Brigitte & Ginger - Happier Times, Blood Moon (backdated to 1/31)

[ax_wolf]

After a week without their drugs, and with a blood moon is rising, the Fitzgerald sisters make a desperate attempt to escape before it's too late.

...but it's definitely too late.





There was a dull thud coming from the room at the end of the poorly-lit hallway, and had been for hours. The Happier Times facility was otherwise quiet for the evening, the sort of bored silence unique to sterile white hospital halls, orderlies and nurses keeping themselves awake and patients pretending to sleep.

Ginger's fist thudded half-heartedly against the door again, like it had been doing for the past two hours. She was sitting on the floor, back against the clawed up door, fist thumping over her head. She had screamed herself hoarse hours ago, when she'd tried to claw her way out, but it had only earned her more time locked up and ignored.

It wouldn't last, though. A long, thin, hairless tail poked out of her underwear, curled on the floor beside her, and her hair had gone completely white. It was only a matter of time now-- and while earlier that had scared her, now she was eagerly awaiting the coming bloodshed. Fuck, she couldn't wait to tear into Alice, that sadistic witch really had it coming...

Brigitte was breathing fast as she walked down the hallway. She had lifted the keys off that fuckhead orderly Tyler while he was staring at Ginger's boobs earlier, right when he was ending his first rounds. At least Ginger's tendency to modify her clothing to emphasize her... assets came in handy every once in a while.

But that had been almost two hours ago, which meant that it was almost his turn to do another patrol. Her time was up.

She had failed.

The night of their bathroom discussion, Brigitte had taken advantage of them not being locked in anymore to immediately sneak out of her room and look for where Alice was stashing the cure. She knew it was still on the premises because Alice kept on saying that they'd figure out why the girls were dosing with poison as soon as they ran the full battery of tests on the samples. Brigitte had searched through the staff lounge with no luck the first night, only managing to slip past two orderlies who were headed for the coffee pot due to Ginger causing a distraction by starting a fight in the opposite direction.

That had led to Ginger being locked in her room the next night, which was frankly a miracle that almost made Brigitte believe in a higher power, because that was the night of the first full moon. So while Ginger was screaming her head off, crying out loud enough to cause Brigitte's heart to ache, Brigitte broke out of her room again to search the only other place the cure could be stored: Alice's office. Except Alice really wasn't getting any, because she was still in her office. Brigitte was eventually forced to retreat into her own room, overwhelmed by her own growing bloodlust and a few visions of Ginger tearing out someone's throat.

Now, the following night with the moon at its most full, there had been a noticeable increase in the number of visions Brigitte had been experiencing. And Alice was still in her fucking office, ruining all of Brigitte's plans. Snarling, Brigitte tensed, almost ready to just turn around and go through Alice to get what she needed.

But... no. She shifted her rage, reminding herself that the blame could only be laid at her own feet. She had failed Ginger, which meant that she had to do what was necessary to get Ginger away from any other victims. With that in mind, she slipped along the wall and knocked on Ginger's door, asking tentatively, "Ginge? You still with me?"

"B?" The thudding stopped, replaced by some soft scuffling behind the door before Ginger's face appeared in the small square of glass, suddenly hopeful, if a wild, desperate kind of hope. One of her eyes had changed, now striking pale blue, and her fangs were visible when she spoke, slurring her speech somewhat. "It's coming, the change--"

"I know," Brigitte quickly glanced around as she unlocked the door, stepping into the room briefly to update Ginger. "I didn't, I couldn't find the cure." Biting her lip as she took in the changes to Ginger's face, she felt despair crash over her. Ginger was too far gone to just try to run without the cure, not without endangering everyone around them. And because Brigitte couldn't kill Alice, she was going to fail her sister. Fuck. "We have to run without it. We just have to get through this full moon and then, then things will be easier."

Brigitte stepped over to the large window on the opposite wall as she spoke, scanning the grounds before her eyes were drawn inevitably towards the rising moon. The full moon made the change worse, more intense, and who knew how the eclipse would affect them. Her plan was pathetic and doomed to fail, but all Brigitte could hope for was that she could isolate Ginger through the night without succumbing to the full change herself, and then maybe tomorrow she could sneak back in or find a town that had a craft store. Even people in this rural wasteland had to indulge in dried flower arrangements, right? Brigitte laughed bitterly, denying herself the urge to flip off the moon, and turned back around. "Coast is clear, we have to go."

"Fuck!" Ginger punched the wall next to the door, fist breaking through the drywall. She growled, looking back at Brigitte, who was looking more wolfish than Ginger had ever seen before. Her pointed ears stuck out of the straggly mess of her hair, and her face had ridges forming under the skin.

Brigitte snarled a little at the outburst of violence, then muttered, "Smart," with an eye roll. "Where are your clothes?" She understood Ginger's state of undress - the farther along they got in the infection, the hotter they ran. Brigitte herself was only in a black tank top and jeans with an oversized grey zip-up sweatshirt, her journal stuffed into the front right pocket. At least they had finally gotten their clothes back once they were out of the "withdrawal" stage. And, of course, she wore her bird skull necklace. Alice had been reluctant to surrender the necklaces back to the sisters, but Brigitte had managed to convince her (probably because it was true) that they were a great source of emotional comfort.

"Fuck!" Ginger growled again, louder, snatching her hand out of the wall and sending paint chips and splinters skittering over the floor. She was wearing only a hideous Happier Times t-shirt and some plain black underwear, her long, hairless tail jutting out on her left side. She snatched her ratty black jeans off the floor and stepped into them, swearing roughly under her breath as she stuffed her tail in. "What is even the point of this then?!"

"The point," Brigitte growled back, patience worn thin by fear, "is to make sure you don't do that to someone's face," She gestured at the wall before crossing her arms.

"Well they'd fucking deserve it!" Ginger snapped back, grabbing her black zip-up hoodie off the bed. "Come on, tell me you don't wanna tear into these morons--"

"Of course I do! I'll-" and before Brigitte could say it, she could see it. Sneaking up behind Tyler as he made his rounds, hooking her claws into his jugular. And Ginger, laughing behind her.

"Fuck! No!" Brigitte grabbed her head, claws pricking into her scalp and body shaking with the need to go after someone as the vision faded. Ginger could always talk her into making bad decisions, but she pushed through this urge. "No. I'm not gonna be trapped here just because these people deserve to die. Let's go."

Ginger threw the hood over her white hair, ready to go, but staggered as fragments of the vision clouded her vision. Irate, she turned back to her sister. "Fine, B. Let's see how far we get - before you decide to do things my way."

Brigitte huffed, but slid her eyes to the side, ashamed because she knew what Ginger had seen. "I have the keys, so we can get into the abandoned wing and run from there." Thankfully the visions they shared weren't about the future in general, they didn't show Ginger the real plan. Because Brigitte couldn't have Ginger stay in the clinic, surrounded by potential victims. But she couldn't let Ginger run loose, either.

"Fine," Ginger replied coolly, giving her sister a cutting look. "Lead the way, Brigitte."


***


Brigitte swore under her breath as she looked around the dilapidated remains of the old tuberculosis ward. She had been hoping that there would be some place to keep them secure, but the wood was all rotten through, and there were even a fewholes in the brick outer walls. At least she'd been able to lock the reinforced door leading back to the rehab clinic, and it wouldn't be long before their claws would make using keys impossible. Ginger wouldn't be able to return to the clinic, picking off the residents room by room.

And Brigitte wouldn't be able to join her.

Ginger's frustrated scream interrupted her sister's thoughts. "Dammit! Are we getting out of here or not, B?"

All of her plans falling apart around her, Brigitte channeled her fear into anger. "Yes, Ginge, we just," she glanced around desperately, looking for an excuse to keep Ginger in the building. There had to be an intact room somewhere. "we should keep moving through the building, get farther away. Last thing we want is them seeing us running towards the trees. They'll, like, call the police or whatever."

"You think they haven't done that yet?!" Ginger glared at Brigitte's back, watching her sister searching. "We need to go!" she shouted, lashing out at a nearby wall with her fist. The brick shook, but didn't quite cave - but Ginger laughed, a wild sound as she felt power coursing through her. "Twenty minutes and I'll tear these walls down by hand."

"I think Alice doesn't want to lose her precious funding by letting two suicidal girls disappear without a trace," Brigitte snapped back, but started heading further down the building. "And that her self delusions that we're off having some illicit lesbian hook up will be crushed pretty quickly if she literally sees us making a run for it."

"And then what? We're changing - it's happening faster and I know you feel it too!" Ginger followed her sister, not even looking for exits anymore.

"We made it through last night, we can make it through one more." Brigitte's shoulders were hunched down, mind racing through options until, wait, was that an intact door?

She rushed into the room, checking that, yeah, this door would even give Ginger pause. And then she turned around and - "Holy shit, Ginge," Brigitte breathed out, morbid delight suppressing her panic. "It's a
morgue."

To the right were tables covered in old plastic bottles that were empty and corroded. Directly in front of them was a large mortuary cabinet, and to her left was some sort of heavy metal door. Brigitte grinned as she realized: no windows.

The discovery was enough to derail Ginger's rising urge to kill, for a moment anyway. "Wicked," she breathed, following Brigitte inside. She knew it was dark, but she could see everything perfectly - including the metal door of a freaking oven. "Holy shit, they burned people in here."

That was wicked cool, but Brigitte couldn't bring herself to respond. Instead, she kept silent as she closed the door behind them and, with a groan of twisting metal, snapped off the handle. She kept her shoulders hunched as she faced the door, waiting for Ginger to freak.

Ginger's head snapped around at the sound of metal, already sensing Brigitte's betrayal, like it was something she could taste or smell but hadn’t fully realized yet. "What the fuck, B-- what'd you do that for?"

With a hiccuped, sad little laugh, Brigitte thought about all the things that had led them here. She'd hoped that they had another miracle in them, that all of her research would help. But if she hadn't insisted on learning more, she'd never have been in that library; Ginger never would have attacked that librarian. She snorted again as she remembered the vital information that trip had managed to gather, turning around to sag against the door. "Did I ever tell you that the January full moon is called the wolf moon?"

"Fascinating," Ginger replied icily, advancing on her sister, lips curling back in a snarl that bared long fangs. Even in the dim light of moonlight shining through tiny cracks in the wall, Ginger could see like it was day, both eyes transformed now. Brigitte wasn't moving away from the door. "What the fuck did you do?!"

Brigitte gave herself one more second of helplessness before pulling away from the door. None of that mattered now - the past was the past and the present was fucked. Deal with it. Tilting her head down in readiness, Brigitte squared her shoulders and flexed her newly-formed claws. "I'm not letting you hurt anyone else tonight."

"Letting me?" Ginger actually growled, a rough, primal sound from deep in her throat as she advanced on Brigitte, knocking things off the table as she went. "Letting me? You fucking little traitor!! You think you can STOP me?!"

A twisted little smile distorted Brigitte's mouth, pulling up to reveal a fang. "I'm stronger than you." Maybe not physically, not normally, but she was smarter and she had a purpose. That had to count for something.

Ginger's laugh filled empty room. "Oh please - you were always weak! Pathetic! Now you think you're gonna turn on me?! What happened to we're the same, Ginger," she mocked in a mewling little voice, closing the distance between them. "You know you want it too - to feel their blood rushing over you, to hear them SCREAM as you tear into them!!" She'd pulled up close to Brigitte now, lips by her ear, tempting her with bloodshed. "You're gonna choose them over me? Over us?"

"I am choosing us," Brigitte tilted her head down further and leaned into her sister a little, panting through her mouth as she imagined it. It was easy to ignore the sting of Ginger's insults, but she couldn't deny the call of the blood. She could hear it pumping through Ginger's arteries, could imagine them hunting together to that beat. But she refused to. For now, she refused. "I'm locking us in because we are the same, and I know we'd regret it." God, she hoped that Ginger would still regret it.

"I don't think I will, B," Ginger growled in her ear, before violently throwing Brigitte to the side. God, even that felt so fucking good, and she rounded on her sister. "You can't fight what's inside us!!"

"Maybe not," Brigitte snarled, wincing in pain as she levered herself off the floor to get into a defensive stance. "But I can fight you."

Ginger loomed over her, voice dipping to an inhuman growl. "We'll see about that."