Ah, Erenya, you cautious Illuminati isolationist. I really enjoyed the side characters in TSW, so I wrote one for poor, dark Andy. This is a 500-word-challenge one-shot that is also on AO3. Full text below.
“You okay?” said Andy. He was scrubbing his wrists with his hands, first one, then the other, faster than when she’d met him.
“Yeah,” said Ren. “I cleaned up some draug that were sending reinforcements. Quiet out here, huh?”
Andy looked over the folding chair and its loaded rifle atop the barricaded police station at the town’s edge. Leaves scraped everyone’s nerves as they raveled out from the gaunt trees to the battered pavement. The movements in the darkness weren’t human. “I guess. Hasn’t been this clear in…” he thought about it… “days?”
“Mind if I ask you something?”
Grip wrist, scrub. Grip wrist, scrub. “Sure. None of us mind you.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
Grip wrist. Pause. “Few days. Three? Four? What time is it?”
“Four AM. On the ninth. Let me watch things a while. You need the rest.”
“I couldn’t do that. This is my job. Didn’t think my Dad was that literal about the bodies that’d pile up in this line of work, but…” he thumbed his deputy’s badge…“no. This is my job.”
“I know you’re brave. But I’m going to need you sharp if this gets bad.”
His pale eyes focused on her. “Need? You? I saw you out there. You were doing things I’ve never seen. For my money you’re the one who walks away if any of us does under our own power, ayuh.”
And she couldn’t tell anyone why. “I’m asking. Nicely. My next request comes with tranquilizers.”
Andy hesitated. “You’ll keep watch here, won’t you?”
“Yes. I promise.” Ren gestured. “Downstairs now?”
“Nuh-uh. I can sleep here.” He cringed, but he wasn’t scrubbing his wrists anymore.
She trotted across and downstairs. “Chief. Blankets?”
The sheriff limped to the shelf and extracted two thick blankets. “Everything all right?”
Ren jerked a thumb upstairs. “I’m trying to spell Andy. He’s not cooperating much.” She accepted the goods and trotted back topside.
Andy had sagged into the chair and started waving the rifle down the pockmarked street and into the forest beyond. Out of range, shadows crawled.
“Hey,” said Ren. “Got you something.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Andy said, almost singsong.
Ren slowed. “How’s that?”
“The fog came for Kingsmouth. And it’s full of things you know how to fight, somehow. You weren’t supposed to be here for this. They’re going to be mad if you keep hurting them…”
“Let me worry about that. Lie down before I knock you down.”
“What?” He set down the rifle and stood, once again looking down at the top of her head. Ren pointed. Andy curled on his side on the cold roof. He didn’t seem that big then. Ren shook out the blankets and laid them over.
He shut his eyes, but he shook his hands free and started scrubbing.
Damn it, thought Ren. She pulled her jacket off and, stooping, wrapped it warm around his hands. They finally stilled.
Poor civilian. “Rest,” she whispered. “I’ll let you know if the world ends.”
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