From Beyond

[meatbabies]

The crew will see them slinking off, disappearing around hallways--shifting shadow shapes and the backs of heads ducking around corners. They're always people they think they know. Dead loved ones, perhaps, or loved ones they're not sure are dead or alive. They lead crew members into dangerous places, sudden drops, parts of Stacy where things can

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[craaazyisland]

"You're not real."

Steve was quite sure of that-- the woman who stood before him was an illusion, part of that goddamn Nightmare King's stupid plan. He knew this was going to happen. So he had to tell himself out loud what he knew to be true.

Even if she did look very real. Strawberry blonde hair cut to her shoulders, kind blue eyes, wearing her favorite blouse and that silver bracelet she always liked that his father got her for her birthday. She smiled and looked at him sadly, even as he backed away.

"You're not real," he repeated sternly. "You're not her."

"Steve," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. "Steve, how can you say that to me?"

He let out a dry, furious sob. "My mother is dead! You're not real!And suddenly he felt his skin crawling and a rush of heat surge through him. Steve gasped and his voice came out a low half-snarl-- across the hall from him, the woman went pale and flattened back against the wall in terror

[craaazyisland]

"No, I'm not, it-" Goddammit, right in the middle of a viral episode and his face was still turning red. "It's not what it looks like. If you touch me you'll get hurt, okay?"

[ghost_bait]

"It's not what it looks like? You're. On. Fire." Miku puffed her cheeks out, stuck between her wanting to help and her worry about the flames. This was serious, and he was being stubborn, "I won't touch you if you use the shirt. Now, hurry!"

[craaazyisland]

Steve stared awkwardly at the shirt and down at the hideous, oozing rash on his arm, still dripping blood ever so slightly. Great. Now he was going to ruin her shirt, too. "It's not fire. It's my blood," he said under his breath, so quietly he wasn't even sure if she'd heard him.

[ghost_bait]

The shirt was not retracted. And her look said that if he knew what was good for him, he would take the shirt and quickly. She didn't want him to bleed (burn?) to death while they were arguing over her shirt.

[craaazyisland]

He looked rather like a scared puppy as he finally, reluctantly took the shirt from her. He stretched it out and tried to wrap it around his forearm before Miku could really see what was going on with it, though he had serious doubts about his success on that front, but he prayed for it anyway. He was embarrassed enough.

Then he pressed the wrapped arm up against the other bleeding wound and stared sheepishly away from her. "I have to go to medical," Steve said in the same quiet voice. "It's, um. It's the virus."

[ghost_bait]

"I'll go with you, at least see you to medical," Miku said quietly, her brows drawing together in worry. "What if that crazy person comes back? He isn't stable. At all." Oh, Steve, if only you'd been down in medical when he'd been spouting that nonsense.

"Please?" And maybe he would explain just how a virus made him bleed fire. It was... sort of scary, if she let herself think about it. Which is why she was fully committing herself to not thinking.

[craaazyisland]

"Okay," he agreed quietly. Then he set off with the most steady speed he could manage at the moment, something akin to a very wobbly walk. Seemingly too awkward to look at her, he kept his eyes locked on the corridors ahead of them.

He winced in pain and squeezed the shirt tighter around his arm. It was hot and itchy and uncomfortable, but at least he hadn't burned through it yet. "Goddamn psycho," he muttered angrily. Whether he referred to the Nightmare King or the freak in the hallway wasn't clear. "Shit, this hurts..."

[ghost_bait]

"It will be over soon," Miku murmured and helped move him along, supporting him by one elbow and the center of his back, very, very, carefully. "I bet we'll laugh-- well, we probably won't." She was babbling, and knew she was, but couldn't quite get the nerve up to stop herself.

There was a layer of normalcy that she was trying to preserve for them, and The person you like bleeds fire wasn't on that list as far as she knew.

"I'm just glad he... vanished before anything else could be done."

[craaazyisland]

Steve tried to maintain his own level of normalcy around here, and having waking nightmares about his dead mother that caused him to develop a real live flare-up of Veronica symptoms right in front of the girl he liked was somewhere around the "totally humiliating" side of the scale. He seemed ashamed for having had the gall to be proved anything but totally ordinary.

"I would've kicked his ass," he said in a painfully obvious bluff. "I'm gonna be fine. It was just a stupid scratch..." and a giant, pus and bloody, infected strip of skin on his arm that was apparently capable of turning him into a human firestarter.

He winced in pain as they rounded the corner. "I'm gonna be fine," he repeated. "I'm gonna make it."

[rope_victim]

They were in the Hub before she knew it, and Miku murmured support to Steve as they walked. "We're almost there, so it won't be too much longer now," she said softly.

She wanted to ask about his arm. Why it was greenish, what about his disease made his blood flame up, what were they going to do with all that thick, yellowish pus. "Is the shirt working out okay?"

[craaazyisland]

Embarrassed as he was, having her with him gave him something to think about besides the image of his mother screaming in horror at the sight of him.

He turned red again at her question. Or perhaps he had just been red the entire time, it was hard to tell. "You... you're probably gonna need a new shirt," he murmured, looking worried about it. "I'm really sorry..."

[ghost_bait]

"It's okay, it was a little big, anyway," Miku soothed. Actually, the shirt Tess had picked out fit just fine, but Miku hoped that telling him it hadn't would make him feel a little better. "There isn't anything to apologize for, I offered it anyway, didn't I?"

[craaazyisland]

"Yeah, but-" But real clothes were impossible to get around here. And he really probably shouldn't have been on fire in the first place. "It's just-- it's stupid, this whole thing is stupid bullshit."

He didn't mean to sound upset with her, so he was quick to try to cover it. "I'm really sorry," he said again. "This is just... I guess I kind of left a bit off when I told you..."

[ghost_bait]

"It's okay. It's an upsetting situation." Leave it to Miku to not curse. She looked down as they arrived at the proper floor for Medical. "If you want to wait to explain everything, that's fine. To be truthful, I... didn't really explain everything clearly, either. Right now, it's more important that the doctors see you."

She was right, wasn't she? Miku really didn't want Steve to suffer any more than he already had tonight. And stressing him out over what he hadn't said wasn't helpful, either.

[craaazyisland]

He glanced over at her through his bangs, still looking awkward and embarrassed about the whole situation-- but managing the tiniest of smiles.

"You're really sweet, Miku," he murmured. "Don't worry about me, I'm... I'm sure this isn't a big deal." He was supposed to report immediately to med bay if he showed any signs of mutation-- which last time, had been his eyes and hand. He hadn't previously known that big ugly rashes were an option. So maybe it wasn't all that severe.

On the other hand, it was new, which made it quite scary.

"You didn't get any on you, right?"