Fic: Speaking for the Dead (3/3)
Fandom: Blood Ties
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, Disturbing Subject Matter
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money.
Spoilers: Deep Dark
Word Count: 3181
Summery: Mike's visions get worse, and they may cost him more than just his life.
AN: So, I said this would be done on Sunday, and technically it's now Monday, so, uh, sorry?
This is the last part, and I don't have any plans to write a sequel (mainly because I don't know what I'd write a sequel about at this point), but this basic plot will be appearing on an episode of the VS, which I'll be writing, so look out for it. Well, here you all go, and thanks to everyone who commented.
Previous Part
He takes another cab home, and it's a good thing too, because halfway there he ends up watching two young men get beaten to death somewhere in rural America. By the time he stumbles into his apartment, he's hurting so much he can barely walk straight. He takes down a handful of painkillers with some whiskey straight out of the bottle and wishes he could just make it all go away.
He only sleeps in brief snatches that night and experiences almost a dozen more visions. He makes it to the kitchen around 5:00 am and he gulps water out of his cupped hands. He's standing there, gripping the sink and trying to ignore the ever present pain while contemplating the possible benefits of drinking himself into a mindless stupor when another visions hits... but his time, it doesn't end.
Another vision immediately follows, and then another. At first he's still aware, still able to separate himself from the victims, and he's horrified, desperately trying to somehow will himself out of the trance he's trapped in, but they just keep coming. Each vision segues into another and after a while he looses all sense of himself, any comprehension of the distinction between himself and the people whose deaths he's experiencing.
He's shot, stabbed, and beaten to death. He's strangled, drowned, and poisoned. He's burned alive by an arsonist and tortured to death by a serial killer. He's incinerated in an explosion. He's executed in a gas chamber. He dies on nearly every continent and in nearly every imaginable way. There's nothing but pain and fear, and then, eventually, nothing. The visions fade into blessed oblivion, and he sleeps.
He awakes to the heart achingly familiar sound of a very unladylike snort.
Until this moment, he never thought that lack of pain could be its own distinctive sensation. He thinks he's lying in his bed, judging by the feel of the pillow beneath his head and the covers across his chest. His throat feels raw and dry. He shifts slightly, and tries to open his eyes, but they don't seem to be responding to his commands. He feels the dull ache of remembered pain and stills. There's another snort off to his left and finally convinces his eyelids to function.
He's in his bedroom alright, and Vicki is asleep in a chair next to his bed. She looks bedraggled and her face is creased with worry even in sleep. Her clothing is rumpled, and her tee-shirt seems to be on inside out. There's a pile of books sitting on the nightstand next to her and on the floor at her feet which he knows aren't his. One of the books is laying open on Vicki's lap. Vicki's right hand is laying across it, clutching a black sharpie. Mike stares at the pen for a moment in confusion.
He pulls his arm up to rub at his gritty eyes, ignoring the vague twinges of pain that accompany even that basic motion. He notices that someone has removed his shirt, and black lines that have been drawn all over his arms. He stares at them. His limbs have been covered in symbols and weird writing that extends down across his bare chest. He can't make heads or tails of the marks, or the language they're written in, but he has a pretty good idea who put them there. He tries to figure out exactly what happened, but his mind is fuzzy. The last thing he remembers, he was in the kitchen and then...
He shudders and squeezes his eyes shut. He can't think about that, he just can't. If he does, he's afraid he's going to break down right here and now. That he's just going to start screaming and not stop.
Instead he turns to Vicki and tries to say something, but all he manages is a hoarse croak, followed by a spectacular coughing fit. Vicki's eyes shoot open, and then she's gripping his arm and calling for Coreen. Then someone is pressing a glass to his mouth and he drinks, cool water soothing his dry throat.
“Christ, Mike, slow down. You'll make yourself sick.” Vicki says, as she pulls the glass away for a moment. She sounds tired, worn out, and her eyes are bloodshot and puffy.
“Vicki,” he manages to croak out. “What the hell...?”
Her expression clouds over. “What the hell? What the hell is right! What the hell kept you from coming to me when this started?”
“Vicki, it wasn't...”
“You could have died! God, when Coreen told me about what you'd told her, and that you hadn't answered your phone for two days...”
“Two days?” He'd had no way of knowing just how long he'd been unconscious. He's not certain exactly how long it takes someone to die of dehydration, but he's fairly sure he's lucky to be alive.
“...and then when we found you on the kitchen floor like that, just sort of twitching, and I swear to god, Mike, if you ever scare me like that again, I'm going to kill you!” Vicki takes a deep breath and for a moment Mike is afraid she's going to start up again, but she seems to have run out of steam.
“I'm... um, I'm going to make Mike some tea, and heat up some chicken broth,” Coreen says nervously in the ensuing silence, before backing out of the room quietly, and if she doesn't want to expose her back to an angry Vicki.
“I hate tea.” Mike says weakly, unable to think clearly enough to come up with anything more useful.
“I don't care. You're going to drink the damn tea.” Vicki snaps, and Mike isn't really willing to argue with her.
Mike starts pulling himself out of bed, his body aches with the movement, but he recognizes it as simply being the ache of underused muscles. He manages to get a leg off the side of the bed before Vicki stops him with an arm on his shoulder
“Where the heck do you think you're going?” she asks, her voice full of annoyance and worry and anger and suddenly he's pissed. He doesn't know where it comes from, but the anger hits him like a physical blow. He's not sure whether it's a reaction to seeing Vicki again after he told himself he wouldn't again, or a result of the hell he's just lived through (don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit), all he knows is that he's furious.
“To the bathroom, Vicki,” he snaps “So I can take a piss and shower, and hopefully scrub off your impromptu body art.”
Vicki frowns at him. “You can't.”
“What?”
“You can't wash it off,” she frowned slightly. “Well, you can, but you shouldn't.”
“What do you mean? You fixed it right? This vision thing? Vicki Nelson swoops in to save the day, as usual?” He know he's being an ass, but he can't seem to help it. He's tired and wrung out, and at this point controlling his emotions is a bit beyond him.
“First of all, you have Coreen and Henry to thank more than me, they're the ones that found the protective symbols we used. Secondly no, we didn't fix it. All we did was block Astaroth from sending you more visions!”
“Sending me...?”
“Astaroth was actively sending you these visions. Those protective symbols are blocking you off from him, but there's nothing to stop him from starting those visions up again if you wash them off.”
“I don't understand. How? Why me?”
“We think it was because of the first vision.” Coreen says from the doorway, as she steps into the room carrying a tray laden with a mug of tea and what looks like chicken soup. “When you used it to save that kidnapped girl, you pretty much accepted a demonic gift. It allowed Astaroth to start sending you those visions and every time you used one to solve a crime, it let him send you more of them. After a while, I guess they just reached a critical mass and he could just keep sending them to you.”
“So I didn't even really get a choice in this? I mean, there's no way I could not use the information he was sending me. I couldn't just ignore what I knew about a case once I got a vision.”
“You did make a choice with the first vision. Henry said you asked him to help you remember it, and after that... well, demons aren't exactly know for offering people fair deals, are they?” Coreen says, approaching the bed with her tray, and carefully avoiding the stacks of books on the floor.
“But why? I mean, if he was trying to kill me, there are easier ways to go about it.”
“I don't think...” Coreen starts, but then she shrugs and just says: “Hey, who knows how a demon thinks, maybe he was just trying to off the competition.” Mike can tell there's something Coreen isn't saying, but before he can ask, Vicki gives Coreen a pointed look and Coreen places the tray of food on the bedside table. “Um, yeah, I've got some more research I need to do. I'm gonna try and find another way of blocking you off from Astaroth, Mike. You know, less obtrusive than the whole marker body-art thing.” She throws Mike's bare chest an appreciative look on the way out (which leaves him feeling deeply uncomfortable), and leaves the room. Mike can hear her in his living room, shifting papers around.
Mike sighs and closes his eyes for a second. They feel heavy, and if not for the persistent pressure in his bladder, he thinks he could sleep for a week. Instead he turns to look at Vicki. “You said Henry helped. Is he back, then?” He's careful to keep his voice uninfected.
Vicki studies him, as if trying to read something into his question. He can see that she wants an excuse to start yelling about something, but his own anger has faded away into nothing, and he doesn't have the energy to argue. When she apparently fails to pick up on anything to start another fight over, she shrugs and replies. “No. He's still in Vancouver. I called him when Coreen and I couldn't figure out how to help you. He's the one that put us onto the protective symbols, Coreen looked up the specifics, and I drew them.”
He smiles slightly. “Never pegged you for an artist, Vic.”
She smirks slightly in amusement before her expression becomes somber. “He didn't want to speak to me, you know.” There's hurt in her voice and he wishes it wasn't there, wishes he could do something to help make it go away. “He almost hung up on me, but I told him you needed help and he changed his mind.”
“Okay, I don't know how to take that exactly.”
“I think he's starting to like you.”
“I really don't know how to take that.”
She punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Take it as a compliment, you ass.”
They sit in silence for a short time before Vicki takes a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. “Look Mike, about all this... I shouldn't have gotten you involved. I had no right to put you in a position that put your job in danger and if I hadn't then none of this would have happened.”
He knows where she's going with this, and while usually he'd want it, would mark this day on the damn calender, he doesn't think he can deal with it right now, so he makes the first smartass remark that comes to mind. “Who are you and what have you done with Vicki?”
She quirks an eyebrow at that. “Is that the best you can do, Celluci?”
“Hey, give a guy a break, I'm not exactly in top form here.” he says, gesturing vaguely.
“Well shut up, I'm trying to apologize.” She looks away from him before continuing. “I've... I've been taking you for granted a lot lately, and I know I have no right to, and I'm sorry.”
And that's it. If he forgives her, then she's back in his life and if she's back then he's going to risk loosing her again and he doesn't think he can take it. Loosing her the first time hurt worse than dying. He can say that conclusively now.
“It's... it's okay, Vic. I didn't have to do what you asked, I choose to.” That's a lie and he knows it. He's never been good at telling her 'no'. “Some of the responsibility for all this is mine, and... and I'm fine now.” And that's also a lie. He's not fine, not after everything he's seen and experienced over the past month. He's not sure he'll ever be fine again. “And... thanks.”
So Vicki has apologized, and Mike has thanked her all in the space of less than five minutes, Mike figures that's a sign of the coming apocalypse, but when Vicki smiles at him, he finds he has a hard time caring. He'll probably regret this later, but maybe he won't, and maybe between the two of them, they can help stave off that apocalypse.
When tries to pull himself out of bed again, and Vicki stops him with a hand on his arm. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“I do still need to take that piss, Vicki.”
“You can barely move. Here, let me help.” She pulls him to his feet and supports him as he makes his way across the room.
“Thanks,” he says quietly, too tired to be embarrassed by his own weakness.
“You're welcome, but you do know I'm not going to hold it for you, right?”
“God, Vicki, you're such a lady.”
“It's why you love me.”
And he can't argue with that, because it's true.
Mike uses the bathroom and cleans himself up. Thankfully, Vicki used permanent marker, so he can wash up without too much fear of disturbing the protective symbols. He desperately hopes that Coreen will be able to find some other method of protecting him from Astaroth's influence, because he's really doesn't like the idea of having to get this mess done as a tattoo.
When he's done cleaning himself up he feels more like himself again, though he can still feel the panic and fear, the memory of the visions at the edge of his mind. He returns to bed and Vicki forces the tea and chicken broth on him, before letting him sleep.
He wakes up from a nightmare about dying under that first serial killer's knife a few hours later. His heart is pounding and his head hurts terribly. His throat his horribly dry again, and he realizes that he's dehydrated. Thankfully, Vicki has left him a glass of water next to his bed. He gulps it down and feels it hit his empty stomach. He's hungry, really, truly hungry for the first time in a couple of weeks. He takes that for a good sign and pulls himself out of bed, planning to head to the kitchen and find something.
He hears voices coming from his kitchen, lowered in almost whispers, and stops in the hallway, listening.
“You're really not going to like it...” he hears Coreen say.
“Just tell me,” Vicki snaps, obviously trying to keep her voice down and not doing a very good job.
“Well, I mean, this is mostly guess work, but, lots of cultures believe that murder causes spiritual wounds. That the act of willfully killing another human being is so horrible that it causes, well damage.”
“And?”
“Mike... he was feeling it, you know? What the victims were feeling. Everything”
“He was what?” Vicki sounds horrified. “Oh God...”
“And he told me that he could still feel the pain even after the visions ended, even though he didn't have any physical injuries...”
“So he's okay, right? He's not injured.”
Coreen hesitates. “Not physically, no.” She plows on ahead then, as if trying to get something off her chest. “I think Astaroth was trying to destroy Mike's soul. If he'd succeeded, he'd be able to posses Mike's body, and it would be empty, there's be no soul taking up room, so I think he'd be able to put more of himself into it. And it would be Mike, someone you trust.”
He feels a horrible cold feeling settle into his stomach. He's an idiot. He should have come to Vicki sooner. He'd put her in danger. He doesn't want to think what Astaroth would have done to her in his body.
“Oh God, I never should have involved him in this. I put him in danger.” Vicki sounds scared and he doesn't like that. He's not used to hearing fear in he voice.
He steps into the room. “So, does this mean my soul is damaged?”
Coreen looks startled. “Uh, hi Mike. Um, I don't know if it works that way. Souls are really resilient things. So, maybe?”
“Mike, are you...” Vicki starts to ask but he cuts her off.
“I'm fine Vic,” he says, a little harshly. She's looking at him with pity, and he doesn't like that. He's not a goddamned victim. “I'm just hungry.”
Coreen sets about putting together something his stomach should be able to take (bananas and rice, it turns out) while telling him about how she thinks she can make an amulet that should block out Astaroth, provided Mike never takes it off, ever, which seems inconvenient as all hell, but better than the body art. Vicki is still looking at him like that, which is grating on his nerves, but there's nothing he can do about it right now.
He has other things to worry about anyway. He has to figure out how to convince Henry to return to Toronto. He doesn't want Vicki associating with the vampire, but he also doesn't want Henry to stay gone, he doesn't want to see Vicki hurt, and he definitely wants that blood-sucking bitch out of the city. Some screwed up part of him almost misses it, anyway: their weird little group, obnoxious vampire included, with Vicki at its center and everyone else revolving around her.
Besides that, he needs to figure out how to convince both a doctor and a psychologist that he's fine, and neither crazy, nor epileptic, which may be a tall order, but he thinks he can do it. He'll just chalk everything down to stress and spin some bull for the shrink. Hopefully, he'll be able to keep his job.
He's not fine, not by a long shot, but he thinks he will be. Souls are resilient things, after all.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, Disturbing Subject Matter
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money.
Spoilers: Deep Dark
Word Count: 3181
Summery: Mike's visions get worse, and they may cost him more than just his life.
AN: So, I said this would be done on Sunday, and technically it's now Monday, so, uh, sorry?
This is the last part, and I don't have any plans to write a sequel (mainly because I don't know what I'd write a sequel about at this point), but this basic plot will be appearing on an episode of the VS, which I'll be writing, so look out for it. Well, here you all go, and thanks to everyone who commented.
Previous Part
He takes another cab home, and it's a good thing too, because halfway there he ends up watching two young men get beaten to death somewhere in rural America. By the time he stumbles into his apartment, he's hurting so much he can barely walk straight. He takes down a handful of painkillers with some whiskey straight out of the bottle and wishes he could just make it all go away.
He only sleeps in brief snatches that night and experiences almost a dozen more visions. He makes it to the kitchen around 5:00 am and he gulps water out of his cupped hands. He's standing there, gripping the sink and trying to ignore the ever present pain while contemplating the possible benefits of drinking himself into a mindless stupor when another visions hits... but his time, it doesn't end.
Another vision immediately follows, and then another. At first he's still aware, still able to separate himself from the victims, and he's horrified, desperately trying to somehow will himself out of the trance he's trapped in, but they just keep coming. Each vision segues into another and after a while he looses all sense of himself, any comprehension of the distinction between himself and the people whose deaths he's experiencing.
He's shot, stabbed, and beaten to death. He's strangled, drowned, and poisoned. He's burned alive by an arsonist and tortured to death by a serial killer. He's incinerated in an explosion. He's executed in a gas chamber. He dies on nearly every continent and in nearly every imaginable way. There's nothing but pain and fear, and then, eventually, nothing. The visions fade into blessed oblivion, and he sleeps.
He awakes to the heart achingly familiar sound of a very unladylike snort.
Until this moment, he never thought that lack of pain could be its own distinctive sensation. He thinks he's lying in his bed, judging by the feel of the pillow beneath his head and the covers across his chest. His throat feels raw and dry. He shifts slightly, and tries to open his eyes, but they don't seem to be responding to his commands. He feels the dull ache of remembered pain and stills. There's another snort off to his left and finally convinces his eyelids to function.
He's in his bedroom alright, and Vicki is asleep in a chair next to his bed. She looks bedraggled and her face is creased with worry even in sleep. Her clothing is rumpled, and her tee-shirt seems to be on inside out. There's a pile of books sitting on the nightstand next to her and on the floor at her feet which he knows aren't his. One of the books is laying open on Vicki's lap. Vicki's right hand is laying across it, clutching a black sharpie. Mike stares at the pen for a moment in confusion.
He pulls his arm up to rub at his gritty eyes, ignoring the vague twinges of pain that accompany even that basic motion. He notices that someone has removed his shirt, and black lines that have been drawn all over his arms. He stares at them. His limbs have been covered in symbols and weird writing that extends down across his bare chest. He can't make heads or tails of the marks, or the language they're written in, but he has a pretty good idea who put them there. He tries to figure out exactly what happened, but his mind is fuzzy. The last thing he remembers, he was in the kitchen and then...
He shudders and squeezes his eyes shut. He can't think about that, he just can't. If he does, he's afraid he's going to break down right here and now. That he's just going to start screaming and not stop.
Instead he turns to Vicki and tries to say something, but all he manages is a hoarse croak, followed by a spectacular coughing fit. Vicki's eyes shoot open, and then she's gripping his arm and calling for Coreen. Then someone is pressing a glass to his mouth and he drinks, cool water soothing his dry throat.
“Christ, Mike, slow down. You'll make yourself sick.” Vicki says, as she pulls the glass away for a moment. She sounds tired, worn out, and her eyes are bloodshot and puffy.
“Vicki,” he manages to croak out. “What the hell...?”
Her expression clouds over. “What the hell? What the hell is right! What the hell kept you from coming to me when this started?”
“Vicki, it wasn't...”
“You could have died! God, when Coreen told me about what you'd told her, and that you hadn't answered your phone for two days...”
“Two days?” He'd had no way of knowing just how long he'd been unconscious. He's not certain exactly how long it takes someone to die of dehydration, but he's fairly sure he's lucky to be alive.
“...and then when we found you on the kitchen floor like that, just sort of twitching, and I swear to god, Mike, if you ever scare me like that again, I'm going to kill you!” Vicki takes a deep breath and for a moment Mike is afraid she's going to start up again, but she seems to have run out of steam.
“I'm... um, I'm going to make Mike some tea, and heat up some chicken broth,” Coreen says nervously in the ensuing silence, before backing out of the room quietly, and if she doesn't want to expose her back to an angry Vicki.
“I hate tea.” Mike says weakly, unable to think clearly enough to come up with anything more useful.
“I don't care. You're going to drink the damn tea.” Vicki snaps, and Mike isn't really willing to argue with her.
Mike starts pulling himself out of bed, his body aches with the movement, but he recognizes it as simply being the ache of underused muscles. He manages to get a leg off the side of the bed before Vicki stops him with an arm on his shoulder
“Where the heck do you think you're going?” she asks, her voice full of annoyance and worry and anger and suddenly he's pissed. He doesn't know where it comes from, but the anger hits him like a physical blow. He's not sure whether it's a reaction to seeing Vicki again after he told himself he wouldn't again, or a result of the hell he's just lived through (don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit), all he knows is that he's furious.
“To the bathroom, Vicki,” he snaps “So I can take a piss and shower, and hopefully scrub off your impromptu body art.”
Vicki frowns at him. “You can't.”
“What?”
“You can't wash it off,” she frowned slightly. “Well, you can, but you shouldn't.”
“What do you mean? You fixed it right? This vision thing? Vicki Nelson swoops in to save the day, as usual?” He know he's being an ass, but he can't seem to help it. He's tired and wrung out, and at this point controlling his emotions is a bit beyond him.
“First of all, you have Coreen and Henry to thank more than me, they're the ones that found the protective symbols we used. Secondly no, we didn't fix it. All we did was block Astaroth from sending you more visions!”
“Sending me...?”
“Astaroth was actively sending you these visions. Those protective symbols are blocking you off from him, but there's nothing to stop him from starting those visions up again if you wash them off.”
“I don't understand. How? Why me?”
“We think it was because of the first vision.” Coreen says from the doorway, as she steps into the room carrying a tray laden with a mug of tea and what looks like chicken soup. “When you used it to save that kidnapped girl, you pretty much accepted a demonic gift. It allowed Astaroth to start sending you those visions and every time you used one to solve a crime, it let him send you more of them. After a while, I guess they just reached a critical mass and he could just keep sending them to you.”
“So I didn't even really get a choice in this? I mean, there's no way I could not use the information he was sending me. I couldn't just ignore what I knew about a case once I got a vision.”
“You did make a choice with the first vision. Henry said you asked him to help you remember it, and after that... well, demons aren't exactly know for offering people fair deals, are they?” Coreen says, approaching the bed with her tray, and carefully avoiding the stacks of books on the floor.
“But why? I mean, if he was trying to kill me, there are easier ways to go about it.”
“I don't think...” Coreen starts, but then she shrugs and just says: “Hey, who knows how a demon thinks, maybe he was just trying to off the competition.” Mike can tell there's something Coreen isn't saying, but before he can ask, Vicki gives Coreen a pointed look and Coreen places the tray of food on the bedside table. “Um, yeah, I've got some more research I need to do. I'm gonna try and find another way of blocking you off from Astaroth, Mike. You know, less obtrusive than the whole marker body-art thing.” She throws Mike's bare chest an appreciative look on the way out (which leaves him feeling deeply uncomfortable), and leaves the room. Mike can hear her in his living room, shifting papers around.
Mike sighs and closes his eyes for a second. They feel heavy, and if not for the persistent pressure in his bladder, he thinks he could sleep for a week. Instead he turns to look at Vicki. “You said Henry helped. Is he back, then?” He's careful to keep his voice uninfected.
Vicki studies him, as if trying to read something into his question. He can see that she wants an excuse to start yelling about something, but his own anger has faded away into nothing, and he doesn't have the energy to argue. When she apparently fails to pick up on anything to start another fight over, she shrugs and replies. “No. He's still in Vancouver. I called him when Coreen and I couldn't figure out how to help you. He's the one that put us onto the protective symbols, Coreen looked up the specifics, and I drew them.”
He smiles slightly. “Never pegged you for an artist, Vic.”
She smirks slightly in amusement before her expression becomes somber. “He didn't want to speak to me, you know.” There's hurt in her voice and he wishes it wasn't there, wishes he could do something to help make it go away. “He almost hung up on me, but I told him you needed help and he changed his mind.”
“Okay, I don't know how to take that exactly.”
“I think he's starting to like you.”
“I really don't know how to take that.”
She punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Take it as a compliment, you ass.”
They sit in silence for a short time before Vicki takes a deep breath, visibly steeling herself. “Look Mike, about all this... I shouldn't have gotten you involved. I had no right to put you in a position that put your job in danger and if I hadn't then none of this would have happened.”
He knows where she's going with this, and while usually he'd want it, would mark this day on the damn calender, he doesn't think he can deal with it right now, so he makes the first smartass remark that comes to mind. “Who are you and what have you done with Vicki?”
She quirks an eyebrow at that. “Is that the best you can do, Celluci?”
“Hey, give a guy a break, I'm not exactly in top form here.” he says, gesturing vaguely.
“Well shut up, I'm trying to apologize.” She looks away from him before continuing. “I've... I've been taking you for granted a lot lately, and I know I have no right to, and I'm sorry.”
And that's it. If he forgives her, then she's back in his life and if she's back then he's going to risk loosing her again and he doesn't think he can take it. Loosing her the first time hurt worse than dying. He can say that conclusively now.
“It's... it's okay, Vic. I didn't have to do what you asked, I choose to.” That's a lie and he knows it. He's never been good at telling her 'no'. “Some of the responsibility for all this is mine, and... and I'm fine now.” And that's also a lie. He's not fine, not after everything he's seen and experienced over the past month. He's not sure he'll ever be fine again. “And... thanks.”
So Vicki has apologized, and Mike has thanked her all in the space of less than five minutes, Mike figures that's a sign of the coming apocalypse, but when Vicki smiles at him, he finds he has a hard time caring. He'll probably regret this later, but maybe he won't, and maybe between the two of them, they can help stave off that apocalypse.
When tries to pull himself out of bed again, and Vicki stops him with a hand on his arm. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“I do still need to take that piss, Vicki.”
“You can barely move. Here, let me help.” She pulls him to his feet and supports him as he makes his way across the room.
“Thanks,” he says quietly, too tired to be embarrassed by his own weakness.
“You're welcome, but you do know I'm not going to hold it for you, right?”
“God, Vicki, you're such a lady.”
“It's why you love me.”
And he can't argue with that, because it's true.
Mike uses the bathroom and cleans himself up. Thankfully, Vicki used permanent marker, so he can wash up without too much fear of disturbing the protective symbols. He desperately hopes that Coreen will be able to find some other method of protecting him from Astaroth's influence, because he's really doesn't like the idea of having to get this mess done as a tattoo.
When he's done cleaning himself up he feels more like himself again, though he can still feel the panic and fear, the memory of the visions at the edge of his mind. He returns to bed and Vicki forces the tea and chicken broth on him, before letting him sleep.
He wakes up from a nightmare about dying under that first serial killer's knife a few hours later. His heart is pounding and his head hurts terribly. His throat his horribly dry again, and he realizes that he's dehydrated. Thankfully, Vicki has left him a glass of water next to his bed. He gulps it down and feels it hit his empty stomach. He's hungry, really, truly hungry for the first time in a couple of weeks. He takes that for a good sign and pulls himself out of bed, planning to head to the kitchen and find something.
He hears voices coming from his kitchen, lowered in almost whispers, and stops in the hallway, listening.
“You're really not going to like it...” he hears Coreen say.
“Just tell me,” Vicki snaps, obviously trying to keep her voice down and not doing a very good job.
“Well, I mean, this is mostly guess work, but, lots of cultures believe that murder causes spiritual wounds. That the act of willfully killing another human being is so horrible that it causes, well damage.”
“And?”
“Mike... he was feeling it, you know? What the victims were feeling. Everything”
“He was what?” Vicki sounds horrified. “Oh God...”
“And he told me that he could still feel the pain even after the visions ended, even though he didn't have any physical injuries...”
“So he's okay, right? He's not injured.”
Coreen hesitates. “Not physically, no.” She plows on ahead then, as if trying to get something off her chest. “I think Astaroth was trying to destroy Mike's soul. If he'd succeeded, he'd be able to posses Mike's body, and it would be empty, there's be no soul taking up room, so I think he'd be able to put more of himself into it. And it would be Mike, someone you trust.”
He feels a horrible cold feeling settle into his stomach. He's an idiot. He should have come to Vicki sooner. He'd put her in danger. He doesn't want to think what Astaroth would have done to her in his body.
“Oh God, I never should have involved him in this. I put him in danger.” Vicki sounds scared and he doesn't like that. He's not used to hearing fear in he voice.
He steps into the room. “So, does this mean my soul is damaged?”
Coreen looks startled. “Uh, hi Mike. Um, I don't know if it works that way. Souls are really resilient things. So, maybe?”
“Mike, are you...” Vicki starts to ask but he cuts her off.
“I'm fine Vic,” he says, a little harshly. She's looking at him with pity, and he doesn't like that. He's not a goddamned victim. “I'm just hungry.”
Coreen sets about putting together something his stomach should be able to take (bananas and rice, it turns out) while telling him about how she thinks she can make an amulet that should block out Astaroth, provided Mike never takes it off, ever, which seems inconvenient as all hell, but better than the body art. Vicki is still looking at him like that, which is grating on his nerves, but there's nothing he can do about it right now.
He has other things to worry about anyway. He has to figure out how to convince Henry to return to Toronto. He doesn't want Vicki associating with the vampire, but he also doesn't want Henry to stay gone, he doesn't want to see Vicki hurt, and he definitely wants that blood-sucking bitch out of the city. Some screwed up part of him almost misses it, anyway: their weird little group, obnoxious vampire included, with Vicki at its center and everyone else revolving around her.
Besides that, he needs to figure out how to convince both a doctor and a psychologist that he's fine, and neither crazy, nor epileptic, which may be a tall order, but he thinks he can do it. He'll just chalk everything down to stress and spin some bull for the shrink. Hopefully, he'll be able to keep his job.
He's not fine, not by a long shot, but he thinks he will be. Souls are resilient things, after all.