Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Spoilers for 1x05: "Cobalt." This particular fic is meant to show Andrew's thoughts during Daniel's torture session, something that fit into the narrative before Ofelia walked in and saw what her father was doing to him. I wanted to explore his changing perspective about what is happening around him and how he is dealing with that, mentally.

Warnings: Contains: Light allusions to Ofelia/Andrew, adult language, violence, references to torture, blood, angst, drama, emotional/mental/physical trauma, and disassociation.

Cross my heart (and hope to die)

"Clean up on aisle three," his radio chirped, masculine and static strewn.

He laughed hazily, internally, letting his head loll forward and back then forward again. He wasn't strong. Everything about him was soft now, malleable. Only problem was, he didn't remember why that was a bad thing anymore.

He looked down, arms liquid-red and burning. The pain was muted now, distant. Like he'd been stocking a shelf and one of the jars had smashed, slicing up his hand as it went. Meanwhile, he was still standing there on that ladder, mostly in shock about it.

It'd happened more than a few times for him to know the feeling.

He let his head drop into his chin, catching a glimpse of the man – Salazar – in his peripherals before the sting of sweat forced him to close them again. He'd told him everything, till he was empty and hollow and echoing inside. He told him the truth, right from the start. Exactly what he'd been planning to do when they'd taken Ofelia's mom and Cobalt had been given the green light. Or maybe it always had been, fuck knows if the higher ups ever told them jack-shit. But the man hadn't seemed to want to hear most of it. Digging deeper and deeper under his skin like he could find the answers to secrets he didn't even know he had.

Somewhere along the line he'd detached. Started thinking in cords. In pieces of the symphony rather than the whole thing. His fingers itched to play around invisible strings. It had been so long since he'd sat down and just let himself play – create. The 9 to 5 fever drained you down until even when you had the spark, you were too tired to coax it too light.

He nodded to himself sympathetically, not really all there anymore as the man whisked his terrycloth across the blade. So neat, this guy. Elegant. Purposeful. He wondered if he played an instrument. Something that inspired the soul to drip out of your pores rather than blood and the acrid hiss of backburner hatred.

He head thudded back into deep space as a new line split ruby-red down his forearm. He squinted, trying to bring his eyes back into focus as his radio screeched out an insistent narrative. Code words and perimeter checks. Did they know? Did they know he was missing? Did anyone even care? Would anyone come looking? His knee jumped, jerking the side table as Salazar hushed him. A silted, accent-low crone that made his teeth grind together.

He kept trying to find her in his face – Ofelia. Wishing he could lift his arms to conduct the notes to the music playing out in his head. Wanting to move. Wanting to be part of it somehow as a wordless hum left his cut-up lips. Shredded by his own teeth when he'd fought against crying out in the beginning. When he'd thought the man would stop after he'd-

Talking came easy now, not that he really remembered any of it. But he did remember the man's frustration. How he turned away and tried to interrupt – letting the blade slice just a little bit deeper. Only he didn't stop. He told him about his mother and how his dad always bought her flowers on Saturdays but never on their anniversary. How he'd spent his rent money on that electric Cello his parents had never let him buy during his first year of college and how he'd dropped out before the second semester when his professor had snatched up some of his sheet music. Pieces he'd spent the last year or two working on – and laughed. How Ofelia made him want to try again – live again. Reminding him that the world wasn't all blood and silence and pain.

He didn't understand that part. Why Salazar was getting so impatient. Why the skin below his left eye was twitching as the words kept on coming. If the man wanted to slice him down to the bare notes, he might as well have every part of him, right?

The first infected he'd killed had been a woman with short curly hair and a real sparkler on her ring finger. She'd been tearing into the gut of a man that was still calling her by name. Gabby. Gabby. Gabby, stop. Gabby, please. Gabby. It was the way he'd said it that'd stuck with him. Weak and confused and a dozen different shades of conflicted. Like he just couldn't figure out why she'd done this to him. Or why she was suddenly slumped across him, humane dead weight. His bullet blossoming just above the piercing in her left brow, a piece of drizzling skin caught between her teeth as her hands went limp around the hole she'd ripped into his stomach.

He didn't realize Ofelia was in the room until the trays of food she'd been carrying shattered messily across the ground by the open door. Beautiful face frozen in horror and guilt and the sort of terror that immediately made him want to look behind him to make sure they all weren't about to be shot dead or worse.

But since he couldn't move anymore – tied down tight so he wouldn't fly away - he just looked up at her and smiled. Sloppy big and endorphin high as Salazar slowly rose to his feet, blood drip-dripping off his sharp little blade before she turned around and fled.

In spite of everything, he missed her already.

That was the last thought he had before Mrs. Clark banged down the stairs and into the room.

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.

Reference: I was listening to "Berlin" by the Piano Guys during the formation of the plot and certain key sections, I recommend you have it on playing low in the background while reading.