Part 3! Sickness and bad dreams.
The sound of his gasping for air echoed strangely through the swamp, though it was not the fact that there were echoes in a swamp that bothered him. It was more what he had seen, what he had heard, and the fact that those bothered him, him, that disturbed him. He supposed the fact that he was gasping for air - something he had not done in ages, not where anyone could see him, at least - was not helping him any. His mind reeled ahead of him in the darkness, through the smell of the rot and decay and little nasty biting dead things and sweat and blood and fear. Fear. Fear. Were he able to stop himself from running, were he able to reach for his swords or move his claws from where they swung limply at his side, he could have killed himself then and there. Albel Nox, Albel the Wicked, Albel the Fucking Wicked, did not fear. He also never cursed, and had that damnable Klausian not already been dead he would have blamed him for his slip, but there was no use in blaming the dead. Just as there was no use in fear and no use in panic and no use in desperately just wanting to hide somewhere and be alone and throw up and be himself and no use in hating himself and no use in thinking the way he was thinking and no use in fucking shame. He had no idea where he was running, little idea why he was running, and he thought he should know but he didn't and it pissed him right the hell off, even more than gasping and being afraid and angry and not getting a chance to stop and hide behind his usual Unbreakable Shield of Superiority, as Fayt called it. Incidentally, he was also not very happy at catching himself referring to someone by their name, even alone in his thoughts, though they echoed like he had been talking the whole time and maybe he was but he had no time for that now. Right now he just knew that he had stopped running and was stumbling somewhere and he didn't know why or where and it still pissed him off, and if his father was there he'd have boxed his ears by now for cursing like some miner.
He stumbled blindly through the trees and the undergrowth, his actions becoming even more sickeningly familiar than the sounds he was now hearing. Sounds that sounded like they should sound like something sharp slicing through wet meat but sounded more like someone playing and splashing in mud and maybe it was but he knew it wasn't and he remembered this all and he knew it was another damned dream but he couldn't move his body how he wanted it to and he couldn't look away and he couldn't help feeling sick, though he knew damned well he had done worse and would do worse if Fayt would still let him and he had laughed long and hard at it, once. But there was still something intensely disturbing about seeing your dead-and-rotting-though-he-should-have-finished-doing-so-long-ago father grinning and cackling and stabbing haphazardly and manically and not acting at all like he would have in real life, spraying and splashing the blood of a blue-haired figure he almost wished were Maria but he had already seen her, and she had been dismembered some long ways back. So he was left knowing it was Fayt, that weak little bastard, and just to confirm it the blue-haired head raised up and grinned through the muck, a grin that would make most grown men hide in their beds and shiver and weep into the darkness, a grin full of blood and maggots and missing teeth and gore and grime.
He could have done better.
Somewhere in the darkness, one dark red eye opened and stared into the incomplete darkness of his bedroom at the inn. Albel cursed to himself, eventually, and his body slid from a position like a frightened, angry cat into a slightly more relaxed one that at least allowed his torso to acknowledge the bed's existence. He then became acutely aware of someone else in the room, but before he could attempt to kill him to make himself feel better, Fayt hurried into view.
"Hey, Albel, are you okay?"
Albel muttered into his pillow and turned away.
"That isn't going to work, you know."
Albel waved his stump arm in the air in annoyance.
"...And that just looks silly."
Albel turned in his bed to face Fayt again. "Are you going to leave, fool, or will I have to force you out?"
"Funny, I don't recall being this rude to you when you tried to kill me in my sleep," Fayt said, crossing his arms then quickly uncrossing them in order to regain his balance. Albel watched him steady himself and shake his head in confusion.
"Go to bed, fool. You're sick and asking more moronic questions than usual," he said, and turned away again.
"I was just worried," Fayt said, and Albel heard him take a step towards his bed before falling, his head hitting the bed before he slumped onto the floor. He turned his head slightly to watch Fayt shakily force himself into a kneeling position, leaning heavily on the bed. "You were screaming in your sleep. Sophia and Cliff were worried, too, but she didn't want to come in your room without permission, and Cliff, well..."
Albel watched him watch him, the younger of the two looking decidedly worse for the wear. He idly wondered who he was more worried about, him or himself, before getting out of bed and walking over to the side Fayt was on. Fayt looked up at him, briefly giving the impression of a frightened rabbit before Albel offered him his hand.
"I don't feel like putting my claw on, so you'll have to settle for using me as a crutch."
"I'm fine," Fayt said, trying to move Albel's hand away and missing the first two tries. "I'm just tired."
"And sick, and an imbecile. Now let me help you up or I'm dragging you by your hair," Albel said, annoyed, though he smirked slightly when Fayt looked up at his face. "I believe this is my routine."
"You're not worried about someone seeing you and thinking less of the mighty 'Albel the Wicked'?" Fayt asked as Albel hauled him up into a standing position and maneuvered himself so that Fayt was leaning on him.
"If anyone says anything, I'll refer them to that doctor friend of Zelpher's," he said, snorting. "I'm sure she'd appreciate a maniac or two. Now move."
Even with him supporting most of Fayt's weight, Albel really did not expect the trip back to Fayt's room to take so long. Reflecting on it, he supposed his mind may have just been making things seem longer, but he preferred excuses to mock Fayt. Given the state Fayt was in, it would probably be a while before he could do so again and have Fayt honestly acknowledge what he was saying without looking pitiful. He stayed with Fayt for a few minutes until the younger man was comatose again and shook his arm until he let go of it. He was about to leave when he heard someone knock on his door, a few feet from Fayt's.
"I'm in here, fool."
"Thanks for the heads up, bastard," Cliff said, walking into the room, followed by Sophia. "What're you doin' in here?"
"Fayt's sick."
"Ah, hell. Again?" Cliff asked, and moved past Albel to check on Fayt. He looked him over and felt his forehead. "Crap, you're right."
"Because this is certainly something I'd lie about," Albel muttered, resisiting the urge to try and fail to cross his arms.
"Should I get Maria?" Sophia asked. Cliff shook his head.
"Nah, he should be okay. He got sick not long after we got here and slept it off," he said. "Maria'd probably just try to kill us for waking her up at this hour."
"She'll also try to kill us for not telling her if Fayt isn't any better by morning," Sophia noted.
"So either way we're screwed," Cliff said, shrugging. "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be better in the morning. Us standing over him won't help him any, though."
"I'm still worried," Sophia said, moving to avoid being pushed towards the door.
"Fayt doesn't seem the type to get sick so easily," Albel agreed, swatting Cliff's hand away.
"Ah, man. What do I have to do, promise to let you two skin me alive if I'm wrong?" Cliff asked. Sophia and Albel glanced at each other, then looked back at him.
"I believe you off-worlders do something called a 'pinky swear'?" Albel asked, holding out aforementioned finger.
"Right!" Sophia said, holding out her own.
"...You guys are nuts," Cliff said, shaking his head. "Rr, fine. But we're bumping it down from skinning me to blaming me, all right?"
"I'd prefer skinning," Albel noted.
"Look, take it or leave it." Sophia and Albel glanced at each other again, then finally hooked their pinkies around Cliff's.
"Fine, it's a deal. Now get out before you wake Fayt up," Cliff said, and the other two finally complied. After they left, Cliff shut the door behind them and headed for his room. "Good night."
"Good night!" Sophia said, waving her pinky at him. "And remember-"
"I know," Cliff said, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated as he disappeared from sight and closed his door. Down by Fayt's room, the other two stood still for a few moments.
"...Is there a reason you're still here, fool?"
"You were screaming earlier."
"And how is this your problem?" Albel asked, arching an eyebrow.
"What? I'm not allowed to be worried about a friend?" Sophia asked, following the man as he grimaced and went back to his room.
"Find a new hobby," he said, and closed the door in her face.
"Don't I even get a 'good night'?" Sophia asked through the door.
"Don't die in your sleep, I plan on beheading you in the morning!"
"Good night to you, too!" Sophia said, significantly brighter as she left for her room. As far as she was concerned, that was the closest she would ever get from him, and it worked well enough. And, well, it was true, more or less.
The next morning, Fayt did not join Cliff and Albel in their usual morning training routine, and he did not join the girls at breakfast in and around the workshop. When the two men returned without him, Maria looked annoyed.
"Where's Fayt?" she asked. "Don't tell me he's training by himself, he's horrible at that..."
Cliff and Albel looked at each other, at Sophia, back at each other, then at Maria. Cliff grimaced.
"You mean he's not with you?"
"Why would he be with us?" asked Peppita. Albel and Cliff looked at each other again, and the formed walked away towards the inn.
"If you two did something to him," Maria said, more than a little threateningly.
"Whoa whoa whoa, why are you getting all suspicious at us?"
"Could it be because Albel's psychotic and you seem to have trouble remembering that the rest of us aren't as durable as Klausians are?" Maria asked, annoyed. Cliff shrugged.
"Just curious."
Before Maria could punch him, Cliff hurried off to the inn, where Albel was standing in the doorway and motioning for him to hurry the hell up. Sophia quickly followed him, and, after seeing if the other was just as confused as she was, Maria and Peppita followed as well.
"I moved him to my room. His bed will need to be cleaned," Albel said to Cliff and Sophia.
"Don't tell me he-"
"Just vomit and sweat."
"That's not much better, really," Cliff said, and Albel shrugged. "How is he?"
"He's not as warm as he was, at least, but I think he's more delirious," Albel said, then stopped on the stairs and looked at Cliff. "Do you know who Opera Vectra is?"
Cliff blinked, and fought off the urge to grin as the group continued through the inn. "I think I do. I'll tell you later, after we check on him."
"Check on who?" Maria asked, grabbing ahold of Cliff's arm. "What did you morons do to Fayt?"
"Nothing! He's just under the weather, that's all," Cliff said, shrugging. "And out of it enough to mistake Albel for a long-dead Tetrageniot noblewowan, but anyway..."
"What?" said Maria and Albel simultaneously. Cliff hurried on ahead of them into Albel's room, followed by Sophia and Peppita. After a moment, Albel followed after them, Maria bringing up the rear.
"Now ain't that cute?" Cliff said, pausing briefly at the door before moving Fayt from being half on the floor back to being fully in bed.
"This isn't the time to being commenting on that," Maria said, pushing by the others, who growled or squeaked at her as she did so. Her personality pulled a quick-change as she kneeled by the bed and pulled out her quad scanner. After a few moments, she sighed. "Good, it's nothing serious. He should be fine. I'll just see if one of the people he contracted to help with inventing can help me make the proper medicine."
"So Fayt'll be okay?" Peppita asked, tugging slightly woefully at Fayt's autographed shirt, which he used as sleeping clothes now with his shorts from Hyda.
"He'll be fine," Maria said, her smile quickly turning into a frown as she turned and pointed at Cliff and Albel. "And to make sure, you two are keeping as far away from him as possible."
"But this is my room."
"You two are big boys, you can share," Maria snapped. "Now, out. All of you."
"But it was Cliff's fault!" Sophia said.
"I don't care. Now leave."
"But-"
"NOW!"
The remaining four members of the group left quickly, dodging various items and accessories and a laser weapon or two as they retreated to Sophia and Peppita's room.
"Inasane old hag," Albel snarled, rubbing the back of his head.
"You get used to it," Cliff said. "At least she didn't start throwing your weapons."
"If she had, I would have killed her."
"If you didn't end up with a sword through your forehead first," Peppita said. Albel just glared at her.
"I can't believe I'm expected to share a room with you," he muttered, shifting his glare over to Cliff.
"Hey, I'm not much happier with it then you are, okay? So lay off," Cliff said, returning the look.
"Well, it could be worse," Sophia said. "One of you could have to sleep outside or something."
"...I think I prefer that idea," Albel muttered and started for the door.
"Hey, where are you going?" Cliff asked.
"Hostile takeover, maggot. I'm moving your garbage to the stairwell."
"Oh, like hell you are."
The two girls watched as the men left, flinching slightly as they heard Maria slam the door open and start lecturing them loudly, as one might do to small children or tiny, yapping dogs.
"Um, maybe we should stay away from the inn for now," Sophia said.
"Good idea. Want to go to Aquios?"
Sophia looked worried. "Do you think we can?"
Peppita grinned and gave her a dramatic thumbs up. "Leave it to me! No foul monster can stand up to the great Peppita!"
"Fine, then," Sophia said, giggling. "Let's go!"
The two girls put on their armour and grabbed their weapons before silently creeping to the door and looking out. They watched, waited, then finally hauled ass down the hallway and the stairs, nearly colliding with a variety of objects as they escaped. Back by Albel's former room, Maria, Albel, and Cliff blinked at each other.
"What was all of that about?" Cliff wondered aloud.
"Idiocy is catching," Albel muttered. Maria sighed.
"Great, and I was going to ask Sophia if she could watch over Fayt while I'm at the workshop," she said, scratching her head. She glanced dully at Albel and Cliff, who had their hands half-raised to volunteer.
"I have to move my things according to you, anyway," Albel said.
"I've been babysitting him since that whole Norton thing."
Maria eyed the two of them, then jerked her thumb towards Albel. "He wins."
"Hey!" Cliff protested as Maria tugged him along behind her and Albel disappeared into Fayt's new room, closing the door behind him. "Weren't you just saying he was a psychopath?"
"He won't hurt Fayt. And besides, I need you to hover over people and make them work faster," Maria said. "And no pouting."
Cliff politely pretended not to have been doing so as he followed her to the workshop.
Oh, drama! Oh, suspense! Oh, laziness and bad writing! Oh! What will happen to Fayt? Will he survive his illness and the batshit craziness of his teammates and the author? Will Peppita and Sophia survive their escape to Aquios? Will the inventors working for Fayt & co. survive Cliff and Maria? Find out next time, same Bunny time, same Bunny channel!
Author's Note
Hey, look! I live!
I apologize for posting what's basically a half-chapter, really. sBut I never promised decency./s
And, uh, Cliff and Peppita iwill/i present themselves as competition eventually, honestly. I swear. ...Don't look at me like that. ;;;