Who: Hansel hans & Gretel gretel What: Hansel and Gretel family reunion. When: Saturday, April 4, morning Where: Gretel's room, 113C in Hope Springs Apartments Rating: Audience Discretion is Advised Warnings: Inappropriate conversation, rude commentary, foul language, witch hunters reuniting, possibly plotting to murder others, and that's only the things I can think of in thirty seconds. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
"Stupid fucking piece of shit. Fuck you, you think I want to ask you anything. I don't want anything from you. Fucking trash. Fuck. Fuck!"
Hansel didn't bother to knock before he opened the door to Gretel's room. He snatched her into a tight embrace as he buried his face in her neck still mumbling curses. There was nothing they couldn't do together. This place couldn't break them. If he thought that way? It would work. Their magic, the kind they had made together since they were kids tossed out into the forest alone, would continue to work to keep them safe and everything would be well. He was sure of it.
"Thank fuck you're here."
He didn't know what he'd do if Gretel weren't around. She was smarter. She was the brash one which meant he tended to have to clean up the blood after her, but she was still smarter. Hansel had his drawbacks. He was weaker in too many ways to count. It was easy for him to get attached to a place, to a person, yet Gretel could hold herself back so only he mattered.
They had been able to keep on keeping on because of Gretel. She was the one who made it possible for Hansel to carry all he owned on his back yet still keep a smile on his face. Life seemed easier when he was using Gretel's outlook on things. She needed so little. He would be a selfish prat to want more than what Gretel had ever asked for in her life. Everything was easier, better, simpler with Gretel around.
"I have no fucking clue what is going on. I figured out the thing which makes the place light up or turns off the lights. There's water which comes out at all temperatures based on knobs. They've got these fancy overhead spigots got to be for bathing. Never seen anything like them. This things talks constantly if I push on it. I gotta be careful not to hit it in a way it don't like or it's yammering away like a drunk tavern whore. You figured anything out here? Is it just us? No one else with us?"
He didn't mean only the troll or the kid either. Hansel meant the witch they'd been hunting, too. She was a real fucking piece of work. They didn't need her around to cause trouble. Hansel wasn't even certain his guns were still in working order. All he knew was he wasn't thinking clearly enough to fight anyone much less a desert witch with five shades of evil striped throughout her hide.
It took some effort, but Hansel let Gretel go. He stepped back. He let her breathe on her own. For all they knew? Someone was watching them. People had thought things about them since they'd been little. It wouldn't do for this place to get any kind of evidence whether the things they were thinking were right or wrong. What they did when they were alone was their business...no one else's.
"You're okay. Right?"
~*~
Relief had washed over Gretel the moment she’d seen Hansel’s post on the network. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone but Hansel, but she’d been concerned that she hadn’t heard anything from him. However, now that she’d heard from him, Gretel felt tremendously better.
She didn’t protest as he wrapped his arms tightly around her, and instantly she returned the hug. Her hand went to the back of his head, fingers curling tight into his hair as she held Hansel. “I know.” She murmured, fighting back the tears of happiness that welled up in her eyes.
Only one person had ever seen her cry, but damn if it didn’t make her feel weak all the same.
Closing her eyes, Gretel listened to his ramblings, and then took in his questions. Her grip loosened as he finally released her, and her hands dropped down to her sides. “I’m fucking better now knowing you’re here.” She responded, clearing her throat as she took a step back herself.
Raising her arms she folded them over her chest, and nodded. “I’ve figured out a few things. The device is called a cell phone, whatever that means, and it set alarms as reminders for you to take your medication.” A smirk lifted up one corner of her lips, and she turned to look at him. Gretel didn’t have to be told that he was asking about the witch, honestly she didn’t think he cared too much for Ben or Edward even if the latter was handy to have around, and Ben was good at talking to people for them if the need arose for it. He would be a fine witch hunter one day, but he was young, infatuated and inexperienced.
“So far it’s just us. I haven’t seen anyone else anyway.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, then let out a long breath. “No one knows about anything else apparently. I have no fucking idea what half of this shit is, but I figure if I break it? Someone will know how to fucking fix it.” There were people here that spoke words that Gretel didn’t understand, nor did she care to know what they meant. All she wanted to know was how to get the fuck out of this place.
No one seemed to have any answers for that either, and Gretel shared that with her brother. “No one knows how to get home either. I don’t even know what fucking year it is, and at this point? I’m too fucking afraid to ask because some of these people? They look dangerous.” Gretel couldn’t explain it. There were some people she’d seen in passing that didn’t look right. She could feel it in her gut that something was terribly off with them, but she didn’t know what that was exactly.
“What I do know is that there is a boundary to this place.” She was sure that some people within the walls of Test City already knew what she was about to say, so she hadn’t mentioned anything on the network. If people were too stupid to figure it out for themselves? Well that was their fucking loss. “I took a walk yesterday. I hit the edge of town and kept walking. About six miles out there’s -- something. It’s not a wall, you can’t see it, but you can feel it. I didn’t dare go fucking closer to it because fuck that. I do like living.” Snorting softly Gretel shook her head, causing her braid to fall over one shoulder.
Her gaze narrowed a degree, “Someone wants to keep us trapped here like a fucking rats in a cage. The question is why? What do they gain from something like this other than entertainment?” She turned her head to look over at Hansel, “It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
~*~
Their parents had sent them away for their own good. Hansel and Gretel both knew that now as adults, but they'd only learned in the last few months. Mere weeks had passed where they'd known for certain they had been wanted, loved by their parents. They'd spent the rest of their lives since being abandoned in the woods with only each other to lean on, only each other to care, only each other for anything. Hansel had no need for Gretel to tell him she'd missed him or to hear her say the words to know she loved him. Her eyes shone in a way he was glad hadn't led to full tears.
He couldn't stomach her crying.
It took all he had to stop himself from reaching out to brush her braid back off her shoulder again. Gretel hated it being in the way, but she wouldn't cut it. Hansel had stopped her from cutting it when they were young. He'd begged. Please don't cut your hair, Gretel. It's so pretty. I'll brush it out for you. Every night. Promise. It had been enough to get Gretel to relent on the matter and Hansel had taken a shine to doing what he could to it for her so she could act as if it weren't even there.
These days? Hansel was fairly certain Gretel did what she pleased with herself with no thought to him. She hadn't thought about him when she'd gone traipsing around this place alone, had she? She hadn't sent out a question on the cell phone she knew so much about to ask if he was there, right? Hansel wasn't the smartest man either of them had ever met, but he read just fine. He knew he'd have noticed if Gretel had put out a feeler for him.
"Why didn't you ask for me? On that---cell phone? I'd have found you sooner. No one here's said much to me other than the redhead in my room. She's set to be married to some other man, yet don't seem to care at all she's in my room with me. She dresses worse than any woman I ever seen, too. All she and her man know is they've got people here. They say they were taken to some other place like this one before. Fucked with 'em a lot. She thinks this place might want to do that to us. Mess with us. See what we can live through. No one can find anyone pulling the strings on this little puppet show. We're here. That's all anyone knows."
Hansel thought it was plenty to go on himself. They were there. It was obviously due to something magical. Most likely there was a witch involved. If they could find her? They could take her out and get the Hell home.
"I'm thinking magic is the only explanation makes any sense. If there's magic, gotta mean there's something using it. Most likely a witch. That might be why the pair of us are here. To find the witch and take her out so everyone can go home. They might be seeing how long it takes us to do that. I can't figure anything else this place could want from us. We're not made for much else, are we?"
~*~
Rolling her eyes, Gretel made an annoyed sound. “It took me days to figure it out, and don’t you dare fucking think for one second I didn’t look for you. I didn’t go banging on goddamn doors since I don’t know what the fuck is here. Some of these people aren’t normal, and I didn’t feel like getting myself killed.” She’d hit up what spots she could, thinking that maybe Hansel would be in one of those places. More often than not she came back to her assigned place, crying and trying to figure out the next step.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder.” She had made the post asking for help, and then she could’ve said something but she hadn’t. Gretel didn’t know why she hadn’t either, but it was there, she was at fault and it was what it was.
Turning, Gretel folded her arms over her chest, and put distance between herself and her brother. She paced the small area back behind the couch, brows furrowed low over her eyes. “This place will likely exploit lots of our strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know if it’s a witch or not, but that could very well be the reason why we’re here. Either that, or they want to test how adaptable we are to any given situation.” They were highly adaptable, even if it was taking them both some time to get used to this new technology.
“I guess we’ll see what happens since we’re not fucking going anywhere.”
~*~
"No. We ain't."
Hansel had tested all the methods he knew to get out of Test City. The boundary wall was nothing to laugh at. It was a magic of a kind he wasn't sure was magic. There was the possibility everything here was done using "science" which was what they all called their technothings. He had about as much patience for it as an ogre had for waiting on dinner. Literally about that much, Hansel and Gretel had learned the hard way how much patience ogres had when it came to waiting on their meals.
There really were a lot of drawbacks to their lives, weren't there?
He'd gone over a few simple things with the redhead in his room. She was pretty, peaceable, not a witch; all of that added up to her amounting to be a good person by Hansel's standards. Her man was fucking insane. Hansel wanted to punch him more than he wanted to see him again, but he understood some things couldn't be helped. None of them were certain if they could stay outside of their assigned rooms. It didn't seem to have an adverse affect on that wild man who lived in the woods around the park.
Stretching his back out, Hansel sighed in relief as it popped, "I tell you. Beds here feel unnatural soft and floors are unnatural hard. Neither works to make my back comfortable. There's some folk running wild who've taken to living in the park. Crazy like. Fuck if I know if they're dangerous. I do know they haven't seemed to get zapped for living outside their spaces. You want I should stay with you tonight? We do better together than apart."
Some had said things not worth repeating about how much time Hansel spent with his sister. Many of them had wound up without tongues. A few had gone far enough to get themselves a shot between the eyes given neither of them had much patience either. He wasn't worried over what could be said in this place. Too many others who were much stranger than the pair of them to worry about what someone would say over him spending a night with his sister.
People here seemed not to know how lucky they were in too many ways to count. They had families with so many folk in them they couldn't recall all the names. He couldn't imagine that. All he'd ever had was a mother, a father, and Gretel. Most of his life he'd only had Gretel. Hansel sometimes forgot his father's name. His mother's was easier to remember. He'd no idea why. It had nothing to do with her status as a Grand White Witch and everything to do with her being his mother.
"I won't mind if you'd prefer the privacy. I know we get precious little of it."
~*~
“No, I’d rather have you here.” Gretel had spent the last few nights tossing and turning, barely sleeping because she’d been worried. The only good thing to happen to her since arriving in this Godforsaken place was meeting Thirteen.
She had admittedly thought about the woman often, part of her thinking that maybe she should’ve taken her up on her offer to swim. There was nothing she could do to correct that now, she’d been too distracted, it probably was for the best that she’d declined that offer.
“Bed is big enough for the two of us, and I promise not to smother you in your sleep, or snore so loudly it keeps you up all night.” It wasn’t as if they hadn’t slept in the same bed before, they’d huddled together for warmth too many cold winter nights to count. They had no one in this world to depend on except each other, and Gretel feared the day would come when they would go their separate ways.
It was one of the many reasons why she hadn’t sought out how to use her powers as the Grand White Witch. Regardless of what powers she may or may not have held, Gretel wasn’t willing to go down a path that her brother couldn’t follow her on. Even if they met people, married and had families of their own, they would still be involved in each others lives.
Things would just be different between the two of them, and that was perfectly acceptable.
Gretel would tell him about the woman in the morning after breakfast, for now, it was time to sleep. The rest of it could come in the morning.