I am really sorry for this terrible long wait. It's perhaps a bit of an excuse, but I went on a Kingdom Hearts writer trip, and my brain refused to focus on anything else. It should be over now and I have written a few more chapters to this story.
Spring: I am not sure if I should be impressed or scared of how quickly you can make a story...
It's a debate I let others deal wreck their brain on. I just write whatever I have stuck in my highway of a mind. Thanks for being this patient with me and don't forget that I greatly appreciate chapter suggestions.
Christmas is approaching fast, and like any other business, Freddy's is busy decorating and coming up with ideas to how they can attract as many customers as possible.
Thanks to the return of the spirits, there are a lot of heads to come up with ideas. In fact there might be too many ideas now.
So Freddy, the ever-practical one, decided to make a list about all the ideas they have, allowing Scott and Goldie to decide which are inside their current budget.
Spring is glad he does not have to overheat his computer brain with that, all he needs to worry about is his own family. Which does seem to deal with a few problems.
His son, Thomas has gotten quite grumpy over the thought that his mother has moved in with another man and what his son told him, this new man wants Thomas to call him father. Which Thomas has straight out refused.
Spring can't say he judge Thomas for that, he may never have a stepfather, but he has some experience when it comes to surrogate family. He took Bonnie in as family and has for years called him brother and that didn't change when he remembered his human past. Spring considers both Jeremy and Bonnie family. However, this man Annabelle has found and, according to Thomas, wants to replace him.
"I can see why you don't want to call him 'dad,'" Spring muses to his quite upset son. "but, that does not mean you shouldn't give him a chance." For even though he still loves Annabelle dearly, Spring does know that getting together with her is very unlikely and has more or less come to accept that.
Thomas gives him a look, one that says more than what he can write down on that notebook of his. Spring lets out a small sigh and replies to the look from his son. "You know I cannot be part of that anymore… I can't be your father in that sense."
Thomas lowers his gaze, hurt but he is more than old enough to know that he cannot get all. He begins to write and Spring reads the note. 'I don't want to replace you.'
"And you won't," Spring assures and hugs his soon to be an adult son. One he hasn't been able to watch grow up and although it hurts just as much knowing that he is the cause of Thomas muteness. Spring does try his best to see the light that he is once again part of his son's life. "like no one can replace you as my son or Jeremy as my brother."
Thomas frowns lightly and writes, 'I know, but how Rasmus said it, it made it sounds like I should replace him with you.' and that's the last thing he wants. Even if his father wasn't around, he would've still have refused to call anyone dad but his own father. And by the looks of it, his father understands his reason entirely. "Then tell him why you cannot call him dad."
And Thomas asks: 'What if he won't accept that?'
To which his father replies, much to his surprise and amusement, "Then he's an asshole." Thomas laughs, even though barely any sound leaves his mouth.
"Are you talking about me?" Bonnie asks and walks over to the two, pretty used to be called that word by other people. Spring smirks up to him, "Not this time. Simply talking about Thomas's possible new stepfather."
Bonnie nods and must admit, "Well, if you don't like the guy, let me get my hands on him." Thomas makes that quiet laugh of his, Spring, on the other hand, is for once not amused. "I would only ruff him up a little." Bonnie defends himself, which is a bit of a lie. If that stepfather Thomas spoke about ever went to hurt Spring's son, then Bonnie would make sure the guy regrets it. Thomas is a cool guy, even if communicating is such a hassle. Oh, maybe they can change that. "Off-topic about the evil stepdad. Tinker, have you considered learning sign language?" He asks Thomas.
Thomas blinks, both at the new nickname Bonnie gave him and that he suggested he should learn something deaf people learn. He must've frowned at this for Bonnie points out. "Instead of writing in that little book of yours, you can simply speak with your hands." and to his surprise, his father agrees to the idea: "Goldie can teach you, he was the one who taught the rest of us."
Thomas frowns at this, but the more he thinks about it, the more he can see why Bonnie suggested this. Communication is both slow and tricky, he cannot get the word across fast enough sometimes and with the work he has, well, often his hands are too dirty to hold the book. He nods to Bonnie, having a gleam in his eyes that he is willing to give this a try.
Bonnie grins down to him, "Sweet! I will talk with Goldie about your new class." and he leaves.
Spring eyes his son proudly and even though it will not solve the stepfather issue, it will at least make talking easier. Thomas eyes him with a smile, then his eyes widened slightly as if he realized something and writes into his notebook.
'Do you think Soren and Hope can be taught as well?" the words says.
Spring shrugs, "What about you ask them about it?" he can't, after all, speak for those two, but he is confident they will as they have become good friends with Thomas, especially Soren.
Thomas nods and leaves to ask Soren and Hope about being taught sign language. Spring watches Thomas show the two Mediums the question and from how Hope gets excited and Soren nodding to Thomas, it looks like Goldie will have a small class to teach.
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After closing, Spring decides to pay his biological brother a visit. Jeremy called in sick yesterday and didn't show up today either, so Spring figures Jeremy is dealing with a nasty flu and thinks his brother might need company and perhaps a helping hand.
He locks his servos at the book corner and puts his mind to transfer over to the human shape he built a couple of years back. When in control of that body, Martin checks his joints and notices that his left arm is a bit harder to move. "Better only be rust." He muses but can think about that later when he returns.
Martin leaves the secret room of Parts and Service and heads to the kitchen where Chica is teaching Theodore how to make stew. "Hey, do you think I can take yesterday's soup?" He asks the boss of the kitchen.
Chica turns around a bit surprised but when she sees who it is, she smiles, "Sure, might do your brother some good." and she puts the leftover soup into a transportable box instead of that large pot it was in moments ago.
Martin takes the box, "Thanks," cast one glance to Theo, whom's whole attitude changes the moment he is allowed into the kitchen, the kid loves to feel useful and it's good to see a smile on his face again. "save some of that for me, will you Theo?"
Theo jumps that he got spoken to and eyes a bit startled Spring's human form. "Um… sure." He muses a bit flustered but must admit that it is good the others like his cooking.
Spring smiles and with; "See you in a couple of hours." he leaves.
Theo returns to stir the stew so it won't burn in the bottom, he's about to ask Chica when he has to add the meat but forgets about it when he notices Soren is staring at the front door with an alarming expression on his face. Theo does not like that expression, least when it's on Soren. Theo knows Soren can see things others cannot and he is rather hard to scare, so whatever is scaring Soren cannot be good news.
Soren notices him staring, he gets embarrassed and the Medium leaves. Slowly, Theo returns back to his own cooking.
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After having left the bus, Martin walks over to the area where his brother lives, doing a happy whistle as he did. Reaching the house, he knocks on the door and waits.
...
Martin blinks that he got no response, even if Jeremy is sick, he is not that kind of guy to ignore the doorbell. He would either have dragged his sick butt out from bed or called (bedroom is right beside the door) that he does not take visitors. But neither of those happened. Now he's worried, so Martin tries the door; it's locked. He abandons the bowl of food at the front door and hurries over to the back, calling his brother's name, begging him to respond. The back door is locked too, but unlike the front which is study, this back door is made cheap and thus weak enough to be kicked down. Martin does not fancy the thought of destroying the door, but he's worried about Jeremy enough to do it. He kicks the door hard and the lock breaks, allowing him inside. "Jeremy!" Martin calls but again gets no response.
Martin is certain that if he still had human flesh and whatnot, he would have goosebumps and nerves be on edge. He does kinda still have the last thing; his computer brain is working overtime, scanning every detail in the search for what is amiss.
Thanks to this, Martin noticed right away the red spots on the carpet and the scanner reveals it is not wine.
It is blood.
"Oh my good…" Martin whispers as he follows the blood trail into the living room, the whole room is a mess.
At first it does seem like there has been a struggle from how the destroyed furniture but Martin's scanners reveal that the destruction is too deliberate. He turns to the shelf that has pictures and objects that held the memories of his and Jeremy's past. He freezes up the second he realizes all of the pictures have been torn to shreds. The glass protecting them from dust shattered and some of the smaller shards have blood on. Martin is starting to get really scared. "Jeremy?" He calls again, now closer to a whisper, fearful of what has happened that caused such destruction.
Wary— no terrified of what he might find. Martin searches every room of the house.
He freezes up a second time when he reaches the guest room.
There, lying on the bed with the back to him, is his brother. The doorframe and a single spot on the bed have bloody handprints.
"Jeremy?" Martin calls, praying that Jeremy is still alive. To his great relief, his brother moves, but that releif is short-lived when Jeremy turns and allows Martin to see where the blood came from.
It's hard to see from the blood but it looks like Jeremy has cut open all of his old and almost faded scars, adding with the large gash over his left cheekbone that is disturbingly close to the eye.
"Run…" Is all Jeremy managed to wheeze out, but it is already too late.
Before Martin can do anything to help his brother, his systems start to glitch heavily, screwing up his sight so much that he has trouble seeing his own brother and if he wasn't already aware it is Jeremy, then he would've mistaken him for something way scarier.
"Aww, how cute."
Martin slowly looks to the ceiling above his brother and through the heavy glitching, he sees a mass of moving shadows, or is it a black person? He can't really tell with his screwed up sight. All he knows that this… thing's white eyes are looking right at him.
"He wasn't wrong that you would come." Twisted One speaks amused that its soon to be servant faith has been proved correct, the only thing that has kept him fighting. But like anything else, this hope will be destroyed. And it will do that by using that stupid bond of theirs. It uses the control it has over Jeremy, forcing him once again to lift that glass shard up to his face, no longer able to put up a fight, the lack of the bodily needs does that. Slowly, just to torment both brothers, it makes Jeremy aim the shard at his left eye.
As expected, Martin gets pretty upset: "Jeremy stop!" then realizes it's not this fleshbag own will and turns to him. "Don't do this."
Twisted One smirks at this. "There's only one way for me to stop. That you leave this house, and your brother will live."
Both brothers know that if Martin leaves, then Jeremy will be taken by this black spirit, very likely not to be seen again until he's entirely under Twisted One's control. Martin eyes his brother. It hurt so much to see Jeremy like this. One who is rarely afraid of anything, cry tears of the pure horror he must be feeling of not being able to control his own movements. But mostly terrified to be abandoned and turned into Twisted One's servant. Martin stares into Jeremy's eyes that begs him not to leave. He knows that Jeremy might have the best chance of survival if he does but… that will not only allow Twisted One the opportunity to turn him into another servant but break his brother's trust. So, even though it might end with Jeremy's death. Martin forces himself to think logically about the situation. "I won't." He tells the monster, not as strong as he wanted.
He's so afraid that his voice is trembling.
Twisted One smirk fades, admittedly surprised by this, "Oh? So you rather want to watch me mutilate and even kill your dear brother?" Granted, Twisted One does not fancy the thought of taking Jeremy's eye, dealing with a servant without a depth perception sounds like a pain and killing him won't be very useful for it either. So instead, it makes Jeremy turn the shard onto his left arm and cut that instead. Not deep enough to make him bleed out, but enough that it will leave a scar.
He has not in mind to stand and watch Twisted One torture his brother! Martin leaps forward and forces that bloodied shard out from Jeremy's hands. With that thing away, he grabs his brother and pretty much carries him out from the room, but before he could get far, the bed table gets flung at both him and Jeremy. Fortunately, Martin took most of the damage and protected Jeremy from getting more wounded than he already is, they both get thrown to the floor, though and Twisted One stalks over to them with a menacing, "Leaving already? The fun part hasn't even started." then it grabs the bed table again and hurls it at Martin, throwing him away from his brother. The glitching worsens. So much that he has trouble knowing what's up and down and it really does not help on his balance.
His system starts acting up, sending the signal of pain from his right shoulder. It takes him a moment to see what is causing these warnings but through the glitching sight, he sees that the bed table's leg is embedded deep into his shoulder, trapping him against the wall.
Letting go of the table leg, and sure Martin won't be able to be a further hindrance. Twisted One turns back to its almost finished servant. "Time to go." Jeremy fights against the command from the link Twisted One put up during their first meeting, but they both know he's not strong enough to fight and one terror fueled vision and Jeremy gets moving.
"Jeremy!" Martin cries and desperately tries to get that piece of wood out from his shoulder but he can't even loosen it up. His brother casts him one look that says everything, something that scares him more than when he realized he was human and accidentally killed someone in his insanity rage.
Then, Jeremy is gone.
Martin does not bother calling for him or try to get free from the wall, time is short as it is already. So instead, Martin decides to get back by a safety measure in these human bodies. He gets past the fake skin and at where a human heart should've been, Martin tears out the battery, forcing a shutdown and thus breaking the link between this body and the one his soul resides in.
The pain returning like that meant nothing, all that mattered was saving his brother from that monster.
"Calem! It got him!" He cries out to the dining hall where the others are.
The before happy chatter dies out the second everyone heard Spring's cry. Goldie does not bother running over to Parts and Service, he teleports and asks his friend- who is deeply upset and from how he struggles onto his feet; he returned by the safety measure. "Spring, w-what's going on?" He asks Spring, well aware something is terribly wrong. He jerks slightly when Spring grabs the purple scarf around his neck rather forcefully, forcing him to meet his friend's horrified eyes. "Twisted One has my brother." Spring tells him.
Those few words are more than enough to know that time is short. Gently Goldie makes Spring lets go of him, "I will get him back." he promises his friend. Gets up and teleports away.
"Spring, what's happening?" Bonnie asks when Spring appears from the Parts and Service. He has never seen his brother this upset before and that's saying a lot!
Spring eyes him with those scared to the core gaze he has. "Twisted One… it got Jeremy… torturing him…" He manages to explain, but that's more than enough for Bonnie and the others to understand the dire situation.
"It's our fault…" Soren whispers, if it wasn't for him and Hope, then Jeremy would have been living a happy life. Spring turns to him, he's still scared but something has changed behind those ice-blue eyes. "It's not your fault Soren." The golden hare tells him in a hard yet trembling voice, "You didn't ask to be hunted by that monster." true, but being a Medium does attract spirits, both the good and evil. So Soren still feels like it's his fault, which does make him wish he can do something… anything to help! But what can a scrawny kid like him do? He could barely deal with a standard black spirit, let alone one of Twisted One's other servants.
Jeremy just can't get a break, can he? Then again, Twisted One is not one to let its prey get away, less so when it sees much potential in a servant like Jeremy.
Suggestions to future chapters or just wish what you would like to happen in this story are more than welcome. I don't have that many chapters made and could use a few ideas from others.