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neo-culture-mafia · 4 years

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그림자

last chapter

"'sup bitches." Hyuck called, walking in the front door with groceries in hand.

"Duckie, I have told you 9 separate times to not greet like that." I spun around in the swivel chair, "it's rude." I reasoned and he took his sunglasses off his face, holding them in the same hand as his motorcycle keys. "Whoops?...I guess." He chuckled, strutting over to where I sat at the living room desk.

I turned back around to look at the paperwork spanning across the wood surface. "What's this, sunflower?" He asked grabbing the first paper he could grab. He flicked his brown curls from his vision to have a good look at what was taking place in black ink.

"Money flipping?" He asked me, with a cocked eyebrow and an unamused look. "Yep. Just for a little while," I winked and snatched the paper back. I sighed, setting it back down on the desk, "just until we have enough for an apartment in the city."

He groaned and walked down the hall to the kitchen. "We have everything we need here." He called as I knew he was emptying the contents of the grocery bags into the respectful places they belonged.

I leaned my arm on the desk, laying my head in my hand and staring at the Polaroids above the desk. Some were of us: me, Mark and Hyuck, and some of the rest of the boys...now just a distant memory is what they felt like.

483 days...483 days since we last saw each other. On that damn night. That dreadful night that me and Mark were turned away and shunned like we were dogs.

Then we traveled back to Seoul to find Duckie. After he was missing for 3 weeks, I ran into him by chance in an alley. We actually had gotten in a first fight till his hood fell back and I was met with the melanin enriched skin that made my eyes weep.

I told him to leave, go back, that he was welcomed there. But, he didn't want to leave me or Mark. We lived in the shit shack eating nothing but crackers and water for a couple months, sometimes we opted for sleep as our daily meal.

Until Mark came home with money. He had gotten that damn tunnel door open by the grace of a higher-being: filled with cash to the brim.

Us 3 bought a 2 bedroom farm house in the somewhat country where we were best friends with our retired neighbors; their thoughts and whispers of us being in a 3-way relationship being the talk of the small farming town. We didn't care. We knew what we were doing here and what we needed to do in the future.

"Oh honey. I'm home." Donghyuck called through the house and a door opened to a wet Mark who was towel drying his hair in nothing but sweatpants. "Did you get me the stuff?" He asked all serious, and I looked down the dim hallway to see Mark's blonde hair being tossled by his towel.

Hyuck gave him a flat face, a hand on his hip and another holding him up on the counter. "Yes, Mark. I got you your 'stuff'." He rolled his eyes, going away and returning with a big ass watermelon.

"Yesss," Mark took it and automatically held it to his ear, knocking on it like it was a heavy wood door. "you picked a good one." Mark looked lovingly at the fruit in his arms as if it was a child.

I laughed as I looked at my wacky friend. "Why can't you be obsessed with something usual. Like beer, or poker."

The curly headed boy asked as he walked back down the hall towards me. Taking his thick jacket off and throwing it over the arm of the couch; sitting down he unlaced and unzipped his boots, throwing them by the door.

You watched the conversation play out like a terrible teen-sitcom. "Cause I'd rather die by watermelon overdose than alcohol intoxication-" Mark was cut off as he walked slowly to the front room where Hyuck and I sat. "Yeah yeah yeah. Too many big words for this early in the morning." Hyuck put his arm over his eyes and laid back.

Mark looked at me and we both looked at the clock. "Sweetie, its 3 in the afternoon." I giggled and he whined. "It's so early." He said and stood up.

"I'm getting changed and I'm gonna chill." He said looking at Mark who still clutched his watermelon to his bare chest, damp towel thrown over his shoulder.

"And?" Mark asked. "Why do I care?" He asked and the younger boy just shrugged. "Also...your night for dinner." Mark reminded him and Hyuck whined louder, running down the hall and smacking into our bedroom door.

"Donghyuck!" I jumped up, wanting to check if he was okay. He just kept on whining as he opened our door and went in, closing it.

You could still hear his shrieks as he was probably running around getting changed into comfier clothes.

"Then there were two." Mark sighed as he set his watermelon on the kitchen window, and plopping onto the long couch on the opposite side of the living room.

"I need to redo your hair soon." I said getting up and laying on the ground next to his couch. "I might let it grow up to a ponytail." I sat up quickly. "Uh. No you're not." My voice was harsh and he laughed.

"Girl you need to chill. I was joking." He chuckled, stretching and yawning.

Something that Jaemin used to say to me atleast once an hour. My smile faltered and I became more solemn.

"Do you miss them?" I asked and he just stared at me for a moment. "Who?" Was all he said and I knew that he knew exactly who he was talking about but it still hurt a little bit.

"Your boys." I said and a faint smile was broadcasted over his facial features as he stared into what seemed like distant space but was really just the dark TV.

"Of course." He exasperated and he looked back at my face who was just searching for reassurance that this path was the right one to take.

"But I am so thankful for the two of you, right here, right now." He smiled and my heart was put at ease.

"Alright I'm back. I sensed you guys missed me so I returned. Just for you guys!" Hyuck said as he sat down next to me and leaned back on his arms for support. "Oh yeah. 'Cause we were literally dying without your presence." I said sarcastically and he shrugged.

"Exactly. That's what I just said." He said as serious as possible and me and Mark laughed. "Oh you think you're so funny." Donghyuck said picking me up and pulling me on his lap, his hands reaching for my sides and tickling.

My shrieks and laughs radiated through the house as Mark watched on in admiration. He felt blessed that he made it this far. He also never failed to tell us atleast once a week. We were all each other's life and support systems.

Once hyuck stopped his evil act, I just laid there across his lap trying to resteady my breath.

"What's for dinner?" I looked up at him and he shrugged. "I haven't really looked to be completely honest." He said yawning.

"Well let's go see and then we can make it, eat, clean, and then chill for a while." I said getting up and putting my hand out for him to take.

He groaned but obliged at my request.

He was in some shorts and a basic hoodie. The scarring on his legs reminding us all of a dark period. A painful time that sometimes still follows us.

I have a scar on my back from that night. I don't remember anything of the tunnels but the burning pain in my calves, wanting to stop sprinting through the dark and lonely concrete jungle.

Him and I stood infront of the cupboards in silence.

I suddenly felt so tired and out of it. Like a heavy weight was on my chest and it wouldn't budge.

"Oooo. Spaghetti." He said stretching and reaching the noodles and sauce on the top shelf. I shrugged as he looked at me for my reaction to his suggestion.

"You okay?" He asked and I could only shrug and try to give a convincing smile.

"Yeah. Just thinking about stuff." I shrugged once more and he understood.

"Can you help me with dinner?" He asked and of course I agreed, wanting to get my mind off the looming darkness in the corners of the house.

"Alright. We need 2 pots and then you can figure out some sides we can have with it." He said and I was already grabbing the 2 pots.

I set them on the stove top and he began doing his own thing. I rummaged through the cabinets and fridge before feasting my eyes on what seemed like the perfect pairing.

"Salad?"

~~~~~~~~~

Trying to sleep that night was rough. It was just tough and not even the usual cuddly nature of the sleeping Hyuck next to me could lull me into dream land.

The dark feeling still followed me through dinner and to bed.

I tried staring at the wall but even then the small cracks started freaking me out. I turned towards Hyuck who's curly dark hair framed his face perfectly.

Don't get us wrong. We're not a thing. We're just close. Once we found each other again he has stuck to my side in hopes of fulfilling what he thought he didn't in the first place- protection.

I don't mind. We've always been close and now we've just gotten closer. Was sharing a bedroom in our plans?...no...but we didn't want to put up with Mark and his farting so he was blessed with having his own room.

We're just making do with what we have.

My finger lightly traced shapes on his arm tattoos, trying to pass time and get myself to sleep.

I groaned and his eyes opened. "What's wrong?" He asked looking at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

3:29 AM

He turned back to make sure I was okay. He sat up on his arm and just looked at me for a moment. "Are you hurt?" Was all he asked and I shook my head no. I wouldn't know how to explain the hurt I was feeling anyway.

"I just need water." I said getting up and crawling to the end of the bed. "Be back in 5 minutes please." He said grabbing his phone. I mumbled my recognition and opened our door.

I strided down the hall and grabbed a water bottle. I walked into the hall where the corridor meets living room. Hyuck's phone lit one end of the hall in our bedroom while the other was illuminated by the moon light.

1 sip.

I breathed and looked out the front window at the old couples house across from ours.

2 sips.

I can hear my heart beat as I try to drown it out with gulps of water.

3 sips.

I have a sudden urge to sprint up and down our street to try and rid the shakiness of my body.

4 sips.

I'm not even cold but my anxiety makes my bones sound like wooden spoons and my body go cold with shivers.

And that's when I see it.

The shadow.

It moved on the front porch.

"I'm going crazy." I spoke in a monotone.

"What?" I heard Hyuck call out, now sitting up in the bed.

The shadow came closer to the door, an arm raised, as if it was going to bash in the glass.

"That's not real." I said louder, my water bottle now dropped from my cold hand.

I heard a thud and a swear along with an opening door.

"Mark. Up, now." And a pair of feet come closer down the dark hallway.

The shadow just seemed frozen now as Hyuck stood right by me.

"What is that?" He muttered and Mark now was coming closer, trying to see tiredly through his glasses.

The arm went back and forth a couple of times. "Hyuck go get your gun." Mark said lowly but I wanted to fight this thing head on.

I walked straight to the door before any of their hands could grab me. I threw the door open as my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest.

I was met with bleached blonde hair, a blood splattered face, a cold stare, and a muscly build that held ink and a face of an old someone I used to know.

"Jeno?" I choked out, wanting to vomit as my body went numb from shock. This wasn't real. I was dreaming. This wasn't happening.

I held my hands out towards his face, moving ever so slowly until his own hands held my own.

The boys behind me became silent as I knew one of them held a gun, still on edge for this too good to be true situation.

I threw myself at him and just held onto his muscular frame. His arms held me tight in a grip that I used to miss.

The metallic smell on him made my nose scrunch up in disgust but I was just too wrapped into the moment to care.

My body was yanked back forcefully and I was thrown back into the living room at the feet of a shell shocked Mark who could nothing but stare forward.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I thought Donghyuck was losing it as he cocked his gun and held it at the face of his once brother.

"Duckie what are you doing?" I asked getting up and grabbing at his arm.

Jeno just did nothing but stare down the metal barrel in front of his face, his hands being raised next to his head.

"I did a sweep of the surrounding place and it's sketc-" another body came walking up our porch.

The tall boy still seemed lanky but had glasses this time. His hair was now a lighter brown and it seemed like he had grown another 4 inches in the span of a year.

"Jisung?" I muttered and he was still met another gun barrel.

This time from Mark who had shoved me back again.

"Please don't shoot." Jisung pleaded, scared setting into his features.

"We need help. Please." Jisung begged but Jeno still held his stare with Hyuck.

"Everyone is gone." Jisung pleaded.

"Please." He whispered, his eyes were threatening to spill.

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braxarchives · 3 years

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The Four Loko Incident ― CANON. (current verse)

Max hasn’t been entirely honest with Brady about his feelings towards him. In order to gain the courage to tell him, he concocts a plan. NSFW.

It took Max all of a day after texting his twin about his self-pitying unrequited bullshit to put together a game plan in his head. When he woke up yesterday morning, he didn’t really plan on being in his feelings. But then Brady had to walk by him in one of Max’s t-shirts and smiled at him with his stupid bed-head and Max’s brain malfunctioned. Honestly, though. Maybe it was a long time coming. When Emmie had suggested he just talk to him… the thought was scary. But the alternative was scarier: letting this eat at him for even longer and ruining whatever chill he had left. And once Max had an idea in his head, he had to do it. Sleeping on things for too long wasn’t his strong suit. If he gave himself time to think things through, he’d chicken out. And that just wasn’t him. So naturally he’d thought about it. What was the least painful way to get everything out in the open and not feel the embarrassment of rejection later? And then it came to him: alcohol. “Hey, dude.” He said casually as he closed the door behind him to their apartment, cradling a bagged bottle in his hands. “You have plans tonight? ‘Cause I thought maybe we could hang out. I brought presents. Like — six different kinds of Four Loko.” He grinned and lifted the bag up some as though he could see through it. “Was thinking we could come up with our own drinking game or something.”

Brady looked up from the TV, where he was currently sprawled out on the couch watching Parks & Rec for probably the 10th time, when he heard Max come in. “Hey,” he replied, just beginning to curiously eye the bag in Max’s hands when he explained it. Brady grinned, pushing himself to sit up. “Four Loko,” he repeated. “You’re ridiculous.” But he couldn’t even act like he wasn’t excited. The idea of a drinking game definitely piqued his interest. “Yeah. Yeah, we can figure somethin’ out.” Brady paused the episode he was currently on so he could adequately focus on the conversation. “You wanna make it a video? We’ll just…try to cut it off before you get too hammered. Don’t want your fans seeing you get too sloppy,” he teased.

Max laughed and walked over to him to set the bag down near the couch, his gaze momentarily drifting to the TV before Brady paused it. Honestly, it was good he did pause. They’d end up getting distracted before doing anything at all. “If that’s not good enough we’ve got some Jack somewhere around here. But I don’t wanna kill us, we might lose at our own game.” He matched Brady’s tone right back and moved to sit next to him, shuffling the bag on the ground as he did so. “Oh yeah, wouldn’t want to be too on brand. Good thing I have you to protect our squeaky clean image, huh?” For once, he hadn’t even thought of doing a video. He guessed he shouldn’t stop now. Besides, as Brady said, they could cut it off when he got too messy. Nodding with a small hum, he rummaged through the bag to pull out a couple different flavors and set the cans in front of them. “Yeah! You’re a genius, man. ‘Cause I was thinking we could watch some of our old stuff. But make it fun, you know? That way you can take a shot every time I do something dumb, like I know you want to.” He teased. “And I can whenever you roll your eyes and quit. Perfect, right?” Except for the fact that it wouldn’t be actual shots, but whatever. They made their own rules. “How much time do you need to get ready?”

“Yeah. Save that for another time.” Whatever Max had on him now was likely more than enough. “Which is why this probably won’t be edited for a good two days, to make sure I got a totally clear head to start with.” Brady could only imagine going into it and missing important bits and pieces, ending up with something super messy up on Max’s channel for the world to see. And Brady certainly wasn’t down with that. “Hm, we might have to narrow that down a lil’ bit. Taking a drink every time you do something dumb might kill me in a little under an hour,” he teased as he turned the TV off. “Go get your laptop. Gimme like five minutes.” He headed into his room so he could change his shirt. He usually didn’t exactly care what he looked like in Max’s videos, since he was partial to being entirely authentic or whatever, but he was in an old sleep shirt that really didn’t do much for him. He changed into the first clean henley shirt he found, grabbed his camera and tripod, and returned to the living room to set up. “Let’s say you take a drink every time I make a comment from behind the camera, ‘cause there’s plenty of that. Down the rest of your drink every time I threaten to quit.” Brady set the camera on the tripod and started to set up the frame. “And I take a shot every time you lose your train of thought. Down it whenever you manage to injure yourself.”

“You’re so funny, save it for the video.” Max grinned to himself and stood, waving his roommate away as he did so. “Alright, go make yourself presentable, wouldn’t want to disappoint the Brady fangirls.” He teased, before wandering off to go grab his laptop from his room. He walked by Ratthew’s cage, wiggling his fingers in his direction before grabbing the laptop and power cord from his bed. By the time he came back to the living-room, powered up and pulled up YouTube, Brady was already joining him. He briefly glanced at him, taking note of the outfit change and willing himself not to be that guy who looked a little too long. Yikes, as though this wasn’t already going to be embarrassing enough. Turning back to the screen, he found himself huffing a small laugh as he opened a few different fan-made compilations, pausing each one before they had a chance to play. “Why don’t I just down my drink now and get it over with?” He joked lightly, but wasn’t really joking, as Brady set up the camera. “Sounds good, but we’re gonna end up going through all these cans in like five minutes. I pulled up our greatest hits.” He took two cans of Four Loko, one for him and one for Brady, and popped the top. “’Kay, dude, get your ass over here so we can do our intro. We’ll save the thumbnail for after.”

Brady obviously knew Max was joking about downing his drink right away, but he still replied, “’Cause that’d ruin all the fun.” He finished setting up the camera and pressed record. “Alright, then guess we’re gonna have to break out the jack eventually,” he said simply, going over to join Max where he sat. “I dunno if we’ll manage to pull ourselves together afterward.” He had to take the realistic approach, because he had a feeling a drunken thumbnail would be a hot mess and they’d end up redoing one when they were sober anyway. “But whatever, your channel.” Brady cleared his throat and put on his best ‘on camera’ look, which was far from perfected because he still wasn’t quite used to it. “Sup guys. Uh, welcome back to my channel. My name’s Max,” he placed a hand over his chest, then gestured toward Max, “and this is my super hot cameraman Brady who’s so kindly doing a video with me.” Brady grinned at him briefly before turning away, and then wondered for a moment if the joke about himself being hot would properly land. Not that Brady hadn’t publicly stated before that he and his best bro were equally attractive, but recently it felt just a little bit different to say out loud. And he also knew from experience that Max’s fans liked to take the tiniest little thing and turn it into something much bigger. But Brady wanted all of that to be on his own terms, not up to some randos on the internet. “What’re we doin’ today, real Max?” he asked as he opened the can Max had handed him.

Max sighed, more than a little dramatically, and shrugged his shoulders. “I mean I guess. And hey maybe not, but if we can get a steady pic it’ll be good enough.” The important thing was that Brady would be in it. He was a fan favorite, even if Brady didn’t seem to like the attention like Max did. He never fully understood why. But sometimes he just wished Brady would let people see who he was more. As Brady joined him, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow. Spot on impression. I think I’d introduce you as my super hot but rude as hell camera-man Brady, but you’re honestly close enough.” He leaned back into the couch and gave the camera a little wave. “Hey everybody it’s fake Brady slash real Max. Bringing you more quality content ‘cause we’ve got nothing better to do on a Friday night. So here we’ve got some Four Loko, and on my laptop here I’ve got several fan submitted compilations. And spoiler alert, we might actually end up dying today. ‘Cause we’re going to be playing a drinking game.” He looked away from the camera and grinned over at Brady. “Rules are simple. He takes one sip whenever I lose my train of thought.” He shoots him an annoyed look, although it’s mostly playful. “Which is obviously not that often. And then he’s gonna down it whenever I injure myself. Which might be a little often.” He admitted with a small shrug. “And I’ma sip whenever he comments behind camera. Then full on downing my drink when he threatens to quit on me. Oh, and it totally counts now, too, but if you abuse it I’m disqualifying you. So don’t quit three times in a row. Or I’m gonna get up and pretend to fall like fifteen times.” He tapped him on the arm, careful not to make him slosh, and reached out to grab his own can and pull the first tab on his laptop up. “And on that note. I’m gonna start. “Max & Brady’s worst moments - part 1.” He arched an eyebrow at Brady before he started it. “How many parts do you think there are?”

“Quality content is a loose term.” They both had to admit this was going to get real stupid, real fast. But that was them for you. Brady simply nodded along with Max’s explanation, because there was really nothing to add and maybe he was still a little camera shy. But whatever. All he really had to do was sit there and look pretty and Brady was good at that. “Alright, alright. I won’t quit unless it’s warranted,” he promised. Brady watched curiously as the video started and shrugged. “I dunno, man. Probably too many.” It started with Max’s older videos, clips stitched together with far too much yelling and general idiocy. And, predictably, Brady’s comments in response. He smirked as he looked over at Max after a particularly prominent ‘this might be your dumbest idea yet’ from behind the camera. “Drink up, bro.”

He couldn’t help the genuine smile from crossing his face at their old videos. The camera was way too shaky and their content was just a bunch of yelling and doing the first thing they could think of. But they were kind of his favorites. That was one of the most fun times of his life. “Aw, look at us. We were like 12.” It was more like three years ago, but close enough. At the comment that Max had honestly been expecting, he shook his head and grinned. “Ah – wait for it, though.” He held his hand up in the air, and shortly after he spoke, the on-screen Max tumbled to the ground and completely ate it. He lifted his own can up, and pointed at Brady with his other hand. “You better drink for that bruise I had on my face for like a month. It hurt to smile.” And with that, he lifted his drink to take a small sip. “Chug it, bro, I’m freaking waiting.”

It went like that, as predicted, and four cans between the two of them were gone way too quickly. And so was Brady. “The fuck even is this shit bro?” He studied the can, as it suddenly occurred to him he’d never actually had this shit before and didn’t realize it would hit him this hard. “That was too freakin’ fast to go through two of these at once. That’s like… that’s eight whole Lokos, dude.” Brady couldn’t help the laugh that erupted as soon as he said it, his hand coming up to grab Stevie’s shoulder for support. Once he caught his breath, Brady waved said hand in the air and placed the empty can down on the table. “Okay, okay. I think it’s time we wrap this up.”

Max wasn’t expecting it to go that fast, but maybe he should have stopped to think about it. Or come up with different rules. But it was too late… and he was definitely more tipsy than he’d intended to be. He just wanted to be a little gone, not like… this much. “Uhh it tastes like an alcoholic energy drink. Or somethin’. Like freakin’… party Monster.” He snorted at his own joke, setting his empty can on the table in front of them and slinking back into the couch just as Brady spoke. He and broke out into a laugh so big he could feel it vibrate through his chest. “Shut up, you’re dumb.” Yet he grinned at him and began to sit up, his hand dropping down to Brady’s leg to use the leverage to straighten himself. And even his almost-drunk mind was well aware of their proximity, and he wasn’t really sure if it was the alcohol or a laughing Brady that wasn’t making him think clearly. “Okay…okay. Yeah.” He gave a short laugh and lifted his hand from Brady’s leg, running it over his face as he shook his head. His heart leapt in his chest, because he knew why he was even here to begin with. But they’d been having fun. And now they were drunk and he didn’t know what to do. “Okay guys I think it’s safe to say we’re both losers here. That’s all the sign-off you get. I’m…kinda drunk. A little.” He looked to Brady. “But uh. Not that drunk.” He swallowed, not nearly as humorous as before, but not trying to alarm him by a sudden change in tone. “Hey dude? Can I be honest with you for a second?”

Max was a mess. That was all Brady could think as he watched him give a half-assed outro, just slightly slower than usual. But Brady himself was just as bad, ducking his head and damn near giggling through it. He did manage to look back up at the camera when Max said he was drunk to add, “Same.” And then Max looked at him and of course Brady’s focus shifted. It was a little weird, the sudden (but subtle) shift in the mood of the conversation, but not the kind of weird that made Brady want to run away before things got too serious. Although… maybe that had something to do with the crazy amount of alcoholic energy drink in his system, because he almost knew where this was going before it got there. And that was dumb, since he’d spent all this time pretending not to notice the way Max looked at him sometimes and also acting like it didn’t make a difference to him. He didn’t know when he realized he was attracted to him, but it was long enough ago that Brady had gotten really, really good at pretending. Max was too close to him, one of the most secure constants in his life, and Brady wasn’t gonna let his dumbass fuck that up. But Max was crossing the line so Brady didn’t have to. “Yeah,” was all Brady managed to say through the fog clouding his brain. He wanted to say as long as it’s not stupid, a last-ditch effort to run away from the inevitable. Instead, he swayed a bit in his seat and said, “Anything.”

Max wasn’t sure how Brady would respond to the change in subject, but when he didn’t seem phased, part of him was almost surprised. He didn’t think he’d want to listen right now. But then he agreed and gave him that look again; the one that made him feel like he wasn’t crazy after all. He didn’t always get it from him, but when he did, Stevie couldn’t help how it made him feel. Fucking Brady messing with his head like this when he was already mush-brained. The all-too familiar sensation of longing settled into his gut, and it was then that he gained his resolve. Now or never. He seemed so much closer now, and he had to fight to not lean over to him and go too far. “I didn’t — do this for the freaking video, Brady.” He struggled to make sense, and he ended up leaning in some regardless, tone lowering as though he were telling a secret. Because that’s what this felt like. Max’s shoulders slouched a little from the alcohol, and he shook his head so he could try to think clearly. “I wanna know. I want to know.” His words were spoken slowly as he corrected himself. He wanted to reach out and touch him, and he lifted his hand to do so, before choosing to settle it between them. Even in his state of mind right now he knew this was one hell of a delicate situation. “If I kissed you…” The words were so foreign to say around him, even if he’d thought about it before. But now he couldn’t take them back. His head swam with anxiousness, but he also felt a sense of pride at having done it. So he repeated it, making sure Brady heard him. “If I actually… really kissed you. Would you never talk to me again?”

Brady swallowed, noticing how unbelievably dry his throat was. “I don’t…” He didn’t what? Didn’t want to ruin their friendship by admitting he wanted to sleep with him? Didn’t want to fuck up something to good in his life? Didn’t want to make things awkward between them forever? He recognized that saying any of that was the surest and quickest way to make it happen, because the damage had been done. Max had said his part, had put himself out there and opened up the flood gates and now it was Brady’s turn to decide what to do with it. He was dizzy, mostly because he was drunk but also partly because he was moving, leaning forward with an arm over the back of the couch to steady himself so he could kiss him. He was all too aware of how drunk they both were, especially considering how clumsily his hands found Max’s face, and just… what the fuck. Brady didn’t know what to think, except that he technically hadn’t answered Max’s question. But he was hoping he got the picture.

Max hadn’t exactly expected the night to go like this. He expected Brady to pull away from him; to make up any and every excuse to not be around him. But he wasn’t doing any of that, and suddenly he was hyper-aware of everything. Feeling Brady’s arm slide around the back of the couch urged Max to lean in to close what distance was left between them. The moment his friend finally kissed him was surreal, and he couldn’t really think of much of anything other than how freaking soft his lips were and how nice his hands felt on his face even if they kind of bumped against him. Max’s hands didn’t feel so steady themselves, but he still used one to grab the fabric of that ridiculous Henley of his and tug him in closer. The other raised to cup Brady’s own jaw as he reciprocated the kiss; all caution gone now. He broke apart briefly, eyes shut, and he laughed quietly as he licked his bottom lip. His eyes opened only for his gaze to drop down to Brady’s mouth. “Really like that answer.” He said quietly, but sure as hell wasn’t going to say any more and ruin this. He brought himself closer, knee bumping against Brady’s as he pressed another kiss to his lips, hand cupping his jaw now sliding to the back of his neck to steady him.

Max closed the already very little distance between them even further and Brady suddenly felt a sense of urgency. Like he was reminded that this really was an okay thing to be doing, and fuck if he didn’t really, really want it. He pulled away and dragged his hands down to Max’s shoulders to urge him backwards, simultaneously trying to move on top of him, but he very quickly lost his balance and tumbled right into Max, pushing him much harder than intended onto his back on the couch. “Oops.” Brady couldn’t help but laugh just before pressing another kiss to his lips. Then he planted his hands to push himself back up slightly. He hesitated for a moment, feeling all sorts of dizzy as he looked down at Max, but he bit his lip and touched Max’s shirt, pulling the fabric just a little. “You…” He swallowed. “Tell me to stop if it’s—if you don’t want me to,” he said slowly, the slur in his words surprising even himself for a moment. Even when he could barely see straight, he knew better than to just assume where this was going simply because it was what he wanted. Brady bunched up the fabric in his hands to start to pull it off, knowing Max had an out if he wanted it, no questions asked.

Max was fully ready to lose all control and climb on top of Brady when his shoulders were being pushed backwards. Caught off guard, he hit the couch harder than perhaps he needed to. His head slamming on the cushion and back bouncing from the impact. Unable to help it, Max let out a large laugh, something that was quickly silenced by Brady’s lips on his. He smiled into the kiss, and almost deepened it when his friend broke apart. And the words honest to God made him pause for a second. If he wanted…him to stop. Wow. Really. “You’re. So.” Unbelievable. He let out a laugh of disbelief, although the comment was sweet. Max had wanted this for way too long. “More like if you wanna stop we can.” He murmured, and took a second to slide his hand up Brady’s back. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Max never thought that they’d actually get drunk, or do anything like this. He just wanted to tell him so Brady could once and for all reject him. But now that he wasn’t — he was going to fully embrace that and not question things for once. But if Brady wanted to stop, he’d stop.

Now though? Max was eagerly lifting himself up so they could both pull his shirt over his head. “Don’t wanna stop.” He reached out grab Brady’s shirt and bunched the bottom of the material in his hands, palms sliding up the skin of his torso as he tried to remove the material completely. And then Max was sitting up, despite kind of loving Brady being right on top of him. But he had more pressing business. Maybe a little sloppily, he met Brady’s lips once more and wrapped his arms around his waist, before slowly flipping their positions. Not thinking clearly, he barely processed the fact that they were both sliding off the couch and to the ground, the Four Loko cans scattered around them. But Max barely even paid attention. Now on top of Brady, he lifted himself up with his hands so he could look down at him. Holy crap Brady was really here doing this with him. Something at that moment clicked in him, and he grinned slowly. “Fuck you Brady. I hate your stupid clothes.” Max dipped his head for another slow kiss before dropping his head lower, finally allowing himself to trail kisses from his jawline to his neck as his hands trailed down to his waistline, thumbs stroking against his skin as he took his time. This was really happening.

Brady wanted to make some sort of comment, but not only could his brain not currently form one, he was a little preoccupied at the same time. He tossed Max’s shirt…fuckin’ somewhere, it didn’t matter, and only had a second to take it in before reacting to Max’s hand sliding up under his own. Brady yanked it over his head and it joined Max’s somewhere on the floor. Then Max quite literally dragged him onto the floor and Brady couldn’t even think to remind Max that he was, in fact, dumb. He did manage to roll his eyes, though, but grinned in spite of it and mumbled, “Then get rid of ‘em.” He shivered when Max’s hands paused right above the waistband of his sweats, his lips on his neck and sending Brady’s drunk ass into sensory overload. He groaned before his brain caught up to allow him to swallow the sound, but then… he didn’t give a fuck.

Brady’s hands came down to join Max’s, only to push them out of his way so he could hold onto Max’s hips instead. He gave him a generous tug to pull Max flush against him, pressing his fingers into his skin. If he was gonna be a smartass about not wanting to stop, then Brady wasn’t gonna let him be a tease. Only he wasn’t crazy about lying here on the floor, wedged between the couch and the table. He let out a shaky breath before managing to speak. “C’mon.” He started wiggling out from under Max, pushing him off so he could sit up. “Not on the floor.” He held onto the couch for leverage as he pulled himself to stand, laughing as he struggled to get his balance. God, they really were both a goddamn mess. As if Brady cared. He knew what he was doing. Max’s room was closest, so obviously it was where Brady went. He shut the door behind them even though literally no one was gonna be coming in, then turned and pulled Max by the hand until he could feel his bare skin against his own, bringing their lips together as he led them in the general direction of Max’s bed.

When Brady groaned, practically right in his ear, that did him in. “Want me to?” He drawled out in response and grinned against Brady’s neck, giving a playful nip to the skin before soothing it with his tongue. Max’s fingers dipped under the waistband of Brady’s sweats just slightly, only teasing, when Brady pushed his arms out of the way and pulled his hips forward. A groan broke from the back of Max’s own throat as they were pressed together. He was already half-hard from that stint on the couch, but now there was no hiding it. At that moment, his eyes met Brady’s, and he rolled his hips forward against his without skipping a beat. He wasn’t going to be shy; not when Brady finally wanted this too. Before he had time to do it again, Brady was urging him to stand up. And they both may have stumbled, but Max honestly had a one track mind right now. They made their way to his room, and out of instinct Max pulled the cover loosely over Ratthew’s cage as they walked by. Pretty quickly, Brady had the door shut behind them and was pulling him in by his hand. And then they were pressed together - finally. Max’s hands found either side of Brady’s face, lips urgently moving against his as they made their way over to his bed. He broke apart only to grin at him, sliding his hands down to his chest only to gently push him backwards. This time he didn’t waste any time before he was climbing up on his bed and straddling him, hips pressing down on his as he leaned in for another kiss, letting it linger before trailing open-mouthed kisses down his chest and to his stomach. Max stopped there, letting his nose graze against the spot his lips just brushed over, and glanced up again. “Bein’ in my room isn’t so bad, is it?” He teased, tone rough and still slightly slurred. Still, being careful to watch his reactions, he slid a hand down Brady’s hip and over the front of his sweats, just brushing over him to test the waters. And damn if he didn’t hear his own heart thundering in his ears as he did so.

-------Brady had no idea what time it was when he first woke up the following morning. It was bright as fuck, that was for sure, and he very quickly realized it was because the curtain was wide open. Why hadn’t he closed it like always? He rubbed his eyes as reality slowly started to come back to him. He hadn’t closed it because he had been drunk off his ass, and also because it wasn’t exactly ‘like always’ since this was Max’s room, and he was waking up in Max’s bed next to Max because they’d slept together last night. So, right. There was that. Brady blinked as he stared down at his friend, still fast asleep, lying on his stomach and hugging the pillow under his head. Even through Brady’s hazy memory and one hell of a headache, of course it all came flooding back to him. The way it felt when Max touched him, the feeling of his mouth on him, the hottest fucking look on Max’s face when Brady returned the favor. God. All of it. It was fucking good. He also vaguely remembered a snide remark about the whole ordeal having taken them long enough just before he passed out. But whatever.

He couldn’t wipe the smug smirk off his face as he forced himself to finally look away from Max and drag himself out of the bed, careful not to wake him. He found his pants on the floor and tugged them on before heading out to the living room. He shook his head at the discarded cans (which he’d worry about later, ‘cause whatever, not like anybody was coming over) and then caught sight of his camera. Right, he’d forgotten about the freaking video for Max’s channel. The battery was just about dead since Brady had been a dumbass and left it on all night. He sighed and picked it up to make sure the video was at least still there, and he was met with one over an hour long. Which was definitely unusual for them — they didn’t typically talk for that long. Brady furrowed his brow as he quickly skimmed through the video, and his heart dropped as he discovered that…everything had been recorded. Well, everything right up until going to Max’s room, after which it must have automatically stopped after surpassing the video time limit. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered as onscreen-Brady pushed Max down onto the couch. He weirdly felt like kind of a perv just standing there watching their accidental kind of sex tape, so he turned off the camera and took out the battery to start charging it before heading to the kitchen. He didn’t have the slightest clue how today would pan out, but he did know he just wanted some Lucky Charms at the moment.

Max was hardly coherent when he finally began to stir. It took a moment upon first waking up to truly get his bearings. And as the light harassed his vision, his memories began to come back to him. And his eyes opened, followed by his arm reaching back to the spot beside him. Empty. Oh no. With some difficulty, he sat up and looked at the now empty spot next to him, and dread immediately gathered in the pit of his stomach as he called the previous nights events. Brady kissing him… Him kissing Brady. Then them doing a lot more than that to each other. And he knew Brady wasn’t the type to wanna spoon him or hold his hand or whatever but his mind immediately went to the worst. Groaning as fully sat up and the sunlight hit his eyes, Max stood up and stretched his arms over his head, trying to soothe his stiff muscles before grabbing himself some sweatpants to tug on.

Walking over to the door, he uncovered Ratthew’s cage, smiling softly to himself as he looked up at him and squinted due to the sudden light entering his cage. “Moment of truth, buddy.” Max tapped his fingers to the side of the cage, then ran his other hand through his hair and walked out. He wasn’t sure if he was expecting to see Brady packing his stuff, or what. But he didn’t expect him to be…. eating cereal. And it was the same thing he saw every morning, but the sight still kind of made him smile anyway. “Uh. Morning.” He said cautiously as he walked in and approached the table as casually as he could. Nothing weird so far. It wasn’t until he got there that he noticed the box in front of Brady, and he squinted, fear forgotten momentarily as he reached out to lift up the plastic bag. Just as he expected. Empty. “Are you really eating the last of my Lucky Charms right now, dude?”

Brady looked up when Max entered the kitchen. He thought that when they saw each other, he might feel weird, or awkward, or a multitude of other emotions that would fuck things up between them, but instead Brady just felt… normal. It was the same sight he was used to seeing every day. Same roommate. Same general morning routine. The only thing different was that nothing was hidden anymore, and he’d probably argue that was going to make things easier. “Sup,” he said through a mouthful of cereal. He watched Max as he walked, and it occurred to Brady that literally all he was thinking of now was whatever was going through Max’s head. They’d probably have to really sit down and talk about this sometime soon. Right now was just not that time, especially not when Max wanted to pick a fight about the Lucky Charms. “Dude, they’re not your Lucky Charms,” he shot back. “What did you want me to do, make a new box magically appear? I’ll go get some more today.” If anything could be considered totally normal between them, it was this, without a doubt. Brady finished off the last of the cereal in his bowl and hesitated for a moment, wondering what he should say or if he should say anything at all, and here was that awkwardness he’d been expecting. Or maybe it wasn’t awkward so much as it was…tense. “So. Realized this morning I left my camera on all night.” The worst thing he could say? Perhaps. But he was feeling confident that this could maybe cut some of that tension. Maybe. He didn’t fucking know. “It recorded…for a while.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, peering at Max curiously to see if he’d figure it out on his own.

Maybe he was deflecting, just a little, by pointing out the empty cereal box. But at the same time, he couldn’t resist messing with Brady a little. It was instinct by now to tease him until he rolled his eyes at him, even if he told himself to stop doing that before he got punched one of these days. He still did it anyway though. “Fine. Our lucky charms.” Max shrugged, Brady’s tone not phasing him ‘cause he was honestly used to it. If this were a normal day, he’d grab the spoon when Brady wasn’t looking to take a bite for himself. But it felt kind of out of place after last nights events. Oddly enough, considering he’d just had way more important things of Brady’s in his mouth. He sighed. “It’d be nice if you could. Got any magic powers I should know about?” He couldn’t help his normal grin from taking place at that moment, until Brady went and mentioned the camera. The camera. Of freaking course….God, Max was an idiot. Max took a long, silent moment, as the words really and fully sunk in. And the first question that popped in his head was did Brady watch it? The second coherent thought was the fact that Brady was actually referencing what happened without any trace of panic. And at that realization, Max relaxed. Good sign. He wracked his brain trying to come up with a normal response. But his stupidity bravery was at an all time high. “Hot. You wanna save it just for us or post it up on PornHub?” Max leaned his hands on the counter, honestly bracing himself and shaking his head. “Sorry, sorry. I’m… wow.” He couldn’t help but start laughing a bit. “I never thought you’d want to make a sex tape with me.” He let it hang in the air, and he met Brady’s gaze, not really sure how to respond. He was torn between humor and regret. Maybe he was still drunk from all the Four Loko. “How do you… feel about that?” It was a loaded question, one that wasn’t necessarily about the camera or video.

Brady waited while the gears turned in Max’s head. He could practically see him putting the pieces together about what Brady had just said. And Max had been surprising him quite a bit within the past 24 hours, but his response? Not surprising. It was Max, after all. But Brady still rolled his eyes, because he was Brady. “You’re such an idiot.” Then he shrugged. “It wouldn’t even do well, for the record. S’not all that exciting.” From what he had seen before feeling creepy and also managed to remember. But it was fun to mess with Max. Brady went to the sink to clean up after himself when Max asked him how he felt, and he knew he wasn’t talking about a fucking sex tape or whatever. Except Brady didn’t really know what to say in response. He thought he made it pretty clear how he felt about what was going on last night. He also knew Max, though, and knew that he had a big heart and genuinely wanted to know, and deserved real answers. And while Brady might not have been able to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear (mostly because he still wasn’t entirely sure what that was), he could suck it up and be as honest as possible — and give him a little bit of shit in the process. “I feel like I wanna know why you were holdin’ out on me,” he finally settled on, because again, both honest and amusing. Brady turned and brushed his hands on his pants. “Gonna go get dressed and go to Starbucks. Text me what you want.” He started to head out of the kitchen toward his bedroom, but paused to turn and look at Max again. “Oh — and the battery’s gotta charge a little, but…camera’s on the coffee table, in case you wanna make sure your vid turned out okay.” And then he finally did go. They could truly deal with this later. Right now, they both needed coffee.

Max was honest to God, for the first time in a long time, speechless. Did that asshole just flirt back? He was about to say something when Brady added the bit about the camera. Max honestly wasn’t even thinking about the video right now. His hands laid flat on the counter as he leaned forward further, eyes flickering towards the living-room and the table where the camera sat. Damn. He was really going to have to go through it now and get rid of the embarrassing bits. Max wasn’t sure if Brady was just trying to mess with him or genuinely didn’t want to edit it out himself. “Hey, wait a minu—” But it was fallen on deaf ears as the door was slammed behind him. It took him a second after Brady leaving for a surprised smile filtered over his face. Well. Okay, then. Not exactly all the answers to the universe, but at least Brady was talking to him, and that was enough for him for now. He sighed and looked back in the direction of where they’d filmed last night. He’d mess with the whole camera thing later. But he really was gonna need that coffee Brady was talking about. And maybe a shower and a life. Max ran a hand through his hair and made his way back to his room to grab his phone. Pulling up Brady’s name, he shook his head to himself before sending his text.

“Surprise me, Bradley.”

#CANON #the four loko incident #current verse #002

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titusreno · 6 years

Text

Chapter 2

Reno

The showers in the Caldegot dorm always run hot. While there’s nowhere at Auxie Mautlin where you can rely on cold water coming out of a tap, what I mean is that the showers in Caldegot are almost permanently near-boiling. It sucks during summer but it’s even worse in the winter, since there’s no air conditioning to keep the air in the bathroom cool. But there’s something nice about standing under a really hot, painful shower when you have gravel scratches all over your back. I rubbed the powdered soap into my hair and felt the places where the blood had clumped.

Titus stood outside the shower, watching me.

“Do you think you’re going to get as big as Fib?” he asked. I looked over at where he was standing, wearing his gym clothes because his orange school uniform always smelled too much for his liking after a full day of classes. The white cotton shorts slipped down under his hipbones as he leaned against the towel rack. His socks folded down around his ankles.

I had pine soap in my eyes and had to close them. “I don’t know,” I said. “I gained fifty pounds this year.”

“You did good today,” Titus said. “I thought I was gonna end up hiding Fib’s contraband and licking his toes or whatever, but you did really good.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I need to redo the mask soon. There’s a lot of blood on it.” I leaned my head back into the water and knew my skin was getting red where it hit.

“What do you think Fib would be if he wasn’t a tester? Or I guess if he wasn’t a lab kid.” Titus took off his shirt, and I felt a little fun knot tie itself in my stomach. I like the way his chest looks, the little hairs running down the middle in a line. “Do you think he’d be a soldier?”

“I think I need to get to know him more to know for sure,” I said. I let myself reach out to him, and pull him to me through the water. “I bet he would make a good fireman. He could save a lot of lives.”

Titus kissed me. He was still wearing his shorts and his socks, and I could feel his fluffy black hair getting wet. I kissed him back and pressed my face into his cool neck. The hot water ran over us both.

I felt like I was streaking through the sky like an asteroid, as out-of-control as the ship that brought the worm to Earth.

“I bet he’s a decent person,” I said.

The double match with the Littlests and then my match with Fib was the kind of thing that meant that all the Caldegot kids were going to spend the night getting jumped up and crazy. It’s a good thing. I like parties. I remember when I was a Littlest, and before that when I was in my worktown down in the desert, watching the older kids get ready for parties and then listened to them as they made noise all night long with dancing and screaming and clapping and breaking things. There was a big guy named Jof that was like a big brother to me and I remember listening for his voice above everyone else’s while I tried to fall asleep in the crates they used for beds. Sometimes the dataminers would report houses for parties and there would be a crackdown where a few people were moved around or sent away as punishment, but it never stopped anyone. Here we rarely got stopped either. The kids in Auxie Mautlin come from all over but we all remember the parties in our worktowns and we all do the same things whenever there’s the tiniest little thing to celebrate. Something about piggos I guess. There was a lot of the night left, and the dorm monitor was out in the hallway falling asleep reading something from the ecotablet he had at his desk. The dorm monitors don’t make as much stink about parties as they used to. Titus would say it’s because they know that their worms are growing just like ours and they sympathize. I think it’s just people get used to their jobs and by now they know we aren’t going to do anything really dangerous, for the most part.

Jenny was sitting on her floor doing her makeup when Titus and I went over to her room after I showered. Titus’s cotton shorts were still wet and his other pair was being cleaned, but the air in the dorm was so hot that it was probably good to be wet. Jenny looked up when she felt us at the door. Her roommates, Deck and Haiqa, were laying on their bunks, shirts off, fanning themselves with pieces of paper. Someone had hung a wet towel over the window, where it flapped in the thin little wind coming in distantly from Jamaica Bay. We could hear crickets and frogs outside. I could also hear kids in the Alberto dormitory already clapping and banging on their bunks with cups and feet. I wondered if all the kids running out to the park to grab their contraband stashes would get anyone noticed by the night patrol.

“Want some makeup, king lizard?” Jenny asked. She held out a palette of lip shines and eyebrow filler in a pink plastic container. Jenny never lets anyone touch her makeup or art stuff. I looked at Titus, and he grinned at me.

“Are you sure?”

“Totally. Look, you can even use my beeswax gloss. King for a day or whatever. What color do you want?” She gestured and patted the floor next to her.

I sat down and looked at the little stash of makeup spread over the bed. All of it must have either cost Jenny a lot or she must have worked really hard to steal it. None of us are supposed to wear makeup and even if the dorm monitors don’t care and the instructors don’t care, if one of the care providers catches you then they really lay into you and will usually call for someone to come clear out your room and take all your stuff so they can make sure to get all of it. It seems like bullshit, especially because the staff has to know that everyone does drugs that are way more intense than lipstick. Titus would say it’s because they’re scared of how we look with makeup on. But I guess rules help keep stuff from going totally out the window.

I felt myself being really pulled toward a purple plastic tube with gold lettering on it. I opened the cap. I think I expected it to be purple inside, but it was a bright, deep red. I looked at Jenny again, uncertain. “I just rub it on, right?”

“Gently, or it’ll break,” Jenny said. She took the tube from me and pushed it lightly over my bottom lip, then pressed her lips together and gestured to me. I rubbed my lips together and smiled at her. Titus laughed, and Haiqa did too. I offered the tube of lipstick to Titus. He took it and applied it like he’d done it before, which he might have, or he might have just watched Jenny. It looked beautiful on him. But then I always think Titus looks good. I like the way his ears fold on top, and the length of his eyelashes. I like how small he is, too. It’s not good for him to be so delicate—he would hate to hear me say delicate—but he’s like a princess in a storybook, and I love that.

Haiqa sat up. She’s from the desert out in Oklahoma like I am, so she has a big number tattoo on her lower ribcage. Her number is lower than mine because she’s older. “What I want to know is why I didn’t get lipstick when I beat Deck last week,” she said.

“What, and ruin my roommate dynamic? Get it from someone else. If you both want lipstick now you can have it,” Jenny said. She took the lipstick from Titus and passed it back over her head to Haiqa. “I’m feeling real gracious. A girl got wifed up today and is just feeling very happy and positive.”

“A ring and all?” Titus asked. He was looking at his face in one of Jenny’s little mirrors. His hair hangs in dark ringlets around his face when it’s wet. “Was this after I left?”

Jenny did a little dance with her shoulders that meant whatever had gone down it had been good.

“How did it go with Daylun?” I asked. “I’ve never heard her talk.”

“She’s coming over later. I just knew she was gonna be my girl. Ever since she cut her hair. She looks so good, don’t you think?”

“She’s from Manitoba, right?”

“Yeah, up where it’s cold. I bet that why she’s so big, for the cold.”

“Is that why she doesn’t talk?”

“She just doesn’t talk to boys any, really.”

Deck got out her stash of lizzie from under the bed where it was hidden under a tile and shook the plastic baggie. “Anyone want to trip?”

“What, for free?” Jenny asked. “You said it would cost me three Sharpies last time I asked you.”

“Free tonight, as long as we all dance.”

I take lizzie sometimes, though it isn’t exactly a consistent thing because you never know if it will make you happy or really freaked out. The way it distorts things and makes shapes drip and colors change can mess with you if you’re already anxious. I don’t know why it’s so popular here, except that our lives are maybe uglier than most, and maybe we like things to look different, for better or worse. It does make you a lot happier when it’s a good trip. I took a tab from Deck and put it on my tongue.

“I don’t want any,” Titus said. “But thanks.”

It took a while for all of us to get downstairs and start dancing. Everyone had to put makeup on.

The main floor of the building had tables we could sit at after classes or at night before the lights went out, and during parties the tables were where people stomped to make a beat. Our songs go around in a call and response. Some of them have words and sometimes people yell verses and other times we go back and forth just calling out words or names, the names of our dorms or the places we come from. Jenny started out a call-and-clap that was a tradition from when we were in the worktowns, that everyone knew whether they were from Oklahoma or Manitoba or Montana or the tar sands.

“When-are-we-done-today?”

“In-fifty-years!”

“When-are-we-done-tomorrow?”

“In-a-hundred-years!”

I kept looking at my face and Titus’s in the dark mirror of the windows out into the yard. Titus and I danced in the middle for a while. Even when he isn’t high on anything, Titus dances like he is. He throws his arms in the air and spins on one leg and grabs at people around him to make them dance with him. And they do, even if they don’t talk to him other times. He’s a good dancer.

After a while people started to tire out and drift away, and Titus’s knees started to shake from landing hard on the floor, so we moved to find somewhere to sit. In the stairwell we found Benja and Wein, smoking, and so we all sat with them. Daylun saw us from the bottom of the stairs and came up to kiss Jenny. She didn’t talk to the boys and I realized that maybe what had seemed to be shyness on her part was really just a total indifference to boys. She whispered in Jenny’s ear a lot.

Benja and Wein were talking about worms, which isn’t a great subject when you’re trying to start a party and forget, but something they’d taken was making them open up and talk about dark things. I didn’t want to be rude and leave them.

“What’s crazy to me,” Wein was saying, “is that we might be the very last people left, if they can’t figure out how to stop the worm. We might be the very last people.”

“Not the very last. There’s kids younger.”

“I guess the real last ones are the kids that are around now, the little four year old piggo kids. But in fifteen years we might all be dead—us and the scientists-- and the little kids might all be dying and there’d be nobody to run the piggo labs and no more babies would get born. Human or piggo. I hear the labs are having trouble now because the sows are starting to die.”

“Imagine being a human mom,” Benja said. “Imagine thinking you were going to have more babies and then learning you couldn’t and learning your babies were never going to have babies. Imagine seeing your kids die before you.”

Titus looked at him. “What about our moms?” he asked.

Benja looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“How can you get sad about human moms when you know what happens to our parents?” Titus was the only one not stoned and high, and it showed.

“We don’t have moms,” Benja said. “Not really.”

“They had brains the size of ours,” Titus said. “They had eyes like ours, faces and teeth sort of like ours, hearts and lungs and stuff. And they had babies they never saw grow up, again and again and again.”

“For a human mom it has to be worse than it was for them,” Wein said. “That’s what Benja means, Titus. They didn’t have any other way of being. And they never saw any of us. They can’t miss us the same.”

“At least human moms can still grow babies from embryos in fake wombs,” I said to Benja, trying to interrupt before there was a real argument. “There are lots of embryos.”

“But if everyone has the worm, those babies will get it too as soon as they’re out of the sack,” Wein said. “Even if everyone’s dead by that point, the worms will still be here, waiting.”

“But they’re also making the babies from the DNA on the ship. They’re close now, too. Those babies would have antibodies.” I closed my eyes and pictured a little row of marching green babies in the arms of big square robots. “They could save us. Save the world.”

“They said all that when we were Littlests, too,” Titus said. “They keep saying they’ve made an alien baby with human DNA and used the antibodies in its blood to make a medicine that works, and they tell people that the studies we do are with that medicine. But it never works, does it?”

“It might this next time,” I said. “They have to learn from it every time it doesn’t. So next time it might work.”

Titus looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes and raised his eyebrows. I leaned back to look at the colors dripping down from the ceiling so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. Sometimes I don’t know if Titus went through something really bad in his worktown that he hasn’t ever told me about. He’s tougher than I am in some ways but also weaker. He doesn’t care if he gets beaten in a fight. It’s like he expects to lose, waits for it.

“Titus is right. Ms. W said that the new study would be happening by now,” Benja said. “And it’s not.” He sucked on his joint.

“Maybe they should just make the alien babies and leave it there. Don’t make any medicine out of them. I bet the aliens would do a better job on this planet than humans did,” Titus said. He looked over at Jenny and Daylun, and Daylun smiled at him, though she said nothing.

“We don’t even know what the aliens would eat,” Benja said. “Out past Neptune and whatever. We don’t even know that they have plants like we have plants.”

“They have worms.”

“Hey guys. Guys.” Jenny gestured at the ceiling with a long arm. I could tell she was about to try to change the subject, and I was grateful to her. “Is anyone else getting kind of a paisley situation over by the window or is that just me?”

I traced the colors with a finger. “With me it’s more like little birds,” I told her.

Titus was bored and irritated, I could tell. I pulled him to me with my arms across his chest and he settled against my thigh and closed his eyes.

“Sorry I’m tripping,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I had fun dancing.”

We passed the joint around again, and by the time it came back to me and I offered it to Titus, he was asleep. I made my excuses—as best as I could, because my tongue wasn’t totally working to say real words—and carried him up to his dorm. He half woke up on the way and kissed my cheek. I put him under the sheets even though it was too hot out, and I sat next to him for a while, watching the dark of his hair bob like a cresting wave, letting the light remind me of other things the same color. One thing lizzie does is help reorganize your brain so when you’re coming down you start remembering things you hadn’t thought of in years. I thought of Jof, and the deserts out in Oklahoma, of seeing cows, before the cows all died, standing in feedlots chewing and ambling around like nothing was wrong, like the world wasn’t ending. I remembered their brown eyes.

Eventually I was down completely again and I stood up and walked back to my dorm. Nobody else had returned upstairs yet, so I climbed into my bunk and fell asleep, my face turned toward the window so I could see the distant black skyline against the blue sky across the river. I wondered what it had been like when the whole city lit up at night. In the distance, I could see the lights from Jersey making the clouds yellow. A hundred years ago, I thought, the sky over here would have been bright yellow and starless all night.

In the morning I pulled myself out of bed and looked over to where Benja and Wein were sleeping. They were in the same bunk, Wein’s hand and arm sprawled across Benja’s broad chest. Both were just wearing their shorts. It was already hot in the room and I felt sweat prickling on my brow. I could smell the sweat from the night before radiating through the dormitory, sticking to the fifty-year-old walls. I lay in bed, thinking about how it was good that today was the resting day, so I wouldn’t have to do anything much. I had rolled over and was staring out the window when our door-tag blinked and the intercom buzzed to life above us.

“All Caldegot report to cafeteria by ten-thirty. Full facility assembly at eleven.”

Across from me, I saw Benja and Wein stir and sit up.

“What did it just say?” Wein asked. “Did it say full facility assembly?”

“It has to be a study,” I said. I was bolt upright. “It has to be.”

Wein knocked on the frame of the bed. “Knock on wood,” he said. That’s something Ms. Y does, and we started off joking about it but now we treat it like a ritual that works.

There was a rush for the showers all over the floor after the announcement. I made it into one and rinsed for a couple minutes—just long enough to get the crust out of my eyes, and raced back to my dorm to pull out my rest-day jumpsuit. Everyone else was awake by then, and moving quickly. We jogged down the stairwell together in a great green-suited tide. None of us had put on socks. Our feet in the thin white sneakers rattled against the linoleum and then the cement of the courtyard like a thunderstorm. I found Titus only after we were in line for breakfast. We looked at each other and hugged and didn’t say anything, just walked forward. I know I felt like it would jinx the day to say anything. I don’t know if that’s how Titus felt.

Breakfast was rice and egg substitute with greens and cricketbev. The cafeteria workers were wearing masks like they always did, and refused to talk to us, like policy told them to do, but I could tell we were all looking for something in their eyes as we made our way down the line. I think it’s so hard to read their faces even when their masks are off, but I felt like they radiated a certain energy toward us, like this was the start of a new day.

“I’m sorry for what I said last night,” Titus said to me. “I might have been wrong.”

“I hope you were,” I said.

After breakfast the intercom crackled again and they had us move into the long hall which was only used when they were bussing people somewhere. When we were inside, I realized that they had both us and the Fores on the side near the long garage door, where the buses would pull up. I could tell other people were noticing too, and talking to friends about what it meant. They had never taken such a large sample before—never a sample bigger than the total group of Fores. To take the LetLets meant that it would be a bigger study than we had ever seen. I don’t think any of us had any idea what that could mean. We lapsed into uneasy silence, eventually, waiting for someone to come up to the podium at the front of the hall and tell us what was going on.

“As you may have guessed from the change in schedule,” Ms. A said, “Today is the day that our facility has scheduled for eight hundred participants from group A, B, and C to be transported to a New Jersey laboratory to commence a study.”

There was thunderous applause. Ms. A smiled at us.

“Shortly, we will explain the day’s schedule. You will return to your bunks here tonight, however, as the laboratory does not have housing capacity for this number of participants.”

There was a pause as this sank in. Some of us breathed with relief, because even though we all desperately wanted to be part of a study, we didn’t have any real idea of what it was like to live at a laboratory while they were doing one. If it was anything like worktowns, some of us probably would have taken their chances with a worm rather than live in one. Sometimes I thought Titus was one of those people. I looked at him, next to me in one of the small plastic chairs they set out for assemblies. He looked over at me and gave a little nod.

“This is a new study,” Ms. A continued. “The advances that have been made since last year have been significant. As you may know, embryo growth has been a goal of ours for five years. This year, the scientists at Jersey Technical Labs have managed to push growth to full gestation, and as a result have been able to study better the mechanisms of antibodies.” She paused. “Three large tests performed on sows from January of last year to July of last year completely eliminated tapeworms in the test population over the course of six months. You are the next group we are conducting studies with. If this study confirms the results seen in sows, we can proceed to research and development in the general population.”

We clapped hard. She waited for us to stop before continuing.

“I cannot emphasize enough the importance of your participation. This is the moment we have been waiting for. The moment that you help us save the world.”

We had all heard this before, of course, but we all wanted to believe it. I saw Rustler at the front of the room straining forward in his seat. He looked ready to try to save the world. His blue eyes were fixed on Ms. A like she was going to reach down with a golden baton and touch his forehead with it, turning him into someone ordinary.

We had seen the garage doors roll up before and watched the Fores as they were loaded onto the buses. Now we joined them and followed them up the steps. The buses from Auxie Mautlin are white and have solar panels on the roof. They aren’t labeled on the sides, though the parent corporation’s name is printed on the back over the taillights. The staff who directed each group and house on where to go stood at the end of our rows of chairs, their masks on, muffling their speech. Titus and I weren’t on the same bus. He squeezed my hand before we parted.

I hadn’t left the facility since coming from my worktown. After the bus was full and the doors shut, we waited, silent, inside. There were staff coming along as monitors, seated at the front and the back of the bus, and I think we were all too nervous about upsetting them to make any noise or speak, but our heads all turned to the windows as the bus began to roll over the gravel to the edge of the gates around the facility. It was a sunny day, hot like the day before had been, and while the windows blocked some of the light, the blue sky above the bus and the white light bouncing off the cement illuminated the road like a silver ladder stretching down and across the water.

The highway we took was one of the new ones that go over the old crumbling roads of the city. There are places under it where people live in large neighborhoods with no electricity or water except what they collect from rain or with solar panels. The infrastructure for the core of the city in middle and upper Manhattan has been repaired, just like the new white highways have been built over the flooded zones over the last three decades, but as the bus passed over Brooklyn we could see the way that overgrown trees and marsh grass had covered up much of what had been the city. The people who used to live in the neighborhoods down below had moved to Jersey or moved far into the Bronx. It was possible that many were dead now, because of the worm. The things that were left behind were crumbling slowly into the brackish water that had covered all the low-lying ground. It wasn’t illegal to build in the ruins, and from the bus window I could see that the floating houses at the edge of the water took up more space than they had five years before, when we had come to Auxie Mautlin from the worktowns.

Jersey has grown and gotten more full of people. It’s been a big city for a long time, of course, but even in the years since the last time I saw it, it had become more packed. The buildings stuck next to each other like stalks of bamboo or cane sugar. I could see people on the streets, not wearing masks. We were too far away to see the details of their faces.

The laboratory was a long cement building that looked like an outpost of Auxie Mautlin. At the lab, we were all given white shirts and pants to put on instead of the green rest day jumpsuits. They didn’t have us change behind any kind of partition, just had us take our clothes off in the hall and change in front of each other. We still were quiet, because I think we all felt like this was the time it counted most to show that we understood what was expected of us. They sorted us, I think, by gender and age, and moved us around in the entry hall before leading us in through different doors depending on where they had put us. I couldn’t see Titus.

We were led into a room where a woman without a mask spoke to us. She was wearing a white coat but I wasn’t sure if she was a doctor.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “You all are group C-3. We will be giving you each a bracelet stating your group number and identification code. We are going to perform general physicals on each of you before we move you to the next room to be briefed on the specifics of the study. Feel free to specify your name to your physician in order to increase the ease with which we can identify you in our records.”

We were lined up again and weighed. I had gained two pounds since the last physical I had. I wished it was more. I was the same height as the physician standing with me. He was one of the first human men I’d seen since the worktowns. He didn’t have a mask, and his nose was little and flat. He had me take off my shirt, and he checked the number on the bracelet he gave me against the number on my torso.

“Name?” he asked me.

“Reno,” I said.

“You from Nevada?”

“Originally. The lab. It was a small one. I grew up in Oklahoma.”

“They’ve closed the Nevada lab, now.” He looked at his chart. “No headaches, seizures, and no emaciation, right?” He looked at my chest and stomach.

“Not yet,” I said. “I think it says somewhere in my records that they think I was infected around when I was two or three, because of the water. I don’t think the larvae is in my brain yet.” I wanted to make sure he had all the information.

“Right,” he said. He pressed a cold stethoscope to my chest and listened.

In the room they took us to after the physicals were done, the walls were green. There was a picture of a baby connected to a lot of tubes projected onto one wall. The baby looked strange, but not strange like we look. It wasn’t green, but its skin was a kind of deep mottled purple that made it look like it was dying or dead. As we sat down, still quiet, and waited for someone to speak to us, I looked at it closer and realized that was seemed like horrible bruises were just patterns on its skin. It was connected to a breathing tube. Its eyes were very large, though they were closed, so if they were the bug-eyes I thought of aliens as having I couldn’t see.

The same woman in white appeared again to talk to us. She didn’t introduce herself.

“This trial uses antibodies developed from those present in the extraterrestrial humanoid species we have come to know as La Rosa,” she said. “In the last year, we managed to bring a partially extraterrestrial embryo to full term. We created this embryo from the DNA of the two La Rosa extraterrestrials present at the site of the 2043 crash, though we used human and sheep DNA to fill in certain gaps. This trial has produced the most accurate reconstruction of the La Rosa DNA sequence and resulted in a viable infant, with viable antibodies. Without harming the specimen, we have used these antibodies to create an intravenous medicine that will behave in the host system as an anthelmintic. If it behaves in your intestinal tract and brain as it has behaved in the bodies of pigs, it will drive out the tapeworms from the host body.” She took a deep breath and smiled. “If it is successful, BezFarma will be able to move the drug to human trials.”

We shifted in our seats. She seemed to be waiting on something, so we finally started to clap a little. She clasped her hands.

“This trial will last six months. You will be treated twice a week. This is presumed to be more than sufficient, based on studies in pigs. The treatment involves being connected to an intravenous drip for an hour at a time. The medicine will not harm you, though it may provoke some mild immune reactions and inflammation for the first two weeks.”

An image flashed up on the wall of one of the adult starworms, covered in blood, next to the brain of what I guess was a pig. The brain had holes in it.

“In cases where advanced deterioration has occurred, the brain may not return to normal, though the parasite dies. We are still conducting studies into long-term effects on fertility in pigs. However, in most cases where there is larval development but no maturation, neurocysticercosis disappears almost one hundred percent of the time over the course of two to three months.”

We clapped again, more enthusiastically this time. She grinned at us and took a step back before resuming her presentation. I don’t remember much of what she said after that.

The first day, when they stuck the needle into my arm and I felt the cold shock in my vein, I smiled at the woman with the mask who stood over me.

“Thank you so much,” I told her.

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rainygalaxynerd · 7 years

Text

Brave New World - Chapter 52

Warnings: Canon typical stuff. You know, supernatural interference, codependency, guilt trips, ancient languages, stuff like that.

Word count: App 3.000

Summary: It’s time to open up.

This is part of a chapter story. Here is the link to the mobile friendly master list.

A/N: Sorry for keeping you guys waiting. I’ve been writing today as well. Had to deviate from my neat and perfect outline leading to the end of the story to beat a bit of writer’s block. No telling what will happen now, dangit.

Tagging: @kbrand0 @jotink78 @winchesterprincessbride @fangirling-instead-of-working @vibou25 @jencharlan @deandoesthingstome @mrsjohnsmith @littlegreenplasticsoldier @twenty-onepages

Charlie gave him a confused look. “Wouldn’t I be using the cot?”

Dean looked at her and the closed bathroom door. “She seems to like you, so I’ll just…”

Charlie crossed her arms over her chest. “That girl is head over heels for you, you daft man-child.” She pointed toward the bathroom and continued: “She’s really awesome, dude, and if I had a snowball’s chance in Hell, I’d be all over her. But my gaydar works just fine. You’d take it up the ass from Star Trek Trench dude before she’d even consider having sex with me.”

Charlie left the room before Dean had time to close his open mouth. Sam followed her hurriedly, giving Dean a cheeky grin over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him.

Dean was still analyzing all the ways Charlie’s words were dead wrong when Caitlin exited the bathroom.

“All yours,” she smiled and gestured behind her.

Dean stared at her. She didn’t notice, simply crawled into the bed and burrowed into the pillow, content. If she felt any disappointment that she’d be sharing the bed with him and not Charlie she hid it incredibly well. Dean rubbed his eyes one-handed and went to brush his teeth.

As soon as he lay down, Caitlin snuggled in close, throwing an arm across his stomach. She sighed and mmh’ed and pecked his cheek before closing her eyes and relaxing.

Despite his exhaustion, it was a long time before Dean fell asleep.

Chapter 52 - Dangerous Knowledge

Caitlin woke with her nose squished against Dean’s armpit. She sucked in a breath and scrunched her face. Super concentrated essence of Dean gone slightly sour was more of a stink than a scent. She untangled herself and paused before leaving the bed. Dean was snoring lightly; you’d think a man his size would make more noise. She watched him for a little while but for once, he seemed to sleep soundly without nightmares. She collected clean clothes from her bag and went for a shower.

Dean still slept when she came back; he hadn’t even moved. She crawled back into bed with him and nestled against him. She planted little kisses on his torso and shoulder and idly began to trace the tattoo over his heart with a finger.

Dean went instantly from sleeping deeply to fully alert. That wasn’t new. That it wasn’t an ominous sound preceding the need to fight for his life, to protect Sammy; that was new.

He blinked his eyes open against the fair amount of light streaming through the inadequate curtains. He met Caitlin’s soft gaze and swallowed hard. His enthusiastic morning wood throbbed at the sight of her, hair wet and disheveled from lying down after being combed, her nipples perked up under her clingy, white t-shirt. Fuck, I’m so in over my head.

“What time is it?” Dean got up on his elbows and looked for himself, clearing his throat against the dry raspiness left by hours of sleep.

“Almost noon. Ah,” Caitlin gasped at a loud banging on their door. There was a quick movement next to her and then Dean had his gun aimed at the unknown threat.

“Hey, sleepyheads.”

Caitlin and Dean both relaxed at Charlie’s teasing words.

“Let us in, we bring food.”

Caitlin shared a grin with Dean and bounced over to open the door while he tucked the gun away.

Charlie and Sam entered, arms laden with food.

Soon they were all seated, Dean and Caitlin on the edge of the bed, Charlie in the chair, and Sam cross-legged on the floor (“Dude, I can see the top of your head,” Charlie exclaimed to everyone’s amusement) eating. They didn’t speak much, all casting frequent glances at the mysterious suitcase from the airport.

“Okay,” Sam said, finally, unfolding himself and collecting food boxes and trash in a bag. “We’ve slept, we’ve eaten. It’s time.”

Dean nodded. “Right. Charlie, Caitlin, you should go into Sam’s room, redo the salt line at the door and lock it.”

“What?” “Why?”

The two women spoke in unison, glaring at Dean.

“Please. We don’t know what it is. It could be dangerous.” His words came out strained. “Sam and I, we’re used to this stuff. Caitlin, you’ve seen some shit by now, but nothing like this has the potential to be. I don’t want you in here.” Dean’s shoulders tensed as he glared right back at Caitlin. Then he tilted his head slightly in Charlie’s direction.

Caitlin’s eyes narrowed. Then she glanced at Charlie. When Dick Roman had been headed Charlie’s way last night, Caitlin’s heart had hammered its way halfway through her chest and she had barely been able to breathe.

Caitlin’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “If we hear screaming we’ll come running anyway, Numbnuts.” She grabbed Charlie’s hand and dragged her toward the door. “Let’s leave the boys to their toys. Too bad we don’t have a hidden camera somewhere. I bet it’ll be better than an episode of Jackass.”

Charlie looked back at the brothers almost apologetically, as she was pulled out of the room. “You’re really letting him tell you what to do?” She asked Caitlin as she shut the door behind them.

“On the rare occasion that I understand his reasoning.” Caitlin hadn’t walked further away from the door, however. She put a finger to her lips, signaling Charlie to keep quiet.

Charlie nodded her understanding with a mischievous smile.

“Morgan speaking.”

“What, no greetings for your working girl?” Penelope’s teasing pout needed no video link to come through.

“Sorry, honey pants, you’re not the only one working.” If he could just believe that this was a social call, he might not have had to force himself to smile.

“Well, I have no doubts about that. I’m looking at some pretty impressive work right now, and I think I’m gonna have to hold you to your promise about an explanation. I trust you but this is… What the hell is going on?”

“Garcia… I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you are. You had me erase security footage of you with Sarah Mitchell before she was kidnapped. Then she’s rescued by mysterious vigilantes while you guys were in California and they contacted you. You tell me to dig deep on the Mitchells and their hideout and suddenly we’re hauling in human traffickers bordering on slave traders. And now? Now there’s a so-called CIA agent interested in the witness interrogation and the most impressive hack-job I’ve ever seen with a completely bizarre cover story for recent inexplicable events. Then I go and search the databases for this Agent Smith dude and guess who’s file shows up? Dean fucking Winchester’s, you hear? Only it’s Smith’s mugshot on it and not Winchester’s. And I can’t even find evidence that his file has been tampered with. We looked at it just last week, Morgan. We all know what the real Dean Winchester looks like so why has his picture been swapped out with Agent Smith’s? Who happens to be a Dean, by the way. You better tell me everything you know or my head will explode!”

“We can’t talk about this on the phone, Penelope!”

“Pff, I’m confused, not retarded. I’ve scrambled the hell out of this call, no one’s listening.”

“Didn’t expect anything less from you,” Morgan replied gruffly. “But I don’t want to have this conversation like this.”

“I figured. I’m heading up in a few hours. Gonna be helping with the pervs. So I’m giving you a heads up. Better be ready to spill everything tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Derek ended the call with a soft smile.

“Cas, you here?” Dean looked around the room, squaring his shoulders.

Sam shook his head and shrugged.

“Castiel, Angel of the Lord, would you honor us with your presence or whatever the fuck we’re supposed to say to get some celestial superpowers at our backs?”

Cas materialized in front of Dean, a mere foot away, squinting intensely at his friend.

Dean gave a violent start. “Goddammit, Cas. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“I believe that would be counterproductive. What do you want me to do?”

“Just… just stand there and look pretty when we open this thing and if something iffy comes out, make sure the girls are safe. They’re -”

“-right outside the door, eavesdropping. I shall do my best to protect all of you, if necessary.”

“Thanks, Cas.” Dean squeezed Cas’ shoulder as he stepped around him to grab the suitcase.

“Yeah, thanks man,” Sam chimed in, patting Cas’ other shoulder as he positioned himself next to his brother.

Dean frowned at him. “Dude. It’s not a lightbulb and I’m not Polish.”

Sam merely raised an eyebrow. “Neither am I, you should stand back a little.”

“Screw that.” Dean scowled and then deftly picked the lock on the suitcase. “Ready?”

When both Sam and Cas nodded, he opened the lid. holding his breath. Inside was something vaguely rectangular wrapped in a white cloth.

Sam made a small protesting sound when Dean reached for the object and started unwrapping it.

Dean ignored his brother, too excited to worry about gloves. The last of the cloth fell away to reveal a red, clay square.

“The fuck is this?” Dean tapped it, testing the sound. “Sounds hollow.” Before Sam could stop him, he bashed the thing against the edge of the open suitcase. It shattered to reveal a stone the size of an Xbox. The surface was obsidian black, smooth and shiny, and every inch was covered in strange runes. Dean ran his hands over the stone, at once sleek and ridged. “This doesn’t look like much. Dammit.”

Behind him, Castiel dropped to the floor, unconscious.

XOXOX

Caitlin started guiltily at Castiel’s muffled declaration on the other side of the door. When the door wasn’t thrown open immediately, she sighed in relief.

She exchanged amused glances with Charlie at the brothers’ banter and then held her breath. When she heard the disappointment in Dean’s voice a bit later, she shook her head sadly.

Then there was the characteristic thump of a body hitting the floor (do I recognize it because of my medical training or because of this past month?) and Dean’s frantic shouts for Cas.

Without a second glance at Charlie, Caitlin burst into the room.

Dean kneeled next to Cas, patting his face repeatedly, Sam stopped his strides toward the door abruptly as Caitlin entered. She vaguely registered something black and heavy-looking in his hands, then she knelt across from Dean.

“What happened?”

“No idea, he just went lights out. We weren’t near him or anything.” Dean gave her a pleading look. “What’s wrong with him?”

Caitlin found a strong, regular pulse, somewhat faster than that of an average human being. The temperature was higher than normal but was that perhaps simply an angel thing? Castiel’s breathing was as normal and healthy as his pulse.

“Dean, do you happen to know if it’s normal for Cas to be warmer than humans? Do you know anything about angels’ heart rates? Because I don’t. I specialize in humans.” Her wide eyes and the tremor in her voice negated any hint of snark in her words.

Dean stared back at her, then down at his friend. “Come on, Cas.” He slapped Cas’ cheek slightly harder once, then fisted his hands in the trench coat above the angel’s shoulders and simply held on.

“Unbutton his shirt.”

Dean’s and Caitlin’s eyes shot up to Sam, a frown and a raised eyebrow mirrored their unvoiced questions. Dean’s gaze slid down to the black stone in Sam’s hands, widening at the sight of blood running across the inscriptions.

“Please, Dean.” Sam stood over them, impassive, ignoring the drops of blood splattering the floor underneath him.

The hairs on Caitlin’s arms and on the back of her neck stood. Bobby’s mirage flickered behind Sam, shoulders slumped and face stricken. Still, he nodded once as if approving Sam’s request. Caitlin opened the buttons, her hands shaking and clumsy.

Somewhere close to the door, Charlie whimpered softly and pressed her fist to her mouth to muffle the sound.

When Caitlin made room, Sam fell to his knees, hard. Clutching the stone in his left hand, he drew sigils on Cas’ chest and stomach with his bleeding right hand. Placing his palm in the middle of the scrawlings, he activated the sigil.

Castiel seized and coughed. He opened his eyes to find Sam’s bloody hand hovering over him, unblinking eyes staring but not really seeing.

“Sam,” Cas croaked. “Sam, what have you done?”

Sam’s vacant stare focused on Cas, a questioning frown wrinkling his forehead.

Cas pointed at the stone. “What did you do?”

“Bamesa, Castiel. Bamesa doalimni. Dooaip balatune, ciaosi canilu. Bamesa.” Sam’s words held a strange echo as if another voice spoke them simultaneously.

Cas made an agonized keening noise and hid his face in his hands. He stayed like that, half sitting, half lying on the floor, that heartbreaking sound from deep in his throat continuing.

Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “I can’t hear you. Cas, I can’t hear you.”

Dean was on his feet instantly, catching Sam just as his knees gave out. “It’s okay, Sammy. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” He half carried, half dragged Sam to the bed and got him to sit. Squeezing Sam’s shoulders, he repeated his promise. “We’ll fix it.”

Sam shut his eyes tightly then opened them again after only a few seconds, breathing fast. “I can’t hear anything. Just His voice. He drowns out everything else.”

Dean’s face fell, his entire body slumping. “Lucifer? You’re hearing Lucifer again?”

Sam frowned in concentration, eyes widening with recognition. “No.” He shook his head violently. “No, not Lucifer.” He screwed his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears. “I know, I know, I know!” After a few harsh breaths, he opened his eyes again, taking in Dean’s shocked expression. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Yahweh.”

Sam’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed on the bed. A trickle of blood ran from his ears and stained the covers.

Dean stood frozen, eyes glued to Sam’s still form on the bed.

Bobby showed up next to him. “He’ll wake up. Probably.”

When Dean didn’t react, Caitlin spoke. “What happened?”

Bobby shook his head sadly. “Sam fucking Winchester happened. You boys,” he muttered darkly. “You always mess with things you don’t understand, never mind the consequences.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean turned to Bobby, eyes narrowed, his words more growled than spoken.

“Oh, he meant well. You always mean well. Idjits.”

Dean crossed his arms in front of him, the corners of his mouth turned down. “If you know what’s going on, then say it.”

“That thing you found? That’s the word of God.” Bobby pointed to the black stone that Sam still clutched to his chest even unconscious.

At the mention of God, Dean scoffed.

“It’s not written in Enochian or any other known language. Remember that movie we watched when you and Sam holed up after…” At the dangerous glint in Dean’s eyes, Bobby trailed off, the words ‘losing John’ unspoken. “The movie. Nerd and kickass hottie chasing after some biblical shit. The guy had that line, what was it.” Bobby rolled his eyes and made his voice higher. “I did it, I learned the language of the birds in two hours and I didn’t even use a Rosetta stone.” Bobby shook his head in disgust. “Worst bullcrap I ever heard. Your brother’s smart, Dean. He could’ve done it, too, deciphered the language on that thing. In a couple of decades, maybe.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest but Bobby cut him short. “You know the difference between fiction and reality, don’t make this about your brother. Besides, it’s irrelevant. Sam decided to take a shortcut.”

Caitlin had checked Sam’s vitals while Bobby spoke. The man might be dead but she agreed with his prediction - Sam would probably wake up, nothing seemed to be physically wrong, at least. Now, she went to Dean’s side and gently took his hand. She looked at Bobby expectantly. “How?”

“He used blood and power of will and prayer, I think. I’m not sure how it works or how the fuck he even thought of it.” Bobby eyed Sam’s unconscious form. “Now it’s bound to him. And he to it.”

Penelope Garcia stared at her friend and coworker open mouthed. “You bloody bastard! You teased the crap out of me for worrying that my new place was haunted.”

Derek ducked his head. “I’m sorry. But I did ask the Winchesters for help and we didn’t find anything.”

Garcia sputtered. “You... They… My home? You asked infamous criminals to break into my home?”

“They didn’t. I just borrowed their EMF-meter. And you gave me the key yourself, remember?”

Garcia opened her mouth again, index finger raised at Morgan but he cut her short.

“I had to look out for my girl, didn’t I?”

She sighed and shook her head sadly. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“If you had believed me, how many full nights of sleep would you have had since then?”

Garcia’s eyes widened in horror and she covered her open mouth with both her hands. “You’re right. Oh my God, you’re right. Christ, Morgan, why are you telling me now?”

He smiled softly and took her hands, gently removing them from her face. “We’ve both seen a lot since then, haven’t we? Been through too much shit to get scared of yet another boogeyman, dontcha think?”

“You’ve just insinuated that said boogeyman is real.”

“He is. But he is in no way scarier than the ones we deal with each and every day, Penny. Real monsters are dangerous because it’s their nature to kill but they’re no way near as frightening as humans choosing to become monsters.”

Garcia nodded solemnly. Then suddenly she started giggling. “I’m sorry,” she hiccuped. “But imagine Animal Planet covering monsters and their habits.” She made her voice a bit deeper and narrated. “Today we see the vampire Lestat, hunting the suburbs for easy prey. He ducks into the shadows as he spots a target meandering down the street.” She burst out laughing.

Derek merely responded with a pinched smile. “If Lestat had any brains, he’d eat the narrator and run off to another city.”

Penelope placed a hand over her heart and pouted. “You wound me, Derek. You wound me deeply.”

Derek shook his head at her antiques, smiling.

Penelope schooled her face back into seriousness. “Now, can you tell me how your statement that ghosts and monsters are real relates to the mess we’re in now?”

“Come on, Penny. You’ve seen the recording of Dean Winchester in Baltimore. You saw Gideon and Hotchner’s reactions to it. You’re smart. Figure it out.” Derek leaned back and waited.

Penelope’s eyes widened in shock. “The Winchesters aren’t delusional serial killers?”

“No, they’ve saved a lot of lives over the years. Mine included.”

“But what about all the times they’ve died?”

“It’s been impersonators that bought it while wearing their likenesses, like in St. Louis, when Dean got his first death certificate or this last time with all the black goo instead of blood. The serial killers earlier this year were shapeshifting monsters, too, not robots.”

“I want to believe you but it’s so farfetched…”

“I know. Do you want to meet them?”

“Meet them?” Garcia blinked and fidgeted a bit. “What if you’re wrong about them?”

“I’ve known them for a very long time, Penny. Longer than you and I’ve known each other. And some of the things they’re doing at the moment are way above my very limited hunting paygrade. I can’t explain things to you the way they can.”

He got to his feet and offered his hand to her. “Come on. They’re not far from here.”

Note: Sam’s weird words will be translated in the next chapter.

#spn fanfic #brave new world #dean winchester #sam winchester #criminal minds #dean winchester / ofc #slow burn #burning slower

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