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ice-cap-k · 7 months

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Distant Visions

Hard prompt is hard.

Cross-posted on AO3 here: Distant Visions

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“Calling for help will get you nowhere, anyway. Don’t be a fool. Tell us where he is, and this won’t have to get messy.”

Joe Hills blinked open his eyes.

The room before him had been trashed. Broken pieces of porcelain and plastic lay scattered across the floor. Chairs are splintered and smashed, tossed haphazardly on top of a table shoved against a wall. There’s some sort of dark liquid dripping down the plaster, but it is impossible for him to tell what it could be.

It kind of looks like the safe house’s kitchen.

Men in suits were spread out to cover the place from corner to corner. They were glaring at a familiar figure standing at the room’s center. Joe recognized his friend Jevin. He was crouched down and tense, looking wildly around him at the people closing in from all sides. Clutched against his chest was a busted cell phone with a bullet hole through the screen.

Jevin rolled his eyes. “I feel bad for your parents if this isn't what you consider messy.” His tone was still full of the usual snark, but his voice cracked at the end. Joe can tell by the look on the others’ faces that they weren’t impressed.

“And you’re naive if you consider this a mess,” one snarled behind Jevin. The gun in his hand caught the light from a bare bulb in the ceiling.

“Enough.” The one who spoke first silenced his comrade with a swipe of his hand. “There’s no need for things to get any worse. This has nothing to do with you.” He tilted his head towards Jevin and raised both eyebrows. “All we want is your little friend. If you tell us where he is, we’ll leave you on your merry way.” He held out his hand as if hoping Jevin might reach out and take it.

But Jevin only smiled and shrugged, swatting away the hand held out to him like it was nothing more than an annoying bug. His eyes shifted back and forth as some of the people around him inched closer. “Sorry, but you already said it. This has nothing to do with me. I don’t know anything.” He crossed his arms with a smug smirk. “Absolutely nothing.”

Jevin and the man who seemed to be in charge stared each other down for a moment. Jevin leaned back, relaxed and confident as he held the grim gaze of the man in the suit. Each one dared the other to look away. Eventually, the other man broke eye contact first. He pivoted on the ball of his foot, leaving his back facing Jevin while he turned to address the others. “He’s not talking. We’ll never get anything out of him like this. Grab him and we’ll bring him back to make him talk.”

"As if, jerk!" Jevin's broken phone spiraled through the air and nailed the guy in the back of his head. There was a scream, and the whole room broke into chaos. Men in suits rushed at Jevin. Some still had guns out. They did not hesitate to swing them around in the hopes of throttling Joe’s friend.

Jeven swung his fists wildly. This wasn’t his first time in a fistfight. However, it was his first time in a fistfight so clearly stacked against him. A few punches managed to hit his attackers, but he was woefully outnumbered. They overpowered him in seconds, pinning him down to his knees and wrenching his arms out behind his back. Even then, Jevin wasn’t one to just roll over and let it happen. He continued to wriggle and buck, hoping to wrench himself free. “You’ll get nothing out of me. I don’t even know where they would go! He saw you coming and got out of dodge real fast.”

The guy in charge glared daggers down at him. He was still rubbing at the back of his head where Jevin’s phone had hit. “As if the subject would have left one of his little guard dogs behind without telling them where he was going.”

“He didn’t,” Jevin hissed. “I ran out before he could say anything to try and buy time. Even if I hadn’t, his future sight would have seen how things played out. They would know to go somewhere else.”

The man furrowed his brow. "So you're telling," he says slowly, enunciating each word with a chilling tone. "Is that you really are useless to us?"

Jevin clamped his mouth shut. Joe knew that Jevin had said too much. Joe could see in Jevin's face that his friend knew he had messed up as well.

"What do we do with him, then," another of the men asked.

"We lose the dead weight."

Jevin finally stopped struggling, eyes widening like a deer caught in headlights. They only got wider as the man in charge pulled his own gun out from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He raised it slowly, the barrel tracing over the ground before arching up to aim directly at Jevin's forehead.

"W-wait… wait, WAIT! Wait a minute," Jevin is stuttering. He seemed to have shaken off his fear-fueled paralysis. He is once more back to desperately trying to claw at the wrists of the men pinning him down. "You said this doesn't have to get messy. You could just let me go."

The finger tightens around the trigger.

"PLEASE!"

Joe…? Joe, are you in there? Joe!

BANG!

Joe Hills blinked open his eyes.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table in the safe house. The morning sun was just visible outside the window, rising to meet another day. There's a fresh mug of tea cupped in his hands. Its warmth felt nice against his palms.

Cleo is sitting in a chair of her own across from him. She looks like she just crawled out of bed. Her bright orange hair was frizzy and tangled but pulled back into a lazy ponytail to keep all but a few too-short strands from falling in her face. She is still wearing her PJs too. At her side was a mug of her own she had been drinking from. Now it was placed to the side as she propped one elbow against the table and rested her cheek against her hand. Her head tilted curiously when she noticed that he was looking at her. "What did you see?"

Joe felt his throat seize up. It was such a simple question. He hated how loaded it became whenever it was directed at him. How is he supposed to answer something like that? The sound of that gunshot was still ringing in his ears. He couldn’t find it in himself to try to explain, so instead he decided to focus on the swirling surface of his tea. Tears were already starting to burn at the corners of his eyes.

"Oh, Joe…" A teardrop falls into his mug. Warm fingers wrap around his wrist and gently squeeze. He can just make out Cleo’s chipped black nail polish from the edges of his vision. Her voice is soft and comforting. It’s measured and sad and understanding as she asks, “Is it time to start packing up?”

He manages a nod because he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack if he tries to speak. It was. The sooner the better. This safe house had served its purpose up until now, but something had changed. Their location was known, or about to be found out very soon.

Clea sighed. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Right. Let me get dressed. Hey, JEVIN!”

The couch in the other room creaked as their friend shot awake. There was an incoherent shout. Joe could make out the other man’s arms flailing. A blanket fluttered over the side of the armrest. Shortly after, a bleary-eyed Jevin poked his head up over the back of the couch. “Whuh?! What happened? Did we win?”

“No,” Cleo said, with a tone that held a hint of annoyance. “I don’t know what you were dreaming about, but we did not win.”

“Oh… ok.” And just like that, Jevin closed his eyes and flopped back down into the couch. Joe held back a snort of laughter. Despite the tears trailing from his eyes, it was a relief to see that Jevin was still very much the same Jevin he always was, safe and happy and none the wiser to what Joe had just seen.

And when Cleo huffed and started stomping towards the couch, Joe even smiled. It all felt so normal when the situation was anything but.

“Oh no you don’t, Jev. None of that.” She reached over the arm of the couch and roughly shook the sleeping man by his shoulder. “Joe just saw the future again. That government group is on its way.”

Joe groaned, not even opening his eyes. “Again?”

“Yes again,” Cleo snapped. “So wake up.”

“Ugh, fine. But only for Joe. Not for you. I need my beauty sleep.”

“I’m sure.” Cleo’s tone was all sarcasm as she turned away. Behind her, Jevin was rolling out of the couch cushions with immense difficulty. “We should have some time to pack our bags, and if someone knocks on the front door we can have Jevin answer it. I trust him to handle himself in a fight more than I trust either of us.”

Joe nearly slammed his mug down on the tabletop. “NO!” His sudden outburst scared her so badly, she somehow managed to freeze in place and jump out of her skin. Jevin leaned out from behind her, his face blank and blinking slowly as if unable to process what just happened. Considering he had just woken up, he probably couldn’t. “Sorry…” Joe said sheepishly, shrinking into himself. He found himself hunkering his shoulders against the growing intensity of Cleo’s glare. “I mean, if there’s a knock on the door, nobody should answer. Especially not Jevin. In fact, I would go so far as to say it would be best if we made sure Jevin stayed with us at all times.”

Both Cleo and Jevin shared a knowing look. “Ok!” She clapped her hands together once. “So the potential bad future you saw involved Jevin. Noted. Now to make sure that doesn’t happen. Come on boys. If we have time later, we can reheat that tea for you, Joe.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, letting go of his mug. He dried the tears with the back of his shirt sleeve. “That’s fair.”

Joe lets her shoo him off to his room to get changed and get ready. The safe house became a flurry of activity as clothes and personal possessions were stuffed into backpacks. Honestly, there’s not much to pack between the three of them. Just what they could carry on their backs. That’s what a life constantly on the run will do to you. Eventually, you just have to pare down your belongings to the stuff you need, and what matters most. A cooler was packed with some of the non-perishable food left in the cupboards. Not too full, though. It can’t be too heavy to carry for long distances. Even then, there’s a chance they may just have to drop it and run.

Jevin popped his head into Joe’s room as he’s folding his clothes into his pack. “Hey Joe, any clue when your vision is supposed to take place?”

“Sort of. The details were a little fuzzy on this one. Maybe half an hour from now? Forty-five minutes?”

“Dang, that fast? Ok, then I guess I’m ready then. That place I’m working at will figure out I’ve quit when I don’t show up for work.”

“Sorry man,” Joe says, feeling his heart sink a little.

Jevin just waves him off. “No worries. It was just a temp job anyway.”

In fifteen minutes, the three of them are all packed up and standing at the back door.

“We each have all our things, right,” Cleo asked as Joe slid open the screen door. She slipped outside first as he held it open. “I’m not going behind you two and checking if you forgot anything.”

Joe shook his head. “I’m good.”

“Me too.”

“Good. Then what about water bottles?”

Joe held his out before sliding it into the mesh pocket on the side of his pack. Jeven just motioned towards the canister hanging from his belt loop.

“Perfect. And I’ve got the food. That’s everything. Let’s be off.”

They all started walking out of the back alley of the safe house. Jevin hung back a few steps, looking uncertain. “And where exactly are we off to?” he asked. “I don’t recall anyone mentioning the plan.”

Cleo tilted her head in Joe’s direction. “Just follow him for now.”

“There’s a train that’s about to pass through town with sliding door rail cars. If we can jump on when it passes through, it will take us far, far away."

"How do you know about that? Was that part of what you saw this morning?"

"No. I just looked up the local train schedules on my phone while you were getting ready."

"He may have weird powers, but he can still use the internet like the rest of us," Cleo half scolded, half teased.

Jevin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, sorry. Excuse me for not having everything all figured out. It's not like I literally just woke up or anything." He reached out to playfully smack Cleo's shoulder. She swatted him back, and all three broke out in snickers.

It was a sweet moment. Joe appreciated how they could make light of the situation so easily. He wished things could be different. That it could always be like this.

“You know, you guys don’t have to keep going like this if you don’t want to,” Joe found himself saying. He felt so small saying it out loud. They seemed so much larger than life when they laughed like this. But he had their attention now. “I’m the one who has weird powers and can see into the future. It’s me they want. Not you guys. You guys are normal. You don’t have to keep coming with me.”

“Don’t be silly.” Cleo’s voice is scathing and full of love. A sort of tone only Cleo could pull off, really. “Of course we do. Who else will keep you out of trouble?”

“Me…?” Joe offered with a shrug.

That got another laugh out of both of them.

Jevin patted his shoulder. “Relax, man. Friends watch out for each other. If one of us were being hunted down by the government, you’d do the same.” Joe would. He already kind of was. Jevin must have seen a hint of reluctance in his face. “It’s not your fault, Joe. Right, Cleo?”

“Right. We want to be here for you. We want to help you. Let us do that. We’re all just a bunch of hermits now anyway. A bit of hermits helping hermits never hurt anyone.”

Gosh, Joe had such great friends. He sniffed, already feeling the tears coming on once more. “Awww,” his voice wavered. “You guys…”

Joe grabbed a handful of Cleo’s sleeve and Jevin’s hoodie and pulled them in close. They wrapped him and each other up in their arms in one big group hug. As far as Joe was concerned, this was the best thing ever, and he was glad to be sharing it with the best people ever.

The moment was short-lived at the sound of angry knocking. It sounded like someone was pounding on a door. It also sounded close. Really close. Like, on the other side of the building close.

The three friends separated and hunkered closer to the wall in a panic. “We weren’t fast enough,” Joe hissed. “That must be them. They’re already here.”

Jevin rolled his shoulders, shrugging off his pack so he could lower it to the ground. “I’ll go back and talk to them. See if I can buy you two some time to get out of here.”

Joe’s breath caught in his lungs. Oh no. It was happening. Joe already saw how this scenario ended, and he reached out for Jevin before the man could make a break for it. Before Jevin can slip away, though, Cleo grabs his arm and pulls. “Oh no you’re not,” she hissed under her breath. “The three of us are sticking together and sneaking out the back.”

“But they’re not after me,” Jevin tried to reason with her as she shoved his bag back into his arms. “And I can handle myself in a fight if things go south.”

“I don’t care. We’re going. Now.” Cleo’s word is final. Jevin doesn’t make any further attempts to go back. Instead, he silently follows her over a chain link fence.

Joe’s glad she got the message loud and clear when he said Jevin shouldn’t answer the door. He could always count on her. On the other side of the fence, he patted Jevin on the back. “If it makes you feel better, I’m much more comfortable knowing you’re here with us than if you were back there trying to buy us time.”

#whumptober 2023 #prompt no. 4 #“I see the danger it's written there in your eyes”#“you in there?”#minecraft: hermitcraft #hermitcraft #creative writing #gun violence #implied character death #joe hills #zombiecleo #ijevin #alternate universe - modern setting #government conspiracy #on the run #future visions #everyone is your average human except one character

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