meow meow meow meow...
I must say, of all the versions of "Carol of the Bells" that I have acquired, Guster's "Carol of the Meows" is truly the best.
Anyway. Code Blue updates early this week, as I will be gone all of tomorrow and Friday for a very British Thanksgiving with my uncle and his family. Happy Turkey Day to all you Americans out there, and everyone else for that matter. :D
And with this, my autumn writing notebook is completely full.
Title: Code Blue Part I (11/13?)
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Wordcount: 2,483
A/N: Are you proud of me for my wordcount, Faery-jess? XD This was written almost exclusively while listening to "Get Out Alive" by... er... Three Days Grace. >.> And in between NaNo and everything else. Yet it managed to exist.
Previous Chapters
That morning, Watanuki woke up to the feeling that something had abruptly changed. After taking stock of his position, he began to understand why. He didn’t remember lying down in his usual corner or making up the bed, but there it was and here he was. He suspected that these anomalies were all Doumeki’s doing, and muttered to himself about intrusions on people’s privacy but without too much actual anger. After all, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up so warm.
After a few minutes of this train of thought, he remembered his schedule for the day and forgot all about smaller and less significant events in favour of the nagging fear that had returned full force. Despite his brave intentions, when he really thought about matters he was absolutely terrified of what could happen to him at the doctor’s hands. And what if Kyle had learned about Doumeki, assuming he didn’t already? What would he do? Beyond that, the chances that Watanuki would even survive the next experiment were not so high. He’d lost far more blood than he had thought possible last time. In fact, he had seen others die of less blood loss. He wondered if Doumeki had noticed the same thing, and decided he would rather not ask.
Assuming he even lived to do so…
Watanuki, having gotten up and dressed and now on his way to the main building, paused at this thought. He’d always known that death was a possibility but it had never hit home like this before - he could die. He didn’t want to die. But in the end, wanting something had never really brought him closer to achieving it. He didn’t want to die - but had that ever stopped anyone?
And as if to make matters worse, a hand was placed on his shoulder at that moment with the doctor himself attached to the other end. “So wisdom won out in the end,” Kyle commented. “A word more of wisdom from personal experience, Watanuki…don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Especially in the matter of your own life. The least of your troubles will be that you then owe it to them.” He smiled condescendingly. “I am impressed, though. You did end up possessing a force of will. I had wondered.”
They’d continued walking - or rather, Kyle had continued to steer Watanuki in his desired direction - and had now reached the door to the main building. “I will meet you in the designated laboratory,” he told his indentured servant as if the agreement was mutual. “I have a small matter to take care of first. It should not consume too much of my time.” He closed the door behind Watanuki, leaving the boy alone in the dimly-lit entrance hall.
Clearly Watanuki was intended to do as the doctor had said, and up until this moment he had been resigned to doing so. The doctor certainly expected it. But something about that comment on his “force of will” had rubbed him altogether in the wrong way, so for a moment he simply stood there, a rebellious urge to run away fighting fiercely with his better judgment. Then his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he kept going, passing into the corridor that would eventually lead him to the lab elevator. There was nothing he could do now. It was too late to change his mind about last night’s decision, or so he thought for another five reluctant steps.
Then someone - and Watanuki had a good idea who, or would have if he had thought about it - jumped out at him from somewhere and dragged him into a corner. “Keep quiet,” said someone hissed in Doumeki’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Watanuki in a whisper.
“Holding you to your word. I told you that either you would disobey Kyle and not be a part of that experiment, or you would tell me why you felt you couldn’t.” Doumeki turned to the wall and started fiddling with what appeared to be an empty space. “You’re a horrible liar, you know,” he added as an afterthought.
Watanuki wanted desperately to deny this, but that would mean acknowledging that he had in fact lied about what Kyle had done and he wasn’t willing to give up that battle. But there was also no point in pretending that he had not lied, and so once again he found himself at a loss for a suitable response. He wondered if that had been Doumeki’s goal, or simply a side effect of a yet undiscovered purpose. It would be like him to plan for something like that.
The area of wall in front of Doumeki suddenly swung open to reveal a large and rectangular passage. “The air vent,” the boy explained shortly. “Come on.”
“But,” Watanuki began to protest, stopping when he realized he still had nothing to follow it up with.
Doumeki responded by pulling him to the front of the air vent. “You’ll die,” he stated, and his grip on Watanuki’s shoulders suddenly grew far too tight. “If you go to that lab today, you’re as good as dead.” With that, he pushed Watanuki backwards into the vent, climbed in after, and shut the trapdoor behind them. “So you’re not going.”
Well, Watanuki thought dazedly, at least I’m not going to die yet. I’m not going to die. This thought buoyed him as he tried to ignore the tight, dark space. I’m not going to die, he told himself as he began to shake, and he thought this as fiercely as he could until he calmed.
“What now?” he demanded aloud.
“I have one more thing to do here,” Doumeki replied with the closest thing to disgust Watanuki had ever heard in his voice, and at the same time pushed him father up the vent. “Then we’re getting out of here.”
Watanuki whipped his head around. “Are you insane?” he demanded. “It’s impossible! It can’t be done! It’s even harder getting out than it is to get in, and that when Kyle isn’t expecting an escape attempt!”
“I got out,” Doumeki interjected.
“With two people?”
“How do you know that escaping is impossible?”
Watanuki scowled. “You think I never tried to escape? There’s a reason I know better now, and that is experience!” He caught himself before increasing his volume, and took a barely calming breath. “When they caught me, Kyle went around with me and pointed out various defense mechanisms, explain exactly how each one would stop me from getting out. I know better than anyone how impossible it is to escape alive when they’re all activated. There’s no way.”
“You know them all?” Doumeki inquired, rare interest colouring his voice.
“Do you think Kyle is really that stupid?” the other boy retorted.
“The question is: does he think you are?”
Watanuki digested this. Sense of pride aside, he had to admit that the doctor seemed to have a very low opinion of his intelligence. But even as such, Kyle would never make the mistake of trusting someone who had no reason at all to be loyal to him but fear with all the information about his defense systems. There was no way. Watanuki shook his head.
“It wouldn’t make a difference.” Turning back, he kept moving upwards, hearing behind him the dulled sounds of Doumeki following behind. I’m not going to die, he told himself once more.
After a long time spent crawling through the vents, Watanuki feeling more and more claustrophobic with each passing second until his mantra was almost insufficient to keep the reaction at bay, a light could be seen from the top of the vent. “There’s a safe room there,” Doumeki whispered. “Push it open and climb up.”
Watanuki did so, and the other boy stuck his head in. “Stay here,” he said. “As I said, I have something to do. Then we’re getting out of here.” He hesitated a moment, as if he had something else to say, but then dropped back down and pulled the ventilation cover down over his head. Watanuki watched the opening for a moment more and then paced over to the other side of the room. The lights flickered from disuse or age or something of the sort. There didn’t seem to be an entrance other than the air vent, an observation that was both comforting and ominous to consider.
But the layout seemed familiar in this, almost like…
Watanuki stopped that thought in its tracks, convinced that it could lead nowhere good by the sudden adrenaline rush he experienced. He wasn’t sure what it specifically this room reminded him of, but he didn’t particularly want to find out. Now was not the time for a breakdown or panic attack.
But thankfully before he could think any more about that subject, a distraction presented itself. “Watanuki,” greeted a familiar voice, and the boy in question whirled to come face-to-face to the spirit woman. “Watanuki, what are you doing in here?”
“Waiting for that bastard Doumeki,” he muttered. “But wait - didn’t you - aren’t you -”
“Those that pass on may return,” she said. “Most don’t see a point in doing so, though. Would you?”
Watanuki considered. “Not really,” he decided. “Not to here.”
“But I came for a reason,” the woman continued. “You can’t stay here. The doctor will grow impatient - already he’d pacing and muttering curses at his cameras. You’re safe for now in this room, but he’ll most likely begin to send his guards after you sooner rather than later. I only saw him recently…” She trailed off, glancing behind her at the wall.
“What?” Watanuki asked.
“Be quiet,” she advised. “And run, Watanuki. I heard something…rapid footsteps, perhaps?”
“But -” Watanuki broke off, hearing for himself the muffled sound of footsteps and what sounded like muttering. “How?”
“Here,” the woman told him, brushing discorporate fingers against a small catch on one wall. “This will get you out of this room. Be careful, don’t give your location away. And don’t worry about me, or him. He’ll get to wherever you are eventually. Now go!”
“I don’t care what happens to Doumeki!” Watanuki protested, absolutely not untruthfully at all or in any way. His subconscious could shut it now, thank you very much.
“Go!” the spirit woman urged as the footsteps grew louder. Watanuki went.
--
Doumeki climbed out of the air vent just inside his destination of one of Kyle’s laboratories and blinked in the albeit dim light. The room looked to be deserted, but he was not going to take any chances if he could help it. Silently, he pulled from his bag a certain object he’d been given last time he’d contacted another of his associates, and inched forward to the central fixation of this particular laboratory: a large generator. What Kyle needed it for he had know idea, though he dearly would love to know. But it was definitely dangerous, so he took care to refrain from touching it with his bare skin or too roughly. Using a pair of rubber gloves, he eased open one of the maintenance hatches and placed the object he held inside. The door closed with a faint thud, all but drowned out by the much louder sound of the laboratory door slamming shut.
“So my guest kindly presents himself to me at long last,” commented a voice that made Doumeki instantly freeze. It had a very pleasant ring to it, but was instantly recognisable as Doctor Kyle’s. “I had been wondering when you would. You’ve been causing me no end of trouble, I hope you realise.”
Resisting the ‘fight or flight’ instinct had always come easily to Doumeki, but right now he wanted nothing more than to bash the doctor’s face in. Irrational, he told himself, and instead calmly turned to face the doctor and tensed, ready to vacate the spot he stood in should the need arise.
Kyle did not seem interested in a fight yet, however. “I assume that you are the one who has inspired my servant’s recent rebellious streak. A true pity - I had the boy so effectively afraid to step out of line, and now he’s blatantly disobeying me and ignoring my orders. I shall need to re-teach him.” Then the doctor smiled, and Doumeki had to double his mental efforts to remain stock still. “Even so, I must thank you. I did err on the side of laziness last time I worked on the fool, and if not for your unexpected aid he would certainly have bled to death. And it certainly would have been a crime to lose the only body that has responded positively to the experiment, even in the name of science.”
The man was insane.
Doumeki had supposed this, but it was thing to think it and quite another to be presented with the chilling reality of the matter. Kyle was crazy, per se - this cold, calculating insanity was far too well-organised for that. Crazy would have been easier to deal with. But the doctor’s mental state was far more dangerous.
Maybe Watanuki was right, Doumeki thought, but shook the doubt off. He didn’t ever give up on a job. Even when faced with a deranged pseudo-mad-scientist doctor. Especially when said doctor was threatening the life of one Doumeki had resigned himself to being a friend. That itself was reason enough to keep going.
“Your actions do seem to be… rather extreme for one man’s single story,” continued Kyle. “Even if he does possess a great deal of knowledge about myself and my operations. One cannot help but wonder what other motives you might have, and while I can guess, I suppose I should not go so far as to be certain.” He took a step closer; Doumeki brought his own hand to where his gun was lodged. “Excellent reflexes,” Kyle said approvingly. “You’re almost the perfect man for the job.”
“Almost?” Doumeki asked in the slight hope that Kyle would be foolish enough to give away an advantage.
“You’ve developed an attachment.” Kyle smirked. “Now, I would say to tell your employer ‘hello’ for me, but you’ll be in no condition to do that. And even if you do manage to leave, somehow, it will not for quite a while.”
Doumeki raised an eyebrow, and the doctor gestured to the wall on his left side. There was a row of security camera screens, and whether by fate or Kyle’s doing the boy turned his gaze just in time to see Watanuki sprint through one and then another a split second later. Shit, he thought, and took a firm step backwards, towards the other door. Then several things happened in rapid progression.
Kyle’s arm flashed through the air, and the room was suddenly filled with a deafening bang.
The floor where Doumeki had stood slowly stained red.
A door screamed open and slammed shut.
Anyway. Code Blue updates early this week, as I will be gone all of tomorrow and Friday for a very British Thanksgiving with my uncle and his family. Happy Turkey Day to all you Americans out there, and everyone else for that matter. :D
And with this, my autumn writing notebook is completely full.
Title: Code Blue Part I (11/13?)
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Wordcount: 2,483
A/N: Are you proud of me for my wordcount, Faery-jess? XD This was written almost exclusively while listening to "Get Out Alive" by... er... Three Days Grace. >.> And in between NaNo and everything else. Yet it managed to exist.
Previous Chapters
That morning, Watanuki woke up to the feeling that something had abruptly changed. After taking stock of his position, he began to understand why. He didn’t remember lying down in his usual corner or making up the bed, but there it was and here he was. He suspected that these anomalies were all Doumeki’s doing, and muttered to himself about intrusions on people’s privacy but without too much actual anger. After all, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up so warm.
After a few minutes of this train of thought, he remembered his schedule for the day and forgot all about smaller and less significant events in favour of the nagging fear that had returned full force. Despite his brave intentions, when he really thought about matters he was absolutely terrified of what could happen to him at the doctor’s hands. And what if Kyle had learned about Doumeki, assuming he didn’t already? What would he do? Beyond that, the chances that Watanuki would even survive the next experiment were not so high. He’d lost far more blood than he had thought possible last time. In fact, he had seen others die of less blood loss. He wondered if Doumeki had noticed the same thing, and decided he would rather not ask.
Assuming he even lived to do so…
Watanuki, having gotten up and dressed and now on his way to the main building, paused at this thought. He’d always known that death was a possibility but it had never hit home like this before - he could die. He didn’t want to die. But in the end, wanting something had never really brought him closer to achieving it. He didn’t want to die - but had that ever stopped anyone?
And as if to make matters worse, a hand was placed on his shoulder at that moment with the doctor himself attached to the other end. “So wisdom won out in the end,” Kyle commented. “A word more of wisdom from personal experience, Watanuki…don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Especially in the matter of your own life. The least of your troubles will be that you then owe it to them.” He smiled condescendingly. “I am impressed, though. You did end up possessing a force of will. I had wondered.”
They’d continued walking - or rather, Kyle had continued to steer Watanuki in his desired direction - and had now reached the door to the main building. “I will meet you in the designated laboratory,” he told his indentured servant as if the agreement was mutual. “I have a small matter to take care of first. It should not consume too much of my time.” He closed the door behind Watanuki, leaving the boy alone in the dimly-lit entrance hall.
Clearly Watanuki was intended to do as the doctor had said, and up until this moment he had been resigned to doing so. The doctor certainly expected it. But something about that comment on his “force of will” had rubbed him altogether in the wrong way, so for a moment he simply stood there, a rebellious urge to run away fighting fiercely with his better judgment. Then his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he kept going, passing into the corridor that would eventually lead him to the lab elevator. There was nothing he could do now. It was too late to change his mind about last night’s decision, or so he thought for another five reluctant steps.
Then someone - and Watanuki had a good idea who, or would have if he had thought about it - jumped out at him from somewhere and dragged him into a corner. “Keep quiet,” said someone hissed in Doumeki’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Watanuki in a whisper.
“Holding you to your word. I told you that either you would disobey Kyle and not be a part of that experiment, or you would tell me why you felt you couldn’t.” Doumeki turned to the wall and started fiddling with what appeared to be an empty space. “You’re a horrible liar, you know,” he added as an afterthought.
Watanuki wanted desperately to deny this, but that would mean acknowledging that he had in fact lied about what Kyle had done and he wasn’t willing to give up that battle. But there was also no point in pretending that he had not lied, and so once again he found himself at a loss for a suitable response. He wondered if that had been Doumeki’s goal, or simply a side effect of a yet undiscovered purpose. It would be like him to plan for something like that.
The area of wall in front of Doumeki suddenly swung open to reveal a large and rectangular passage. “The air vent,” the boy explained shortly. “Come on.”
“But,” Watanuki began to protest, stopping when he realized he still had nothing to follow it up with.
Doumeki responded by pulling him to the front of the air vent. “You’ll die,” he stated, and his grip on Watanuki’s shoulders suddenly grew far too tight. “If you go to that lab today, you’re as good as dead.” With that, he pushed Watanuki backwards into the vent, climbed in after, and shut the trapdoor behind them. “So you’re not going.”
Well, Watanuki thought dazedly, at least I’m not going to die yet. I’m not going to die. This thought buoyed him as he tried to ignore the tight, dark space. I’m not going to die, he told himself as he began to shake, and he thought this as fiercely as he could until he calmed.
“What now?” he demanded aloud.
“I have one more thing to do here,” Doumeki replied with the closest thing to disgust Watanuki had ever heard in his voice, and at the same time pushed him father up the vent. “Then we’re getting out of here.”
Watanuki whipped his head around. “Are you insane?” he demanded. “It’s impossible! It can’t be done! It’s even harder getting out than it is to get in, and that when Kyle isn’t expecting an escape attempt!”
“I got out,” Doumeki interjected.
“With two people?”
“How do you know that escaping is impossible?”
Watanuki scowled. “You think I never tried to escape? There’s a reason I know better now, and that is experience!” He caught himself before increasing his volume, and took a barely calming breath. “When they caught me, Kyle went around with me and pointed out various defense mechanisms, explain exactly how each one would stop me from getting out. I know better than anyone how impossible it is to escape alive when they’re all activated. There’s no way.”
“You know them all?” Doumeki inquired, rare interest colouring his voice.
“Do you think Kyle is really that stupid?” the other boy retorted.
“The question is: does he think you are?”
Watanuki digested this. Sense of pride aside, he had to admit that the doctor seemed to have a very low opinion of his intelligence. But even as such, Kyle would never make the mistake of trusting someone who had no reason at all to be loyal to him but fear with all the information about his defense systems. There was no way. Watanuki shook his head.
“It wouldn’t make a difference.” Turning back, he kept moving upwards, hearing behind him the dulled sounds of Doumeki following behind. I’m not going to die, he told himself once more.
After a long time spent crawling through the vents, Watanuki feeling more and more claustrophobic with each passing second until his mantra was almost insufficient to keep the reaction at bay, a light could be seen from the top of the vent. “There’s a safe room there,” Doumeki whispered. “Push it open and climb up.”
Watanuki did so, and the other boy stuck his head in. “Stay here,” he said. “As I said, I have something to do. Then we’re getting out of here.” He hesitated a moment, as if he had something else to say, but then dropped back down and pulled the ventilation cover down over his head. Watanuki watched the opening for a moment more and then paced over to the other side of the room. The lights flickered from disuse or age or something of the sort. There didn’t seem to be an entrance other than the air vent, an observation that was both comforting and ominous to consider.
But the layout seemed familiar in this, almost like…
Watanuki stopped that thought in its tracks, convinced that it could lead nowhere good by the sudden adrenaline rush he experienced. He wasn’t sure what it specifically this room reminded him of, but he didn’t particularly want to find out. Now was not the time for a breakdown or panic attack.
But thankfully before he could think any more about that subject, a distraction presented itself. “Watanuki,” greeted a familiar voice, and the boy in question whirled to come face-to-face to the spirit woman. “Watanuki, what are you doing in here?”
“Waiting for that bastard Doumeki,” he muttered. “But wait - didn’t you - aren’t you -”
“Those that pass on may return,” she said. “Most don’t see a point in doing so, though. Would you?”
Watanuki considered. “Not really,” he decided. “Not to here.”
“But I came for a reason,” the woman continued. “You can’t stay here. The doctor will grow impatient - already he’d pacing and muttering curses at his cameras. You’re safe for now in this room, but he’ll most likely begin to send his guards after you sooner rather than later. I only saw him recently…” She trailed off, glancing behind her at the wall.
“What?” Watanuki asked.
“Be quiet,” she advised. “And run, Watanuki. I heard something…rapid footsteps, perhaps?”
“But -” Watanuki broke off, hearing for himself the muffled sound of footsteps and what sounded like muttering. “How?”
“Here,” the woman told him, brushing discorporate fingers against a small catch on one wall. “This will get you out of this room. Be careful, don’t give your location away. And don’t worry about me, or him. He’ll get to wherever you are eventually. Now go!”
“I don’t care what happens to Doumeki!” Watanuki protested, absolutely not untruthfully at all or in any way. His subconscious could shut it now, thank you very much.
“Go!” the spirit woman urged as the footsteps grew louder. Watanuki went.
--
Doumeki climbed out of the air vent just inside his destination of one of Kyle’s laboratories and blinked in the albeit dim light. The room looked to be deserted, but he was not going to take any chances if he could help it. Silently, he pulled from his bag a certain object he’d been given last time he’d contacted another of his associates, and inched forward to the central fixation of this particular laboratory: a large generator. What Kyle needed it for he had know idea, though he dearly would love to know. But it was definitely dangerous, so he took care to refrain from touching it with his bare skin or too roughly. Using a pair of rubber gloves, he eased open one of the maintenance hatches and placed the object he held inside. The door closed with a faint thud, all but drowned out by the much louder sound of the laboratory door slamming shut.
“So my guest kindly presents himself to me at long last,” commented a voice that made Doumeki instantly freeze. It had a very pleasant ring to it, but was instantly recognisable as Doctor Kyle’s. “I had been wondering when you would. You’ve been causing me no end of trouble, I hope you realise.”
Resisting the ‘fight or flight’ instinct had always come easily to Doumeki, but right now he wanted nothing more than to bash the doctor’s face in. Irrational, he told himself, and instead calmly turned to face the doctor and tensed, ready to vacate the spot he stood in should the need arise.
Kyle did not seem interested in a fight yet, however. “I assume that you are the one who has inspired my servant’s recent rebellious streak. A true pity - I had the boy so effectively afraid to step out of line, and now he’s blatantly disobeying me and ignoring my orders. I shall need to re-teach him.” Then the doctor smiled, and Doumeki had to double his mental efforts to remain stock still. “Even so, I must thank you. I did err on the side of laziness last time I worked on the fool, and if not for your unexpected aid he would certainly have bled to death. And it certainly would have been a crime to lose the only body that has responded positively to the experiment, even in the name of science.”
The man was insane.
Doumeki had supposed this, but it was thing to think it and quite another to be presented with the chilling reality of the matter. Kyle was crazy, per se - this cold, calculating insanity was far too well-organised for that. Crazy would have been easier to deal with. But the doctor’s mental state was far more dangerous.
Maybe Watanuki was right, Doumeki thought, but shook the doubt off. He didn’t ever give up on a job. Even when faced with a deranged pseudo-mad-scientist doctor. Especially when said doctor was threatening the life of one Doumeki had resigned himself to being a friend. That itself was reason enough to keep going.
“Your actions do seem to be… rather extreme for one man’s single story,” continued Kyle. “Even if he does possess a great deal of knowledge about myself and my operations. One cannot help but wonder what other motives you might have, and while I can guess, I suppose I should not go so far as to be certain.” He took a step closer; Doumeki brought his own hand to where his gun was lodged. “Excellent reflexes,” Kyle said approvingly. “You’re almost the perfect man for the job.”
“Almost?” Doumeki asked in the slight hope that Kyle would be foolish enough to give away an advantage.
“You’ve developed an attachment.” Kyle smirked. “Now, I would say to tell your employer ‘hello’ for me, but you’ll be in no condition to do that. And even if you do manage to leave, somehow, it will not for quite a while.”
Doumeki raised an eyebrow, and the doctor gestured to the wall on his left side. There was a row of security camera screens, and whether by fate or Kyle’s doing the boy turned his gaze just in time to see Watanuki sprint through one and then another a split second later. Shit, he thought, and took a firm step backwards, towards the other door. Then several things happened in rapid progression.
Kyle’s arm flashed through the air, and the room was suddenly filled with a deafening bang.
The floor where Doumeki had stood slowly stained red.
A door screamed open and slammed shut.