AN: Here is another piece from my time away from FF. This is set in the same AU verse as 'The Other White Meat', in that Gert is a mutant with the ability to rewind the evolutionary clock, which is how we end up getting Old Lace as the result of an accident with her parakeet when her powers manifested.
0-o-o-o-0
It was late when she heard the crying.
Gert was tired, but there was just too much that had happened, too much that had changed, and the fact that they were living in an abandoned hotel…a sunken abandoned hotel, a place that really should have been demolished ages ago, really didn't help. There were beds but the bedding was musty, with mildew here and there and who knew what kinds of bedbugs and other vermin were crawling in the sheets, things that had fleas. The last thing Gert needed was to get bitten and catch rabies or Lyme disease or whatever it was the fleas of Los Angeles carried. So she was sleeping on the floor. It made Old Lace feel better anyway to have her person next to her, and Gert actually felt better curled up next to her dinosaur. Boy was that an odd statement. Just a few days ago she'd had a parakeet, a sweet little birdie named Tweetybird (yes, she knew that the 'real' Tweetybird had been a canary, but she LIKED that name, damnit). Now she had a big hulking lizard who was mentally linked to her. To be honest, Gert was thinking she liked Old Lace better this way. True, she couldn't sing like she could when she was still a parakeet, but an eleven foot dinosaur was just simply badass. She was like the biggest, best bodyguard around. And the love and affection she felt from Old Lace through their telepathic connection was like a wonderfully comfortable blanket that wrapped around her, making her feel better at a time when she almost felt like crying herself.
Gert knew who was crying, and she knew why. She'd tried so hard to make this whole thing like fun to Molly; making up code names and telling her how she didn't have to go to school anymore and all that, and it was easy to distract an eleven year old for a little while like that. But in the end they were all in a scary situation, and Gert didn't know what they were going to do next.
She sat up from where she'd been laying on the floor, using Old Lace as a pillow, and the dinosaur opened one eye at having her rest disturbed.
rrrrrrr?
The question was voiced as a rumble in her throat, but a mental question came across as well, a feeling of concern and curiosity from Old Lace's mind.
"sshhh…." Gert said quietly, running one hand soothingly down her friend's back. Old Lace had been traumatized almost as much as the rest of them, more in a way. The rest of them hadn't been changed into a different species after all. Everything considered, Gert thought the former parakeet was handling things rather well. "It's okay girl. I'm just gonna check on Molly." she whispered, at the same time sending comforting thoughts back to her friend's mind. "I'll be right back. You go back to sleep."
rrr… another rumble came from the dinosaur's throat, a quieter one this time, an expression of agreement, and she closed her eye again.
Gert got up and stretched, noting with displeasure that her clothes were slightly smelly from having been in them for about a day or so now. Amazingly enough one of the showers in the hotel still worked, but she and her friends really needed to find some clean clothes. Maybe on the next food run they made they could stop by a thrift store and find something to wear. For now though they were stuck in the clothes they'd run away from home in.
She crept out of her room, not wanting to wake up the others if the sound of Molly's crying hadn't done that already, and went into the room next door where the youngest of the group had chosen to stay. It was dark in the room, but there was a dim light that came in from the battery-powered lantern they'd put out in the hallway to serve as a nightlight. Molly was curled up on the bed, hugging one of the pillows and Gert could hear the sobs even though the younger girl's face was buried in it. Damnit, what was she supposed to do with a crying kid? It wasn't like she could make her warm milk and tell her a story or something. For one thing they didn't have any milk and the stoves in the hotel kitchen didn't work even if they'd had milk. And Gert didn't know any stories, not any good ones anyway. Nothing Molly would like.
Not knowing what else to do, Gert sat down on the bed, ignoring the tiny squeaking she heard from the closet, and laid her hand on Molly's shoulder.
"What's the matter Mols? The mice freaking you out? You can come sleep with me and Old Lace if you want." She knew that wasn't really what the problem was, but the real problem was an issue she didn't really want to talk about right now, and if she distracted Molly maybe the younger girl wouldn't talk about it either.
0-o-o-o-0
There was a difference between real life and make-believe. Even if Molly seemed to enjoy being in the latter rather than the former a lot of the time, she did understand the difference. It was fun to play make-believe, to say that you were heroes now, and not just heroes but superheroes, people who could do amazing things and would stop the villains of the world from doing evil things. And it was fun to find a place to make into a secret hideout, to make up new names for yourselves and talk about how you were never going to go back to school again. But that was just make-believe. At the end of the day you were supposed to go home to where Mom and Dad would make you dinner and play games and watch TV with you, and then tuck you into bed at night with a story and a kiss. That was what happened. That was real life.
But instead of laying in her own bed, all tucked in and comfy, dressed in nice clean jammies and having her stuffed animals to hug, Molly was on a yucky old smelly bed in a yucky old hotel that seemed to be falling apart all around them. The electricity didn't work, the stove didn't work, they didn't have any food except some fast food that her friends had gone out for earlier, and from the squeaking in the closet Molly was pretty sure there were mice in there. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. She and her friends were apparently superheroes now, but from the memory she kept trying to squash (but her mind kept bringing back) she knew that her parents, all of their parents, they were the villains. And that was just WRONG. That wasn't supposed to happen. Parents were the good guys, the ultimate good guys. They took care of you and protected you and made you pancakes on Sunday mornings. They didn't get dressed up in creepy robes and chant creepy stuff and kill innocent girls. They didn't. Gert had tried to tell her what their parents did, and Molly told her she was wrong, she was lying, but part of her knew that her friend was telling the truth. Her parents were evil, they were bad guys. All of their parents were. Hers, Gert's, all of her friends. They were doing bad things and killing people.
Molly didn't want to be a superhero. Not if it meant that her mom and dad were evil and she had to live in a yucky old hotel. She'd discovered that she was a mutant, that she had this awesome, amazing strength, but she'd give it all away in a heartbeat, never be anything amazing ever, just be plain old Molly Hayes, if it meant that she could have her mom and dad back and have them not be evil. Please, couldn't there be some way to do that? Molly's mom and dad had never taken her to church (and now she thought she understood why), but Molly was pretty sure that there was a God, no matter what Gert said about religion being an opium…opiate…whatever for the masses, so couldn't he do that for her? It would be a good thing for him to do, right? Their parents wouldn't be evil anymore and that girl would be alive again.
But if there was a God, he didn't seem to be listening and so Molly lay on the musty sheets of her room, crying into the pillow she'd found wrapped up in plastic casing so it wasn't as musty as the rest of the bedding. She wanted to go home. She didn't want to play make-believe anymore. Make-believe was now real life but it was too scary.
Molly heard a footstep enter the room and when Gert whispered to her she lifted her face up from the pillow, which was now rather damp and a little snotty from where she'd cried into it. Her friend asked about the mice but that wasn't what was wrong; they both knew that wasn't wrong and Molly couldn't help but ask the question nobody wanted to think about.
"Why'd they do it, Gert?" Molly knew that she should be calling the older girl Arsenic now, but it was too late and Molly was too tired and she didn't want to play make-believe. "Why did they hurt that girl?"
0-o-o-o-0
"Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children."
Gert wasn't supposed to watch violent movies. Her mother said they would give her nightmares and that she could watch them when she grew up if she really insisted on it, but one night a couple of years ago when she couldn't sleep she'd crept downstairs and watched 'The Crow' on television. It had definitely been violent, but no worse than some of the gang violence she heard about on the news. Gert thought Erik Draven was beautiful, his and Shelly's deaths were tragic and she'd silently cheered as he took down the guys who'd killed them. That line from the movie had always stuck with her though, and she couldn't help but think of it now with a bitterness in her heart.
She'd always thought her parents were evil, ever since suspecting them of secretly doing away with her pet pig Orwell when she was five. It wasn't until now though that she understood that they truly were evil, and how deep that evil went. Mother was supposed to be the name for God, but when Gert heard that name now all she thought of was the woman she'd seen in that room, looking on cold-bloodedly while a young girl was slaughtered like a lamb for sacrifice. That same woman had later tried to hurt Gert and her friends when they'd found out what the kids had seen, had even threatened Molly's life. Mother was a dirty word to her now, and she knew how to answer Molly's question.
"Because they're evil, Mols." Gert said quietly, moving her hand over the younger girl's back in a similar gesture to what she'd used on Old Lace, trying to soothe. "They're evil and crazy. They think they can raise demons." Gert understood that her friend was hurting, she was hurting too, but she wasn't going to lie to Molly. Their parents had lied enough already. Too many lies and secrets. Molly had to know the truth, no matter how bad it was. Eventually they'd have to go back and do something about their parents before they killed again, but they would need Molly's help.
"They lied to us Molly." Then again didn't parents lie about a lot of things?
Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. The Easter Bunny. God.
And maybe the worst lie of all.
'Everything's going to be all right.'
Gert moved her hand from Molly's shoulder and brushed some long strands of hair from where it was lying in the girl's face.
"We can't let them hurt anyone else." She wanted to tell Molly that it was like the movies, that their parents were the bad guys and they were the good guys; that they'd stop the bad guys, they'd go to jail and then everything would be okay again. But that would be another lie, because even if they sent their parents to jail, it still wouldn't be okay. And Gert didn't know if it ever would be again.
0-o-o-o-0
Gert brushed Molly's hair back from her face and the younger girl sniffed, the sound bubbly and loud in the quiet of the room. She wanted a tissue. She hated how her nose would get all stuffed up and runny when she cried. She'd seen actresses on TV cry sometimes, but their noses didn't get runny and stuffy and red like hers did. They still managed to look pretty, even when crying their eyes out. How did they do that? Molly wanted to wipe her nose before it ran all over the pillow (well, more than it had already), but the sheets were musty and she didn't want to put her nose on that, ew. So instead she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and wiped her face, sniffing again.
Her friend wasn't saying anything Molly didn't already knew that. Her parents were evil, she knew that. Anyone who killed another person like that, especially an innocent kid, well they had to be evil, right? And to do it because they thought it would help them raise demons, well that definitely meant they were crazy. What Molly didn't understand was, why? Why did they have to be evil, and crazy? Why did they want to raise demons? She knew what the others had told her before, about destroying the world and starting over again, making it Eden like in the beginning of the Bible, but it just didn't make sense. Why would anyone want to do that? Molly knew the world sucked sometimes; there was war and poverty and global warming and pollution, but it was still basically good, right? There was no reason to kill everyone.
"I know they're evil and crazy Gert." Molly said. "I know they're hurting people. I just want to know why? Why do they have to destroy the world and kill everyone?"
Gert said they had to stop them from hurting anyone else, but Molly was a little wary about this. "We're not gonna hurt them, right? We can't hurt them, they're still our parents, even if they're evil and crazy." She couldn't imagine hurting her mom ever, no matter what she did.
0-o-o-o-0
Gert sat back as Molly blew her nose on her shirt. Gross. But then again there wasn't really anything else for her friend to blow her nose on right now, was there? The sheets were nasty; if Molly blew her nose on those she'd just get mildew or other stuff up there and they'd end up with a sick kid on their hands, and that was the last thing they needed. There was a package of toilet paper the others had brought back earlier when they'd gone out for food (thankfully the toilets worked), but that was all in the bathroom down the hall and Gert didn't want to leave her just yet to go grab some. Later though she'd take one of the rolls and bring it back in here. Or better yet back to her room, if she could convince Molly to come sleep with her and Old Lace. The younger girl really shouldn't be alone right now.
Despite hoping that she could distract her, Molly was asking all the wrong questions, the ones that Gert didn't want to talk about, didn't want to think about. Molly might not understand why their parents did this, but she did. It was the age-old story. All the families in their little circle were well to do, with careers and what seemed like happy families. But it wasn't enough, was it? Of course not. It was human nature to want more, and some people took it further than others. The stuff in the book the others were reading about the demons and all didn't completely make sense and Gert didn't understand how they'd managed to cook that story up, but the reality of the situation was that their parents had come up with some screwball idea that they thought would get them unlimited power, that they'd be able to wipe out humanity and start over again in paradise, and they were willing to kill innocent people to do it. Some things were universal, people had tried to conquer the world for ages; this was just the first time that Gert had heard about demons being involved.
She sighed, and tried to make sense of it out loud for Molly. "Some people want everything, Molly. They wanted to be rich and powerful, and create a paradise to live in, and they thought that if they could raise demons they could get it. Kind of like the genie in 'Aladdin'. Except there are no such things as demons, they're just stories. And even if they could raise demons, they wouldn't have been nice. Demons are supposed to be evil."
Gert yawned. She was tired, and wanted to lay back down and go to sleep, but she wasn't about to lie down on this bed. And there was still the hardest question of all to answer. Would they hurt their parents? Part of Gert actually wanted to lie to Molly, because she wanted to tell herself this lie too; that no, they wouldn't hurt their parents. They could just capture them and call the cops and the cops would take care of it so that they were locked up in jail so that no one else got hurt. Would Gert hurt her own mother? No, because the woman who had called herself Gert's mother had never really existed. She was a lie. The truth was the cold-blooded woman who had no problem seeing the innocent die to get what she wanted. And Gert had no problem hurting that woman at all. In fact she wanted to hurt her, for making Gert believe that the lie of her mother existed. Her mother and father both, they both were lies and the truth that walked around wearing the faces Gert used to love were evils that needed to be stopped. And she didn't think it was going to be as simple as calling the cops to do that. For one thing, the cops seemed to work for their parents. No, it was up to them to do it. And it wasn't going to be easy. Or pretty.
"I can't promise that we won't hurt them, Molly. They don't seem to have any problem with hurting us. They were even going to hurt you. I think plenty of people are going to get hurt before this is all over, I wish I could promise you otherwise but it would be a lie. And I refuse to lie to you Molly, there've been enough lies already." Gert said quietly. "Now come on, come sleep with me and Old Lace. It's on the floor, but you can use her as a pillow and it'll be a lot nicer than trying to sleep on this yucky old bed."
0-o-o-o-0
Gert talked about money and power, and paradise and what people would do to get it, but it just made Molly even sadder. They'd had a good life, she and her mom and dad. As a doctor and speech therapist, her parents made a lot of money, or so Molly thought. They had a nice house and things, and took vacations sometimes to cool places. Life was good. Her parents had each other and their home and Molly; wasn't that enough? Apparently not. Part of her felt wounded, that she hadn't been enough to make them happy, but it was a small part and it was tempered by the fact that Gert's parents and the others were in on this too, so it wasn't just her. There was nothing wrong with her, or Gert, or any of them. Their parents were the problem. There was something wrong with them, that they could believe that they would get what they wanted by doing this, raising demons, and were willing to kill for it. Molly didn't want to believe it, but the truth was staring her in the face even when she closed her eyes and she couldn't escape it.
"I want to go home." she sniffed, even though she knew it was pointless to want that. There was no going home now. If she went back there her parents wouldn't say 'oh hah hah, we were just tricking you, April Fools!', and give her a hug and laugh at her for being so foolish as to believe they could do such horrible things. Molly knew this. But wouldn't it be nice if they did? She'd let them laugh, they could laugh all they wanted at her, if they would just hug her and tell her it had all been a lie, a trick, and have it be true. But that wouldn't happen, couldn't happen. And Molly had a feeling she'd never get to hug her mom and dad again.
Because Gert was right. People were going to get hurt before this was over, maybe innocent people she didn't know, but most likely people she knew and cared about. The bad guys on television rarely went down quietly; they fought and killed before finally being taken down by the police. And Molly had a bad feeling that something similar was going to happen here.
"I don't think I could hurt my mom and dad, Gert. No matter what they've done." Or maybe not really hurt them, just knock them out maybe? Get them out of the way and unhurt until everything was over and the cops could get there and take them away. Just not really hurt them, or….or…kill them. Molly didn't know if she could kill anybody, no matter what the reason.
Gert offered to have her sleep with her and Old Lace, and Molly nodded. That could be a good idea. She didn't like the idea of sleeping on the floor, but this bed really was nasty, and what if the mice came out of the closet and started exploring? Molly didn't want to sleep with mice in the bed, ewww. And using Old Lace for a pillow could be cool. The dinosaur was awesome, and Molly liked playing with her.
"Okay." she said, and sat up to get off the bed.
0-o-o-o-0
Molly talked about wanting to go home, and Gert felt herself agreeing with her. She wasn't normally a person who wasted time wishing for impossible things, she was too much of a realist for that, but really, who wouldn't prefer to go back if they had that chance? This was definitely not the Hilton. It may have been as nice as the Hilton in days gone by, but those days were very gone by. They didn't have much in the way of long-term plans either. The hotel had running water but no electricity and no heat (not that that was a major problem in Los Angeles, but sometimes it could get rather cool at night). Between the lot of them they had some money but not a lot, and it wouldn't last long even with them being thrifty. They had no way of making any money either, at least not legally. Their names and faces were plastered all over town and on the news, since their own parents had decided to frame them for murder and kidnapping Molly. The cops were in their parents' pockets and would lock them up in a heartbeat, before turning them back over to their families. If she could go back, have this all be some kind of mistake and things go back to normal? Yeah, she'd take it. Gert thought her parents were evil regardless, but there was a difference between the evil in making one's pet pig disappear and in killing someone in cold blood. She'd take the former over the latter any day; hell, she'd even stop calling her mom and dad capitalist pigs (at least to their faces).
"I know you do Mols. I wish we could all go home." she said, watching as the younger girl finished wiping her face.
But that wasn't happening. It couldn't happen, Gert knew that, and so there was no point in wishing for it, or even wanting it. They had a bad situation to deal with, and the only thing they could do was deal with it. As for what would happen afterwards? Well, if things went well, as in their parents going to jail, then Social Services would probably be involved, at least for those of them still underage. For now though, they just had to stay out of sight and under the radar until they could figure out what to do about this little demon cult that seemed to be running Los Angeles.
Molly said she didn't know if she could hurt her parents, but what was Gert supposed to say to that? That she herself saw no problem with taking out the bitch who'd pretended to be a mother to her all of these years? Or letting Old Lace have at the man who called himself her father? Gert knew she'd sound completely cold-hearted if she did that, and Molly was hurting enough right now.
"Hopefully it won't come to that." Gert said, and that wasn't a lie, right? She did hope that Molly wouldn't have to hurt her mother and father, and if it became necessary then Gert would do it herself. She wasn't sure how, given that both Dr. and Mrs. Hayes both seemed to be telepaths and could probably scramble her brains for breakfast if they wanted to, but for Molly she would make the effort.
For now though, they both needed some sleep, and Gert was glad when Molly agreed to join her and Old Lace in the other room. "Good. Let's go get some sleep then." she said, and led the way back to the bedroom she'd claimed for herself and her dinosaur. Old Lace was curled up in pretty much the same position she'd been in when Gert left, but she opened her eyes when the girls came back in.
"Molly's going to sleep with us tonight, girl." she said, and the dinosaur gave a pleased rumble in response. Old Lace liked Molly, even if the girl did insist on trying to get her to wear hats.
The girls curled up on either side of Old Lace, both using her as a pillow. Their sleep could not be called peaceful, but there was comfort to be found in not experiencing the terrors of the night alone, and that comfort allowed them all some rest.