(no subject)
Bastian dropped the smoking filter, stomping on it to put it out, and immediately lit another cigarette. Sucking it down anxiously, he pulled the hat down further over his ears and peered around as unobviously as possible, given he stood still and alone at the station entrance. The street was busy, vacuum-packed full of people pouring in and out of the subway, all faceless and dull in the darkening twilight. The press of bodies and voices and tangled, angry karma made him even more nervous, and every time he saw a suit he nearly jumped out of his skin. Nerves strung out, rubbed raw and wailing at each little harsh breeze or noise or contact, Bastian chain-smoked and waited for Mack.
Ten minutes, he’d said. The contact was headed in on the first train past 5:35, so it wouldn’t be more than ten minutes. Except they’d pawned Bastian’s watch, the only thing left of any value that couldn’t be traced or wasn’t desperately needed to run and hide, and now who knew what time it was. Not him, for sure.
The cigarette it its filter and he dropped it like it’d burned him, fumbling with another and almost giving in to panic when the lighter gave him trouble. He got it, though, and through the continued nicotine rush counted what was left in the pack. It was all that was left, half this pack, the rest lost in screaming and stomping and the cackle of a tazer. He would kill for a joint now, though, or anything at all that would keep him from jumping at shadows and tired secretaries, but instead just pulled down his hat again, half-comforted by the wire pinned through and half-panicking because had it been ten minutes? Possibly? Maybe. Probably. Hell.
A hand came down on his shoulder and he jumped, stressed nerves snapping into action before he sucked in a deep breath of actual air instead of smoke.
“Ah jeeze you almost gave me a heart attack, I thought--” He turned, and stopped, and with a strangled sort of sound went silent, and the man who stood behind him in dark sunglasses lifted and eyebrow and squashed the now-dropped cigarette with a shoe.
It took him a minute, blinking groggily into the darkness, to realize he wasn’t still asleep. Longer than it should have, and mostly because he was still fucking dreaming despite being half-awake enough to sigh and shift on the mattress. Closing his eyes, Merrick drifted halfway back off before realizing that it wasn’t his damn dream, too choppy and dark and making no sense to him at all. So he shoved the warm weight sleeping next to him on the thin mattress.
“Andy,” he muttered, “get out.” The pictures slowed, and shifted, and still came through as just colors and light and music, so he did it again, this time getting putting an elbow in the blond’s stupid side. “Fucker.”
A wave of sleepy annoyance washed over him then, and disappeared, and Andy turned over with a tired snort to pin Merrick’s damn arm under a shoulder. Through the dark, the redhead closed his eyes halfway in irritation, then snorted and gave up, closing his eyes to darkness.