The Ghost of Muir Island | Memory
Oct. 31st, 2024 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWhile visiting Muir Island, Haller encounters an unknown entity.
TW: blood and gore, child neglect, child abuse, reanimation of a corpse
The body struggled up the hill towards the house. Unused to walking on two legs and wholly unaccustomed to the cold slippery dew and the sharp twigs and stones under his feet. But the hunger within, the quest for revenge, the urge to feed burned brighter than any superficial pain.
The warm yellow glow of the windows was like a beacon, wide eyes had only seen the outside of the house once before. She was in there, and the primal and instinctual urge to snuff out that light and to feel the warmth leave her body had been a constant ever since.
Repeatedly the body fell, feeling returning to its limbs and extremities, the bare pale skin smeared with its own blood and the black rich earth. Its eyes a piercing blue as it finally clawed its way to a standing position at the door. Watching. Waiting. Waiting for the invitation to enter and feed. There was a feast waiting inside, the biggest meal it had ever felt- perfect for a creature fresh from death.
Cold, shaking hands clawed up the door as the figure forced itself to stand, warm breath frosting the glass, leaving just the too wide eyes and a brow smudged black and crimson visible to the building's inhabitants.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
At this time of night the only sounds in Moira's residence were the antique clock in the hall and the gentle tap of fingers on a keyboard as Jim worked his way through a patient assessment. His mind was lightly on his nicotine craving, and how the satisfaction of this need would be his incentive for finishing the paperwork.
Click click . . . click click click.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Scratch. Scratch.
The telepath's hands paused over the keys. There were no trees near enough the house to scrape a window.
There was a squeak of flesh against glass behind him. Slowly, Jim turned around.
A death's head stared through the kitchen door.
Jim sprang to his feet, mind racing with the possibility of some accident or exacerbation of a patient's mutation. But no one had sounded the alert, and he hadn't gotten any texts, so what . . .
The hand against the window pane moved, leaving a smear of blood behind it.
Quickly, the telepath moved to the door. "Who are you?" he asked. Now that he was closer he could see the gauntness of the figure's face and the hollowness of eyes that seemed to roll like that of a wild animal. It was caked in dirt and mud, a stranger. Jim couldn't even tell if it was male or female.
Unbidden, instinctually, the figure’s eyebrows drew inward. Upset. Possibly even angry to see one who wasn’t her on the other side of the door. The mouth opened, but no sound came out. The tongue felt heavy in the mouth, awkward around the teeth.
A cough, uncovered, and dirt flew out, hitting the window as mud dribbled down the corner of the mouth. Frustration, then anger, washed over the figure and it tried again. This time sound croaked out, but it was unintelligible and followed by more coughing.
Boney fingers pressed against glass, a being used to passing through the corporeal now bound by the constraints of physicality. It wanted. Could see a meal, a feast- if only it could touch….
Every instinct told Jim to recoil from this emaciated thing gagging on blood and earth. Yet, perversely, it was for that very reason he did not. He had been an object of revulsion, once; by turns twisted and unresponsive and unpredictably violent. If no one had ever reached out to him, that was what he would still be.
The figure on the other side of the glass was naked, and the sea wind was bitterly cold.
Jim opened the door.
Without the solid door to support it, the body lurched forward, just far enough away from the man that there was no touch, but close enough to feel. To confirm that the man had been the feast he'd sensed. The man felt familiar...but why?
Regaining balance was difficult, especially after the body hit the floor. Blood and dirt smeared across pristine tile- but the first to rise to look at the man were the eyes. Too wide, feral eyes that made unrelenting eye contact with the meal before it. Almost daring the man to offer it a hand up.
There was no mistaking the stranger's hostility. Yet there was something about the way those blue eyes burned from beneath the mask of filth that had an almost mesmeric quality. Hate was a wall, but walls meant there was something to protect.
Something else, too. When he finally met those eyes Jim was flooded by a sense of deja vu so strong it almost swept the feet out from under him. Understanding tugged at the edge of comprehension like a half-remembered dream.
Slowly, Jim began to reach out his hand.
Footsteps creaked in the hall behind them. It was the lady of the house, Muir Island’s head researcher, and, for years, the closest thing to a mother David Haller had ever had: Dr. Moira MacTaggart. They had been quiet, but some shift in the atmosphere must have summoned her.
Automatically, Jim turned to look.
The body reacted instantly to Moira's arrival. Snarling, teeth bared, lunging forward trying to bite. Clawed hands slashing towards her, trying to grab, to rip, to tear. Like a being possessed, a figure undergoing exorcism, it lashed out. It hacked up more mud and dirt, trying to talk, to scream something at the new object of its hostility. It was trapped almost, in this single-minded, all encompassing hate, that must be personal- what else could something this strong have been borne of?
He didn't think. Jim lunged to intercept the skeletal figure before it could lay hands on Moira, but as his arms closed around the nearly fleshless torso he discovered that beneath the blood and filth was the mind of another psi, raw and screaming
don't know what love is
thoughts arcing between them like a current through a wire
don't touch me you little
memories that seared through the hatred until all that remained was
finish the job
pain.
a wish a were
loved
The figure spasmed in his arms, struggling against the man's hold, still trying to get his revenge, clawing against the arm holding him still. He didn't want to be contained. Let me go, let me go, let me go-
But at the same time he was holding onto the man for dear life, supporting his weight with the other man's body, feeling, searching, reaching- trying to feed. So hungry- why can't I eat you? Why can't I eat?
"Stop." Jim's arms closed around the younger man -- and that's what he was, he knew that now -- the pain from his undirected violence eclipsed by the sudden sting in his eyes. He held fast. "You're okay. It's okay."
It won't be okay until she's dead! She was supposed to be my mother! The man moved wildly trying to break out of his captor's grip. Let me go!
"No, listen! It's not her, that's not your mother!" A memory cut through him like razor wire around his neck. Half in painful spasm, half in desperation, Jim tightened his arms around the stranger's body and cried:
"Kevin!"
~Kevin!~
What did you say?
~Y-your name. I think. I think that's your name.~
The man, Kevin, choked, mud and dirt blocking his airway. His body shook, convulsing as his eyes leaked water. Crying, he hasn’t cried in so long. He hasn’t heard his name in so long.
He went limp.
Kevin fell, and Jim with him. They collapsed together, and for a moment all Jim could do was sit with the unconscious man half in his arms, too stunned to register Moira’s frantic questioning.
This man knew him, and more, Jim knew him. A connection, forged in another time and another place, had resonated between them from the start. Jim had sensed it, but he hadn’t understood. Not until they had touched.
They killed the body but he didn't die, came the thought, like a distant narrator. He wasn't dead, but his world didn't want him. He ran. Here. He came here. To himself. To his body. He put it back together even though it was in the ground. He had to . . . dig . . .
Now he was here. Rejected by one world, only to be reborn in another.
Kevin MacTaggert. Moira’s son.
TW: blood and gore, child neglect, child abuse, reanimation of a corpse
The body struggled up the hill towards the house. Unused to walking on two legs and wholly unaccustomed to the cold slippery dew and the sharp twigs and stones under his feet. But the hunger within, the quest for revenge, the urge to feed burned brighter than any superficial pain.
The warm yellow glow of the windows was like a beacon, wide eyes had only seen the outside of the house once before. She was in there, and the primal and instinctual urge to snuff out that light and to feel the warmth leave her body had been a constant ever since.
Repeatedly the body fell, feeling returning to its limbs and extremities, the bare pale skin smeared with its own blood and the black rich earth. Its eyes a piercing blue as it finally clawed its way to a standing position at the door. Watching. Waiting. Waiting for the invitation to enter and feed. There was a feast waiting inside, the biggest meal it had ever felt- perfect for a creature fresh from death.
Cold, shaking hands clawed up the door as the figure forced itself to stand, warm breath frosting the glass, leaving just the too wide eyes and a brow smudged black and crimson visible to the building's inhabitants.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
At this time of night the only sounds in Moira's residence were the antique clock in the hall and the gentle tap of fingers on a keyboard as Jim worked his way through a patient assessment. His mind was lightly on his nicotine craving, and how the satisfaction of this need would be his incentive for finishing the paperwork.
Click click . . . click click click.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Scratch. Scratch.
The telepath's hands paused over the keys. There were no trees near enough the house to scrape a window.
There was a squeak of flesh against glass behind him. Slowly, Jim turned around.
A death's head stared through the kitchen door.
Jim sprang to his feet, mind racing with the possibility of some accident or exacerbation of a patient's mutation. But no one had sounded the alert, and he hadn't gotten any texts, so what . . .
The hand against the window pane moved, leaving a smear of blood behind it.
Quickly, the telepath moved to the door. "Who are you?" he asked. Now that he was closer he could see the gauntness of the figure's face and the hollowness of eyes that seemed to roll like that of a wild animal. It was caked in dirt and mud, a stranger. Jim couldn't even tell if it was male or female.
Unbidden, instinctually, the figure’s eyebrows drew inward. Upset. Possibly even angry to see one who wasn’t her on the other side of the door. The mouth opened, but no sound came out. The tongue felt heavy in the mouth, awkward around the teeth.
A cough, uncovered, and dirt flew out, hitting the window as mud dribbled down the corner of the mouth. Frustration, then anger, washed over the figure and it tried again. This time sound croaked out, but it was unintelligible and followed by more coughing.
Boney fingers pressed against glass, a being used to passing through the corporeal now bound by the constraints of physicality. It wanted. Could see a meal, a feast- if only it could touch….
Every instinct told Jim to recoil from this emaciated thing gagging on blood and earth. Yet, perversely, it was for that very reason he did not. He had been an object of revulsion, once; by turns twisted and unresponsive and unpredictably violent. If no one had ever reached out to him, that was what he would still be.
The figure on the other side of the glass was naked, and the sea wind was bitterly cold.
Jim opened the door.
Without the solid door to support it, the body lurched forward, just far enough away from the man that there was no touch, but close enough to feel. To confirm that the man had been the feast he'd sensed. The man felt familiar...but why?
Regaining balance was difficult, especially after the body hit the floor. Blood and dirt smeared across pristine tile- but the first to rise to look at the man were the eyes. Too wide, feral eyes that made unrelenting eye contact with the meal before it. Almost daring the man to offer it a hand up.
There was no mistaking the stranger's hostility. Yet there was something about the way those blue eyes burned from beneath the mask of filth that had an almost mesmeric quality. Hate was a wall, but walls meant there was something to protect.
Something else, too. When he finally met those eyes Jim was flooded by a sense of deja vu so strong it almost swept the feet out from under him. Understanding tugged at the edge of comprehension like a half-remembered dream.
Slowly, Jim began to reach out his hand.
Footsteps creaked in the hall behind them. It was the lady of the house, Muir Island’s head researcher, and, for years, the closest thing to a mother David Haller had ever had: Dr. Moira MacTaggart. They had been quiet, but some shift in the atmosphere must have summoned her.
Automatically, Jim turned to look.
The body reacted instantly to Moira's arrival. Snarling, teeth bared, lunging forward trying to bite. Clawed hands slashing towards her, trying to grab, to rip, to tear. Like a being possessed, a figure undergoing exorcism, it lashed out. It hacked up more mud and dirt, trying to talk, to scream something at the new object of its hostility. It was trapped almost, in this single-minded, all encompassing hate, that must be personal- what else could something this strong have been borne of?
He didn't think. Jim lunged to intercept the skeletal figure before it could lay hands on Moira, but as his arms closed around the nearly fleshless torso he discovered that beneath the blood and filth was the mind of another psi, raw and screaming
don't know what love is
thoughts arcing between them like a current through a wire
don't touch me you little
memories that seared through the hatred until all that remained was
finish the job
pain.
a wish a were
loved
The figure spasmed in his arms, struggling against the man's hold, still trying to get his revenge, clawing against the arm holding him still. He didn't want to be contained. Let me go, let me go, let me go-
But at the same time he was holding onto the man for dear life, supporting his weight with the other man's body, feeling, searching, reaching- trying to feed. So hungry- why can't I eat you? Why can't I eat?
"Stop." Jim's arms closed around the younger man -- and that's what he was, he knew that now -- the pain from his undirected violence eclipsed by the sudden sting in his eyes. He held fast. "You're okay. It's okay."
It won't be okay until she's dead! She was supposed to be my mother! The man moved wildly trying to break out of his captor's grip. Let me go!
"No, listen! It's not her, that's not your mother!" A memory cut through him like razor wire around his neck. Half in painful spasm, half in desperation, Jim tightened his arms around the stranger's body and cried:
"Kevin!"
~Kevin!~
What did you say?
~Y-your name. I think. I think that's your name.~
The man, Kevin, choked, mud and dirt blocking his airway. His body shook, convulsing as his eyes leaked water. Crying, he hasn’t cried in so long. He hasn’t heard his name in so long.
He went limp.
Kevin fell, and Jim with him. They collapsed together, and for a moment all Jim could do was sit with the unconscious man half in his arms, too stunned to register Moira’s frantic questioning.
This man knew him, and more, Jim knew him. A connection, forged in another time and another place, had resonated between them from the start. Jim had sensed it, but he hadn’t understood. Not until they had touched.
They killed the body but he didn't die, came the thought, like a distant narrator. He wasn't dead, but his world didn't want him. He ran. Here. He came here. To himself. To his body. He put it back together even though it was in the ground. He had to . . . dig . . .
Now he was here. Rejected by one world, only to be reborn in another.
Kevin MacTaggert. Moira’s son.
