Work Text:
Andrew Brooks sat in the little cell he'd made for himself and he remembered. That's all he did these days; it's so easy to forget just how much time you spend eating, sleeping, going to the toilet. He looked at the bucket in the corner that contained his last attempt at eating. His mum made the best lasagne this side of the Hudson. He wondered where she could be, what she'd be doing. Probably not crying. She was so very good at not crying. She'd be busying herself with the shop – trying to convince more people to buy her favourite lilies – and making cakes. Endless cakes for Katie. Andy's mouth twitched into a bitter half smile. He hadn't seen his little coily-headed nieces smile in so long; he expected she looked entirely different. Maybe she hadn't realised he wouldn't be back for Christmas this year. Maybe she didn't even remember him anymore. She was a precocious child; Nathan would be getting questions all the time. "Daddy, where's Uncle Andy? Daddy, what's Uncle Andy getting me for Christmas?" Andy swallowed the lump in his throat. He wanted to believe he's swallowing back tears, but it's probably just a dead maggot or something.
Dead men don't cry. Dead men aren't really men. Andy knew he was barely even human anymore.
Not to Abbie.
She'd touched him. Without flinching, without shuddering, with all the infuriatingly disarming tenderness that small woman had in her, she'd touched him in the one place the rot had really begun to show. If it wasn't for the fact that his tear ducts had been one of the first things to stop functioning, Andy would have cried then. Grace Abigail Mills, the 5ft 1 whirlwind with one of the sharpest minds in Sleepy Hollow.
Two weeks after she joined the force, she returned to the station covered head-to-toe in thick black mud. Her hair had begun to coil up, and she had a scowl that could curdle milk. Andy watched her as subtly as he could from his desk, carefully avoiding catching her eye. The Boys of the force laughed, of course, and Abbie looked about ready to murder someone. He felt sorry for her; he'd heard all the rumours and all the jokes and felt for her. After all, Andy had joined the force just so that he'd belong to something. He stood from his desk and handed Abbie a packet of wet wipes. She raised an eyebrow at him, everything about her posture screaming at him to challenge her, to give her an excuse. But Andy just smiled slightly and returned to his desk.
The following day her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, with a single wispy coil escaping to frame her face. She walked over to his desk, looking as hostile as ever, and deposited a packet of wet wipes on his desk, a larger packet than the one he'd given her. He almost chuckled, but the expression on her face told him that would be the worst idea.
There was pain. The only pain he ever felt these days and he felt his mind being overtaken by shadow and water. Then there was the transportation. Each atom was pulled apart and scrambled. Moloch's orders were clear, and Andy obeyed. That was all he could do at times like this.