They come to at about the same time. He sees her startle awake just moments after he blinks his eyes open. They were crusted closed with the kind of eye goop that comes after a deep, dreamless sleep. Peter supposes that he did just leave a deep, dreamless sleep. He tries, and fails, to remember exactly what led up to this moment. He is sure he did not go to bed in the dorm…
He sits up, holding onto his head. He has a wicked fucking hangover. Like… not going to classes for several days, bad. He groans, yawns… and realizes that he is not in someone's bedroom.
He has spent his first few semesters at college enjoying all that the school has to offer. Many of the girls, grateful just to be out from their parents' control, are only too willing when a rogue-ishly good looking guy like him comes along, if he does say so himself. That means he often wakes up in an unfamiliar bed… sometimes with a hostile roommate, or posters of the Grateful Dead and Jake Daniel's on the wall, or a raging headache like this one. His stomach rolls.
Peter is most intrigued by the creature he sees waking up on the other side of the room. The bed he is in has a mirror twin, and his half of the room does too. Except this girl that he sees… this girl is not on the bed. She's in a dog crate. And she's naked.
Peter is naked.
He cups himself quickly, and then grabs the sheet under him. He wonders if he should ask her where they are… or what he has done? Maybe he blacked out?
He remembers, suddenly, the events of what he thinks was the night before. He was in the city with friends, they were out going to a few different bars… he remembers a catlike redhead, her purring at him. He remembers eating her out, pinned up in the corner of the bar's bathroom stall. He remembers…
The girl is really awake, now. She can't rise further than all fours. She turns awkwardly, and her nakedness would make anyone else blush. It's hard to look good naked on all fours in a dog crate, but this girl is really something. Her skin is a rich golden tan, healthy and strong. She has that natural muscle that really fucking hot girls have, the kind that makes them softer and gives curves to rail thin bodies. Yikes. Peter adjusts the sheet, wondering how he's going to get up and help her out in this state he's in. Nauseous, turned on…
What the fuck?
Peter sees a camera up in the corner of the room. Is this the girl's room? It can't be… there are no personal touches, there's not even a nightstand… all of the walls are mirrored. Where the fuck are they?
He forgets whatever ounce of modesty he had, easing himself off the bed a bit too quickly.
"Hey, are you okay? Do you know where the fuck we are?"
She whips her head back around to him. "No, I don't- get me out of this thing and fuck off, alright? Listen, I won't tell anyone you brought me here. Just let me out and I'll go."
Peter shakes his head slowly, his long silver-blond hair bobbing with the movement. "Nah, I didn't put you in there. I don't know where we are either." He has reached the cage, and unlatches the door. It's literally almost the same one they kept the family golden retriever in when he was a kid. He remembers letting her out every day after school just like this. 'Honey'. She didn't crawl out and straighten up into a goddess, though.
The girl has straightened up all right, her shoulders thrown back, wisps of pale blond hair framing her face. It's sharp, and has that foreign look to it like models have. Peter clears his throat. Her nipples are defiant too, a light fawn color, hard in the chilled air. When he whips his eyes back up to hers, they are a cold, sterling grey. He gives a sheepish grin that she does not return.
"Let me out."
"I don't know where we are. For all I know, you're the one that put me in here."
"Then why was I the one in the cage, asshole?"
He reaches slowly, thoughtfully up to the black collar that rings her neck. It's not like a choker the girls are wearing these days, it's like a hard metal ring… She smacks his hand down, hard, and he frowns like a petulant child.
"What's that?"
She realizes what he was talking about just as he realizes he has one, too. "I don't know… you've got one on…" She spins it with both hands, pulling it around her neck and feeling the inside. "It's got little… little bumps on it…."
"Listen," Peter says, suddenly anxious. "I think someone's watching us." He points out the cameras, one in the upper corner of her side of the room, and one in his.
"Holy shit, you're right." Her mouth forms a little 'o', looking back and forth.
"Yeah, I've seen this kind of shit in like a movie before, I think," he nods furiously now. "I bet there's some kind of sick fucking pyscho, rubbing his dick behind that camera, I fucking-" he falls to the ground, giving a few quick seizing movements before stilling.
She screams, her hands over her mouth.
He comes back into himself, grasping at the collar and panting. "Oh, shit, oh, holy motherfucking shit,… What the fuck… this fucking shocked me man, like really badly…" He props himself up on an arm, and she feels a certain degree of embarrassment at him lying like that. She knows she shouldn't be admiring him right now, but he looks like a reclining Greek sculpture, for God's sake…
It dawns on her, the significance of this shock. She sits down next to him, hugging her knees to her chest. "You didn't go anywhere new and get shocked…" she begins, looking at him closely. "You were insulting… it though, whoever is in charge of us here."
He watches her, the realization passing over his face. "No, fuck that," he shakes his head. "I'm not just going to play some kind of sex pervert's game here, hun."
He leaps to his feet, beginning to search the mirrored walls for some indication of a gap, or seam, or anything. She joins him, and they search together in earnest. They find two doors, one for his side of the room and one for hers. The ceiling seems to also have a line that splits their space perfectly in half. She points this out.
"That might mean there is another wall that goes here… It might retract into the ceiling. There's no seam on the floor." She thinks out loud to him.
The floor is a smooth, sealed concrete that is hard under their bare feet. They search the room further, looking for anything of use. They find that the room has two twin spouts over a drain, a kind of open shower. It has twin toilets, and twin speakers next to the cameras. She has a bed, but it is uncovered bare mattress. His has sheets. She has the dog crate, as well a dog dish. And…
There is also a knife.
They finish quickly, and sit together in silence for a moment on Peter's bed.
"I'm not sure how we're going to get out of her."
She shakes her head slowly. "When they come in to feed us… whoever it is, we can use the knife… one of us can distract them…" she trails off, casting a nervous glance at the camera. It is motionless, the speaker quiet. They haven't received any communication from it yet.
She looks at him again, nibbling her lib. Her silver eyes bore into his, and Peter looks at her honestly. Neither knows more than the other, there is no advantage here.
She sticks out her hand, and Peter tears his gaze away from those perfect perky tits of hers. "Charlotte."
He grins in relief, ready to lighten the mood just a little. "Peter."
-P&C-
He's so sick of getting zapped by the fucking thing, but he keeps trying.
This latest plan is a little gross, but he wants Lottie to have a bit of something to eat. He eyes the camera in his periphery. Never look directly at it… he chews at the sandwich. Turkey, mayo, wonder bread… He doesn't swallow, though. He packs as much into his mouth as he can without his cheeks bulging.
Carefully, but attempting to seem casual, Peter sets the sandwich down, moving to Charlotte. She lies prone on his bed, an arm behind her head, propping it up. She watches him, looking a bit green. He pulls her face to his, forcing their lips together. He feigns a passionate make-out session while she pulls her lips open, and he pushes the food into her mouth.
The shock pulls them apart, but she has gotten all of it. She chews quickly, with a flared-nostril desperation that makes his heart ache. He rubs his neck, grinning at her in sheepish pleasure.
The speaker hums to life. "Do not give your food to Charlotte. This is your final warning."
Peter winks at her, riding out the subsequent shock in good-natured pain. It's just a little buzz, in the grand scheme of things. Anything for Lottie.
She is lying on his head, her pale hair ghosting into the off-white of the pillow and sheets. The color is so much like his… but where his is a chilled silver color, like her eyes, her hair is a warm pale yellow. Her cool eyes study his, laughter in them. She struggles to keep the food down, and he can see her swallowing strongly in the movements under the skin of her throat. His eyes trail down between those perfect breasts, now both withered by starvation and swollen by her condition.
Her belly is a firm moon between them, her belly button popped out and her skin stretched taunt and full. Twisting her frail legs together, she winds her fingers through her hair.
"You're so fucking beautiful, babe."
She laughs, stretching elegantly. He is glad for the thousandth time over that she came into their world strong and healthy, so that the voice's games have kept her from getting any thinner. As is, the jutting of her pelvis below her huge belly alarms him, makes him want to go full caveman and bust them of out here.
Quite suddenly, the sheet underneath him is soaked. Charlotte's skin flushes in a slow burn to a rose color, and she looks at him, embarrassed. Then they both understand what is happening. She pulls her legs up, her belly thick over between them. She tries to peer down, but Peter stops the effort with a gentle hand on her breastbone.
"We talked about this, hun. We're ready to meet our baby, aren't we?" He forces a grin, but it's an emotional one. They still don't know exactly what will happen when the baby is born.
She holds their little pink prize to her breast, gasping a teary smile when the baby latches on easily. Charlotte blinks up at Peter, tears streaming down her face. He is still shaky with terror, having fumbled his way through what seemed like an endless labor. He knew enough to clear the baby's airway, and that second before she started squalling felt like the most painful eternity of all.
"She's so beautiful," he laughs, shaking his head.
"What should we name her?" Charlotte's breathy question comes out like she is just a young schoolgirl, and he is hit with a pang of dread, remembering how young they are, but it is quickly flushed out by his fascination with the perfect little creature his girl holds. His girls.
"Eloise." The name slips from his mouth without thinking, and he is suddenly embarrassed. Peter is not sure exactly why the name came to mind, but Charlotte's emotional response reminds him.
Charlotte's mother's name was Eloise.
"Eloise," she says it reverently, as if she is taking comfort in seeing her mother again. Something neither of them know if they will ever be able to do.
-P&C-
Charlotte sings softly to the backs of their heads, brushing through their hair with her fingers, sitting with her legs tangled in Peter's. Three beautiful heads ringed in silver curls. Their hair, though near-white, has never been translucent. It is thick, and it waterfalls down their backs in loose ringlets. Three little angel babies.
Eloise, Blanche, Marlowe.
Three perfect little baby girls. They both wept over each one. It never got easier, it never got less scary. Charlotte never thought that the voice should be so kind as to leave them with her, her three little cherubs, three little faerie girls.
Marlowe turns to her parents, her cheeks fat and tinged rose. They have their father's eyes; a curious blue that Charlotte swears is violet. She is ethereal in her beauty, a perfectly formed doll of a girl. The other two turn, startling their mother again.
Three perfect Cupid's bow lips, a lovely shade of coral. Dark and full eyelashes, despite their shockingly light hair. The five sit together, with three little girls looking at their parents with almost supernatural intelligence. The scene, Charlotte muses, must be strange to whoever looked in on their little world. They are all naked as the day they had been born, quite literally for the three girls.
"Let's do your exercise, girls."
"Mama," Blanche pouts, dramatically throwing her arms around her mother's neck. "I want to sit with you today, instead."
Peter casts a stern look at the four-year-old. "Your mother needs her rest. Come on baby girl." He grabs her hand, leading all of the children to the wall.
Charlotte lies back gingerly in the bed, needing a moment. Though Peter does his best to keep them occupied, it is still draining on her. She wants to give them all of her attention, absolutely all of it. But years of the voice's games have taken a dramatic toll on her body.
She has frequent, sharp abdominal pains. It is like a cramping, but nothing compared to the sharp hunger that gnaws at her for much of her time here. She is fed for certain periods, since she is still nursing the girls. There is only so much abuse her body can take and continue to produce milk, which the voice surely wishes to continue.
The older two eat solid food alongside their father frequently. Thank God, since she would have gone mad if he played his games with them as well. Although it distresses her, their nakedness, in moments of remembering the fact of it. Years of living without clothing mean that she rarely does, but like the biblical original sin, when she does remember she feels intense shame. She feels like she wants to cover her sweet girls, but she has no way. Fashioning any covering from Peter's sheet earns intense and swift punishment.
She has little to no idea of how long she and Peter were kept here before Eloise, but the children's growth helped to mark the time. She knows what a four-year-old looks like, and where one is developmentally, from her time in the outside world. It now seems like that time was the temporary, fleeting time, and this is her life. Truthfully, if leaving here meant losing the girls… she would never leave at all.
Things are not so bad for them here. The voice does not hurt the girls- they have no matching miniature collars. Charlotte thinks that this is because the voice does not want to hurt their development. Peter says the sick fuck just probably likes seeing the girls upset, since the punishment of their mother in their stead is so distressing to them.
The children are laughing through their exercise with their silly father (still silly after all this time) when the speaker hums to life. An almost imperceptible noise, but Charlotte is a lioness, an animal with attuned senses, and a fiercely protective instinctual reaction.
Her ears are perked, and she is opening her mouth to call them to her when he speaks.
"Peter, get the knife."
The girls immediately fall silent, their startling lavender eyes wide and deer-like. Her little fawns trip quickly over to her, clambering onto their mother. Marlowe takes her mother's breast into her hand for comfort, but Charlotte brushs her away with a swift kiss on the top of her head.
"Cut her three times, six inches."
Charlotte lets loose a breath, feeling the warm pressure of little hands and feet all around her. The girls silently watch their father come closer, their father who moments before was playing horsey. Peter refuses to look at the girls, a dark and furious cloud of powerless anger and shame over his face.
They tried initially, when the girls grew old enough to notice the punishments, to have them close their eyes. This made the voice irate, and is absolutely forbidden.
"Okay, beautiful girls," Peter forces a smile. "Everybody holding Mommy's hand?"
Six little palms take her two hands in theirs. Their hands are warm and damp, so full of life and vitality that she feels her spent body is draining strength from theirs. She sits up straighter, giving Peter her strongest I'm ready look.
He holds the knife reverently, the knife that governs their lives. The knife that taught Charlotte her place beneath Peter, the knife that cut each of the girls' cords. The knife that only he can wield.
He draws the knife with a fine precision in the old place, high on her upper thigh. The skin is softer there, one of the few places it does not stretch directly over famished bone. He opens her, and Charlotte would be lying if she said that she did not treasure the release to some degree. Years of it make her crave it sometimes… but the three watchful pairs of eyes turn her pleasure into something sour, something she wants to hide away deep from the light of the world. Far away from the light of their hearts.
"How much does Daddy love Mommy?" His breaking voice hurts Charlotte's heart anew each time they go through this little ritual.
"Thiiis much." The three girls draw the word out in unison, letting out a collectively held breath together.
Peter sets the knife down, grabbing bandage and gauze from the floor beside the bed. After infinite mysterious visits while sleeping, drugged or not, Charlotte believes the voice has resigned himself to allowing them to care for themselves. Peter wraps her wounds tenderly, ritually, and she feels cleansed despite herself.
Three snow white bandages, the damp beneath of her warm thin blood.
She wonders once more, as she always does after their little family experiences this performance together, if one day her sweet unmarred angels would crave the steel touch of their husband. Would they want them to cut their porcelain skin, to show Mommy how much Daddy loved her?
-P&C-
Charlotte loved mornings.
She loved them best when the voice left the glass wall up that partitioned her room from Peter's, and all five of them were tangled together in his bed. She would be hot, and probably spent all night being kicked or elbowed. But waking up in that little mess of her family… it was one of her greatest joys.
But one morning she wakes quite cold. Her eyes flutter open unsteadily, and she recognizes that groggy, unstable feeling. They have been drugged once more, though she is unsure for how long. She can see Peter, all six foot some of him splays across the bed, his chest rising and falling. She tries moving her hand to his arm to shake him awake, but it flops uselessly to the bed after a tremendous effort. Her head swims.
Where are the girls? The voice rarely drugged them, but regardless they would be awake before their parents. Her eyes roll in her head as she tries to scan the room, tries to find her silver daughters.
Panic, white hot panic. They are nowhere.
Charlotte tries to lurch up, but her abdominal muscles fail her and crumple. Her torso folds in half and she slips unceremoniously to the floor, dragging her unconscious and useless legs behind her. She throws up with the quickness of the movement and the nausea of the drug, thin bile trickling down her mouth.
"Peter," she gasps, trying again. "Peter…" he does not wake.
She screams.
-P&C-
She is still bawling when the door bursts open for the first time in their years here. Peter is holding her, his long legs folded around her, his chest pressed to her back. He stands swiftly, lifting her with him, holding her like a baby in his arms.
He hisses ferally at the intruders, who train their weapons on him. Charlotte panics even more, clawing at his chest as if she can crawl inside him and hide, safe. My girls, my silver girls, my three babies… She is screaming wordlessly, though she can feel Peter trying to hush her.
He sees their uniforms, and a dream that he has not dared to dream in years has come true. But it has come true in the midst of his worst nightmare. "Lottie, Lottie girl, they fucking found us, honey they found us…"
He breaks down in sobs, falling to his knees, still cradling his girl.
-P&C-
In the officer's report, he cannot describe the scene that he entered in Apartment Two. He can only write that Peter Evenson and Charlotte Platt were recovered. Miss Platt was in a state of extreme emaiciation and malnourishment. She had produced three female children while captive in the warehouse, and all three were presently unaccounted for. Time missing, unknown.
This clinical report could not begin to capture what he saw.
What he saw was a feral man, hair down to the center of his back, snarling at his rescuers. That beast of a man, wirey but strong and formidable at 6'3", was holding what he first thought was an adolescent girl.
That girl was screaming like an animal in violent pain, scared out of her wits and incosolable after the man was neutralized. Her breasts were grotesque above her clear rib cage, under which her body tucked sharply in before flairing out at an obvious pelvic bone. He thought, this is a living and breathing and walking and screaming skeleton. Before today I have never seen human bone, trying to escape from flesh.
-P&C-
Peter looks away from her, at the other survivors. He is literally supporting her now, with his arm. "What happened to us in there… none of us got lucky, or got off easy. Each of us had our own personal hell. And what I think we're forgetting is that we're all still living in it."
AN: Tell me what you think! I hope you saw that this was no deviation from our regularly scheduled programming, but rather a very intentional attempt to flesh out an experience that did not belong solely to our Edward and Bella. By telling more of the stories, I hope to better tell theirs. I would love to hear what you're thinking, even if it's like, "uva7, I hate you so much because your dialogue is juvenile at best!" Love to you who have shown me love thus far, especially you binge-all-at-once readers out there. That's my favorite, too. Hopefully this rash of updates is feeding that for you.