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"Fuck, shit-- fuck!"
The cage they are in is a rattling thing, sputtering and groaning against the strain it is under, the wheels squealing harshly against the wet ground in its attempt to climb up the rain covered mountain. Rust and tear and wear coat it, the small electric flashes a clear warning sign flashing in the side view mirrors.
The commandeer is a stoic, but a merciless one, not giving a thought to the machine under their bodies or to the passenger cursing at his side. The gas pedal is pushed all the way down, Higgs knows, the poor thing might as well having been glued to the fucking floor the way Sam used it, not slowing down even in the face of a massive rock heading straight at them.
"Sam! Sam, slow down! Fuck, you're gonna kill us!"
Not responding, Sam's jaw tenses before his leg is jerking, the vehicle jumping in response to the lever being used.
The impact is a rough one, but thankfully, miraculously, they land behind the rock, their speed giving them enough velocity to clear the obstacle into less steeper terrain, the going getting only slightly easier, which was as good as anything right now.
"Fucking hell..." Higgs fingers clench around the handhold, trying to alleviate the cramping by relaxing the death grip he has maintained ever since they started their ascend.
This was a mistake.
This route was a mistake.
Getting in the car? Yeah, a mistake.
Even before that, it was a mistake to become this insane lunatic's partner, and well, before that-
Well... Where should he start?
Long story extremely short, there was a crazy person of a man behind the wheel. And Higgs? Higgs was just here, against all the odds and against all the things his now obsolete survival instinct screamed at him.
In his bones, he knew he couldn't die, Death having been robbed from him, same as the last stranding, same as his Amelie- and APAC-given powers. His heart, however, rapidly beat to the beat of Sam's whims around the bend, his guts and stomach clenching with each turn teetering the car askew, the mountain trying to kick down the can their soft squishy human bodies were in into the rocks below with the help of their dear enemy, gravity.
It would hurt, for one thing, Higgs tells himself. Likes would be docked from the cargo being in total ruin in the ensuing explosion.
Hah! Who was he kidding, the latter lie was way harder to sell than the former one, and many a thing Higgs was, but an outright liar wasn't usually one of them. Maybe an entertainer, an illusionist. He did love a good theater, a good story.
What he, indeed, did not love was this whole situation-- he is questioning all the things that has lead up to this point and into this position again, control wrenched from him as he is, once again, in the cramped box of a vehicle and in the mercy of this man's offroader driving skills, a drunk skunk being able to drive better than a Sam with a plan to drive over every and any rock known to man if only it saved a fraction of a second in delivery time.
To say he is unhappy is a gross understatement. HOW he hasn't just kicked Sam out of the moving vehicle and taken over, he doesn't know, but perhaps one of the contributing factors is that he is nigh unable to, body glued to his seat, legs and arms braced against any surface for purchase trying to minimize the violent jostling caused by said driving.
"Honestly, how in the ever-loving-fuck have you ever delivered anything above an evaluation grade level C? It is as if your only mission IS to destroy cargo." Higgs gripes, head turning to stare at the man's side-profile still steadfastly looking forward, stubborn as ever. "Is that it? Have you gone MULE Sam, Drone Syndrome catching up? I can't have this high-grade underwear so no one else will?"
Sam ignores Higgs' bitching comments, which was fine by him, because he isn't done talking.
"I don't even know why we are going up this mountain!" Higgs gestures to the windscreen with his free hand, exasperated, furrowing his eyes at Sam. "We have a level 3 Long-distance vehicle, with no traction wheels. There was a perfectly good road below us, but no-oOo, Sam wants to go up this steep mountain. Sam wants to slide to his death."
That gets a dry response from the porter himself, "I did say we were going around because there’s a BT territory directly next to it."
"Yeah! I thought the longer way! Or that we would have gotten a better fucking vehicle not falling to pieces from a different city with enough materials to build one!"
A small jerk of the wheel and they breezily avoid colliding into a small boulder.
Shrugging after - because why not be nonchalant in the face of his thousandth death, why not, no need to be as tense as Higgs, no no no - Sam says like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Yeah, well, I know this route is possible with just this, so stop complaining. I will get us there."
Higgs' eyes fly open half-jokingly, voice high, "Alive? In one piece perhaps? You must be joking."
"Dead serious."
Higgs nods, "Mhm, yep. That is what me, you and us will be. Dead. Deadity dead."
"We aren't gonna die. And even if we did-" Sam is interrupted, grunting as a small bump passes under the tires. "- we are just gonna come back."
"Wo-ow. Well if that is the case, why hadn't you told me so! Didn't know our delivery packages were repatriates as well." He exclaims cheerily, inserting some wonder into his voice to really sell the condescension dripping from his words.
Sam scoffs, frustration finally coloring his voice from Higgs' antics, "Knock it off. Don't act like you care."
"What? I do! I am a proper porter, I am!" Higgs pauses to swoon dramatically, eyelashes fluttering as he clenches one fist against his chest. "Gosh, I just love doing useless deliveries for cowardly, lazy fuckers safe in their itty-bitty bunkers!" Higgs puffs his chest out haughtily.
He suddenly yelps, his pose deflating quickly with another rough bump that has the truck slipping sideways for a second, only for the car to straighten back up the mountain. "Ok, ok. Fine! Just don't want you to act like a grumpy bitch when all this goes sideways, you know. The shelter ain't big enough for your attitude after losing a couple of meaningless containers."
"That's just because yours takes up all the space."
"Oh-hoh! We have a wise guy on our hands!" Higgs straightens up as much as he is able, laughing at the audacity. His eyes are wide, something dangerous behind his eyes, the already frayed nerves causing an almost irrational anger at the words his tone belies.
The mask drops real quick, voice dropping low with his expression. "Want me to kill you myself?"
That, if anything, has Sam tensing, the porter probably noticing the live wire his partner has become in a short amount of time in their shared enclosed space, hands wringing the steering wheel.
The car keeps going, stubborn in its ascend.
Stubborn like its driver.
What feels like forever in the tense pause in their bickering, rocks and uneven ground rattling the wheels, Sam answers without a thought.
"You really can dish it out but can't take it."
And it feels as if Higgs can just feel his last patient nerve snap.
"Ok, that's it!" He claps, the one hand finally releasing from the handhold, his tone jovial. "Pull over Sam."
"No."
Higgs laughs humorlessly, an arm bracing against the glove compartment to turn his body towards Sam, his blood starting to strum with the ever-familiar feeling of an approaching fight instead of-. "No? I don't think you heard me Sam. Pull over.”
Sam finally glances at Higgs, eyes daring to be taken off of the road for a second before they return to scan the ground again, eyes constantly searching for rocks. "Look at the map, we are almost there, Higgs."
"I. Don't. Care." Higgs enunciates brightly, teeth flashing with his non-sincere grin. "Your choices: either pull over, or I will give you what you have been asking for this WHOLE dreg up this goddamn mountain."
Sam only tenses his jaw, silent, the car not slowing down a bit.
It has always been clear that Sam was insane, in his own, stubborn way.
But Higgs was so much more
Higgs was livid
All warning given beforehand, he isn't bothering with words. He launches as far as his seatbelt and the console between them allows him to, which is not far, and aims to wrap his gloved fingers around the other porter's neck.
Their shared living experience must have given an upper hand to predicting Higgs' untamed and volatile nature, since as soon as Sam sees Higgs moving in his peripherals he throws one of his hands up from the wheel and leans as far away as he is allowed, neck craning away from the grabby hands.
The skirmish is a pathetic one, if Higgs were to admit to himself. No blunt weapon, no knife, no gun, only his bulky fingers trying and failing to find purchase under the thick raincover of a collar. The task is unfortunately more difficult with Sam shielding his neck and face, but he makes a valiant effort, alright, the car swaying and almost swerving on the ground with Sam both steering and defending himself.
"Stop- stop it-."
"C'mon Sam, pull. The fuck. Over."
"No."
Furious, Higgs uses one of his hands to grab at Sam's shoulder, trying to pull him over or onto the console, to make him at the very least lose his balance.
Sam in turn pushes at Higgs’ face, forcing his head to lean back and making the grapple less effective.
Before he can fully throw all fucks to the wind and unlock his buckle to really throw down, his leaned back head gives him a direct view to the way they are driving, causing all thoughts to come to a sudden halt at the rocks coming their way, and what he can see, a sudden drop.
“Shit.”
Flicking his eyes towards where Higgs is looking, Sam curses, foot smashing against the brake violently.
It is doubtful if the action actually does anything at all to slow them down.
Higgs' sense of time seems to slow everything to a crawl. He is hyperconscious of the wheels spinning and unable to gain traction against slick ground, the car seemingly barreling forward as if with a mind of its own. Uselessly and by instinct, he attempts weaving at a strand, a cord, anything connecting him to the Other Side, to beach jump from the car - the foregone conclusion being that he very much stays trapped. His body tenses and then braces for impact when the realization sets in in a matter of milliseconds.
Both of his hands are clinging to Sam, fight forgotten, when the front wheels separate from the ground for the first time.
The drop is way less deep than his first impression, though it is a cold comfort in the midst of his panic from the way the car goes dangerously vertical, nosediving down the cliffside, the seatbelts the only thing preventing them from faceplanting into the windscreen. Sam's hands are gripping the wheel hard, the man's arms twitching each time the front wheels connect to ground and then disconnect, preventing the car's wheels from veering them straight into a barrel roll.
Each bump was felt on the way down, and in Higgs' minds eye, he could see the cargo percentages lowering-
-not that he cared-
with each grunt the human occupants in the vehicle emitted.
All of that comes to a stop though- like all good and bad things, it all has to have an end, just thank fuck their end is not at the bottom of a ravine but instead on a bottom section of the cliff, a place their vehicle can rest at without the danger of them starting to slide down, a level sanctuary in the midst of sloped ground which help the wheels finally come to. A. Fucking. Stop.
Both of them just breathe in the ensuing silence, adrenaline dissipating in the aftermath of their sudden descend. Sam quietly lets the brake lever go. Higgs stays right where he is.
For a second. It is almost serene
Peaceful
"Holy shit."
Until he breaks the moment, his voice a flowing bile of words that come easier to him than breathing.
"I can't believe- wait, no no- I CAN believe that you just fucked us over with your dumb little choice to go this way. Are you satisfied now, Sam? Must feel real good for the Great Deliverer to fuck his cargo up just because he is THAT stubborn!"
"What the fuck Higgs?!" Finally blowing a fuse, the man turns in his seat towards Higgs, the finger coming up to poke at his chest a dull pain he barely registers. "Don't act like this isn't YOUR fault! I was completely fine until you fucking attacked me."
Higgs' hands fly up in mock surrender, half-leaning back against the side door at his shoulder, "Woah, sweetheart! Don't blame me because of your shit driving!"
"What in the fuck are you talking about?! What- ..." Sam groans in frustration, breath coming out in a rough huff. The next breath is a sigh that has the other porter deflating slightly as he seems to go over something in his head. "What is this about Higgs?"
Higgs laughs breathlessly, not from the adrenaline, but from his traitorous guts squeezing at the tone, as if Sam was concerned about him, the feeling having nowhere to go except humor and vitriol. "No, no. I am just commenting on your terrific job at-"
"Cut the crap." Sam interrupts him, putting a stop to it before Higgs can continue, "I know you, we went over this. It is not the packages and you're borderline suicidal when we are out and about, so it is not even the fear of dying... so what is it?"
Higgs is silent for a moment, eyes scanning the other man's eyes that while usually stoic and stony, seem to inquisitively look at him in worry.
Worry, just after the fact Higgs had basically thrown them both off of a cliff with a delivery load following right behind their undying footsteps.
Sam Porter Bridges... the man was truly impossible in every conceivable way.
"What kind of- of crummy shit are you on about, Sam." In his head he silently curses that his voice is slightly shaky when it comes out, downplaying the levity he tries to inject into his voice.
The man just shrugs, eyes still focused on Higgs, as if the silence was enough to make Higgs do something stupid like talk.
It very nearly is.
"Whatever... whatever!" He multitasks getting his belt unbuckled, the other hand reaching for the door handle. Before Sam can say anything, he is clambering out the car, the inside of it feeling more stifling than ever, and quipping behind him, "I am checking the cargo condition, no way it survived that."
The slam of the door is not as satisfying as he had hoped but he doesn't look back when making his way to the back.
He is behind the vehicles trunk when he hears a car door open and close, and when he finally opens the trunk, the trunk's roof folding away, there's footsteps approaching, his partner deciding to come take a look as well. There's a slight tension, slight unease that doesn't go away when Sam comes to stand beside him.
The man is thankfully smart enough to not start the conversation anew, because if there is one thing Higgs knows about him, it is that the porter has an uncanny way of putting his foot in his mouth at the inopportune of times- and Higgs was feeling -bitey-, it would be a surefire way to end up with a new hole before the day was even over.
Throwing one more analyzing look at the other man who remains at the very least outwardly composed, he decides to finally start checking on the packages that at first glance seem to still be neatly stacked on top of each other.
"Let's see what we got here." Higgs drawls, he puts one foot up onto the platform and pushes himself up nary without a trouble.
He smirks when he hears the grunt of Sam following suit, his shorter legs giving him more trouble. He sure had stamina and long-standing experience, but he fell short in other aspects.
While the comment would be unappreciated and hilarious as hell, Higgs doesn't comment on it- feeling weirdly raw still -and instead starts whistling, already in better spirits at the thought of what he was going to find.
It, as most things in Higgs' life are bound to do, doesn't go the way he expects.
"0%, are you fucking kidding me?!" He turns to check the cargo tag of a medium sized package under the one he is inspecting, utterly bewildered and losing his mind at what he is seeing. "This one too?"
"Yep", the p-sound pops out, the man clearly unbothered as he looks at his own pile. "Oh. This one's 1%."
"What, the FUCK!?"
Losing his temper for a moment, he kicks at the lower most package in front of him.
"Higgs-"
It flashes red, and when he checks, the percentage is at 7%.
What.
"THAT did more damage than- than..." Hand coming to clutch at his hair, a harsh laugh bubbles up in disbelief, "I don't get it. It is not even a fragile package!"
The surge of manic energy at the ridiculousness of the situation is swelling, building up, and he can't help but cackle at the absurdity, the hand clutching at his hair coming to rub the heel of it at his cheek, the inside of him roiling with something he can't identify. He doesn't even notice the point when Sam moves but the next thing he knows he is standing right next to him, boots coming into his view where he is staring.
"Yeah." Sam utters calmly, "usually, as long as you keep at least one wheel on the ground, the suspensions do their job well enough."
His head turns to look at Sam, one visible eye staring wide at the porter, before his gaze falls back onto the box at his feet.
Yelping, he is taken by surprise when a hand smacks his ass, causing him to almost stumble and lose his balance into the cargo load.
"Suck it up buttercup." Sam intones impassionately, "I think we have seen enough."
The man turns the way they came from and gets off the trunk bed with a hop, his survival instincts probably kicking in and making quick work of his escape back to the driver's side of the vehicle.
When he is completely out of sight, he hears Sam yell out, "Remember to close it when you're done!"
A door opens and then slams shut, Higgs' lower eyelid twitching with the sound.
Stewing in the following silence, he contemplates all the ways he could make Sam suffer: the first stop clearly being to destroy all the dumb fucking packages in the trunk currently alone with him and the obvious next step being to smother him in his sleep.
Higgs gets as far as entertaining the idea of finding a rock from the ground to deal the most damage to the cargo and the porter in the car when his anger finally seems to wilt enough to chuckle at the whole ridiculous situation.
He can't help shaking his head, baffled, muttering a "Sam the Man" for the winds to only hear.
Honestly. The audacity on that guy.
Hand finally falling away from his face, he leaves and closes the trunk bed. Before long he is finding his way back into the passenger side of the door.
Sam looks a bit surprised to see him when he opens the car door, his eyebrows lifting at the sight of Higgs.
He inquisitively looks at the other, barking out a "What?"
"Nothing..." Sam mumbles, eyes settling back in front of him. "Just thought the cargo wasn't gonna survive."
Amused, he takes the easy opportunity to poke at the man with the newfound energy in his veins, "You sound disappointed, dear porter! I can go back and-"
Sam coughs, glancing at Higgs and adding hastily, "It's fine."
"If you're sure!" He exclaims brightly, smiling guilelessly at the other man.
Fiddling with the ignition key, Sam pauses in the silence. He glances once, then twice, at Higgs who only smiles neutrally, then nods to himself as he turns the ignition key to turn the car on. Sam is tense when the car starts moving and Higgs savors the scraps of it like a cat playing with its mouse, eyes intently scanning the man's tension with patience. The ensuing rumbling of the car, of the small stones tumbling under them is a back-note in his mind as it turns over ways to- if not outright torture this man -then ways to make his life a tad bit more... interesting.
When it seems the man has stewed enough in his discomfort, Higgs says matter-of-factly, "You're gonna pay for that."
Sam shifts slightly in his seat, relaxing while resignation settles into his expression.
"...yeah."
Satisfied for now, Higgs turns his head to look out the side window, watching the uneven scenery go.
It still stings when the evaluations comes back a perfect LLL, even the seventh percentile smoothing out to a 2% from the overall of the order size.
Yeah
Sam was going to pay for that.