[Gallagher]

I've been feeling like my skills are rusty.

The day hadn't yet begun. His breath froze upon leaving his lungs, the white puffs glowing beneath yellow tinted street lamps. Kier hated being up this early. It only brought back memories of panics and highs and hangovers. Months now since he'd last woken in his own filth, with bottled companions and an ache down to his very core for something he couldn't even fathom. Weeks since he'd last dared to think that was all behind him.

Days since he'd run out of things left to be done.

Stuffing his hands beneath his arms, Kier scanned a familiar scene. Cramped houses were giving way to weed filled lots. Not long ago, a sparse few days perhaps, they would have been coated in frost. It might have even been lovely, as far as parasites went. Now they only looked pathetic. Struggling to survive when they had already been ravaged. The road curved, and Kier followed. Just ahead, railroad tracks crossed his path, looking more neglected than he remembered.

Still, he was brought back to crashing metal, shattered glass, fear and hope forced together into a nauseating mess. To horrified, furious, pitying eyes, and the easy lies that came after. He wasn't in his right mind then, but now, now he could appreciate it.

This was poetic. A death he could be proud of.

Kier huffed and shifted his weight from one side to the other, peering down the tracks. He checked his watch. More than enough time. Stepping to the center of the railway, he walked.

Had this been a different time, he would have felt light, a strange sense of relief cementing his choice. This was different. Even now, a voice told him that it wouldn't work. Why should it? When had anything gone right for him?

He thought of late nights and butterflies.

Bruises and gunshots.

Shivering, Kier tightened his arms around himself. Thoughts like that were worse than the sudden collapses of insecurities, when it would flood every inch of his mind in an instant, impossible to pull apart. Impossible to inspect every detail of just how wrong it was. How wrong he had been.

A whistle howled in the distance.

Eyes turned up to the sky. Clear now, with only a soft dusting of clouds. The sun spilt its color across a dull horizon, reaching and stretching over all in sight. It was just what Kier had hoped to see before there was nothing but screeching breaks in his ears and rattling gravel beneath his feet. The seconds dragged on, his nerves coiling tighter and tighter. He only had to resist the urge to run for the length of a breath.

The cracking of bones, impossible pressure and pain, black and silence teased his consciousness.

A wet thud marked his body being thrown off into the grass, broken. Kier was still in it.

When he opened his eyes, when he could open his eyes, he knew he had to act quickly. He was too battered to tell one injury from another. He kept to what was important. Sections of his spine ground together when he righted his hips, making himself lie flat in the grass. His arm was broken, the shoulder aching and tight, and for a moment he wasn't sure which was worse. A deep breath — fuck, did that hurt — and he settled on the former. He let out a stream of breathless swears as he pulled and held the limb straight. There would be no binding it. He had to hope his body was as efficient as he feared.

Cold, shivering, he knew he had to move. Holding his arm together, he focused on his legs. Cracked, certainly, but he didn't believe broken. That could be the adrenaline, though. He glanced down at his arm and, slowly, hesitantly, took his hand from it. It felt fragile, aching, shattered, and he couldn't feel a couple of his fingers... but it held. It would have to do.

He forced himself to sit, despite the effort it took, the increasing dull in his senses. More likely than not, 'help' had already been called and would start swarming at any moment. He needed time, but he wouldn't have it. Of course he wouldn't. Bracing himself for the pain, he stood.

His leg nearly gave out beneath him when the coughing started. Blood, and before long vomit, splattered the ground at his feet. His head swam with its need for oxygen, but he held out, knowing it would come easier when he wasn't drowning in his own fluids.

The first full breath sent ice straight to his bones.

The second made him aware of the pain in his abdomen. It would have to wait.

Whoever had been on that blasted train would be on their way. Worse, he could hear sirens echoing through the trees. Burying the worst of the pain, he staggered away. He needed somewhere to hide, somewhere to recover, yet even as he thought he had nowhere left for that, his feet carried him back to familiar streets and houses. Windows were dark, but would not remain so.

There, just a bit farther. Kier's old home looked as empty as he'd left it, and with a sliver of luck — he deserved that much, didn't he? — it actually would be. Panting, light-headed, he headed for the door. His fingers slipped against the metal of the knob, refusing to function as he wished. He went for the next best thing. Cradling his useless arm, he rammed a shoulder against the door. It slammed open on the first try, sending him stumbling inside. Unable to catch himself, he fell, landing not with the hard thud of wood he'd expected, but onto cold, wet grass.