Chapter Text
You pulled aside the ratty curtains in your trailer home, licking the sweat off your upper lip area.
It’d been maybe 2 months since you’d moved to Paradise, Arizona, and shit was not right. You had no idea how else to explain it, things were just off.
It was like the city existed completely within a bubble, cut off from the rest of the world. The people acted fucking insane, the police were just about useless, and sometimes you felt like you were the only “real” person there, whatever that meant. It creeped you out.
You tried to get along with your neighbours the first week after you’d settled in, all you got in response were insults and doors slammed in your face. Then you noticed everyone was armed. Of course, Arizona was lax with its gun laws, but the people here were abusing that fact almost too much. You swore even the children were coming out of the womb with shotguns in hand. The random stray dogs on the streets that would attack anything that moved were what sealed the deal and you began isolating yourself in your shitty little corrugated metal death trap, sweating the days away until you were on the brink of starving and absolutely needed to go buy groceries.
The only reason you knew you weren’t crazy is because everytime you’d go on the internet, you were met with people acting sane again. Reasonable, fluent, sane people, as weird as that sounded because the internet was a shithole in and of itself. Videos of regular cities in the US, forums of people just talking (somewhat) normally with each other, the occasional funny picture… It was your only relief.
You wanted to leave so badly, but some asshole had stolen the tires off your car somehow and you dreaded venturing out into that weird town to buy some more. You barely had money as it is. The useless red vehicle was sitting on cinder blocks in your crappy front yard, weeds already beginning to grow around it.
Your eyes focused on him, the guy who’d always wear a goddamn black leather trench coat no matter how hot it was outside. You were almost sweating harder just looking at him.
You hadn’t talked to him, of course. He lived down the street somewhere, that’s all you knew. But something about him was different, you’d observed. There was variety in his actions, even if he gave off the demeanor of an average joe just going about his day. When everyone else is bathshit crazy, it was easy to spot someone acting out of the norm, even if it was minor.
There was a clipboard in his hand. He was looking around for victims to sign it based on the way he was scanning the area like a hawk, pen between his fingers and a few extras sticking out of his coat pocket. You backed away and let the curtains settle again, not wanting to accidentally make eye contact as he was rather close to your trailer.
You swiped the sweat off your forehead and went back to your little “sanity station”, which was just your big fat desktop computer and a crappy little box fan pointed straight at it.
You had been previously browsing the web, reading nonsensical forums before a noise outside grabbed your attention, which turned out to be nothing in the end, but you could never be too sure. Lately, you felt like tensions were rising…
You almost shit yourself when you heard a loud BANG on the metal entrance of your trailer, you spun around and almost fell off your chair as you locked eyes with the door, heart racing as you waited for something else to happen.
“Hellooooo?” You heard a deep male voice from the outside. Shit, who could that be? Were they finally coming for you? Damn it, you wish you’d been brave enough to go buy a gun. You were probably the only asshole around without one.
You got up as silently as you could and checked the window. Leather coat dude was there, peering at your door. You then saw what the source of the earlier noise was. He kicked your door once again with the toe of his heavy-looking combat boots. What the hell? Why couldn’t he just knock?
Well, you felt a little relieved that it was him, but not much. May as well see what he wanted…
You walked over and opened the door, but barely. His eyebrows raised and he held the clipboard towards you, spinning it to face you.
“Hey there, do you want to sign my petition?” He voiced in a rather deep tone.
You squinted at the clipboard, reading what was on it. It was indeed a blank petition with signature slots to “Make whiney congressmen play violent video games”. What??
“Uhh… Does this city even have a government? A mayor?” You rambled aloud.
“Um… Yeah, why the fuck else would I be going around to collect signatures for this petition? Besides, this is for congress. It has nothing to do with local government.” He replied, looking at you as if you were stupid. Not that you could tell. He never took off the sunglasses. It was the only part of his outfit that made sense for the surroundings.
“How come they never show them? I’ve never seen them… Not on the TV, not on the news…” You ignored his statement and eyed him down suspiciously, your heart sinking. Maybe he was one of them…
“You realize it’s election time right? Damn, have you even read the news? Anyways, do you want to sign this petition or not?” He pushed the clipboard back at you again.
“N-No. It doesn’t even make sense. What does that even mean?” You pointed at the title.
“Don’t blame me, it was my bitch wife’s idea. Mentioned it once and she'll do anything to get me out of the house. Now sign the goddamn thing,” He urged again. He was pretty threatening. He towered over you and would probably hit his head on the door frame if he walked in, his voice was also fairly menacing too.
You could only gawk at him, still trying to discern whether he was different or not. Getting signatures for a petition… It was a somewhat normal thing to do. Having a bitch wife, also not unheard of.
“Hello? Are the lights on in there?” The dude waved the clipboard in front of you, making you jump a little.
“I don’t want to sign that thing.” You tried shutting the door, but his hand stopped it, making you jump.
“Listen, are you gonna sign this or is it gonna be your surviving family members?” He threatened in a low voice.
“I can’t! I-I don’t have a name!” You blurted out the first excuse that came to mind and used both your hands to slam your door. The guy’s fingers were in the way and you swore you heard a faint crack as the door bounced back a little.
“Ow!!” He yelled, yanking his hand away and allowing you to fully shut the door and lock it immediately after.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me…” You heard him mutter. Through the side window you saw him walking away, holding his deflicted hand and looking it up and down.
Your breath calmed a little after he turned the corner. Well, you really didn’t mean to do that, but as long as it made him go away…
Did that guy seriously threaten you over a petition? Not out of the norm with the other townsfolk, but… Still, there was something distinctive about him. He actually engaged in conversation with you. Er, a partial one at least. He seemed more “sentient” for lack of a better term.
“Fuck. What if he comes back for me?” You muttered, letting the curtain fall back then jogging to your room. You could never be too careful, even if the guy seemed different. Never knew what the people here were going to do, especially after getting their fingers crushed in a door.
You threw on some shoes and grabbed your wallet, scurrying outside after locking your door and heading in the opposite direction of the dude.
You’d lay low in town for a while, as much as the idea perturbed you. As long as no one else talked to you and you ignored everyone… It should be okay. You could find a nice cool alleyway, sit next to a dumpster and keep to yourself.
The heat was even more unbearable outside, though. Dust kicked up as you shuffled down the road in a hurry, trying to find a source of shade to sit under.
It wasn’t long before you were in town and walking on asphalt hot enough to melt shoes. You tried your best to not look too tense as you walked by the odd amount of people outside, thankfully none of them paid you any mind.
You strolled by a liquor store and sighed. A cold drink sounded good, but you didn’t want to talk to anyone at all. Your jaw almost fell off when you saw who was coming out of the store, however.
“That should fix that, for a while at least… At least now I have an excuse not to touch the bitch.” It was the dude from earlier!
You just about dove into the alley next to the shop as soon as he stepped out, the door jingling behind him.
He looked over to where you just were, he could have sworn he saw something move. Nothing was there, though. He just shrugged and went about his day.
You peeked around the corner and watched with a held breath as he walked up to a random person.
“Hi there, would you like to sign my petition?”
You pressed yourself against the wall, observing him intently. Ugh, he was still going at it with that stupid petition…
You stared in shock when the woman he was asking actually signed it without pulling a gun on him or something. Now that was odd.
Maybe this guy had more to him than you thought. It might be worth following him around to confirm your suspicions. At a distance, though.
The ginger walked on, stopping people for signatures and harassing the ones that didn’t sign until they gave in, much like he did with you. You watched from afar as he suddenly stopped, put the clipboard away and took out a small notepad, crossing something off and continuing on.
The next destination he led you to was the mall, where it seemed someone famous was visiting and giving autographs. You had no clue who, though. Something in you told you not to go inside, so you opted to sit on a bench across the street under a palm tree and wait, blatantly staring at the dirt so as not to meet eyes with anyone.
He went in for a while and you wondered what he was doing. Buying temperature appropriate clothes? Probably not. Maybe he was getting an autograph?
You didn’t get long to ponder before cops started pulling up around the place and getting their guns out. You went a little pale and stood up, taking cover behind the palm tree and peeking out. What the hell was going on?
“This is the police! Send out the former child actor! We have a warrant for his arrest!” You heard them yell from a distance. They began charging in and it didn’t take long for utter chaos to ensue.
People screaming, gunfire coming from the distance, and suddenly a flood of people were running out of the mall in terror.
You almost missed him, but you spotted that black coat swaying in the wind as he hightailed it out. You squinted as he looked totally unbothered, whipping out that same notepad and crossing another thing off as the gunfire kept ringing out behind him. You continued to follow him down another street, having to jog to keep up, which was almost unbearable. You had no idea how the guy hadn’t collapsed from heat stroke yet.
Next stop was the library, which you saw already had some sort of protest formed outside. Once again, you found a spot outside to catch your breath and sit in the shade, having a feeling that that protest was up to no good.
Ultimately it didn’t take long for things to get wild again and the protestors starting yelling amongst themselves, toting guns and jerry cans full of gasoline. That guy still wasn’t out of the library before they ransacked it and you could only watch in horror as giant plumes of black smoke started billowing out of the broken windows.
“What the fuck? Seriously?” You stood up from your seat again, watching once more as people shrieked and ran out of the burning building. What was going on today? It hadn’t even been 30 minutes since that whole incident at the library, now this?
To your odd relief, you spotted the dude not too long after he sprinted out of the library and he had that same uncaring look. He got out the notepad and crossed another thing off.
Ok, he was really starting to break out of the “norm” now…
You scurried after him once more, trying to keep your distance while keeping him in sight. It wasn’t exactly hard giving how he towered over pretty much everyone else in town.
The next place he entered made you stop in your tracks. Literally, as you were hiding amongst a mountain of abandoned train cargo boxes sitting on the old train tracks.
The church?
For a guy who was threatening people’s lives over a petition, the choice of location could only make you scrunch your brows in confusion.
Despite it being a church, you kept your distance again, almost fully expecting something bad to happen.
And of course, that “thing” didn’t take long to materialize.
You jumped when you heard the explosion, you had no idea where it came from but you didn’t get long to speculate before yells about “Allah” and “infidels” started getting thrown around. Then a bunch of priests with guns stormed out and the two groups started shooting at each other.
Was that seriously fucking Al Quaeda? Why the fuck were they in a shithole like Paradise, Arizona blowing shit up?
You felt like maybe that guy from earlier really did kill you earlier in your trailer and you were just in hell now because you really couldn’t believe the spectacle unfolding before you.
The red-haired guy bolted out from the church doors, once again crossing something off that little notepad and looking totally unphased by actual terrorists and priests having a gunfight in front of him.
Okay, that settled it. He was not one of them. Chaos seemed to be following him around and he wasn’t even doing anything about it. Complete opposite reaction from what most townsfolk would do.
You decided not to stand around and watch any longer as the frantic chanting and gunfire got louder and louder. You took off after the dude, who only came to a slow stop once he was a few streets away.
You cautiously walked about 20 feet behind him, wondering where he could possibly be going next. The events of the day combined with the sweltering heat and obnoxious crowd of townspeople had you feeling sick, but you couldn’t stop. You were strung along, unable to quell your morbid curiosity about this man.
He suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and by proxy you froze too. He wasn’t moving, but you saw his shoulders slouch a bit as if he was sighing. On instinct you dove into the nearest alleyway once again and pressed yourself against the wall, heart thudding.
You hesitantly peeked the smallest portion of your head that you could out from your cover and you squeaked when you were able to see him walking in your direction, quickly retreating and pressing yourself against the wall once more. You prayed he didn’t see you, considering you had no idea what he was going to do to you since you smashed his fingers.
The dude turned the corner and stared at you, arms crossed. You locked eyes with him like a deer caught in headlights, all the blood draining from your face.
“You know, you’re really not slick. I know you’ve been following me all day. What’s your deal ‘no-name’?” He asked, putting finger bunnies around your nickname.
“W-What? Oh hey! Didn’t see you there! Following you? Uhh no! Why would I do that??” You pushed yourself off the wall, trying to stand naturally.
“You tell me.”
“I-I wasn’t!” You reiterated, trying not to sound too desperate.
“Uh huh, that’s why you were at the mall earlier, then you chased me to the library, then the church, and now what? Trying to follow me home too?” He raised his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed with your lying abilities.
“We live down the street from each other…” You frowned.
“Listen, you’re probably not all there mentally, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to smash my fingers in a fucking door.” He angrily held out his bandaged hand in your face, making you flinch.
“That was an accident! Don’t hurt me!” You covered your face. You paused when you heard him go silent for a second then he actually started laughing at you.
“Hurt you? Why would I do that? I’m no ‘eye for an eye’ type of guy, though trust me sometimes I get my temptations. Why don’t you just pay me back for all this crap I had to buy?” He pulled his hand back, smirking at you.
You lowered your hands and you stared at him. Your eyes were boring into his very soul and even you could tell it slightly put him off.
“You’re not gonna… Pull a gun on me or something? Start a fight?” You asked in amazement.
“No? Did you want me to?”
“No!” You paused, getting embarrassed at how loud you’d yelled that out, “... Uh… Well… I’m kind of broke right now, but… Meet me at my house tomorrow, I’ll have money by then. You remember where I live?”
“Yeah, the shitty little rust-bucket with the cinder block car out front. Hard to forget it,” He replied sarcastically.
“O-Ok. Cool. Ok. See you then!” You didn’t give him a chance to reply before you ran away down the alley, not wanting to test the chance that he may change his mind about the previous statement.
He just watched you turn the corner and disappear, crossing his arms.
What an odd one you were. Probably the least hostile person he’d had the pleasure of meeting in this hellhole. Whatever the reason, it was very obvious that you did not belong here. It might be worth sticking around you. It’d been a long time since he’d actually had any friends that wouldn’t kill him or something at the drop of a dime.
He stared at his bandaged hand once again.
Well, you still had some bite in you, he supposed.