Beta thanks to Ces and Terri!
It was just barely light, and they were tromping through the snow in the backwoods of God-knew-where Maine. John was leading the way, moving steadily on his own two legs, which was a sight almost worth being out of bed for, even this early. Bruce just hoped his visions would pick up bear traps or rotten ice, because there wasn't a hell of a lot to tell one drift of snow from another out here. It was up to his knees now, and he'd sunk in up to his hips once already. John had turned back long enough to haul him out--carefully not touching his bare hands, and Bruce wondered whether John forgot sometimes that other people couldn't pick up his secrets if he touched them.
The closest John had come to giving him an explanation about what they were doing--apart from that terse four o'clock in the morning phone call, in which John had told him to wear boots and that he'd pick him up in twenty minutes, in the tone of voice Bruce had learned to associate with the Apocalypse--had come halfway into the drive up here. John had pulled the Jeep over without a word, and sat staring at the headlights going by like he thought someone was after them. Bruce hoped John would have insisted on bringing Walt along, if anyone were.
He'd waited in silence until John crumpled forward all at once, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel--not sick or hurt, both expressions Bruce knew how to read on John's face at a glance, even in poor light like this. John looked like a man having serious second thoughts.
"Your dad was a preacher," John said finally, without raising his head.
"Yeah," Bruce said slowly, wondering where this was going. John had never had much more use for his daddy's religion than Bruce had.
"Did anybody ever ask him--if the devil repented, could he be saved?"
Bruce's Spidey sense would have started tingling then, if he had one, or if it hadn't already been maxed out. Johnny had called Stillson the devil last summer, right before the Miranda thing blew up, and since then he'd been weirdly silent on the whole topic.
"Yeah," Bruce said slowly, reluctantly. It was no use not telling the man the truth. John turned his head a little, looking at him sideways with one blue eye, unearthly in the glow of the dashboard lights. "I mean, yes, and that's what he said. Yes. But he also said it'd take a pretty inspired piece of preaching to bring the old boy around to repenting. In the technical sense of inspired."
John's eye squeezed shut for a second, but he straightened up and got the truck back in gear as he said, "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."
So here they were in the snow, the dry warmth of the truck a couple of miles behind them, headed on foot toward God only knew what. Bruce kept a close eye on John, but he wasn't navigating by any landmarks Bruce could identify. He couldn't see anything potentially apocalyptic about these high fields, with just enough trees around to cast creepy shadows and not enough to have kept off any of the snow.
John was thinking about the devil, which meant he was thinking about Stillson. Bringing Stillson around. So what the hell were they going to find up here that could convince Stillson not to do--whatever it was he was going to do? Blow up DC, according to John. Not that Bruce doubted it, but how the hell did the future President of the United States wind up nuking his own capital? There were some major steps missing out of the middle of that flow chart in John's basement.
Steps, ha. Bruce set his own feet down in John's tracks. He was losing feeling in his feet. He'd had less than four hours of sleep and knew way too much about what a re-injury out here in the cold could mean for John--and it wasn't like he couldn't break his own damn leg, either. There hadn't even been snow on the ground in Cleaves Mills, neither of them was dressed warmly enough for this little trek of John's--why didn't he ever foresee things like Wear something waterproof?--and if he had any experience with John's visions, this was likely to be the high point of their day.
"I fucking hate the Apocalypse," Bruce said.
John's stride faltered, and he looked over his shoulder at Bruce before he walked on. "I can't say I'm a big fan myself," he replied.
Bruce smiled a little, but figured he might as well keep grousing. Maybe John would unbend a little--not thaw, not knee-deep in snow--and tell him what the hell they were doing out here. He was starting to feel like he was being Punk'd, anyway, like at any minute somebody was going to pop up with a camera and John would start laughing and say, "Damn, Bruce, I can sell you anything, can't I?"
"I'm serious, man," Bruce said, and he saw from the set of his shoulders that John heard him. "Really, this whole Apocalypse thing--I mean, it's not happening today, is it? This week? Couldn't we do our thwarting in the summer? Or at least after noon?" Bruce looked down, choosing his steps. "I mean, you got me up before sunrise on a Saturday for this. In December."
He ran right into John. John caught him--the student becomes the master, Bruce thought, glancing down automatically to check the steadiness of John's legs as his own half-buckled under him, feet seeking solid ground in a drift of rotten leaves under the snow.
"Yeah," John said, but Bruce didn't think he meant, Yeah, forget this, let's go get some coffee and go back to bed. He was looking away, looking around the empty landscape as Bruce tried to mentally untangle the go back to bed part of that thought. They could both stand to go back to bed, of course, and they had both been in bed--well, he had been, anyway, and he assumed John had slept sometime in recent memory--but now his brain had veered uncontrollably sideways to bed, the way it occasionally did around John, and--
He'd always assumed that John knew about that. The man was psychic. But John had never said anything, so Bruce had never said anything either; nobody could let you down easy like a psychic, no need to say a word. But John's head whipped around, cool blue eyes narrowing like he'd heard Bruce's thought, or seen it, or felt it, like he'd been surprised by it.
Bruce blinked. "Oh, man, do not tell me you never picked up on this until right now."
John's squint shifted into a wry smile, and he looked away and, God, if his face weren't already red with cold he'd be blushing. White bread, and vanilla too. "I don't see things I'm not looking for, sometimes," John murmured. "It's something I should work on."
"Yeah," Bruce said, at a loss. He'd thought they'd agreed this wasn't happening, years ago. "You think?"
John shrugged. "Actually, I think--" His hands shifted on Bruce's arms, and John moved fast, nearly knocking Bruce off-balance again, so that he had to catch John's arm, and next thing he knew they were kissing. It was awkward, tentative--John moved slow once they were actually touching, and Bruce realized it was because he didn't know what would happen, what he would see. Bruce closed his eyes, letting his chapped lips scrape against John's, and tried to think as enticingly as he could of breakfast and bed and maybe a hot shower as he breathed into John's mouth. John made a little appreciative sound, his lips parting wider, leaning into the kiss, and Bruce let his brain go back to the bed place as their tongues met, and then John jerked away all at once. Bruce was already raising his hands, prepared to apologize for whatever he'd done--or whatever John had seen he would do--but after a second John's watch started beeping.
"I'm sorry," John whispered, like they weren't alone out here in the middle of nowhere, like he couldn't shout at the top of his lungs and still not be heard by a single soul but Bruce. "This is terrible timing. I just needed someone to see and--maybe pick up the pieces."
Bruce blinked and John had turned away, plowing double-time through the snow. He saved the breath he wanted to waste on yelling after him and followed grimly, trying to keep his feet to John's tracks. There was a stand of trees up ahead. John disappeared into it and Bruce followed, trying to think--timer on his watch, some kind of split-second operation, what the hell did he have planned?
Bruce reached the far edge of the trees just as John called out, "Hey, Greg!"
Bruce caught himself against a tree, his mouth hanging open as he stared at John and, twenty feet away down the slope, Stillson, bare-headed and bare-handed though he was wearing a heavy parka and boots. John threw something toward him, gently, the kind of underhand toss that could make anybody automatically reach to catch whatever it was, and give Stillson credit for being that close to human: he reached out and caught it, even as John kept stumbling closer to him through the snow.
Bruce could see it, right then. He knew what was going to happen, and if this was what being John was like all the time, he owed the man years' worth of apologies. John--who'd seen Stillson would be here, who'd known he could make this rendezvous, get this minute with him alone and exposed if he timed it exactly right--was going to get down there and touch Stillson's bare hand while Stillson was holding whatever that was: a bit of rock, a piece of plastic, some fragment of things to come. And just like when John had touched Bruce's shoulder while he touched his father's cheek, Stillson was going to ride piggyback on John's dead zone, and he was going to see something. John was gambling that what he saw would be enough to inspire the devil to repent, but Bruce knew it wouldn't work that way. Stillson wasn't the kind of man who could be scared into changing his mind: if you cornered him he'd savage you, and John was rushing him into a hell of a corner right now.
And he'd brought Bruce along to pick up the pieces.
"God damn," Bruce muttered, and then he was bolting toward them. He saw the moment of contact, and he saw that it was working: John and Stillson both went vision-stiff, standing there in the snow, bare hands joined. He'd have to touch them to get them apart, and God knew what would happen when he did. Bruce ran at them without slowing, leading with his hand aimed at theirs and praying momentum could carry him through--
He's on fire. He's on fire, and beside him Stillson is burning and screaming. The air is on fire, the stones are on fire, where there was water is a lethal cloud of steam exploding through the smoke--a lake of fire, he can smell the brimstone, this is damnation and there's the devil--and he can hear himself screaming right along with Stillson, because they are burning but never dying--
He hit the snow face first, like the light at the end of the tunnel, like an oncoming train. John was half-under him, and Bruce couldn't breathe or see but he was scrambling to get John behind him, to get between John and the small wet gasps he could hear coming from Stillson. He couldn't hear any sounds from John, but it was going to be okay, John was going to be okay. He had to be.
Bruce brushed his hand across his stinging eyes, blinking them clear enough of the afterimages of fire and dazzle of early sun on snow to see Stillson staring at him and John in a furious kind of horror. "What did he do to me?"
Bruce shook his head, reaching behind him to touch John's still face, to feel the movement of his breath at his mouth. He checked for the hot wetness of blood at his ears and nose and found none, and that was something. "He didn't do anything to you," Bruce said flatly, surprised his voice came out so easily, not choked with ash, not hoarse with screaming. "He showed you what you do to him."
Stillson was shaking his head, horror melting away into pure fury even as Bruce watched. This is history, he thought. This is the moment everything goes wrong, this is the course being fixed. "No--no--you were there, you felt it--no, he did that, he did, and I won't let that happen--"
Bruce shook his head--you couldn't argue with history, with a crazy man who had that much destiny driving him--and Stillson was pushing to his feet, backing away faster and faster. "Keep him away from me," he said, pointing a shaking hand at John, who still lay motionless behind Bruce, "and if you've got any sense, get the hell away from him yourself. Whatever he's going to do, I won't let him get away with it, I promise you that. We'll be ready."
Bruce turned his back on Stillson, though it made his skin crawl to do it, to kneel over John. His eyes were closed, his face pale except for his lips, chapped and red. Bruce reached out to touch his cheek, but his hand checked, shaking, short of contact. It was true, what he'd said to Stillson. That hell he'd been in--maybe John had showed it to them, but it was Stillson who carried it around inside him. There wasn't any danger in touching John. There couldn't be.
Bruce took a deep breath, flexed his fingers--he could feel the fire, still, God, he could feel it--and closed the distance. John's skin was warm to his chilled fingers, no more than that, and Bruce wiped his other hand roughly across his face. "See?" he muttered to himself, and patted John's cheek gently. Louder, he said, "John. John, man, come on."
"Ow," John said, his face screwing up all at once, and he raised a hand to shade his eyes. "What happened?"
"I tackled you," Bruce said, "after you set Stillson's hair on fire and convinced him you're going to destroy the planet."
John winced, and Bruce sighed and slid his hand down to the back of John's head, watching his face for any sign of pain as he probed for injuries. John shook his head, trying to sit, and Bruce braced him up. John pressed a hand to his face and bowed his head. "I had to try," he said quietly. "I just--I had to give him a chance. To change things. To be human."
Bruce opened his mouth to say, No you didn't, you just guaranteed the end of the world, and then closed it. He'd seen what John had been like when he hadn't given Stillson a chance to be human; it hadn't left John very human either. So maybe he did have to do this, maybe this was the price to be paid for John's life. For John's soul, his daddy might have said, and Bruce didn't know that he'd have been wrong.
"Yeah," Bruce said quietly. "Yeah, I know you did."
John dropped his hand and looked up, startled, like he hadn't expected that much sympathy. Bruce touched his cheek again, hesitating--John hadn't known what touching Stillson would do to his brain, hadn't known if he would survive, and that kiss might have been deathbed stuff.
But John's eyes were searching his--seeing him and not whatever the touch of his hand called up--and John said, "Bruce," in a low, wondering way he never had before. Bruce leaned in and kissed him, and to hell with his feet going numb. The world might be going down in flames, but it wasn't going anywhere today.
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