Made with Corn

I finally finished playing Deadly Premonition and boy HOWDY did it live up to the bizarre reputation impressed upon me vis-a-vis an old Two Best Friends Play video when I was a teenager. This game is so obviously a passion project made on a shoestring budget but it's so jam-packed with surrealist charm and character that it's impossible for me to hate it on its sincerity alone. It's an earnest B-movie experience in video game form and absolutely deserves its status as a cult classic. Frankly, I liked it so much that I'm a little nervous this positive takeaway might sour when I inevitably play the second game...

So York, the protagonist of DP, makes a cameo here as the guy in custody, both as homage to the game and because he happens to be the perfect candidate for this scenario: he has a demonstrated indifference to the supernatural—how or why is left to interpretation—and as a federal agent experienced with the extranormal, he's the exact kind of person the GDA might encounter organically in their day-to-day operations, maybe in something like a jurisdictional spat; and once Cecil realizes his demonic influence has no sway over him, it'd be easy to detain him for further questioning under the pretense of "obstruction of justice" or some other convincing (but ostensibly bullshit) charge.

(The keyword here is "cameo;" since I'm not really inclined towards crossovers I'd never actually fling York into this AU lol, even if he really wouldn't feel all that out of place in it.)

Naturally, knowing little to nothing about York—and gambling that he has anything to do with the supernatural in the first place—Cecil's first order of business 100% would be to ask which demon he had the displeasure of dealing with LMAO (to which you know he'd get one of York's eccentric, smartass answers...)

He knows when he's awake and when he's asleep, though. At present, he's fully awake, staring at the ceiling while Mila sleeps beside him, peaceful in a way he could never be, though she's the one who reads the eulogy at every private funeral for the rotting thing currently pounding the front door down. 

Cecil presses a kiss to Mila's forehead and rises from the bed, pulling on yesterday's clothes and heading downstairs. He forgoes a coat despite the chill creeping into the air, grabbing only his keys before he steps outside. 

No longer is the dead thing behind the door: It sits at the foot of the stairs now, like a well-trained dog awaiting its master. Its clothes have been largely burned away, as has most of its skin, and it's missing its left arm entirely. All that remains is a charred outer shell that somehow still moves like its living counterpart. It is not a dream. Its being a nightmare is far more likely. 

The dead thing is on the porch more often than not these days, gawking at everyone who passes by. It had reached for Mila once, but she hadn't seen it. 

No one does but Cecil. It seems almost devastated by that, seeking out the attention of many of the older GDA members, its expression raw and desperate despite its lack of eyes. 

It follows him around the Pentagon sometimes, murmuring reports in a voice choked with smoke and debris, as if it's just any ordinary day and it's reading any ordinary report. From time to time, it touches him, and he comes away with smears of blood that can't explain. Those, too, are visible only to him. They took hours to wash off. It hugged him, just the once, during its own private funeral, and Cecil carried the soot of it upon his skin for days, though only his suit had been touched. 

The body, when it had finally been dug out of the rubble, had been charred beyond recognition. Brit had passed that information on to Cecil himself. It must've been true, too, if that's what it looks like now. 

With great care, Cecil steps past the dead thing on the porch, keeping his distance as he makes his way to where the car is parked along the side of the road. It's bracingly cold, but it's keeping him awake, so he can't be too irritated by it. At least it's not cold enough to scrape frost off the windshield. That shouldn't happen for another few weeks. 

Though he prefers to teleport, a drive to clear his mind is sometimes warranted, and Mila's pretty green Porsche 911 is as good a getaway car as any. Sliding into the driver's seat and grabbing the keys from his pocket, he starts the engine. It purrs. He meets the dead thing's gaze through the passenger's side window before he speeds off into the night. 

It watches him go, but makes no move to follow. 

In the midnight silence, just over the rumble of the engine, Cecil can nearly hear a familiar voice, rattling off the daily report for that horrible day in Egypt. He hasn't slept in days, and it's taking its toll on him. He clicks the stereo on. 

Mila had been driving last, and Eric Bloom's voice rises through the cab, singing, Forty-thousand men and women every day. How many of those deaths came on Cecil's orders? He cranks the music louder. 

Outside, on either side of the Porsche's sleek little body, the tree-lined streets streak by, waving in the winter wind and illuminated by shafts of icy moonlight. It's colder this year, and he shivers, grateful when he finally slips free of Alexandria's city limits. 

The dead thing's voice is still in his head. 

This has been going on for months. It has to stop. Sleeping is a risk: The dead thing finds him even when he's dreaming, slipping into his subconscious the moment he lets his guard down. Not sleeping is worse, as the dead thing only gets more solid when Cecil keeps himself awake. The weaker he gets, the stronger it becomes. There's no winning. There's no peace. 

There's a hairpin turn up ahead, and summoning the hoodlum he'd been before he joined the GDA, Cecil throws the car into it, nearly rolling when he catches sight of the dead thing again. 

It stands in the center of the road, all burned clothes and raw, pink skin. Its eyes are gaping black holes. 

Cecil jerks the wheel, a rookie mistake, the Porsche's tires catching the gravel at the side of the road as he skids to a stop. His heart is in his throat, pounding so hard he tastes blood. Or maybe he'd bitten his tongue. It's hard to say. It's harder to care. 

The dead thing at the center of the road is unmoved, tipping its head to one side, its expression painfully familiar despite its lack of eyes. Even burned to a crisp, Cecil would recognize it anywhere. Even in death, the dead thing is still him. 

Cecil's throat is dry, his hands trembling around the steering wheel. His wedding ring is so cold it burns. 

The dead thing turns its attention to the road for a moment before it looks to Cecil again, cracked lips moving for a few seconds before it vanishes in a strobe of red and blue lights, its voice drowned out by the screaming of a siren. 

Sighing, Cecil rests his forehead against the steering wheel. This has to stop. This is no dream, no nightmare. He's being haunted, though by a ghost or his own guilt, he can't say. God knows he's familiar with regret.

At a polite tap to the driver's side window, Cecil rolls it down, not bothering to meet the cop's eyes. Instead, he goes for his wallet, presenting his badge and saying, "This is official GDA business, officer." 

The officer, one Cecil has seen around town a few times, squints at the badge, asking, "In what way?" 

"Classified." Cecil tucks his wallet away again. Even exhausted, he's a master of intimidation, and the officer is tense as all hell when Cecil finally looks him in the eye. "Emergency in Arlington, that's all I can say." 

He'd been driving in the opposite direction, actually, but who's some random beat cop to question him? The officer says, "You wanna speed like that, do it outside the municipality so I don't have to ticket you." And he walks away.

Cecil sighs again.

As the officer drives off into the night, Cecil catches sight of the dead thing again.