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chasseurdeloup-retired · 4 years

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You Are the Stripes Beneath My Wings || Regan and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Kaden’s Apartment PARTIES: @kadavernagh and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Regan comes to check up on a “very sick” Kaden.

Tylenol, Advil, Benadryl, Dayquil, Nyquil -- Regan had stuffed half a convenience store in a bag and headed over to Kaden’s with some fresh chicken soup in hand. It was... strange. They saw each other just yesterday, and Kaden hadn’t been exhibiting any symptoms of a cold or flu, or even seasonal allergies. He said he was sick, very sick, but in that case, why not take advantage of the fact he was dating a doctor and let her come over? Was it really about not wanting to get her sick? Regan almost scoffed at that. She’d been exposed to pretty much anything, and rarely had a sniffle to show for it. As she turned the corner to Kaden’s apartment, what she saw made her freeze. The hallway was coated in black and white stripes. They were stretched across the walls, replacing the wallpaper. Down under her feet, the geometric carpet had been replaced by something only a mime would have selected. Even the paintings of sailboats and flowers now held striped subjects. “O… kay.” She said aloud, blinking at the dizzying change in scenery. She held her breath and headed for Kaden’s door. Knocked. She could hear Abel give an alert woof behind the door, but it was taking Kaden quite a while to come open it. “It’s Regan,” she called out, careful not to speak too loudly, “Did a mime move in? Is that the problem? I brought you soup! And medicine. All of them.”

Kaden knew that the soap and sponge wasn’t going to get the stripes out at this point, not if they hadn’t before, but that didn’t stop him from furiously trying to scrub them away. There was a knock on the door and his heart leapt in his chest. No. There was no way he could possibly have anyone over. Was it Blanche again? What if she had a camera ready this time? He turned off the water and went to the door to look out the keyhole. Oh no. It was worse than Blanche. It was Regan. Kaden grabbed the blanket again, wrapping himself up again, holding his grip much tighter than he did when Blanche came over. He had no plans of opening the door, but just in case. “Can you leave it at the door?” he yelled through the door, hoping she could hear. He tried to do a very loud fake cough. That sounded sick, right? “Mime? Why do you say mime? What mime? There’s no mime or stripes anywh--” Kaden remembered what the rest of the hallway looked like. Putain. “Sorry. I’m really sick. You shouldn’t catch this. It’s fine. It’ll go away.”

Was that fake cough really supposed to convince her? Regan exhaled a sharp breath and shouted again -- one of the hallway lights breaking, this time. “Kaden, I’ll remind you again that I’m a doctor. I can recognize a fake cough. Are you lying to me?” What was up with him? Since when weren’t they honest with each other? “Your hallway, Kaden. And your hallway carpet. And the paintings. Was this a neighbor’s doing? Are they a mime, or did they just hear the rumors about your sexual tendencies? Uh, not that those rumors are true, obviously. I would know.” She ran a hand through her hair, considering. She couldn’t force her way into the apartment, but she could play the long game. “Fine. I’ll leave it at the door, along with the rest of me.” Regan frowned down at the black and white striped carpet. Did he seriously think she was just going to dump the medicine and soup here and then leave without seeing him? She sank against the door until she was on the ground. “I’ll stay here all night if I have to.”

Putain. She wasn’t buying it. Kaden wasn’t sure what to do. “No, I mean, I--” This was entirely too humiliating. Wings were one thing, but these were stripes. And face paint. And he didn’t know if it was ever going to go away or what he’d have to do to get rid of it. But if he could avoid having her see him like this, that would be preferable. “You just can’t see me right now. It’s not-- It’s bad, alright.” He sighed as she described the hallway. Even if he did leave his apartment, he couldn’t escape the reminder that he was black and fucking white right now. Would that go away? Putain de merde. “I don’t know, it was like that when I woke up this morning and when Queenie came to check my arm. Which is fine, by the way. Did she tell you?” Fucking hell, this was going to do absolutely nothing to alleviated her assumptions about his sexual tendencies, as Regan had so eloquently put it. “Thanks, you can just leave it th-- Wait, what?” She was sitting at his doorstep? No, why? He wasn’t even this stubborn when she first got her wings and she locked him out. That wasn’t fair. “Really? Why? I pro--” Merde. “I’m fine. I mean I’m not-- Are you sure you can’t can’t just leave it on the doorstep? There’s really no reason for you to see this.” Somehow he had a feeling this was going to be a losing battle. Considering it was pretty clear she hadn’t left and wasn’t going to. “If I open the door is that good enough?” He wasn’t sure why he was trying to negotiate, there was no way she was leaving after she saw so much as one striped finger let alone the rest of him. Well, assuming she didn’t run away screaming. Shit, maybe he shouldn’t open the door.

She couldn’t see him right now? What the heck was he talking about? Regan swallowed the growing lump in her throat as memories of several months ago dislodged themselves. Hiding in her apartment with wings, trying to keep Kaden away, fearing his touch against her cool skin. Was it something as bad as that? Did he have wings? Was it contagious after all, and it had just taken this long? She sank further against the door, eyes wide open, as the thought made her marrow ice over. “I’m glad your arm is fine,” Regan said, harshly but with sincerity. Queenie had told her. That didn’t matter right now, though, since this was seemingly unrelated. Was it wings? Please let it not be wings, for so many reasons.

“I’m not leaving you. If you don’t want to open the door right now, that’s… it’s fine. But I won’t leave.” The back of Regan’s head thunked against Kaden’s black and white door. Darwin, it had to be wings. It was wings, wasn’t it? “I would have given anything to just have you sit outside my door and keep me company, talk to me, when I was stuck in my apartment. It’s not your fault that you didn’t. I kept you away. But I’m not going to let you do that.” When she heard his question, she sat up straight. “You’ll open the door? Really?” There was that lump again, and this time joined by mounting pressure in her lungs. “No, it’s not good enough! If you’re as sick as you initially claimed, I want you examined, whether by myself or someone at the hospital. And if it’s --” She sighed, pressing a hand to her head, “Kaden, do you have wings?”

Kaden’s heart sunk hearing that she had wanted him there all those months ago. “I would have, you know. I didn’t want to push because I thought--” He could barely even remember what he thought. Beyond that he didn’t want to be desperate or controlling or anything fucking else. Though admittedly, there were a couple times he lingered on her stairs a little longer than he should have. Maybe this was stupid, keeping her at an arm’s length. He knew damn well how much it hurt being on the other side of that door. Only he knew his, uh, “condition” was only temporary. Because if it wasn’t… No, there was no alternative. He wasn’t going to be striped for fucking ever. His hand hesitated over the door handle, blanket wrapped firmly around as much of him as he could manage. Maybe he should find gloves first. Did he own a ski mask? Could he make one in the next five minutes. Putain. “Okay, okay, but only if there’s no hospital, got it? I am not leaving this fucking apartment for anything, got it?” His pulse pounded in his chest as he considered opening the door. Couldn’t he just give it one more day? Fuck, no, he wasn’t going to have her sit out there all day. Maybe he could just hide behind the door. That could work. Deep breath. He almost turned the handle when he heard her next question. “Wait, what?” His brow furrowed and he hated knowing it was only emphasizing the stupid facepaint plastered there. “There’s no wings. In fact, I almost fucking wish it was wings. Trust me, that’d be better.” He let out another sigh. There was no way this was going to go well. What if she screamed? Oh shit, what if she screamed? What an inconvenient time to not be able to make a fucking promise. “I’m about to open the door. But I need you to stay calm. I’m only opening this if you don’t scream. Deal?”

No hospital? Regan couldn’t promise that, even if she wanted to. “If you’re dying or severely injured, you’re going to the hospital. I’m not arguing.” Kaden usually had more sense than most of the people in this town -- what was happening right now? He wished it were wings? Regan scowled, remembering the fear and even disgust balled into his face when he first saw them. None of that was there now -- she even pretended not to feel his fingers tracing over the veins at times -- but the thought that Kaden found them preferable to whatever was happening now was alarming. Regan pulled herself off the floor and grabbed the bag and soup again. She could hear movement from the other side, and his voice sounded close. Was he actually going to let her in? Her heart quite literally stopped beating for several seconds. The word deal brought Deirdre and Lydia to mind, their warnings about what such an exchange was capable of. Kaden… knew that. He really thought she was going to scream, and she couldn’t exactly assure him that she wouldn’t -- not when she could feel the beginnings of one stirring in her lungs, churned up by her nerves. What would happen if she screamed despite the deal? Or would she not be able to scream at all? Would it even work? The “word binding” nonsense that Lydia spoke of still seemed impossible -- surely it was all psychosomatic. “This is me, not screaming,” Regan said quietly, trying to push the rising sound down further. “Deal.” How bad could it possibly be?

“I’m not really worried about now but--” Kaden grumbled. This was a terrible idea. But she’d said deal. It should be fine. Kaden shrugged the blanket above his shoulders and held it tight around his face, hoping it covered the majority of the fucking mime makeup that wouldn’t go away. With his other hand he turned the handle and pulled open the door, trying his best to stay covered by it as it swung inside. “There. Door’s open. And I’m still alive. You can just leave the stuff inside now, right?” He knew full well that there was going to be no closing the door now with her on the other side, but he could hope, right? Maybe she’d just run away. Shit, no, that didn’t go well the last time she did that and he wasn’t about to go running after her this time looking like a goddamn mime monstrosity. He peeked his head around the door, hoping the blanket was covering the worst of the face paint, and saw her. She, uh, she wouldn’t notice right? It wasn’t that bad.

The door was opening. Finally, it was opening. Regan scrutinized it, realizing that Kaden was hiding behind it rather than standing right there to greet her. “You know I’m not doing that,” she said curtly, stepping inside. She peered around to the other side of the door and saw… Kaden under a thick blanket, completely swaddled with only his eyes peeking out. “Are you sure you don’t have wings?” But -- there was something around his eyes. A dot of black underneath each, surrounded by what looked like smeared white facepaint. They were certainly his kind, clear eyes, but she wasn’t sure what was wrong with his skin. “Did something happen to your skin?” A spike of concern shook her voice, and for a second, she lost her hold on the scream twisting in her chest. It rose up a little, but she caught it in time to pull it down. Carefully, she approached her cocooned boyfriend and patted his back through the blanket, trying to feel if there was anything new and flittering underneath. Nothing. Though her own wings quivered in concern. “I’m not leaving, Kaden, so you might as well show me what’s wrong and actually let me help. How many times have I reminded you that I’m a doctor this week? I mean, I’m a doctor all the time. But -- you know what I mean. And I’m also your girlfriend.” Her voice was tight with worry. She tried to assess symptoms, but she couldn’t exactly take stock of Kaden while he was hidden like this. She reached out for his hand, which was buried under the blanket with the rest of him. “Come on, drop the blanket. You don’t have wings and you’re not five inches tall. I think I can handle anything, at this point.” Why did that feel like a lie as it left her mouth?

Kaden tensed and waited for a loud pitch sound to pierce his ears on top of everything else. Only, no scream came. Okay, this was fine so far. He could just keep the blanket on until the stripes went away. It’d be fine. “My skin?” he asked, eyes growing wide. Fuck, there’s no way that wasn’t emphasized with that stupid black paint around them. “Uh, well, it’s-- Hey, hey! There are no wings!” he shouted as she tried to pat him down. He tried to swat her away, with his hand still inside the blanket but it wasn’t exactly expected. “If it was wings I would have told you!” He would have freaked out because there was just as much reason for him to have wings as there was for him to have stripes on his skin. “I know, I know,” he grumbled. If he thought she could help, she would have been the first person he called but this? This couldn't be treated by a doctor. He wasn’t sure a spellcaster could fix this shit. And his girlfriend shouldn’t have to subject herself to seeing him like this. Still, she was worried, that much was clear. Fuck, in her position, he’d be worried, too. “Please don’t scream. It’s better than being five inches tall, but it’s….” His heart was racing at the thought of dropping his blanket. What if he was stuck this way? She should probably know what she was stuck looking at. Maybe she still never had to see it. He could live life like the invisible man, wrapped in bandages all the time, right? Putain. He took a deep breath and decided to start small and held out his arm from underneath the blanket so she could see it, skin dry and rubbed raw, but still covered in black and white stripes. “I’m pretty sure it was the mimes.”

Please don’t scream. Regan had to tell herself that, too, as Kaden was building this up to be something horrific. What could it possibly be? Not wings, she believed him now, but was it a gruesome injury? Had someone left him scarred or mangled? Had the coyote come back to finish the job and pulled off one of his arms? Had someone shaved his head? Had his face been horribly disfigured? Was that why he was hiding it? Regan considered some of the decedents she’d had on her autopsy table. Was Kaden covered from head to toe in hair? Did he grow extra digits? Was his skin coated in boils or did his pores ooze mucus? So many borderline impossible things flicked through her mind, each more awful than the last as the decedents in her head started to look like her boyfriend. She held her breath tight in her chest as there was motion from underneath the blanket, and a shaky, black and white striped arm poked out in her direction. Regan froze, staring at it, not understanding. Had the mimes… painted him? She took a closer look at his skin, noticing the abrasions on the white stripes. They were on the black, too, she noted -- just more difficult to see. She held his arm, thumb rubbing against the stripes. It didn’t seem like paint -- it was almost tattoo-like. But it had to be paint. “I don’t understand,” she finally said, dropping his arm and hers, “they painted you? I’ll help you wash it off.”

No scream? No scream. Okay. That was better than expected. Only she clearly didn’t understand what had happened. Regan seemed entirely too calm about the whole thing. “What do you mean you don’t understand?” Kaden started. “Look at my arm! It’s striped!” He pulled up more of his sleeve, forgetting that his other hand was holding up the blanket. Putain de merde. He froze as the blanket fell away, revealing the whole horror. Shit. No hiding it now. He winced a little, waiting for her reaction. “It’s not paint. It’s my skin, it’s in my skin or something, I don’t know,” he said, voice pitched with panic. “I tried to wash it off but it won’t go away. I took so many showers, I scrubbed, I’ve used dish soap and sponges and that make up remover shit you left here once, nothing worked. It won’t go away.” His heart raced and he could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. “What if I’m stuck like this, Regan? What the fuck am I going to do? I can’t be a mime! No fucking way, that’s not happening!”

“Yes, your arm is striped. Someone painted--” But before Regan could finish, Kaden was pulling up his sleeve and the blanket fell away and… what. She gave Kaden’s face a hard stare, barely recognizing him for an instant. Her mouth fell open, silently, as she took in his appearance. The white makeup on his face. The black and white stripes covering every inch of his skin. His words washed right off her and all she could focus on was the way his painted lips moved and the creasing of white paint as his face contorted in emotional agony. Kaden. Was. A mime. This had to be his worst fucking nightmare. But after the list of possibilities Regan had drummed up in her head, this was almost a relief. And-- and-- Kaden was a mime. Kaden was. A mime. Not only was he unharmed, not only did he not have wings, he was a mime. How did this happen? Did he actually have a-- wait, did that make her a mimefu-- oh, no.

Laughter exploded out of Regan like a scream, shattering several lights, as she bowled over, palms against her thighs. She couldn’t focus enough to even think about forming a coherent sentence; all she could see behind the dark fields of her squeezed shut eyes was Kaden wearing mime makeup. Something else cracked and the laughter kept erupting out, until finally, at long last, it slowed down to a small, sharp trickle of glass-breaking giggles. “Sorry! I’m sorry!” She approached Kaden, setting a hand over his stripey arm. They really were close to the skin, if not in it. “We’ll fix this, I just-- I--” Snrk. She couldn’t hold it. “Sorry!” She was no better than Blanche, was she? Regan wouldn’t forget how annoyed she was at Blanche’s laughter when she was five inches tall. “Okay. Okay,” She said, mostly to herself, as she tried to get a grip on the explosive laughter. “I’ll clean that glass up. But, Kaden, I’m confident a good shower will do the trick. Or, uh, alcohol! Have you tried rubbing alcohol?”

Kaden couldn’t anticipate how she was going to react, but he was prepared to cover his ears at any moment, just in case. Not that it would do much. If she screamed, that meant his eardrums would be fucking busted and he’d be striped. What a fucking week. He braced himself and waited as she put the pieces together, saw his face, which had to look fucking horrifying. Was she going to run? Or-- Wait. She was… laughing? Was she really fucking laughing? “This isn’t funny! Regan, come on!” He jumped as the glass in the picture frames in the hall cracked and shattered. And probably some of the glass in his apartment, too. Putain de merde. Just pile it up, why the fuck not. “Look, Blanche already laughed at me, I don’t need this from you, too. What if I’m stuck with this?!” She kept cackling. Was she even listening? He grumbled and picked up the blanket to cover up the stupid stripes again. “Regan, I just said I took five showers! Five! I used every solution I can find! It won’t go away! I tried everything, it’s not painted on, it’s my skin! My skin is fucking striped!” Somehow the laughter was worse than panic. At least if she was panicking, she’d be taking this seriously and be on the same page as here. “Fine, you saw me. Got your laughs in. If you’re just going to laugh, just go, alright?” Didn’t need this from her of all people. He felt stupid enough. There was no way he was stepping foot outside of his door until he was no longer a fucking mime.

She knew she’d made a mistake as Kaden’s painted face burned with irritation and he buried himself back under the blanket. Regan’s mouth snapped closed, and she tried to smother any of the remaining laughter that was dying to come out. Crap. This was really bad, mostly because of Kaden’s past mime-related trauma. Hadn’t he just said the other day that he’d rather die than become a mime? He really did seem terrified, and a deep pang of guilt and regret hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. Kaden didn’t laugh when she was small, not once. And while it was too late to take that back, she’d treat this with seriousness moving forward. But -- but the face paint. And the stripes. No. Don’t laugh. Wait, the paint wouldn’t come off in the shower? “When… when did this happen? And how?” She said, reigning in the last traces of amusement from her voice. “I’m sorry I laughed. I just-- I thought you were dying. Or horrifically injured. But you’re not! We can fix this. This is fixable. Entirely.” Her words stuck in her throat as she took another step toward him, setting a hand on the blanket. They were the same ones he’d said to her. Once when it was true, and once when it was false. In this case, she hoped it was true. She wanted to give him a hug, but she could tell the laughter had stung. Best to wait. “Not water, then. We’ll find something, okay? I-- we can try different solutions with alcohol in them, or even a small amount of bleach. In the meantime, I’m going to bring over some foundation. Um, I might need to stop at a store and buy a lot more, though.” There was a lot of surface area to cover. “Have you tried, uh, screaming? It might help. Not with the stripes, but with, you know.” She breathed out, her mind clearing so she could approach this like a doctor. “Kaden,” she said, meeting his eyes, “We’ll fix this.”

It was pretty fucking clear that Regan still wanted to laugh; Kaden could tell she was holding back. He sighed and rolled his eyes, settling the blanket a little tighter over his shoulders. “It happened right after Queenie checked my arm. I went outside and there was a bag full of black and white cookies and I opened the bag and then this happened.” There was also a creature that formed out of the crumbs that crawled off likely to eat cats but that seemed like way more than she was ready to hear. Or believe. And the stripes were far worse than the potential new mime monsters. “How? How can we fix this? I tried everything, Regan. I really did.” He felt stupid being so upset about this but this was fucked up and he couldn’t go out in public like this. Who the fuck would take him seriously? How could he do his job or even just go to the fucking store? What if he was stuck working at the mime bar because that was the only career path left to him? Was this the mime’s ultimate revenge? Putain de fucking merde.

“I tried rubbing alcohol, I tried dish soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, I even tried carpet cleaner just in case. They won’t go away.” Kaden grumbled and walked back to the living room to plop on the couch, still covered by the blanket. This clearly wasn’t going away. At least Abel wasn't laughing, just curling up to him and wondering when dinner was. “Screaming?” he asked, one brow raised. “You think screaming will--” Oh. For a minute he was hoping that would be the solution to get rid of the stripes. “I did a bit, but I don’t know. I tried asking Isabelle but there was nothing helpful coming from her.” Not surprising. Of course she wasn’t fucking helpful. It was probably her fault in the first place he was black and white all over. “What the fuck am I going to do if it doesn’t go away?”

Kaden’s cracked and defeated voice made the pit in Regan’s stomach grow. Her guilt continued to eat at her as she realized how serious Kaden thought this was. And maybe it was. If he tried as many things as he claimed, and nothing got the stripes off, then… no, they’d figure it out. And soon. He wasn’t going to have to resort to being an actual mime. She didn’t even want to think about what that would mean for him. “There are always more things we can try. I’ll buy out a convenience store if I have to.” Regan followed him into the living room and, sensing that he probably wasn’t as irritated with her now, she sat down next to him. “I think it might help you feel a little better,” she offered lamely, “but the solution to this is going to require some, well, solutions.” Was he sure alcohol hadn’t worked?

Regan frowned at the mound of blankets sitting next to her. Kaden was buried underneath it, too humiliated to even poke an arm out again. “Kaden, I won’t laugh again. Really. You-- this will go away. Hey, look at me.” She met his eyes, trying to catch them peering out from underneath the blanket. “I’ll do anything I can for you in the meantime, but we’re going to get rid of these, uh, stripes. And the face makeup. You’re not going to stay like this.” For a moment, she considered mentioning that she’d stick by him regardless, but that would indicate uncertainty in what she was saying, right? Crap. She extended a hand to him again, though she still wasn’t sure she was ready to see his striped arm and fingers emerging. This was weird, too weird, and it didn’t make sense that it was all because he opened some bag of cookies. “This can’t be the first time this has happened to someone. We just need to see what others in your situation have done. We’ll -- we’ll get this fixed. I pr--” Her mouth clamped shut against her will, and she bit her tongue. “Ow. Uh, you know what I was about to say.”

Looking into her eyes, it was easy for Kaden to believe this was going to be fixed, that things would get better. He wasn’t sure if that was true but it was nice to feel some confidence in the idea that this would be temporary again. And there was no harm in trying as many options as possible. “Okay. Okay, if you say so,” he said with a nod. His hand looked like it belonged to some deranged Dr. Seuss character as he wriggled it out from the blankets to take hers. Kaden was pretty sure this was unprecedented. Unless this was how the mimes created those other monsters in the alleyways, with black and white cookie crumbs and glitter bombs. A shiver ran down his spine at the thought. “Are you alright?” Maybe the no promise binding promise bind still had its own faults. “But yeah, I do.” He squeezed her hand in his, trying not to look down at his weird striped skin any more than he had to.

“Thanks for…” Kaden met her eyes once more as he trailed off, unsure of what he was even thanking her for. Part of him still wanted to be alone and hide under the covers until it all went away. Still, another part of him knew that was stupid. Regan always made things better. Surely, that would apply now, too. Even if he had a feeling Bea or Cece could offer more help in this particular situation than any doctor could. Maybe he was just still reeling from the laughter from earlier. He sighed and settled further into the couch. “If you’re sticking around, we’re going to need more wine and cheese. Bread, too. And way to cover some of this,” he said, gesturing to his black and white hand. “And we’re watching more Meerkat Manor.” After all this, he earned a decent distraction and no way was he watching March of the Penguins right now. He needed a little less black and white in his life.

#wickedswriting #writing #chatzy #regan #kadavernagh #you are the stripes beneath my wings

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