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Entry tags:
'The Calling' - Cabin Fever - Alfred Bayer - 1200ish words
The Office: A CLIP SHOW?? REALLY, GUYS?? REALLY?? idk why I'm disappointed, I guess everyone has them eventually, but ugh. You come back from a long hiatus and this is what you give us? And 'Sabre' just made me wince instead of laugh, I don't even remember if I finished it. I don't know if I've changed or you've changed, Office, but I think we're on the rocks. I gotta say I saw it coming, but I never thought it would actually come to this.
Soupernatural: "I'M GOING TO HANG UP NOW." This is probably my favorite Castiel entrance, and he has had some epic ones. Thing that is GOLD: Castiel comforting Cupid, because the Winchesters are not touching that with a 40 ft pole. Castiel is basically a Vulcan with magical powers. NEW OT3: Castiel/gloomy apocalyptic warnings/Whitecastle burgers. CANNOT BE UNSEEN: can't think of "match made in heaven" without being way creeped out now. HEY, COOL: did you see how Dean punched Cupid only when Cupid started singing "Cheek to Cheek", which was ALSO what Alistair was singing in 4x16 when Dean was about to torture him? Writers, kudos for continuity!
Being Human: Man, if you thought SPN had mood whiplash, check this BAMF shit out. The opening scene with the execution and the glib priest? Mitchell and George freaking about the Real Hustle? I love when shit is hilarious and tragic at the same time, I LOVE IT. What else. Everyone is still adorable, congratulations to Annie on being master of the doors, and to Mitchell for becoming a magnificent bastard. And woah, holy full-frontal corpse, Batman!
Anyway, I wrote fic for Betsy's fake show. I told her it was going to be Alfred Bayer/Liam Collins, but it turned out to be just Alfred Bayer gen. Also it's in the past tense, which I haven't written in a while.
The Calling
Cabin Fever. Alfred Bayer, Liam Collins, James Andrews, Lethe. Rated PG.
"The first time Lt. Collins pulled James Andrews in for questioning, Fred knew two things."
The first time Lt. Collins pulled James Andrews in for questioning, Fred knew two things.
One. They would not be able to hold Andrews for long. They barely had enough evidence to hold him at all, and Fred knew this because he checked the records twice. He also checked the vidcom history, the security cameras, the commlink logs, the witnesses' testimonials, even dipped into the rumor mill that bubbled around the mess hall, and they all attested to the same thing: James Andrews was nowhere near the riots on C Deck last Thursday. Neither did he send any sort of communication that might have caused the masses to riot, at least none under his name, none that weren't encoded, none that weren't passed on through untraceable means or whatever other excuse Collins had come up with to be angry at this man.
Collins had been angry at Andrews for years.
When the guards brought Andrews to the security bay, his hands were bound and he looked tired, but unsurprised. Collins was waiting for him, his stance rigid and his back ramrod straight, looking for all the world like a private standing at attention were it not for the look of utter disdain on his face. It was the look of a man who had been humiliated one too many times.
"Nice of you to join us, Andrews," Collins snarled.
"Didn't give me a choice, did you?" Andrews replied.
"Oh, you always have a choice. You just always seem to make the wrong ones."
"I haven't done anything,” he insisted.
"Join me in the back room," Collins said lightly, then turned on his heels and headed for the interrogation chambers as the guards dragged Andrews behind him.
Fred watched all this sidelong from his desk where he pretended to be double-checking shift logistics. When he heard the clang of the interrogation chambers close, his heart grew cold, and he thought to himself, I'm going to have to work for this man someday.
The second thing that Fred knew was this: this would not be James Andrews's last time in the interrogation chambers.
Like Lt. Collins, Fred was also sure that Andrews was behind the riots, and the disappearance of some military documents from the captain's office, not to mention a few of the inconsistencies in the security network that Fred had carefully dismissed. Andrews was a clever man, and charismatic, and his influence in the lower decks was considerable. He had the loyalty of many, the passion of a revolutionary, and the stubbornness of a mule.
Collins knew this, and Fred knew this. The difference was that Fred wished Andrews luck.
+
"What do you think, Bayer," Collins asked the next day, "of these stories about a ghost in the ship?"
Fred blinked. Having just finished briefing the lieutenant on updated training procedures, a question about ghosts was not the reaction he had been expecting. "A... ghost, sir?"
But of course Fred knew what Collins was talking about. Everyone did: the dark-haired woman who moved between the shadows of the ship, whispering clues and instructions, vanishing as soon as you looked away. He heard she'd appear in people's dreams sometimes, but he wouldn't know. She'd never appeared in his dreams. In fact, she had never appeared in his life, and Fred never failed to be bemused when hearing other people's insistence on her existence.
"Yes, the ghost. Do you believe she exists?" Collins leaned back in his chair, looking at Fred impassively.
"I believe that people sometimes see something, if not a ghost."
"This 'something'," Collins went on. "Do you think it would be capable of carrying messages and instructions for other people?"
Fred frowned. "Do you mean... Do you mean could the ghost carry messages for James Andrews?"
"I didn't say that."
"Did Andrews say that?"
Collins tilted his head to the side, as if amused. "You don't have the clearance to know, Bayer."
Fred bowed his head. "My apologies."
"No, no -- my apologies for wasting your time with bedtime stories, am I right?" Collins smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Don't let me keep you from your duties. Dismissed."
Fred saluted, walked away, and resisted the urge to look back.
+
Fred saw Andrews in the mess hall later. He was just leaving as Andrews was walking in, and they exchanged a polite hello before going their separate ways. Fred thought, What if I turn around right now, sit with James Andrews? What if I do that and ask him how I can help?
Fred didn't do any of this, but the hypothetical niggled more often than he'd care to admit. Then of course his father's face would appear in his mind, and Fred would remember what it was like to be on the receiving end of his father's disapproval. His father, who was a good soldier, unquestioning and stout-hearted. From him, Fred learned that family and loyalty were inextricable, and he couldn't define one without the other. Know where your loyalties lie, the older Bayer had said to him, had programmed into him. In many ways, Fred was his father's son, but in some others...
This particular section of the Rapture was almost deserted, what with everyone trickling off to dinner. The lights flickered, and Fred made a note to talk to facilities about that. Can't have people walking around in the dark. The flickering lights casted fleeting though deeper shadows. It was almost eerie, if Fred was the kind of person who thought darkened corridors were eerie.
He was the only one in the hallway, but he turned a corner, and he suddenly wasn't.
"Alfred," said the woman.
He froze.
"Alfred," she said again, and her eyes crackled with an otherworldly light. Her hair unfurled with a wind he couldn't feel, and that was when he couldn't deny it anymore. Not a passenger, not a crewman, not a guard – this was the ghost.
This was the ghost of the ship.
Fred stepped back and suddenly she stood a few feet from him. He jumped, crashing back against the wall. "Jesus fuck," he wheezed.
"Alfred, you will have a part to play," the ghost promised, and her voice reverberated across his skin, making him feel cold and small. "Your time will come, but you must wait."
"W-what part?" Fred managed. "What role? Who are you?"
The ghost might have smiled, unless it was just a trick of the light. "My name is Lethe."
She vanished.
Fred whirled around. Looked down the hallway, up the hallway: nothing. He was alone again. Nothing to indicate that a ghost had passed through except for his shaking hands and the jackhammering of his heart.
"I'm working too hard," he muttered to himself, and knew it was a lie. He knew what he saw. Fred let the name settle into his mind as he waited for his heart to slow and his breathing to normalize. Lethe. Lethe, who knew his name and thrummed with so much life for being a ghost.
He continued on his way, and wondered what his part would be.
He wondered how long he would have to wait.
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oh, Fred. and James! in the moments we see him, he's perfect. and LIAM. oh man. also, Lethe, who is fascinating and wonderful and a trick of the light (except not). and oh, Fred. this is so wonderful and he's so perfect with his small helps and the inconsistencies he doesn't report and how he wonders what would happen if he sat down across from Andrews but he doesn't. (parental issues is totally Cabin Fever's theme.) and ghost in the machine! ahskglhd
<33333333333 you are so so awesome, Lass. this is fabulous. I'm going to spend half the day revising my Cassie/Will now. :P
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True story: I had typed this up with 'Alfred' instead of 'Fred' but then I saw in your thing that Fred was his nickname and I was like OH MAN FIX QUICKLY! Freddyyyyyy. I bet someone totally nicknames him Freddy, right? XD
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hee! yeah, he totally gets called Freddy, mostly by the older ladies. and occasionally the older men call him Alfred. predominantly though, he's Fred. when he was just starting in Security, he tried to introduce himself as Alfred and be referred to as Alfred, because he thought it sounded more adult. it failed miserably, and he gave it up as a lost cause before he turned nineteen. as it turns out, he likes Fred better now. when people say Alfred, he doesn't even turn around.
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Collins was waiting for him, his stance rigid and his back ramrod straight, looking for all the world like a private standing at attention were it not for the look of utter disdain on his face. It was the look of a man who had been humiliated one too many times.
"Nice of you to join us, Andrews," Collins snarled.
"Didn't give me a choice, did you?" Andrews replied.
"Oh, you always have a choice. You just always seem to make the wrong ones."
FABULOUS. :D
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