Chapter Text
She must have fallen asleep from pure exhaustion because her eyes are slowly opening to a room she isn’t familiar with. She appears to be on a bed covered up with a blanket. From the looks of things she’s in Hedwigs’ room between all the drawings and stuffed animals she can see. Even the little hamster tank gives it away that this has to be Hedwigs’ room because she doubts Dennis or Patrica would keep a pet like that. That and the fact that toys are scattered everywhere is a dead giveaway. There is no memory of her making it back to this room. The last thing she remembers is looking into the Beast’s eyes as he announced to her a frightening fact of all 24 of the entities living inside Kevin’s body being her soul mates, including the Beast himself. The information plus the fact that she was running on pure adrenaline must have made her pass out not long after that.
Movement from the doorway catches her eyes and as she glances in that direction she sees that it is Hedwig judging by his blue jumpsuit. He’s biting his lip as he fidgets and looks her way. Seeing that her eyes are open and she’s looking at him he slowly walks towards the makeshift bed she’s laying on. She takes note of a nervous look is in his eyes as he kneels down to her level, face inches from her. For a moment she’s afraid he’s going to try and hit her with the bat again but she banishes the thought as soon as it comes. If he wanted to hurt her he would have.
Taking a deep breath he begins to speak. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your name Casey,” he whispers quietly with that lisp of his. “And for trying to hit you with the bat. I was just so worried yous were gonna get us found out that I didn’t realize you said your whole name. That you’re Kevin’s Casey. That you’re OUR Casey Cooke. Had I realized it I wouldn’t have tried to hit you at all. I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad. I would have told the others who you were had I realized it.” The tears dripping from his eyes tell her he’s honestly sorry. He may be a little shit but this personality was still of a nine year old, easily frightened and emotional. It’s easy for her to remember she was like that at her age because she was living with uncle John.
It wasn’t easy finding something to say. While his words were honest Casey was having a hard time trying to find the balance between being nice and being honest with him. While she was sure that now he and the others knew she was their soul mate and wouldn’t hurt her on purpose, she was not ready for another round of ‘dodge Hedwig’s bat’ or ‘stay away from the Beast’. On the bright side, she could try for some middle ground between the two because the way he was inching closer on his knees made her feel not too comfortable with him too close and if she said something he might stop.
Deciding on something to say she began to sit up. Instantly he stopped inching forward and waited. “I’m sure you’re very sorry Hedwig. I can see that you are. It’s not every day you meet someone important, right?” she questions carefully. She doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and give him some sense of false hope. Forgiveness isn’t in the cards right now because the Beast did just kill three people. Let’s not forget he took a nice bite out of her leg as well. The ache is still lingering on her leg. The memory of the Beast making it very clear that she was never going to leave them didn’t give her much hope for anything other than survival. If anything, the look he gave her on just how happy he was to have found her as his soul mate then she was screwed on freedom. From one prison to another it seemed.
Wiping the tears away with his sleeve he gently smiled and nodded at her. “Yeah, it’s not. I mean, out of all of us I’m the only one who still believed one day we’d find Kevin his soul mate and he’d be happy and safe then. But we’ve been looking and waiting so long that the others gave up but not me! I’ve been waiting for you for a LONG time. I didn’t think you’d be my soul mate too though. Does this mean you’re gonna marry all of us now?”
Casey blinked for a moment. Then she blinked again. The question provoked absolute honesty from her. Marriage was out, never gonna happen. “I’m not going to marry you.” Thoughts of jumping into a pit of poisonous snakes seemed less insane than marrying a man with so many different identities inside one body.
“But Miss Patrica says in all the stories that soul mates get married and live happily ever after. Then maybe one day have kids. We should get married though, you could be pregnant after that kiss,” he says earnestly with a few nods of his head.
Laughter is almost hard to fight for Casey at this point because with the look on Hedwigs’ face he is completely serious. He still thinks that kissing leads to pregnancy. Sooner or later she’s going to have to correct him on that train of thought but right now she’s going to let that little bit slide until she can actually explain sex to him…which was something she didn’t actually want to do. If anything she hopes one of the others could explain that bit to him because then he just might get some ideas that she was not ready to deal with. Instead she chose to direct the conversation elsewhere. This bit was something she actually wanted to know because the Beast only said as much. “So wait, how many of you live in Kevin’s body actually?”
The look on Hedwigs’ face is one of surprise, but then he smiles. “Duh! You should know that one since you have all our names, at least the Beast said so before he gave Mister Dennis the light to bring you here but I stole the light so I could talk to you first. There’s 24 of us now that the Beast is here. There’s the Beast, me, Mister Dennis, Miss Patrica, Barry, Kevin, Orwell, Jade, Heinrich, Norma, Kat, Ian, Mr. Pritchard, Goddard, Bernice, Polly, Luke, Rakel, Felida, Ansel, Jalin, B.T., Samuel and Mary Reynolds. I saw my name on your back on the bottom above your butt while you were sleepin but I promise I didn’t peek! It was just there for me to see. I’m so happy you’re here! Now we can be together and get matching socks, etcetera. I’m hungry, do you wanna hot dog?”
Twenty four. There were twenty four identities living inside the body in front of her and she had only met, after taking a second to mentally count them all out, nine personalities. It’s a shock to her system. Of course thinking back to that moment when she was on his computer she recalls all the names on the desktop that were video files. If the first three she clicked on were some sort of video diary for three then it stands to be that the other videos were for the others. Every name she glanced at had the name of one of her soul mates and she didn’t even realize it. Of course she didn’t put the two together because she was desperate to live and find a way out of the prison she found herself in but her soul mate situation was very different than the average person.
Normal people are born with one name on their body that lets them identify their soul mate because even if they were just a Dennis like one of the names on her body, it would be the first Dennis you ever met. In some rare cases people were born with two names and even a few studies showed several cases where people had three names but those cases usually ended up with one of the soul mates dying before meeting the others. In Casey’s case, it was unheard of and a scientific wonder. She was born with 23 names and it was only through some very private practice and favors her father called in that no one beyond her mom, dad, uncle John and the doctor that helped deliver her knew she was born with so many marks. Her father made sure she would never become a lab rat because of her abnormal soul mate count and as horrible as her uncle was he too made sure of it when he became her guardian. Of course his views on her “being owned by so many” as he called it made him think she would end up a whore. She had her doubts on how she’d ended up with so many soul mates but never imagined this would be the case. In the end even uncle John was wrong about who she “belonged” to.
Banishing the whole idea even revolving around her uncle she decided Hedwig was worth more thought than him. His too blue eyes were still waiting for her answer on if she was hungry. “I- yeah actually. I am a little hungry,” she answered him.
Possibly the most happy smile she’d seen him give planted itself on his face. “Great! Let’s go to the kitchen and eat. I’m not allowed to work the stove but I can microwave the hot dogs. Do you need help walkin’?” He didn’t even give her a chance to say anything before he removed the blanket from her and started to help her stand. Of course that’s when the pain in her leg became very noticeable and released a loud yell of pain. Instantly he sat her back down and backed up while putting his hands in the air in surrender. “SORRY! I didn’t know it was hurt that bad. I know Mister Dennis bandaged you up pretty good and gave you some medicine before I stole the light but I don’t what kind. I think he might be better at takin’ care of you right now since you’re hurt, etcetera. I’m gonna let him have the light now. He can make you somethin’ tasty to eat too.”
The thought of coming face to face with Dennis again shot a jolt of fear up her spine. Dennis was the personality she was most afraid of (prior to the whole soul mates incident) because he was the one that didn’t need a knife like Patricia did to get you to do what he wanted. His whole demeanor gave off that aura of control that you just did not want to fuck with. That and he was freaking strong and could probably snap a person in half.
It was unfortunate that Casey could not voice her concern about Hedwig giving he light back to Dennis because he ran out the room as soon as he was done speaking. At the moment she was fairly certain she would even prefer Patricia or the other personalities she hadn’t even met so long as it wasn’t either the Beast or Dennis that showed up. Again, it was unfortunate for Casey because now she was stuck waiting in Hedwig’s room for the guy to show up, most likely in his ‘Dennis’ outfit and he would probably start wanting her to take more clothes off because of all the sweat and dirt she collected from running from the Beast. She wouldn’t put it past him at least.
A few minutes went by before she finally heard footsteps approaching the room. Not ready to face him she looked down at her lap but her eyes couldn’t help but stray to the newest mark on her body. It was unheard of to gain marks after birth. It was widely accepted that before you’re even born fate decides who you’re paired with and sets those names on your skin and once you’re born it’s final. Even having more than one soul mate was a bit on the freak side for humanity to handle but not unheard of. This, right there on her stomach, the new name, was something that shouldn’t have happened. If anything she should have already had the name since birth but once more, fate has decided that Casey Cooke was to be destined for neither a normal life nor normal circumstances.
The sound of footsteps grew louder until a pair of black shoes stopped right at the edge of her vision. It was obvious he had changed clothes because Hedwig hadn’t even been wearing shoes when he left. A throat clearing made her look up into the face of Dennis with his glasses perched up on his head. He appeared to be slightly uncomfortable from the way he was standing but that could have been attributed to the tray of food he was holding. “Hedwig said you were hungry and that your leg is hurting. I brought food and some pain killers.”
Not comfortable with the situation Casey merely nodded and looked down again to avoid eye contact and hopefully make it clear she did not want much conversation right now. Of course Casey never gets her way because he brought a chair closer and set the tray of food and pain killers on it and then decided to sit next to her on Hedwigs’ makeshift bed, avoiding her injured leg. “I’d also like to talk to you for a little while.” Of course she didn’t have much say in anything. Just because he was one of her soul mates didn’t change the fact that she had any say in what went on in her life now. So she waited for him to begin.