(no subject)

[summer_sparrow]

Title:  Curse the Darkness (2/?)
Pairing: Artie/Claudia
Rating:  Pg13? I think? I’m not good at ratings.

 

Claudia slid from the rumpled bed, eyeing the dark room with wide eyes. She could feel her heart pounding, the sick rush of adrenaline coursing through her body. She’d been asleep. Had she? The lights when out—and Artie—and a candle.

Oh. Oh. The candle. I can’t believe I was that stupid… in the freaking warehouse! Of all places!

She shuddered, clutching her hoodie closed. Now that her fear had receded a little, she could process her surroundings.

The dingy brown room looked like it belonged in a motel that hadn’t been updated since the seventies. The bed she’d bolted from sported mold-green bedding that looked as uncomfortable as vague memory told her it was. The question was just how she’d gotten there…

One window graced the far wall, blinds drawn. Claudia made her way to it, glancing around nervously as if someone might jump out of the dark corners. Then again, she thought, who the hell knows. I might have summoned flying monkeys from hell. A cautious peek out the window showed an empty street, an enticingly golden beach beyond it. She could just see the corner of another building, and a part of a sign reading

“-la Motel

-$10/night

-ancies”

She dropped the curtain back as a man rounded the corner, tall and blond. This was not good. There were definitely not gorgeous sandy beaches anywhere near the warehouse. In fact, she couldn’t think of any place with beaches that would have motels that cheap so close to the water.

Something was seriously off.

She checked her pockets—twenty-six dollars, a pen, and a scrap of paper Pete had been doodling on (featuring a stick-figure Claudia mooning over a not-so-stick-figure with glasses—she’d had to confiscate it). Her lighter was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn’t a lot, but hopefully she could call—not Artie; Pete, maybe, or Leena-- and get rescued after a few hours of sunning on the sand. Yeah. Phone home, get out of this joint, and not play with Warehouse toys. Ever. Again. She’d write it a thousand times if it would just get her home.

The building was as antiquated as the room, and the open-air hallways between suites made her skin crawl a little. Maybe she was just too used to the Warehouse’s dichotomy of vast space and claustrophobic hallways. At least there you knew you were safe. …until someone hacked in. She’d taken care of the holes she’d exploited, though, and the one’s she’d left. It was as safe as it could be without a complete overhaul.

This place, on the other hand, was not. She glanced around, trying not to look furtive, but neither wanting to let someone-- or something-- get the jump on her.

You could never be too careful.

The parking lot wasn’t quite as empty as she had assumed. A Bug in good repair sat beside what looked like the main office, and a beater van pulled out of the place just as Claudia stepped into the light.

She considered, briefly, checking out the office; then again, they might want her to pay for the room, and she might need money. It was never a good idea to give up more than you had to. She settled for skirting the building, barely pausing to crouch and snag the newspaper lying beneath a shuttered window.

Claudia’s determined stride stuttered to a halt a few seconds later as she read the top line.

Miami Herald, it said.

1980.

-----

Okay, so being stuck in 1980 wasn’t all bad. There was the whole paradox thing with being around before you were born. And with not knowing how to get home. And the whole kind of freaking out because what the fucking hell.

However, there was also watching Empire Strikes Back a week and half after it went to theatre, eating popcorn and a coke and still having most of her money left, and thank god none of it was stupid monopoly money. Old-fangled dollars for the win. Claudia tried to focus on the sheer geeky thrill of the moment, because she refused to allot more than ten minutes to sitting in a parking lot, hyperventilating and on the verge of tears.

She had to get back, that was a given. She had to get back, and she had to have time and a place to sleep while she figured out how, because going the long way was not an option. Jeez. What would happen when she was born? Artie would kill her if she exploded the universe.

Shut up, brain, shut up. This was not the time for thinking. This was time for subconscious processing and not-panicking. This was absolutely not the time for thinking.

At least the theatre was air-conditioned.

-----

Pete slid through the door to the office warehouse, darting out of reach of Myka’s grabbing hand.

“Ow! I was just kidding! …Artie! We found the thi…woah. Uh. That’s…. different.” Pete slowed to a stop, making Myka stumble into him.

“Hey! What? What’s different? What—oh. Artie? What’s going on?”

Artie was nowhere to be seen, though a door was open into the room, a small square of light spilling out. The office was certainly changed from the day before. All of the maps and notes had been removed from the walls. The place was stifling hot, not a single sigh of air moving. Even the computers were quiet. Stacks waist-high of old, tattered books surrounded a single thick candle, burning slowly and giving off a faint, pungent scent. It was the only light in the room.

"Oh, my, god. Artie? Artie." Myka slid around Pete's still form, taking in every aspect of the scene. It was eerie, seeing the room by just the flickering candlelight. It made the years gone by seem very present, and very real. “Artie, what’s going on?”

"What’s going on is no one ever listens to me.” Artie backed through the door, carrying yet more books. “Never touch anything, anything in the warehouse.” His growl of irritation was, Myka thought, laced with more than a little worry. “Claudia’s in trouble. I don’t know how, or where, but,” he started to wave a hand at the candle but aborted the gesture, something like fear in his eyes, “it has to do with that. She lit it and poof,” another aborted gesture, “Gone.”

Pete walked forward slowly as Myka stared at the candle. “Ok… so… why are the lights out?”

“I don’t know. They went out right before, before… she lit the candle. I was trying to find her, why did she light the candle? She knows better!” Artie slid into a chair, looking lost and frustrated. “I called Leena, she should be here soon. Get a book. Start reading.”

Pete and Myka exchanged glances, Myka nodding to the door as she picked up a book. Pete nodded in return, slid his gun out of its holster, and stepped out into the warehouse.