Chapter Text
Jared Hopworth was gone.
The Institute was safe, for the time being.
Melanie ran, and ran and ran until she found an empty spot of the tunnels. The layers of blood on her were drying to a tacky annoyance.
She sat down hard on the dusty stone.
An indeterminable amount of time passed with her staring at the wall. The blood had well and truly dried. God, she’d liked this hoodie. It was a good hoodie.
The anger had abated, though. Small mercies. She didn’t know what she would have done with herself if the end of the fight hadn’t stopped the pulsing need to move from coursing through her arteries.
And then there was a door.
“The police are here,” Helen said in lieu of greeting. “For your information.”
Melanie sighed.
“Okay.”
Helen stood in the door, seemingly unsure of what to do next.
“I don’t know if I like this.” Melanie admitted. A non-sequitur. “This whole thing. But I’ve got to like it, I guess? Because if I hadn’t gone... like that, then we’d all be neck deep in meat by now.”
Helen stepped closer, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor in a position mirroring Melanie’s. The dust on the floor under her began to shiver and twist into strange shapes.
“So I guess I’m supposed to lean into it! Since we’re already stuck here, and there’s no way to get away from all this bullshit and evil gods and blood that makes sounds...”
She stopped suddenly, gripped by the vague feeling that some sort of quid-pro-quo was necessary. Conversationally. Even though her conversational partner seemed to be breathing backwards and had fingers that were the exact measurable length of longer than you thought they were last time.
“But anyway, are you okay? I mean, thanks for eating Jared Hopworth. So. You good?”
Helen jolted, looking at her in genuine surprise. Or something that passed for it, she guessed.
“I... am I okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That is... an interesting question.”
Melanie idly scratched a spot of blood underneath her fingernail. Helen seemed deep in thought.
“I think. That I am not.” She laughed suddenly. Melanie’s tooth fillings rattled. “But I appreciate the question.”
They just sat next to each other, then, looking at nowhere in particular on the opposite wall.
“We should hang out sometime.” The words spilled out of Melanie’s mouth before she had a chance to rethink. Yeah, Helen was some kind of freaky monster- but at this point it felt like more of a question of who wasn’t than who was.
And.
And it felt like maybe, she hadn’t had a choice.
And wasn’t that relatable?
“I would like that.” Helen murmured.
“Cool.”