the curtains flew, then he appeared

[confidenceman]

The metal of the gun which he gripped in his hands was cool, though it wouldn't remain that way for long. Firearms were a necessary evil. If a man was lucky, he wouldn't ever have to pull the trigger on anyone, would live a full life without knowing how gunpowder smelled or the way that a gun came to life after a shot fired, surface hot to the touch. It wasn't the type of weapon that one could use with their eyes closed, too much kick back, like it was telling the user to remember very well what he or she was doing right then. But he didn't need that reminder. No, even as his mind reeled in circles and his breath held the heavy scent of whiskey on the tip of his tongue, he knew the weight of the gun in his hand, felt his feet drag as he slowly carried himself up that staircase.

Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn that he heard her speaking in hushed tones to someone. With that, he thought ruefully, it was like she was sealing her own death sentence. Not that he minded when she talked to other people. He wasn't that kind of possessive, fingers weaving through endless curls of hair, no. But he was a man, and she was his wife, and so there were certain things that any decent wife wasn't supposed to do. Maybe he could have forgiven her for transgressions, admitted that he could have been a better husband, better father, and a better man, but she had signed away all that they had to their name.

There was nothing left to build from.

Comments

[devilwoman]

Saffron hadn't planned to leave the party at the same time as Sawyer, but she smiled nonetheless to see him a ways down the path, and paused to adjust the bodice of her costume before hurrying her step a little to catch up to him. She hadn't gone far, though, before she saw he was walking right toward one of those gorram clouds, not showing any sign of trying to avoid it, and she gasped. He didn't know what it was.

"Sawyer!" she called. "Sawyer, don't go in there!" But it was too late, and he disappeared into the mist.

When she'd gone into one of those clouds earlier that day, she'd found Xander...and Reavers. Saffron didn't know if it would be the same or something else, but she knew that these kinds of island things tended to have a pattern, which meant if she did run into the Reavers again going into that cloud she'd still eventually come out of it without any injuries.

God help her, she'd softened enough over the past four years that she couldn't let James Ford deal with that cloud alone. She ran forward, and right into it.

The house was unfamiliar, but Saffron saw Sawyer's retreating figure headed up the stairs, and she followed, not sure what she'd find.

[confidenceman]

Something about the whole situation didn't sit well in his stomach, like there was acid bubbling and begging to be let through, but he held it down, because if there was anything worse than doing a bad deed, it was pulling through with the heaviest of reservations and taking all weight away from the action altogether. One couldn't kill with any shade of uncertainty, unless one was just suicidal enough to think oneself capable of living with that crushing guilt for the rest of one's life. Couldn't stand outside an eatery and wait for Cajun-style shrimp, looking for shreds of humanity in one's target. No, that was just suicide, and he wasn't suicidal.

He just couldn't live with his wife anymore, and at least he was aware enough to make that judgment.

Starting to attention when he heard the stairs creak some distance behind them, he quickly stepped into the hall and turned around, his back facing the bedroom and gun aimed easily in the direction of whoever had been foolish enough to think themselves capable of interrupting right then. Maybe it was her, he thought viciously, and somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he could hear the quiet sniffles of a young body hiding safe under the bed.

"Show your damn face, woman," he breathed, the trigger warm under his finger.

[devilwoman]

Well, this was different.

Saffron reached the top of the stairs and advanced slowly, just far enough for Sawyer to be able to see her. No sound of Reavers, yet, but who the gui knew what was going to happen here.

"It's just me, Sawyer," she said calmly, holding her hands slightly out from her sides so he could see they were empty. She didn't think he would shoot her normally, but nothing about this was normal. Saffron wasn't even sure he was really seeing her, or what he thought was going on.

[confidenceman]

"Why'd you do it?" He asked immediately, eyes weaving in and out of focus, seeing her but more past her, down to the woman who lay underneath, the one for whom he hadn't been and never was enough. Still, his nerves tingled, frayed as they were at the ends, and that warning was enough for him to push past any residual doubt and uncertainty. Neo could have lived a far happier life if he'd just stayed the hell on course.

So he poured salt in the wound, letting his eyes rake over her body, tainted as it was, and through her hair, wanting nothing more than to weave his fingers there and tug all thoughts of that other man out.

The finger pressed back lightly on the trigger, not enough to quite set it off.

"What's he got that I don't? What's he got that mattered more than our family? I just ain't understandin' here."

[devilwoman]

Saffron didn't at all like the way Sawyer was pointing that gun at her. He was aiming it with intent, not as an empty threat. "What's who got?" she asked, frowning in confusion. "Sawyer, it's me. Helen. This isn't real. I don't know who you think you're talking to, honey, but you've gotta snap out of it."

[confidenceman]

Maybe all that it required was a bit of mind over matter, but even as Sawyer started stirring in the back of his mind, he wouldn't put the gun down. It was like being trapped in another body, barely hanging onto awareness, and in spite of Sawyer being who he was, never heeding the directions of another, always choosing to do whatever the hell he wanted, he found that he no longer had control. That acid burning through his chest, it wouldn't let him put the gun down.

"I'm sorry," he whispered then, pulling the trigger back viciously as the air suddenly smelled of gunpowder and red splattered all over the wall. Even if Helen might not have felt a thing, all Sawyer saw was red, and he turned to head right back to his room, gun still in hand.

[devilwoman]

It was a damn good thing Saffron's reflexes were quick, kept sharp by the conditioning she kept up on the island, otherwise things could have been a lot worse. And nightmare or no, regardless of there being no lasting physical effects once they got out of the cloud, it still hurt like hell to get shot.

She tried to dive out of the way at his whispered apology, but the bullet still grazed her arm, and she let out a choked cry as she hit the wall. "Sawyer," she tried as he walked away, but it came out as little more than a moan. She took a breath and tried again, and this time her voice was there full force as she yelled. "James!"

[confidenceman]

The gun was already pressed against the lower edge of his jaw, metal too hot to go without searing and leaving a red imprint there, when he heard his name. There was no sudden flooding realization, but in its place, his stomach twisted violently, nausea coming and going in waves as he turned around to face her again. The red on the walls faded. Her face grew more distinct. But all the while, that gun was still pressed to the line of his jaw, still ready to fire at a moment's notice, because anything had to be better than how he was feeling right then.

"Why are you here?" he asked, swallowing thickly. James was the small child who had retreated safely under his parents' bed when instructed, who hadn't lifted a single finger to help, because he was only so young. Sawyer wasn't sure he was James anymore, and he certainly didn't feel it then. "You're not supposed to be here, Helen."

[devilwoman]

"I'm not," Saffron replied, breathing a little hard, and leaning heavily against the wall with the opposite hand clamped over her wound. It wasn't that bad, but it stung like a son of a bitch. "And neither are you. It was that cloud you went into, it makes you live your worst nightmare. And unless you want to stick around and wait for my worst nightmare to come tearing through here, which believe me, you don't, we need to get out of this place. Sawyer, lower your gun."

[confidenceman]

He tried. He tried his best, his eyes narrowing until they squeezed shut. He allowed himself to break his gaze away from the woman, from the area around him, even thought it was always dangerous to let his guard down in any capacity. But he tried nonetheless, because maybe she was right, and he was just living a nightmare, and wasn't that a blessing in of itself, because nightmares could be woken from at all. Breath coming shallow, Sawyer gritted his teeth, before he shook his head, the gun still pressed closely to his jaw.

"I can't," he replied, taking a few steps backward, feeling as though he were watching the entire series of events from the backseat and through fog. "Get outta here, Ginger, I can handle this myself. But not if you're here."

[devilwoman]

"I'm not leaving here without you," she ground out, though she didn't know what in the 'verse she was going to do to get him to lower the gun and come with her.

Then it was too late. She could hear them, outside the house and coming fast, and she knew they'd stop at nothing to get inside and get to her and Sawyer.

"Oh, hell," Saffron said flatly. "You're gonna want to lower that gun, Sawyer. Reavers are coming, and they're the worst kind of thing you can think of. You got any other weapons?" Nothing was going to stop this, and they needed to be able to defend themselves long enough to get the hell out.

[confidenceman]

"The hell are Reavers?" Sawyer asked in confusion, the hand holding the gun to his chin loosening slightly, coming and going with the amount of attention he was diverting away from it. The fact that he was living a nightmare still had yet to sink fully in for him— it was all too real, too vivid, and more than anything else, it hurt. Maybe it was a common misconception that dreams contained no level of pain, but when he was swimming in and out of consciousness to begin with, logic wasn't precisely the greatest guiding force.

But he did manage a measured breath, suppressing flashes of memories and experiences that passed through, flickering through both of their minds. A mother, grabbing tightly at his arms, telling him to hide. The underside of a bed, dusty and cold. Gunshot. Slow, steady steps sounding on the floor. Gunshot. Thirty years ahead, the sizzle of shrimp in a wok. Gunshot.

The gun broke free, but Sawyer backed down a couple of steps.

"Ain't got anythin' other than a gun with a single clip," he replied.

[devilwoman]

"I'll give you the whole sordid story once we're out of this gorram mess, if you want, but the short version is that they're men, but just barely, and they're pure rage. They don't just kill, they rape, torture, and worse." She could hear them clearer now; they were seconds away from reaching the house.

She saw it, that scene from under the bed, and the dots connected; the origin of Sawyer's chosen name for himself. She couldn't quite figure on how it all went together, with that brief glimpse, but she was definitely going to ask him about it. Just as soon as they weren't fixing to fight for their lives.

"Māde," Saffron said with exasperation, pushing herself away from the wall. "Well, the kitchen's bound to have a butcher knife or two, right? That's something."


[Fuck]

[confidenceman]

She saw. He could tell from the look that flickered over her face that Helen had seen the same scenes Sawyer had, and it was more than enough to make him swear under his breath, words that he kept quiet enough so that they wouldn't sully her ears. This island, it was starting to look even worse than the last, because at least before, the only person worming into his past was very much human and thus limited by all that police records ever detailed. Damn it.

"Kitchen's downstairs," he muttered briefly, before heading ahead to look down the stairs and hoping that they were still clear, an arm held out to keep Helen back. Protected, or as close to it as he could manage with the way things were. "And if they're physically still men, we'll manage, Ginger. As long as they ain't ninjas."

[devilwoman]

Saffron almost had to laugh at how Sawyer was trying to protect her, but given that she was injured, she let him for the time being. She was going to need all the strength she could muster to fight off the Reavers. "We'll manage," she agreed, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "We just need to get past them and then we can get the hell out of this cloud."

They reached the kitchen just as the Reavers reached the house, and all around them was the sound of the monsters trying to break down doors and smashing in windows.

[confidenceman]

Shifting from his nightmare to hers made it somehow easier, as did knowing that he was caught in a dream at all. In dreams, one could do anything, feel anything, without greater consequence than to wake up with a pounding heart and covered in a cold sweat. The gun which Sawyer held in his hand, a small silver pistol, was in the blink of an eye a shotgun. Throwing the strap over his shoulder, he aimed in the direction of a window that was sure to get shattered sooner or later, shooting directly and felling one of the Reavers.

Not too difficult, but it was only one.

"Okay, these things, they got a weakness?" he asked loudly, trying to settle on one to hit next.

[devilwoman]

"Not really," Saffron said, as the butcher knife she picked up suddenly became an axe remarkably like the one she'd found the last time. She spoke quickly, moving to be ready for the Reavers that were about to burst through the nearby door. "They're just men, technically, so they can be killed just like anyone, but they don't fear anything and they're relentless."

A Reaver burst into the room right by her, and in the split second before it noticed her she swung around and gave it a roundhouse kick to the head, then finished it off with her axe.

[confidenceman]

Men never live without fears, Sawyer was tempted to point out. Even sociopaths had events that they cared and didn't care for, preferences for how life ought to go, and maybe sometimes it was possible to catch a glimpse of something in their eyes too. Disappointment. Elation. The clash of both, that made fear, but there wasn't enough time for Sawyer to point that out before they were being swarmed and he then found he needed to shoot a hell of a lot faster. But the more he did, the worse it got, the beat of his heart going quicker and quicker until it all but stopped.

So he grabbed her hand instead, and tried to get her to run, run even as the walls of the house disappeared in a rise of smoke. If this wasn't a real, then it was a dream, and one could always wake from a dream. People didn't die in dreams.

Often.

[devilwoman]

Saffron was slashing and kicking at every bit of Reaver she could reach, not too far from simply being a madwoman with an axe, except for the fact that there was a hell of a lot of skill behind the frenzy. She knew, though, that their only chance was to get out as soon as they could, break free from the knot of Reavers that was closing in on them.

She saw Sawyer making his way to her, and as he grabbed her hand she took a final deadly swing at a Reaver about to catch hold of them before she ran, pulled along by Sawyer. All they had to do was get out of the cloud, and then it would all be over.

[confidenceman]

They were making good progress toward the exit— or at least, so Sawyer hoped, having no way of actually knowing when the two of them could leave the dream and find themselves on the island again. But there were a few Reavers who broke away from the rest, fast runners who were catching up even as Sawyer felt his chest was practically burning from the effort to pull ahead, and it forced him to turn over his shoulder and shoot a few bullets in their general direction.

Bang, one hit.

Bang, another.

But the more disconcerting part came in when they fell to the ground, suddenly all wearing that pudgy face Sawyer had come to know months ago, the guy who had the misfortune of being the subject of a con run on Sawyer himself. It was enough to drain the color from Sawyer's face again, because while he'd killed a man without regret, that man was not this one. Was not an innocent.

Fortunately, before too long, he found himself in the dark again, staring at a retreating cloud of fog as his hand was still tightly wrapped around Helen's wrist.

[devilwoman]

Saffron really wished she had a gun right then; she could have been helping Sawyer's efforts to fell more of their pursuers. She was in damn good shape, but even so she was winded, what with the combination of everything - trying to run with a death grip on Sawyer's hand, her wounded arm, the adrenaline and fear pumping through her.

She twisted to look back as the gunshots rang out, and it didn't make a lick of sense for the falling Reavers to suddenly become someone else, someone unfamiliar, but there wasn't time to puzzle it out. She swung around, still moving but slowing down, and used her free hand to hurl the axe with all her might at one of the ones still running, still Reavers.

She flipped back forward, barely noticing that the axe had found its intended target, and as they put on a burst of speed they were suddenly out of the cloud. Saffron skidded to a halt, not making any move to let go of Sawyer, and followed his gaze as the fog moved away from them. "Wǒde mā," she breathed, panting.

[confidenceman]

He couldn't move another step, not for the first several seconds as he simply looked down at Saffron, where she was slightly bent over to help catch her breath. His entire body was screaming for air, muscles burning in a way that seemed to suggest to him that they were moving that entire time, through whatever illusion it was that the cloud had managed to put them though. But he just couldn't move, because even if he was no longer surrounded by the walls of his own house and with a gun in his palm— he felt weak without it, he then noticed, like that quiet little boy all over again— the memory was now seared so fresh into his mind that he wasn't sure where to put that all.

The Reavers, they had been... well, it would have been a lie to say that they weren't something, terrifying even by the toughest of standards, but Sawyer didn't get so scared by threats like that anymore. What scared him were things like the wrenching guilt and despair that ripped through every last part of his heart, matters he didn't know how to address.

When he finally could move again, it was a stumble in no direction in particular. He hadn't memorized the layout of the island yet, and certainly had greater trouble of the dark. Had always been lousy at tracking. But he wandered off in some direction, because it was better than standing and waiting all over again.

[devilwoman]

Before the island, Saffron had never killed a person directly. Caused all kinds of deaths, sure, and knowingly, but she'd never actually done the deed with her own two hands. Now she didn't even know how many lives she'd ended. She wasn't regretful about it, though - they'd been Reavers, and with them it was always kill or be killed - killed, and much worse. Dealing with them twice in one day, though, was a bit much. Even more so because she'd finally gotten to a point a while back where she was secure in the thought that they weren't coming back.

At least she wasn't going to have any more nightmares about Halloween three years ago. No, now she was going to have nightmares about this Halloween.

She wanted to talk to Sawyer about his part in the ordeal, about what he'd seen, and not just because he'd rutting shot her. Not just because she was curious about how forthcoming he would be, either. That needed to wait, though. Unless for some reason he felt inclined to spill his guts right then and there, that was a talk best had after at least an attempt at a good night's sleep.

"Don't wander off and get lost now," she called after him, and her voice was light, but she meant it; she didn't want him going anywhere. She didn't want him leaving her alone there. She also didn't know if he would listen to her.

[confidenceman]

He whirled around, hair whipping through the air and a look of desperation in his eye. She was... there was just something about her, Sawyer kept on thinking to himself. Not that she was bad company, not that he even minded having her around— which was saying a lot, because at the end of the day, Sawyer was almost always most comfortable curled up on his own with a decent book in his hands— but she seemed interested in him somehow, and he couldn't figure out why. Just because he was a con man?

He didn't want to be interesting to anyone for that simple reason alone, not anymore.

"If you're so worried about me gettin' lost, come the hell along," he bit out, not angry so much as frustrated, and underneath it all, hurt. Self-loathing. Nothing out of the ordinary. "But don't act like that didn't just... happen."

[devilwoman]

"I'm not acting like it didn't happen. I just don't much like the idea of being alone right now," Saffron admitted as she moved to catch up with Sawyer. "That's the second time I've had to deal with Reavers today. I reckon getting shot this time was just an added bonus." She lifted a hand to her arm reflexively, even though there was no trace of an injury there now.

"I'm not acting like it didn't happen, Sawyer," she repeated, and she sounded tired. "I just didn't think you'd want to get into it. But hell, if you want to explain to me what I just saw, I'm all ears."

[confidenceman]

"I don't want to," Sawyer replied first, figuring that it was best to be honest with that much, now that subtly dodging the matter was no longer exactly an option. She'd seen more than she should have. That was all. He tried telling himself that over and over as he straightened up, slowly ambling with Helen by his side. "No more'n I'm sure you want to explain the Reavers and whatever they did in your life. I know how to put my experiences aside, much as I'm sorry for having shot you in there."

His jaw was grit as he looked forward, rubbing at the stubble on his face. "Do I drop you off at your hut? You got people around there?"

[devilwoman]

"I'll tell you all about the gorram Reavers, if you want. They're everyone's worst nightmare where I come from, least everyone who knows they're not a myth," replied Saffron, her accent coming out a little more in her agitation. "I could even tell you about how they were here three Halloweens ago - and that wasn't no nightmare, that was real." She brushed a hand over the arm Sawyer hadn't shot, where the faint scar was, one of two she carried from that day.

She took a slow breath as they walked along, and while she didn't want to be alone it seemed clear Sawyer didn't have the same line of thinking. It didn't seem like him dropping her off at her hut was going to end in anything but her being alone, and normally her lack of nearby neighbors was a good thing...just not right now.

"No, I reckon I'll go back to the party," she replied. "It's like to still be going, and I'm sure there'll be folks I know there." The one she really wanted to see was Xander, but he hadn't been at the party earlier, and she didn't want to bug him at home, not tonight.

[confidenceman]

He never apologized for his tendency to wander off all his own. Never apologized, because Sawyer could never understand why it was that made people think that they owed each other something like that. Companionship. Maybe in an ideal world, the mere presence of a warm body next to oneself would always be comforting. But Sawyer had always felt safest on his own, or at least had since his parents passed away; when one's own hearth and home was sprayed over with blood, where else could one turn to be safe? It had to be while on the run. Avoiding surveillance.

"Party sounds like a good idea," Sawyer murmured softly, distracted, although a large part of him realized that there was no way he could be expected to attend the party and find any similar amount of comfort in it. They wanted the opposite of one another right then, and maybe that was fine. The world needed people of all types. "I'll drop you there, keep the Reavers from gettin' back again. 'Least they're a nightmare you can share, I guess."

[devilwoman]

It felt suddenly like she'd come to a turning point, though to and from what, she didn't know. She just knew what was strongest in her mind right then, and it seemed like a revelation, one that had been building a long damn time. She and Sawyer were about to part ways, and she was...all right with that.

"I'd appreciate it," Saffron said, "and you know where to find me if you change your mind about talking." She didn't think he would, but she threw the offer out all the same, so he'd know it was there.

[confidenceman]

"I—"

He just felt broken. Maybe what he needed more than anything else was someone to sit him down and force him to deal. Not to let him fall back to bad habits that were resurfacing more than they had in months now, the impulses that told him to run and not look back. His jaw grew taut, refusing to let him speak, taking a deep breath.

"Yeah, yeah I know where to find you," he said quietly with a careful nod, walking the both of them toward the Compound, wishing that he had a positive way of venting his frustrations.