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gigglemugger · 12 days ago

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The Naked and the Blind (or The Ballad of Meg Halsey).

Fandom: Re-Animator (Movies - Combs), Herbert West - Reanimator - H.P. Lovecraft.

Pairing: Herbert West/Meg Halsey

Rating: Explicit, or at the very least Mature.

Archive Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence.

Synopsis:

"Meg Halsey had a problem. In fact, she had several problems, the first of which, she acknowledges while looking at her semi empty living room, is that she can't afford to live alone anymore. The second one is that she doesn't wanna go back to her daddy's house again. This would be an inconceivable notion to her thirteen year old self, even her sixteen year old self, but at twenty five, she'd really choose living under the bridge first. Ok. Maybe not that." Meg Halsey is perfect: Beautiful, accomplished, a bright future doctor. She escaped her hometown and moved to New York, where she likely would have stayed forever. After her mother dies, though, she is forced to move back to Arkham and face everything she wanted to leave behind. --- A.K.A I made a tumblr post about how Crampton/Combs are romantically involved in all of their collabs, got replies and decided to write down a suggestion of "what if Meg was the protagonist, not Dan?" Also I did the cop-out summary thing and pasted the first paragraph of the fic. It's highway robbery. Criminal (I'm sorry).

Thanks to @resonanteye and @sugarsweetnightmareee for helping me shape this up in the replies!

Word Count: Multi Chapter, so far 2,561 published, 19,701 written at the time of publication.

Chapter Count: 1/? (likely 9).

AO3 Tags: I uhhh......... I have no idea what I made it started with one tumblr post then one reply and here we are, I included other works by Lovecraft here and rounded Arkham up and then ran, Character Study, In a way, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Dan Cain, he doesn't exist, Danbert shippers cry I get it, Canon-Typical Violence, Animal Death, Eventual Romance, Slow Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Eventual Smut?, maybe? - Freeform, this fic is an affront to god just like herbert's reagent, Not Beta Read.

Language: English.

CW: Meg went through some trauma. Dead parents, dead cat. She also helps kill her dad later on, considering, so. It's a heavy fic, but if you liked the movie you'll be fine.

AO3 link.

AO3 Notes (yes, they're huge, bear with me): This is an AU about Meg Halsey. I always wanted to write this because in every single Combs/Crampton collaboration, they play lovers (Castle Freak, From Beyond, the Evil Clergyman) EXCEPT FOR in Reanimator, so I made a tumblr post saying I'd like to explore a Meg/Herbert thing solely because of that (and I've only seen it being done one other time, which made me wanna take a personal shot at it). This post was WAY more popular than I expected (it didn't hit the hundreds, but it hit like 20+ notes when I expected like 1 and it being a comment of "are you insane?" with nothing else), so I decided to take it seriously. Then someone suggested I make a version where Meg is the main character, no Dan, no nothing and I thought that was a really interesting idea and ran with it. I made several notes (like four pages) about Meg's character and realized that she’s an amazing, incredibly accomplished ball of air. They made her have good instincts, a good brain, be helpful, be sweet, and then gave her zero personality. This isn’t her movie, so the first thing I did in this AU was scramble around with her brains and give her a will to live for something. The second thing I did was to scramble around with her brains enough so she’d have ambition. The third one was to scramble around with her brains enough she’d have a crush on West—who is her equal here. I'm not saying this relationship won't go into some toxic patterns, but so does Danbert, though I understand the implications. It's more like a double edged sword, though. When I say this is an AU, I mean it’s an AU for sure. I changed a lot of plot points, and switched things around, because it turns out that having Meg as a protag changes a lot on its own. I personally think that Herbert liked Dan for three reasons: He was beautiful, smart and incredibly gullible. Here he likes Meg because she's smart, ambitious and much more like him than others would think. She doesn't take bullshit, though. Scenes are maintained but go different directions, etc. Meg also went through trauma and transformation, which will be unpacked, and though she externally acts like the Meg we know, most of the time, she's not. She had like a Veronica Mars esque transformation, minus the REAL TRAGEDIES of Veronica Mars. I decided to name this a ballad cause I always name things ballads and start with the definition of the word cause I’m pretentious and like to make it seem as if it’s not ‘cause of the ballad of John and Yoko. In this case, though, I decided to just call it the ballad of Meg Halsey, instead of the ballad of Herbert and Meg, or Halsey and West, because this fanfic is very much about Meg—she deserves it. The Naked and the Blind comes from that line from Every Me Every You by Placebo (like the naked leads the blind, I know I’m selfish, I’m unkind). It felt fitting. I also included two characters of Lovecraft lore which will be useful throughout the fic (and possible sequel in which I take the bones of bride of reanimator and completely reshape it), Asenath Waite and Edward Derby, from The Thing on the Doorstep. I also mention the Pickmans, Necronomicons, all of that. I think I'm going to use Welsey as a ship name for now, though I'm sure someone else somewhere in the world has already come up with a ship name for them. I also named the Playlist I made for them this. Very normal behavior. I have seven chapters written, almost at the end of the fic as a whole, and I’ll try to upload one every Monday. We’ll see.

1. Sucker love is heaven sent.

Meg Halsey had a problem. In fact, she had several problems, the first of which, she acknowledges while looking at her semi empty living room, is that she can't afford to live alone anymore. The second one is that she doesn't wanna go back to her daddy's house again. This would be an inconceivable notion to her thirteen year old self, even her sixteen year old self, but at twenty five, she'd really choose living under the bridge first. Ok. Maybe not that.

Here's a picture of Meg Halsey's life one year ago: A happy medical student in New York, with her own room and roommate at one of the dorm houses. Not a sorority girl like her mother gushed about her being when she was twelve, but still friendly towards everyone. Her hair was a little shorter, less gruffy, definitely bobbed, and she probably looked serene. Medical students aren't by definition serene, but she hadn't majorly fucked up. She got high grades, was the second best in her class which was full of men, and she was proud of herself.

Then her mother died. The rest was probably history, or easily deductible.

Savings had existed, but living in Arkham was more expensive than she remembered. Her dad wanted to pay for the house, but she refused because she knew what that entailed. He also wanted her to move back with him, but that would also mean other things: You don't need to pay rent, but you'll have to cook, clean, take care of affairs and be your mother. She was shocked he hadn't sent for her when she was dying, but then it had been so fast that maybe he didn't have the time.

“Don't worry daddy, it's OK,” she had said with a smile, eyeing the wine. She couldn't drink in front of him unless it was a special occasion, like a thirteen year old. “I'm just gonna have to find a roommate.”

It had been a week ago, at that house that smelled of death. Wood, carpets of history, several footprints of doctors, her mother and all the versions of herself.

I wish I could have that drink…

“Hmm…” Yes. The characteristic Dean Halsey “Hm.” The same he had for his employees when he needed to convince them of something. Here we go… “I'm not sure it's safe for you to invite a stranger into your house, Meggie.”

“I had a stranger in my house, remember? My roommate in college.” A nice girl, who never got into trouble, she had told her mother in her semi-weekly calls, which was a lie. Becca was a protester who was always in and out of jail because of fights with the cops. Still, that meant Meg had quiet nights to study, or contemplate the lights on in places that hadn't been Arkham.

“I still don't know about that, sweetheart. Maybe you should move back in for a while…”

“Are you alright, honey?” Her mother's voice resonated in her head. Last phone call before disaster. She remembered the clothes she had been wearing: Light sweater, jeans, boots. A Meg Halsey classic. She remembered it was raining and that two people went behind her, two guys, talking. There was a light breeze from the door and they were gone.

“I'm alright, mom. You?”

“Meg,” Dr. Harrod said. Hospital. Residence. Meg was holding onto her scalpel too tightly. “Maybe you need a break.”

“I'm fine.”

Another picture of Meg Halsey’s life: Prodigy. Brilliant. Bright smile, beautiful blue eyes. She was a perfect specimen of what you would call a girl: Polite, traditional, good. She never stayed out past eight, she never went with boys that much, she never strayed from her studies. She wanted to be whatever her dad thought was best, whatever her mother thought would make her proud.

Meg had goals and ambitions, sure, but she also wanted other things. She watched her parents at the table, while cutting her meat. They were always smiling, laughing easily. All of it. She wanted it all. She even thought she had met a boy, her last high school boyfriend, traditional all the way, very nice and Christian upper middle class. Then…

The television was on, showing the news and Meg bit her lip. She looked at her nails, looked at the carpet and then at her cat, roaming around. “I'm not even going to have money to feed you at this rate,” she said when her beloved Rufus came to her lap. She put her face on his back gently. “God…”

Not turning back to the house, she'd have to find a roommate, one that she wouldn't be afraid would murder her in her sleep. Maybe she needed some coffee. Maybe she needed a million dollars.

She looked at the clock on the wall, the one that looked like Felix the cat, which she had in her bedroom at ten. The eyes went back and forth, freaking her mother out. It still had the stain of when she tried to paint it pink with glitter nail polish. Most importantly, it told her it was almost time to leave. Harrod would be going up and down looking for her and she had morgue duty, which was surely a lot for her muscles and she didn't look forward to it—morgue duty being that now it was the norm that someone else other than the attending intern doctor take the body downstairs, after an incident occurred (no more was mentioned about such an incident).

She wouldn't let her colleagues say she was using her status as the Dean's daughter to get out of good honest work.

However, she would have to look at Hill… He was always there testing his weird pen…

“Ouch!” She shrieked, looking at her hand and seeing the blood. “Oh, Rufus, get off!” Rufus did so, apparently understanding he shouldn't bite her and that she'd be rightfully pissed. She had to admit it was effective in bringing her back to the scene, though. It was a documentary which aired now, about a fishing town with a strange, rare disease. She had heard about it, and should be more interested considering, but frankly all she wanted was that coffee and a shower.

It was a pleasant afternoon in Arkham, her birth city. A strange city to be brought up in, with a deep history of the occult, but with a pristine, ivy league college in the form of the Miskatonic University. Meg stepped out of her car, chilly. She was wearing boots, a sweater and her hair was up. It was getting longer. Her dad almost went insane when she wanted to leave Arkham for New York, especially for medicine if she so insisted on studying that.

“A more womanly course would be interesting…”

“What's more womanly than curing people? Than being a healer?” Her mother waved her hand.

“I'm just not sure, Meg. Your dad thinks the same… Maybe it'd be best…”

“Would you have gone if you could? If you could do anything, would you? I can. I wanna go to New York.”

Every time in the past few months that she felt the air of the hospital wafting on her, sterilized and reminiscent of all the times she went to visit her dad, it was sort of like defeat. Not that she'd let that bring her down. She did go to New York after all. It was temporary, just until her dad got back on her feet.

Until he met someone, Becca said. A hot, pretty new thing to screw.

“Halsey,” Harrod said, standing by reception. Was she waiting? “Right on time. You need to go to 106, now. A patient just died, you need to take her down.”

At least she wasn't the one who killed her. Hooray for small miracles.

Scrubs became her, she thought—not that having vain thoughts was her hallmark—but they were not better than suits by a mile. She felt extremely underdressed in a second, walking into the morgue, at least compared to the austere, small man checking the beakers.

“Meg?” The man raised his head. The second man, being the corpse, stayed thankfully very still. “What are you doing here?”

“Pushing a body?” She laughed a little, to make things light, but she knew she had been busted. A few years ago it'd be unprecedented to go behind his back on anything, but now... Besides, it wasn't drugs, it was just a dead guy for Christ's sake.

He looked concerned right away.

“You're too small to be doing this kind of work. You'll kill yourself.”

“Honestly daddy—” she could feel the ears of the stranger perking up at that. Great going, Meg. Tell every single stranger about it. “It's fine. I can do it.” He paused and pursed his lips.

“Certainly one of your classmates…”

“I said I'm alright,” she smiled a little towards him, to mitigate any disrespect, before turning her attention completely to the left. “Who are you?” The small man looked up from a tag in one of the corpses.

“Oh, don't mind me. I'm sure I don't wanna interrupt family.” Her dad wouldn't pick up on the sarcasm, Meg knew, but she did. Her shoulders tensed, her eyes narrowed.

“Nonsense,” Dean Halsey began, well humored. “Mr. West, I'd like to introduce you to the most brilliant medical student in this room…” She looked away.

“Stop it, dad,” Meg smiled her brightest smile to hide her discomfort, as usual. West smiled back, in contempt.

“Oh, does she have a name?”

“I'm Megan. Halsey.” She didn't bother stretching her hand, she didn't wanna touch him.

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Halsey.” I don't think so.

“West just came from Switzerland. He was doing independent research for Dr. Gruber, before he died.” Meg knew the story, heard it through the grapevine, but no one knew any details.

Gruber was a brilliant doctor, though. She had read his most recent paper on brain death, and all the other ones he wrote a lot in New York. A page turner, Gruber—by medical paper standards, at least.

“So, you studied death?” She asked. His ears perked up again.

“Yes, I have.” Well dressed, prim and curt. Fun. I'll love having him in class.

“Alan,” a third voice filled the place, coming from the adjacent room, the one where he no doubt had been procuring a corpse from. Meg involuntarily twisted her nose and pretended she had an itch. She stopped on his feet. “Nice to see you down here, Ms. Halsey.”

“Well I'm glad, cause here I am, every Tuesday.” Next time tell him when you go out to do your laundry.

“Definitely more than your father comes down here. We haven't been seeing him in a while.”

“I was just showing our newest student, Herbert West here, the not-so-grand-tour.” He always made that joke when he brought people down. Meg saw him do it at least twice and heard about it four other ones. “This should interest you, Carl. He worked with Hans Gruber.” While her dad introduced Hill, and all of his prowess to get research grants somehow, probably with that freaky pen he carried, Meg was thinking briefly about how was Herbert West working for Gruber, fully, even as a student.

“I know your work Dr. Hill. Quite well.” Meg raised her head. “Your theory on the location of the will in the brain is… Interesting, though derivative of Dr. Gruber's research in the early 70s.”

She knew that. She needed a dictionary to read his most obscure work, but German and English were similar enough, she got by.

“So derivative, in fact, that in Europe it's considered plagiarized. And your support of the 12 minute limit on the life of the brain stem after death…”

“...Six to twelve minutes, Mr…?”

Meg wanted to leave.

“West. Herbert West. Frankly, Dr… Hill? Your work on brain death is outdated.”

“Carl,” her dad interrupted and Meg looked away from the scene. Frankly, Hill gave her the creeps, sort of, and seeing him that angry was unpleasant. Suck it up, ok? You know him since you were at least twelve, it's fine.

You were always soft.

“...Megan and I would love it if you came to dinner.” Wait what?

“What?” She repeated out loud. Herbert turned his bright hazel, poisonous eyes towards her. She straightened her back. “I'm sorry, dinner? When?

“Thursday,” West answered for the others. He put his hands on his hips. “Maybe pushing bodies around really isn't for someone as small as you, Ms. Halsey.”

“I'm fine.”

“You might kill yourself.”

“Dad, dinner, Thursday? I'm not sure I can make it.”

What else are you gonna do? Your friends don't talk to you anymore since you left for New York to hang out with feminists, artists, and bohemians, leaving them here with babies and husbands.

“Well, I'm sure you'll make an exception,” Hill said, looking straight at her. “A lovely, amazing student such as yourself should take some time off every now and then. Celebrate.” She hated when he looked straight at her. She could feel her dad and West observing in the sidelines.

“Sure,” Meg found herself saying, hands tight against the steel of the gurney, knuckles turning white. “I'll cook.”

You'll what?!

“Fantastic,” Hill finished, looking at Herbert next. “I'll see you in class, mr. West. Ms. Halsey.” He nodded his head and she smiled, closing her eyes.

Both Hill and her father left in what seemed to be a dream sequence, no doubt discussing the grant, and the autopsy room was silent once again.

Her head was throbbing. The walls and floors were gray, there was a corpse rotting in their midst, Meg took a deep breath—chemical and invigorating somehow.

“I take it you don't like Dr. Hill either.” She looked at West, whose eyes still shone. He approached her, footsteps echoing out. “How did you know I was studying death?”

“I'm a doctor, Mr. West. I read,” she released the gurney, feeling tired for the meal she'd have to cook, on top of studying. There was a beat before she could stop herself from asking “What happened between you and dr. Gruber?”

“What do you mean?” A slight twitch, a small movement of the lips. “Dr. Gruber had a lab accident that I was unfortunately too late to prevent.”

“I heard he was in his office when he died.” Another twitch.

“I'm sure you heard it wrong, with all due respect ms. Halsey.”

Chemical smells, corpses rotting, the smell of something burning—Hill's pen no doubt left crisp black flesh behind, and he did it on enough people in the morgue proper that it got to where she was. She looked at West for almost long enough she'd probably have his exact face and pose at that moment committed to memory, forever.

He looked at her, waiting for something to happen.

Her hands hurt from grasping the gurney for so long.

“I'm not doing so great, sweetie…” She had said. Two men talking behind her. Her dad and Hill were gone. West was there.

“I'm sorry I asked,” Meg finally gathered, headache suddenly subsiding, like it never was. “Sorry for your loss, he must have been a wonderful mentor.” West bowed slightly and Meg did the same before turning around and going through the doors.

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