The Phantom of St. Bartholomew 1/?
Title: The Phantom of St. Bartholomew
Author: tipsy_armadillo
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, non/dub-con
Summary: John has spent his whole life hiding
Written in response to velvet-mace's fic Chameleon which was in turn inspired by this Prompt. It's a fic within a fic. We need to go deeper.
The little boy with sandy blond hair ran after his sister. They were playing an old game: Sentinel and Guide. A common childs game played with the understanding a child had of such things. John, the boy, was the Sentinel and his sister, Harriet, was the Guide. She hated being the Guide but John always bossed her into it, saying that there was no way he was going to be some lame Guide, she was a girl anyways and everybody knew that Guides, even the guys, were practically girls anyways. So Harriet gave in and played Guide after many bribes and tantrums, following John around and pretending to do whatever it was that Guides did, John didn’t even know, he just knew if he was playing Sentinel it was lame not to have a Guide to boss around.
Their game continued through the small town and pretty soon other children joined in and as one they made their way around town, saving the butcher from a murderer and rooting out the local hairdressers as bandits in disguise. The hairdressers’ attack of threatening to tell their parents they were causing a disturbance thwarted their daring escapades but they vowed to return.
John ran ahead of the group, he was sure the yellow cat he had just seen was hiding something. He was going to bring it in for questioning.
The brave Sentinel moved forward to catch the cat, feeling its uneasy mind in the back of his head. He sent out a feeling towards it, a safe feeling. It relaxed and John grinned widely. His Sentinel powers were working!
He took a step forward, ready to catch his prey.
“Stop!”
John stopped.
“Please, I’m not one of them! I swear! I’m a law abiding citizen. I have a job. People know me. I’m not a criminal.”
Curiously John turned his attention to the shouting. This was weird, nothing ever happened in this town. Was someone being arrested? John started to get excited. Maybe it was a real bad guy. He ran to get a close look.
To his disappointment it wasn’t a bad guy at all. It was just a young man who was shouting. John knew him vaguely. The man had given him a boost once when he needed to get his ball from a roof. He was a nice guy but there was a Tracker holding him down. Why were Trackers arresting him?
He recognized the uniforms, everyone did, Trackers were notorious and nobody wanted to get in their line of sight. They were police but not really. They were Guide police.
It clicked in his young brain. The nice man who had given him a boost once was a Guide, an illegal Guide hiding in their village. John gasped in excitement. A real Guide. Here, in his town. This whole time. A sudden rush of jealously assailed him.
A brave Sentinel like himself should have rooted out the illegal Guide. He could have had his very own Guide and here he was staring at one this whole time and he was too stupid to notice. It wasn’t fair. The Guide was in his village it should have been his! Now his Guide was going to go to some stupid city Sentinel, probably the one who was arresting him if that Tracker didn’t have his own already. He probably did, Trackers always got first dibs.
John pouted.
The man was crying now. John didn’t feel bad for him. He shouldn’t have been hiding in the first place, that was just stupid. Nobody could hide from the Trackers. Didn’t the man know there were Sentinels out there that needed him? Didn’t he realize he was being selfish? John was angry at the man in a petty childish way. That could have been his Guide and now his chance was ruined.
Maybe the Tracker would let him just test it out; he might still have a chance. He would have to run though, the Trackers were getting ready to leave and he was pretty far away.
He was about to run over and he would have if it weren’t for a sudden rush of heat in his body. John stumbled and fell to his knees as a smell overtook him and his mind seemed to … it was hard to explain, his mind opened up. Colours suddenly flared to life, smells enhanced, noises exploded in his ears, he could taste everything in the air as though he was eating it. It was agony. This wasn’t even his. This was everyone elses. He was seeing from the butchers eyes, smelling through the Janitors nose, hearing through every ear, he couldn’t make it stop. The sensations fell away as quickly as they had come and suddenly it wasn’t sense assaulting him but feelings, emotions, sensations, fears, happiness, doubts, bliss, calm, rage, fear, peace, confusion. His heart raced and a dark feeling of madness seemed to creep over him and he cried out for help even as his mouth was frozen.
His mind cried out and another mind answered. Their eyes met and the Guides tear filled eyes widened in horror.
John didn’t understand. What was this? Why was this happening?
So young.
What?
Oh god he’s just a kid.
Who was saying that? He was so hot and the sensations, it was too much, he wanted to rip his own skin off, it was burning so bad and the smell was making it worse, getting into his head and clouding his mind. It was such a wonderful smell, calling out to him, making him want to touch the mind it belonged to, wrap himself in their thoughts and ideas and make them whole.
You have to hide!
Why?
Hide!
I don’t understand.
HIDE!!!
How?
Right there, don’t you see.
And there, right in front of him was the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life. A little reptile with eyes that seemed to point in two different directions at once and with little hands and feet that seemed to point the wrong way. He vaguely recognized it from a picture he had seen once. It was a chameleon. The little reptile was scared; its skin rippled all sorts of colours, its eyes darting around frantically as if looking for an escape. John knew the little reptile was too slow to run, it wasn’t meant to run, it was such a slow, clumsy looking thing. No, this creature was meant to hide.
HIDE! Quickly!
Hide little chameleon, quick!
The chameleon obliged, its skin turning the exact shade and texture of the cobbled brick below. It wasn’t good enough. John urged the little chameleon to do better. Its brick red eyes looked at him and seemed to fade into the brick. Just in time. A bloodhound ran up to John, sniffing the area around him determinedly, looking for the little reptile.
Just stay quiet and still and they can’t find you, John thought to himself.
The bloodhound took a few more turns and seemed to get frustrated.
That was strange, John didn’t remember there being a bloodhound in this town.
There was something weird about this animal, the way it moved, the shimmer in its fur, something wasn’t right. It took him a moment to realize this was a spirit animal. A real life spirit animal. And he could see it. No, that wasn’t possible.
And just like that the spell was broken. The bloodhound disappeared and everything was back to normal. He slowly got up, brushing his knees off. They hurt from when he had fallen.
“Are you alright kid?”
John looked up and his blood froze at the sight of the grey uniform. A Tracker uniform.
He looked up higher at the biggest man he had ever seen in his life and he felt true fear for the first time in his life.
“Kid?” The man asked again.
“I’m alright.” John squeaked.
The man stared at him in a way he didn’t like, as though John was hiding something and he was going to find out what.
The man hummed softly and muttered to himself: “Kind of young anyways.”
Slowly the man turned and signaled his teammate into the black, unmarked car. The Guide was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind tinted glass windows but his warning ran clear in Johns head and would for years to come. Hide.
Hide from them. Hide from the Trackers.
A warning from one Guide to another.
Next Chapter
Author: tipsy_armadillo
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, non/dub-con
Summary: John has spent his whole life hiding
Written in response to velvet-mace's fic Chameleon which was in turn inspired by this Prompt. It's a fic within a fic. We need to go deeper.
The little boy with sandy blond hair ran after his sister. They were playing an old game: Sentinel and Guide. A common childs game played with the understanding a child had of such things. John, the boy, was the Sentinel and his sister, Harriet, was the Guide. She hated being the Guide but John always bossed her into it, saying that there was no way he was going to be some lame Guide, she was a girl anyways and everybody knew that Guides, even the guys, were practically girls anyways. So Harriet gave in and played Guide after many bribes and tantrums, following John around and pretending to do whatever it was that Guides did, John didn’t even know, he just knew if he was playing Sentinel it was lame not to have a Guide to boss around.
Their game continued through the small town and pretty soon other children joined in and as one they made their way around town, saving the butcher from a murderer and rooting out the local hairdressers as bandits in disguise. The hairdressers’ attack of threatening to tell their parents they were causing a disturbance thwarted their daring escapades but they vowed to return.
John ran ahead of the group, he was sure the yellow cat he had just seen was hiding something. He was going to bring it in for questioning.
The brave Sentinel moved forward to catch the cat, feeling its uneasy mind in the back of his head. He sent out a feeling towards it, a safe feeling. It relaxed and John grinned widely. His Sentinel powers were working!
He took a step forward, ready to catch his prey.
“Stop!”
John stopped.
“Please, I’m not one of them! I swear! I’m a law abiding citizen. I have a job. People know me. I’m not a criminal.”
Curiously John turned his attention to the shouting. This was weird, nothing ever happened in this town. Was someone being arrested? John started to get excited. Maybe it was a real bad guy. He ran to get a close look.
To his disappointment it wasn’t a bad guy at all. It was just a young man who was shouting. John knew him vaguely. The man had given him a boost once when he needed to get his ball from a roof. He was a nice guy but there was a Tracker holding him down. Why were Trackers arresting him?
He recognized the uniforms, everyone did, Trackers were notorious and nobody wanted to get in their line of sight. They were police but not really. They were Guide police.
It clicked in his young brain. The nice man who had given him a boost once was a Guide, an illegal Guide hiding in their village. John gasped in excitement. A real Guide. Here, in his town. This whole time. A sudden rush of jealously assailed him.
A brave Sentinel like himself should have rooted out the illegal Guide. He could have had his very own Guide and here he was staring at one this whole time and he was too stupid to notice. It wasn’t fair. The Guide was in his village it should have been his! Now his Guide was going to go to some stupid city Sentinel, probably the one who was arresting him if that Tracker didn’t have his own already. He probably did, Trackers always got first dibs.
John pouted.
The man was crying now. John didn’t feel bad for him. He shouldn’t have been hiding in the first place, that was just stupid. Nobody could hide from the Trackers. Didn’t the man know there were Sentinels out there that needed him? Didn’t he realize he was being selfish? John was angry at the man in a petty childish way. That could have been his Guide and now his chance was ruined.
Maybe the Tracker would let him just test it out; he might still have a chance. He would have to run though, the Trackers were getting ready to leave and he was pretty far away.
He was about to run over and he would have if it weren’t for a sudden rush of heat in his body. John stumbled and fell to his knees as a smell overtook him and his mind seemed to … it was hard to explain, his mind opened up. Colours suddenly flared to life, smells enhanced, noises exploded in his ears, he could taste everything in the air as though he was eating it. It was agony. This wasn’t even his. This was everyone elses. He was seeing from the butchers eyes, smelling through the Janitors nose, hearing through every ear, he couldn’t make it stop. The sensations fell away as quickly as they had come and suddenly it wasn’t sense assaulting him but feelings, emotions, sensations, fears, happiness, doubts, bliss, calm, rage, fear, peace, confusion. His heart raced and a dark feeling of madness seemed to creep over him and he cried out for help even as his mouth was frozen.
His mind cried out and another mind answered. Their eyes met and the Guides tear filled eyes widened in horror.
John didn’t understand. What was this? Why was this happening?
So young.
What?
Oh god he’s just a kid.
Who was saying that? He was so hot and the sensations, it was too much, he wanted to rip his own skin off, it was burning so bad and the smell was making it worse, getting into his head and clouding his mind. It was such a wonderful smell, calling out to him, making him want to touch the mind it belonged to, wrap himself in their thoughts and ideas and make them whole.
You have to hide!
Why?
Hide!
I don’t understand.
HIDE!!!
How?
Right there, don’t you see.
And there, right in front of him was the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life. A little reptile with eyes that seemed to point in two different directions at once and with little hands and feet that seemed to point the wrong way. He vaguely recognized it from a picture he had seen once. It was a chameleon. The little reptile was scared; its skin rippled all sorts of colours, its eyes darting around frantically as if looking for an escape. John knew the little reptile was too slow to run, it wasn’t meant to run, it was such a slow, clumsy looking thing. No, this creature was meant to hide.
HIDE! Quickly!
Hide little chameleon, quick!
The chameleon obliged, its skin turning the exact shade and texture of the cobbled brick below. It wasn’t good enough. John urged the little chameleon to do better. Its brick red eyes looked at him and seemed to fade into the brick. Just in time. A bloodhound ran up to John, sniffing the area around him determinedly, looking for the little reptile.
Just stay quiet and still and they can’t find you, John thought to himself.
The bloodhound took a few more turns and seemed to get frustrated.
That was strange, John didn’t remember there being a bloodhound in this town.
There was something weird about this animal, the way it moved, the shimmer in its fur, something wasn’t right. It took him a moment to realize this was a spirit animal. A real life spirit animal. And he could see it. No, that wasn’t possible.
And just like that the spell was broken. The bloodhound disappeared and everything was back to normal. He slowly got up, brushing his knees off. They hurt from when he had fallen.
“Are you alright kid?”
John looked up and his blood froze at the sight of the grey uniform. A Tracker uniform.
He looked up higher at the biggest man he had ever seen in his life and he felt true fear for the first time in his life.
“Kid?” The man asked again.
“I’m alright.” John squeaked.
The man stared at him in a way he didn’t like, as though John was hiding something and he was going to find out what.
The man hummed softly and muttered to himself: “Kind of young anyways.”
Slowly the man turned and signaled his teammate into the black, unmarked car. The Guide was nowhere to be seen, hidden behind tinted glass windows but his warning ran clear in Johns head and would for years to come. Hide.
Hide from them. Hide from the Trackers.
A warning from one Guide to another.
Next Chapter