In Which Chaos Is Broken Into Maneagable Pieces As The Fire Rages On
Looking back, parts of it will always seem more like a nightmare than reality.
...
Kevin has been going to the point of exhaustion and beyond, hauling people out of the wreckage. Finally, Joe gives up and calls in the big guns, and sends for Mike to make Kevin stop and rest. Even Mike gets kind of intimidated trying to talk Kevin down when he's like this--even almost falling over from exhaustion he's got this fierce, defiant gleam in his eye a stubborn set to his shoulders. He looks immovable, but Mike tamps down on the overwhelming admiration, awe, even, for this part of Kevin's personality, which doesn't ever really come into play until he's drawing on his last reserves of strength. Kevin reminds him of the kind of flame that burns all the brighter in the moments before it gutters out, and Mike takes his courage in his hands and goes to try to get Kevin to take a break.
...
Brendon's racing down a tunnel on the heels of thousands of terrified rats, sure something is terribly wrong in the face of their terror but utterly unsure what that something is, determined no to be caught unaware by the unknown menace. Gripped with such instinctual, primal terror, the first thing be that he does, the moment he bursts from the tunnel out into the grimy darkness of the slums at night, where the air seems calm and very few have yet noticed the smoke curling up from a little-used area near the docks is to glance around frantically, searching for a clue as to what is going on.
Later, he'll realize he was probably one of the first to notice the fire, but at the time, all he's interested in is raising the alarm. No one in the streets is inclined to listen to him, though, so before long he decides he needs to focus his efforts on finding and protecting the person who matters most.
...
But Mike's learned a thing or two about Kevin after all this time. He lures Kevin away from prying eyes, knowing he's got a better shot at an honest answer without an audience. He starts with praise, using his prattle to hide the fact he's coaxing Kevin down onto a pile of sacking that is serving as a bed. And by the time Kevin realizes Mike's game, his head is on Mike's shoulders and his limbs feel like lead. "Bastard," he mutters, but Mike knows Kevin. He kisses Kevin's forehead and wraps them both in a scratchy old blanket. "Love you too, Kev."
...
Mikey and Frank are both used to giving orders, and the people of the slums are used to taking them. Noone elected them, they just took charge of their respective parts of the line, and as the fire was beaten back their two teams merged. But rather than a butting of heads, they just...clicked.
...
Kevin grumbles, but he doesn't make even a single move to stand again, which is extremely telling in terms of how exhausted he actually is. It takes only the space of a few breaths before he's out cold.
...
Brendon shows up at The Hangar and the place is bustling, filled to the brim. Ryan blinks at him--even when Brendon's got business at the bar at night, which does occasionally happen, he generally stays out of Ryan's way, though he's waiting in the morning like clockwork.
"Brendon," He starts, a little irritated and a little concerned. The customer he'd been about to walk out with clears his throat pointedly. Brendon ignores him.
"We've got to get out of here," he says, and he can't help the way his voice sounds a little out of control, a little wild. The building's just dry wood. It would go up in moments, and it's far too packed in here--if they even caught on fast enough, there'd be such a stampede, there'd be no guarantee of even half of the room making it out alive.
"Where's Kevin? Is Nick working tonight? Ryan, please, listen to me--we have to get out of here."
...
This was hardly the place for power struggles. Frank just shrugged and said to Mikey--"The problem isn't anything your group's doing wrong or my group is--the problem is we've got a gap between us, and the flames just spread the there for fuel...."
...
Kevin sleeps deeply, barely stirring, which Mike knows is unusual - Kevin usually sleeps like a cat, one eye open at the slightest noise.
Mike holds him close and keeps watch.
...
The client walks off in a huff, and Ryan wheels on Brendon, furious. "What the fuck are you playing at?"
But Brendon is scared, actually properly scared, and the shock of it is the only thing that stops Ryan from pulling away when Brendon grabs his wrist. "Fire!" Brendon hisses. "Come with me."
...
Mikey nodded and gestured a few men over towards Frankie's team, sealing the gap. After that, they were one team, working efficiently to beat back the flames. "Frank," he said by way of introduction as they paused to drink from the bucket of clean water one of the street urchins had brought over.
"Mikey," the other man said in a cultured voice. Then there was a hiss and crackle, and it was back to the fire to beat out another outbreak.
Between Mike and Gerard, it no longer truly startles Frank to hear the occasional polite, educated tones of the upper classes when he's hanging around the slums, and at the moment he's got much bigger things to worry about. He files away Mikey's identity as 'odd', and goes back to trying to minimize waste in the bucket line.
...
"Fire?" Ryan asks, and his gaze is blank, a little disbelieving, but he doesn't protest this time when Brendon, keeping steady the hold on Ryan's wrist, guides them out of the crowd towards the door.
"Kevin? Nick?" Brendon asks again, and they're right up against the exit now. Ryan shakes is head, more to clear his thoughts than in answer, before replying, "Nick's not in tonight and Kevin--he was looking twitchy earlier and then he slipped out by himself. I think he's, you know, out."
Brendon nods, opening the door and stepping out purposefully.
...
There are a few times when Kevin stirs in his sleep, twitching as if from troubled dreams, but he stays fast asleep without waking for far longer than Mike would have expected.
Mike knows, because he stays the whole time.
When Kevin does finally awake, the hectic glaze over his eyes is gone, and the fine lines around his mouth have softened. "Food," Mike says, forestalling any argument. "Then you can go find more work to do." Mike's entire body protests when he starts to move, having spent the night awkwardly with Kevin's weight heavy on him, but he doesn't make a sound, just tries to discreetly shake it off as he follows Kevin towards where some of the slum ladies have set up a makeshift mess.
...
Brendon cuts through the night like a man possessed, and Ryan doesn't realize where they are going until they are standing in front of the grates that cover the drains. "Oh no," Ryan says, tugging away. "Hell no!"
"It can't burn," Brendon says, bordering on panic, and he latches on with a grip hard enough to hurt and hauls Ryan into the darkness.
...
Whoever Mikey is, he works just as hard as the men whose homes are burning, and Frank can't shake the sense of familiar. Maybe he was like Gerard, living here after being banished. There's something about that idea that feels right, but Frank doesn't have time to ponder further. Later, in a rare moment of relative calm, Mikey comes over to offer Frank a dipper of water, and Frank takes a moment to notice that Mikey's clothing, as much of it as hasn't been coated in soot, matches his speech.
"In your sunday best to honor the dead?" Frank asks with a wry nod towards the burned out skeleton of a building nearby, and he's only half joking.
...
Ryan ventured into the sewers once and only once, but that was an emergency, not some ridiculous, overblown paranoia of Brendon's. Ryan doesn't doubt that there's a fire somewhere. He does doubt that it's either near or serious, and he turns, prepared to go back to the bar because he has no idea what he was doing indulging this whim anyway. He turns around and the skyline is on fire. He can hear faint shrieks and the pounding feet of too many angry people moving suddenly and much too fast.
He turns unsteadily back to Brendon, follows him into the dark.
...
Kevin eats with a ferocity he rarely displays outside of combat, and then looks up from his food, scanning the area for someone who might know what's going on. After a minute he seems to remember something, turns back to Mike with a shy smile and says, "Thank you, for that," but by the end of the sentence he's already on a mission again in his head.
Mike doesn't mind. He's accomplished his mission already; Kevin doesn't look nearly as brittle and sharp edged, poised to crack, anymore.
...
Mikey's expression doesn't change, but Frank thinks he catches a glimmer of dark humour in his eyes. "You know how it is, a big fire starts suddenly and you realize you have absolutely nothing to wear..." and then he's gone, moving on with the bucket and dipper before Frank can even reply.
But Frank is now officially intrigued.
...
There's no light at all, only the feel of slipperyness under his feet and Brendon's too-warm hand in his. They plunge through the darkness for so long that Ryan wonders if this is all there is and will ever be now.
...
Mike lets him go with a single, gentle touch, and heads off to find Gerard or Joe and do their bidding. But, hours later, he finds he's not surprised when Kevin reappears and pulls him over for another meal.
They take care of each other. That's just how it works. It somehow fits--the way his mental clock goes off, telling him 'Kevin hasn't slept in days' long before he notices the steady gnawing of his stomach. He wonders in Kevin has the same nonsensical preservation instinct.
Whatever it is, it works for them, trading off on each other as the hours turn into days turn into a week. It's what keeps them going when everything else has fallen apart.
...
"Bren?" He finally asks, and maybe he voice shakes, just the tiniest bit, but it's dark here, it wasn't nearly this dark last time, and when they pass by vent openings they can hear the chaos overhead, and Ryan is tired and lost and in the dark. "Where are we going?"
"Not long now," Brendon says, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, "I know a place, we can wait this out."
...
It's not just because he's intrigued that he keeps an eye on Mikey--Frank's a pretty observant guy even at the worst of times, though it certainly doesn't hurt. He notices, then, the way the guy never seems to take a break, the way his energy is faltering.
Frank heads over. "Hey, you want to rest a bit? I'll keep an eye on your guys and we can trade off later. Friend of mine's got an infirmary round the block, you could see if they've got a bed free."
That gets a reaction out of Mikey. "Gerard," Mikey says, and there are more layers than Frank can count in that one word. "You know Gerard?"
Frank turns Mikey around and propels him a few paces down the street. "And by the sounds of it, so do you. GO, rest, then come back and relieve me."
Thankfully, Mikey goes.
With the added responsibility of both the area he's taken on and Mikey's spot, Frank hasn't got much time to think, try to slot indentification into place. The best he can do is keep moving, keep everyone moving, and keep his eyes open to the patterns of the fire, the men working beside him, the growing crowd in the background.
...
Ryan doesn't know what that means; for him, this place will also be associated with finding Brendon semi-conscious and lying in muck. But he's trusted Brendon this far, the thing is to just keep going.
It sounds bad outside--from the latest vent the sound of screaming had filtered through, along with a sinister sort of warmth--they must have been near to the fire site.
Ryan's not sure how long they've been walking, but it feels like hours when Brendon finally comes to a halt, turning into an alcove Ryan wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't pointed out to him.
...
It's enough days into this nightmare that Mike's not entirely sure how long it's been when he comes out of the trance he goes into, he's found recently, as he focuses all of his mind on making tiny, careful, clean stitches into skin--a technique Gerard had taught him in a panic on the second day -- to find Kevin standing behind him, smiling around exhaustion.
"No one wants to say it out loud yet, but it looks like the fire's dying down--you guys in the medical areas are the only ones who've had anything to do for hours.
Mike looks at his stitches, feeling a strange swell of pride at the "you," like he actually belonged here, like he helped. "That's good," he murmurs, too tired and shellshocked for much more.
"Yeah," Kevin replies, resting a warm hand on Mike's shoulder, "It's pretty good. Want to come with me to try to scrounge something to eat?"
Mike nods, accepts the hand up. "I heard rumours of soup." They move easily through the wards, nodding as they return soft greetings from nearly everyone they pass.
...
As the fire is contained, Frank is the first to notice the other men, the men suspiciously unmarked by the fire, by the fight. The shifty looking ones who are carrying sacks. Frank delegates to one of his more reliable crew, and goes looking for Kevin. He may never have been told, but Frank's always been good at reading what isn't written, and he knows that Kevin will know what to do about it.
...
He slithers through the gap and stands in darkness, sensing rather than seeing the feeling of space around him. The tiny halfpenny candle Brendon lights seems to glow like the sun after the darkness.
Ryan gasps.
...
"Of course they are," Kevin says when Frank explains, and he looks beyond frustrated. "As if everything wasn't bad enough, now I get to--" he breaks off and laughs incredulously.
"I thought I'd get a day before this bullshit, anyway. I was going to check in on my brothers. Find Mike. Get some sleep." He shakes his head. "Oh well. No rest for the wicked, eh?"
"Not even the extremely wicked," Frank concurs. He glances around. "I know who'd be stalwart," he added quietly with a waggle of his eyebrows. "And who wouldn't mind standing watch over the hospitals, if nothing else."
"Yeah?" Kevin asks. "Anyone ever tell you that you are a very useful man, Frank Iero?"
...
The little, cavernous room practically glitters with the walls covered in trash and treasures, odds and ends and various shiny things, like a magpie's nest. Ryan looks around in surprise, but Brendon just slides exhaustedly to the floor against one wall, looking back up at Ryan.
"I come here sometimes," he says, quite unneccesarily, since the entire decoration scheme screams 'Brendon',"And I just thought, if we wanted to get out of the way, it's be a good place." He reaches a hand up to Ryan. "Sit with me?"
Ryan sighs. Hiding seems so...something. But Ryan knows fire, knows how indiscriminate and unpredictable it can be. He sinks down beside Brendon and leans into him.
"So now we wait, eh?"
"Yeah," Brendon says, "Now we wait." It's a few minutes into the silence before he says, "I'm not--it's not because I'm a coward, that we're hiding. I might be," he continues, flashing a grin into the darkness, "But that's not why."
...
Frank shrugged and played pious. "I do the best I can." He shattered the ploy by grinning, showing teeth. "Now, if I were a looter, I'd start with Market Lane."
Kevin nods. "Lots of families living above the shop there who may be in need of a visit from a man of god?"
Frank nodded with another wolfish grin. He set out, walking quietly towards what was once the busiest alley in the slums, the ones were the most respectable stalls and shops were. True, there were families there that might need ministers. Ministering might just involve whacking a looter over the head with his very heavy, brass-bound bible, but it was a ministry Frank was familiar with.
...
Ryan jabbed him with his elbow. "Fire, you can't fight. You just hide and wait to come out and pick up the pieces."
...
Kevin decides he'd probably be the most use down by the docks, where he can say, if he needs to, he's digging out survivors. He's not sure he cares that much, though, if the factories and foundries and industrial areas get picked dry. It's a problem he's always had, deciding who he'll keep from getting robbed--so often he'll see a mugger on the street who's obviously living as near the edge as Kevin, trying to take a purse of a gent with plenty to spare.
Morality's filled with far more gray areas than Kevin usually likes to acknowledge.
...
"You can, though," Brendon says. "Kevin probably already is." He shakes his head a little. "It's not that I want harm to come to anyone, god knows I'd never wish burning to death on anyone, but I don't--I don't feel like I need to jump in to save everyone out there."
He reaches for Ryan's hand again. "You're here. That's enough for me."
...
It turns into a busy night, and Kevin is hampered by the fact that the geography of the city that he knew no longer exists.