Disclaimer: Warehouse 13, the world and the characters that inhabit it do not belong to me in any way, though sometimes I lie away at night wishing that they did and what I'd do with them if they did. And then I write those thoughts down.
A/N: This all started back when I was writing what turned into "Death, Or Something Like It" and Threeofeight was helping me come up with names. And by helping I mean she gave me a whole list of amazing ones for me to chose from. Then after I was done, she insisted I write fics for all the titles, and since we just had AU Week over on tumblr, I figured what better time to write them? So, here you'll find a collection of the ones I've written so far. Warning; massive amounts of random crack!fic ahead. ;)
1. Rotting Hill
It wasn't exactly the kind of book store she would have frequented before, having never been all that interested in books about travelling. Though she may have supposed she might have found the more historical ones entertaining at the very least. Still, there's something that draws her to it now. The faded blue façade of the building, colour licked away by sunlight and paint peeled away by wind and restless fingers in places, still held some echoing promise of a time long passed. A promise of friendliness and warmth, of cosy familiarity, should you choose to return a few more times. There is a sign propped up behind a small, jagged piece of glass that somehow still clings to the frame despite that fact that all other remnants of the window lay scattered on the pavement below. Her feet are bare and the only sound the glass makes as she walks across the fragments is their dull grinding against the concrete. There are a few less shards glittering against grey stone once she has crossed them and they sink into the purplish underside of her soles. Some embed themselves instantly, others will take a while to work their way in.
The is no glass in the door, having most likely been flung open during an early bout of looting and has remained that way since. So she walks through entirely unhindered, save for the battered metal garbage can that has rolled into her path. She edges around it slowly, absently, shuffling through the shallow sea of books that now cover the once waxed and polished hardwood floor and wades further into the store.
It is in chaos, like the rest of the world, and the sight is one that would have made her ache once upon a time, so she is lucky in a way that she cannot know. She cannot ache anymore. She cannot feel anything at all, cannot speak, cannot breathe.
But she remembers.
In the back of her mind, a mind that no longer functions as it once did and to the naked eye might not function at all, there are things that have been store away. Disorganized and fragmented, but there nevertheless, and though the ability to access them consciously had fled alongside her last breath, they surface occasionally. As a battered hand catches the side of brick wall and is dragged across it, the texture brings forth a memory of a young girl she thinks might have been her sister sitting beside her on the top of one no higher than her waist now, and there is laughter in her mind. And her lips might quirk, echoing a familiar gesture of the past.
Her foot, bent at an awkward and impossible angle, might slip against a patch of ice and there is a flash of an ice-skating rink as her other foot comes down and, just for a second, she sends herself sliding forward. Quite on purpose, without knowing why.
There are ghosts of life all about Myka, though she does not see them for what they are.
The interior of the store is dark though the broken window allows in as much sunlight as possible and Myka holds still for a few imaginary heartbeats as dull and lifeless eyes seem to scour her surroundings. Perhaps they do, but she does not see the same things that one who still breathes and fears and lives would. She does not know what she is looking for, does not know that she is really looking at all, but her eyes move about regardless. She shuffles forward once more, broken feet clumsy as they try to traverse the plains of literature scattered beneath them. She moves towards the nearest bookshelf without knowing why, only a niggling yet persistent notion that she had done this before pushing her forward. Instinct, maybe. Or habit. But a few of the things she has left to tie her to a world that no longer exists.
She lets out a grunt as she stumbles over a particularly thick text wearing a bold statement proclaiming "An Encyclopedia of Europe" on its front in gold lettering. Had she been of a mind to think, she might have picked it up, but she isn't and so she doesn't, and simply continues on.
When she reaches the shelf she lifts her good hand, the one unaffected by the tyre iron blows she does not remember, and trails darkened fingertips along the spines of the few books still sitting on it. There is a hollowness inside her chest and though her heart does not beat, something inside it thuds with familiarity. She has done this before, a thousand times perhaps, and if she were able to garner comfort from anything, it would blanket her now as it had done before. Warm her body; a body that no longer remembers what warmth feels like.
Without knowing why, Myka tugs a book free from the alphabetized line, but she doesn't recall what to do with it once it has been liberated, and so it falls to the ground with a dull thud. It catches the tips of her toes and lets out another grunt, because it occurs to her – in some slumbering, though still oddly sparking part of her brain – that it is the appropriate thing to do. But she does not look down at the foot that the book has landed on and her faded green eyes stare vacantly as a face is revealed in the space created by its descent.
Thin and angular, though the features are ones that were birthed and not those so often adopted in death, the face is elegant. Striking, even against its chalky pallor. The eyes had been deeper and darker once, a brown that could shift to an almost-black – the same shade as the woman's hair – if the mood should strike. Her hair curtains her face, catching the thick beam of sunlight streaming in as it breaks off against Myka's back and drifts over her shoulder.
There are plenty like her wandering the streets, Myka thinks or would if she could, she has seen them all with blind eyes and given little more than a courteous glance or a snap of teeth. The undead do not grab the attention of one another as a living, breathing, bleeding soul does.
But here in this bookshop, after seeing hundreds and thousands of ones just like her, Myka sees the woman before her. As though she is the first. The only.
There are no sparks, no hitched breaths, no quickening pulses, but it is a heart-stopping moment. Or, it would be.
Myka lets out a short string of unintelligible noises, low and snuffling, and they are answered. And then with her good arm, Myka reaches through the space she has created and sends blunted fingers clawing through the air. While it is not the frantic grabbing she might have made while attempting to get herself something to eat, it is no less desperate, and when her fingers finally make contact with the material of the other woman's jacket, Myka freezes. Her mouth, open and emitting a long and almost mournful wail, suddenly sags and the noise she is making ceases.
Two sets of eyes that are leaking their colours in favour of a milky, pale blue do not stray from the other for long uncountable minutes. Indeed, it is not until the sun is setting behind Myka that the woman she is touching moves and Myka begins to whine anew as contact is lost, but she is not being abandoned. And it takes a while, though not nearly as long as it seems, and they are facing one another once more. And Myka's whining stops. She whimpers once, then twice, until the woman moves close enough for her to touch once more.
It is a bleak and frigid world.
But there is still warmth to be found.