dazlious | There's an anchor round my heart, dragging me down

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: On the side of the road somewhere
Current Music: "Halo", Oleander

Entry tags:

There's an anchor round my heart, dragging me down

WHO: James Sunderland, Laura (Silent Hill) and Harmony Cello (OC)
WHERE: On the road.
WHEN: Gravityverse, November.
WHAT: Lost people have a way of finding each other.
RATING: Probably PG.

The first snowflakes of the year were drifting down.

There was a time in his life when he would have been excited about that-- which was a very long time ago.

More recently was the time when he would have regarded it with apathy. Aside from being reminded that he might need to put on a coat, for the past three years, snow hadn't evoked much emotion in him.

But that was gone, too.

Now the sight instilled a flutter of dread in his stomach.

"JAMES! Hurry up, I'm cold!" came Laura's impatient shout from the car door.

"I'm trying, Laura," he muttered through gritted teeth, plunging his head back into the open hood of the car and reaching for the wrench again.

It had stalled on them for the third time this week, and he was starting to get worried.

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That was not the question that Harmony expected. He was expecting something along the lines of 'what are you' or 'are you real' or 'am I dreaming'. Not a question about his well being. A painful twinge rippled through his wing and his face betrayed him. He wasn't nearly as good at being stony and unreadable as his mentor.

"Ahah...wing cramp. I'll be outta your hair in...just a second." Harmony climbed to his feet using the rough surface of the tire and fixed his sandals.

Don't you worry, Harm, he's already asking those questions in his head and it's only a matter of time before one of them makes its way out of his mouth.

For now, he just watched the little angel with a baffled, bleary-eyed stare.

"... Th- ... that looks like it hurts..."

Shoes in order, Harmony set to attempting to flex the strained wing. He could fold it just a little, but too far stretched or with drawn would send horrible jolts all down his side.

"It does...Lord, I'm an idiot. If I ate more potassium, this wouldn't happen." IF ONLY HE ATE MORE BANANAS. HIS ENTIRE HOMEWORLD WAS AT STAKE HERE. "Don't-- don't let me interrupt you!"

"... Po... potassium?"

He was talking to a little winged man and it was spitting out words he hadn't cared about since tenth grade chemistry.

This was so surreal.

"It keeps you from getting cramps. My diet is awful, there's nothing nutritious in that house!" Harmony's meek disposition faded for a moment as the feathers on his wing shoulders bristled. "The boss either doesn't eat a thing or he sits around smoking that--that-- devil plant and staring at the patterns in the wallpaper! It's disgusting! It's infuriating! He's killing us!" The long ride up north had kind of gotten to Harmony and now that he was out in the open air, it was time to spout out a bit of that steam.

His temper exstingusihed itself pretty quickly once he remembered he was in the presence of a stranger. He coughed loudly, patted down his feathers and robe and regained his (in Harmony's opinion) regal stance. "Can you tell me where I am, young man?"

Really.

You know those times when you need to apply for a loan or get extra help from the teacher or whatever, and then all the person does is talk at you and it all sounds like total gibberish that you've never heard before in your life?

That was happening right now, and James just sat there, looking dumbfounded and feeling dumb.

Was he supposed to know what all this was about?

Had he forgotten something really important again?

Oh no...

"... Uh... it's... it's New York. The state, not the city. Up off the north pike. Are you real?"

THERE it was.

"New York?" Harmony's voice developed a squawk and he felt like he'd topple over again. His good wing sagged behind him. "I can't be in New York! That's-- that's-- It'll take me days to fly home!"

He'd never been this far north of the Mason Dixon line. He was going to die.

James's question finally fluttered down to him as the angel clapped a hand to his chest and did the breathing thing the Professor had taught him years before everything went all to shit.

"I'm real and I'm going to be in even realer trouble if I don't get home. Can you...point me South?"

... Wellp.

If it SAID it was real, it had to be real, right?

Maria had been real, in her own twisted way, hadn't she?

Slowly, James rose to his feet, wincing and looming around.

Which way was south?

"Um..."

He turned around and looked back the way they'd come.

".... Um..."

James honey you're on the north pike, it's that way.

Harmony dared to venture out from the safety of the car's shade to look down the long road. Even though the weather was bitter, it wobbled in his vision like a heat mirage.

Then he looked up to James.

"...You're not lost, are you?"

"Uh... well... not... not in the traditional sense, n--" James started to say, unconvincingly, but he was interrupted by the clunk of a car door opening.

"JAMES! What's the holdup?!" demanded the voice of a little girl.

A voice that Harmony would probably come to fear.

Harmony's arms fell limp at his sides. "What do you mean? You either know which way South is or--"

Uh oh.

The angel's wings fluffed up again. He hadn't counted on James having anyone else with him. Why hadn't he thought of that? He was garbage! If he'd had the sense, he would have asked that first! He quickly scurried under the car again and pressed himself against one of the wheels, still unable to tuck his cramped wing.

James's expression quickly turned to alarm.

He started to turn around.

"Uh, Laura--"

"What's that?"

HERE COMES YOUR DOOM, HARMONY.

In the form of a precious little blue-eyed girl trotting towards the end of the car.

"A bird? Didja find a bird?"

Harmony held his breath and tried his best to shrink into the shadow of the wheel. He was cold and hurting and it was impossible to stay still. He wondered if James would bail him out.

James would be a bro, right? Right?

James didn't often think fast.

But today he did.

Reaching out to grab an empty soft drink cup that they'd gotten at the last gas station, he snatched it and then bent down, swiftly scooping Harmony into the cup whether he liked it or not.

"Uh... nothing. Nothing, Laura. It's cold, get back in the car."

Harmony could feel his heart beating in his throat. Oh, God, it was a little girl too. He didn't have any experience with those and--

everything went dark.

It was a wonder Harmony ever survived the dark and broken streets of Center City because as he was shoved into this sticky prison, he let out a strangled scream.

James froze as the cry of horror and despair emanated from the cup.

And Laura stared.

"... Is the bird in the cup? Did it die?"

"I-- no, Laura, and-- it's hurt, so let's just--"

He started to get back into the car, cup in one hand and wrench in the other-- ignoring the following deluge of CAN I SEE THE BIRD CAN I CAN I SEE IT I WANNA SEE THE BIRD CAN I SEE THE BIRD from Laura.

Harmony clapped his hands over his mouth once what was happening registered. The voices of the big people echoed off the white walls around him and made him feel like some weird hum was in the very base of his skull. Okay. He was an injured bird. He could go with that.

He would be a very still injured bird. Or try to be. The tacky insides of the cup pulled at his feathers and the few drops that had been left behind in the bottom edges gummed up his sandals.

Bleeeuughh, good God.

The voices of his strange captors were muffled by the Styrofoam sides of the cup, but he would still be able to hear them.

"I wanna see! I WANNA SEE! Let it out!"

"Laura, no, it might hurt itself more."

"We're in the car! It couldn't go anywhere!"

Heart slamming in his ribs, Harmony stayed still. If he cried out, even if he pretended to be a bird, the girl (or demon, he didn't know, he couldn't see her) might try and wrassle the cup away.

He'd only known James a few minutes, but from the tone in his voice, the realization that the big man in the green coat was not the one in charge came raining down on him like the moving truck he'd escaped from earlier.

It was a pretty frightening realization.

"Just leave it, Laura. Okay?" It sounded more like pleading than commanding.

Harmony swallowed. He felt like his fate was sitting unseen only a few feet away. Unless shaken or otherwise disturbed, the angel would stay as quiet as he could. It was impossible to stay perfectly still though.

His damp wings made light squeaking sounds as they scraped against the Styrofoam walls of the cup whenever he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. The cramp in his wing was still going strong. He started to fear he'd actually gone and pulled something.

It would be some time before Harmony saw the light of day again. At least he wasn't in danger of suffocating-- the straw provided a convenient pipe of air.

Eventually he would feel the cup jostled as it was removed from the car and brought inside somewhere-- but even then it would be a bit of time before the lid came off.

When it did, the first thing Harmony would see was the probably somewhat-alarming sight of his 'rescuer' staring owlishly down at the contents of the cup.

"Hello?"

Harmony had surprisingly been able to stress-doze during the ride. It wasn't fainting, exactly, but when you're trapped in a cup, there isn't much else you can do besides stare wearily up at the semi-translucent lid to your prison.

However when the car stopped he was wide awake again. He had a gut feeling that wherever they were wasn't 'South' in any sense of the word. Things got still. Things to quiet. Then the lid came away.

The angel instinctively made himself as small as he could when his rescuer peered down at him. The bottom of the cup had been littered with molted feathers and some of them were stuck to the sides from the soda that had dried in there. He made eye-contact with James though.

"...Hi. Again." Harmony steeled himself. "Where am I?"

"In a motel," James said. He sounded weirdly... disappointed? Sitting down on what turned out to be the toilet, he propped his chin on his palm and sighed. "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't turn out to be real."

Or at least that he'd be gone.

Because there was the distinct possibility that he still wasn't real.

Some of the weariness left the angel's face then. He fluffed up his sticky feathers and frowned so that his halo tipped forward.

"Well forgive me for existing."

He thought he understood James's position well enough. It had to be pretty jarring finding a tiny robed person under your car. But that was still rude! Harmony spread his wings and flap-flopped out of the cup and down to the bathroom floor. He swallowed a yelp as he flexed his strained wing. It was better than it had been, but he wasn't going to be seeing any real altitude until he spent some time out of that cramped soda cup.

Harmony looked around the bathroom and dropped his huffy tone. "Thank you for...saving me from possibly being beheaded." He suddenly remembered the child's voice and hushed himself.

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