Whatever you do, don't imagine Ezra getting Fern a present from an online website. Don't think about them reading about the teary-eyed, overworked sweat shop laborers who made their gift, and packaged their gift, the mailman who was having a really bad day when the package was delivered. I wouldn't think about that if I were you
"Oh! For, for me?"
"Yeah! Open up, fiddlehead, open open," Ezra hops over the back of the couch and bounces down onto the cushions, tossing the package into Fern's lap. "I got it online, thought it'd be nice that no one's tried it on or anything, y'know?"
Fern skims fingers across the seam in the package, searching for the best place to start opening. They read Ezra's excitement first, the bright wash of eagerness for their reaction, and they smile, ducking their head shyly. All this feeling, for them, it still feels unexpected and surprising.
The mailman's hand, crumpling the plastic as he shoved it into the box, sours Ezra's excitement a bit, and Fern's smile falters. But Ezra's here, he's still feeling all that for them, maybe - they peek up at his face, match the grin and the wide, attentive eyes to the feelings on the package, and keep opening it. It's okay that the mailman shouted before he left home that morning, okay that he was still stewing about it as he worked, because he's not the one sitting here. Ezra is. And Ezra is happy about the package, so Fern will be too.
They reach inside, and soft fabric meets the pads of their fingers.
Their fingers, achy and cold, always cold, and stiff for it, but that can't slow them down, they have to finish this seam, damnit their machine keeps catching, it'd be faster just to do it by hand so they yank the cloth out from under the needle, and it catches on the back of their knuckle, ripping skin open bright and quick. Their yelp drowns in the rattle of machines and misery that surrounds them day in, day out, all set to the beat of 'faster, finish up or no pay' and batons tapping down the narrow aisles. They have to finish, so they wrap their bleeding finger in a scrap of cloth and thread a needle, straining stinging eyes and fighting stiff, aching fingers--
"Fern, hey, what is it?" Ezra's hand over the knee of their pants jolts them out of the sense-memory, and Ferb blinks.
Yellow fabric, a soft wool-like blend, spills across their lap. Ezra bought them a sweater, and he was so excited for it to come, for them to see the color he picked and the softness of it. He was so excited.
"It, it's so nice," they try, and it comes out faint and uncertain, so they lift their hand away from the well of misery in their lap and try again. "So nice, Ezra, thank you, um, for thinking to, to order online, so nice of you."
"Do you like it?" Ezra's grinning, almost bouncing. "It's super soft, right? They said it should be. And yellow, you like that too, don't you?"
"Yeah, yeah I do, you, you're so nice to remember that," Fern's smile is a little easier, this time, because that's true, Ezra is nice.
"Aw. Go on, put it on! Bet it's super cozy!"
Fern breathes in sharply. Ezra's so excited. He's so happy.
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Fern is sleeping when it starts, tucked into the corner of their cubby with their knees up against their chest and their head tipped back into the corner of the walls. The hands descend upon them swift and harsh, pinning them down by shoulders and ankles, covering their mouth and eyes, so many hands, all gloved, all pushing harshly at their body until they think they'll be pushed right through the wall. Their panicked yelp is swallowed by the gloved hands crushing their jaw closed, their startled, flinching instinct to get away strangled by the hands pinching at their arms and legs.
"Shut up, shut up, stupid Path," someone hisses in their ear. "If you try to scream, if you make any noise, you'll be dead before the guards even get near, so you'd better shut up and listen if you want to live."
Fern shakes and tries to swallow the whimper trembling at the edge of their mouth. They'd nod, if they could, if the gloved grip on their jaw and the one across their eyes weren't pushing their head back into the wall so hard.
"Where's the blindfold, where'd you put it?" The voice hisses again.
Fern can hear more people moving around, filling up their cubby, lifting milling feet to check the bare floor beneath them in vain search for the cloth. They twitch their wrist, trying to show the blindfold where it's crumpled up in their hand, crushed between their knees and their chest, now, by the hands pinning them in place, and someone notices and yanks it free. They close their eyes as it's jammed down over their head, wincing at the scrape of fingernails against their cheek. There's a measure of relief as it settles across their face, because it's known, it's familiar, and because once it's on then one of the hands on them pulls away, and it's one less too many.
Now, though, the group pulls at Fern, yanking them to their feet and tugging them along in stumbling, soft-footed haste. There's still too many hands on them, tight gloved grips squeezing at their arms, pushing at their back, forcing their head down, and all of it rushed and hurrying. Fern clamps their mouth tightly closed, focusing on swallowing the fear racketing around inside their ribs so it doesn't crawl out of their mouth and get them killed. They pant quick and short through their nose, and listen to the hush of clothes on skin and feet on floors, and count.
Twenty, thirty, fifty steps, seventy, eighty, where are they going, one hundred and twelve steps, three right turns, five left, and they're let go with a push that sends them tripping to the ground, scraping the palms of their hands against rough concrete. Wheels, crisscrossing, landing, taking off - it's an airplane hangar, they're in an airplane hangar?
Fern tips their head, sinking back to their knees and pulling their hands up into their lap - they know better than to try to get up, once they've been put somewhere.
The group that took them - it sounds like a bunch of the agency's trainee handlers - breaks into speech, they must feel safe, now. Their voices bounce around the space, echoing loud and brash as they congratulate each other, and then there's a pair of hands on Fern's shoulders, clamping down sudden and harsh, and they flinch and cringe under the grip.
"Test it, test it out," someone's urging, heady and euphoric with success. "Make it read something, c'mon!"
Oh, oh no, Fern doesn't like this, they don't want to, and a frightened hum slips out as their fingers start to knot together anxiously. Someone grabs their arm, holds it out and twists so their palm hovers in the empty air.
"Please, please don't, don't-" their fingers curl over their palm instinctively, shying away from the prospect of touch, of something being dropped into their hand, and they turn their head to the other side, ducking away from whatever's about to happen as much as they can.
"Shut up and open your hand," someone snaps.
Fern obeys - they have to, don't they, they're just a Path, this is what they're for, isn't it? But they don't want to, this doesn't feel right, it's not like with their handler, and they're sure this wasn't authorized, not in the middle of the night, not grabbed and threatened and taken like they were - their panicked spiral of thought cuts off abruptly as something is pushed into their captive hand, and sensation overtakes reason.
A cup, cut-glass, heavy at the bottom - "Scotch," they gasp out. "He, he drinks scotch," bitterly, looking for answers to questions that can't ever truly be resolved-
"Shit, look at that!" someone crows. "It works!"
"Nuh-uh, coulda just smelled the liquor, guessed," someone else argues. "Tell us something else, Path, tell us more about the bastard drinking that scotch."
"It burns, it's not enough though, he always needs more than one," Fern shakes their head a little, trying to think through the haze clouding the memories on the glass. "He's, he's sad, all alone in an office, just, just scotch and paper, no people," they trail off, twisting their free hand in their shirt over their stomach. "Please, I don't, I don't feel good, let me, take me back, please, I don't wanna-"
Someone yanks the glass away, and Fern sags in relief, but then they don't let go of their arm, and even as the remnants of the reading start to fade, new dread twists their stomach even tighter under the exultant whoops of the group around them. It's all jumbled up together, snatches of sentences tumbling and overlapping, bouncing around the echoing space of the hangar, and Fern can't put their hands over their ears, can't escape to their quiet, still cubby, so they hunch over as far as they can, trying to just endure.
"Knew it-" "-bastard-" "-serves him-" "-drink himself to-"
"Another one, do another one!"
Fern flinches, tugging at their hand where it’s trapped in the gloved grip of whoever's holding them. "No, no, d-don't, please-"
"Oh, shut up," someone cuts in, and something else is pushed into Fern’s hand, smaller this time, round, a pair of circles. Under the blindfold, their eyebrows twitch in confusion.
“Earrings,” they say uncertainly. “Um. They, uh, get worn a lot, every day.” Flashes of a morning routine, putting on the agency’s uniform, washing a face, all flicker across their mind, then the rest of a day, many days, “He, he works at the agency, he fixes computers.”
“Who does he like?” someone yells, and there’s a laughing scuffle off to one side.
“Shut up, shut up, don’t ask it that-” “Your face, you could cook an egg on it you’re so red-”
“Who! Tell us once and for all, Path, put us out of our misery!”
Fern scrunches up their face, focusing on the welter of sensations, swimming through thousands of emotions across hundreds of days. Annoyance, boredom, amusement, joy, hunger, curiosity, sickness, satisfaction - so much, and the longer they touch the earrings the louder it all gets.
"He, he," they trail off, struggling to hold onto what speaking feels like, what their own voice sounds like. They focus harder, past the spike of pain that stabs across their head. "He, he likes - hhn, dark hair, dark eyes, um," they falter, looking for a memory with a name. "Gavin," they blurt, latching onto an awkward, embarrassed encounter in a doorway. Please, let it be enough, let them get bored and leave - Fern listens to the quiet that spreads out from their reading, and their stomach clenches uneasily.
"Gavin, like, your ex?" Someone mutters. "Shit, sorry man-"
The person holding their arm out drops it, but Fern doesn't have time to be relieved before a punch knocks them to the ground, spinning colors across their vision. Their shoulder strikes the tarmac, then their head, and they yelp and try to roll away, ducking as their hand scrapes across the ground and the memory of a plane landing takes them by surprise. There's noise all around them, scuffling shoes and someone yelling, more voices underneath that, and all of it bouncing around the large, empty space and drilling into Fern's throbbing head. They get up on their elbows, then their knees - they remember, one hundred and twelve steps, three right turns, five left, maybe they can get back to their cubby and just rest - a foot strikes out, kicking them in the chest, and they skid across the ground, gaping uselessly for air that won't come.
Okay, okay, they've learned their lesson, they won't try to leave - "S-sorry, sorry," they wheeze, curling up around their aching ribs and twisting their face towards the ground. They didn't want to upset anyone, they were just reading, they told the truth, but people don't like that, do they? They don't like hearing what's real instead of what they wanted, and hearing it from a Path just makes it worse.
The trainees are still arguing, but now it's about what to do with Fern. It's not fun, anymore, and now they're worried about getting caught bringing Fern back to their cubby. Fern lies very still and tries to breathe normally, tries to just be invisible for a minute. Maybe they'll just... leave. Maybe the trainees will just go, and Fern can crawl to a corner and wait to be found in the morning. They'll get in trouble, for being out, but right now that sounds better than whatever the trainees, spurred by fear of trouble of their own, might decide.
Someone's shoes clomp closer, and Fern flinches, curling up tighter. "Sorry, sorry, 'msorry," they repeat, breath coming faster as they tense in anticipation of more pain, more touch, moremoremore.
"Get up," someone's yanking at their arm, and they scramble to their feet. "Go, guys, get back to the rooms, James'n I'll put the Path back. No sense risking all of us getting caught."
"But I'm okay to take that risk?" someone else says, aggrieved. "C'mon, that's not fair!"
"It was your shit idea in the first place," the one holding Fern snaps. "So yeah, you're gonna be the one risking getting thrown out on your ass for it. Now hurry up, it's nearly wake-up call."
They tug at Fern's arm, and Fern follows, rubbing their free hand at their chest where it's sore and tight and making it hard to breathe. Most of the group fades away, their footsteps clattering down another hall as the step out of the hangar, and then it's just Fern and two others, walking fast, almost jogging, and Fern focuses on keeping up and not tripping.
Twenty steps, fifty, eighty, one hundred and twelve. Three right turns, five left. Fern starts to shake a little as they pause outside the door to their cubby. So close, so close, they'll have to pick a different corner so they don't read the memory of being woken up that way, but that's okay, they just want to go inside and hear the doors close and be all by themselves and not touched, not grabbed or yelled at or hit or forced to read things. Their lips form the shape of the word please, but they keep it inside, they don't want to mess up now and lose their cubby somehow.
But the door's not hissing open, why not, what more - suddenly they're pushed, slammed against the wall, and there's a knife at their throat, and they stop breathing, shaking harder under the onslaught of what that knife has done.
"Woah, what're you doing-" it's James, the complainer, Fern realizes dimly. They scrabble to keep ahold of his voice, to stay here in the present and not get lost under the touch of the knife
"Shut up," the owner of the knife hisses. Fern shakes harder at the sound of their voice, and it gets even harder to stay present when memory and reality are so closely mirroring each other. Something's sliding down their neck, their arms, their chest - no, just their neck, the rest is memories that aren't their own.
"Listen up, Path." Fern listens hard. "If you breathe a word of this to anyone - especially your handler - I will make it my personal mission to make the rest of your life the most wretched, miserable scrap of existence in my power. Got it?"
Fern can't breathe, can't think - they must nod, somehow, because that knife pulls away and as it leaves they sag, collapsing to the ground against the wall with their hands over their mouth to stifle their shuddering breaths so they don't turn into screams.
The door next to them hisses open, and a boot nudges their ribs. "Get inside."
Fern crawls inside, holding their breath until the door closes again and a shaking hand pressed to the floor tells them that they're finally alone. The tears don't take long, running quick and hot down their face, soaking their blindfold and then the knees of their pants where they press their face against them, curled up as small as they can make themselves in the corner, a different corner, of their cubby.
It's done, it's over, but they can't make themselves take off the blindfold, they can't handle looking at anything right now, not even blank grey walls. They wrap their arms around their stomach and twist their fingers in their shirt, and shake through the ache in their ribs and the stabbing pain in their head, and try to forget everything they read when that knife pressed against their throat.
Hands, shaking, reach for the gun. Fingers wrap around the barrel and skim across the rough grip.
"A- a girl." Hands clench and release against filed grooves and ridges in dark, worn metal. "S-she was scared. Could barely lift it, she was shaking so bad. She c-couldn't, she had to-"
"Focus."
The gun clatters against the table, and hands, shaking, retreat. "She did it. She shot him."
"I know that, idiot." The gun is pushed back into those trembling hands. "Give me her name."
There's a stifled whimper at the unexpected touch, and fingers twitch under the gloved grip. The gun presses against palms, gloves against the backs of bare hands, and there's no escape from the onrushing sensations. It's hard, to filter past memories written stark and bold in lines of terror to quieter thoughts, the ones that remain at the bedrock of personality, facts so ingrained that surface thoughts rarely touch them. The face of the dead person appears, snarling in hatred that bleeds into fear at the sight of the gun.
"Larissa, it's Larissa-" not enough, not yet - "Holbrook, Larissa Holbrook."
Hands, shaking, let go of the gun, poised to pull away as soon as the gloved grip permits them. No such mercy is granted, however.
"Find her."
"N-no, I can't, I d-don't, I don't do that, I can't, it's too far, too much, I can't-"
The departure of one gloved hand is too quick to trigger relief before it returns - fast, cracking back-handed against the side of a blindfolded face, which snaps to one side with a frightened, pained cry. Gloved hands wrench at trembling, rigid wrists, slamming trapped hands back down on to the gun.
"Find her."
Tears dampen the blindfold, streaking down hollow, freckled cheeks as the instinct to build walls against sensation and foreign memories is overridden, forced down in obedience to the drive for survival. Instead, the reader pushes outwards, bridging the fading connection between the object and it's user to open a link in real-time. Hands, shaking, become conduits between the reader and the girl who killed a man.
"She's..." It's hard, it's so hard. "I don't think I can do it, I don't think I can find her-" a flinch, as one of the gloved hands withdraws. "Sorry! Sorry, I'm sorry, I'll keep trying-"
The gloved hand does not return to strike the reader, but it doesn't cover the reader's hands again, either, and the mystery of its' location adds anxiety and another layer of fear to the pain growing in the reader's head. The link is growing, stabilizing, almost enough to see a shadowy imprint of the girl. The reader shakes, full-body trembles wracking their underfed frame in the cold metal chair.
"She's, she's in a house-" pain lances behind blindfolded eyes. "No, it's a motel, room, room number-" elbows brace the reader's sagging frame on the table. "204, it's room 204."
"Give me a name." One gloved hand tightens on the reader's wrists.
"Hhn, it's..." something plips against the surface of the table, under the reader's head where they lean forward, near collapse. "Aah- please, it hurts, I'm sorry, I'm trying, it's, it's, sun, sunset, hhngh, pines - Sunset Pines Motel, here, it's here in the city, please," the reader keels forward, resting their aching, flushed forehead against the cool surface of the table. The smell of blood, iron-rich and warm against chilled steel, wafts thickly from the nosebleed that pushing their power too far, too fast has given them.
Finally, finally, the gun is taken away and the reader's hands released. It's only a moment, though, before touch returns, gloved hands yanking at their arm to pull their exhausted body out of the chair and tug them along behind the owner of the gloved hands. The reader stumbles, reaching up blindly to clutch at something, anything, for support, only to have their hands slapped away as they're steadied roughly.
"No touching, you know the rules!"
"Sorry, 'm sorry," they tuck their hands close to their chest and try to keep themselves upright through dragging, sucking exhaustion and pain. A door opens; they turn a corner, walk up a hall. Ten steps, twenty, twenty-five - keeping count is as natural as breathing, by now. Thirty-seven steps, and their guide pauses - good - keys jingle, another door opens, and they're pushed through into their cell.
The door slams behind them, and the reader sags, tipping into the wall and sliding down to huddle in the corner of the small space. They tuck their hands into their armpits and tip forward to rest their forehead against their knees, and focus on putting away the sense-memories of the girl and her gun until their head feels a little quieter, a little more their own.
Only then, only once it's as close to quiet as they can ever get in this place, does the reader reach up, with hands still trembling from the aftershocks of overextension, and unwrap the blindfold. The small grey cube, kept dim for the scattered moments they're allowed sight, is bare but for the black circle in the ceiling, keeping watchful, ever-vigilant eye over what little solitude they are allowed. The reader tucks the blindfold close to their chest, where they can put it back on at a moment's notice, and rests their head back on their knees, watching the blank grey walls until blankness bleeds into shallow, restless sleep.
