Nightshift 60: Main Hallway, 2-West

[ninelivesonce]

[from here]

Taura peeked out of the stairwell door with the first evidence of caution she'd shown all night. Everything looked quiet, but that didn't mean much of anything.

They'd met here the last time she'd come up to head into that room, and that thing had come out of the walls. She didn't want to wait around anywhere, but especially not here. She was glad they were meeting a little further down the hallway. It didn't make it safer, but she'd fought enough battles to earn a little superstition.

Every soldier had a few. Didn't matter if they were religious or so fanatically committed to the opposite opinion that it almost qualified, they gathered superstitions like an air filter gathered dust. When you risked your life every day, anything that seemed to stand between you and the darkness shone like a beacon. She'd learned to forgive her fellow soldiers their foibles quickly; and then after her first real mission she'd understood. A fussy method of attaching a helmet was both a safety measure and a ritual -- doing something the same way every time kept people from forgetting it, and every time they came back alive cemented it.

Comments

[tightsofmight]

[From here and time warping to miss Taura.]

He reached the top of the steps and hit the wall adjacent, clutching at it and sucking in air as if he'd just come out of water. The sound nearly echoed, the hallway was so devoid of life. Empty and cold. Peter licked his lips hastily and clutched at his stinging chest, and faced the corridor ahead. At the end would be a large door with a freezing handle, frigid from the inside to keep the bodies preserved. There was the morgue.

Still wheezing loudly and doubling over by half, Peter moved his hands to his knees as he struggled to contain himself. His eyes were on the end of the hall. He could make it. It was less than a thirty second walk. It wasn't so bad.

But now that he was up here, he couldn't bear the thought of going in.

He had seen Harry here. Matt had taken him up here, and they had pulled out the drawer so he could see his best friend covered in a sheet. Pale, blue around the bottom where the blood had pooled and covered in a sheet. Peter gulped. He had seen the body of his best friend. And now that whole thing...that was what he remembered. This stiff, sleeping statue in a drawer.

When he had started sinking was lost on Peter, but he was on the floor now, sobbing, clutching his knees close and still staring at that fucking hallway even if it had turned to a mess of greys with the water in his eyes. "Oh, fuck..."

That echoed too.

[tightsofmight]

He sat there for some time. He gasped and moaned and sobbed as loud and as quiet as he wanted. He tugged at his hair and dropped his flashlight, burying his face in his knees. Fuck it. Fuck the monsters if they came, he was busy. He'd rip them apart and he'd sit right the hell back down and carry on like he wanted, because the truth was he was too scared to face that piddly little room right now. Seeing those cupboards, seeing Brainy's name on one of them and rolling it out was the absolute most terrifying thing in the world to Peter in this moment.

"I'm really sorry." Nothing answered him. He was half expecting some ghoulish groan to emit from the dark, but nothing happened, so he carried on. "I'm so, so sorry Brainy. I shouldn't...I shouldn't have left you. I shouldn't have left you alone so much. I'm sorry. I'm really...I'm really sorry. I w-wasn't there for you.

"I don't know what happened to you. I don't know when you left, so...just. If it was Grell, I'm going to kill him. I'm going to. He doesn't deserve to live. But you - I don't know where you are. I just want you to know that you're like...l-like a part of, a part my family. You're one of my best friends. I love you, okay?"

Staring blankly into what was essentially a black hole made it easy to imagine whatever he wanted in the dim edges of his flashlight beam. The outline of a slender boy, too far away and too obscured to catch the details of his face. Peter traced the form with wide eyes. "I just want you to know that. That's...that's it. You're awesome and I miss you."

He stopped talking then, but remained seated until he couldn't feel the sting in his chest anymore. The tears stopped eventually too. and he wiped himself clean. By the time he drew away his hands, the figure had dissipated. He couldn't retrace it's form there again, no matter how hard he tried. And it was then, when the gasping stopped and his face had settled into resigned lines that things snapped into place. No. He didn't want to be alone tonight, he decided. He didn't want to spend the night in pieces. That was lame. Brainy would agree. Brainy would want him to keep going, to march on down there and not be a pansy and face the rest of his friends like everything would be okay.

Because it would. Fuck you, it fucking would. Peter was going to make it okay. There were still people here that he loved and that need out as badly as he did. Strangers and practical strangers, the people who had left to go lead pretend lives in the pretend world. Those guys all needed him. And Peter was no use to anyone sitting alone in the dark like he had just watched Old Yeller for the first time and his world was shattered.

Nope.

"Okay," Peter said. He steadied himself on his feet. "Okay. I'm done here. Whatever creepy thing is haunting here, you can get back to business."

He nodded once to the hall. It was still silent, but that didn't bother him so much anymore. He was cool. With one final shake of the head, he collected his flashlight and took to the stairs.

[To here.]