Title: Fearless
Rating: M for Language, Violence, Grotesquerie, and General Trippiness
Summary: A girl suffers trauma to her temporal lobe. The result: no fear. ~ Squint and turn the screen sideways for romantic subtext. 1000 words per drabble.
Disclaimer & Important Notes: Don't own Freddy; don't own the rhymes. You know the drill.
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Fedora
(Night 91)
When Ash came that evening, the factory was just a little bit different from usual. Not obviously so, but certainly enough that she—long-time veteran of Freddy's dreamworld, as it was—definitely noticed. The boilers and furnaces and angry machines were still. Condensation gathered on the rusting pipes, cooling in the red-lit quiet. A low hum still filled the air, an underlying noise that rushed to fill the spaces left behind by the silent machines.
It was still hot. Sticky, and humid. The metal grate bit her bare feet.
When she paused and thought, she realized this should make her nervous. It was the quiet before a lightning storm, or the sound of the forest when all the birds know a predator's coming. But she couldn't feel it: the tightening of her stomach, the racing of her heart. She only knew it should be there.
It took longer to find Freddy's workbench than usual, and when she did, he wasn't there. It was unexpected. Usually, when she arrived, he would show up scant seconds later, swearing and threatening and looking evil as hell, his limbs long and hard and burned beneath the prickling red-green sweater. His worn brown pants would rest comfortably on narrow hips, and his bright eyes would burn out of the twisting roadmap of his face, shadowed by the fedora tilted maddeningly low on his brow. On the rare occasion when he didn't come to find her—to keep her from ruining his shit, as he put it, one gnarled hand wrapped around her wrist so tightly that she'd have pale bruises in the morning—he was easy enough to locate. Always poring over the glove as though he hadn't made it and remade it a hundred times over, looking for ways to improve it.
Now the workbench was empty. She tilted her head and approached it, her fingers hovering lightly over the array of metal blades and tiny springs, caps and thimbles and delicate mechanisms. She touched one lightly and didn't move as a thick, bright needle suddenly erupted from it, barely missing her palm.
If she was a normal girl, she would have jumped, snatched her hand away as though burnt. As it was, she tilted her head and only supposed she was lucky that she wasn't now suffering stigmata.
And then her eyes fell on it. The soft fedora, dark and worn, placed on the edge of the workbench. Her eyes widened. She'd never seen him without it. Her hand hovered over it for a long moment, her fingers tingling at the cellular level with some skin-desire to touch it, to stroke it. It wasn't that she wanted to touch it—though she supposed she did—but it felt as though her fingertips themselves were excited, than her skin was reaching for it of its own accord.
She could put it on, if she wanted. He wasn't here. She could imagine herself with Freddy's fedora covering her glossy hair, tipped malignantly over one eye. Her fingers ached and she felt something rush through her, something that was not fear but want. Want for something of him.
He hadn't tried to kill her in weeks. Not that she should be complaining, she supposed. But even then, he usually only used his claw, or various other implements he came up with in an attempt to rip out her soul. That last time, he'd used his bare hand though, unhindered by the cool, rough leather of his glove. His palm had pressed unforgivingly against her esophagus as he pinched her throat, just under her jaw, with five lean, strong fingers. She'd thought she could feel every whorl and knot in his flesh.
Since then, nothing. She didn't miss his (rather pathetic, but increasingly inventive) murder attempts, but she did miss—
Well, the contact. With him. She supposed it was as close as she got to feeling almost anything, anymore.
Her fingers fluttered to the brim of the hat, resting a hair's-breadth from the felt. He wouldn't like it if she touched his things, but maybe—
"Fuck," she heard from behind her, and turned slowly. He was in the doorway, his thumbs hooked in his pockets as he lounged indolently, looking pissed to see her. Her eyes widened. His head was bare—of course it was bare—and if she'd thought his face was a roadmap, his bald head was something else entirely. The contours of the melted, burned-through flesh rippled over his skull in creases and haphazard constellations. Without the shadow cast by the fedora, the craters were more pronounced, the eyes more sunken but even more blazing.
And she was sure it was an illusion, brought on by the novelty of the sight, but he looked more vulnerable, somehow, as though she'd caught him half-naked. He was missing part of his armor, after all.
"I didn't expect you to be here already," he growled. "I had piggies to hunt." He smoothed a knotted hand over his equally-knotted scalp, and without thinking she swept the fedora off the table, offering it to him with both hands as though she were giving him a shield. The felt was warm and soft, cradled against her palms—the opposite of whatever she'd expected.
"Here," she said, and when he swiped it from her angrily, his fingertips brushed hers.
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue,
And dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
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This drabble is dedicated to me! For the prompt, "Fedora," which I greedily gave myself.
It is 887 words long and I loved writing it. I'm still happy with it. Fedora! How could I not prompt with Freddy's hat? It was like playtime.
At first it was going to be just the hat. Bam. Sitting there, by its lonesome felty self. But then I wanted to give Ash a chance to touch it, and let's face it: she may not be scared, but she's also not stupid enough to try to do so when it's on his head. And then came the realization that touching Freddy's hat might be almost as intoxicating for this girl as touching Freddy himself, and that opened up a slough of possibilities, especially since "Frigid" and "Fire."
And then I just kept imagining his bare, scarred head.
And sooner or later, everything (including stigmata?) made it into this drabble, which I hope is not too hodge-podge to enjoy. :) It is also a decent segue for the next drabble, "Friction," as proposed by coco buzz and Mad Bertha.