#fear!au

The light shines directly into his eyes, and the chair he’s cuffed to - both wrists and ankles - is securely fixed to the floor. Jack curls his upper lip somewhat. He’s not above appreciating the setup but that’s a missed opportunity for psychological impact. At least the intelligence had been right, for once. It may look temporary but the sickly smell of fear and suffering hangs in the air, speaks of the frequent use of the room. It’s something primal you can’t get rid of that easy, a warning signal from one animal to another.

TLC BLC 01 055 JPM which is in one of the ‘asides’ for ‘Synchronicity’ is the final personnel number ‘original Jack’ had assigned while on contract with the PMC.

TLC - Talon Corporation

BLC - Blackwatch PMC

01 - Team 1 (under Gerard Lacroix’s personal leadership)

055 - individual personnel number on Team 1

JPM - John (originally Jackson - which I’m retconning) Percival Morrison.

The initial plan for the callsign was to have Jack repeat it after the Apparition during the escape sequence from the underground facility to gain few seconds of confusion from regular Blackwatch personnel before they figure out the callsign is invalid.

It got scrapped because the better flow was just having Jack go into ‘proficient killer’ headspace, and that way the Apparition remains more ambiguous and malevolent towards Jack.

The second (yeah, it’s the second ‘introduction’ :3) of the ‘ghosts’. 

(…)

I said that all sounds like madness

Why have a life and then not be alive

Why have a mind and then choose to be blind

What you call wisdom is the fear that you hide

(…)

Inhale. The savaged body his fingers are buried in grays and crumbles apart. Count to five. Specks of ash float in the air. Exhale. The blood and scraps of flesh flake off his hands and join the ash in the dance on the currents. Count to five. Smile. Fracture. Fall. A future banquet for worms.

Inhale.

Black ash clogs the air and clogs his lungs. The fractures propagate and the clock is broken.

“Just like they had trained you, Sunshine,” the Beast whispers against his temple and Jack nods as the tension slowly flushes down his spine leaving a dull tug in his side as it leaves. He slips fingers under the jacket and winces. The bandage is wet, the stitches must have ripped under the stress. He’s bleeding, again. “We will take care of it, soon.”

“Yes.” Probably more morphine, the faster the better. He’s dying, the bullet in the gut and the radiation poisoning, an invisible race of what will kill him first — if he’s even alive anymore. His mouth is full of bitter cotton. Jack shakes his head. “Soon.”

He backs several steps to the Patten lying on the ground and picks up the rifle he does not remember discarding during the skirmish. With the thing dead, he can cross the plaza instead of trying to sneak through the rubble and making a detour. The display window with the red umbrella thrust through it looks promising.

Jack grits his teeth and moves forward. With the butt of the rifle, he smashes the jagged remnants of the glass on the high windowsill and then climbs inside, into the gloom and unnatural chill that makes the goosebumps break out all over his arms. The overlay of his visor flickers on and off. It’s a movement at the edge of his vision, a flicker in the air, a sound just below his range of hearing.

He tries to ignore it and walks to the stairwell, half-collapsed but still scalable. The twisted strands of rebar make it difficult to maneuver but clinging to the wall he manages to climb to the second floor. The silence is not just ambient; there is a substantial lack of sounds. Cold prickles bite into the back of his neck, a sense of impalpable presence flitting in and out of his awareness.

“Come out, come out.” Jack breathes out through clenched teeth.

“Whoever you are,” the Beast hisses into his ear. “Come out, come out…”

“Wherever you are.”

"Goddamn fucking morphine," Jack murmurs. His vision is focused and swimming at the same time. His breath coils around his tongue with a taste of rusted iron. "If you're my guide, I'm fucking lost."

"Oh, Sunshine, did I ever aspire to such a title?" The barbwire lull of the laughter pierces his ears together with the roar of the fire, and the smell of burning plastic and artificial fabrics suddenly becomes dominant. The plane. 

One wing is broken off and missing, the other is buried deep in a collapsed building. The fuselage is smashed into three neat pieces - the tail rests sideways on the street.

The inside of the craft is still on fire and the asphalt is soaked in the fuel. No bodies. No blood. The luggage is strewn around. No body parts. Nothing. There's a ripped in half pink suitcase in front of him with a small plastic hand sticking out of the bundled clothes.

"Who's there? Please!" A woman. Jack turns towards the voice and a greenish silhouette swivels there with its hands outstretched as if fumbling in the darkness. A child cries. "Please, say something!"

"They're all dead," Jack whispers taking a step back.

Notes: After hitting brick wall, restructure! So, that one’s a bit of Frankenstein’s Monster. Introducing: Remnant, references to past happenings that were supposed to be referenced much, much later, and morally (VERY) questionable actions (if you get the reference). Jack’s still high on morphine.

Previous parts under this one link: gyromitra-esculenta(.)tumblr(.)com/post/173374189022/synchronicity-15

Jack grimaces when from behind the APC a figure shambles out, a man in a stained dress shirt with a suitcase held in his right hand. Something unsettling in how strangely his neck twists to the left.

"I wonder, Sunshine," the Beast teases, "fight or flight?"

***

(…) And all I see is war path ahead of me Each and every step I welcome readily And if my lack of fear bring the death of me Let the spirits of my ancestors envelop me (…)

He cannot draw breath, he is choking, the hand at his throat holds him up against the wall, the claws dig into his neck. His legs try to kick out instinctively, hit nothing – no, not nothing – something pliant, almost as unsubstantial as the air itself, so unlike the unyielding pressure threatening to crush his windpipe.

It’s torture, and torture he is familiar with, the knowledge how to withstand it until the breaking point, how to circumvent the questioning, how to give up certain information and squirrel away the vital parts of it.

Jack stares into the crimson eyes. His fingers gripping Reaper’s arm are ashen in color, with a purplish tint. Over the roar of blood in his ears, over the angry wail, someone shouts at him in French, then in broken English, the exact words lost to the rising noise. Tell them what they want to know. Tell them what you want them to know.

He is afraid. Afraid for his life, afraid of dying before the conclusion. But Reaper, he fears him not. No, not him, because Reaper still needs him. Still needs the surrogate for that person he is futilely searching for.

Even as his vision swims, Jack reaches out. The flesh of the cheek under his touch is moving, changing, never in the same shape or physical state, brings out a memory of newly hatched spiders clustered together, of blowing cigarette smoke at them and watching them scramble apart and then back close again.

“I see you,” he mouths as black crawls at the edge of his sight, the wet stringy darkness threatening to pull him under the surface and to never let go. “I’m not afraid of you.”

There is a shift in the pressure, the twitch in those dark claws buried in the flesh of his throat.

“I see you,” Jack repeats, “for what you are.” His eyes close. He cannot keep them open. “You are not a monster.”

The bark of the tree with the ‘J’ and ‘G’ carved into it bites into his back, the hand at his throat is warm and gentle, human, familiar, as is the mouth over his lips and the scratch of facial hair. The kiss is slow, languid, and all-encompassing - there is safety and comfort.

When he opens his eyes, Jack can breathe, takes a big lungful of air and exhales it loudly. He is back in the ruined corridor under the flickering light. The claws on his neck are lax and flesh under his own fingertips is solid yet cold.

Reaper, with his head inclined to the side, observes him. His face has a shape now, a man’s face, skin tinted grey stretched over the bone and in places coming apart to reveal the underlying decomposition, spare bristles of facial hair framing broken lips.

“He loved you, didn’t he?” Jack whispers hoarsely while his hand still rests on that face. “He loved you, and you loved him back, didn’t you?”

He licks his lips tasting blood. Hemorrhage from mucous membranes, something he's getting used to. His vision is colored red and blurry.

“They took him from me,” Reaper speaks. The black smoke that spills from his mouth diffuses in the air like ink in the water. “They will pay for what they did to him.”

Like a broken record, Jack thinks, but isn’t that a truth coming from the man reliving all those moments that had pulled him in, the flickers of gentleness, and the flashes of suffering, the darkness, the tree, the grass, the airstrip.

“You have to see him. I’ll,” Jack's voice breaks over the words, “help you find him. See him.”

Reaper’s head slowly tilts to the other side, the crimson eyes don’t leave his face. The tip of a solitary claw travels up his neck, over his Adam's apple, stops under his chin and digs into the soft skin below.

"Will you now?" In Reaper's words, there is a hint of accusation and focused anger tinged with something that sounds almost like a desperate plea at the same time.

"You will, Sunshine, won't you?" The Beast languidly curls around his neck and cups his cheek - sneaks into his mouth like a finger tugging at his lower lip - and Jack cannot help the muted whine that slips between his teeth as the taste of blood and sweet rot spreads on his tongue.

Lingering touch combs through his hair - the grip is light yet firm, tilts his head back - and the claw ghosts over the faint lines of the scar across his throat. The smell of burnt meat and fat comes and goes with each hurried breath.

"Yes, Sunshine, only ash and charred bones," the Beast murmurs seductively. "We are death, we are strife, we are what remains when all else is slaughtered in our wake. We survive."

"You promised to take him with you," Jack swallows against something hard scraping the back of his throat, a painful irritation - familiar - his muscles seize weakly against the intrusion.

"I did, didn't I?"

"Didn't I, Sunshine?" The Beast coils around his wrists - its tarlike substance heavy and oily on his skin; the intoxicating taste of mildew and iron trickling down his throat and the musty bittersweet fragrance of fermented fruits overtake his senses.

Reaper comes closer and the claws flit over his cheekbone, and it is the first time Jack thinks about their peculiar texture, the strange spongy hardness ending in cruel points. He lifts his hand to cover them with his fingers. Maybe, he doesn't mind to be the stand-in for this person who died when the plane touched down. No, he doesn't mind. It has never been about him.

With slow purpose, Jack tilts his head forward and to the side. Reaper's lips are cool and swollen, the tongue cold and slimy, and from under the hood where his other hand found purchase wet and stringy (just like the darkness that even now - especially now - threatens to pull him below the surface) hair slip out.

Mul gwisin, Hana said.

"They drowned you," Jack whispers into the broken mouth. "In that darkness, they drowned you, but you survived."

"Isn't that what we do, Sunshine?" The Beast playfully nips at his ear. He can feel the brush of the fangs almost piercing the skin, almost arches into the sensation.

"Months. Years. Forever." The other set of claws digs into his side not unlike the Beast's own claws when it scraped out the bullet from the inside of his stomach. He feels the abhorrently warm blood soak the fabric; the wet cloth clings to the skin, and the claws move agonizingly slow - continue their way upwards ripping him apart. It's something like pain but not entirely, something much more intimate than anything he remembers ever experiencing. Something liberating, in how he places his very existence into the hands of someone who has no reason to care for it in the least.

Jack continues the neglected kiss even as he hears - feels - the bones crack - little splinters ricocheting inside, the taste of iron more prevalent than ever and his breath stolen away. The lips pressed against his own now are freezing cold and leathery in texture. The Beast noses against the skin of his exposed neck.

McCree released Reaper from the Tomb, a fleeting thought, the Tomb where they drowned him. It would only make perfect sense that right now he is kissing a long-dead corpse.

"Do not nitpick, Sunshine," the Beast chortles in good humor, nibbles in a warning on his jugular.

"I'm not," Jack manages to choke out when Reaper's teeth pull lightly on his lower lip. It's charred bones and ash, burnt meat and fat, the smell of cordite and accelerant, it's screams and chaos. Something wails, screams almost like a human in the jungle of broiled green leaves. The knife slowly scrapes against the bone, the grating kind of sound, as they dig out the bullets. No witnesses, no evidence. Cold lips move down, along the line of his throat, and Jack tilts his head back out of his own volition now, observes the black ash rising in the currents, swirling and clogging the air. An efficient solution, he thinks, even as the cool air on his exposed body makes him shiver involuntarily. "Was it him, or was it me?"

"Does it matter, Sunshine?" The Beast fawns at the side of his face, pushes almost like it wants to crawl under his very skin - ridiculous. It's always there, always were.

The pain does not come back gradually; it hits like a speeding truck with broken brakes hurling off a bridge and Jack almost folds in half gasping frantically for breath. The movement multiplies the sensation of something foreign moving inside his gut. His fingers lose all feeling as he tries to press on the wound through the jacket.

His mouth is numb and cold, and the lack of discernable taste makes him gag.

“Safe place, Sunshine, close,” the Beast murmurs wedging its maw under his chin in an almost caring gesture. “Get up.”

“Can’t,” Jack manages a failing whisper. The clock is ticking. The hands do not move, do not even strain, and the room is white.

“Mr. Morrison,” the psychiatrist smiles, the kind of impersonal smile one could expect from a professional detached from the situation. “Did the change in the prescription have any adversarial effects? Any notable differences you have experienced regarding your frame of mind?”

The Beast stings behind his teeth, scrapes the sides of his throat, looks through his eyes.

“No. Can’t think of any. Can’t…” Jack turns his gaze to the tree in the painting, to the maelstrom of the painted sky behind it – the rapid strokes of brush giving it an illusion of movement. “Felt worse for the first week but I don’t think I really thought about killing myself since then.”

“That’s good to hear,” the man types something on the keyboard.

“You redecorated.”

“Excuse me?”

“This picture, it’s new. It’s different from the one before.”

The doctor looks at him quizzically, maybe even slightly alarmed. The Beast whispers of danger.

“And what do you see in the picture, Mr. Morrison?”

“Morbid landscape with a tree,” Jack swallows, eyes darting to the side, searching for a route of escape from some undefined peril that now sits heavy on his shoulders, its claws digging deep enough to draw blood that seeps through and stains the fabric.