Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Day 21

 [ A tie!! Time for me to decide what I think is most likely for the character…

As always, please read the instructions before commenting! ] 

Fern stared almost blindly at the figure sprawled on their bed. Their bed, their bedroom, the one damn place in this cottage they’d mentally put aside as for themself even if on some level they knew it wasn’t true, that this place wasn’t theirs and never had been.

They had to keep it together. They were fine. They were—

They were about to cry, something they didn’t want to do in front of Bannick. They swallowed convulsively, said, “Sorry, Bannick, excuse me,” and walked straight into the bathroom, shutting and locking it. Their body slumped back against their will, leaning against the door, shaking.

Did a locked door even mean anything? It might. Maybe they could lock their own bedroom door tonight and be fine after all. They felt like the floor was about to come up to grab them and touched the spike to make sure they had it, in case the fairy hangover was coming back. Did it mean something that Aris had done that to them even after promising no harm? Pushing things to the limit? Or would it just have happened anyway, due to drinking all afternoon? They swallowed convulsively.

“Hey—” Bannick was on the other side. “It’s okay! It’s okay. Sorry to have surprised you. I just wanted to talk.”

Fern swallowed again, this time trying to keep themself from yelling an impulsive, Go away. “I just need—” no, talking was no good, the tears were audible in their voice. They tried to clear it. “Just give me a minute.”

“I just—”

“Just one minute!” they begged, feeling something cracking in their chest, no longer able to focus on how their voice sounded. “You were naked in my bed—!” 

Bannick was right on the other side of the door, from the sound of his voice. “I had no clothes to wear! I own nothing of my own,” he protested, his own voice rising a little. “The only thing of yours that fit me was the bath robe! I was waiting for you to come back—”

Fern swallowed a strangled scream, not knowing what words would come out with it, and gritted out, “I just need a minute,” before stumbling over to the bath and turning the shower on.

They didn’t get in—didn’t want to get undressed with Bannick on the other side of the door and hated the thought of wet clothes against their skin—but they hoped it helped cover the sound of their sobbing, the little strangled gasps they couldn’t prevent themself from letting out as they hugged their knees and hunkered in place, head buried in their knees as they wept and waited to get killed. They felt like it was inevitable, whether or not that was true. They couldn’t trust anyone, they had to trust someone, they’d betrayed the alliances they already had been trying to make by being unreliable, Bannick and Aris both would sell them out in a heartbeat if it kept either of them safe, Fern wanted to believe both wanted them safe and well, they didn’t know which of these impulses was true. They were going to die.

But nothing killed them. 

Nobody came in.

Nobody pounded on the door, demanding anything.

All that happened was that Fern cried until the room was choked with steam because they’d turned the water on hot, and then eventually ran out of tears, and huddled there choking on the thick air and their stuffed sinuses, head pounding, heart aching. 

A long few moments after the tears had run dry, they heard a sigh from the other side of the door. “Hey,” Bannick said. “Rough day. Sorry to have surprised you.”

“Mmmm…”

“Aris probably got you drunk, too. Got your head spinning. They’re a heady influence on any mortal, I know that much, that flighty creature.”

“Mmhmm,” Fern said, noncommittal, just listening. God. They had to get it together. They drew a deep breath. “My apologies—”

“Naw, none of that, I get it,” Bannick said. “Maybe more than most. I’ve been trapped here a long time too, you know? Lonely, under someone’s command, miserable, wanting someone to come to make it better. You don’t have to be so formal. Scream and curse. Won’t hurt me any.”

Fern licked their lips. They couldn’t trust that to be true. Anyone could lie to them at any time. “You’ve cut me off from the outside world. Played with me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a good guy, Fern,” Bannick said. “If I hadn’t done it, and you’d freed Aris first, they’d have done it instead. We don’t have a choice. We’re both on an arcane leash, choking us with orders. One of those orders is to keep any sensitive trapped here.”

A sensitive. Fern had been accused of being too sensitive more than once, but they were at least enough adjacent to the weird mysteries side of their podcast world to know what was being suggested here. “Open to the supernatural energies.”

“Yeah,” Bannick said through the door. “Usually people like you have had a hole torn in you that makes a kind of conduit. Sometimes it happened early enough they’ve always been like this and don’t remember why. Usually it’s trauma, though. It has other knock-on effects but… that can be one of ’em.”

Fern thought they were out of tears but felt another sob well up anyway. “All those sounds, those weird feelings… but if I was hearing ghosts or whatever, why am I getting tormented by every spirit except Stephen?! Why’s he the ghost I don’t get to hear?!”

“Stephen?” Bannick echoed.

Fern groaned, putting their head on their knees again. “It doesn’t matter,” they muttered. “So I got someone killed and now I’m getting punished for it.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Bannick said. “Can I come in?”

“I can’t right now,” Fern said.

“Okay,” Bannick said. There was the soft shuffft of him sliding down the other side of the door. Fern couldn’t tell if it was to keep them company or keep them trapped inside. “That’s fair.”

“I want to make an alliance,” Fern said dully, drawing a deep breath, “but I’m aware I’m at a loss against you the way I’m not against Aris, or even Miranda.”

Bannick made an odd little sound.

Fern said, “Can I even make an even alliance if I can’t protect myself from you? Though maybe that’s what you want.”

“You could ask Aris for a ward,” Bannick said, voice strange. “I can’t give you one, for obvious reasons. Or, you could find Madoc’s journals. They’d be in the cellar.”

“Madoc…” No, Fern knew who that had to be. “Why would you help me?”

Bannick was silent for a long moment, long enough that Fern had just about given up on getting an answer. Then, abruptly, “Do you think I like this? Do you think I want this? I want to be free, Guy. I’m sick to death of an eternal existence trapped in a mirror, looking only at my flawed self until I’m sick of it, left to be nothing but a hunting dog begging in the night for some scrap of something more.”

“What would you do if set free?”

“What would anyone do?” Bannick countered.

“Aris called you a beast.”

Bannick let out a sharp laugh, not his usual casual, habitual one. “Aris and I go way back. No, they’re right right, I’m a beast, a crawling thing of the earth and the realms beneath it. So what? Does that curse me to be always to a madman’s beck and call, a choke chain around my throat? I’m the one who wants to defy him, while Aris— Ah, but if I turn you against Aris, you’ll only find me more suspicious. And I suppose I don’t know what’s truly in that one’s heart, only what I believe.” 

Fern hesitated. Should they bring up the whole thing with Miranda? The fact that Bannick had a child with her, how did Bannick even feel about that? Or was it better for them to avoid it?

When Fern didn’t reply to that right away, Bannick laughed again, this one low. “Tell me to go, and I’ll leave this room and return to the basement to stay there, give you this floor back, kindly. You can come down and treat with me formally when ready. Or we can keep talking through this door, or you can come out. It’s entirely up to you.”

 [Comment below with a suggestion for Fern.]

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