So first real chapter is all from Madison's perspective as I establish her personality which was greatly influenced by my conversations with Temporal Knight, so I hope you all enjoy.
Madison detested waiting for the bus, not because she was impatient or disliked public transportation, but rather that she just genuinely hated people and in turn dealing with them. Just a few minutes spent dealing with their petty insecurities, life issues, self-imposed delusions, and just being shitty examples of the human species were often enough to sour her entire day.
The fact they simply could not be avoided unless she became a full time recluse did not help matters in the slightest.
Sighing she turned up the volume of the heavy metal blasting through her ear buds as the huddled mass of humanity surrounding her continued to prattle on underneath the awning that did nothing to protect them from the elements. Shocker of shocks the bus stops of Brockton Bay had their glass enclosures shot out by some drugged up gang bangers years ago, someone somewhere would probably be surprised by that but they would not have been born and raised in the Bay for sure.
The fact that it was currently drizzling at the moment didn't help matters either.
She sighed and pulled her hoody down lower over her eyes then shifted her heavy bag between her hands, all while doing her best to ignore the fact that the elderly lady beside her was probably trying to talk to her if her sad smile was any indicator. Madison grimaced at that, she didn't mean to be rude, that was impolite, she just, you know…didn't fucking care.
She'd looked up her issues before, back when she was trying to figure out why the hell she was putting up with Sophia and Emma being…nearly comically psychotic and getting away with it, and the answer hadn't amused her.
She was a classic case of misanthropy, Madison Clements fully and truly just disliked people and was a bit pissed off she was obligated to deal with them on a daily basis. On that note she took in a deep breath as she thought of her greatest fuckup and what it had cost a peer, brought her hand up under her hood, and pulled the ear bud out as she turned to the older woman and smiled, she honestly hoped it didn't look as fake as she felt it did.
"I'm sorry ma'am I didn't hear that, what did you say?"
The old lady smiled, then proceeded to ramble on about things Madison did not even remotely give a shit about, but…she listened regardless until her bus showed up and she made her excuses to leave the now pleased geriatric woman behind. Taking her seat and placing her bag on her lap Madison screwed her ear bud back into place and sighed in relief when the heavy bass drowned out the world around her.
Being nice was so damn hard….
If anyone were to ask, she would have quickly informed them that yes, being completely fucked up in the head and being aware of it well and truly sucked especially when coupled with the fact you couldn't write the whole deal off with the excuse of being a sociopath.
Madison was jealous of sociopaths really, they had a built in excuse for being terrible people, she in turn had to actually deal with having a conscience and fully understanding the repercussions of her actions…
"I really hate myself…" she muttered this to no one, but really it didn't matter regardless because it was true, she hated herself for being a coward, for being weak, for just going with the flow and not bothering to point out what Emma, Sophia, and yes…herself was doing to Taylor was thirty one flavors of absolutely fucked up.
She jerked up in surprise when she felt water drip on her hands, a moment later she realized that she was crying, hooray…crying makes everything better…
She brought out her phone and switched her music to KPop, she needed something fluffy and insubstantial at the moment.
When she arrived at her stop she meandered on towards the hospital and had to wait a few moments for the poorly maintained automatic doors to slide open before making her way up to the visitors desk. Leafing through the pages Madison sighed as she noticed that, again, she was the only one to be visiting the patient in question today, her dad hadn't even made an appearance…
Shaking her head while signing her name on the register Madison made her way to the elevator and quickly punched the button to the fourteenth floor, thankfully her trip was uninterrupted and she soon found herself approaching Taylor's room.
No cops waiting at the door this time, interesting but unimportant at the moment.
Entering the room and gently closing the door behind her Madison approached the bed and took in the image of a thin figure resting in it while feeling a sharp pang of regret.
Closing her eyes Madison breathed slowly while shakily pulling her ear buds out jamming them into her hoodies pocket. Steeling herself she pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed, and gave its occupant a sad smile as she shakily opened her bag and began rummaging through it.
"Hey Taylor, today was, well, another day. Going to school after what happened just feels so damn meaningless, I really wonder why I'm bothering at this point, I doubt half of our teachers would even notice if I stopped showing up regardless."
Taylor didn't respond, she just sat in her bed, staring blankly at the wall just as she had for the past five days, but Madison was undeterred and continued on as she pulled a thermos out of the bag and soon filled its cap mug with tomato soup.
"Still no word on what the hell happened to Sophia after I threw her under the bus, it's like she just vanished from the face of the Earth, though you might be amused to find out that Emma was committed to a psych ward. She tried to blame me for everything, apparently I was the ringleader and I dragged her and Sophia into their terror campaign on you…despite the fact that she'd been at it for like six months before I was involved. Oh, heh, yeah, forgot to mention that they're considering charging them for domestic terrorism, ends up that…mess you were shoved into is being considered a biological weapon and lets just say that is going to make whatever charges stick against those bitches very long term."
She was rambling, again, she always rambled when she visited Taylor.
Shaking her head she brought the mug of soup to Taylor's mouth and pressed it to her lips, "Anyway I brought you some soup, I hope you like tomato, added extra basil, dad grows it in his greenhouse and I always liked it so yeah."
As usual while Taylor didn't react she automatically drank whatever was placed before her, after a few minutes the mug was finished off and Madison placed it on the ground and stared at the girl with trepidation. She was silent for a time, she felt the tears gather at the corners of her eyes, then she finally let out her held back sob.
It was always like this, the only time she could really express her anguish over what she had done was when she was in the presence of her victim, and that wonderful misanthropy and genuine hatred for herself filled her veins with their venom.
"I….I'm so sorry Taylor…I just…I know I don't deserve any sort of absolution here I just…Fuck… I know I've told you this already but I was just… I was just playing a part, Sophia scared me but I get jocks, they're easy to manipulate, not all that much to work with and I thought I'd just have to do some stupid hazing bullshit against you a few times and be done with it. Emma though…that bitch is crazy, seriously she had this laser focus on you and when I realized how those two played off each others cruelty I was…I felt trapped."
Taking in a deep breath Madison laughed while shaking her head slowly, "And after all the shit we put you through you're in the hospital, Sophia is probably in Mexico or something, Emma is in the nut house and I'm being studiously ignored by authority figures for some reason. To top it off I'm a fucking Tinker, which took you, you know, dying to be a thing… Damnit…Taylor…I'm sorry, I am so so sorry…"
She took Taylor's hand into her own and gently squeezed it, "I umm, I brought a book to read you, your dad mentioned that your mom used to make you read classical literature but I'm a closet geek and felt you needed to be properly cultured. This is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and it is totally my dad's fault that I love this book so much."
Madison read to her until the sun began setting, normally she wouldn't be bothered by that but this was Brockton Bay, you didn't take chances when you didn't have to and she was fairly certain Taylor would understand that. With that thought in mind she placed a slip of paper into the book as a marker and put it back in the bag with the half full thermos, standing up she squeezed Taylor's hand one more time while smiling sadly.
Her dad had never showed up, Madison was once again her only visitor.
"I have to get home, it's getting late, I'll…I'll talk to you tomorrow Taylor, sleep well and get better soon, please…"
Sighing Madison put her ear buds back in, decided to stick with Kpop, and she left the room while gently closing the door behind her as she began her trek home, which of course had to be made more complicated thanks to the wonders of public transportation.
Her bus was late, like a half hour late, and then it was rerouted to cover for another bus breaking down, and that made her miss her train, which was just…fucking amazing.
So, here she was, a fifteen year old girl in one of the shittiest cities in the country alone, in the dark, ten miles from home and nothing to protect herself with other than a can of pepper spray. She didn't even have any sort of tinkering gizmos to help her out, the only thing she'd managed to do with her unwanted power so far is destroy her dad's old VCR for parts and that meant she well and truly…well…
"I'm fucked."
Yup, that about summed it up.
Grasping her little can of pepper spray Madison took in a deep breath, nodded to herself, and began walking away from the train station back to the bus stop. There was a change off that would drop her around five miles from her house and while not ideal, it was better than hoofing it the entire way. It was the best choice for a shitty situation but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it.
She'd like to say that her walk back to the bus stop led her through well lit and heavily trafficked areas but yeah, no, that would make things not suck more for her so that wasn't a thing. Nope, she got busted street lamps, vacant lots, and some very sketchy looking men giving her appraising looks.
Fucking Brockton Bay…
She just kept trooping on until someone grabbed her arm which prompted her to let out a startled yelp as she was pulled into an alley and swung against the wall. Her head was not nearly as resilient as the bricks it slammed into and in her daze she managed to drop her pepper spray, blinking rapidly she looked up to see a man leering down at her while he tightened his grip on her arm.
"Heyya girly, bit dangerous to be walk'n round alone dontchya think?"
Madison stared at his jaundiced gaze for precisely two heart beats before her knee slammed up into the man's crotch and jerked out of his grip while scooping up her pepper spray.
"You fucking bit-AHHH!"
Yeah, enjoy the capsaicin creep.
Madison wasted no time sprinting away from the man now clawing at his eyes because she wasn't an idiot and didn't stop until her side was stitching and she was gasping for breath. Making sure she was alone she eventually leaned against a building while her body went through the wonders of an adrenaline crash all while coming to the realization she was still miles from her house.
Shaking her head she began walking home and came to a simple conclusion, she needed to tinker up a lightsaber out of that VCR.
