Malachi Nichols (pillaroffaith) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-12-06 10:00:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #may 2018, mal, mal x shane, shane |
Who: Mal x Shane
Where: Word of the Redeemer Fellowship
When: May
Status: complete
It was weird to go to church, even if the Redeemer Fellowship's place didn't really look like a church so much as it looked like a community center. Shane made sure to drop by after service, hanging back while the people trickled out of the building and not heading in until he was sure most of them were gone. There were still some people chatting by the front door and one of them told him somewhat regretfully that if he was there for the service he was too late. Shane just gave him a somewhat terse and amused smile at that, then went ahead inside to find the priest. Or pastor, probably. He wasn't sure what the difference was, never one to have gone to church or practiced religion. At least he knew what Mal looked like so the fact he wasn't all dressed up like a catholic priest didn't make finding him harder than it needed to be. Jane had shown him all the major players in his dream and he found Mal alone inside. He was a good looking guy, looked somehow too young to be a priest and dressed in a way that was designed to make him look boring. Also probably homophobic as fuck and Shane wondered how long it'd take for that to come up if he was really telepathic like Jane said. He cleared his throat when he entered the hall, giving Mal a little smile when he turned around. "Looks like I missed the party," he drawled, looking around at the empty seats.
Shane had one up on Mal, since he knew what Mal looked like, but he did know that Shane was expected. Jane had told him she had convinced him to come, she just hadn’t been sure of the timing of his arrival. They weren’t exactly waiting for him before they started planning, but everything Jane had told him about Shane had piqued Mal’s interest in him. He sounded useful in the offensive sense, and that was something their little group needed more of. Mal was gathering up his notes from the podium when the man entered, and something about his posture and tone made Mal think he wasn’t a visitor interested in the church itself. It was tempting, but Mal didn’t immediately dive into his head, just gazed at him a moment before dropping his eyes to what he was doing again. “The first service is at nine, the second one at eleven,” he said mildly. “You’re welcome to try again next week.”
Shane was caught by surprise by his own reaction to that because he felt a surge of ... disappointment? It was probably a good thing that Mal didn't immediately read everyone who walked into the room, but Shane was sure if he had telepathy, he'd do that exact thing. Maybe it got tiring after a while or maybe Mal was faking. "I'm guessing you don't do private sermons," he said with a grin, wandering farther into the hall and taking in the sights. He would never understand how people felt comforted in these places - maybe the music rocked - but to him it just looked kind of miserable. "Good thing I'm not here for divine inspiration."
Mal’s church wasn’t the fanciest, nor even the most comfortable, but that was kind of by design as well as finances. He didn’t want just anyone and everyone as part of his flock, he needed the most dedicated. Or at least that was the idea. Now his focus was elsewhere, but he still had long-term goals in this place. AIR was just taking precedence for now. Mal looked up to study the man again, and this time he did dip into his mind to suss out who he was. Mal wasn’t all that surprised to find the answer amidst all the fire. He leaned his forearms against the podium, blue eyes locked on the firestarter. “So you’re Shane,” he replied, not really needing a confirmation. “Jane told me you’d be coming. I would say welcome home, but I think both of us know what kind of bullshit that would be.”
"Yeah," Shane drawled slowly, wandering farther into the room until he was just a few feet away from Mal. "This place was never home. I'm kind of enjoying it now though. It has its perks." Which was a good thing since Shane thought he deserved a little more decadent fun before he potentially risked his life to stop an evil underground organization. "You're not from here either though, different place same shit?" Was it safe to talk here? He looked around but while there was nobody else around, he had no idea how sound carried here. He thought of Reza and that thing he could do and somewhat wished he could involve him in all of this without feeling guilty about it, without being afraid of it. What he wouldn't give for a sound proof bubble.
The sanctuary was empty, and Mal wasn’t overly concerned with anybody overhearing them. All of the minds he could reach at the moment were otherwise occupied. He continued to study Shane as the other man came closer -- he didn’t seem that much younger than Mal. He’d gotten the general timeline from Jane and he knew that he’d been sold off a few years before the fire. He wondered sometimes what would have happened if that hadn’t been the case. Would Mal have died? Would he have escaped with the rest of them? Likely the former, since he’d been kept so isolated. God had spared him for a reason. “I’m technically from here,” he corrected. “But it doesn’t feel like home to me either. Nowhere does, they killed that in me.” Since Mal wasn’t sure if Jane had told Shane anything about him, he clarified, “Same place, but I missed your handiwork by a few years.”
"Right," Shane said. "I'm probably thinking of Diego." They had probably been at the facility at the same time and it was surreal to think of it, knowing Mal had been somewhere else in the building, being tortured, being built up into something they could sell. The only reason Shane hadn't ended up the same way was because Jane had caught a glimpse of him against all odds, such a small coincidence that had changed so much. "Jane says they sold you," he said, studying Mal now, curiosity gnawing at him. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, he wasn't sure where to begin. He couldn't imagine being sold off and not fighting tooth and nail once he saw even a hint of freedom within reach so what had they done to Mal to keep him from fleeing? And how had he overcome it? "How the hell does that even work?"
Something twitched in Mal’s brain. There was some part of him that was humiliated by all of this honesty, some warped sense of pride that didn’t want anybody to know how helpless he’d been, even if they’d been so themselves. He’d clawed his way into a strange life, but an independent one, and he hated to remember those days when he was just a tool to be used. Mal straightened up and walked around the podium to step off the dais, carrying his papers with him. He took a seat in the front row of chairs and motioned for Shane to join him if he cared to. “If you’re asking how the financial transaction went, I obviously wasn’t privy to that information,” he said, knowing full well that wasn’t what Shane meant. “If you’re asking how they kept me docile enough for a transfer ... a lot of sedatives. I was drugged for a lot of my time in both places.”
If that wasn't a good fucking reminder of what they were up against, Shane didn't know what was. It brought up old hatred like bile in his throat as he thought of all the other ways they'd used to keep a kid docile. "Too bad we didn't burn it down sooner," he muttered though he often wondered if it was only luck that dictated that none of the kids had died in that fire. He couldn't possibly know who was in the building or where beyond what little he and Jane cobbled together out of their limited information. He'd tried to control the fire but the bigger it got the harder it was until it was just a roaring sense of rage he couldn't even tug in any particular direction. If Mal had still been there, he might have been kept isolated like Shane was and he might have perished with the staff. It was a heavy thing to think about and Shane didn't like dwelling so he dismissed the horrible idea and moved to take a seat. "So you became a priest," he muttered and he had very much the same question for that, how that hell did that even work. He didn't ask it though, just shot Mal a sidelong glance and a somewhat amused smile. "Guess we all find our peace in different things."
Mal wasn’t completely tuned into Shane’s every thought, but that rush of primal anger was impossible to miss. It gave him a little thrill of his own, but he was good at keeping those sorts of things under wraps, and this time was no different. He smiled faintly as Shane sat down with him. “Pastor,” he corrected lightly. It was a correction he had to make pretty often, especially in a highly Catholic area like this one. “I guess we do. It took me a long time to find my way here, but ... here I am.” He gave a soft huff as he leaned back and crossed his legs, folding his hands against his thigh. “So Jane didn’t tell me a whole lot about the details ... how did you two plan it all? How were the others involved? Did she talk to you in your dreams?” He was curious. He could find out on his own, of course, he could go diving into their memories to see it all unfold himself, but getting Shane to tell him himself was of more benefit in the long run.
"There was a whole lot of dreaming involved," Shane replied. "I haven't been this productive while asleep since then." He grinned again, licking his lips as he thought about what had happened. Mal didn't really need to know but Shane didn't blame him for being curious. It had been a hell of a thing and they'd gotten around a whole lot of intense security only because of Jane's ability. "She saw me, wasn't supposed to but she did and you know what happens when Jane's seen you. She helped me map the place, she'd visit the others and get some information from them, then give it to me. We did a lot of hallway scouting and trying to puzzle out what was behind the doors we hadn't gone through. I triggered the sprinklers a few times a week, waited for the night where they turned off that system for repairs. We didn't really have a way of communicating that night, everyone had to be prepared to run, to get the doors open, make sure nobody was left behind." He huffed quietly. "Easier said than done but we got lucky I guess."
Mal wasn’t sure that he believed in luck anymore. Some days he felt cynical and disconnected from any spirituality, sure that there was no rhyme or reason to the universe. Other days he felt sure there was some invisible hand behind the scenes, putting certain things in the perfect places to be used. He wasn’t one who truly believed that God ran everything in their lives, no matter what he might tell his flock -- Mal’s life had been too fucked up for him to think a “loving” God was behind everything ... but he was still open to being surprised. If he’d learned anything, it was that he knew precious little for sure. “I’ve actually never had the pleasure of having her guest star in my dreams,” he told Shane with a faint smile. “Jane and I have an agreement not to meddle mentally with each other. It sounds fascinating though, and I’m truly glad that you pulled it all together successfully, especially so young. Gives me more hope for this endeavor of ours.”
"It's actually pretty cool," Shane told him. "Anything can happen in a dream. You can go anywhere, do anything." He didn't normally remember his dreams but he knew Jane could change everything about his dreams and while she didn't visit often, it was always interesting to find himself in a space where the real life rules didn't hold the same gravity. "And yeah, I've no idea where our endeavor is taking us. Sometimes I just want to walk in there and burn it all down but uh, I guess we need to be more subtle about it." He wasn't bulletproof and AIR might have those power suppressing fuckers on staff again so the risks outweighed the benefits. It was frustrating as hell not knowing what was coming though, there wasn't much of a plan in place other than deploying a teenage girl to dig around in a teenage boy's brain.
He would’ve been more open about letting Jane in if he didn’t have so many secrets to keep. The main one being the girl upstairs. For all any of them knew, Sam was his adopted daughter, and Mal suspected Jane and the others wouldn’t take too kindly to knowing the truth. No one would. So that was only his to know. Mal chuckled faintly over Shane’s desire to just burn it all to the ground, nodding his head a bit. He could empathize with that desire. “Sometimes I want to go in there and make them all shoot themselves and each other, so ... I understand,” he said. “But if we want to make sure we do a thorough job of it, truly cripple the work they’re doing, we have to be more careful and deliberate.” Mal quirked a tiny half-smile at Shane. “Our bloody vengeance will come. Just give it time.”
"You can do that?" Shane asked, both impressed and a little apprehensive. So far he'd thought that Mal was just a mind reader of some sort, and sure, Shane could burn things with a thought but if Mal was telling the truth, his power sounded far more terrifying. "Ever thought about trying to get one of those people to tell you everything? About their operation here and elsewhere?" That had really bothered him, finding out that AIR wasn't just a local group of psychos, that they were elsewhere too and he had no way of knowing just how big it all was. Giving it time didn't sound appealing, who knew what AIR was accomplishing while they took their damn time out here.
It had been hard for Mal to decide how much to tell these allies of his about what he could do. He knew he was terrifying -- he’d been trained to be. Being a weapon had been the entire point of his existence for a long time. If Mal had been in their shoes, he wouldn’t have trusted him, but for some reason they were doing so, and he didn’t want to fuck that up. Not yet, anyway. “It takes a lot out of me to override the survival instinct, but yes, I can,” Mal confirmed, nodding a bit. “Especially if there’s a swarm of them to keep at bay at the same time ... exhausting. Extracting information is much easier, but I haven’t been close enough to one of their people yet here to do that. I’d have to get them away from the AIR building too ... they have nulls, those anti-psychics that dampen down our powers.” Mal paused. “Besides that, my ambition to destroy them only really started getting stronger once I learned there were other survivors here. For a long time I thought I was the only one.”
Shane frowned at the mention of the nulls and just hearing them mentioned gave him a visceral reaction, a deep seated hatred that made his gut clench. "Yeah I thought I was alone too for a while, until Jane," he said. "Think it was about five years. How'd she find you anyway? Or you her?" Was it possible he'd met people before who'd been through the same thing? How common was it? Because nobody was going to start talking about something like that without a damn good reason. They were all secretive, they were all scared whether they admitted it or not. The only person who was different like him that he'd found by chance was Reza and so far he was pretty sure AIR had never gotten its claws in him. Whatever gifts he had, he'd gotten them without AIR's meddling, just like Shane.
There was another pop of that delightful anger from Shane, and Mal had to suppress a smile. He had experience with the nulls then. It wasn’t surprising, considering how dangerous he was. Mal could do a lot, but he couldn’t burn a whole fucking building down with just his mind. AIR must have had Shane under some pretty tight security. “There was another man here who was a victim, he went by the name Vex,” Mal said to answer Shane’s question. “A decade or so older than us. He had far-seeing visions, I believe, but he found Jane, and then he found me. He was the real start to all this. He’s since disappeared, but I got access to some of his research and tracked Jane down. That was a couple of months ago. We’ve been gathering support since then.”
Shane had seen Vex in his shared dream but he hadn't known he'd gone missing, or had he? He was sure Jane hadn't mentioned it but then his attention to details had always been flaky. "Do you think he went missing because of AIR?" he asked and it was clear he needed to have a more in-depth talk to Jane about what was going on. She'd said AIR was messing with the whole town but they hadn't gone into details there. Mostly he just felt like his attention span was fleeting at best, he was itching to do something but all the details and waiting were a chore. "Jane said they're fucking with people on a much bigger scale now. You know anything about that?"
Mal shook his head a bit. “I think it was something else,” he said. “Maybe tangentially related, but ... it was something weirder. And he wasn’t the only one, there were about a dozen people who all disappeared around the same time. It was big, whatever it was. If AIR was behind it, they’ve gotten into some truly strange areas of study since we were there.” There was the possibility that Vex’s little girlfriend or whoever was truly crazy too, but Mal had picked up on murmurings about what had happened to those people that were equally strange. “If they’re actively doing anything to all of us, I’m unaware of it.”
Shane supposed it was time for him to have a more serious conversation with Jane, he just knew he tended to not have the patience for it, especially if there was a lot of information to take in at a time. At least this topic was close to his heart - or wherever hatred was stored - so he might not be as tempted to zone out as he was with work related things. "I just wish we had a solid plan," he muttered. "As it is I have no idea how long I'm staying here." Or if he was leaving here alive, but he bit back on the urge to say that. He and Mal weren't close, he might take it more seriously than Shane meant it. A little bit of pessimism was healthy every now and then, it tempered expectations and for Shane, snarking was generally a good way to deal with things that upset him.
It didn’t take a lot to see the impatience in the man next to him, and while Mal could sympathize, he found it a little irritating at the same time. They’d all waited so long for any sort of justice, and they wanted to do it right, not just run in with guns and minds blazing. That sort of impatience led to fuck ups. Mal wasn’t going to let this get fucked up if he could help it. “None of us do, I suppose,” he said evenly, his posture still relaxed. “The plan will come with some time and recon. We’re so outnumbered, we don’t want to do anything foolish and lose anyone who’s already survived so much.” That included Shane himself, since he was their biggest weapon, as far as Mal could tell. He and Diego could cause massive destruction -- Neil likely could too if he put his mind to it, but that was still a big question mark in Mal’s mind -- the group couldn’t afford to lose them. “I’m glad you’re here though,” he added.
It didn't take a mindreader to pick up on the agitation as Shane's knee had started bouncing as he thought about it. Mal's words were platitudes at best and he knew he was going to need a whole lot of sex, booze and drugs to take the edge off as they waited for the time to strike. Thankfully he had Reza for that, at least for now, but it wasn't a whole lot of comfort when he wasn't there and Shane was sitting in a damn church of all places. "Yeah, recon," he muttered dejectedly and wondered if the teenage girl with her deadly sins could be of any help there. He wasn't so sure that Wilkes's young nephew was in the inner circle of things so there might not be much to learn but it wasn't like they could storm the fort and take prisoners to interrogate. Mal could be useful there, if they could just get close enough to someone working at AIR. "Glad you're here too, man. I think we're gonna need everyone we can get and then some."
“Amen to that,” Mal murmured, a wry smile crossing his face. He knew that Shane wasn’t a believer and he wasn’t exactly comfortable in a church, even with no sermon going on. Mal wasn’t prying too much, but he could practically feel the riotous emotions just under Shane’s surface. He was a volatile one, that was for sure. With fire in his soul, that wasn’t terribly surprising. “Listen ... there’s not much I can say that’ll make you feel better about this. I wish it was as simple as busting down their doors and killing everyone in the building, I truly do, but it’s not. We’ve got some good minds and pretty amazing powers on our side now, and if we do it right we’ll be far too much for them to handle. Just hold tight and stay low and don’t do anything stupid, okay? God knows they’re smart and cruel, and they’ll skin us all alive if they get half the chance. They will get what’s coming to them.”
Some sulky part of Shane felt like if he just had to lay low and wait it out, he might as well have done that in Chicago, but being in Point Pleasant felt right somehow so it was a superficial thought at best. He didn't want to go wait it out and mind his night club, acting like everything was normal. He was enjoying his vacation with his intensely fuckable drug of a man and maybe he just needed to focus on that for now. "I'm gonna try and meet the others," he said, because he at least wanted to do that much. "Have you met them all yet? Maybe I'll throw a party, get you all in one place." He was half joking but he did like parties and he did want to meet everybody. From what Jane had told him, Neil probably wouldn't show up unless they coerced him to but that was okay, Jane was good at that.
Mal nodded, dimly grateful for the subject change. He spent so much time comforting his flock and giving them sage advice, he didn’t like to do it when he wasn’t in that role. People were so fucking exhausting, with all their feelings. Shane looked a little less petulant, and he counted that as a good thing. “I’ve met them all, yes,” Mal answered. “I encourage that, you meeting everyone. The more cohesive we are as a group, the better.” He wanted them all in one place too, as soon as they could manage it. Mal just didn’t really think of that as much of a party. Not that he’d truly been to many real parties. “If you want to put something together, feel free. We can always meet here, but it’s not exactly comfortable for most of you.” He smiled faintly.
"That doesn't bother you?" Shane asked with a little grin and if Mal wasn't so easy going so far, he'd have felt like he was poking a nest of wasps with that question. Religious people tended to be oh so sensitive about their faith, or oh so eager to change his mind. There was a reason why he avoided them. "Teaming up with a bunch of hedonistic atheist assholes?" He got to his feet, feeling antsy and ready to end this conversation to move on and take Mal's encouragement to meet the others. "Maybe you're hoping we see the light in all this mess."
Mal knew for a fact that not all of them were atheists ... he couldn’t fully confirm or deny the asshole part yet. People were complicated. “You’re my brothers and sisters in a very specific type of suffering we all want to put an end to,” he said evenly, his expression a tiny bit amused. “That’s enough for me. Your walk with or without God is your own. I’m not here to convert any of you.” He stood up as well, not needing a drop of telepathy to see that Shane was ready to leave. Mal offered his hand out for a goodbye shake. “Take care, Shane. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.”
'Brothers and sisters' was such a priest thing to say, Shane had a hard time not rolling his eyes a little. It wasn't completely untrue though, they were a bit like a super dysfunctional family raised by the most abusive fuckers imaginable. "We'll be in touch," he said as he grasped Mal's hand to shake. "Just don't go missing." Vex's disappearance might not be AIR facilitated but if Jane was right, the strange circumstances might be AIR inflicted anyway. He was clearly going to have to read up about recent events in town, if anyone had deigned to write about him. Maybe his only source was Jane.
He gave Shane a firm shake and used the physical contact to delve quickly into his mind, digging past the surface thoughts for anything interesting -- yet another homosexual in the mix, apparently ... and his boyfriend was here but didn’t know about AIR. Interesting. Mal wondered vaguely if being victims of AIR did something to their developing sexuality, there seemed to be a high percentage of queers in the group. Mal didn’t let any of that show on his face, just chuckling faintly and releasing Shane’s hand after the normal few seconds. “I’ll do my best,” he said. Since their little pow wow was over, he turned to gather his papers up again and started toward his office, leaving Shane to see himself out.
The intrusion was too brief and too subtle for Shane to pick up on it, he suspected nothing beyond that underlying knowledge that Mal might at some point do that exact thing while they were talking. It could have been ongoing this whole time for all he knew; Mal didn't make a show of it or gaze into his eyes or anything so to him it was just a brief handshake goodbye. He watched Mal for a moment before he turned to leave, unsure how he felt about the encounter. It somehow made the whole thing feel more real and he didn't know if he liked that, meeting Jane wasn't just a triggering weird thing, it had been kind of fun even, but Mal was serious and their shared trauma was the only thing connecting them. It was tempting to go straight back to the house and let Reza soothe out some of the jittery feelings he was having but he'd made plans for the day and felt weirdly compelled to stick to them. So next up was the library, the sort of place he rarely - if ever - set foot in.