Listening to: Dawn Of The Dead – Schoolyard Heroes. I wrote this entire story to that song, man.
Jez and Morgead are so good together forever.
We might actually get to go into Jez's dreams this chapter **fist pump** but idk. Also, I found out what a split infinite was today, so I'm rereading this all like "THEY'RE EVERYWHERE."
Thank you for reviewing, I hope you like dark chocolate! **throws Riesen** and if you don't, well tough!
Dedicated to BookSessed for being AWESOME. Also her story Alkeldema is too good **cries** And to The By'trr (Reactivate private messaging so I can thank you for your review! You're a long time member, I'm in awe!)
Morgead looked up as the Styrofoam cup was thrust into his hand, he cradled it gently and waited until Rashel had retaken his seat before breaking the silence.
"Did you call her aunt?"
"Yeah, she said she'd try and get over, but she makes no promises."
They sat in awkward silence for a moment or two as Thierry talked calmly on his phone from the other side of the waiting room, his legs straight out in front of him and his back against the wall. Hannah was slowly sliding closer to his shoulder, eyes flickering closed.
"You can go home if you want," Morgead said, causing her eyes to fly open, "I've got this."
Hannah fumbled with her words, before settling on, "Well, I'm here for you if you need me, Morgead." Then she stood, curling her hand around an unbudging Rashel's wrist, and slowly dragging the woman from the room, ignoring Rashel's ongoing rant of but she's my best friend, I have to be there for her.
Then there were two.
"Look, Thierry-"
"Morgead, I know you think this is serious, but I don't think you quite know how serious this is," the tone Thierry held was frighteningly cold, "Jez is practically humanity's last hope."
"I honestly can't believe you just said that," Morgead put down his now cold coffee, "But I do get how serious this is, thank you, I can barely feel her anymore, Thierry."
"Dude, you don't have the weight of her death causing the end of the world on your shoulders."
They sat in silence with Morgead moving to sit next to the man he barely talked to. Living in HQ was like living in an apartment block and Thierry was their pissy landlord that showed up once a month for rent before disappearing back into his lair to feed and slumber. Therefore, they barely talked. But in that one night they'd had the longest running conversation since Morgead first went to the mansion, the situation was unfortunate.
They stared each other down for a second or two, Thea came into the room to tell them that Jez's life signs were steadily and slowly dropping, and Morgead brought the sleeve to his out of place hoodie – that smelt much like James, damn lost property box – up to his mouth, where he let out a low guttural whine.
Ten minutes later he was alone in the cold waiting room, Thierry having left, along with the other waiting family members and friends. The night-nurse was languidly clicking her pen, waiting for the glorious moment when the clock hit 2am and she could switch her shift over.
The clock hit 2am, and Morgead found the woman clicking the light off and asking, "Sir? You have to leave now, do you want me to buy you a drink?"
Morgead looked to her, back to the clock, to the faded colour of James jumper- fuck, it smelt nice -, down to the rosary he that was loosely dangling from his finger – Morgead couldn't help but feel guilty for accepting it off one of the doctors -, then back up to the woman. She smiled nervously, said "sir?" once more, and eventually gave up and left.
Morgead buried his head in his knees and let out a long, shuddering sob, no tears to be found.
Don't tell anyone, but he was fucking terrified.
Jez yawned lazily, stretching out across the high grass and relaxing back down onto it with a content sigh. Nearby was the sound of water gently flowing and breaking over rocks, and just a little over her head she could hear her friends giggling and laughing, splashing each other with water.
She blinked, yawning once more and sitting up only to yelp as someone crashed into her from behind, throwing her back into the water.
"Not cool, Quinn!" Rashel exclaimed, laughing as she helped Jez up, "You can't just throw me like that."
Jez stumbled to her feet, brushing off her orange jeans – as colourful as the grass – and joined Rashel in attacking Quinn with their hands and hair until he shrieked "I give! I give!" and the trio collapsed back onto the grass, muddy and laughing.
"D'ya reckon we're gonna be this close when school starts again?"
The Summer holidays had been five weeks of luxurious fun with her friends, and with a week left to go Jez was slightly nervous about the school mixing the year group.
"Naw," Rashel slung an arm around Jez's shoulder, "It'll be fine."
Jez allowed herself to settle back into the grass, breathing in the summer infested air and allowing the warming light of the sun to tan her.
"Morgead's taking forever getting our ice cream." Quinn yawned, dragging himself and the girls up and directing them through the grass, "what's he doing?"
"He's probably passed out under a tree somewhere," Rashel laughed, sliding her hand into Quinn's and making their way through the grass and back towards the dirt pathway that lead back into town, "Eh, Jezebel?"
Jez smiled softly, that sounded just like him to sit down to rest and then fall asleep without even thinking about it – he was hiding from her parents under her bed once and the entire house was awoken later that night to the sound of him snoring because Jez forgot about him and he fell asleep.
He was like a cat – he could sleep anywhere.
Morgead startled awake as Thea pressed her shoe into the side of his face for the fifth time, he sat up to find himself in a busy waiting room, clothes crumpled, and surrounded by his friends. He was quickly helped up by Ash and turned to face Thea, who was talking in a low voice to Delos, who was also adorned in hospital scrubs.
"Delos, why are you-"
"I might be incapable of working a toaster, Mr Morgead, but I am good at looking after people."
He smiled widely, and Morgead shivered slightly.
"Can we just get on with this?" Thierry asked, biting his lip, "getting all of you lot into the same building and quiet is like herding cats."
"Okay, then, you five, follow me!"
Thea began to lead Rashel, Thierry, Morgead, Ash and Quinn down the hallway with Delos trailing behind, talking lightly to a bashful nurse. They all crammed into the elevator, and Morgead caught sight of himself in the mirrors. To put it bluntly, he looked like the living dead. Rashel looked like she hadn't slept a wink in a week and she was completely numb to Quinn's voice in her ear.
Jez light up the room when she entered, with her gone it was like a flame had been snuffed, and everyone was feeling the toll.
"Well, the reason we called you over is rather simple," Thea said, sliding her pass card into the door and opening it, "We have options, but we're still lost."
They crowed around the bed, Morgead at the foot of the bean leaning against her incubated body.
They put her in the incubator because the creature would become contagious and, I quote, "when it kills her it'll be looking for a new host immediately."
Hah, when. Bastards.
"So what's all the fuss?" Rashel asked, tapping her fingers against her phone screen anxiously.
"She's smiling."
All traces of sleep were wiped away as Morgead pushed his way to her bedside and leant over, pressing his palms against the glass to see Jez. The black sludgy tentacles were snaking their way up her collarbones slowly, and one tendril was curled behind her ear, but besides that she looked like she did when she slept. Thin, transparent tears ran down her temples and caught in her eyelashes.
"Why's she crying?" He whispered, staring down at her ,"Why would she do that? Is she in pain?"
"We've been monitoring her brain waves and we figured that the creature isn't only calming her, it's pumping her full of opioid, and so she's sending out endorphins."
"So she's not sad?"
"No, Morgead, she's off her face with happiness and she doesn't want to escape." Delos said lightly,
"Her endorphin levels began to spike a few hours ago and they're going down again now, it was weird to watch her face go through such a range of motions."
"Can I touch her?"
Thea laughed lightly, her voice shaking, "Oh dear god no, we can't risk you being infected."
"Well what are they planning to do for her?" Thierry asked, playing noughts and crosses on the incubator death box with one finger, "I'd rather know now."
"We have a few options. We could try and awake her with things from her life. Like, I don't know, books that were important to her, items, voices, and so on. There's also laser surger-" Thea began, only to be interrupted.
"Laser surgery," Delos smiled, "We think that if we can hit it's vitals successfully we can take the entire thing off, but that's more of a last resort thing."
"And then we have the last last resort," Thea interrupted him once more, "which is shocking her out of it?"
"No." Morgead said quietly, "No shocking and no lasers."
"Shut up, Morgead, this isn't your decision to make," Delos snapped, "If we block the opioid receptors and then shoot her full of adrenaline or a drug such as LSD it might shock her and the combined effects might scare her mind out of the dream sequence, at this point we can kill the creature and lock it away forever."
"That seems much more effective than waving nostalgia in her face," Rashel muttered, "Why aren't we doing that?"
"Because we have plenty of time, and we want to try everything before we mentally scar her," Eric interjected for the first time in the conversation and chapter, before going back to sipping his coffee.
"Yes because you'd know all about mental scarring," Morgead snapped, "having worked with puppies your entire life."
Ash rubbed his temples, "Guys, can we try to not be dicks for, like, five minutes? Jez is dying over here."
"You're not allowed to be the voice of reason, that's my job!" Thierry exclaimed, before composing his face once more, "Alright, we'll try the nostalgia first. Morgead, Rashel, you knew her best, you go do that." He turned to Thea, "Thea, darling, how long does she have left."
Thea's face went quiet, a strange thing to happen. Her facial expressions dulled to a solemn, apologetic frown, "It would've killed a human in around 48 hours," she said very quietly, "But vampires can last much, much longer."
"Jez is half human," Morgead said, as if it was some great revelation, "does that mean..?"
"I give her around two weeks," Thea bit her lip, "tops."
A machine began to beep and their heads snapped around to face it, "Her endorphin levels are freaking!" Delos said in a sing song voice.
"She's flat lining."
"What?" Morgead exclaimed as Ash and Thierry grabbed him. They were being dragged from the room whilst Thea and Eric, amongst other doctors, pulled back the incubator and snapped of gloves and masks. Morgead resisted, but he soon found the door sealing in his face and he was once more in the painfully white, clean corridor.
The five stood in silence for a moment as Delos talked to yet another nurse and passed her a clip board before slipping back into the room.
As the nurse lead the five back to the elevator, Morgead felt something warm close around his forearm. He looked up to see Ash smiling weakly.
"You don't have to go get her stuff if you don't want too."
"No, I have too."
"'Tever you say. We're all struggling, Morge, don't think you're going through this alone."
"She flat lined, Ash."
His friend slapped him on the back, laughing nervously, "That happens all the time, bro!"
His laugh was light, but Morgead could hear the apprehension and fear behind it.
Ash Redfern, the most optimistic person in all of Nevada.
When people were looking.
Jez's dream is like "WHAT JEZ YOU'RE NOT LIKE THAT."
My aim with this is to actually develop the characters and make them adapt. Also, I get to write badass dream sequences.
Opioid - It's like, Opium. Idk. They relax you, like opium.
Endorphins – They make you feel good when you're doing exercise or having sex or eating chocolate or in pain ect, Jez's body is just throwing them out there in reaction to the opioid.
Headcanon tiemz!
Jez came from a strict catholic upbringing, or at least an enforced one, therefore, she always, always carries her Rosary on her. Morgead hid it once and she didn't talk to him for a month.
Jez's deepest desire is – of course – to be free of the troubles of being a wild fire and to be human.
I think I brought this one up once in an old, old chapter of Quinn but basically next to the front door of the HQ they have a key bowl that includes all the keys for the game room and the den ect, then also have a box underneath the doorside table simply entitled Lost Prop' and it has clothes that no one claimed, out of style stuff, everything no one wanted and whenever someone leaves the house in a rush they grab something from in there. Results are usually hilarious, but in this situation you got some Morgy/James.
Jez and Morgead didn't get together because the soulmate principle doesn't automatically keep you together just because you want to bone each other senseless, Jez and Morgead simply couldn't get along and therefore kept it platonic. They're like Lisa and Scott from SPvsTW, blatantly.
Morgead is an absolute wreck over Jez (see reason 4) but hides it incredibly well.
MISC HEADCANON YAY – Every six months Morgead and Ash disappear for a week or two. Why? To go to Brooklyn and attend a biannual Fabulous convention.
Delos is like, the scary European one of the group that smiles a little too wide and is a little bit too violent, whatever Hunter did just wasn't cool.