Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s getting dark when you pass the kid standing on the verge with his thumb out. That kind of growing dusk that fills up all the woods first and then spills into the air. It makes you think of thin lines of bitter orange sunlight on the horizon and the taste of cold smoke in the air. Fall’s coming on.

He’s standing hunched into himself, not even looking up, holding out his thumb without any real expectation that anyone will stop, and there’s something about that dejection that makes you hit the Camaro’s brakes and pull to a stop a hundred yards past him. That dejection, and the fact that if you don’t give him a ride, someone else might pick him up and hide the bits in the woods the way that girl’s body was found two months ago. There are monsters in these parts.

You watch in the rearview as the kid blinks and stares at your car and obviously has to convince himself you mean it, that you’re not going to shove it back in gear and roar off laughing like an asshole. Probably more than one person has done that already. You remember that shit from your own days of hitching around the backroads. You lean over and roll down the passenger side window as he comes up.
"Hey, kid," you say. He’s got thick dark-rimmed glasses and his sweater looks expensive, if battered. "Where you headed?"

"Chicago," he says. You snort.

"I ain’t goin’ to Chicago, but if you’re headed there by way of Cincinnati, hop in."

He gives you a distrustful look. Sure, you aren’t exactly the most clean-cut asshole on the road, and your Camaro’s back seat is littered with oil-stained rags and McDonalds wrappers and the occasional beer can, but hey, a ride is a ride, and you can see that crossing his face clear as day. Kid is not good at hiding his thoughts and feelings.

He opens the door, with a creak—someone ran into you a while back and dented that door, you keep meaning to go junkyarding and find a replacement—and gingerly places his posterior in your passenger seat. In the domelight, you can see he’s got a dyed-purple streak in his hair, and you wonder how far it is he’s come to find himself on the shoulder of an Ohio byway.

"Runnin’ away from home?" you inquire as you pull back onto the road. He’s shivering; you turn up the heat. It smells like oil, but you like that smell, you always have.

The kid hunches even further, wrapping his arms around himself. Where his sleeves ride up you can see the shiny circles of burn scars dotting the side of his arm. “None of your business.”

"Fair enough."

He darts a look at you, and out of the corner of your eye you can tell he wasn’t expecting that. You don’t say anything else for a little while: you just push the cigarette lighter in and tap a Camel out of the pack sitting on the dashboard. As an afterthought you offer him the pack.

There’s another of those flickery distrustful looks, but he takes one, and when the lighter pops out you hand it to him. It’s full dark now, and the red-orange eye of the lighter is absurdly bright inside the car. The only sound is the road-hum and the rumble of your engine, until he bursts out coughing.

"Whoa," you say, "you okay, kid?" and he nods, wiping at his eyes, takes another hesitant drag, and starts hacking all over again. Christ, you remember doing that, a hundred years ago, the first time you stole one of your mom’s Merit 100s out of her purse and nearly made yourself sick with it, ten years old and hiding behind the garden shed. All at once you kind of want to punch whatever’s sent him out here on his own.

"I got friends," he volunteers, when the worst of the coughing eases. "In Chicago. I’m not, like, just going out there. I got plans."

You tap ash. “Cool.”

"I’m gonna be an artist."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I’m really talented. Just most people don’t get my message is all." Another drag, and another stifled coughing fit. Jesus, you have to give the kid credit for determination, most people would’ve flicked the butt out the window by now. "I’m misunderstood."

"Really."

"Yes, re—why the fuck am I even telling you this, oh god, forget it, forget I said anything." He hunches back down in the seat, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, and again you see that line of little shiny burn-scars down his arm. You’ve dropped a cherry on yourself once or twice and that shit hurts. It’s a little tough to imagine doing deliberately. Or having done to you.

"How long you been running?"

He puts his glasses back on and glances at you again. “I’m not running. I’m moving cross country.”

"Okay, how long you been movin’ cross country without any possessions in hand?"

"…A week," he admits, and his voice is kind of thick around the edges.

"Been sleepin’ rough?"

He starts to cough again and this time he does roll down the window and toss out the half-smoked cigarette. “I dunno if you’d call it s-sleeping. M-more like “oh shit was that noise a bear or something about to, to eat me.”

"Black bears are makin’ a comeback in Ohio," you inform him, and then wish you hadn’t because his hunched shoulders are starting to shake. "—Hey, kid, chill out, it’s cool—"

"I didn’t know there were g-going to be bears," he tells the window. "Or that it’d be cold and…and…I’m so fucking cold and hungry and I want a shower and I want not to be fucking scared all the time goddamnit!”

By the end of the sentence he’s crying in earnest. You curse, crush your own smoke out in the ashtray, and reach to the back seat for the crumpled box of tissues while managing to stay on the road. He cries for a while, great unlovely gulping sobs; you let him get on with that and just drive. This bit of road is boring as fuck, but at least you’re not likely to fall asleep at the wheel with that going on beside you.

When he finally stops with the waterworks his glasses are spotted with tears and he spends some little time working on them with a tissue while he gets his breathing under control. “Um. Sorry,” he says.

"You’re not a vegetarian, are you?"

"…no, why?" He stares at you, myopic and confused.

"Cause when we get to Waverly which is like maybe another fifteen miles I’m stopping at the Mickey D’s and buying you a god damn cheeseburger, kid. Possibly two cheeseburgers."

He puts his glasses on and then stares at you some more. “…um…I can’t….I can’t pay you back.”

"Yeah, I know, and I’m not gonna demand sexual favors either. You need a cheeseburger."

You can tell pride and starvation are struggling for dominance, and starvation wins by a landslide. “I…really do,” he says, and coughs, and you wonder again how the fuck someone with dyed-purple hair and an expensive cashmere sweater even survived a week on the road. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“‘S cool,” you say. “What’s your name, anyway?

"Eridan," says the kid. "Eridan Ampora."

Chapter Text

tanukikyle asked:
...Possibly more greasescar?

It's long past full dark by the time you get to Waverly, but like every other town in the universe its outskirts are splattered with familiar glowing signs. McDonalds, Wendy's, Fox's Pizza Den. Transmission-repair joints. All-night drugstores. You could be anywhere at all. You could be home, for what that's worth.

The kid--Eridan--is really, really not good at hiding what he's thinking. In the orange sodium-vapor light he looks about twelve, and desperately glad to be among familiar landmarks, even if they're in a place he's never been before. Not for the first time you wonder how the fuck he even made it this far on his own. The purple streak in his hair shows the beginning of dark roots.

The McDonalds is on the other side of the street, so you pull into the Burger King drive-thru instead--not like it makes a lot of difference--and tap your fingers on the Camaro's wheel as the guy ahead of you dithers over his order. "What do you want, anyway, kid? Cheeseburgers ain't the limit of this fine establishment's menu these days."

"Oh, um. I don't mind," he says, apparently struck with a sudden and belated case of the shys. "Anything's fine."

You sigh, close your eyes for a moment, feeling the deep rumble of the Camaro's 396 all the way up your spine. That noise, and the thrum of asphalt under your wheels at seventy, is just about the closest you can come to imagining what yoga people call serenity. How old had you been when you pulled a stunt like this, anyhow? Fourteen? Back then shit was a little different. Back then nobody had flown airplanes into any skyscrapers of note since the thirties, the Russians were still the big bad, and they let you smoke in shopping malls--and maybe things were safer, just a little bit, maybe back then you'd had less to worry about than this kid in your passenger seat.

The dude in the SUV ahead of you finally makes up his mind, and you put the Camaro in gear and pull up to the little speaker. The kid is trying to appear cool and totally uninterested, but despite his arms wrapped tight round his middle, his stomach growls.

You buy him two cheeseburgers, after all, and a chocolate shake, and fries; and you get coffee and fries yourself. He's far too busy stuffing his face to pay attention to anything else, and neither of you speak until you're back on 220 heading west. Jesus, he really had been starving. You kind of hope he doesn't hurl from eating too fast.

"Um," he says, folding up the wrappers into excessively neat squares. "What, uh. What's your name, anyway?"

"Cro."

"Like the bird?"

"Yeah," you say. You have no intention of telling him you're named after some Greek dude who ate his kids. Your parents had a weird sense of humor.

"I can't tell if that's cool or really pretentious," Eridan says, and you look across at him in the dim green light of the Camaro's dash. He hunches his shoulders, looks down. "I mean, uh--"

"Most people don't actually come right out and say that," you tell him, and reach for the Camels. "Kinda refreshing. What's 'Eridan' mean, anyhow?"

"Ugh." He leans back in the seat, closes his eyes. "It's some river in the Middle East or something. Could be worse, my dad wanted me to be named Dorian Junior. Can I have one of those?"

"You don't smoke," you point out, and reach for the lighter as it pops. The red eye of the coil in the darkness is another little tiny inarguable part of home. "I can tell."

"Maybe I wanna start."

You think again of the line of shiny little burn scars down his arm. "Fuck, I guess you're old enough to know what a shitty idea that is. Here."

He lights up, sighs out a cloud of smoke. "Thanks."

Everybody has to go to hell their own way, you think, and look back at the road.

~

By the time you get to Hillsboro it's getting on for nine, and you've been on the road for twelve hours; you're used to long drives, but you can't deny that the springs of the Camaro's driver's seat are getting real well acquainted with your ass, and your right knee is aching again the way it does when you use it for too long.

And the kid's not looking so great. He'd fallen asleep soon after you left Waverly, head drooped against the window and glasses askew, so gracelessly that you knew he was really out. Over the past half an hour or so he's started to cough in his sleep.

Your place in Cinci is a dump, you reflect, tapping your fingers on the wheel. Also, you're not entirely sure the power will be on, since your ex-girlfriend was the one who actually dealt with sending in the utility checks, and you hadn't exactly parted amicably. Come to think of it, had you ever actually gotten around to getting that windowpane replaced after she threw the Holley double-pump you were rebuilding through it?

Man, though, she'd been something. Right up until she'd told you you were an immature man-child she wasn't gonna waste any more time on and slammed the door.

That had been a really good carb, too. Would have been, anyway. If you'd finished the rebuild job. You're running the original Rochester Quadrajet, and sure, it's a nice reliable bit of engineering, but the Holley could have pulled more air.

You pull into the parking lot of a Motel Six around half past, and cut the engine. The kid stirs a little, waking up, blinking myopically as he tries to figure out where the fuck he is.

"Hillsboro," you say, helpfully. He rubs at his forehead.

"Oh. Uh. What...what are we doing here?"

"I'm beat, kid. Been drivin' all day. It's another hour to Cincinnati, but I'm done. Gonna crash here for the night."

"Oh," he says again. "Right. Uh. Thanks for the ride."

You can tell he's trying to figure out what he's going to do next--whether it's worth trying to get any further tonight or if he should just try to find somewhere relatively warm to hole up until daylight--and yeah, you can remember that feeling pretty well yourself. It's not a nice one. "You wanna stay in the room, you can. I ain't gonna do anythin' to you."

Expressions flicker across his face, half-seen in the parking lot's orange floods. The opportunity to sleep indoors, maybe even shower, is way too good to pass up. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. C'mon, it's freezing out. If you wanna keep goin' west, I'll take you into the city tomorrow, and wish you luck, but right now I gotta get some shut-eye."

Eridan coughs, closing his eyes for a moment, and just nods. "Okay. Thanks. Um. Thanks a lot. I mean it."

'''S cool."

In the fluorescent light of the motel room he really doesn't look so hot. He also looks as if he's rethinking the wisdom of this whole accepting-charity deal, so you don't say anything at all, just fling yourself on the cheap-ass bed and reach for your smokes. You're used to sleeping in strange beds--used to sleeping in the Camaro, come to that. You're a temporary-living-situation kind of guy.

~

You're also used to being woken up at all hours of the day and night by a wide variety of people, some of them armed, and you've pretty much perfected the casual "hnnn?" response. In this case the dim light from the parking lot outlines a huddled form beside the bed.

"...Crow?" the kid asks. Shit, he sounds terrible, a little tiny unhappy voice. You sit up, reach for the light. He winces away from the sudden brightness, pale and sweating, a couple of stress-zits standing out livid on his chin. You can see the faint scars of more, and realize again how young he actually is. Going to Chicago to be an artist, your left asscheek.

"What's the matter?" He hunches even further, looking at the floor.

"I don't....feel good," he says, sounding about eight, and you're afraid he's gonna start bawling again. He's a kid, he's a long way from home and friends, he's so far out of his depth he can't even see the bottom, and to put the cherry on the shit sundae he's pretty obviously running a temperature.

"Aw, shit," you say, and just reach for him, and he buries his face in your shoulder and clings like a goddamn limpet. He's too hot and when you put your arms around him you can feel him shivering. "Eridan, kiddo, we gotta call your folks."

He doesn't stop clinging to you, but he shakes his head vehemently and mumbles something that sounds like fuck no. "They've gotta be worried sick about you, and you need to go see a doctor, you're burnin' up. C'mon, don't be a dumbass."

"'m not," he says, and then he's coughing, and it sounds fucking terrible, wet and harsh and heavy. You have no idea what to do other than thump him on the back to try to get it to stop, but that seems to help at least a little. "...sorry," he says, when he can.

"You sound like shit. How long you been feelin' bad?"

"...Couple days?" He isn't un-clinging, and that tells you more than anything how lousy he really must be feeling. Someone as standoffish and full of himself as this doesn't hug strangers unless he's pretty fuckin' out of it. You picture him trying to sleep curled up in makeshift shelters, freezing his ass off, waking at every owl-hoot or rustle in the grass, and hug him closer.

"Why are you runnin', for real?" You hadn't meant to ask that. He makes a little noise that's half a cough and half a sob.

"'s stupid."

"Yeah, well, it always is. Mine was stupid too."

"You ran away?"

"When I was a kid, yeah. I guess it's not all that uncommon. C'mon, what's the deal?"

His story comes out in fits and starts, punctuated by that godawful cough. Rich family, overbearing father, heavy expectations that Eridan would follow in his footsteps and go to Harvard Business School and spend his life as a Wall Street douchebag. Big yelling match, bitter arguments, storming out, the whole bit. It's so completely clichéd it hurts, but it's also obviously very real to him, and his misery is just as real.

Telling it seems to have calmed him down somewhat, maybe even lent some perspective, because he hiccups and rubs at his face and adds "I'm in so much trouble, aren't I?"

"Oh yeah," you tell him, "you are grounded for the next, like, ever. Here, you better have the bed, you're one sick young American. We'll call your folks in the morning."

You spend the rest of the night with your jacket as a blanket, curled up in the shitty Motel 6 armchair, but surprisingly enough you sleep quite well.

Chapter Text

"You're not so fond a your old man, I'm guessin," you say to Eridan Ampora as he sits glumly in the waiting room of the Minute Clinic you've taken him to. "Just judgin by the way you're tryin not to actually have that conversation with him."

"He's just gonna yell." Eridan hugs himself, shivering. He looks a little better this morning than he had in the middle of the motel-room night, but only a little. "I don't really feel like being yelled at."

"He's just worried about you," but you aren't sure: you don't know the kid's dad from Adam. He could be the kind of dad who says shit with his fists. You don't think so, but what the fuck do you know, it's not like you're exactly an expert on normal dads of North America.

"He's gonna be so pissed off it's not even funny." Eridan looks at the industrial carpet, toes it dully. "Wouldn't your dad be if you ran away and called him from like halfway cross the country?"

"Nah. My old man was a carny, didn't give half a shit where any of us were less it was time to do chores, and then he got real interested in full attendance." You shrug.

"A carny? Really?"

"Yup. Tiffy Jones. His buddies used to call him Scarface, like that movie, cause he had--" you gesture, indicating your pop's two gnarly fuckin lines of scar tissue crossing the bridge of his multiply-broken nose. "Dependin on how much he'd had to drink he had a whole bunch a different stories about how they got there. Fightin a tiger from one a the animal acts, that was one. Some whore he tried to stiff did em with a breadknife, he fell foul of the mob, pretty much any bullshit you could think of."

"Tiffy?"

"Yeah, he fuckin hated his name. Short for Tithon. He always said it was better to get the laughin outta the way first, so Tiff he was and anyone who said shit about it got a double-pump in the gut. 'Tithon'--I guess it's some weird fuckin Greek name or somethin, who knows with carny-from-carny types. He took it out on us."

"Is he dead?"

"Dunno." Being feverish doesn't do much for Eridan's reservoirs of tact, but you don't really give a fuck. "Ain't seen him in a long time now. Porsche mighta kept in touch with him, she was always his fave."

"You have a sister named Porsche?"

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, spelled P-O-R-T-I-A. My other sister's Hessie. Hestia. I think some a that lantern fuel Pops liked to sample in the winter months got into the part of his brain used for namin his kids."

"But he named you Crow?"

You sigh. "Cronus. That one I do know, it's some monster fuckhead from mythology liked to eat his own kids. Luckily I ain't daddy material."

Eridan shivers again, and you look around at the empty waiting room and wonder what the fuck is keeping the nurse practitioner or whoever is supposed to be seeing him--and shrug out of your jacket, draping it round his thin shoulders. He seems pretty sure his dad is going to be a dick about this, but you hope he's wrong.

He blinks at you behind the glasses, and then just pulls it tighter round him and nods his thanks. "What about your mom?"

"Mindfang, the Exotic Spidermistress a the Eight Veils, Pirate Princess, private shows twenty bucks the half hour," you inform him. "I get all fuckin nostalgic every time I see one a them neon GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS signs, y'know? Brings me right back."

Eridan goes briefly pink, and then just huddles, and you sigh. "Your folks will either understand about this whole runnin away stunt, or they won't. Either way you gotta talk to em."

"You ran away," he says, to the floor.

"Couple times. I ran outta money and ended up hitchin back home, got a wallopin' from Pops to make up for all the chores I wasn't there to do, life went on. I don't get the feelin your old man's the sort to wallop." Thank fuck, right about then a dour-looking middle-aged lady in pink teddy-bear print scrubs comes out with a clipboard, and Eridan gets taken away.

Tiff Jones mostly didn't give any fucks where any of his offspring were except when it was time to work; you'd said as much to the kid. He didn't give many fucks, period. When it was time to have The Talk, he'd just called you over, cracked a couple beers, and told you to wrap it up unless you wanted a bunch of squalling brats and/or a dose of the clap, use your head, and not expect him to bail your ass out if you ended up getting in trouble ("I don't need no fuckin grandkids, Cro, you hear?"). Most of the mechanics you'd already known, of course, but there had been something both embarrassing and prideful about sitting there with Tiff, just two guys talkin over beers, the way guys did.

You sigh, putting your half-assed excuse for a family memory album firmly back in the files where it belongs, and try reading an article in a two-year-old Redbook about what women want. Orgasms and knitting, apparently.

~

"Mister...Jones?"

"Yeah." You put down the copy of Good Housekeeping that had followed the two Peoples you'd found to replace the Redbook and give the pink-scrubs lady your best employment-interview smile. "How's he doin?"

"He needs to have some tests." She can apparently see your smile turn into an oh-shit expression, and folds her arms. "I understand you are not his immediate family?"

"Nah, just a friend, what's...what's he got wrong with him? He's been coughin pretty bad and just started runnin the fever, is it the flu or somethin?"

"He needs some tests," she says again, and hands over a piece of paper that looks kinda like a prescription. "Take this to Highland District Hospital's radiology department. The address is on the form."

You wonder how much this is gonna cost, and decide not to ask the pink-scrubs lady, who looks like she wants to shampoo the upholstery the second you get your ass up off of it. "Sure. Sure. --Hey, kid. C'mon." Eridan has finally emerged, huddled inside his sweater (and your jacket) and looking even less happy than he had before. He's...really pale, like, the color you don't think people normally get outside of a Hollywood makeup department, except he's kinda flushed high on his cheeks like he's got sunburn just in those two spots. And going to the nurse's office doesn't seem to've done much for the fact that you can hear his goddamn breathing from like halfway across the room. It sounds frankly gross, kind of like stirring mac and cheese after you dump in the margarine and orange powder shit.

He gives you this please-fix-this look that you just can't really deal with. It's magnified behind his glasses. "Gonna get you all fixed up," you tell him, because this is what he needs to hear. Maybe it's even true. You sling an arm round his shoulders, trying not to feel how thin he is through the battered leather of your jacket, and shoo him out of the waiting room back to your car.

You're pretty sure if he wasn't feeling so shitty right now he'd be asking a lot more questions, but he's just curled up in the passenger seat with a box of tissues, that gross sticky crackly breathing sound filling up your ears as you try to figure out which way the Whatever Hospital is located from a Rand McNally map of Ohio that predates half the freeway interchanges in the state. It goes without saying that you don't have a smartphone. You had one of those pay-as-you-go piece of shit phones from the drugstore, for a while, but for reasons you don't need to dwell on it needed to go for an unexpected and fatal swim down a storm drain, and since then you've been off the grid.

"We still gotta call your old man," you tell him, figuring the hospital can't have moved too far in the twenty-some years the map's been aging, and heading for its last known address. "I guess you need to get a x-ray or whatever first but, seriously, kiddo, you gotta talk to em."

"I know," Eridan says, and the sheer dull defeat in his voice makes you glance over. Shit, what if he's really sick? You are so not even remotely the kind of person qualified to handle this situation.

"It's gonna be cool," you tell him again. "Get your x-rays done, they call you in a Z-pak or whatever to the drugstore, we get you all fixed up with OJ and meds, and make that call."

"You don't have to do this."

"Do what?" You crane your neck to try to read a bent street sign.

"This. Any of this. Just...drop me at the hospital, okay?"

"Ah, kid," you say. "Don't take this wrong, but go blow it out. Not gonna just dump you an' roll. I don't gotta be anywhere for a couple more days."

"I want you to," he says, but he won't look at you while he says it, staring at the floormats. "You should just go."

"Wait till we get there and see what the deal is with your flu or whatever. After that, sure, if it's what you want, I'ma ditch you and head out. Not till then."

You half-expect him to throw a minor hissy-fit and demand you vacate his presence forthwith, but he just droops in the passenger seat, and hugs your beat-up jacket tighter round his thin shoulders. He really can't be much more than sixteen or seventeen, and something tells you he never had the rough-and-ready education you did on how the world goes round.

~

Which turns out not to be remotely sufficient for keeping your own cool in the face of the other end of the phone line ringing in Manhattan. How the fuck, you keep thinking, twisting the phone cord, how the fuck did I ever get into this stupid shit, and coming right back to the dull defeated slump of the kid's shoulders as he held his thumb out in the gathering dusk. You couldn't not have stopped.

Well, okay, sure, you could have not stopped. You could've just ignored him and gone on your way, and the whole fucking time you would've been wondering if someone else had pulled over, and if that was the someone who'd picked up those girls a couple months before and left them scattered like confetti over the nearby wooded preserve, a foot here, a forearm there. You could have kept going, and you would have had to turn around and try to go back and find him, and he might not have been there to find.

You are aware that the phone is ringing unanswered on the other end and for a moment, just a fucking perfect little moment, you imagine being able to leave a message and escape back into your own much more fluidly limited existence, but of course this is not gonna be that easy. A woman with an accent finally picks up. Hispanic. She asks who is calling, please.

"Uh," you say, brilliantly. "Is this Mister D. Ampora's number?"

"Si, is Mr. Ampora's residence, who is calling please?"

"My...uh, my name's Jones, I'm callin from Ohio--wait please don't hang up," you add, having heard the receiver move. "It's about his son, Eridan. Please, ma'am. Eridan's pretty sick, he's in the hospital, or he'd have called himself." You think, at least. "Can you just tell Mr. Ampora that?"

She doesn't reply, but there's the click of the line going to hold, and you make yourself go over the list of the work the Camaro needs in your head so as not to shit yourself in sheer funky terror over talking to the kid's Daddy Warbucks. You've just gotten to replacing the washer fluid reservoir, which once upon a dream had had tabs that screwed into the actual frame of the car but which since about 1989 has been held in place with bits of copper wire, when a deep, deep voice comes on the line. "This is Dorian Ampora," it says. "With whom am I speaking?"

To your eternal credit your voice doesn't crack. "My name's Cronus Jones, Mr. Ampora. I'm a friend of your son's." You guess, anyhow. "He's in Hillsboro, Ohio, in the Highland District Hospital. Pretty sure he woulda called you sooner if he wasn't sick."

There's the sound of someone very large drawing a deep breath on the other end of the line. "I see," says Ampora, with exquisite care. "And what has led him to find himself there?"

"That I couldn't say, sir. I, uh. I just happened to give him a ride is all."

"A ride. In Ohio. Are you telling me," Eridan's father asks, like a thunderstorm, "that he hitchhiked all the way to Ohio?"

"Again, I don't know, sir. All I know is, he was there, he needed a ride, I was headed in that direction."

"West, I take it."

"Yes, sir. He said he was moving to Chicago to stay with friends." You wince a little at handing over all this to Eridan's dad, but...it kind of needs to be done.

"Why are you calling me?"

"Uh, cause he can't right now? He's feeling like shi...sorry, sir. He's kinda not feelin' so great. He's sleeping."

"I mean," he says, "why are you still there?"

What the fuck are you supposed to say? Cause he's a twerp on account of being a teenager and needed a friend? Cause he reminds you of you, which he doesn't, really? Cause reasons? "Someone needed to be," you say, grasping at straws, and then realize how accusatory it sounds. "Uh, I mean. I was there, I figured once the walk-in clinic people told me he needed to go get a x-ray or whatever that he might be in there for a night, and, well, I guess I'm callin cause I'd want to know where my kid was, even if he was in the middle of some perfectly valid right of teenage passage bullshit?"

Silence. For long enough you think Eridan's bigshot father has hung up on you. Then, and for the first time you can hear tiredness in the voice, "How is he?"

"Bronchitis," you tell him. "And he ain't been sleepin or eatin too great, so. Docs say he'll be okay, just needs some time and medicine and so on." They haven't actually confirmed the suspicion of pneumonia, so you aren't gonna mention that.

"Tell me again where you are. Highland what?"

"Highland District Hospital," you say, pulling the crumpled piece of paper out of your pocket and reading off the address and zip to him. "They're keepin him overnight, so, uh, unless you want me to leave, I was gonna hang out here to see how he was doin in the morning." Also, you have no idea who's gonna be paying for this if it isn't his family. Not like you have health insurance.

"What did you say your name was?"

You spell it for him. When he speaks again something in his voice is slightly different. "No, I don't want you to leave. Please stay with him. I will be there as soon as I can."

You figure he's gonna have to fly to Cinci and get a rental car or something. "Yes, sir. I'll stay right here."

"Thank you for contacting me," says the voice, back to businesslike precision, and then there's the hum of an open dial tone.

That could have gone worse, all things considered, you think, and head downstairs to go sneak a smoke by the No Smoking sign outside the hospital entry.

~

Eridan looks even younger all covered with those wires and shit. Without his glasses his closed eyes are huge, the lashes thick and really fucking dark against the translucent pallor of his skin. Under that pallor the dark smudges of shadow ringing the eyes look like bruises. He has a plastic tube going into one arm and one of those light-up clip things on his index finger, and you don't know if that's a good sign or not. You haven't spent any time in hospitals, like, ever, except the time you broke your wrist falling out of the tree and Mom had to take you to go get a cast on it. You'd been what, like six or seven, and the only thing you can remember besides the hugeness of the pain itself was that a nurse gave you a lollipop. Nobody seems to be giving out lollipops here, but they're generous as fuck when it comes to the dirty looks. Like it's your fault he's sick.

You flop down in the pink vinyl chair beside his bed and scratch yourself meditatively. When Eridan's dad shows up, you'll stick around to make sure he's not, like, gonna take a swing at his son for scaring the shit outta him, and then hit the road. You're supposed to be back in Cincinnati tomorrow, you got a couple more shifts at the Exxon lube shop, but it's not like anyone's exactly waitin around for you with a pot roast in the oven and your pipe and slippers at hand. And the kid just...looks really little, and he doesn't know anyone here, and he's feeling gross.

It's even less comfortable than the Motel Six chair, but you curl up in it anyhow, staying close, and close your eyes.

Chapter Text

This time when you come out of not-really-sleep it's with a nagging sense of dread, and as soon as you open your eyes, you know exactly why that is.

He's huge. He's got to be six-five, maybe more, and built like Batman through the chest and shoulders. That's at least several thousand dollars worth of tailoring on the hoof you're looking at, too, and all of it's obviously designed to flatter and enhance, but it doesn't seem all that necessary: the dude inside the clothes would be impressive in a T-shirt. Which you are not. Also, you need a shower, and your hair feels like it's sticking up on one side, and you've got heartburn from shitty hospital coffee and a crick in your neck from trying to sleep in shitty hospital chairs and you have rarely if ever felt quite this small and grubby and insignificant and poor white trash.

Eridan's enormous father is looking down at you with a completely unreadable expression. He does not have purple hair or big hornrims: he has faint streaks of silver at his temples like Reed Richards, sharply forbidding eyebrows, and a jaw you could crack rocks with. The eyes are Eridan's, that light silvery grey with the dark ring round the iris, but on him they look fucking glacial.

The weird thing--well, the weirdest thing--is that he also looks familiar, somehow. You would totally remember seeing this dude before, but you're getting a definite ping of deja vu.

"Cronus Jones, I presume," he says, and his voice in person is pretty much as unnerving as it was on the phone. Part of you is wondering if people ever actually use 'I presume' in conversation, and if you're still asleep and dreaming. It's a really vivid dream.

You swallow down acid and sit upright in the chair, dislodging your jacket from its makeshift-comforter duty. "Uh." Brilliant. "Yes, sir. I, um--" what time even is it? Eight? Holy fuck, he must have left Manhattan the second he hung up on you-- "didn't expect you till morning?"

He doesn't dignify this with a response, just a brief flicker of an eyebrow-raise, and turns his attention to Eridan. Who is sleeping through all of this, and boy, do you envy the kid right about now. (You can feel it when Mr. Ampora transfers his attention, it's like moving a bright light out of your eyes.)

You get up, feeling a little better once you're on your feet, and shrug into your jacket. You really could use a shower. It feels like a week since you stopped to pick up the kid as dusk was gathering, but...shit, it was yesterday, right? Was it yesterday?

He's bending over his son with that totally unreadable non-expression, and you kind of wonder what it must've been like as a little kid with that focused on you. It's hard to imagine Dorian Ampora chilling out a howling toddler or putting bandaids on skinned knees or banishing monsters from closets. It's hard to imagine him doing much of anything other than maybe standing around on rooftops brooding, or possibly firing people. You could see him firing people pretty easy.

Eridan's still asleep, the little oxygen tube glistening in the light where it drapes over his face. Those bruised shadows round his eyes look deeper, but maybe that's just your imagination. His breathing still sounds gross as fuck. And it's getting more and more awkward in here by the second.

You're about to say something like "so I'll be headin out now" and abscond the hell out of there, but just then Eridan's breath catches and he goes into one of those godawful hacking fits that frankly scare you a little, and okay, maybe it's time to go get a nurse, like right now. Just for a moment his father's face had cracked and let some human through, and for reasons you don't even begin to understand, you really had to look away.

This is apparently a different shift, cause the nurse who's already on his way to go fix Eridan isn't one you've seen before, and he doesn't take time out to give you the stinkeye. That's kind of refreshing. You stay outside the room, though, leaning against the wall, thinking about dads without meaning to. Thinking about the chipped layers of paint on the gear lever that had run the Ferris wheel, how it had felt warm and vibration-buzzy in your little-kid hands when Tiff showed you how to work it. Thinking about shit you thought you'd forgotten years ago. You're doing a lot of things without meaning to just recently. Like not sleeping in a bed. It's beginning to add up.

Eridan has been making some seriously disgusting noises in there, but now they're replaced with low conversation, and you peer round the doorway. The nurse and Eridan's father are talking over his head, and aw, fuck, the poor kid made himself barf coughing that hard. You really should go. This ain't your business and he won't thank you for seeing him so fucked up, he's prickly and self-conscious at the best of times. You should go. The nurse takes away the kidney bowl and says nothing as he passes you.

Eridan's breathing seems better, though, you can't hear that macaroni-stirring sound from the doorway. After a moment or two more he pushes back his damp hair and stares at the mountain of pinstriped disapproval beside the bed, and your goddamn heart cracks right down the middle when he says "...Dad?" in this tiny little slip of a voice.

Ampora puts a huge hand on his son's back without saying a word, and there's something terrible about his face, not like a thunderstorm, not now, more like the first crack arrowing down the face of a dam stressed beyond all bearing. And Eridan stares at him a moment longer, two moments, and then flings his arms round Ampora's neck and buries his face in his dad's shoulder. Ampora holds him close, eyes squeezed shut, face pressed against Eridan's hair, rocking him just a little.

Without a sound you detach yourself from the doorway and yes, now you go.

~

It turns out that before you leave you have to sign a bunch of incomprehensible paperwork since you were the one accompanying a minor child on admission, you don't even know what the fuck anymore, but you are so tired you can barely see straight and that scene in the kid's room had done a number on you. Which is why you are still standing at the nurse's station staring at the forms like a complete retard when Dorian Ampora comes to find you.

"Mr. Jones," he says, and you think absurdly of Counting Crows. "I'd like a word with you, please."

"I gotta fill out forms." You're aware how dumb it sounds, and look up, which was a mistake because now he's got you pinned with that light grey stare. You can sort of see Eridan in his face now, a little; see what Eridan's going to look like twenty, thirty years on. Lucky kid.

"That can wait." He dismisses forms with a brief handwave. Probably a whole bunch of shit is dismissible with a handwave like that if you have more money than God. You are frankly feeling kind of fragile right now, and you let him lead you down the hall to the little waiting area with chairs and the obligatory ancient magazines. "Have a seat."

You have a seat. He does too, the cheap furniture creaking as it takes his weight. "Firstly, I would like to thank you for everything you have done for my son. I do not think there are many strangers so generous with their time and resources."

"'n I didn't even kidnap him or anythin," you put in helpfully. Holy fuck, you really do need sleep. Actual sleep, in an actual bed.

"A fact which had not escaped me." He's watching you intently and you can feel that force of attention again, like a bright light shining in your eyes, and fight the instinct to squint and look away. "Eridan has made some exceedingly foolish choices recently, and he and I will need to have several quite lengthy conversations about them and their ramifications, but I believe he is largely correct in his assessment of you."

"He is?"

"He informs me that you are a 'good guy,'" Ampora says, and you can hear the quote marks. "So I should hope, as a member of this family."

You blink at him. "Sorry, could you run that by me again?"

"I took the liberty of doing some looking into your background on the flight from New York. Your father was Tithon Hector Jones and your mother Nettie Jones, née Serket, professional name 'Spinneret Mindfang'. You have two sisters, Portia and Hestia. Your maximum level of education is a high school diploma. Your employment history is patchy at best and frankly suspect in places, but you have so far avoided conviction on any criminal charges."

The grey eyes are watching you, watching you, and you can feel yourself sweating. What the fuck. What the actual fuck, is he some kinda CIA spook on top of being a Wall Street bigshot? Or does he just have a stable full of them to do background checks on random people who do his son favors?

"I have to say, Mr. Jones, that I do not consider you to be in any way an appropriate role model; practically the opposite, as a matter of fact. But you are also my cousin's son, and you have been kind and helpful with no obvious prospect of getting paid for it. I therefore--"

You're pretty sure people who cut Dorian Ampora off in mid-sentence don't have a real good life expectancy, but you are flying so high on fatigue poisons at the moment that you don't give any fucks. "Wait, hold up. Your cousin's son?"

"'Jones' was not the last name your father was born with," he says, the eyebrows drawing together a little further. "'Tithon' is original, however. It suited him for a number of reasons to sever ties with the Ampora family, and frankly the Ampora family had no reason to regret the move, as your father's character is of a somewhat problematic stripe."

"Uh," you say. "My pop was a carny. You know? Those guys with odd numbers of teeth and tattoos that ain't always spelled right who run the rides at fairgrounds? A goddamn carny. Had these two bigass scars right across his face like a comic-book bad guy or somethin. I dunno where you got your information, sir--" the sir is somewhat belated at this point-- "but I ain't no relation."

"Would you like to know how he actually got those scars?" Dorian Ampora asks.

You stare at him. All of a sudden the straight-up weirdness and worry and stress and fatigue of the past twenty-four hours seem to rear up and smack you in the back of the head, and you simply cannot think of a single goddamn thing to say. Other than 'nope,' maybe. Nope is good. Nope works for a lot of situations, and now he is still looking intently at you but he's tilted his head slightly and the expression is different, and you still can't figure out what it is that's familiar about him because this cousin stuff is total bullshit, there's no way Tiff Jones was related to this guy, and you realize he's just said something that went right over your head.

"Huh?"

"I said 'are you all right,'" he repeats, "but I think the answer is obvious. We can continue this discussion in the morning, once you have had some actual rest."

Being told what you're gonna do by authority figures is kind of not one of your strengths, but there's something weirdly comforting about the firmness in his voice. You are still considering this when he comes back, having apparently gone somewhere, and hauls you to your feet with a hand that feels like a sack of prehensile walnuts. You are in fact still considering this as he tows you down the hall, and when you are sat down on something relatively soft and flat and your boots are removed, you curl up without further discussion of the matter and are asleep before you hit the pillow with your face.

Chapter Text

Tiffy Jones mostly ran the Zipper and the Vortex, the kind of rides that offered dumbass high-school kids an opportunity to show off to one another and play how-long-can-you-go-before-hurling. His facial scarring and general demeanor kind of didn't go so good with the kiddie rides. Still, when you worked at a park you did what the boss needed you to do, and every now and then Tiff had to cover for some no-call no-show asshole over on the tame side of the midway. You'd been ten or eleven when your babysitter had a court date and Tiff got stuck with you as well as the Big Wheel detail: not the first time you'd tagged along with him at work, but the first time you can remember him telling you what he was actually doing with the controls. Mostly he just tied your kiddie leash to the gates beside his folding chair and told you not to get in the way, and you were allowed to help tune the boombox if he was in a good mood.

That time, though, he'd gone through the whole business, the patter--he had that down, could do it dead drunk and half asleep, step right up, step right up, let the Big Wheel show you what's real, up where the air is -more- than rare--loaded up the full complement of nervous kiddies and the occasional tenth-grader looking for an opportunity to grope his girlfriend in relative peace, and then beckoned you over. "C'mere, kid."

You'd gone to join him, leaning into the familiar fug of oil and cigarettes and sweat. He'd set the Big Wheel running, moving the gear lever ahead to half speed, and let you feel the way the motor's thrum shook the lever; put his hard oily hand over yours and let you feel the clunk when he shifted into the ride's running speed. You had been amazed at how huge the machine was when you had its control actually in your hands, how much more real it felt when you could tell it what to do.

Guns 'n Roses was playing on the boombox, November Rain, and in the trees the cicadas were screaming, and the calliope music threaded through the humid air like a bright ribbon, and the Big Wheel spun slowly above you both. Somewhere it had never really stopped spinning, that two-minute ride stretching out over decades, one summer morning that was still bright and hot and redolent of deep-fried things and cotton candy and motor oil.

You haven't had this dream in five, maybe seven years now, but oh, it comes back to you, it comes back so easily. It isn't until the smell of real actual coffee makes itself known through the midway's kaleidoscope of stinks that you become aware of voices around you, and dammit, you'd really been enjoying that.

Where the hell are you, anyways? Opening your eyes reveals anonymous acoustic ceiling tile and a fluorescent light fixture. Okay, so probably somewhere institutional, and now you can feel the recent past piling up and preparing to spill back over into active memory--

Dorian Ampora looms over you. The last of the dream freezes and shatters all at once, memory and reality coming back in to take its place. "Ah," he says, "you're awake."

~

You've got one mother of a headache, but you can think in something close to a straight line now, and the Starbucks is helping a bit. In the light of day, without the swirling cloud of fatigue getting in your eyes, it's possible to look at Eridan's dad and see shit that escaped you yesterday: the fine wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, the lines bracketing his mouth, the nuances of human expression. It's there, even if you kinda have to look hard to pick it out. Sitting on the edge of the hospital cot they'd apparently wheeled in here for you, hands wrapped around a venti dark roast, you aren't sure if you hadn't preferred it when he looked completely carved out of stone.

Eridan himself still looks like microwaved shit, but he's conscious, sitting up, and you can't hear his chest bubbling, so you think probably he's on the mend. The hospital gown does not go with the purple streak in his hair. "Hi, Cro," he says, and you grin: yeah, everything is weird as fuck, everything is weird to the point you expect a camera crew to show up any moment now and that Kutcher douche to hop out from behind the door, but the kid's gonna be okay. "Dad says you're related to us."

"'I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate?'" you quote with a shrug. "I dunno, it seems pretty far-fetched to me, but..."

"You are Eridan's second cousin," Ampora says drily. "Your father was the son of my father's brother. Tithon Ampora changed his name to the highly improbable Jones when he went south to seek his fortune, and apparently never told his subsequent children about his own origins. It doesn't actually matter if you believe me, because it isn't going to stop being true. The odds of your having run into Eridan by accident are astonishingly small, but coincidence is a powerful thing."

You are staring down into the brown swirl of cream in your coffee and your head is really clanging: the effort to work out the genealogy seems as vast and impossible as climbing to the moon. Also, you're not sure it makes any real difference to anything, because you haven't seen or talked to your pop in what must be ten fucking years by now, and who really cares if he used to be called something else? Carny names tended to evolve for a number of reasons. You yourself went by Smith for a couple years in the mid-nineties. All of a sudden you want to get the fuck out of there.

"Uh, okay, I guess? Crazy random happenstance is crazy 'n random? Listen, thanks for the coffee, and for lettin me crash here, and I'm real glad you guys are, like, talkin to one another and so on, but I kinda should be headin out." What day is it? Were you supposed to be at the Exxon already? Where's your jacket, you need that, it has your car keys in it, plus it's really cold in here for some reason.

"You're leaving?" Eridan coughs, but it doesn't turn into the violent hacking fit you immediately dread. Whatever they're dripping into him through that tube in his arm is obviously some primo shit. "I mean, uh, sure, of course you totally have your own stuff to do, that is--"

"Told you I'd get you straightened out, didn't I?" You slip off the edge of the cot, which makes your brain bang painfully against the inside of your skull exactly the way you remember it doing after particularly exciting nights out. Ow. "Might have to put a hold on that movin to Chicago deal for a while, kiddo, but you'll do just fine. You're tougher than you think." The urge to ruffle his hair is totally insurmountable, and you don't even try; he ducks away, making a face, but it's half a grin. "Stay chilly, chief."

Dorian Ampora looks at you with narrowed eyes, and wow, that kinda feels like something sharp and heavy just got dropped on your forehead. "That's it?" he says.

"Uh, what's what?"

"You aren't going to ask me for anything?"

You are obviously not on the same page of the script. "Huh? Dude, I mean sir, you got me coffee."

Something odd is happening to his face and you can't tell what it is at first, and then you aren't sure you believe it, but it sure looks like he's actually cracked a smile. "Amazing. Then allow me to present you with my card entirely unasked," he says, and offers you a business card with raised very-dark-purple lettering on it. "If you do find there is after all something with which you would like my assistance, feel free to contact me. As I said yesterday, I find your personal history somewhat offputting, but you have been good to my young and wayward son, and I'll not forget that in a hurry."

There's this really strong feeling that you're missing something, but you can't really figure out what it is, so you just tuck the card away in a pocket and retrieve your jacket from where it's apparently spent the night on Eridan's bed, what the hell. "Thanks, Mr. Ampora. Watch out for them black bears, Eri." You give the hillock of his feet under the covers a brief pat, and would have just absconded past Ampora without further ado except for the fact that a grip like rock takes your right hand and gives it a firm, sincere shake. That goes all the way up your arm to the base of your skull and rattles your eyeballs. Oh, ow that fucking hurts and you can't hide the wince, you must've really tied one on last night.

Only you weren't out partying last night, were you, you were right here in this goddamn hospital with Eridan and his father. Who is staring at you. From pretty close up. Wow, those are some eyes, the big hipster hornrims kinda dilute the effect on the younger generation but without that barrier they're kind of freaky intense.

You just want to get back to your shitty apartment and take a shower and maybe crash on the couch for a while if you're not already late for work, assuming you haven't been evicted in the three weeks you've been away. Also you think maybe you're losing circulation in your fingertips.

"Are you all right?" Ampora is asking.

"Yeah, 'm ginchy," you say, and with an effort fit your features back into the default amiable leer. "Take care a him, Mr. A. 's a good kid you got, even if he does have some impulse-control issues." And, right now, a cough that sounds almost solid: Eridan starts up again in the background and once more you can feel Ampora's attention shift away from you completely of a sudden--and you take advantage of it to escape.

Either he told the hospital people to let you go without paperwork or nobody notices you leaving, but you don't get stopped to fill out any more forms, and the Camaro is amazingly still parked where you left it, without even a parking ticket to keep as a souvenir of your insanely weird couple of days. It's way too bright out. You fumble in the glove compartment for the battered Ray-Bans that live in there, and as they settle on your face and you lean back in the driver's seat this whole episode is fast retreating into plausible deniability: that was fucked up, but it's over now, and you're back where you belong, on your own. The vibration of your engine buzzes in your skull, in your chest. It's warm out, at least. Eridan's room had been way cold.

Tithon Ampora, you think. Tiff Jones. Does it matter?

Cronus Ampora kinda has a ring to it.

Whatever.

You spark up a Camel as you pull into traffic, trying to ignore the fact that this is not doing jack or shit for your stupid headache, and turn the radio on to drown out the silence from the passenger seat.

Chapter Text

Hair's dead, right? Like, that's why it's okay to cut it, it's like fingernails, there's no nerves or whatever.

So why the hell does yours hurt?

It's been two days since you left the kid and his unsettling dad in Highland District Hospital and headed home, and you haven't been partying like a motherfucker, so the fact that you hurt all over makes no sense at all. You are no stranger to hurting all over, of course. There was that time at the G'n'R concert where you were flying high as the space shuttle on some wacked-out collection of unpronounceable shit and got into a fistfight with like three other dudes and had absolutely no idea they'd sprung two of your ribs until you tried to sit up the next day, and the time you'd fallen down the stairs at that crazy bitch Meenah's place and been black and blue all over for days, and the time down in New Orleans where you'd had that drink that came in a big styrofoam thing shaped like a toilet and literally begged your friends to run over your head with their car afterward, but, like, you'd earned that shit. Right now you just feel like a bunch of tiny invisible dudes have been punching you all over, including your hair, and also your chest's doing this weird thing where it feels all hot and tight for no reason.

It turned out that you had, in fact, been supposed to be at the Exxon, and when you finally showed up around midday the manager had canned you with absolutely zero ceremony whatsoever. Which was actually fine with you, cause frankly the idea of working through that headache had not been one which appealed. All you really want to do is pass out on the couch, but the thing about that is your power's still off and it's literally fucking freezing in your place with the broken windowpane, and all in all you've opted to sleep in the car instead.

You've been having these majorly fucked-up dreams, too. Flashbacks to the trailer you guys lived in when you were a little kid, listening to your mom and dad fight and throw shit and then stop throwing shit and start bouncing rhythmically on the bed instead--when you'd worked out what they were actually doing, a whole lot of things had made sense to you at once--and how fucking hot it was in there in summer. The wheezy old AC unit in your folks' room barely made a dent in the South Carolina heat, and you and Hess and Porsh had to make do with a K-Mart box fan that just moved the air around instead of doing anything about its temperature. Waking up out of that stuporous heat and finding that it's still ass-cold in Cincinnati is kind of disorienting. And you're used to coughing when you wake up, that's been, like, standard operating procedure for you, wake up, have a good old hack, wonder if you can go another day without shaving, make breakfast, but now you can barely light a smoke without trying to spew up your lungs. It is getting very, very old.

~

It's not till you wake up from a really bad one--in the dream, you'd been absolutely certain the kid was about to climb into the body-parts guy's car and had been trying to yell at him to stop, trying to run through air denser than water, air that felt like treacle in your chest, unable to catch your breath, watching the guy's passenger door close and his brilliant red brake lights flicker black and dead as he pulled away--that you admit there might be something actually wrong with you that isn't going to go away on its own. You haven't been sick, like, staying-in-bed sick, for years now, and the idea of bed sounds like fucking heaven, but your freezing apartment is also up four flights of stairs and you don't think stairs are really you just at the moment.

Time to go get some nyquil and chicken soup and hit up the 7-11 to use its microwave, cause right now yours ain't gonna be much use. The power company wants more dough than you have on hand to turn the lights back on. The question of how you are actually going to get hold of said dough when you don't currently have a job is kind of one you have been skirting around answering. If only you could fucking think straight and if your hair didn't hurt and if you could finish a goddamn cigarette, you'd be totally capable of figuring some shit out, because you are not gonna call up that kid's bigshot daddy and ask him for a fucking payday loan, that is not a thing you are going to be doing. You might be carny trash and--what had he said, offputting in your personal habits or whatever, but you don't need some freaky-eyed asshole's charity. That whole thing had been...just weird. Just a thing that happened and is over now.

You're curled up in the Camaro's rudimentary back seat with the trunk-blanket over you and upholstery seams printed on your face. It's not even close to the first time you've had to sleep in your car, but you gotta admit it does leave something to be desired in terms of comfort. At least the smell's familiar, oil and cigarettes and metal and grease. That smell's always meant home, it was how Tiff smelled when he came home after work, it was how the garage had smelled where you'd gotten your first job working on cars. It had been nice to be a natural at something.

(Well, Tiff had said you were a natural at running some of the rides, but frankly it'd have been hard to suck at that job. It wasn't rocket science.)

Your mom smelled like cigarettes, 'Red' perfume, the sweet-scented powder she used inside the vinyl outfits she wore on stage. Sometimes she'd come out to watch you fucking around with whatever beater you were driving that week, drape herself on the trailer's porch and ask you actual questions, and the attention she paid felt like a prize you'd earned. She could drive just as well as you or your dad, and change a wheel without fucking up her long red pointy nails. You can remember really goddamn clearly how all your friends invariably developed boners for your mom and how that had been a combined and confusing source of embarrassment and pride. You can remember, too, when at sixteen you cut the shit out of your hand on a bit of jagged metal how she'd calmly and capably dealt with you, washing out the wound and dressing it tight and making you hold the hand up in the air while she drove your ass to the ER to get stitches. You can remember how she'd held you when you were really little and didn't feel good, how soft she'd been to cling to and how her raspy voice had gone sweet when she told you it was gonna be okay.

Thinking about her makes you curl up tighter and try to ignore the prickle in your closed eyes. She'd died seven years ago. Liver failure. Not exactly surprising, but it still sucked, it sucked so bad, and seeing her so shrunken and diminished and fragile had hurt worse than you realized anything could hurt. Now, in the white sourceless light of a snowy afternoon, huddled inside the shell of your beat-up blue muscle car, you realize all over again that you are, have been, and probably always will be alone.

When you open your eyes again it's dark, or dark orange--that somehow sticky sodium-vapor streetlight, tinting the darkness rather than pushing back at it, and you can hear a gross kind of crackly wheezing sound that makes you sit up and reach for the kid. Only moving hurts, knocking your brain around inside your sore skull, and of course the kid is nowhere near this shithole, and that means the sound is your breathing. Not his.

Everything hurts. Your clothes, which were pretty ripe to begin with, are soaked with sweat, and your chest feels like it's full of mud and broken glass. You can't work out if it's too cold or too hot, but it's too something, and you need help, this is beyond sleeping it off, this is time-to-wake-up-Mom-and-Dad level shit, and your dad's either dead or might as well be and your mom was cremated in a cardboard box, and suddenly you are scared. You are scared and you are desperate.

It takes a long time to find Ampora's card, and for a while you're sure you've lost it, or thrown it away, but eventually your fingers close over the stiff little rectangle with its raised lettering. The order of tasks ahead of you is not complex, but daunting. You have to find quarters for the pay phone. You have to find a pay phone. You have to make a call you don't want to make and don't know what to say when you've even got that far, but maybe worrying about that can wait till you get there.

The floormats of the Camaro have been rifled over and over for quarters for laundry over the years, but somehow you get lucky and find three last remaining holdouts. And you know where the phone is, it's three blocks away, and outside it doesn't look like it's snowing.

~

The last time you'd dialed this number you'd hoped like fuck that it would go to voicemail. Now you're hoping even harder that it doesn't, that Ampora's housekeeper will pick up again or, God help you, the dude himself. It is exhausting to stay standing up, but you can't slide down to sit on the sidewalk because the phone cord won't reach that far.

You can hear the crash and echo of static on the line, or maybe it's just in your head. How far is it from Cincinnati to Manhattan, anyway? If a train leaves Cincinnati traveling at forty miles an hour and crashes into a train traveling from Manhattan at sixty miles an hour, would anybody care? You're almost out of quarters. Then there's a click as someone picks up, and you realize you think of the voice as purple somehow even while you're trying to work out what it is he's just said.

"....Uh," you manage. "Mister Ampora, it's....I....hate t' ask you, but...oh, uh. Sorry, it's, it's me, Cronus Jones, I gave Eridan a ride--" The line beeps and you stick the last quarter in the slot, unable to squash a thick ineffective cough, feeling stuff move inside your chest. "Hate t' bother you like this but--"

"Where are you?" Eridan's father says, sharply.

"Cincinnati, I just...if...'m real sorry but I kinda..." You don't know how to do this. You've never known how to do this, how to just say a simple fucking phrase, please help me. "'m kinda messed up" is the best you can do.

"Give me your address," he says, and you are struck by dizzying deja vu again, hadn't he said exactly the same thing when you'd called him the first time, and he has to snap your name to get your attention back. You tell him. "But...'m not there, stayin 'n my car, 's complicated."

He mutters something that sounds like a super annoyed give me strength. "Listen to me, Cronus. Are you listening?"

"Mmhmm." The line beeps again, you're about to be cut off.

"Go back to the car. Someone will be there to assist you shortly. Try not to be more of an idiot than you can help."

"Wait, you need th' plate number," you mumble, but there's another beep in your ear and then the hum of an open line, and you sort of look at the black plastic receiver, and the holes in it where the sound comes out look like eyes. There are a lot of them, and they are all looking at you, and that's about when your hand lets go of its own volition and you back away before the receiver can turn on its dangling cord and find your face again.

The rest of the trip back to the Camaro is just shutter-flashes of coldness and orange light and being aware of breathing like a tide drawn in and out against vast weights of inertia. Then you're curled up again on the ratty back seat, such as it is, and time fades out and stops being a thing for a little while.

~

You're riding the Zipper and you wish you weren't, it's your first time and you'd begged to go on it like the big kids, begged and whined and pleaded until Tiff finally said fuck it and let you on. You're tumbling head over heels as the world swings round and up and down and there's a loud engine somewhere near and you would really like to puke, please, if that's an option available, because human beings are not supposed to do this. The midway calliope's gone wrong, it doesn't sound like a rusty squeezebox, it sounds like a siren, rising and falling dizzily. Someone does something stabby and painful to one of your arms and someone else is holding a plastic thing against your chin and you figure what the fuck and go ahead and puke, there's always a hose nearby for exactly this purpose on the really hardcore rides. People are talking somewhere near, but you can't make out what they're saying over the sounds of your own sickness.

~

The next time you start being aware of much, you're not swinging around inside a cage on a steel chaintrack: you're lying perfectly still and everything smells weird, and when you open your eyes it's way too bright and confusing.

"Back with us?" says somebody, and you try to turn to see who it is and the movement tugs at something on your arm, wakes an astonishing series of cascading pains all down your back and sides. "--No, stop, lie still, it's all right. You're going to be fine. Despite your best efforts, I must say."

You at least get your head turned a bit on the pillows, because apparently you're lying in a bed, and wow, your dad really cleaned up pretty. Mom musta done that thing with the putty to fill in his scars like she did the time protective services came to check up on you. Fuck, did you get him in trouble? What even happened? Where are you?

"What," you croak, and realize your voice is deeper than you expected it to be, and then again you have that lovely moment where the happy dam of amnesia cracks and fails all at once and the immediate past comes roaring down the valley of recollection, causing a fuckton of collateral damage and extended metaphor. "Oh. Fuck."

"Yes, well, I can't entirely disagree with that," says Dorian Ampora, and takes out a comb and mirror to carefully rearrange his hair. With it back in its normal Bruce Wayne precision side-part and without the expression of crafty calculation, the resemblance between him and Tiffy Jones is almost extinct. "You've been in the hospital for three days, before you start on the usual litany of questions; you're getting over a very nasty bacterial pneumonia which I'm entirely sure my offspring gave you; your car is perfectly safe and the keys are currently in my possession."

"Oh," you say, totally unable to winch up anything smarter from the gurgling swamp that is your current consciousness.

"And finally, no, you are not going to be in debt for the rest of your natural existence due to hospital bills. I did say I would help."

"What...?"

He seems to be pretty good at extrapolating the detail you're not currently able to present in your queries. "What happened after you called me? I made a few calls of my own and had an EMT team dispatched to your location. No, they didn't break your precious car's windows to get you out, you hadn't locked the door, which was clever of you under the circumstances."

"How...?"

"Did I know which car was yours? I arranged to have that make and model cross-referenced with license holders in that neighborhood and had your plates rather quickly. I congratulate you on not giving in to the temptation of vanity plates, by the way. There's nothing so profoundly pathetic as a man who has to announce his lack of self-confidence via the DMV."

"Why...?"

"Really," he says, and you have the impression he ought to be looking over small rectangular specs perched on the end of his nose, "I expected a little more effort out of you. Because, as I believe I made clear more than once in our previous encounter, you are family, and you found and took care of my somewhat problematic but very dearly loved only son. You didn't ask for anything in return for rescuing him from a bad situation--of his own making--and ensuring he received the medical care he needed. Most people would have expected a check."

Oh. Duh.

Duh, Cronus.

"I ain't never asked for charity," you manage, and wonder vaguely if they did that thing where they stuck a tube down your throat, because wow does it hurt like a son of a fuck.

"No, well, I can see that." Ampora sighs, puts away his mirror and his comb. "Call it familial obligation instead, and stop bloody thinking about it. You'll need to stay here another few days, and once you're discharged you are absolutely not to go back to sleeping in your wretched car or they promise me you'll relapse and do a touching mashup of La Boheme and Grease, and nobody wants that. So you have a choice: you can come back to New York with me and attempt to recuperate with Eridan having fits of misguided hero-worship all over you, or you can spend a few weeks in a hotel with such amenities as heat and food and possibly even the internet, with which to deal with Eridan's fits of misguided hero-worship. It's up to you."

You have to doggedly thread your way through that speech with the concentration of a sixth-grader parsing la plume de ma tante, but you get there in the end.

"You mean it?"

Wow, you are batting a zillion on the Asking Intelligent Questions today. Ampora rolls his eyes at you. "Yes. I mean it. I'd appreciate it if you would take my statements as accurate indicators of my intent, just as a personal favor."

You don't want to be alone. You don't want to be alone, you want not to be alone so much it's almost choking you; and maybe some of that shows through because his face softens a bit and just for a moment you can see Tiffy Jones again. "Very well," he says, as if you'd spoken. "As soon as you're well enough to leave, we'll return to New York."

"I c'n do shit," you rasp, apropos of nothing. "I mean. Like. I ain't totally useless. You need any carbs balanced, oil changed, I'm your guy. Good with timin, too. Fact, any automotive shit other'n detailin. I never could get the window tint film on right the first try."

"I shall keep that in mind," says Ampora. "Go back to sleep, Cronus. I am very glad you called me."

You had a lot more to say, even though you have no idea what it actually is, but wow, just being awake is tiring you out like a trail run in full rock-pack. He gets up. You make a real effort: "...Me too."

Just for a moment, a huge hand--much bigger than Tiff's oil-grimed little paws--cups the side of your face, and the surprise of that touch drops you silent as he leaves you to sleep.