Chapter Text
The summer sprawls out before you as you're about to go on your first big road trip alone.
It's the early 2000s, you've recently got your license.
You're young, take it easy, you have time...
- Keep Driving
The world outside your sedan is a torrential downpour when you see the silhouettes of what you assume to be an adult with a large child on the side of the road. They only snag your attention thanks to a semi truck that passed you several seconds before, its high beams exposing the soaked hitchhikers like Polaroid flash burns against the stormy, country roadside.
In the backseat, The Sleeper is awake, despite the dashboard clock reading 2:32 in the morning. The Mechanic is slumped beside him, his chin denting his chest, which moves only for the quiet snores that shift his body.
You pull over about twenty feet past the strangers, put the car in park, and crank the heat up a bit as you idle. You decide to give them five minutes to make up their minds. If they want the ride, at least they'll find respite from these chilly summer nights, made even colder by the drenched world. As the heater spits, you glance in your rearview mirror, just to check you pulled over for people that exist this time. Sure enough, the dark shapes stagger, either coming closer or moving further away... but real, for sure.
There've been a couple of lost souls you've stopped for, only to realize they weren't really there.
It's dark and pissing rain, so maybe they'll accept your laurel. And, at least, it'll be extra warm in here if they do. A little something to chase the cold—keep those demons at bay if that's what they're running from.
"I don't think I've ever seen a guy like that in the flesh before," The Sleeper notes in quiet regard from the back passenger seat, "He looks like he walked out of Alternative Press..."
You squint, unable to see much from the side mirror. Just dots of rain illuminated the glass; some stuck like drops of glue while others fell into rivers under their own weight.
After ten seconds of silence aside from the heater's rattle, you turn to look over your shoulder, only to meet a wall of leather and colored paraphernalia through the moisture-clotted window. A shrill breath leaves you, as you move to quickly smash the lock, but hit the power window button instead. Fuck, shit!
The window slides down halfway before you yank your hand back as eight wet fingers curl over the edge: chipped black nail polish, raw knuckles, and a single silver ring with a skull face.
A dog's damp snout joins the fingers, its nostrils flaring, sniffing at the warmth leaking through... probably picking up the smell from the unfinished joint in the cup holder.
You shove yourself back into the depths of your sedan, as far as your seatbelt will allow, watching the stranger lean down to peer through the cracked window. Suddenly, your ears are ringing with Sum 41's Fat Lip —the haunting hook: 'I don't wanna waste my time, become another casualty of society...' It reminds you why you're on the road in the first place. Like hell you were gonna be another victim of compliance like your folks, but especially your mom...
"Appreciate it, man," the guy rasps, voice dry and worn. "I'm heading to Skokopo for a show. That where you're going too?"
"... sorta," you manage, lower lip trembling for whatever reason, so you rake your teeth over it until the tremor ceases.
He leans down, and you catch the rich shine of his eyes hidden in darkness, cut by speckles of falling rain. The Punk's eyes drift to your lower lip with a weighted blink as if seeing a young woman instead of some middle-aged man perplexes him; perhaps it is… odd.
He cracks a one-sided smile. "And by man, I mean like—y'know, the chill, non-binary kinda man. If that's cool?"
"Like dude, right?" The Sleeper asks from the backseat in a sleepy whisper. The Punk nods, still smiling—still waiting.
"Y-Yeah, I'm—uh..." you fumble. "I'm heading to this festival out east, near the water. It's kind of on the way. I can drop you off if you want."
"Fuck yeah, man. Mind if it's two of us? She takes up a bit of room," he says, nodding toward the dog as her jaw slackens against the window. Streaks of drool branch between white teeth. Its tongue pokes out over the glass lip as if trying to lick the heat up.
"Oh," you blanch, finally—fully—acknowledging the soaking wet bag of bones covered in strawberry blonde fur and a ratty collar under the damp strand, "A dog. You see, the thing is—"
"She's a good girl. Smarter than most people I meet," the punk mutters, water dripping from his blunt nose and those full lips.
You finally take him in with a shift of your eyes, note the black-balled snake bite studs under his bottom lip, the green double-zero gauges in his ears, the eyebrow ring, and heavy bags beneath his eyes. His black roots are at least 6 months old, once a stiff foundation to the broken tower of his spiked teal mohawk that's now plastered to one side of his head. Guy looks really fucking tired...
He blinks, and you don't realize he'd looked hopeful until the color drains from his face. His eyes drift over the length of the sedan. "Yeah… I don't go anywhere without her. If that's a problem, I get it."
"No, no, that's not what I meant, it's just—" you pause, realizing every second you take to explain, he and the dog are getting ever wetter, "—I've got a cat in the back. Not mine. I just don't want it turning into a chew toy."
"She's chill, swear. Just kinda shy at first."
You introduce yourself while playing Tetris with his belongings in the trunk until everything fits nicely and snugly. The rain soaks your clothes until they hang off your chest and hips, weighing down your soul with the cold of a wet summer rain born from the wilderness at the witching hour. The Sleeper shifts to the middle seat as the dog hops in the back. You snag a semi-clean blanket you had under the jerry cans and wait in the driver's seat as The Punk wraps the borzoi-looking dog like a furry burrito. He murmurs to it, shushing her shivering while ruffle-drying her ears and neck.
When The Punk slams shut the passenger doors—once he's in the seat across from you—the anxiety of a new person settles. It's been like this since you picked up The Kid on the side of the road back in Fardorf, again when you welcomed The Mechanic into the back against your unfounded fears and a third time when The Sleeper joined the sedan gang (you need a new name for that one of these days). Hell, you even felt the niggle of trepidation when you reunited The Kid with her parents, providing your statement to the cops, knowing you had two dime bags of weed in your glovebox...
Now, it's almost worse. You assumed picking up new faces in need on the roads would get easier, but it hasn't, and it probably won't. The fact that The Punk does indeed look like he walked off the pages of Alternative Press only makes the wormy feeling in your gut grow.
"Didn't think anyone'd stop," he mutters, working his soaked jacket off. "Most just slowed down, saw me, and then the dog, and punched it."
He's careful to hold as much water in the creases of leather as he can until he gets it in the footwell. It's considerate, and you find yourself worrying about your posture, your own wet clothes... the way your profile might appear to him just as much as you do the passing cars as you merge back onto the country road.
"Seriously, it's no big deal." You reply carefully, eying the dog in the rearview, where it sits quietly inside the flannel blanket, its black, round eyes watching as if to make sure you, of all people, can be trusted with her owner. It's cute, if not a little uncanny.
Eventually, the procession of headlights dims to a black stretch of roadway. You take a turn carefully onto the highway. You take a sip of coffee, dial in the heat so it's at that sweet spot where it's blasting steadily without rattling, then crank the stereo up and notch as the rain tempo increases, as the windshield wipers fan, as The Mechanic's snores grow louder.
Soon enough, you relax into your seat, hands loose and steady on the wheel.
Beside you, The Punk plucks the unfinished joint from the cupholder, gives it a couple sniffs, gestures the near-roached thing towards you, and muses, "You gonna finish this?"
You shake your head, figuring more weed wouldn't quell the butterflies swarming in your stomach, more like set them on a mission of revolt. "Honestly?" You half-laugh, "I forgot it was even there. Good thing you're not a pig, right?"
Then you offer, with a cucumber-cool smile, "Have it if you want."
The Punk shakes his head with enough passion that a droplet of water from his drenched mohawk hits your cheek. Your lashes flutter at the cold splat. Suddenly, you're wide awake, and the road seems endless—so archaic, melting your anxiety rather than fueling it. How weird...
"I don't do drugs," he says, less like a DARE campaign ad and more as a personal factoid—not telling, just explaining his own stance. You can respect that.
From the backseat, The Sleeper mumbles as if about to slip under a dreamless spell, "Amen, dude. That stuff just puts me to sleep."
You argue that it's probably the narcolepsy that does that, not the weed. Still, The Punk disagrees wholeheartedly, citing his own experiences with uppers, downers, and the heroin-like withdrawals of nicotine and booze. Says he's tried it all. None of it's worth the bullshit. Been straight-edge before he could legally drink and gets by just fine without, though you'd be hard-pressed to believe him when he looks like the poster child for 'Do drugs and live a little!'
Oddly enough, The Punk's mantra for life should sound preachy, but it doesn't. You can agree with it too, maybe even admire it, until he rolls down the passenger-side window and flicks the joint to the fast-fading roadway. Your mouth drops open, speechless, as the electric mechanism inside the door whines while the window rolls back up. Not the precious weed!
"You ever think about going straight?" And because his cadence is the opposite of a bible salesman or a vegan hippy, you just blow a raspberry, shrug your shoulders, and throw him a bewildered look.
"Who knows, man? Maybe!" You glare at the road as headlights pass in the opposite lane, then continue with a sigh, "Stranger things have happened, I guess."
"Right on."