Evil Author Day 2013 #1: Shadows Linger
Okay, here's the deal -- February 15th is Evil Author Day, a concept I ganked, with permiso, from Keira Marcos. The idea is, I post excerpts from some of my WIPs, and y'all can read 'em and see which ones ye like best. Evil Authors, for the motivation of, natch. As in, mebbe I can *finish* one or more of these! *grin* Anyhoo, I really liked the idea, so here we go...
Shadows Linger
(TOS K/S, h/c)
“Commander Spock?
The comm-terminal’s this way. Sorry to bother you, but it’s the *Enterprise* -- they said it was important.”
The civilian steward led him toward a discreetly-placed comms lounge. Spock suppressed his concern with the ease of long habit; soon enough he would know what was wrong.
Hopefully -- though hope was, of course, illogical -- it would not be necessary for him to cancel his trip. The annual Colloquium of the Interstellar Society for the Study of Temporal Physics was always a worthwhile excursion; this year he had the honour of presenting a paper himself. In his own quiet way Spock was looking forward to the reactions of his peers.
Much of the time his discoveries were classified, study of them permitted only for those with need-to-know clearance. But on this occasion StarFleet had granted permission. The organisms that had invaded the Denevan system had all died in the same instant, from one side of that solar system to the other -- a distance of over forty light-minutes. A majority of the organisms had been well beyond the range of their crude satellite weapons, yet all of them had died as soon as those on the planet itself expired. Careful measurements had shown absolutely no time lag. The implications were intriguing.
“Right in here, sir...”
“Thank you. I can find my own way back, if you wish to return to your duties.” Spock turned to enter the lounge, thinking of his shipmates, the steward already dismissed from his thoughts.
His only warning was the slight scuff of a foot behind him. There was one searing instant of pain...
-----///-----
Chinichal whistled softly as he pushed his mop-cart through the day room doors. Shadow might be in here, and he didn’t want to startle him. The man had gradually come to trust him, as much as he trusted anyone, but it had taken months. Chinichal knew that if he scared him all that progress would be gone and he’d have to start over again.
He looked around unobtrusively - ah. There he was, sitting over in the darkest corner of the room. Chinichal smiled at him and after a moment Shadow blinked and moved his head in the tiniest of nods. Most of his face was hidden behind slender, long-fingered hands. Chinichal started mopping the floor and after a while Shadow let his hands
fall. He sat very still, cross-legged, curled like a child in a chair made for a being twice his size, just watching.
Eventually Chinichal worked his way over there. Still moving nice and slow, he took a piece of fruit out of his pocket and set it on the table beside his silent friend. Then he went on about his mopping, careful to move slowly.
“Here. Brought you a chulwayo fruit, man. Sweet. Figure, you might enjoy that.” As always happened when he spoke Standard, the Weaver lilt of his childhood made sing-songs out of his speech.
Shadow waited until the janitor was halfway across the room before he reached for the fruit. He turned it over and over in his hands, then held it to his face and inhaled the scent with relish. Chinichal watched him and wondered all over again who he really was, how he’d ended up stranded here. They didn’t see many Vulcans on Eszterhazs; it wasn’t a Federation world.
The thin wrists were scarred, as was his face: small square marks at his temples and behind his ears, rough dark rings around his wrists. At the base of his throat was the deeply indented scar where a ventilator tube had once been inserted.
Chinichal had asked: the nurses had told him that Shadow was hit by a groundcar when he came wandering out of a downtown alley, just over a year ago. He’d been barefoot, clad only in a tattered grey jumpsuit of anonymous origins. His pockets had been empty: no ID, no cred-disk, no money, nothing to indicate his origins. The hospital had supposedly made inquiries, but no-one seemed to be missing a Vulcan and Shadow, unconscious and on life support, hadn’t been able to tell them anything.
He’d been transferred here as soon as his bones healed and he was breathing on his own, for it had become obvious by then that he couldn’t care for himself.
He’d never spoken a coherent word. No-one knew his name, and he could hardly make any sounds at all, with his damaged throat. He was terrified of restraints; any confinement threw him into a blind panic. Sometimes he seemed to understand what was said to him, other times he acted as though he was lost in his own little world, ignoring all attempts at communication. When questioned about his name or what had happened to him, he would wince and close his eyes, as if in pain. Further questions only seemed to hurt him more.
All memory of his past seemed to be gone. He was not listed among the few Vulcans registered with the planetary government. He was just... Shadow, sad and silent and full of fear.
He was docile enough, for the most part, going where he was led. He took no part in the various scuffles of the other patients. Staff had to urge him to eat, for left to himself he seldom bothered. The only thing he really liked to eat was fresh fruit, and there wasn’t much of that on the menu. Shadow wasn’t aggressive, but that Vulcan strength made him a force to be reckoned with when he panicked and lost control. They kept him medicated, a long-acting injection once a week or so, whenever they could catch up with him. It wasn’t always easy; Shadow was also scared of shots, and very good at
hiding.
Chinichal shrugged. All he knew was, he liked Shadow and considered him a friend. He looked over again and saw his friend was just finishing the chulwayo, sucking the last of the juice from the husk.
“Hey, you like that, hmm?” He perched on a nearby chair for a minute, watching. Shadow set down the fruit husk and just stared at him, intently. Chinichal reached out one hand, then let it drop. Best not to push him.
Shadow frowned. The long, thin fingers fluttered; his mouth opened and closed. He shook his head, his long, unkempt hair flying. Then he slouched again and set his chin on his knees. He sighed, and his eyes closed. For a moment he seemed to be in pain, his shoulders hunched as if dreading a blow that never came.
Chinichal sighed. “Shadow, hey, it’s all right. Don’t matter none, man. Maybe tomorrow, huh?” Slowly Shadow raised his head and met Chinichal’s gaze. He was wide-eyed with fear again, but he didn’t look away.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Chinichal said quietly. “I’ll just bring you another one tomorrow. Got a treefull, me. You like that, yeah?”
The tiniest of nods, and some of the tension left the too-thin frame. Chinichal smiled, stood up and grabbed his mop again. “OK, it’s settled. I better get back to work, but I’ll see you later. Take it easy; don’t get to pinchin’ them pretty nurses without me, eh?”
-----///-----
Darkness. Cold. Shadow was chilled to the bone; he couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering. He kept his lips closed to silence them, kept his breathing as quiet and shallow as he could. He could hear them out there in the hallway, hunting for him.
He’d been curled up behind the couch to begin with, before realizing that this was a much better spot: inside a cupboard in the day room, behind a stack of board games and craft supplies that he’d pulled back in after him.
He’d been getting better at hiding from them lately, although they had all the advantages.
They said he was pretty. They liked him, they always said - but their voice tones said otherwise, spoke to him of anger and disgust.
They called him sweetie or cutie; sometimes they were even gentle, at first. But the things they liked to do to him hurt. They hurt him, and the restraints scared him, and their thoughts when they finally did touch him were always cold and angry and hateful... And although he was more than strong enough, he didn’t dare fight them.
He couldn’t bear to be locked up or tied down. The one time he’d tried to fight back he had knocked down two orderlies, only to spend the next two weeks in full restraints, completely at their mercy. Even now the memory of it was enough to turn his blood to ice.
No. Far better to hide and be cold, than to sleep where it was warm and get caught. He could always sleep in the daytime, out in the yard, if he had to. He didn’t seem to need as much sleep as the others.
The daytime staff were gentler, not so cruel. They were usually busy, and as long as he kept quiet they didn’t bother him. Shadow understood quiet. It was all through his mind, that bleak emptiness where... *something* had once been. What?
He didn’t know. Couldn’t remember.
He winced as a bolt of pain shot through his skull, barely managing to stifle a gasp against his fist. Mustn’t make a sound...
It took him a couple of minutes to calm himself down. He thought about his friend, the quiet man who brought him fruit to eat and never expected anything he couldn’t give.
One face in particular haunted his dreams and his thoughts, but he’d never seen that face here. He didn’t know if it belonged to a real person or if he had just dreamed those laughing hazel eyes, the smile that shone for him alone.
Here there were always the same faces. Never *that* one...
A thin yearning sound escaped him. He gasped again, full of renewed fear, then bit down on his lip. Out in the hall the voices stopped.
“Hey, what was that? Was that him?”
“I dunno. Did you check in here? That’s where I think I heard it.”
“I checked there earlier, and it was empty.”
“Could he have gotten past us?”
“That geek? Nahh... At least, I don’t *think*-”
“Ah, fuckit. C’mon, let’s check again.”
The door to the day room was slammed open. Shadow chewed on his lip and hardly dared to breathe at all. He lay absolutely still as the heavy feet stamped around the room. Then they started opening cupboard doors. Their voices were loud, both angry and amused at his recent success in hiding from them.
He felt pain, tasted copper, made himself let go of his lip.
The cupboard next to his. Bang, slam. “Nope. Empty, dammit.”
Bang! His cupboard. He was shivering again, and he couldn’t make it stop.
*Please, no...*
A hand on his ankle. “Gotcha, ya sneaky little bastard. So *that’s* where ya went. Hey, Mitch’ko, check this out! Fucker’s gettin’ *clever* on us, now!”
He tried to resist them, but the cupboard was smooth inside; there was nothing to grab on to, no way to fight their pull. Although he tried valiantly, all too soon he was pulled out, amidst a clutter of boxes and supplies. He tensed as if to spring, but they were too fast for him.
Hsst! A cold place on his arm, and warm soft weakness washed through him, drowning him. It made him dizzy, weak and confused, turned all his muscles to jelly.
As he fell he saw them closing in. There were at least five of them, maybe six.
Most times there were only one or two...
Despairing, he closed his eyes again, still shivering despite the seductive warmth of the drug in his veins. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to curl even smaller.
“Aww, lookit that. Ain’t he cute? Mmm-hmm, yeah.” A hand on his arm. Another. Yet another. They were turning him, pulling his arms behind him, easily overpowering his dazed, slow resistance. “C’mon, baby, come here. We got somethin’ for ya...”
*No! Please, do not...* But there was only the same old pain in his throat, only mangled, barely-audible sounds.
Click-click! Cold metal, tight about his wrists. Even through the drug-haze, fear made his heart race wildly, his breath freeze in his throat. He made one last desperate effort to stand and fight, or run, but it was useless. His legs wouldn’t bear his weight; he sagged back down to the floor as the drug stole the last of his strength.
Fingers tangled in his hair then, lifting his head. “*Look* at me, freak-boy.” He tried to shake his head, no - and the smack of a hand, harsh against his face, shocked him into stillness once more.
Defeated, he looked up. The other laughed, leaned down and kissed him. “Mm, yeah.” A tongue licked at his lips, tasting the blood where one had just split; the smell of meat-eater’s breath was thick in his nostrils, nauseating.
“Now that’s more like it. Hey, that was fun. I like it when ya play hard to get, man. But listen, after the last few nights we’ve got some catching up to do! Gonna be a long, hard night tonight, baby!” Raucous laughter, all around him.
Then rough, uncaring hands took hold of him, pulling his hair, tugging at his clothes. The cruel metal dug into his wrists, the floor was cold against his face - and it was happening again and he was lost, spiraling down into darkness and pain, down so far that not even the memory of laughing hazel eyes could help him...
-----///-----