Leaving Behind
Title: Leaving BehindFandom: Kuroshitsuji AU: Mafia.
Author:
write_rewrite
Rating: G.
Pairings: Eric / Alan.
Warnings: None.
Notes: For hanakotoba_fic just because I haven't written something for her in a while.
Everything was in the trunk, packed into a '49 Plymouth bought cheap off a friend; it wasn't the kind of vehicle that Eric liked to drive, but it was safe and nondescript and boring, and it would get them as far away from New York as Indiana; then, they'd ditch the car and find something else to get them the rest of the way.
Wyoming was nice this time of year.
Nobody who was anybody lived in Wyoming. Nothing happened in Wyoming.
Eric slammed down the trunk of the car and took out a rolled-up piece of paper from his pocket, glanced over the unmarked boxes and Alan's neat handwriting. New York was still dark; it was only five in the morning, and the fog from the grates blurred the road. He couldn't see much farther than the street corner, though at least the snow had melted. New York streets were dangerous with snow on them.
Marina was asleep in the back of the car. Their stuff was in the trunk. Alan had given that weird redhead the key to his flat, and made him promise to torch the place. The bar was in his pocket - five thousand in fifties. The new owner had a goldmine with that one, but where they were going, Eric couldn't hold onto old things any more.
He had all he needed in the back of the car.
Quietly, he placed the paper back in his pocket and leaned in through the window, reaching out to pull the duck-edged blanket up higher on Marina's little body. Her sleeping face stayed peaceful; she only hugged her stuffed cat tighter around the neck, and twisted in Alan's borrowed sweater like she was in a sleeping bag.
A car backfired. Maybe it was a gun. You couldn't tell in this part of town. Either way, it pulled Eric from the back of the car and to the driver's side. Rubbing hus numb hands together, he stared in at the interior of the leather for a minute; only now had it struck him, what all this meant.
He was leaving his entire life, as it had been, behind. He wasn't going to be Eric Slingby anymore, who lived in the Sunset Rise block, Flat 16; he was going to be someone else entirely different, and so was his daughter, and so was Alan.
"Eric?" Alan asked, close to his side and tiredly, "Eric, can we go now? Grell says he'll take care of everything here - that nobody's going to find us. We can leave."
"Sure it's okay to trust your friend?" Eric pulled open the car door, and hesitated a moment, staring at the cheap leatherette like it mocked him; then, he bent at the knees and slid in. The car smelled like oil-drenched fries and latex, and the scent of pine trees that came equipped with cars like these, "I mean... it's a lot to ask."
"Grell's the best in the business," Alan's answer was short and cryptic and meant 'don't ask anymore'. He didn't.
The car started on the first twist of the key. It spluttered, the engine vibrating beneath the hood of the vehicle, the blue frame shaking on the new tires. He pulled out of the parking space carefully, and glanced to either side of the empty street, and pressed on the gas. The car shot out of the parking slot, and made for daylight, and the thin horizon far off into the distance.
Everything was left behind - the Mafia, the British Secret Service, Alan Humpheries, Eric Slingby, spies and mafia grunts, Brits and Americans, New York and Yorkshire.