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luciusime · 11 months ago

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Apartment 21C, And The Fucker That Lives There

Bad things happened, but they weren't as permanent as Dylan thought they would be. Well, except for the arm. Fuck Monsters, and fuck loosing an arm. Spoilers, of course.

There are tags explaining what this is, but they're at the bottom. I recently finished the audio recording for a book called Fuck Monsters, which you can find on Reddit, YouTube, and Amazon should you feel like checking it out yourself. I liked it alot, made me laugh and then almost cried because how could you do this to my meow meows for real. Now that it's over, I'm writing a sorta fix-it comfort fic. I need them together and whole again. Also my AO3 iffin ya wanna read it there.

The ceiling of Dylan's new apartment is white, except for a little brown spot on the roof he tries hard not to look at. The walls are white too, and as much as he'd like to fill them with something, he really can't think of a single thing to put on them. The floors are bare too; once upon a time there might have been a rug or two, one at the door to clean shoes before you took them off, and one in the bathroom to catch water when you got out of the bath, but even though he'd moved in almost a month ago, he hadn't gotten around to going to any stores but the grocery and liquor ones. There's a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him he should be doing better, living better; but there's a louder one that yells that shitty bourbon is the answer to all of his needs.

He has the basics from his last apartment: the couch, which was brand new when it made its way to his last apartment so now it's mostly fine; his king sized bed, which was a nice bonus from the hazard pay from his last job; his dresser, which served as a kind of bookshelf for a few titles he'd picked up while at a general store getting groceries; all the stuff that went in a kitchen and a tv. All in all, everything he'd need for his "indefinite leave" which headquarters was miraculously paying for.

He hates it.

He hadn't been without a job to do in years, so he'd almost forgotten what he did before. But when he did remember, he discovered it was just more drinking. 'cept he'd had friends to drink with before all this.

He puts his current read down on the coffee table beside him and carefully sits up, taking a moment to lament his redeveloping ability to roll off the couch before standing. He walks over to the kitchen and grabs a half empty fifth of…something, hell he doesn't know. He'd peeled the sticker off the bottle for some perceived slight while he was shit faced, and he never really bothered to look at the bottles when he bought them, only the price. Sadly, while headquarters covers his apartment and minor living expenses, booze is not among their list of covered necessities. Either way he steadies the bottle against the counter and pops the cork out, tipping his head back as he empties some more of the bottle down his throat. He sets the bottle down as he turns to the fridge.

His hand grasps the handle of the fridge, except it doesn't, and he sighs as he reaches out with his left hand. That too had been a problem for the last two months. Forgetting, feeling it when it wasn't there, face planting into doors and walls and floors when he slips up and forgets. Stopping his falls, of which there were many, had become a serious problem. He almost broke his nose the last time he'd fallen over one of his shoes that he'd left on the floor. He got more careful where he left his things after that.

Looking into said fridge, nothing strikes him as particularly appetizing. There's some sliced pineapple, milk, leftover take out, and some lunch meat. He's about to close the fridge without getting anything, but his rumbling stomach reminds him he hasn't actually eaten anything that day, so he grabs the lunch meat and closes the door with his hip. It takes some maneuvering, but he's eventually able to get his bag of lunch meat and his bottle of booze in his hand before he makes his way back over to the couch. Upon looking though, he decides the couch isn't really where he wants to be, and so he retreats to his room.

His room is dark, the blackout curtains drawn over the afternoon sun and the lights off from when he had left it that morning in a burst of surprise energy to go running. He doesn't bother turning the lights on as he walks over to his desk and sets his goods down to start his "lunch".

By the time he's done, it'd been an hour and he's thoroughly smashed. He'd gone slow with the rest of the bottle, purely because he hadn't had anything to eat that day, and because he literally could not tell you if he'd had water in the last 72 hours, so the buzz is pleasantly spread across his body and not giving him much nausea. His bag of lunch meat had run out about 5 minutes in though, so there he sits at his desk with an empty fifth and a plastic bag of nothing.

His bones creak as he stands and moves over to his bed, sprawling out as far as he can. He lets his hair dangle in his face as his eyes drift closed. For a long while he just sits there, feeling all together as pleasant as he could. It might have been seconds, it might have been minutes, but it was nowhere near hours when for the first time in 2 months, there was a knock at Dylan's door.

At first he doesn't get up, very sure that it's a door to door salesman or something of the like, but then the door is being pounded on and refusing to be ignored. Before he could get up though, the pounding stops, and a tapping on his window starts. Dylan might not have been on an assignment, a hunt, in a while, but two months is in no way enough time to erase the instincts and paranoia that had been pounded into his body during his time as an exterminator.

He crouches low to the ground, slipping the replacement he'd gotten for his beloved gun out from under the bed as he slowly backs up towards his bedroom door, intent on putting as much space between him and whatever was at his 4th story window as possible to buy him some time to think. Well, he was backing up, until another pounding starts at the door, and seconds later more tapping comes from the glass of his window. For a moment he feels something brush across the back of his head, sliding over his shoulders before entering his ears, a whisper of a whisper. He shakes it off and continues out of his room, intent on locking himself in the windowless bathroom so he can call someone from headquarters to make sure they were doing something about the current situation outside of his apartment.

Halfway down the hall however, he freezes as a voice rings out from the front door. It's scratchy and low, like years of smoking makes a voice. It isn't loud, but it projects across the threshold of his doorway nonetheless.

" I know you're in there you motherfucker, open up Dylan," and hasn't he been longing for months to hear that voice one more time, his alcohol addled mind whispers as yet again that force slides over him and into his ear. Once more he bats it off, but this time there's more than just a whisper, and Dylan thinks this might be the point at which he's lost his mind.

" I know this is overwhelming Dylan, but I promise you can open the door, no harm will come to you."

He's gonna scream, he thinks to himself as tears well in his eyes and his mind fumbles over itself to provide any and every monster it can think of that could mimic a voice like that without previous contact with the owner of the voice or someone who had met that voice. He thinks about any and every encounter he has had in the last two months, and the answer he comes up with is emptier than his work email. He grips his gun tighter as he slides down the hallway wall just around the corner of the living room.

More sounds come from the front door, this time not accompanied by the hellish knocking on his window. He buries his head in his knees as once more those voices come from his door. He pulls his arm in so his gun is pointing straight up and his elbow is resting on his knee. He wishes he had his other hand to better block off the noise.

Not real, not real, not real, not real, not real, not REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL.

" I promise this is real."

Softly, ever so softly, that same energy comes around him again, this time accompanied by a second less familiar one, and he doesn't know whether that should frighten him or reaffirm that this is, in fact, a monster come to torment him one last time now that he's down on his luck. The second one doesn't hurt though, no, it's just as gentle as the first as they roll over his mind and begin to show him things, to tell him things.

An image of that day, that horrible day, starts to play in his mind. It's from the eyes of someone else, thrust right into the center of the cluster of parasite ridden bodies, and as soon as he heard that smooth voice, like aloe over a burn, he knew that this was a memory from Theodore. He ripped free the first time, crushed Athena and watched as her look of gratitude shifted to nothing as she became a fine mist, watched as Theodore's win became temporary, then nothing at all as the world went black and all that Theodore was was ripped from his chest and made to be a part of the thing.

Suddenly he's looking at himself, whole except for the wounds to his legs, and at the sight of those he can feel a slight pang of regret that isn't his own. Memory Dylan was propped up against the wall looking on at the destruction and creation wrought around him, and then he was once again subject to Sandra's plan. As memory Sandra slipped away from memory Dylan, part of him wants to beg her not to go, to stay with him as the end came about, but this was only a memory. He felt as that ever steady presence slipped over the thing and found Theodore.

As soon as Sandra started talking he can see Theodore from above, from behind, from in front, from below, from so many impossible angles it makes his head begin to hurt, and then just from above again as that first energy, one he's beginning to grow frighteningly fine with, settles on the best direction to view from.

Sandra of the memory explained the plan to Theodore, going as fast as she could now that she was fading almost as quickly as her words could come. He understood just as fast, and once more he was a witness to the prowess of his former teammates. In that moment, for a brief second between bouts of grief, horror, and rage it's enough to make Dylan feel stupid, once more inadequate in the face of their genius and ability, and then he's just sad again. The second energy, one he's having to fight not to put a name to in fear he'd be gravely wrong, slides down his skull and over his back in what he thinks is supposed to be a comforting motion. Really it just sends a shiver down his spine.

As memory Theodore ripped himself free from the being's control with the help of memory Sandra, there was no sight or sound, only feeling as he boldly lashed out once, then twice as Dylan failed to hit the first time. Then a third, final lash to close the portal for good. As the world began to fade, Dylan felt as his two closest people began to do so as well, wrapped around each other so as not to truly die alone.

What Dylan had missed as he was leaving, and the clean up crew had missed as they were coming in, was a single little light, a pure gold wrapped in brilliant silver, drifting down from the air and settling into one of many cracks and crevices of the building, one that no one had bothered to check. Slowly the one light became two, and then none at all. For a moment Dylan thinks they had finally died and found rest, but then the world started spinning, gnashing against reality in little, unnoticed ways.

2 months, 1 month to wake up and realize they weren't dead, though it was a little longer for Sandra, and another to use that discarded, unnoticed mystery meat to make new bodies. Dylan looks up from his knees and to the door, and with all of his heart he wants to tear it open and gaze upon those two faces, but he knows what monsters are capable of, and he had taken Sandra's ashes back home for her and watched as those things tore Theodore to pieces. But as that familiar energy runs over his mind and the second slips over his body, he can't really seem to bring himself to care. He hasn't had a purpose in two months, nothing to keep him going besides the knowledge that to end himself with the last thing headquarters had authorized him to take would be giving them too much.

As he rips the door open and lays eyes on those two faces, identical to his memory, he reasons that it doesn't really matter whether or not the two outside were monsters, because really, what else does he have to live for. They're frowning as he looks at them, probably on account of the fact they can read his mind and his thoughts were pretty self-deprecating, but that doesn't even matter as he tries to wrestle them into his arm. They eventually start helping by wrapping him in their four perfectly working arms, and he starts crying in earnest once he's surrounded in their very real warmth. If he didn't know that his neighbors were at work he was sure that they would be peaking at the spectacle happening in front of his door, but there's never anyone around during the afternoon.

One of them, Theodore he thinks, backs them into his apartment and kicks the door shut. Then in a move that is entirely Theodore, he's being hoisted into the air along with Sandra and startled out of his tears. They begin moving towards the couch, but all his mind can think about is how it's too small to comfortably fit them all in a way they could remain touching. He needed them to stay touching. He yanked on Theodore's hair slightly to get his attention before motioning towards his bedroom door. He feels Theodore slip over his mind and is grateful he won't have to talk as his breath stutters over a tearful sob. He gets the message loud and clear, and steers them towards Dylan's room.

Theodore softly dumps Sandra and Dylan onto the bed before moving to climb in on Dylan's right. Sandra tucks her head into the left crook of Dylan's neck, pinning his arm to his side as she throws hers over him, and Theodore warps as much of the two of them as he can reach up in his arms. Dylan cries for the next 10 minutes, and the two just let him. No judgment, no probing, no words. When he's finally done he keeps his head buried in Theodore's chest so he doesn't have to look them in the eyes. Sandra runs her fingers through his hair softly as Theodore taps little nonsensical rhythms into his cheek. They don't talk, not that night, they just sit there and enjoy each other's company. Dylan hopes they never leave him like that again.

Fuck Monsters, and fuck being alone