Dimly, distantly, like a memory from his earliest childhood: Nam's daughter Yona screaming don't open it, a moment too late, as the wire sparked and the gate slid open.
"Wasn't anything in it but guards. Dozens of em, with axes and knives and that. Waiting for us. And like -- for a second we all just stood there and looked at each other through the gate, like, oh. okay, this is happening. And then one of em --"
He lets out a cracked huff of laughter. "Felt like I was dreaming for a moment, you know? One of them held up this fish. Never saw a fish before that, just pictures, you know? Size of your arm it was. Just held it up by the tail to show it to us, and then shoved his axe in its belly. Bloodied the blade. And they passed it hand to hand for a bit, nobody said a word, just each one cutting into the fish. Making a show of it, like. Saying we'll do you just as easy."
On his knees, his hands tense into fists, unnoticed.
Max's grip tightens on Edgar, reflexively. His breath catches in his chest and a chill runs down his spine, while dread settles in his belly like lead.
"They wanted to scare you," Max says with mournful certainty. He's seen fear tactics play out before. He can recognize the intent even if the act is different.
Edgar shakes his head. "If I stop now I'm never gonna start it again." Like the train itself, the story's hurtling along the tracks, knowing what it will have to crash through up ahead but unable to slow down.
"So -- we were fighting. Axes and knives and clubs, mostly. And like, they were tough, but we were keeping our feet, right? Put a couple of em down myself, and Curtis -- he cut one of em right off of me, probably saved my --"
He swallows. "And then this horn went off, and someone yelled over a loudspeaker that we were crossing Yekaterina Bridge. And that's -- that's the end of the year, you know? Train goes round the world once a year, and they know it's been a year when we hit the bridge. And it's always fuckin awful, cause -- there's ice that builds up on the bridge, every year, and the train's gotta smash through it, and it rattles us around like fuckin bolts in a box, so everybody's gotta stop whatever they're doing and hang on to something."
A small, cracked laugh. "So we did. And so did they. Just stopped the fight right there, all of them counting down ten, nine, eight while we scrambled for the walls, and everyone yelled happy new year, and then it was brace for impact and hang on for life."
He nods then, encouraging Edgar to keep going in that case. And as the story continues, he's shaking his head just slightly in disbelief, though not without some small looks of pride when Edgar speaks of how they held their own against such brutal opponents.
"That sounds like the most terrifying way to pass a new year I've ever heard of." Around the world? They circle the whole world and then crash into a wall of ice? What a crazy train.
"Oh, sure. Always does. Banging stopped, they announced safe passage, and ... I guess the fight was about to start again, except then Minister Mason was there and she had to make a fuckin speech first." His lip curls in contempt. "Up on a box in her fancy suit, calling us filthy ingrates and violent hooligans and that, all the usual bullshit except angrier cause we were actually doing something. And she said ... " He swallows again, his mouth dry. "She said, precisely seventy-four percent of you shall die."
(His voice takes on a little of another person's accent and cadence there: clipped, cold, sneering.)
"And all the guards started to pull these weird goggles over their eyes -- they had masks over their faces already, not like we could see their eyes, but they pulled on goggles over them, and the lights in the car all went out so there was just the light from the windows, and ... Nam said we were fucked, cause there was a tunnel ahead. D'you know what that is, a tunnel? I didn't. Still not really sure I get it, but ... it went dark, all at once, and Curtis yelled for all of us to get back."
A breath. "Thought for a while there we really were fucked. They could see us and we couldn't see them, and we were -- I could hear us dying, all around. Thought for sure that was it.
"And then Curtis yelled again, I heard him, and ... I dunno how he remembered it. I really don't. Back when we got Nam out of his drawer, he had cigarettes on him, and matches? And Chan, he's just a kid, I dunno what the fuck he was doing up with the rest of us there ... he swiped the matches when Nam wasn't looking. Saw him do it. I dunno how Curtis even thought of that right then, but ... somehow he did."
Edgar's expression is a complicated thing right now: distance, remembered fear, admiration, a twisted sort of longing.
"Heard him yell Chan, we need fire. And then other people yelling. Passing it back.
Max feels a chill in his blood just listening to Edgar's mimicry of the callous woman's pronouncement. And then, to what came next. Had the entire attack been a set-up? Was it a trap from the very start?
"I know what a tunnel is..." he says with a sinking dread in his core. Those goggles. He knows what they are too. Or, what they were likely to be. Night vision goggles.
"Some people just... have a way of performing under pressure, I guess," Max offers as explanation. It does sound to him like Curtis is one of those. Max's teacher, Josiah, is one too. He probably would have been able to think on his feet like this too. Better than Max.
"Didn't have to." His eyes are distant, shining with a strange remembered exaltation. "Put us on an even footing. That's all we needed. We had torches, and we had our weapons, and we were fuckin winning. The Minister and her toadies were running for it -- Gray threw a knife and got her in the leg, and she was half down but still trying to get away --"
His throat hurts suddenly, as though trying to stop him there. Christ, he wants to stop there, wants that to be the last moment he remembers: that floating, soaring triumph, seeing their enemies fleeing.
If they were winning, thinks Max, then why is Edgar's throat closing around the words so obviously. Well... Max knows why. And as they get closer to the inevitable end of the tale, he begins to wonder if this is really such a good idea.
"You don't need to do this," Max says quietly. He shifts in closer, as if to add his own physical weight as a comfort.
Edgar swallows. He could stop here; he could let that be the last of it. Just end with and then I died.
He could keep being the only one here who knows what happened.
"One of em hit me in the head," he says, low and flat. "From behind. Din't see him coming. Got my axe away from me before I could see straight, got an arm around my neck, had a knife -- I thought ..."
And he trails off, shaking his head. "Didn't think at all. I just ... panicked. Saw Curtis a ways away and just yelled for him like a little kid. Just what the bastard wanted, 's why he din't just kill me straight off, I should've -- "
"We think we know what we'll do when something like this happens. As if, magically, we'll just know? But it's not like that. You were surprised. You were scared. Already injured, in fact. There's no should. What happened happened."
Max's grip tightens again.
"I know how you're feeling. Because it's how I was feeling after that feral vampire attacked me. You saw me with its teeth at my throat. I was supposed to be trained to know better, I still froze. It doesn't matter sometimes. That's what I'm trying to say. No one could expect you to be thinking clearly at a moment like that."
"I should have," he says raggedly, "because he heard me. Curtis, he was going after Mason before she could get away, but he heard me yell and he looked, and, and saw --"
His hands close on each other, twisting and squeezing.
"And the bastard had a knife on me, and he yelled surrender."
Max falls silent. What must it be like to be on Edgar's side? To know that his friend had to bear witness to this. To know how much it must have pained Curtis at that moment. Generally, that shouldn't have to be any concern of the dead. What a unique kind of pain this place makes possible.
Max presses in closer to Edgar, trying to say I'm here with his body.
Then, very softly he asks, "What did Curtis do...?"
"What the fuck was he supposed to do?" The words are aggressive; the tone is anything but, choked and shaky and miserable. "They'd have killed us all if he surrendered -- Mason would've gotten away if he tried to fight, and I'd probably still have --"
His hands pull away from each other, ball into helpless fists. He doesn't open his eyes.
"He went after her," he says, after a long pause, flat and bleak. "And I ... tried to get away and go after him. I think -- I think I almost made it."
What was he supposed to do? Max has no idea. What would Max have done? God, he isn't sure of that either. It's a scenario so horrifying it makes him shiver just to contemplate. But Edgar doesn't have the luxury of not thinking about it, does he?
"You were both faced with an impossible situation. Edgar, I don't think there's a damn thing I can say to... express how horrified I am for you, that either of you ever had to face down such a moment.
"But you wanted him to go on, even if you couldn't. Because you're a good and worthy friend. He knew that. He knows it still."
"Oh, Edgar..." Max can't help but squeeze him tight. "Of course, you wanted him to save you. Of course, you did."
Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't want, irrationally, to be saved? That doesn't mean he didn't also want Curtis to win and to complete the mission. In Max's mind, both can be true at once, so he would stand by his words.
Despite knowing the kind of world Edgar left, he would still send the man back if he could. Too young. He was just so young to have died. It wasn't fair.
"But I'm glad I met you too. I'm just glad that, if it has to be this way, I can know you and hold you. I want to do anything I can for you, to make your life here as good as it can be. That's what I really want for you."
Abruptly just having Max's arms around him isn't enough; he shifts, squirms one arm out from between their bodies, wraps both of his arms around Max in turn and hugs him hard.
"Y'already done so much," he says blurrily into Max's shoulder.
And then, with a half-choked, close-to-tears laugh: "You brought me cake."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Dimly, distantly, like a memory from his earliest childhood: Nam's daughter Yona screaming don't open it, a moment too late, as the wire sparked and the gate slid open.
"Wasn't anything in it but guards. Dozens of em, with axes and knives and that. Waiting for us. And like -- for a second we all just stood there and looked at each other through the gate, like, oh. okay, this is happening. And then one of em --"
He lets out a cracked huff of laughter. "Felt like I was dreaming for a moment, you know? One of them held up this fish. Never saw a fish before that, just pictures, you know? Size of your arm it was. Just held it up by the tail to show it to us, and then shoved his axe in its belly. Bloodied the blade. And they passed it hand to hand for a bit, nobody said a word, just each one cutting into the fish. Making a show of it, like. Saying we'll do you just as easy."
On his knees, his hands tense into fists, unnoticed.
"And then we were fighting."
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"They wanted to scare you," Max says with mournful certainty. He's seen fear tactics play out before. He can recognize the intent even if the act is different.
"I'm so sorry."
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His right fist clenches, hard, and then both hands uncurl to settle flat on his knees.
Much lower: "Please just -- don't say that again until I get through it, all right?"
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"If you need to take a moment, you can."
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"So -- we were fighting. Axes and knives and clubs, mostly. And like, they were tough, but we were keeping our feet, right? Put a couple of em down myself, and Curtis -- he cut one of em right off of me, probably saved my --"
He swallows. "And then this horn went off, and someone yelled over a loudspeaker that we were crossing Yekaterina Bridge. And that's -- that's the end of the year, you know? Train goes round the world once a year, and they know it's been a year when we hit the bridge. And it's always fuckin awful, cause -- there's ice that builds up on the bridge, every year, and the train's gotta smash through it, and it rattles us around like fuckin bolts in a box, so everybody's gotta stop whatever they're doing and hang on to something."
A small, cracked laugh. "So we did. And so did they. Just stopped the fight right there, all of them counting down ten, nine, eight while we scrambled for the walls, and everyone yelled happy new year, and then it was brace for impact and hang on for life."
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"That sounds like the most terrifying way to pass a new year I've ever heard of." Around the world? They circle the whole world and then crash into a wall of ice? What a crazy train.
"Did the train make it out the other side...?"
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(His voice takes on a little of another person's accent and cadence there: clipped, cold, sneering.)
"And all the guards started to pull these weird goggles over their eyes -- they had masks over their faces already, not like we could see their eyes, but they pulled on goggles over them, and the lights in the car all went out so there was just the light from the windows, and ... Nam said we were fucked, cause there was a tunnel ahead. D'you know what that is, a tunnel? I didn't. Still not really sure I get it, but ... it went dark, all at once, and Curtis yelled for all of us to get back."
A breath. "Thought for a while there we really were fucked. They could see us and we couldn't see them, and we were -- I could hear us dying, all around. Thought for sure that was it.
"And then Curtis yelled again, I heard him, and ... I dunno how he remembered it. I really don't. Back when we got Nam out of his drawer, he had cigarettes on him, and matches? And Chan, he's just a kid, I dunno what the fuck he was doing up with the rest of us there ... he swiped the matches when Nam wasn't looking. Saw him do it. I dunno how Curtis even thought of that right then, but ... somehow he did."
Edgar's expression is a complicated thing right now: distance, remembered fear, admiration, a twisted sort of longing.
"Heard him yell Chan, we need fire. And then other people yelling. Passing it back.
"And the fire came."
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"I know what a tunnel is..." he says with a sinking dread in his core. Those goggles. He knows what they are too. Or, what they were likely to be. Night vision goggles.
"Some people just... have a way of performing under pressure, I guess," Max offers as explanation. It does sound to him like Curtis is one of those. Max's teacher, Josiah, is one too. He probably would have been able to think on his feet like this too. Better than Max.
"When the fire came, did it blind the guards?"
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His throat hurts suddenly, as though trying to stop him there. Christ, he wants to stop there, wants that to be the last moment he remembers: that floating, soaring triumph, seeing their enemies fleeing.
He doesn't want to go on from here.
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"You don't need to do this," Max says quietly. He shifts in closer, as if to add his own physical weight as a comfort.
"You can stop. It's okay."
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It takes him two tries to say it. "D'you want me to stop?"
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He could keep being the only one here who knows what happened.
"One of em hit me in the head," he says, low and flat. "From behind. Din't see him coming. Got my axe away from me before I could see straight, got an arm around my neck, had a knife -- I thought ..."
And he trails off, shaking his head. "Didn't think at all. I just ... panicked. Saw Curtis a ways away and just yelled for him like a little kid. Just what the bastard wanted, 's why he din't just kill me straight off, I should've -- "
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Max's grip tightens again.
"I know how you're feeling. Because it's how I was feeling after that feral vampire attacked me. You saw me with its teeth at my throat. I was supposed to be trained to know better, I still froze. It doesn't matter sometimes. That's what I'm trying to say. No one could expect you to be thinking clearly at a moment like that."
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"I should have," he says raggedly, "because he heard me. Curtis, he was going after Mason before she could get away, but he heard me yell and he looked, and, and saw --"
His hands close on each other, twisting and squeezing.
"And the bastard had a knife on me, and he yelled surrender."
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Max presses in closer to Edgar, trying to say I'm here with his body.
Then, very softly he asks, "What did Curtis do...?"
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His hands pull away from each other, ball into helpless fists. He doesn't open his eyes.
"He went after her," he says, after a long pause, flat and bleak. "And I ... tried to get away and go after him. I think -- I think I almost made it."
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"You were both faced with an impossible situation. Edgar, I don't think there's a damn thing I can say to... express how horrified I am for you, that either of you ever had to face down such a moment.
"But you wanted him to go on, even if you couldn't. Because you're a good and worthy friend. He knew that. He knows it still."
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"I wanted him to save me."
The words scrape his throat like broken ice, burn like cold metal.
"I knew he couldn't, I knew there was no way, but I wanted -- "
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Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't want, irrationally, to be saved? That doesn't mean he didn't also want Curtis to win and to complete the mission. In Max's mind, both can be true at once, so he would stand by his words.
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For a moment that's all, and for a moment it's enough: someone knows, someone understands.
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"It's okay," he coos softly. "I'm here. And I love you, and I want you to know that. You don't have to face this pain alone."
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"Love you too," he manages finally, muffled. "I didn't -- christ, I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die like that --"
Another pause, as he swallows down the burning lump in his throat.
"But I'm glad I came here. I'm glad I met you."
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Despite knowing the kind of world Edgar left, he would still send the man back if he could. Too young. He was just so young to have died. It wasn't fair.
"But I'm glad I met you too. I'm just glad that, if it has to be this way, I can know you and hold you. I want to do anything I can for you, to make your life here as good as it can be. That's what I really want for you."
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"Y'already done so much," he says blurrily into Max's shoulder.
And then, with a half-choked, close-to-tears laugh: "You brought me cake."
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