WHO: Marco. Open to Jo, if she wants to jump in.
WHAT: Marco’s fear.
WHEN: Evening.
WHERE: His and Jo’s apartment.
RATING: At least PG-13.
STATUS: In progress.

Marco had been taking a break from the network. He’d lost his job, and now that Cassie, Tobias, and Elfangor were here, he didn’t really feel right about writing his memoirs. Sure, he could switch off his emotions when he needed to, but this wasn’t an instance where he did. The right decision was pretty simple. Actually trying to publish these things would cause people he actually genuinely cared about and respected pain, and Marco wasn’t selfish enough to ignore that. He’d secretly trashed the halfway finished manuscript.

He’d had other reasons to take the break. Part of it, perhaps, was fear. He’d admitted to Cassie that he had sort of a thing for Kate. A real thing, rather than just the little trysts and casual flings he’d had with women in Hollywood. Admitting it had made it more real and Marco…maybe hadn’t reacted well. He’d pulled back, mostly because he didn’t want people to see that for once he had no clue what to do. It was more the fact that these things were like a very effective tag-team than anything. So he’d pulled back and decided to focus on the thing that he could completely control and understand: The job. He’d found one, the other day.

That, of course, meant he would soon have to face what he was avoiding. Not tonight, though. Tonight he was just going to relax in his room, reading Lord of the Rings. Ever since he’d started writing his memoirs himself, he’d found a genuine enjoyment for it, and looked at Lord of the Rings in a whole new light. Admittedly, he still felt Tolkien took way too long to describe a hill, but he found the whole thing a little more immersive and enjoyable now that he could see things from more of a writer’s perspective, rather than just from a closet geek’s perspective.

He’d been relaxing and reading on his bed, and of course, on his off day when he wanted nothing more than to stay awake for as long as he could, he’d fallen asleep. He was a comical sight, one leg hanging off the bed, his arms splayed out at his sides, the book sitting open on his face. He was having a nice, restful sleep when something startled him. He woke with a shudder, and the first thing that registered was that something felt very, very wrong. It was a sort of sixth sense you had to have as team strategist, and even though he hadn’t actively used it in years, it still functioned pretty well. Slowly removing the book from his face, he opened his eyes.

And immediately wished he hadn’t.

He was in a cage. A very familiar looking cage in a very familiar looking setting. A Kandrona Pool. I am in a Kandrona Pool. It looks like a Kandrona Pool, it smells like a Kandrona Pool, and it sounds like a Kandrona Pool. …Oh fuck. I’m in a fucking Kandrona Pool. He screwed his eyes shut, even put his fists in front of his eyes. This isn’t real. It’s not real. It is not real. I am in my room, I could not have been transported to a Kandrona Pool that doesn’t exist.

But why couldn’t he? He’d been transported to a city that by rights shouldn’t exist. What if whoever or whatever was doing it decided to mix things up by throwing him back, only into a time when the Yeerks were still around? Into the worst possible situation he could imagine? It wasn’t impossible. Okay. Okay, you’ve been in worse-

Any further planning was cut off as the cage was opened and he was swarmed by hands. Suddenly everything was happening way too fast. There was what felt like hundreds of hands shoving and pulling him along. Every time he tried to shake one, another seemed to pop out of the crowd to shove him along. He tried to morph, but found he couldn’t concentrate as uneasiness turned into worry and worry turned into outright fear. This intensified as he saw where he was heading: Straight towards a pool!

He wasn’t sure if he started screaming before he reached it, but he was screaming when he was shoved onto his knees and forced over the pool. For a guy like Marco, self-control was everything. Losing control of himself even as much as he already had been was terrifying. Losing control of himself to a Yeerk was maybe the worst hell he could ever experience. Not to mention the memories it brought up of his mother and Visser One. This was Marco’s own personal Hell, and he couldn’t even fight back. “NO NO NO NO NO! GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME! NO!” He fought against it, trying to keep his head above the pool, but there were just too many hands and too much chaos. His head went under-

-and suddenly he was smacking into the familiar floor of his bedroom, the copy of Lord of the Rings he’d been reading smacking into the floor just above his head. He shot up, looking around frantically. A second later he was rushing out of his room to explore the room. He wanted to be damn sure nothing had actually changed, and in his haste he wasn’t thinking about keeping his footfalls quiet.