carrie bouchard just wants to have fun (divinenectar) wrote in monte_logs, @ 2012-06-18 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | [event], galahad, hebe, ~complete |
log ; hebe and galahad
Characters: Carrie Bouchard (divinenectar) & Chris Poe (unechevalier)
Date/Time: Sunday, June 17th after this.
Location: A toy store downtown.
Rating: PG.
Warnings: Other than Chris being a bad ass, no.
Summary: Carrie is a damsel in distress and Chris gets his knight on rescuing her. Everyone go awwww now.
On the day the darkness began, Carrie had promised her boss at the dress shop the she would be there extra early to count bolts of fabric and other inventory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to her as she trotted to the store in the early morning hours. Her boss even left the door unlocked and had coffee waiting on the counter, plus a box of lemon poppyseed cookies complete with an organic seal of approval. Yes, everything seemed completely normal that day. Or at least it was until the sun didn’t rise. Her boss never did show up at work and calls to her phone went unanswered. Then there were the strange shadows outside. With everything together, Carrie decided it was best to hide out in the back room for awhile and wait for everything to pass. She had expected it to last a few hours, perhaps even a day but the darkness never seemed to end. Eventually, the food ran out and the young woman knew she had to leave the store despite the strange things out and about the town. After throwing her purse over her shoulder like a messenger bag, she packed it with a few pairs of scissors that looked like they could do serious damage and set out into the darkness. Carrie had no idea how long she ran, but eventually her five hundred dollar pair of heels took their toll on her feet. Fabric shears in hand, she snuck into the closest store she could find and made her way to a storage closet where she texted Chris. He would know what to do because he was once a knight and knights saved people, especially pretty ladies in trouble. And as she clutched her sharp scissors, she was really in trouble. ~ Meanwhile, Chris maintained a white-knuckled grip on the handle of Professor Wesley Furnell’s car door while they sped through the seemingly empty streets of College Town. Christopher could not recall a single time when he had seen the streets this empty – usually littered with gangs of carousing undergraduates, locals, and tourists during the skiing season – but there it was, as if the entire population had simply vanished along with the sun. Professor Furnell drove safely, as promised, but Chris’s inability to really see – and the hostile shadows he knew were hiding in the umbra – made him stressed. And the more he thought about Carrie hiding alone, the more he wished that Professor Furnell would just gas the engine and drive there as fast as he could. Nothing like this had ever happened: Montenegro University was an unusual university, but the magic gathered in one place didn’t usually manifest itself in such a terrifying way. This was crafted of nightmares. This was like falling asleep and waking up to find out that you were still trapped in your sleepy body and could not move, no matter how much you willed it to happen. Chris was scared – he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he was terrified – but he also knew that he had to do something, and that was... well, he needed to go and take care of Carrie, because the idea of Carrie being alone and scared was not something that made him happy. In fact, it sort of made him mad – enough so that he sent a particularly whiplike glare at a shadow that got too close to the car, and it actually pulled away, as if shocked by the sheer force of his gaze. When Professor Furnell parked the car, Chris only managed to thank him abruptly before he ran over to the store. He tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. Swallowing hard in an attempt to steel his nerves, he stepped into the darkness, letting it swallow him whole; his cellphone provided a tiny light, but his eyes had long-adjusted to the absence of light. Looking around was almost as if the lights were on, his senses sharpened by deprivation. “Carrie?” he called out, his voice echoing in the empty expanse of the store. He tried again, louder: “Carrie, it’s Chris, where are you? I’m here, I – I came to find you.” He could feel the shadows beginning to press in, but he ignored them, trying to focus on finding Carrie. Where was she? ~ In the few days she spent alone, Carrie had plenty of time to ponder how this had happened. She tried her best to reach in the the depths of her mind and pick out any individual from her pantheon that might be capable of something such as this. There were members of the Oneiroi, though she was fairly sure this wasn’t some dream state. Perhaps one of the children of Eris. Or Nyx. A chthonic deity maybe? Carrie didn’t know much about non-Olympians and their cohorts, but the Greeks certainly had a high probability of being in the equation somehow. She didn’t want to think about these things while sitting in the store closet, mainly since she was worried about Chris. What if he couldn’t find her? What if he got hurt along the way. What if, oh gods, one of those creatures found him before he was able to find her. As those thoughts ran through her mind, Carrie actually started to tear up at the hypothetical situations. She did her best to fight making any noise, but every few moments a tearful squeak managed to escape. Though her mind was preoccupied, Carrie did eventually hear some shuffling in the front of the store. Her breath caught in her throat at the unknown presence. She was sure there was already one creature in the store, but now there was potentially another. As she gripped the handle of the scissors, the palms of her hands turned red from the pressure as she readied herself for an attack. And then she heard Chris’ voice. Forgetting all about any potential creatures in the store, she shouted as loud as she could from the safety of the closet. “Chris!” Her voice almost had a laughing quality to it. “You’re here!” ~ “I am! Keep talking, Carrie!” Chris moved towards the sound of the voice, but it was difficult when huge cabinets of toys were looming down on him – creepy enough, without having to think about those malevolent little creatures sneaking about the shadows. Even from the darkness, he could see the slimy sheen of their skin – they almost looked like walking oil spills – and their luminescent, beady eyes. His fists tightened automatically: nerd or not, Chris spent most of his time working out, and though he was pale as get-all, boxing had made him a powerhouse despite appearances, practically all coiled and tight muscle. The moment one got too close to him, his fist sprang and there was a sick crunch as its face caved in. Strong as ten men, Sir Galahad was, and it showed. He pulled his hand back, horrified, but there was nothing on it: no blood, no guts, not even bits of skin, just the soft throb of his hand having met hard bone and flesh, but there was... nothing there. Even the shadow creature itself had melted away, Chris found out, kicking his foot in the area to test. Emboldened by his small victory, he trudged on. ~ It was amazing how creepy toys could be in the right lighting and situation. When it was light outside, Carrie had passed this store a few times and paused to look in the windows. These toys were not like anything one say in the major toy stores, which she always thought was nice. What wasn’t nice was how the lack of light made the quaint little doll houses looked sinister given the current situation. Carrie certainly wasn’t going to be stopping at this store anytime soon. As she was trying to figure out something to say to Chris to help him find her, she heard the sickening crunch. And the nothing. Despite her aching feet, she stood as quickly as she could, opened the door a crack, and peered out into the darkness. “Chris?” she whispered in a voice that wouldn’t be audible to anyone but her. Naturally, there was no answer. “Chris?” she asked again in louder whisper as she pushed open the door and stepped out into the store. Instead of an answer, there was a shuffling noise behind her. Carrie turned around hoping that it was Chris, but instead found herself face to face with one of the creatures. Startled, she screamed at the top of her lungs and dropped her fabric shears. ~ It was the scream that got him. Almost immediately, instinctively, Chris turned on his heel – he’d been going the wrong direction after all – and ran as fast as he could. He bumped into numerous doll houses, a few stuffed animals, leaving them bounding into the aisle behind him, a crash as Miss Polly’s house came tumbling off the counter and onto the ground, but the only thing Chris could hear was the scream and the blood pumping in his ears. He didn’t know where he was going or how fast, only that he needed to find the person screaming immediately, and that if he didn’t, he would never forgive himself. He didn’t know how menacing these creatures were – none had actually attacked him, only stalked from the darkness – but he wasn’t going to let Carrie be the experimental factor for him to find out. He saw her first there, shears at her feet. He wanted to comfort her, but there wasn’t time. Perhaps a bit more roughly than intended, he grabbed Carrie from behind and moved her behind him, placing himself in the face of the creature. Put your dukes up, he thought, and almost immediately he fell into the proper boxing stance, fists neatly curled under his chin and defensively caging his chest. It only took a moment but then Chris practically lay the creature away, fist upon fist upon fist just pummeling it back until it slumped against the ground, and even then, Chris kicked it away, chest heaving. He turned to Carrie and was immediately at her side, hands on her small shoulders. “Are you okay? Did it touch you? How long have you been here?” His voice, usually so hesitant, came out assured now. He had to be strong for her, he had to help her calm down if she was scared. ~ The creature seemed almost delighted by her scream, or at least as delighted as a faceless shadow creature could possibly be in this situation. Stepping forward, it leaned toward her and if it a had a discernible face, Carrie would have sworn it was leering at her. She knew she should probably quickly bend down, pick up her scissors, and just stab the thing. After all, it was a basic self defense move, but at the moment she was literally frozen in fear at the sight of the creature. Carrie was so frozen in fear that it didn’t dawn on her at first that Chris was there. As he jerked her back, she wobbled on her heels and had to catch herself by leaning against the nearby wall. She regained her footing just in time to see Chris quickly beat the shit out of the creature. So shocked by the display, she could only stare for the first few moments because that action wasn’t something she had expected to come out of the otherwise mild-mannered Chris. “I’m -- it didn’t touch me. I... “ Without hesitation, she launched her shaking body towards Chris, wrapping her tiny arms around his waist so she could hold onto him tightly. ~ Chris’s arms went around her small shoulders automatically. It was only then that he realized how fast his heart was beating – the adrenaline rush had done that to him – and his chest made exaggerated motions up and down as he tried to regain his breathing. An absentminded hand made its way to Carrie’s hair; no matter how small Chris himself felt, Carrie was smaller, and it felt nice to be able to protect someone else for once. He thought of Annika briefly – Annika with her honey-wheat hair, Annika with her laughing eyes – but no, now he had something better than Annika. Annika might have been his dream girl, but Carrie was better: Carrie was real and secure in his arms, and he had protected her – the first person he had ever really protected – and he was so relieved to find that she was okay and so glad that he had finally found her, that he almost didn’t know what to do. He placed his head on top of hers. “Hey. Hey, you’re okay.” It felt strange to say such comforting words to another person, when his own legs felt like jelly and should he look around, he could see more of the creatures gathering. He pulled away from Carrie, his hands drifting down to her shoulders from her hair, trying to brush it out of her face though he could only see the dim outline of it. “Let’s... go somewhere safe. There were a couple places they were saying that were safehouses on the school network. We’re going to have to walk, but,” and he squared his shoulders. “I’ll - I’ll.... I’ll protect you.” |