Disclaimer: It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
Thanks: To everyone that's read and reviewed, and to my lovely Beta, Mitchy.
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The surf crashed against the cliffs and the sky darkened dramatically as black clouds bruised the last blues of the fading day. A storm was coming in fast, he could feel it running down his nerves as much as see the evidence, his system responding to the lightning that would shortly be appearing. Brennan muttered quietly under his breath, calculating the measure of suck that was his life, as he took what little shelter the side of a vent provided.
He'd managed to crowbar most of his twenty-nine years into a fairly elegant equation, divided by 'n' where 'n' equalled suck, and come out with a surprisingly positive number before the first rain began to fall.
-o-
Jesse felt consciousness slam into him, his heart thudding in his chest almost painfully as he opened his eyes. A second passed before the med bay came into focus, a second longer before he remembered why he was there. Muted by solid rock, the sounds of a storm outside came clear, a low rumble that ebbed and flowed as it echoed through Sanctuary.
"Adam?" His voice cracked half way through; he cleared his throat and tried again. "Shal? Emma?" The storm and his rapid heart beat were all he could hear. This couldn't be good. One hand came up to rub at his face, but the sensation of his fingers on the growth of stubble felt numb, unreal. Like he was just a little too drunk for his own good. Maybe he should just sleep some more…
"Okay, up and at 'em Jesse." His lips had moved, he'd felt it, but there had been no intent to speak. Freaky. On the other hand, his voice sounded a lot more confident and in control than he felt, which was oddly comforting. He'd just listen to his voice and see what happened from there. Except he didn't appear to be following his own orders. "Up". An unfamiliar snarl in his tone made him jump and, for the first time, he wondered if he was entirely there. In mind at least, he didn't worry about body for now. Chances were he wouldn't like the answer.
This time he obeyed himself and swung his legs around as he sat up. The counter was cold to the touch, too cold. He stared at his fingers for what seemed like a long, long, time before he took them out of the metal. "Pull yourself together man!" With a little giggle, he watched his hand approach something more solid, though they remained strangely frayed around the edges, as if he were slowly being unravelled like an unwanted Christmas sweater.
"Ah, geez, what the hell did they put in the drugs?"
He turned fast before realising the voice was still his, and then his eyes fell on the shaking form of Emma. Her eyes were wide and bright, pupils contracted to become tiny points of black in wild seas of blue. Man, he got poetic when he was high, maybe he should contract deadly plagues more often. Or, you know, not.
Dumbly he watched her, waiting for the voice to tell him what to do next, but there was nothing. After a while his attention began to wander to an interesting shadow on the wall, then dragged back to Emma with an effort. "Find something to sedate her again, or she'll die." With a pleased smile, he set out to do that, happy to be given something to do. He scrabbled through the cabinets, triumphantly holding up what looked like a good bottle. "Antacid isn't going to help, Mensa-boy." His face fell and he began to search the floor, coming up with a couple of white tablets under his previous bed. When there appeared to be no pressing urge to insult himself again, he went on a water search.
At last, cup in one hand and pills clutched tightly in the other, he stood over Emma once more. Her breath was coming in shallow hitches, hands twitching and clawing in on themselves. From afar he winced to see the bloody furrows her nails had cut into her palms, and the thin trickle of red leaking from her eyes and nose, but in the gooey soft-centre that was his brain, he simply waited to be told how to continue.
"Going to have to crush the pills or she'll choke on them." He nodded agreeably and crushed the beaker down on them, grinding out a fine powder that he added to the water without prompting, feeling obscurely pleased to manage it.
"Okay … don't take initiative again, now we have to make her drink it all. Dammit. Lift her head and pour a little water in. Go slow. Rub her throat to help her swallow." When he continued to simply stand there, he heard a little sigh escape his mouth. "So we go one step at a time. Jesse, lift her head…"
Jesse decided to worry about the 'we' later.
-o-
It amused her to watch the little man walk around yelling at himself. He looked like prey caught by the neck, swinging in the jaws of the hunter, jerking disjointedly as he walked here and there, or simply stood and stared into space for minutes at a time.
The original inclination to leap at him, bring him down with a swift and lethal bite to the neck, was held at bay by the curiousity value.
Yellow eyes continued to watch from the shadows of the doorway, a tail flicked side to side, and the mouse failed to notice.
-o-
"Human in what sense, precisely?" Eckhart leaned over the microscope to get a better view of the sample that Adam had made his grand declaration over. "… Ah, I see." He stepped back and looked to the other man, who had the absently contemplative look of one not entirely paying attention to their arch-nemesis. This would never do.
"Adam!"
Adam blinked slowly and looked to Eckhart, noting the expression of forced patience overlaying the sensation he would be shortly ordering the guards to throw him in a cell. He wasn't terribly worried; it was the man's default state.
"It doesn't fit any of the standard groups. What else were you experimenting with, Eckhart?"
"Me? Why do you assume my involvement? I had you brought in to consult on this development, remember?"
Adam levelled a flat eyed and unblinking stare at the man proclaiming his innocence. "No, I think you'll find you had my people infected in lieu of putting together a tempting consultancy package, something we will be having some very precise and pointed words about shortly. But, to answer your question, someone with advanced gene technology has created a sentient virus, with incalculable applications as a weapon. I can't imagine why on earth I would think of you."
Eckhart straightened his jacket irritably and frowned. "Yes, well, in this instance, I was not involved. 'Incalculable applications' do not, in this case, outweigh the result and, while I admit to the occasional risk in the name of science, I would not condone something with the potential to wipe out an entire species. Namely, my own."
Silence fell around the laboratory, save for the clinking of glass beakers and the shuffle of the technicians in their safety suits.
Jude watched the staring contest with growing impatience, before finally coughing and speaking. "So, what does this mean? How can it be stopped?"
Both men turned their eyes on her and she fought not to take a step back, compensating by glaring belligerently.
Adam at last spoke. "I think we attempt to reason with it."
-o-
Most of the water had been lost, and she could smell the chemical sharpness of the powdered tablets suspended in the puddles on the floor. The prey was still talking to itself as it tried to ease the choking of the spasmodically coughing woman on the table.
"Don't pat, don't pat, you'll make it worse! Just turn her on her side. No! Not all the way over. Okay, good. Open her mouth. Mouth. Under the nose, there's only one. Move Jesse, c'mon. Good, now, is she breathing properly? Listen to her chest. Does it rattle? Don't fall asleep! Stand up."
Now he stood, silent again, gaze fixed on the shadows on the wall as the woman on the table took laboured gasps. It didn't seem he would be entertaining her again any time soon, and the welcome smell of warm blood didn't come so strongly to her sensitive nose any more.
Shalimar ran her tongue over her lips as she moved fluidly into the room, paws silent over the floor.
The blood she could do something about.
-o-
Later, when she had more coherency of thought than 'hunt, kill, eat', Shalimar would still wake in a cold sweat from nightmares that her conscious mind couldn't really recall. She would remember the leap, remember the orange glow of her prey, and remember the simple, almost innocent, desire to kill the man she loved as a brother. And, she would remember how she ceased to be.
Jesse was only aware of a heavy but soft sensation at his back, as if someone had thrown a pillow at him. He spun awkwardly, trying to see what had hit him; the fragments of his mind, minds, piecing slowly into a whole as he did so.
By the time he looked back to Emma, deciding that mystery could wait, his mind felt clear but fragilely so, ready to shatter in a moment from his tenuous hold. Maybe this would let him work out why his vision was tinged with orange, and why his team mate suddenly smelt like food.
"Well ... this could be better."
The floor began to shake under his feet in sympathy with an almighty, deafening, crash of thunder above. The emergency lights cut out without a fight, leaving him once more in the pitch darkness. Brennan. Maybe. Too close, but probably as far away as he was able to get.
His lips tightened as he concentrated on areas he could actually make a difference in, drawing a deep breath and focussing his thoughts.
"… or, it could be worse."
Just able to feel the solid surface of the table beneath him, he tentatively felt for Emma, trying to ignore the feeling he should be nuzzling, even ripping, at her instead. Still movement, still the too-warm wash of her breath over his hand.
"You'll be okay."
"No, she will not … we are sorry."
The voice came from too close to be anyone's but his own, even if it carried a different, deeper, timbre to the norm.
"Who are you, are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" He gritted his teeth to keep the modulation calm and level, only to discover his mouth opening once more for a reply.
"We are killing you. We have no choice. We are sorry."
"Start talking, and don't stop until you've told me how to make her, us, better."
"We cannot, we are sorry."
"No, see, you stopped before I told you to. And if you're going to say sorry, say it like you mean it."
"Sorry."
"On second thoughts, just stop saying it and get back to the part about how we get rid of you. How many of you are there?"
"More than has meaning for you, in the air, in you, in countless others. There is nothing more to say, there is nothing more that we can tell you."
"Then why the hell are you talking at all?"
"Because … we are sorry, and we want you to understand."
"I don't understand!" Jesse kicked out at the chair he could vaguely feel beside him, feeling the lightest brush as he phased through it. "How can you do this?"
He was suddenly glad of the darkness now, that he couldn't see the disintegration of his body. Maybe it would go before he noticed, and he would just remain and wait for Emma and the others. He continued on in a dull whisper as he stroked Emma's damp hair away from her forehead.
"You're killing us, and you're sorry. Well, that makes it all okay then."
"No." He said.
"No." He agreed.
-o-
Emma waited, at last free of the racking pain in her body and mind, building up her strength once more. Leaving her body had been hard. Entering Jesse's drug fuelled one had been harder. Guiding him to care for her had been almost impossible.
She wondered how long it would be before her body began to fail without its spirit but, more pressingly, she wondered how long she could hide her presence from the virus, an enraged black panther she barely had the strength to suppress, and … the other one.
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Notes
Funny thing happened on the way to the forum ::coughs:: ... apologies for the delay to anyone who's been following this, I can only say it _will_ be finished, and thank you for all the wonderful reviews!
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
Thanks: To everyone that's read and reviewed, and to my lovely Beta, Mitchy.
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The surf crashed against the cliffs and the sky darkened dramatically as black clouds bruised the last blues of the fading day. A storm was coming in fast, he could feel it running down his nerves as much as see the evidence, his system responding to the lightning that would shortly be appearing. Brennan muttered quietly under his breath, calculating the measure of suck that was his life, as he took what little shelter the side of a vent provided.
He'd managed to crowbar most of his twenty-nine years into a fairly elegant equation, divided by 'n' where 'n' equalled suck, and come out with a surprisingly positive number before the first rain began to fall.
-o-
Jesse felt consciousness slam into him, his heart thudding in his chest almost painfully as he opened his eyes. A second passed before the med bay came into focus, a second longer before he remembered why he was there. Muted by solid rock, the sounds of a storm outside came clear, a low rumble that ebbed and flowed as it echoed through Sanctuary.
"Adam?" His voice cracked half way through; he cleared his throat and tried again. "Shal? Emma?" The storm and his rapid heart beat were all he could hear. This couldn't be good. One hand came up to rub at his face, but the sensation of his fingers on the growth of stubble felt numb, unreal. Like he was just a little too drunk for his own good. Maybe he should just sleep some more…
"Okay, up and at 'em Jesse." His lips had moved, he'd felt it, but there had been no intent to speak. Freaky. On the other hand, his voice sounded a lot more confident and in control than he felt, which was oddly comforting. He'd just listen to his voice and see what happened from there. Except he didn't appear to be following his own orders. "Up". An unfamiliar snarl in his tone made him jump and, for the first time, he wondered if he was entirely there. In mind at least, he didn't worry about body for now. Chances were he wouldn't like the answer.
This time he obeyed himself and swung his legs around as he sat up. The counter was cold to the touch, too cold. He stared at his fingers for what seemed like a long, long, time before he took them out of the metal. "Pull yourself together man!" With a little giggle, he watched his hand approach something more solid, though they remained strangely frayed around the edges, as if he were slowly being unravelled like an unwanted Christmas sweater.
"Ah, geez, what the hell did they put in the drugs?"
He turned fast before realising the voice was still his, and then his eyes fell on the shaking form of Emma. Her eyes were wide and bright, pupils contracted to become tiny points of black in wild seas of blue. Man, he got poetic when he was high, maybe he should contract deadly plagues more often. Or, you know, not.
Dumbly he watched her, waiting for the voice to tell him what to do next, but there was nothing. After a while his attention began to wander to an interesting shadow on the wall, then dragged back to Emma with an effort. "Find something to sedate her again, or she'll die." With a pleased smile, he set out to do that, happy to be given something to do. He scrabbled through the cabinets, triumphantly holding up what looked like a good bottle. "Antacid isn't going to help, Mensa-boy." His face fell and he began to search the floor, coming up with a couple of white tablets under his previous bed. When there appeared to be no pressing urge to insult himself again, he went on a water search.
At last, cup in one hand and pills clutched tightly in the other, he stood over Emma once more. Her breath was coming in shallow hitches, hands twitching and clawing in on themselves. From afar he winced to see the bloody furrows her nails had cut into her palms, and the thin trickle of red leaking from her eyes and nose, but in the gooey soft-centre that was his brain, he simply waited to be told how to continue.
"Going to have to crush the pills or she'll choke on them." He nodded agreeably and crushed the beaker down on them, grinding out a fine powder that he added to the water without prompting, feeling obscurely pleased to manage it.
"Okay … don't take initiative again, now we have to make her drink it all. Dammit. Lift her head and pour a little water in. Go slow. Rub her throat to help her swallow." When he continued to simply stand there, he heard a little sigh escape his mouth. "So we go one step at a time. Jesse, lift her head…"
Jesse decided to worry about the 'we' later.
-o-
It amused her to watch the little man walk around yelling at himself. He looked like prey caught by the neck, swinging in the jaws of the hunter, jerking disjointedly as he walked here and there, or simply stood and stared into space for minutes at a time.
The original inclination to leap at him, bring him down with a swift and lethal bite to the neck, was held at bay by the curiousity value.
Yellow eyes continued to watch from the shadows of the doorway, a tail flicked side to side, and the mouse failed to notice.
-o-
"Human in what sense, precisely?" Eckhart leaned over the microscope to get a better view of the sample that Adam had made his grand declaration over. "… Ah, I see." He stepped back and looked to the other man, who had the absently contemplative look of one not entirely paying attention to their arch-nemesis. This would never do.
"Adam!"
Adam blinked slowly and looked to Eckhart, noting the expression of forced patience overlaying the sensation he would be shortly ordering the guards to throw him in a cell. He wasn't terribly worried; it was the man's default state.
"It doesn't fit any of the standard groups. What else were you experimenting with, Eckhart?"
"Me? Why do you assume my involvement? I had you brought in to consult on this development, remember?"
Adam levelled a flat eyed and unblinking stare at the man proclaiming his innocence. "No, I think you'll find you had my people infected in lieu of putting together a tempting consultancy package, something we will be having some very precise and pointed words about shortly. But, to answer your question, someone with advanced gene technology has created a sentient virus, with incalculable applications as a weapon. I can't imagine why on earth I would think of you."
Eckhart straightened his jacket irritably and frowned. "Yes, well, in this instance, I was not involved. 'Incalculable applications' do not, in this case, outweigh the result and, while I admit to the occasional risk in the name of science, I would not condone something with the potential to wipe out an entire species. Namely, my own."
Silence fell around the laboratory, save for the clinking of glass beakers and the shuffle of the technicians in their safety suits.
Jude watched the staring contest with growing impatience, before finally coughing and speaking. "So, what does this mean? How can it be stopped?"
Both men turned their eyes on her and she fought not to take a step back, compensating by glaring belligerently.
Adam at last spoke. "I think we attempt to reason with it."
-o-
Most of the water had been lost, and she could smell the chemical sharpness of the powdered tablets suspended in the puddles on the floor. The prey was still talking to itself as it tried to ease the choking of the spasmodically coughing woman on the table.
"Don't pat, don't pat, you'll make it worse! Just turn her on her side. No! Not all the way over. Okay, good. Open her mouth. Mouth. Under the nose, there's only one. Move Jesse, c'mon. Good, now, is she breathing properly? Listen to her chest. Does it rattle? Don't fall asleep! Stand up."
Now he stood, silent again, gaze fixed on the shadows on the wall as the woman on the table took laboured gasps. It didn't seem he would be entertaining her again any time soon, and the welcome smell of warm blood didn't come so strongly to her sensitive nose any more.
Shalimar ran her tongue over her lips as she moved fluidly into the room, paws silent over the floor.
The blood she could do something about.
-o-
Later, when she had more coherency of thought than 'hunt, kill, eat', Shalimar would still wake in a cold sweat from nightmares that her conscious mind couldn't really recall. She would remember the leap, remember the orange glow of her prey, and remember the simple, almost innocent, desire to kill the man she loved as a brother. And, she would remember how she ceased to be.
Jesse was only aware of a heavy but soft sensation at his back, as if someone had thrown a pillow at him. He spun awkwardly, trying to see what had hit him; the fragments of his mind, minds, piecing slowly into a whole as he did so.
By the time he looked back to Emma, deciding that mystery could wait, his mind felt clear but fragilely so, ready to shatter in a moment from his tenuous hold. Maybe this would let him work out why his vision was tinged with orange, and why his team mate suddenly smelt like food.
"Well ... this could be better."
The floor began to shake under his feet in sympathy with an almighty, deafening, crash of thunder above. The emergency lights cut out without a fight, leaving him once more in the pitch darkness. Brennan. Maybe. Too close, but probably as far away as he was able to get.
His lips tightened as he concentrated on areas he could actually make a difference in, drawing a deep breath and focussing his thoughts.
"… or, it could be worse."
Just able to feel the solid surface of the table beneath him, he tentatively felt for Emma, trying to ignore the feeling he should be nuzzling, even ripping, at her instead. Still movement, still the too-warm wash of her breath over his hand.
"You'll be okay."
"No, she will not … we are sorry."
The voice came from too close to be anyone's but his own, even if it carried a different, deeper, timbre to the norm.
"Who are you, are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" He gritted his teeth to keep the modulation calm and level, only to discover his mouth opening once more for a reply.
"We are killing you. We have no choice. We are sorry."
"Start talking, and don't stop until you've told me how to make her, us, better."
"We cannot, we are sorry."
"No, see, you stopped before I told you to. And if you're going to say sorry, say it like you mean it."
"Sorry."
"On second thoughts, just stop saying it and get back to the part about how we get rid of you. How many of you are there?"
"More than has meaning for you, in the air, in you, in countless others. There is nothing more to say, there is nothing more that we can tell you."
"Then why the hell are you talking at all?"
"Because … we are sorry, and we want you to understand."
"I don't understand!" Jesse kicked out at the chair he could vaguely feel beside him, feeling the lightest brush as he phased through it. "How can you do this?"
He was suddenly glad of the darkness now, that he couldn't see the disintegration of his body. Maybe it would go before he noticed, and he would just remain and wait for Emma and the others. He continued on in a dull whisper as he stroked Emma's damp hair away from her forehead.
"You're killing us, and you're sorry. Well, that makes it all okay then."
"No." He said.
"No." He agreed.
-o-
Emma waited, at last free of the racking pain in her body and mind, building up her strength once more. Leaving her body had been hard. Entering Jesse's drug fuelled one had been harder. Guiding him to care for her had been almost impossible.
She wondered how long it would be before her body began to fail without its spirit but, more pressingly, she wondered how long she could hide her presence from the virus, an enraged black panther she barely had the strength to suppress, and … the other one.
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Notes
Funny thing happened on the way to the forum ::coughs:: ... apologies for the delay to anyone who's been following this, I can only say it _will_ be finished, and thank you for all the wonderful reviews!