Barefoot
Rated for: Blood, Bobby's incessant swearing.
Pairings:Bobby/Chloe. I don't write about popular characters much.
(Because there's yet to be any proper Bobby/Chloe fanfiction out there. And god knows oh how I love that pairing. IT HAS A BULLY FALLING FOR THE GEEKY LONER GIRL WHO THINKS SHE'S AN ALIEN. WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THAT. Plus I must be like Bobby's only fan in like, ever. I want to simultaneously slap him and give him a hug, the little asshole. XD)
Disclaimer:If I owned Psychonauts, I wouldn't be writing fanfics about it, would I?
Everyone has their quirks. Their nervous habits. for some it's nail-biting. For others, it's knuckle cracking. For yet others, it's drawing chalk diagrams on a wall while muttering under one's breath about the dairy industry.
For Chloe, it was monologes. Talking to herself out loud, as if she were logging every single unusual detail of her life into a star trek-esque mission log (because that's what she honestly belived she was doing). And it was what she was doing right now, out in the woods following what she hoped beyond hoping was what she'd been waiting for all these years.
"Trail of possible alien secretion spotted at approximately 1200 hours. Substance is opaque, slightly viscous and bright red in hue, possibly a Xaidoran scent trail or Zandilian sweat, probably the latter. As the trail is still damp will attempt to make contact with whatever lifeform made it, even if it does just turn out to be an injured raccoon oozing blood everywhere."
Stepping lightly so as to make as little noise as possible (Zandilians consider it bad form to make too much noise when being approached by other lifeforms, and she didn't want to miss her chance to get off this hellhole of a planet because of some bad intergalactic manners), Chloe followed the trail deeper into the woods, past the reception area, past the GPC, past the ever-perky and irritating Clem and Crystal ("Yay, Chloe's tracking a hurt raccoon again:D") and down onto the stream bank when suddenly she heard a noise other than birdsong and rushing water - a low, growly noise. Several explanations ran through Chloe's head - a drunken Xaidoran, she'd been too loud sneaking up on a Zandillian, she'd been following an injured animal that was significantly larger than a raccoon - until a louder exclamation gave her a different conclusion:
"GAHH, DAMMIT!"
She knew that voice. She looked behind the large tree the noise came from, and yes, there was Bobby, sitting awkwardly with his back up against the tree and his left leg positioned in front of him. The "possibly alien secretion" was indeed blood, oozing freely from the sole of his bare foot, where at the source of the bleeding something irridescent and purple glinted. In his ensanguined hands he had a pair of old, rusty and probably unsterilised pliars (probably stolen from Mr Cruller at some point), trying to wrench the intruding piece of psitanium out of his flesh as he growled in pain, swore and tried his damndest not to bawl. So focused was he on this task that he did't even see Chloe until she spoke up.
"Uh, Bobby?..."
"AUGH!" He nearly jumped out of his skin realising someone was there - for a split second he looked as if he was about to kill, reanimate through voodoo, and kill again the interloper. Then he noticed it was Chloe, and relaxed visibly. "Oh, 's just you. I thought it was... I dunno, Benny or somethin', an' if he saw me like this he'd prolly dit- I mean, he passes out when he sees blood. Yeah." Obviously, Bobby is still the quote-unquote "smooth operator" that he was last year. "You better go, I'll meet you by the dock when I'm done dealin' with this." he indicates his injured-and-still-bleeding foot.
Chloe sighed impatiently. First the trail turned out to be a false alarm, and now she was being told to wait for something which, by the looks of how much blood was on the ground around Bobby, that has been taking an age and probably will take even more time (time that she could be spending setting up her makeshift sattelite array around camp!) if she didn't help him wrench that thing out of his foot. "hand me those pliers, I'll get it out." Taking the pliars off him (sterilising the manky things as best she could with some creative pyrokinesis application), she kneeled down in front of him, taking a firm grip of his ankle as she could - not so much to stop him from reflexively jerking it away when the pain starts as it was to stop him reflexively kicking her hard in the stomach once the pain starts - got a good hold on the intruding item with the pliers, and tugged and jiggled it as gently as possible trying to dislodge it, causing a memorable reaction from Master Zilch.
"AUUGH FUCK FUCK LEGGO DAMMIT CHLOE! IT FUCKING HURTS EVEN WORSE!" What a drama queen is Bobby, with his flailing and screaming at the slightest prod Chloe made while working on removing the article, which she managed to do so a few seconds later.
"That's an impressive chunk of psitanium you've collected here, Bobby." She said, holding the vicious-looking arrowhead up for him to see. "But next time, you may want to try using telekinesis to get them. There's less pain involved that way." Bobby snorted in cynical amusement at that remark from his position lying on the ground. "You wouldn't happen to have any medical supplies, would you? I didn't anticipate having to administer first ai-"
"Yeah, actually I do - I stash 'em out here in case, y'know, anything like this happens." Bobby produced a roll of bandages which he probably nicked from Sasha's lab at some point from a small hole in the tree roots and started clumsily binding his injured foot, which just caused Chloe to tut impatiently and assist him. Honestly, these earthlings can't do anything right... Then something occured to her.
"Hey, Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"Why... do you stash bandages out in the middle of nowhere?"
"I told ya, this happens a lot. There's arrowheads lying all over the damn camp and I keep stepping on 'em. This's just a quiet place to dig 'em out of my feet without bringing the whole camp running."
Chloe frowned."Well, to be honest this wouldn't happen at all if you wore footwear. As fragile as earth textiles are, I'm sure that they'd be able to protect your feet from-"
"I don't wear shoes." Bobby said instantly, almost reflexively to the suggestion that he wear something on his feet.
"Why not?"
"I just...don't. Haven't since I was three... Don't like 'em... that's all. No real reason why..." Bobby responded awkwardly.
Chloe said nothing for a moment, lost in deep thought. "Hm... have you ever considered that a traumatic experience might be the reason behind your aversion to footwear?"
Bobby looked utterly bemused (and slightly terrified, truth be told) at this comment. "Uh, I guess so-"
Chloe continued. "And considering that you can't remember such an experience, my hypothesis is that it was due to extraterrstrial interference of some sort, and they locked the memory of the event..." Possibly Siordian, their gamma rays can cause massive orange hairlike growths like that... thing on your head, she added mentally, not loud enough for him to pick up. "I'd like to attempt a Vrankan mindmerge to see if I can find the memory, if that's all right..."
"Vrankan mindmerge? you mean like a Vulcan mind-meld?" Bobby enquired, almost skeptically.
Until he remembered the small fact that he was at a summer camp.
For psychics.
Because he was psychic.
And so was Chloe.
And she just said was going to pretty much attempt to read his mind.
Which, you know, she easily could.
Because she was psychic.
"OH HELL N-" Too late, for Chloe had already assumed it was cool, and had placed her hands on Bobby's temples, gaining a link with the blue kid's memory, and---
...And she was standing on a small, deserted beach, the sun setting somewhere in the distance. This change of scenery didn't freak Chloe out whatsoever, as she had done Vrankan mindmerges before with her pets and a couple of random strangers, so she knew what to expect from a shared memory... She was just looking around for some sign of Bobby's past self, when...
"BOBBY THADDEUS ARTIMUS ZILCH, GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"
a blur of orange, blue, red and white shot past Chloe, followed closely by an infuriated looking lady with a bad strawberry-blonde perm and dripping with cheap gold jewelery who eventually caught up with the blur of colors, which turned out to be a four-year old Bobby, his hair not yet up in that most interesting 'fro, instead it was simply wavy and reached down past his waist, his teeth not quite at the horrifying state they would be in six years later... but to Chloe's amusement he was still wearing the same "00" shirt, albeit reaching down past his knees and with its sleeves still intact.
"Awww, but Moo-ooo-om! I wanna stay longer!" Memory!Bobby said, flailing his free limbs like a hummingbird on speed in an attempt to squirm loose.
"No, Bobby, we're going home now! I want to get home in time for my stories!" Perm lady half-dragged Bobby towards a car parked just off the beach, Chloe following, expecting the woman to reveal herself to be a Siordian researcher. "Right, now where did your shoes go..."
"Do I have to put them on now? I mean, I'm only gonna be in the car-"
"Yes you do." snapped Mama Zilch, distractedly swatting a maurading wasp away. "I'm not having you tracking sand into the damn car after I just hoovered in there!" Sitting Memory!Bobby down, she roughly shoved one sneaker on - with a loud squeal of protest from Memory!Bobby - and started tying the laces.
"T-there's something sore in my shoe!"
"It's probably just a stone, you'll live." Mama Zilch replied, tying up the other sneaker already. "In the car."
"But it hurts too bad to be a stone...!"
"NO BUTS, BOBBY! IN THE CAR, NOW!"
Memory!Bobby hobbled into the car, yelping in pain with every step.
Chloe sat unseen in the free back seat of the car the whole ride, wondering what space probe had been inserted into Bobby's shoe to cause him such pain - She'd never seen Bobby cry in the present, even when he fell from a tree one time and dislocated his shoulder and Mr Cruller reset it without anasthetic, and here he was curled up in agony bawling fit to flood Andromeda's desert moon.
"Stop being so melodramatic, Bobby, it's just a little stone..."
"BUT IT HURTS! IT KEEPS HURTING ME!" Memory!Bobby screamed... he was gasping for breath now, and had went a paler shade of blue... even though it was a memory of past events and she knew fine well he was going to be okay, Chloe was starting to worry.
"Look, we're almost home now, see?" Mama Zilch tried to placate her near-hysterical son. "As soon as you're out of the car you can take off your shoe and we'll see just how big and horrible this stone in your shoe really is."
As soon as the car was in the drive Memory!Bobby was out of the door and tearing at his laces frantically, wheezing for breath. "Oh for God's sake-- here, let me do it." Mama Zilch tutted, untying the laces on the offending shoe, and pulling it off -revealling a swollen, reddened foot covered in stingmarks. "What the fu--" Mama Zilch started, shaking the sneaker to see what kind of rock caused that sort of reaction...
And out fell a maimed, dying and ANGRY wasp.
You mean it was simply an Earthling insect that was causing him so much pain? Chloe mused. Well, their stings can be rather painful, but I've never known them to cause THAT much pain...
Mama Zilch's face was filled with horror. "Oh, SHIT... Okay, Bobby, sweetie, stay calm it's gonna be okay..." She picked Memory!Bobby up and took him inside the house." Mom's gonna phone the ambulance, and they'll take you to the hospital to get better, okay... Oh dear God, please be okay...!" Chloe was about to follow them into the house when an unseen force shoved her backwards violently and---
"DON'T DO THAT!" Bobby yelled, half in anger, half in terror - He hadn't really planned on pushing Chloe so hard, really, but he'd seen no other way to break the mindlink at the time.
"Well, you could have said-"
"You didn't even give me a chance to say anything!" Bobby snapped. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "...You didn't see my dad in there, did you?"
"Negative-"
"You swear?" It was, at least to Bobby, utmost importance that the identity of his father remain a secret - God knows what the other campers would do if they found out that he was in any way related to that crazy bastard who took out all their brains last year... Not that he'd recognised Bobby in the state he was in at the time, though...
"Seriously, I didn't. I saw you, your mom, and the evil terran bug in your shoe..."
Bobby relaxed visibly. "Oh, that thing. That day totally sucked..."
"I can imagine, but... I've been stung by one of those before, and it's never warranted a trip to any medical facilities for me..."
"You ain't allergic to the little fuckers." Bobby replied. "Normally I'd get away from 'em and just feel bad for a few days, but that thing stung me so may times it sent me into anaphawhatsit shock."
"Anaphaleptic shock?" Chloe suggested, sitting down beside him.
"Yeah, whatever." Bobby shrugged, barely registering Chloe's sudden closeness. "I can't stand 'em near me nowadays... they freak me out." He shuddered at the very thought." At least I can set them on fire if they come too close."
Chloe said nothing, remembering something she had seen following the trail of blood... There were wasps coming out of the GPC, most likely from a nest in the lining... And if Coach Oleander is really as draconic in his disciplinary techniques as the other campers say he is, then...
"Yeah. That's why I try not to get caught by him." Bobby said, obviously hearing her thoughts.
A long pause. "No matter how many years I come here, no matter how many psychic humans I hang out with... that is never, ever gonna stop freaking me out when people do that."
Bobby snorted with laughter "Hyeah, I always thought I'd be the only one at camp who could do that and it turns out that, like, everyone can do it, even freakin' Maloof."
"Yeah, but he can't sleep without a teddy bear. Dogen told me."
"Holy crap, he's actually more lame than I thought he was!"
"I know. It's like I told him, he's not got the constitution for space travel..."
A few hours later, if you happened to pass that clearing, you might have seen a splash of orange in that lush mosaic of greens and dark brown. If you had decided to investigate, you would have come across Bobby and Chloe, both fast asleep, Chloe leaning her head/helmet on Bobby's shoulder, her shoes and socks discarded somehere nearby - it doesn't really matter where, really.
This moment of peace was of course shortlived, though, as Ranger Cruller came along and hollered at them to git as the forest is off limits. But such is life.
END