darker_london | What makes a demon?

Ryan was packing his bags, and Justine was standing by his door mournfully, knowing something terrible had happened, but only knowing the bare essentials of it. Two close friends of Ryan's were dead outside of London. At least one of them would soon be back in London, and Ryan was aiming to be there before they came.

As he came towards her, Justine moved away before he had to push her past, understanding that he probably didn't even register how close he had come to doing that a couple of minutes before in the living room.

The bag he packed wasn't very large, and was mostly made up of clothes. Ryan didn't know how long he would be gone for. He knew full well that he couldn't stay in London until the time that Jax was taken off life support and put into the ground and buried -especially not if the baby was expected to come to term- but he packed so that he wouldn't need to come back for so stupid a reason as not having enough clothes to wear, and not having enough money to buy a great many more of them. He brought enough that he thought he could recycle them, an almost full washing load, even if that meant he would be utterly sick of them by the time that it came to him leaving London. Again, he wasn't thinking that far ahead. He was trying not to think at all.

"Can I walk with you when you go?" Justine asked, breaking the taut silence.

In the midst of his packing frenzy, it took Ryan a moment to hear the words, let alone come up with a reply for them. Lifting his face so that he was actually looking at her, Ryan pulled his hair back with his hand. "Uh, sure? I don't really know which way I'm going." South, came to mind. That was all.

"I was thinking..." Justine came a little closer to him, then stepped a little bit away again as she realised he might not want to be crowded. "We could go past an ATM on the way, and I could pull out money for a train fare."

It took less time for Ryan to focus on Justine this time. What was with his friends and them offering him money he could hardly pay back?

As if reading that in his expression, Justine hastened to add, "It's not like I'm using all the money that I earn. An open ended train fare isn't going to break my bank." She met and kept his eyes for a couple of seconds longer than she needed to, just to make sure that he understood. What did she need the money for anyway, apart from lunches at work and drinks when she went out with August?

Ryan opened his mouth, then looked down at the floor of his room. It was an easy focus. He'd been going to argue that a bus fare would be significantly cheaper, but a train ride would be significantly faster than both hitchhiking and bus riding promised to be. He strode towards her, and Justine raised her eyebrows, ready to step away if he was about to walk into her. He didn't. Instead, he took her into his arms, kissed her and said deeply, fervently, "Thank you." He drew back, and his eyes were full of naked emotion, clearly communicating all this meant to him.

Justine smiled slightly, a little smile owing to the sadness of the time. She reached up and looped a couple of strands of his hair, which had fallen forward, behind his ear. Then she looked him in the eye again. "You're welcome. But make sure you keep in contact. I'll be keeping an eye out for your writing."

Ryan nodded his head. Further words were made kind of impossible with the heavy emotion sitting in the back of his throat and behind his eyes. Murder. Suicide. He took a deep breath, hoping it would stay the thoughts, and turned away from Justine lest she take his expression to mean that he needed sympathy right now. Right now, that was not what he needed.

"Okay, I'm ready to go," he said, still staring anywhere but at Justine, as he lifted his backpack onto his shoulder.

It felt weird to go on this trip, leaving his motorbike behind, but it just didn't have the petrol, and he didn't have the money to fill it. A thought struck him that maybe he'd be more useful if he had his own public transport he could take another person around on, but the only place he really needed to get to was Peter's hospital, and presumedly Victoria Lane. And there would be a lot of people -and taxis, if Deirdre had anything to do with it- going between the two places. The bike could continue in its well earned rest.

As the train pulled into the station, Ryan promised that he would eat something on the train, being as he'd admitted to not eating anything since he'd heard the news. He pressed his fingers against the window of the train as it started to pull away. Justine and the station passed into the distance, and Ryan was filled with thoughts of the last time he'd been on a train riding south to London, thinking about Jax, about Charon and what exactly made a demon.