Notes: Dude, guys, yo. The next episode...I am having waaaaaay too much fun writing it. It is a shameful amount of hurt/comfort episode. Absolutely shameful...but I just can't stop. Seriously, I am already done writing chapter seven and I'm not even half done with the episode. Just FYI, the next story will be the remake of Out of Gas. It was one of my absolute faves from the series and I pray I do it justice. So, a little heads up. Next epi summary: hurt/comfort, drama, angst, dying of feels...yeah.
west189: Ten points to gryffindor! You noticed! I was hoping that someone would XD My readers are so clever and awesome I can't even handle it! Luv ya!
Rhiotre! You're back! Huggles abound! I am so happy that you like the latest chapters . As always your reviews make me squeal with delight! Stay shiny! *heart!*
Disclaimer: I torture myself every day by writing this, but I don't own anything here.
Warnings: This story contains religious themes and undertones throughout the whole story. No offense is meant. It is simply one single view/opinion that someone may have. It doesn't necessarily have to be the authors actual opinion, so if possible I would like to ask for no flames and if you are truly offended then feel free to private message me to share your thoughts and you can skip this story.
CHAPTER 6
Once the elder Higgins had finally left, Anna went about her trade and made her client as welcome and as comfortable as possible. She was trained to keep her face schooled and only show certain emotions during appointments, but she found herself giving honest smiles to the man in front of her. His fidgeting and awkwardness reminded her of Chuck, while his blatant honesty had put her in mind of Castiel, but most of all he reminded her of Dean when they had first met and he was still under the impression that his father never did wrong and that Dean was a failure because he had not lived up to his expectations.
Normally it was procedure to avoid subjects that had the potential to make her clients nervous, or even shameful, but something told her that she could help the boy in front of her, so after the tea leaves had worked their magic and the stress lines on Fess' face faded she decided to approach the subject. But she was surprised when Fess beat her to it.
"I-I must apologize for this whole thing and for my Father earlier. He's just concerned for me. I've disappointed him so much. It's uh…it is embarrassing, really."
Anna smiled warmly, "There is nothing to be embarrassed about. I know plenty of men with overbearing fathers who push them to unreachable limits."
He looked up at her startled, the candles in the room reflecting off of his glasses, "But I want to do well by him. I want him to feel proud. I want to be a good son for him."
"You want him to show that he loves you," she said, making it a statement and not a question.
He swallowed hard and nodded turning his face to his lap to try and hide the tears that were poised on the rim of his eyes, but Anna noticed them. Wordlessly she handed him one of the many scarves that were placed around the room. He took it and dabbed at his eyes as a heavy blush spread over his cheeks.
"I'm sorry. Here I am blubbering like a fool in front of a Companion. My father's right again, I guess. I'm weak. And he had to bring you all the way here, only for me to…"
He made a move to get up from the couch but Anna shook her head and quickly grabbed his arm to pull him back down and look at her, "Your father's not right, Fess. It's not weak or embarrassing to be a virgin. It's simply one state of being. And I believe that virginity can be lost with a single thought, but can be kept with a second one. It's the mark of the strong individual who can hold back when so many others push him forward."
He finally looked back at Anna, a hopeful light in his eyes that brought yet another smile to her face, "Now as far as bringing me here, Companions choose the people they're to be with very carefully. For example, if you father had asked me to come here for him, I wouldn't have."
He looked surprised, "Really?"
Smiling she nodded, "Really, Fess. You're different from him, not a clone, and not his project. The more that you accept that, the stronger you'll become."
Right before her eyes she saw resolve in his features, as if he was already shucking off his father's hand from his shoulder and consciously making his own choice here. He took off his glasses and set them on the table, revealing the face of a young man and not a boy. He was already grown up in so many ways and he was now realizing it. His father may only see him as a boy still, but Fess was beginning to see himself in a new light.
He turned back to Anna and the innocent awkwardness was gone. There was no fidgeting, no blushing. This was no longer something forced upon him by his father or anyone else. He chose to lean forward slowly and remove the cup from Anna's hands and place it on the table. He chose to cup her face gently, stroking a thumb over her cheek. He chose to move closer, only stopping when their lips finally met.
The party was still going on even though each Mudder had work the next day, even if it had died down a little. They were all too busy enjoying having their hero with them, sharing a drink, and who was Chuck to disappoint them. The cheers had turned to shared stories amongst the crowd and it had broken up into little pockets spread around the bar. Absently Chuck noticed that his crew had all taken off for the night, or had passed out on each other like Cas and Dean, but yet he stayed. Becky was also soldiering along with him, but that might have been the fact that she seemed to run on sugar and caffeine.
It had finally gotten quiet enough that Chuck felt that he could finally ask the burning question on his mind. Turning to Becky he caught her eye, "Um, so what exactly did my book do for all of you? I mean, so far everyone has said "It changed our way of life" or "it gave us strength"…but no one had told me how exactly it did that or what was changed. I mean, I get liking a book. I get liking the message it gives…but you guys made a freaking statue of me."
Becky nodded like she had been expecting this for a while and she put down her now cold coffee, "While you were living here, you were inspired, right? You saw how the people here struggled here. How everyone's lives were so dark and everything seemed so…hopeless."
"Um, yeah. That's how I came up with the book actually. I saw so much pain a suffering that I wanted to remind people of what they could do to make their lives better."
"You remember who caused most of that suffering?"
Chuck frowned, "Well, I guess one of the reasons that people were so lost was because they were ruled by an unfair system and were basically treated like they were disposable, but…that was just one reason, right? It wasn't so much of the "who did it", but "how to fix it" type of message. Or that's what I meant to write."
"Well after you left things got pretty bad around here. The old Magistrate started forcing new laws and harsher punishments…then he came up with this plan to shut down half the establishment that would have had hundreds of us losing our jobs and getting sent off planet. But then one day someone found your book. They read it and learned about standing up for yourself. They learned about making choices. They learned about true freedom. "The basic question in our minds: Are we marionettes, or are we creatures of free will who just happen to have a lot of jerky movements?" That was the first quote I had ever heard from your book. It made me really think on whether I was just listening because I was obedient, or because I really had no choice. That really got to me, you know? It made me realize that by just going along with whatever I was told to do, even if it was obedience and not force, I was never making my own choices. I didn't have that freedom. And I think that's what everyone else thought eyes were opened to see that they were nothing more than lowly slaves to the Magistrate, so they rebelled."
"Rebelled?"
"Yup! People stopped listening to the Magistrate. They stopped going to work, didn't do what they were told to. They finally broke out of the metaphorical chains that held them back. When the Magistrate found out what was going on, he sent his prods in to force his will upon us, but that's when the Mudders resisted."
Pride swelled up in Chuck's chest. These people, these wonderful brave people took his lessons and saved themselves, "What about his plan to shut down? Did he change his mind?"
She scrunched her face up, "Eh, that's where things got kinda messy."
And just like that the pride dissipated and his heart sunk, "Messy? How messy? Like a few overturned wheelbarrows?"
She shook her head sadly, "A bit more mess than that. See, the Magistrate sent in his prods to set us straight and shut down the areas that he had planned on anyway, but the Mudders banded together. There were too many of us to be put down, so in the end…there was a battle. And we won."
Chuck felt sick, "A battle? Like…with guns?"
Sadly she nodded, "Yeah, there were a lot of lives lost in that fight. Mudders and prods, but we soldiered it out and got what we wanted. We got to keep the factory open. And then when we put up the statue in town center, the Magistrate became even more pissed off and tried to have it torn down with whatever was left of his prods, but the whole town rioted. I was there for that part! I even chose the scripture to put on the plaque." She sighed dreamily at the end and placed her hands on her heart, reliving the memory in her head.
"You guys had a riot? Because of me? A real riot?" Chuck squeaked.
She smiled at him widely, "Of course! You were the one who made it all happen! We wouldn't be free without you! Half of us would be gone and the rest of us would still be slaves to the old Magistrate."
"And what happened to the old Magistrate?"
Absently she waved her hand, "Oh, some of the Mudders had him locked up somewhere for "war crimes" or something." She took another sip of her cold coffee and then looked back to Chuck with such adoration in her eyes, "I really can't believe you're back," she whispered in awe.
Internally Chuck was frozen. His entire being had turned to ice as he heard of what had happened here because of him. He couldn't muster up even a weak smile for her as she dreamily stared at him.
Finally after a long pause he was able to choke out a response. "How could I stay away?" he whispered hoarsely.
Back at his estate, Magistrate Higgins poured himself half a tumbler of his strongest scotch and sat down heavily in his velvet chair by the fireplace with a dark scowl on his face. How dare that woman force him away. He knew his son better than anyone, and he knew that Fess would probably blunder and deteriorate and ultimately disappoint him if left to his own devices. He was paying good money to see that his son was given this advantage. He had invested so much in making sure that his son would grow up to be a strong man like his father, and now the very whore he hired was kicking him out.
He growled into his cup as he took a large gulp that burned all of the way down and almost choked when he heard a knock at the door. Cursing under his breath he moved to see who it was at this late hour. Internally he was preparing himself to open the door to see his son standing there having completely failed at yet another thing.
But instead he was surprised to see that it was one of his foremen standing at the door.
"What do you want? I'm busy in here praying that my son is losing his cherry, so it had better be worth my time," he hissed.
The foreman had the decency to blush at the confession, "Um, sir, there's a problem in the town. It seems that Chuck Shirley has come back." He reported.
The information had the Magistrates head realing. He had heard many stories about this man when he had taken the position here. None of the other Garrison polititians wanted this post after what had happened, so Higgins, being of a lower status than the others eagerly volunteered for the post to boost his status. It wasn't until he had arrived that he heard that the previous Magistrate had been locked up by the Mudders for trying to shut down the plant. If this Chuck was back, it could only spell disaster for Higgins. There could be another rebellion….
He turned to his prod, "Wait here. I'll get dressed and then you will escort me to the cages."
The cages were actually a row of about ten wooden boxes on stilts down by an abandoned mud bog. They were originally made by the old Magistrate to put misbehaving workers in for a few days to make them more compliant. But the Mudders had taken them over and used only one of the sheds now for their own purpose. So far they had only one prisoner who had ever been put in one of them, and for the last eight years that prisoner had been left there.
Purposefully Higgins and his foreman walked up to the occupied shed and gestured to his man to open up the wooden cell. The door opened, but it was so dark outside that he could barely see into it to catch a glimpse of the man inside. The man that had the fate that he feared most.
"Um, Good evening Mr. Lucas."
A raspy voice drifted out from the shadows, "What do you want with me?"
"Nothing. I just have decided that you have served your debt and that it's time you were on your way."
Higgins listened as he heard rustling from inside the box, then a form starts to move to the front, just enough into the light that he could make out an emaciated face, practically skeletal with shadows bouncing off of the edges of his cheek bones even with the wild hair and beard that had grown. It looked like it was a demon emerging from the dark. Higgins stepped back in fear and roughly pushed his foreman forward and motioned for him to hand a bag over to Lucas.
"Those…those are your personal effects."
Lucas took a moment to look through the bag, "I don't recall having a loaded gun," he remarked casually.
A dark grin spread over Higgins face, this was what he was hoping for, "Oh, how strange. Well, you can keep it anyway. I bet you have the urge to use it, no doubt."
Lucas gave him a pointed look, "Bit dangerous to be giving a gun to a man who has just been pulled out of hell after eight long years. Especially when you're the one who took over his life and job while he was out of town."
Higgins cleared his throat awkwardly, "Yes, I can…I can see why that might be risky, but I'm not just here to get you out, you see. I'm also here to tell you that someone has arrived back in town that you might want to go see. Someone who you would be very interested in."
"You've got my attention." Grumbled Lucas.
"Well you see, it's all very poetical. You getting out…and Chuck Shirley coming back, just yesterday in fact. Almost like fate one might say. But it's none of my concern really. I just thought you two might want to catch up. Eight years is a long time after all. Anyway, best of luck in your new life." Higgins tipped an imaginary hat and quickly walked back up the path with his foreman one step behind. Behind him as he skittered off, he heard as Lucas cocked the gun.
The sound triggered a grin on Higgins face.
Okay, this chapter actually had a lot going on in it. First, the virginity party. Firefly kinda made me sad in that they portrayed Fess only becoming a man by having sex. I tried to turn it around by him becoming a man by making a choice...that happened to be him choosing to have sex. I'm a strong believer in only losing your virginity when you are ready to consciously make the choice. Age doesn't really matter.
Second: I tried to liken the Mudder's situation to that of the humans in supernatural when the Angels were going to clean up and such. Hopefully that came through as it is good to know to understand the rest of the story.
And a third final note: The quotes I've been using in this episode are half from the bible and half from old activists (hippies as well), just fun little knowledge =)
