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“How old am I?”
Deckard doesn’t have an answer. Is slammed against the metal to his back again.
“I don’t know!”
The rain pours heavy, slicking his face with blood and acidic water. The city’s rain left a bad taste in the mouth, one you had to adapt to through years of being subservient to the corporations keeping the city slumming on and keeping the city gray. You deal, Deckard has found.
A swipe at the jaw knocks his head to the side. He feels a tooth cut into his cheek and the pain disturbingly reminds him of a mostly forgotten dentist visit years prior. Leon is looking at him with a crazed gleam in his eyes, a look so startlingly akin to that of a human that Deckard hears the sound of the rain cut out for a second. Though, that may have also been caused by the ringing in his ears brought forth by the previous blow.
“My birthday is April tenth, 2017. How long do I live?” The replicant demands, sneering down at Deckard. The rain was beginning to soak through his clothes, leaving him cold and shaky.
Born? You weren’t born. You were built.
Leon’s questions left Deckard feeling like he’s missing something. The lack of any obvious connection sent his mind into an analytic tailspin as it tried to comprehend what was happening to him and what the fuck Leon was going on about. He suddenly remembers his gun, whips it up and is ultimately unsurprised to have it batted aside.
“Four years,” he gets out, blinking frantically to try and see past the muddy impression forming in his eyes.
“More than you,” Leon states. The hard grip on his throat tightens, and from one moment to the next he’s thrown against another wall. His gasp of pain is drowned out by the nearby crowd and the heavy rain, but the dirty water can do nothing for the searing pain demanding for his attention across his back. He grits his teeth, trying -and partially failing- to shove it to the back of his mind. Later. Bourbon on his couch kind of later.
Peering up at the man quickly approaching his fallen form, he can’t help but wonder if he can manage a later.
“Painful to live in fear, isn’t it?” His tone is nearly conversational as he tosses Deckard onto the windshield of a car like he weighs nothing. The glass crunching under his own weight registers in his ears before the shooting pain through his back quite reaches his brain. He groans and shifts his weight, lip bloody from a bite he doesn’t remember administering. His mind whirs with ideas on how to get out, to stop the machine above him, but they all end with an inevitable loss of life on his end without his gun. Sometimes, Deckard has to admire the anonymity of the city, the lack of caring that circulates the streets makes his job easier. In situations like this, however, the distinct lack of help is frustrating.
Leon grins down at Deckard, uncaring of the state of the vehicle he just damaged using Deckard. “Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.”
Shaking his body, as if demanding an answer, Deckard chokes out a bloody “Oh, I agree-” before his shoulders are slammed back down. His breath whooshes out and leaves behind only the strong taste of copper and dirt.
Between one blink and the next, he’s grabbed by his jacket and lifted, feet brushing the ground tantalizingly close. Another blink and his head is punched to one side, another and he’s whipped to the other. He tries to swallow, but Leon’s hard, piercing, crazed eyes freeze him steady.
Oh, shit.
“Wake up! Time to die.”
Deckard sees Leon’s hand coming up, his hand shape making it evident what state his eyes’ll be in by the end. His thoughts the instant he feels Leon’s gloved fingers brush his eyelids were rather expected, for that of an about-to-die man.
FuckfuckfuckshitfuCKRACHEL!--
CRACK
The sound of a gunshot makes him flinch, the realization that it was his gun makes his eyes rip open.
Before him stands Leon’s dead body, even as it doesn’t quite register its own demise yet, and behind him, stands Rachel. Deckard’s gun was firm in her grip, but the look on her face quite easily betrayes her terror.
Standing straighter on unsteady legs, Deckard swallows. Leon’s body crumbles down.
The ride back to his apartment is filled with silent tension, but even distracted by navigating the busy airways and ignoring his own pain, Deckard notices the full body shivers wracking Rachel’s body. He knows from experience it’s not just from the rain.
Thankfully, they make it inside his cramped apartment shortly after parking, and Deckard heads straight for the alcohol, pouring a shot of his cheapest vodka. He takes a sip and absently notes the blood clouding in the alcohol, though his attention is on Rachel standing in the middle of the room, lost and shaking. He looks at her, for the first time truly since she shot Leon, and feels the jittery horror and disbelief she’s presenting mirrored on his younger self. He had an inkling before, what with her being just a part of middle management with your usual secretarial duties, but now he’s dead certain. It’s her first kill.
To break the oppressive silence, he plunges right in with an empathetic, “Shakes?” A beat of awkward. “Me too,” he adds, lamely.
She looks at him, eyes watery. “What?”
Now he’s not even certain she heard him. He swallows another gulp of the vodka.
“I uh, get ‘em bad.” He clears his throat of the sudden burning, glancing uncomfortably to the side. “It’s part of the business.”
When she doesn’t immediately answer, he finishes the rest of his drink off with a dramatic tilt of his head back, idly wondering if the taste of copper is from the leftover blood swirling in his mouth or if it’s from the cloudy remnants that were in the shot. He sets the empty glass down with a thunk. He suddenly wishes he didn’t; now he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“I’m not part of the business.” She says it so simply, almost condescendingly, not that Deckard can blame her. It hits him then, her role in all this, how it must feel. He tries to ignore the guilt churning in his stomach at being part of the reason she feels so. It’s only confirmed when she softly adds, “I am the business.”
She turns away then, goes to peer out his windows into the slick neon gray void that makes up this city of theirs. He takes it as the dismissal it is and goes to the sink, shucking off his sticky-wet shirt in the process. He fills one side of the sink with water while he uses the other side to get rid of any remaining blood in his mouth.
Peering into the sink, he’s not too surprised to see a tooth among the gorey red of what he spat up. Prodding gently around reveals a few shaky teeth, but none bad enough to require pulling, for which he’s just slightly grateful. He can’t afford dental work, not on his paycheck or on most other’s.
Feeling the amount of crusted blood and polluted rain sticking to his skin, he decides to just dunk his whole head rather than trying to be meticulous with it. He doesn’t have the patience for it, tonight.
Deckard lifts his head to the sound of Rachel’s hesitant footsteps on the cheap laminate floor combined with the stream of water dripping from his hair and into the emptying basin.
The feel of cool air brushing his slightly damp skin makes him suddenly notice how vulnerable he is.
“What if I go north?” She asks suddenly, waiting until she has Deckard’s surprised attention before continuing. “Disappear.” She pauses, let’s the moment sit. “Would you come after me? Hunt me?”
Deckard looks down, rubs a towel through his hair to get the worst of the wet out. Considers his answer. He looks at her again, traces her features with his eyes, the shade of her eyes, the way she holds herself. Feels a burning emotion surge through his stomach, up his throat. He swallows, knowing it’s not the vodka.
“No. No, I wouldn’t,” he murmurs. He wipes a stray drop from his eyebrow. “I owe you one.”
Glancing at the bottle beside her, he walks over and grabs it, different from the vodka he had a few minutes ago. Before he can reconsider, he reaches up and holds Rachel’s shoulder; grip tight enough to be comforting but not restraining. “But someone will,” he warns gently.
He leaves her to chew on that, wandering into the living room to find a relatively clean shirt. He grabs one right as she softly calls, “Deckard?” He turns slightly, but turns back right after when he realizes she isn’t looking at him.
“You know those files on me? The incept date, the longevity, those things. You saw them?”
He slips on his shirt, not bothering with buttoning it. He’s unsure how to answer.
“They’re classified,” he evades.
“But you’re a policeman,” she insists.
“I didn’t look at them,” he lies, pouring his drink before gingerly laying down on the couch.
“You know that Voight-Kampf test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?”
Deckard was listening, he swears, but between one second and the next, his eyes slip closed and he’s asleep with a glass of bourbon rising and falling with him on his stomach.
The lack of answer gets Rachel’s attention and she begins to walk over. “Deckard?”
She sees him promptly asleep, and decides to take the opportunity to snoop, wandering over to his piano and looking at the pictures. She picks one up, tries to see if she can discern any of Deckard’s features in this distant relative, before putting it back carefully.
She can’t stop looking at the piano, remembering fabricated lessons from when she was in high school and trying to show some sort of skill to her peers. Knowing it’s fabricated, her knowledge on how to play, it doesn’t stop her from sitting on the bench and quietly playing from the sheet music.
The sound rouses Deckard almost immediately. He’s confused as to how his mother is alive and playing the piano, transported back to childhood in the same breath, before he remembers that yes, she is dead, and yes, someone is still playing his piano.
There’s a pause in the music before he finally manages to haul himself up to see Rachel letting her hair out of its restricting style. He honest-to-God forgets to breathe for a moment. Never did he imagine her having such curly hair, and he can’t help but find it endlessly endearing and beautiful.
He walks over quietly, body aching all over. He’s looking forward to when the aches really settle in. Cautiously, he lowers himself onto the bench beside Rachel and looks at the sheet music, useless as it is as he’s had this piece memorized for years.
“I dreamt music,” he admits suddenly.
After a moment, she continues to play, eyes on her hands.
“I didn’t know if I could play. I remember lessons. I don’t know if it’s me or Tyrell’s niece.”
“You play beautifully,” Deckard says meaningfully, eyes catching hers as she lifts her head.
To test the waters, he slowly leans forward and gives a soft, long-lasting kiss to Rachel’s cheek before pulling away to gauge her reaction. She’s stopped playing, but he can’t read her expression.
What he can see is how skittish she is, and takes a moment to think. He finds his answer and swallows nervously. He’s not- used to words. But he doesn’t want to scare her off, wants to show her that… That he’s here for her.
Slowly, so slowly, and just as gently, he places a hand on her cheek, soft skin meeting rough callouses. He can see the surprise on her face in the sharp inhale and the minute jerk of her head back, but she doesn’t leave his grasp, not yet.
He closes his eyes, takes a breath, locks eyes with her once more. “I, um. I’m not usually one to, to say something when I can show it instead. But I have this particular feeling that that’s not what you need right now, so.”
Rachel’s mouth quirks up on one side in barely-there amusement at Deckard’s stumbling, and he’s so glad to see something other than panic that he can’t be bothered to care.
“I just wanted to say that I’m um, that I’m here for you, and that I want you. So desperately in every way that it nearly gave me heartburn, as romantic as that is. I want to, to know you and to… To hold you,” he says, stopping and starting as he tries to find the right words. He clears his throat and finally breaks eye contact. “Yeah.”
She doesn’t say anything for a few moments, long enough that Deckard begins to grow concerned and looks up, hand still on her cheek, to find her smiling softly. The tension leaves his shoulders in a shaky exhale, relieved that she understands his fumbling, awkward words for the sentiment it is.
Before he has a chance to do or say anything else, she leans forward with a slight pull and kisses him soundly. Almost immediately, all his attention zeros onto the feel of her so close, the smell of her perfume, the sound of the apartment and the distant city fading away while he focuses on far better things.
She pulls away and levels him with a coy look that leaves him wrong-footed, a feeling he is very unused to. “Our futures are currently very uncertain,” she states.
Deckard frowns, unsure of where she’s going with this.
She huffs out an amused breath before kissing him again, short-circuiting any thoughts left running from before. “You’ve got a bed, don’t you?”
He’ll remember that night when he’s chasing down Roy Batty through a rain-slick crumbling warehouse, fingers throbbing. The feel of Rachel’s hair between his fingers, the smooth-soft of her inner thighs, the quiet sounds of pleasure she made.
He’ll remember the all-too-gentle kiss goodbye as he left, and only wish he hadn’t.