Pacifier

❤️Camille🍀

I peered through the window, biting back a gleeful smile. 

"No lock," I grinned hearing the relief in Johnnys voice when he chuckled and rubbed his hands together, mischievous light in his eyes as if we were teenagers again, nicking a car one one of our uncles, a if we'd go home later and be praised for bringing back such a fine specimen. For a second it was easy to pretend that though this wasn't life or death it was desperate. 

"Piece of piss," smirked Johnny, smashing the window without a second thought. 

"Don't even think about it," I said hand on his shoulder to stop him trying to climb through the empty window frame. 

"Milly you're gan..." he started about to tell myself I'd get cut when I landed on the glass, as if I didn't know, as if that was going to stop me wriggling through the window before he could try it and wind up injuring himself. 

I was better practiced than Johnny anyway when it came to vehicle theft. I'd been left stealing cars for Van's father way after Johnny had been dragged up the ranks to stand by his side. 

So it didn't take me long, five minutes of concentration before Johnny was opening the door on the drivers side, telling me to move over. Insisting that he would drive us.

"I can drive John you're still..."

"I'm not the one who with a torn up leg doll," he smirked, "go on, shift," he said, his hand cupping my cheek, his eyes glowing as they locked with mine and commanded me quietly. Melted my determination until I was doing as I was told. 

"I'm fine B," I said, knowing that my protest was weak and futile, saying it anyway because I had to try. 

"So am I love," he said, lying, his eyes thick with determination as he ground his teeth through the pain of sitting up straight, pushing his foot down on the accelerate. I watched his jaw clench as he engaged the clutch, I let my hand atop the hand which held the gear stick, and when he pulled away, the car quietly leaving the hospital behind us, I took a packet of cigarettes from the glove compartment, a nod of approval at the brand, and lit up, offering every other drag to him. 

We were quiet, content to be quiet together, content to simmer in the romance of our shared cigarettes as he drove and I gave instructions. We wouldn't have time to stop, Johnny wouldn't want to anyway, his anxiety to be reunited with Izzy too much, buzzing in his veins, his determination to make it through the night, to hold her in his arms and apologise for sending her off in the middle of the end of the world. 

We drove all night, down twisting country lanes, avoiding the motorways and the security cameras on the main road. Not wanting to be tracked by the police and given away because someone had lost their car. 

I let my fingers graze over his bruised knuckles, I watched him with quiet admiration, oozing with love for him, hoping he could feel it. Hoping it cloaked him in the same quiet comfort, the sanctuary I felt in his presence. Now that he was awake. Now that he was living and breathing and glancing over at me every now and then to shoot me a smirk, to pretend he was perfectly fine, to ask for another drag on my cigarette. 

The sun rose, dusty and milky and halfhearted, misty raining hazing the windscreen, turning the ground beneath our tired muddy and sticky. We would leave tracks but by now we were far enough away that it didn't really matter. Close enough to the coast that the sea air was salty through the broken window frame. Every breath I drew in as my eyes and my muscles ached for a good nights sleep, telling me to be hopeful. Telling me that we were nearly home. 

"Pull up somewhere here," I said when I saw the rusty gate at the edge of the road. The gate was a farmers field and every morning cows crossed to the next pasture. We were late enough, the cows had already crossed, the farmer had already traipsed home. "Van said not to bring the car all the way, do you think you'll be..." 

"Milly," said Johnny, glancing over at me with soft warning tone. He cut the engine. He took my hand across the seat and surprised me, raising my palm to his lips, letting his kiss linger as he held my gaze. "Cmon," he said when he pulled away, "am fuckn freezin," 

I smiled, agreed. Cherished the warmth of his kiss in the palm of my hand. 

The field was muddy, it clung and sucked at our shoes, trying to sink us and as we struggled across the field, we tried to keep our giggled hushed, smiles aching our cheeks. It was easy once again to forget who we were these days. I felt like a girl again, reaching for Johnny's hand, leaning on him, letting him pull me down with him when his weight over balanced trying to free his foot from the squelching mud beneath us. 

It was hard not to feel like two innocents. Hard not to forget about the stolen car and the wounds we carried. My leg which stung, sharp pain of a wound aching because it was doing its best to heal and I wasn't helping. Johnny would have felt worse, but he smiled too, his grin never faltering as we stumbled across that field towards the lane which lead to the house Van had picked to be our safe house. 

And by the time we reached the road at the end of the field we were both breathless and lightheaded, whether it was the mist and the cold or the pain we were trying to swallow. 

We didn't mind. We were hopeful. 

The cottage, when we saw it, stood sturdy amid the misty morning. The path damp with the nights rain. It looked abandoned, looked old, looked tired, but we knew and so we walked up the path and we knocked on the door, leaning on opposite sides of the porch, letting the house hold us up, with small smiles in our eyes because we'd made it. It had taken too long, it had nearly been the death of us, we should never have made it beyond that night at Red's but we had.