Work Text:
Title: The Door in the Wall
Author: dr-tectonic
Word Count: 3800
Reference Count: 11
Genre: Gen; AU. Sort of.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: Mixed BrE and AmE usage and spelling
Summary: It's just one leg in front of the other, over and over. And over and over and over and over...
There's a door in the wall.
Dennis Doyle has walked this way to and from work every day for years and never noticed it. Maybe because it's painted white, like the bricks around it.
Maybe because he's been too busy watching his life slowly crumble and vanish.
Ever since he failed to finish that damn marathon, two and a quarter years ago, it's all been falling gently to pieces. Libby and Jake are off in Chicago. With Whit. Dennis sends Jake a text from time to time, trying to be the best dad he can be in 160 characters or less. It used to be a phone call every weekend, but he can't really afford that anymore. After Maya made good on her threat and tossed him out in the street, he found a new bedsit in the same neighborhood. Not nearly as nice. A bit more expensive. But at least it was still close to Jake and Libby. Was being the key word. He could probably find a more affordable place now, but he can't quite find the energy to bother.
He stopped by the old place a few weeks ago to try one more time to apologize, but the building was empty. A neighbor told him Mr. Goshdashtidar had passed away. Heart attack. Maya sold the building to some developers, who are going to turn it into condos.
Gordon hasn't spoken to him since he got out of hospital. Will probably never speak to him again, judging by the way he responded when Dennis went to see him after he heard about... what happened. Gordon didn't yell, or insult him, or try to throw him out. He just looked away, and quietly asked Dennis to leave, please. It was the 'please' that really did Dennis in.
It's Friday, and he'll get a paycheque today. Which is good, because on Wednesday it was down to food or cigarettes, and he chose cigarettes. He's been doing that more often than he'd care to admit. He's lost some weight. But for the cough, which is made worse by the cold February air— he would've taken the bus today, but he can't afford it—he'd probably be in better shape to try running a marathon today than he was two years ago.
Of course, what does fitness matter, when some cheating American bastard is just going to trip you up when things have hardly even started? Sprained ankle. Dennis never had a chance.
No, that's not quite true. He had one chance. On a sunny morning seven years ago. He ran from it. What he never had was a second chance.
* * *
Even that's not quite true. He never had a second chance with Libby. He did have a second chance at work. And a third. And a fourth, even, as his boss—former boss—reminded him today. But he's not getting a fifth. He's been sacked.
Some fuck-ugly chav in a purple track suit swiped a lip gloss while his girlie was in the changing room—a lip gloss, for Christ's sake!—and now Dennis has got nothing. Not even a job. Oh, he chased after the thief, of course. And almost caught him. He is faster than he used to be. What he doesn't have is endurance. He's not a machine, after all. He's weak. Human. Winded after one block, on his knees after two, coughing and seeing stars.
The shoplifter gets away. Dennis gets the sack.
He walks home in a fog, both literal and metaphorical. It muffles sound, and on the stretches where he's alone on the pavement—and they're numerous, in this weather—he can almost imagine that the rest of the world has vanished along with the important things in his life. Cars, streets, buildings, parks. Gone. London, the Thames, England, the sun. All of it, gone. It might as well be. He finds himself unable to contemplate the future. All he can think about is the past. A November day two years ago.
He comes to the wall. The door is still there. It's always been there, and will always be there. Even though he never saw it before, and he'll probably never pass this way again after today.
It's open, just a crack.
Maybe that's why he never noticed it before. It's a sliding door; there's a line of black showing where the edge is pulled back from the jamb.
The door looks like it's been painted over a thousand times, but it slides smoothly to the side, revealing... nothing. Gaping darkness. And somehow he knows, he knows that if he walks into that darkness, he won't be coming back out.
What the hell. The rest of the world is gone. There was a tree over there just a minute ago that's vanished into the fog now. There's already nothing left.
He steps through the door.
* * *
Suddenly it's bright and loud and warm. He's in a vast crowd, people on every side. He's wearing shorts and a bright blue t-shirt that says "erectile dysfunction" in yellow letters and a piece of paper with numbers on it and a new pair of yellow running shoes. And everyone is moving. Whit is next to him, moving as well. It's two years ago. It's the Nike River Run.
How? How? No, it doesn't matter how. He's here, now. It's two years ago. It's the Nike River Run. It's a second chance. Somehow.
Don't think, don't ask, don't question. Just Do It. Just... run.
He runs.
* * *
He's got a second chance to beat Whit. He doesn't know how he'll do it, but he's got the chance. He's going to give it everything he's got. And he knows what's coming. When Whit tries to trip him, he jumps.
Dennis jumps right over Whit's foot, and then, with only a brief glance back at Whit's astonished face, he runs faster. Sprints. Putting distance between them, getting a lead, a margin of safety. All he has to do now is maintain it.
Half a mile later, he watches Whit go sailing by him as he's lying huddled on the sidelines, trying not to puke, and knows he's lost.
* * *
He tries to make the best of it, knowing what he knows about the future. He helps Gordon avoid the beating Vincent and his crew had planned for him, not that Gordon is at all grateful. He asks Maya to make her father go to the doctor. He doesn't slack off at work. He works hard at being the best dad he can for Jake, scrimping and saving to buy him the original Ralph Bakshi version of The Hobbit on VHS for Christmas. It goes over pretty well, though not as well as Whit's Collector's Edition DVD Box Set of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy does.
He even goes to the ridiculous Robbie Burns party that Whit hosts in honor of his supposed Scottish heritage, which is as big a load of bollocks as Dennis has ever heard, but he goes, and he's polite, and he even tastes the haggis, which is disgusting. It's only for an hour, and then he takes Jake home with him and leaves the adults to their poetry and drinking while he and Jake play the Nintendo that Dennis found at a second-hand shop and watch DVDs from the public library. They have a ball, and maybe, he thinks, maybe this can be good enough.
When Libby comes to pick Jake up the next day, she tells him they're moving to Chicago.
A week later, he's back at the wall. The door's a little stiff this time, but he shoves it open and steps into the blackness.
* * *
He's back at the race again. This time he avoids the attempted tripping, lets Whit pull ahead of him, and makes it four miles on sheer anger before he runs out of steam.
"Whoo! You go, sugar!" Someone's cheering him on as they run past.
It's the bra thief. The big black tranny bra thief. She reignites his outrage and gets another half-mile out of him. And then he's done.
He can't go any further. He doesn't finish the race. He doesn't even bother to try to fix things up afterwards. Maya throws him out, Mr. G won't speak to him, Gordon gets beaten up, and Libby takes Jake off to Chicago, notifying him of the move by phone.
That's all right. None of it matters. He's got a plan.
February comes and goes and comes again. He reads books on running. He runs on the weekends and alternate evenings. He eats right and quits smoking. After fifteen months, he's in better shape than he's ever been. He's ready. He can do this. The day comes, and he carbo-loads and dresses right and does warmups and stretches before he slides the door open and steps from February back into November.
* * *
Of course it doesn't work.
Because when he walks through the door and into the day of the River Run, he also walks back into his old self. He's fat again. All the training and preparation is gone; it hasn't happened yet. It'll never happen now.
Still, he has learned a few things along the way. He knows how to pace himself now. And he does. He can't run for long, but he can jog when he can't run, and he can walk when he can't jog, until he's ready to run again.
An American fellow, balding, runs alongside him for a while around mile six. Dennis has just finished one of his walk cycles, and can actually talk with only minimal gasping.
"What are you running for?" the man asks.
"What?"
"What's your charity? Why are you running?"
Dennis flaps a hand against his chest, then realizes his number is covering up his shirt. "Nash. Nul. 'Rect. Ile. Dys. Func. Thingy."
"For the benefit of the ladies, huh?"
Dennis nods. "One of 'em." Pant, pant, pant. "You?"
"Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation. This your first time?"
He has to think about that. "Sort of," he allows.
"Well, you know, like a lot of things, the trick is to just keep going. Keep at it until you get it right. If at first you don't succeed..."
"Try. Try. 'Gain?"
"You got it!" The fellow gives Dennis a hearty slap on the back and pulls ahead as Dennis drops back to a jog. Mile six point five. Halfway to halfway. He can do this. Just has to pace himself.
It takes hours, and he's one of the very last, but he does it. He finishes the race. Libby is there, with Jake. So is Whit. Whit actually shakes his hand and says something nice-sounding but insincere.
Everything goes well for a while. Gordon is his best friend in the world, at least until he's blown through the money, but they have several fantastic nights in the meantime. Maya keeps to her end of the bargain, albeit reluctantly, and gradually warms to real friendliness toward him as the months go on and he doesn't fall behind on the rent. He keeps an eye on his bank balance, pacing himself. He talks to Libby a few times, about... well, he's not really too sure what about. He just knows he doesn't want to move too quickly.
It's not enough. Whit goes back to bloody Chicago. Again. Taking Libby and Jake with him.
Dennis goes back to the door in the wall.
* * *
This time he forgets that Whit is going to try and trip him. They fall. Whit gets up and keeps running.
Dennis doesn't even try.
He crawls out of the way, waves away the paramedics, and limps painfully straight for home. He's passing by the wall when he realizes the door is there. It's closed and painted over, but it's there. He doesn't have to wait until February. He tears off a fingernail getting it open, and then doesn't step into the darkness beyond, he runs into it.
* * *
He knows as soon as he tries it that preemptively tripping Whit before Whit can trip him is the wrong approach. A cameraman sees him, spectators boo him, and race officials hustle him off the track while the TV cameras focus on Whit being loaded into the ambulance. He doesn't wait to see how horribly it all turns out, just straight back to the door, as soon as he can sneak away.
The next time, he dodges the trip—that initial struggle with Whit seems to be something he just can't avoid—and tries to keep the pace up for longer. There's someone else running for NEDA, wearing the same blue t-shirt he is, and he decides to keep up with him. Eventually the fellow drops back to a jog, and Dennis picks a new target. Just keep up.
He makes it ten miles before he can't go any further. He can't. He has to stop, and he knows as soon as he does that it's a mistake. He can feel it all going wrong, like the whole universe is twisting just a little bit off-center.
Back to the door.
* * *
Shortcuts, he learns, are a really bad idea. At first he thinks things are so quiet because everyone's off watching the race, but the hordes of walking dead soon disabuse him of this notion. Backtracking to Tower Bridge and turning left instead of right leads to a London where everything is covered in a strange red weed. The next time around he tries a different shortcut and the city is even more deserted, animals roam the streets, and the dead aren't walking, they're running, running really fast. He barely makes it to the door. He does not try a third time.
Experience hones his sense for wrongness, though it remains maddeningly unclear what the right thing to do is. He knows he has to finish the race. If he gives up, he knows immediately that it's no good. But that's not enough. He has to beat Whit somehow, and he doesn't know how to do that. He can't trip him, or push him, or interfere with him in any way or it all goes wrong. He can't cheat, either. No shortcuts. No borrowing skateboards from scruffy-looking slackers. No stealing mopeds from pizza delivery boys. Somehow he has to beat Whit to the finish line, and he can't go any faster than he's already going. He can't.
He has no idea what to do. All he can do is keep running.
* * *
He's lost track of where he's at. The woman with bright red hair and German techno blasting from her iPod just passed him, so it's probably somewhere near mile 8, but she's got two twin sisters, and he can't remember if either of them have passed him yet.
The hallucinations usually begin to set in around the halfway point, mile 13. People chucking tarot cards at one another? A pregnant woman running a marathon? Can't be real. The group of fellows all dressed as Klingons in Star Fleet uniforms could be a load of geeks from a nearby sci-fi convention letting out, but hallucinations seem much more likely.
But mostly, it's just him. Once all the other runners have passed him by, he can start to see the other Dennises. At first there were just a few of them, but now there's a whole crowd of other selves, all running beside him.
He's an entire marathon, all on his own. Each of him running a slightly different path, none of them the right one. All leading back to the door in the wall.
* * *
Whit trips him again. It happens about one time in twenty. He forgets, or he's too slow, and Whit trips him and they both fall.
Usually he takes it as a sign he needs a break, needs to stop and think about what to try next before heading back to start over again, but this time he doesn't. He can't. He's been going for so long, he can't think straight anymore. He just knows he has to keep moving. Go. Go. Go. Keep going.
He gets up. It hurts. Not as much as it always does later on, when he'll hurt everywhere, but sharp, localized pains, very intense.
But he's moving. Gotta keep moving. A few steps. Then a few more. He's limping a little. Walk it off. One leg in front of the other, over and over. Just keep going. It hasn't gone wrong yet. Just keep at it. Until you get it right.
* * *
He's still going, hours later. Gordon and Mr. Goshdashtidar have splinted his ankle with the spatula. News crews have arrived, though they could be one of the hallucinations. The zombie meerkats were almost certainly a hallucination. They and the other Dennises seem to have vanished and the news crews are still here, so maybe they're real. He's in the park. It's much darker than it usually is, but then, he's moving a lot slower than usual, too. Those facts are probably connected. Like being slower is probably connected to his sprained ankle. He thinks the ankle is still connected to his leg, but it's hard to be sure. His brain isn't really connected to anything anymore.
He's still going, and it hasn't gone wrong yet. He doesn't know how that can be, but it is. As long as he keeps running—well, limping. Moving. As long as he keeps going, he's still on the right path.
And then he limps into the biggest hallucination of them all.
It's the fucking wall.
It's not painted, just plain brick, but he's seen it enough times by now to know, paint or not, it's the same wall.
Only there's no door in it.
* * *
Wall. No door. How can he get through the wall if there's no door? He doesn't want the door, the door is for starting over and he doesn't want to start over. He wants to keep going. But he needs to get past the wall.
It's not about beating Whit anymore, or winning Libby back. That's already a lost cause. Whit finished hours ago. And you can't capture someone's heart by running a marathon. None of that matters anymore. He just wants to finish the race. Finish it so he can figure out what the next thing he needs to do is, and do it, whatever it is. Find out what's on the other side of the wall, and then keep going. Until he gets it right. Because somehow he's been given another chance.
The thought comes to him that maybe that's what's on the other side of the wall: his second chance. He doesn't know where this idea comes from, but he knows it's right. That's why there was nothing but blackness through the door. There was no other side there, it came back here, to this morning. Whatever is on the other side of the wall, that's what he's come back here to find. That's what can make it right. The solution is on the other side. He just has to get through the wall.
It's gone quiet. Gordon, Mr. G, Vincent and his cronies, the camera crews, the supporters, they're all gone. He's all alone. It's just him and the wall. Nobody else.
That's when the brick moves. There's a scraping noise, and one of the bricks gets pulled out. From the other side. There's someone on the other side. Someone who can help him.
He looks into the hole to see who it is.
* * *
He's past the wall and still has nine miles to go, so he has plenty of time to puzzle it out. Inasmuch as he's still capable of coherent thought, which is not very much at all. But that's fine. It probably only makes sense in little dribs and drabs anyway.
There was nothing on the other side of the wall but himself. And once he broke through the wall, it was gone. There was no other side to the wall. It was just himself. Because that's how it works. A second chance isn't going back and changing what you did; it's just trying again. Until you get it right.
And the thing that got him through the wall, the thing that let him keep trying until he broke through, was himself, and nothing more. That's what was on the other side of the wall. That's where his second chance came from. Himself.
That's why finishing the race never did him any good before: he was still trying to win. But that wasn't right. It's not finishing the race that matters, it's being the kind of man who would finish. Even though it doesn't matter. Even though he's already lost. That's what he needs to do, that's who he needs to be, in order to work things out. He needs something he's never had before.
Perseverance. Endurance. Not giving up. Just keeping at it.
Eight more miles.
* * *
Fifty feet from the end, he can't endure any longer, and he falls. He just can't do it. He's got nothing left. His mind would do it. His spirit is willing and able to do anything now, but his flesh just can't keep up. He hasn't given up, but this is the end of the road.
And then, through sweat-blurred eyes, he sees Libby and Jake, and he has one more epiphany.
You give yourself your own second chances, by trying again.
But sometimes... Sometimes? Other people can give you a second chance, too.
There's a vast yawning, stretching feeling, and then suddenly all the other Dennises are there, all around him, hundreds of them, running through the crowd like wind. They're running toward him, merging with him, flowing into him, filling him up, lifting and carrying him like a river in flood, and he's up, up off the ground and moving again, running the last fifty feet, sprinting across the finish line.
Running toward, not away. Toward Jake and Libby. Into the arms of his second chance.
* * *
Finishing the race doesn't magically make everything better. Libby doesn't 'take him back' or anything like that. But it's easier for them to talk now. Like adults. It's not starting over with a clean slate, but... maybe it's a new page in the book. It's trying again.
Maybe they'll fall in love again. And maybe they won't. Who knows? Tomorrow is another day. Finally.
He knows he's on the right track, at least. When he walks to work, there's no door in the wall anymore. Just a bricked-over hole where something once punched right through it.