Strangetown: Chapter Two

[strangetomato]

Warnings: language, violent situations, death, mention of suicide


Chapter Two





They called him Nervous Subject, but that was not his real name.

The Beakers, in all truthfulness, didn't even know his real name, and didn't really care. When they asked him what he went by, he had said, simply, "Does it matter?" and all three had agreed that it really didn't. After some time, the clinical description that they used for him, "the nervous subject", became used as a proper name.




In fact, Nervous Subject wasn't even his second proper name. It was his third. He had no knowledge of his first name, since he had been too young to remember. The second had been given to him by the adoption agency, and it wasn't really much of a name. They had even altered it several times, thinking it would help him get adopted, but it hadn't. When he went into the foster system, it became abundantly clear to him that sims weren't going to necessarily care what his actual name was. They would call him whatever they damn well pleased.

If the Beakers had ever chosen to entertain guests, which they never did, those sims would probably assume that Nervous was their adopted son. This also wasn't true. Nervous had never been adopted by anyone in his entire life. After many, many unsuccessful foster families had come and gone, some in the most horrific of ways, Nervous had fled the system. This action put him into a detention centre, and he had escaped from that too, when circumstances provided him with an opportunity. The Beakers had found the young teenaged Nervous on their doorstep one dark night, trembling. He just stood there, looking at them with his dark eyes, and they had taken him in.




The Beakers. Few sims were more notorious. The name alone sent most residents of Strangetown packing, and fast. Individually, Loki and Circe were nasty sims, but as a pair, they were completely dangerous, and deserving of fear.




Most sims assumed that Loki was the Beaker to watch out for, but they were sorely mistaken. Where Loki was angry and spiteful, Circe was cold, calculating, and full of malice. They were both completely misanthropic, of course, but Circe would almost sooner kill you than look at you.

Delusions of grandeur ran wild in the Beaker mansion, and both Circe and Loki were dead set on domination in one way or another. For Circe, it was all about the cold, hard simoleons. Loki's desires were much more esoteric. The goals of his research were kept secret, even from Circe, though she knew that it was genetic in nature. She was only interested in what fame and glory that he would bring to the family, and of course, the money that he would make because of it.




That was the reality of Nervous Subject's life.




Having escaped so many other bad situations, one couldn't help but wonder why Nervous hadn't attempted to escape the Beaker mansion by now. It's not like he hadn't considered it, at least once or twice, but he had been there for so long. It felt more like a home than any other place ever had. The Beakers didn't seem to resent and fear him as many other sims did. He didn't even scare them as much as he scared himself. Other sims eventually found him unsettling and creepy. He was no picnic to be around, and he knew it.




He couldn't just leave. He wouldn't want to, in fact. As horrible as it was being Loki's test subject, it was better than nothing, and better than being alone. All the cruelties that he was subjected to did distract from the reality of his existence, from the chilling feeling that crept over his body several times a day. Nervous was desperate for something, anything, that could take him out of his body, and silence his mind. He had taken advantage of anything that would, when presented with that option, but that had only increased his problems, and those solutions always wore off.




Circe had no qualms about liberating the hospital of supplies, if it would further Loki's research, so she was able to secure a supply of sedatives and painkillers that seemed to do the trick for Nervous, at least temporarily. It worked better than anything else ever had, at any rate.

Nervous didn't really understand how other sims managed life. Death seemed much easier. Much more natural, somehow.




He'd never make it on his own, and he knew it. He needed the Beakers to attend to all the mundane details of his existence. The things that must be easy for other people. Without them, how would he find shelter, feed himself, and keep himself properly medicated? It wasn't a perfect situation, but it was the best option he had right now.




Besides, the reality of living with the Beakers was much better than those dreams he always had.




The dreams. They were always nightmares, without exception. Every night, all night, he watched them move behind his eyelids, spinning their horrible web. The dreams terrified him, but he never spoke about them to anyone. He couldn't imagine that anyone would be able to understand, and they would just shun him, as they always did. He certainly didn't mention them to Circe or Loki, but he was sure they were at least partially aware, given the amount of yelling and screaming he did at night.




He slept in the basement, in the "pit", so that the noise was kept down there, while they slept upstairs. Even just the grinding of his teeth was loud enough to wake someone.




The thing about the dreams that really bothered him was their consistency. They were always very much the same. They always ended the very same way.




He tried not to place any meaning on them, beyond the workings of his disturbed mind, because the thought that they might mean more than that was too frightening to even consider. But there had been that one dream, while he was in foster care, that had hinted otherwise. The ropes closing in on him, again and again, and she was dangling from the ceiling, and the terrible smell. Every night the same dream. Then one day, when he walked into her bedroom, there she was. Hanging from the ceiling, with a rope around her neck.




At the end of the dream was always the same familiar face, if Death could be said to have a face.






The dreams weren't usually about anyone he knew, but he really didn't know a lot of other sims. He would see images and faces that made little sense to him, terribly things that he could only pray were random nonsense. Lately, however...




Lately he had begun to dream about Loki and Circe, and himself, too. Flames consumed the Beaker mansion, and Loki burned.




He fell into the flames, screaming and cursing, and was left as cinder and ash.






Sometimes even Nervous himself burned in the flames, his skin searing, soaking his bedsheets.




The last thing he usually saw was Circe mourning and cursing, then sweeping up the ashes and tossing them in the trash.








Even after all that, she was cold and fastidious.




He wondered what it could possibly mean, though he obviously had some ideas. If the dreams weren't scary enough, the dread that they brought over him definitely was. He couldn't go to sleep without making sure that the fireplace was out, the oven was off, the plugs were all fully into the socket, and he checked again and again and again until Loki finally went into a rage at him.




He did a lot of things that sent Loki into a rage, but the Beakers were actually very tolerant of him in some ways. As long as he did everything they demanded of him, they basically let him roam around at will.




They even tolerated his hair, though Circe often complained that he was draining her bank account dry from the cost of the hair gel alone, and Circe's simoleons were not be messed with. He put a lot of time into maintaining that mohawk, since it gave him one area of his life that he could have complete control over.

Nervous lived in a state of constant agitation, fear, and nervousness. Trembling, twitching, blinking, and shaking. If he wasn't worried, he was angry. If he wasn't angry, he was sad.

Well, if the truth was to be known, he was always sad.

Despite all of this, he really did have a soft heart, deep down. He had done his best to harden it, but sometimes he couldn't help himself. He wondered what it was like to be happy, to care for something, or someone, and be taken care of too.




It was this side of him that had kept the starving stray puppy, when he had found it outside of the mansion. Circe would be livid if she found so much as a single dog hair in her home, but Nervous was very careful about it. He hid the dog, and had been looking after it ever since.




The little baby animal had such innocent eyes. Nervous really envied him.




He had also seen this most unfamiliar quality in the eyes of a man that he had been seeing around Tesla Court more frequently. A small, quiet, and very pregnant man. His name was Pascal Curious, or at least that's what he called himself, and he lived high on the hill which stood on the other side of Strangetown.




Nervous found his kindness even more surprising than his unnaturally pregnant belly. Pascal's eyes expressed something that he was largely unfamiliar with. It was concern.

The concept was all but completely foreign to him, but it seemed as if Pascal wanted to be Nervous Subject's friend.




The Beakers didn't allow guests, but Nervous found himself talking to Pascal, despite the risks. He talked to Pascal more than he had ever spoken to another sim in his entire life. Once, when the Beakers were away at work, he even invited him in for lunch.

Pascal asked him a lot of questions about himself and where he came from, and Nervous was very careful about how he answered them. If he said the wrong thing, and other sims became aware of what Loki was doing to him, who knew what would happen. Things could become really bad for him.




Of course, it wasn't hard for Pascal to see that Nervous had serious problems. It was easily observed with the naked eye. Even Loki didn't need special equipment to see that Nervous was deeply troubled.




Nervous remained extremely evasive about it, despite his obvious desire that someone would care and understand where he was coming from. So instead they spoke about Pascal's own situation, with his pregnancy, since Nervous was very curious about that.




That was what they were talking about when Loki came home and found them behind the mansion.

He quickly went on the attack, and screamed at Pascal to get off of his property. Pascal, while obviously fearful of Loki, stood his ground and demanded to know who this young man was and what exactly Loki was doing with him. The fact that someone had been speaking to his test subject was bad enough, but Loki was doubly mad that this someone had been Pascal Curious, his fellow scientist and chief rival.

Loki calmed himself, and addressed Pascal with what he thought was perfect poise.




"Listen, Pascal," Loki spit out, "If you want to get involved with my nervous subject, that's your funeral. You have no idea what the boy's really like. We're doing him a favour, frankly, by keeping him here, and any testing I do on him is for his own good."

"That's bullshit, and you know it, Loki."

"Well, ask him yourself, if you like! It seems like he really likes talking to you. Go ahead and ask him, Pascal! He doesn't want to leave here. It's his home."

"Is that right, Nervous? You really want to stay here with this monster?"




Nervous didn't say anything at first. Well, what could he say? Was he going to ask Pascal if he could live with him? It was unlikely. He looked at Loki, then back at Pascal.

"I live here... "

"I can see that!" Pascal realized that he was shouting, and tried to calm down. "But you don't have to live here, do you? You can just leave, if you want to."




"Pascal, again I will say that you have no idea what you're talking about. This is why I am well on my way to becoming an eminent scientist, while you continue to struggle with all of your piddly little notions. Also, do you intend to take in the boy yourself? How could you afford it, even with the addition of your brothers' salaries? Where would you find the time? You've got a little green bun in the oven there, in case you haven't "discovered" that yet, and from what I've heard, your dipshit brother, Vidcund, has been getting himself probed a little too."

"You should keep your telescope facing upwards, Loki."

"You tell your goddamned brother the same thing! He ought to Keep his beady little eyes off of my wife! She made her decision years ago, and she chose the far better man!"

"He's aware of that fact."

"Well, at least someone wants a piece of his sorry ass, even if nobody on this planet is interested. All you Curiouses are the same, aren't you? I can't imagine what you intend to achieve with all of this interplanetary breeding... care to enlighten me, Pascal?"

"Oh, you'd just love to know more about it, wouldn't you, Loki? Is that why there's a pile of rubble behind your house that looks like it used to be a spaceship?"




"I think it's well past the time for you to leave."

"I certainly have better things to do with my time than talk to you."

"Listen to me, Pascal. You listen very closely... " He stared into Pascal's eyes with utmost hatred. "If I ever see you on my property again... If I ever see you talking to my test subject, or find out that's he's been talking to you... "

"You can't do anything to me." Though even as he said it he wondered if that was really true.

"Oh, maybe not to you... but I can do anything I want to Nervous Subject, can't I?"




Pascal said nothing, because he indeed knew that much was true.

"If I hear or see anything that I don't like, he will certainly know about it. You can consider the responsibility for his safety to be in your stumpy little hands." Loki turned away. "If you aren't gone in five minutes, I'm going to let Circe know that you're here, and we'll both come out to deal with you together. I believe she's in the lab as we speak, ripping the internal organs from a cadaver, so she'll be in just the right mood."

Pascal had little choice but to leave. He glanced at Nervous, who offered a weak smile. Pascal drew his eyebrows together, sighed, and walked away.




Once Pascal was gone, Loki turned to Nervous himself. "You should stay away from him. Those brothers are nothing but trouble. We're kind enough to let you roam around out here, Nervous Subject, so why must you disobey me and interact with the local riffraff?"

"I didn't say anything, Loki. We were just talking."

"Well, I don't want you talking to Pascal Curious--that meddling science asshole! Him and his stupid brothers and all of his goddamned theories! He's spying on us, you know. He really wants you for himself, for his own studies."

"It's not like that."




"You shut up! I'll tell you what it's like! You don't know him--I do! He's trying to seem nice to win over your confidence. He's going to use you to further his perverse alien experiments."

Nervous didn't say anything more, since he knew that when Loki reached this particular level of agitation, it was best to back off.

"Well, you heard what I said, didn't you? Consider yourself warned! It's for your own protection, and you know it."




"Now, come inside, hmmm... we have some work to do... "


















(Continue to Chapter Three...)




 

Comments

[frouwke.livejournal.com]

Your bandtwith exceeded. ): Just so you know. xD *sad face*

[frouwke.livejournal.com]

*bandwidth

I hate that word. D