"No sacrificing bullshit! It's you and I together, remember?"
Gene and Higgs
@malicedragoness On it, your greatness 🫡
Higgs’s labored breath echoed through the thick fog, his right hand clamping down on a bleeding left arm. Warmth seeped through the glove and reminded him how deep in the shit Gene and he had been—or had been, anyway.
The ambush happened too damn fast.
Higgs' whole body had thrown itself into motion before his brain could catch up, instincts hijacking his limbs while he hovered somewhere above the world. Ka peeled from him—dissociation, just like before.
Just like when he’d killed his daddy.
Just like when his daddy had had his way with him.
“F-fuck!” Higgs snarled, smacking the back of his skull with his good hand hard enough to rattle his teeth. He needed to focus. He needed to get his head out of the haze.
He needed to find Gene.
The lush greenery of the hillside region was gone, scraped raw into rubble and muck. The air was thick with the stench of churned earth, wet stone, and bile. At least forty MULEs lay buried in this new graveyard Higgs was walking through, but he hadn’t bothered counting. He hadn’t cared about their lives when they ambushed, and he sure as hell didn’t now. There was only one soul he gave a damn about, and if she was under here, he was fucked.
“Dawkins!” He roared, throat raw. His spit caught in his throat, and he hacked against the sour air, legs feeling heavier with each step, boots sucking into the slurry as though the land itself wanted to keep him here.
The sky above curdled into gray. Pressure in the atmosphere rose against his skin, that familiar static making his jaw tighten. Higgs sniffled, nostrils flaring. He didn’t need to see them to know—BTs were coming. Brine and rot, the stench he knew by heart, told him they were flocking to the area like sharks scenting blood in an endless ocean.
He’d smelled this perfume before, back in his porter years. Young, reckless, carrying more weight than his back or legs could handle. His buddy was screaming at him to move faster through the comms, to make the jump through the pass, to get to him before the BTs cut them off. But Higgs had been too slow, too weak.
I couldn't get there in time...
He never got to see the body. No closure, no proof. Just the reek of brine left behind. No scrap, no crumb. Only that ghost smell, brushing past like a woman’s hips promising sweetness before vanishing into the mist.
Just like Amelie, that bitch...
“Dawkins!” he shouted again, the word cracking his chest. All Higgs could see was the face of his late partner before the phantoms tore them apart.
History was repeating itself. One second Gene had been at his side, the next she was gone.
So young...
Goddamn, what the fuck had he been thinking, inviting Gene out here? He’d worked solo for years since clawing his way back from the beach. He didn’t need her. Didn’t even like her that much. Just another wide-eyed porter too stubborn to quit, too goddamn eager to die for someone else’s sake. Playing at altruism because he’d saved her once.
So fucking stupid...
Higgs had few regrets in life, and none when it came to taking lives, but even the worst of men carried their weaknesses. His weakness was staring him in the face, mocking him, because he already knew: he’d probably passed her corpse already.
“Dawkins!” he screamed, stumbling as his boot caught on something half-buried. Higgs grunted, dropping to one knee, eyes widening as he uncovered an arm sticking out of the muck. A crushed skull followed, eyeless sockets staring through him. One of hers? No—uniform wrong. Just another victim of Gene’s little parlor trick. He dropped the head back down and squinted through the fog, pulse thundering.
“GENE!”
“Higgs!”
He froze. Relief spiked hard enough to dizzy him, and Higgs sprinted, nose twitching at the faint thread of her scent. Pebbles slid somewhere to his right, and there she was, coughing her lungs out, laughter tangled with each breath.
“Thank fuck! I thought I lost you!” Gene wheezed, still laughing. “You should’ve seen it! I think I’m the first person to use a MULE corpse as a surfboard, ’cause I was like—whoa! And then—” she flailed her arms, mimicking the slide, making absurd noises, not noticing how Higgs’s eyes roamed over her. “Then this fucking rock appears and I tumbled down a cliff and—!”
“Shut up!”
She blinked, thrown off. “Higgs—?”
“No, just—shut up! Just fucking be quiet for once in your life! Or are you incapable of that?!” His chest heaved as his voice cracked. Higgs tore his gaze away, only to snap it back with a snarl. “Ya’ll think this is funny?”
“No, I—”
“That this was some big fucking joke?!”
“I saved your life!” Gene snapped. “If I didn’t think quickly with that grenade, they would’ve shot us both up! We were trapped, if you fucking recall!"
“Oh, I remember you scrambling to cover me, nearly gettin’ your ass handed to you by that bastard with the net!” Higgs’ laugh was venomous, brittle. “Jesus, what good are you?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who wanted to come out here to begin with! You invited me! ‘The valley is safe,’ you said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ you said. ‘There’s no damn MULEs ’round these parts,’ you said!”
“Because I thought you were competent! But nah—you’re just a suicidal imbecile like the rest of ‘em! Y’know what? We’re done.”
Gene balked. “After everything I’ve done for you, you’re just gonna discard me so easily?”
“Damn straight! I don’t need warm meals, I don’t need necessities from civilization, and I sure as hell don’t need you!”
“That’s a load of shit and you know it!”
“Y’know what?” Higgs voice splintered, jagged as glass. He jabbed a finger at her chest. “I wish you had just died! Right here, right now! Would’ve made things easier! You’d be gone, and I wouldn’t have to worry anymore! I’d just take care of my damn self! So fuck you, Gene! Fuck you! You’re just a silly, stupid girl! A damn fool! You don’t get to—you don’t get to scare me, so y’all can just fucking drop dead!”
Her stomach dropped. For one awful second, she believed him.
Higgs spun on his heel, trudging off through the fog, but not far. His shoulders trembled, fists jerking at his sides, fury rattling out of him like shrapnel as he threw rocks and kicked another corpse, muttering curses in tongues Gene couldn’t decipher.
She swallowed, watching his tantrum. What she’d mistaken for victory earlier hadn’t been triumph at all—it was fear. Raw, ugly fear. He was terrified, and she’d unintentionally mocked it.
Gene drew in a steadying breath and edged closer, stumbling over loose rock until she was near enough to speak.
"Higgs, look—"
He turned so fast, Gene braced herself for a blow, only to be crushed against Higgs' chest. His whole body shook as he rasped into her hair.
"Fucking stupid...stupid girl. Don't ya ever pull that shit again. I ain't burying another partner."
Wordless, Gene swallowed and held him back.
"I understand."
“No sacrificing bullshit,” Higgs hissed, pulling away just far enough to cup her face, eyes fever-bright and unrelenting. “It’s you and me. Together. Remember?”
“Higgs—”
"Don't," his jaw set hard. “Just…don’t.”
Silence pressed in, broken only by their ragged breathing and the hiss of shifting fog. Then Higgs tilted his head toward the ridge, letting her go with a near-whisper.
“C’mon. We can’t stay here.”
He led them out of the carnage, Gene following close, her adrenaline slowly tapering off. Questions burned in her chest—about that partner, about everything—but she bit them back. A year of running supplies up to his humble abode, and she still didn’t know a damn thing about Higgs where it really counted.
Her mind replayed the grenade. The landslide. The walls caving in. His joy twisting into confusion, then fear. His begging. And her, not listening. Maybe he was right. Perhaps she had been stupid.
Maybe she’d fooled herself into thinking they were friends.
“So.” His voice cut through her thoughts. She blinked and saw him walking beside her now, gaze still forward. “You corpse surfed?”
Gene snorted. “Yep.”
“First time?”
“In the past two years, yeah.”
“How was it?”
“On a scale of crushed by rocks or carved up by MULEs? Solid ten.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He shrugged. “Might try it sometime.”
“You got a board?”
He smirked sideways at her. “Could use you. You got a death wish anyway.”
Gene hissed a laugh, trying to smother it as he chuckled. “Fuck you.”
“Ladies first, darlin’.”
Yeah. No more sacrificing bullshit...Gene told herself as he flicked her shoulder. Not when she’d finally found someone reckless enough to miss her.