Yuletide: I Live by the River (FreakAngels)

[lilacsigil]

My primary Yuletide fandom was Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's wonderful online comic FreakAngels which I highly recommend to anyone who likes questions of morality and power, detailed post-apocalyptic rebuilding, and a little touch of steampunk. And you can read it for free!

I was a bit shocked to see how many people offered the fandom and how few commented on the two fics in this fandom, but I enjoyed writing this very much, and the comments I did get (thanks to the fics with just one comment post) were lovely. It is a fandom with no fanfic apart from the Yuletide fics, though, so it's good to be one of the first!

Title: I Live by the River
Fandom: FreakAngels
Rating: Adult (F/F/M)



Firoza had survived the end of the world, so she wasn't about to die now. Her stomach was full and her legs were strong, so when she saw that freaky-eyed bitch at the front door, Firoza climbed out the window onto the roof then sprinted along the rooftops, striding over the missing tiles and the jagged gaps in the concrete. Not so many of the buildings had collapsed here, on slightly higher ground, so she ran a good two hundred yards before she had to scramble down the blackened remains of a curry restaurant and hit street level. At least there was some street left here, and she didn't have to swim - Firoza was fast on foot, but her swimming was bloody hopeless, even though the drowned city had given her plenty of chances to practise.

She knew exactly where she was going. A bloke she had met a few months ago, Davin, had told her about the gang of purple-eyed kids who had shown up in Whitechapel a few months ago and started throwing their weight around. At the time, Firoza hadn't cared one way or another - she'd seen gang leaders come and go plenty of times in the last few years - but this time they looked like they were sticking around long enough to start people talking about clean water, and medicine, and safety. It all made Firoza roll her eyes and spit on the ground in disgust. There was no society any more, just people living like stray dogs, roaming in packs for safety. Maybe some species, humans, had to fill that niche now that there were no more stray dogs. They'd all been eaten in the first year.

The purple-eyed bitch at Firoza's door was the worst of them - she seemed to consider herself some kind of police officer, settling disputes, evicting unwanted guests and beating the shit out of that sleazy fucker Patrick Smith, who brought his sick aunt a nice bed from the ruined hospital then raped her on it. Firoza had thought that Patrick Smith getting both his legs broken was hilarious, but it wasn't so funny that Lady Judge Dredd had come for her. There had been more than one rumour that the purple-eyed gang were immortal, and Firoza had seen one of the purple-eyed men crush a woman's gun and her hand along with it, without even touching her. Yeah, the gun had been pointed at him at the time, but freaky shit like that meant that Firoza knew that it was time to run. And, thanks to that bloke who had told her about them in the first place, she knew that the freaks didn't all get along, and that one of them, in particular, was very welcoming indeed, sharing her home, her body, her food, and, most importantly, her freaky-eyed protection.

Firoza was starting to think that Davin had been bullshitting her by the time she found the place where the woman was supposed to live. She remembered the building from years ago when she'd lived two streets down - it had been divided into flats, then, behind the Art Deco style cream brickwork, four storeys high - but the feature that distinguished now it was the strange, clear smell around it, like the air purifier that Firoza's mum had had in the boys' bedroom to help with their asthma. It was weirdly familiar, even with two old white women peering out at her suspiciously from the smashed front of the empty halal butcher's shop across the street. Firoza waved to them and smiled aggressively, baring her teeth, and they vanished back into the dark interior. They could keep whatever they had stashed in there - Firoza could remember the flashing knives and giant metal hooks of the shop's previous incarnation, and she would bet that at least some of those weapons were still inside.



With a final glare in the direction of the butcher's shop, just in case they were thinking of coming after her with a huge fucking cleaver, Firoza knocked on the narrow front door. There was no reply from inside, so she knocked again - nothing. She glanced around in case it was some kind of trap, keeping her waiting at the door while the purple-eyed fake cop caught up with her, but when she leaned on the handle, the door creaked open like something out of an old horror movie. She slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her before calling up the stairs.

"Hey! Anyone there? I'm a friend of Davin's."

"Come up, then." A woman's voice called out from somewhere upstairs, and she mustn't be far away, as she wasn't speaking loudly.

Firoza ran up the four flights of stairs, her duct-taped sneakers sliding on the holey red carpet, and skidded to a stop in a room that looked like a music video producer's idea of a brothel - there was one big, bejewelled and scarlet-draped four poster bed in the middle of the room, surrounded by other mattresses, some shoved together, others skewed at odd angles away from the rest. People were everywhere - it looked like a fucking Benetton ad, everyone young and lithe, mostly naked, and staring at Firoza - but the only one to speak was a gorgeous, tousled woman who was lying on her stomach on the main bed, two young men beside her playing with her long purple hair.

She smiled up at Firoza. "You've run a long way, haven't you? Don't worry, you can stay. You're full of fireworks."

"What the fuck?" Firoza folded her arms. "Who are you?"

"I'm Sirkka, and you already know or you wouldn't have come here, would you?"

One of the men on the beds sat up, lazily. It was Davin, and he looked drugged. "Hi, Firoza. It's all cool."

"Davin." She looked over at him, and before she'd noticed that Sirkka had even moved, Firoza's right hand was held firmly between Sirkka's.

Sirkka was looking directly into her face, her expression mixed between seductive and sad, her eyelashes dotted with unshed tears. "Sweetheart, let it go. Stay with me, and don't fear."

Firoza opened her mouth to spit and swear - she didn't let people talk to her like that - but the defiance and aggression that had kept her alive for so long was sliding away, her muscles turning to honey, time slowing to nothing. She leaned forward and kissed Sirkka, their joined hands pressed between their bodies, and Sirkka pulled Firoza closer. Sirkka's mouth tasted like nothing, like electricity, and Firoza didn't even know what she meant until she remembered her last kiss, with rotten teeth and remnants of indigestible meals, unlike Sirkka, who tasted just of herself, pure and human. Sirkka freed one hand to stroke Firoza's taut neck, and Firoza felt the past wash away, carried away down the Thames with everything else, until there was nothing but Sirkka and her intense, soft, touch.

It was only when there was nothing left of her that Firoza surfaced again. She could remember Sirkka's long hair brushing her inner thigh, someone else licking a cool line along her ribs; she could remember laughing as she hadn't done in ages, since before, when Sirkka's touch tickled, giggling like she was high at Sirkka's pale hand on her breast - Sirkka was pale, yes, but against Firoza's skin her hand looked like wax. Once, she was lying on her back on the huge bed, and Davin had been kneeling between her thighs, his cock erect. She wanted him, yes, but her self-protective instincts were still stronger than her wants, so she gently kicked at him until he looked to Sirkka and Sirkka whispered into Firoza's throat.

"You're in my house now - nothing will happen that you don't want to happen." Firoza had heard that kind of shit before, and she started to wriggle backwards, sitting up, until Sirkka looked up and their gazes locked. "Yes."

The moment she spoke, Firoza knew it was truth, knew it like she knew every sinew of her own body, like she knew she would never see her family again. Sirkka slid her hands firmly behind Firoza's shoulder blades, lifting her across her lap like a marble Pieta, but naked, her face both kind and sad. Davin leaned down and nuzzled Firoza's cunt, and Firoza let herself drown again, sinking back into their embrace, even as more hands stroked through her hair and someone pressed their thumbs into the arches of her feet, releasing her tension like the snap of a bowed branch. She didn't know if her body orgasmed or transformed into liquid in Sirkka's hands, but that was her last moment of clarity or decision.





She was lying on one of the smaller beds now, near the window, Davin's arm across her belly. It was sunset, the light thick and golden, and Sirkka was leaning out the window, wearing only a long black skirt, the sunset warming the white skin of her shoulders until she looked like she was glowing from the inside. She was looking down to the street, and Firoza could hear a man's voice shouting up to her.

"Hey." Firoza poked Davin's bicep. "Hey, who's she talking to?"

Davin yawned. "Another one of the Freakangels. That's what they call themselves."

Firoza felt herself instantly tensing, but Davin kept his arm over her, and she stayed on the bed. "Didn't you say they all fight with each other?"

"Some of them, yeah. This guy, he argues with her all the time."

She relaxed again, though her languid mood was gone. "What about?"

"Dunno. He has a boat or something."

Firoza rolled on her side and listened.

Sirkka was speaking to him, her voice sweet. "Caz and KK are too greedy. You don't have to get things for them all the time."

His voice was faint, four storeys up, but his anger was palpable. "You can talk. So I'm going up to the hospital, get their boilers, maybe."

"Can't she build another one?" Sirkka seemed to be arguing for the sake of it, her tone gentle.

"Not without supplies. So. See you tomorrow, day after, maybe."

Sirkka blew a kiss. "Go flex your muscles. Sometimes I think I'm the only one not obsessed with going back to the old times and getting a useful job. Even Arkady's on a mission these days."

That drew a laugh from the man. "Her office is her own head, yeah."

"Come and stay tonight. Don't sleep in your boat."

"No. Kait's out and about, so I'm crashing at her place. Don't ask me again."

Sirkka's shoulders slumped a little, but her smile didn't fade. "I know, love, I know."





The man must have left, after that, because Sirkka stepped away from the window and turned to smile at Firoza, the dimming sunlight glowing through her purple hair. Someone must have brushed it while Firoza slept, because it was no longer tousled and tangled, but soft and flowing.

"You're staring." Sirkka's voice was gentle.

"You're not like - " Firoza wanted to say that she was not like the rest of those purple-eyed freaks, not like the one who had walked in her front door with murder in her eyes. "Not like anyone else."

Sirkka lay down beside Firoza, pressing against the whole length of her body, and pushed Davin's arm out of the way. "I'm not like most people, no."

Firoza wriggled across to make more room, and tried to keep her expression open, rather than calculating. "So why are you hanging out with us rather than that bloke you were talking to?"

Sirkka didn't seem to think there was anything odd about the question. "He's - I love Jack dearly, but he... he's an archaeologist. He'd rather dive in the ruins than be part of my new world." She shook her head, her hair a slippery cascade over Firoza's shoulder, and took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was light. "You're Bangladeshi, aren't you?"

Firoza shrugged, a little surprised that someone wouldn't just assume she was Indian or Pakistani, although nothing about Sirkka should surprise her now. "Yeah. Grew up just near here." She would have thought, from what Sirkka had said about Jack, that she wouldn't want to talk about old history. Still, Firoza didn't see the harm. More than that, Sirkka's openness was drawing the same from Firoza, even after so long keeping her mouth shut, too desperate to win every fight to just give away information for free.

"I remember, it was all Bangladeshi shops along here, but now there's only a few. There's been so many rumours..."

Firoza laughed coldly and imitated her grandmother's heavy accent."Old Bangla proverb say: when flood come, run the fuck up a hill." She coughed. "Nah, I was at boarding school - my mum wanted me to go, for my future. That worked out well. It took me five days to get back to the city, and by then they'd mostly gone. I dunno where. They're probably halfway up Ben Nevis rationing out the last of their cigarettes."

Firoza laughed, as did Davin, who was halfway off the side of the bed, but Sirkka closed her eyes and pressed her face into the hollow of Firoza's shoulder, stroking Firoza's stomach with her hand.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, seriously. It's good here." Firoza idly played with Sirkka's hair. She couldn't think why Sirkka would be apologising, until the door crashed open.

Standing in the doorframe - just as she'd stood in Firoza's door that morning - was the psycho who thought she was a cop. Sirkka didn't move, so Firoza had to flail out from under her warm body and tip both Sirkka and Davin to the floor to get to her feet, ready to fight. She couldn't see where her clothes were - her jacket and her shoe each had a knife - and the room was all mattresses and sheets, or bed frames too heavy for Firoza to break in a hurry. She glanced over at the woman in the doorway, and realised that she was just standing there with total calm, her arms folded, as if there was nothing Firoza could possibly do that would surprise her. Sirkka was sitting on the floor with very much the same expression, and Firoza could feel her need to fight sliding into sheer panic. She dropped to the floor in a crouch and grabbed Sirkka by the throat, pressing close behind her in case the woman in the doorway had a weapon. If Sirkka wouldn't help her, she'd have to help herself, as usual.

"Leave me alone! I'll hurt her!"

Sirkka tried to turn to face Firoza, but Firoza's grip was too tight. When she spoke, she sounded mildly hurt rather than afraid or angry. "Would you really do that?"

The woman at the door took a step closer."Sirkka, you always do this! She's committed a crime, you can't protect her."

Firoza didn't flinch. "Davin, the rest of you, she wants to kill me. Don't let her." There was no reply, and Firoza risked a glance over her shoulder to see that all Sirkka's pretty boys and girls had taken cover behind the enormous bed and an incongruous and broken grandfather clock. "Oh, thanks a fucking lot!"

"Do you have to punish her, Kait? I'm sure she had a good reason..." Sirkka was paying no attention to Firoza's hold on her now, apart from idly reaching back to stroke Firoza's thigh with one pale finger.

"Good reason to stab one Martin Whittaker, late of Fieldgate Street, steal his cache of pain medication and take up residence in his house?"

"Oh, fuck you!" Firoza shouted, suddenly furious to be left out of this conversation. She slapped Sirkka's hand away. "Where the fuck were you when the world went to shit, then? Now you come in here and tell us how to live? So I killed some old poof so I could sell his drugs. I needed to eat! People stab each other all the time! What's so fucking special about your rules? You're just extra, extra psycho?"

Sirkka was shaking, and Firoza felt a moment's satisfaction until she realised that Sirkka was not afraid - she was crying. Kait hadn't moved and her expression hadn't changed.

Kait took another step closer. "What's so special? Nothing, except that I'm here to enforce them. It's not your fault your world died, but now ferals like you are feeding on the corpse. Good people need protection."

Firoza clutched Sirkka closer, though she wasn't sure if it was out of determination or fear.

"Please, Kait," Sirkka reached out a hand. "She's one of the last Bangladeshis here, we can't lose her. We don't even know -"

"Leave off. She doesn't know anything, either. I checked. And you can stop trying to distract me with fireworks, Sirkka."

Firoza looked desperately from one to the other, her free hand clenching so her dirty fingernails scratched fitfully at Sirkka's soft, naked stomach. "Who are you?"

Kait smiled, slightly, and touched Sirkka's outstretched hand, but her cool gaze never left Firoza. "We're the end of the world."





It was not hard for Sirkka to coax her lovers out again once Kait had left with the newly blank Firoza. She soothed their fears with thoughts of fresh food, and the warm bath that Caz had built, with thoughts of love and youth and resilience.

"Will she be okay?" Davin was the only one who asked.

"No, of course not." Sirkka stroked his sleek spine as they sprawled on the four poster bed. "There's no more Firoza. But Kait might let her be someone else, someone simpler and maybe better. Kait only wants to bring out the best in people." She stopped talking, worried that she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Davin didn't seem troubled, though. He rolled over and yawned. "Yeah. I suppose everyone's looking for a fresh start."




Thanks to st_aurafina, numinicious and ihavecake for their kind and immensely helpful assistance, and to everyone else who provided moral support.