#chryscs

∗ 27﹕ sender  is  caught  wearing  receiver's  clothes .

She’s at the foot of his bed when he comes through the door. A flash of worry in her eyes as he’s come to expect.Only she’s gotten better at hiding it. Tucking it away before it really settles into her features. Leaves with it a smile on her face to comfort him. 

To welcome him home. 

It works, even more so now, when he can feel the weight of exhaustion in his very sinews. Tilting his lips upward as the door closed shut beside him and the dim light of the dawn started seeping in. Lighting up her countenance and informing him that she had taken on the shirt he had left on the bed just before he’d left for patrol. 

A soft chuckle stirs his shoulders. Fondness in its barest form as he found himself knelt down in between her knees and looking up at her. Hands melting into his hair, cupping the back of his head and the nape of his neck as he looked up at her. Taking her in. Enamored in the natural warmth of the moment. The sheer tenderness in her touch. 

Home in the brush of her fingers. 

“ It looks better on you. “ He murmurs with a smile. Brushing his lips against her wrist. “ But you should be sleeping. “

A bright smile, and a shake of his head. The brief pause when she had said it had only given Ben a chance to process the information. “Good.” He returns, nodding to her. “That’s certainly nothing to apologize for.” He takes his stacks of documents, shuffling through and tapping them on his desk so that they were neatly in order.

A boisterous laugh spills between his lips, carried on a stream of cigar smoke. The sound isn’t warm. Nothing about Heisenberg is warm. He’s a man who operates at a constant simmer—dangerous to the touch, volatile. Incendiary.

It’s not surprising that Alcina’s choice of scarecrow might come as a shock to an outsider. On closer examination, the ragged corpses are gruesome, albeit impeccably preserved by the frigid mountain climate. He can’t remember a time that they disturbed him, and it makes him wonder—has it truly been so long that he’s become completely desensitized to Alcina’s grotesque taste? Or is he so far gone from his former humanity that the suffering she inflicts can no longer move him?

Either. Both. It doesn’t matter—it’s been a long time since his hands were clean. Maybe he was born a monster. It makes no difference now.

He leans on the fence of the vineyard and takes a good look at the stranger. Outsiders always stick out like a sore thumb in the village—they lack that vicious, feral edge that’s been bred into Miranda’s stock. Years of exploitation and abuse has left the villagers suspicious, scraping by on the edge of paranoia, whereas newcomers don’t read quite so guarded.

They don’t usually last long.

Though his eyes are fully obscured by the dark lenses that rest just under the brim of his hat, they do little to disguise his stare. He makes no effort to be subtle; if she plans on staying long, she’ll have to get used to the looks and the whispers. The difference is that the villagers will watch her with scowls and distrust. Heisenberg wears an easy smile—a friendly mask tinged with something dangerous. Unlike the villagers, he loves outsiders. They’re a much-needed break from the monotony of Miranda’s prison.

A slow smile curls across scarred lips, unsettling beneath the dark lenses like holes where eyes ought to be. He’s barely visible in the waning twilight, the shadows of fast-approaching night deeper between the high walls where four lords sit in silent vigil. Splayed below them is the village—deathly silent—inhabited now by only ghosts and monsters.

Heisenberg never gave much thought to the villagers. They were a resource, a way to pass the time. Entertainment. Only now in their absence does he realize that this hell has managed to get worse. No longer is there any semblance of redeeming humanity—no charitable act to sway the devil’s hand. The valley is little more than a tomb now, and Ethan’s presence here heralds its final swan song.

Good riddance.

They know this, of course—all of them, even that idiot Moreau. The village that lay stagnant for a century has suddenly been turned upside down, and Ethan is the herald of that change. They know he’s special—though they may not have an inkling of why. Even Heisenberg doesn’t fully understand it himself. But any man who can endure the punishment that Ethan Winters has is worth paying attention to. He’s a riddle to be solved, a breath of fresh air to starved lungs. There’s nothing the Iron Lord wants more than to sink his teeth in.

Slow, measured footsteps close the distance between them. The massive hammer rests easily across the machinist’s shoulders, but the grip of his leather glove is relaxed—he has no intention of trying to use it at the moment. It hangs as a silent menace, an impossibly heavy block of solid steel, the big stick to Heisenberg’s soft speech.

Take his latest project for example:  Pre-war cars litter literally every roadway, and he’s done what he can here and there to at least push them off to the shoulders to free up the roads, some rotting away to unrecognizable metal heaps, some still in remarkably good condition after all this time.  There are still plenty of places where long stretches of road - while unmaintained - lay unbroken, or still solid enough to be usable.  He’s gotten it in his head at least one or two working vehicles would be useful, and has gone digging.

The engine had been a lucky find in a garage - early fusion type, still enough non-nuclear parts on it that he can and has stripped those off to leave it open to another fuel source.  The rest he’s started fabricating on his own (what, like it’s hard?) or has had the good fortune to find something that will work in picked over hardware stores or garages.  The truck itself is one of those amazingly preserved time capsules - there’d been a Rand-McNally tucked into the glovebox still in good enough condition to be usable, and he has it tucked away elsewhere like something precious.

“Hey, hand me that five millimeter socket?  The stubby one.”  His whole torso is down in the engine compartment, leaned over so far his toes are the only thing keeping him connected to the ground, and he holds up a hand, wiggling the quarter inch socket he’s tried to use after eyeballing the bolt on the power steering pump.  It’d been a pretty good guess, really, but he can’t get it to catch properly.  There’s a repurposed tea tray on the tailgate, full of various mismatched sockets and wrenches, screws and bolts, and fuses that still have some life left in them.  He’s so close, he thinks, to getting this thing running, he can practically taste it.

“Good news, by the way.  I’ll have this thing out of here in a week or two.  Three on the outside.”