#isawthelight

How utterly illicit it felt to draw breath on this soil; to tread on the back of this behemoth stirred something acidic in his blood, a betrayal of his bygone patrimony. Not that Bell would voice such a notion aloud - a fanciful thought best reserved for one more poetic than he.

He had hit the ground at sunrise, let loose by a fool with a fortune, armed with a volatile disposition inclined to hold a grudge - and so be it.

Who was he to judge? Bell was a capricious weapon to be directed at the will of the highest bidder - and whether he would trade it all to be back in Berlin at that very moment was immaterial. Besides - he had been reimbursed for this little jaunt rather generously. 

Knockemstiff, Ohio...

The words had twisted in his throat and caught on his tongue; the gangly youth behind the counter of some fluorescent gas station had snickered without a hint of repentance when he had stopped to inquire. Equilibrium had been restored swiftly enough; with his airway constricted it had been Bell’s turn to claim ignorance to his rasping pleas - yet the retch and thrash of unfiltered terror in the throes of asphyxiation was - as it turned out - universal. Russian. German. American. It made little difference; they all squealed like stuck pigs when they went down. 

With a mile or so more between his impromptu execution, a looming beam emerged from the dim and smeared his shadow across the asphalt like inky roadkill. Bell turned, one hand raised to shield from the light, whilst the other - against his better judgement - shot out to hail a ride. 

Two, three, steps out of the direct glare, four, five up to the purring body of a beast - they didn’t make engines like these at home - and he leaned down with as affable a smile as he could muster. 

Dusk was falling and Olivier was gazing out the dusty bus window as it rattled into town. A sigh fogs up the glass and does nothing to alleviate the growing and restless static darkening in his chest. There is a squeal as the bus slows and lurches to a stop at the curb and the dust settles. Passengers begin to blearily lurch to their feet and gather their things to file off the bus and find shelter until tomorrow’s next bus comes. Olivier shoulders his bag and grabs his little suitcase and waits to lug it out of the aisle while the other passengers step into the orange glow of the evening. A man passes him, easily the tallest he’s every seen and he’s traveling light with an army knapsack. The man has been on the bus as long as Olivier and maybe even longer. He’s the last one before Olivier steps off the bus as well and they seem to head in the same direction: the town bar.

last song: When the Music’s Over, The Doors

last movie: The Wrath of Khan

currently reading: Alive by Piers Paul Read

currently watching: rewatch of AHS, now on Coven

craving: peanut butter and oreos?

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tagged by: @isawthelight