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Stack stands in one of the back rooms of the juke joint with no windows, and he strains every one of his new senses to figure out what’s happening outside.
If he focuses real hard, he’s getting most of it. How many Klansmen pulled up based on the heartbeats. The sounds of the bullets and the very faint smell of their blood as Smoke picks them off. The tiny pulled pin of the grenade and then the boom of the car with the men inside. He can picture enough of it, and he knows Smoke’s winning. But he’s worried.
He remembers how Smoke was, back in the war. Never quite reckless , but uncaring about his own life. Didn’t seem to mind much about the possibility of being dead, on the worst days. There were times when Smoke pulled himself outta somethin’ just for Stack’s sake, and Stack could tell. Because he was scared shitless for Smoke’s life every fuckin’ day even when Smoke didn’t seem to be, and that had to be enough. Smoke kept himself safe mostly because Stack needed him to. They never talked about it, but they both knew it.
But now… Smoke’s fighting a war, and Stack’s not out on the field with him watching his back. Instead, Stack’s stuck inside, waiting and listening. And he doesn’t think Smoke cares enough to try to survive this time.
Stack knows when it happens because he hears Smoke’s small grunt, and then he focuses real hard to confirm it by the smell of the blood. Smoke’s been shot. But how bad is it?
He doesn’t think it’s too bad until… Shit, Smoke asks to light a cigarette and then he sits ? Yeah, Stack doesn’t like this one bit.
He hears when Smoke unloads his clip of bullets into the last Klan member, but then after that there’s just… silence. No more movement.
Smoke’s bleeding. He’s still breathing. And he’s not getting up.
“No,” Stack whispers. “Hell no.”
Stack fumbles with the handle on the store room door and throws it open. As fast as he can, he maneuvers through the space of the juke joint and does his best to stick to the shadowed edges, but after a certain point there’s more light than shadow in the wide open space. Daylight streams in everywhere through the big windows, and he can’t fully avoid it. Stack grits his teeth but doesn’t stop, running for the shadowed area by the front door and hissing in pain when the light scalds his skin on the way.
He makes it not too worse for wear and starts listening intently again. Now Smoke’s breathing sounds a little less steady, and then there’s a soft whisper of sound.
Like a body sliding on dirt.
Stack may not have a heartbeat anymore, but he can still feel terror. No.
He immediately starts banging on the door, hollering, “Smoke! Smoke! Fuck, Goddammit, no!” Nothing. “Elijah! Don’t you fuckin’ do this! Get the fuck up!”
No change.
“Oh, shit,” Stack groans in despair, leaning his forehead against the wood. “Jesus shit, fuck. Smoke. ” He can’t wait around in here and listen to his brother give up on living. Everything in him – what’s left of him – is rebelling at the idea. This is wrong. It’s not an option. “Okay. Okay, fuck. Okay—”
He doesn’t pause to think or plan. He just throws the door open, runs into the direct sunlight, and screams in agony.
———
Smoke’s sitting out in the light, holding his daughter as Annie looks on. It’s nice. Peaceful, even. Finally . He basks in it, as things fade a bit along the edges, and he feels… floaty. Like he’s drifting. He’s not afraid and he knows, after everything, that this is right.
In the distance, he hears faint screaming.
Suddenly, the world lurches to the side and everything goes black. No awareness or connection to his body, all he’s got is patchy sound. Pain starts trickling back in, and the screams are suddenly a lot louder but come in and out of his fading awareness, and then he gets snatches of more sensations like he’s being moved, and then—
Scorching, white-hot agony in his side, and now he’s screaming so loud it hurts his throat, and he’s thrashing, and it burns and burns and he’s—
Gone.
———
Stack, about twelve years old, is sitting on the ground. He’s cradling his bruised and swollen right arm to his chest.
“Let me see it,” Smoke insists, kneeling next to him. He holds out his own hands and they’re… bigger? Way bigger. Huh.
He vaguely remembers this moment. Doing this, saying this. But in this memory world, he’s somehow full grown instead of being twelve too.
Stack carefully holds out his injured arm and Smoke prods at it softly, making Stack whimper in pain before he swallows down the sound.
“Don’t think it’s broken,” Smoke decides. “Probably sprained. I’ll help you wrap it.”
“Okay,” Stack says. And then he sniffs, eyes welling up with tears. He scrubs his other hand across his face immediately to try to hide it. “Sorry. I’m… Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Ain’t nothing bad about crying, especially where Dad can’t see,” Smoke says.
Stack nods, and then says, “It just hurts.” He thinks about it, and then adds, “Had worse though, I know. And you said it’s not broken. But…” He hiccups and his voice wobbles as his face screws up, the tears coming properly now, the way they haven’t in a few years. “Why’s it… I don’t want it to be you, but why’s it me at all? What’d I do, Elijah.”
Smoke’s heart aches so bad. “Nothin’. You know that.”
“He always says I killed M—”
“Stop,” Smoke interrupts. “That wasn’t your fault. None of this is. He’s just a piece of shit.”
Stack’s crying properly now. “I try to be better but it doesn’t— It never works. What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing, I’m tellin’ you. I’ll tell you every day if I have to. Come on.”
Smoke wraps his arms around Stack in a hug. Full grown like this, he’s more than twice Stack’s size. He envelops him completely, and Stack half crawls into his lap as Smoke holds him close.
“Elijah, please,” Stack whimpers, but it’s a general plea, like he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Smoke says, suddenly trying not to cry too. “I’m sorry. We’re gonna get out, I swear to God.”
“Don’t leave me,” Stack suddenly sobs, clinging harder, but – that doesn’t really make sense, does it?
“I’m not,” Smoke says, confused. “I wouldn’t.”
“Please.”
Smoke holds him close, blinking as he suddenly feels weirdly disoriented, but before he can reply another voice interrupts.
“Go ahead.”
Smoke looks over to see Annie sitting nearby again, a little farther this time, still nursing their daughter as she rocks back and forth gently. She sighs, a sad but understanding smile on her face. “We’re not goin’ nowhere. Take your time, Elijah. We’ll be here waiting.”
“Hang on,” Smoke says, panic rising in him now, even though he doesn’t understand why. “Annie, wait—”
He keeps one arm around Stack and reaches out with the other, but he can’t touch her, and she’s fading. Stack doesn’t seem to notice and burrows closer in his arms, still crying.
“Take your time,” Annie says again softly. “We love you.” Then she’s gone.
“Please, Smoke,” Stack whimpers.
“Please. Come on, Smoke. Please.”
Smoke wakes up.
He inhales shakily. Eyelids fluttering, juke joint ceiling swimming into view instead of the sky, side throbbing. Quietly, he groans, and the sound echoes back louder – and then it keeps going. Stack?
Smoke shifts his head to the side and squints towards the small patch of shadow near the door. Up against it is… well, it’s Stack, but it – he’s – curled up. Panting and moaning, eyes glinting unnaturally in the dim light. And as Smoke focuses more, his brain finally makes sense of the rest of the unnerving sight. Stack’s skin is… charred. That’s the only word for it. Patchworks of bright red burns and dark black ash intermingle on nearly every exposed area across his arms and chest and half his face. The sounds he's making, they’re from the pain .
Their eyes meet, and the creature with his brother’s voice gasps out, “Smoke? You alright?”
“The hell happened?” Smoke mumbles. He shifts around a bit, trying to touch the wound on his side. His searching hand doesn’t find a hole, and he picks his head up a bit to look at it, trying to understand. The bullet hole’s gone. His skin’s been melted together to cauterize it closed and stop the bleeding. He remembers the technique. Saw it done on men shot in the trenches, a temporary fix when there wasn’t time or supplies to treat a wound properly.
He looks back up at Stack, and Stack grins with regular teeth in a way that looks more like a grimace. He holds up the right hand he’s been cradling to his chest, fingers charred even worse than the rest of him. “Sorry. Had to stop the bleeding fast.”
Smoke traces his mangled skin and realizes what the rough shapes are. They’re an outline of fingertips. He can figure out the rest: Stack exposed his hand to the sun longest, to the point of full flames, so he could burn the wound closed. The thought makes him so nauseous he immediately tries to push it out of his mind.
Exhausted down to his bones, Smoke lies back down and sighs, turning his head to blink at Stack’s huddled form with half-closed eyes. “Could’ve left me out there, y’know,” he says quietly. “I was ready.”
“No, I couldn’t have,” Stack grits out of his charred jaw. “And don’t say that shit.”
Smoke rolls to stare back up at the ceiling and just lets himself ache . He should be dead. “‘m tired, man,” he mumbles. “I can’t… I don’t wan’ do this no more. It’s all gone. Everything, everyone...”
“Shut the fuck up,” Stack snaps. “That’s how you wanna go out? A bullet from a Klan man’s gun, after all of it? Hell no. You ain’t leavin’ yet. I…” He cuts himself off, then changes course. “Sammie needs you.”
Smoke frowns up at the ceiling. Sammie needs him? Groggy as he is, he still knows that sounds like bullshit.
He struggles his way up into a proper sitting position to start clearing his head, and he looks Stack over some more. How tight he’s holding himself. The way he’s shivering and breathing hard like he’s trying to push past the pain. Seeing what he looks like right now, all the burns… It makes Smoke’s skin crawl. Not in horror, but in phantom pains of sympathy. Stack did this to himself… to save him?
“Is all that gon’ heal?” he asks.
Stack shrugs a little and flinches. “Yeah. I can feel it. It’s faster than human healing, but still slow.” He huffs a humorous laugh. “Too slow. Hurts like a bitch.”
Smoke swallows down the nausea that’s now rising back up to choke him. Before he can think twice about it, he asks, “Can I do anything?”
The simple question seems to hit Stack hard. His face crumples like he’s about to cry before he quickly does his best to smooth the emotion out, putting a brave face back on. “Nah,” he says. “Not sure how any of this works yet. Figure it’s a lot of waiting shit out.”
“Right,” Smoke says. He has a theory, but he’s gotta work up to it. “So why didn’t you, uh…”
Stack snorts. “Turn you?”
“Yeah.”
“Knew you wouldn’t want it. I don’t want it for you either. Last night… that push to bite you was all Remmick. His voice was all up in my head, making it hard to think. Now that he’s gone, it’s easier.” He winces. “Kind of.”
“That’s good. But, uh…” Smoke hesitates. “You hungry?”
Stack rolls his eyes. “I didn’t bite you when you was down, I’m not gon’ bite you now that you’re up. Relax.”
“That’s not what I asked, Stack.”
Now Stack looks pissed. “Yeah, I’m hungry. Almost everything I feel now is about being hungry. You’re makin’ me say it?”
“I’m asking you,” Smoke says, “so I can ask if you want some of my blood.” He holds out his forearm in demonstration. “Might make you heal faster. You need fuel.”
Stack glares at him like he’s insane. “The fuck? I can’t bite you. You’ll turn, dumbass.”
God, he’s always been such an asshole when he’s hungry. The horrific pain’s probably not helping his mood either.
Smoke carefully pushes himself up to his feet and pauses to see if he’s too dizzy to move. Confident that it’s not too bad, he starts heading over to where they had some stuff for the bar in a crate. Over his shoulder, he says, “You don’t gotta bite me. I’ll just give it to you.”
“What…” Stack says, watching Smoke grab a glass. And then, when Smoke takes out his pocket knife: “Don’t be stupid, man.”
“You got a better idea?”
“You lost too much blood already,” Stack tries to argue, but it’s a weak protest. Smoke can tell. Yeah, he wants this. Needs it, probably.
“I can handle it,” Smoke says, and flicks open the knife before he can lose his nerve.
Now Stack looks panicked. “Wait, Smoke, don’t— ”
Smoke slices open a strip of skin on his arm and puts it over the glass. Stack moans, not in pain now but more in miserable desire. His jaw flexes as his teeth elongate, and he hisses like he can’t help it, eyes brightening.
“It’s alright,” Smoke reassures him, trying to convince himself too. He pinches and angles his skin so the blood drips into the glass steadily.
“Be careful,” Stack snarls, baring his teeth.
“I am,” Smoke insists. “I’ll stop before it’s too much.” But then Stack growls, and Smoke realizes… oh, he’s not saying it about the cut itself or the blood loss. He means something else. Because Stack’s watching the blood drip out of Smoke’s arm, not looking at the glass, and he’s drooling.
Shit.
Stack shifts forward in a small aborted motion, and then presses himself back against the door more forcefully, nostrils flaring. “Get— Give me it and get back over there. Don’t want you close right now. I’m not… It’s...” He moves his head back and forth, like a dog trying to shake something off.
“Yeah, okay. Alright, look,” Smoke says, like he’s a spooked horse he can tame. Smoke hastily puts down the glass that’s now a third full of his blood, and his heart pounds as he rips off a strip of his tattered shirt and wraps it around his arm. “It’s done, okay? I’m wrapping it. It’ll close.”
Stack groans wordlessly, and Smoke adds another thicker piece of shirt just in case, like that’ll do anything to solve this. Fuck, maybe he is stupid. Too late now though. He walks as close to Stack as he dares but stays fully in a patch of sun, and then he puts the glass on the ground. Stack tracks his every move with the dark gaze of a predator and Smoke’s hairs stand on end, but he doesn’t back down. Slowly, Smoke nudges the glass of blood forward with his foot until it’s in the shadows, and then he hastily backs up further into the sun.
Stack darts forward and grabs the glass, then grunts in pain as he throws himself back against the door. He gulps the blood down, making slurping sounds like he’s eating soup but fifty times freakier.
Smoke watches him with his heart in his throat, really taking in what’s happening here. And he feels a realization settle over his shoulders.
Stack is… He’s sick. This is his brother, and he’s just hurting right now because he’s sick. That’s all it is. Something bad happened to him, and it wasn’t his fault, and he needs to get better. Smoke wants to make him better.
As he stands there and watches Stack lick every last drop of blood off the glass, the resolve hardens in Smoke slowly, half-formed and more than half crazy and definitely all the way arrogant.
Maybe there’s something he can do. He’s gotta at least try.
Oblivious to Smoke’s thoughts, Stack finishes with the glass and lets it drop to the floor. He sighs and closes his eyes, relaxing back against the door a little more loosely now. His teeth retract and go back to normal. “Mmm. Hurts a little less. I think that helped. Thanks.”
“I’m glad,” Smoke says, swallowing down the lump in his throat.
Stack sighs again, and then he squares his burnt shoulders like he’s preparing himself for something. “Pretty soon people’ll come lookin’, I know. I’ll be able to run to the back in a minute again and then you can get going. I’ll disappear tonight, I swear, and—”
“Elias,” Smoke interrupts, unable to hear any more of this. He hasn’t even called him that in a long time. Years. Stack usually doesn’t like it.
Stack blinks in surprise and stares at him.
As steady and strong as he can make the words sound, Smoke says, “I’m not giving up on you.”
Stack’s eerie eyes widen.
“You hear me?” Smoke pushes. “We’ll figure this out. You and me. Don’t know what it’s gon’ look like, but I’m not letting you go.”
“You…” Stack swallows. “You sure?”
“‘Course I am.”
Stack hesitates, then asks, “Mary too?” like he’s afraid of the answer.
That surprises Smoke. “Wait, Mary made it out?”
“Yeah. I can feel her, I think.”
Creepy ass shit. Truth be told, Smoke hadn’t realized she’d survived. He’s got more than a few conflicted feelings about that, but he knows there’s only one right answer here for Stack, so he gives into the inevitable with a resigned breath. “Mary too, then. We’ll have to find her, see how she’s doing.”
Stack’s face breaks into a wide smile, a real one, and then it wavers. He blinks hard and fast a few times, and it’s hard to tell with how bright his new eyes are, but it seems like he really is tearing up now. “You sure? ” he asks again, voice breaking.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Smoke says. “Can I come over there now? You in control?”
Stack nods like a little kid.
A bit scared but trying not to be, Smoke walks over. Careful and slow.
He sits down next to Stack so they’re side-by-side, putting his back against the door too, and wishes he could hug him. But with the burns all over him, there’s no way to do it because it’d be way too painful. So Smoke does the next best thing he can think of at the moment, putting his hand on Stack’s knee and squeezing it.
“I got you,” Smoke says. “Okay? I got you.”
Stack gently puts his less burned hand on top of Smoke’s, not gripping it but just resting it there, and Smoke concentrates on not flinching from the feel of it.
He presses their legs together as hard as he can and breathes. Stack doesn’t.