Chapter Text
“Are we smuggling him ?”
In another world, the boy would have been a college student. His hair is short and black and greasy —just like everyone else's, really —, and his red shirt and worn jeans have seen better days —again, not his fault—. Barok can't help but make a face. He knew the Fireflies liked to defy the new order, but this seems a bit extreme, even for them.
“There is a crew of Fireflies that’ll meet you at the Capitol Building,” Asougi says matter of factly, despite pressing his hand against a shot wound that should be very painful, even if it was treated right away. If anything, his breathing is somewhat ragged. “You hand him off, come back, and the weapons are yours. Double the deal.”
There is a silence that speaks volumes, that tells the negative they are all thinking of. Asougi’s chin doesn’t lower.
“I want you to watch over him.”
At this, Barok shakes his head just as the boy steps up, their shared unconformity plain visible. They speak at the same time.
“I doubt that’s the best idea.”
“I’m not going with him.”
“Ryuu.” Asougi's dark eyes come to the boy, and that appears to be enough to placate him, if momentarily.
The head of the Fireflies has a son. Said son is holding himself up against a desk, somehow as dignified as Genshin himself when he is at his best, and he is asking something impossible of Barok. Usually, he doesn't mind the so-called terrorist group as they have business with them more often than not, but he's also told Sherlock countless times they should keep their distance. If the soldiers catch them transporting this… package, they won't ask any questions before pulling the trigger. Just being here is a huge risk, with the curfew of the interment zone beginning at eight and all.
The boy— Ryuu, presses his lips into a thin line. He doesn’t appear happy about any of this either, and it can only be because he understands the implications behind Asougi’s plan. He comes closer to the other young man and asks quietly, in a tone that implies he doesn't want to be rude but needs to know regardless:
“How– how do you know them?”
“My father was close with his brother Klint. Said if we were ever in trouble, we could rely on him.” As he says this, he looks directly at Barok, as if he can inflict some sort of guilt on him.
It doesn't work. Klint might be a touchy topic for him, but this is beyond them. Whatever relationship Barok's brother has with Genshin, it isn’t any of his business. Smuggling weapons or food rations— things people actually need, and making profits out of it, he can handle. This, on the other hand… He is not getting shot over such an absurd mission, or even worse, getting turned.
Asougi sighs, and he is a little on the pale side. He should see a doctor instead of keep on prattling about this.
“Look, just take him to the north tunnel and wait for me there.”
“Jesus Christ.” Barok is not listening anymore. He turns his back on Asogi.
Sherlock, on the other hand, seems intrigued. Of course he is. The blond man tries asking Asogui about his reasons, but Barok knows he will come back empty-handed. If Asougi had wanted them to know anything, he would have started with that. The Ryuu boy wrings the hem of his shirt, and his eyes dart all over the room in what can only be a nervous tick.
Whatever Asougi tells Sherlock makes the man come to Barok, where he is busy having a migraine by the chimney.
“He’s just cargo, Barok,” he says in a low voice, putting a gloved hand on his shoulder.
But that’s the problem. He is very much not cargo, he is a person. A person that Barok has never seen in his life, that he doesn’t trust, that will get hungry and cold and that, more likely than not, will die if Barok takes on this stupid task. He might die even if he doesn’t, but people die every day, be it the virus or hunger. Or the soldiers. It is a shame, Barok won’t say he is completely indifferent, but this is his life. The boy can’t be that important, not in this world.
As usual, though, Sherlock seems to have his own plans. He speaks for them both when he agrees to take the young man to the Capitol Building in exchange for twice the weapons the original deal, just like Asougi said before, and the only condition Sherlock poses is that he wants to see the merchandise before they leave the internment zone. The Fireflies must be desperate, or at least prepared to pay, because Asougi agrees right away. Ryuu attempts to dissuade his friend from making him do this, but the other boy just shakes his head.
“No more talking. Just go with him.”
So Sherlock and him are to take their separate ways. Barok likes this even less, but at least he won’t have to worry about infected monsters just yet. He won’t be doing anything different from his usual work by evading armed soldiers, so it’s not as bad. Again, yet .
“Don’t take long,” he tells Sherlock in a hushed tone, keeping eye contact until the blond man gives him a confident nod and a wink. Barok can’t help caring. He hates that he cares. Then, he turns to Ryuu, who is holding onto the straps of his backpack with the face of someone fighting nausea. “And you– stay close.”
Barok turns on his heels without waiting for an answer and heads for the door, but Ryuu lingers next to Asougi.
“Let’s go,” Barok says, harsher, and Ryuu reluctantly follows.
“This tunnel… Do you use it to smuggle things? Like… illegal things?”
“Sometimes.”
“You ever smuggled a p-person before?”
“No. That would be a first.”
There is a pause that lasts the better part of an hour.
“What is the deal with you and Asougi?”
“I don’t know, he is my friend.”
“Your friend? You are friends with the next leader of the Fireflies? What are you, fifteen?”
Ryuunosuke— that’s his name—, sighs. He didn’t like that.
“We grew up together. His father has been looking after me since forever.” Another pause, this one considerably shorter. Barok doesn’t look at the boy when he next speaks, but there might be a pout in his voice. “And I’m twenty three, not that it has to do with anything.”
Barok doesn’t ask about his parents, why they aren’t here. He is not a little kid, so they probably aren’t around anymore. Not that it would make a difference.
Ryuunosuke doesn’t talk much, not unless prompted, and at first Barok thinks he is imagining things, but later on it becomes obvious the boy is guarded, a little defensive. So it’s more like he is trying not to talk too much. Barok can get behind this, but as they make their way throughout the abandoned part of the city— the part that is still supposed to be clean of infected and very much inside the wall—, there is something that keeps bugging him.
“So instead of staying in school, did you just run away and join the Fireflies?”
Ryuunosuke doesn’t seem thrilled by the question.
“Look. I’m not supposed to tell you why you're smuggling me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Barok bites back a crude remark. The way the boy walks a good distance behind him ticks him the wrong way. It’s clear they don’t trust each other. Besides, Ryuunosuke is an adult. Young, yes, but very much an adult. He could make this trip on his own. And yes, it would be more dangerous since he doesn’t know the soldiers’ patrolling routes, or how to get around the collapsed city, but it is not like he is a hopeless child. Barok is here as a bodyguard of sorts, and that can only mean there is something more to this boy. Why else would the Fireflies try to get him out of a relatively safe environment?
Barok doesn’t like any of this.
“The best part of my job is that I don't have to know why,” he says, dismissive. “And to be honest with you, I’m not interested in whatever you are up to.”
“Well, great.”
“Good.”
They don’t talk after that.
They get to their destination well after dark, and when they step into the room, Barok can give a discreet sigh of relief. Ryuunosuke eyes curiously the tattered blue wallpaper, and it makes sense that he was expecting an actual tunnel, but Barok doesn’t bother clarifying anything. He just walks to one of the couches and, after brushing a little dust on the white fabric, he sits, feeling his body terribly heavy.
Ryuunosuke is quiet. He is restless, and Barok understands why, but he doesn’t have the energy to care. He just crosses his arms over his chest and rests his head back on the cushions. The couch is not long enough for him to lay on, so this will have to do.
“What are you doing?” asks the boy.
Barok closes his eyes.
“We wait.”
“Okay. And what am I supposed to do?”
“I am sure you will figure that out.”
Ryuunosuke exhales through his nose, and Barok hears him pacing around the room.
“Your watch is broken.”
It’s Barok’s turn to scoff.
That innocent comment is why he dreams of Iris bleeding out in his arms.
Hours later, it’s raining. Even if not entirely conscious, Barok can hear the pitter-patter of the rain against the glass of the window. When he opens his eyes and he sees a familiar ceiling, his brain catches on and he takes notice of where he is, that the dream was just that.
“You mumble in your sleep,” a voice says, and he sits up.
Ryuunosuke has dragged a smaller sofa to the window, and he is curled up with a knee close to his chest. He seems to be watching the city from this high vantage point, or what is left of it.
“I hate bad dreams,” he says, and gives Barok what has to be a tiny, sympathetic smile.
Barok runs a hand over his face. It’s been a while since the last time he ate something, and by the looks of it, Holmes is nowhere to be found just yet. The room is dark now, the only light coming from the surveillance lamps posted outside.
“We can agree on that,” he mutters, his voice raspy after hours of disuse.
He gets up, and while his back is a little sore from the position he slept in, he is feeling refreshed. He comes closer to Ryuunosuke, just to see what is so interesting at the other side of the window. It’s still nighttime, and the rain doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.
“You know, I’ve never been this close to the outside,” the boy says, gaze going up at him for a moment before returning to the glass. “Look how dark it is.”
Barok shakes his head but remains silent. From here, the wall is a few yards away. One can even see the other side, or imagine what lurks in the shadows, because there is no artificial light there.
“Can’t be any worse out there, right?” Ryuunosuke wonders, and his tone suggests he is expecting an answer.
Barok wants to go home. He busies himself with a portable lamp on the table, further into the room. Ryuunosuke gets up.
“Can it?” he insists, and Barok turns on his heels maybe a tad too abruptly, because the boy takes a cautionary step back.
It can , Barok thinks tiredly, it can and you have no idea how much. Those naive eyes don’t appear to know what they are searching for, what they might find if they keep looking.
Then again, that’s none of Barok’s business. There are more pressing matters at hand.
“What on earth do the Fireflies want with you?”
Right on cue, Ryuunosuke’s eyes leave him.
That’s when Sherlock comes in, clothes a little damp, but in one piece overall. He apologizes for the delay, and says there are soldiers everywhere. Barok allows himself half a second to be relieved of seeing his partner in crime again.
“I saw the merchandise,” Sherlock tells him, a wicked twist to his lips saying he is very pleased with this. “It’s quite a lot.”
Barok scowls at the boy, but Ryuunosuke takes the chance to pretend they weren’t having a conversation and averts his gaze entirely.
So it’s settled.
Barok looks at the device, the flickering digital letters shine red with finality on the screen. He swears.
Ryuunosuke is curled up, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the bodies of the soldiers they just killed. Out of the zone, the military doesn’t even bother asking questions first, so they had no choice.
“Why are we smuggling an infected boy?” Barok asks, to no one in particular.
It doesn’t matter. It’s raining and they are outside the walls, but the gunshots will, if not attract more human enemies, draw the dead’s attention. To his right, Sherlock squints at the verifier, and his eyes widen when he sees the diagnostic.
“I’m not infected,” tries Ryuunosuke, vehemently shaking his head.
Barok lets the device fall from his hands. The plastic cracks when it hits the wet concrete. The night air is freezing. Ryuu seems awfully small, but Barok knows better than to appeal to his own humanity when it comes to survival.
“Is this lying?”, he asks, skepticism marking his words.
“I-I can explain!”
Sherlock points his gun at Ryuunosuke then, and he doesn’t seem thrilled either. The boy looks up to the barrel, terrified.
“Then I suggest you explain fast, little fellow.”
Not wasting any time, he hurriedly rolls up the sleeve of his shirt. There is a wound on his forearm, a bite. He shows it to them.
“Look at this.”
Barok grimaces, looks away.
“I don’t care how you got infected.”
He is losing his patience. They have to go back. It’s dark past the curfew already, and they got rid of soldiers who had to report to someone . More must be crawling nearby. They are fucked, and all because they were tricked by a kid with a dumb haircut.
“It’s three weeks old,” Ryuunosuke insists.
“Everyone turns within two days. Stop lying.”
“It’s three weeks, I swear.” It is almost as he can tell what goes through Barok’s head, because he then asks, “Why would Kazuma set you up?”
Barok doesn’t have an answer for that, but it doesn’t matter. He turns to Sherlock, who for once, appears as baffled as he himself is.
“I don’t trust him.”
The blond man doesn’t have time to say anything, as the sound of an approaching car interrupts them. They have to spring into action, fast, both know this just by looking at each other. They wouldn’t be partners if they couldn’t communicate with their eyes alone; they’d be long dead otherwise.
While Barok looks for an escape route, he sees Holmes at the corner of his eye, urging the boy to get to his feet and come with them.
They move through the sewers —that nowadays are nothing but collapsed tunnels— as soldiers deploy in the area, surely looking for whoever killed their men. The streets are in such a state of decay after a decade of the world descending into madness that they are practically unrecognizable, the city that once stood proud reduced to rubble, all strayed cars and broken concrete. The deadcount just increases as Barok stealthily takes care of whoever crosses their way, and when they finally make it out of there, when they reach a damaged bridge that will protect them from view, the main problem —that is, the kid, remains still.
Sherlock corners Ryuunosuke, interrogates him about what the plan was once he made it to the Fireflies, and the boy is nervous talking about this even now, as he surely was told he shouldn’t, but he has run out of options. Still panting, he says that they have their own little quarantine zone with doctors, and that they are still trying to find a cure.
“They said that— that whatever happened to me is the key to finding a vaccine.”
Barok looks up at the sky.
“Jesus.”
Sherlock eyes Barok, as if to ask for his opinion, but Barok’s scowl speaks for him. They’ve heard that one before. When the outbreak had swooped the world off its feet, the first thing scientists everywhere said was that it all would be okay, that it wouldn’t take them long to find a cure. Ten years later, that remains as a naive dream.
Ryuunosuke glares at him, but Barok can tell he is trying not to snap, despite how nervous he is. That won’t help his case, and he knows it. Barok is not in the mood to deal with any of it either way.
“That’s what Genshin Asougi said.”
“I’m sure he did.”
Ryuunosuke takes a step closer.
“Well, I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t ask for this.”
Barok is not impressed. With crossed arms, he turns to Sherlock.
“What the bloody hell are we doing here?”
To Barok’s surprise, the blond man doesn’t have anything clever to say, not right away. He takes a moment to intently observe the boy, then his clear eyes come to Barok.
“What if it’s true?”
Barok can’t believe this. He turns on his heels, feeling like putting some distance between them might help him not to choke the man to death. Sherlock allows him a couple of steps, but soon he comes after him, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder.
“What if, friend?” Sherlock asks in a low voice. “We’ve come this far, let’s just finish it.”
Barok takes a hold of the other man’s arm, tugging on it for emphasis.
“Do I need to remind you what is out there?” he whispers back urgently, pointing to the fallen city.
“I get it.” Sherlock says, but his face suggests he doesn’t.
It’s in times like these when Barok hates the brain in that little head of his, because it never listens to reason. And even worse, Barok can’t bring himself to just leave him alone.
Sherlock starts walking, and Ryuunosuke cautiously eyes Barok when he goes past him as well.
Barok just follows.
The plan is to cut through downtown, to hit the capitol building by sunrise. They have to go around a big crater between buildings, so it makes the way longer and harsher than needed. Ryuunosuke doesn’t hold back his awe at the scenery, as depressive as Barok finds it, but the boy can hardly believe he really is outside, meandering through the wasteland composed of collapsed buildings, ominously looming overhead under the rain.
Barok feels observed, just like every time he leaves the internment zone, but forces himself to push forward.
They make their way through what appears to have been an office building once. The whole thing is tilted and must be on uneven ground, because they can hear the foundations groan every once in a while. It feels like it’s about to fall apart, and it manages to remind Ryuunosuke what kind of world they live in now.
Also, crumbled against a locked door, they see the corpse of a clicker. The fungal plague breaks through the dead man’s entire skull.
“W-what happened to his face?” Ryuu asks in a quiet hush, and since Barok is busy moving the damn thing out of the way, Sherlock is the one to explain.
“Years of infection would render you blind, dear boy. So if you hear one clicking, you’ve got to hide. That’s how they spot you.”
Clickers are dangerous, yes, but in Barok’s opinion, it is easier to evade them by keeping still and a noisy diversion. The runners— those that can actually see you, are a problem for big, moving targets such as Barok. He keeps all of this to himself.
Both him and Holmes knock down a stuck metal door, the crash of the material when it falls to the ground makes Barok cringe, but he doesn’t have time to tell the others to hurry up. As if out of thin air, a pair of clawed hands and a stirring screech descend over him, just a moment after Sherlock has shouted his name.
The clicker makes him tumble back, its nauseating stench clogging Barok’s throat from how close it is. It lands a hit against Barok’s face, but he keeps its teeth away by grabbing its throat as it struggles in his hold.
Then, Sherlock kicks the creature from his lap and deposits two shots against the plates of its head. The clicking stops.
Barok gets to his feet right away, throat burning, thanks Holmes in a whisper. Ryuunosuke is peeking his head from behind the threshold of the office they just left, surely because he was instructed to remain out of trouble.
“Are you alright?” he timidly asks, clearly worried.
Barok doesn’t even look at him.
“It is nothing.”
They can’t stay here if that thing wasn’t the only living dead in the building, not to mention clickers usually translate to spores and more risk of getting infected. They did bring gas masks for such a scenario, but there is no point in lingering uselessly. So they push on, attentive to the movement and scratches behind the walls.
After that, they keep finding infected. Of course they do. Sometimes Barok and Sherlock dispose of them silently, crushing their windpipe from behind, and some others they are compelled to use brute force. They urge Ryuunosuke to keep out of the action as they work, seeing they’d be at a dead end if a runner ends up biting his throat out. He obeys without much trouble, and Barok can find himself falling into the easy, familiar steps he is so used to: paying attention to his surroundings, keeping an ear out for unsteady, hurried steps, and watching Sherlock’s back closely.
It must be past midnight; the moon was up high the last time Barok checked. Or, well, the last time they could see the sky. This place looks like a maze.
“You know what I was thinking, Barok?” Sherlock starts during their little break. “After we get back, we can take it easy for a little while.”
Barok can’t help but scoff at that.
“ You want to take it easy?”
“Is it so hard to believe? You are the one always going on about laying low.”
“And you’ve never paid any heed.”
The smirk the blond man gives him makes his clear eyes glint in the darkness.
“I will this time around.”
Barok will believe it when he sees it.
When they reach the subway, or whatever remains of it, they see the body of a fallen Firefly, the symbol on her armband unmistakable. They don’t seem to be doing well in or out of the city, and Barok can only hope there’s someone alive to meet them at the drop off.
They break into a museum Barok recalls having visited years ago. The building remains as ostentatious as Barok remembers, but the difference is that it is now brimming with infected. Barok doesn’t like using his gun but he is forced to, more than once. He breaks the pipe he’s been carrying with him on the head of a runner, hears the bone crack under its weight when another one is already pouncing at him. He completely loses sight of the boy, but as more and more of those bastards come into his field of vision, he switches to autopilot and fights for his life. He hears Sherlock’s voice over the ruckus, so he punches the teeth out of the dead’s mouth and goes looking for his partner.
When it’s all over, half his scarce ammo reserve gone, he palms himself for injuries. He doesn’t remember being bitten, but adrenaline can suppress pain when other things —such as fighting for survival— take priority. He finds Sherlock and Ryuu by the windows, and the blond man seems completely drained.
“Are you holding up?”
“Just a tad winded,” the detective breathes, and he is not smiling now. Figures. “This way, this will get us to the roof.”
He disappears through the broken window, leaving Barok alone with the boy. Ryuunosuke seems a little too interested in his own beaten up sneakers, so Barok is the one to bite the bullet, albeit not without a sigh.
“How about you? Are you okay?”
Ryuunosuke gives a tiny laugh, but it sounds like he needs some air.
“Define okay.”
“Are you still breathing?”
“Um, do small, panicked breaths count?”
Barok feels the corner of his lips twisting, so he looks away.
“Yes, they count.”
Making their way up via a rusty stairway on the side of the building as the sun’s first rays bathe the city is a nice change of pace. They somehow survived the night, with no small amounts of close calls —some way too close for comfort—, so Barok inhales the fresh air, forever entwined with the scent of vegetation and damp earth and death, never to go back to what an actual city smells like.
From here, they can see the capitol building, cut against the pink sky, the white dome distinctive between broken and decaying architecture. Ryuunosuke appears mesmerized by the sight, the gentle sunbeams of dawn bathing his soft features.
Perhaps it’s the excitement of beating their inevitable demise once more, of being alive despite the odds— the calm after the storm, but as Sherlock slowly makes his way to them, Barok’s new found spirits make it easier for him to call out to the boy.
“Well, is that everything you hoped for?”
Ryuunosuke seems a little taken aback that Barok is addressing him at all again, but it takes only a second for him to gather himself. He shrugs good-heartedly, a small grin curving his mouth.
“Jury’s still out,” he says, eyes going to the city for a long moment, and then, back to Barok, “But you can’t deny that view, huh?”
Barok exhales with amusement, and his gaze falls upon his broken watch when he crosses his arms.
They share a small moment, in silence, carefully tucked between the end of the night and the beginning of a new day.
Sherlock urges them to pick up the pace, and when Ryuunosuke complies, the blond man stays behind to remind Barok to stay focused. Barok doesn’t like the slight strain he catches on his voice, but nods nonetheless.
He should have known there was something off.
Some hours later, when they reach their destination, as soon as they open the heavy wooden doors, the first thing they see is a man in a pool of blood. There are several other corpses around him, but the lone, distinctive smell of iron indicates they haven’t been here for long. The man in the middle was a Firefly, and is now dead. Barok feels an oncoming migraine probe at his temples. Ryuunosuke is petrified next to him.
Sherlock, on the other hand, starts muttering swears under his breath. He kneels and pats the corpse, registers the man’s pockets with something dangerously close to shaking hands, and Barok has to step up. He’s only seen Sherlock like this when he gets withdrawal symptoms— a very stupid problem to have in a world like this, he’s told him this countless times, only to be ignored.
But it is out of character, because for one, the expression on Sherlock’s face, the way he frowns, doesn’t seem fabricated at all.
“Holmes. What are you doing?”
Sherlock doesn’t look up as he speaks, and he stumbles on his own words.
“They ought to– perhaps they had a map or, or something to tell us where they were going.”
Barok shakes his head. How far are they going to take this? He was right, just like he often is, as much as it pains him. His intuition rarely fails and it had told him from the moment the young boy behind him stepped into the room that their luck wouldn’t hold out all the way to the end.
“Where was this lab of theirs, boy?” Sherlock asks Ryuunosuke, his tone leaving no room for hesitation.
Ryuu’s eyes are wide, and the color has drained from his face. He must know what this all means for him.
“K-Kazuma never said— he only mentioned that it was someplace out west.”
Barok tries to beckon Sherlock to look at him.
“We are done here. This is not us.”
Sherlock spits a mirthless chuckle, but he gets to his feet. His mask is slipping off, an actor that has forgotten– or doesn’t care for his lines anymore.
“Now, that is a lark, Mr. Reaper.”
Barok frowns. He’s never liked Sherlock’s playfully dismissive tone, the way it implies he is not seeing the bigger picture, that he is missing on an hilarious joke only the blond man can see, and that he is stupid because for it.
“Are you not supposed to be the smart one, detective ?”
Sherlock’s jaw tenses.
“Why, we merely have to revise our strategy. We are not done yet—”
“It’s over!” Barok booms, voice bouncing off the white walls. Even surrounded by death, Barok momentarily forgets he shouldn’t raise his voice. Nevertheless, he then takes a deep breath and tries again. “We tried. Let’s go home.”
Sherlock shrugs.
“Well, a bit of a shame, really, but I won’t be joining you.”
Barok doesn’t say anything, and for the first time ever, Sherlock doesn’t feel the urgent need to fill in the silence with his own voice. At least not right away. It’s when he sees that Barok is truly lost here, that he attempts to explain himself, albeit as half-heartedly, as superfluously as usual.
“It is not my style to be a sore loser, you see…”
Barok slavages the distance between them, goes to catch the man’s arm.
“What are you going on about—”
But Sherlock doesn’t let him.
“Don’t—!” he bats the hand away, and steps back.
Barok remains rooted in place, at a loss. Sherlock appears to remember his self imposed role, and takes the chance to craft a new smile that he forces on his face. His tone is casual when he next speaks.
“I wouldn’t touch me if I were you. A piece of advice, if you will.”
“What—”
“He is infected,” Ryuu says then, as if he is coming to a realization.
Barok turns to the boy, a question on his face, but Ryuunosuke's pained expression does the explaining for him. Barok can’t be proud of this, but his brain struggles to keep up regardless. He looks at Sherlock, silently asking him to say something, but the way he uncharacteristically evades his gaze speaks volumes.
This is all very familiar. Something twists in his gut, and the sting reaches places left untouched for a long time. The pain makes Barok remember rain and Klint’s voice and Iris’ body growing cold in his desperate hold.
When Barok’s body moves, backing away unconsciously, something breaks in Sherlock’s facade.
“Barok…”
“Let me see it.”
The detective shakes his head, and the way he seems to believe he is doing him a favor is infuriating, it makes the blood on Barok’s limbs tingle and burn.
“You shouldn’t have to,” Holmes mutters, lips pressed into a thin line.
But Barok’s voice comes out on its own, clipped and loud.
“Show it to me.”
Sherlock remains static for a moment that stretches until it physically hurts Barok, as if his own tissue had been torn from bone. When the detective shows him his right shoulder, the ugly red of sick skin clinging to the bite, Barok feels his head start swirling, feels like the air has been punched out of his lungs.
The words get stuck in their way out, tangled in his tongue. Holmrd doesn’t attempt to offer encouraging words or any comfort, they’ve never been that for one another, even if they’ve always been there for each other. Company and drinks and tended injuries, and even whispered secrets in the darkness sometimes, yes, all that, but there was never pity. There were never reassuring, empty words. Facts and actions were louder for them, had been for as long as the world had been raving on its deathbed.
Silently, Sherlock strides towards Ryuu, beckoning him to offer his arm. The boy barely gets time to react, and the blond man lifts the sleeve to uncover the almost healed wound. He pointedly looks back at Barok.
“Three weeks,” he says with finality, then he pulls on his own collar. “This was today , and it’s already worse.”
Barok is not looking. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t need to, he is going to be sick. But Sherlock doesn’t let him run away from reality; he comes closer while dragging Ryuu behind him.
“This is the real deal, friend. You’ve got to take this lad to your brother. He was a Firefly and he’ll know where to go.”
The mention of Klint snaps Barok back to attention, if barely. He shakes his head repeatedly, steps back.
“No, no, no. That was your crusade.” He points to Ryuu, who looks down in shame. Barok couldn't care less. “I’m not doing that.”
Sherlock doesn’t let him get away, and this close, Barok can see the meandering black veins that come from under his clothes to mar the skin of his neck.
“Oh, but you are,” the detective counters, and then his voice drops to a whisper, although it doesn’t stop being urgent because of it. His clear eyes search for something in Barok’s, and it takes him a moment to realize he is trying to appeal to a part of him he’s always desperately tried to bury. “You see, I’d like to believe there is enough between us so you have to feel some sort of obligation to me.”
Barok grits his teeth. Sherlock’s gloved finger jabs him in the chest to punctuate every word.
“So you. Get him. To Klint.”
No, Barok wants to say. Stop playing and let’s go home.
The screeching of wheels over concrete alerts them of soldiers arriving outside. Judging by the multiple voices and shouts, it’s not a small group. Barok’s blue gaze finds Holmes again, and as he draws back, he pinpoints the exact moment the other man makes a decision.
“I shall buy you some time, gentlemen, but you will have to run.”
The detective loads his gun, and the click sounds like goodbye, this time for good. He remains in place, frozen, unable to move.
Ryuunosuke steps up, succumbing to the panic Barok is hopelessly trying to tame.
“You want us to just leave you here?”
Sherlock gives him a wink.
“A sharp one, aren’t we?”
Barok shakes his head. He wants to throw up, but he forces himself to look directly at Holmes’ eyes.
“There is no way that I—”
“I shall not turn into one of those things,” Sherlock cuts him off, the corner of his lips trembling when his smile falters. “So please, make this easy for me, dear friend.”
“I can fight—!”
Barok’s hand reaches for him, barely grazes his arm when Sherlock recoils, as if burnt, he shoves him away instead.
“No, just go!”
This time, the detective does look away, if only for a moment. His smile is wider when he turns back to Barok, as if he is reassuring him that it’s alright, that they’ll meet again. But it’s a lie, it’s the first lie he’s ever told him.
The soldiers are coming.
Without breaking eye contact, Barok calls, “Ryuu.”
The boy scrambles to his side, and when he gets past Sherlock, he looks small and pained. His voice comes out weak as he apologizes.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t– I didn’t mean for this.”
Holmes waves him away, and his face suggests he doesn’t hold it to him. Barok wishes he could say the same about himself. He draws back slowly, if only to slightly stretch the last moment they’ll have together. Sherlock’s eyes follow him for a little longer, and then they come back to the door, gun held up high.
When Barok closes the other door, deeper into the building, both Ryuu and him are silent for a second. Barok’s throat and chest hurt, his head won’t shut up.
“What was that? I can’t believe—”
“Stop.”
“W-we just left him to die.”
“Stop,” Barok snaps, turning to the boy. Wide brown eyes look at him, scared. They don’t have time to be scared. “You stay close to me. We have to move.”
Ryuu takes a breath, as if to bring some courage into his system, and obeys.
They reach the second floor through the only set of stairs that is stable enough to support their weight. They move quickly and as quietly as possible, doing their best not to shrink at the noise at the main entrance.
There are gunshots, more than a few, and Barok forces himself to keep pushing forward. From their vantage point, they can see the aftermath of the shooting, where Sherlock's body is one more of the collection, his blond curls dirty with his own blood.
Barok’s stomach curls on itself.
“Mr. Holmes…” Ryuu whimpers, but Barok doesn’t stop to think. The soldiers must be looking for them.
Next to an abandoned corpse, he finds a hunting rifle. The weight of it distracts him from how numb he is feeling.
They manage to get out of the capitol building through cracks on the walls and take out some of the human obstacles between them and the exit. Not all of them, though, there are too many for Barok to take on his own. A bunch of them see them sneaking out of the building and shout for everyone to hear. From that point on, it’s a chase.
They reach the entrance of the subway. Barok doesn't know these tunnels, the state they are in, if they will even find a way out to the surface, if there is a crowd of infected waiting for them, lurking from the shadows, but they have to try. It’s either that or getting shot.
Inside it’s dark, the air stagnant and dense with spores. Even further in, there is a train graveyard, clickers dragging their feet over the eroded linoleum . It’s difficult to get a good look of his surroundings, as his flashlight would only alert the soldiers on their trail, but here, hidden behind a decaying counter of one of the stores, he can see that Ryuu doesn’t need a mask. Besides being out of breath and panting slightly, he is breathing normally.
As he observes, astonished, Ryuunosuke’s eyes find him.
So it is real.
Pinning the soldiers against the dead is easier than taking both out, so he leads the clickers to the other men by throwing debris in their direction, just to make noise so the creatures eliminate the greater threat in his stead. After that, he just has to sneak by the remaining walking corpses and push deeper into the tunnels. They can take it easier, but not enough to relax just yet.
The other side is flooded, almost completely so, and while that is good news regarding infected, Ryuunosuke can’t swim. Barok doesn’t have it in him to be annoyed. He is just tired.
“We’ll figure something out,” he grunts.
A few minutes later, Barok searches for a board big enough for the boy to jump onto so they can cross the submerged sections. He has to push it through the water, the added weight not so much a problem once he sets his mind to it.
They reach the surface behind a stairwell of rubble. It’s all green and deceivingly peaceful, the breeze clean and the sky blue above. It doesn’t seem like the kind of day where a life was lost, it never does, but it’s always been like this, for as long as Barok can remember. It feels as if there is a part of him that is missing.
But it doesn’t matter, nothing does. Everyone ends up dying either way.
When he takes off his gas mask, gulping in a mouthful of fresh air, he allows himself a refractory moment. He coughs, runs a dirty hand over his face.
As he sits, he contemplates his next move. They can’t go back, not right away at the very least, with the trail of dead bodies they left in their wake. They’d have to go in the opposite direction and go around their original steps. They’d have to venture through uncharted territory and risk their necks even more, just to get back to the internment zone.
The alternative is…
Ryuu stares silently, remorseful, until he gathers strength to say what is in his mind.
“Um, about Mr. Holmes…”
Barok feels a tug in his chest, a slash through his heart at the mention of that name.
“I-I don’t even know what to—”
“Here is how things are going to proceed,” he says forcefully, making eye contact with the boy. Ryuu’s mouth closes under his glare, his shoulders going rigid. Good. “You don’t bring up Holmes. Ever. As a matter of fact, I’d like for us to keep to ourselves.”
Ryuunosuke takes a tiny step back, his gaze going down in shame. Barok isn’t kind enough to feel guilty, not today.
“Secondly, don’t tell anybody about your condition. They’ll try to kill you before you can prove yourself true.”
Which is reasonable enough. Barok is just as crazy as Holmes was, apparently, because he is going to see this through. He has no other choice, cornered against a wall and rotten teeth as he is. Not to mention Ryuunosuke could very well be the key to fixing the current state of the world. Barok can’t say he holds any hope, it’s been years since he’s lost the last remainers he had of it, but letting this kid to die would only turn Sherlock Holmes’ death into yet another useless casualty.
He can’t allow that to happen. He would never admit it aloud —and he never will, not after what happened today—, but he owes the detective this much. God knows he does.
When Barok next speaks, he makes sure that the young man is looking in his direction again. He tries to convey the meaning of every word he utters with a firm tone of voice.
“And lastly, you do what I say, when I say it. Understood?”
Ryuu seems like he wants to say something, but being smart as he is, he bites back the response. He must know he doesn’t have any right to complain.
“Yes, I understand.”
It is not enough.
“Repeat it.”
At that, the boy frowns. He doesn’t like being spoken to like that, but he is surely aware of the position he is in. Barok could turn on his heels and disappear, leaving him here despite everything, and so he is bound, if not to sympathize, to obey.
Ryuunosuke exhales, and his eyes suddenly seem more exhausted than a twenty three year old’s should.
“What you say goes.”
The eye contact lasts for a little longer, neither of them willing to be the first one to yield. Barok is nothing but an expert sporting scowls and menacing glares, and albeit he knows this young man isn’t one to be scared of this, it is still him who looks away either way. Ryuunosuke doesn’t enjoy conflict, would rather concede than encourage an argument. He is the kind of man to be willing to forgo his ego for the sake of a peaceful, or at least frictionless coexistence.
There is a smudge of blood on Ryuu’s cheek that can’t be his. Barok’s gaze goes from it to the buildings drowning in vines and nature around them.
He urges Ryuunosuke to move along, an idea shining at the back of his head. As they walk, he pushes down the need to look and check if Holmes is following close behind, if he took a tad too long on catching up but is now watching his back again.
But there is only silence behind them, an empty one.