Wandering!
Who: Chris and Jeremy
Where: Main Street
When: Morning
Chris was walking home from the grocery store, a bag in each hand. He really need to get a car - this whole walking thing was a pain in the ass. And, of course, he knew that it meant that anybody he came across would be able to see the fucking huge shiner that he had. Fucking bitch lab rat.
But at least he had food he liked now. And it was a nice enough day for walking - heavens and small mercies and everything. And at least the town was mildly interesting as well - the stalls from yesterday were gone, but there were people around. It was still in that stage where people were randomly stopping on the street to talk - strange, but everyone was a stranger and Chris wasn't going to not go with that. He hardly knew anyone in town and it'd be nice to meet someone who wasn't going to bitch at him or sock him one, that was for sure.
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Jeremy didn't want to leave the house and he had half a mind to see if one of those volunteers offering to work would actually considering becoming personal shoppers. He did however need groceries badly. His fridge had been stocked with bottles of water but that was it, not so much as a cracker in his cupboard and hunger was beginning to gnaw at him. He'd had his hungry days in the experiment but it was starting to feel very stupid to inflict it on himself when he did have a choice; starve or leave the house.
He looked at the map for a good while before stepping outside, not wanting to go around town any more than was necessary. He stopped by a restaurant for its facilities, just to catch his breath and gather his thoughts. It was all a bit too much really, being outside. He finally manned up to head out to the grocery store and was turning the corner from the main street when he all but walked into someone. This wouldn't have been a big deal if he hadn't instantly recognized his face but there it was, Chris Faris.
"Chris," he blurted out and looked at his fellow intern, former fellow intern, feeling that all too familiar panic and paranoia build up inside. Chris hadn't been in on the plan, he hadn't seemed interested in helping, he might have very well been one of the people who drugged Jeremy and carried him off in the middle of the night for all Jeremy knew. Still, he should have expected to meet someone from experiment A in town, it wasn't a real surprise. It just seemed somehow too sudden.
Chris looked up as he heard his name spoken and his first thought was oh, good god. What was this - fucking, ExA re-fucking-union? Where was Drew. Seriously now? And the rest of them. Were they just going to all jump out of the fucking bushes or something. "Hey, Jeremy," he said, sounding resigned.
Paranoia aside, Jeremy had nothing on Chris, not really. Just that he had done his job a little too well back in Experiment A, but that didn't say much about anyone. Still, it was like a bad acid flashback to see one of the people he'd worked with standing right there in front of him. As if he was coping so well without it.
"See you made it out okay," he said warily. "Save for-," he added, gesturing hesitantly at Chris' black eye. For all he knew, Chris had ended up a subject too, maybe they all had, picked out one by one to play mice instead of cats. He could feel his muscles reacting, like his body wanted him to walk away now and it made him twitch a little, just a barely visible twitch in his arm and shoulder.
Chris shrugged, as though he'd not even really given it any consideration. "Got out without this one," he said, though he didn't sound exactly impressed with that. "Got this yesterday - unfortunate reaction to someone who just heard 'I was an intern'. Really, seriously - i think maybe we're just in here as fucking cannon fodder," he admitted, shaking his head. "So - how - what happened to you?" he asked, almost hesitantly. As if he really gave a fucking damn.
What happened to Jeremy felt oddly embarrassing and he wasn't all that comfortable talking about it, especially not to someone he didn't feel close to. "Long story," he said quietly. "Guess intern is not a word to-, not in this town." He looked around a little jittery, a shadow of his former self in both appearance and attitude.
"You worked 'till the end?" He had to ask, if Chris had stayed an intern then that meant six months of obeying orders and tormenting people. People who included Drew, Jeremy realized with a slight wince. "Drew?" He added, not sure how to word that any differently.
Chris noted the avoidance of the question and felt a stab of irritation at not being really answered, but he suppressed it for now. If Jeremy thought that he'd be satisfied with a two word explanation, he had another thing coming. But, for now, he wouldn't push it. For now. "Yeah, I worked until the end. We - we all did. After they took you, and Cheryl - and we saw what they did to Drew..." He looked down, away from Jeremy's eyes. "Yeah, we all worked until the end," he said, still playing the scared card as he had with Cheryl - that seemed to be the safest role to play in this town.
Jeremy might have judged him six months ago, maybe even told him to his face what a coward he was and how sickening it was to stand by and let people suffer. But things had changed and he realized with a sinking feeling that perhaps he was no better now. Would he dare step in if everything started up again? Or would he hide in the shower with the shower head as a make-shift weapon like he had when they came through the ceiling for him.
This wasn't a conversation he wanted to be having in the middle of the street either. His surroundings were getting bigger somehow, the street was getting longer and wider and there were faces in every window, staring at him, he could feel them even if he couldn't see them.
"Did it-," he started but looked around a bit shakily, unable to continue. "I need to... Buy things." He gestured to the store, going paler.
Jeremy squirmed a little. This was where Chris was supposed to say something along the lines of, Don't let me keep you. "Did it-," he started, furrowing his brows as he tried to focus on what it was he had wanted to say. He looked around again, feeling his innards tensing with discontent. "Get worse," he finally managed. "I don't" he muttered, shaking his head. He didn't need to know. "It's okay."
This was great - the boy was practically falling over himself. "I... For us, or for them?" Chris asked him, purposefully drawing the conversation out. He could have just gone straight on with an explanation there, but he didn't, waiting to see if Jeremy would break and run, or stay and babble his way through some more conversation.
Jeremy looked at him with an almost pleading expression, shaking his head and shrugging. He took a deep breath and swallowed dryly, staring down at Chris' shirt for a moment, just blinking a few times before speaking.
"I don't feel good," he muttered. "I think I should." He gestured to the door again but still waited for Chris to ... what? Give him permission? It clashed with everything he remembered of himself and for a moment he felt sickened. Was he waiting for approval? He glanced at Chris again, clenching his jaw. "I have to go."
"Are you okay?" Chris said, as if only noticing for the first time that there might be a problem. He looked the picture of concern as he reached out to put a hand on Jeremy's arm. "Do you - do you want to sit down? I could go get you some water - or the hospital's not that far, if you think you could walk it?" he suggested.
"No, I just, inside," Jeremy replied, straining to keep steady and keep his cool but he looked a bit like he was seasick. At least Chris was being concerned now and that passed as approval enough so he started up to the grocery store wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
"You don't have to stay," he added since Chris already had his groceries and had obviously been on his way home. "I'm okay. Thank you."
No, no - it's fine," Chris assured him, continuing to feign concern, helping Jeremy toward the store. "At least let me help you inside, if you really need to be there," he added. He wondered what caused this particular attack of being a complete and utter pussy, but now probably wasn't the time to find that out. Interesting though - he'd have to see if he could produce the effect again in the future. Nice little test there.
Inside, even if it was a larger space than he was used to, Jeremy felt like he could breathe again. Walking home was sure to be fun but he'd have to get over this somehow. He smiled faintly once the door closed and shook his head, mildly embarrassed. "Oxygen shock," he muttered, a purposely wrong guess at that. "Been cooped up so long," he added, the words fading into silence as he thought of the room.
"You think it's over?" He asked after a few moments of silence, glancing at Chris curiously. Maybe he was a little more in the know since he hadn't been dumped in the experiment, or maybe he was in on it all, there was no telling.
"What did they do to you?" Chris asked him, seeing his way back into the question the fucker had mostly avoided early on, little piss-ant. He ignored the question about whether it was over or not as the store doors shut behind them. Was it over? He thought so - they would have said something by now, surely. He'd destroyed all those records for ExA, they had to know he was still on their side. But he'd heard nothing, nothing at all.
Jeremy shook his head again, something that was by now quite obviously something he was very fond of doing. "A room, videos..." He shrugged. How could he talk about it to Chris when he wasn't even comfortable talking about it to Drew and Cheryl? Still a part of him was glad Chris didn't know, if he wasn't lying in any case. If he wasn't lying it meant none of the interns he knew were watching him go through all that crap.
"Experiment C." He finally concluded in hopes it meant he didn't have to explain any more.
Now that caught Chris' attention. In fact, he actually had to stop himself from actually taking a step back. Jeremy'd ended up a labrat? Well, given what they'd done to Drew, was that so much of a surprise? But still - labrat. "Was that the one with the isolation?" Chris asked, figuring that he could at least get information out of the labrat. Something vaguely useful.
Jeremy nodded but it was barely a movement of his head and he didn't meet Drew's eyes as he admitted to it. "Guess they knew," he muttered. "They all know what you are... were?" He asked, since he still had that fear of people finding out he used to be an intern. He also had the nagging feeling that if it came to it, he wouldn't be walking away with just a shiner; doubting that he could stutter up that he was a test subject too if faced with an angry mob.
"Did they get told? Are we all told who's who?" He asked, wondering if he himself would want to hurt the interns from his own experiment. If they weren't all in jail by now.
"I don't know," Chris admitted. "I don't think they're told, but what're we gonna do? Lie?" he asked, as though this would just be complete anathema to him. Or, at the very least, not particularly palatable. Though, in all honesty, it wasn't a tack he was seriously considering. There were at least four people - almost certainly more by now - who knew what he was. There as no point hiding. Better tack to pretend to be sorry, that he'd been scared, forced into it. That he'd not had a choice.
Jeremy thought about it and Chris was right, lying would just bring about more trouble. Maybe the best strategy was to out himself right away; explain himself in writing since he was far more likely to be able to do that than speak up for himself. After all, the reason he was removed from his intern position was that he'd tried to help, that had to count for something. But the fact remained, some of the people from Experiment A were not only hostile but pretty damn crazy too.
"They might know," he muttered, looking a little resigned when he finally replied. "Where are you staying?" He asked then, since maybe it was a good idea to not walk alone if that was the case.
"They might do," Chris agreed. "And if they don't, they're going to find out sooner or later. I just don't know if they'll understand that the interns weren't the guys running the show," he added, not using the term 'we' specifically because now that Jeremy had admitted to being a labrat, well, there was no 'we' anymore, was there? "Hopefully the people who thought it was a good idea to through everyone into the melting pot have thought through the possible consequences."
Unless this sort of thing was just what they wanted, Jeremy couldn't help but think. Throw us all in here and watch us tear each other to pieces before weeding us out one by one. He didn't say it though, didn't want to spread that paranoia that was pouring through him like poison.
"I guess we will have to wait," he said instead, glancing inside the store. It was like something out a surreal movie with how empty it was, no people currently shopping and all it needed was elevator music to make it any more eerie.
"Guess we will," Chris agreed. "Nothing else for it - just sit and wait and hope they don't bring flaming torches when they come, or that someone here can control them. You know there's going to be more of them than us, right?" he asked, feigning a touch of fear, adding that edge to his voice. He doubted it'd happen - they hardly fucking touched Drew, in the scheme of things. Chris had been anticipating their taking him apart limb from limb - total anticlimax there. Labrats were just pussies at the end of the day.
Jeremy was oblivious to all of Chris' pretense and that edge of fear in his voice really got to him. He bit his lip and looked at Chris again. It didn't help he was hungry, having had nothing but water since he arrived and that fact stressed him even more.
"I think we should go home, see how-," he said quietly. "I just need... Stock up for the week, I guess." He gestured to the store. "Which way are you heading?"
Chris had been planning to head straight home with his groceries, but he had no intention of walking home with the labrat. "I've got a few more stops to make before I head back, I wouldn't want to drag you around - especially if you're not feeling great," he told the other guy. "It's not a bad store though - you should be able to get most things you need."
"I should get to it," Jeremy said and stepped back from Chris. "I don't want to keep you." He gave Chris a worried little look and added, "Be careful, okay?" There wasn't much else he could think to say. Considering Chris' black eye and the fact town was populated with some crazy and angry people, it was the least they could do. Watch their backs, not take any unnecessary chances.
"I'll take care of myself," Chris promised. he always did, after all - even when there were punch-happy bitches around. he'd get her one day, just had to wait for the right time. And maybe he knew when that was. After all, the reports about Freddie had like as not been destroyed with everything else when he'd trashed the computer system, but - he could stand witness, couldn't he? He'd been on duty when the beating had happened, he'd read the coroner's report. maybe he'd let the botch think she'd gotten away with it and then pull the plug on her and her two boyfriends. That'd be nice. Yeah - really nice. "See you around," he said to Jeremy, concealing his thoughts as he headed off.