Re: [Portal: Holly & Noah]
Holly wouldn't quietly disappear. He was married. You'd think the facility military dudes would think about that, that he had ties and tethers and people for whom he wasn't a loose end. Sure, they could say it was an accident, whatever. Like they did to Bea. But, Noah wouldn't be quiet about it. Fuck that. He wasn't quiet now. Obviously. The entire town had erupted in car alarms and the ping of glass as it fractured and fell, and that was with him trying, now, to bring it all down, pull it all back in. Even now, as he did reach out for Holly, it was like digging underground for him. It wasn't the void of the night on the train, but he felt far away, and Noah didn't like that.
He wasn't worried about losing it. Or, well, he was? Because Holly was. But, he himself didn't think he was worried about losing it. He was focusing so hard rn, he could feel a vein beating his pulse at his temple. He watched/felt/etc. as Holly wrapped some suit fabric around his face, and Noah tried not to wince at the idea of weakening the protection around the other dude's body. The place he was? Wherever and whatever it was. Was bad. It felt..., like, malicious. And Noah had no doubt, that if there was some place it could slip into and infect, it would.—Getting Holly out had to be the priority though. So, Noah shoved all the eventualities aside.
He got himself back on the road as Holly walked. Having a vague sense of where the dude was, Noah tore down Ivy toward Central, to make his way north of town. It was hard. It was hard to focus on two realities at once, like a bad version of playing split-screen, only it was split-experience, and Noah squeezed the wheel hard to keep himself grounded. Cold was settling into him. He turned the heat up as Holly looked around his little nightmare world. It's not. The thought was forceful. It rode roughshod over the Christmas songs in its insistence. If he could, Noah tried almost to blot out the thoughts, to turn Holly's mind away from the clotted cruor and terror of the video game. It was, he imagined, what it felt like to try to bend steel with your bare hands. Talk to me, babe. Think about me. Keep walking.