death valley [ATTICUS] ●

[Bastion Lewis]

The thin man couldn’t quite seem to shake the feeling of unease that had plagued him since his sister had appeared. There was just something altogether wrong feeling with the situation. Typically Bastion didn’t put much stock into gut feelings. He preferred things to be soundly based in logic, but even from a logical stand point there was something wrong with the situation. Kimberly simply wasn’t acting right, her power had taken too much out of her. But how could they keep her from using it? They couldn’t, really. They could tell her not to, but in the end it was left up to her whether or not she did – and that seemed like a large decision for someone as young as her.

Despite how distracted he was, however, he caught the jacket that was thrown at him. He smiled slightly, slipping his arms through the sleeves as he shrugged it on. It was almost as large on him as his was on Kimmie, though it at least fit his arms – mostly – length wise. He still had to shake the sleeves back off of his hands, but it wasn’t too bad. He zipped it up, shoving his hands in the pocket as he listened to her answers. They were… unsettling to say the least of things. He had been about to explain that there were a couple of stories where people did, but she got distracted with the ‘fuzzies’ and took off before he had the chance.

A soft sigh was heaved. His head was hurting again. Even through the headache, however, he tried to reason through the situation. His golden gaze regarded Atticus as he spoke. “I don’t…” He had been about to say ‘know’, but then his brother’s familiar appeared. Bastion regarded the child silently, watching as he skipped up to Kimberly. “She might talk to him.” He murmured, sighing once again.

“I don’t know if they did or not.” He continued, taking a step closer to the children and waiting until Atticus followed him before he spoke again. “I think this all has something to do with how Kimberly’s power works. Think about it. She can’t pass through solid walls, there has to be a way. She either disappears entirely from existence and then reappears – which could easily feel like Hell – or she passes…” He shook his head. “Like she goes through something? There has to be a passageway, right? I ….” He shrugged. “I dunno. We just need to figure out how it works.” He continued, stopping when he was close enough to hear the children.

--
Kimberly Ann Lewis

[Kimberly Ann Lewis]

Kim was almost to the escalators when Kip seemed to appear out of thin air. She heard the buzz of his wings before he landed on her head and nested. "You could have said something before you disappeared" She scolded the bird in a low but firm voice. Where could he have gone? She always wondered, and she even asked once, but Kip couldn't talk human. Kim herself couldn't speak bird, either, but somehow she could understand simple things based on what he did. It was not really important though. She trusted the bird. He'd not given her any reason not to.

Whether it had any relation to what happened next, or not, Kimmie could only guess. But a boy walked up next to her and looked over. She came to a stop, and if it were any other kid, Kimmie might have been startled to have had him just walk up next to her and talk to her. She knew his voice though, and the orange eyes of her friend were rather rare. She only looked confused for a split second as she stared down at the hand that the boy extended and puzzled over why he was introducing himself.

Kimmie had known Al since at least a few days after the event happened. He'd just appeared out of nowhere one day. Kip took to him instantly as if he knew him, so Kim didn't feel the need to be frightened. Even after he explained who he was, and that he was not human. Kim just kinda liked him from the start. He was younger than her, and that made her happy to be the older one. From that day forward he would pop in from time to time to play with her. They became fast friends. He was like a little brother to her.

"Al, You silly goose!" She said as she reached out and hugged him. "Where have you been?, and why...." Her eyes widened as she suddenly thought of something. She was still hugging him, not knowing what else to do, and she whispered in his ear. "I'm sorry. Is Atty not supposed to know?" She asked. She'd not considered it before. Now she realized that Atty had never seen her and Allen playing. Was it forbidden? Would he get in trouble? She knew he was big brother's familiar. Should she have asked his permission first?

Not looking at her brother who was quickly approaching, she tried to salvage the situation. She took a step back and reached for Allen's hand. She turned to rush the last few steps to the escalator. That would give them a minute to talk, she thought. If her brother's did not call on her to stop, she was going to rush into the Build a Bear. Al was super smart. She wanted to talk to him.

[Atticus Lewis]

Atticus chewed the inside of his mouth, his attention taken over for a moment. He was aware Bastion had spoken briefly, but it was clear his thoughts had redirected themselves at the formation of his familiar and the events that came just after. Bastion’s quite words after earned a simple sigh and a nod. Kim might talk to him, but would Allen explain anything that he learned? That would be the question.

Atticus knew very little about Allen. Unlike the familiars of others who seemed to at the very least persist in the vicinity of their humans for extended periods of time, Allen spent extended time ‘away’, and even when Atticus called him, there was no guarantee that he would show up. Even when he did show up whether from being called or of his own accord, it was rare for him to speak to him. Altogether, Allen was strange and foreign to his human, and the small boy seemed to prefer to keep it that way, much to his human’s chagrin.

Glancing back to his younger brother as he kept talking, Atticus realized he’d fallen a step behind and stepped a bit faster to catch up. As Bastion continued on with the theory of Kimberly’s power, Atticus allowed his thoughts to regroup. A passage way, something similar to hell? “A portal’d make sense,” he stated more to himself than Bastion after a moment. Pausing, he frowned again before glancing sideways. “Stargate had something like a tunnel, could be similar,” he stated. While science fiction was clearly just that: fiction, there was often a lot of physics involved to make it believable. “The tunnel between… space might be something hellish,” he commented simply after.

In that moment, the thought he had before came back again. A sharp eye glanced sideways to Kim’s jacket, and he gauged how much it would take out of him just to take a look. Gritting his teeth, Atticus glanced forwards again. He’d do it later, when he could sit down privately and not before. Atticus wasn’t rash, or so he kept telling himself. What his eyes met when he glanced forwards again, however, was not something Atticus was expecting. Kim had wrapped her arms around his familiar and started talking with him less than formally. Allen’s been…. talking with Kim? Atticus blinked. Or made friends with. The thought that came immediately after had muscles tightening in his arms. Where else had he possibly been? What was even up with this kid? As if Atticus didn’t have enough questions at the moment.

Allen, meanwhile, blinked a few time before grinning as he found himself drawn into a hug shortly after. He didn’t answer any of her questions, however, and even when she whispered in his ear, he gave no immediate response even in the most basic of terms. When she stepped back, his features were neutral but light enough. As his hand was grasped, he made no resistance down the escalators and rather fluidly followed without a word. It was only as they were a good ways down the escalator that he spoke again. “It’ll be ok, Kimmie,” he commented briefly glancing up before glancing at her and offering a surprisingly cheesy smile.

As the kids had rather quickly started down the stairs, Atticus reached upwards to nurse a small but growing headache at his temple. “What else don’t I know?” he grumbled less than amusedly.

[Bastion Lewis]

Much like his elder brother chewed in the inside of his mouth, Bastion chewed on his lip as his eyes flickered back to the other man when he spoke. Did a portal make sense, though? Were they even bound by the limitations they had known in the other world? He refused to think they were in the same world anymore. Things were entirely different here. Maybe they didn’t have to make sense, maybe there didn’t have to be a way. Maybe it just happened and that’s all there was to it.

That thought was unsettling in and of itself, and he laid it to the side. No, he refused to believe that. Despite everything else that had happened, he wouldn’t be able to handle something like that. The powers had limitations, this world had limitations, and Kimmie’s power certainly had some means of working rather than just… magic, or whatever. He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair almost irritably. “I’ll see if I can find some books about it or something. Even if we can’t create portals, there have to be books behind the theory.” His voice betrayed how aggravated he was beginning to feel. Kimberly wasn’t in earshot, which was annoying as well, and he didn’t care if Atticus knew that he was frustrated.

He hated not knowing things, especially important things, and he hated even more having no idea how to figure them out. Sometimes the challenge was fun, but not in this case. Not to fucking mention that he had plenty to read for all of his classes already. He was likely to make himself go blind from straining his eyes and using his power so much, if that was even possible. The thought only reminded him how little he knew about his own power. He sighed.

Yellow eyes followed purple ones to watch the interactions between their sister and his brother’s familiar. It made his stomach twist uncomfortably as well. The familiar was from the same ‘gods’ who had given his sister her power, a power that he was almost certain a girl so young shouldn’t have to wield. Eyes narrowed, but he made no move to separate the two. He didn’t even make a move to stop Kimberly as she rushed into Build a Bear. “This is all so fucked.” He stated in an irritated grumble, eyes moving to the side to consider his brother as the question was posed. "Too much." He responded, lengthening his stride to follow the children.

--
Kimberly Ann Lewis

[Kimberly Ann Lewis]

Kim’s relationship with Allen was peculiar. She took him at face value even though she knew he was not human, but a familiar, and actually much older. He looked younger than her, so that’s what Allen was to her, a little brother, sort of. Kimberly simply did not care to think otherwise. And he was the silent type, so she never had a complaint. In fact, she liked that about him. They never argued and he always listened to her. He was he one person she could voice her thoughts to as she worked things out for herself. He was quiet, but that did not mean he didn’t talk to her. He would respond at times. Always seemingly knowing what to say. And always something that felt right to Kimmie. This might have looked weird to someone looking at the two from outside, but it was perfectly okay and normal to Kimmie. She trusted him. Perhaps a bit too much.

They reached the build-a-bear and ducked inside. It was easier than Kimmie thought it would be. If either of her brothers had called out to her, she would have stopped immediately. She was always a good listener, after all. She wasn’t even sure if there was any merit to her worry. But she needed to talk to Allen right now. She didn’t want to risk him being sent away before she could talk to him. She had to ask him about the place she’d been. She couldn’t tell her brothers. How could she?? only bad people went to hell, right?. And if she’d been there... she was one of those bad people. It was weighing on her mind like a led block strapped to her head.

Kimberly drug him along for another twenty feet or so into the isle where the pre-made bears and their accessories were. She slowed, releasing his hand as she distracted herself from her thoughts once again by looking at all the bears on the displays in their cute outfits. She came to a stop in front of a bear in a red devil’s costume. It wasn’t something she’d planed. She’d never been to that store, actually. But she stared at that bear with wide eyes that would not budge from the bear before her.

“Allen?....”


She wasn’t even sure if he was even with her any more. She could have been talking to anyone. She didn’t wait for a reply. She slowly reached out a hand that she did not even notice was trembling. It took hold of that bear on its stand and slowly plucked it from its perch and brought it towards her body.

“Did I go to hell?” She asked in a low voice. She paled.

It was just one of a dozen questions she wanted to voice all at once. But her voice failed her as she stared a the bear in her hands. It didn’t even make any sense, even as she asked it. She needed to explain, not just ask something that was impossible to answer. He wasn’t with her when she teleported. How would he know about such a thing?. She recalled the whole experience, short as it was. It was short in hind-sight. It felt like an eternity when it was happening.

Was there anyone or anything there with her? Would she even remember such a thing? Was she even allowed to be there? And then the question she was desperately trying to suppress made it into her thoughts. Would he come for her?

The bear fell out of numb fingers as Kim looked to almost shrink as all her energy left her. It was like her sugar rush decided at that same moment to just end abruptly. She slowly let herself down on legs that no longer wanted to walk. Kim sat down cris-cross and stared at the bear she let fall to the floor.





Atticus Lewis Bastion Lewis