Name: Allison Wonderland.
Summary: After being attacked by a strange creature, Jez is knocked into a coma riddled with dreams containing her deepest desires. But the longest she stays in the dreams, the closer she comes to death. So she must fight for her life, or else.
Pairings: Gen.
Notes: What do you mean there's no giant forests near Las Vegas? Don't shoot me, I'm English, we have no grasp of distance because our country is so small. Sorry it's short OTL, I'll try to write more later, and update in the next few days, because this is fun to write! Yay!
Inspired by For The Man Who Has Everything.
Listening to: Science Will Figure You Out – Soltero.
Yes, I read comics on occasion.
"I love the air in the summer," Rashel said softly, "it's so... I don't know."
"It's clean."
Jez watched as Rashel turned her face upwards, dragging her eyes over the stars dotting the sky, peaking out from behind the dark grey clouds. The grass was damp on Jez's hands, the gravel digging into her tail bone as she leant backwards uncomfortably.
"What are we doing, Rashel?"
"Gettin' milk."
"No, I mean, what're we doing with our lives? You're getting married next week, and I'm just... drifting."
"Why don't you finally just bite the bullet and admit to Morgead that you actually love him?"
Since arriving at the daybreak HQ, Morgead and Jez had kept a platonic friendship with horrible, horrible amounts of UST. No one quite knew what had happened but, as far as they did know, not even the soulmate principal could keep those two together; they argued too much, and I don't mean bickering, I mean smashing plates against the kitchen sink over and over when the other had left.
And it was all because Jez wouldn't tell him she loved him, but only Jez, Rashel, and now you and myself know that.
"I can't do that." Jez fell backwards onto the grass. She buried her face in her hands and moaned, "It's weird. We should probably go home."
Rashel frowned, but scrambled up, followed by Jez, and they began to make their way through the park, which in turn would lead to the large forest that Thierry called his back garden - they generally used to hunt whatever pleased them, or throw raging keggers.
The only way to get into Vegas from their home was either a half hour drive, or a hike through the forest.
Jez was on motorbike lockdown, and Rashel lost her licence after Ash decided it'd be hilarious to joy ride in her car, and he somehow managed to pass for Rashel, and get her licence taken off her. He swears to this day that the incident had nothing to do with some of Rashel's clothes also going missing that day…
Maybe I should cut my losses and tell him, Jez thought, holding a carton loosely in her fingers, twirling it slightly as she walked, "I envy you," she said, "Quinn's such a nice guy."
Rashel snorted, "Don't get me talking about Quinn, Jesus christ. Do you know how he proposed?"
There was silence.
"He proposed through rap."
Jez burst out laughing, "how even-"
"Rashel, you're the chick for me, be my whore and marry me."
"Oh My Go- did you see that?"
Rashel spared no time in unstrapping the bokken from her back and gripped it in her hand, "See what?"
Jez put down the milk slowly, trying to stretch her vision further. The darkness in front of her was rippling, moving, writhing. She crouched slightly an began to creep forward.
"Yo!" she exclaimed, then said quietly, "Rashel do you have my back?"
"Yeah, but what is it?"
"I don't know, but-"
She never got to finish her sentence, because the darkness leapt forward and grabbed her. She remembered Rashel began to shout, a sludge forcing its way down her throat.
Then?
Darkness.
Morgead opened his eyes to a thick, blinding, throbbing pain in his chest. A feeling he'd felt once before.
When Jez died.
Only this time, when he tried to reach through his hazy thoughts to find the chord, he couldn't. It was nowhere to be found. There was just darkness, and a heavy damp pressing on his chest, like something was worming his way into the chambers of his heart and cutting away at it, ripping him apart and-
His heart sped up, slowed down to snails pace, then stopped, and it didn't restart.
When he awoke once more, it was to Rashel shaking him, her nails digging into his shoulders. He opened his eyes and was relieve to find that his heart had resumed beating and he could feel Jez faintly, though only just.
"R-Rashel?" he asked groggily.
"Oh thank the goddess you're awake."
Two minutes later she was dragging Morgead downstairs, throwing his boots at him as he tried to button his jeans, and shouting, "Quinn?"
He pulled a hoodie on from the Lost Prop' box and allowed Rashel to drag him out of the house and into her car – he hated driving in cars, but now she was pushing him into the back whilst Quinn slid into the drivers seat and she into the passengers.
"Where are we going?" he asked, trying to ignore the pain every time his sluggish heart thudded; his vision was blurry around the edges and he was confused and tired, unsure of what out of the last few hours had been a dream.
Because he was pretty sure in between waking up in pain to Rashel pushing him into the car he'd been dead, and he was positive that, even if the thread was still active, Jez wasn't.
"Would anyone care to explain to me what the fuck is going on?" he exclaimed.
"Morgead, calm down, it's no big deal, we're just going to Sunrise."
"The hospital? And you're calling this no big deal?"
"Just calm down and let me explain."
The car stopped and Morgead was out of it before Quinn could cut the engine, stalking towards the Main Entrance and through the automatic doors. He asked the receptionist for Jez's room, and she gave him a look of pity before directing him to the third floor, intensive care unit.
Intensive care?
He jabbed the 3 button in the elevator and Rashel leapt in just before the door could shut, followed by Quinn.
"Morgead, fucking hell, let me just- Look, look at me Morgead, look at me."
Morgead turned slowly to face Quinn and Rashel. Quinn was talking quietly on the phone to someone as Rashel directed her eyes towards Morgead.
"Morgead, Jez was attacked."
His head skipped a beat, then he said, "So? Jez's tough, she fought a bear once."
Quinn chuckled, "And won," he added, "don't forget that."
Rashel remained serious, "No, this is different, we don't know what it is that attacked her, it's just- you'll have to see for yourself."
When the elevator stopped, they were only on the second floor. A tired looking nurse pushed her way in, smiling politely at the trio before turning to face the doors, then she did a double take, and looked at them again.
"Thea? Since when have you worked here?"
Thea Harman blushed slightly, before looking down at her clipboard, "I do the odd shift or two, you're here for Jez, right?"
The elevator stopped and all four of them stepped out, Thea leading them along as she did her best to explain.
"We're still not quite sure what it is, but we have a rough idea. This has only happened a few times before," she carded them into the room Jez was apparently in, "Twice here in the states and once in Holland."
"And what exactly is that?"
The door beeped and made a strange noise, like a previously airtight room being opened. The door swung open to reveal a few doctors huddled around a bed. At their entrance, one of them turned, revealing herself to be Gillian. She brushed her fringe from her face and broke away from the doctors to greet them. Morgead simply pushed past her, knocking the doctors out of the way and landing himself at the foot of Jez's bed.
For the second time in the last three hours, his heart fluttered and stopped, and it felt like a millennium before it started up once more.
"Oh God, Jez." He choked out, staring down at his soulmate.
Her chest was moving evenly as she breathed in and out, her face peaceful, but it wasn't her chest itself that was the issue. It was the thing attached to her chest – a mass of black, painful looking tentacle like monster that was pulsing alongside her heart, it's tentacles digging into her chest and sides, spreading under the skin.
"What- What is that?"
A youngish male doctor turned to Morgead and said, "It's an alien."
Thea thumped him on the shoulder and said, "Shaddup, Eric, be serious for once."
He went quiet, eyes downcast.
"We know it's alive, and it seems fairly sentient, at least enough so as to have enough defence mechanisms that it's foolproof."
"English, please, Thea."
"If we cut it off, it'll kill Jez. If we kill it, it'll kill Jez. When Jez dies, it'll move onto it's next host, and-"
"When?"
"There's a poison in her system we've rarely seen, a type of sedative, so that she can't move whilst it feeds."
"What? Feeds? Wait, what do you mean 'when'?"
Thea turned to face him, face stoic, "The previous cases all died. All we know of this creature is because of the residue it left behind on the victims, and yes, feeding."
"Feeding on what?" Rashel said as she leant over Jez. She was within an incubator, liquids and blood being fed to her via tubes threaded into the glass.
"Her energy, and weirdly enough, her brain activity. You see, the poison knocked her into the REM stage of sleep, and that, doubled with the fact that when you enter that stage your body releases a sedative so you don't hurt yourself, makes for an incredibly comatose Jezabel."
Morgead's gaze drifted back to her mangled chest. Her shirt was stained with blood where the creature had penetrated her.
"Is she in pain?"
Thea laughed softly, "Oh dear me, no."
"Then... What?"
"She's dreaming."