Chapter Text
Herbert is pissed.
Now that’s hardly surprising. ‘Bitchy’ and ‘Science’ seem to be his default settings. However, this time it’s a little more specific than an experiment not working or being inexplicably irritated by Dan getting laid.
“Someone has to know,” Herbert seethes as he fidgets and paces the lab.
“So why haven’t they contacted the police?”
“And say what? ‘I keep gutting small animals that just so happen to have been dead before?’ No, whoever this is has to be smarter than that. Not smart enough to dispose of the remains, however.”
Dan swallows and looks down at what is left of the shredded squirrel that Herbert let out into the world a few days ago. Bloody, yes, disgusting, yes. But not decomposing. Which offers a bit of a problem when it comes to evidence. It would be all too easy to connect these to the equally preserved remains from That Night.
That worry, Dan will not admit, is the only reason that he is not actively relieved about this situation.
Herbert’s latest experiment has been attempting the assimilation of the re-animated back into society, and shockingly he agreed to animal trials at Dan’s wheedling. That’s why he doesn’t want to complain, it’s all too easy to imagine yet another superhuman thing out on the streets. But the thought of angry animals possibly destroying the local ecosystem is also not terribly appealing. So Herbert agreed not to use predators, mumbling something about Dan being a mother hen the whole time.
“I don’t understand why you aren’t more upset by this, Dan. This could be our only way to collect data on re-integration of the––”
“Re-animated subjects, yes I know, I just don't know what you expect me to do.”
Herbert stares a moment, fuming, and then turns around swiftly, re-burying himself in his work.
Ah. He doesn’t know what to do either.
Herbert begins filling a syringe, and Dan sighs.
Well, not quite true. He’s always got at least one idea.
“I won’t be intimidated by someone who performs such inane gestures as empty threats––”
“Herb.”
“––this impotent posturing will not have an effect on our work, you mark my words––”
Dan grabs Herbert’s wrist just before he can inject the stiff deer on the table (he hates using roadkill because of the tissue damage, but it is the least conspicuous).
“Not in here, Herbert.”
Herbert goes stock-still and stares a moment at Dan’s unmovable grip on his wrist, but he doesn’t try to pull away.
He never does.
It takes Dan letting go of him for his brain to evidently work again.
“Yes… yes, fine. Quite correct.”
The deer is significantly more stiff than when they carried it in here, and is frankly a bitch to get back outside, but if it means one less instance of cleaning up broken glass, Dan would carry it up and down the stairs all night.
Predictably, the deer panics upon being reanimated, scrambling and trying to run away from invisible horrors on unsteady legs. Dan sighs as he watches the poor bastard lurch off into the night.
“It’ll probably just end up roadkill again.”
“I’ll be sure to log your hypothesis, Dan.”
Herbert can tell that Dan feels silly yanking on various lengths of cable in the hardware store, but of the two of them any tests of physical strength will prove far more accurate when done by Dan. And quite frankly, he would rather pay for military-grade restraints than have to continually replace the lab instruments destroyed by his subjects.
His line of thought is interrupted when someone shoulders past him in the aisle.
“Do you mind?” he snaps instinctually, whipping around to glare at whatever idiot has forced him to reckon with human touch today.
“Not at all,” the man in question says, flashing a smile. He’s carrying two large containers of gasoline, and it is evident that he is struggling. Likely why he bumped into Herbert in the first place, though that excuses nothing. Obviously.
“Need a hand?” Dan offers immediately.
Of course.
The man snorts, inexplicably, and nods.
“More than you know, buddy,” the man laughs as he offloads one of the tanks and it becomes immediately obvious that his right hand is missing.
Alright, that was fairly amusing. Not that I’ll let him know.
When straightened up, the man is infuriatingly tall (yet another reason to dislike him), and Herbert notes that he has a black eye and several facial cuts. Probably a dispute over something like alcohol, or a girl or something equally as dull. Herbert rolls his eyes as Dan carries his load to the register (as if Herbert doesn’t need his help as well).
“Thanks, um…”
“Dan.”
“Ash.”
“If you’re finished with your playdate, Daniel , we still have work to do,” Herbert can’t hold his tongue any longer. With this business of his subjects being used as some maniac’s target practice, he doesn’t have the patience for social interactions he usually does.
Ash (apparently) laughs at this and just waves off Herbert’s remark like an errant fly.
“I think your mom’s calling.”
“Sorry about him,” Dan mutters it, but Herbert knows what it is he’s saying. At least roughly. It’s always the same, Dan can’t seem to stop apologizing for him everywhere they go. He must be aware by now that Herbert is so rarely ‘sorry,’ apologies on his behalf are just as meaningless as they would be if they came from him.
Dan walks back over, hands stuffed in his pockets, scowling at Herbert. Oh, well, Dan is often upset over silly things like social impropriety, it’s not worth remarking upon. Dan has been frequently unhappy, but he’s here.
As long as he’s here.
“ Goddammit! ”
Herbert slaps the newspaper down onto the kitchen table. There, beneath a small article on page 6, is a picture of a deer–– their deer––roughly bisected. Ugh.
Dan scrubs his hands over his face. Herbert’s been touchy ever since the guy in the hardware store snarked at him earlier in the afternoon. He thrives on being able to get a rise out of people, and the inability to do so evidently bothers him more than he’ll admit.
The oddity article is just the cherry on top, because whoever’s field the poor thing wound up in noticed it’s lack of decomposition and sold the paper some pictures and a story. At least it seems some kind of animal carried the rest of it away before anyone dared to touch it. The evidence is gone, to Dan’s intense relief, but the connection is still there to be made.
“Herbert,” Dan begins tentatively, seeing him stiffen just hearing his name, “you’ve gotta stop releasing these things, it’ll just get messier––”
“Right, and we know how much Dan hates messy things,” Herbert grits out as he stalks down to the lab.
Dan stares after him, suddenly and intensely exhausted. It’s all so familiar, you would think he’d stop being overwhelmed. He tosses the paper on the pile by the fireplace and curls into the back of the sofa, on his side. A footnote to the brilliant Dr. West, living in a cold cemetery, fighting sleep on a tattered couch that he’s had since before his life changed irrevocably.
And I’m still here.