Exploring in Dogtown [closed]

[abrightboy]

Who: Malcolm Bright and Neal Caffrey (may add open component after)
When: Dec 6
Where: Dogtown
Summary: Malcolm and Neal attempt to explore Dogtown.
Warnings: arachnophobia; body horror; unnatural anatomy; potential for severe injury



After the warning from Sheppard and McKay, Malcolm opts for the other entrance to Dogtown. Taking Neal isn't just a logistical consideration, though he works in Security. If they're going to go into Dogtown, he expects they both want to know where the other is. They don't walk far before Malcolm's glance at the ground becomes a concentrated gaze.

"....Those are human fingers."

Comments

[conning]

Neal reaches for Malcolm's hand and hangs on, as though that will protect their own fingers from being added to the little circle of digits poking out of the dirt. "Picture?"

[abrightboy]

"Um. Right... probably... a good idea." He untangles his hand from Neal's so he can take his phone out and snap a few pictures before putting it back and grabbing Neal's hand again. "Should we....?" He gestures towards them.

[conning]

He looks at Malcolm, then at the hand, then st Malcolm. “If we touch it we’re touching it with a stick first. I don’t want it… doing anything to you.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks at the fingers uncertainly, then looks at Neal.

"Yeah," he says distractedly. What if there are bodies buried under there? He looks around and finds a stick on the ground, picking it up and walking up next to Neal again. He looks at him, like he can find some strength there, then takes the stick and pokes at the outstretched fingers.

[conning]

The fingers snap shut. Too many fingers. Much more than one hand’s worth of fingers, attached to nothing. Neal yelps, jerking back a little.

It rushes Malcolm’s ankles like a horrifying spider.

Neal feels a thrill of fear and tries to kick it into the woods.

[abrightboy]

It clamps onto the toe of Neal's shoe and Malcolm stomps on it hard.

[conning]

The crunching sound turns Neal’s stomach, but he doesn’t have a chance to dwell on it. More of the things wriggle out of the dirt, and others descend from the trees, and Neal tries to yank Malcolm back along the path they entered from. “Come on!”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm grabs a hand that lands on Neal's shoulder and throws it away as they attempt their escape, but he can't shake three of them off his legs and he cries out as their nails break skin through his pantleg.

[conning]

Neal's own panic surges, and he whips around, yanking a knife out of his pants pocket. It's a switchblade, a new acquisition and not the best in the world, but he's still going to try and stab the things on Malcolm's leg. Sideways, so he won't accidentally stab Malcolm in the process.

[abrightboy]

It actually makes Malcolm stop running and he points at it.

"Where did you get that?" he asks curiously.

[conning]

He shakes one of the hand-things off of the knife in a panic as it tries to grab at him even while stabbed.

"Guy who knows the supernatural. Sells mostly junk, but some weapons. Run, go!"

There's another swarm of hands coming down from the trees, closing in on either side of the path.

[abrightboy]

Oh right. Malcolm takes off again, but makes sure Neal is close to him, pulling hands off him and pitching them into the trees as he goes.

"Well, that's not really a weapon, though. Like. For real. Why didn't you ask me?"

[conning]

One of them lands on Neal’s shoulder on the side Malcolm can’t immediately see and tries to gouge at his eyes, scratching tracks on his face as it does. He’s distracted from answering Malcolm and screams in alarm.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm, in one movement, grabs the knife out of Neal's hand, stabs it into the hand and then stabs it again before pushing it off of Neal and grabbing him with his free hand and just running.

[conning]

The savage efficiency of it makes Neal's stomach turn over in an uncomfortable way, but it's not at the fact that Malcolm can do that--it's just that it happened, right in front of him, and it's upsetting.

They run. They run, fighting off hands from the trees, scratches and gouges and the weirdly silent assault of disembodied hands with too many fingers and nails that are far too sharp.

Eventually the hands peter out. Get tired of pursuit, or they manage to leave the territory of the things, or... Doesn't matter.

The point is that they're near the edge of Dogtown again, battered and scraped and bleeding and mercifully not dead by fingering.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm holds the knife while they run. He's holding the knife and he's running and he's ten years old and he's running through the forest. Running. Running away. The knife has blood on it. He knows what he did.

But then they're on a street and he's not ten and he's staring at the knife in his hand as they pant to catch their breath.

[conning]

Neal is shaken. Malcolm, he can tell, is a fair ways past that, and the look on the other man’s face tells Neal it might not have much to do with the hand monsters.

He raises his own gently into Malcolm’s field of vision, reaching for the knife. “I can take it,” he says softly.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s eyes follow the knife as Neal’s fingers gently pluck it from his own, but then they reach Neal’s face and it’s like an anchor.

“Oh.”

A beat.

“…Did I hurt you?”

[conning]

Neal reaches up to touch the marks near his eye, wincing a little at the sting of the scratches on his face as adrenaline starts to give way to knowledge of injuries. “No, you protected me from… whatever those things were.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods acceptance of that, his eyes drifting back to the knife.

“I had a knife like that once,” he confesses. He looks around, seeming to come out of whatever spell he was under. “Do you think this whole place is full of… things?”

[conning]

"I don't know," he says, shivering. "Not the whole place, or we would probably still have them on our asses, but... Enough of it to be dangerous."

He comes closer, wrapping his hand around Malcolm's wrist very gently, a gesture of comfort rather than restraint. "When did you have a knife like this?"

[abrightboy]

"When I was a kid. My father bought it for me, to take on a camping trip."

The camping trip. There was only the one.

He looks at Neal. "I stabbed a serial killer with it. Not my dad. His friend."

[conning]

Neal presses his free hand against Malcolm's face, lets go of his wrist, cups Malcolm's other cheek.

For half a stuttering second, he doesn't say anything, then he does.

"I don't want you to go home."

[abrightboy]

"Well, no," Malcolm misinterprets. "I'm staying with you, like you promised not to leave me."

[conning]

He almost, almost lets the misinterpretation lie. The man he was a year ago, two years ago, would have.

"I meant I didn't want you to go... back where you came from. But I don't want you to not go back," he adds, quickly. "I just... you've been through so much hell, and I want you to be safe. Happy. I don't want you to decide against going back to your world because of something I said on impulse either."

[abrightboy]

"I'll think about it," Malcolm tells him. "But I promise that I'm happy as long as I'm with you."