mind games (gen)
05 July 2024
He could see well in the dark, but parts of the power plant were so deep into the concrete labyrinth that they went pitch black when night fell, so much that Biowulf could only see shapes and values. That must have been why it had happened. Dark hair could fall in familiar curtains, and memory could make a fool of you.He had come down a hallway late in the night and found van Kleiss there, standing leaned against a railing.
Instinctually he stepped forward to move to van Kleiss' side. And then on newer, less practiced instinct he stopped short, bristling, claws flexing, like he could rip himself from that place of servant and second with his bare hands. And then, somewhere between those instincts, he came unmoored, shaken loose, and heard himself speak only half-voiced, a dog wagging its tail slowly when seeing the person who had abandoned it on the shoulder of a road: "Master -"
Circe turned. Her dark hair slipped over a shoulder. There was something inscrutable about her expression. "What? Oh. You scared me for a second."
Biowulf was left with that sickening sensation of unsatisfied anxiety, tension that had wound tight and was forced now to only slowly unspiral, an unease he knew would last for hours. Circe, of course. The mistake was - not something he could understand, but it had been a mistake, or a hope. Something else that lived between. Circe eyed him, only lit by a flickering yellowed light. "You look like you just saw a ghost. You ok?"
She was the last person he was interested in talking to. When he didn't answer, she got that stubborn set to her mouth that he remembered from Abysus, a flash of familiarity. She turned completely, putting her back up to the railing, crossing her arms in front of her. "It's ok, you know. If you miss it. The Pack, I mean, and van Kleiss. I'm still surprised seeing you here, of all places, with all these humans. It kind of defeats the point of everything you were doing back in Abysus. Like, Rex is ... nice, but the rest of them - they don't really get it, do they? They don't get you."
She had this way of looking at him like she was peeling him apart. He had never liked it about her. In the dark, here, where it was only the shine of light off her eyes, it made the effect more animalistic, a predator in the shadows. She was only half his size. "Sorry. I shouldn't pry, or whatever. I just... I know I wasn't around for all that long, but back then, I didn't think you were this much of a lapdog. Maybe that's just who you are without van Kleiss around."
His throat caught around -- maybe arguments, or agreements, or resignation. Circe held his gaze so tightly that it almost stung. "Do you even know who you are without van Kleiss?"
"No," he said to her, and he thought he meant that he won't tolerate the questioning, but he couldn't be sure. He pushed past her, ignoring the look she gave him. Ignoring, when he neared the end of the hall, the echo of van Kleiss' voice, saying, 'As disappointing as ever, Biowulf.'
An EVO, they found out later, working for Providence. The knowledge didn't stop the lurking fear that around any corner van Kleiss would be there again, haunting him, a living ghost, and neither did it stop the halfway hope that maybe it was real after all.