the number upon waking up, but he had to try. He pulled out his notepad and ripped out a sheet to scribble his number on it, adding a perfunctory message, and then he stuffed it inside the bloody orange jumpsuit. The man's skin was clammy against his hand and Miles could tell this wasn't good.

There was no way he could get out of the car and walk around to open the passenger side in broad daylight where all the passerbys could see, so Miles had the Walrider forcefully bump the door open and push the patient over the side like a ragdoll. He didn't even try to close the door. He hit the gas and peeled away just as someone yelled from afar. They'd probably call for an ambulance. Miles focused on his next objective.

He used an old parking lot on the other side of the city to leave the vehicle and take a more insconpicuous car. It was a quick and sloppy job, not the most ethical, but then again Miles had always made sure that the balance between rights and wrongs was tipping in his favor before he did any dirty work. What was one or two stolen cars in the grand scheme of unveiling Murkoff's sick experiments to the world?

He chose one that had accumulated enough dust on its windshield to ensure that it had been left there for a while, since it would make it harder for anyone to pinpoint on which day it had disappeared, then drove out of Leadville to the nearest big town. There he repeated the swap just to be sure. As soon as he'd transferred all his documents to the back of the discreet gray Toyota Prius he'd claimed for an indeterminate amount of time, Miles headed back for the St. Vincent Hospital.

Once he'd found a spot to park on, Miles took a moment to wind down and really, truly take stock of the situation he was in. First order of business was figuring out how to control the Walrider's shadow so that it wouldn't give him away if anyone peeked into the car. Miles checked himself in the rearview mirror and concentrated on pulling back the darkness of his features into his skin. It took him a while to get a grasp on the black smoke which kept slipping through his metaphorical fingers, but he finally felt his attempts latch onto something at the two-hour mark. Miles started pulling. It didn't come easy. Miles' grasp slipped too soon and he cursed when he felt the Walrider escape his control once more. His fist flew out to hit the side of the car in frustration. He was breathing hard. He hadn't realized how taxing it was to do this.

He knew what to reach for now so he tried again as soon as his breathing returned to normal. Miles repeated and failed for several more attempts before he could tell that he finally had the black smoke firmly in his grip. His head ached from the tension in his mind as he forced the entity to fold. Something trickled down his lips. He didn't let go and continued exerting the same steady pressure to push it down where he wanted it. The Walrider receded gradually and almost reluctantly, but it did recede, and half an hour later most of the dark cloud had crawled its way beneath his skin in writhing black veins. Miles was left staring at his exposed face.

It wasn't the face he'd grown used to seeing in his reflection all his life. His skin was pasty beneath all the dried blood and bits of flesh, his lips were white, there were dark bags under his eyes. That in and of itself should've been freaky enough because he looked like he'd just climbed out of his own coffin, but obviously the universe had decided that it wasn't, because Miles decidedly did not look like a regular human anymore. The unnatural veins stood out starkly across his skin and his eyes had become white irises over black scleras, like a photo negative of what they'd used to be.

"Are you kidding me?" he rasped to himself.

He thumped back against his seat and ran a hand through his disheveled, gore-matted hair in distress. I look like a fucking Halloween party reject, he bitterly thought. Some of the greasy strands caught onto the bone of his severed fingers and he cringed. Miles didn't feel a lot of the pain for each individual injury anymore, it was mostly just that dull, pervasive ache everywhere in his body and the same dying sensation he'd felt ever since he'd gotten up from the floor with the Walrider inside of him; but it was still goddamn uncomfortable to feel anything brush up against his exposed bones and flesh.

The thought reminded him to check his bullet wounds. He shrugged off his brown work jacket and then cautiously looked down at himself. God, he didn't want to do this, but he really needed to at least try to understand how he was still moving. It wasn't like the sight should've been that much more disturbing than all the shit he'd seen at the Asylum, but it was different when it came to his own body. Miles steeled himself and pulled up the stained dress shirt to uncover the injuries. He stared. The muscles of his torso moved in rythm with his breathing as if nothing was wrong, as if he hadn't been peppered with bits of lead, as if they weren't still inside of him. The Walrider's smoke spilled out in tiny, floating rivulets from each hole.

Miles suddenly wondered if he'd feel any different without the bullets there. The Walrider was what was keeping him alive, but could he still heal from wounds? Was he more like a zombie, just a corpse with no chance of recovering? Or maybe his body was frozen in time. It would explain why he'd been feeling like he was stuck in the moment just before dying. The Walrider had stopped the bleeding but Miles couldn't ignore that there was a risk this was only a temporary solution. Maybe he'd be able to lengthen his survival if he gave his body a chance to get better by extracting the foreign objects lodged inside it and getting some liquids in him to compensate for all the lost blood. For that, he'd need supplies, but there was no way he could go into stores looking like this. Miles looked up, his unnaturally white gaze resting on the square shape of the hospital. Hopefully the Walrider would hold him together until he could tend to his injuries. For now, he had to put together a plan for revenge. Miles turned around to grab one of the files and reflexively pulled his phone out, and just as he remembered that it had been acting up, he was surprised to see the device functioning normally. Whatever, this was good, he'd work better with his phone on hand. Those Murkoff assholes were going to pay.

Chapter Text

Waylon's eyes cracked open to surroundings so white that it hurt. He quickly blinked and waited for his sight to adjust, and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. He immediately jerked his arms to himself and was relieved when they weren't held back by restraints. The bedsheets were dusty and stained yellow and brown. His mouth was dry. He looked to the side to get his bearings and startled when he found another person lying in an adjacent bed, awake and staring back.

"Hi," said the other man. He was dressed in scrubs and his voice sounded gravelly, but he looked... normal. Not a patient from the Asylum. Waylon guessed that he was at the age of retirement or on the verge of it. Waylon felt disoriented, thirsty, his tongue felt heavy and fat in his mouth. He answered anyway.

"...Hello."

"They were saying you'd probably wake up today or tomorrow. You should probably call the nurse."

Waylon frowned at him, confused. The man smiled and pointed somewhere to the side.

"There, the red button."

Waylon looked down and found the round, handle-shaped remote stuck between the mattress and the bed rail. He pulled it out and squinted at it for a little bit, then pressed the red circle, heedless of the dirty smudges on the white plastic. That was when he noticed that his leg was in a heavy cast and something was pulling at his nose, at his arm, at his stomach, even at his genitals when he moved. Waylon dropped the device and touched his face. There was a tube in his nose. He checked his forearm next, where a thin transparent tube was connected to a square bottle above his head. He brought his hand down to the strange sensation at his stomach and felt plaster beneath his fingers, then lifted the sheets a bit to see a urinary catheter. Not a pleasant sight to behold upon just waking up.

He wearily let his head fall back to the pillow. There was mold on the ceiling. If this was really a hospital then why did everything look so unkempt? It was much cleaner than the Asylum, though, so he couldn't complain. He felt out of it. All of this stuff had to mean that he was getting real medical care, did that mean he was safe? He hoped he was safe. He still had that aftertaste of fear and blood on the back of his tongue.

"Thanks," he muttered when he realized he hadn't answered the other patient.

"You're welcome."

Waylon slowly remembered what had happened to him. He shuddered in his sheets and felt a cold sweat break out across his skin as soon as the memory of the Asylum brushed up against his brain. Right, he'd been trying to get out, and then he'd been stabbed and had escaped in a red Jeep which he'd proceeded to crash like an idiot. He vaguely remembered a human shadow had been there at some point, a monster he'd felt terrified of and hadn't been able to get away from. Waylon didn't know how he was still alive nor did he know how he'd ended up in a hospital, but he hoped the whole ordeal was truly over. Did Lisa know he was here? Oh, he wanted to see her, he wanted to see the kids. Just the thought made him want to cry.

The door opened and a woman walked in, wearing a neat white outfit save for the spots of what looked like dried blood. Waylon immediately looked for other signs of danger, but she wasn't holding anything other than a pen and clipboard. Maybe they didn't have a good cleaning budget. Still, it seemed a bit extreme at this point. The nurse stopped at the end of his bed.

"Hello, sir. It's good to see you awake. How are you feeling? Any pain?"

Waylon lightly pressed his hand against the dressings of his stomach. He felt surprisingly okay, all things considered.

"...No, it doesn't hurt. What happened?"

"This is the St. Vincent hospital in Leadville. You're here for inpatient care after abdominal surgery since yesterday, after going through the emergency department. It went well. The doctors decided to put you on morphine for the time being until they could reassess your pain. Try not to move around too much for the sake of keeping your stitches in place." She looked down at her clipboard and tapped the pen against it to click the tip out. "Could you please tell me your name and date of birth? We have nothing about you since you came in unconscious and we had no way to know who to call."

Waylon opened his mouth, and froze. Leadville wasn't that far away from Mount Massive. He didn't know how he'd ended up here. He wasn't certain that he was completely safe. If he told his name to anyone who didn't belong to law enforcement, there could be trouble. He didn't want to risk putting his family at risk.

"... I can't tell you."

The nurse looked concerned. "Do you not remember?"

"No, my memory isn't the problem... I just..."

He looked around again and saw that the other patient was curiously staring at them. Maybe he was being paranoid. Waylon almost convinced himself of it, but then he remembered Jeremy Blaire mocking him for not being cautious enough, and that was what had gotten him caught, and that was why he'd had to crawl through vents and run from killers and slipped in viscera and nearly died multiple times in one night. Waylon clenched his jaw.

"Sir," softly called the nurse. "If you believe that you're still in danger, we can get the police to intervene. Would you like that?"

Waylon looked up at her and slowly nodded. That would be the most rational thing to do, wouldn't it?

She nodded back at him and said: "I'm going to go fetch the doctor."

Waylon expected the patient to speak once the nurse had left, but he didn't say anything. The doctor that walked in twenty minutes later accompanied by the same nurse introduced himself as Dr. Pierston and didn't insist on getting his identity, instead asking him for confirmation of wanting to involve the police and simply giving him a physical examination to make sure everything was going well. The nurse took Waylon's blood pressure which was above average, and so was his heart rate, but the doctor didn't seem too alarmed by that. He asked a few questions and the answers Waylon gave seemed to reassure both of the health professionals.

They agreed to get rid of the tube in Waylon's nose since apparently his stomach made all the sounds the Dr. Pierston had been hoping to hear, which meant he could try to eat when he'd feel hungry again. Waylon really didn't feel hungry at all but the doctor said it was pretty common after abdominal surgery. Nothing was worsening in Waylon's broken leg either, so Dr. Pierston concluded that his health was overall holding steady and soon left to inform the police of the situation. The nurse came back a while later to remove Waylon's nasogastric tube and catheter, which was not an experience Waylon ever wished to repeat, and then he was left alone. It didn't take him long to fall asleep again. He was exhausted.

He must've slept through half the day because when he woke up, the sun had set and a stranger was coming in the room. At first Waylon's heart skipped a beat and started beating frantically in his chest when his gaze landed on the uniform, but when his brain caught up he realized that this person was a police officer, not a security guard from the Asylum. The spike of adrenalin left him feeling unstable and shaky. The nurse that was with the officer was not the same as earlier and she helped the other patient out of his bed so that Waylon could have a private conversation with the officer.

"I'm Officer Deilan," the man introduced himself as he pulled out the chair at the end of Waylon's bed. "I wasn't told the specific details of your injuries but I can deduce how bad it is from your appearance alone. You said you wanted to talk to the police so here I am. Let's start with the basics. What should I call you, sir?"

"... Park. I'm Waylon Park."

"Alright, Mr. Park. What happened to you?"

Waylon clenched his hospital scrubs in both fists, just below his stomach. His nerves were buzzing. "You... Please, promise me you'll keep my family safe no matter what. I need to be sure. I- What happened to me, it... I think there's a possibility I might still be in danger."

Officer Deilan nodded seriously and pulled out a notepad from one of his pockets. "Of course, Mr. Park. Can you give me their names?"

"Yes, it's Lisa Park, my wife, and my sons River and Mike- Michael Park."

"Okay." The officer jotted it down and looked back up at Waylon. "Go on."

Waylon felt his fear slowly rising. He didn't want to think about the horrors of the Asylum but he'd have to speak. He had to.

"I work for the Murkoff Corporation... worked for them as a software consultant at the Murkoff Psychiatric Systems' facilities in Mount Massive. I worked there for two weeks and saw what they did to their patients." Waylon risked a glance at the officer's face to see if he was listening. Officer Deilan was still watching him so Waylon continued, bunching the fabric of his clothes in his fists. "At first I wasn't sure. I thought there was no way they could be doing such unethical procedures because it had to be illegal, I thought maybe it was that I wasn't a doctor or a researcher so it just went beyond my understanding. But once I noticed the surface signs, I kept noticing more, and then suddenly I was in too deep. I knew I had to get out of there, but I couldn't do it alone, so I tried to get help from the outside. Jeremy Blaire found out- he was my supervisor and the head of Mount Massive Asylum."

"What kinds of unethical procedures did you witness, Mr. Park?"

"Torture." The word came easy. "It was torture. Crimes against humanity. I'm certain none of their experiments would've been greenlit if they were known. They were torturing all their patients."

"And you say Jeremy Blaire was your supervisor?"

"He died." Waylon shuddered when he recalled the gruesome end that the head of the asylum had met. "There was... something..." He halted, feeling cold. "Something got out. Maybe from the mountain. I'm not sure. I'm not... I'm not sure. But something got out and it killed him. Everyone was dying. Everyone got killed. They killed each other. I almost died, I almost- There was blood everywhere. Everywhere."

"Mr. Park," firmly said the officer, and Waylon realized it sounded like Officer Deilan had called his name before but he hadn't heard it. He looked up. The officer seriously told him: "Explain to me exactly what you saw."

So Waylon did. He explained everything, or at least the things he was able to verbalize without breaking apart. It was harder than he'd thought it would be. A lot of things went unsaid, especially about his own experiences with the Asylum's inpatients. It wasn't like those were the most important anyway. It was probably fine if he avoided thinking too much about what had been done to him. He shivered, and wondered if something was wrong with the place's heating system too.

Officer Deilan's notepad flapped shut. "We're going to look into this. Mr. Park, how long do you have to stay hospitalized?

"The doctor said five to six days..."

"All right. Do you have any proof with you?"

Waylon went to nod but then realized that he hadn't seen his camera anywhere in the room. Where were his things? He looked around but his table was empty save for the dirty gray landline phone.

"What is it?" prompted the officer.

"I had a camera with me," said Waylon. "It must be in the things I came with when they brought me to the emergency department, but I don't know where they put my stuff."

"Well, usually they're in the room," said Officer Deilan as he stood up. He strode over to the side to open one of the two lockers in the entrance which Waylon hadn't really noticed up until now, and gestured to a white trash bag inside. It looked bloody too. "Can I look inside or do you want to do that?"

"...Yes, please. I'd like to have the bag."

Waylon watched him pick it up and lower it on the bed. He seemed to be avoiding the stains. Waylon took hold of the blue strings to pull it closer and reached out to rub one of the darker spots with icy fingers.

"You must've lost a lot of blood," commented the officer.

Waylon's head jerked up. He'd been starting to question if all the stains he was seeing were real but if Officer Deilan was seeing them too, then they had to be. "...Yeah."

A quick search inside the bag revealed his bloody orange jumpsuit and green shirt, as well as the ruined notepad he'd been writing notes on and some crumpled files he'd picked up, but no camera. Waylon felt the weight of dread squeeze his guts. "I swear I had a camera with me the whole time, I recorded everything-"

"Don't panic, Mr. Park. Where do you think this camera is?"

Waylon let his hands fall back to his lap as he stared in defeat at the meager contents of the bag. "Maybe back there. I had an accident when I was escaping so it was probably dropped near the road..."

"You had an accident?"

"I escaped in a Jeep that was parked in front of the Asylum. But I crashed it soon after."

"Did you know who brought you here?"

Waylon slowly shook his head. "I have no idea, officer."

Officer Deilan was silent for a beat and then said: "Let me report this first and see what we can do. I'll keep you updated. Keep the contents of your bag close to you, we'll likely have to investigate these on top of finding that camera once we get the go-ahead."

Waylon looked up at him. "And my family? Don't forget my family, please."

"Of course we won't. Rest easy, Mr. Park. You'll hear from me again soon."

"All right... Thank you."

The officer left him alone in the room. Waylon continued staring at the bag for a while. The numbers of the jumpsuit were only half-hidden beneath a splash of blood, blood that could've been his, but it could've also been one of those patients'. Maybe it even was Jeremy Blaire's. Waylon still didn't want to acknowledge the way he felt about the man's death, because aside from horrified, part of him was darkly entertained. Waylon didn't want to feel this way towards anyone even if his boss had been the biggest piece of shit he'd ever met.

He shifted the bag to push it away but a few of the crumpled papers tumbled onto his lap, and that was when he noticed one that didn't look like any of the others which he had no memory of collecting. He wasn't the one who'd written these big, hastily scrawled numbers. Waylon frowned and started unfolding it fully. He heard the nurse return with his roommate but didn't look up as the older man waddled to the other bed. He had no idea who this phone number belonged to, but below it the words 'call me now, Jeep thief' indicated that this was someone who knew about his escape.

Chapter Text

Waylon blankly stared at the piece of paper. Should he call? Should he not? Maybe it was another patient who'd seen him escape... but then when and how had they slipped this note in his stuff? Was it someone from this hospital? That made no sense. It had to come from the person who'd brought him here. It was someone who'd helped him. Right?

"You don't have a phone, do you," suddenly spoke up his roommate, making Waylon jump and wince when the motion tugged at his injuries.

Waylon cautiously turned to look at him and saw that the older man was staring at the numbers written on the note, so he quickly crumpled it in his fist. The patient looked unbothered.

"I have a cellphone, if you want. The hospital's phone fee is absolute dogshit. I wouldn't mind helping you out."

Waylon hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah I'm sure." The patient reached for his belongings scattered across the side table and picked up his phone, waving it at Waylon. "Wouldn't've suggested otherwise, just as long as you don't call any of your criminal buddies."

Waylon's eyes widened and he sputtered: "I'm not a criminal!"

"Yeah, I'm joking, you don't look like one. Here."

He tossed it. Waylon didn't manage to catch it, stiff as he was, but fortunately it landed in the pit of bedsheets between his knees without doing any harm.

"Um. Thank you," said Waylon, and he took it in the hand which was covered in the least amount of bruises and scrapes.

"Need some privacy?"

"I would appreciate that."

"Got it. I'm getting all my cardio done today thanks to you," joked the old man as he got up, and then he waddled back out.

Waylon wondered what his health issue was but quickly focused back on the matter at hand. If the person this number belonged to was an ally, they'd be able to help Waylon and the police get to the bottom of the Murkoff Corporation's actions. He decided to ring the number.

The call picked up in under two seconds but no one answered. Waylon could hear faint buzzing in the background like an undercurrent of static.

"Hello...?" he tried.

Nothing.

"I, uh... found your number in my things. With the note about the Jeep. Who are you?"

"About fucking time," growled the person on the end of the line.

Waylon's eyes widened when he recognized the strong, raspy voice that had belonged to the human-shaped shadow. He whispered: "You're that monster."

"Did you seriously just-?" sharply said the man. The end of the sentence crackled out in static.

Waylon realized what he'd said with a rush of dread and quickly said: "Sorry."

More static.

"Hello?"

The static died down and he thought he heard cursing, but then the voice came through clearer. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah- yes."

"You've been in that fucking asylum, you saw the experiments, put two and two together. I didn't ask to look like this. The name's Miles Upshur and you better remember it because I'm the guy who saved your life, asshole."

Something about the name gave Waylon an uneasy feeling. He repeated: "Miles Upshur...?"

"Yeah, I'm a journalist, nice to meet you, et cetera. I was going to write an article about the mountain of shit Mount Massive Asylum's built on which is why I was there that night. Didn't go as planned, obviously."

There was a wry, cold quality to the man's voice and Waylon felt a foreboding shiver travel through him. Miles Upshur. If this was really one of the journalists he'd sent a mail to, then Waylon was responsible for whatever had happened to this man. Waylon opened his mouth but drew a blank. He knew he was supposed to say something, confess, apologize, but Miles wasn't aware of what Waylon's role had been in all of this. The temptation to let it go unnoticed was utterly wrong, but it was compelling, and Waylon hesitated. Miles spoke before he could make up his mind.

"Give me your name."

"W-Waylon. Waylon Park."

"Okay, Park. I don't care whether you like this or not, we're in this together. You're the only patient I saw in that place who still has his wits about him and I need you. Your camera's with me and I've got a lot of documentation that can help us with this case but that's not enough on its own, so you're going to be the one to testify, since I can't do it."

"I um, I already have."

Miles made a sound caught halfway in his throat, like he'd been about to say something else but Waylon's intervention had cut him off, and there was a beat of silence.

"What?"

"A police officer came over and I told him what happened."

"Are you a moron?!" Miles barked, and Waylon recoiled from the phone.

""I... I didn't know what else to-"

"Well not fucking that!"

"What's wrong with what I did? He believed me, he said they were going to look into it!"

"Fuck me. Fuck me, you're an idiot. Shit," cursed Miles, static growing around their connection. There was a loud smack like something being hit and another curse, distant, distorted. "Shit!"

Waylon fell silent and waited. He didn't know what to say now. The static lasted longer than before but it eventually died down again.

"You've got to get out," Miles tightly said. "Now, before they come back."

"What? I can't- My leg's shattered, I have a hole in my stomach, I'm still hooked up to morphine, I can't move!"

"Listen, Park, you fucked up. Do you really think Wernicke and his goons got up to all their little experiments without anything leaking through? Do you seriously think not a single member of the law enforcement ever heard about what was going on up on Mount Massive when it's less than an hour away? You can't trust anyone!"

"But-"

"You have to get out, now. Make sure to delete this call when I hang up. Flush the paper that has my number on it, you can't let them have anything that could lead them back to us. Tell the nurse you need some air or something. I'll be waiting in the street on the left of the hospital's main doors."

"But-"

"Move your ass," Miles snapped with heavy finality, and then he hung up.

Waylon kept the phone to his ears for a few more stunned seconds, and then let it drop to his lap and nervously looked around. This was serious. He'd never even thought for one second about the possibility which Miles had evoked: that Officer Deilan was not exactly who he'd said he was and that he wouldn't do exactly what he'd said he would.

Waylon felt a wave of acid hot dread wash through him. There was also a desperate, frantic, incredulous part of him that wanted to discard the idea as just a wild conspiracy theory coming from an overcautious and paranoid journalist who'd gone through the same hell as Waylon. Yet, loathe as he was to admit it, this hypothetical scenario didn't seem so far-fetched after all the shit Waylon had seen at work which no one else had batted an eye to. Murkoff had hidden their experiments to the world; buying the law enforcement's complicity and ensuring that they'd keep one software engineer missing surely wasn't outside of their field of competence.

Shit. He needed to get out of here before the police came back.

"Shit," Waylon said out loud in a strangled whisper when he also realized that he'd told Officer Deilan about Lisa and the kids. If Murkoff found them then they'd have him exactly where they'd want him. It was what Jeremy had done.

Waylon fumbled with the phone with cold and clumsy fingers to type out the number he knew by heart. Nausea crawled up the back of his throat but he swallowed it down along with his beating heart. He just needed to take care of this first and then he'd figure out how to escape. He just needed them to be safe before he could ensure that he was safe himself. His nerves thrummed and his gut churned as he hit the green call button. He hadn't heard his wife's voice in so long, hadn't seen his boys in months, wasn't even sure he'd ever get to do that again considering the mess he'd gotten into. He couldn't believe that this was the context in which he was finally going to speak to Lisa again, couldn't believe that he couldn't tell her that he was coming back.

"Hello?"

Her voice hit him like a freight train. It was so comforting in its familiarity, so soft after all the asylum's screaming. It was home like sunlight coming in through the kitchen window. Waylon opened his mouth but his voice was thick in his throat and he had to swallow and cough.

"Hello?" she repeated, a little more insistent. "Can you hear me?"

"Lisa," he choked out.

There was a short beat of silence and Lisa brightly exclaimed: "Waylon?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, and cleared his throat again because he could feel the tears coming on.

"Waylon! I missed your voice so much! How have you been, honey? Are you coming home, or did they just finally let up on the stupid phone policy?"

Waylon blanked on an answer for a second. He was feeling confused, wanting, happy maybe? His mind was a mess and he quickly pushed it all aside to focus. He was good at compartimentalizing, making lists, establishing an order of priority. The only thing that mattered in this very moment was his family's security.

"Lisa, listen, I-- I don't have much time. I got in trouble. It might be very bad, okay? You need to take the boys and hide."

"What?" There was a smile in her voice, disbelief, like he was making a joke and she wasn't dupe enough to fall for it. Or maybe it was a different kind of disbelief.

"Lisa," he repeated with more urgency, which he hadn't thought would be possible. His thoughts were going fast, lights and sparks in circles around his head, pushing his words to tumble over each other. "Lisa, Lisa, please, listen. My work-- it wasn't what we thought. These are dangerous people and I-- I did a dangerous thing."

"Waylon, what are you talking about? Did something happen while you were at the hospital? Are you allowed to be on the phone?"

"I wasn't-- I saw what they told you, I found an email, about my resignation and my mental health. Lisa, it's lies. They lied to you!"

"I fucking knew it," said Lisa, her voice suddenly tense and serious, but there was also a layer of relief. It was quickly overshadowed by worry. "Waylon, you sound terrible. What happened to you? What the hell is going on?"

"I'm sorry, Lisa. They know I escaped, they know about you. They've threatened me before and they'll do it again."

"What did they do to you?"

Waylon opened his mouth to try and explain, but then he decided they couldn't afford to waste any more time. This wasn't what was important right now. "Just get out. Get out of the house. Don't go to someone we know, just- just leave the area. Leave the state. You have to go somewhere no one will expect you to go, and then you have to lay low, okay?"

"How? With what money?? What do I tell the kids?!"

"Vacation, something like that. Lisa, you have to trust me, nothing matters more right now than you getting to safety. Don't think about how we'll handle this later, don't care about the money, just do it. Okay?"

"I don't even know-"

"Lisa," he cut her off. "You can do this, okay?"

He could hear her breathing faster at the other end of the call. He could hear himself doing the same thing, as steady as he tried to make his voice sound. He knew this was his fault. He was the one who'd put all of them in danger, and if something terrible happened to them it would be his fault. He felt like he was drowning and it was taking everything in him not to panic, to stay strong for her, even though he could feel the fear gripping him, even if he knew it was only a matter of time before he was blubbering and snivelling like he had in the asylum because there was little of him he could keep together when he'd lost so much of himself to that hellhole.

"Waylon," she said in a thin voice. Afraid, a little desperate.

"I know you can do this, Lisa. Please. You know you're smarter than me, you'll figure it out."

She always teased him about who was most intelligent and usually it made her laugh to hear him acknowledge it. She didn't laugh this time. Lisa drew in a shaky breath.

"Yes, okay, yes. I can do this."

"You can."

"What about you, Waylon? You're safe?" she asked, hopeful.

He couldn't lie to her. "...No."

"Oh, god." Her voice broke and fear quickened the pace of her trembling words. "Oh god, Waylon, please be safe, please don't do anything stupid. Please stay safe. We need to see you again. I need to see you again."

"I know, honey, I know, I... I'll come back. I love you. I promise."

"God, I..." Lisa choked down a pained sound. "I love you too, Waylon. So goddamn much."

"You and the kids stay safe, okay? Don't let anyone know where you are." Waylon didn't want to hang up but time was running out and he'd done what he'd had to do. He'd warned his family. He gritted his teeth and blinked the tears away and felt like his guts were being ripping apart a second time when he said: "I have to go now."

"Please be all right," begged Lisa.

"I will be," he promised, and he tried so hard to keep the uncertainty out of his voice, but he knew he'd done a poor job of it when ending the call cut off his wife's sob.

Waylon forced himself not to dwell on it. He hastily deleted both the last calls he'd made on his roommate's phone and threw it back on the old man's bed, then looked up at the bag of morphine hanging from the metal bed pole above his head. What did Miles expect him to do if the nurse refused to let him outside in his state, rip out his IV line and run through the hospital with a broken leg and a bleeding everything?

Waylon shook his head. First order of business, sitting up. He groaned when he rolled to the side of the bed and pushed himself off the mattress with one arm, tired and uncomfortable, but not yet pained. He had no idea how he was going to pull this off even if he was allowed downstairs. He was fairly certain he couldn't even walk right now, not without a cane or something. Waylon frowned at himself. He'd done it before with his leg all fucked up and bloody, he could do it again when it was in a cast. The real problem was what would happen if he got caught.

"Waylon Park?"

He looked up without thinking. There were two men walking in dressed in doctors' white coats, and behind them Dr. Pierston harbored a look of doubt that turned into mild surprise when his gaze met Waylon's, then disapproval creased his brow and he stepped forward.

"What are you doing up?" asked Dr. Pierston.

"I just-"

"Mr. Park," firmly said the doctor on the left. Waylon noticed that Dr. Pierston did not seem appreciative of the way he'd interrupted but the other doctor continued: "Do you know who I am?"

Waylon stared at him in confusion, thinking that maybe this was one of the specialists who'd operated on him before he'd woken up here. "Sorry... No."

"You see?" said the man, turning around to face Dr. Pierston.

Dr. Pierston seemed unconvinced and asked: "Mr. Park, do you remember me?"

"Yes, you're my... doctor..." Waylon looked between the three men and finally asked: "What's going on?"

"Don't worry, Mr. Park, we're just figuring something out." Dr. Pierston turned back to his colleague. "There have been some oddities, but I really haven't noticed anything severely wrong."

"Selective," answered the man as he pointed to his own head, "and you're just lucky you haven't encountered a trigger yet. Trust me, he's better off coming back with us."

Something of the way one of the two doctors looked at him as the other said that- a glint in his eyes, a stillness in his features, like Waylon wasn't someone, like Waylon was a thing-- it brutally reminded him of the Morphogenic Engine Program. And then he understood. Waylon suddenly had the most horrible sensation of missing a step, except it was all in his head and he'd frozen up completely on the outside. Somewhere in his brain he thought, Miles is waiting downstairs. The other started shrieking, and a second later so was he.

"No! No!"

"Mr. Park!"

Waylon scrambled to get over the other side of his bed in blind panic, his breath shuddering with the same terror he'd felt when running away from the disfigured patients.

"No! You're not taking me back there!"

His hand slipped on the grimy bed rail and he grunted in pain when he hit the hard flooring. There was blood on the ground, old and new. Flesh and guts glistened beneath the bed. His chest heaved from the raw stench. Someone cursed under their breath.

"Stop, Mr. Park, you're going to pull your stitches!"

"Mr. Park, please calm down."

"Go get the nurse."

Someone rounded the bed. "Mr. Park-"

"Get away from me!" Waylon screamed in terror when he saw a hand coming for him. It jerked back.

"Mr. Park, please listen to me."

Waylon crawled away and grunted in pain when he hit his head against a hard angle he hadn't seen.

"Dr. Pierston, we've handled this before and there's only one way to calm him down when he works himself up like this."

"He's my patient, you can't just come in here and-"

"This'll work best, trust my experience in these matters."

"I'm here," said a feminine voice, and there were more footsteps, and Waylon saw from the glance he cast towards the legs moving around in the room that she hadn't come alone. It was dark here. He kept slipping on wet, cold mush beneath his palms. There was a wheezing whimper in his ears.

Hands grabbed him. Waylon screamed and bucked against them but none of them let go, and he saw a fist stab his thigh with a thin sharpness. He wailed and shook his head back and forth. His throat hurt, his voice was hoarse, there was blood on his tongue. The stench of death clogged his nose. It was dark. It hurt. He was terrified. There was nothing he could do.

There was never anything he could do.

Chapter Text

Miles impatiently tapped the board with his left index finger, his narrowed eyes trained on the hospital's entrance. The Walrider had started seeping out of him again. He didn't try to reign it back in.

Two things had become quickly apparent in his endeavor to control his appearance: pulling the Walrider under his skin was often more effort than it was worth, and people's gazes tended to slip away from Miles when he was shrouded in shadows, anyway. He'd noticed this when he'd been unable to hold onto the Walrider for longer than an hour, since he'd had to stay on the lookout for passerbys and had expected trouble from them, but he'd gotten none. He was pretty sure he could find a pop psychology explanation for this phenomenon, probably along the lines of how a normal brain would subconsciously try to avoid processing what it was unable to understand. After all, the files had been pretty clear about it: only the insane could be used in the Walrider Project.

"The hell is he doing," muttered Miles under his breath. He still sounded like a tomb fugitive with decomposed vocal chords. He wasn't fine with that, no, not at all, but it wasn't like he could do a single fucking thing about it.

The Walrider swelled and ebbed inside the vehicle, growing darker and thicker by the minute. The damn idiot was taking too long and Miles was in no mood to wait. He'd never been a patient guy but recent events had made that worse and they'd also made him more prone to thinking violent thoughts. Maybe he should've found that concerning, but he really didn't give a shit.

There were two patients out in front of the building, an old woman in a wheelchair accompanied by a nursing assistant, and a man still hooked up to a bag on the rolling IV pole who'd come out to smoke a cigarette. Waylon Park still wasn't showing up at the doors.

There was a possibility Park had just gotten lost. So far he'd given Miles no reason to believe that he was very clever and there was also the fact that he'd said he'd been hooked up to morphine. He could've gotten confused. Miles had already waited two and a half days in this car which he'd grown to hate and he couldn't tolerate having to wait a second longer without doing anything, so he decided to circle the hospital just in case he'd find him at the back entrance or something. Miles started to move up the street and turned to the right into the hospital's parking lot, and the pace of his cruising slowed when his watchful gaze landed on a familiar vehicle.

The Walrider expanded and rolled with the wave of anger that washed over Miles. The car looked exactly like the one he'd used to get Park to the hospital, beige and armored, and he knew with absolute certainty which motherfuckers had come for easy pickings.

"Shit," he growled, and he brutally braked a few spots away. The good news was that they were still around. The bad news was that they'd get to Park first, if they hadn't already. Miles checked that the parking lot was mostly empty and climbed out of the car without hesitating. The Walrider spilled into the armored vehicle's hood as he walked past and slipped back out just as fluidly. A cloud of nanites didn't need much time to fuck up any working parts they came across. Miles went around the vehicle and forced the back doors open. He heard them show up minutes later. Footsteps scraped the asphalt outside and there was the sound of metallic wheels rolling closer.

The man who approached first muttered: "What the hell?"

"What happened?" asked a woman's voice.

Miles watched fingers cautiously slip around the hole which he'd torn into the metal door. "Someone busted the handle, look."

"Doesn't matter, help me get him in there. We'll check if anything was taken later."

"No... waiting..." slurred a familiar voice.

"Shut up," sharply ordered the man as he opened the door, and his gaze skated over the shadows wrapped around Miles when he peered in the back of the vehicle. There were two men and a woman wearing the same Murkoff-branded coats of bland greenish hues, standing next to the trolley bed which Park had been strapped to. He wasn't putting up much of a fight and, somehow, this detail surprised Miles more than he would've thought. It wasn't that he perceived the guy as much of a fighter, but he'd survived the Asylum, and that meant something. Park's head rolled limply across the flat headrest.

"Downstairs... waiting..."

His lips stopped moving when he saw Miles crouching at the back of the vehicle. He looked confused and spaced out, but other than that, he looked healthier than when Miles had last seen him. It was glaringly obvious he'd gotten sedated. The man's eyes slowly widened upon recognizing him and his mouth shaped a quiet plea for help. Miles smirked and got up.

"Like you have to ask."

The nurse's head jerked up towards the doctors. "What?"

"I didn't say anything," said one of them.

"Something's in there," breathed the other, pointing at the interior, and then his panicked voice climbed a good amount of decibels. "There's gotta be something in there!"

The second doctor's head whipped towards the car and then continued twisting all the way around when the Walrider ripped his body in several decent-sized chunks. The others watched in shock as his head rolled, his torso fell to the asphalt with a dull thump, and his legs crumpled after it. The first doctor's face twisted in horror. There was a beat of silence.

"Blood everywhere," mumbled Park from where he laid still trapped on the gurney, the side of his face stained red with the spray of a torn carotid artery.

The nurse screamed.  

"Shit!" yelled the doctor, and he fled.

The Walrider swept through the air and laid over his back like a cape. There was an audible quick series of crunches and snaps when the man's ribs popped out of their sockets. He crashed to the ground with a scream of pain which was rapidly choked out by the blood that gushed out of his punctured lungs. Then he just writhed and hiccuped on the ground like a fish out of water.

Miles looked at the nurse next. She was tetanized, shaking, and staring at the sectioned corpse and her dying coworker. Miles came closer just to check if she could see him now. Her gaze darted towards the sound of his footsteps and then flew up in the general direction of his head, but he was certain that she didn't know where to find his eyes. So this meant that witnessing two gruesome deaths wasn't enough trauma to distinguish the Walrider, apparently.

"Please," she begged. "Don't kill me."

"Blood everywhere," Park faintly repeated, his eyes rolling around in wide, sluggish movements.

"Please," the nurse whimpered one last time.

"You should've chosen a better job," Miles said, and behind her the Walrider shrieked again.

He needed to get both him and Park out of here fast so he didn't take the time to watch the black mist ragdoll the nurse's body across the parking lot, and instead hopped down from the vehicle as nimbly as an old man with aching joints. Damn, he was not getting any better. Park was still mumbling to himself in the midst of the woman's screaming and his repetitive mantra continued even after her voice brutally cut off. The restraints were hell to get rid of, especially with missing fingers, and had Miles swearing under his breath a few times until he made the Walrider tear the sturdy loops apart in his stead. Then he callously grabbed the guy by his shoulder and ordered: "Get up."

Park finally focused on him with wide eyes. "...Monster."

"Yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up."

Miles forced him off the gurney, and just like it had gone down at the Jeep, Park lurched forward and smacked into him with a pathetic sound.

"Goddamn it," muttered Miles. "You're useless."

"Sorry," mumbled Park, and this time he actually made the effort to get off him. He immediately staggered, of course, because his leg was in a fucking cast and he was still high on morphine as well as whichever sedative they'd forced onto him for an easier abduction.

Miles caught him before he toppled over and decided, to hell with it. Park yelped when the Walrider hefted him in the air, and then he started begging to be let go. Miles just grunted and ignored the pleas as he proceeded to drag the other man towards his stolen car. He wasn't careful when he shoved Park inside. He didn't look when the guy broke down in tears in the passenger seat while they hightailed it out of the parking lot.

"Ah, 'm sorry, oh... god, please, don' hurt me..."

"I'm not going to."

"Please-"

"God damn, do you listen to anything I say? I'm not going to hurt you! Stop whining!"

Park hunched in on himself even more and his breath shuddered on a sob, but at least he did shut up. Miles found himself wishing not for the first time that he'd found a more reliable individual. So far he'd only seen Park half-delirious, on the verge of pissing himself, or stupid enough to paint a big red target on his back for the local pigs. Fucking annoying was what the guy was.

"You better have gotten rid of the evidence like I told you to," muttered Miles. He didn't get an answer and shot a suspicious glance to the side. "Did you?"

Park's shoulders were hunched, his face hidden behind his arms where he'd pushed his body in the corner between the seat and the door. He stayed silent. The Walrider stirred with Miles' rising irritation.

"Park," he snapped, and the man jolted. "This is important, stop hiding like a damn child and look at me."

Park shifted and their eyes finally met, though he immediately averted his gaze. Miles knew that his face was not a five star luxury panoramic view but it still irked him. Grow a fucking pair already.

"I..." Park slowly worked his jaw and his brow furrowed lightly as if the act of thinking was a challenge to him. Miles was tempted to categorize this as 'proof that Park is not too bright', but he knew that it was at least in part due to sedatives.

"Today, Park," he snapped.

"...Didn't," finally said the man.

Miles glared at him. "What?"

Park pressed back against the corner with his hands up as the Walrider pooled thickly in the air between them, brows pinched in fear, his words slurring even harder. "Sorry, 'm sorry! "

"I've changed my mind, useless doesn't even begin to describe you. Fuck." Miles' hands tightened around the wheel and a million insults raced through his mind, but then he suddenly felt just very tired. It was a wonder how quickly the simple act of being in Park's presence made him feel this way, despite the fact that Miles had managed to stand strong all the while he'd subjected himself to so many shitty nights and days alone in the car, hanging onto the promise of it, trying to stay determined to see this through despite being what he'd become. He couldn't believe he'd been saddled with such an incompetent moron.

Miles reached into his work jacket to get his phone and said moron whimpered when he crushed it to pieces in his palm with the Walrider's strength. Miles ignored the pathetic sound. He hit the window switch with a bit more force than necessary and chucked his handful of now useless technology outside, where it was swept up by the wind and dispersed along the side of the road. The window rolled back up. Park stayed curled up in his seat and continued to stare at Miles like he expected to get ripped apart any second.

Keeping his eyes on the road, Miles leaned back in his seat and thumped the back of his head against the headrest. He took a deep breath. Without a strong emotion to spur it on, the Walrider had settled. The car's interior was quiet save for the drone of tires gliding across asphalt. It was a heavy silence. He still sensed the tension in the other man's body but he wasn't about to try and defuse it. Part of him truly did want to wring the guy's neck like a chicken. Because of his actions- or rather lack thereof- Miles would have to get a new phone, and while the chances were slim that Murkoff would be able to connect his identity to the phone number he'd written on that piece of paper, he hated to leave anything up to chance.

"Ah... 'm sorry, please don'... hurt me."

Park said it in an inarticulate, clumsy jumble of words that were all tripping over each other but the meaning was fairly easy to make out from the fear in his voice. The guy was probably terrified for many good reasons. Miles wasn't willing to empathize. In his opinion, he was being empathetic enough by not ripping out the moron's trachea on the spot. The fact that Park kept calling him a monster definitely didn't help to harbor good sentiments.

Miles didn't say anything until he saw Park open his mouth again from the corner of his eye, and that was when he let out a world-weary, heartfelt, irrevocable: "Shut up."

Park shut up.

Chapter Text

Waylon jerked out of sleep in blind panic and lashed out to get rid of the hands gripping him. It was cold. The stench of blood surrounded him. His body hurt. His head was heavy, filled with the sound of screaming, and the sharp pain that cracked against his cheek violently threw him to the side.

"Stop screaming," growled a ragged voice.

Waylon blinked, shocked. It was when he felt the rawness in his throat that he understood where the loud screaming in his head had come from. The smell of blood remained, however, and with it the cloying stench of rot and waste. It was dark. He remembered that he was in the car with the monster- Miles Upshur. The black shroud that had earlier pervaded the air like thick fog was lighter now, where it wafted along the top of the car. Waylon could clearly see the man's terrible features and the details of the car he was sitting in, which meant that the darkness came from somewhere else. He swept a confused gaze across his surroundings. It was night time.

"Are you going to do that every time? Because let me tell you right now, it's already getting old."

Waylon looked back at Miles. His face was difficult to read because of its unnatural features of black veins, dark sclera and white irises with no pupils, but it seemed like it was pinched in a cross expression. Waylon quickly shook his head and winced when the motion caused his head to throb, and then the state of the rest of his body suddenly hit him full force. He hunched over with a low groan. Miles stood in front of him, unmoving and unfazed.

"Morphine's run its course?" he asked in a blank tone. Waylon slowly nodded, teeth gritted as he tried to ride the screeching wave of pain. Miles grabbed him by the shoulder again. "Sucks to be you. Get up."

"Where... are we going?" wheezed Waylon.

"Changing cars again since this one was seen. I let you sleep while I transferred all the contents of this car into the other one and I think that was generous of me, now move your ass."

Waylon was not surprised by Miles' lack of sympathy, but that didn't stop him from wishing the other man would go easy on him for once. He gripped the side of his seat, swivelled his legs out of the car, and bit back a cry when his cast landed heavily on the ground. He didn't think he'd ever been in so much pain before. Thankfully, Miles didn't manhandle him for being too slow. Maybe it was because they were safer here than they'd been the other times.

"I need... help. To stand," said Waylon. The words were heavy in his mouth. He felt slow and stupid. Maybe the morphine had ran out, but the stuff the Murkoff personnel had used on him in the hospital visibly hadn't.

"I'd gathered that much." Miles leaned down and slipped his arm around his back. "Up."

Waylon's face twisted with exertion when he forced his abused body to make more of an effort than it could afford, and by the time they'd managed to drag him up, he was panting heavily and feeling faint. His stomach burned where the stab wound was and he remembered that the nurse had warned him about his stitches. He hoped he'd be allowed to stop moving soon.

Miles didn't say anything and maneuvered him towards another car that was idling on the side. This one was a black minivan. Waylon wondered how Miles had got it running and then decided it would be too much effort to ask. He just wanted to sit down again, and he was thankful when Miles didn't throw him in the passenger seat this time. Waylon leaned back and wearily sighed, only to break off in a choked groan. He couldn't breathe without his lungs hitching from the pain in his gut. His eyes cracked open when he didn't hear Miles move away and he noticed that the other man was still standing there. They stared at each other.

"Your body's really fucked up right now, isn't it," observed Miles.

"Yes," said Waylon. If he'd been in a better shape he would've liked to point out that it should've been pretty obvious by now, but he had to save his breath.

Miles' shoulders moved in a slow up-and-down, a silent sigh. "Great."

Waylon frowned at the bitter tone of his voice. "I didn'... ask for this."

"Yeah, so? It's still a problem for me."

Well fuck you too, resentfully thought Waylon.

Miles went to start the car. They didn't talk after that. Waylon didn't even know where they were headed. He dozed off again before he could even think to fight it.

This time he startled awake to the sound of his name. Waylon shielded his face with a cry, bracing himself for an onslaught of pain which didn't come. He peered over his arms, and instead of finding Jeremy Blaire glaring down on him in spite, his gaze landed on a windshield. Disoriented, he swivelled his head around to get his bearings but the kink in his neck promptly dissuaded him from keeping that up. He understood that the car had come to a stop. Miles was seated in the driver's side and looking straight at him.

"You with me?"

"Um... yes," answered Waylon, his voice rough with sleep.

"This is one of my hideouts. It's probably the safest we can do for now considering the state you're in. I would've preferred to keep driving a little further away but I don't want to draw attraction because of your injuries, and I think it's about time I hid the car, so we're making a pit stop for now. You need to get those drugs completely out of your system, too, and then we'll talk about a real plan of action."

Miles didn't wait for an answer before he stepped out. He walked around the front of the car to help Waylon get out like earlier, and then they were climbing up the stairs to some small abandoned house with gray walls. The air was cool and thin and Waylon could hear grass rustling all around him. He had no idea where they were. Miles turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Waylon noticed that there was traces of blood on the handle.

"Come on, get in."

Waylon's gaze flickered from the handle to Miles' blood-encrusted hand and he reasoned that there'd probably been no time for a shower yet. He staggered inside and felt another shudder of unease creep down his spine when Miles shut the door behind them. He couldn't see anything.

"It's... so dark..."

"I need to get to the generator. Sit down and wait here."

Waylon didn't need to be told twice and he sank down to the floor in an uncoordinated heap of sore body parts. The ground felt cold beneath his hands and he quickly brought them to his chest. He'd thought he'd felt humidity sliding beneath his palm just now, but his hands were dry. He didn't want to risk reaching down and checking. He listened to Miles' footsteps retreat and wondered if the man could see without any light. The black cloud felt and looked exactly like what Waylon had encountered in the Asylum. Had Miles somehow contracted it? Was that possible?

Waylon felt like shit. He was cold and afraid and suffering. He didn't know if Lisa and his boys were safe. He didn't know where he was, or what Miles was planning exactly, or even if he'd recover from these injuries without appropriate medical care. This was like a nightmare he couldn't wake up from.

Without realizing it, Waylon was straining his ear for the sounds of the asylum. He still expected at any moment to hear scraping, laughter, dripping, snuffling, chains, humming, creaking. He jumped when something tinged aboved his head. A lightbulb suddenly flickered to life and Waylon blinked fast to adjust to the yellow light spilling in the room, and then his eyes widened when he saw the state of Miles' hideout.

It was dirty, just like the hospital had been, but it was nearly devoid of furniture save for a simple bed and desk. He was alone in here. Waylon was brutally reminded of the small patient room he'd been kept in at the Asylum during his time attending the Morphogenic Engine Programe. They'd kept him drugged and compliant for most of it, just like they'd done earlier at the hospital, and he was just as helpless here as he'd been there.

Waylon felt trapped and his breath was short. They'd done things to him in a room like this while he couldn't fight back. Would he be able to fight back now? Some of the drugs had run their course but he was still sluggish and it was hard to think. Miles reappeared in the doorway and he stopped in his tracks when Waylon's gaze wildly swung in his direction. A frown twisted his marred features. "What?" he sharply said.

Waylon's hands clenched around his thin hospital scrubs. "Don't hurt me..."

"Oh, for fuck's-" Miles shook his head and turned away. "I swear, you piss me off every time you open your mouth."

Waylon watched him leave with a pounding heart. He thought of calling him back in the room but he didn't know what was worse between being alone or having company when he was like this. At least no one had been there to hurt him when he'd been alone. He didn't think so. He wasn't sure. Some things he remembered had probably not been real. Maybe solitude hadn't been much safer after all. It was hard to breathe. Waylon slumped in on himself.

Was it possible to feel this scared even though he was sedated? He felt so tired, wanted to pass out again, yet his frantic brain was stuck in what felt like a strange sluggish version of a panic attack. Waylon closed his eyes and tried to breathe through his nose, but it was difficult to convince himself that he was safe when the smell of Mount Massive was stuck in his nose and Miles Upshur was in the next room ceaselessly radiating danger.

"What's wrong with you now?" Waylon startled and raised a heavy head towards Miles, who was watching him from the doorway. His pale skin was clear of the asylum's grime, his hair was damp, his clothes were clean, but the black veins hadn't disappeared. Waylon wondered how long he'd been phasing out not to realize that Miles had been gone for the space of a shower. The latter observed: "You're looking kind of cagey. More than in the car. We're safe here, didn't you get the memo?"

Waylon glanced all around the room once more. He didn't feel safe with all the stains and general unkempt quality he found to the place. Maybe it didn't remind Miles of the asylum but Waylon couldn't help making the connection. He didn't like this place.

"Are... Are you sure it's... safe?"

"Yeah. Got a problem?"

"It's... hard to breathe in here."

Miles smirked. "I'll gladly throw you out if you need fresh air. My nerves could benefit from a break and I'm sure whoever Murkoff sent after us will keep you great company."

Fresh air sounded nice to Waylon, but he didn't think the horrible smell would ever clear from his sinuses. He didn't think he appreciated Miles' dry sense of humor, either. "That's... not what I meant."

"It sure sounds like you have an issue with my hideout."

Waylon closed his eyes and carefully lowered his head back to his knees, wary not to hurt himself with sudden movements. He was too tired to talk, too worried to think, too scared to give space to anything that wasn't the dull thrum of his unyielding panic. Something inside of him had broken in that asylum and it had gotten stuck in all the wrong ways, all the wrong places, all of which felt irrepairable. He'd hoped and fought to survive every second he'd been forced to spend in that god awful hell and he'd managed to claw his way out of it alive, but Waylon had only felt relieved for the handful of seconds he'd stepped away from the shadows of the asylum into the golden light of dawn. The urgency had returned when he'd seen Miles' disfigured form step out of the asylum after him. It had clamped its ugly jaws around him and it hadn't let go since. He just felt lost and helpless and out of it. Miles didn't feel like an ally. Nothing felt safe.

"...Wish Lisa was here," he mumbled in the warm space between his knees.

"Who's that?"

Waylon looked up again, surprised that Miles would express interest in anything he had to say. "Um... My wife."

"Married, huh," Miles rasped lowly to himself.

"...Yes."

"You do realize that you're probably dead to her, right? I saw their files. They did everything to cut ties between each patient and the outside world."

"It's different... for me," said Waylon, expecting Miles to scoff and tell him he wasn't that special.

But he didn't do that. Instead, Miles stared at him with those eerie white eyes and said nothing. Waylon wasn't sure what he was thinking about. He started to squirm beneath the other man's heavy gaze, but it hurt to move, so he stopped.

"I just remembered. Are you hungry?" suddenly asked Miles.

Waylon was taken aback by the subject change. "No... not really. The doctor said it was... common after surgery."

"Thirsty?"

"... A little."

"Okay."

Miles left and came back with bottled water. He came closer to hand it to Waylon instead of just tossing it, and Waylon instinctively stiffened when he felt the unsettling miasma that surrounded the other man. Miles froze and his eyes narrowed, and Waylon almost blurted out an apology, but Miles shoved the bottle in his chest before he could say anything. "Save it."

Waylon cringed at the painful shove but didn't complain. He took the bottle and noticed for the first time the bandages around the man's fingers, and then the fact that these fingers were unnaturally short, as if they'd been cut at the first knuckle. Both hands were affected. He decided it was better not to ask, given that it was very likely that this had happened in the asylum and that the subject was sensitive for the owner of these wounds.

The bottle was dirty too. He tried to uncap it as Miles walked away to resume his position next to the door, but it soon became obvious to both of them after an embarrassingly long struggle that Waylon had neither the motor coordination nor strength to manage it on his own yet, and Miles had to come close again to help. Thankfully, this time Waylon was spared a verbal jab about how useless he was. It seemed that Miles had finally understood that his capacities were greatly limited for the moment. It was still humiliating.

Waylon took a sip beneath Miles' stern gaze and tasted mold. He choked and coughed to expel the foul water from his throat, and by the time he was done, he was out of breath and doubled over from the pain. His organs felt like they were seizing up.

"Can't drink?" asked Miles.

Waylon shook his head, wiped his eyes and cautiously put down the bottle. "...Later." He kept any remarks he had about the nauseating liquid to himself. Miles seemed angered enough by Waylon's mere presence, and he looked like the type that would take offense to negative criticism about something he'd offered. Instead, Waylon asked: "Did you... eat?"

Miles chuckled a dry, empty sound. "Yeah, right. Like I'd walk in a supermarket looking like this."

"You're not hungry...?"

"No. I guess being... this," Miles vaguely gestured at himself in a short sweeping motion, "means basic human needs don't really apply to me. I haven't slept either, even though I feel tired as shit."

Waylon hesitated. "What does being 'this' mean?"

Miles crossed his arms. "It means I should be dead, but the Walrider's keeping me alive. Ever heard of Billy Hope?"

"No... What's the Walrider? I know the... project name, but..." Waylon trailed off and caught his breath. It was hard to speak. He knew he was still slurring his words, and his lungs never felt like they got enough air.

"I guess they kept other patients separate from all of that. Billy Hope's the poor sod who got selected for that project's higher purpose. Did you go through the Morphogenic Engine Program?"

Waylon nodded. He didn't feel capable of speaking about any of it out loud.

"That was supposed to push the patients who went through it to insanity," Miles told him. "It worked on Billy Hope. They got the results they wanted, and so he ended up forced to host some kind of entity made of nanites called the Walrider. That was one of the objectives of the project. You saw it when it killed the guy who shanked you. From afar it looks like a black cloud that flies around, and up close it takes a humanoid shape for people who are insane enough to see it." Miles paused. "People like you and I."

Waylon tightly held the bottle in his hands. "I'm not. Not... insane."

Miles smirked that same dead smirk. "Keep telling yourself that."

Waylon ignored it. "So that's... what's been making you look... the way you look. Where your shadows come from."

"Yeah."

"It makes sound... like static."

"I guess."

"... It feels dangerous."

"I'd gathered that much from your reactions."

"Is it... alive?"

"No. Nanites aren't alive. It's not like a second consciousness that's in my head, more like another set of limbs that I can use in any way I feel."

"What about the... uh... other people? ...What do they see?"

"The sane ones?" Waylon didn't gratify that with an answer. Miles shrugged. "In my experience, regular people just don't register my presence anymore when I'm shrouded, so I guess they can't process the Walrider's existence in the first place."

Waylon ran his fingers along the plastic bottle. "...You said you were supposed to be... dead."

"Yeah. They didn't like the new Walrider host. Think execution by firing squad. That, and all the shit my body went through when I got attacked by patients, lost my fingers, got exploded out of the building, was thrown around by the Walrider when I took its old host from it, et cetera. I guess they didn't account for the fact that I'm a supercompatible host. Hope needed a life support system so hosting sucked big time for him."

"What happened... to Hope?"

"I pulled the plug."

Waylon stared at him in shock.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. It was supposed to stop the killings. I couldn't know it was going to backfire so badly. Point is, I don't need a life support system, and it was their mistake to assume that there was no human alive who could coexist with the Walrider like I do. But enough about me. You're not actually a regular patient, are you?"

Waylon tensed. "What?"

Miles uncrossed his arms and went to lean against the desk. "Yeah. You're different from all the patients I met. You don't have urges to assault anyone, you're not a cuckoolander, you're not a raving lunatic, you're not calling me God's apostle. I'm not sure you're even a criminal in the first place. The fact that we can hold a normal conversation that never veers off path shows me that whatever they made you suffer through, it didn't completely destroy you the way it did all those other patients. You seem aware of what they did in patient files to isolate their victims and you said your case was different. So who are you, Waylon Park?"

Maybe it was the stress of the conversation or just the fatigue catching up to him again, but Waylon's head was really starting to hurt. He couldn't think straight. He should've known that Miles would figure something out eventually. He was an investigative journalist and a good one at that, judging from the records Waylon had been able to find on him when he'd been searching for people to alert about Mount Massive's wrongdoings. The right thing to do was probably confess. He knew there would be consequences to it but Waylon couldn't imagine what they would be. His brain was rapidly fogging up. He'd always tried to do the right thing.

"I was... an employee."

Miles raised his eyebrows, though he didn't exactly seem very surprised. "Hold on, let me guess. You messed with the wrong people."

"...That's it." Waylon paused and rubbed his aching forehead. It was difficult to keep his line of thought.

"What was your job?"

"...Software engineer."

"Huh."

Waylon imagined that Miles was tucking the information away. He didn't ask more about it, so maybe he didn't deem it that important. God, his head was killing him. It was like the headaches he got after a session of dream therapy. Just the memory of those made his core tremble with an emotion he couldn't name, and Waylon was almost glad that he'd gotten sedated at the hospital. It would probably have been worse to deal with all of this otherwise.

It... would probably be worse once the sedatives wore off completely. He was sure to have at least a few full blown panic attacks then and Lisa wouldn't be there to help him through them. Waylon could not imagine Miles offering that kind of support. He would have to deal with them alone. That would suck. He'd survive, though, just as he always had. He missed Lisa so goddamn much.

"So they slipped you in the patient list and it was over for Waylon Park, software engineer at Mount Massive Asylum. You say you didn't really know much about Project Walrider so I assume you weren't too deep in the belly of the beast."

"... I saw enough," muttered Waylon, and then he hissed when a particularly painful wave wrecked his brain. He clamped his hands over his head despite knowing that it would do nothing to alleviate it.

"Bad migraine?"

"...I didn't use to get them. Before... the dream therapy. From the program."

"Must be some of the sedatives wearing off. You might need another day to get clean. You're still affected, I can tell."

"... Maybe."

"By the way, you might not have noticed but there's a bed right there."

Waylon shot him a look. "I thought it was yours..."

"It was, but I don't care for it since apparently I can't sleep anymore. It's yours for as long as we're here. I may have already forgotten some parts of what it's like to be human and I've noticed I'm even quicker to act like an asshole than before, but even I can tell you need to get back in bed. The car was hard on you."

"I... didn't think you understood."

"I didn't feel like understanding. Now I'm showered and we're safe for a while, so I feel slightly more inclined to play nice. Get to bed."

"I, um. I don't think... I can get up."

"Right." Miles pushed himself off the desk and only looked a little annoyed to have to help for this as well, which felt like nothing short of a miracle to Waylon. He knew he was being a burden to a man who wasn't the most patient individual he'd ever met. Still, Miles lifted him up without a word and helped him go lie down.

"Thank you," breathed Waylon, lowering his head on the pillow.

"Thank me when I get us both out of this mess," drily replied Miles.

A simple 'you're welcome' would have sufficed, thought Waylon, but it was probably wiser not to say it out loud. Miles was already out the door anyway.

Chapter Text

Miles headed back down the hall. He’d really only gone to check on Park because he’d found the place too quiet upon finishing his shower. It shouldn’t have surprised him that he was still freaking out on the floor. He’d left him alone so that he’d get his shit together, but Park’s state seemed to have worsened in the time Miles had spent washing up. 

Maybe it was time to take into account that while Park acted more sane than any other individual Miles had encountered in the asylum, he had been a patient there, and he’d been experimented on. Miles wasn’t blind to Park’s flinches, his crazy eyes, the fact that he’d choked on that bottle of water like it had contained sewage instead. There was no reason for a stomach injury to impede on his ability to swallow liquids without choking on them. Something was wrong with Park, Miles just didn’t know to what extent. He’d make the time to dig deeper when the drugs would be gone from Park’s bloodstream.

He stepped into the bathroom, feeling grateful for the fog still covering the mirror. The details of his shape were blurred enough that he didn’t have to face their inhumanity. He locked the door behind him and walked up to the cupboard to rummage around for the first aid kit. He set it down by the sink, then peeled off the clean shirt he’d thrown on for the express purpose of checking on Park. He didn’t think the guy would enjoy the sight of his bullet-riddled chest when he was already having such a hard time accepting that, beneath all of the Walrider’s shitty manifestations, Miles was human. Had been? He still wasn’t sure if he qualified.

Miles looked down on his bare chest. Beneath the dark hairs, the nanobots continued to leak from the holes of his skin in thin, smoky rivulets. It somehow looked even more disturbing with the blood gone. He took in a breath, then exhaled as he dropped down on the closed toilet seat, grabbing the kit on the way. Miles had taken the decision to remove the bullets on his own, in the hopes that the Walrider would repair his body once the obstacles were out of the way. He zipped open the kit and prepped everything he needed, laying out each item on the empty sink, one by one. Once everything was in order, Miles grabbed the pair of tweezers and stared down at himself again. So many bullets. This would take a while. He gritted his teeth and angled the tweezers towards the bullet hole below his left clavicle.

Miles stood in front of the clear mirror an hour later, towering over a bunch of wet, stained toilet paper crumpled in the sink. He ignored his reflection as he busied himself with cleaning the place. He hadn’t bled that much compared to the other times he’d had to do surgery on himself. The Walrider was as useful as he’d hoped in staunching the blood flow. All he’d had to do was to hold a fistful of paper to each bullet hole for the few seconds it took the nanobots to stop the bleeding completely. He imagined them as a swarm of particles coming together just beneath the level of his skin to form a barrage, preventing whatever blood he had left from escaping. It probably wasn’t how the Walrider worked, but Miles was free to hypothesize.

He still felt pain, apparently. Just… less. Blunt instead of sharp.

Miles finished cleaning the bathroom, put away the first-aid kit, checked that he hadn’t bled on his black sweatpants or that it wasn’t visible at least, and threw the white shirt back over his head. He opened the door and walked to the kitchen next. He knew he’d have to get food for his guest soon, but given that he couldn’t exactly walk around in public, he had little choice but to make their meal come to them. Miles yanked open one of the drawers and dug around the papers until he found the thing he was looking for. He fished out the brand new phone and went to sit at the table, cursing under his breath when ripping apart the plastic and cardboard packaging proved to be more difficult with missing fingers. Miles didn’t want to take a chance with the Walrider for this, so he ended up getting the scissors. 

He sat down at the table, where he discarded the torn packaging on the floor and focused on setting up the phone. Once the loading interface popped up, Miles set it down on the table and turned on his laptop. His gaze drifted away from the screen to the small piles of documents and files he’d haphazardly dumped on the table earlier. A lot of them were stained with his and Park’s blood. The camera sat in the middle of the papers, small and unassuming. He’d nabbed it before leaving Park on the street for an ambulance to come fetch. If Miles hadn’t been so fucked up in appearance, he wouldn’t have needed to go back to the hospital to pick him back up. He had everything he needed right here. Everything, except a face that people would trust.

Miles connected his laptop to the neighbor’s shitty wifi–not their fault, they were too far away for him to get a good connection–and ordered some food online. Burgers and fries. If Park didn’t eat it, Miles would. Despite not feeling hunger anymore, he was hoping that he would still enjoy the taste and consistency of hot junk food. He could do with a boost to his morale. It would take about half an hour for it to be delivered at the address he’d given out, further down the street, so he had some time to kill before he had to go there. He decided to research the patient sleeping in the room next door.

Waylon Park, thirty-four years old, dressed like a nerd in every one of his pictures–even the professional ones. His social media indicated that he’d lived in Colorado pretty much all his life, having moved from Boulder to Leadville about a month ago. Park hadn’t lied about his profession as a software engineer. Strangely enough, there was no mention of Murkoff anywhere. Even his professional network profile didn't mention that he'd found a job at Mount Massive. Miles saw that he’d graduated cum laude from Berkeley and raised an eyebrow at that. Not so stupid, then… Unless the experiments had fried his brain. 

Miles continued digging and noticed that his lifestyle seemed to have undergone some downsizing over the last years: smaller house, smaller yard, no more pool. Pictures of his two sons River and Michael holding expensive electronics while Park continued to wear his ratty Converse and the same weathered coat. His wife Lisa, carrying the same handbag every time it showed up. Financial issues, maybe? Which would explain why Park had jumped on the job offer in Leadville without reading the fine print on his Mount Massive Asylum contract. But it was all purely hypothetical. The main question was how and why Park had gotten himself committed as a Variant. Maybe he hadn’t realized the grave consequences there could be for being too nosy. He’d only been working for them for a short time, after all. 

Miles was distracted by his phone lighting up. His gaze flew to the time on his computer. He’d forgotten about the food. Miles unlocked the phone and checked the message, which informed him that the containers had been dropped off where he’d asked. He replied to confirm that he’d received the information and automatically grabbed his jacket from the couch, but then stopped in his tracks when he remembered that it was totally trashed. Miles let it drop back down with a bitter twist of his lips, and went to dig through the near-empty closet behind the entrance. He found a black coat covered in spiderwebs and dust, flapped it around to get rid of the worst part, and shrugged it on.

The neighborhood was not very well illuminated, but Miles still took the precaution of weaving around the few lamp posts that were in the street, just in case. His feet led him to the abandoned building site at the end of the road. He went to open the rusty mailbox behind the dilapidated picket fence and pulled out the bag of food, pushed the small door closed with a long, high-pitched squeak, and spun back around. The smell was delicious and familiar, and Miles allowed himself the false reprieve of imagining that it was synonymous with a return to normalcy. His appetite remained a no-show, but it felt nice to hold the warm bag against his chest, supported by his arm so that he wouldn’t have to feel his missing fingers.

Miles returned to the hideout and shucked off his shoes and coat at the entrance. He padded into the living room and heavily fell on the couch, then leaned forward and set the bag down on the small table in front of his knees. With a weary sigh, Miles opened the crinkling paper bag and pulled out the first box he touched. Inside, he found a thick burger and some golden fries. The burger was more bread than meat, and the fries were less numerous than they’d been in the picture, but it felt like luxury after the asylum’s rot and gore. Miles pushed the image out of his mind and focused on the sensations of biting into the soft warm bun, of the sauce’s tanginess on his tongue, of the charred aftertaste of the meat he was chewing. 

Miles stared at the burger, then swallowed his bite with unease and put it back down in the box. Charred didn’t do it for him. Again, Miles tamped down the images and smell of a burning cross, and he reached for the fries instead. They were crispy and greasy, and most importantly, they tasted safe. Miles proceeded to eat all of them. He wasn’t hungry, but the comfort was real. He realized when he was done that he did feel a little better, physically. He remembered Billy Hope’s feeding tubes. Miles figured that it made sense that food was still something his body required. It was also a reassuring sign that his body could possibly heal despite being half-dead. 

Miles wiped his hands on one of the paper napkins and got up to throw his trash out. He didn’t go see if Park was hungry. If the man wasn’t waking up from the smell, then sleep was the priority. Miles washed his hands and dried them on his shirt on his way back to the table. Not feeling hunger and still finding a use to eating was one thing, but for Miles, not feeling tired was also coupled with the complete inability to sleep. For all the nights in his life where he’d wished sleep wasn’t necessary in a human being’s capacity to function, he missed not having the choice to pass out on the couch. But it was fine. He had work to do.

The peace lasted for a day straight before sounds of Park waking up reached Miles’ ears. He paused in his typing when he heard a yell. Something hit the floor, and he got up from his chair when Park started gasping and groaning. He yanked the door open and found a sweaty, twitchy Park lying in a heap on the ground. The man shot him a look of pure panic as soon as he realized that Miles had stepped in the room with him. There we go, crazy eyes. Miles felt the beginnings of annoyance flicker inside of him. 

“What are you doing?”

Park scrambled backwards on all fours and hit the back of his head against the bed with a solid thunk, followed by pained cringing and a pathetic whimper. Miles clicked his tongue. As if the guy needed any more injuries to add to his tally.

“Stop losing your shit, Park. Did you forget where we are?”

Park frantically shook his head, his breaths coming too quick, too shallow. His voice was a wheeze. “No, no, no… No… No, no, no…”

The drugs, maybe? But it had been more than twenty-four hours, and knowing Murkoff’s sadistic methods, they would’ve wanted him to be conscious of what was happening soon after discharging him from Saint Vincent’s. Maybe it was the after-effects of the sedatives, a rebound effect.

“Park.”

Park looked up at him with eyes so huge they looked like they were going to pop out of his head. A beat passed and his expression only twisted even further in fear. He looked like he was on the verge of puking. Miles realized that Park didn’t recognize him, and then, belatedly, that he wasn’t reigning in the Walrider and that it was probably all Park could see. Before Miles could say another word, Park blanched, doubled over, and then he did throw up all over the floor.

“Oh, fucking great.”

Park gasped and retched two more times until he stopped spewing thin yellow bile, and then it was just dry-heaving. Miles rubbed his face and stared up at the ceiling. This was probably a panic attack. Park did seem like the kind of guy who was prone to anxiety after what had gone down at Mount Massive. Miles let his hand drop back to his side and made the effort to pull the Walrider back beneath his skin, then crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, waiting. Miles noticed the way Park’s shoulders relaxed minutely as soon as the shadows receded, even though Park hadn’t yet looked up and seen that the Walrider was gone. Maybe he got more affected by its presence than Miles had originally thought. At any rate, Park’s hyperventilating wasn’t stopping, and it was quickly grinding Miles’ patience down to a nub.

“Park,” he tried again.

Park continued panting, but he did look up in his direction. His gaze quickly darted around the room and then back to Miles’ face. He gasped, swallowed, clenched at his scrubs with white-knuckled hands.

“M-Miles?” he asked, his voice strained and quiet, like he wasn’t sure. His face was pinched in pain.

“Yeah. You know anybody else who’d put up with your shit right now?”

“Where are we?” Park looked around the room again. “Oh, god. Are we back… back to…”

“No,” slowly said Miles. Slow was what Park seemed to be. “We’re in my hideout. The one you think isn’t safe, even though it is.” 

Park shook his head and moved to get up, but then made a sound like a hiccup and immediately collapsed against the bed. Miles frowned when he noticed the blood his hand left behind on the covers. Park stared at the imprint with a dazed look of confusion, but Miles quickly put two and two together. He walked over to the other man. Park flinched when he noticed his approach, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid Miles’ hand when he gripped him by the arm.

“Get up, on the bed. You probably ripped your stitches.”

Park made a sound of protest, but Miles manhandled him on the bed anyway. Despite them being the same height, the guy didn’t weigh much, especially with Walrider strength on Miles’ side. He pulled up Park’s scrubs to assess the situation and determined that this would require some damage control.

“Stay here, don’t move,” he ordered, and he left without making sure that Park was obeying.

He was back from the bathroom with the first-aid kit a few seconds later, which he threw to the side of the bed. Miraculously, Park had not gone and crawled out. He did cringe away from Miles when his hand came too close to Park’s head. Too close by a fucking mile.

“Calm down,” said Miles. “Or are you going to have another little episode if I touch you?”

Still shaking, Park did manage to shoot him a glare. 

Finally, some spine. Miles gestured at the kit. “There’s needle, thread, and disinfectant in there. You need new stitches. Three, from the looks of it. I’d help, but apparently I’m radioactive to you. Can you handle this yourself?”

Park looked like he had to debate on the matter, but he finally said: “...Yes.”

“Good. And clean your hands with the sanitizer first,” said Miles, and he left.

He returned to check on him five minutes later, because that’s how long it would have taken him, and found Park laying on the bed with his eyes closed. Of course, Park being the sad miserable loser that he was, he'd passed out after completing the first stitch and there was blood leaking through the hole that remained. This was about what Miles had expected of him. He came closer and picked the needle out of Park’s limp, bloody hand. Slapping him awake was tempting, but it was probably for the better that he wasn’t conscious enough to freak out about Miles being in such close proximity while he finished the job.

Miles already knew that this was going to be a fucking rodeo if– and probably when–Park woke up. He didn’t see how else the impromptu stitches would go down. Park was not the kind of guy to clench his jaw and bear it. He’d probably lose his shit all over again, and Miles would need to use the Walrider, and Park would lose whatever little shit he hadn’t lost yet. Miles shook his head to himself. Didn’t matter. It had to be done, and if he could get the second stitch in without Park trying to wriggle away, it would already be a small victory. 

Miles washed his hands with the alcohol-based handrub, studying Park’s work as he waited for them to dry. Considering this was probably the first time he’d had to suture his own wound, it wasn’t too shoddy for a beginner sewing himself back up. Miles picked up the antiseptic and dabbled some on a piece of cotton, which he swiped around Park’s wound, collecting the drying blood. More fresh dribbles spilled down his skin, but Miles wasn’t going for spotless. Germless was sufficient. He took a new piece of cotton and soaked it in antiseptic as well, but he used this one to wipe the needle clean, and then put in a new thread. 

Miles leaned in close and focused on the wound. He felt something switch in his mind, the whole of his attention sliding closer to the suture. Park twitched beneath his fingers. Miles’ gaze darted up and he saw Park’s eyes fluttering open at the same time as he noticed the Walrider’s shadows swirling around them. He realized what the switching sensation had been.

Well, shit, here we go, thought Miles.

Park’s eyes widened, and he screamed.

Chapter Text

Waylon desperately fought the looming shape that held him down. He writhed and twisted against the unyielding grip, kicked fruitlessly at the air even as the movements sent pangs of pain through his stomach, but none of it mattered. It was so dark in the room, and he could hear a singing voice, that unmistakable smooth diction of light words which should have been harmless, but instead promised unspeakable horrors. Waylon tugged harder at the restraints around his wrists, looked down in panic, saw the bindings tying him down to a wooden table covered in gore. His breath caught in his throat from the shock. He looked up, straight into Eddie Gluskin’s unblinking, dark-rimmed eyes. Horror doused his brain in acid. He was back there.

“No! No, no, fuck! Fuck!” he screamed, spittle flying from his lips. 

Old-timey music filled the air, bouncing off the walls in mellow ripples, undisturbed by his raw, desperate screaming. Gluskin’s shadow stood over him, dirty teeth showing fully in a grin that ripped his face in two.

“Darling… Darling. You could be so beautiful.”

“Let me go! Let me go!” shrieked Waylon. Nobody heard him. Nobody was listening.

“I want you to have my baby,” calmly said Gluskin, voice deep and suave, an ugly mimicry of seduction.

Tears streamed down the sides of Waylon’s face and trickled down his ear canals. “Please let me go,” he heaved through the stale air that reeked of rotting organs. 

“My love. I could never let you go.”

Eddie Gluskin leaned in closer, his wide, blood-sunken eyes glinting madly in the dark. Waylon felt ice-cold fingers brush against the inside of his thigh. It burned and pierced him like a knife slowly ripping into muscle, slicing him open all the way up to his groin.

“Please! Fuck, oh, fuck, no!” wailed Waylon. 

“After the ceremony, when I’ve made an honest woman of you…”

“No!” screamed Waylon, his voice breaking on a frantic sob, shaking his head wildly. “No, no, no! Please! No! Don’t, don’t!”

Gluskin stabbed him. A grotesque splitting sound tore through the air, bone and flesh caving into the hollow shape of a man-made womb. Waylon screamed. There was pain, but beyond that, there was the mindless horror of seeing his own flesh get mangled by another man’s hands and being utterly powerless to stop it.

“Stay still,” snapped Gluskin, his voice lashing out, suddenly dark and feral. “You’ll bleed out.”

“Please don’t,” begged Waylon, heaving between his uneven words. “Please, stop, please, no, no, no!”

“Fuck,” said Gluskin. He didn’t sound ecstatic when he said it. He sounded irritated.

Waylon’s breaths came fast and ragged, too fast and too ragged, his ears full of tears and rushing blood. “Please…”

“Can’t go a minute without you flipping your lid, no, that’d be asking for too fucking much,” muttered the heavy shadow. So heavy, Waylon couldn’t breathe.

“Help,” he gasped.

“Just, fucking… There. There, it’s done, okay?”

The shadow moved away. Waylon still couldn’t breathe. He clawed at his neck with frantic hands, choked sounds slipping out of his tight throat, pathetic and crushed. A sudden pain flashed bright and loud in his head, and Waylon laid there with a throbbing cheek, staring blankly at a room that wasn’t quite as dark as it had been just seconds ago.

“For fuck’s sake, Park… You keep making me do this.” A solid pair of hands gripped his shoulders and shook him. “Look at me.”

Waylon’s wild eyes spun around until his gaze finally landed on a familiar face which, although arguably more monstrous than Gluskin’s, was not as dangerous.

“The Walrider’s gone, get your shit together,” said Miles in a hard voice.

Waylon blinked, his shoulders shuddering beneath Miles’ hands as he continued to gasp and pant. He was cold, his body felt in pieces, he could still hear a distant singing voice. But now, he could see that he wasn’t in the asylum. His gaze darted down and he saw that there was no wooden table, but a bed. No restraints, but his fists clenched in the bedsheets. The smell remained. So did the stains.

“Ah…”

Waylon’s voice trailed off. He had no idea what he’d wanted to say.

“Are you with me?” asked Miles. Blunt, serious, impatient.

Waylon nodded. Miles let go of him, and he suddenly felt even more unmoored than before.

“About time."

“What… What happened?” managed Waylon.

“You barely did one of the stitches I asked you to do. You freaked out when you woke up, so I had to hold you down to do the rest.”

Walon stared at him as his brain slowly put the pieces together. Then, he frowned. His voice quivered slightly with an unnamed feeling, something somewhere in the middle of fear, upset, and betrayal.

“You used the Walrider?”

Miles picked up the mess on the bed. “Didn’t have much of a choice.”

Waylon was silent. He’d known that Miles didn’t hold him in high respect, and clearly he wasn’t the type to take into account such a measly thing as feelings in a situation like theirs, but Waylon couldn’t help but feel like this had been some sort of violation. He couldn’t put the words on what it was exactly, so he didn’t say anything.

“You haven’t eaten. I ordered food, there’s a burger in the kitchen.”

Miles turned around with his hands full of the soiled remains of the suture kit and left the room without another word. Waylon listened to his footsteps recede. His side numbly throbbed. He knew that his body was in pain, but he could barely feel it.

Waylon showed up in the other room a while later. Miles didn’t say anything when he padded in the kitchen, he didn’t even lift his gaze from the computer set on the table in front of him. The surface was littered with papers and files. Waylon looked around for the promised burger, and saw a paper bag propped up against the microwave. He went to it and pulled out the sole container he could find inside. There was a fry lying at the bottom of the bag, but it was the only one of its kind. Waylon frowned at it when he understood that this likely meant Miles had eaten all the fries he’d ordered.  He kept the observation to himself.

The burger was cold. Waylon contemplated putting it in the microwave, but even the thought of heating up his food didn’t make him any hungrier. The place smelled terrible wherever he went, and the burger didn’t smell like a burger. He closed the container and carefully put it back into the paper bag.

“What are you doing?” said Miles at his back, making him jump.

Waylon spun around. “Nothing.”

“The burger’s for you. Eat it,” said Miles in a slower tone than usual, like Waylon was stupid and needed the instructions to clear up the situation.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat.”

“I said I’m not hungry,” Waylon replied a bit testily.

Miles stared at him with those unnatural black eyes for a second, then looked back down at his screen and resumed typing. Waylon pulled a chair to him and sat down with his arms crossed, hunched over on his sensitive stomach. He didn’t want to stay in the same room as the Walrider’s host, but the thought of going back to the bedroom where his nightmares lingered made him shudder, and the Walrider was nowhere to be seen for now. As much of a callous jerk as he was, Miles was the lesser of two evils.

“You need to get groceries,” said Miles.

Waylon stared at him, confused by the sudden remark. “What?”

“You’re normal-looking. You need to get groceries. There’s a store three streets away.”

He frowned. “I’m injured. I’ll look suspicious.”

Miles lifted an unimpressed brow, his eyes not moving away from the computer. “You can walk, can’t you?”

“... Sort of,” Waylon answered.

Without raising his head, Miles slid a wad of cash laid atop a piece of paper in his direction. “There you go.”

Waylon slumped in his seat, simultaneously resentful and defeated. “What do you want me to get?”

“Staple foods. The cheaper the better, and it has to be enough to last us two weeks without the need of a kitchen. Anything that can be cooked on a stove is fine. Get two burner phones so that we can communicate while you’re at it.”

“Why do we need food which doesn’t require a kitchen? You have one.”

Miles finally looked at him. 

“Use your brain, Park, or whatever’s left of it. We’re not going to stay here forever.”

Waylon pressed his lips together. Miles’ behavior rankled him, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. He laid a weary hand over the cash and slid it back to him, before slowly, cautiously pushing himself up off the chair. He was halfway out the kitchen when he heard Miles’ voice again.

“Try not to freak out in the middle of the road.”

Waylon hunched his shoulders and resisted the temptation to mumble some unsavory words under his breath as he walked off.

The visions hadn’t left him. Though he could only hear one pair of footsteps as he made his way down the street, Waylon felt like he was being stalked. The stench had abated somewhat once he’d stepped out in the open late evening air but it was still hard to breathe. His heart thudded a sick rhythm in his ribcage. Waylon knew that he hadn’t stopped panicking since the incident in the bedroom, he’d only managed to tamp it down to a superficial appearance of normalcy just as he’d been forced to do most of his life. A bittersweet pang of acute loss shot through him when he thought of Lisa again. He hoped that she was alright. He missed her so much that the thought of calling her had crossed his mind when Miles had mentioned getting a burner phone, but then he’d remembered the cop in his hospital room, and he told himself that it was better not to reach out to her so soon.

Waylon hobbled on, his hand constantly leaning against a wall to compensate for his lack of crutches, following the directions which Miles had written out on the small piece of paper. The pain was slowly ebbing through the thick fog of adrenalin-fueled numbness that had wrapped around his senses. His progress was extremely slow-going. On top of the pain, he kept throwing nervous glances over his shoulder every so often. 

It was a struggle not to fall completely into his panic when his gut told him incessantly that Gluskin wasn’t gone, would never be gone, even if he had seen his corpse hanging from the ceiling. Waylon had a mission to fulfill, and he knew that Miles had seen him off with that last warning sentence for good reason, as unpleasant as it had been. They couldn’t afford a return trip to a hospital or any kind of establishment that would leave a trace of their existence.

Reaching the store wasn’t easy. Taking out a cart was a brief respite when he realized that it helped with his walking. Going inside, limping around the isles, brushing shoulders with other people was the worst ordeal yet. Waylon’s vision swam. Sounds and visuals flashed across his brain like cut pieces of film, ceasing when he blinked and shook his head, but never for very long. He kept thinking that there were pieces of meat lying on the ground in corners, nooks and crannies, but each time he looked closer, there was never anything there. 

Waylon barely saw which items he grabbed off the food shelves and dropped in the cart. He didn’t take many, and definitely not two week’s worth of sustenance. The fact that he thought to grab the phones was only due to him fortunately walking past the right section on his way towards the exit. By the time he reached the cash register, he was having trouble standing straight and his face was coated with sweat.

The cashier, a young man with blue eyes and a smattering of acne scars across his cheekbones and forehead, shot him a look of concern when the moment finally came to ring Waylon up. Neither of them said anything as the machine beeped through the few items he’d collected, until it was time to pay. The cashier told him the price, and Waylon reached into his pocket to pull out his cash. His fingers shook as he counted out the bills.

“Uh… Sir?”

Waylon looked up, and blinked through a temporary white haze. The cashier’s face was a bit blurry. Waylon tried to keep his voice steady and polite, like a normal individual, a normal customer, not an escapee from a mental asylum shelter to horrific human experiments.

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s just that you look really pale, and–”

“I’m fine,” repeated Waylon forcefully, shoving the bills in the cashier’s direction. “Here. I’ll take a plastic… plastic bag.”

The cashier closed his mouth and took the bills from his trembling hand, though he still looked unsure. They didn’t speak again while he counted the change and handed it to Waylon with the bag. The groceries hit the bottom of the bag with a rustle as Waylon shoved them off the counter as fast as he could, and then he staggered off without another word. As he approached the door, he saw the cashier’s reflection in the glass pane. The young man’s gaze followed him even as he was ringing up the next person. Waylon averted his gaze and pushed the empty cart outside, heavy plastic bag swaying from his elbow as he walked.

Waylon put the cart back where he’d found it, then stared at it longingly for a few seconds as the bag weighed heavily on his tired arm. It had really helped quite a lot, but he couldn’t steal it. Waylon finally turned away and slowly made his way out of the parking lot. It dawned on him very quickly that he wouldn’t make the trip back in one go. Waylon managed a few more yards before dropping into a crouch next to the wall, panting heavily over the half-open bag where it laid between his legs. He didn’t know if he’d be able to make it. 

He didn’t have a choice. Waylon took a moment to catch his breath, and then got back up and started limping forward once more. 

It was only three streets. It was only three streets, but he was so tired, and he couldn’t even walk correctly. The mess of flesh and bone caught in his cast which he called a leg felt like a node of faulty wiring that sent screaming, erroneous signals to his brain. The wound in his stomach begged him to lie down. Waylon kept moving. He didn’t have a choice. Miles was waiting for him, and Gluskin was close behind. Waylon had the unshakeable feeling that if he stopped for a second too long, something terrible would happen to him.

The paper was damp with sweat in his hand, some of the writing faintly smudged where his sweat had diluted the ink, but he managed to find the safehouse again. Waylon dragged himself up to the door and dropped his hand on the handle, pulling it down with the weight of the bag hanging from his arm. The door slowly swung open. Waylon shuffled his heavy feet inside and dropped the bag on the ground. The contents spilled out, one of the cans rolling to a stop against the opposing wall, but he didn’t pay it any attention. His hand gripped the handle harder as he swayed, and his other hand shot out to steady himself against the wall. He swallowed bitter saliva. His head felt light, spinning, and the skin of his stomach throbbed warmly beneath his clothes as he breathed hard through the pain and exhaustion.

Miles rounded the corner, his eerie gaze landing on the fallen groceries.

“What did you get?” 

“I think… I got flagged,” mumbled Waylon.

“What?”

“Cashier.”

“It’s fine, we’re not hanging around here for long anyway. I asked you what you bought.”

Waylon opened his mouth to answer: “I don’t know.” 

What came out was a faint string of  sounds that could have been words if he’d had the strength to listen to himself. Miles’ head snapped in his direction, and he took a step towards Waylon, his arm beginning to reach out. That was the last thing Waylon saw before a sudden darkness rushed his vision. His hand slipped from the wall and he pitched forward, his consciousness flickering out of existence before he’d even hit the ground.

Chapter Text

Park dropped like a bag of bricks.

Miles hissed: “Shit.”

He managed to grab onto Park’s clothes with his outstretched hand, fisting them tight enough that he managed to break Park’s fall despite his missing fingers. The strain of it sent pangs of wrongness through Miles’ hand and he cursed again. The lower part of Park’s body slumped in a heap on the ground, and Miles heard the solid thunk of the cast hitting the hard floor before Park’s dead weight pulled him down into a crouch. He yanked the other man upright so his head wouldn’t touch the ground. It lolled heavily against Miles’ knee. Park’s face was slack, covered in sweat, and deathly pale.

Miles’ first thought was to check the wound on his stomach, and he hastily yanked Park's jacket and shirt, expecting the warm damp weight of blood-laden fabric in his hand. He was already annoyed by the prospect of having to use another suture kit so soon after the first one, but was surprised to find only a moderate stain on the inside of Park’s shirt. The recent sutures had held up fine. Miles pulled the clothes back down, and adjusted his hold on Park’s limp body. 

“For fuck’s sake… Stop passing out on me for two minutes.”

Park didn’t react to his voice. Even unconscious, his breathing remained labored and his eyebrows furrowed in pain. Miles stood up and dragged Park under the shoulders to the living room. He wasn’t delicate about dumping the other man on the couch, but it was either that or using the Walrider. Miles had already taken the decision to only use the latter as a last resort for as long as Park’s injury wasn’t minimally healed. He didn’t want to run the risk of having to sew stitches again because of yet another freak-out that could’ve been avoided.

Park’s intact leg hung off the couch at an uncomfortable angle. Miles pulled it up and unceremoniously dropped it next to the other one, then took a moment to touch one of his fingers to the clammy skin of Park’s neck. He felt a racing pulse. Miles knew how to recognize the basic signs of blood loss, which he suspected to be the cause of Park’s multiple fainting spells. He had no doubt that the hospital had ordered a transfusion to ensure the safety of a surgical intervention, but it likely hadn’t been enough, and Park had bled out again in the bedroom when he’d struggled in his delirium. 

The blood loss was only one of the many possible causes behind Park’s collapse, really. He was probably in a lot of pain since the meds had run out, hadn’t wanted to eat or drink, and the fact he’d been passed out for an entire day didn’t necessarily equate to good sleep. Miles pulled his hand back and stared at Park’s inanimate form. He’d known it would be risky to send the man out in the open to go grocery shopping this soon, but he hadn’t expected the trip to be this taxing on Park’s body. He’d have to be more careful. He couldn’t risk running ragged his only chance at taking down the Murkoff Corporation.

Miles turned around and went to pick up the groceries in the entrance for a quick inventory. Two cans of baked beans, a box of rice, two bags of pasta. He frowned and walked to the open door to see if Park had left some other bags out on the step, but there was nothing there. He’d only brought back one bag. Miles’ lips pulled downwards in discontent when he realized the meager amount of food Park had purchased. He slammed the door shut and looked at the other man’s unmoving body on the couch with a hard stare. The Walrider prickled beneath his skin, threatening to break out through his anger and irritation. 

Miles forced it back and swallowed the scathing words on his tongue. He wasn’t above cursing at an unconscious person, but Miles knew that Park wasn’t exactly to blame. He’d done what Miles had asked of him to the best of his capabilities, injured and insane as he was. Miles shouldn’t have expected anything more out of a Mount Rushmore patient, no matter if he’d once been an employee and seemed better off than an average variant.

Miles walked to the kitchen and threw the bag down on the table with a loud clatter, then went to fill a glass with water at the sink. He stepped around the chairs and stopped next to Park.

“Wake up.”

Park showed no signs of hearing him. Miles reached down and shook his shoulder.

“Hey, wake up.”

When that didn’t work, he slapped the man’s stubbly cheek a few times, and finally dumped half the glass of water over his face. Park’s eyes shot open in alarm, and he promptly pulled himself on his side, spluttering. He groaned and jack-knifed on himself, holding his stomach. The water dripped off his face onto the couch and floor.

“Ugh…”

Miles waited. Park looked up and finally saw him standing there, squinting through the droplets of water in his eyes.

“You passed out,” Miles informed him. “You didn’t re-open your wound, though. Here, some water.”

He brought the glass closer to Park’s face, but the man flinched away from it and wrinkled his nose in disgust. Miles’ chest twinged with a burst of irritation and he pulled back. It didn’t look like Park would ever get used to the state of Miles’ hands.

“Fine, you’ll drink later.”

He went to set the glass down on the table.

“The cashier,” muttered Park. “He was staring at me.”

Miles turned around and leaned against the table with crossed arms. 

“I told you, it’s fine. We’re leaving tonight.”

“Tonight?” echoed Park.

“Yes.”

“Why… Why did you make me go buy groceries now?”

“Because I intend for us to go on a two-week road trip of little to no contact with other people. We need time to build our case and recover. I don’t want us to leave a trail of sightings in our wake if we go shopping at every stop.” Miles glanced at the bag. “It’ll have to be one week, though.”

Park was a bit slow to react, but his voice had hardened when he said: “I tried, alright? It was far, and I’m… I’m not in a good state.”

“I know,” said Miles. 

“You made me go there even though I told you I was injured. You can’t– You can’t be angry that I didn’t do everything like you wanted.”

“I know,” repeated Miles. 

Park’s features shifted, faint confusion overlaying his defensive frown for a brief moment. He stared distrustfully at Miles. 

“So what now?”

“Now we get ready to leave. You can change your clothes with some of mine, and you really have to get some food and water in your body before you pass out on me for the hundredth time.”

Park looked over at the glass of water. He slowly shook his head. “I don’t want–”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Miles interrupted.

Park closed his mouth and looked at him.

“You’re a grown man. Have the common sense to look after yourself,” Miles admonished him.

Park muttered, “You sent me on a shopping mission three streets away on foot.”

“It’s not like you could drive with your leg in a cast.”

“On foot, without crutches, right after giving me new stitches.”

“I never said it was a reasonable course of action. It was the only one we had, and you knew that, which is why you said yes. Don’t try me,” said Miles in a harsh voice. “It’s not my job to make sure you’re okay, Park. I’m not paid to be your goddamn babysitter.”

Park glared at him. “I’d gathered that much.”

Miles didn’t know how it was possible, but Park never failed to set his teeth on the edge each time they had a conversation. It shouldn’t have been like this. Rationally speaking, they were both survivors of something unspeakable, so it should have reassured them that they weren’t alone in this; yet, they couldn’t stand each other. Irritation built inside of Miles, itching and burning, and the Walrider thrummed with each pulsing image that flashed through Miles’ mind of tearing the other man apart. 

Park’s face twitched and he pushed himself back into the couch, his wild gaze darting about. No doubt he’d sensed how close the Walrider was. Miles clenched his fists against his chest and forced his heavy voice to stay even.

“Just get ready.” 

He turned his back on Park and left the room before the Walrider could crawl its way out of his skin. 

When it was time to go, the glass was drying on the rack next to the sink. The burger hadn’t been touched. Miles threw it out in the trash with the rest, the greasy meat and charred smell still not sitting well with him. He felt a bit annoyed to have bought both of the burgers for nothing, but he couldn’t be assed to tell Park to fucking eat . In fact, he couldn’t be assed to tell Park anything at all after their latest conversation, and it seemed that this feeling was mutual. The only words they exchanged was when Miles went to get him and jerked his thumb towards the driveway, telling him to get in the car. They were silent when they climbed inside. 

Park had changed his clothes and was wearing one of Miles’ old sport sweaters which he always made sure to have at least one of in each safe house, but he didn’t look any cleaner or more put together. His face and hair were grimy, and when Miles’ attention was drawn to the small hiss and flinch Park made as he had to twist around on his bad side to buckle himself in, he saw that the man’s nails were a bitten mess. Miles looked away and started the engine.

It took about five minutes for Park to nod off, and then it was only Miles alone with his thoughts for the next hours. It wasn’t very pleasant. He tried to close off his thoughts by forcing his mind to pay attention to his physical surroundings at all times, listening to the drone of tires on asphalt, watching the clouds move above the straight road, feeling the smooth wheel in his mangled hands. 

He really needed to buy gloves. Getting painkillers and crutches for Park was also an objective, one they couldn’t fulfill by going to a regular pharmacy. Miles had been looking up ads online from individuals willing to sell their medical equipment. There were several, all at varying distances from their current location. Miles had selected one of the more distant sellers, because he was unwilling to make such an exchange so close to Saint Vincent’s and Mount Rushmore. It wasn’t like Park would need to walk now that they were in the car with enough food to last them several days. He’d wait.

Miles eventually glanced at the passenger’s side. Park made no sound when he slept. He could’ve passed for a corpse. Even as uncomfortable as his position was, with his head slumped in the corner between his seat and the door, he hadn’t once roused to readjust the angle of his neck in the four hours they’d been driving. It had been the same during the trip to Saint Vincent’s hospital, except that he’d had bouts of delirium back then. Not this time. Miles chalked it up to the fact that the Walrider wasn’t a third physical presence in the car with them, now that he’d learned to control it somewhat. 

He wasn’t certain why Park was so sensitive to the Walrider’s aura, but since he’d first had this suspicion, Miles had had some time to think about it. Park had been a patient and he’d said that he’d undergone similar treatment as the others. Miles didn’t know for how long, but it was highly possible that Park had been conditioned to be one of the Walrider’s many experimental hosts. This, coupled with the fact that he’d gone truly insane in the asylum, likely meant that any appearance of the Walrider monopolized all of his senses and attention. 

Miles’ hypothesis was that Waylon Park’s mind would be completely overrun by the Walrider’s influence if Miles chose to inflict its presence on him. Highly unethical, but incredibly useful if Park ever got the stupid idea to run from all this without fulfilling his purpose. Nothing mattered more than exposing Murkoff Corporation, and if Miles had to throw away the last vestiges of his humanity to do it, then he would.

Miles realized he was losing himself in a dark spiral again, and he quickly forced his mind out of it, focusing on the open plane of road and flat earth beyond the car. 

They’d have to start motel-hopping. Miles had always relied on his handful of living spaces scattered across the continent to hide out after a delicate journalistic job, but he’d always worked alone, and he didn’t trust Park enough to let him inside more of them. Motels were the second safest option. He knew where to find the ones with owners who didn’t ask too many questions. 

Miles hoped that the hat, mask and glasses safely tucked away in the glove box compartment which he’d all taken from the safe house would be enough to hide his facial features when the time came to use them. It was the textbook apparel to wear for a suspicious person, but that was better than to show his actual, unobscured face to the world. He knew he’d have to use these items. He wouldn’t always be able to rely on Park to be his pawn, the trip to the grocery store being such a close call was proof of that.

The body next to him stirred with a quiet grunt of distress. Park’s breathing accelerated, and his hands twitched in his lap. A groan escaped him, tight and high with panic, before his legs jerked violently in the small space between the seat and the glove box compartment. This seemed to pull Park out of his sleep, as all the noises and twitching died down at once. Miles noticed the way the other man’s hand flew up to his stomach before he lifted his head. Park jerked and made a small sound of discomfort, his other hand reaching for the probable kink in the side of his neck.

Miles didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Park glance at him and then look back ahead at the road in a short, odd movement, almost frantic.

“Where are we?”

“Middle of nowhere.”

Park didn’t insist on knowing the exact location. Maybe he didn’t care. Instead, he said: “Stop the car.”

Miles’ face twisted with the displeasure of being ordered around. 

“Huh?”

“Stop the car,” repeated Park, his breath short. “I think I’m gonna…”

Miles realized in a split second what was about to happen and turned the wheel, tires screeching off the asphalt and onto the dirt on the side of the road. Indestructible host to the Walrider or not, he could do without the smell of vomit in his car. Miles stomped on the brakes, the momentum sending the both of them lurching forward.

“Ugh,” groaned Park.

Miles shoved him in the shoulder. “Well, get out! Go!”

Park cringed and grappled for the door handle. He tripped over himself in his haste to get out the car and hurl somewhere that wasn’t all over the upholstery, and then disappeared out of sight when he tumbled to his knees. Miles pulled a face as he listened to the man’s retching which, by now, was starting to become all too familiar. It lasted for a short while, and then there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Park didn’t reappear. Miles waited, but when nothing changed, he sighed and got out of the car.

He rounded the hood of the vehicle and saw Park on his hands and knees, shaking, a blank look on his pale face. A brownish color stained the glistening puddle of bile now laying in front of him. Part of Miles assumed that it was normal for old blood to mix with the digestive secretions; it came with the territory of getting stabbed in the stomach and operated on, and not eating afterwards. The other part of him hoped that this would be the first and last instance of this kind of thing. Waylon blinked, once, twice. He clumsily leaned back, still on his knees, and looked up. 

Miles stared at him with grim impassivity and asked: "Are you done?"

“I can hear static,” whispered Park.

“...Okay,” flatly said Miles.

“Can you hear it?”

“No.”

Park stared at him for a few seconds, and then he silently nodded and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“There’s some bottles of water in the trunk. I can give you one,” suggested Miles when the other didn’t ask for it.

Park looked at him with those crazy eyes of his. 

“... Yeah.” 

Miles went to grab two while Park shakily stood back up, holding the side of the car to steady himself. His breathing was uneven, and he was shivering. When Miles returned to give him the water bottle, he noticed that the bags under Park’s eyes were very dark. Somehow it looked like he’d gotten worse instead of better despite all the time he’d spent resting. Miles didn’t like it. He held out one of the bottles.

“Here.”

“Thank you,” quietly said Park, but his features shifted when he took the bottle in his hand. He looked upset as he stared at it.

“Need help opening it?”

Park dragged a worn, cagey gaze to Miles’ face. He said nothing at all. The odd silence was unsettling. Miles frowned.

“Is there a problem?”

Park stared at him some more, and then shook his head and lowered the bottle to his side.

“No. I’ll drink later.”

“...Okay,” said Miles, trying not to let his uneasiness show. 

He had the same feeling as earlier in the safe house when he’d been trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with Park. The man was insane, that much was obvious, they both were; but his insanity was different from Miles’. Miles had yet to figure out how extensively this affected Park’s actions, and he didn’t like to be uncertain. 

Park moved away from him and climbed back into the passenger’s seat. Miles watched him pull his legs up one after the other, and the door slammed shut. His gaze dropped to the puddle of brown bile for a pensive, silent moment. Then he walked back around the car and climbed behind the wheel. A second door slam echoed in the empty night, the engine started up, and the tires rolled back onto the road.

Chapter Text

Waylon slipped in and out of consciousness, stark and vivid imagery cutting against the dark screen of his eyelids. Pain throbbed through him, viscous and pervasive. His eyes fluttered open whenever a spike of pain forced him out of his drifting thoughts of raw meat and buzzing flies, and his gaze would catch onto the blurry numbers on the dashboard. Sometimes it had been minutes, sometimes it had been hours. He calculated easily enough that they’d been driving for more than 24 hours by now, an automatic process in his faulty brain. 

Sometimes they were driving when his eyes opened, sometimes they were at a stop. He’d heard Miles call him the first two times, but he’d ignored the other man, unwilling to uncurl his body. It seemed that Miles had given up on waking him after that. Right now the car was moving. 

Miles hit a bump that jostled every painful part of Waylon’s body, and when his lips parted on a sharp inhale, he noticed how chapped they were. His mouth was dry and his tongue was pasty. He felt sick. His eyes stung when he blinked, and every inch of his body that hadn’t been cut up or bruised before was now host to the ache of cramps and joint pain. He groaned softly at the panging in his head, sharp and unforgiving despite the cool glass his forehead was resting against. 

“What?” came Miles’ deep voice at his back.

Waylon didn’t move from his hunched position, and he didn’t answer. He’d decided to stop complaining at all, since Miles was clearly indifferent to his plight. Besides, he didn’t think he’d be able to talk. Everything hurt too much, and his mind was too erratic to formulate a full explanation on what was wrong with him. It was a mess of jumbled thoughts and pain signals firing through his brain, like blinking pixels on a white screen. His only sensical thought was a short phrase on repeat, constant, all-encompassing. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

“Something you want to say?”

Waylon closed his eyes. The static sang in his ears, loud, scratching the lobes of his brain. Mold and rot filled his nose. He’d never stopped smelling it. Panic was a tired creature in his ribcage, worn and weak, but still fluttering at a lurching pace behind his heart.

“Park.”

Waylon opened his eyes at the dark sound of Miles’ voice, dark like the rest of it, like hiding under a broken bed with the cockroaches. Clothes humid with sweat and blood and urine, sticking to his skin. The car door glistened with a film of unidentifiable substance. Waylon wanted to touch it to check, but his arm was so numb, he wasn’t sure he was even in his body.

The car lurched, and the tires crushed gravel beneath their weight. The idling of the engine was brutally cut off. There was the rubbing of clothes against upholstery. A hand landed on Waylon’s shoulder. He could see the Variant just as clearly as if he’d had eyes at his nape, and his body screamed with horror. He didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“Park.”

Miles’ voice cut through the illusion, and Waylon remembered that he was in the car. He blinked, dazed, felt the hand move from his shoulder, fingers laid flat against the side of his throat. There was more movement, those same fingers gripping him by the chin, forcing his head to the side. Waylon’s gaze remained glued to the bulbous pieces of flesh amassed in the corner above his head.

“Look at me,” said Miles, his voice hard.

Slowly, Waylon tore his attention away from the disturbing sight, and directed it instead to the two unsettling pure white dots centering the two black wells in Miles’ veiny face. 

“When was the last time you drank water?” asked Miles.

“Don’t wanna,” mumbled Waylon.

Miles let go, turned around and rummaged in the back seat for something. He pulled forth a bottle that sloshed with a disgusting, heavy sound, unscrewed it, and grabbed Waylon’s face again. Waylon realized what was about to happen and reared back.

“No!”

Miles’ hand clenched around his jaw like a vise.

“Drink, you damn moron.”

“No!” yelled Waylon, arms flailing outwards, hitting the bottle out of Miles’ grip. It landed between their seats and spilled its repulsive contents all over the cupholder.

“Idiot,” Miles said, exasperated. The static grew louder. “Why won’t you just fucking drink?”

“I can’t,” gasped Waylon, on the verge of nausea. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

Waylon shook his head and stared at the small chunks that had been floating around in the murky liquid of the bottle, now strewn about the car. The pain made his breath ragged.

“Stop,” he said, his voice coming out in stops and starts. “Stop making me.”

“It’s just water,” Miles said through gritted teeth.

“No, no… No, it’s not. Stop trying to… to make me. You won’t make me.”

“It’s just water, Park,” repeated Miles. The abrasive irritation in his voice remained, but there was something else there, now. 

“No,” argued Waylon, his voice shaking. His hands were shaking too. He felt weak. “No, it’s not.”

There was a beat of silence, large and heavy in the darkness of the car.

Miles asked: “What do you think it is?”

Waylon opened and closed his mouth. “...Puke. Someone… Someone put it there.”

“Park,” said Miles, enunciating slowly. “You saw me unscrew it. No one messed with the bottle. It’s water.”

“No,” said Waylon. “No.”

Miles was quiet, and then huffed a cold sound like a laugh of disbelief.

“Fuck me. You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

“I’m… I’m not,” defensively said Waylon.

“Deny it all you want, Park, you’re an absolute lunatic.” Miles sat back in his seat and bumped the back of his skull against the headrest. He said nothing for a while, and then: “We’re fucked. It’s over.”

Waylon frowned. “No… No, you said we were… we were going to bring down Murkoff.”

Miles scoffed and glanced at him. “Like hell we’re gonna do that when you’re letting yourself die.”

“I’m not,” said Waylon.

“Then what do you call not drinking and not eating, you ass?”

Waylon hunched on himself, eyeing the mess in the cupholder. “...It’s foul.”

“Either you deal with it, or you die.”

Waylon looked up. Miles stared back at him, his face set in charred stone.

“I’m… I’m not going to die,” murmured Waylon.

Miles reached towards him, and Waylon flinched away from the blackened extremities of his cut fingers. He heard the soft sound of the sun visor snapping open. Miles was already pulling away from him when Waylon carefully opened his eyes.

“You’re dying right now,” Miles flatly stated, jerking his chin towards a spot above Waylon’s head.

Waylon looked up at the small rectangular mirror on the sun visor and saw sunken, bloodshot eyes buried deep in purple-bruised sockets staring back at him. The eyes widened in the reflection when Waylon realized how deathly ill he looked even in the dark of night.

“You lost a lot of blood, and you’re not giving your body any way to survive that. You’re killing yourself, Park.” 

Waylon looked at Miles.

“I can’t force you to eat and drink,” darkly stated the latter. “You’ll only get crazier if I do that. It’s not going to help either of us.” 

“But… There has to be…”

“There’s no other solution than forcing yourself,” Miles interrupted him. “You see harmless food and water as something completely repulsive. I can’t change that for you.”

Waylon recoiled from the idea of sliding the contents of that bottle down his throat. All the bottles that he’d found since the asylum had been filled with various fluids he couldn’t trust. He hadn’t been hungry for the burger or the lonely fry, and now that he thought about the food in the paper bag, his mind conjured up the memory of a burger that had looked just as toxic as it had smelled. Was that really what he’d seen? Or was his mind truly playing tricks on him? Everyone else had acted as if these things were fine to eat and drink, and Waylon hadn’t questioned the fact that only he seemed to think otherwise until now.

“My plan has no chance of succeeding if I’m on my own,” Miles continued. “I need you to testify, and I need you to do the things only a regular human can do. We’ll go nowhere if you can’t get your act together, and it’s over if you die. As I said, we’re fucked. Unless you can drink what’s in that bottle.”

They both looked down at the liquid that remained in the tilted bottle where it had landed askew next to the cupholder. There was less than a quarter left. Waylon stared at it. Miles sounded sincere in how disillusioned he sounded. The fact that they weren’t talking anymore, and yet Miles still hadn’t started the engine again, was a clear indicator that he believed what he’d just said: there was no point in running from Murkoff anymore if Waylon chose to let himself die. 

Waylon had to muster up the courage to drink this…water, as repulsive as it seemed to him. It was hard to believe that he was imagining its contents, but considering the life or death situation they were currently in, Miles had no reason to lie about what was in the bottle. Wayon grabbed it and winced at the thick sloshing sound it made. 

It’s all in your head, he told himself, trying to be convincing. It’s just water. You have to live. Think of Lisa and the boys. You can’t die yet.

Waylon screwed his eyes shut and brought the vomit-speckled opening of the bottle to his lips in one movement. He felt the weight of the liquid lurch downwards towards his mouth. The moment it hit his tongue, he tasted acid. A sound of disgust punched out of his chest and he threw the bottle away, doubling over, spitting and retching. The sensation lingered on his tongue the way gruel would.

“It’s not water,” he heaved, tears of disgust and despair welling in his eyes. “It’s not!”

For a moment, Miles didn’t make a sound. Waylon refused to look up at him. He glared in anguish at the closed glove box compartment through a thin veil of tears, thinner than what his body could have mustered if it had been correctly hydrated. Waylon didn’t want to die. He didn’t. He wanted to drink the water that Miles so obviously thought was in the bottle, but Waylon’s body physically couldn’t accept it. It was impossible to fight against his own body.

The sound of Miles unlocking his door reached Waylon’s ears. It didn’t slam shut. Waylon turned his head and watched the other man leave the car. 

Miles walked into the fields surrounding them, and in the blink of an eye, the neat outline of his body faded and swelled into a huge pitch-black swarm. The utility poles looming at either side of the road blinked and crackled. 

Waylon clapped his hands over his ears and doubled over when the static screeched loudly in his ears. He forced his eyes to stay open, and when his gaze wildly sought out Miles’ shape, he caught sight of the darkness-shrouded being of the Walrider floating above the spot where Miles had been standing mere moments ago.

His heart lurched into a sick gallop. Waylon scrambled backwards, his sweaty hands sliding uselessly across the door handle. He could hear the screams all around him, see the stained white walls standing against the backdrop of the cloudy night skies, smell the gore beneath his feet. A thin, high-pitched sound wavered in his throat. 

The Walrider shrieked, and the incomprehensible sound pierced his brain like a hot iron lance. Waylon screamed and threw his body away from the sound, slamming his clutched head into the hard glass of the window. He grunted through gritted teeth like a wounded beast, his eyes wildly flickering about, his senses kicking into overdrive in a desperate search for an escape from the ungodly predator. A loud, creaking groan of folding metal rang out in the night from every direction, and Waylon’s hunted gaze swung up to the utility poles just in time to see them twist and explode in a rain of shrapnel and sparks. 

The Walrider’s shriek faded into a man’s scream. It was enraged, and powerless, and wretched, and hopeless. It was Miles’ voice. The raw sound echoed in the empty fields. A very long silence ensued, disturbed only by the last scattering of metal and twanging of loose, twitching cables. There was no telling how long it lasted, exactly. Waylon eventually took his shaking hands away from his ears and cautiously looked over the edge of the driver’s window. 

Miles was standing on solid ground again, his shoulders slumped, his head tilted back as he stared at the dreary skies. The grass at his feet was torn and the soil turned over for a radius of several hundreds of feet in a perfect circle around him. Waylon sat completely still. Miles’ head slowly faced forward again. It was impossible to see the expression on his face from where Waylon sat. Miles’ feet started moving, and he continued to walk away from the car. Waylon kept watching until Miles’ shadow disappeared deep into the fields, and then he was alone. 

It was a sting in his hands that brought the world back into focus. Waylon blinked, unaware of how long he’d been sitting in the car alone, and looked down. He saw cuts and fresh blood spilling from the back of his hands. He began to feel the same stinging sensation along the bridge of his nose and his forehead as well, and touched two fingertips to the spot that hurt the most. They came away wet and red. Waylon looked around and noticed for the first time that the windows of the car had burst. He stared at the jagged pieces, and then at the broken utility poles. The rational part of his brain slowly activated as he tried to make sense of what had happened.

Miles had let the Walrider shriek. Everything had exploded, but not to an equal degree. It seemed the major part of the ravage had affected the ground and the poles, but the fact that the car wasn’t damaged like the rest meant that it had somehow avoided a large part of the Walrider’s devastation. Waylon couldn’t understand why. He didn’t try to dig any deeper. The pain was throbbing brighter in his face, and it pulled his thoughts away from analyzing his surroundings. He was bleeding. He had to stop the bleeding.

Waylon mechanically reached for the glove box to find tissues, and instead found mounds and mounds of papers inside as well as some gloves, glasses and a mask. He still tried to search through it, smearing his blood across most of the papers before realizing the mess he was making. He quickly drew back and closed the glovebox, leaving a gruesome imprint of his hand on it. He looked in the side of the door next, and then the cupholder. 

He stopped his search when he realized that the spilled contents of the bottle didn’t look the same as before. Waylon stopped and stared at the wet stains on the seats and the plastic between them. There were no more of the disgusting chunks he’d seen earlier. He looked around once again and noticed that the gore he’d seen hanging from the corner above his head had been replaced with a faint blood stain, just like it had been in the hospital.

Waylon stared at it, and then suddenly bent down to retrieve the bottle he’d thrown at his feet. He spun it around in his hand and peered at the last remaining drops that pooled at the bottom of the bottle. The liquid didn’t look as thick. It didn’t even have the same color. Although there was still a dense amount of specks floating about in the yellow-tinged contents, it looked less nauseating than before. Waylon cautiously took a whiff of the contents. His nose wrinkled at the stagnant toilet smell that emanated from the neck of the bottle.

It’s just water, Park, said Miles’ irritated voice in his head. He’d said it like it should’ve been obvious to him. He’d said it the way one would say the truth.

“It’s just water,” Waylon muttered to himself. “Just water.”

He stared at it.

Just water.

Waylon steeled himself and brought the bottle to his lips.

Chapter Text

Sitting in the middle of the cold, dark field, Miles yanked strands of grass out of the dirt with jerky movements. The nails on his good forefinger and thumb were caked in dirt. He dug deeper and tugged viciously at the roots. He remembered doing this as a kid in the schoolyard, stressed about some written test, unleashing his inner tension on the defenseless lawn. But this time, it wasn't about a stupid exam. The reason for his stress was so huge he’d already destroyed public roadside property in the blink of an eye, so it wasn’t like tearing out some grass would help, but he couldn’t ignore the remaining urge to rip something apart. Grass was the safest alternative to Park’s pathetic, weak body.

“Fuck,” Miles growled through rage-tight lips.

It was fucking ridiculous. All Park needed to do was to keep himself alive in the simplest way for any given human being–eat, drink, sleep–, but he failed at accomplishing even that. Miles had known that man was insane, but he hadn’t expected Park’s mind to be the kind of mess where the primal concept of survival was overridden by his trauma. Obviously staying at Mount Massive hadn’t been a cake walk. Miles could still see the gore and corpses when he closed his eyes, but the memories didn’t intrude on his active reasoning, so he’d assumed the same went for Park. He’d been damn wrong about that.

So Park refused to eat or drink, and Miles couldn’t force him to do either because any kind of forceful physical proximity between them would send the man in a crazed, blind panic, and his state would get even worse, and then there’d be no one left to bring Murkoff’s actions before the eye of the public. Miles had thought about sending files and video, then sitting back and hoping that the information would be picked up by the best news outlets; but it wouldn’t work without a face. It would just be said and forgotten. People didn’t care about vague, horrific-sounding events that happened somewhere else; they’d read about it for some kicks, morbid curiosity briefly taking over, and then they’d forget. 

No, a face was necessary. A physical, tangible fellow human being who’d suffered through that horrific-sounding event was necessary, someone whose haunted eyes would grip the viewer’s attention, who would elicit empathy even in complete strangers. Someone real, who wouldn’t so easily be forgotten. Waylon Park’s big wet crazy eyes, haggard face, and perpetually fearful hunched posture perfectly fit the bill. 

Unfortunately, Park didn’t seem fit for survival. Miles rubbed his face. He was getting very, very tired of things never going his way. The situation was already dismal enough without Park having problems at every turn. At this rate, the option of showing up at the Murkoff Corp headquarters and breaking everything in one last destructive blaze of glory almost seemed like the most viable one, despite the fact that such a course of action wouldn’t fundamentally fix or change anything. The asylum’s patients would be forgotten, their sordid treatment never exposed, Murkoff Corp would grow another head, and Miles would get either killed or experimented on. Probably both, in any order.

The abilities which the Walrider had bestowed upon him, as superhuman as they were, hadn’t made Miles completely invulnerable. The cracks in that shield weren’t exactly visible, but he could feel them. His painless, hole-riddled yet still moving body was very much destructible. He wasn’t immortal. Miles would’ve been unable to explain how he knew this, but he had the certainty that the Walrider had its limits, and by extension, so did he. If he did eventually decide to go down the road of dealing a physical blow to Murkoff’s current head, his priority would be to not get caught by the rest of its body. He couldn’t let them do to him what they’d done to that poor fucker Billy Hope– what they’d done to Park. He’d find a place to die alone, far from everyone and everything, so that his body wouldn’t be seen. 

Miles decided he’d look into it at their next stop. 

He stood up and wiped his black pants free of dirt and wayward strands of grass, then turned back the way he’d come from. It was quiet in the field. There wasn’t a single bug to be heard. Miles knew he’d heard crickets when he’d first stepped out of the car, but then his hold on the Walrider had loosened, and that horrid screech had been the only thing ringing in his ears. Silence had followed; deep, dark, heavy silence which only happened when nature was crushed beneath the weight of an inexplicable danger. Miles knew that unleashing the Walrider on his surroundings hadn’t been the soundest decision, but in that moment, with frustration and fear and anger boiling over and burning every part of him, Miles couldn’t say that he’d had a fuck to give about repercussions.

Now, as he neared the place where he’d abandoned the car and Park inside of it, the sight of the wreckage he’d brought on greeted him with a pang of dread. The metallic poles had twisted and snapped, and the number of torn lines was greater than he’d expected. The circle of torn grass and dirt clumps looked like something straight out of an 80’s alien movie. So much for staying under the radar. Miles quietly cursed himself for fucking up and quickly strode to the side of the car, where the driver’s door was still open. He didn’t know what he expected to find inside, but he felt surprised anyway at the sight of Park calmly seated in the passenger’s seat, staring at him like he’d expected his return. Park’s face was covered in blood. Neither of them spoke as Miles got back behind the wheel and started the engine. They silently drifted away from the scene.

Feeling Park’s gaze still on him after a while of driving, Miles finally spoke. 

“Something you want to say?”

Park gestured to the empty bottle in his lap. “I finished it.”

“You spilled most of it in the car,” said Miles, unimpressed.

Park pulled out a second empty bottle from the side of the car. “That’s the one you gave me. I took the other bottle from the back.”

Miles frowned. “You expect me to believe you after all that drama from earlier?”

“Can’t you just trust me?” insisted Park, suddenly irritated. “I have no reason to lie.”

He did sound slightly more coherent and articulate than before, but Miles wasn’t convinced. “You couldn’t drink it. Now you can, for no apparent reason. Sorry if I don’t buy that you miraculously healed from your crazy while I was gone.”

Park tensed. “I’m not–” He stopped, and then slumped in his seat. Miles would’ve felt bad for how defeated he looked if the thing Park had been trying to deny wasn’t the very obvious fact that he was completely fucking insane. Park’s voice was lower when he said: “I don’t know how to explain why it happened, but it… it became a little less disgusting. That’s all.” 

Miles then realized the obvious reason why Park had suddenly managed a little better in his absence.

“The Walrider.”

Park looked at him, the movement of his head slow and tired. “...What?”

“It looks like my presence affects your mental state. Your hallucinations are worse. And it’s probably especially bad when I’m too close for too long. ”

Park didn’t say anything for a bit, and then let out a dull sound through his nose, caught halfway between a scoff and a sigh. “Unfortunate that we’re stuck on a road trip together, then.”

Miles agreed that it was unfortunate for plenty of reasons, though he didn’t say so out loud. 

“You should probably try to eat a certain distance away from me the next time we stop. And wash your face.”

Park crossed his arms over his stomach and looked out the window, and quietly said: “Right.” 

Miles glanced at the other man from the corner of his eye. Park’s profile was shrouded in shadows against the backdrop of the broken window and nightly scenery, but the blood on his face caught slivers of moonlight. It had trickled down his neck and into the fabric of his shirt. Miles felt a tad guilty, and mostly felt like an idiot, for causing more injury to the man he was trying to keep alive– doubly so now that Park finally seemed to possess an active will to live. 

“Why did you do that?” suddenly asked Park in the same quiet voice.

Miles stared at the road. He knew what Park was talking about, but he didn’t see how he could explain himself in a way that would sound rational. He’d let his emotions run wild and had caused a level of destruction which might as well have constituted a huge neon ‘Find us here’ sign for Murkoff. None of it was rational.

When he didn’t answer, Park added: “What happened to keeping a low profile?”

“It was a mistake,” said Miles gruffly.

Park didn’t say anything else.

They traveled for five days without stopping for anything other than food and bathroom breaks, using the rations and Miles’ portable stove to have semi-decent meals. Park seemed to get some strength back from eating and hydrating himself, but he visibly didn’t find any kind of relief in it the way Miles could. The only sleep Park could get was curled up in his seat, so clearly not the best, and the pain was still wrapped around him when he slept. It was visible in his pinched features and the sweat on his brow. He’s stopped complaining, though, and Miles found it much better this way. It wasn’t like he could do anything to help. 

The problem was that these lackluster conditions didn’t aid Park in his recovery, and consequently, he still looked very unhealthy. If Miles sent him on another grocery shopping stint, Waylon would get noticed not for the crutches and the dirty plaster, but because he looked like a damn zombie. He didn’t move around much even during breaks, just looked miserable and stayed pretty quiet overall– yet, somehow, still managed to have daily arguments with Miles. They didn’t have legitimate fights, no voices were raised and nothing got thrown or slammed, but there was always some point where the latent tension and anxiety inside of them seeped through the cracks and instigated reproach or resentment.

Worse, while on the surface Miles could seamlessly harness the Walrider, the truth of the matter was that it was a constant struggle between him and the entity. It was especially the case ever since his uncontrolled rage had allowed it to shriek in the fields. Sometimes it felt like the Walrider had… enjoyed that, and wanted more. On a handful of occasions, Miles’s focus lessened during his driving, and he didn’t notice the Walrider seeping out of him before Park began to display the unstable glint in his eye, the wide darting gaze, the little twitches and flinches in reaction to that diffuse threat. 

The first time, Miles had felt a grating burst of dread upon realizing what was happening and he’d quickly pulled the Walrider back without showing any sign that something was wrong. Park had immediately calmed down. Miles had read confusion in the man’s body language, and he’d caught the furtive, interrogative glance thrown in his direction. He’d pretended not to see, making the choice to not let on that he didn’t have the situation under control as well as he’d thought. Park had quickly looked away, probably not wanting to let on for his part that he’d had another little crazy episode. 

The times after that, Miles felt increasingly frustrated at himself for not managing to keep an iron grasp on the Walrider, and somehow increasingly tired of seeing the way Park never failed to react to its presence. It was a strange fatigue, not embroiled with the irritation Miles tended to constantly feel towards the man, but rather tinged with a kind of pity. The sight grew more pathetic by the day; Park couldn’t help reacting the way he did, and he had no control over any of the signs he showed. He was completely at the Walrider’s mercy, and if it hadn’t been for Miles’ ability to spare him the bulk of the entity’s influence, the poor bastard would’ve been incapable of entertaining a single coherent thought in that mangled mind of his.

Park caught on eventually. He wasn’t as dumb as he looked. It sparked another argument, same as always, Park nagging him with reproachful complaints about how he wasn’t being considerate enough towards him in holding the Walrider down, and Miles shooting him down with snarky comments about how much of a lunatic he was. There was no way in hell Miles would admit that some things he didn’t have total control over either. It was easier to let Park be the only unreliable one. Easier to keep Park in the dark about how difficult it really was to host the Walrider.

Miles knew that this road trip couldn’t last. It wasn’t good for them to be cooped up for hours on end in the car with ever-dwindling reserves of patience for each other. Miles had always been a solitary person, and Park was a family man, and it didn’t help that neither of them had what they needed most. They were also running low on supplies. It seemed inevitable to return to civilization for however brief a respite. Miles’ only recourse was to pray that Park’s ragged appearance wouldn’t raise any flags.

The car opened on the passenger’s side and he looked over at Park, who’d returned from his five-minute lunch break. Miles’ nose wrinkled in distaste.

“You stink.”

Park’s red-rimmed, exhausted gaze swung up to his face. Miles irritated him enough that he could still look fed up. 

“You’re rude,” Park testily retorted.

“It’s about time we found a shower,” stated Miles. “We’re going to hit a motel tonight.”

Park’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I thought…” He closed his mouth and shook his head, his expression eager now. It was a change from his usual dull complexion, one which Miles hadn’t expected. “Nothing. Let’s go, then.”

Miles nodded. They took off.

The motel was as dingy and foreboding as any self-respecting shady backwater establishment should’ve been, and the clerk didn’t bat an eye at Park’s appearance when he asked for a room– that was what Park told Miles, at any rate. He hadn’t gone with him, instead remaining hidden in the car and watching Park from across the parking lot as the man limped to the correct door. Only when Park opened it and stepped inside did Miles get out of the car to follow him. As much as Miles wished they could’ve taken a separate room for each, it would’ve been too suspicious for Park to ask for that alone.

Miles was pleased to see that the door was the kind to lock for anyone on the outside who didn’t have the key. He pocketed the latter and made a small tour of the room. Park remained sprawled on the bed. It didn’t take long for him to start nodding off.

“Hey,” said Miles. “Take a shower.”

Park frowned, his eyes still closed, and mumbled: “Just a minute.”

“No. Go wash up now. You’re going to stink up the bed and then we’ll both regret it.”

Park sighed. He still didn’t move.

“I’m going to buy something to eat from the vending machine. That’s the only privacy you’ll get, so you better make use of it.”

Park opened his eyes and looked at him, a frown still faintly weighing on his brow. “Are you sure you want to do that? If it’s about food, I can go get it.”

“It’s nighttime and I’ve got my face covered,” said Miles, gesturing to his set of hat, sunglasses, and mask. “At worst I’ll look suspicious. Anyone who chooses to stay in this kind of place is suspicious. I’m not worried about sticking out.”

“Okay,” said Park. 

“I’m taking the key. Don’t open the door for anyone that isn’t me.”

“Not going to. I’ll be in the shower.”

“Good,” said Miles with a nod.

Park groaned as he pushed himself up on his elbows and got off the bed. He grabbed his crutches and started making his way to the bathroom. Miles checked for his wallet in his pocket before heading out. His hand was on the handle when he heard Park curse. Miles spun around.

“Not this too,” groaned Park.

Miles went to the bathroom and saw Park kneeling next to the tub with the water pouring down the drain. His face was buried in the crook of his crossed arms in clear defeat. 

“What is it now?” said Miles, more dryly than he’d intended. He was tired of Park finding issues everywhere. 

The latter raised his head and wordlessly shook it, staring at the tub with a tired look on his face. 

Miles forcefully repeated: “What?”

“The water,” said Park.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s dirty. Dirty water. But you’re… probably going to tell me it’s perfectly fine.”

Miles crossed his arms on his chest. “It is.”

Park wearily looked up at him. “Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

Park looked back at the clear waterfall.

“It’s just… so real.”

“At least it looks like water to you, even if it’s dirty. Could be worse, considering the stuff you told me before.”

Park wasn’t listening. He kept staring at the tub. 

“Looks brown. And it smells… dirty. Like chemicals. And sewers.”

“It’s none of those things,” said Miles impatiently. “And now that you know it’s normal water, get over yourself and wash up.”

Park shot him a look. “Get over myself?”

“You heard me.”

“How about you do the same, Miles?” came Park’s sudden retort, hard-edged and lashing. 

Miles frowned. That was a new sort of reproach for Park to resort to, and it was also confusing. 

“What the hell does that mean?” 

Park’s accusing stare bore a hole into Miles’ face.

“You think you’re better than me at handling what happened in the asylum because you can tell what’s real from what’s not, but let me tell you, that’s… far removed from the truth.”

“I’m not a loony. So yes, I’m doing better than you,” stated Miles.

“You act like a huge dick to me all the time!”

“And what has that got to do with the asylum?”

“Oh, so you’re saying you were already a jerk before the asylum,” said Park. “Man, am I lucky to be paired up with you.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Miles ground out, annoyed. 

“Then you admit that your shitty behavior has got something to do with it,” Park challenged, the shortness of his breath doing nothing to diminish his provocative tone. “Which means I’m also justified in telling you to pull your shit together. I’m not the only one with problems here, Miles. That messed-up place got to you just as badly as it got to me.”

Park’s words struck a raw, tightly strung chord inside of Miles. Something inside him recoiled from the statement like a hand snatching away from a burning stove, and in its stead, a dark, poisonous anger swelled. Park must have sensed it too, because his jaw went slack and he leaned away from Miles, his eyes wide and searching. Miles breathed in deeply and forced himself to calm down before the Walrider used the wave of emotion to come back up to the surface. He uncrossed his arms.

“I’m not that weak, Park.”

Park frowned, but Miles spun around and left before he could answer. It was better not to risk spending another second with the guy who kept pushing all his buttons.

Chapter Text

The door slammed shut, and silence followed in the wake of Miles’ departure. Waylon watched the shower’s dirty stream eddy and swirl down the drain. The nauseating, metallic smell of contaminated water clung to the lining of his nose. He sighed, feeling weary and in pain down to his bones. He knew he was disgusting, still covered in grime and blood from an ordeal that should’ve only ever been a bad dream. He didn’t know how he’d be able to deal with the fact that it had been real. But one thing at a time. He had to get clean. He could pay more attention to his thoughts another time.

Slowly, Waylon began to strip as he remained sitting on the floor. It was too much effort to stand for it all. He only moved from his spot on the floor once he was completely naked. As he pulled himself up gripping the edge of the sink, wincing from putting weight on his bad leg, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the faucet. Waylon stared at himself. The surface was larger than it had been for the small mirror on the sun visor of Miles’ car, and he could now see the multitude of injuries littering his body that had yet to heal. His skin was dark with the mottled hues of bruises and filth. His ribs were sharper than he’d ever seen them. Though his chest didn’t appear skeletal, it was enough to look as unhealthy as he felt. It looked like… His body looked a lot like a corpse’s.

He hadn’t seen himself naked since Eddie Gluskin, hadn’t been confronted to the sight of his own body after everything it had gone through before now. Images flooded Waylon’s brain: breakable human bodies, easily ripped apart, crushed, defiled. His hands tightened around the edge of the sink in a white-knuckled grip. He leaned over, his breath suddenly tight and wheezing. Waylon squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw shut, forcing himself to breathe in deeper through his nose. The visions wouldn’t leave him. 

With a shaking hand, Waylon brusquely twisted the faucet’s knob and put his hands under the stream of cold water. He splashed some on his face. He tried to think of Lisa, of how she’d try to calm him down and tell him to breathe in and breathe out. Tears pricked his eyes. God, how would she react if she knew? If she knew how pathetic and pitiful he’d been in that asylum, how he’d been hunted down like an animal, stripped while unconscious and tied down to a bloody table where he’d heard men before him scream and beg in terror and agony, how he’d been powerless to to do anything but let himself get caressed by a maniac, how he’d felt the high-pitched whirring of that rusty, gore-covered saw between his legs and watched his exposed skin get tugged closer and closer–

A sob wrenched out of Waylon’s chest. He pressed a cold, wet hand to his eyes as he stood in front of the sink on wavering legs. He couldn’t keep thinking about this. Bad memories were only memories. It was in the past now, he was safe here, he wasn’t in the asylum. He repeated it to himself again and again, opening his eyes and staring off to the side so he wouldn’t have to see himself, focusing on his senses to try and calm down the way he’d been taught to do for years. The sound of running water, in front of him and behind him. The coolness of smooth ceramic beneath his palm. The humid heat of condensation swirling across his back. The yellow light of the lightbulb above his head. 

When his gaze drifted back to the sink, he noticed that the running water was different from before. He frowned, shut it off, and then slowly turned around and gingerly pulled back the shower curtain with his aching arm. Just like the water from the sink, the shower wasn’t spewing filth anymore. It was still opaque and didn’t exactly smell clean, but it was a far cry from the repulsive stream he’d experienced minutes ago. Waylon remembered what Miles had said about his presence worsening his hallucinations. It seemed to be exactly as he’d said.

Waylon decided to take advantage of this reprieve to take his shower while it was less disturbing. He wasn’t slow about it, unwilling to face the naked sight of his battered body for any longer than necessary. He didn’t like seeing how fragile he was. It made him think of how close to death he’d come, how close to death he still was. 

Murkoff was after them. If Miles and him were found, then Waylon was certain he’d get used as a test subject again. They’d derived too much twisted joy the first time not to take advantage of him again. He couldn’t go back there, couldn’t go back to staring at shifting black-on-white images with his eyes forced open for hours on end, to the pain and humiliation that lab coats and hazard suits had inflicted on him whenever they’d felt like it, to being trapped and used without any hope of ever getting back to his family. 

Suddenly, Waylon felt uneasy to be alone. While he felt more like himself when he was away from the Walrider, there was no denying that he at least had the certitude of being protected from external threats when Miles was nearby. Miles had pulled him out of Murkoff’s clutches despite the risks when they’d come to take him from Saint Vincent’s hospital, and he was smarter than Waylon when it came to identifying the threat posed by other individuals. Without Miles and the Walrider to defend him, Waylon was a sitting duck with a lame leg, a hole in his stomach, and a bad case of crippling panic attacks.

In the space of one shower, Waylon already felt like it had been too long since he’d heard or seen Miles. Irrational fears piled up in his head– Miles having been caught, maybe laying dead somewhere behind the motel, and Waylon ending up utterly lost and hopeless to evade Murkoff on his own. His heart began to thud with the urgency of finding Miles. He cut off the water, pulled back the shower curtain, and hurried to get dry and dressed as fast as he could with movements that were jerky and awkward from pain. Waylon pulled a face at the smell that wafted off the clothes he’d sweated in for days. He could understand now what Miles had meant when he’d criticized his body odor. Hopefully, getting new clothes was on their list of objectives.

Waylon held onto the wall as he hobbled out of the bathroom, his wet hair dripping down his neck. A glance around the bedroom told him that Miles hadn’t returned yet, and this observation made Waylon’s stomach tighten in a hard knot. He’d have to step out and look for him. Maybe Miles was just in the parking lot, checking something in the car. Waylon couldn’t even remember where they’d parked. Everything hurt, and the warm shower had only moderately lifted the fog in his head. He took a deep breath and went to grab his crutches, then carefully opened the door and peered outside. Everything was quiet.

Waylon shut the door behind him and leaned against the outside wall for support. He felt on edge, the stress building up inside of him the longer he was alone with no certainty that Miles was nearby. Fear made his steps hasty, and his hands were slippery with sweat around the handles of his crutches.The sound of a door opening nearby made him jump, and he stopped in his tracks, frozen and waiting. 

Someone had stepped out of the room above his head. They went straight for the stairs, and the sound of flat heels neatly clicking against the hard stairs faded into crunching gravel. Coming closer. Waylon’s heart thumped against his ribcage, fast and on the verge of bursting. The man that appeared around the corner of the stairs wasn’t a patient, nor was he wearing any kind of uniform. He didn’t notice Waylon standing next to the wall in the dark. Still, Waylon waited for the man to disappear, and then waited a few more seconds for good measure before moving again. He didn’t want to have to interact with anyone.

He looked out upon the parking lot, but didn’t find a single trace of Miles’ presence anywhere. Waylon shivered from the breeze that snaked up his spine. He nervously looked about once more, mindlessly chewing his lip, not knowing what to do next. He couldn’t see where the car was. Some of the lights in the parking lot were broken and Waylon didn’t feel courageous nor strong enough to investigate those dark patches by himself. Miles had said he’d go find a vending machine, so Waylon resolved to look for one. He didn’t remember having seen anything like that when he’d checked in at the lobby, and besides, Miles wouldn’t have gone to the lobby when he looked the way that he did. It was likely he’d found one somewhere outside.

Waylon didn’t like being alone in the dark, so he picked up the pace as he tried to find what he was looking for. He turned around the corner of the motel building. His stomach bottomed out when he stood face to face with a dark looming shape. Terror exploded in his brain at the sudden proximity of danger and his mouth twisted open on a scream. A heavy hand clapped over the lower half of his face, sending a burst of pain up his nose. Twin pinpricks of eerie white light glared at him. 

“Don’t scream, you idiot, it’s me.”

Beyond the panicked gallop of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears, Waylon realized who was standing in front of him. His shoulders relaxed. Miles took his hand away from Waylon’s mouth.

“Where were you?” Waylon immediately asked.

“I told you I was going to find food.”

“You weren’t there when I–! I… How long…” 

The words in Waylon’s head were a jumbled mess, and he stopped talking. The fear of Miles being gone had fallen down. He was just tired, all of a sudden. 

“Why are you so stressed out?” asked Miles, sounding mildly confused.

Waylon slowly shook his head and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. Every part of his body felt leaden. He needed to lie down.

“I thought… something happened.”

“I don’t get why you’re so worried about a dick like me ,” Miles said, audibly quoting Waylon’s earlier words with a pointed tone. “Besides, I’m not an idiot. I know not to do anything that could land us in trouble. Unlike some.”

Waylon frowned and forced his eyes open. He couldn’t fathom how Miles still had the energy to be petty about the incident at Saint Vincent’s after everything.

“Seriously?” he asked. 

Miles grabbed him by the shoulder and tugged him off the wall. “When I told you not to open the door for anyone, I thought it was clearly implied that you shouldn’t leave the room either. Do I need to spell everything out for you?”

Waylon didn’t feel like gracing that question with an answer, and instead thought that Miles really couldn’t help but sound like an asshole all the time. The latter let go of his shoulder to walk a bit ahead of him as they headed back for the room. Waylon noticed that he wasn’t hearing any static. He glanced at Miles. Waylon wondered why the man felt more disturbing to be around in some moments, and in others, less. He especially wondered if it was voluntary; if Miles really had some sort of control over the freakish paranormal state he’d merged into or not. But Waylon was too tired to think about it too much. Miles opened the room with the key and stepped inside.

“Come on,” he said impatiently.

Waylon followed him in the room and promptly dropped onto the bed, letting his crutches fall to the ground with a clatter. All the pain and exhaustion crushed his body deeper into the bed sheets.

“We have to talk about what happens next,” said Miles.

Waylon grunted in assent. He didn’t hear what Miles said after that, because he spiraled into sleep in the next second.

Waylon woke with a start, whipping his head around in a frantic search for danger. Bright daylight blinded him and he grimaced, shielding his eyes with his hand. He noticed Miles sitting in the chair next to the window, laptop opened in front of him, table covered in files. The scene was starting to become familiar. 

“You slept for eleven hours,” Miles informed him without looking up.

Waylon swallowed, slowly noticing his pasty mouth, the dull pain waking up in his stomach and leg, the ache in his bones. He laid back down and closed his eyes.

“...That long?” he mumbled. 

“Yes.”

“Is that… okay?”

“Yes. It’s what you need to recover.” Miles shut his laptop and finally looked over at Waylon. “I called the reception to see if they had something for pain relief. Officially, they don’t, but a few bucks go a long way. They dropped this off while you were sleeping.”

Waylon watched Miles pick a small box off the table and throw it on the bed. He took the box of painkillers in his hand and looked up at him, confused.

“So they saw you?”

“No. I said I’d be in bed and didn’t want to be disturbed, so they could just come in, put it on the table and leave. They think you’re the one who called.”

“Did you hide in the bathroom?”

“No. I hid on the ceiling,” sarcastically answered Miles.

Waylon decided not to spend any energy dealing with the man’s dickish attitude so soon after waking up, and carefully got off the bed to get water from the sink. 

Behind the closed door, Waylon punched a hole in the thin wafer with his nail and pinched the pill between his fingers to put it in his mouth. The murky water that spilled from the sink when he turned it on did little to alleviate his mood, and he let it run down his fingers for a while as he mustered the strength to drink it, just as he’d had to do for more than a week now. Waylon wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed since Saint Vincent. He bent down and forced himself to take a sip. His lips pursed in disgust at the metallic taste that hit his tongue, but his throat convulsed around the brown water on a quick swallow nonetheless. 

When he returned, not feeling particularly freshened up, he found Miles standing next to the window. The laptop on the table was closed. Miles noticed him stepping in and let the curtain fall back into place. 

Waylon nervously asked: “Did you see anything?”

Miles shook his head.

“I was just checking.” He gestured with his chin towards the bed. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

Waylon did as he was told and sat on the edge of the bed, wincing at the sharp pang that shot through his gut. He latched onto the hope that the painkillers would finally free him of the pain in roughly thirty minutes. He couldn’t remember what it felt like not to hurt.

“Here.”

Miles threw a small package on the bed. Waylon picked it up and saw that it was an energy bar. He thought he could feel something writhing around beneath the wrapping. He dropped it and looked up at Miles with uncertainty, shaking his head.

“...There’s something inside.”

“There isn’t. You can eat it after we’re done talking.” Miles sat in the chair– heavily, Waylon noticed. Monotone as usual, Miles told him: “You’ll have to go buy more stuff for us.”

“Like what?”

“Thick gloves so I can hide my hands. New clothes for you that aren’t stained in blood and days-old sweat.”

Waylon’s gaze flickered down Miles’ front. “For you as well?”

Miles glanced at himself. “I don’t see why I’d need them.”

Waylon opened his mouth to argue, and then realized that the dirty spots he was seeing on Miles’ shirt probably weren’t real. His jaw clicked shut and he averted his gaze, suddenly shameful, hoping that Miles wouldn’t realize what that had been about. Of course, Miles immediately realized what it had been about.

“My clothes are clean, Park.”

“I know,” mumbled Waylon.

He felt Miles’ gaze on him for a silent beat. Then, “Food is also something we’re missing. You have crutches this time, and assuming the painkillers do their job correctly, this grocery run shouldn’t be as disastrous as before. Pick up more food than you did last time.”

Waylon frowned. “Are we getting back on the road?”

“We don’t have a choice. The closest store is miles away.”

“And… We’re not coming back here tonight,” Waylon guessed reluctantly.

Miles stared at him. “No, we’re not.”

Waylon looked away again, fingers coming up to his mouth to bite his nails. He’d been a fool to believe that Miles would allow him comfortable recovery for more than one night. He grumbled: “I’m tired of the car.”

“We’re not going to stay in it indefinitely. I know a different motel. It’s not close, but we’ll reach it faster than we did this one.”

“Why do we have to change motels? Isn’t this one good enough?”

“Cameras,” stated Miles. “That’s what I was checking last night. There’s more than zero, that means too many. We need something more low-profile.”

“Wouldn’t it be fine if you stayed in here? They don’t put cameras in the rooms.”

“I don’t want to take that chance.” Miles laid a damaged hand on top of Waylon’s camera where it was sitting next to the laptop. “Your night vision could clearly tape the Walrider. So could mine. No doubt the security cameras in this place can do the same. I can keep the Walrider reined in when I want to, but there’s no guarantee it won’t slip out of my control.”

“Like it did in the field,” Waylon said quietly.

“Yes,” Miles said shortly. “And if that happens, it could fly out of the room and get caught on the surveillance feed. We can’t be too safe.”

Waylon was unconvinced. “Somewhere more low-profile than here is… I mean, do you really know a shadier motel than this? Does that exist?”

“Obviously.”

Waylon sighed, wincing when it pulled on his stomach. “If you say so.”

“Go eat while I get the car ready. You’ll just have to return the key to the front desk when I’m done.” 

“Fine.”

Chapter Text

Miles wondered if he should thank his lucky stars for the fact that Park had managed to enter and exit the store without anything going horribly wrong. He watched the man throw the bags at the back of the car, one of the crutches banging against the side of the door. The bags sounded hefty enough when they hit the upholstery. Miles glanced back at the parking lot. No suspicious vehicles, no passerby staring at them. Gray clouds were gathering on the horizon. The door slammed at the back, and Park slid back into his seat with more ease than Miles had ever seen him use. He was wearing a different shirt.

“I was wondering what was taking you so long. I can’t believe you changed in the store.”

Park looked at him. “You said I smelled.”

“It didn’t mean ‘take your time shopping’. Tell me you didn’t throw the other clothes in one of their trash cans.”

“No,” said Park, annoyed. “I kept them. They’re in one of the bags.”

Miles said nothing and started the engine.

“You keep talking to me like I’m stupid,” said Park. “I know better than to leave behind clothes covered in my own blood.”

“Can’t say it would’ve surprised me if you had. It wouldn’t be the first time you left evidence behind.”

Park stared at him and then turned away, shoulders hunched. He looked sullen, though Miles didn’t spare any time looking at his expression. He didn’t want to stay in a shopping mall’s parking lot any longer than necessary. They drove off again, and he felt relief gradually pooling inside of him the further away they got from the populated spot. It wasn’t really that densely crowded an area, but any place that held more people than just the two of them set him on edge. In fact, he noted with mild surprise that Park didn’t sound too stressed out about the grocery run he’d just had to do. He wasn’t emitting any concerns about a cashier noticing him like last time. 

Park carefully crossed his arms and leaned fully against his seat. His body relaxed for a moment. Only for a moment. Then his shoulders hunched again. The sound of teeth sporadically clicking around bitten nails reached Miles’ ears. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the other man was floating in a gray sweater and pants that were much too big for him. Maybe he’d bought the first set of clothes he’d found. Park suddenly spoke after a long while of silence.

“You haven’t told me the steps to the plan, exactly. Are you going to explain it to me in detail at any point?”

Miles hadn’t expected him to initiate any discussion about the plan. Park usually displayed the vitality of a slug, so Miles had assumed that he’d have to drag and order him around until their last objective was finally reached. It was jarring to hear the guy ask a question which wasn’t born out of fear or confusion, moreso one that was pertinent and sounded genuinely interested. Miles glanced at him, somewhat perplexed, though he didn’t let it show. He noticed that the other man’s features were neutral, that there was no pain nor fear twisting the lines of his face. It was an odd sight in how unusual it was. Distasteful, almost.

Miles’ remark was coated in a veneer of cynicism. 

“I see you’re finally willing to be an active participant in pulling our asses out of the fire.”

Park looked at him in disbelief.

“I don’t know what you expected from me in the state I was in, without painkillers or decent sleep. It’s not like I could think straight.”

“To be frank, I didn’t expect anything. I wasn’t sure you had a functioning brain.”

Park’s voice was cold. “I do, and I don’t see how it’s so hard for you to realize that it’s difficult to use it when… Never mind. Just tell me about the damn plan.”

Miles felt a spark of twisted satisfaction to catch sight of the frown that had reappeared on Park’s face. When he had to tamp down the snide rictus that threatened to stretch the corner of his mouth, Miles realized that his reaction was petty as hell. He wondered when he’d become so complacent in his unhappiness that it felt good to make Park miserable as well. Something dark and heavy in his chest slithered around, an unnamed feeling that felt dirty but belonged inside of him now. Miles pushed it aside and focused on staying level.

“We stay out of Murkoff’s grasp for as long as we have to, meaning we hide in places we can’t be tracked, and we don’t stay too long in one spot. In the meantime, I gather and organize evidence to make an exhaustive list of Murkoff Corporation’s crimes which I can arrange in an article that even the most idiotic moron can make sense of, so that the information doesn’t go over anyone’s head. I’ve already made good progress on that front. Your part is to prepare a written account of everything that happened to you in Mount Massive. At best, it’ll be a testament if your account coincides with my evidence, and at worst, a testimony will still be useful to garner sympathy.”

Park opened his mouth.

“Before you ask, evidence isn’t enough on its own. Emotional appeal is necessary to give my article true legitimacy. People need to understand the depths of the depravity that took place in that asylum, to feel the suffering those patients were subjected to. The horror, the lies and helplessness. Otherwise, no one will give a shit and it’ll all be forgotten in a week. Maybe less. Just another sensationalist anecdote read for the thrills and then thrown in the trash.”

Park closed his mouth.

“They need to see that this happened to real people, that it happened to someone just like them. That Murkoff spared no one, not even their own workers,” concluded Miles. “They need to see that it happened to you, Park.”

Park didn’t say anything. His hands were clasped tight between his legs, one of his thumbs rubbing the back of his other hand. The gray clouds above hung dark and heavy in the skies, and the first raindrops hit the windshield. The light smattering gathered into trickles which quickly transformed into streams when a heavy curtain of rain slumped across the roof of the car. Miles activated the wipers and listened to the drag of rubber across laminated glass as they drove deeper into the storm.

In the muted atmosphere, Park quietly said: “I understand.”

“Good,” said Miles.

They drove in silence for the next hours, across land which shifted from plains to woods to a marsh littered with fallen leaves and furrowed with long roots. Park’s hand-wringing, nail-biting, and finger-tapping stopped when he finally nodded off. Miles looked out upon the large body of murky water that stretched endlessly beyond the long road which had been built across. An unbidden thought flashed through his mind, that of gripping the wheel and crashing the car through the railing straight into the water. 

His hands tightened around the wheel in a spasm. The thought remained just that, a thought. It quickly dispersed in the shadows of his brain. Miles frowned, left unsettled and confused by his own mind. That wasn’t the kind of stuff he thought about. It just wasn’t. It made no sense to think about it. He wasn’t planning on dying now, not when there were so many steps to take before he could even contemplate suicide.

The Walrider kicked inside of him, and Miles tensed. His breath wavered on a wince when it happened again. He forced himself to keep half of his focus on the road, as tempting as it was to direct all his attention towards pushing the Walrider back down as far as he could. Miles didn’t want to admit it to himself, but there was a deepening ache in his bones and a growing weariness in his body, two telling symptoms of the struggle between him and the entity over who got to keep control over their body. He chose to ignore it for now. He didn’t want to face the implications.

Next to him, Park made a short, distressed sound. Miles’ head jerked in his direction. He was sure he’d kept a handle on the Walrider, but the timing of that noise was suspicious. Park curled in on himself with a groan, then gave a full-body shudder and gasped awake, his huge eyes rolling around like a crazed animal’s. Miles looked back at the road. Park turned towards him, his breathing fast and heavy.

“You let it out again,” he accused in a ragged voice.

Miles scowled, already annoyed by the guy’s ceaseless whining.

“What the hell are you going on about?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Answer my question.”

“Stop pretending that nothing happened. I know you let it out!”

“I didn’t let anything out. You sound like an idiot making assumptions on your own.”

“You’re lying! Stop lying to me! I can still hear the static!” exclaimed Park, the intensity in his tone bordering hysteria more than anger. 

“The Walrider didn’t come out, Park! You’re making no goddamn sense right now.”

Park shook his head, covering his ears and rocking in his seat. “You’re lying,” he repeated, his voice strained with pain, “you’re lying, you’re lying.”

“Fucking nutcase,” muttered Miles.

A dry sob escaped Park. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand this anymore, stop doing this to me.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not doing anything!”

“Stop,” Park choked out. “Just stop, please.”

Miles cursed, exasperated, and pulled the breaks. The car screeched to a halt on the side of the road. He shoved him in the shoulder.

“Get out then. Get out!”

Without answering, Park blindly grasped for the handle and yanked it open, tumbling over the side when his cast slipped off the edge of the car. He caught himself on his hands and knees and crawled a few feet away, where he propped himself against the railing and held onto it like he was unbearably dizzy. Miles tipped his head back against the headrest and took in a deep breath to calm himself down, though it did little to change the visceral images in his brain. His irritation stoked the burning desire to tear Park apart like a paper doll, rip his legs out of his hip joints, shred his upper body into ribbons of flesh and skin and let them join the leaves strewn about the marsh. 

Park retched somewhere on his right, and Miles glanced over just in time to see Park puking his guts out into the water below. The man slumped to his knees panting, one of his hands slipping off the railing and hitting the asphalt, the other hanging white-knuckled onto the metal pole above him. Neither of them moved for a while. Miles closed his eyes and continued his measured breathing. The anger inside of him was too bright and too loud, a rage entirely disproportionate compared to the nature of Park’s offense. Park had simply freaked out. The guy freaked out all the time. Miles was supposed to be used to it by now.

The sound of Park’s shuffling feet reached his ears. Miles opened his eyes again and watched the other man get up and slowly turn around to look at him. Park’s gaze flickered about, anguish and bewilderment clear on his face.

“It’s not here,” he murmured. “The Walrider’s not here.”

“That’s what I told you,” snapped Miles.

Park rubbed his face with both hands. His voice was muffled when he said: “I don’t understand anything anymore.”

“You’re done puking,” said Miles dryly. “Break’s over. Stop crying and get back in the car, we’re not supposed to stop here.”

Park looked at him, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and slowly hobbled back to his seat. Miles waited for him to close the door and started the car before he’d put on his seatbelt. Park was quiet for a while, and then he whispered:

“Static… When I hear static, it means it’s there. The Walrider should’ve been there. Why could I hear it if it wasn’t?”

“Park, one day you’re going to have to accept that you’re off your rocker.”

“No,” said Park. “No, I know this means something. It’s got to mean something.”

“Then by all means, enlighten me. Should be entertaining.”

“I know it wasn’t in my nightmare. I heard it when I woke up, this isn’t just in my head,” Park said defensively.

“Sure.”

Park leaned against the door with his elbow, his mouth hidden in his palm. The fingers of his other hand tapped against his thigh. He fell silent. 

Neither of them had talked again when they pulled up at their next stop in the middle of nowhere, hours later. Park wordlessly stepped out of the car to go eat in his corner. Miles got out as well and walked in the opposite direction, though he didn’t go very far. The Walrider kept straining to be let out, and this made it more difficult for Miles to move the way he wanted. His own body felt like it fought against him. The muscles in his legs were taut, and he couldn’t place his feet exactly where he’d meant his steps to land. Miles stood there in the dark, gazing at the still surface surrounding the road. He couldn’t tell if it was solid earth or hidden swamp.

The car lights flashed at his back, and he turned around to see Park leaning in the driver’s side. The lights were a signal to tell Miles that Waylon was done eating. Miles walked back to the car. As he came nearer, Park didn’t move away from the open door to the driver’s seat. Miles stopped in front of him.

“Why are you blocking my way?” asked Miles, impatient. 

“I think I know why,” Park told him.

“What are you talking about?” Miles asked flatly.

“The static. I hear it when I… when I see things. Not always, but it happens when I’m afraid. If I panic. It happens every time I wake up and you’re nearby.”

Miles frowned. “Your point?”

Park’s gaze shifted, pulled towards the earth. His fingers were clenching and unclenching around his crutches.

“When I have a nightmare, or… or a flashback… I feel like the Walrider is close. So, it’s possible that I’m more sensitive to it when these things happen. I think that, in those moments, I can feel its presence even if you don’t let it out.”

“Okay,” said Miles. 

It wasn’t a wildly irrational hypothesis. Whenever Park freaked out, he always had that crazy look in his eye, like something was pulling him deeper into his madness. Given that only insane people could sense the Walrider, Miles supposed it could make sense that Park became weaker to the Walrider’s influence whenever he lost his grip on the fragile remainders of his sanity. 

Park stood there, as if he was waiting for something else. 

“What?” said Miles.

Park hesitated. He sounded somewhat reluctant when he finally said: “I think it would be best for both of us if you put distance between us when it happens. When I get nightmares, or a flashback.” 

Miles clenched his fists in his pockets. Park’s suggestion was sensible, but it still chafed at him to be told that his mere existence in the man’s vicinity was an inconvenience–a torture, even. All this time Miles had spent struggling, fighting against the Walrider to prevent it from freely tormenting Park, suddenly seemed like a huge waste of time and energy. None of what Miles had been doing mattered if Park’s insanity was the thing to circumvent. The man would get hurt by their proximity no matter what. 

Just a daily reminder of how much of a monster I am, thought Miles. 

He could’ve given up right then and there, could’ve allowed the Walrider to roam again, the way it had been in the asylum. It would’ve been so much easier to let go. Less… painful. But Miles reminded himself that the goal was to keep Park coherent enough to turn in both a written and taped account of his ordeal. For that penultimate goal to be reached, he needed to keep the man from breaking completely. And if Miles had been in a state where he could be totally honest with himself, he would’ve also taken into account the fact that it was a relief to have a more normal version of Park at his side.

“I won’t always be rational enough to realize that it’s what I need to do myself,” Park added when he didn’t get any response.

“That’s for sure,” said Miles.

Park stared at him, resentment faintly simmering at the bottom of his brown eyes, and then hobbled around him without another word. Miles got in the driver's seat and pulled the door shut with him. As he sat there and listened to Park take his own seat, a small part of him whispered that he was a better person than this and that maybe it was time to let up on the bullying. The bigger part of him immediately squashed that whisper. Park needed to realize how fucked-up insane he was. He could take a few barbs. He’d survived Mount Massive, after all.

They reached the next motel at sundown, and Miles ignored Park’s skeptical staring at the dilapidated sign hanging askew from a pole. He parked the car in a corner of the parking lot, and Park got out to go check in at the lobby. There were no complaints, but Miles could tell that Park wasn’t as eager to spend the night here as he’d been in the last motel. He also noticed that his cast was dragging across the asphalt from a more pronounced limp. They didn’t have any more painkillers, and the absence of pills was beginning to show in the way Park moved with the crutches. Miles rolled down the window.

“Park.”

Park stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder.

“Ask for painkillers,” instructed Miles. “You’re more tolerable with a clear head.”

Displeasure twisted the corners of Park’s mouth, and he spun back around without granting him an answer. 

“Don’t forget to put the money upfront before you ask,” Miles called after him, and then rolled his window back up. He leaned back in his seat and looked around the parking lot from where he sat. He didn’t see a single black lens staring back at him. He allowed himself to feel a measure of satisfaction at the prospect of being able to stay here for more than one night. Even if he had no need for sleep, driving nonstop remained exhausting.

Park returned with the key, and they headed for the room. Miles deposited their things on the table and the bed. Park went to drink some water with his painkillers, hesitating above the sink before taking a swig of the clear stream, the same pause he’d been making every time he had to down liquids and food in the last few weeks. Miles took out a chair and sat at the table, opening his laptop and pulling the closest file to him so he could start typing a copy. Park returned next to him and sat in the chair across from Miles.

“How do I do mine?” he asked.

Miles glanced at him over the top of his computer screen. “You write.”

“I don’t have a pen or a paper.”

“You’ll find what you need in my bag.”

Park blew out a discreet sigh through his nose. Miles had expected him to reach out towards the bed from his seat and pull the bag off the mattress, but when he saw the other man beginning to get up, he realized that his stomach wound was probably too painful for him to stretch like that. Miles briefly considered helping, knowing that it’d be faster if he just leaned forward and pushed it towards Park. Then he noticed Park giving him a dirty look that clearly meant ‘you’re an asshole’, and any nascent benevolence he’d felt instantly vanished without a trace. He didn’t have to feel bad for the guy. 

Not a goddamn babysitter, Miles reminded himself. It wasn’t like Park was so crippled that he no longer had a single shred of autonomy. Case in point, he was doing just fine yanking Miles’ bag to him and rummaging inside more forcefully than he needed to.

Miles’ attention whipped away from Park when he felt the Walrider ripple through him, a brutal expansion that came and went as quickly as a heartbeat. He gripped the edge of the table, teeth gritting, and breathed through his nose. Park was still fishing for a pen. Miles’ wince had gone unnoticed. He forced himself to relax and stared intently at his screen, hiding his pursed lips behind his blackened hand. The Walrider pried at him from the inside in waves that were more frequent. Miles had no idea if the Walrider was getting stronger or if it was him who was growing weaker. He was even less certain of what could happen the moment his hold on the Walrider slipped for good. 

It had been one thing to let the entity ride the destructive avalanche of his emotions; it would be another for it to break free on its own. Miles could only pray that it would never happen.

Park sat back in his chair with notepad and pen in hand. Silence fell in the small room. Miles was focused on picking apart the camera feed, watching one of the calmer sequences of Park’s ordeal as the man was walking through the gore-infested halls of Mount Massive, so he didn’t pay any attention to Park when the man began wiggling in his seat. It was the familiar sound of teeth clicking around nails that tugged at Miles’ focus, and then the repetitiveness of it which pulled him completely out of the video. He frowned at the man in front of him. Park was engrossed in staring at the few lines he’d written in the notepad and was biting his nails. His index finger tapped a fast incessant rhythm against his pen, and he was shaking his good leg beneath the table. Miles crossed his arms and watched him for a while.

“Okay, you need to stop doing that.”

Park jolted, as if he’d forgotten that Miles was there.

“What?”

“Stop doing all… that,” said Miles, gesturing vaguely in Park’s direction before crossing his arms again, “and focus.” 

Park frowned. “I am focusing.”

“Just stop making all that noise. I need to concentrate.”

“...Okay,” said Park.

They looked back down at their respective tasks. Miles worked undisturbed for about two minutes before the rustling of Park’s clothes started up again. He clenched his jaw. His patience was very, very short these days.

“Park.”

Park looked up, then quickly said: “Sorry. Sorry.”

The third time it happened, Miles closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. Watching videotaped scenes of the aftermath of insane violence, coupled with steadily mounting irritation towards the only other person in the room, was not a combination which would result in a healthy outcome for Park if Miles continued to subject himself to said combination. He needed to find a way to calm down. Miles slammed his laptop shut and shoved his chair away, the sudden loudness making Park flinch. 

“I’m taking a shower,” said Miles dryly.

Park stared at him, wide-eyed, and hesitantly answered: “...Okay.”

Not many things could bring Miles physical comfort in his state. He longed to sleep, but there was no point in trying. It would be difficult to order food from any restaurant when they were stuck in middle-of-nowhere motels, so the familiar taste of junk food was out of the question; which left only the soothing heat of a warm shower. Miles threw away his clothes one by one without sparing a glance in the mirror’s direction, and stepped behind the plastic curtain. Avoiding his reflection didn’t fix the problem. Nor did trying to stare at the wall in front of him the whole time he stood beneath the stream. He still felt the holes in his body beneath his maimed hands when he washed himself. The dark spots across his skin which spilled their black smoke into the water were impossible to ignore, always visible out of the corner of his eye.

Miles leaned forward and spread his palms against the hard surface of the wall, lowering his forehead against it. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He needed to focus on the cold tile beneath his palms, the warm mist gathering in his nose, the buzz of the shower stream, the water drops hitting his skin. He needed to remind himself that he was in his body, that he was in control. He wouldn’t let his emotions or the Walrider get the best of him. He wouldn’t hurt Park just because his nervous tics were annoying. He wouldn’t. 

I’m in control.

He was in control. 

Not the Walrider.

The one in control was him. 

Me.

Miles Upshur. 

It’s my body.

It was his body. No one else’s. Nothing else’s.

Chapter Text

Waylon jumped awake in the bed, his throat aching from a scream clogging his airway, and brought a hand between his legs where he could feel warm blood sticking to his skin. He was still whole beneath the fabric of his pants. Panting, Waylon squinted at the only light source in the dark of the room. A screen. He remembered where he was. Miles worked through the night without the lights on, because he said that it would attract suspicions if someone noticed that the room was lit up all the time. Waylon could see Miles’ shadow, the two white pinpricks of the man’s eyes staring at him from the dark corner of the room.

Waylon fell back on his side and curled on himself, keeping his hand protectively pressed up against his crotch. Lingering fear shuddered along his skin. His chest hurt. He could feel Gluskin’s rough palm against his calf, sliding up his thigh. Waylon buried his sweaty face in the bedsheets to try and muffle his high, wheezing breath, squeezing his arm between his legs as if folding himself up tighter would let him escape the phantom touch.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Waylon heard the indignant question from afar, trapped in the turbulent depths of the nightmare that still echoed inside of him. Static filled his head, the copper stench of blood filled his nose. He felt unsafe. Danger lurked, heavy on his back, and he didn’t want to move or open his eyes.

“Stop gripping your junk like that.”

Waylon didn’t react. The sound of a chair pushing back reached his ears, and then footsteps, which came to a halt next to the bed as the static grew louder. 

“Will you stop? You look like a pervert humping one out,” rasped Miles. Annoyance made his voice pointed. Beyond it, the distant scream of an electric saw ripped through the air, high-pitched and dangerous. 

Waylon’s breath quickened, and a thin sound of fear slipped out of him.

“Oh, great,” muttered Miles, and his clothes faintly swished away from Waylon. There was a clicking sound and yellow light suddenly flooded the screen of Waylon’s closed eyelids, shocking him into opening them. He saw a wall in front of him that was stained in brown and yellow. The static in his ears slowly quieted. He realized that there was no saw nearby. 

“Are you done fondling yourself?”

The insulting tone tugged Waylon out of the sticky black fear that clung to him. He wordlessly peered across the bedsheets at the man standing next to the door. Miles both looked and sounded extremely annoyed. 

“I can see you’re awake, Park. Answer me.”

“Y… Yes. Sorry.” Waylon pushed himself up on his elbow. His other arm twitched as he was about to pull it away from his legs, but the persistent sense of danger stayed his movement at the last second. He kept his crotch covered as he sat up. 

Miles stared at him.

“Do you absolutely have to touch yourself in front of me?”

The ridiculousness of the scene hit Waylon with sudden clarity. He quickly removed his hand, but squeezed his thighs together as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He couldn’t get rid of the invasive feeling on the inside of his right leg. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his face hot with embarrassment. 

Miles didn’t say anything and went back to his chair. Waylon watched him sit down and pull his laptop close.

“Sorry,” he eventually repeated. He cleared his throat, and added: “I had a nightmare.”

“I could tell,” Miles answered flatly. “One of those sickos rape you, or something?”

“No,” quickly said Waylon, more vehemently than he’d intended. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “No, they didn’t.”

Miles continued typing at his computer, then stopped. He looked over at Waylon.

“They didn’t?” said Miles, like he didn’t believe him. 

“No!”

“They must have violated your body in some way. That’s just the kind of thing they did. With the way you act, you can’t tell me nothing happened to you.”

Waylon’s denial died on his lips. He didn’t think he could say that he hadn’t been violated.

“You’re going to tell that part too, right?” said Miles.

Waylon stared at him. The man stared back, his expression unreadable.

“You have to,” Miles said. “I read what you wrote earlier. It’s too clean to be the truth. You can’t spare any details if you want this to work.”

Waylon felt shaky inside. Fragile. He didn’t like the way Miles’ unnatural gaze saw straight through him.

He looked away and muttered: “I just… Nothing that bad happened.”

“Nothing that bad?”

“They just… groped me,” lied Waylon. He couldn’t tell Miles the truth. He didn’t even want to think about the truth. And this wasn’t a complete lie, anyway.

“Just groped you,” repeated Miles.

“Yes.”

It was only when he saw the disfigured lips pull up at the corners that Waylon realized Miles looked amused, and the realization made him feel cold.

“Well, if they just groped you, I guess that’s completely fine then, huh? At least they found you pretty enough not to cut off any parts.” 

Waylon suddenly felt sick to hear Miles make light of what he’d said. Gluskin had tried to cut off parts. He’d nearly done it, and in Waylon’s nightmares, he’d succeeded. Waylon didn’t find anything to reply to Miles. The latter shook his head and turned back to his computer, muttering to himself.

“ Just groped. What a fucking joke.”

Waylon knew from his reaction that Miles had identified his lie for what it was. He didn’t understand why Miles seemed so entertained by it, and he didn’t like being on the receiving end of the journalist’s mocking smile. Cheeriness didn’t suit Miles. It felt like a dangerous facade, hiding thorny filth underneath.

They didn’t talk again. Not knowing what else to do, Waylon lied back down and warily stared at the back of Miles’ unmoving head until sleep crept up on him once more.

For two days, they did nothing but work on their respective tasks, rarely stepping outside unless Waylon needed to eat or drink. Miles looked progressively more on edge. They didn’t talk about it, though, and Waylon wasn’t about to ask. The less he had to interact with the journalist, the better. It was tiring having to deal with the constant snark and cynicism. 

Waylon stared at the paper in front of him. His part wasn’t going that well. He didn’t want to write about what had happened in the asylum. Miles hadn’t alluded to the conversation they’d had about being violated since the last time. Waylon wondered how Miles had been so certain that he wasn’t telling the entire truth when he’d read his outline. Waylon sighed and rubbed his forehead. He knew that Miles had a point when he said it was necessary to describe everything, but… Recalling those horrors made Waylon feel sick to his stomach.

The flutter of static scratched the back of Waylon’s brain, and he tensed. The pen slipped from his fingers and clattered on the table. His gaze swung up towards the ceiling, where he could feel a heavy presence gathering like stormy clouds. Blood dripped on his face. He shot out of his chair and stumbled back, tripped, and fell on his ass. He was unable to tear his eyes away from the glistening, fleshy bulbs and entrails lining the cracks in the old plaster. There were bones jutting out, ribs, exposed just like he’d seen Jeremy Blaire’s on the ground of the asylum’s main hall.

“Snap out of it, there’s nothing there,” came Miles’ annoyed reprimand ahead of him.

Waylon blinked, swallowing bitter saliva. The whispering, dark dregs of smoke disappeared. Only unidentifiable stains remained on the ceiling. Waylon looked over to Miles and saw that the man had turned his focus back to his computer. When he understood what had happened, anger overcame Waylon in a rush.

“You… You asshole, you did it again!”

Miles leveled a hard black stare in his direction. “Stop bitching and get back to work.”

“No! No, you– You can’t keep doing that!” Waylon pulled himself up using the chair, wincing at the pain that shot through his stomach when his muscles stretched. He shoved an accusing finger in Miles’ direction, breathing hard. “You know what it does to me! Why do you let it happen?”

“Shut up,” Miles muttered, like Waylon was a troublesome gnat buzzing around the room. 

Waylon had had enough. He limped over to Miles’ side of the table and slammed his hand down on his files.

“Look at me!”

Miles’ eerie gaze swiveled up to his face, and Waylon felt his breath shudder in his throat. Suddenly, he was prey. The shadows swimming in the journalist’s eyes were thick and unnatural. They reached out like tendrils, wrapping around Waylon’s lungs. He could do nothing to escape the tight, twisting sensation inside his chest. Waylon hacked out a wheeze and fell to his knees, unable to breathe. He heard screaming. Horrified, desperate screaming. Jeremy Blaire’s voice. His boss, strung up in the air, his body ripping at the seams. Waylon felt his flesh threaten to do the same. He was him. He was the target of the Walrider’s destructive urges.

“Shit,” cursed Miles.

The pressure around Waylon’s chest receded all at once and he slumped to the ground, gasping, his face pressed down against the dirty linoleum floor. Terror thrummed through him like blood.

“Shit,” repeated Miles. The chair legs next to Waylon’s head raked backwards, and he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. “Hey, Park. Park, are you okay?”

Waylon shuddered and slapped Miles’ arm away, scrambling until his back hit the table. Waylon wasn’t Jeremy Blaire. Waylon hadn’t been exploded by the Walrider. Waylon had been the orange jumpsuit on the ground, staring up at Jeremy Blaire’s crucifixion in a mix of horror and elation. 

“Shit,” said Miles quietly a third time. He sounded genuinely troubled. 

Noticing this made Waylon suddenly feel deep unease, for a different reason than nearly dying. He hunched over, heaving, and managed: “What… the hell was that?”

“I–” started Miles, and then his gravelly, ruined voice rang out louder in the small hotel room: “You provoked me, man, what did you expect?”

“No,” said Waylon, shaking his head, and he swung his gaze up to the other man’s face. “No, you didn’t… that didn’t look… Miles, what the hell was that? Why… Why were you surprised, too?”

Miles opened his mouth, his face stony, the way it always was when he was about to hurl insults at Waylon. He caught himself. His lips tightened in a line. After a pause, he said: “I got caught up in some memories. I didn’t mean to attack you.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t… you didn’t mean to? I thought you had it under control,” wheezed Waylon.

“I do.” Miles’ colorless pupils shifted to the side. “Mostly.”

Waylon stared at him. Suddenly, some things started to make sense.

“You can’t control it fully,” he realized. “That’s why you keep letting it out. It’s not… not a conscious decision.”

Miles’ face twisted in irritation. “Shut it, Park. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Waylon insisted. “I kept blaming you. You never… said anything. Never contradicted me.”

Miles turned his back on him. “We’re done talking. Get off the floor.”

Waylon watched him pull his seat back to the table.

“You didn’t want to admit it,” he slowly said. “You’d rather… be the bad guy, than admit that you can’t do this.”

Miles stopped moving. His hands remained gripped around the back of the chair.

“I said shut up, Park.”

“You should’ve told me,” Waylon said reproachfully.

Miles spun around. His deadened lips curled up in a fake, cutting smirk. “So you figured it out, congrats to you. You want a medal?”

“No,” slowly said Waylon. “No, I just… You should’ve told me.”

Miles’ smile dropped from his lips. He shook his head, exasperated. “It doesn’t change a damn thing for me that you know about it, and now you have another reason to freak out. As if you didn’t have enough of those already.”

“I didn’t think you cared that much,” Waylon said drily.

“I don’t. You’re a pain to deal with when you get crazy, that’s all. Well, crazier than you are at base level.”

Waylon looked down at the ground, arms wrapped tightly around himself. He could still feel the lingering struggle of his lungs, the aftershock of being deprived of oxygen, however short the duration. He didn’t know what the Walrider would have done to him, exactly, if Miles hadn’t stopped it; and he didn’t want to think about it too hard. He shook his head.

“You deflect all the time, Miles… but I think the real issue here is you. You can’t stand that you’re not strong enough to control the Walrider. So… you pin the blame on me. On how I react. But the truth is that you just can’t do it. You can’t control the Walrider like you want to control everything else.”

“Will you shut your damn mouth?”

Waylon looked up. Miles’ shoulders were tense in anger. He was always so angry, so aggressive. It made Waylon feel exhausted. Still, he had something to say, and he’d see it to the end.

“You can’t admit it even now,” he said tiredly. “I told you, that place… It destroyed both of us. You have to see that. You have to see that it still affects you.”

“I fucking know that,” growled Miles. “Park, I swear to god you need to shut up. This conversation is over.”

“Just tell me,” insisted Waylon. “Tell me next time. You don’t have to lie about these things. We’re… We’re in this together, right? We have to talk to each other if we want to see this to the end.”

Miles stared at him. He breathed out, shoulders relaxing ever so slightly, and bitterly said: “Fine.”

“I won’t… I won’t blame you for letting the Walrider out anymore,” said Waylon. “But you have to stop being such a jerk to me when it makes me… react.”

Miles grunted. 

“I said fine. Now get off the floor, and shut up. Seriously. Not another word.”

Chapter Text

Miles surreptitiously watched Park over the screen of his computer from across the table. The other man was staring blankly at his written account of the events, pen in hand, but he hadn’t jotted down a word in the last twenty minutes. Even before that, he’d barely drawn a letter here and there, and it had caught Miles’ attention that Park’s movements didn’t lead to any visible progress on the paper. By now it was obvious that Park wasn’t accomplishing his task at all. The only thing he was really doing was fidgeting. Miles had managed to grow used to it in the last 48 hours, somehow, though it still annoyed him when the sounds breached his focus.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asked.

Park jolted and looked up at him like a student caught passing a note. “I’m– I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About what to write.”

“You know what to write.”

“I…”

“It’s not complicated, Park. Start to finish, in order. I know you remember everything.”

Park lowered his gaze to the paper, a faint frown on his brow. 

“Just write. The faster you go about it, the sooner it’ll be over,” added Miles.

“You make it sound easier than it is,” muttered Park.

“I don’t see what’s stopping you.”

Park looked up at him again, looking upset. “Don’t you have any trouble with this at all?” He gestured to the camera. “Watching the recordings, reading through the files of all those patients they tortured… Doesn’t it make you feel anything?”

“I’m good at compartmentalizing.”

“That’s… Never mind.” Park shook his head and set his pen down, then ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t concentrate. It’s not just… It’s not just because it’s hard to go back to all of it. There’s a lot going on in my head.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I can’t stop thinking about my wife and kids. I… I wish I knew for sure that they’re okay. It’s hard to focus when I don’t know if they’re safe or not.”

“You know you can’t contact them,” stated Miles.

“Of course I know that,” said Park, tense and unhappy. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Good. You’d better make sure that we expose Murkoff sooner than later. The only time you’ll get to see your family is when Murkoff will be too busy to go after you. That’s once they’re brought to justice. So write.”

There was a moment of silence. Miles glanced at Park again. He looked hesitant.

Park noticed him staring. Quietly, he asked: “Do you think… Is it really impossible to know?”

Miles sighed. “Park, come on. Focus.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Both you and your family need to stay in hiding if you want to make sure that Murkoff can’t find anyone,” Miles articulated, hoping that the words would have a better chance to register in Park’s challenged mind if he said them clearly.

Park’s frown deepened. “Stop talking to me like I’m an idiot.”

“Well, I can’t help that you sound like one. A smarter person would’ve known to drop the subject by now.”

“Look, I know you’re right, but I can’t help how I feel. How am I supposed to be calm if I don’t know that they’re alright?” argued Park.

Miles took his elbows away from the sides of his computer and leaned back in his chair. They stared at each other.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Are you certain it’ll get your head back in the game if I help you with this?”

Park looked surprised. “How would you help?”

“I’m not telling you the exact way I’m going to go about this, but I can ask someone to keep an eye on your family and keep me updated.”

“Keep you updated?” repeated Park. “They’re my family.”

“And it’s my contact,” said Miles. “Take it or leave it.”

“How would I know if you were telling the truth about their situation?” asked Park. “I know you well enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be above telling a lie so that you could get me to go your way.”

“Whether you believe me or not is on you. Again, you can either take it or leave it. In any case, I’m going to keep pushing you to write that account, Park. We can’t stay on the run for however long it’ll take for you to get your shit together.”

Park stared at him with suspicious eyes. 

“Stop wasting my time,” said Miles sharply. “If you don’t decide in the next two seconds, the offer is off the table.”

“Okay, okay,” quickly said Park. “I agree.”

Miles nodded and got up. “Get back to writing. I’ll make the call.”

He felt Park’s gaze on his back the whole way out. As Miles shut the door behind him with his phone in hand, he wondered if Park would try to listen in on the call with his ear to the door. It wouldn’t surprise him. Well, it didn’t matter. The important part was that Park and Miles’ contact didn’t know each other. He lifted the phone to his ear and waited for his contact to pick up. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Pascal. It’s Miles.”

“Miles! Man, it’s been a while. How’ve you been? I read that article you wrote in May about those twisted bastards in pharmaceuticals. Good stuff.”

“I’m fine. And thanks. Listen, I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“Obviously. I didn’t think you’d called to ask about my kids.”

Miles frowned. “You have kids now?”

Pascal laughed. “No, man, that’d never happen. Too busy with work.”

“Right.” Miles paused. “I have to warn you, this could be dangerous.”

“Miles, I’m a P.I. with debts as deep as the Mariana Trench. I’ll take anything you throw in my direction.”

“Okay, then let me explain what’s going on.”

Miles didn’t detail the Mount Massive experience, nor did he go in detail about who Park was. That would be for Pascal to look into if he needed it. All Miles told him was that he needed to know if the Park family was safe and well-hidden, and if Pascal estimated that their current location wasn’t discreet enough to stay under the Murkoff Corp’s radar, then it would be up to him to find a more suitable shelter. This would lead to additional compensation, of course. Pascal acquiesced to everything, but he did ask why Miles thought that Murkoff Corp was so dangerous; as far as he could tell from a quick internet search, they were just a popular supplier in biometrics security with a hand in some charitable organizations. 

“Crimes against humanity,” Miles told him. “That’s what they’ll go to jail for if I manage to see this through.”

“Damn,” softly said Pascal. “Okay, Miles. You got it. Good luck out there.”

“Thanks.”

Miles hung up. When he went back inside the hotel room, Park raised his head in his direction. It didn’t look like the man had moved since Miles had left him on his own. Then again, a leg in a cast and a still-healing gut wound probably would prevent anyone from attempting stealthy behavior.

“He’s on the case,” said Miles.

Park nodded, and asked: “How long until we get any news?”

“He’s a fast worker. If not this week, then the next.”

Park didn’t look reassured. “...Okay.”

*

Later that evening, Park decided to partake in the alcohol stash in the corner of their motel room. Neither him nor Miles had taken anything out of the small fridge before, since Miles was adamant that they should only use things that they’d bought in order to leave the least amount of traces. Park hadn’t been in any state to investigate their room, either. But after three solid days of sleeping in a real bed, Park’s energy was returning to him, and he was more active than Miles had ever seen him.

“What are you doing?” asked Miles as he watched Park take a beer out of the fridge.

Park glanced at him. “Drinking.”

“You’re still recovering.”

“I need to get… some thoughts out of my head.”

“Didn’t a single person at the hospital tell you that it’s bad to drink alcohol after a surgery?”

“They did. And also that I shouldn’t drink as long as I’m taking medicine. I don’t care, Miles.” 

Park hobbled back to his bed, and dropped down heavily on the mattress. Miles watched him pop open the beer and down several swigs of it in one go. He should’ve seen this coming. Park had been getting deeper and deeper into his head over the day, probably because of the uncertain status of his family. That, and those nightmares he got all the time. Miles’ gaze drifted to the fridge. Hell, why not. He could do with a distraction as well. Going through all that footage and all the evidence of Murkoff’s crimes wasn’t easy. Miles got up and went to get himself a beer too. 

Sadly, the single beer didn’t have any effect on Miles. It could’ve been bottled water and the result would’ve been the same. But Park, oh, Park got messy real fast. Miles hadn’t thought it was possible to be such a lightweight until a red-faced Park started trying to get up without his crutches and ranting about Murkoff. This could’ve been due to the fact that Park barely ate, Miles mused as he watched the other man waver and catch himself on the bed. 

“Fuck Murkoff,” slurred Park. “Fuck them. Fuck Jeremy. Fuck, fuck, fuck them.”

“You should lie down,” said Miles.

Park looked up at him as if he’d forgotten that he wasn’t alone– which was probably true, given that Miles hadn’t said a word since they’d both gotten their beer, and Park had been talking to himself for the last three minutes. 

“Miles,” said Park.

Miles stared at him. “Yeah.”

Park struggled to get up again, and then came closer, hanging onto the chairs and the table so that he wouldn’t fall over. Miles watched him approach with growing apprehension. He didn’t like the sympathetic look in Park’s brown eyes.

“Miles… it’s hard for you too.”

Miles’ lips twisted in distaste when Park leaned on the table right next to him, the other man’s knee brushing up against his thigh. He pushed his chair back and leaned away.

“Fuck off, Park.”

Park looked around and slumped awkwardly into the chair next to him. His hand found its way to Miles’ shoulder.

“It’s hard... I know.”

Great, so Park was an affectionate drunk. Miles hated those. He shoved him away.

“Don’t touch me.”

Park laughed quietly to himself, as if he found something genuinely amusing about the situation. It was the first time Miles had ever heard him make that sound.

“You’re like a cat,” he said.

Miles frowned, annoyed. “What the hell are you going on about?”

“Lisa’s cat hates when I try to pet him. She says it’s because I try too hard.”

“I don’t really give a shit.”

Park had the gall to pat his shoulder again. “I know. You don’t give a shit… about me. It’s okay.”

“I told you not to touch me,” snapped Miles, and he yanked Park’s wrist away.

“Sorry, sorry,” mumbled Park. He dropped his arm in his lap and sighed. “I miss Lisa. I miss my wife, Miles.”

“Again, I don’t really give a shit. Go to bed. I’d rather hear you snore than ramble like this.”

“Oh, you’re right… I should sleep.” Park rubbed his face. “I’m… tired. Really tired.”

“Then go.”

“...Yeah.”

Park didn’t move. Miles elected to ignore him and went back to work. It wasn’t long before he noticed Park nodding off out of the corner of his eye. Five minutes later, Park was asleep on the table. Miles was too irritated by the fact that Park had grabbed his shoulder twice to find it in himself to care that the man’s posture was horrible. His spine would probably hurt when he woke up. Good. Miles could’ve helped him into bed, but he didn’t.

The Walrider hadn’t stopped acting up, and Miles finally went to take a shower at ass o’clock in the middle of the night when he couldn’t stand it anymore. His body ached. Every single piece of him felt worn from constantly having to hold back the Walrider’s attempts to jump out into the world. The warm water and cool tiles helped him center himself, regain control, assert dominance over the unnatural entity he’d had no choice but to host. The frequent showers were becoming a habit. Sometimes it wasn’t because the Walrider was too insistent; sometimes, it was because Miles needed to feel clean. Needed to feel like his skin wasn’t covered in the asylum’s grime and gore. 

He avoided the mirror now. It wasn’t even a conscious decision anymore. He just didn’t look in its direction when he was in the bathroom, and it was also the case for every other reflective surface the rest of the time. Better to forget what his face looked like, even if his hands were a constant reminder that he’d been damaged and twisted beyond repair.

The night went by mostly undisturbed. Park was out cold, and he didn’t dream until the first hours of the day. When he did wake up, however, Miles met a version of Park he’d thought he wouldn’t have to see again. Under the influence of the alcohol’s rebound effect, the man returned to the heights of anxiety that he’d displayed early on during their trip. Miles stared at the quivering mess on the floor with stale spite.

“Get your shit together, Park.”

“They’re gonna get us,” mumbled Park, his voice stumbling on spikes of hysteria. His eyes were huge and bulging as they darted around the room. “They’re gonna get us, Miles, they’re gonna get us.”

“No one knows we’re here.”

“You don’t know that! They could be anywhere. They were at the hospital. They would have followed us.”

“I crushed them.”

“You could’ve missed one!”

“I crushed all of them.” Miles stepped closer to Park, intending to pull him off the floor, but Park’s wild gaze jerked up to him. The man threw himself backwards. Miles stopped. “Park, you need to calm down right now.”

“No, no,” Park panted, frantically shaking his head. “Get away from me, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me!”

“I’m not touching you.”

“Stop, stop. Stop. Stop! Leave me alone!” Park yelled at him. 

“For fuck’s sake, man–”

Park grabbed his head and curled in on himself with a grunt of pain. “Agh! My head… Stop it… Stop it, stop it…! You can’t! No!”

Miles realized that Park was freaking out, really freaking out. He reached out for him.

“Park?”

“Don’t hurt me!” begged Park, flinching away from him. He pressed his back up against the frame of the bed, hunching over, his bad leg laying against the ground. It just shook uselessly. He was clearly trying, but he couldn’t pull it up to his chest like the other one. “Please, don’t hurt me! I can’t do it anymore! I can’t take it! I can’t! I can’t, I can’t!”

Miles remembered what Park had asked of him that time when they’d been standing next to the car, after he’d puked his guts out on the side of the road. The Walrider’s presence would make this worse for as long as Miles was nearby. He slowly backed up.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, Park. I’m leaving.”

Park said nothing, his breaths trembling around low, pathetic sounds of fear. His eyes were elsewhere. He probably wasn’t even recognizing Miles anymore, reliving whatever had happened to him in the asylum. Miles grabbed his things and hurried outside. He hoped to god no one would come check what the screaming had been about. That was the last thing they needed.

“Hey, what’s going on down there?” yelled a gravelly voice from above.

Miles whirled around and peered through the darkness, pulling his hat down on his face. Someone was leaning over the railing.

“Nightmare,” he called back.

“Well shut the fuck up! Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“Sorry.”

“Fucknut,” muttered the man, and his shadow disappeared. There was the sound of a door slamming shut and then silence. Miles allowed himself to feel a measure of relief that no one else seemed to want to confront him.

“Goddammit,” he grumbled. 

There couldn’t be a next time. Now they had to leave this motel, too.

Chapter Text

The atmosphere in the car was heavy. The two men didn’t talk, and Waylon thought that Miles’ stony expression probably meant that he was moody. It was still hard to read his face. Waylon didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the man’s dark-veined appearance. It was only when they reached an empty road in the middle of nowhere that Miles finally spoke.

“Time to eat.”

“Okay,” quietly said Waylon. 

He picked up his crutches, got out of the car and went to grab a can of chili and a plastic fork from the trunk. He’d eat it cold. Something about Miles’ attitude made him feel like he shouldn’t take any more time than necessary with his lunch. Waylon went to sit on the only log that wasn’t completely rotten. He was getting a little tired of eating canned food, mostly beans or chili, which to him always looked like offal and at times smelled tainted.

Waylon sullenly munched on his cold, wet mix of what was supposed to be beef and corn but just tasted like raw flesh and gritty bits of bone in his mouth. It was concerning how used to it he’d become in a matter of days. There was no choice if he wanted to survive. Part of him hoped that these hallucinations would stop once this would all be over, and he’d find his family, and everything would be normal again.

It wasn’t just the horrible consistency and appearance of his food. The loneliness bothered him, too. He’d been so used to eating meals with his family before Mount Massive Asylum, and it had been forever since he’d eaten in friendly company. He’d rapidly found himself isolated at work because he didn’t share the other level 3 security clearance workers’ conviction that the things they were doing for Murkoff were okay. Food hadn’t had a very noticeable taste in that lunchroom, and he’d always hurried to get it over with so that he wouldn’t have to stay in the middle of people who didn’t care much for him.

Waylon forced himself to focus his present thoughts on something other than the asylum, namely, his surroundings. His gaze landed on an abandoned bottle laying in the grass at the foot of another log, in the middle of cigarette butts and plastic wrappers. He squinted at it. It looked like a liquor bottle. Waylon decided to finish his chili before anything else. He only managed to eat a quarter of the can, his gut twisting warningly from the cold heavy slop, so he pushed the metal lid back in to keep it for dinner. He left it on the log and took up his crutches to go check on the bottle. 

It was half-empty, and the label said that it contained tequila. A spider had drowned in the contents. Its curled-up husk had sunk down to the weird fleshy bits laying at the bottom. One looked like the chopped off end of a finger, but without the nail. Waylon contemplated the idea that slowly took root in his mind. The beer had been covered in grime too, last night, and suspiciously heavy; but at least the bitter alcohol had numbed the horror in his mind for the space of a few hours. Waylon grabbed the bottle and swirled its contents around. He didn’t see anything in the yellow liquid aside from the dead spider and the fleshy things. He carefully tipped the bottle to see if the spider and the things would remain at the bottom if he tried to drink the tequila. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Miles called out to him from the car.

Waylon glanced over his shoulder. “...There’s alcohol.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Waylon hesitated, and then decided that he didn’t want to hear what Miles had to say about this. He lifted the bottle to his lips.

“Hey! What the– Park, drop that!”

Waylon only had the time to down two swigs before Miles was in front of him tearing the bottle out of his hands. Tequila splashed down Waylon’s clothes and all over his cast. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Miles yelled at him.

“Drinking,” said Waylon, annoyed. “Give it back.”

“No, you idiot,” Miles sharply said. “You saw how you reacted this morning because of the beer! What makes you think tequila will be any better? You’re supposed to have a brain, so will you use it already?”

“Give me back the bottle,” insisted Waylon.

“No.” Miles spun around and smashed the bottle against the log. Waylon winced at the shattering of glass. Miles turned back to him, his black eyes glinting with anger. “You’re not drinking, Park, not on my watch.”

“I can… I can do what I want!”

Miles’ voice cracked like a whip. “Not when it puts us both in danger! You’re the reason we had to leave the goddamn hotel, you moron, what don’t you understand about that?” 

Guilt condensed in Waylon’s insides. He argued: “I wouldn’t have panicked if you’d just left me alone!”

“I did!” Miles marched back to him and jabbed a finger in Waylon’s chest, making him stumble. “ You fucked up, Park. Don’t try to pin your crazy on me. You decided to drink that beer, and you were the one to freak out because you got hangxiety. Not me. You.”

Waylon dropped his gaze to the ground and didn’t answer. There was the spider husk on the wet ground, but no fleshy bits. Another hallucination. He could feel the other man’s anger radiating off of his body. He knew he was in the wrong about the manner in which things had unfolded that morning. It was just that… He just wanted a way to get rid of the screams and faces in his head. Was it really so bad to wish for that, even if it was only for a moment? Alcohol was the only thing he could think of. He didn’t have meds, he didn’t have Lisa, he didn’t have anything else that could help him soothe the horror.

“No more alcohol, Park.” Miles shoved him in the shoulder. “It’s final. Don’t let me catch you with any, because you’ll regret it if I do.”

“...I get it,” mumbled Waylon.

Miles stared him down for a few more seconds, then went back to the car. Waylon lingered in the same spot until he finally worked up the motivation to pick up his half-finished can of chili and followed Miles. When he slipped into the passenger’s seat, he caught sight of the open computer on his lap. The man never stopped working. Waylon couldn’t even see what he was doing on the screen because of the angle at which the laptop was perched on his knee. It was always like that. Miles always turned his computer away from Waylon when he worked. 

Miles made no move to turn the engine back on. Waylon got the message that he was supposed to try working on his contribution as well, so he got his pen and paper from the glove compartment. They stayed there for a while. Despite having had a lot less tequila than he’d intended, Waylon felt familiar warmth suffuse his body.

“I should take a look at your computer,” he said ten minutes later.

Miles lifted an unimpressed stare in his direction. “What gives you that idea?”

“I know some aspects of cybersecurity. I can check that no one’s able to track us.”

“I think we’d know by now if Murkoff had managed to do that.”

“Can you be sure?” 

Miles was silent for a bit, and then he clicked a few times and spun the computer around, revealing the empty screen. “Go ahead.”

Waylon pulled the laptop to his lap and began to look into it. He could feel Miles’ gaze on him, alternating between the side of Waylon’s face and the cursor moving on the screen. 

“You learn that sort of thing in Berkeley?” asked Miles.

Waylon cast him an initially surprised, then suspicious look. “How did you know I…”

Miles shrugged.

“I’m an investigative journalist. I investigate.”

Waylon looked back at the screen. “I… Yeah, it was one of the courses I picked.”

“But software engineering is the degree you pursued, so how are you so confident that you could shake Murkoff off our tail if there was a security breach in my computer?”

“I had the skills to study cybersecurity in my spare time. Like… a hobby.”

“And that makes you a pro?”

Jeremy Blaire’s voice echoed in Waylon’s head. Somehow dumb enough to think that a borrowed laptop, onion router, and firewall patch would be enough to fool the world’s leading supplier of biometric security.

“I’m not… excellent at it, but I can manage this,” he finally answered.

“I’ve got some skills myself,” said Miles. “It’s how I keep a low profile.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” muttered Waylon.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Anyone could find your email address.”

“I’m a journalist, I need to leave some coordinates for people to give me my next job. And how would you know my email address?”

Waylon broke out in a cold sweat when he realized his mistake. His mind raced.

“I saw it on your screen before. In the motel.”

“Don’t be fucking nosy, Park.”

“Sorry,” Waylon quickly answered, breathing a little easier.

“Did you help the asylum staff with cybersecurity too when you worked for them?”

“No… They didn’t really need my help. It was mostly… fixing software bugs, starting programs back up, stuff like that.”

“So what did you do to piss them off, anyway? You told me you messed with the wrong people, but you never said exactly what happened.”

“... I don’t think you need to know.”

“Everyone will need to know. It’s part of your story. What landed you in the asylum as a Variant, that kind of stuff.”

Waylon didn’t answer. He remembered there’d been a time when he’d felt like he owed it to Miles to tell him the truth; now, though, after seeing the havoc the man could wreak when he was angry, it felt much safer to keep it from him. 

“You’ll have to,” insisted Miles.

“...I know.”

“What did you do? A crime? You don’t want your actions to be exposed?”

“...”

“Embezzlement?” guessed Miles. “I know times have been tough for you and your family.”

Waylon glared at him. “Don’t talk about what you don’t know.”

“It’s a pretty reasonable deduction from what you’ve posted online in the past,” said Miles.

It made Waylon uneasy that Miles could guess this kind of thing about him so easily. He’d chosen to alert him about Mount Massive’s experiments because Miles was an investigative journalist known for his persistence and boldness, but he didn’t like that this choice was now backfiring. Miles was too intelligent. He’d learn the truth if Waylon wasn’t more careful.

“...Yeah,” lied Waylon. “They didn’t like it when they found out.”

“No shit. How much money did you take from them?”

“Enough.”

Miles didn’t continue the line of questioning. Maybe he was satisfied with the information he’d already collected. Waylon focused on the laptop while Miles picked up a file to leaf through. In the end, Miles’ computer was well protected and Waylon didn’t find any notable fault in its security. The journalist wasn’t lying when he said he had some skills in that domain.

“Good to go?” asked Miles when Waylon returned his computer to him.

“Good to go.”

“Then let’s get back on the road.”

*

The next day, Miles managed to find a suitable motel for them to stop at. Waylon was relieved to find a bed again after three days of sleeping in the car, but Miles stopped him before he could drop his weary body on the mattress.

“Go take a shower.”

Waylon sighed. “Let me sleep…”

Miles walked over to him and shoved a plastic bag with tape in his chest. “It wasn’t a question. You stink. This shouldn’t be a mandatory conversation every time we reach a motel, now go.”

“Fine,” grumbled Waylon, knowing that Miles would pull him to the bathroom himself if he didn’t comply. 

He closed the door behind him, put his crutches against the wall, turned on the shower for the water to warm, and slowly stripped down. He didn’t waste any time looking over the state of his body. There was no point in doing so when he already knew he wasn’t healthy. After securing the plastic bag around his cast, Waylon pulled open the curtain and stepped into the dirty water pooling at the bottom of the tub. His mind was tired of perceiving the unpleasant sight and smell, and so he’d become nearly numb to the prospect of letting it drench his skin. There was just a deep fatigue, the weight of defeat, the knowledge that he could do nothing to change any of this. 

Waylon kept his plastic-wrapped cast carefully propped on the side of the tub as he lathered himself with what he knew was really soap, but felt sticky and gross on his skin. Had the choice been up to him entirely, he’d probably never wash. The problem was that Miles was completely intolerant to letting Waylon be the source of preventable unpleasantness, be it smells or sounds, and Waylon didn’t have much of a choice but to go along with his orders if he wanted to avoid getting manhandled. 

Waylon closed his eyes and angled his face into the warm stream of water, letting it clear away the suds caught in his hair and ears. The quiet, steady hiss of the showerhead transformed without warning into roaring static. Waylon caught himself on the slippery tile wall, his head suddenly spinning, and opened his eyes to the sight of red. The off-white ceramic of the tub was splattered in it. Hot liquid pounded his shoulder and cascaded down his side, a thick pulse that heavily dripped to his feet. He saw a fleshy wad of hair slip down the small whirlpool of the drain. 

It took a moment for Waylon’s brain to comprehend that he was standing in an ankle-deep mess of organs and blood. The showerhead’s stream smelled of iron and flesh. Waylon’s eyes widened. He lifted trembling, red-slick hands in front of his face. 

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No, this can’t… isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. It’s not blood! Why? Why is it blood? It wasn’t blood! It wasn’t!”

The Walrider roared louder and his head pounded. Waylon shouted in pain and terror, his shoulder hitting the cold wall when he doubled over. He couldn’t keep standing in the middle of this nightmare. Waylon forced himself to get out of the tub. His hand slipped over the humid ceramic, and he tumbled onto the ground covered in grisly entrails and bodily waste. The side of his face squished into a fleshy mass. His breath caught in his throat, every part of him convulsing in a bolt of panic.

“No,” he gasped, struggling to his hands and knees. “No! It wasn’t! It wasn’t blood!”

He couldn’t hear himself over the static, the loud static, the overwhelming storm of the Walrider’s shriek. Waylon grabbed onto the stained edge of the tub, smearing blood beneath his hands, wildly looking for a way out. There wasn’t one. All he could see wherever he looked was the gore that had lined the halls of Mount Massive Asylum. There was no escape. There had never been an escape from that hell.

Chapter Text

The water began to run in the bathroom next door as Miles sat down at the table and opened his laptop. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. Miles mused while he stared at the screen. It felt like knowing there was something out of place and being unable to see the anomaly in a room. He’d started feeling that way in the car, although nothing in particular had happened on the road. The feeling grew stronger every time he glanced at Park’s drawn face. 

Miles cycled through the tabs on his browser and eventually went to check his mail. The conversation he’d had with Waylon about cybersecurity and the like had reminded him that he could probably do with a quick password change on all his important accounts. Miles updated his three private email addresses, and then went to do the same for the one he handed out for work purposes. His gaze roamed down the lines of unread messages. There were five since the last time he’d checked this inbox, on the day he’d finally gotten to his safe house with Park, after the Saint Vincent incident. 

He actually hadn’t checked this email address in a while. The last unread message had reached his inbox on the evening they’d left the safe house, after Park’s disastrous grocery run. Miles leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and stared down at his keyboard, recalling the way they’d both spent the day before that departure. Park had spent that time either unconscious or delirious in his room, and the only time he’d joined Miles in the kitchen area had been to sit opposite of him at the table. 

He couldn’t have seen what had been on Miles’ screen then, and Miles hadn’t accessed this inbox since. But what Park had answered earlier in the car, when asked how he could possibly know this email address, contradicted this fact.

Miles frowned. This meant that for some reason, Park had made the choice to lie to him about this. That was one thing figured out, yet the niggling sensation remained. Miles glanced towards the bathroom. Park had lied, and he’d also somehow known about Miles’ email address before he’d rescued him from the asylum. 

Park had also visibly lied about having embezzled money, that much had been obvious from his physical tells and the lack of detail in his admission of crime. Two lies, then. Park clearly had a big secret to keep from Miles. Judging from his nervous, passive-aggressive manners, he was avoidant of direct confrontation. So, the likely reason why he hadn’t come clean earlier in the car was because Waylon was afraid of conflict if Miles discovered said secret. It meant that he was afraid that Miles would be angry at him. 

Which meant that Miles now felt even more suspicious about what Park was hiding from him.

He would’ve been tempted to chalk it up to some stupid mistake that Park had made, like how he’d left the evidence of Miles’ phone number in the hospital for Murkoff to find, but the fact that Park had known his email and tried to cover up that fact couldn’t be ignored. It meant that, somehow, Park had already been aware of Miles’ existence as an investigative journalist. On top of this, Park continually refused to let Miles know the exact reason why he’d been trapped in the asylum as a Variant– and he’d never mentioned why he’d picked up a camera, for that matter. A camera that he hadn’t let go even after getting stabbed in the gut right at the asylum’s entrance, that he hadn’t forgotten even as his escape was so close. 

Miles remembered the man in a suit who’d stabbed Park, yelling at him that the world couldn’t know. At the time, Miles had assumed that Suit just hadn’t wanted any Variants to be seen by the public outside the walls of the asylum; but in the moment that memory reached Miles’ brain, something clicked, and suddenly he could see everything in alignment.

Park had known about Miles and the ways to contact him for investigative work. He’d been admitted as a Variant for going against Murkoff. The man in a suit had tried to stop Park from leaving the asylum with his knowledge and his camera. 

Miles’ black gaze flickered to the list of emails, landing on the one he’d received from the whistleblower. In it, the latter had mentioned that he’d done two weeks of software consulting at Mount Massive. Park had moved to Leadville a month ago; that was enough time to tie up loose ends at the old job and to be fully prepared for the new one. The reason why Park’s professional page didn’t indicate that he worked at Murkoff was probably because it had only been two damn weeks since he’d started.

It was all so goddamn obvious, staring him in the face this entire time, but he hadn’t seen it. 

Waylon Park was the fucking whistleblower. 

Deep, churning anger rolled out of Miles. Black shadows engulfed him. The chair went flying when he stood up, crashing into the wall hard enough to leave a dent behind. Miles stalked past the table and wrenched the bathroom door’s handle, from beyond which he could hear a frantic voice. His gaze landed on Park, hunched over on the ground, naked. The man whirled around with wild, wet eyes when he heard the door bang against the sink. He was hanging onto the side of the tub where water was streaming heavily down the drain. There was a dumb, stricken look on his face. His lips were moving fast. 

“It wasn’t blood, why it is blood? It was water, it wasn’t blood, it wasn’t, why is it blood?” 

Miles walked around him and stood there listening to the man’s distraught babbling, dark rage mounting in waves inside of him. The Walrider filled the place with its nanite smog. The man was sobbing now, ugly sounds of fear falling from his shuddering body as he wildly whipped his head around in an attempt to follow the Walrider’s movements.  

“No… No!” he gasped, panicked. 

Miles’ voice rang terrible and distorted in the small space, saturated with hatred. “You did this to me.” 

The Walrider descended on Park’s frame. Horror twisted the man’s face. He lunged past Miles towards the open door in a last ditch attempt to run, but Miles caught his cast at the ankle and pulled him back to him with ease, the thrill of revenge shooting through him when he heard a cry of pain. The Walrider wrapped itself around the man’s body like a second skin. His voice turned shrill with hysteria.

“No! No! Help me! Help me, please help me!”

He was falling apart in front of Miles, kicking and writhing, screaming to be saved. The sight of his struggle elicited no compassion. No, it sparked something different, something vicious and twisted. This man was the one responsible for all his pain, the one responsible for luring him into that horrifying freak show of death, and now Miles had him in the palm of his hand.

“You did this to me, and you thought you could get away with it?” roared Miles.

He grabbed his prey by the throat, yanking that thin body over the edge of the tub like it weighed nothing at all. Anger spanned darker insanity, and a dirty, crimson glee sparked to life in Miles’ chest at the sound of the man’s scream when his jutting ribs collided against the hard edge. Miles slammed his head against the bottom of the tub. A crack resounded through the room. The man gasped a choked sound, his hands flying up and grasping the edge of the tub in a futile attempt to push back against the grip on the back of his head. Red volutes drifted in the water.

“No! No! Help!” the man begged, spluttering and heaving as water hit his face. “Help! Someone– Please!”

Miles leaned in close. 

“What do you see? Blood? That’s all?”

“No, no–”

“Tell me!” Miles thundered in his ear, and felt him flinch beneath him.

“B-Blood, and, a-and, guts!” he stammered. 

“Good,” said Miles, a grin etched on his face. He could see it too, now, the crimson staining the tub, the mounds of flesh. His hand tightened around the man’s nape. 

“No, no, please! Please! Don’t! Don’t hurt–”

The cries cut off in a fit of wet coughing. Miles grinned wider as he held the man’s face down in the bed of running blood. He watched the man’s chest hitch and spasm on desperate pleading and terrified screaming. He watched the man struggle to breathe correctly through the pain and the bodily fluids surging up his nose and mouth. He kept him unable to move his body, trapped in the Walrider’s embrace. The black entity breached the man’s skin, streams of nanites invading his blood vessels and nerve endings. Miles’ ruined fingers squeezed around the man’s fragile neck exactly as the Walrider tightened around the rest of his spine. 

“I’m sorry! I’m, gh, I'm sorry! I’m sorry I let them do that to you! Please don’t do this to me, please, please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” the man shrieked, pleading, hysterical, choking, his mouth full of blood.

The Walrider tightened its hold around the bony form of its prey, just like Miles’ hand squeezed around the man’s thin neck, hard enough for that sobbing, pleading voice to turn into a raw gurgle. The sound was high-pitched and helpless, and gave way to a hush. His body spasmed quietly amidst the loose pieces of bloody flesh. 

In that sudden silence, Miles’ consciousness snapped back into place. 

He realized what he was doing all at once, and he let go of Park like he’d been burned, stumbling back and landing onto his ass. Park let out a drowning gurgle on an attempt to breathe again. His limbs shook violently, but he didn't move out of the tub. He couldn’t. The Walrider remained hooked into Park’s body like a huge parasite, blocking every single vertebrae of his spine into place, forcing his head down into the flow of running water. Disgust filled Miles. He pushed himself back up and strained to pull the Walrider back from the edge of killing, strained to free Park from his forced paralysis.

“Get back inside, you bastard .”

Park struggled like a dying fish, unable to breathe. The dread of losing the only human being he could rely on shot through Miles like a shock of electricity, and he put all his strength into forcing the Walrider out of Park. The Walrider finally yielded and seeped back into Miles’ body. Miles rushed to yank Park out of the water. Park slid sideways and the lower half of his body finally hit the ground. His wet arm slipped out of Miles’ hands. Miles didn’t try to grab him again, and just crouched there, the back of his hand pressed up against his mouth, staring at Park’s trembling body. Park wasn’t moving from the edge of the tub, his head pressed up against it, shaken by gasps and sobs. 

Miles couldn’t tear his gaze away. He’d held a traumatized, injured man’s head under a stream of what he’d believed to be blood, while Park had been naked and utterly vulnerable in the throes of delirium. Shocked at his own depravity, Miles was unable to do or say anything. He couldn’t believe what had just happened.

It had to be some kind of nightmare. He wasn’t this kind of person. He wasn’t… He wasn’t this kind of monster. 

All he could do was watch Park cry, and stare at the bruises already forming along that pale skin where thinly veiled bone had struck hard ceramic.

There was a knock on the door. Miles’ head whipped around towards the entrance of their room, and he saw a shadow moving behind the window’s curtains.

“Shit,” he cursed. 

He couldn’t afford to sit around in shock. The neighbors must have heard the commotion. Miles got to his feet and grabbed Park by the elbow, who cried out. 

“Shut up,” hissed Miles. “Get up, Park. Now. Now. ”

“I’m sorry,” whimpered Park, lifting a hand to shield his face. “Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Miles yanked him to his feet and slapped him up the head. “Get your shit together, Park!”

Park let out a pitiful yelp and held the side of his face. It seemed to wake him up a bit. He eyed Miles like a spooked animal. The person at the door knocked again. Miles grabbed Park’s shoulder.

“Listen to me. There’s someone at the door. They can’t know that something happened, so yell that you’re coming to the door. Now, Park.”

Park’s breath shivered. His wide gaze darted towards the entrance. Miles shook him.

“Now! If someone figures out that you’re not alone in here, that I’m there too, then Murkoff will be on our asses. You don’t want that, right? So fucking say it!”

Park quickly nodded and his lips parted, and he angled his head towards the door.

“Uh–I, I’m coming!”

“Everything okay in there?” the man behind the door shouted back.

Park shot a lost, questioning look at Miles, who nodded. Park nodded too, quickly, a dumb look on his face.

“Speak,” hissed Miles.

Park realized that he’d said nothing out loud, and he stumbled over his words as he angled his head again. “Um, y, yes! I’m, uh, coming–!”

His voice cut off on a flinch when he felt Miles tie a towel around his waist. Miles ignored it and pushed him out of the bathroom.

“Say you had a panic attack, or a flashback, whatever, and fell in the shower. Say that it happens often and that you don’t need to go to the hospital. Got it?”

Park nodded as he let Miles turn him away, in a daze, quietly muttering to himself.

“Fell in the shower… Had flashback… No hospital…” 

“And it happens often.” Miles shoved him towards the door. “Open it. I’ll hide.”

“Happens often,” Park mumbled as he walked towards the handle, swaying on his feet. Miles watched on as Park slowly opened the door and leaned on the doorframe to talk to the man on the other side of the door.

“Woah, shit. Are you okay? What happened?” said the man.

“I uh, fell. In the shower.”

“I heard screaming. Are you alone?”

“Uh. I uh, was a panic… a flashback. Often. Happens often.”

“Do you need help? You look really… You look peaked, man. Did you take too many drugs? How bad is that wound on your head? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No hospital,” quickly said Park. “...Please. Just a panic attack. I… I get them often.”

There was a long pause. The man said: “Well… Okay, it’s none of my business what you do with drugs, but maybe you should lay off it, yeah? Drugs can cause panic attacks, you know.”

“I uh, I know,” said Park. “Yes.”

“Are you sure you don’t want anyone to look at that?”

“No… No thank you… Goodbye.”

Park shut the door in the man’s face, and just stood there on wavering legs, with his shoulder propped against the wall. Miles waited for the shadow to move. The man on the other side of the door finally walked away and disappeared. Miles got out of the bathroom and hurried to Park, who’d started slipping down the side of the wall. Miles caught him by the arm and hauled him back to his feet, ignoring the violent flinch. Park didn’t try to escape him. They were both quiet as Miles led him to the bed. 

Park was weirdly compliant. He’d stopped freaking out, but he just sat there shaking and avoiding Miles’ gaze. There was no expression on his face. He kept flinching whenever Miles got close. When Miles brought him his change of clothes, Park didn't look at them nor did he make any move to dress himself. Miles still felt the sting of betrayal at the knowledge that Park was the one responsible for dragging him into this entire mess, but it paled in comparison to the guilt of having tortured Park. 

He shouldn’t have reacted like that. He’d been betrayed before, fucked over in so many ways. Angry, sure, vindictive, definitely, but Miles had never, ever acted like such a sadistic fuck in his entire life. Now he didn’t know what to do. Park acted like an animal too scared to run or fight back. He didn’t react when Miles sat next to him and patched up the wound on his forehead, except for the flinching and shaking. It felt weird. 

It reminded Miles of something. As a kid, he’d stopped a cat from playing with a mouse, once, right in front of his house. He’d taken the mouse inside, put it in a cardboard box, and it hadn’t reacted at all. He’d thought it was dying. But then, half an hour later, it had gotten back on its feet, running around like nothing was wrong. The mouse had been fine in the end. But it had stuck with Miles how still it had been at the start, just lying there in the carboard box like it was already a corpse, even as it was breathing. He’d seen for himself what people meant when mice played dead. It wasn’t a voluntary decision from the mouse; it was a reflex, a survival mechanism, something that kicked in and couldn’t be controlled. Somehow, the way Park was acting right now made him think of that mouse.

Miles had to ask him three times to get dressed before Park did what he was told. When it became clear that Park wasn’t going to do anything but look traumatized and say nothing, Miles decided it wasn’t worth it to tell him to help pack up. He did it on his own as Park stared into the void. Staying here was out of the question. This incident would fuck them over if the man from earlier decided to alert someone about his suspicions. 

They were in the car a few minutes later. Miles could feel the shaking of Park’s body travel through the upholstery, from one seat to another. For hours, neither of them spoke. In the silence, Miles could almost convince himself the scene at the motel had all been a fever dream.

Then, Park reached out and cautiously touched the top of his hand where it laid on the steering wheel, right below his severed pointer finger. Miles looked at him in surprise. There was a weird look in Park’s eyes. He still seemed pretty fucky. Miles could understand why the guy at the motel had immediately suspected substance abuse.

“Is that you? Miles?”

Park’s quiet question creeped Miles out. He frowned.

“Yeah.”

“So… It’s you? Not… something– someone else?”

“...It’s me.”

“We’re… We’re in the car? Not… Not, not the asylum?”

“Yeah, we’re in the car.”

Park made a weird sound. Miles glanced in his direction, and felt a spike of discomfort when he saw that the other man’s eyes were welling up.

“I’m sorry,” said Park, his voice wavering. “I’m s-so sorry, Miles.”

Miles looked back at the road and said nothing.

“I’m sorry for putting you through that, I… I, I didn’t think it would get that, that bad. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault.”

Miles still didn’t say anything. He wished the guy would quit sniveling in the passenger seat. Quit being sad and pathetic and afraid. Quit being so vulnerable. If only he’d just keep moving, keep his eye on the prize, not let himself get pulled back in the asylum. If only he’d be more like Miles and stop dragging him down with him.

“If… If that, if that was… punishment,” quietly said Waylon, “I understand. I deserve… that.”

Discomfort and guilt washed over Miles in a cold, horrible wave. Without thinking, he said: “You didn’t deserve it. Not what I did.”

Park didn’t say anything else. He just kept shaking, and Miles tried to ignore the tears dripping down the other man’s chin.

Chapter Text

They had to stay on the road for a few days. 

Both of them kept quiet. For Waylon's part, it was because of the guilt that he'd kept his role in Miles' destruction a secret for so long, knowing that the man would be justified in lashing out in anger at him again. Any sound, any movement that Waylon made within the car was extremely cautious for fear of setting off the Walrider. He could sense a heaviness radiating in the air between him and Miles, dark and uneasy. It was impossible to tell what the other man was thinking.

Waylon couldn't shake the smell of the asylum. Static crawled in his ear canals. His brain felt broken, skipping and clicking like a faulty disk drive, stuck in a perpetual state of confusion and dread. His body hurt. His skin felt grimy, covered in a film of dried blood, even though he knew that he'd probably never touched actual gore in that bathroom. It was just difficult to convince himself of this when his clothes looked stained and the cloying stench of copper lingered in his nose.

He'd thought for a moment that Gluskin had been the one to find him in the bathroom. He'd heard Gluskin's voice, had felt that thick hand pinning his head to the bottom of the bloody tub, that imposing presence draped over his naked body. He'd laid there, powerless, as Gluskin had purred in his ear that he'd open him up and make a woman out of him, a good woman. Waylon felt sick just thinking about it.

"We're going to stop. There's another motel coming up soon," said Miles in his strange, gravelly voice. His words were curtly spoken and invited no answer, the way it had been for the whole trip. Waylon welcomed it, in a way. It meant that he didn't have to think about what to say, and how not to anger Miles.

Waylon didn't see how this situation could last. He didn't think he'd be able to stand it much longer. It was exhausting to be so constantly afraid, but he didn't have the choice of being anywhere else than trapped in the car in close proximity with the Walrider's host. He hung onto the hope that the human part of Miles would see past the anger, past the dark veil of memories from the asylum, and understand why Waylon had done what he'd done. Waylon didn't think he would be forgiven, but he wanted Miles to not resent him so much, to not hurt him again.

Waylon was tired of being afraid, of being injured, of being hunted. He wanted all of it to stop. He knew that it couldn't be the case, so all he could do was wait and make himself as discreet as possible. If Miles wasn't so strong and so unpredictable, maybe Waylon would've tried to talk about the whole whistleblower business. God knew there were things he wanted to say to defend himself, to argue against Miles' reproach and hatred; but as things were, he barely dared to think them.

They rolled up to an old building hours later. Waylon's battered ribs screamed in protest when he had to pull his body out of the car. A few days on the road hadn't sufficed for his most recent wounds to heal over– the bruised ribs, notably. He didn’t want to think about the possibility that something had broken there. He staggered out onto the parking lot and held himself up on the side of the car, breathing hard. It never felt like he had enough air in his lungs. The smells and shadows were too thick and stifling.

"How long are you going to stand there?"

Waylon flinched when he noticed how close Miles was standing to him. His cagey glance was greeted by a narrowing of Miles' black eyes, and a short, annoyed sigh. 

"You know the drill."

Miles turned around and went to the trunk to get their bags. Waylon swallowed, hard, his throat dry and aching from his thudding heartbeat. He ambled in the direction of the reception area alone, his crutches hitting the asphalt with uneven jolts. He couldn't keep his head straight. He didn't know how long he would last. Maybe it was visible on the outside, because the manner in which the clerk eyed him up and down was evidently suspicious. It made Waylon nervous, and he hurried back to Miles as fast as he could. 

"I think, I think people can see something's wrong with me," he told Miles as they opened the door to their room.

"No shit. You look like a maniac."

"But then, that means, I got... I got noticed."

"I told you, all sorts of people go through the motels I choose. You wouldn't be the first deranged asshole to walk this ground."

"But, he looked at me."

"Because you were asking for a room. People will usually look at you in a conversation."

"But--"

"You're paranoid. Drop it."

Waylon's jaw clicked shut, and he reluctantly followed Miles inside the room. He flinched again when Miles turned in his direction to drop the bags next to the bed. Miles frowned at him, and agitation colored his voice.

"Jesus Christ, Park, will you stop acting like such a scared fucking rabbit all the time?"

"I, I can't help it," quickly said Waylon, his voice scratchy from the panicked swell of his throat. 

"Look, I get that I scared you. It won't happen again, okay? Stop looking at me like that."

Waylon nodded without thinking. It didn't seem to satisfy Miles, who sighed and turned back around. Waylon watched him open one of the bags. He watched him get out their stuff, sit at the table, open his laptop. He didn’t speak to Waylon again. Waylon cautiously sat down on the bed and looked down at his hands. He wanted to speak, but he didn’t know what to say. Time passed. Miles looked relatively calm for someone who sounded perpetually angry. Maybe he was telling the truth that he wouldn’t do… that… again. Waylon mustered up the courage to speak after another handful of minutes.

"...How can you be so sure?" 

Miles paused and looked up at him. "What?"

"That... That you won't hurt me again."

Miles stared at him, his expression unreadable. Finally, he said: "You don't have another whistleblower-type deal hidden from me, do you?"

"...No."

"So there. Won't happen again."

Waylon continued watching him set up his laptop. Standing within the walls of yet another motel room, and seeing Miles acting more like himself, was more familiar territory for Waylon than the dangerous, nebulous atmosphere that had drowned him in the car. The generalized fear that had pervaded every part of his psyche for days felt thinner than it had been minutes ago, unveiling deeper emotions that he hadn't noticed before. Like... grief. Frustration. Even some resentment and anger of his own.

"I didn't tell you because... I was afraid of, of what your reaction would be."

"Well I guess I found out anyway, so it probably would've been better to be beaten up and honest rather than to be beaten up and a liar."

Waylon hugged himself, dropping his gaze to the ground.

"I didn't mean to make you go through that."

"I fucking hope so. It's still your fault."

Waylon frowned. Anxiety ratcheted up inside of him, because he knew he was playing a dangerous game after what had happened in the last motel, but he dared to say what was on his mind anyway. He hated that Miles refused to do anything but point fingers at him.

"You... chose to go into the asylum."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Miles' head rise in a slow movement.

"What," Miles ground out.

Waylon's gaze darted to the man's dark, veiny face, then back to the ground. He didn't answer.

"Repeat what you just said," Miles dared him. "Go ahead."

"You chose to go into the asylum," mumbled Waylon.

"Come on, explain what you mean by that. Don't be a coward."

"What... What I mean is..." Waylon faltered when he saw Miles' shadow move closer to him. He closed his eyes and quickly said: "No one, no one forced you to go in."

"So let me get this straight. Are you saying that it's really my fault all that shit happened to me?" said Miles in a low voice.

"I'm, I'm saying that it's-- it's not just my fault."

Miles laughed an ugly, bitter sound. "Are you sure? Because I remember pretty distinctly how you told me you deserved to get punished for what you did. No? Don't remember? In the car, right after I lost my shit on you."

Waylon didn't remember exactly what he'd said. The moments following what had happened in the bathroom were fuzzy, but Miles' words elicited a cold unease inside of him, because it wasn't improbable that he'd said something like that. It was exactly how he felt about having dragged Miles into his mess. Waylon had actively reached out to another person so that they would look into Murkoff's hidden project. He'd known, deep down, that it would be dangerous for him and that person both. He'd known that the people behind Jeremy Blaire would try to hurt anyone who came too close, and especially someone as dangerous as an investigative journalist. He just hadn't known that things would go this far. He never could've guessed.

"I'm sorry," said Waylon. 

"I bet you are."

"But... But it's not just my fault," repeated Waylon. "And they, they hurt me, too. They might hurt my family."

"Fuck off," Miles sharply said. "Like I care. You got yourself in that shitshow because you were a moron, and what happens to your family because of your actions is your problem to deal with."

"But you won't let me deal with it," Waylon retorted, upset. He stood up, wavering for a second because his cast and the pain in his ribs made it difficult to find good footing, and defiantly looked Miles in the face. "You, you won't even let me know about them– my family!"

"Because I haven't gotten any news, you paranoid asswipe."

Waylon looked away and stared at the ground in frustration.

"And don't try that 'they hurt me too' bullshit. I'm not prone to sympathy when it comes to you,” added Miles.

Waylon slowly shook his head and resentfully muttered: "You have no idea... You don't know what it was like to be, to be a patient there. In the project. In the machine. You don't know."

"Oh, no, Park, don't you fucking dare. Don't you dare say you had it worse than me, because that, now that..." Miles chuckled, dark and unstable. " That's going to make me angry."

Waylon remembered the shifting shapes burning his eyes and brain. The memory made his head ache viciously. He grunted and grabbed the side of his face. Miles had hit him there. Miles had shoved his head against the bottom of the tub, in the blood– the running water. And then he’d slapped him in the head when someone had shown up at the door and Waylon hadn’t been reactive enough.

"Well?" said Miles. "Care to finish that thought?"

Miles was standing close. His presence was menacing. Miles was too strong, too brutal. Waylon wouldn't be able to fight back. Miles could do whatever he wanted with him. 

"Fuck," Waylon softly whispered. 

"What?

Waylon felt like crying.

"You make me think of... of him. I don't want... don't want to think of him."

"What the hell are you going on about?"

A crack appeared in the window with a brief sound of broken glass, followed by a soft impact. Waylon's voice slipped out of his lips in a surprised exhale when he felt a sharp spike at his throat. He stared at Miles, shock mirrored in the widening of the man's unnatural eyes. 

Then Miles vanished in a cloud of shadows, and all hell broke loose. A toxic numbness began to spread through Waylon's blood and he staggered, then slumped against the bed, the pull of gravity dragging him inexorably to the ground. 

"No," he gasped, recognizing the poison coursing through his body. It was like the tranquilisers that Murkoff had used on him before. 

He scrambled backwards with leaden limbs and flattened himself against the wall, his chest heaving up and down. He watched in terrified confusion as the small room filled with black armor-clad shapes holding guns and yelling orders.

"How? How did they find us?" he shouted at Miles, who was throwing attackers out the window. 

"Hell if I know!"

Waylon tried to get up, but no sooner had he drawn himself up on his good foot that a soldier loomed above him. Waylon opened his mouth to shout, but before he could make a sound, the man tackled him painfully to the ground. His head smacked against the dirty linoleum in the same spot as the wound from the tub. Hands gripped his hair and his left shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Voices were shouting all around him to get it, get the Walrider!  

Waylon could do nothing, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. He stared with wide eyes at the scene unfolding next to the window. More of the black-clad men were flooding the small space of the room, undeterred by the broken bodies, the flesh sprayed on the walls and floor, the hail of gunshots ringing loudly through the air. He watched, completely helpless, as Miles climbed on the edge of the window. He saw the two white pinpricks of Miles' stare turn in his direction. 

In an instant of pure dread, Waylon realized that maybe Miles wouldn't save him from this. That he would abandon him to Murkoff, if that meant he could get revenge for being dragged into hell. Waylon tried to shake his head, his neck straining against the hand holding him down. He was so sorry. He didn’t want to be captured. He couldn't do it, not again. He tried to mouth a breathless plea.

Don't leave me, please, please.

Miles’ cold gaze turned away from him. 

Waylon helplessly watched him jump out the window, and the Walrider’s shadow trailed after him and disappeared. The soldiers ran up to that side of the room. More gunshots exploded. Waylon's hoarse, frantic grunts filled his own ears, high-pitched with panic. He was on his own now. The world was spinning. He couldn't breathe. The armor-clad shadows swayed around him. He tried to crawl away, to escape. A harsh voice rang out above his head.

“Go after the Walrider, go, go, go! You lot, neutralize the Variant, just make sure to keep him alive. They want him back.”

The weight on his back moved, and a hard object cracked against the back of Waylon's head. He collapsed, dazed. He could feel the drugs filling his sluggish body.

Miles left, he thought in pure disbelief.

Pain wracked through him when he was punched in the back, above his kidney. The boot kicking his diaphragm stopped him from screaming. He tried to curl up and protect himself from the hail of blows that ran down on him, but the men were everywhere, and he was defenseless on the ground. His body spasmed when the hard tip of a shoe connected with his bruised ribs. Cries of pain fell from his lips, one after the other, cut short each time by another blow. His voice faded with his consciousness.

Miles left.

Suddenly, his mind ripped to pieces on the jagged sound of the Walrider’s shriek, and he was back in the asylum. He was laying on the ground in the dark, at the feet of another lab coat come to check on his progress, the shifting shapes on the screen imprinted in his retinas. His body was limp from the drugs. He could hear screaming from afar, things breaking. Cold tears tracked down Waylon’s face. They’d never let him go. They’d never let him go.

Chapter Text

Miles’ feet hit the asphalt with a crack, his bones protesting the brutal yank of gravity. He didn’t pay it any mind, just like none of the bullets penetrating his body were worth his attention. The Walrider carried him to the center of the parking lot. Miles hadn’t noticed earlier, wrapped up in his dark thoughts and guilt, the dark vehicle sitting amidst the dozen cars parked in the middle of the motel. He should have. It looked similar to the one Murkoff had sent Park when he’d been stuck in the Saint Vincent Hospital. None of it mattered now, there was no time to afford thinking of what-if scenarios. 

Miles stood in the center of the parking lot and unleashed the Walrider. It shrieked with bracing intensity, its destructive urge heightened by Miles’ own intent to lay waste to their pursuers. Everything had to be destroyed. The Walrider’s nanite waves rolled out in all directions, the car motors sparking and crackling all over the parking lot, and the shadows built in an immense storm that cast darkness over the entire hotel. Miles let the Walrider shriek.

Vehicles and bodies flew up in a tornado of destruction. Some of Murkoff’s soldiers tried to hang onto the building, grasping at windowsills and crumbling edges. Miles’ hunger for violence sharpened at the sight of their pitiful attempts at escaping. They all had to die. Their screams were swept up in the Walrider’s gaping maw, torn limbs and heads together.  Miles watched ripped bodies and shredded clothes spiral above him. Blood and viscous bits rained down on his face and shoulders. Broken pieces of metal cut his skin. His eyes remained wide open, and his lips stretched on a familiar rictus. Exhilaration.

The last dregs of screaming abruptly stopped, and the Walrider dropped everything to the ground. Miles stood in the middle of the debris and human remains. Ripped electricity lines flapped in the wind. Shadows ebbed lazily around his heaving shape. 

His legs wavered and he fell to his knees, his chest seizing on deep gasps. The red, sharp haze receded from his mind and left a faint unease in its wake, like nausea after a bad night of drinking. Miles’ flesh moved around the uncomfortable bullets freshly lodged in his body with every breath. He’d have to remove them later. He cast an exhausted look over the scene of the aftermath.

A lot of soldiers were dead. Those that had survived wouldn’t last long. There was collateral damage, too, but Miles didn’t linger on the other bodies. He couldn’t. There was no time. Eyes on the prize. Miles struggled to his feet and forced himself to trudge through the battlefield. He climbed back up the stairs to the room, where he found two surviving soldiers and Park. One of them had been impaled by a car door. The other was holding a gun to Park’s head, who looked completely insensate despite his eyes being open. He was shaking. Miles couldn't tell if it was because of the gun pressed up to his temple, or something else.

“Don’t move,” the soldier choked out.

Miles came closer anyway, letting the Walrider take care of the soldier. The gun flew to the other side of the room with the man’s hand still attached, and his scream of pain was cut short by a loud crack. What remained of his body slumped to the ground.

“Park,” said Miles.

Park said nothing. It looked like he hadn’t even noticed that his head was now laying in the soldier’s entrails. A faint, high-pitched sound rode out of his body on every rapid exhale. Miles sighed, supposing that the Walrider’s presence had something to do with Park’s behavior, and forced the Walrider back into his body. It resisted, worse than before. By the time Miles finally managed, he was on his knees again, shaking heavily from the exertion. It was getting harder and harder to do this.

Park still showed no sign of waking up from the trance he was in. 

Miles ignored the strain on his ruined body as he gathered their belongings, then picked Park off the ground and dragged him out of the room, one arm looped under his shoulders. He found the hotel owner’s car parked on the other side of the motel and hijacked it. His mind was numb as he drove onto the road, soaked in blood and stinking of death. Deep down, he knew that this couldn’t go on forever, that he couldn’t keep killing anything that stood in their way. But a part of him wondered why the hell not.

*

Miles wished profoundly that he could sleep as he sat in the dirt in front of Park, whom he’d propped up against a tree trunk. They’d been driving for hours, and Park still hadn’t come out of it. He just had that empty terrified look on his face, and the same wheezy breathing, and the same pathetic shaking. Miles was beginning to worry that the soldiers had injected him with something other than just tranquilizers. Miles looked away and glared at the small camping stove in his hands. It refused to turn on. He tossed it next to the mound of bloody bullets he’d extracted from his body a short while ago.

“Goddamn piece of trash,” cursed Miles. He couldn’t even make decent food. He spun around and threw his hand out in Park’s direction, frustrated. “And you had to go ahead and get drugged.”

Park’s eyes twitched, and he muttered: “Sorry...”

Miles stared at him.

“Park?” 

Park didn’t react. Miles walked over to the man and crouched in front of him.

“Did you hear me?”

“Stop…”

“What?”

His gaze still unfocused, Park quietly begged: “Make them stop, please…”

“What are you talking about? There’s no one here but us.”

Park didn’t react to that, and the anguish on his face remained exactly the same. Miles didn’t know how to handle people in this kind of state, but if he had to guess, it was probably better not to leave Park alone in his head. Given that he could apparently hear some of the stuff Miles was saying, talking to him had to have more of a chance of bringing him back in the present, right? Right. Miles sat down in front of Park.

“Okay… What’s happening to you right now?” he asked, feeling woefully unqualified for this sort of thing. “What do you see?”

“It hurts, the shapes… they hurt…” mumbled Park. 

“What shapes?”

“The screen. The screen. It… hurts.”

“Then look away.”

“I can’t. They make me… They make me.”

“They’re not here right now. You can look away.”

“I can’t,” repeated Park, his voice trembling. “I can’t… move.”

Miles remembered the contraption at the start of Park’s recording, some kind of metal seat with bindings.

“Okay, well, just because you’re tied down doesn’t mean you can’t look away.”

“Can’t move. Can’t… it hurts, it hurts! My eyes!”

Park’s hands tensed into claws, and Miles didn’t react fast enough to stop him from scratching bloody furrows into his face with his nails. 

“What the– stop that!”

Miles caught him by the arms, but it was a struggle to get him to stop. Park was stronger than he looked– or maybe Miles was getting weaker. He finally managed to wrench Park’s arms down at his sides and pinned both of his wrists to the ground. Pained grunts fell from Park’s twisted lips, now covered in blood and spit. His body was tense and shaking more than before.

“Shit,” said Miles. “No wonder they tied you down.”

Park continued to groan in agony. His eyes were wide open, staring at something that wasn’t there, visibly straining as if he wanted to look away but couldn’t. Transfixed. Drool trickled down the corners of his mouth. He looked fucking insane. He looked exactly like those other lunatics in the asylum. But he wasn't that, he wasn't like them, he wasn’t a real Variant. The man was crazy, sure, but he was just damaged; not irredeemable. Miles knew him. They’d spent enough days living in each other’s space that he was certain of the kind of person that was sitting in his passenger seat.

But… maybe Park really had been like any other Variant, once, trapped and experimented on in that godforsaken freak show of a hospital against his will. 

“Goddammit,” repeated Miles.

Park’s bullshit lasted for what felt like hours. Miles could only surmise how long the patients’ so-called therapy sessions lasted in Mount Massive. Judging from the documents he’d read about the “treatments”, the shapes-on-screen business wasn’t the only thing that they’d done to the patients to induce madness and lucid dreaming abilities. They’d probably done something to force the patients into staring at the screen. Hypnosis, maybe. Was that what this was? Old conditioning from the asylum, suddenly resurfacing for whatever reason? 

Park hadn’t done this the last time he’d gotten shot up by Murkoff goons. Whatever they’d put in the dart they’d shot in his neck earlier, it was strong stuff. Maybe Park knew. He’d looked completely fucking terrified when his body had started to betray him, like he’d recognized it. 

Park suddenly slumped back against the tree trunk, his muscles relaxing under Miles’ grip. His face was wet from tears, snot and drool. His mouth hung half-open, his eyes half-lidded.

“Park?”

No answer. Miles cautiously loosened his hold on the man’s arms, and once he deemed it safe enough, he let go completely.

“Park, come on. What’s happening?”

Park’s head lolled to the side, and then jerked.

“Gh… No…” he moaned, quietly. Miles leaned in closer.

“Park? Talk to me.”

Park’s lips trembled. 

“He’s…”

A sound of disgust wrenched out of him, and he jerked his head again. It looked like he was trying to chase something away, or trying to evade it. Then, Park groaned in defeat, and his eyes squinted shut. Miles felt a pit of unease form in his gut when he saw the man’s face twist in revulsion.

“Park, what’s going on?”

Park said nothing. He just laid there, looking utterly helpless to stop whatever was happening to him in his delirium. Miles grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him.

“Park. Whatever’s happening, it’s in your head. I’m here, I’m real. Talk to me.”

Still no reaction. Miles could only watch the hopelessness in Park’s body language. He looked utterly broken. It struck something inside of Miles, something entirely human, a part of him which couldn’t stand to sit idly by while the person in front of him was subjected to… something that was very clearly wrong. 

“Park– Waylon, come on. Talk to me.” 

Park’s head shifted slightly in Miles' direction, as if he’d suddenly remembered that there was someone else next to him, on the outside. His mouth opened hesitantly.

“He’s…” Park’s jaw worked. “...licking me.”

Miles stared at him in confusion.

“Licking you? Who?”

“...Lab coat. The shapes… He likes to… They… I…”

Park’s voice faltered into a despairing sound. Miles had to face it: for Park, it really hadn’t just been about getting chased by the freakshow crazies in the asylum. Bad shit had happened to him when he’d been a patient, before the Walrider had begun to wreak havoc on the lab. It hadn’t just been the captivity. It hadn’t just been the psychosomatic treatments.

You don’t know what it was like , Park had said. You don’t know what it was like to be in the project .

Miles had dismissed it because he’d thought it was Park being melodramatic, trying to measure his suffering to Miles’ in an attempt to come out on top in their argument. Suddenly, Miles had to acknowledge the truth behind Waylon's words. Things went much deeper than that. The Murkoff personnel had treated the patients worse than livestock. All of those doctors were… The sound of Trager’s mocking voice flashed across Miles’ mind, and he bitterly thought: sick fucks . They’d felt at ease documenting their inhumane actions in paper files because they’d known that anyone who disagreed would get vanished into the patient records. Park had probably been directly confronted with monsters like Trager. The drugs, too, were their own kind of torture. If Park had been this diminished the whole time he’d been trapped as a patient, there wasn’t a single second where he would’ve been able to fight back against the way he was being treated by the doctors. 

Another thought suddenly struck Miles. A lot of them must’ve had it out for Park even worse than they did their usual patients, since he’d ended up a known traitor throughout the company. There was no way his identity had been kept a secret for anyone working in the asylum. He must’ve been their favorite punching bag. 

And this had all happened to Park because he’d wanted to do the right thing; all of it, all of this torture, all the terror that the Walrider had caused him afterwards, just because he'd wanted to save others. Two hells he’d had to go through just because he’d been unable to stay quiet about the injustice that was unfolding within the asylum’s walls, because he hadn’t wanted to be a silent accomplice in the torture of hundreds of people. 

Could Miles really blame him for having reached out to someone on the outside? 

“I want to… leave,” suddenly said Park.

Miles looked down at him. Tears were welling up in Park’s eyes. 

“... To stop,” he continued in a low voice, staring at something far away. 

“It’s not real. It’ll be over soon,” Miles told him. 

At least, he hoped it would be. He hoped to god this was just the drugs, and not Park having definitely lost his mind. 

“I can’t,” Park moaned. “I can’t… I can’t.”

“It’ll be over soon, just hang on,” said Miles.

 “I can’t…” 

“You can. Think about your family. You’ll see them again.”

Park’s voice broke on a sob.

“They’ll never… let me. Never. No one… No one knows. What’s happening to me.”

“You told her. You called your wife, remember? You called her when you were at Saint Vincent’s. The hospital.”

“They’ll… never let me go.”

“Park–”

Miles was cut off by another of the man’s sobs. For a moment, he said nothing. He just watched Park cry. Maybe it was because Miles was so tired, maybe it was because he felt so fragile from hosting the Walrider’s destructive presence; but in that moment, Miles had no strength to feel anger or disgust. He just felt sad. Sad that they were two sorry messes in such an unfair situation, who’d gone through hell, who could find no comfort, who’d never be the same again.

“It won’t… stop,” said Park in anguish. “No one can stop… that.”

“We will,” said Miles, even though he didn’t feel so sure of it now.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Together, we can.”

Park weakly shook his head.

“I just… want… to die.”

Miles was quiet after that. It wasn’t like he had an argument.

*

They kept driving. Motels were out of the question from now on, so Miles decided that the wilderness would be their only place to stay if they needed to spend the night anywhere outside of the car. He didn’t want to take the risk of running into cops or more of Murkoff’s men, nor of getting noticed again because of Park’s extremely visible injuries. He knew he probably should’ve heeded Park’s warning back there, that the clerk had looked at him weirdly, considering that he’d been sporting a huge bruise on his forehead from getting his skull bashed into the tub. It was tempting to ponder on what could have been done differently, but it was yet another what-if scenario which Miles just didn’t have the energy for. There were only three things he had to focus on: finishing the work, making sure his travel companion was recovering, and holding back the Walrider. 

Finishing the work was the only thing with a clearly reachable objective, so Miles threw himself in the task as soon as he found a place to park their vehicle for the night. It was a small spot beneath a rocky overhang, about half an hour away from the main road. They hadn’t crossed paths with another car in a while. It seemed safe. As Miles reached to the back of the car to get his stuff, he glanced at Park. The man wasn’t moving. He was still breathing, at least. It was enough for now.

Miles dragged his bag to his lap and got out of the car. He needed air. As he walked around the vehicle, he opened Park’s door so he’d be able to keep an eye on him. Half of him hoped that the guy would react to the sound and the evening breeze, but nothing happened. Miles bent down and grabbed the plastic bag full of puke that was propped between Park’s thighs, crinkling his nose in disgust, and threw it off to the side of the road. Littering was the last thing he cared about right now. He returned to the car and manhandled Park so that his legs would be out of the car, guiding his torso forward so that he’d puke on the ground instead of in the car this time around. A small, breathy sound escaped Park’s body, but that was it. He was sweating like crazy, and Miles could feel him shivering. His skin wasn’t hot, thankfully. Miles allowed himself to hope that these symptoms weren’t due to infection, but rather due to the drugs running their course.

Miles went to sit on a flat rock next to the car and fished his laptop out of his bag. The bright light hurt his eyes even though it was turned all the way down. Park was in no state to keep going for his part of the assignment, which meant Miles had that cut out for him. Overall, it was coming along, so he wasn’t too worried about making a decent exposé on Murkoff’s criminal activities. He was even confident enough on that aspect that he planned to make a call very soon to one of his trusted contacts so that he could fix a timeline and arrange a meeting.

The problem wasn’t the work. The problem was the people who were supposed to bring it to the public eye. Beyond the drugs, Park had received a severe beating from Murkoff’s goons in the motel, and Miles had a sneaking suspicion that it would affect Park for a few days. As for Miles himself, if he was being totally honest, he wasn’t sure how long he had left to live. So, all that was really left to do was pray that neither of them would croak– physically or mentally– before the big day.

His train of thought was interrupted when he heard a rustling of clothes ahead of him. He raised his head and saw Park pushing himself up. The man noticed him and stopped moving, his eyes going wide despite the pain on his face. They stared at each other.

“...Miles?” Park said uncertainly. His mouth sounded gummy.

“That’s me,” said Miles.

Park looked like he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Which was probably the case, considering everything.

“I thought…”

He trailed off, his eyes moving to something on the side. He looked unfocused.

“What?” asked Miles.

Park’s gaze snapped back to him.

“What?” he echoed.

“You were saying something. You thought…? What did you think?”

It took Park a second.

“The… The motel. I thought you… left me behind.”

“No.”

“But, at the… at the motel, you jumped. You left.”

Miles smiled wryly, though he dropped the smile just as fast. Too tired.

“Can’t say I didn’t think of it, but I only left so I could destroy their means of escape– and them, while I was at it. We’re in this together,” he reminded Park. “You know my plan goes nowhere without you.”

Park was quiet for a beat.

“Um. Thank you for… um, not leaving me.”

“...Yeah. Whatever you say.”

Park lowered his head into his hand, frowning, and blinked several times in quick succession.

“Does your head hurt?” asked Miles.

Park didn’t answer. Miles didn’t really mind, because it was obvious the answer was yes. His head must’ve been getting better, though, if he was alert enough to hold this conversation. Still shivering, Park lifted his head and looked around.

“Are we… Where are we?”

“In the wild. No more motels.”

“No more motels,” repeated Park, his voice quiet. He stared at Miles. “You’re bloody.”

Miles looked at his own clothes, then back at Park. “Yeah, you’re not hallucinating this. You have some on yourself too.”

Park slowly nodded, didn’t bother checking. He winced and grabbed his head again, and then jack-knifed on himself with a groan. 

“You got your ass handed to you,” said Miles in case he’d forgotten.

Park didn’t react. Miles leaned over and grabbed his bag off the ground as he continued talking.

“Also, you threw up like ten times. Might be the drugs, might be the concussion. Either way, you’d better eat and drink something, or you’re going to start dying on me again.”

Park said nothing. Miles glanced at him, and was taken aback when he noticed the man had started crying.

“Why the hell are you crying?” asked Miles. Tactful, always.

Park’s breath shivered as he brought his hands up to wipe away his tears, and he miserably mumbled: “I miss… my family. I… I miss my wife.”

“Well I miss ordering McDonald’s like a normal person, and you don’t see me crying about it.”

“Sorry,” quietly said Park. “Sorry. I don’t know why… Sorry. I’ll stop.”

Miles continued to put away his things. He listened to Park’s sniffling and his efforts to be discreet about it. It went on for a while. 

Miles sighed.

“Sorry,” Park instantly apologized, his voice shaky. “I don’t know why I can’t… stop.”

Miles got up and went to fetch a sweater, water bottle, and can of beans from the trunk. “I think it’s because you’re coming down from the equivalent of an eightball and you’re concussed.”

“...An eightball?” echoed Park, confused.

Miles rolled his eyes. 

“Drugs, basically. Don’t worry your porous little brain over it.”

He went back to Park and threw the sweater on his lap, then set down the bottle and the food on the ground next to him.

“Here.”

Park sounded hesitant when he said: “Th… Thank you.”

Miles looked at him. Park’s gaze briefly went off to the side, like he was gathering his thoughts, then back to him.

“What is it?” asked Miles.

Park didn’t answer. 

“Okay,” said Miles, and he began to turn around. 

“Miles.”

He froze on the spot when he felt Park touch his arm. Of all the things, after everything that had happened, Park physically reaching out for him was the last thing Miles had expected. He’d tortured him barely two days ago, for fuck’s sake. Didn’t the guy have an ounce of self-preservation? Miles looked at him over his shoulder, and felt destabilized when he saw the way Park was looking at him. With concern. Like a person to another, like he wasn’t a monster.

“Don’t get mad. You seem… off,” Park said, his tone cautious. A little apprehensive. “Do you… want to talk?”

Miles stared at him.

“About what?” he finally said, not wanting to take the first step. 

“About… well… Are you okay?”

Miles wasn’t sure where this came from. He scrutinized Park’s face. The man looked sincere. It was tempting to answer. To say that no, actually, he wasn’t okay, in fact he was probably fucking dying, and the truth was that maybe Miles wasn’t as indifferent as he’d thought about the fact that he was lonely and that no one would care if he was gone in two weeks. That he wished he was stronger, that he wished he wasn’t that scared, but really it terrified him to be the walking corpse that he was. 

It was very tempting. Then Miles’ attention alighted on the fat bruise on Park’s forehead, and he realized that he couldn’t rely on something so temporary as solicitude coming from a concussed, confused, and exhausted Waylon Park. 

“Peachy,” he answered, and he left the man’s side.