#blows bubbles thru a crazy straw that reads FUCK THIS into my unsweetened vanilla almond milk

[partyinthemysterymachine]

Don’t Ask That

Ch. 6/?

The room smelled like dust and decades of abandonment. Harry had smelled the same unmistakable scent in laundromats, government offices, the notary, the living room before they’d moved. Somehow it stuck to spaces that were not in fact forgotten by its last tenants. It was just an odor that was created by the materials that sat for too long in too hot days and stained the entire room. It was old. Hot wood walls and hot musky carpets, even if there were none.

Mixed in with the soggy mold that clung to seemingly every wall in Silent Hill, and Harry had a cocktail that he hated to find vaguely comforting.

His eyes stung. He was so tired that his eyes were begging him to stop the strike against sleep. He couldn’t sleep. Oh, how he wanted to though: the chair was comfortable and cradled his body like it had been crafted for him, stuffed at just the perfect consistency, and it was so much like the chair at home.

God. Heather. Ohh, Heather, his thoughts groaned as he rubbed his eyes. Every time he thought he’d come to terms with being back in Silent Hill, he went right back to square one: he could not fucking believe he was back in Silent Hill. Their life was fine. Heather was graduating high school soon. She was considering college. There was a boy she liked. She was trying to figure out her place in the world. She had been acting a little strange lately; she was being more secretive about her computer, more protective about her closet, giving him that strained, odd look that teenagers gave when they wanted to talk about something and were too scared to know how to approach it.

His poor daughter. He loved her so much. Harry adored being a father - being her father. He was going to find her and bring her home and he felt so guilty about how flat he felt about everything so far. It was like a switch flipped. It was like Harry was doing a duty, and he hated how cold and removed that was. He didn’t mean to feel like that. He knew it.  Maybe it was also survival instinct kicking in to prevent him from making too many mistakes.

It was just this town. It was aggressively fucking with him and mocking him with that last little act. He couldn’t do anything. It was a horrible thing for his body and brain to shut right off. But it was that survival instinct, yet again, protecting his sanity for as long as possible.

He had to stop thinking about this. It was draining him faster than it took just being around James. Oh, shit! James!

Getting up, Harry winced as he stretched, and swiveled to look around for the first time. This was a pretty small apartment. One or two people probably lived here; it wasn’t big enough for anyone else. He sighed and put his hands in his pockets, making his short journey to the bedroom.

At the doorway, he leaned his shoulder into the frame and looked down at his unfortunate companion. James was, once again, lost in his own little world. Harry wondered how often James just mentally departed from reality. Sitting there he looked like a man who moonlighted as a professional statue. He was so patient. It was eerie.

Harry cleared his throat. James took his eyes away from the floor and up to him. Harry tried a smile.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” No smile.

No big shock. James apparently wasn’t ready to give back too many of those. “Listen, uh.. I want to apologize for.. everything back there,” Harry offered clumsily. “I just.. it was a lot.”

“It’s fine,” James said. “I’m not upset. That was pretty hectic.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “That really caught me off guard. I didn’t expect the monsters to be like—”

“I, uh— sorry for interrupting, I just want to say that I’m sorry, too.” James’s hands shrugged between his knees. “For losing my temper.”

Harry chuckled softly. “Eeehh, it’s alright. I think you were justified there.”

Harry thought that James had a hint of a smile for him then, but he was willing to pick up the slack. He felt a little better anyway when he smiled at James, that poor soul. “You doing okay?”

James looked at him. No one had asked him that in a very, very long time. Amazingly, it lifted a little off his loneliness. “Yeah. I’m alright. Just tired.”

“God, me too,” Harry grunted. “I feel like I could sleep for two days.”

James gestured behind him at the bed. “You can lie down for a while, if you want.”

Harry shook his head as he pushed off the door frame. He pulled his hands from his pockets as he took a seat beside James, his weight sinking into the springs. “Nah. I shouldn’t. Maybe later.”

He smiled again at the man who was too sad to return it. James clasped his hands uncomfortably and looked down. Interesting, Harry thought, that he had been so aggressive only a short time ago, and now he read as chronically submissive. He was enigmatic.

That didn’t mean it was positive in any way. Harry eyeballed him. “You look so pensive. What’re you thinking about?”

James sniffed and began to absently worry his hands. He must’ve been nervous, Harry noted, since they were covered in a thin sheen that was wiped and renewed when the palm passed over the hand. “How unfair it is for you to be here.” James frowned lightly. “You shouldn’t be back in Silent Hill.”

“I completely agree with that,” Harry nodded. “It wasn’t exactly on my bucket list to return.”

James’s mouth opened and snapped shut. Whatever he was going to say was very quickly filtered. Then he said, “You were lucky to have left in the first place.”

“Yeah. I am.” Harry felt awkward then. James probably meant that as one of his skewed ideas of comfort, but it came across very passive aggressively. He decided to dismiss it. He was prepared to give James the benefit of the doubt for as long as he could, for both their sakes.

“So.. I think we got interrupted last time we were talking,” Harry started with a sprinkle of humor. “What brought you to Silent Hill, anyway?”

James’s hands worked at each other like a squirming knot. Harry felt a chill breeze by his neck and he shot a look over his shoulder, quickly rubbing at the spot. He exhaled dramatically and leaned back to align his jacket zipper. James looked at him in muted curiosity.

“Whew. Got cold all of a sudden,” he explained, overacting his shiver the way that dads often do. “Must be a draft in here.” When James had nothing to contribute, Harry redirected them back to the question. “Sorry. Anyway. What brings you here, James?”

James’s bleak eyes bore into Harry’s. They seemed dark, now; foreboding; a cautious and firm barrier between him and Silent Hill’s unwanted returning tourist. Harry had seen that look before. It was the same thousand-yard stare that the mirror had reflected back at him for years. It was haunted, hunted, and deeply, irreparably hurt.

The answer to his question didn’t come as a surprise.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Harry lowered his gaze to the floor. Now that they approached that particular topic.. neither did he.

They sat in silence.

pt 1//pt 2//pt 3//pt 4//pt 5// series on ao3