Air

a fic by lint. zzzz

Summary: A road trip, complete with Greek takeout and denial. Roughly 2007-movieverse.

Warnings: Swearing. OCs. Angst. First person present. More angst.

Notes: This story takes place one year after the events of the 2007 CGI movie. Also, any segment that starts with a time is a flashback to one 24-hour period. No offense meant to residents of the locales mentioned. See end for more specific notes.

Disclaimer: I own no copyrighted characters contained herein. (As if I'd want responsibility for these guys. Shyeah, right.)

Length: 4127

0o000o000o0o0o000o00o0o0

1. Mask/Unmask

I'm about an hour west of Nashville when I drop the bike. It's raining hard, and just as I'm coming out from under an overpass, lightning strikes in the forest off to the right. I instinctually lay into the brakes, but don't pull up the rear quite hard enough, and before I can think to correct it, I'm down, a lowside slide that seems to stretch seconds into centuries. The tires lose grip instantly, and the ground jumps up at me like an angry lion, the roar of steel against wet asphalt rattling and screaming through my ears. I just lay there for a moment when the pavement stills, until I'm sure the only pounding I'm taking is from the rain.

The bike's still running. I'd like to say it's taken worse, but I don't think I can remember when. I know I've definitely seen better days. But the armor's taken the brunt of the damage for me; although I know I'm going to have some colorful bruises all down my right leg and arm, I'm basically intact. All I can see in the headlight is rain and road stripes, and at midnight, there's nobody around to notice as I heave the thing back on its tires and head back for the overpass. Just the sound of drops slamming into the helmet is driving me nuts. At speed it's unnoticeable; just blends into the sounds of engine and tires on pavement and air hissing past. But walking, it's like being trapped inside a bell.

I'm limping pretty decently by the time I make it back to shelter, and my arm feels like it's going to fall off. I prop the bike up on its stand and flop to the pavement behind it. Air. I need air. My hands find a long scrape in the helmet when I go to pull it off my head, and it's even worse to look at. I wonder vaguely just how hard I went down, how long until my ears stop ringing, but I can't bring myself to really care. I feel like I've been wrapped in fog, despite the post-adrenaline shakes, like my entire self is as numb as my tail from riding over twenty-four hours straight.

I stare at the gouge in the helmet, and start to laugh. There's nothing else to do.

I said I needed some air. 8:12, the night before.

New York to Nashville. That's a hell of a lot of air.

I put the helmet back on and lean against the front wheel of the bike, and wait for the rain to let up.

o0o0o00o0o00o0o00o00o

8:10 p.m. Mike's sitting across the table from me, and he's not talking. There's pizza, untouched, in a box on the table. He stares at the box. I stare at the box. I'm not talking, either. I hear the numbers on the oven clock flap over to 8:11.

Leo and Don are in the dojo, talking, not fighting, but they're quiet enough I can't make out what they're saying. Me, I can't trust anything rational to come out of my mouth right now. So I sit there with Mike, and we stare at anything besides each other. The pizza, cold now.

The oven numbers clack to 8:12. The sound grates on the one thin thread of my patience, and I feel it start to fray.

I am not going to lose it, not here, not now.

I need some air, I say. I think Mike tries to stop me.

00o0o0o0o00000o0o0o0o0o0

The rain's down to a spatter, and it'll be dawn in a few hours. I can't stay here; next time a cop drives by, he's gonna want to stop and help, and that's more trouble that I don't need. No traffic, so I go to check out the median.

Nuh-uh. It's basically one big puddle; mud and weeds and who knows what else. The bike's not sprung for offroading, and seeing how dark it is, I'd probably slip and end up flat on my shell again. Guess I'll just have to turn around at the next exit.

I use the meager lights in the overpass to check out the bike. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it's mine, and I know every bolt and line and bearing. The frame's still true, the chain and the steering's fine, nothing seems to be leaking, and electronics all check out okay. The only thing is the right front fairing, it's all bashed up, but that's just decorative, really; not bad enough to screw up the aerodynamics. Could've been a lot worse.

I take it easy for the three miles to the next exit, just to make sure the bike's not going to fall apart.

It's fine. Me, not so much. My shoulder's screaming from holding the same position for five minutes, and my knee's not much better. It's not anything that a few aspirin and a good workout won't cure, but I don't have one or space for the other without attracting attention. Maybe if I find a deserted rest area...

There's a chain gas station at the next exit, and I take the opportunity to fill up while there's nobody around. I'm trying to convince the cash machine to take a battered five when a big pickup pulls up next to me. The driver gets out and goes into the convenience store, leaving the kid in the back of the crew cab.

I go back to the pump, and I can feel the kid's eyes on me. I look out the corner of my eye; he's maybe five years old, toy car in one hand and the other smudging up the corner of the window. He's staring at me, mouth open in an O like he's just seen some movie car crash. The man comes out of the convenience store then, carrying a cup of coffee, a sack of donut holes, and a bottle of juice. He hands the juice and donuts in to the kid and comes around to the other side of the truck to pump gas, the coffee still in hand.

Damn, I'd do fifty flips for that coffee right about now.

The kid's watching him now, not me, the OJ having replaced the car in his hand. He looks happy, grinning like an idiot.

"What're you staring at, asshole?"

I turn my attention back to the bike just in time to keep the tank from overfilling. I decide I don't really need to go inside for eleven cents change, and start up the engine. I take a look over my shoulder as I'm pulling out of the station. Dad's still staring at me, the kid needs a napkin, and I can see the tips of three fishing poles hanging out the back of the truck.

There's two stickers on the tailgate, on either side of the license plate; the first is a stylized fish, the second's a American flag, with 'These Colors Don't Run' printed next to it.

Good thing Dad didn't look too close and see I only had three fingers. I'm not in the mood to kick some jerk's ass in front of his son.

I wait for a semi to pass before pulling out onto the road. The rain's all but stopped now, leaving the morning still and soggy. I pull out on the road, taking it easy on the wet pavement. The onramp for the westbound lanes is a block away, the eastbound on the other side of the overpass.

I glance back at the truck one more time. I can't see the kid, but Dad's still watching me.

I'm not a good son. I'm dishonorable, and untrustworthy, and disrespectful, and all the air in the world isn't going to change that fact.

I gun the engine back onto to the freeway. Jackson, 45 miles.

o0o000o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Precursor to morning rush hour in Memphis.

There's a flashing sign up by the side of the road; there's not much traffic, but I'm there long enough that I've memorized the message.

AMBER ALERT
1997 FORD F-150
AL 7BF889E

I can't help but think of the kid in the gas station. The truck had Alabama plates.

o0o0000o0o0o0oo0o00o00o0o

It's March. It's not supposed to be snowing. There's not supposed to be forests and ski resorts in New Mexico. But it is, and there are. The rest stop I've pulled over at is completely deserted, blanketed in a two-inch carpet of white under the sick orange glare of arc-sodium streetlights, and the silence when I turn off the bike's engine is monumental.

It reminds me of the farmhouse. I don't want to think about that.

Business first. I lock myself in a dingy stall in the mens and peel off the armor so I can check out the damage from when I dumped the bike.

The entirety of the outside of my right leg, from my knee nearly up to my hip, is completely black. Not the olive-brown that my skin usually turns when bruised, but ink black. It almost looks like it's dripping down underneath the skin. My arm's worse, though. I can barely get the shoulder guard off, it's swollen so tight. And it's not just the hard bruises where I hit the ground, but in other places, too. The front of my shoulder, along the collarbone; feels like I've been clubbed. And my thumb's tingling too, almost a pins-and-needles feeling.

It still moves like it's supposed to, though. A few aspirin, maybe an ice pack, and it's basically fine. Right.

Putting the armor back on hurts ten times as much as taking it off.

I drop a dollar into the vending machine outside and get a Coke, and hide in the shadows of the picnic area for my very own private pity party.

My tail's numb.

I hurt.

It's fucking cold, and I'm cold-blooded.

The security light's buzzing loud enough it sounds ready to explode.

I'm in New Mexico.

I'm in.

Fucking.

New Mexico.

Why in the name of all that's sacred am I in New Mexico? Why am I not at home, back where all common sense says I should be? Why do I take every opportunity to do the exact worst thing possible?

Pretty much answered my own question, there. Who am I, to do otherwise?

I sit down on a picnic table and take the helmet off to take a swig of Coke. I don't think anything gets to my throat; the liquid gets sucked up by my mouth and tongue before it has the chance.

Two days, now. It's the first thing I've had to drink.

I lean my elbows on my knees and rest my head in my hands, and that's how I find the bruise on my head. At my right temple, just above where my bandana would be. Should've known. It's a fair-sized lump, but I doubt it's done any worse damage than to spoil my shockingly good looks. I would've noticed if I'd had a concussion. Basically fine. I take a long drink and lay my hurting head on top of my hurting arm on top of my hurting knee.

I'd like to think I'm holding it together pretty well, considering.

0o0o0o0o0o0o00o00o0o0o0

11:48 p.m. The bike's parked behind a dumpster in a relatively safe alleyway, and I'm up on the roof getting some air. Really. Usually when I say I'm going out, what I actually mean is that I want to beat the crap out of something, and I'm going to find someone who deserves it. It's no secret; everyone knows it. But I've been there, done that already tonight, and the fight's all gone out of me. Didn't think that could happen.

You can smell the river tonight. It's halfway between ocean and old socks, and the breeze is brisk with a hint of winter, still. I hang my feet off over the edge of the building, bike helmet resting on my knee, and listen to the city.

Eight million people, living out their lives between the street and the ceiling, with no idea what might be under their feet or above their heads. All the dealers, the gangbangers, the murderers and rapists and muggers, they're all innocent in that light. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

I could lose myself here, if I wanted. If I tried.

A hiccup of a siren, two blocks north and west, and I'm no longer lost. I put the helmet back on and leap across the rooftops towards its destination. It's a disco inferno of red-and-blue when I get there, three Crown Vics and an ambulance, and I stay in the rooftop shadows. The street's their home turf, not mine.

The paramedics look bored. That's never a good sign. That means there's nothing left for them to do.

He's laying against a dumpster, head cocked to the left as if he were watching something vaguely amusing. Nothing funny about the rest of him, though; shotgun wounds just aren't pretty. The trauma and dispersal pattern look like it was a sawed-off. Lousy aim, but easier to carry. Easy to get in close. I'd say two shots, from a range of maybe a dozen feet. The view from three stories up isn't great, but I've seen enough of this kind of thing to know what I'm looking at.

The guy's got the attention of two cops, plainclothes with the baggies and uniform with the chalk line. His girl's pulled the rest of them like flies, though, floodlights and forensics and all. She's lounging against the garbage bags set out at the other end of the dumpster; Cleopatra-like, if you ignore the bruises and stab wounds and torn clothes. And the bits of her insides that seem to have gone missing.

I don't watch the night any more. I don't hold the knife, but I can't help but think that makes me just as guilty as the ones who do.

12:03 a.m. Bike's back in the alley.

Just ride away.

I taste teeth.

o000000o0o0o000o0oo0o0

The bike's engine's kept me warm through the mountains, and the tail of a storm that I found in New Mexico is surrendering east. Slowly. At least I think it's heading east. Which would mean I'm going west. There was more snow and a bit of a mix-up in Denver, and now I'm not even sure what state I'm in.

Literally or figuratively. Ha ha, funny.

It's probably about an hour to sunrise, and the full moonlight is eerie in the high desert. The Rockies are mostly behind me; I'm riding through scrub sage with mountain ranges as distant shadows, snow glistening in blue-white patches. The stars flicker above through the patchy clouds, closer and brighter than I imagined they could be. You don't see stars much in New York; there's too much light and smog. But here, they stretch horizon to horizon, uncountable, immeasurable, with not even a tree to shelter.

Maybe this is what meditation is supposed to feel like.

I've half a mind to run off into the middle of this nowhere and find a cave, and live there. I could hunt deer and drink from streams and make fire with sticks and flint. And watch this sky, every night, learn its infinity.

Fuck.

Who am I kidding? I could never do that. I don't have the patience, even if I deserved it.

The bike doesn't even slow.

There's a roadsign up ahead. I don't know three of the towns, but the fourth is Las Vegas. 323 miles.

I'm in...whatever state's east of Nevada. Don't know much geography.

The harsh song of the bike's engine cuts the silence of the night. Sin City, sounds like my kind of town.

o0o0000o000o00o0o0o0o0o

Vegas is hot. Tourists are all in shorts and sandals, and they're everywhere, skipping down the strip and staring at the lights even though it's midday.

Shouldn't have gotten off the freeway. But part of me was curious, to see not a city that didn't sleep, but where time of day honestly didn't matter. At least in New York night is night and day is day. But Vegas has its own special time, shut off in a bubble from the rest of the world. Kinda makes me sick.

Or maybe that's just me being hungry. Doesn't matter much either way.

I'm at a stoplight between Caesar's Palace and the Flamingo. Early afternoon in the very beginning of spring and there's still traffic. True, it's a Sunday, but it's way too early to go out partying. Then again, the way people are dressed, you could hardly tell the difference.

I'm used to New York. I know the buildings, the traffic, the tourists, the sense of restlessness. This is different. It's almost like...hell, like it's got its own gravity, or some sci-fi shit like that. Like it should collapse inward on itself, swallowed whole by the desert. I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's aliens running the whole thing; see just what humans'll do for a tub of quarters.

A good dozen bikers pull up around and behind me, weaving in and out through the stopped cars. They're the first major stereotype of bikerdom, Wannabe Hell's Angels. The guy just to my left's checking me out; he's got the requisite brain-bucket helmet, t-shirt and leather vest with tassels, chaps, boots with as much bling as his ride. The way he's looking at me tells me he thinks I'm the second stereotype of bikerdom, the Sportbike Idiot, and therefore his natural enemy. He revs the V-Twin a couple times, a smirk unfolding under the nicotine gray-blond tails of his moustache.

I'm not going to race you, fuckwad.

My fingers itch for the throttle, but I've still got enough sense of mind to keep them still. The bike's plates are real, but the registration's fake, and I don't have a license or insurance. Drawbacks of not being human. And I know there's a cop in the far left lane, about five cars back.

But still.

He's got a classic Harley, looks all original except for the extra chrome. And this bike...well, let's just say Donnie took it on as a special project after he found me and Casey up in the garage one night, trying to gap spark plugs. It's still true to the spirit of the original, but other than that, they'd never recognize it at the factory.

Part of me wants to grin at the memory, but that bit's ancient history, drowned two and a half days ago.

The light turns green. The guy next to me speeds away, the rhinestones on his vest red diamonds in the desert sun. Santa's Helper, they spell out. Not a clue. Sure as hell the guy ain't no elf.

The rest of the gang passes me by the end of the intersection, ducking and weaving through traffic. It's cosmic justice when, three blocks later, I see the cop in the left lane has pulled my buddy off on a side street.

I follow the speed limit like a good law-abiding citizen, all the way back to the freeway. And then I open the taps. Cops are all chasing the nitwits on the Boulevard.

00o0o000o00o0o0o0o00o0o

3:21 a.m. Casey's truck's still parked outside the warehouse, which means that he and April are down with my brothers, doing what needs to be done. I can't think on it; it's tangles in a fishing reel, throw out the line until it stops, inextricable. I speed past and let the streets lead me away. Cruising, asphalt lines a yellow brick road.

Red light, red light, green light. Red. Some of these neighborhoods the sunlight doesn't reach, buildings too close. The lane leads me into a right turn and I follow the path set out for me. Can't go home now, can't look anyone in the eye and listen. Dishonorable. I trace a square-cut maze through the streets; past the park, through alphabet city, down theatre row, one side of the city to the other.

My lane swerves away from the rest, angling off to the right. I follow it. It parallels another street for a bit, nearly deserted at this time of night. Up, around, then down, into a concrete catacomb. Bright white light, roar of the bike steel incisors in my ears, rushing. Lines, lights, walls, all falling past, and my hands clench the handlebars. Water leaks down my cheeks as I hold my breath. Longer, longer...

The dark at the end of the tunnel. Air. Signs. Welcome to New Jersey.

Breathe.

0o000o00o0o0o0o0oo0oo0

The freeway's come to an end in some stupid suburb. Hills of houses, all dark now, holding me down like deep water. The night's foggy, streetlights making pale cones of light down on sidewalks, and the noise of the bike's engine is a hatchet in the quilted silence.

I don't belong here. I need to find the road again, right turn instead of left.

The street I've followed comes to a deadend, and I take the narrow cul-de-sac at single digit speeds to avoid ending up as grille grease on some suburbanite's motorhome. The neighborhood stays silent as I backtrack, still as a held breath.

I recognize the onramp by the shield-shaped sign; no clue if it's the same way I came or a different road altogether. Doesn't matter. Anything to escape the critical mass of the rows upon rows of cookie-cutter houses.

Up the ramp; escape velocity in 3.2 seconds. I upshift and settle into a cruise, watching the needle on the tach dip back to the left side of the dial, and...

Eyes on the road. Concentrate, hold the line.

Rotational physics is the only thing that keeps me upright as I blink away spots. A nauseous fainting feeling settles into the top of my head, and I hunch down over the handlebars to lower the center of gravity. The spots aren't fading, and my hands and feet are starting to feel too far away. Green sign overhead, C Street in 1 mile. Have to get off the road before I end up part of it.

Overhead cranes to the right, four, five, ten stories tall, and I turn left. Warehouse district, melting into residential. Right turn. Backs of warehouses bordering the street, chain linked backyards, no luck. Right turn. Beside an alley, one block down, under a security light for an adjoining warehouse, salvation in a storm drain. There. I take care of the light with a bit of broken cinderblock and park the bike between an empty dumpster and a stack of pallets. The metal and leather peels off like old scabs; no sense in actually dunking the stuff in industrial runoff. Everything fits like puzzle pieces under the shell armor, which locks over the pillion bars with a faint snap. Without the key, it'd take explosives or a blowtorch to get to it now. Spare manhole cover tool strapped between the tank and the forks. Check.

Manhole covers haven't been this heavy since I was ten.

There's some sort of greasy puddle down the center of the alley, but not enough to be a problem. I hold the cast iron up a few inches so I can unhook the tool before I shove the cover aside. But the edge is slippery, and I forget the tool and slap my other hand under the cover to prevent it from dropping. The quiet of the alleyway magnifies the small sound the tool makes as it falls, echoing carelessly in the foggy dark.

Seriously. Heaviest manhole cover ever.

The curve of the circle grates against the pavement as I try to get enough of a grip on it to lever it over the rim, my fingers sliding desperately on the oily metal. But the cover succumbs to gravity, and my right index finger explodes like a roman candle as it gets caught between ninety pounds of cast iron and the grimy concrete. The noise in my head is almost loud enough to cover up the crisp kachik of a pump-action behind me.

Not a friendly sound.

"You don't look like Public Works."

My free left hand goes for my belt, but finds nothing. Sai are still in the shell armor, locked on the bike.

Idiot. Fucking brainless idiot.

I tug at my finger, but it's stuck. Footsteps in the alley behind me, and I brace my feet on the greasy pavement. One mammoth pull and my hand comes free, at the expense of my footing. I pitch backwards as my right foot slips to the side, and then overbalance forwards as my toes lose grip completely. I get a closeup look at the grid pattern on the manhole cover as the world vanishes in stars.

Just turtle luck, running true to form.

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Notes: This fic is unfinished. I've got a handful of chapters done, but unfortunately it's likely to remain in this state. In general I hate to put up things in this condition, but it's been sitting on my hard drive for three and a bit years, and I think it's a relatively decent bit of writing, among other reasons. (Provided that 'decent' is a little-known synonym for 'utterly screwed-up angst-fest', that is.) Also, my horoscope today said I should share things. That's right, this is all astrology's fault.

If you have any objections to the tone, the topic, or the vocabulary, please remember that the back button is at your command. That being said, thank you for reading.