(no subject)
Title: Uneasy Horizons
Author: Nexus of Crisis
Series: War and Resistance
Pairings: John/Bobby, a few others
Genre: AU with post and pre apocalyptic underpinnings.
Rating: R for adult themes and language.
Author's Notes: I suppose this is the part where I just stop pretending I'm not actually writing a commonly themed set of drabbles, and am instead writing a frigging novel, even if it seems to be taking me an eternity to do it. One of the locals reminded me I was writing, once, and should get back to it, so I did. This follows the events of Resting Under Thunder, which I suppose would be the first in this series, picking up after Incendium Internus/Passing Shadows, which I SWEAR I will get around to re writing and actually POSTING on LJ this time!
No, these don't follow one another immediately after, as there's a lot of in between to be written. This one just sort of wouldn't leave me alone for about two days, and demanded that I write it or it would take over my brain. Yet another buildup chapter, and probably another one or two after that.
Huh, didn't actually mean to repost this, was just kind of looking for life in here. Been some years.
In the meantime, accept this offering.
Uneasy Horizons
“Major? I have Captain Danvers' evals ready if you'd like to go over them. She turned them in on her way out of the Mount for leave.” SSG Keats stood in his doorway with a ridiculously thick file folder under his arm. Danvers was nothing if not thorough.
He motioned Keats forward and took the folder from him, nodding to him once to get him the hell out of his office and shut the door behind him. If he'd let him, Keats would have just stood there for hours, waiting on him. It was unnerving.
Being behind a desk more than in the field was definitely going to take a lot of getting used to. The politics of the Mount were their own little world, just by themselves.
Sighing inwardly, he opened the folder and began scanning it's contents. Yep. Exhaustive fitreps and evals on the rest of her team and her support staff. Included was an analysis of their latest joint training exercise with Canwulf and his team. Also absurdly descriptive. And in triplicate. Jesus.
This was going to take a while.
At least he had the evals for six out of the seven teams now. One to go.
He made a mental note to have someone go down to Sub4 and pester Canwulf about getting his evals in on time. Well, if he could find someone brave enough to do it, anyway. Guy still creeped his newer marines out. Hard not to, looking like that. They should have a newly assigned junior Seargent around somewhere though, and it was kind of like a right of passage for them. They'd better get used to it. The Major had, after all, even if it had been a slow process.
It had taken him the better part of six months to grow accustomed to dealing with Canwulf and his people. While intellectually he understood the procedure that had created most of them, well, all except Canwulf himself, he had still been nervous around them. Even if the others hadn't really had much of a choice in the matter. It was either “here, this is an experimental process that might save your life” or “sorry, son, but the injuries appear to be terminal. Anyone you need us to call?”.
He knew that Canwulf had been able to smell his unease, but he hadn't ever said anything about it, just went out of his way to remind the Major that while he and his people may look more like beasts than men, they were still marines. Still gave it everything they had to be as human as they could, even if they weren't anymore.
They'd had to custom make uniforms for them, but they insisted on wearing them. It would have looked ludicrous if they tailoring hadn't been done so well. He and Canwulf had tossed the idea of some kind of footwear around, but dismissed it. Their feet not only didn't really need them, but would actually be hampered by any kind of enclosure. As it was, they'd ended up with a kind of harness rig strapped across their shoulders that could hold their firearms and field kits as well as enough room on their backs to carry a full pack. It looked a little strange, but they'd insisted on it.
He appreciated the effort. Over time, it had gotten a lot easier. Months of training with them had made both he and his marines a lot less skittish around them. After a while, he tended to forget about the snout, gleaming eyes and (dear god) the teeth, and treated him like he would any of his other subordinates. It would pretty much be the height of hypocrisy for him to do otherwise in any case. The Sentinel Program was just full of interesting people these days, himself included. Canwulf and his “pack” weren't the only ones, just the most well known in the Mount.
Feral mutant or not, Canwulf was still a Lieutenant in the USMC, and still had to do his damned evals. He had two weeks yet but the guy just seemed to have absolutely no interest in or aptitude for paperwork. Shocker there.
The Major sympathized, turning back to Danvers' eval package.
He'd done more paper pushing in the nine months he'd been at the Mount than he could ever recall doing in the last twelve years of service. Mentally he cringed as he continued to page through the ridiculously extensive performance evaluations.
He'd really have to get Caroline in here and have a talk with her soon about which particular details to leave out of the formal stuff from now on. While she was almost disturbingly good with field command and tactics, her attention to detail was a little much for this kind of thing.
These evals read like a VCR owner's manual. And he'd have to read all the way through every single one of them to edit before he sent them along to Director Cooper. At least Dillon had been his usual succinct self with his. Neat and to the point. Maybe he could get him to give her a few tips, if he could get them to sit in the same room long enough without tossing underhanded insults at each other.
No, forget that idea.
They'd end up killing each other first.
The Major hated it when people's personal relationships bled over into their work. Not that it was their fault, they'd been on opposite sides of the world before they'd gotten their orders to help start up the Sentinel pilot program. He was pretty sure they hadn't ever expected to see one another again. But, since they'd both popped on the surreptitious sweep of blood samples, they'd found themselves in close quarters again. Small damned world.
Still, if their teams could work together with Canwulf's they could work with anybody. Besides, their not so subtle competition was good for them. Kept them and their teams on that razor's edge he was always talking about.
He figured eventually Caroline and Max would sort their own shit out. Hopefully before it got them or their men killed.
Giving up on psychoanalyzing his people (and why bother, when their psych files were right in front of him, anyway), he pushed himself back from his desk and grabbed the folders, resigning himself to an evening of not so light reading as he made his way down to Sub2 and his quarters.
It was going to be a long night.
-------------------
Bobby turned silently onto the long drive off of Greymalkin, watching in the rear view of the Lincoln as the majestic gates swing shut behind them in the dead early winter morning.
For his part, Ronnie didn't even look back, didn't look up at the house, didn't really look much of anywhere. His eyes stared rigidly forward, had for most of the last hour. Bobby knew what he was thinking.
They had really done it, they had really disowned him. Maybe not disowned so much as put away. Just like Bobby.
Ronnie had told him a little about what had happened, but not much. Just that he and his parents had argued over where the best place for him was, and they had decided it was best for him to be with “other people like you”.
Bobby had sat in the driveway for all of about ten minutes when he got to the house in Boston, that's all the time it had taken. Ronnie had come out looking haggard, like he hadn't slept in days and hadn't eaten in just as long. His jeans hung from his hip bones, and his maroon hoody fit him like a burlap sack. Bobby wondered for a second what the hell was going on, but let it slide.
He could see the outlines of his parents in the screen door, but they didn't venture outside, didn't even wave. Bobby was surprised he didn't feel even a pang of the old shame. Like that had happened to someone else, or just wasn't important anymore.
Ronnie had stalked down the sidewalk without looking back once.
He'd dropped a duffel bag in the back seat without preamble and just sat down and strapped his seatbelt on without a word.
“That it?” Bobby had said, gesturing at the bag in the back seat.
“It's all I need” he'd replied quietly.
Ronnie had always been a pack rat, kind of like their mom, but instead of hoarding knick knacks, he'd hoarded pretty much everything of Bobby's he'd been able to get his hands on. Bobby was pretty sure Ronnie still had Mr. Rumplestein, his old teddy bear, up in his closet somewhere.
After he'd gone away to school, Ronnie had snagged most of his old toys, his video games, even his skis. He'd asked his mother what was going on with him once, when he'd been home for Easter. He didn't resent the intrusion or anything, was really kind of curious. Ronnie had all of his own stuff, he didn't any of Bobby's, not really. She'd told him with a small smile that Ronnie never played with Bobby's toys, just had them. She'd thought it was cute.
Bobby hadn't said anything about it.
Now, Ronnie had reduced himself to a single duffel bag. Bobby studied his face carefully before putting the car in reverse. His eyes practically burned, and he could tell he must have been crying earlier. His hair was buzzed almost to his skull, and his mouth was set in a firm, grim line. His face had filled out some, and so had his body, but he was still too thin. Bobby figured he must be pretty depressed. Ronnie had always been just as voracious an eater as he himself had. Their mutant metabolism consumed an ungodly amount of calories, and they required nearly twice as much fuel as a baseline human to stay healthy. His mother hadn't mentioned anything about how bad off Ronnie was when she called him this morning.
The phone call was a complete surprise. Ever since Alkali Lake, they kept their interactions to an absolute minimum. He hadn't been home since the day John had burned their front lawn down. The Professor had done as much damage control as he had dared after they returned, even in the midst of his grief over Dr. Grey. And even though he'd offered to break his own rules, and remove the events of that afternoon from their minds, Bobby had refused. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted them to remember. Some part of him wanted them to hate him, he supposed. That was a long time ago now, but it was a little too late for anything to be done about it.
He very rarely even thought of them any more. Made the requisite phone calls on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, called Ronnie on his birthday, but other than that, they really had nothing to do with one another.
She'd hedged and hemmed around it for close to thirty minutes before finally just getting to the point, which basically boiled down to “your brother is a mutant too. Can you come down here and get him? Take him up there where you people live?” She had actually said “you people”. Stated that it would be better for him to live his brother right now along with the other usual bullshit concocted to make her feel better about punting her defective offspring to the proverbial side of the road. Bobby didn't even try to conceal his disgust with her. Maybe he'd been with John too long. He knew she could hear his scorn despite his supportive words, but she didn't comment on it, just cut her verbiage to a minimum.
Bobby told her he'd be up there in a few hours. It hadn't even occurred to him to say no. He wasn't sure why. Just grabbed the first set of keys he got his hands on and kissed John, telling him he'd be back late and headed for the door. In retrospect, he figured he probably should have said something, but there was a kind of numb glaze over his thoughts as pulled out of the drive. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, or how he'd react to seeing Ronnie again after so long. And while John might be able to take that sort of thing in stride these days, Bobby wasn't sure he was.
Now he looked over at Ronnie and said, "Hey, we're home." as he hit the garage door opener and took the car inside, sliding it neatly into it's slot next to Logan's incongruous Jeep. He grabbed his IPOD from the console as he got out. He and John could have gotten another one, but had kind of silently agreed to just have the one. He'd heard about it at length when he'd forgotten to take it out of the car and Pete had taken it to see his folks in Brighton Beach.
As he keyed in the security code on the door panel, he watched Ronnie grab his bag out of the back seat and come up to stand behind him.
He didn't say anything. Bobby hadn't really expected him to. The whole ride had passed in monosyllabic almost dialogue.
"Hey, stopping for gas, you need to hit he restroom?"
"Yeah."
"Gonna grab a sandwich, you hungry?"
"No."
And so one. Bobby figured he just needed to find his footing.
As they crossed the house Bobby pointed out where things were, the kitchens, the rec rooms, the computer lab, et cetera until they came to Wanda's office. Inside, he took a quick look through the rosters to see which rooms were open. Ronnie just followed silently after him, nearly a ghost in his hoody and jeans.
If the layout was a little different than he remembered, Ronnie didn't say anything. Bobby had never told his family how much his life had been changed by the Shadow King, how much everything had. Hadn't seemed like it would matter to them even if he had.
"Trying to find you a room", Bobby said after he had booted up the computer and logged in.
"I'm not rooming with you?"
Bobby froze for a second,finger stopping the trackball on the mouse as he turned his head to focus on Ronnie.
"Uh, no. I have a room mate, Ronnie. John." Bobby braced himself.
"Can you switch?" There was no recognition in Ronnie's eyes at John's name. Huh.
"Not exactly, it's a little more complicated than that, buddy." Bobby almost whispered.
"Like, he's in a wheelchair or something complicated, or something else?" Funny that Bobby had only now noticed that Ronnie's voice had deepened with puberty.
"Something else. Look, I'm...He's..." Bobby trailed off for a second as Ronnie's forehead wrinkled. Ronnie wasn't getting it. He figured that might me a little too much to lay on him just now. Okay, better part of valor then. For Ronnie's sake. Right.
"We'll all talk about it tomorrow, okay? For now, let's just get you into a room with a bed and get some sleep. You're going to need to meet with Wanda, and Warren if he's around. They'll get the paperwork squared away, and then we'll get you settled in. Okay?"
Ronnie nodded, obviously trying not to look disappointed. Bobby sighed and stood up, cracking his back in a long stretch.
"Okay, looks like you got one all to yourself. Second floor, I'll show you." As they left the office, he hit the lights and closed the door, shouldering Ronnie's bag.
They made their way up the stairs to the second floor landing and Bobby paused a moment. Something felt...off. He looked around the hall at everything, cocking his head to the side and listening.
"Bobby?" Ronnie asked, his voice not quite scared, more curious.
"Just a sec, buddy, lemme check on something." He started up the stairs again, heading to the first door on the left, he and John's room.
Opening the door, he could see pretty well in the dimly lit room. Like most of the mansion's residents these days, John kept a night light. Bobby pretended he didn't say anything because he was humoring John, not because he needed it just as badly. It wasn't like a kid's Superman light or anything. Just an innocuous little blue plugin.
Bobby could navigate by memory just as easily.
As a matter of habit, he kept the floor clear of obstructions, early on, John had spent the better part of three month's in between a wheelchair and crutches, and the habit of making sure nothing got in the way had sort of stuck with them.
Now, he could see John's indistinct form laying on top of the comforter. He walked up to the bed and sat down on John's side, running his fingers through his hair. John must have been having a nightmare. His eyes were rolling under his sockets and he was sweating in the cool air. Bobby kissed his forehead and drew back, shaking his shoulder. Something felt really, really off.
"John? John wake up, you're dreaming." He shook a little more vigorously.
John's eyes snapped open and shot straight up, face contorted in a rictus of absolute horror. Snapping his head back at an angle that was all agony, he loosed a shrieking howl. Bobby gasped, the scream was coming from almost every room on this floor. John's eyes weren't focusing as he continued to scream, lost in whatever horror his mind was playing out for him. A dim flash of dull pink light shone in his eyes as they rolled back into his sockets and he collapsed back on the bed, convulsing. Bobby's blood went cold in his veins.
"FUCK! EMMA!"
He bolted out of the room and almost directly into Ronnie. Must have followed him up. No time to worry about what he'd seen just now. He had bigger problems than being outed to his little brother. Bobby raced down the hall, Ronnie pelting right after him.
"What the hell was that? Jesus Bobby, what's going on" Ronnie's voice was full of the fear it had lacked earlier. The screams hadn't stopped, if anything gaining momentum around them. Bobby could feel his own heartbeat in his temple as he answered over his shoulder.
"Betts is having a nightmare".
-----------
She couldn't look away. It held her with It's host's lambent crimson eyes, a smirk on It's face.
She tried to stand all the same, mustering her waning strength, fighting against the smothering weight that threatened to drown her senses.
She could feel It's amusement.
The host's voice was almost kind, as though speaking to a child. He was barely more than that himself. Couldn't have been more than mid-teens.
"Go on, sweetling. Push. Rage. Fight." It was inches from her face now, smiling beautifully into her eyes as It's cold, white fingers stroked her cheek. Around her, she could see nothing. There was only the Lasting Dark, and It. The Shadow King. It stepped back, still smiling. A strange kind of boiling shape flickered in an out of her perception above It, too terrible for her to grasp completely. An impression of eyes, each at least two feet wide, and a mouth, a hideous grinning mouth...
She snapped her eyes down to the knees she couldn't see, to the hands she could almost feel folded in her lap, anywhere but up at It. Terror leant her strength.
She thrust aginst the void with all the power she could muster, pushing back the dark an inch at a time until she knelt in a tiny ring of light, the good hardwood floors finally visible beneath her. Illusion, it was an illusion she screamed to herself. She pushed again.
"No." It said, voice still full and sickly sweet, honeyed syrup distilled from nitric acid.
Abpruptly the shadows roared back from the edges of the tiny sanctuary she had made, crushing her beneath their impossible weight. She tried to scream, but the sound died in her throat, the thunder of her pounding heart growing faint to even her own ears. She made a desperate attempt to control her breathing, slow herself, THINK.
"Try again, dear one. Keep trying. Try forever." It was behind her now, It's hands in her hair, stroking gently, It's lips on her ear. Instinctively, her body tried to recoil.
It chuckled fondly.
She had to get away from It, had to find the others, had to get the children to safety, she had to...
"Ah. So much concern for them, so much devotion." It was disgusting to her how It's words never contained a hint of menace. Like a warm, soothing poisonous rain.
"Since you're so preoccupied with their fate, I think you should share it with them..." It mused, kneeling in front of her, nose to nose, eye to eye. She couldn't move, she could barely breathe.
"Come, see what you're missing, dear one." And It's crimson eyes flashed, washing her in profane red light, It's lips were on hers, breathing that ravenous Darkness into her...
//She/He had done well. All five of the flimsy little humans were dead. She/He had left nothing behind. A happy purring growl rolled in her/his deep chest as she/he strode into the warehouse. The King had promised her/him a rich reward if she/he did well.
There, on the ramshackle table was a tiny bundle, a sky blue blanket wrapping the struggling pink form of an infant, the scent filling her/his nostrils was intoxicating. She/He smiled.
Making a mewl of hunger, she/he lurched forward, taloned hands reaching, mouth cracked wide and ready to feast...
//The roofs of these shitholes were always the same generic crappy gravel, she/mused, lighting a cigarette. She/he wandered to the edge of the building, looking down at the street, and the apartment complex beyond it. Already hard, she/he ran a shaking hand over the bulge in her/his jeans, making a noise that was close to a moan. The Rage was roiling in her/his body, eager to slip through the bars of this meat cage and visit itself on the world. She/he could feel a grin split her/his face. A last drag off the Camel, an upraised wrist, and it began.
A great leaping spiral of orange heat and lust and fury that crashed down into the beveled windows of the apartment directly across from her/him. And another, and another, and another.
She/he could feel the laughter shaking her/his body, but couldn't hear it over the roaring flames. The hardness in her/his jeans goaded her/him on. She/He felt it in her/his veins like thunder, like the best fuck she/he'd ever had, like the voice of a god, like the embrace of a tsunami, it was everything, it was pure and perfect and good, and it was unstoppable.
The screams finally reached her/his ears, but she/he paid no attention, no longer slinging the flames, just guiding them, ecstasy rolling through her/him in waves. Her/His face hurt from the tight grin spread across it as the Will of the King moved through her/him, touching her/him everywhere, as complete and perfect and profund as the Fire itself...
//She glanced to either side of herself, counting heads. Yes, there were enough. There were so many here. It was good.
She knelt down on the filthy floor of the food court and crossed herself, praying to the One True God. Consecrating herself, these people, this Act of Faith. A few heads turned, not many. It made her smile.
She stood, throwing her arms out as though reaching, embracing, spinning slowly at first, and gaining momentum. Faster and faster, and she began to dissolve, her joyous laughter filling the cavernous space around her as she shed her flesh and became Dust, flinging herself out to spread as far as she could reach. Pelting the bodies around her with countless scouring beads of herself, stripping away skin and meat and sinew, sucking the moisture from them and leaving them empty dry husks. They fell like bags of dried leather around her, within her. Dozens, now a hundred. More.
But not all of them.
Enough must remain. A Tale must be told, Witness must stand yet to speak of this new Act of God. Their Fear was vital. The One True God would grow fat on it, spreading his loving embrace to the whole world.
Soon would come the Last Dawn, and with it, the Lasting Dark. The One True God had shown her, and it would Be.
//
She fell to the floor, the stink of her own vomit assaulting her nostrils as she reeled from the vista of horrors.
Her friends, her students, her Family...minds riddled with It's taint like wormwood, aware and unaware at the same time, recoiling in horror at what they were doing but marching forward eagerly to do it...
"Yes." It said slowly, It's smile now smug.
She rolled onto her back, as good as bearing her throat to It, and glared her defiance up into those rubied eyes.
It's laughter was a chainsaw in a hospital nursery, jagged and awful and unspeakably wrong and it reached down, putting a hand over her eyes. The Lasting Dark poured into her, tore a sound from her so primal and animal that she could feel her throat shredding from the inside. It didn't stop, chortling to Itself as It raped her...
//
"God damn it woman, WAKE THE FUCK UP!" Bobby could hear Emma's desperate voice accompanied by a sharp, if momentary stab of pain behind his forehead. He knelt on the bed with John, Ronnie looking on from next to the endtable as Bobby kept saying nonsensical bullshit over and over again. The kind of reassuring nonsense that people always end up saying to someone in pain, even if they know it won't do a fucking bit of good. Ronnie shot a hand to his brow and winced, looking around wildly.
"It's okay, buddy. Just Emma trying to wake Betts up and make this stop. It's not her fault, she's had a rough time. Just...Just don't be afraid." He gripped Ronnie's shoulder and looked him in the eyes, trying to convey what he was feeling, meaning, the best he could. Ronnie swallowed loudly and just nodded.
John's convulsions stopped abruptly, his body sagging against the sheets like puppet whose strings had been cut. Bobby noted distantly that he'd pissed himself during the last fit. Checking his pulse and breathing with a surprisingly steady hand, Bobby nodded to himself as he started to strip John out of his t-shirt and shorts.
"Ronnie, at the end of the hall is a big closet with linens and blankets in it, could you grab some and start handing putting it out by the doors in the hallway?" Bobby's voice sounded startlingly calm to his own ears. He looked up at Ronnie, pale, terrified, confused Ronnie, who just nodded and headed for the door.
"Thanks, buddy". Bobby said after him. He looked down at John, finally breathing steady and sound, lost in the deep sleep of the truly exhausted. He got up, rolling John gently to the side and stripping the bed and underfoam from beneath him, wadding it up and tossing it in a corner. Grabbing a washcloth from the bathroom, he went back and cleaned John up, tossing the rag over with the linens. He grabbed some fresh clothes from John's dresser and got some sweats on him.
Ronnie came back in, walking slowly as though unsure of himself.
"I don't think any of the stuff in there is gonna fit his bed.." His voice was subdued.
"No, we keep our own stuff in the closet in here." Bobby responded while he pulled the T-shirt over John's unresisting head.
Ronnie hadn't been listening, instead, his eyes sharpened and he looked as he looked over at the prone form on the bed.
"Is that..." Ronnie swallowed again. "Is that the same guy from the house that day." Bobby didn't pretend to not know what Ronnie was talking about. Instead, he sighed and got John's arms through his shirt.
"Yeah, Ronnie, it is. This is my partner, John." Finished, he stood up and walked over by the door, where Ronnie had retreated. The look of total confusion on his face would have been funny at any other time.
"Your..." Ronnie got that wrinkle over his eyebrows again.
"Parnter. Boyfriend. Lover. Mate. Whatever. We're together these days Ronnie, and a hell of a lot has happened that you guys never knew about. So much...I don't even know where to fucking begin." Bobby stood there watching Ronnie walk his fingers across the doorjamb, mouth gaping open like a fish and closing and opening again.
Bobby reached forward and put his hand on Ronnie's shoulder again, bracing himself for the flinch he knew was probably coming.
To his credit, Ronnie didn't back away. He just stood there wordlessly as he tried to process everything that had happened to him in the last twenty four hours and coming up with a blank.
"Look, buddy. We are going to talk about this, and I'll tell you everything if you want to hear it, but right now, the younger kids need us to take care of them, and we need to get to it, okay?"
Ronnie didn't say anything, just blinked a few times and nodded.
"Okay. So, help me get the rest of this linen put out and let's see if anyone needs anything."
Bobby could already hear Sam crying and Toby saying something in the room across the hall.
Sighing, he put his arm around his little brother's shoulders and got to work.
It was going to be a long damned day.
So, I considered making the first part a seperate entry, but then decided against it for reasons that will eventually (I hope) become clear. Thanks for reading all, and I hope to be sticking with this a little more regularly now. Feedback is always welcome, positive or negative, as I've only just gotten back on this and am actually writing it at sea. lol.
Author: Nexus of Crisis
Series: War and Resistance
Pairings: John/Bobby, a few others
Genre: AU with post and pre apocalyptic underpinnings.
Rating: R for adult themes and language.
Author's Notes: I suppose this is the part where I just stop pretending I'm not actually writing a commonly themed set of drabbles, and am instead writing a frigging novel, even if it seems to be taking me an eternity to do it. One of the locals reminded me I was writing, once, and should get back to it, so I did. This follows the events of Resting Under Thunder, which I suppose would be the first in this series, picking up after Incendium Internus/Passing Shadows, which I SWEAR I will get around to re writing and actually POSTING on LJ this time!
No, these don't follow one another immediately after, as there's a lot of in between to be written. This one just sort of wouldn't leave me alone for about two days, and demanded that I write it or it would take over my brain. Yet another buildup chapter, and probably another one or two after that.
Huh, didn't actually mean to repost this, was just kind of looking for life in here. Been some years.
In the meantime, accept this offering.
Uneasy Horizons
“Major? I have Captain Danvers' evals ready if you'd like to go over them. She turned them in on her way out of the Mount for leave.” SSG Keats stood in his doorway with a ridiculously thick file folder under his arm. Danvers was nothing if not thorough.
He motioned Keats forward and took the folder from him, nodding to him once to get him the hell out of his office and shut the door behind him. If he'd let him, Keats would have just stood there for hours, waiting on him. It was unnerving.
Being behind a desk more than in the field was definitely going to take a lot of getting used to. The politics of the Mount were their own little world, just by themselves.
Sighing inwardly, he opened the folder and began scanning it's contents. Yep. Exhaustive fitreps and evals on the rest of her team and her support staff. Included was an analysis of their latest joint training exercise with Canwulf and his team. Also absurdly descriptive. And in triplicate. Jesus.
This was going to take a while.
At least he had the evals for six out of the seven teams now. One to go.
He made a mental note to have someone go down to Sub4 and pester Canwulf about getting his evals in on time. Well, if he could find someone brave enough to do it, anyway. Guy still creeped his newer marines out. Hard not to, looking like that. They should have a newly assigned junior Seargent around somewhere though, and it was kind of like a right of passage for them. They'd better get used to it. The Major had, after all, even if it had been a slow process.
It had taken him the better part of six months to grow accustomed to dealing with Canwulf and his people. While intellectually he understood the procedure that had created most of them, well, all except Canwulf himself, he had still been nervous around them. Even if the others hadn't really had much of a choice in the matter. It was either “here, this is an experimental process that might save your life” or “sorry, son, but the injuries appear to be terminal. Anyone you need us to call?”.
He knew that Canwulf had been able to smell his unease, but he hadn't ever said anything about it, just went out of his way to remind the Major that while he and his people may look more like beasts than men, they were still marines. Still gave it everything they had to be as human as they could, even if they weren't anymore.
They'd had to custom make uniforms for them, but they insisted on wearing them. It would have looked ludicrous if they tailoring hadn't been done so well. He and Canwulf had tossed the idea of some kind of footwear around, but dismissed it. Their feet not only didn't really need them, but would actually be hampered by any kind of enclosure. As it was, they'd ended up with a kind of harness rig strapped across their shoulders that could hold their firearms and field kits as well as enough room on their backs to carry a full pack. It looked a little strange, but they'd insisted on it.
He appreciated the effort. Over time, it had gotten a lot easier. Months of training with them had made both he and his marines a lot less skittish around them. After a while, he tended to forget about the snout, gleaming eyes and (dear god) the teeth, and treated him like he would any of his other subordinates. It would pretty much be the height of hypocrisy for him to do otherwise in any case. The Sentinel Program was just full of interesting people these days, himself included. Canwulf and his “pack” weren't the only ones, just the most well known in the Mount.
Feral mutant or not, Canwulf was still a Lieutenant in the USMC, and still had to do his damned evals. He had two weeks yet but the guy just seemed to have absolutely no interest in or aptitude for paperwork. Shocker there.
The Major sympathized, turning back to Danvers' eval package.
He'd done more paper pushing in the nine months he'd been at the Mount than he could ever recall doing in the last twelve years of service. Mentally he cringed as he continued to page through the ridiculously extensive performance evaluations.
He'd really have to get Caroline in here and have a talk with her soon about which particular details to leave out of the formal stuff from now on. While she was almost disturbingly good with field command and tactics, her attention to detail was a little much for this kind of thing.
These evals read like a VCR owner's manual. And he'd have to read all the way through every single one of them to edit before he sent them along to Director Cooper. At least Dillon had been his usual succinct self with his. Neat and to the point. Maybe he could get him to give her a few tips, if he could get them to sit in the same room long enough without tossing underhanded insults at each other.
No, forget that idea.
They'd end up killing each other first.
The Major hated it when people's personal relationships bled over into their work. Not that it was their fault, they'd been on opposite sides of the world before they'd gotten their orders to help start up the Sentinel pilot program. He was pretty sure they hadn't ever expected to see one another again. But, since they'd both popped on the surreptitious sweep of blood samples, they'd found themselves in close quarters again. Small damned world.
Still, if their teams could work together with Canwulf's they could work with anybody. Besides, their not so subtle competition was good for them. Kept them and their teams on that razor's edge he was always talking about.
He figured eventually Caroline and Max would sort their own shit out. Hopefully before it got them or their men killed.
Giving up on psychoanalyzing his people (and why bother, when their psych files were right in front of him, anyway), he pushed himself back from his desk and grabbed the folders, resigning himself to an evening of not so light reading as he made his way down to Sub2 and his quarters.
It was going to be a long night.
-------------------
Bobby turned silently onto the long drive off of Greymalkin, watching in the rear view of the Lincoln as the majestic gates swing shut behind them in the dead early winter morning.
For his part, Ronnie didn't even look back, didn't look up at the house, didn't really look much of anywhere. His eyes stared rigidly forward, had for most of the last hour. Bobby knew what he was thinking.
They had really done it, they had really disowned him. Maybe not disowned so much as put away. Just like Bobby.
Ronnie had told him a little about what had happened, but not much. Just that he and his parents had argued over where the best place for him was, and they had decided it was best for him to be with “other people like you”.
Bobby had sat in the driveway for all of about ten minutes when he got to the house in Boston, that's all the time it had taken. Ronnie had come out looking haggard, like he hadn't slept in days and hadn't eaten in just as long. His jeans hung from his hip bones, and his maroon hoody fit him like a burlap sack. Bobby wondered for a second what the hell was going on, but let it slide.
He could see the outlines of his parents in the screen door, but they didn't venture outside, didn't even wave. Bobby was surprised he didn't feel even a pang of the old shame. Like that had happened to someone else, or just wasn't important anymore.
Ronnie had stalked down the sidewalk without looking back once.
He'd dropped a duffel bag in the back seat without preamble and just sat down and strapped his seatbelt on without a word.
“That it?” Bobby had said, gesturing at the bag in the back seat.
“It's all I need” he'd replied quietly.
Ronnie had always been a pack rat, kind of like their mom, but instead of hoarding knick knacks, he'd hoarded pretty much everything of Bobby's he'd been able to get his hands on. Bobby was pretty sure Ronnie still had Mr. Rumplestein, his old teddy bear, up in his closet somewhere.
After he'd gone away to school, Ronnie had snagged most of his old toys, his video games, even his skis. He'd asked his mother what was going on with him once, when he'd been home for Easter. He didn't resent the intrusion or anything, was really kind of curious. Ronnie had all of his own stuff, he didn't any of Bobby's, not really. She'd told him with a small smile that Ronnie never played with Bobby's toys, just had them. She'd thought it was cute.
Bobby hadn't said anything about it.
Now, Ronnie had reduced himself to a single duffel bag. Bobby studied his face carefully before putting the car in reverse. His eyes practically burned, and he could tell he must have been crying earlier. His hair was buzzed almost to his skull, and his mouth was set in a firm, grim line. His face had filled out some, and so had his body, but he was still too thin. Bobby figured he must be pretty depressed. Ronnie had always been just as voracious an eater as he himself had. Their mutant metabolism consumed an ungodly amount of calories, and they required nearly twice as much fuel as a baseline human to stay healthy. His mother hadn't mentioned anything about how bad off Ronnie was when she called him this morning.
The phone call was a complete surprise. Ever since Alkali Lake, they kept their interactions to an absolute minimum. He hadn't been home since the day John had burned their front lawn down. The Professor had done as much damage control as he had dared after they returned, even in the midst of his grief over Dr. Grey. And even though he'd offered to break his own rules, and remove the events of that afternoon from their minds, Bobby had refused. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted them to remember. Some part of him wanted them to hate him, he supposed. That was a long time ago now, but it was a little too late for anything to be done about it.
He very rarely even thought of them any more. Made the requisite phone calls on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, called Ronnie on his birthday, but other than that, they really had nothing to do with one another.
She'd hedged and hemmed around it for close to thirty minutes before finally just getting to the point, which basically boiled down to “your brother is a mutant too. Can you come down here and get him? Take him up there where you people live?” She had actually said “you people”. Stated that it would be better for him to live his brother right now along with the other usual bullshit concocted to make her feel better about punting her defective offspring to the proverbial side of the road. Bobby didn't even try to conceal his disgust with her. Maybe he'd been with John too long. He knew she could hear his scorn despite his supportive words, but she didn't comment on it, just cut her verbiage to a minimum.
Bobby told her he'd be up there in a few hours. It hadn't even occurred to him to say no. He wasn't sure why. Just grabbed the first set of keys he got his hands on and kissed John, telling him he'd be back late and headed for the door. In retrospect, he figured he probably should have said something, but there was a kind of numb glaze over his thoughts as pulled out of the drive. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, or how he'd react to seeing Ronnie again after so long. And while John might be able to take that sort of thing in stride these days, Bobby wasn't sure he was.
Now he looked over at Ronnie and said, "Hey, we're home." as he hit the garage door opener and took the car inside, sliding it neatly into it's slot next to Logan's incongruous Jeep. He grabbed his IPOD from the console as he got out. He and John could have gotten another one, but had kind of silently agreed to just have the one. He'd heard about it at length when he'd forgotten to take it out of the car and Pete had taken it to see his folks in Brighton Beach.
As he keyed in the security code on the door panel, he watched Ronnie grab his bag out of the back seat and come up to stand behind him.
He didn't say anything. Bobby hadn't really expected him to. The whole ride had passed in monosyllabic almost dialogue.
"Hey, stopping for gas, you need to hit he restroom?"
"Yeah."
"Gonna grab a sandwich, you hungry?"
"No."
And so one. Bobby figured he just needed to find his footing.
As they crossed the house Bobby pointed out where things were, the kitchens, the rec rooms, the computer lab, et cetera until they came to Wanda's office. Inside, he took a quick look through the rosters to see which rooms were open. Ronnie just followed silently after him, nearly a ghost in his hoody and jeans.
If the layout was a little different than he remembered, Ronnie didn't say anything. Bobby had never told his family how much his life had been changed by the Shadow King, how much everything had. Hadn't seemed like it would matter to them even if he had.
"Trying to find you a room", Bobby said after he had booted up the computer and logged in.
"I'm not rooming with you?"
Bobby froze for a second,finger stopping the trackball on the mouse as he turned his head to focus on Ronnie.
"Uh, no. I have a room mate, Ronnie. John." Bobby braced himself.
"Can you switch?" There was no recognition in Ronnie's eyes at John's name. Huh.
"Not exactly, it's a little more complicated than that, buddy." Bobby almost whispered.
"Like, he's in a wheelchair or something complicated, or something else?" Funny that Bobby had only now noticed that Ronnie's voice had deepened with puberty.
"Something else. Look, I'm...He's..." Bobby trailed off for a second as Ronnie's forehead wrinkled. Ronnie wasn't getting it. He figured that might me a little too much to lay on him just now. Okay, better part of valor then. For Ronnie's sake. Right.
"We'll all talk about it tomorrow, okay? For now, let's just get you into a room with a bed and get some sleep. You're going to need to meet with Wanda, and Warren if he's around. They'll get the paperwork squared away, and then we'll get you settled in. Okay?"
Ronnie nodded, obviously trying not to look disappointed. Bobby sighed and stood up, cracking his back in a long stretch.
"Okay, looks like you got one all to yourself. Second floor, I'll show you." As they left the office, he hit the lights and closed the door, shouldering Ronnie's bag.
They made their way up the stairs to the second floor landing and Bobby paused a moment. Something felt...off. He looked around the hall at everything, cocking his head to the side and listening.
"Bobby?" Ronnie asked, his voice not quite scared, more curious.
"Just a sec, buddy, lemme check on something." He started up the stairs again, heading to the first door on the left, he and John's room.
Opening the door, he could see pretty well in the dimly lit room. Like most of the mansion's residents these days, John kept a night light. Bobby pretended he didn't say anything because he was humoring John, not because he needed it just as badly. It wasn't like a kid's Superman light or anything. Just an innocuous little blue plugin.
Bobby could navigate by memory just as easily.
As a matter of habit, he kept the floor clear of obstructions, early on, John had spent the better part of three month's in between a wheelchair and crutches, and the habit of making sure nothing got in the way had sort of stuck with them.
Now, he could see John's indistinct form laying on top of the comforter. He walked up to the bed and sat down on John's side, running his fingers through his hair. John must have been having a nightmare. His eyes were rolling under his sockets and he was sweating in the cool air. Bobby kissed his forehead and drew back, shaking his shoulder. Something felt really, really off.
"John? John wake up, you're dreaming." He shook a little more vigorously.
John's eyes snapped open and shot straight up, face contorted in a rictus of absolute horror. Snapping his head back at an angle that was all agony, he loosed a shrieking howl. Bobby gasped, the scream was coming from almost every room on this floor. John's eyes weren't focusing as he continued to scream, lost in whatever horror his mind was playing out for him. A dim flash of dull pink light shone in his eyes as they rolled back into his sockets and he collapsed back on the bed, convulsing. Bobby's blood went cold in his veins.
"FUCK! EMMA!"
He bolted out of the room and almost directly into Ronnie. Must have followed him up. No time to worry about what he'd seen just now. He had bigger problems than being outed to his little brother. Bobby raced down the hall, Ronnie pelting right after him.
"What the hell was that? Jesus Bobby, what's going on" Ronnie's voice was full of the fear it had lacked earlier. The screams hadn't stopped, if anything gaining momentum around them. Bobby could feel his own heartbeat in his temple as he answered over his shoulder.
"Betts is having a nightmare".
-----------
She couldn't look away. It held her with It's host's lambent crimson eyes, a smirk on It's face.
She tried to stand all the same, mustering her waning strength, fighting against the smothering weight that threatened to drown her senses.
She could feel It's amusement.
The host's voice was almost kind, as though speaking to a child. He was barely more than that himself. Couldn't have been more than mid-teens.
"Go on, sweetling. Push. Rage. Fight." It was inches from her face now, smiling beautifully into her eyes as It's cold, white fingers stroked her cheek. Around her, she could see nothing. There was only the Lasting Dark, and It. The Shadow King. It stepped back, still smiling. A strange kind of boiling shape flickered in an out of her perception above It, too terrible for her to grasp completely. An impression of eyes, each at least two feet wide, and a mouth, a hideous grinning mouth...
She snapped her eyes down to the knees she couldn't see, to the hands she could almost feel folded in her lap, anywhere but up at It. Terror leant her strength.
She thrust aginst the void with all the power she could muster, pushing back the dark an inch at a time until she knelt in a tiny ring of light, the good hardwood floors finally visible beneath her. Illusion, it was an illusion she screamed to herself. She pushed again.
"No." It said, voice still full and sickly sweet, honeyed syrup distilled from nitric acid.
Abpruptly the shadows roared back from the edges of the tiny sanctuary she had made, crushing her beneath their impossible weight. She tried to scream, but the sound died in her throat, the thunder of her pounding heart growing faint to even her own ears. She made a desperate attempt to control her breathing, slow herself, THINK.
"Try again, dear one. Keep trying. Try forever." It was behind her now, It's hands in her hair, stroking gently, It's lips on her ear. Instinctively, her body tried to recoil.
It chuckled fondly.
She had to get away from It, had to find the others, had to get the children to safety, she had to...
"Ah. So much concern for them, so much devotion." It was disgusting to her how It's words never contained a hint of menace. Like a warm, soothing poisonous rain.
"Since you're so preoccupied with their fate, I think you should share it with them..." It mused, kneeling in front of her, nose to nose, eye to eye. She couldn't move, she could barely breathe.
"Come, see what you're missing, dear one." And It's crimson eyes flashed, washing her in profane red light, It's lips were on hers, breathing that ravenous Darkness into her...
//She/He had done well. All five of the flimsy little humans were dead. She/He had left nothing behind. A happy purring growl rolled in her/his deep chest as she/he strode into the warehouse. The King had promised her/him a rich reward if she/he did well.
There, on the ramshackle table was a tiny bundle, a sky blue blanket wrapping the struggling pink form of an infant, the scent filling her/his nostrils was intoxicating. She/He smiled.
Making a mewl of hunger, she/he lurched forward, taloned hands reaching, mouth cracked wide and ready to feast...
//The roofs of these shitholes were always the same generic crappy gravel, she/mused, lighting a cigarette. She/he wandered to the edge of the building, looking down at the street, and the apartment complex beyond it. Already hard, she/he ran a shaking hand over the bulge in her/his jeans, making a noise that was close to a moan. The Rage was roiling in her/his body, eager to slip through the bars of this meat cage and visit itself on the world. She/he could feel a grin split her/his face. A last drag off the Camel, an upraised wrist, and it began.
A great leaping spiral of orange heat and lust and fury that crashed down into the beveled windows of the apartment directly across from her/him. And another, and another, and another.
She/he could feel the laughter shaking her/his body, but couldn't hear it over the roaring flames. The hardness in her/his jeans goaded her/him on. She/He felt it in her/his veins like thunder, like the best fuck she/he'd ever had, like the voice of a god, like the embrace of a tsunami, it was everything, it was pure and perfect and good, and it was unstoppable.
The screams finally reached her/his ears, but she/he paid no attention, no longer slinging the flames, just guiding them, ecstasy rolling through her/him in waves. Her/His face hurt from the tight grin spread across it as the Will of the King moved through her/him, touching her/him everywhere, as complete and perfect and profund as the Fire itself...
//She glanced to either side of herself, counting heads. Yes, there were enough. There were so many here. It was good.
She knelt down on the filthy floor of the food court and crossed herself, praying to the One True God. Consecrating herself, these people, this Act of Faith. A few heads turned, not many. It made her smile.
She stood, throwing her arms out as though reaching, embracing, spinning slowly at first, and gaining momentum. Faster and faster, and she began to dissolve, her joyous laughter filling the cavernous space around her as she shed her flesh and became Dust, flinging herself out to spread as far as she could reach. Pelting the bodies around her with countless scouring beads of herself, stripping away skin and meat and sinew, sucking the moisture from them and leaving them empty dry husks. They fell like bags of dried leather around her, within her. Dozens, now a hundred. More.
But not all of them.
Enough must remain. A Tale must be told, Witness must stand yet to speak of this new Act of God. Their Fear was vital. The One True God would grow fat on it, spreading his loving embrace to the whole world.
Soon would come the Last Dawn, and with it, the Lasting Dark. The One True God had shown her, and it would Be.
//
She fell to the floor, the stink of her own vomit assaulting her nostrils as she reeled from the vista of horrors.
Her friends, her students, her Family...minds riddled with It's taint like wormwood, aware and unaware at the same time, recoiling in horror at what they were doing but marching forward eagerly to do it...
"Yes." It said slowly, It's smile now smug.
She rolled onto her back, as good as bearing her throat to It, and glared her defiance up into those rubied eyes.
It's laughter was a chainsaw in a hospital nursery, jagged and awful and unspeakably wrong and it reached down, putting a hand over her eyes. The Lasting Dark poured into her, tore a sound from her so primal and animal that she could feel her throat shredding from the inside. It didn't stop, chortling to Itself as It raped her...
//
"God damn it woman, WAKE THE FUCK UP!" Bobby could hear Emma's desperate voice accompanied by a sharp, if momentary stab of pain behind his forehead. He knelt on the bed with John, Ronnie looking on from next to the endtable as Bobby kept saying nonsensical bullshit over and over again. The kind of reassuring nonsense that people always end up saying to someone in pain, even if they know it won't do a fucking bit of good. Ronnie shot a hand to his brow and winced, looking around wildly.
"It's okay, buddy. Just Emma trying to wake Betts up and make this stop. It's not her fault, she's had a rough time. Just...Just don't be afraid." He gripped Ronnie's shoulder and looked him in the eyes, trying to convey what he was feeling, meaning, the best he could. Ronnie swallowed loudly and just nodded.
John's convulsions stopped abruptly, his body sagging against the sheets like puppet whose strings had been cut. Bobby noted distantly that he'd pissed himself during the last fit. Checking his pulse and breathing with a surprisingly steady hand, Bobby nodded to himself as he started to strip John out of his t-shirt and shorts.
"Ronnie, at the end of the hall is a big closet with linens and blankets in it, could you grab some and start handing putting it out by the doors in the hallway?" Bobby's voice sounded startlingly calm to his own ears. He looked up at Ronnie, pale, terrified, confused Ronnie, who just nodded and headed for the door.
"Thanks, buddy". Bobby said after him. He looked down at John, finally breathing steady and sound, lost in the deep sleep of the truly exhausted. He got up, rolling John gently to the side and stripping the bed and underfoam from beneath him, wadding it up and tossing it in a corner. Grabbing a washcloth from the bathroom, he went back and cleaned John up, tossing the rag over with the linens. He grabbed some fresh clothes from John's dresser and got some sweats on him.
Ronnie came back in, walking slowly as though unsure of himself.
"I don't think any of the stuff in there is gonna fit his bed.." His voice was subdued.
"No, we keep our own stuff in the closet in here." Bobby responded while he pulled the T-shirt over John's unresisting head.
Ronnie hadn't been listening, instead, his eyes sharpened and he looked as he looked over at the prone form on the bed.
"Is that..." Ronnie swallowed again. "Is that the same guy from the house that day." Bobby didn't pretend to not know what Ronnie was talking about. Instead, he sighed and got John's arms through his shirt.
"Yeah, Ronnie, it is. This is my partner, John." Finished, he stood up and walked over by the door, where Ronnie had retreated. The look of total confusion on his face would have been funny at any other time.
"Your..." Ronnie got that wrinkle over his eyebrows again.
"Parnter. Boyfriend. Lover. Mate. Whatever. We're together these days Ronnie, and a hell of a lot has happened that you guys never knew about. So much...I don't even know where to fucking begin." Bobby stood there watching Ronnie walk his fingers across the doorjamb, mouth gaping open like a fish and closing and opening again.
Bobby reached forward and put his hand on Ronnie's shoulder again, bracing himself for the flinch he knew was probably coming.
To his credit, Ronnie didn't back away. He just stood there wordlessly as he tried to process everything that had happened to him in the last twenty four hours and coming up with a blank.
"Look, buddy. We are going to talk about this, and I'll tell you everything if you want to hear it, but right now, the younger kids need us to take care of them, and we need to get to it, okay?"
Ronnie didn't say anything, just blinked a few times and nodded.
"Okay. So, help me get the rest of this linen put out and let's see if anyone needs anything."
Bobby could already hear Sam crying and Toby saying something in the room across the hall.
Sighing, he put his arm around his little brother's shoulders and got to work.
It was going to be a long damned day.
So, I considered making the first part a seperate entry, but then decided against it for reasons that will eventually (I hope) become clear. Thanks for reading all, and I hope to be sticking with this a little more regularly now. Feedback is always welcome, positive or negative, as I've only just gotten back on this and am actually writing it at sea. lol.