Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The bar is dingy and dimly lit. The stools are more duct tape than upholstery, their seams barely holding together under the weight of the regular occupants. Tackiness lingers on every surface no matter how often the bartender wipes the rings of condensation from the counter with his raggedy cloth. The bar is just as run down and worn out as Hank is; maybe that’s why he feels so at home here.

It's too early in the day for drinking to be socially acceptable, but Jimmy's Bar is the kind of place where that doesn't matter. It's the kind of place where the passage of time is marked only by the accumulation of empty glasses and bottles in front of you. Maybe that's why no one has ever bothered to change the batteries in the cheap plastic analogue clock that hangs on the wall. They always say that it's 5 o'clock somewhere, and at Jimmy's Bar it's perpetually 5:23.

Despite the early hour and its sorry state, Jimmy's Bar is still half full of other people who’ve given up on pretending they need anything more than the weight of a glass in their hand. No one asks questions. No one looks too long at anyone else. No one tells Hank to move on or looks at him with pity, whispering behind his back about the wreck he's become, because this is the one place where everyone else is just as fucked up as he is.

It’s been three years. Three fucking years, and still, the grief clings to him, its claws sunk deep into his heart, each beat tearing him apart slowly. Far too fucking slowly. People say that grief is something that you get through. Hank doesn't understand that. You get through it and then… what? You move on? You forget? What kind of father would that make him?

Hank stares down into the amber depths of his drink, rolling it slightly so the liquid swirls around the ice. He hasn’t decided yet if he’s chasing oblivion tonight, or just trying to dull the thoughts. The hum of conversation—mostly grunts and half mumbled words; this isn’t the kind of bar people come to for company—is just enough to remind him that he’s not alone. It's too quiet to drown out the drone of the TV mounted behind the bar.

“—hostage situation unfolding at 1554 Park Avenue—”

Hank looks up, but he immediately wishes he hadn't. The face of a terrified little girl fills the screen, she can't be more than nine or ten years old—right around the same age that Cole would be… Another goddamn tragedy in a city full of them.

Hank's stomach lurches. He wants to shout at the bartender to turn it off, but he can't get the words out. He wants to turn away, to shield his eyes, but he's frozen in place.

The camera pans out to a blonde man wobbling at the edge of the rooftop—armed with nothing but the child that he's threatening to take with him into the void. The scrolling text at the bottom of the screen fills in the blanks:

Nanny threatens to jump with employer’s daughter.

Hank knows how loud these scenes are, he knows that the camera mics on the choppers aren't sensitive enough to pick up the sounds of voices from the penthouse roof. But he can still hear the little girl's screams: "Please help me… I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die…"

Hank really hates cases where kids are involved, but even though he's no longer frozen in place he still can't make himself turn away from the screen. For the first time in a long time, something other than the past grips his attention. Besides being twisted into knots, there's another feeling in his gut. He can't put his finger on it, but something feels… off.

The whole thing is over as fast as it starts. The Phillips' nanny—Daniel—is shot by an anonymous SWAT sniper. There are no other casualties; it is considered a successful operation.

Hank tries to stop thinking about it. It’s just the booze making him paranoid. 

* * *

Hank is hungover when he wakes up, the headache that may as well be considered part of his personality at this point pounding behind his eyes. His hand shakes as he adds a splash of whisky to his coffee.

The blinds are drawn tightly closed, the living room illuminated only by the dim light from the news playing on the TV that Hank never bothered to turn off before he passed out on the couch last night.

The press has moved on and the hostage situation is already forgotten. New headlines replace it: Cyberlife stock drops amid rumours of missing Thirium-310 shipments scrolls across the bottom of the screen as a spokesperson for the self-driving automotive industry assures that there is plenty of stock remaining for the private industry and that they don't expect any significant production delays at this time.

Hank may be drunk more often than not these days, but he’d been the youngest Lieutenant in Detroit for a reason: yeah, a lot of it had been hard work and the idealistic notion that he could make a real difference if he moved up the ranks, but it had also been because he’d had damned good instincts and knew when to trust his gut. It's been his guiding force in all his years as a cop, the one thing he can trust amidst all the chaos. And right now, it’s telling him that something about the Phillips’ case is off.

It's afternoon by the time Hank drags himself into the precinct. He pulls up the directory of active cases and prints out the Phillips’ file, convinced that a closer look at the file is all he needs to to get rid of this nagging feeling that something is wrong.

The file is too thin. Too simple. Hank scoffs as he reads it—anyone could have written it. There's nothing more than the scant details that were shared on the news. No in-depth reports, no examination of Daniel’s mental state, no exploration of his motivations or background. What was the inciting event? People who take a hostage are generally trying to use them for some sort of leverage, to get something, so what were the demands? The whole thing is being chalked up to mental illness and no one's bothered to look any further. The story is too clean. Something is missing.

It’s not his case. It’s not even his division—Hank doesn’t know why he even cares. Gut instinct or not, it's not like there's anything to go on in the thin file. He’s just about to toss the file aside, trying to convince himself that after a few drinks he'll forget all about this when the final page catches his eye. 

Autopsy results pending.

The bullet to the brain was a clear cause of death. The story should’ve ended there. So why the autopsy? Why bother?

The more Hank thinks about it, the less it makes sense.

“Maybe you’re just looking for trouble,” Hank mutters to himself, pushing the file aside. But he’s never been good at forgetting, especially not when his gut is gnawing at him. He flags the file so that he'll be notified when the autopsy results are in.

* * *

He gets drunk when he goes home that night, but not as drunk as he usually gets. When his alarm goes off in the morning he actually gets up—he showers and shaves and puts on his least wrinkled outfit. He's at the precinct by 9 am, determined to get some answers.

All eyes are on him as he makes his way to his desk, no one bothering to hide their whispers. It's just as bad as it was when he first came back from leave three years ago. Fowler pretends not to notice, but Hank can feel his eyes on him and he's known him long enough to know that there's a deep crease in his forehead, trying to piece together a puzzle that he doesn't have all the pieces to.

"Hank! In my office!" Fowler calls across the bullpen.

Nearly an hour—Hank is surprised that Fowler managed to wait that long. Jeff hates missing pieces just as much as he does.

Neither of them say anything when Hank first enters the glass-encased office. Jeff's eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as he properly takes in Hank's unexpectedly well put-together appearance, adding it to the fact that he's here at this time in the first place. Hank knows him well enough that he can practically hear the gears turning as he works the problem in his mind.

"You put a flag on the Phillips' case." Fowler finally breaks the silence.

"I did," Hank confirms, ignoring the fact that he damn well knows that Fowler's statement is really a question.

"That was a hostage situation, not a homicide," Fowler says, his eyes narrowed. "It's not even your division." He leaves the fact that Hank barely completes the work that is his division unsaid.

"Something isn't right with that case, Jeff." Hank jabs his finger at the thin file that's sitting on the desk as he answers the question that hasn’t been voiced. "I don't know what it is, but it's something—"

"You're chasing ghosts, Hank," Fowler cuts him off. "There's nothing here. Sometimes people just go off the rails. Do you think—”

"Bullshit! There’s always a fucking reason." Hank slams his hand down on the desk. "The truth is, nobody can be bothered to dig any deeper. Have you even read the damn file, Jeff?"

"Hank, you are seriously starting to piss me off! You are a police lieutenant, you are supposed to do what I say and shut your goddamn mouth!"

"You know what my goddamn mouth has to say to you, huh?"

"Okay, okay… I'll pretend like I didn't hear that, so I don't have to add any more pages to your disciplinary folder ‘cause it already looks like a fuckin' novel!" Jeff's voice is loud enough that Hank knows it's audible to the entire bullpen. "This conversation is over!"

Hank isn't sure why he doesn't just turn around and storm out of the office. He knows that he's hanging onto this job by a thread and that he's probably used up nearly all of his friend's goodwill with the shit he's pulled—and hasn't pulled—in the past three years. He should leave this be. It really might be nothing…

But what if it's not?

"Jeffrey, please." Hank's voice is softer, but still serious. Though he doesn't realise it in the moment, he's made a decision. His entire career has been built on being able to trust his gut instincts. If he can't do that, then he shouldn't be here. Back when they were rookies in the academy, he and Jeff would bitch about people who overstayed their welcome in the job. The way that they would desperately cling onto their position even when it was clear to everyone else that they were doing more harm than good. They’d always sworn that they'd never be those people, that they would know when it was time to walk away.

If Hank is wrong about this, it'll be time to walk away. That'd certainly be better than forcing the closest thing he has left to a friend to fire him.

Jeff doesn’t say anything else, but he also isn’t physically pushing Hank out the of the door. Hank takes that as a win.

"Do we order autopsies for every person who goes off the rails?" Hank continues, keeping his voice even.

Fowler flips to the last page of the file. "No, we don't," he admits, "but is the autopsy order all this is about? A box got checked that didn't need to be checked—it's a discrepancy, not a conspiracy…"

"Jeff," Hank cuts in, "it's not like this is one of Reed's files with the bare minimum amount of effort put in—"

It looks like Fowler is about to interrupt.

"—or one of mine," Hank adds, preempting the argument that even competent cops can have bad days—or years, in his case—and make a simple mistake. "This was Captain Allen's case." He points at the name at the top of the file. "You've said yourself that he's a meticulous son of a bitch; do you really think that he would order an autopsy by accident?"

Though he doesn't argue, Fowler still doesn't look convinced. It stings more than it should. Don't you trust me? Hank wants to ask. He isn't sure he wants the answer. Even if he can accept that it's his time to retire, that he's as useless here as he was when… Well, even if he can accept it, he isn't quite ready to hear someone else say it yet.

"Fine," Fowler finally growls. "I won't remove your flag, or limit your access to this file."

Hank doesn't even manage to get out a thank you before the Captain continues.

"But if you piss off even one person about this file and I hear about it, it's over," Fowler's voice is firm, but Hank can see the shadow of a smug grin on his face as he continues. "And since you're so eagerly taking on the work of other departments, I damn well expect your own work to actually get fucking finished." The smug grin is no longer a shadow as he adds, "which means you better go talk to Detective Reed, because you’re both assigned to the Ortiz case."

"Jeffrey, Jesus Christ! Why are you doin' this to me?" Hank grumbles. They both know what he really means is thank you, but that isn't something either of them usually says out loud, so instead they just slip back into their roles of friendly antagonization. "You know how much I hate working with fuckin' Reed! Why you doin' this to me?"

"Listen, I’ve had just about enough of your bitching. Either you do your job or you hand in your badge." Anyone who hadn't known Jeff as long as Hank has wouldn't be able to see the hint of a smile behind his usual stern expression. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."

The corners of Hank's lips tug up, it isn’t quite a smile but it’s closer than he’s been in as long as he can remember. He raises a hand in parting, snorting softly at the firm “close the door on your way out” that dismisses him.

Chapter Text

After

The flames dance in front of him, licking up the walls and crawling over the benches. It consumes the electronics, the plastic cases bubbling and warping with the heat. 

It hungers. It consumes. It leaps from one surface to the next.

The world sizzles and cracks as glass vials boil over and pop.

The fire touches everything.

Except Connor.

He can feel the heat of it upon his skin, but it doesn't burn him.

He wonders how close it will have to get before it does.

It pales in comparison to the warmth in his mouth, metallic and copper on his tongue and wetness on his chin. It's all he can taste, all he can feel, the blood thick as though it wants to suffocate him. Flesh clings to his teeth, solid, hot. It has been so long since he has eaten anything that the texture doesn’t even make him gag. Hunger overrides everything. 

It overrides the fear that the fire should bring. 

It overrides the horror of what he just did. 

It drowns out the gurgling sounds of terror and pain and the ripping and tearing of teeth and hands as the girls finish what he started.

"Hannah!"

It sounds like Nines, but Connor hasn't heard Nines' voice in—-he doesn't know. Day? Weeks? Months? He's lost track of time here, inside, or underground. Time has no meaning.

"Hannah!"

The flames leap and spiral higher, pouncing, catching, consuming as the door is thrown open and oxygen rushes in.

There is an alarm blaring. Connor can hear it now, the keening wail of it drowning out the sounds from the other side of the lab.

Connor flicks the lighter in his hand, squeezes his fingers around the metal of it, feels the hard edges dig into his numb skin and for a moment he forgets that that is how the fire started. A lighter, lifted from the pocket of a scientist who had gotten too close. A stray notebook, left just within reach of the lab table that Connor was strapped down too. A restraint, just loose enough after the last vial of blood that had been taken.

No more, Connor thinks, Never again. He'd kicked the table towards the chemical cabinet in the corner of the room and had waited for it all to end.

"Hannah, fuck, look at me." Nines is there, tugging and pulling at Connor's body, his arms and legs still pinned down and Connor wonders if pieces of him will be left behind. Pieces of him that aren't already scraped and cut away and set in petri dishes and vials. Pieces of him scattered all over the lab like the patches of shorn hair that had fallen away.

Now

Connor’s stomach rumbles. 

Nines looks up from the can of refried beans he is eating, barely warmed by the tiny fire they had made in the kitchen sink of yet another abandoned house. Full of protein and some fibre, and even smelling awful and knowing the texture would feel like mush, the sight of his brother eating makes Connor more aware of his own hunger. 

He pushes it down.

He can't eat what Ni is eating. 

Nines frowns an apology, turning his body away slightly before he shovels another guilty forkful into his mouth. 

Connor’s stomach rumbles again. It hurts. As much as anything hurts these days, with his whole body feeling more and more numb with every day. 

He flexes his fingers, rotates his ankles, just to remind himself he still can, before getting up and wandering towards the stairs. 

“Where are you going?” Nines asks, already making moves to stand; always ready to follow. 

“Just looking.” Connor replies, his words muffled by the makeshift muzzle that covers his mouth. It pinches his skin as he talks, but he doesn't dare take it off while the hunger gnaws at him like it does. “Upstairs.” 

Nines doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t follow either, seeming to pick up on Connor’s need to be alone for a while. 

The stairs creak under his feet, but Connor doesn’t feel the same need to be quiet like he usually does. They scouted the house when they first arrived. There is nothing dead upstairs they needed to worry about. There is nothing alive either. Connor’s stomach clenches, empty and impatient. 

He finds the upstairs bathroom and locks himself inside, reaching behind his head to unclip the straps of the gasmask. It comes away from his face, letting in a rush of cool air against his damp skin. He works his jaw, feeling it crack and pop, and carefully probes his teeth with his tongue. Everything feels like it did days ago, just increasingly numb. When he looks at his reflection, he doesn’t look any different than he remembers looking, maybe more gaunt, or it could be that the skin around his mouth and nose are startlingly white and clean compared to the rest of his face. 

On impulse he reaches out and turns the taps on the sink, but is met only with silence. Not even the rattle and hiss of empty pipes. The water must have been shut off from this town for a long time already. 

Sitting on the closed toilet lid, Connor rubs absently at the skin around his mouth, soft and smooth beneath his fingers, not like the beard that Nines has started to grow, coming in thick and dark. His fingers are in his mouth without any conscious thought, teeth already digging into the scant flesh covering bones. There is little pain, just the tingling sensation of damaged nerves trying to work. 

It would be easy, he thinks, to gnaw his way through his own fingers, to swallow them one knuckle to the next. He doubts that it would keep the hunger at bay for long though. 

Releasing his fingers he looks at the indents his teeth left on his skin. The bite was not even hard enough to draw blood. 

He pulls the sleeve of his jumper up next, peeling away the gauze pad from the bite on his forearm. The wound is ragged, refusing to scab over entirely, purplish blue blood wells where the gauze pulled away. It used to hurt. It doesn’t anymore. 

Connor lifts his arm, looking at the bite, the skin and muscle that were torn by teeth not his own. He presses his forearm into his mouth, clenches his jaw and digs his teeth into the undamaged skin beside the bite. That thought is there again; to bite that little bit harder, to rip a chunk of his own arm away, to chew and swallow. He ignores it, letting go of his arm and pulling it away from his mouth. The imprint of his teeth is similar to those that left the bite. 

Similar, but not the same. 

There is a creak on the stairs, footsteps on the landing outside the bathroom door. With no light to give away his presence, Nines walks past the closed door, heading towards the bedroom they had decided upon before. The one with the window that opened wide onto the eves of the lower story: the slant down over the garage making for a good escape route. Knowing that when Nines doesn’t find him there he will be back, Connor presses the gauze back over the wound and pulls down his sleeve. 

“Are you okay?” Nines asks, frowning as Connor enters the room, securing the muzzle back over his face before he comes closer. 

“Fine. Just wanted a break from it.” Connor replies, bending down to undo the laces of his boots, kicking them off and peeling his socks off his feet. He hangs the socks to air out, out of habit, not because he sweats anymore. By the time he strips out of his jeans, he knows Nines is looking away from him with great purpose.  

It has been a few days since they have had walls around them, doors they can shut, and a mattress underneath them. Hours since the last time they had felt relatively secure and Connor knows with that comes the loss of his brother's vigilance. He wishes Nines would keep looking at him, for the simple fact that it has been weeks since Nines last stood close, or offered a trace of physical comfort. Not since Elijha Kamski's lab and the blood he had seen on Connor's teeth.

It didn't matter that he didn't kill him, Connor had seen the moment that his brother's trust in his humanity had started to slip.

Over a month after Connor had already lost his.  

Nines sits on the bed, despite all his trepidation their sleeping bags spread out over the top, zipped together like they are every night. 

When there had been three of them, they shared the two sleeping bags – two of them sleeping while the other sat up on watch – sharing them to share body heat as the nights grew colder.

It stopped when it became just the two of them.

Why Nines kept the habit, Connor doesn't know. It feels like an olive branch, an apology that Nines can't say for the distance between them.

Connor knows he will just make excuses to stay out of bed if he ever took up the offer of crawling into the sleeping bag. So he doesn't. Instead he settles on top of a low set of drawers, pushing aside several left behind knickknacks, and offers, “Get some sleep, I’ll take watch.” 

“You.” Nines protests, but his hand is already on the edge of the sleeping bag and Connor can see the exhaustion in all of his movements.

“I’m not tired.” Connor replies. It’s a lie. He is tired. His body feels too heavy to be his own, the weight of exhaustion, but he cannot sleep. 

He hasn’t been able to since Alex died. 

Before

The tent is small, stuffy and smelling strongly of canvas and disinfectant. The thin walls do nothing to cut out the noise from outside and Connor fights the urge to press his hands over his ears to try and block out that sounds of so many other lost, confused and desperate people.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Their belongings are still in decontamination, the simple cardboard tag with a five digit number on it that Alex holds the only thing tying them to what little they had been allowed to take on the bus from Ann Arbour.

Connor shifts, feeling the hard seam on his new socks digging into his toes, there is a darned patch under the heel that makes the bones inside his leg itch and he knows if he sits down, it won't feel as bad, but then all the other textures of his borrowed clothes will press into his skin. There are underwires in the bra they gave him that make him want to tear his skin off.

A hand presses to the back of his neck, comforting and heavy, thumb stroking over the soft, wispy strands of hair that escaped from the hair tie holding his hair back.

"Hey, Constantinople, what's that's brain doing?" Alex asks, voice low and soft, as heavy and grounding as the hand on the back of his neck. "Can just about see the smoke coming out of your ears. How are you ever supposed to teach all the little kids anything if your brain is mush?"

Connor squints his eyes open to glare at his twin – half a foot taller than him, and everything he wants to be; square jaw, stubble after only two days of not shaving. "Guess I'll have to switch to teaching high school kids them. Mushy brain is a prerequisite for that, isn't it?"

Alex rolls his eyes, shaking Connor by the scruff of his neck. "Ha ha, smarty pants. Now, you going to tell me what's wrong?"

Connor shakes his head and looks away. Alex stoops down slightly to catch his eye again. He shrugs, tucking his shoulders up around his ears as Alex squeezes the back of his neck again. He feels his walls crack, the way they always do when Alex weaseled his way into his business like that. "It's everything. These clothes. My hair."

He tugs at his bangs escaping from his ponytail, frustrated with the length of his hair, the way that it touches his face, the way it makes him look. With the clothes he has on, everyone looks at him and thinks he's a girl and he hates it. The ache in his throat precedes the sniffle that escapes him. "I missed my haircut. It's not fair."

Alex squeezes the back of his neck tighter, pulling him in and wrapping his arm around his shoulders. "Hey, Connor, everything sucks, I know. Hang in there, when we get our stuff back, I'll cut your hair, okay?"

Tucking his face into Alex's shoulder, Connor sniffles again, his voice breaking as he whispers, "Okay."

Chapter Text

"Lieutenant Anderson," Gavin sneers when Hank approaches his desk. Hank can hear the air quotation marks around his rank. "The fuck are you doin' here?"

"I need the file for the Ortiz case." Hank doesn't bother with a greeting or preamble.

"You're wasting your time. Just some addict who got what was comin'," Reed barks a laugh.

"I think I'll have a look anyway, if you don’t mind." Hank holds his hand out for the folder.

Gavin tosses the file across his desk rather than handing it to him, the papers spilling out and fluttering to the ground. "Guess that's why they assigned you to the case though, huh? No one's gonna care if the drunk drops the ball on the investigation when that's the victim."

"Guess that's why the file had your name on it first," Hank mutters, picking up the papers and shoving them into the folder.

"The fuck did you say?" Gavin is already halfway out of his seat, his hand hovering over his gun for a moment before he balls his hands into fists instead.

Hank is already walking away. He shouldn't have let himself be baited into saying anything in the first place.

"Can someone call maintenance and get some air-freshener," Gavin's obnoxious voice trails behind him, "fuckin' stinks of booze over here now."

Hank can feel people's eyes on him as he settles at his desk with the file. It reminds him of those first few weeks being back in the precinct after Cole's death, how it felt like he was on display. At first the gazes were filled with concern and pity for the grieving father; eventually, enough time had passed that he was supposed to have moved on and those gazes were instead filled with irritation and contempt for the pathetic drunk. Honestly, he’s not sure if those looks ever actually stopped or if he’s usually just too hungover to notice them.

He tries to ignore it as he opens the file and flips through the crime scene photos.

"Christ," Hank mutters as he flips through the images. He's been doing this job long enough that he's able to picture what happened from the photos alone.

It’d started in the kitchen. The entire house was a mess, but the kitchen is even worse—obvious signs of a struggle. The victim had been the one wielding the bloody bat that was discarded on the kitchen floor. The knife block had one empty spot, and based on the amount of take out containers strewn about, it certainly wasn't in the sink waiting to be washed. So the assailant wasn't armed when they arrived, which means there was no premeditation. This was a crime of passion…

Hank thinks back to the autopsy report and the twenty-eight stab wounds.

….Or rage.

In 2026 Hank had been the first one to notice the uptick in the trends of violent crimes amongst Ice users. It’d been brushed off at first, since aggression and paranoia aren’t uncommon especially at higher doses or in regular users. But not only had the number of violent crimes involving Ice just kept increasing, they’d been getting even more violent. Eventually the increase in these effects was tied to the addition of thirium to Ice—this combination had come to be known as Red Ice. Most people mistakenly think that Red Ice gets its name from the colour—but it actually comes from the rage that’s associated with the drug.

Twenty-eight stab wounds is excessive, even for someone on Red Ice. Hank flips to the autopsy report:

Case Number: 38-187-219

Deceased: Ortiz, Carlos
Male, Height: 5' 6", Weight: 286.6 lbs

Date of Autopsy: August 14, 2038

Time of Death: Based on the degree of livor mortis, decomposition and insect activity the estimated time of death is between July 28, 2038 and July 30, 2038

MANNER OF DEATH: Homicide
CAUSE OF DEATH: Exsanguination due to multiple sharp force traumas

AUTOPSY FINDINGS:
1. Fixed lividity and evidence of exsanguination.
2. Twenty-eight (28) penetrating stab and incised wounds of the head, neck, and trunk with a single-edged blade.
3. Lack of defensive wounds to the upper extremities indicate that the victim was likely incapacitated at the time of the stabbing.
4. Subarachnoid haemorrhage of right cerebrum underlying one of the large, undermined right scalp incised wounds.
5. Moderate emphysematous changes of lungs.
6. Toxicology is positive for (a) alcohol, (b) Red Ice and (c) cannabinoids in postmortem peripheral blood.

LABORATORY RESULTS

TOXICOLOGY:

Blood:
a. Ethanol: 184 mg/dL
b. C17H21NO4 (Acetone, Lithium, Thirium, Toluene, Hydrochloric acid): 150 ng/mL
c. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol: 8.5 ng/mL

Other than noted above, examination of the specimen(s) submitted did not reveal any positive findings of toxicological significance.

That’s pretty much what Hank expected based on the photos. Besides the initial autopsy, there's also a requisition for a more in-depth toxicology report, including an analysis of the victim's ocular fluid. Hank figures that it was probably some eager rookie in charge of the scene—between the state of the house and the victim's background check, it was obvious there would be drugs in his system when he died, and a more experienced detective wouldn't bother wasting the lab's time to figure out the exact details of what was in his system when the cause of death was very clearly the twenty-eight stab wounds, not the drugs.

There is also a request for a full analysis of the Red Ice that had been at the scene. Hank raises his brow at that. Those tests are expensive; there's no way a rookie would order those without a damn good reason. He flips to the first page, expecting to find a name that he doesn’t recognise, but instead he finds that the requests were made by Ben Collins.

Huh… not a rookie then. And Hank knows Ben's work; he isn't careless and those tests weren't ordered by accident. Just like Allen ordering the autopsy can't have been an accident. It's weird, but not weird enough to make Hank actually give a fuck about this case. He hates even thinking that Reed is right, that this is a waste of his time, just another addict who got what was coming.

Of course, that isn't supposed to matter. Justice is supposed to be blind. Even though Ortiz is a lowlife with a rap sheet a mile long—multiple counts of theft, assault, drug possession, impaired driving, the list goes on—it isn't supposed to matter. His life is supposed to be worth just as much as anyone else's'.

Hank thinks that's fucking bullshit. As far as he's concerned the world is better off without Ortiz in it, and this case is a waste of time… And time is something you can never get back.

* * *

"When this medicine works, can we go to the cabin and watch the leaves change colour?" Cole asks. His skin is pale, voice scratchy, barely more than a whisper; his lips are so chapped that Hank sees them split as he smiles up at him hopefully.

Tears that Hank refuses to let fall sting his eyes. It feels like the air has solidified in his lungs and he swallows hard around the lump in his throat. "Yeah, we can do that, kiddo," he promises, but it comes out rough and uneven.

Hank can feel Beth’s eyes on him. He doesn’t need to look up to know that there’s a look of tight-lipped disagreement on her face. 

"We'll make s'mores and find shapes in the stars too," he adds in a more steady voice, trying to smile through the glass splinters in his throat. Cole’s grin is worth it. Even now.

Beth doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. Her feelings are clearly written on her face. We shouldn’t be making promises we don’t know we can keep; we need to be realistic, Henry. Cole deserves to know his reality. 

But Cole has already lost so much; Hank can’t live with taking away his hope too. It’s an argument that has kept them up until nearly dawn on more than one occasion. 

The medicine is an experimental treatment—part of a clinical trial for treating inoperable gliomas in children. 

“We have to try,” Beth had insisted, standing in the kitchen with the trial documents fanned out on the table between them. Her voice had trembled with hope and exhaustion. 

"And what if it makes him worse?" Hank had pushed. God—how could she be so calm? The side effects list was a horror show: seizures, internal bleeding, respiratory failure. “This is the first human trial of this drug, Beth. You know what that means?”

"It means he's out of options. We have to try,” Elizabeth had insisted. "We’ve been praying for a miracle and what if this is it? What if it could give us a few more months with our son? What if it could save him?” 

The drug really might be a miracle. It might even save a lot of people one day. But Hank doesn’t think one of those people will be Cole. He can’t bring himself to say that, though, can’t bring himself to take Beth’s hope away any more than he can take away Cole’s. 

He feels sick to his stomach as he signs the dozens of consent forms with a shaking hand. 

Weeks pass and while there are no improvements, Cole doesn’t get any worse either. It’s not the miracle Beth had hoped for, but it’s also not the disaster that Hank had prepared himself for. 

It’s been over a week since Hank has stepped outside of the hospital when his phone rings. He almost doesn’t realize that the vibrating in his pocket is coming from his phone at first—it had never stopped ringing at the beginning: people checking in, sending their best wishes, their thoughts and prayers. But as weeks of leave turned into months, the calls had eventually stopped completely as people ran out of anything new to say. 

He squints down at the bright screen to see Fowler’s name. 

“Jeff?” Hank answers. His voice is rough from disuse and thick with weariness and exhaustion. He steps outside of Cole’s hospital room and leans heavily against the wall. 

“I know you’re still on leave, but I think you’re going to want to hear this,” Jeffery replies. 

Hank hums a questioning sound. He appreciates that Jeff doesn’t bother with pleasantries and so he doesn’t have to bother with his canned response that he’s doing fine even though he’s not, that Cole is doing as well as could be expected. 

“We got a hit on your Red Ice case,” Fowler continues. He doesn’t need to specify which case. It isn’t even technically Hank’s case anymore—it’s the one loose end he’d left when he’d transferred to homicide in 2031 after heading the Red Ice task force. “Guy we picked up last night was carrying a batch with that same compound. You knew that case better than anyone; we could really use you on this.” 

Hank is quiet for a moment. He remembers that case vividly—bodies in alleys, a string of overdoses resulting in deaths that no one else had cared about until it started crossing into white suburbia. He’d always hated that he never got to catch that son of a bitch. But he looks through the door at Cole, hearing the steady beeping of his monitors and watching his chest rise and fall with the shallow rhythm of exhaustion. His body is so small under the blankets. “I don’t know, Jeff,” he sighs. 

“It’s been over a week since you’ve left the hospital, the break would probably do you good,” Fowler says. Hank’s eyes narrow, because he hasn’t talked to Jeffrey recently; there’s no way he could know that, but he’s already continuing before Hank can call him out. “Even if you just come for a few hours, you could close this case out.”

“Maybe,” Hank sighs, feeling a stab of guilt that he’s even considering it. 

“Text me if you decide to come in.” 

Beth’s eyes are on him when he steps back into the room, his hand scrubbing through his hair to push it out of his face. 

“Fowler asked if I’d come in,” he tells her. “It’s my Red Ice case, the one I never closed. They finally got a lead.” 

Beth doesn’t look at all surprised. “Go,” she urges. Ah, Hank realizes: that’s how Fowler knows he hasn’t left the hospital. 

“I can’t leave him.” He holds Cole’s small hand in his. 

“You’re not,” she promises. “You need the break. There’s nothing you can do here and you’re practically unravelling in that chair. It’s just a few hours, and Cole is stable.” 

Hank bites his lip. “I really want to catch that bastard.” 

“I know.” She nods, looking like she’s one more protest away from shoving him out of the room herself. “Go. It’ll be good for you. You’ll be back before his next round of meds tomorrow. I promise I’ll call if anything changes.” 

He hesitates a second longer before nodding. 

“I’ll be back soon, buddy,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to Cole’s forehead. 

He texts Jeff to say he’s on his way. 

Hank takes point on the interrogation, and they get everything they need to make an arrest. There’s a smile on Hank’s face for the first time in months. It feels good to finally be able to be useful, to actually be able to do something instead of just sitting back and watching. 

Reality comes crashing down around him when he checks his phone and finds a message from Beth. 

“Everything’s okay,” she starts, but the way her voice is shaking makes it hard to believe her. “But they think there’s a bleed in Cole’s brain; you should come back to the hospital.”

Hank breaks every traffic law on his drive back, but by the time he gets back to the hospital Cole has already fallen into a coma from the increased intracranial pressure. 

The doctors manage to control the bleeding, but the damage is already done. 

Cole never wakes up from the coma. 

He dies a few days later. 

* * *

Hank drops the file like it burned him and shoves it away from himself as if that will somehow stop the assault of memories. He stands abruptly, pushing his chair back so hard it nearly topples over.

Fuck this case.

Fuck Carlos Ortiz.

Fuck everyone who is willing to loose everything for a goddamn high.

Fuck the world for being a place where the only way people can find comfort is a fistful of powder.

Eyes follow him as he storms out of the precinct. He barely makes it around the corner of the building before he retches, bile burning the back of his throat, but there's nothing in his stomach to throw up.

"Fuck," he spits, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. His hands are trembling but he can't tell if it's from the assault of memories or because it's been more than twelve hours since he last had any alcohol. It doesn't really matter. Either way he needs a fucking drink.

Jeff already threatened to take his badge once today and he might actually do it if he goes home now. Hank isn't sure he cares. Maybe that will be the last push he needs to finally pull the trigger. Christ, maybe he should go hand in his badge himself and save Jeff the extra paperwork it would take to fire him.

Chapter Text

Now

He doesn’t sleep, but Nines does; curled on top of the bed, head tucked down into the sleeping bag so all Connor can see is the tuft of dark hair that is starting to get too long. The sight of it makes him touch his own head, hair and pale scalp hidden beneath a beanie. He can feel the pressure of his own touch, and the funny way the knitted fabric tugs at the short cropped patches of his hair.

He remembers the way the electric clippers had rattled against his skull as those patches were shaved away. Pressing his fingers there he can almost feel the sticky rubbery feeling of the electrodes.

He doesn't want to think about it.

So he doesn't.

But his mind won't stay blank. The ever present hunger starts to take over every thought.

Connor’s stomach is in knots by morning, folding in on itself, grumbling and protesting. He can smell Nines, his warmth, his sweat. He can smell the blood in his veins, hear his heart beating in his chest. All the signs of life that claw and clamour at his brain. He thinks about how easy it would be to take his muzzle off, to take several short steps across the room and sink his teeth into the softer, fleshier parts of his brother. How easy it would be to bite and rip and chew. How wonderful it would feel to no longer be hungry. 

He doesn’t want to eat Nines though. He doesn’t want to eat anyone, but especially not his brother. 

As the pre-dawn light starts to filter in through the window, Nines begins to stir. His first movements seem to be searching for someone who isn't there. A soft disgruntled noise at finding nothing but empty bed makes Connor wonder who Nines might have left behind when Detroit had started to crumble and he’d made a mad dash across the country to get Alex and Connor. He wonders who Nines misses in these moments of REM sleep. He wonders what it must be like to have someone to miss like that.

He knows Nines won't tell him, even if he asks.

They don't talk about the past much.

He misses Alex, but it is not the same. The thought of having someone to love, and now to miss, twist him up inside more than the hunger does. It’s longing and revolution all mixed into one, because how could he let anyone touch him now? How could anyone want to? 

The skitter of tiny feet across the wooden floorboards distracts Connor from his thoughts. He straightens up from his slump against the wall, glancing around the room to see what caused the noise. The mouse stares at him from across the room, nose twitching and rubbing at its whiskers before running across the floor and sniffing at Connor’s discarded jeans and boots. 

It freezes as Connor sits forward, but when he stays still, not breathing, the mouse starts to climb up onto the scrunched pile of denim, sniffing out the half a protein bar in his pocket that he had tried to force down two days ago that left him retching and vomiting for hours. 

The drawers creak under Connor's shifting weight and Nines mumbles something in his sleep that sounds like half a name. There is a crinkle of plastic as the mouse tries to get into the protein bar, already inside the pocket of Connor’s jeans, out of sight and unsuspecting. 

Connor pounces. Launching himself off the cabinet; he hits the floor hard, barely feeling it, his hands closing quickly around the pocket of his jeans. A high pitched squeaking comes from between his fingers, the hot little body squirming and trying to escape. 

Behind him, as if at a great distance, Nines stirs, asking him something that Connor can’t hear anything over the frantic heartbeat in the tiny body between his hands. He squeezes it tighter, gets one hand into the pocket and grabs at the fur covered body. 

The mouse squirms, curls back on itself and bites at his fingers, but Connor can’t feel it. All he can feel is the need to eat. 

The never ending hunger. 

He wants it to stop. 

He drops his jeans, grabs at the straps of the muzzle and wrenches it off, vaguely aware of the pressure on the back of his head that tells him he pulled his own hair. 

The muzzle clatters to the floor. 

The mouse bites harder at his finger, purplish blue blood stains his finger. Connor doesn’t care. He lifts the mouse closer, he can smell it, just about feel its pulse against his tongue when suddenly his head is wrenched back. 

A face hovers above him, blurry. His vision swims, then Nines comes into focus. 

“Hannah!” 

The name is as short and sharp as a slap. 

The mouse wriggles out of his hand and skitters off across the floor. Connor hears it get further away until he can no longer hear it. 

His stomach rumbles. 

His old name stings.

He snarls at Nines. 

The pressure on the back of his head disappears as Nines lets go of his hair and recoils. 

Connor tips himself forward onto his hands, crawling across the floor towards his muzzle, grabbing it up and pressing it back to his face before he turns to slump against the wall. 

Nines stares at him from the bed. He steps towards Connor, holding one hand out towards him placatingly. 

Connor presses the muzzle tighter to his face. “Don’t come near me.” 

He doesn't know why he says it – Nines won't approach him again, not after that. His brother sits back on the edge of the bed, the soft light coming through the window painting him like a hazy water colour. Dishevelled hair and bare torso after he must have discarded his shirt during the night. All pale skin and hard muscle beneath it. Even at this distance his pulse is in Connor’s head reminding him that he is alive. 

His stomach rumbles again. 

“I’m sorry,” Nines says, his voice a low rumble, soothing and steady, “I thought you were going to make yourself sick again.” 

Connor clings to the muzzle, pressing it so hard to his face he thinks he can hear the cartilage in his nose grating. “I’m hungry. Ni, I’m so hungry it hurts.” 

Nines doesn’t say anything. Connor doesn’t think anything he said could make it better anyway. There is a distance between them that hurts almost as much as the hunger. He remembers all the times in the past when Nines had offered physical contact as comfort.

Those days feel so long ago and distant.

A second ache takes place inside Connor.

He huddles against the wall and fights the urge to ask Nines for a hug.

He fights the urge to drop the muzzle and sink his teeth into his brother’s shoulder. 

Earlier

The world spins when Hannah leans against the wall. It feels spongy beneath her, The floor dips and tips, like there is water beneath it, waves rippling beneath her feet. It reminds her of the lake, the sunlight glimmering off the surface of the water, catching the droplets in the air as Nines and Alex play in the deeper water. Reeds tickle at Hannah's legs, mud squishing between her toes. Alex squeals as Nines picks him up and throws him further out, the splash throwing water and sparkles into the air.

Hannah giggles, the water laps at her thighs as she steps deeper, her skin prickling with the temperature change, the cold water in contrast to the sun beating down on them as it creeps higher in the sky.

Another step and something touches Hannah's leg beneath the water. She looks down, hoping to see a fish or a turtle. A hand grips at her ankle, rising out of the mud. She can't scream.

Water rushes around her as she's dragged beneath the surface.

The hands from earlier still linger on her skin, grabbing and plucking at her clothes, pinching and clamouring at any bare skin.

Bile rises in the back of her throat. Hannah turns, barely leaning away from herself before being sick on the floor.

"Shit, Han, you okay?"

The world spins, the water sloshes up her thighs, staining the bottom of her pink swimsuit dark, making the fabric cling to her body. Her clothes stick to her, sweat soaking her skin, clammy, heart beating hummingbird quick, up in her throat and loud in her ears. There are too many people, the volume too loud, bodies pressing in tight, hands grabbing at her like the mud at the bottom of the lake.

Alex surfaces, laughing, head thrown back, squealing as Nines lunges towards him again. Standing in the shallows, Hannah wishes she could join them, but they look untouchable, so similar despite the years between them. Jealousy curls in her chest; Alex is her twin, and yet she is the odd one out, dressed in her pink one piece bathing suit, while they wear matching blue swim shorts. Water clings to their bare skin and makes them sparkle in the sun.

There are small lights dancing across the ceiling. It's quiet in that room, dark except for the sparkles. Hannah watches them dance across the ceiling like satellites, wondering where they are going.

Sparkles that glitter across the surface of the water.

Lights that sparkle on the ceiling of the room.

She can hear Nines and Alex playing further out in the lake. She can hear people talking in the room around her, dark figures in the shadows of the corners of the room. They move closer, blocking out the stars above Hannah. She tries to push them away.

She wants to see the stars.

Hands grab at her, like the reeds and the mud in the lake, pulling at her clothes, twisting fabric tight over her skin.

She tries to push them away again.

The world feels thick and clammy, like someone has stuffed the room and Hannah's head with damp cotton wool. Her mouth feels like powder and her head aches with every beat of her heart. With every breath.

"Hey, Han?"

The words lance through her brain and the world tilts and wobbles and Hannah manages to roll enough to find the edge of the bed. Hands steady her, one against her side, the other holding her hair back away from her face, as she wretches, bile soaking her mouth before dribbling into the bucket beneath her.

"Yeah, yeah, get it all out. You'll feel better."

The words mirror those their Mama used to say when they were sick. For a moment, Hannah longs for the comfort of her Mama to try and make everything better. Alex's hand smooths over his forehead.

"What happened?" Hannah croaks, eyes still squeezed shut. She tries to remember what happened. She remembers a party, trailing along behind Alex. She remembers the music being too loud and the people being too many and just wanting to get out of there, but Alex had asked for a half hour. She could manage half an hour.

"You've been sick." Alex tells her, voice laced with concern. His hand smoothes her hair back again, tucking it behind her ear as his other hand gently guides her to lie back over.

Squinting at the room, Hannah can tell that it is not hers, the bed is on the wrong wall, and there is no brightly coloured pink and orange bedspread covering the bed of her roommate. There's no bed either. "Where?"

"My room," Alex replies. Something vaguely scratchy and damp runs over her face and pats at her mouth. It smells like vomit and damp showers and Hannah feels her stomach turn again. She pushes Alex's hand away, and the washcloth with it.

The memory of pushing other hands away hits her, curling nausea and dread through her body.

She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing the back of a hand to her mouth, trying to breath through the nausea as she tries to push the memories away. She doesn't want to think about what happened. The memories dance there in the periphery of her mind though, the room with the shut door and glittering ceiling.

The sugary sweet taste of a drink that someone had handed to her.

The hands that had tugged at her clothes. The way the waistband of her jeans had dug into her hips as hands had tried to push down the front of her pants.

Alex clears his throat awkwardly, petting her hair gently. "It's okay, Han."

Hannah doesn't know if it is okay. She can't remember how the night ended, what happened in that room with the glittery ceiling and she isn't sure she wants to know.

Chapter Text

A large hand settles on his shoulder and Hank spins around fast enough to almost knock himself off balance, one hand hovering over the gun that sits on his hip.

"Whoa, hey." Ben holds both his hands up in front of himself.

"What the fuck, Ben?" Hank snarls. "Did Jeff tell you to follow me?"

Ben doesn’t even flinch. He never does when people lash out; he has an uncanny ability to let people's words just roll off of him, never taking them to heart. Hank has said some truly awful things to him during his grief, but even when he manages to pull his head out of his arse long enough to apologise, Ben hardly lets him.

"He didn't have to," Ben shrugged easily. "A glass office in the middle of the bullpen isn't exactly private and I know how you feel about cases where drugs are involved."

"You've seen this case! You can't tell me that you think this fucking lowlife is worth anyone's fucking time. Ortiz clearly didn't give a fuck about his life or anyone else's, so why the fuck should I?" Hank snaps. Just as fast as it flares the anger fizzles out and Hank slumps back against the wall. "Just let me go. I can't be here right now. I need to go, I need…" The words trail off. He knows he's an alcoholic, Ben knows he's an alcoholic, but that's not the same as acknowledging it out loud.

"Do you actually think a drink is going to make you feel better right now?" Coming from anyone else it would sound accusatory or sarcastic, but coming from Ben it's a genuine question.

"If I have enough of ‘em," Hank mutters, looking at the ground.

"It's too early for any bar to be open," Ben points out. "And Jeff will have to take your badge if you leave right now with an open case. You really going to make him do that?"

That stings—Hank can't make himself meet Ben's gaze.

"Come on," Ben continues, "you'll feel better once you have some coffee." He turns and walks through the door, not even looking back to see if Hank is following him.

Hank looks longingly towards his car. The bars may not be open yet but he has plenty of alcohol at home. It would be so easy to leave, yet Hank feels like he's frozen in place. "Fuck," he sighs, and walks back into the building.

Ben is already in the break room, sitting at a table with two cups of coffee in front of him like he knew that Hank would follow him.

Hank sits across from Ben and wordlessly sips his coffee, trying to pretend that it's something stronger while he waits for some kind of lecture… or, more likely from Ben, some understanding and encouragement. But it never comes.

"Why did you request the additional lab tests?" Hank finally asks when the silence becomes too much. He doesn't really want to talk about the case, but it's better than talking about himself. "It's not like you to waste the lab's time like that. And the full Red Ice analysis? Christ, there's no way you didn't get chewed out by the Captain for that."

Ben smiles and pulls out the file, and Hank realises that this is exactly what he wanted to happen. "I think there's more to this case than meets the eye. The violence was excessive, even at the highest doses of Red Ice. I think there's more to this than just the drugs."

Hank's eyes narrow. "You don't think it's about the drugs, but you're wasting hours of the lab's time ordering thousands of dollars in tests on the drugs that were at the scene?"

"I didn't say that I don't think it's the drugs. I just think there's more to the story."

"More to the story?" Hank demands, his voice rising with every word.

"Just a gut instinct.” Ben’s voice is still easy and relaxed.

Hank’s eyes narrow. His jaw tightens as his fingers twitch at his sides, like they want to grab something—anything—to throw, or to punch, or just to fucking hit something. Anything that will cut through the calm facade Ben’s always got up.

“A gut instinct, huh?” Hank repeats, his fist slamming down on the file. “I had a gut instinct and got told that I'm chasing ghosts and had my badge threatened, but you can order thousands of dollars of tests because you're so damned determined to think that Carlos Ortiz’s life—his goddamn mess of a life—means something? That he's more than just a dead drug addict and dealer who's probably ruined the lives of everyone he's ever been close to?”

Ben doesn’t flinch. He just sits there, staring back at Hank with that steady gaze, unbothered by the venom Hank’s throwing his way. It only makes Hank’s frustration worse, the calmness pissing him off more than if Ben would just snap back at him.

“Maybe this really is just some junkie going off the rails," Ben says finally, his voice low but firm, "but we've both seen enough cases to trust our gut when something seems off. We've both had those cases that seem straightforward but get weirder the more you dig."

Hank’s nostrils flare as he leans closer over the table. “Yeah? Well, I’m digging through this shit and all I’m finding is more shit."

His anger boils over and he pushes away from the table, pacing in the small break room. He's known Ben long enough to trust his gut instincts almost as much as his own, but he doesn't understand what Ben sees in this case or how he can even care about someone like Ortiz with everything that he’s seen in this job.

Ben shifts in his seat, leaning forward a little. “I’m not asking you to care about him," he says, like he can read Hank's thoughts. "Not after what happened. Just—"

Hank freezes in place.

"Don't." His voice is ice cold.

Ben stops, realising that he's pushing beyond his friend’s boundaries.

Hank snatches the file off the table and turns to storm out of the break room.

"Where are you going?" Ben hollers after him.

"To the crime scene." Hank snaps.

Gavin does nothing to hide his obnoxious snort of laughter.

“You got something to say, Reed?” Hank turns on the detective. He would really like a word with whatever arsehole designed the bullpen with glass walls. Was a little privacy too much to ask for?

"You're pissed at Collins for wasting time and resources on this case so you're going to waste even more?" Gavin scoffs. "Hell, you're even more senile than I thought."

Hank’s temper flares like a match thrown into gasoline. "No one asked you."

"I'm just sayin'." Gavin leans back in his chair, kicking his feet up on his desk. "You've got a whole lot of nothin' here. I ain't gonna waste time on every street junkie and conspiracy theory."

Hank’s jaw clenches so hard, it’s a miracle his teeth don’t crack. Ben is staying out of it, but looking over at him Hank can see that he's trying not to laugh at the rock and hard place that Hank is currently between. He either has to agree with Gavin or change his entire argument and agree with Ben.

"Oh fuck you," Hank mutters halfheartedly at Ben before walking properly out of the break room. "And you," his voice is low as he pauses at Gavin's desk, "You can't keep your fuckin' mouth shut, so let's go. Get in the fuckin' car, I'll waste your time too."

Gavin's eyes widen for a fraction of a second before narrowing. "Fuck off, Anderson. I'm not wasting my time with that shit."

"I'm not asking, Detective." Hank pulls himself to his full height and stares down at Gavin. "I outrank you, and I said get in the fucking car. Now."

Gavin curses under his breath as he follows Hank out of the station, each of his reluctant steps a relatively silent protest.

Hank isn't sure which of them slams their car door harder, the whole damn vehicle shaking from the force of it.

"Piece of shit car is older than me," Gavin mutters.

The opening chords of a Knights of the Black Death song fill the car, and Hank cranks the volume as high as it will go to drown out the rest of Reed's bitching. The pounding bass shakes the entire frame of the car as it pulses along with the persistent headache at Hank's temples, but it's better than listening to Reed’s grating voice and his complaints of wasted time and his death trap of a car.

The streets get quieter as they get closer to the crime scene on the outskirts of the city. By the time they turn onto Pine St. the area seems completely deserted. The crime scene is a decrepit little house with boarded up windows surrounded by rows of houses that are barely standing, their windows shattered or also boarded up, their roofs caving in. They're all in just as bad a shape or worse. The crime scene doesn’t stand out much. It’s the type of neighbourhood where the bright yellow crime scene tape surrounding the property shouldn't look so out of place, but it’s the only colour on the whole block and it stands out like an old bruise.

Hank slows down, and pulls up against the curb and shuts off the engine, the last notes of the song still ringing in the sudden silence. He catches movement next door, barely able to make out a flash of suspicious, bloodshot eyes before the curtain is tugged tightly closed. The ratty material flutters for a moment before falling still. The area clearly isn't as deserted as it appears, though it may as well be—even if any of these people did see something suspicious, the cops are the last people they'd talk to.

Chapter Text

Now

They keep walking. 

The asphalt road they have been following south winds between dense pines that tower over them. The shadows cast across the road and the heaps of half-rotting snow lining the shoulder of the road and around the trunks of the trees keep the area cold.

Nines' breath clouds the air in front of him as he walks. Connor's doesn't.

Bare trees like skeletons intersperse the towering giants around them, allowing patches of grey light to meet the ground, highlighting lumps of half melted snow that still cling to existence against the trunks of the trees.

For every large pile of snow, Connor wonders if there is a body beneath it.

He has seen too many since November.

Less now that they have left the cities and towns behind. It makes Connor nervous about heading back into built up areas, but Nines is determined to head into Boston.

Taking another step south along the road, Connor thinks about how he never got to see Boston before the world fell apart.

The world is in tatters and all Nines wants to do is lead them back into the ruined parts of civilisation. It had been Pittsburgh first and Montreal after that. Connor doesn't even know how many miles they have walked at this point. Every step is exhausting, the hunger gnaws harder with every minute that ticks by.

The last thing he ate was days ago—weeks?—Connor can't remember. The days blend together, a haze of snow and mountains.

He hasn't forgotten how it tastes. The feel of flesh against his teeth, the blood that had flooded into his mouth as skin and muscle tore.

He remembered the scream.

He remembers the smell of smoke. The taste of ash and heat in his mouth on every breath.

Connor thought they were done after that. At first he thought that he would die there in the lab, until Nines had pulled him from the room as the fire suppression system tried to contain the flames. Then he had thought it would be over when Nines had seen the blood staining his teeth and chin. He thought Nines would finally kill him, like he had been begging him to do in those hazy fever filled days after he had been infected.

Except he didn't.

Nines recoiled and stepped back and then everything of his brother slipped away as the soldier took his place. The mission took over and they started heading toward the University of Boston. It might very well be the last place left standing that can offer them any hope.

There is a distance between them that Connor feels just as physically as the hunger.

Shapes move between the trees. Connor shifts his attention towards the shadows, watching as two figures stumble their way around the remaining snow piles. Their bulky snow gear makes it hard to tell who they were previously; one has long blonde hair, discoloured and dirty, tumbling from beneath a lopsided beanie. Both her beanie and hair are bloodstained red, pink and dark enough to look black.

She reminds Connor of one of the girls from the lab. It isn't her. He knows that. He knows that it isn't her, but the blood and blonde hair brings the smell of the lab back into his memories, triggering other snatches of memories to flash through his mind. The fear and pain and scent of burning flesh.

After

They blink at him, one after another.

One, two, three.

Connor blinks back, slow, his mind feels far away.

Wake up.

The first girl blinks again.

She looks sad.

They all do.

Wake up.

The second girl blinks again. Her jaw drops, chapped lips parting around a weak, raspy groan. It is the first noise they have made in days, since Kamski started injecting them, the perfect blue liquid in syringes. One dose. A second dose. Another and another until Connor lost count. He doesn't know what it is that Kamski is trying to achieve, but he seems both pleased and displeased with the results.

They stand there now, lined up outside of their cages, no longer moving. He remembers how they had been the first day, blank eyes searching out every movement, fingers clawing and curling around the mesh of their cages, jaws snapping and biting nothing as they reached for Kamski. Then it had stopped, the moment Connor had stepped down that last stair into the pristine lab space, disinfectant so strong that it drowned out the scent of decay.

"Fascinating!" Kamski's voice rang out in the sudden silence, "You really do have a calming effect on them."

They aren't calm though, no matter how they look from the outside, Connor can't help but think, watching the blank stares and emotionless faces as they glance around the room. The cages that hold them now aren't made of wire and steel, but whatever it was that Kamski had synthesised out of Connor's blood and injected into the girls.

There is torment in their blank expressions when Kamski steps closer to them.

Wake up.

The first girl blinks, but stays still, staring blankly across the room as Kamski reaches out and runs the backs of his fingers down her cheek. Her lips twitch, but she doesn't bite him.

Wake up.

Kamski's fingers trail down her neck, before gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face from one side and then the other. "Fascinating. They are completely docile."

Wake up. Connor begs, pleading with his eyes for the girl to react, to pull away. To move. To fight back.

Nothing happens.

Stepping around behind her, Kamski runs his hands over the back of her shoulders and down her sides. His fingers pluck at the ragged clothes covering her. "I think we should change you into something nicer, darling."

Wake up.

The girl blinks. Connor blinks back.

Fight back.

Now

They both sniff at the air, blank eyes roaming the landscape around them almost as though they are entirely unaware of each other. The woman twitches, blank-eyed stare passing over Connor before settling on Nines, walking about two metres ahead. He has lagged behind with his thoughts, increasing the distance between them.

Taking a few quick steps, Connor closes the space between them. The woman’s focus breaks, her gaze drifting again away from both of them again.

It was something that they had noticed not long after Connor's fever broke. When they had first left the realtor’s office space they had holed up in during that time, those that were left behind, roaming the broken world, who they had worked so hard to avoid, no longer paid any attention to them.

It had been the first sign that something wasn't right.

The second had been Connor's inability to digest any food.

As the days ticked past and they first rove, then walked mile after mile, dragging their way along snow covered roads, weaving between abandoned vehicles, Connor's breath stopped clouding the air in front of his face. His heartbeat slowed and the heat leeched out of his body.

He still feels the cold, as if the snow had settled on Connor's bones as well as the road and rooves of vehicles.

The distance between him and Nines only makes the cold feel worse.

He misses the easy way that Alex would take his hand and squeeze his fingers in silent comfort during the floodlight lit nights in the safe zone camp they had been shuffled to when the university had closed and the borders started locking down. He misses Alex's arm around his shoulders and the casual way he made light of every situation, trying to keep Connor's mood up in even the darkest times.

He misses the easy acceptance that had come when Connor had stood there the first time wearing clothes Alex had procured for him, with his hair cut short for the first time since childhood.

Connor isn't sure if that is the reason that Nines can't look at him half the time.

He can't bring himself to ask if Nines hates him because he isn't Alex, is no longer his little sister, or is no longer alive.

Most of all, he just misses his twin. His heart is barely beating and he feels like he is missing half of himself.

Before

The zipper on the tent tugs open, pulling Connor out of his own thoughts. He sits up on the camp stretcher that makes up his bed, watching—heart in his mouth—as Alex ducks back into the tent, straightening up once he is inside. Connor tries to breathe past the momentary panic as his heart slowly recedes back down into his chest.

Before Connor can process what is happening, Alex steps across the tent and drops all the items he is carrying on top of the bed, their weight pinning Connor's leg beneath his sleeping bag, He catches sight of fabric, denim, canvas and something dark grey and knitted. Adjusting his position to sit up more, Connor runs his fingers over the fabric, picking at the corners of the items until he can discern their identity; a pair of jeans, a green grey army style jacket and a knitted sweater with a small hole worn in the front. Without even looking at them too closely, Connor can tell they are closer to his size than anything Alex has leant him so far.

He blinks at the clothes, then blinks at Alex who grins back to him. "Where did you get these?"

"I was asking around, some folks have set up a bit of a trading network." Alex explains, holding up one hand while fishing in his jacket pocket with his other hand. "Got this too, off a trans kid. Rupert, I think he called himself? He said if it doesn't fit you properly, he'll take it back. Was very, very insistent that you do not wear it if it is too tight."

Alex throws the last item onto the bed before Connor can get a good look at it, a pool of dark blue fabric that clings to the ragged, dry skin on Connor's fingertips. He squirms at the feeling, but spreads the garment out to see exactly what it is. Even before he sees it in its entirety, there is a hopeful ache starting in the top of his chest, creeping up into his throat and making it hard to breathe. They'd look at binders online after Connor had admitted to Alex that he was uncomfortable with his body. It isn't new, patches of the fabric stretched and worn, but it is so much more than Connor ever thought he'd get to have, without a fixed address and interstate shipping being put on hold due to the burgeoning pandemic.

"Tha–" his throat locks up around the sound and tears sting at his eyes, frustration at his own overwhelming emotions piling on top of the jumble he already feels, making everything feel raw and like it is too much.

Alex grips his shoulder, fingers digging in tight and rocking him side to side gently until Connor can match his breathing to the motion. "No need to thank me, I promise this is all for ulterior motives. I just want my clothes back."

The laugh that escapes Connor is strangled and sob-like and he swats at Alex's hand in protest, but they both know he never had motives beyond trying to help Connor be more comfortable.

Now

He just puts one foot in front of the other and keeps vigilant watch on their surroundings. Since they left the compound in Lake Placid, sticking to the mountain roads, the amount of traffic along the roads—either abandoned or in various stages of wrecked—has dropped significantly.

They round a bend in the road, the trees giving way to show a wider section of road. The shoulder on the road cuts back into the forest, leaving a wide section of parking for a trailhead. Connor had noticed multiple trailheads along the mountain roads, parking bays, signs and map boards greeting hikers. With every step along the road, with every trailhead they see, Connor wonders more and more what would happen if he just wandered off along one of them one time and didn't come back.

He knows he can't leave Nines alone. It isn't safe for Nines to be out there without him.

It is tempting though, to just disappear, to slip between the trees and find one of the many lakes that are in the region. He's cold enough already. He doesn't think submerging himself in near frozen water would be any worse than how he feels now.

This trail rest area is different though. It is not a bare expanse of gravel and clinging patches of snow. There is an RV parked haphazardly in the middle of the rest area. It slumps on the front, like a lame animal, the wheels out of line, on tyre flat and as they get closer, when Connor crouches to look for threats beneath the vehicle, he can see the front axle broken and hanging. The door hangs open, flapping back against the body of the vehicle in the slight breeze.

Fear and anticipation crawl through Connor.

He remembers the last vehicle that had opened a door invitingly to them.

It isn't the same situation, it isn't the same vehicle, and there isn't going to be the same person with all the silver tongued promises of the past.

Connor knows this, and yet it is still hard to make himself step closer.

Chapter Text

"Real nice place." Gavin clicks his tongue.

Hank doesn't bother answering as the sound of the slamming car door echoes through the empty street. The bright morning light seems dimmer here, like even the sun can't cut through the misery that clings to the area. Hank doesn't believe in ghosts, but even in the middle of the day the crime scene somehow manages to look like a haunted house.

Glass and loose gravel crunch under Hank's boots as he approaches the house. The dilapidated porch sags and groans under his weight like it's threatening to collapse entirely. Gavin is following behind him, dragging his feet through the dirt in protest. 

If the porch is going to collapse, Hank hopes it waits until Gavin is on it—would serve him right for being such a pain in the arse.

The front door is ajar. Not broken or forced, just… open. Hank frowns and nudges it with his foot. It creaks as it swings inward, and Hank’s stomach turns as he looks inside. 

It's in even worse shape than the exterior. The air is stale, thick with the scent of rot and mildew, like it’s been abandoned for years. It feels damp, the wallpaper and paint has bubbled and peeled, exposing the drywall that’s been stained from years of smoke and water damage. The ceiling sagging in places, threatening to collapse. But the worst part is the underlying stench of decomposition that still stubbornly lingers. It clings to the inside of Hank’s throat, worse than nearly any other crime scene he’s been at. It’s nearly suffocating. Hank is forced to breathe through his mouth and he tries not to taste it.

Most of the evidence has already been collected, already in neatly labelled bags back at the station, ready to be sent off to the lab for analysis or locked up as evidence. The numbered plastic evidence markers are the only proof that it even existed in the first place. What’s left behind is considered irrelevant to the crime that had happened. 

Ben is sure that they missed something but Hank still isn't convinced; it’s common for drug addicts to die and 99% of the time their death has something to do with the drugs. Hank hadn’t seen anything in the file or so far at the crime scene that convinces him that this case is any different, but he isn’t going to admit that to Gavin.

Gavin leans against the door frame, arms crossed across his chest, a cigarette dangling lazily from his fingers. He takes a slow drag, the ember flaring orange, bright in the dim light.

Hank glares at him.

“What?” Gavin exhales smoke through his nose, unimpressed. “You gonna tell me to respect the crime scene or whatever?” He smirks, slow and lazy. “It’s not like you have any respect for the victim. Or a place like this. We both know you’re only here because you’re a stubborn old man who can’t let an argument go.” Gavin flicks the ash from his cigarette onto the floor. "Besides, ain't like it's gonna make this place smell any worse."

Hank doesn't dignify that with an answer. He's getting really fucking tired of Gavin Reed being right.

The floorboards creak under his weight as he moves deeper into the house. Hank doesn't actually think that there's anything else going on here, but he still sweeps his flashlight through the dimly lit room, stubbornly searching for something just to prove Gavin wrong. But the scene tells a familiar story—a life ruined by drugs, filled with desperation and violence. Ben had seen something in this scene that had made him think there was more to it, but wherever it was, Hank isn't seeing it.

He stands in front of where the body was found, but he isn't looking at the stain on the ground from the blood and other bodily seepage: he's staring at the writing on the wall.

NOT ALIVE

The shaky and uneven letters have dried to a dark, flaky brown. The lab has already confirmed that the words are written in Ortiz's blood, but they’re still waiting to see if there is a match for the fingerprints in any of the local or national databases.

"No shit he's not alive," Gavin snorts, the butt of his cigarette still dangling from his fingers. "Tends to be the result of stabbing someone twenty-eight fucking times."

"What does it mean, though?" Hank mumbles, mostly to himself as he frowns at the words—it’s not a confession, it doesn't make sense as a warning… it's just a statement of fact.

"Who the fuck cares? It's drug shit. Some junkie with a flair for the dramatic scribbling nonsense."

Hank exhales hard through his nose, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Is this what had Ben so sure it was something other than drugs? It's weird for sure, but it doesn't scream mystery. People do tons of inexplicable shit when they're on drugs.

"Are you just going to stare at the wall all day instead of admitting that you were wrong and there's nothing here?" Gavin huffs. "Is it that important to you to prove me wrong?"

"It's not about proving you wrong," Hank lies through his teeth. Gavin's smug attitude is grating on his nerves even more than usual, and he's too stubborn to walk away. He taps a knuckle against the wall near the writing then a few inches over, and immediately feels like a goddamned idiot.

"Oh, Jesus Christ. What are you hoping to find? The murderer hiding in the walls? A trap door?"

Hank opens his mouth to give some half-assed explanation that he hasn't thought of yet, but Gavin is already halfway to the front door.

"I'll be in the fucking car," he calls over his shoulder. "You may be able to abuse your rank to drag me along and waste my time, but that doesn't mean I have to stand around in this dump while you go on your wild goose chase."

Hank scowls and shoves his shaking hands into his pockets. He's about ready to follow Reed out of this shithole—his need for a drink and some fresh air is beginning to outweigh his need to prove the cocky detective wrong.

Before he makes up his mind, though, a dull thud comes from above. Hank freezes in place, half convinced that he imagined it—that it's a sound he willed into existence in his desire to prove Reed wrong—but Gavin is frozen as well, his hand already on his gun.

Another thud echoes through the empty house, then the sound of something dragging across the floor.

Gavin is already moving as he unholsters his gun, his sluggish irritation gone, replaced by a spark of excitement in his eyes. He's been bitching about this case from the beginning, but he'd never had an issue with the drugs; he'd just been pissed off because finding out who killed some junkie was never going to get him a flashy headline. But now? Now there's a chase, a potential suspect. Finding the killer back at the crime scene weeks later? That could be a story.

Hank follows behind Gavin, who's already halfway down the hallway.

"Slow down," Hank hisses, "we don't know what's up there." It could be a raccoon or some other animal that got itself trapped, it could be another junkie who thought this was a good place to hide out, it could be the killer.

"Keep up or stay out of my way, old man," Gavin says, already trying to open the hatch to the attic.

The door finally swings open. The air feels hot and thick; the mustiness and staleness is expected but the stench hits them like a brick wall—it's foul, like rotting meat with a sickeningly sweet undertone. Even with all the crime scenes Hank has been to it makes his stomach churn.

"Jesus," Gavin wheezes, clearly trying not to breathe as he pulls the collar of his t-shirt over his nose. "What the fuck?"

Hank looks up wearily into the darkness. "We should wait for backup," he insists. "We don't know what we're walking into." He's certain at the very least that they're probably walking into another crime scene.

"And let them get all the credit? Fuck that," Gavin retorts, already pulling himself up the ladder. "Feel free to wait here if you're scared though… since you haven't been a real cop for a long time."

Hank groans internally as he climbs the narrow ladder and squeezes through the hatch. No matter how pissed he is at Reed's shitty attitude, he's not going to let him go into something like this alone.

The attic is a mess. There's barely any room to move in the maze of broken furniture and forgotten boxes of junk that are haphazardly stacked at all angles like a Jenga tower, ready to topple over at the slightest touch. Hank squints as his eyes to adjust to the low light. Their flashlights do little to push back the darkness, shadows clawing at every corner.

Something scrapes across the floor.

Hank freezes. The sound is faint. It could be anything—an animal, the regular sounds of an old house settling that only seem ominous because of the circumstances, a junkie who's in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The floor creaks.

"Detroit Police Department, come out with your hands up!" Gavin snaps, gun up, his finger already on the trigger as he pushes blindly into the darkness.

There's no answer.

Somewhere in the darkness a box box tumbles to the floor with a thud.

"My name is Hank," he calls into the darkness. His voice is even and calm despite his pounding heart. This isn't the type of place where his rank is going to do anything to deescalate the situation.

Silence.

"Why don't you come out—slowly—so we can talk," Hank continues. If there's any chance of talking someone down, he needs to be able to see them and their body language. Are they a threat to themselves? To other people? Are they so high that their reality is completely altered?

"It's a goddamn junkie. Don't waste your time trying to reason with it." Gavin exhales sharply through his nose, still creeping forward into the shadows. "Let's just pin 'em down and cuff 'em. Probably too high to even notice if it gets roughed up a bit."

"That's enough," Hank snaps.

Suddenly there's movement.

At first Hank thinks it's just the boxes falling around them. But a tall figure stumbles from the darkness. He's close enough that they can hear his rasping breath as he lunges forward, the putrid smell even more intense.

Hank shouts something but it's drowned out by the bang of a gunshot that echoes through the attic.

The figure crumples to the floor.

Everything is still. Hank's ears ring, his pulse pounds at his temples. He isn't even aware he's moving but he's kneeling beside the body, two thick fingers pressed against the man's throat checking for a pulse.

There's none. The body is already cold.

"Something isn't right," Hank mutters. Blood oozes from the gunshot wound and pools under him, but he doesn't move. The man's dark skin is too pale, his face gaunt. There’s no warmth left in his skin despite the sweltering August heat.

"You're still on about this shit?" Gavin spits. "We caught the killer, solved the case. Probably the most useful thing you've done in years. You should be fuckin' thankin' me."

"This isn't right," Hank repeats. "His body is cold. It's like…" It's like he'd been dead for days—but that isn’t possible. He'd just been moving, he’d charged at them…

"There's all kinds of things not right about it." Gavin makes a dismissive noise, stepping over the body. "He was tweaking on who knows what, it's a miracle he hadn't died of an overdose already."

Hank doesn't answer, still looking at the body like it's a puzzle—one where he doesn't know what the end result is supposed to look like. Right now it's just a bunch of pieces that seem unrelated. If he could just figure out how they fit together…

"Yeah, just keep sitting on your arse," Gavin mutters when he doesn't get an answer. "I'll clear the scene and call it in. The sooner we get out of this shithole the better."

Hank isn't squeamish about dead bodies, but something about this one unsettles him when he looks too close. His bloodstained clothes are dirty and torn, but looking closer, the button-down shirt and jeans look like they fit well; the material seems to be sturdy while still being soft. Hank knows nothing about clothes, but if he were to guess, these clothes look like they were expensive—or at least more expensive than what you'd expect to see on a homeless junkie squatting in the attic of a murder scene.

"Coroner is on their way." Gavin appears from behind a pile of boxes.

"I'm going to look around."

Gavin rolls his eyes. "We caught the killer, the case is solved. I don't know what you expect to find."

Hank doesn't know either. But there must be something that will make this make sense.

He’s still empty-handed when the corner arrives half an hour later. Hank lingers while he does his initial examination, taking pictures from every angle and jotting down notes.

"Bullet to the head, clear cause of death," the coroner mutters to himself. Hank susses that he really means, thank god I don't have to do overtime tonight.

"What about the state of the body?" Hank asks.

The coroner looks up in surprise, like he didn't fully realise that he wasn't alone. "What do you mean?"

Hank gestures vaguely to the body, spluttering for a moment as he tries to find the right words that aren't going to have him sent for a psych evaluation. "Doesn't it look like he's been dead for days, not just an hour?" Hank hopes he's coming across as curious, not paranoid.

The coroner takes another look at the body, but seems unperturbed. "Could be a lot of things. Poor circulation, underlying conditions, drug use—" he shrugs and gestures pointedly at where they are.

Hank's jaw tightens. That's not a good enough answer.

Chapter Text

After

The world is different. 

Snow lies thick on the ground when Nines pushes the door open and steps outside. The cold creeps in, it curls around Connor’s ankles and travels up his legs. It feels different, not as cold as Connor would expect it to. 

Nines returns to the office, trekking snow back in on his boots. He doesn’t look at Connor as he stoops to pick up his pack, readjusting his hold on his rifle as he straightens up. “Are you ready to go?” 

Connor doesn’t know the answer to that. The cold grabs at his knees, his thighs and hips, like hands made of ice, trying to pin him in place. He doesn’t want to be pinned down. It feels like he’s been pinned down for too long, since the party, since the room with the glittering ceiling.

“Han–” Nines cuts himself off, clears his throat awkwardly and tries again. “Connor? We have to go.” 

Connor glances back at the building they have been holed up in. It feels odd to be so attached to a realtor office, the desks and destroyed office chairs they had used as makeshift beds and barricades. The sheets of paper advertising houses that would never sell, and places that Connor would never get to live. He’d wondered, between bouts of fever and shivers that had wracked his body, what had happened to the people who used to work there. Their smiling faces had stared down at him from frames on the walls while he’d sweated through layers of clothes and sleeping bag, begging for Nines to end it. 

He doesn’t remember if anyone came back to the real estate office. He doesn’t remember much from the last month. 

Nines doesn’t wait for a response, stepping out of the office and heading towards the camouflage Jeep parked against the curb. Connor follows, lingering in the doorway of the office, glancing along the snow covered and vacant street. The shop across the road from them sits with broken windows, the jagged blue pained glass framing the gaping wounds of where people had broken into the store. The sign above is obscured by clinging snow and ice, the words unreadable, giving no indication as to why that store was broken into while the office had been left alone. 

The Jeep rumbles to life, the sudden sound of the engine a stark contrast to the silence that had descended with the snow over the town. 

Across the street, inside the shop with the broken windows, something or someone moves. 

The fear etched into him since the tunnel makes Connor scramble to get into the passenger side of the vehicle. Whatever is in the building, he doesn’t want to face it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The wound on his arm still aches beneath the fresh layers of gauze and bandage that Nines had applied that morning, reminding him all too clearly of the last time that they had gotten too close to other people. 

The ache in his arm pales in comparison to the ache in his chest, large and all encompassing, squeezing around his heart as though it is trying to grind it into dust. The back seat of the Jeep stays empty except for his and Nines’ backpacks and sleeping bags. The absence hurt more than anything else. 

“Where are we going?” Connor asks as Nines maneuvers the vehicle away from the curb, steering carefully between haphazardly abandoned vehicles. It reminds Connor of the streets of Detroit when they had fled the airfield camp. It felt like a lifetime ago—years instead of days—that Connor had sat in the backseat of a stolen vehicle, clinging to Alex’s hand as they watched crashed and steaming cars line the street as people broke out into riots and looted stores. He remembers Nines talking about going to Sandy Bay, but that had been over a month ago, he has no idea what the plans are anymore. 

“East, then South.” Nines replies, not taking his eyes off the road. “Before communication went dark, there was chatter that the Center For Vaccine Research in Pittsburgh is still operational. We’ll go there.” 

Unease twists in Connor’s stomach, though he doesn’t really understand why. He hasn’t seen anyone since the tunnel—at least he does not remember seeing anyone, though he heard people outside the office, vehicles passing, car alarms in the distance beyond the walls and the barricades of desks. “What are we going to do there?” 

They turn away from the centre of town, following the signs towards the highway. The lights are off at the intersection, not another car moving on the roads, but Connor watches as Nines glances both ways as they cross. 

“You didn’t get infected,” Nines replies, voice flat and refusing to meet Connor’s eye. “Everyone else is. Everyone gets infected.” 

Connor shrinks in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chest, feet braced on the edge of the seat. “What do you mean?” 

“Exactly what I said, everyone else gets infected. You didn’t. Whatever that means, you might offer some hope in this case. If the centre is still operating then maybe they can work out why you didn’t get infected when everyone else did. If they can do that, then there could be a chance of reversing this epidemic.”

The world outside the car is in ruins; barely any time has passed and the radios are silent, the power grid dark, and the streets empty. He can’t imagine a way back from this. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if they do get to the lab and there are scientists there. They’d have to touch him. He hugs his knees tighter to his chest until the wound on his arm aches. He doesn’t want to be touched. “Why do we have to do it?” 

Nines’ knuckles go white against the steering wheel. “God damn it, Hannah, Alex got infected! Why didn’t you? It has to be for a reason!” 

The words cut through him. Connor feels them slicing his flesh and digging into his bones, ripping and tearing through him. His throat tightens and his eyes burn as they blur with tears. It’s not his fault that he got better. It’s not his fault that Alex didn’t. 

He remembers Alex grabbing the man on top of him and dragging him off of Connor. 

He ducks his head, pushing his hands through his hair, clenching his fists, sparking pain across his scalp. Tears soak into his jeans as he presses his face against his knees. The wound on his arm aches, reminding him of everything that happened. 

It is his fault that Alex got infected. 

///

Pittsburgh is on fire. Smoke clouds the sky above the city and the orange glow is evident beneath the haze. 

Connor can smell it, burning and acrid, unlike the smoke from wildfires that used to settle over the city and hang over the lakes like a fog. They’d been able to see the smoke for miles before they had a clear view of the city, and see the destroyed buildings and still burning fires. “What do you think happened?” 

Nines doesn’t lower his binoculars, the red tinted lenses make him look even more impassive than usual. “Containment.” 

Connor can’t help but turn back to the north west, scanning the horizon for any signs that Detroit and Windsor suffered the same fates, but the cloudy sky gives nothing away. They aren’t high enough or close enough for a clear view back across Lake Erie. “The Army do that?” 

Nines’ silence is the only answer that Connor gets. 

The only answer that he needs. 

“Now what?” Connor asks so he doesn’t have to think about the ache in his arm or the empty pit in his stomach. They need to find food and fuel and some kind of direction. 

Nines lowers his binoculars and climbs back into the Jeep. “Montreal. There’s a medical university there.” 

Connor gets back in the Jeep and bites his lips together to stop himself from asking why Nines thinks Montreal will still be standing when Pittsburgh isn’t. 

///

The Jeep overheats south of a town called Mexico, with two feet of snow lining the edges of the road. The irony isn’t lost on Connor as they retrieve their packs from the backseat and continue north on foot. 

They stop for the night in a white weatherboard house with a red garage that Nines scouts first with his rifle raised while Connor stands on the front porch holding both their packs. There are photos left on the walls, showing a family of four—mum and dad and two little girls—that there is no sign of. The kitchen smells faintly of rotting food, a dark stain spreading across the linoleum from under the refrigerator that Connor suspects would smell worse in warmer weather. 

There’s cans of food in the pantry and stale cereal in boxes, the sugar coating starting to crystalise, but Connor is too hungry to care about the texture as he shovels handfuls of brightly coloured cereal into his mouth. It sticks to his lips, pulls what little moisture there was off of his tongue, but he manages to swallow it down. 

His stomach cramps not even a half hour later, while Nines is sitting watch in the living room and Connor ends up vomiting on the back porch, his stomach and throat both aching by the time he’s finished. His head swims, the tears that leaked from his eyes already starting to feel like they are freezing on his cheeks when he finally straightens up. 

A man stands in the middle of the back yard by a set of children’s swings, blinking despondently back at the house. Connor blinks back, fear starting to rise. He doesn't know if he has time to call out to Nines. If Nines would even get there in time, or if there is the off chance that he is hidden in the shadows and calling out would give away his own position. 

The man’s chin lifts, nose rising in the air as though he is sniffing. The brightly coloured vomit at Connor’s feet smells bad enough that Connor almost wants to be sick again. He stays frozen in place, knowing that there is no way the man didn’t hear him being sick. 

Somewhere in the distance a fox screams. The man turns towards the noise and starts to trudge through the snow in the same direction. 

Connor stays on the back porch staring across the yard long after the man disappeared from view. On the other side of the swing set, nearly hidden by fresh snow stand three white crosses. 

///

They keep walking, skirting around towns and picking through houses and buildings they find on the fringes. A lot of them have already been picked over, but they manage to find some food, water and sleep behind walls to keep the cold out. 

The food never stays in Connor’s stomach, even when Nines has no trouble keeping it down. Each day it seems to get worse, the hunger gnaws at his stomach, but eating makes it cramp and rebel. In the end it is easier to not even try. 

They are approaching Watertown when they finally see another vehicle—angular and shining metal that reminds Connor too much of a dumpster. Alex used to poke fun at Cybertrucks if they ever saw them, would blow up Connor’s phone with memes and jokes about them. 

Nines readjusts his hold on his rifle; the silence of the electric vehicle leaves them sitting ducks as it approaches, having no time to find cover. The headlights reflect off of the snow as it pushes through several inches of fresh fall from the night before. Connor edges further behind Nines as the vehicle stops and the door opens. The windscreen fogs with the inrush of cold air, making it hard to see the driver until they step out of the vehicle. 

The man looks as rich and pretentious as the car he drives; the winter gear he’s wearing is expensive, clean and not nearly suitable for the current weather, his head bare and ears uncovered. He smiles wide and shark-like, bracing his arm on top of his car door. “Good morning, gentlemen.” 

In front of him, Nines’ shoulders tense, his grip flexing on the rifle. “Not sure there is much good about it, sir.” 

The grin widens as the man reaches up to remove his sunglasses, “On the contrary, my dear boys, it is an excellent morning, on account of you having just met me.” 

Chapter Text

Hank lets Sumo out when he gets home, he makes sure he has a full bowl of food and fresh water knowing that once he slumps down onto the couch he isn't likely to get up again. Flicking the top off the bottle of Black Lamb is a well practised motion and taking a swig from the bottle is just as much part of his nightly routine as taking care of his dog is. 

He doesn’t even bother turning the TV on, just stares at the blank ceiling as his mind picks apart the case like a dog worrying at a bone.

Red Ice.

Twenty-eight stab wounds.

NOT ALIVE.

A dead body that seemed wrong.

Hank exhales, rubbing at his temples before taking another long drink from the bottle.

He loves a good mystery. That's part of the reason he became a cop in the first place: few things are more satisfying than the feeling when that final clue slides neatly into place, creating order from chaos. They're also a distraction—something that can keep his mind occupied and stop him from dwelling so much on his grief in the hours between his drinks.

But right now the mystery is whether there's even a mystery in the first place.

Gavin has made his position on that clear—repeatedly. Ben still thinks that there's something more to this case—that it's something deeper than just the drugs. It's Ben's fault that Hank even looked into this case in the first place, but when he’d mentioned the strange state of the body Ben hadn't even looked intrigued; instead, he'd given Hank a look full of scepticism, worry and even pity.

"You should sleep on it," Ben had told him, "maybe things will be clearer after a good night's sleep."

Hank knows it's just an expression, but he’d still given Ben a flat, hard look. He hasn’t had a good night's sleep since Cole died. He either drinks himself into a stupor and hopes to pass out for a few hours or is plagued with nightmares.

“Maybe the lighting was bad,” Ben tried again.“Maybe you just thought it looked off.”

Hank had grumbled something noncommittal in response, but the words had hit a little too close to home.

Because what if he just thought it looked off?

What if he’s chasing ghosts?

What if he’s finally losing his grip?

That thought—the feeling of not being sure that he can even trust his own mind—is almost worse than the grief, and it makes his stomach churn.

So he drinks.

And drinks.

And drinks. 

He drinks until the bottle is empty, until his head is heavy, until the gnawing uncertainty dulls into background noise.

* * *

Hank wakes up and immediately regrets it.

He doesn't remember going to bed, but he's sprawled diagonally across it on top of the mess of blankets, sunlight filtering into the room and mocking him for the fact that he still hasn’t fixed the blinds that had come off the track. His mouth is dry as sandpaper, his tongue thick and heavy. There’s a deep throbbing ache that starts behind his eyes and burrows into his skull. He blindly reaches for the bottle, wanting to wash away the bitter taste of stale whisky, only to find it empty.

Well… that explains why he feels like death warmed over.

He groans and pulls a pillow over his face, squeezing his eyes shut and willing himself into the oblivion of death, though he would also settle for more sleep.

He gets neither of these things. Instead the case stubbornly shoves its way back into his thoughts.

Red Ice.

Twenty-eight stab wounds.

NOT ALIVE.

A dead body that seemed wrong.

Hank pulls a blanket over himself, stubbornly ignoring the thoughts and pretending to be asleep. As if sleep has ever been enough to stop the unpleasant thoughts.

His facade is interpreted by the muffled buzzing of his phone vibrating. Hank ignores it. It buzzes again. And again.

Hank growls and grabs his phone, holds it in front of his face, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused as he squints at the screen. The text messages are from Gavin:

got the id on the junkie from the attic

Shaolin Being

social worker… didn’t see that coming

but i guess even saints got their demons or whatever

With a low grunt, Hank forces himself upright, instantly regretting it when the room spins and his stomach churns violently.

He squints at the small screen, reading the messages again, his stomach twisting further, but this time it’s not from the hangover.

That doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.

His bones creak and every muscle in his body protests as he pushes himself to his feet. The room tilts and spins around him—he braces with one hand on the wall, gritting his teeth and trying to breathe through it. His body is screaming for him to lie the fuck back down, but he can’t let this case go—he needs answers even more than he needs a drink.

* * *

A pot of coffee, a shot of whisky and half a bottle of Tylenol later, Hank shows up to the precinct. It’s just after ten; late by anyone else's standards, but early enough for him that he still gets some curious stares.

“—try’na talk him down— Right? Anderson worked in narcotics for years, you’d think he’d know by now that tryin’ to reason with junkies is fuckin’ pointless. Yeah, so he just fucking charges at me so I BAM right to the head…”

Reed’s voice carries through the precinct, grating on every single one of Hank’s nerves and making him regret having only one shot of whisky.

“—so of course I have to clear the scene and call it in. Still though, easiest case I ever closed. What kind of retard stays at the fucking crime scene for that long… let alone one as disgusting—”

Hank clears his throat. “The case isn’t closed.”

Gavin leans back in his chair, making a show of putting his feet up on his desk and lounging with his hands tucked behind his head. “Let me walk you through how closing a case works since I know it’s been awhile since you’ve done it…” he explains sardonically. “Once you catch the bad guy, the case is closed.”

Hank crowds into Gavin’s space, looming over him. The rookie cop who’d been clinging to Gavin’s every word looks nervously between them before scurrying away.

“While we’re reviewing the police procedural basics…” Hank interjects, “you can’t close a case that has a request for a pending request for an autopsy.”

“You ordered a fuckin’ autopsy?” Gavin’s feet thump to the floor and he stands pushing right back into Hank’s space. “You’re still goin’ on about that bullshit? You really don’t know how to let shit go, huh? No wonder you’re still fuckin’ hung up on Cole’s—”

Hank’s hand is around Reed’s throat, pinning him to the wall. “That’s enough,” he growls.

“It’s one thing to waste your own time,” Reed’s voice is slightly hoarse with the pressure on his throat, but he’s never known when to shut the fuck up. “But stop wasting everyone else’s with your fucking delusions—”

“I said that’s enough,” Hank’s voice is low and dangerous, his fingers twitching tighter around Gavin’s neck.

“You’re not gonna get away with this,” Reed spits, twisting out of Hank’s grasp.

The door to the Captain’s office slams open and for a whole moment the precinct is silent and still.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jeffrey’s voice cuts through the silence.

Everyone else averts their eyes, pretending to be focused on their work.

Hank crosses his arms around his chest, his breath hissing out between his teeth, already exhausted by the lecture he knows is coming.

“He just fucking tried to kill me.” Reed rasps. 

“If I was trying to kill you, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

Fowler pinches the bridge of his nose. “My office. Now. Both of you.” He lets out a long exhale, clearly wishing that he was anywhere else right now.

As soon as the office door closes, Fowler turns to Hank. “You wanna explain to me why the hell I just walked in on you with your hands around Reed’s throat?” His voice is even, steady but there’s no missing the undercurrent of barely contained rage.

“Because he doesn’t know when to shut his goddamn mouth—”

“Reed has never known when to shut his goddamn mouth,” Fowler is exasperated. “That doesn’t mean you can assault him, and in a goddamn police department of all places. Jesus Christ, Hank—”

“Are you fucking kidding me? The only issue you have is where this lunatic tried to assault me?” Gavin crosses his arms. “If this was me, I’d already be suspended.”

“Hank. You cannot keep doing this shit.” Jeff scrubs a hand down his face, looking even more exhausted than Hank feels. “You know I can’t look the other way. You know I need to at least suspend you for this. And I don’t—”

Hank’s jaw is tight. “He brought up my son, Jeff.”

Fowler’s rant pauses. The hard look on his face softens ever so slightly.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me! He’s got you wrapped around his fuckin’ finger, Captain—” Gavin starts.

“Shut up, Reed,” Fowler growls.

“We all get it, his kid died,” Gavin continues, “and somehow that means he can get away with whatever the fuck—”

Hank’s hands ball into fists, but Fowler’s voice stops him before he can even move.

“One more word and you will be the one who’s suspended,” says Fowler. Gavin scowls, but for once in his life stays silent. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”

Gavin slams the door hard enough that the glass walls shake.

Jeff slumps into his chair, running a hand over his face.

Hank’s fists are still clenched, his breath coming a little too hard through his nose, his eyes flicking from Jeff to the door, wanting to escape another lecture.

Jeff gestures at the chair across from him before he can move. “Sit.” It’s not a request.

Hank exhales sharply and drops into the seat, his anger fizzling out into wary exhaustion.

“Alright. Talk to me, Hank. What’s going on?”

“I’m doing my damn job.” Hank can’t help but be defensive.

Jeff leans forward, folding his hands on the desk looking at him with a level gaze. “The man you found at the Ortiz scene—”

“Shaolin Being,” Hank says.

“You saw Reed shoot him?” Fowler confirms.

Hank sighs, then nods he knows where this is going.

“But you still ordered an autopsy.”

“The body, it was…” Hank doesn’t want to say it out loud; he knows how this whole thing sounds. He racks his brain trying to think of the explanation that makes it sound the least crazy. “It looked wrong. There’s more to this case, I know there is.”

Fowler is quiet for a long moment. “You also thought that there’s something more to the Phillips case,” he points out.

Hank won’t admit it, but the Phillips case had entirely slipped his mind. Now, though, it feels like one of the pieces of this fucking messed up puzzle is slotting into place. He hadn’t understood why an autopsy would be necessary for a case where the suspect was shot by SWAT, but what if something had been strange about that body too? 

“I still think there’s something more to that case.” Hank insists.

“Why?” Jeff presses.

“I don’t know,” Hank says honestly, “it just doesn’t sit right.”

“And that’s all you’ve got?”

“That’s all I damn well need!”

“Hank,” Jeff sighs, leaning back into his chair. “I know these few years have been rough for you. But are you actually chasing a lead here, or are you just grasping at straws because you want there to be some big mystery? It’s going to be September in a few weeks… we both know how hard that time of year is for you—do you think you’re just looking for something to distract yourself?”

“Jeffrey, I'm not crazy,” Hank snaps, “I’m doing my damn job.”

Fowler is quiet for a moment, softening slightly as he asks, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Hank’s eyes narrow as he susses out what’s coming. “I swear to God, Jeff, if you’re about to tell me to take some goddamn time off—”

“I am,” Jeff interrupts, holding up a hand before Hank can start shouting. “I think you need it—”

Hank shakes his head, pushing out of his chair. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m not suspending you, even though I should be,” Fowler's voice stops him before he can storm out of the office. “But I do need to send you home for the day and I don’t want to hear any arguments.”

Hank grits his teeth, but he doesn’t argue. He’s well aware that he deserves far worse than this. “Reed really did deserve it.”

Jeff snorts. “I was almost disappointed when he managed to keep his mouth shut for a change,” he admits, “I really hoped I would have an excuse to suspend him.”

“Thanks Jeff.”

“Go home, get some rest.” Jeff’s voice is soft before he adds, “I expect you to be here on time tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

After

“On the contrary, my dear boys, it is an excellent morning, on account of you having just met me.” 

Nines doesn’t relax and Connor can only feel his tension ramping up higher. They haven’t seen anyone to talk to since the tunnel. Seeing someone now, so blatantly confronting them makes Connor feel unsteady. The road they are on is wide, the houses set a long way back, trees cleared to make way for extensive grassed areas. 

There is no where to duck for cover, and no way of knowing if the man is the only one in the car. 

Nines readjusts his hold on his rifle, finger creeping closer to the trigger even as the gun stays pointed down and to the side. “Who are you?” 

“Elijah Kamski, at your service.” The man steps out from around the door, approaching with his hand extended in greeting, as though they are meeting at a seminar somewhere instead of in the middle of a deserted road on the outskirts of an empty town. 

The name sounds familiar, but Connor can’t quite place it. He edges closer behind Nines, trying to keep out of sight. Something about the way the man looks at him makes him uncomfortable.

“Private First Class Arkait,” Nines responds, both hands staying steady on his rifle. “What can we do for you, sir?” 

Dropping his hand, Kamski settles his sunglasses back on his face, the grin widening further. “It’s what I can do for you! I haven’t seen too many people around these parts lately. Where are you heading?” 

“Fort Drum,” Nines replies. It is a name that Connor has heard before, saw it circled on Nines’ maps, but it is the first time that Connor has heard Nines mention going there. 

Kamski gives an exaggerated grimace, his nose screwing up as he glances away, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s going to be a no go, I’m sorry. Fort Drum is gone. It went quiet a week ago. Except for the, how shall we say, the scavengers.” 

“Gone?” There’s a hitch in Nines’ voice, uncertainty. 

“Gone,” Kamski replies without further elaboration. “I have a place, over by Lake Placid, if you boys are looking for somewhere safe to set down for a while. Good fences, good food.” 

///

Kamski’s place sits atop a golf course, the wide open greens and high security fences holding anyone unwelcome well back from the buildings. The gates slide back under their own power, parting smoothly to allow the electric vehicle to enter. 

The power comes as a surprise, as does the hot water. The world is falling apart outside the fences, but inside Connor finds himself surrounded by luxury. Hot showers and beds made up with softer sheets than Connor thinks he’s ever felt. The building is vast, labyrinthine, a myriad of rooms, each sparsely furnished all with sleek hard lines. 

It is so impersonal. 

The real estate office had more of a homely feel to it than Kamski’s place, but somehow the sleek lines and the Cybertruck suit the man. 

Showered and dressed in strange, expensive feeling clothes, Connor wonders how far he can wander inside the building without running into Kamski or his brother. Some of the corridors feel like they go on forever. Vast and empty and emotionless, but it is safe, behind fences and away from the weather. 

It is nice to be warm. 

“The accommodations to your liking?” 

The question startles Connor out of his thoughts, Kamski appearing around the end of the corridor catches him off guard. The man has changed as well, his outdoor gear replaced with a dressing gown over the top of jeans and a t-shirt with some indistinguishable graphic on it. He reminds Connor of the self proclaimed eccentric students at university. 

“They are very nice, thank you.” Connor replies, trying to keep his voice level and calm, despite feeling as though his heart is in his throat. “You have a lot here.” 

Kamski smiles wide and gesturing for Connor to follow him as he turns and starts back the way he came. “Your brother is already in the dining room, I put some food on for you.” 

Connor’s stomach rumbles at the mere mention of food, at the same time it twists and turns with the memory of all the times he has thrown up over the past weeks. He’s running out of hope that they’ll find anything that he’ll be able to keep down, the constant gnawing in his stomach matching the ache in his forearm from the wound that won’t heal. 

Nines is already seated at the table, plate full, fork loaded when he meets Connor’s eye over the table. He glances away sheepishly, setting the fork down as Kamski takes a seat at the head of the table. 

Connor waits, hovering at the edge of the room. He doesn’t want to sit at the table and watch other people eat when he can’t. He thinks about backing out and going back to the room he’d been given. 

“Sit, my good man, grab a bite to eat.” Kamski gestures to the empty seat across from Nines. “There’s plenty to go around.” 

Connor hesitates, just staring at the food on the table makes him feel so hungry he is nauseous. “No thanks. Food hasn’t been sitting right lately.” 

Oddly a look of delighted curiosity lights across Kamski’s face, “Oh, does that have anything to do with that bite on your arm?” 

The world seems to freeze, Connor’s breath going cold in his lungs, his body coiled tight. He isn’t sure whether to stay frozen or run. Nines drops his fork, hand clenching around his knife as he starts to push himself back from the table. 

“Now, now, boys, don’t look so surprised. You are guests in one of the most sophisticated and high tech houses in Northern America.” Kamski stays seated, looking nonchalant as he cuts his food into bite sized pieces, stabbing a piece of steak and waving it aloft on his fork. “Your body temperature is significantly lower than average, your resting heart rate is less than twenty beats per minute, and your respiration is slow.” 

Kamski sets his cutlery back on the edges of his plate, lacing his hands together under his chin, focus fixed entirely on Connor, ignoring Nines’ tense hold on his knife. “It is really quite amazing that you are still alive and walking, with those symptoms. When did you get bitten?” 

Pain swells in Connor’s throat. It blocks off his breath, chokes his words, but he can’t stop himself from replying, “November.” 

Kamski nods slowly, his eyes widening, further, “Fascinating! And you never succumbed to the infection like all the others did.” 

Setting his knife down, hand still hovering over it, Nines shakes his head. “He had a fever, but he recovered. We’ve been trying to find someone to help us. Pittsburgh was gone, and with it the Center for Vaccine Research. We’re heading for Montreal.” 

Humming a sound, Kamski nods, setting his palms flat against the table as though he is about to push himself back upright, “That’s gone too, I am afraid. Fortunately for you, I am somewhat of a genius, have a background in biochemistry. I might be able to help you some.” 

Connor looks at Nines, he can’t read his expression, can’t tell what he is thinking.The plan for Montreal withering before them and Connor doesn’t know where else they are meant to go. 

Kamski stands, picking up his fork as he rounds the end of the table. He bites the meat off the fork and grins around the fork tines as he approaches Connor. “We can find a way to let you eat again. Would you like that, dear boy?”  

Connor’s stomach grumbles. 

Now

Nines is waiting for him, standing just back from the door and to the side, inviting Connor to step into the RV first. It had been his idea, to go into places to investigate first while Nines stayed out in the open, since everywhere Connor went the dead ignored him.

The RV creaks ominously as Connor climbs the fold down step. It shifts on its wonky axles but seems to settle, not moving again as Connor moves further into the interior. It is a mess. It is hard to tell if it has been ransacked, or left in disarray from a panicked escape, but there is nothing dead or undead left inside, and while messy, it is sanitary enough.

Connor flicks one of the light switches to test it, and a dim light flickers over the kitchen sink. There’s still some power at least, batteries kept alive by the solar panels mounted on the roof, the weak winter light just enough to keep everything working. With any luck there is still water in the tanks and gas in the bottles enough for hot water. It has only been days since the last time Connor was able to wash, but it feels like it has been months.

The scent of smoke still clings to his hair and clothes.

Beneath that there are traces of disinfectant.

He can still feel the blood on his chin and hands.

In the dim light of the RV, the memories all come flooding back, the small space feeling as claustrophobic as the lab had felt, like he is strapped down on that examination table again. His left arm jerks back and to the side, a reflexive flinch away from gloved hands that aren't there, his elbow slamming into the cupboard beside the door. Something rattles inside and Connor hones in on that sound to pull himself from the lab. He steps back outside, sweeping his gaze over the open expanse of the parking bay and the forest beyond. The sun is dipping lower in the sky and as much as Connor doesn't want to go back into such a small space again, he knows that they need to get inside somewhere before it gets too dark. The nights still get cold, and while the zombies ignore them, there are plenty of other dangers out in the mountains.

Without making eye contact he nods at Nines to indicate the RV is safe inside. Ni’s shoulders sag ever so slightly with relief, the only indication of his own exhaustion. 

Connor ties the door closed behind them, the locks don't hold properly, and Connor doesn't want to risk someone else stumbling upon the RV and wanting to take it from them. By the time he has done, Nines is already trying to get the pilot light on the hot water system lit; the scent of too many spent matches hangs thick in the air. 

“Too bad the axle is broken,” Connor says, hating the silence that is stretching over them. “We could have had our own house on wheels otherwise.” 

Ni looks at him, expression pinched, mouth set tight, saying everything that he doesn’t put words to; that they never would have found the RV if it was still functioning or that they’ll never have a home again in this life, so there is no point pinning hopes on dreams. 

Connor wants to call him a hypocrite, since it is Ni’s dreams of there being a cure for Connor that is driving them forward anyway. 

"The gas is already out, and either the water pump is not working, or the tank is empty." Nines drops the box of matches back down on the kitchen counter with enough force that it is borderline aggressive.

Connor doesn't flinch at the sound, but it is a near thing. It reminds him of times that their parents or Nines had snapped at him as a child for letting his fanciful ideas tumble out as spoken words. He misses Alex. As a child, when the harsh words and loud sounds started in response to something Connor said or did, Alex would be there to take his hand behind their backs and squeeze his fingers, and Connor felt like they were a united front.

They had been, from adolescence right up until everything had gone to shit in the tunnel beneath the Detroit River.

He doesn't want to think about it.

Earlier

The zipper on the tent snags on the wonky teeth, but the opening is wide enough now that Hannah can wiggle into the tent through the gap. The zipper teeth drag over her skin, gnawing at her pyjamas until she manages to crawl into the tent. The grass beneath the floor crunches under her hands and knees, and she can feel small blades of it clinging to her knees and bare feet, the night air making everything damp.

One of the sleeping bag lumps inside the tent wriggles and rolls over and there is a click as a torch turns on and Hannah blinks at the sudden, weak yellow light as Alex sits up and blinks back at her.

"Han? What're you doin'?" He asks, voice slurred and blurry with sleep. "Mama said you can't camp out with us."

The angry heat that had flared inside her chest when their mother had told her no when she'd lined up with her sleeping bag clutched in her arms behind her brothers earlier that night came back with full force. She huffs, sticking her tongue out at Alex before wriggling into the space between Alex at the side of the tent. Behind him, Nines snores softly, curled up in his sleeping bag, a typically heavy sleeper.

"But I want to, Lexi, it’s not fair!" Hannah argues back, shivering as the cold canvas touches the bare backs of her shoulders.

Alex frowns, but doesn't say anything as he unzips his sleeping bag and holds it open, grumbling as Hannah wriggles inside with cold hands and feet still damp from the grass. Her nightie bunches around her hips, twisting around her ribs like it is a giant snake trying to constrict her.

Alex's body is sleep warm and comfortable next to hers, his arm wrapping around her shoulders to try and hold the open edges of the sleeping bag back together. The torch clicks off again, plunging the tent back into darkness. "Mama's gonna be mad when she realises you disobeyed her."

"I don't get why I couldn't sleep out here." Hannah whispers back, staring into the dark sand trying to pick out the features of Alex's face, still almost a perfect mirror of hers. "Why do you and Ni get all the fun?"

"Because you're a girl," Alex states, parroting the same excuse there mother had stated earlier when Hannah had stamped her foot and said she wanted to camp out too. "And Mama said it's not right for boys and girls to camp out together."

Hannah feels her lip curl in disgust. She doesn't want to be a girl, not if it means she can't camp out with Alex and Nines, and has to wear nighties and dresses and bathing suits that cling to her chest and belly. She wants to wear only swim shorts and t-shirts and to have short hair that doesn't need brushing all the time. Right now, she is almost the same as Alex, a fraction taller, but still looking almost identical. Mama tells her it won't last though. She's seen the older girls at school, and heard them talk and knows that her body is going to change to look less like Alex's and more like her Mama's and those older girls and she doesn't want that.

"I don't want to be a girl," Hannah tells Alex, giving a name to the inner turmoil she feels, but it doesn't make her feel any better.

Alex yawns and squeezes his arm around her shoulders tighter in a lopsided hug, "So don't be then."

Chapter Text

Hank flashes his badge at the receptionist at the DPD’s Downtown precinct, though she barely looks at it before waving him in.

“Hey.” Hank stops a uniformed officer on their way out of the building. “Where can I find the SWAT team?” It’s been years since he’s been anywhere but the central station.

The officer’s eyes dart from Hank to the reception area, clearly trying to figure out if he’s supposed to be here. He sighs and pulls out his badge.

Their eyes widen. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” they stammer. “I didn’t realise. You don’t look like—” they shut their mouth, obviously trying to avoid insulting him. “It’s my first week.”

“You’re fine, kid.” Hank waves off their worries. “SWAT?” He prompts again.

“Right.” They point across the main bullpen to a hallway. “That way, then take your first left.”

“Thanks.” Hank keeps his head down as he makes his way through the station. The last thing he wants is for where he is to get back to Jeff.

Captain Allen is at his desk, hunched over a stack of paperwork that’s so tall Hank is exhausted even looking at it. Well… more exhausted than he already is. He doesn’t look up when Hank raps on the door frame.

“You got a minute?” Hank asks.

The captain finally glances up at Hank, eyes settling on him for a moment before he turns back to his screen. “No, not really.”

It’s a blunt dismissal, but Hank doesn’t leave.

“So are you here to waste my time, or make my job harder?” Captain Allen sighs and waves him in.

“Neither,” Hank says quickly, though he’s not sure if he’s lying. “I just have a couple questions about the Phillips case.” He lays his badge down open on the desk.

“The Phillips case?” Allen frowns, his brows furrowing for a moment before realisation crosses his face. “You mean the hostage case from the other day? I can’t imagine what questions you would have about that; it’s about as open and shut of a case as we see in this division.”

“Seemed it," Hank nods. Two seemingly open and shut cases, both shrouded in mystery. Surely it’s not a coincidence. “I just want to know why you ordered the autopsy.”

“Listen—” The Captain’s eyes narrow as he looks down at the badge still on his desk. “Lieutenant Anderson… I don’t appreciate subordinates questioning how I do my job.”

Hank’s jaw tenses. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax. “Of course not, Captain,” he says. He hates the hierarchy game of having to soothe over bruised egos rather than getting right to the point, but he needs answers. “I just thought it might be related to a case I’m working on and was hoping that you might have some insight that I’m missing.”

Allen studies him for a moment. “I’m not sure why you think a hostage event is related to a homicide,” he sighs, leaning back in his chair. “Wasn't much of a mystery. We noticed a bite mark on his arm—already bandaged, maybe a few days old. Didn’t look like much really, but given his erratic behaviour there was a concern of rabies.”

“Rabies…” Hank says slowly. It’s such a simple explanation. “The body… did it look off?”

“There was a bullet wound clean through his skull,” Allen says. “He looked dead.”

“Medical history, mental state?” Hank is grasping at straws.

“We’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but the altered mental state would be explained by rabies.” Captain Allen is quickly losing his patience. “I have enough work already without making up problems that don’t exist.”

“Right, yeah. Of course,” Hank mutters, feeling defeated as he stands up. “Thanks for your time.”

Hank feels like he’s been punched in the gut as he walks back to his car.

Rabies.

Fucking rabies.

It makes sense. It’s logical. It even fits the Ortiz case.

It’s the kind of answer that should put things to rest, should stop the gnawing feeling in his chest that something isn’t right. He’d thought it was something more than drugs, he’d thought the cases might be connected, and he was right. He should feel good.

Instead, it makes him feel like a goddamned idiot.

Rabies is a long shot. It’s one of those one in a million ideas. With the information that he’d had available at the time there was no good reason that he should have ever even considered it—which is why he’s so mad at himself for missing it. They say when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. But Hank’s spent his entire career proving that the simplest answer isn’t always the right one. He’s the one who catches the cases that don’t make sense, who sees the connections no one else does. He’s always been the guy who finds the goddamn zebras.

But this time?

This time, he’d let the case get to him, turned it into a mystery, and acted like it was some goddamn conspiracy even before he had all the evidence. He hadn’t come up with a single rational explanation.

Hank grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ache and tries to force himself to take slow, deep breaths, but they come too fast, too shallow, making him feel lightheaded.

Maybe the drinking is taking more of a toll than he’s realised and Gavin is right that he’s senile. He feels like he can’t trust his own mind. And if he’s questioning that, he knows he needs to give up his badge.

Hank may be disillusioned about the whole institution of being a cop, having long ago accepted that no matter how hard he tried or how far up the ranks he got, he couldn’t really change anything. That was one thing, and it had been hard to accept. But even if he can’t change anything, he refuses to make it worse.

Which means that it’s time to hand in his badge.

Fuck.

He’s been a ghost of himself ever since his son died, just going through the motions. He knows he’s been slacking at work when he actually bothers to show up. His desk is drowning in unfinished reports. He has a disciplinary file longer than a lot of novels. But at least he is something.

All he is without his badge is an old, bitter drunk with nothing left.

He slumps into his usual seat at Jimmy’s Bar, his badge sitting open on the counter next to him, the crest tarnished and worn. 

The bartender raises an eyebrow as he pours Hank another drink, his eyes flicking down to the open badge. Hank’s profession is somewhat of an open secret in the bar, but it’s still certainly not something to advertise. They both know that leaving it out in the open like that is just looking for trouble.

Hank looks over every time the door opens. Maybe this will be the guy. The guy with something to prove, the guy who takes offence at Hank taking up space in a bar where cops aren’t welcome, the guy who wants to settle a score with the police as a whole and will take it out on him.

He isn’t sure if he’s looking for an actual fight or just an excuse to lash out. Or maybe he just wants to sit back and take it—-to feel the fists land, to let himself be beaten into the floor just to remember he can feel something. Maybe he just wants someone to take the decision out of his hands. 

But no one seems inclined to take him up on his invitation, too lost in their own bullshit that they're trying to drown, so Hank keeps drinking.

His phone buzzes. He figures it’s probably Jeff calling to chew him out for not going home like he was told to. Normally he’d ignore it, but he figures he may as well tell him not to waste his breath and that he doesn’t need to bother with whatever disciplinary reports that he thinks he needs to fill out. It’ll all be a moot point when Hank hands in his badge tomorrow.

The message is from work, but it isn’t a text from Jeff, it’s an email— attached is the autopsy report for the Phillips case and what he’s sure will be the final nail in the coffin of his career. Hank thumbs it open, blinking as he tries to make sense of the letters that are swimming on the screen in front of him.

Rabies: Negative.

Hank squints, sure that his eyes are playing tricks on him, that he’s seeing what he wants to see. But it still says the same thing.

He shakes his head, stopping the bartender before he can pour him another drink. “Coffee, please.”

Jimmy probably would have looked less confused if Hank had asked for a chilled glass of champagne—but a few minutes later he slides a mug of coffee in front of him. Or at least it’s something that Hank assumes is supposed to be coffee. 

The report seems… off somehow. But these reports are always filled with enough medical jargon that Hank gets a headache trying to decipher them while sober, let alone when he’s half in the bottle. But he stubbornly keeps reading, desperately grasping for something to prove that he didn’t miss something. He needs this job, he needs to be right.

It’s not about proving Gavin wrong, or even wanting to be right anymore. Hank needs to be right—needs to find the answer. Because if he can’t trust his gut, if he can’t keep his shit together long enough to solve this… then he should be done. He wonders if this will be the thing to finally break him.

An hour and three cups of questionable coffee later, Hank feels sober enough to at least start making some sense of the report. The rabies test was negative, but the same swab came out positive for Red Ice.

Drugs could certainly explain the strange behaviour in taking a hostage with neither a clear end plan nor any demands; however, except for that swab of the wound there were no traces of Red Ice or any other drug in the blood or the hair. There are none of the telltale signs of long-term use.

And then there’s Shaolin—a social worker, with no criminal history. They don’t have the results from the tox screen back but drugs don’t fit his profile.

The pieces still don’t fit—but there’s something there. It’s the same feeling that has been tugging at Hank’s gut since he first saw the Phillips’ case on television while sitting in this very seat. Hank pulls the report up on his phone again, eyes flicking over the lines like the hundredth read-through will magically fill in the blanks.

He drums his fingers on the bar, mind racing. He’s got questions. About Daniel. About Shaolin. About how two seemingly clean men ended up acting like Red Ice junkies without any drugs in their systems. They’d both displayed aggression, paranoia… hell there was even a bite mark.

It wasn’t rabies….

But what if that was closer to the truth than anyone expected? A bite. A sudden, violent shift in behaviour. What if the Red Ice in the wound is relevant? They’ve watched this drug change and evolve from Ice over the years. What if this is a new strain of Red Ice, and somehow the effects can be transferred via saliva? Hank doesn’t even know if that’s possible, but it makes more sense than anything else he’s been able to think of.

To say that it’s a long shot is putting it generously. It’s the kind of connection that would get him laughed out of homicide if he doesn’t have one hundred percent irrefutable evidence. But long shots have always been what Hank is good at, and these cases are lining up in a way that makes his gut twist with something halfway between vindication and dread.

This whole theory is riding on Shaolin also having a bite mark…

Hank needs to go to the morgue.

Chapter Text

Now

The world grows darker outside; Connor pulls down all the blinds in the RV windows and only turns on the dimmest light. It still feels too bright, Nines eats while Connor stands in the shower cubicle, a tight little space shielded by a curtain. It isn't much, it isn't a wooden door, but there are no other private spaces in the RV. The space feels too small, but somehow tucking himself into a smaller space makes him feel better. It gives him a chance to pull his sleeve up and look at the bite wound on his arm. It looks no closer to healing than it did the night before. The patches of skin cut away around the edges weep slowly, tacky to the touch, though the pain is distant and muted. 

His stomach rumbles, cramping and twisting, reminding him of the more present and close pain that is consuming his body. He presses his teeth against his forearm and thinks again about tearing a chunk out like Alex had. He thinks about Nines, sitting just metres away, eating tinned stew and thinks about how pliant his flesh would be, how warm his blood, and Connor hates himself for thinking about it. 

He hears Nines setting up his sleeping bags, can see through the sliver of a gap in the shower curtain that he has spread it across the top of the bed. He has the bedding pushed aside to clear the mattress. It leaves the bed entirely taken up when Nines settles on top of it, kicking his boots off and sliding out of his jeans before slipping inside the sleeping bag.

"Are you sleeping?" Nines asks, voice seeming too loud in the silence of the RV.

Connor shakes his head, still hidden behind the curtain, realising that his brother can't see him after the fact. "Not tired."

Nines frowns, his lips pinching together to keep in whatever words he had been going to say. Connor waits to be berated. He longs for some concern. He can't bring himself to say anything on his own, but he wishes that Nines would just ask him how he is. If he is okay. What happened in the lab inside Kamski's compound.

He just wants someone to care, but Nines is the only one who is there and there has been an insurmountable distance between them since Nines had seen him wearing Alex's clothes in the safe zone.

The blood staining his teeth had only solidified that distance.

"You should." Nines finally says, sighing and shaking his head as he lets go of whatever else it was he was going to say.

Connor's body feels stiff and cold by the time he unfolds himself from the floor of the shower cubicle. He can hear Nines breathing deep in sleep and somehow it makes the RV feel less claustrophobic. It takes the oppressive weight of the things not being said out of the situation.

Nines sleeps on his side, his sleeping bag pulled up enough to obscure the bottom part of his face. Moonlight sneaking through the blinds makes the interior of the RV a muted grey, and the outside world appear open and cold.

There is something inviting about it.

He waits a few more minutes, trying to tamp down the longing for space and freedom he doesn't feel like he has had since he and Alex were rounded up with all the other students left at the university. The feeling doesn't go away though.

He climbs out the skylight, standing on the kitchen counter to push it open and lever himself out onto the roof of the RV. His arm aches, he feels the skin pulling and tearing beneath the bandages. He settles on the roof, the metal creaking and popping beneath his weight as he settles with his legs folded in the open air.

He can see the treeline circling them in the dark, like waiting sentinels. The moonlight reflects off the snow clinging beneath the trees and the edges of the road. Beyond that, the night is dark. They are so far from the cities and towns now, that even if there was electricity still readily available they wouldn’t be able to see the glow of civilisation on the horizon. Connor had never taken to the hustle and bustle of the city and university life quite like Alex had, with all the lights and noise and people who always seemed in a hurry to go somewhere. He misses it now, with all the space around him.

The space beside him where Alex should have been.

He feels the ache of absence in his chest so hard that it overrides the ache of hunger.

He misses Alex. It feels like half of him is missing.

Connor lies back on the roof of the RV, staring up at the stars peaking through the wispy clouds covering the sky. The cold of the open sky is creeping in.

He lies there watching the clouds slowly drift in the opposite direction the stars track. He counts the hours as they pass. The wind changes somewhere in the early morning, bringing with it the scent of water. They don't have detailed maps of this region, but Connor knows lakes are dotted within the mountains: there must be one nearby.

Watching a loose group of five zombies wander through the trees along the side of the road, Connor catches a hint of something else on the breeze. It is a familiar unfamiliar scent, that takes Connor a moment to recognise.

It's smoke, but not the smoke of vehicles or buildings burning. It is not the smoke of burning bodies and disposable medical items.

It is woodfire smoke—different from the shitty little campfires that had dotted the safe zone camp—clean. fresh wood smoke. It smells like pine and cold mountain air and brings to mind vague memories of roasting marshmallows over a campfire, sheltered by trailers and trees mostly blocking out the view of the lake they’d been swimming in all day.

That warm feeling of a familiar memory pops and leaves Connor feeling cold when the realisation that a woodfire means that there are other people nearby.

The RV rocks beneath him as Connor stands, turning his face towards the slight breeze, peering into the night beyond the road and the line of trees. He doesn't know what he expects to see, but there is only darkness and the disappearing march of trees. There is no light glinting through the trees, no telltale sign that anyone is living out there in the woods.

Dread creeps up Connor's spine—after Kamski, Connor doesn't want to meet anyone else anytime soon.

He hopes that the smoke is coming from miles away, from people who are moving in a different direction to where Connor and Nines are. Boston is still a long way.

He wonders how far smoke travels. He remembers smoke from wildfires in Canada drifting south and enveloping Ann Arbor the first year he had been at university. It could be coming from miles away, from the other side of the lake even.

Connor doesn't think he believes it though—he is scared of coming across other people, people who might not take kindly to what he is. People like Kamski who might just be too interested in what he is.

Nines had set them on this mission of reaching Boston after the fire in Lake Placid, and with nothing better to suggest, Connor had gone along with it. He doesn't want to do anything to jeopardise Nines' mission, They are too frayed, worn too thin, he doesn't think that their already strained relationship will survive too many more upsets.

After

Wake up.

The world feels hazy, blurry and out of focus.

Wake up.

There's a hand on him, gloved fingers that touch and prod. It reminds him of other hands. Other fingers. Poking and stroking, pulling at his clothes and trying to strip him naked.

Faceless figures loom over him, swimming in and out of focus. It reminds him of the party, the room with the glittering ceiling. Hands and laughter from people he doesn’t remember, blending together with the gloved hands of the masked figure leaning over him. 

He hadn’t been drinking.  

He’s not drunk. 

The laughter echoes louder the more he tries to remember what happened. 

The loud, audibly filtered breathing coming from the masked face hovering above him. He doesn’t remember being strapped down to the table before. He doesn’t remember the masked man entering the room. 

He vaguely remembers the sickly scent of gas as it filled the room, hazy clouds swimming through his vision as he and the girls all started to wilt towards the floor. 

Nausea pulls at Connor's stomach, like fingers digging into him like they are trying to tear him open.

Ripping and tearing.

Like the zombies feasting on the living and the dead.

Wake up.

The world is blurry, stark white and blinding. He wonders if he is blind.

He wonders if he has finally died.

If the fever that tried to kill him earlier is back to try again.

The masked figure pulls the gas mask away from his face and Connor remembers where he is. 

There is no glittering ceiling and there is no Alex to come and save him. 

There is only the lab and Kamski and his gas to subdue Connor and the girls in the lab. He grits his teeth, snarling at Kamski as he looms over him.

"You truly are a marvelous specimen," Kamski tells him. The words slide over him, clammy and awful. It makes Connor's skin crawl. The gloved hands followed. Touching. Poking. Moving the paper thin gown away from his body.

He feels the pinch of the tourniquet, the prick of a needle. He blinks and he sees his blood—purple, blue, splashes of red—sliding out of his body and into a vial. Then another.

He doesn't know how much blood he has left.

He can't remember how much Kamski has taken out of him. Every time he thinks there is nothing left of him, the gloved hands come back and take more.

The gloved hands take and take and take and Connor has nothing left to give. Pieces of him cut away. Sometimes he blinks and his arm is flayed to the bone. Then he blinks again and the skin and flesh are back except for the ragged wound that in the middle of his left arm, seeping blueish, purplish blood.

"Fascinating," Kamski murmurs, holding the vial up to the light, "The infection gets stronger and yet, you get all the more resilient."

Connor doesn't feel resilient. He feels like he is in pieces.

Kamski turns, the vial still in his hands as he moves towards the lab benches. Smears of blue and purple stains on the stark white labcoat, copperish hues to the oldest stains. The vials set in a stand, glass tubes in rows.

"Don't." Connor whispers, voice croaking and rasping. He tries to reach out, to stop Kamski from synthesising something else out of his blood. The restraints on his wrists halt his movements, his fingers flex joints locking at odd angles, the ragged ends of his nails digging into the stainless steel beneath him. "No. Ni?"

He doesn't know where Nines is. He doesn't know if he can hear him. He doesn't know if he's going to come and save him again.

Now

It feels wrong to resent Nines, after everything that has happened: Nines travelled across the country to save him and Alex from the displacement camp. Nines had gotten him out of Detroit and nursed him through the fever that had come after he was bitten.

He knows they both miss Alex. He knows that sometimes when Nines look at him wearing Alex's jacket that he pauses. He doesn't know if it is worse when Nines mistakes him for his brother or calls him by his old name.

If he was more understanding maybe he'd realise that between him and Alex, Nines would have preferred it was their brother who survived.

Connor wishes that too. It feels like half of him is gone and he doesn't know what to do with the gaping wound left behind. He wishes that it was Alex who had survived. Dying would have been easier than whatever this existence is.

Thinking about dying in Alex's place is easier than thinking about Nines dying instead of Alex.

Connor can't help but think that if Alex had survived then none of the stuff in the lab would have ever happened. Alex would never have left him there alone. Alex would have protected him, just like he'd been protecting him their whole lives. Alex would have instinctively known that Connor had needed help.

He would have saved Connor from that lab just like he'd save him from the room with the glittering ceiling.

It feels unfair to think like that, but there were hours, days, maybe even weeks where Connor was in that lab and Nines never tried to find him. He chose to believe in the process and take it at face value that Kamski was going to help them.

They both needed for this to all mean something.

They both let it happen because they needed it to mean something.