meltdown 4/4 (faculty, adult, casey/zeke, stokely)
Title: Meltdown 4/4
Author: Cesare almostnever
Fandom: The Faculty
Pairing/Characters: Casey/Zeke
Rating: Adult
Notes: DONE. FINALLY. Written for fandom_mashup, using the works of sophinisba.
sophinisba fics used: Incense (one character eavesdrops on two others). Blue Genes (Casey makes an aggressive pass at Zeke; discussion of genetics). Getting Kinda Used To It (Stokely taken over by the aliens). Limitless Oceans (tentacles). Trekkie Sci-Fi Freak Who's Been Right So Far (holed up away from the rest of the world). A Brief Adventure (characters behind bars).
*
Stokely's mouth is parched, her tongue pasted to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes feel so dry and scorched that it hurts to blink.
"It could kill her," Casey says, his voice low, but not low enough. "That's what happened to Mrs. Brummel... they didn't mean for her to die, but she overheated when they infected her. Same thing could happen to Stokely."
"Maybe." Zeke glances through the red mesh wall that separates them from Stokely on the locker room floor. "Doubt it, though."
"Why?"
"Wasteful. If you're right about their life cycle, they're going to need a new queen, and then they're going to go right back to infesting hosts. No point killing the old hosts when they could just re-infect them to control again later."
"Yeah, but on Marybeth's world, they would have been infesting underwater creatures. Those hosts wouldn't die from overheating."
"What do you want to do about it?" Zeke asks impatiently. "We can't go out there and help her, she's still a fucking alien."
"We could put her in the water," Casey says. "In the pool. We'll just-- throw her in, book it, lock the door and leave. If I'm right none of them will be able to follow us. We can get help, someone who can figure out how to cure everybody."
Zeke shakes his head. "How the fuck can you be smart enough to figure out an alien life cycle and dumb enough to risk your life for something that's already tried to kill you? Besides. For all we know there's fifty of them in the pool tanking up on water."
"Then we're fucked anyway, so we might as well try my idea." Casey's intent now, no longer bothering to keep his voice down.
Stokely wonders if he's burned through his dose of Zeke's dust yet. Zeke's sober now, but he's a lot taller and bigger than Casey, so the same amount of the drug wouldn't last as long for him. Casey's small; half a pen full of skat could keep him high and resistant to infection for a while.
"Was it your big plan to die today?" Zeke's tone is sardonic, but there's real anger in the tightness of his mouth.
"You wanted to get the car, so, it's a compromise," Casey says. "We make sure Stokely's okay and we go for the car like you said before."
"You talked me out of that, and now you're gonna talk me back into it?"
"I said we should wait it out, we waited, nothing's happening. Stokely's not a threat any more, she's collapsed."
"Or she wants you to think so," Zeke dismisses. "Anyway, what if you're right, and the only reason the other aliens out there can't do shit is because Marybeth's not around to turn their cranks anymore? Her last order to most of them was to kick your ass, wasn't it? The entire football team could be waiting out there ready to stomp you to paste. It's too dangerous."
"That's not dangerous, that's every day of high school."
"Fuck off, Casey, it's not any safer now than it was an hour ago when I said we should do it. If we go out there, we should still use my plan: I keep a pen ready to deal with Stokely while you go get the car. You think it's so fucking safe, you go ahead and get help without me. I'll be fine, since there's no problem now that you say so."
Stokely coughs. She can't help it, her throat is ashes, and the atoke is nudging just below the level of her gag reflex; it's ready to leave her, she's sapped out.
Raw terror grips her hard. She can lose the three atokes without much qualm. But after they go, if she doesn't get any water, her own nereidae will leave her too.
"I'll die," she chokes out harshly. "Casey, I'm dying."
Zeke's talking over her as soon as she says Casey's name. "Don't listen."
"I'm going," Casey says.
Stokely pushes herself weakly back so she can see them again. Zeke's between Casey and the door. "The fuck you are."
"We have to help her."
Casey tries to leave and Zeke stops him, both hands on his shoulders, keeping him back. "What happened to coming up with a better plan?"
"She wasn't dying then."
"She's full of shit, Casey! She's an alien! Didn't you see Stan? They'll say anything!"
"If she could move, she would've done it already. We can't leave her there--"
This time when Casey tries to plow forward, Zeke pushes him back with more force. "Not good enough. Come up with a better plan or give it up, Casey. You're not getting past me with this weak-ass bullshit."
"I fucking knew it." Casey's lip curls, his hands crumpling into fists. "You're just like everybody else, you don't hear a thing, you just fucking push me around."
"--Yeah. You're right," Zeke grates out, "I'm the same as everybody, so you better back down and shut up."
Casey knocks Zeke's hands off him and dives past, but Zeke's fast enough to get an arm around Casey's chest and shove him away again, this time following after, forcing him back. Casey snarls and tries to dart away, but Zeke corners him near the back of the cage.
This time, it's a fight.
She can see that Casey's stronger than Zeke expects at first, driving Zeke forward til they're almost near the front again, but Zeke adapts fast and stops taking Casey's blows, evading some and knocking aside the rest. Casey makes him work for it, but it's not much of a match: Zeke's a foot taller and has at least twenty pounds of muscle on him.
They're both breathing hard by the time the swinging stops, both damp with fresh sweat that makes Stokely almost moan aloud with thirst.
Resentful, Casey glares up. "Let me go."
Zeke shakes his head. His eyes have gone dark again, his grip on Casey softening, growing gentle.
Casey hesitates, his fists unfolding.
She knows a chance when she sees one. Stokely summons the last of her strength and begins to pull herself across the floor. She doesn't know how to move like this, but her nereidae does, and it guides her in a low forward wriggle, slow and inexorable.
The two of them press close; Zeke's body all but covers Casey. She won't be able to get his eye. She could try to aim for their kiss, but they're locked too close together for the atoke to find a way in.
He's half-bent over Casey, though, and that leaves his neck bent and temptingly exposed. Gathering herself, Stokely grabs the mesh, pulls herself to her feet, and lets go.
"Fuck!" Zeke grabs the atoke before its bite tears far enough into his flesh to get inside. He tries to throw it down but it's already sunk its teeth into the meat of his palm.
She feels the warmth of Zeke's skin between the jaws of the atoke, the quenching thrill of his blood.
"Fuck!" he screams again, trying to pull it off, pull it out, but the atoke is starving for moisture and won't let go--
She feels it curdle and dry into dust as Casey dumps skat onto its small body.
"Motherfucker," Zeke pants, looking at his palm as the atoke dissolves away. The wound is already healing, his body regenerating as the pseudo-cytokines and glycoproteins carried by the atoke's mucus cause the skin to knit seamlessly.
She's flat on the floor again, spent, and all for nothing. The other two atokes are lining up to go, but she can't get to her feet to aim them. She's held them too long already, they'll dry out on contact with the air. It's over.
Casey slips another pen from Zeke's pocket and hands it to him; his hand shakes, but his voice is steady. "Sniff. And don't say you told me so."
Zeke inhales deep. "You'd deserve it if I did." He hands the pen to Casey and frowns. "This isn't enough for a dose for you, what's left here."
"I'm a small guy," Casey says, taking it and emptying the pen into his mouth like a pixy stick. "Uulh. This shit's nasty. What else is in this besides caffeine?"
"Pseudoephedrine and powdered milk." Zeke fishes out another pen. "Take some more."
"We should save it in case we need it later," says Casey, brushing it aside with the start of a grin. "I'm feeling it, I'm fine."
"Every single thing's gotta be a fuckin' argument," Zeke mutters. "Have some more, we can't take chances with this bitch." He kicks the mesh of the cage, inches from Stokely's face.
"Okay, I'll have some more," Casey laughs and accepts the pen, ignoring it, grasping Zeke's hand instead. His pink tongue flicks out across Zeke's palm, licking off the powder.
"What the fuck, Casey," Zeke breathes.
"Tastes better this way."
"Okay, you were right, you did have enough," says Zeke, but he lets Casey keep going, jerking a little as Casey's tongue flicks between his fingers, swallowing a gasp when Casey sucks at the pad of his thumb.
They're devouring each others' mouths again when Stokely's body exhausts itself and she retches helplessly. The noise drags Zeke and Casey apart, Zeke pushing Casey behind him and backing away.
She expels the atokes, one after the other, into the unforgiving air. Their bodies shrivel within seconds.
"Help me," she tries to say as her nereidae begins to unravel from her nervous system, but her throat is too dry to form words. She'd cry, but the tears won't form, won't fall.
Zeke holds Casey now, not just holding him back.
"I'm sorry, Stokely," Casey says quietly.
The nereidae detaches, and
*
"Stokely?"
She opens her eyes.
"Stokes?" Casey's voice. His feet, then his knees, his hand, with a skat pen open and ready, and then his worried face. "Are you... you?"
"Yeah," she croaks, and lifts her head. She's back in the cage. Her clothes are wet, her hair's soaked.
They both jump as Zeke crashes against the mesh from the outside, laughing when they recognize him.
"You're so high," Casey giggles at him, sagging with relief. He turns his smile toward Stokely. "You coughed up the last one of those things a while ago... it was bigger than the others, but it was hard to be totally sure they were all, you know. Out."
"I can't believe Zeke let you get close to me alone," she tries to say; she can't speak above a whisper. She's never been this thirsty in her life.
Casey's smile widens, daffy and joyful. "He's not the boss of me."
"He's too high to get infected, and you were too weak to try anything even if you were still going all Linda Blair. Here. Found this in the coach's office." Zeke opens the door and comes in, dangling a six-pack of Gatorade. Casey takes it and twists a bottle off, unlidding it and handing it to Stokely; she swallows huge gulps down fast. She always thought this stuff was disgusting before, but it's the most delicious thing she's ever tasted.
She empties the bottle as Zeke tells Casey, "Same thing that happened to her is happening to the rest. It's safe to go out as long as we keep our distance. They're all flat on the ground. It took longer for the ones outside because they were out in the rain. Some of them are sucking on the grass to stay hydrated, but they're starting to look like she did toward the end."
"What did I look like?" Stokely grabs another bottle and drinks greedily.
"Veiny. And really really pale. It's hard to explain," says Casey, "but you kind of jerked around, it looked involuntary... Zeke thought that was from the parasite letting go, a little at a time."
"When you horked up the last one of those things, it was trailing those little fuckin' tentacles, it was pretty nasty-looking," Zeke says. "Looked to me like those tentacles hook into the spinal cord, some muscle groups... so when it starts unhooking, you get a series of myoclonic twitches."
"Right, myoclonic. If you want to get all sciencey about it," Casey says.
Stokely wipes her mouth with her sleeve, forgetting her sleeve is wet too. "Is anyone coming?"
Casey nods, "We called the Bowling Green cops, and the state police, and the CDC."
"I gotta find my gun and get rid of it before they show up." Zeke touches Casey's shoulder as he rises to his feet. It almost looks as if he only does it to keep his balance as he stands. Almost.
Opening a third Gatorade, Stokely sneaks a look at Casey; he's sneaking a look at her at the same time, and they both grin at each other in recognition.
"Did you dump me in the pool?" Stokely asks, touching her wet clothes.
"We dumped the pool on you. Once we were pretty sure you weren't still carrying, we filled up a mop bucket and tipped it over you. You were looking really sick, it seemed like it helped. We can find you some gym clothes or a jersey or something if you want to change."
"It's okay. It feels good after being thirsty for so long." She takes another drink. She must nearly be hydrated, the Gatorade is starting to taste kind of gross to her again.
"I was really freaking out," Casey tells her. "You said you were dying."
"It wasn't me," she says.
It's not exactly true, though. It was her, in a way; it was a consciousness that came from the parasite and her own brain, together. It had her memories, and some of her thoughts. It wasn't her, but it was of her, and it's gone now, gone forever. She shivers.
Casey touches her arm. "You okay?"
"Yeah... it's just strange to think about it. It wasn't me, but it was in my head. I guess... now I almost know how it feels to die."
"How does it feel?"
Stokely tries to remember, tries to find the words. "It's scary. And then it's... tired. Resigned. And then it's over."
They're quiet together a while, til Zeke comes back, saying, "Gun's taken care of."
Casey pushes himself to his feet. "We need to go out and meet the emergency workers. We have to keep them from hydrating anybody til they've coughed up the parasites, or it'll just take them longer to get rid of the infection."
"Just keep clear of everyone on the ground and stick by me. How about it, Stokely? Ready to come out into the world again?" Zeke asks her.
Stokely stands, unsteady but determined. "I'm ready."
***
Author: Cesare almostnever
Fandom: The Faculty
Pairing/Characters: Casey/Zeke
Rating: Adult
Notes: DONE. FINALLY. Written for fandom_mashup, using the works of sophinisba.
sophinisba fics used: Incense (one character eavesdrops on two others). Blue Genes (Casey makes an aggressive pass at Zeke; discussion of genetics). Getting Kinda Used To It (Stokely taken over by the aliens). Limitless Oceans (tentacles). Trekkie Sci-Fi Freak Who's Been Right So Far (holed up away from the rest of the world). A Brief Adventure (characters behind bars).
*
Stokely's mouth is parched, her tongue pasted to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes feel so dry and scorched that it hurts to blink.
"It could kill her," Casey says, his voice low, but not low enough. "That's what happened to Mrs. Brummel... they didn't mean for her to die, but she overheated when they infected her. Same thing could happen to Stokely."
"Maybe." Zeke glances through the red mesh wall that separates them from Stokely on the locker room floor. "Doubt it, though."
"Why?"
"Wasteful. If you're right about their life cycle, they're going to need a new queen, and then they're going to go right back to infesting hosts. No point killing the old hosts when they could just re-infect them to control again later."
"Yeah, but on Marybeth's world, they would have been infesting underwater creatures. Those hosts wouldn't die from overheating."
"What do you want to do about it?" Zeke asks impatiently. "We can't go out there and help her, she's still a fucking alien."
"We could put her in the water," Casey says. "In the pool. We'll just-- throw her in, book it, lock the door and leave. If I'm right none of them will be able to follow us. We can get help, someone who can figure out how to cure everybody."
Zeke shakes his head. "How the fuck can you be smart enough to figure out an alien life cycle and dumb enough to risk your life for something that's already tried to kill you? Besides. For all we know there's fifty of them in the pool tanking up on water."
"Then we're fucked anyway, so we might as well try my idea." Casey's intent now, no longer bothering to keep his voice down.
Stokely wonders if he's burned through his dose of Zeke's dust yet. Zeke's sober now, but he's a lot taller and bigger than Casey, so the same amount of the drug wouldn't last as long for him. Casey's small; half a pen full of skat could keep him high and resistant to infection for a while.
"Was it your big plan to die today?" Zeke's tone is sardonic, but there's real anger in the tightness of his mouth.
"You wanted to get the car, so, it's a compromise," Casey says. "We make sure Stokely's okay and we go for the car like you said before."
"You talked me out of that, and now you're gonna talk me back into it?"
"I said we should wait it out, we waited, nothing's happening. Stokely's not a threat any more, she's collapsed."
"Or she wants you to think so," Zeke dismisses. "Anyway, what if you're right, and the only reason the other aliens out there can't do shit is because Marybeth's not around to turn their cranks anymore? Her last order to most of them was to kick your ass, wasn't it? The entire football team could be waiting out there ready to stomp you to paste. It's too dangerous."
"That's not dangerous, that's every day of high school."
"Fuck off, Casey, it's not any safer now than it was an hour ago when I said we should do it. If we go out there, we should still use my plan: I keep a pen ready to deal with Stokely while you go get the car. You think it's so fucking safe, you go ahead and get help without me. I'll be fine, since there's no problem now that you say so."
Stokely coughs. She can't help it, her throat is ashes, and the atoke is nudging just below the level of her gag reflex; it's ready to leave her, she's sapped out.
Raw terror grips her hard. She can lose the three atokes without much qualm. But after they go, if she doesn't get any water, her own nereidae will leave her too.
"I'll die," she chokes out harshly. "Casey, I'm dying."
Zeke's talking over her as soon as she says Casey's name. "Don't listen."
"I'm going," Casey says.
Stokely pushes herself weakly back so she can see them again. Zeke's between Casey and the door. "The fuck you are."
"We have to help her."
Casey tries to leave and Zeke stops him, both hands on his shoulders, keeping him back. "What happened to coming up with a better plan?"
"She wasn't dying then."
"She's full of shit, Casey! She's an alien! Didn't you see Stan? They'll say anything!"
"If she could move, she would've done it already. We can't leave her there--"
This time when Casey tries to plow forward, Zeke pushes him back with more force. "Not good enough. Come up with a better plan or give it up, Casey. You're not getting past me with this weak-ass bullshit."
"I fucking knew it." Casey's lip curls, his hands crumpling into fists. "You're just like everybody else, you don't hear a thing, you just fucking push me around."
"--Yeah. You're right," Zeke grates out, "I'm the same as everybody, so you better back down and shut up."
Casey knocks Zeke's hands off him and dives past, but Zeke's fast enough to get an arm around Casey's chest and shove him away again, this time following after, forcing him back. Casey snarls and tries to dart away, but Zeke corners him near the back of the cage.
This time, it's a fight.
She can see that Casey's stronger than Zeke expects at first, driving Zeke forward til they're almost near the front again, but Zeke adapts fast and stops taking Casey's blows, evading some and knocking aside the rest. Casey makes him work for it, but it's not much of a match: Zeke's a foot taller and has at least twenty pounds of muscle on him.
They're both breathing hard by the time the swinging stops, both damp with fresh sweat that makes Stokely almost moan aloud with thirst.
Resentful, Casey glares up. "Let me go."
Zeke shakes his head. His eyes have gone dark again, his grip on Casey softening, growing gentle.
Casey hesitates, his fists unfolding.
She knows a chance when she sees one. Stokely summons the last of her strength and begins to pull herself across the floor. She doesn't know how to move like this, but her nereidae does, and it guides her in a low forward wriggle, slow and inexorable.
The two of them press close; Zeke's body all but covers Casey. She won't be able to get his eye. She could try to aim for their kiss, but they're locked too close together for the atoke to find a way in.
He's half-bent over Casey, though, and that leaves his neck bent and temptingly exposed. Gathering herself, Stokely grabs the mesh, pulls herself to her feet, and lets go.
"Fuck!" Zeke grabs the atoke before its bite tears far enough into his flesh to get inside. He tries to throw it down but it's already sunk its teeth into the meat of his palm.
She feels the warmth of Zeke's skin between the jaws of the atoke, the quenching thrill of his blood.
"Fuck!" he screams again, trying to pull it off, pull it out, but the atoke is starving for moisture and won't let go--
She feels it curdle and dry into dust as Casey dumps skat onto its small body.
"Motherfucker," Zeke pants, looking at his palm as the atoke dissolves away. The wound is already healing, his body regenerating as the pseudo-cytokines and glycoproteins carried by the atoke's mucus cause the skin to knit seamlessly.
She's flat on the floor again, spent, and all for nothing. The other two atokes are lining up to go, but she can't get to her feet to aim them. She's held them too long already, they'll dry out on contact with the air. It's over.
Casey slips another pen from Zeke's pocket and hands it to him; his hand shakes, but his voice is steady. "Sniff. And don't say you told me so."
Zeke inhales deep. "You'd deserve it if I did." He hands the pen to Casey and frowns. "This isn't enough for a dose for you, what's left here."
"I'm a small guy," Casey says, taking it and emptying the pen into his mouth like a pixy stick. "Uulh. This shit's nasty. What else is in this besides caffeine?"
"Pseudoephedrine and powdered milk." Zeke fishes out another pen. "Take some more."
"We should save it in case we need it later," says Casey, brushing it aside with the start of a grin. "I'm feeling it, I'm fine."
"Every single thing's gotta be a fuckin' argument," Zeke mutters. "Have some more, we can't take chances with this bitch." He kicks the mesh of the cage, inches from Stokely's face.
"Okay, I'll have some more," Casey laughs and accepts the pen, ignoring it, grasping Zeke's hand instead. His pink tongue flicks out across Zeke's palm, licking off the powder.
"What the fuck, Casey," Zeke breathes.
"Tastes better this way."
"Okay, you were right, you did have enough," says Zeke, but he lets Casey keep going, jerking a little as Casey's tongue flicks between his fingers, swallowing a gasp when Casey sucks at the pad of his thumb.
They're devouring each others' mouths again when Stokely's body exhausts itself and she retches helplessly. The noise drags Zeke and Casey apart, Zeke pushing Casey behind him and backing away.
She expels the atokes, one after the other, into the unforgiving air. Their bodies shrivel within seconds.
"Help me," she tries to say as her nereidae begins to unravel from her nervous system, but her throat is too dry to form words. She'd cry, but the tears won't form, won't fall.
Zeke holds Casey now, not just holding him back.
"I'm sorry, Stokely," Casey says quietly.
The nereidae detaches, and
*
"Stokely?"
She opens her eyes.
"Stokes?" Casey's voice. His feet, then his knees, his hand, with a skat pen open and ready, and then his worried face. "Are you... you?"
"Yeah," she croaks, and lifts her head. She's back in the cage. Her clothes are wet, her hair's soaked.
They both jump as Zeke crashes against the mesh from the outside, laughing when they recognize him.
"You're so high," Casey giggles at him, sagging with relief. He turns his smile toward Stokely. "You coughed up the last one of those things a while ago... it was bigger than the others, but it was hard to be totally sure they were all, you know. Out."
"I can't believe Zeke let you get close to me alone," she tries to say; she can't speak above a whisper. She's never been this thirsty in her life.
Casey's smile widens, daffy and joyful. "He's not the boss of me."
"He's too high to get infected, and you were too weak to try anything even if you were still going all Linda Blair. Here. Found this in the coach's office." Zeke opens the door and comes in, dangling a six-pack of Gatorade. Casey takes it and twists a bottle off, unlidding it and handing it to Stokely; she swallows huge gulps down fast. She always thought this stuff was disgusting before, but it's the most delicious thing she's ever tasted.
She empties the bottle as Zeke tells Casey, "Same thing that happened to her is happening to the rest. It's safe to go out as long as we keep our distance. They're all flat on the ground. It took longer for the ones outside because they were out in the rain. Some of them are sucking on the grass to stay hydrated, but they're starting to look like she did toward the end."
"What did I look like?" Stokely grabs another bottle and drinks greedily.
"Veiny. And really really pale. It's hard to explain," says Casey, "but you kind of jerked around, it looked involuntary... Zeke thought that was from the parasite letting go, a little at a time."
"When you horked up the last one of those things, it was trailing those little fuckin' tentacles, it was pretty nasty-looking," Zeke says. "Looked to me like those tentacles hook into the spinal cord, some muscle groups... so when it starts unhooking, you get a series of myoclonic twitches."
"Right, myoclonic. If you want to get all sciencey about it," Casey says.
Stokely wipes her mouth with her sleeve, forgetting her sleeve is wet too. "Is anyone coming?"
Casey nods, "We called the Bowling Green cops, and the state police, and the CDC."
"I gotta find my gun and get rid of it before they show up." Zeke touches Casey's shoulder as he rises to his feet. It almost looks as if he only does it to keep his balance as he stands. Almost.
Opening a third Gatorade, Stokely sneaks a look at Casey; he's sneaking a look at her at the same time, and they both grin at each other in recognition.
"Did you dump me in the pool?" Stokely asks, touching her wet clothes.
"We dumped the pool on you. Once we were pretty sure you weren't still carrying, we filled up a mop bucket and tipped it over you. You were looking really sick, it seemed like it helped. We can find you some gym clothes or a jersey or something if you want to change."
"It's okay. It feels good after being thirsty for so long." She takes another drink. She must nearly be hydrated, the Gatorade is starting to taste kind of gross to her again.
"I was really freaking out," Casey tells her. "You said you were dying."
"It wasn't me," she says.
It's not exactly true, though. It was her, in a way; it was a consciousness that came from the parasite and her own brain, together. It had her memories, and some of her thoughts. It wasn't her, but it was of her, and it's gone now, gone forever. She shivers.
Casey touches her arm. "You okay?"
"Yeah... it's just strange to think about it. It wasn't me, but it was in my head. I guess... now I almost know how it feels to die."
"How does it feel?"
Stokely tries to remember, tries to find the words. "It's scary. And then it's... tired. Resigned. And then it's over."
They're quiet together a while, til Zeke comes back, saying, "Gun's taken care of."
Casey pushes himself to his feet. "We need to go out and meet the emergency workers. We have to keep them from hydrating anybody til they've coughed up the parasites, or it'll just take them longer to get rid of the infection."
"Just keep clear of everyone on the ground and stick by me. How about it, Stokely? Ready to come out into the world again?" Zeke asks her.
Stokely stands, unsteady but determined. "I'm ready."
***