Reality Crisis

Summary: On the outskirts of New Troy, Annie finally makes contact.
Rating: Undetermined.
Status: Incomplete; to be continued via comments

The Wilds weren't kind after dark, and there was no way that Mitchell would have been able to sleep peacefully. He was bone-weary, but he took watch instead.

There was nothing, not even the sound of insects, to distract him from the steady thump-thump-thumpthump of Faith's slumbering heart. It was a torturous reminder of how long it had been since he had last fed. It hadn't been a feeding, either-- he'd gorged himself on blood until he was crazed with it. He could still taste it, feel it on his chin and sliding between his fingers. When he shut his eyes, he remembered the hedonistic sticky slither of Daisy's body as they fucked after, covered in blood. Mitchell squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back, wired with need and feeling guilty for it. It'd been a month, and even though he was out of the worst of his withdrawal, it was lancing through him like a pulse.

Mitchell sat with his back against a gnarled and unfamiliar tree. His knees were tucked up against his chest, and his coat was slung over his knees. The cigarette between his fingers shook, and he brought it up to his lips for a desperate drag.

The smoke puffed out of his mouth, forked like the tongue of a snake. Before it could wisp away, Mitchell inhaled it again. He flicked the ash away from his coat, careful to draw out each action. If they stretched, so did time. If he enough time stretched, he could make it through the night, and he wouldn't feed on Faith. If there was one more person in their group, he would have excused himself for a walk, but there was a bitter irony in the reality that Faith's life was entrusted to someone desperately trying not to take it. Mitchell was all she had right now, and decades ago, that might have been excuse enough to feed from her. It wasn't anymore.

Thoughts drifted to Annie, but those did nothing to ease his hurt. She'd counted on him too, and he'd let her down. Whatever freedom they had temporarily experienced, it'd been snatched away. If she was in this world, which Mitchell hoped she wasn't, he hoped she was far away-- tucked into home of someone with a never-ending supply of Pyramid tea bags, and a kind sense of humor. She didn't deserve to be wandering around alone, unable to interact with anyone she came across save for the monsters. That fate, to Mitchell, seemed like Annie's Hell.

The tip of the fag flared red-orange with his inhale, paper burning down too quickly.

George was still waiting somewhere. Nina would try and distract him, but the truth remained that he very likely had lost two mates. If this place was real, it was far away from George. Mitchell wasn't sure how to get back, and he wasn't about to try ( until he'd found Annie. )

Chicago had always been pretty bad, but it had gotten worse since Harry had died. A lot worse. All of them that were left formed their own camps. Most of them went with Murphy, but not Molly. They tried. All of them. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes all together in a group intervention thing. Nothing worked insofar as they were concerned. Molly continued doing what she had to under the tutalage of the Leanannsidhe. It put fear into the underbelly of Chicago.

Tonight she had to go into Undertown. Something kept creeping up exactly at 3:27pm. Not so coincidentally that was when a bus would unload school kids. Three days. Three kids missing. Something was getting too bold. The trap she set for it hadn't worked, but at least she had kept a fourth kid from going missing. She couldn't do this every day however so Lea's dumb idea maybe wasn't so dumb. Molly would hunt the thing on its own turf, beard the lion in its den so to speak.

The Ragged Lady looked at the crack in the wall of the building. Standing there in the dim light of the alley she didn't think it looked big enough for her to squeeze into. Lea assured her it was. Appearances were deceiving in this world. Molly should know. Undertown was worse than wretched hive of scum and villiany, but this had to be done. Quick in, get the job done then get the hell out before anything else got curious. Her hands fisted as a blast of cold air whirled around her many layers of skirts. Winter refused to release its hold of Chicago even now in April, but Molly ignored it as she crouched down to squeeze through the crack in the wall.

When she came out the other side it definitely wasn't Undertown. This looked more like something out of a Kubrick film mated with David Lynch's imagination and have a love child. Molly blinked as she looked around, remaining perfectly still, her senses cast wide open. This could be a trick, a mind fuck. If it was whoever was casting it would be in for a very large surprise. The mind was the Ragged Lady's playground only her senses told her this wasn't a spell. The screeching howls on all sides of her kind of backed that up.

"...shit." Those sounds seemed familiar. They echoed in her dreams every night. But it was impossible. The Red Court were dead. Harry got every last one of them. When the first of the lot emerged from the ruins around her she saw that these weren't Red Court vampires, but they were kissing cousins at least! Freakish mutations, twisted and horrible they were nothing she had ever seen or heard about before. For one wild moment she wished she had Bob, but after that there was no time for thought, just defense and strike, slash with knives and spell. Molly found herself in another Chichen Itza.

Summary: A Slayer, a Vampire, and a Demon fall through three different cracks in the world and wind up in the same wooded clearing... Mitchell's pretty sure there's a really funny joke in there somewhere. Maybe Faith can explain it to him later.

Rating: R. Already. Mitchell has an extensive vocabulary and he likes to use it. Presumably, so does Faith. Also, some gross imagery-- maybe?

( At some point, it occurred to Mitchell that he might no longer be in Purgatory. )