One month later.
"We all need to wake up eventually and face reality. It's time you do too." ...
... "Let's see how far you can bend before you break." ...
"It's Cree."
"We are descendants of Ophelia Dev'mar Angevell. The founder of the Dev'al Ordon."
"What I hate is seeing you cry."
... "See you on the other side."
"Farewell, Regan."
Everything is a dark haze of nothingness swirling around his head, echoing words fill his ears and give him fear, love, hatred and comfort. None of it makes sense, yet somehow it's also perfectly clear. Like a question that he knows at the back of his mind lies the answer, but he forces it down, letting the emptiness drown it out just so he can keep holding onto that comfort, if only for a little bit longer.
Part of him wants to stay that way. Just to stay there in the dark haze and dream of better things. Of home. Of his family and friends. Of his innocence that he feels was pried away from him too soon, despite the years of life behind him. He knows he has to let go, but deep down it terrifies him. Not the ground that he'll inevitably hit, but the fall itself.
So he holds on with every force of will that he has. But the longer he holds on, the more terrifying the fall becomes.
But still, he clings to the last threads of himself he has left.
Regan groans as he rolls himself over on his side, feeling his cheek press against a cold stone ground, but his face is warmed by a light orange glow in front of him. His body is covered in what feels like a blanket, but he recognizes the scent and feel of leather, telling him it's more likely a jacket.
He grips the rim of the coat unconsciously, his face tightening as he slowly starts to regain feeling in his body but not wanting to return to reality. He just wants to stay dreaming, but when he hears the heavy footsteps of leather boots approaching, he realizes he probably doesn't have much of a choice but to wake up.
He attentively blinks his eyes open to see a campfire set up in front of him. A log drops onto the burning pile and his eyes quickly dodge up just in time to see Cree crouch down by the fire, warming his hands and looking over to see that Regan is awake, and he smiles.
"Ah, so you are alive. I was starting to worry," he says quietly.
Regan shakily pushes himself to sit up and look around. "...Where are we?"
"I think it's some abandoned house or something. I woke up first in an alley. The sun was goin' down and it was already fuckin' freezing, so I brought you and Reela to the closest empty place I could find."
Regan then looks over at the other side of the fire to see a bundle of blankets with a mess of long white hair poking out through the top, and the soft snoring that's muffled beneath the entangling covers.
Seeing the girl safe and peacefully asleep allows some small part of himself to relax, but it's not much. He can feel his heart starting to race but he tries to fight it, making his breathing a little heavier.
"...Where are we? Are we really in Eutria?"
Cree shrugs. "I guess. No way in hell is this Aramora. So either we're in Eutria, or we really stepped through a time machine to before County Dominion was wiped out. I took a look around the city, but I didn't go far. All I learned is that this city is called Tratend."
Regan shifts to cross his legs and his hands rest lazily in his lap. He looks down at them, starting to fidget with the cuffs of his sleeves. "Any... any word on Edith and Colin?" he asks.
Cree sighs and shakes his head. "No... Somethin' tells me finding them won't be easy, so before anything else, we should make a plan for how to go about this. Finding a rift is one thing, but finding people who don't know we're looking for them is probably gonna be trickier. So let's..." he stops when he sees Regan's breathing speed up a bit and he starts rocking back and forth, just staring vacantly at the fire and rubbing his knuckles.
"Are you... okay?" he asks, his brows contort upwards in concern.
Regan swallows against the dryness in his mouth and throat and he bites his lip, providing a shaky nod in response. "Y—Yes. I'm... I'm alright..." he chokes over his words and blinks quickly against the blurring in his eyes.
Cree sighs sympathetically and moves to sit a little closer. "You're worried about Romeow, aren't you?"
"W—Well yes, but... I—It's a bit more than that... It's... kind of... hard to explain..."
Cree rests his hand on his shoulder. "How so?"
Regan swallows back tears again and starts rubbing his knuckles more frantically than normal, his rocking speeds up a bit.
"Well... as you know... I m—modified Romeow to allow him to... to assist me in my lab, but... I—I also made it so that he could... could help me in life as well..." he stumbles over his words, his normally smooth accent crackling. "You see... I... um..." he takes a deep breath. "I—I've always had really bad anxiety... and one of the features I gave him was that he could dull it to a tolerable level... But it seems... h—he's out of range, so..." his breathing shudders.
Cree sits even closer and moves his hand down from his shoulder and onto his back, gently rubbing back and forth and with his metal hand, he holds one of Regan's, tracing his golden-bronze thumb over his knuckles with a small bit of pressure, just enough to not hurt him but enough to ease some of the trembling.
He helps Regan by calmly rocking with him, and despite his head telling him not to, he carefully pulls Regan over so he can rest his head on his shoulder.
"You're alright, Regan... It's okay. Just breathe... You'll be okay. I'm here for you."
Regan closes his eyes and focuses on getting his breathing and shaking under control, ignoring everything other than Cree continuing to whisper soothing words of encouragement and understanding. If the circumstances were different, he would easily be in heaven right now.
After an indeterminate amount of time, he realized that Cree stopped whispering and instead, his gentle words shifted into a soothing hum that despite Cree not being someone who likes to sing, is beautifully melodic in its own way. His head leaned over to rest atop Regan's and his hand stopped rubbing his back and is now wrapped around his shoulder, his thumb brushing over the fabric of his tunic.
The gestures seemed to come to him so naturally. How he easily slipped into such a tenderhearted state. He knew he could be gentle when he wanted to be, but this is different. He can't tell how or why, but just something about this side of Cree feels so foreign, but never would he even consider it possibly being a bad thing.
Now he's glad he woke up instead of just turning over to keep dreaming. Because it's moments like this that remind him that sometimes reality can be better than the dreams.
Going against his personal desire to prolong this as long as he can, he knows they can't stay here forever. He takes one last deep breath before carefully shifting to sit up straight which gets Cree to do the same.
Regan glances over at him, seeing him biting his lip and staring at the fire. He can't quite tell, but his face seems to look a little pink but it could just be from the glow of the fire.
"Thank you... I'm sorry if that may happen often..." he says.
Cree shows him a small smile. "Hey, you don't need to apologize. After all the bullshit we dealt with in Aramora, I'd say dealing with feelings is much preferred over getting tortured in a prison or beaten up by bandits. And that's coming from me. You're fine," he says with a soft chuckle.
Regan smiles as well and nods. "Right... Now then, we need a plan. Where do we start?"
"Well, let's try retracing their steps. When we first got to Aramora, what was our primary objective?" Cree starts.
"Finding information on the Dev'al Ordon," Regan answers automatically and Cree nods in agreement. The first thing they did was go to the inn to ask around for information, so maybe that's somewhere to start. "If they ended up in the same alley we did, given the state Edith was likely in, they probably didn't get far at first. If they started asking around for information, it was probably in the immediate area. I'd say... no more than an hour's walk at most."
Cree leans back on his metal arm, resting his real one on his lap. "Well, how long have they been here, exactly?"
"I think... maybe just over a month by now. How far could two people get in a month?"
"Not sure. It'd probably be easier to determine if we had a map," Cree says. "In Aramora, it felt like we were moving pretty quickly, but that was mainly because we were running for our lives six out of seven days a week. Let's hope they've had better luck, but if they had been caught by the Imperium... They probably wouldn't still be in Tratend."
Regan slowly nods and thinks. "Retracing their steps, assuming Edith was suffering from severe loss of EPC data, the first place they probably went wouldn't be for information, it would be somewhere to rest. Maybe in the morning, we can try finding places nearby that they could have gone to recover. Motels, abandoned buildings, that sort of thing. We can also ask around, just avoid anyone who looks like they might be with the Imperium. We don't want to attract unwanted attention," as he speaks, a bullet-point list starts forming in his brain, planning out each step with much thought.
Seeing his inquisitive look again as he focuses all of his attention on finding Edith and Colin brings a smile to Cree's face. He personally isn't insightful enough to calculate each and every step. He can make war plans, but something like this is different. As much as he hates it, his mind works like that of a soldier, while Regan's works more like a strategist. Oddly enough, Regan would probably make a good detective. He's got the hat for it.
"So tomorrow, we'll first look for places nearby that they may have gone to rest. Avoid authorities, and if we do run into any soldiers, they don't know you at all yet, so maybe we could use that to our advantage. There's a chance they'd recognize me after all the Cogency Elite bullshit in Utopia and Reela's ears would give away the fact that we're not from here, so she and I can hide until it's safe, but let's hope it doesn't come to that," Cree lays out his game plan. Regan can handle the step-by-step process and Cree can focus on how to keep them alive.
"Also, I think my arm once again could be a giveaway," he says and lifts his right arm. "Pretty sure a magical Dwarven arm is Aramora-exclusive."
Regan looks down to see that the 'blanket' he felt on him when he woke up was really Cree's leather jacket. He unwraps it from himself and offers it to him. "At least you have your own jacket this time instead of mine. So your arm problem is covered," he winks and Cree immediately smacks his face with his left hand, but it didn't hurt at all and Regan merely falls onto his back with a soft laugh and Cree rolls his eyes, trying to hide his grin.
"Shut up, twat."
"No. I don't think I will."
Cree growls while keeping the grin and he throws his jacket at Regan and it lands on his face. Regan pulls it off his head, but as he does, Cree lunges at him with a smile, snatching his hat and placing it on his own head.
Regan huffs and grabs his arm, jumping forward and tackling him to try reclaiming his hat, but it seems he forgot that if Cree is a wolf, Regan is more like a teacup poodle. He yelps when Cree counters the attack and pounces at him, grabbing his arms and pinning him down which makes his hat fall off.
To Cree, the instinctive action of wrestling was brought up by his experiences of fighting with Edith and John. In those cases, it felt more like everyone involved was just out for blood, but it was innocent enough to be more like children roughhousing than attempted murder.
But he hadn't really thought through the fact that it would probably be different with Regan. Which it, without a doubt, is very different. At first he thinks it's on account of that night he spent with Regan in Arkala, but he knows deep down that's not the reason. It's because of that terrifying yet wonderful feeling that he keeps trying to ignore every time he looks at him.
The most terrifying part is that in this moment there's a brief – microscopic desire pulling at his heart to just say it. Seeing that playful smile on Regan's face as he tries to keep wrestling but is far too physically weak to pry Cree off, seemingly oblivious to the thousands of nagging thoughts and emotions pulling Cree's heart in every which way. He knows that letting those feelings pull and pull at his heart for too long will only cause it to break, but he's no stranger to having his heart torn apart. It sucks, but he's used to it.
But for that brief moment, he considered what would happen should he just open his mouth and allow himself to indulge in the one thing that scares him most. Allowing himself to be happy, knowing damn well that nothing good lasts forever. Letting himself be happy would only mean directly putting himself in a position to end up broken down the line.
"Ty?" Regan's voice pulls him out of his thoughts that he hadn't realized he had let himself fall back into. When he's brought back into the moment, his face tints red as he realizes he had just been blankly staring at Regan, pinned beneath him while he let his mind wander to places he's typically too afraid to traverse.
He lets him go and moves back a bit too quickly and his face returns to his default gruffness, turning away and grabbing his jacket. He doesn't pull it on, just keeps it in his lap to hide his shaking hand.
Regan sits up and tilts his head at the other man, seeing how he just went from laughing and playing to looking angry, but seemingly with no reason at all. He can't tell where the anger is directed, but he can't help but worry he may have done something wrong.
"Ty... Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Cree says so fast that he almost interrupted the question.
Regan shrinks back a bit and thinks about what to say next, but Cree shakes his head and growls quietly. He quickly stands up and pulls his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, adjusting the collar and sleeves before turning and walking towards the metal door that leads outside.
"Where are you going?"
"To get some air."
Regan fails to get another word out before Cree swings the door open and storms through, letting a brief cold breeze blow into the building that gives him a small shiver. He sees Reela shiver a bit as well and pull the blanket tighter around herself, but she just rolls onto her back and continues sleeping, one louder snore escapes her and she seems to be drooling a bit under her messy hair.
He smiles a little and moves over to her, carefully brushing her hair out of her face so he can plant a soft kiss on her forehead and the corners of her mouth twitch upwards, but she stays sleeping. Seems going through the rift hit the child a bit harder than it did for them, no doubt due to her being as tiny as she is.
He gets up and walks over to retrieve his hat, placing it on his head and throwing one last glance at Reela to make sure she's alright before following Cree out the door.
The biting cold sends chills into his bones and he wraps his arms around himself, having nothing but his tunic to keep him warm against the falling snow that serves to overlay the black night sky, dotted with stars and a few shadowed clouds that illuminate only from the light of the pale moon.
It's so strange to think about how they've now been on every continent, each one so different compared to the last, but the one thing that has stayed the same on all three is the moon. The sky. The stars and the sun. Wars can wage and hell can break loose, but through it all, it's good to know that some things never change.
He looks down the snowy night street, the streetlamps and traffic lights glow and project their rays to bounce off the falling haze of ice. It's strangely beautiful, especially when he thinks about how this is a new continent. Cree may have been joking before, but it really does feel like they've stepped through a time machine and are staring down the streets of County Dominion as if it had never been torn apart. He hopes Edith has been able to find some form of comfort in this place looking so much like her old home.
At the corner of the street, he sees Cree sitting at a bench, also staring up at the night sky and squinting to keep the snowflakes from hitting his eyes. His real arm is draped over the back of the bench and his right one is in his lap, rolling a smoking cigarette between his middle and index finger. He's not sure where he got it, but he assumes he likely found it either in the abandoned building or when he looked around town while Regan was asleep.
Deciding to do something other than just stand there in the cold and contemplate what might be going on when he honestly has no clue, he sighs and just walks over.
Cree must've heard his footsteps, as he turns his gaze to see him but quickly looks away and brings the cigarette up to his lips, seemingly trying to focus on anything but Regan.
"I wanna be alone right now, Regan," his voice holds a layer of annoyance.
"I know... I just—"
"So then why are you here?"
Regan sighs and shivers, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."
Cree takes the cigarette between his bronze fingers again and blows out a breath of smoke and frost as he turns to look at him again with a cocked brow. "You're... sorry? For what?"
Regan looks down and shrugs, anxiously dragging the sole of his boot across the snow-covered sidewalk. "Well... I don't know, really. It just... it seemed like we were having fun back there. You know, like friends, but then you got upset out of nowhere..." he says quietly. "I can't help but feel I may have done something wrong."
Cree lowers his arm from the back of the bench and slumps forward with his forearms rested on his legs, rolling the cigarette again and sighing. "I can see why you'd think that. Considering how shitty of a person I've been over the years, especially to you," he places the cigarette at the corner of his mouth and shakes his head to himself.
"That's not what I meant," Regan says softly and takes a small step closer. "Ty—"
"When are you gonna stop calling me that?" he unintentionally snaps. There's that frustration again. That annoyance that seems to be directed somewhere he can't place.
Regan closes his mouth as he forgets what he was about to say, and honestly not really caring about whatever it was after hearing that.
He walks over until he's beside the bench and he eyes the spot beside him. Cree sees the look on his face and nods to wordlessly permit him to sit. Regan lowers into the seat and keeps his arms around himself as he stares at the sky.
"I told you before that I would wait to call you 'Cree' until I know that that's who you are now."
"What more do I have to do to prove myself?" Cree scoffs and shakes his head. "What'll it take to get you to trust me?"
"You know damn well that I trust you, Ty."
"Well it just doesn't really seem that way," Cree puffs out another breath of smoke before placing the cigarette between his lips again, lightly fidgeting with it between his teeth. "Why can't you just tell me what I need to do to show you that I'm trying to be the person John knew again?"
Regan sighs and looks down at the street. He shivers again as a light breeze rolls through, but he ignores the cold chill of winter to focus only on Cree.
"That right there is precisely the reason I still call you Tyrell."
Cree slightly turns his head to look at him out of the corner of his eye. "What?"
"You keep trying to do what you hope I'm waiting for. Trying to find the answers, but without even looking at the problem. You ask me to tell you what you need to do, while I know you can figure it out for yourself. There's a difference between trying to be a certain way, and letting it come naturally by allowing yourself to step back and see what it is that's stopping you. It could be fear, pride, you name it. But it's something that you yourself need to face. Not something I, or anyone else can give you."
Cree says nothing as he tries letting all of that sink in. He has to stop trying? But then how is he supposed to make any kind of progress towards bettering himself? Why does Regan have to be so patient and philosophical with him? Why couldn't he be like most people and leave the moment they realized what a lost cause it was to try 'fixing' Cree Tyrell?
He doesn't know, all he knows is that it's because of the fact that Regan is so good-natured and understanding that makes it so damn hard to fight the way he makes him feel. Of every terrifying thing he's witnessed, realizing that he loves Regan may have been one of the more frightening moments of his life, because it's a fear that's as persistent as the man the feelings are for.
He was hoping it would pass but it hasn't. Maybe it will in a year. Maybe a month. Hell, maybe tomorrow. But deep down, he knows he secretly hopes the feeling never goes away. It may be terrifying, but that fear mixed with the need fills his heart with a fire that reminds him he's alive. At times, it can be easy to forget. Especially when there's still a part of him that believes he'd be better off dead.
But that fire tells him that's wrong.
So why does he keep trying to put it out?
Fear. If he lets himself be happy, he's giving the world another chance to break him and he's terrified of going through that again. When he lost John, he felt broken but covered it up for the sake of Mortality. When he thought he lost Edith, he didn't have to put up that front. He just sat in that hotel room, refusing to eat or sleep and just wondering why the hell he was even still alive. It seemed so idiotic that he let the days go by and himself keep breathing.
Maybe it was because of Peace and Data, but he knows better than that. It wasn't out of fear of the chance that some people might still care about him, it was because he was too damn cowardly that every time he found himself staring down the barrel of his own gun or the blade of his knife, he felt a small bit of fear and had hoped that was enough to consider himself still alive, but really he was just letting himself die more and more each day.
Until he heard that damn knock on the door. He could have ignored it, but, well...
Regan is persistent.
And because of that, Cree has found a reason to live. When he came out here, the thought of taking his own life hadn't even occurred to him when that used to be all he could think about whenever he was left alone with his thoughts.
He knows that he and Regan have just been sitting there in silence while he thinks about all of this, but it seems Regan is letting him process everything he just said. Maybe he's expecting him to figure out what it'll take to truly be 'Cree' again with what he's been given.
Thinking about that, with everything he just pondered on, he thinks that deep down, he knows the problem, but not the answer.
He sighs with defeat, leaning back and flicking his cigarette to the ground. "I just don't know..." he mumbles.
Regan reaches over and places his hand gently on his shoulder. "You don't have to have the answer right away. But Ty, just because I don't yet call you 'Cree' doesn't mean I'm not proud of how far you've come. I know you aren't who you were when this all started, and you have no idea how happy that makes me. You may not be ready to fully let down your walls, but you seem to have at least installed a fancy gate, just with very strict entrance procedures," he chuckles and playfully nudges him.
Cree's frustration lingers, but he lets it go and smiles a little, looking over at him. He may not be ready to find the answer, but he can start working towards it.
He sees Regan shiver and he sighs, sliding a little closer and wrapping his arm around his shoulders and leans against him, slipping half of his coat around him.
They stay like that for a while, not really sure how long but it feels nice, even though nothing is said between them. The silence doesn't feel awkward or uncomfortable, which is good enough for Cree.
But as they sit there for a few more minutes, just as they both start to feel tired, they feel something shift in the air. Not like an ominous aura passing by as though something bad is about to happen, but like a physical sensation. A tingle in the air.
Both of them look around and see the lights over the city flicker for a moment, then they come back on all at once. This happens a few times, when they hear a loud crash, like a power surge coming from the north.
Down the road, a number of people step out of their homes and stand in the street, looking around in a sort of panic, but it's more out of confusion than anything.
Regan and Cree quickly stand up and they see the metal door to the building they were in opens and Reela steps out with a blanket wrapped around her and she looks around with tired, but curious eyes.
Cree rushes over and picks her up, holding on tight as he and Regan also go stand in the street to look around, trying to figure out what's going on like everyone else.
Then the dark night sky seems to flicker, as do the city lights again, only they stay off when the black sky shows a brief red glimmer.
Coming in from the north, the sky flickers and triangular panels lined with glints of red light begin to open and fade out, rapidly spreading across the continent in all directions. Eventually, the panels reach Tratend and vanish overhead, making the citizens panic and scream, and some police cars show up to try ushering people back into their homes.
Cree shakes his head as he tries to understand what's happening, when Reela whines and holds her head tight. He goes to ask her if she's okay, when Regan drops to his knees with a grunt and he also holds the sides of his head, his eyes shut tight.
"What's going on? Are you guys okay?"
Reela shifts to drop from his arms and run to Regan's side, holding onto him tight. Cree can see that both of them have that dark mist radiating off their skin and their eyes are black voids, but they don't seem to be losing control of the Dark this time.
Cree reaches his hand towards them, when the metal limb starts convulsing and he feels as his control over it lessens. He growls and grips his metal wrist in his left hand, trying to get it to cooperate but it doesn't. Frustrated, he reaches up to the shoulder and presses down on the circular release, turning it so the whole thing comes out of the socket.
He kneels beside Regan and Reela, reaching to them with his only arm to try comforting them against the pain they're clearly in.
"What's happening?" he asks frantically.
Regan shakily lifts his head while Reela keeps trembling against his side. He's breathing heavily and tears are rolling down his cheeks. His eyes are still a little dark, but it fades enough for Cree to see his lament.
"...The barrier surrounding Eutria is down..." he shudders.
Cree tries to understand why that's a bad thing, when it hits him. The last rift to Eutria was in Aramora, so if the barrier is down...
"...Aramora has been destroyed."
Cree turns his gaze down the road to watch as panic breaks out over the city.