Center for the Study of Supernatural Activity, Bristol, Tuesday Evening
Bodies. Bodies and blood and flickering lights and no one to protect her.
Lucy Jaggat
Bodies. Bodies and blood and flickering lights and no one to protect her. Lucy's entire being thrummed with terror, the world growing sharper around the edges and yet fading into this blur of fear and violence. She did not know where Mitchell was, but she knew that he was out there--
So she fled into the questioning room, twitching with purpose. She ripped a chair away from the table in the center of the room and rushed for the door, jamming the chair under the handle.
Then she ran around the corner and slid down to the floor, her back pressing into the wall. She brought her hands together and prayed.
Mitchell
Mitchell knew she was there, but he had no problem leaving her to stew in it for just... a moment... longer.
He let his fingers tap along his end of the mirrored window, tick-tick-tick. He knew she could hear it. Knew it resounded in there.
Never let it be said he didn't have a firm grasp of drama when the mood struck.
Eric
Eric arched up an eyebrow, but he had a finely honed sense of the dramatic as well, and didn't want to ruin the mood Mitchell was laying out by speaking.
Lucy & Mitchell
Lucy jerked up at the sound. She stumbled back from the wall, into the flickering darkness at the back of the room.
Mitchell pushed the door open ever-so-gently.
And then he was standing in the middle of the room, in front of her, dripping with blood, his expression cold. "Where are George and Annie."
Eric
Eric leaned in the doorway, blocking it completely, and waited for her reply.
Lucy & Mitchell
Lucy composed herself. "It's... fine," she said, looking Mitchell dead in the eye, trying not to show any of the fear she felt. "They're still alive."
"Why," Mitchell said, his eyes flicking up and down, "Did you say still alive?"
Eric
"How much longer until that's supposed to change?" Eric asked.
Lucy & Mitchell
"It's not--" Lucy tried. But then she stopped, and bit down on her lip.
Mitchell took a step closer. And another. "Is there anything... anything you've told me that wasn't a lie?" he asked.
"I had... I had to win your confidence," she said.
His eyebrow went up. "And the sex?"
"I had to win your confidence," she repeated.
"Why." The blood dripped off his chin and onto the floor, and he was almost there, now, homing in on her like Eric barely even existed.
Lucy stared back at him. "The three of you..." she started. "You erased... everything. Science. Faith. My god-- to study that, to understand... a fraction of what you mean to the world."
Eric
Eric rolled his eyes and examined his nails. "We're really not that interesting," he commented.
Especially the werewolves. Ugh, werewolves.
Lucy & Mitchell
"Oh, don't patronise me," Lucy spat at Eric. "We had no idea what was going on there--"
"And how did blowing up a whole building full of vampires figure into that," Mitchell snapped.
She swung her head back towards him, her fury keeping some of the fear at bay. "We got-- sidetracked," she said.
"Sidetracked," he echoed.
She turned around, pressing her fingers to her forehead. "There was a whole parade of bodies coming into the hospital, Mitchell, what, we were just supposed to sit there and watch?"
Eric
Eric slanted a glance at Mitchell. "I thought you'd stopped that part of being vampire."
If he sounded a little amused, well, he was.
Mitchell
"I did," Mitchell said, gritting his teeth. "We had it under control." It was getting under control, dammit - why the hell would he have wasted the past year pulling away from everyone he cared about if it hadn't been working?
"Yeah," Lucy said, nodding at him and the blood on his shirt. "Yeah, clearly."
"So you took it upon yourselves to do a bit of ethnic cleansing?" Mitchell asked.
Lucy
Lucy's voice shot up in volume. "Don't you dare," she yelled, "Don't you fucking dare to legitimize--"
"You betrayed me," Mitchell said, stalking 'round her. She backed away towards the corner, but her expression gave absolutely no quarter at all. She looked defiant, even angry.
She snorted, then shook her head, then snorted again. "Please don't tell me that's what this is all about," she said, "You've just killed-- how many of my people?" Lucy circled back until it was Mitchell with his back to the wall. "And all because I've hurt your feelings?"
Eric
"I think vampires being blown up affected his reactions just a tad, too, human," Eric said, allowing some of his temper to show.
Mitchell
"Yes," Mitchell said, a growl in his voice. "How many people have you killed, exactly?"
Mitchell
Lucy, to her credit, at least seemed to realise this wasn't just about her and Mitchell, or even the vampires. "The werewolves," she said, her voice steadier than she felt, "Are sick. There is evil in them. Everything... we have done is to try and help them."
Mitchell
"That's very noble, but..." Mitchell said. He stopped, that last syllable hanging in the air for just... a stretch of a moment. "Did it ever occur to you that when you started pre-ordering bodybags, that maybe it was time to stop...?"
Eric
Eric, for his part, rolled his eyes. "Why is it that every time humans encounter something they can't explain, it's immediately evil? I blame modern religion, personally. Odin certainly didn't give a damn."
Lucy
Lucy's eyes flicked to him. "Because it is evil," she snarled. "You kill people, you poison them! You!" She pointed at Mitchell. "The three of you, together-- we were terrified, the havoc you could have wreaked--!"
Mitchell
"We just wanted to be left alone," Mitchell said, tightly.
Lucy
"You don't get to be left alone!" Lucy shouted in his face. "You don't get a life and lovers and hope! You are poisonous, you are wearing other people's clothes! You are not--" Her breath hitched. "...human."
The little frown that had marred Mitchell's face, the downwards curve of his lips underneath all the blood, it vanished. The corners of his mouth tilted up.
Mitchell
They tilted a little bit further, then, and finally, Mitchell looked like the bloodstained shark Herrick had always told him he was.
"You have such a reductive view of the world," he murmured. "God made man in his own image." His eyes were bright. "What if that included his rage...?" He tilted his head. "And his spite." He took a step closer, another, another, just little steps.
Lucy backed off, frightened, yet at the same time drawn to him now. Her head tilted along, as if to match his, and he continued speaking, "...and his indifference." Mitchell's hand found her throat ever so gently, his thumb pressing neatly against the soft flesh. "And his cruelty." His eyes slid to her juglar. "What if God made us too?"
Her hands searched for the edges of the mirrored window behind her until her arms were spread out across it, terror in its base form.
"We're all his children, you see," Mitchell said, softly. "But God's a bit of a bastard..." He smiled in her face, lips half an inch from hers, and then he looked aside, almost... idly. "Look at the three of us," he mused, "...covered in other people's blood and talking about morality."
Eric
Eric was examining his fingernails. "Certainly wasn't what I'd planned for the evening."
Mitchell
Mitchel chuckled loudly. "Well, you know how it goes. Never know how things are going to wind up," he agreed, his fingers pressing harder down on Lucy's throat. He let his eyes black over and his fangs slide out, and he could hear her heartbeat pounding in his head.
Suddenly, the queerest sensation of emptiness struck him so hard he couldn't breath and he let go and stumbled backwards. It took him seconds, minutes, no, seconds, to give a name to it: Annie.
Oh fuck. Annieannieannieannie--
Eric
Eric's eyes widened fractionally as he got a good look at the expression on Mitchell's face. "What?"
Mitchell
"Annie," Mitchell choked out. "They killed Annie."
Without another word, he turned around, practically hurtling himself out the door.
Eric
Eric looked at Lucy. "Thank whatever God you think listens to your prejudiced misguided prayers that I'm not hungry tonight," he said. "If I were you, I'd be on the fastest piece of transportation I could find out of the country before Mitchell remembers you're still alive and decides to fix that."
---
Mitchell
Gonegonegonegonegonegone Annie was gone--
Mitchell raced through the corridor blindly, following the pull of the emptiness in his gut.
And then suddenly he was there, this old man, this priest standing on the other end of the room. Old and grey and wrinkled and full of righteous insanity. "Mitchell!" Kemp called. "I killed her! Your friend! I threw her over to the other side!"
And Mitchell? Mitchell didn't care that the old coot was wielding a stake - he crossed the corridor in seconds in all his fury, slamming Kemp's hand against the wall, shoving the old man's body into the hard concrete. The man had something religious on him, some icon, but Mitchell ignored the hiss of pain that lept through his body.
"Did you feel her go?" Kemp asked, tightly. "Did you-- did you hear her scream as she was ripped from the world? I want you... to know pain... like the families of your victims..."
Eric
Eric leaned down for Bo's ears only. "These people really aren't very bright, are they?"
Bo
Bo probably had more of an internal pang at the families of your victims line than Eric did -- like, you know, any at all -- but she still curled her lip. The other priest, she'd have tried to stop Mitchell hurting him if the church hadn't done it for her. This one...
"Funny how I'm all out of give a shit. I saw her go. She was terrified, and she didn't do a damn thing to this guy."
Kemp
"I want you to know grief," Kemp snarled into Mitchell's face. He was so far beyond caring about outside opinions, he was shaking, snarling, not even remotely the image of a priest any longer. "And rage! As I did..."
Mitchell
Mitchell certainly wasn't having any trouble with the rage part.
"I'm going to kill you."
His grin was manic, practically splitting his face in two. "I'm going to rip your head off."
Kemp
"I'm ready to meet my maker," Kemp whispered. "Are you ready to meet yours?"
His head banged back hard against the wall as Mitchell shoved him further into the wall.
George
"M--- Mitchell!"
George barreled past Bo and Eric without sparing them as much as a damned thought.
Mitchell
"He killed her, George," Mitchell said. Then his voice went up several kilometers in volume. "HE TOOK HER AWAY FROM US."
George
George scrambled for something to say, and maybe his first argument was the most cliche, but it was also true: "She wouldn't want this, Mitchell, you know she wouldn't."
Mitchell
Mitchell's attention snapped away from the man he was at present choking. "Leave," he said, "Now, or I swear to God you'll be next."
George
That tone of voice, those words from that man, it shook something in George's inner foundation, the rock on which he stood, and-- being George, that was the moment he chose to push back, his jaw setting tightly.
The panic slipped out of his tone, and now it was steady.
"I have lost too much. I am not going to lose you."
He didn't care that Mitchell was still raging, shouting things at him as go away and I'll kill you while Kemp struggled against the wall. He seriously did not give a shit.
"No, you won't," he stated. "You're still in there."
Mitchell
"HE KILLED HER," Mitchell snarled, but he sounded desperate now, like he was trying to convince himself he was still in this rage, rather than living it.
Mitchell
"And this is how we care to honour her?!" George yelled. He breached the invisible boundary between them and Mitchell's scene and screamed. "If you want to kill-- if you want to rip away every last shred of humanity you've got then by all means go ahead, but don't you dare do it in Annie's name!"
Mitchell
That was too much. Too much of everything. Too much of the past few weeks, the past few months, of Annie-- fuck, Annie, who'd never been anything but joy and light and never did anything to anyone who didn't deserve it--
And suddenly Mitchell couldn't do this anymore. His hands slipped away from Kemp's neck and he sobbed, caving in on himself.
Mitchell
"They're monsters," George said, choking a little. "Not us."
Mitchell
With Mitchell's grip gone, Kemp slid to the floor, but Mitchell didn't even care anymore.
"Fuck!" he screamed. "FUCK." He slammed his fists into the wall once, twice, three times. Then pulled away, looking like a mess, breathing hard and blood on his face.
Mitchell
"Mitchell," George said, quieter now, and reached out a hand. "Give me your hand."
He waited patiently as Mitchell composed himself. Or maybe patient wasn't the right word-- desperate, maybe, as Mitchell refused to meet his eyes, let alone his hand.
"Take my hand," he said again.
Mitchell
Mitchell's head bobbed in a shallow nod. Then he reached out-- and suddenly he was clinging on to George for dear life, choking out syllables about Annie, or something else, he wasn't even sure himself.
George was kind enough to drag him past Eric, murmuring things like "C'mon."
Eric
Eric watched them go, then slanted his eyes at Bo. "I don't remember Bristol generally being this interesting."
Bo
It took Bo a moment to answer, a lot shaken and a little shamed. George hadn't been talking to her, but friendly fire still hit the mark; she'd been ready to watch Mitchell tear that guy apart, and no matter what he'd done, that wasn't her. Shouldn't have been her.
"Remind me to thank Mitchell for the learning experience. When there's enough pieces of him stuck back together to hear it."
[[ NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Takes place after this, and preplayed with the usual succubus-vampire suspects of awesome. Taken from Being Human 2x08, aaand we're done. ]]
Lucy Jaggat
Bodies. Bodies and blood and flickering lights and no one to protect her. Lucy's entire being thrummed with terror, the world growing sharper around the edges and yet fading into this blur of fear and violence. She did not know where Mitchell was, but she knew that he was out there--
So she fled into the questioning room, twitching with purpose. She ripped a chair away from the table in the center of the room and rushed for the door, jamming the chair under the handle.
Then she ran around the corner and slid down to the floor, her back pressing into the wall. She brought her hands together and prayed.
Mitchell
Mitchell knew she was there, but he had no problem leaving her to stew in it for just... a moment... longer.
He let his fingers tap along his end of the mirrored window, tick-tick-tick. He knew she could hear it. Knew it resounded in there.
Never let it be said he didn't have a firm grasp of drama when the mood struck.
Eric
Eric arched up an eyebrow, but he had a finely honed sense of the dramatic as well, and didn't want to ruin the mood Mitchell was laying out by speaking.
Lucy & Mitchell
Lucy jerked up at the sound. She stumbled back from the wall, into the flickering darkness at the back of the room.
Mitchell pushed the door open ever-so-gently.
And then he was standing in the middle of the room, in front of her, dripping with blood, his expression cold. "Where are George and Annie."
Eric
Eric leaned in the doorway, blocking it completely, and waited for her reply.
Lucy & Mitchell
Lucy composed herself. "It's... fine," she said, looking Mitchell dead in the eye, trying not to show any of the fear she felt. "They're still alive."
"Why," Mitchell said, his eyes flicking up and down, "Did you say still alive?"
Eric
"How much longer until that's supposed to change?" Eric asked.
Lucy & Mitchell
"It's not--" Lucy tried. But then she stopped, and bit down on her lip.
Mitchell took a step closer. And another. "Is there anything... anything you've told me that wasn't a lie?" he asked.
"I had... I had to win your confidence," she said.
His eyebrow went up. "And the sex?"
"I had to win your confidence," she repeated.
"Why." The blood dripped off his chin and onto the floor, and he was almost there, now, homing in on her like Eric barely even existed.
Lucy stared back at him. "The three of you..." she started. "You erased... everything. Science. Faith. My god-- to study that, to understand... a fraction of what you mean to the world."
Eric
Eric rolled his eyes and examined his nails. "We're really not that interesting," he commented.
Especially the werewolves. Ugh, werewolves.
Lucy & Mitchell
"Oh, don't patronise me," Lucy spat at Eric. "We had no idea what was going on there--"
"And how did blowing up a whole building full of vampires figure into that," Mitchell snapped.
She swung her head back towards him, her fury keeping some of the fear at bay. "We got-- sidetracked," she said.
"Sidetracked," he echoed.
She turned around, pressing her fingers to her forehead. "There was a whole parade of bodies coming into the hospital, Mitchell, what, we were just supposed to sit there and watch?"
Eric
Eric slanted a glance at Mitchell. "I thought you'd stopped that part of being vampire."
If he sounded a little amused, well, he was.
Mitchell
"I did," Mitchell said, gritting his teeth. "We had it under control." It was getting under control, dammit - why the hell would he have wasted the past year pulling away from everyone he cared about if it hadn't been working?
"Yeah," Lucy said, nodding at him and the blood on his shirt. "Yeah, clearly."
"So you took it upon yourselves to do a bit of ethnic cleansing?" Mitchell asked.
Lucy
Lucy's voice shot up in volume. "Don't you dare," she yelled, "Don't you fucking dare to legitimize--"
"You betrayed me," Mitchell said, stalking 'round her. She backed away towards the corner, but her expression gave absolutely no quarter at all. She looked defiant, even angry.
She snorted, then shook her head, then snorted again. "Please don't tell me that's what this is all about," she said, "You've just killed-- how many of my people?" Lucy circled back until it was Mitchell with his back to the wall. "And all because I've hurt your feelings?"
Eric
"I think vampires being blown up affected his reactions just a tad, too, human," Eric said, allowing some of his temper to show.
Mitchell
"Yes," Mitchell said, a growl in his voice. "How many people have you killed, exactly?"
Mitchell
Lucy, to her credit, at least seemed to realise this wasn't just about her and Mitchell, or even the vampires. "The werewolves," she said, her voice steadier than she felt, "Are sick. There is evil in them. Everything... we have done is to try and help them."
Mitchell
"That's very noble, but..." Mitchell said. He stopped, that last syllable hanging in the air for just... a stretch of a moment. "Did it ever occur to you that when you started pre-ordering bodybags, that maybe it was time to stop...?"
Eric
Eric, for his part, rolled his eyes. "Why is it that every time humans encounter something they can't explain, it's immediately evil? I blame modern religion, personally. Odin certainly didn't give a damn."
Lucy
Lucy's eyes flicked to him. "Because it is evil," she snarled. "You kill people, you poison them! You!" She pointed at Mitchell. "The three of you, together-- we were terrified, the havoc you could have wreaked--!"
Mitchell
"We just wanted to be left alone," Mitchell said, tightly.
Lucy
"You don't get to be left alone!" Lucy shouted in his face. "You don't get a life and lovers and hope! You are poisonous, you are wearing other people's clothes! You are not--" Her breath hitched. "...human."
The little frown that had marred Mitchell's face, the downwards curve of his lips underneath all the blood, it vanished. The corners of his mouth tilted up.
Mitchell
They tilted a little bit further, then, and finally, Mitchell looked like the bloodstained shark Herrick had always told him he was.
"You have such a reductive view of the world," he murmured. "God made man in his own image." His eyes were bright. "What if that included his rage...?" He tilted his head. "And his spite." He took a step closer, another, another, just little steps.
Lucy backed off, frightened, yet at the same time drawn to him now. Her head tilted along, as if to match his, and he continued speaking, "...and his indifference." Mitchell's hand found her throat ever so gently, his thumb pressing neatly against the soft flesh. "And his cruelty." His eyes slid to her juglar. "What if God made us too?"
Her hands searched for the edges of the mirrored window behind her until her arms were spread out across it, terror in its base form.
"We're all his children, you see," Mitchell said, softly. "But God's a bit of a bastard..." He smiled in her face, lips half an inch from hers, and then he looked aside, almost... idly. "Look at the three of us," he mused, "...covered in other people's blood and talking about morality."
Eric
Eric was examining his fingernails. "Certainly wasn't what I'd planned for the evening."
Mitchell
Mitchel chuckled loudly. "Well, you know how it goes. Never know how things are going to wind up," he agreed, his fingers pressing harder down on Lucy's throat. He let his eyes black over and his fangs slide out, and he could hear her heartbeat pounding in his head.
Suddenly, the queerest sensation of emptiness struck him so hard he couldn't breath and he let go and stumbled backwards. It took him seconds, minutes, no, seconds, to give a name to it: Annie.
Oh fuck. Annieannieannieannie--
Eric
Eric's eyes widened fractionally as he got a good look at the expression on Mitchell's face. "What?"
Mitchell
"Annie," Mitchell choked out. "They killed Annie."
Without another word, he turned around, practically hurtling himself out the door.
Eric
Eric looked at Lucy. "Thank whatever God you think listens to your prejudiced misguided prayers that I'm not hungry tonight," he said. "If I were you, I'd be on the fastest piece of transportation I could find out of the country before Mitchell remembers you're still alive and decides to fix that."
---
Mitchell
Gonegonegonegonegonegone Annie was gone--
Mitchell raced through the corridor blindly, following the pull of the emptiness in his gut.
And then suddenly he was there, this old man, this priest standing on the other end of the room. Old and grey and wrinkled and full of righteous insanity. "Mitchell!" Kemp called. "I killed her! Your friend! I threw her over to the other side!"
And Mitchell? Mitchell didn't care that the old coot was wielding a stake - he crossed the corridor in seconds in all his fury, slamming Kemp's hand against the wall, shoving the old man's body into the hard concrete. The man had something religious on him, some icon, but Mitchell ignored the hiss of pain that lept through his body.
"Did you feel her go?" Kemp asked, tightly. "Did you-- did you hear her scream as she was ripped from the world? I want you... to know pain... like the families of your victims..."
Eric
Eric leaned down for Bo's ears only. "These people really aren't very bright, are they?"
Bo
Bo probably had more of an internal pang at the families of your victims line than Eric did -- like, you know, any at all -- but she still curled her lip. The other priest, she'd have tried to stop Mitchell hurting him if the church hadn't done it for her. This one...
"Funny how I'm all out of give a shit. I saw her go. She was terrified, and she didn't do a damn thing to this guy."
Kemp
"I want you to know grief," Kemp snarled into Mitchell's face. He was so far beyond caring about outside opinions, he was shaking, snarling, not even remotely the image of a priest any longer. "And rage! As I did..."
Mitchell
Mitchell certainly wasn't having any trouble with the rage part.
"I'm going to kill you."
His grin was manic, practically splitting his face in two. "I'm going to rip your head off."
Kemp
"I'm ready to meet my maker," Kemp whispered. "Are you ready to meet yours?"
His head banged back hard against the wall as Mitchell shoved him further into the wall.
George
"M--- Mitchell!"
George barreled past Bo and Eric without sparing them as much as a damned thought.
Mitchell
"He killed her, George," Mitchell said. Then his voice went up several kilometers in volume. "HE TOOK HER AWAY FROM US."
George
George scrambled for something to say, and maybe his first argument was the most cliche, but it was also true: "She wouldn't want this, Mitchell, you know she wouldn't."
Mitchell
Mitchell's attention snapped away from the man he was at present choking. "Leave," he said, "Now, or I swear to God you'll be next."
George
That tone of voice, those words from that man, it shook something in George's inner foundation, the rock on which he stood, and-- being George, that was the moment he chose to push back, his jaw setting tightly.
The panic slipped out of his tone, and now it was steady.
"I have lost too much. I am not going to lose you."
He didn't care that Mitchell was still raging, shouting things at him as go away and I'll kill you while Kemp struggled against the wall. He seriously did not give a shit.
"No, you won't," he stated. "You're still in there."
Mitchell
"HE KILLED HER," Mitchell snarled, but he sounded desperate now, like he was trying to convince himself he was still in this rage, rather than living it.
Mitchell
"And this is how we care to honour her?!" George yelled. He breached the invisible boundary between them and Mitchell's scene and screamed. "If you want to kill-- if you want to rip away every last shred of humanity you've got then by all means go ahead, but don't you dare do it in Annie's name!"
Mitchell
That was too much. Too much of everything. Too much of the past few weeks, the past few months, of Annie-- fuck, Annie, who'd never been anything but joy and light and never did anything to anyone who didn't deserve it--
And suddenly Mitchell couldn't do this anymore. His hands slipped away from Kemp's neck and he sobbed, caving in on himself.
Mitchell
"They're monsters," George said, choking a little. "Not us."
Mitchell
With Mitchell's grip gone, Kemp slid to the floor, but Mitchell didn't even care anymore.
"Fuck!" he screamed. "FUCK." He slammed his fists into the wall once, twice, three times. Then pulled away, looking like a mess, breathing hard and blood on his face.
Mitchell
"Mitchell," George said, quieter now, and reached out a hand. "Give me your hand."
He waited patiently as Mitchell composed himself. Or maybe patient wasn't the right word-- desperate, maybe, as Mitchell refused to meet his eyes, let alone his hand.
"Take my hand," he said again.
Mitchell
Mitchell's head bobbed in a shallow nod. Then he reached out-- and suddenly he was clinging on to George for dear life, choking out syllables about Annie, or something else, he wasn't even sure himself.
George was kind enough to drag him past Eric, murmuring things like "C'mon."
Eric
Eric watched them go, then slanted his eyes at Bo. "I don't remember Bristol generally being this interesting."
Bo
It took Bo a moment to answer, a lot shaken and a little shamed. George hadn't been talking to her, but friendly fire still hit the mark; she'd been ready to watch Mitchell tear that guy apart, and no matter what he'd done, that wasn't her. Shouldn't have been her.
"Remind me to thank Mitchell for the learning experience. When there's enough pieces of him stuck back together to hear it."
[[ NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Takes place after this, and preplayed with the usual succubus-vampire suspects of awesome. Taken from Being Human 2x08, aaand we're done. ]]