#chatzy:cass

[attysullivan]

Wyrm Your Way Out || Portia & Cass

TIMING: Current  PARTIES: @attysullivan & @stolensiren SUMMARY: Portia and Cass both pick up some older infrequently used books at the library only to find the pages blank and infested with Bookwyrms and they make a series of attempts to handle the situation.  CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

Libraries had always been safe spaces for Portia. They held pathways to other worlds of both science and mysticism. In fact, it was her love for reading that spurred her love for the law. So it was no surprise that the White Crest Public Library quickly became one of Portia’s favorite hang-outs after moving to town. She noticed a sea of regulars over time. Some looking for the latest romance novel and others on a seemingly constant pursuit of otherworldly knowledge. For the longest time Portia just thought the big, old, dusty books about mythical creatures were just that … myths. But once she found herself bound to some being known as a fae, she began to wonder what those strange books might actually contain. 

It took some time, but she finally decided to crack one of them open. Based on the thick layer of dust across the top and sides of the volume she had selected, Portia suspected that nobody had opened this one up in quite some time. As she began to take the book over to one of the empty tables, she decided to open it up to get a look at the table of contents. “Huh…” The first several pages were blank. She looked through the next several pages. Some had writing… but many were blank. Then suddenly she felt a small bite on her hand. Looking down she saw a small bug - which caused her to let out a short yelp and drop the book she had been holding.

 Normally, when Cass visited the library, it was to browse their selection of comic books. Leah usually set aside the ones she thought Cass would like, and she’d spend hours reading through them at the tables. But in recent months, she’d taken to looking in other areas, too. Learning about the supernatural — and learning that she was a part of it — made her realize just how little she knew about the world as a whole. It brought her to the ‘mythology’ section today, hoping to find more information on the thing that she and Sloane had faced off against in their time travel adventure.

Except… the first book she opened on the shelf was empty. No words on the dusty pages at all, no nothing. Cass couldn’t hide her shock at the blank pages. And it seemed like maybe she wasn’t the only one having issues — the woman closest to her, who’d grabbed another book from the shelf was looking perplexed, too. Cass started to say something, but before she could get a word out, the woman yelped and dropped the book. Quickly, Cass moved to her side. “Whoa, hey, are you okay? What happened?”

Portia had been so focused on finding a book that might answer her questions and then so confused by the blank pages she didn’t even realize that there had been another person in the mythological section with her. So when the other woman came over to her after she made a bit of a commotion, her cheeks flushed a soft red with embarrassment. “Shit, sorry. I’m fine, just overreacted to a bug that had been on this book.” 

Bending down to pick the book back up, Portia gave it a quick glance to make sure there weren’t any other bugs on it. “I guess nobody’s cracked this open in quite some time. Which… makes sense given that more than half the pages seem to be blank.”  Portia looked down at the book the other woman was holding and saw a similar looking small bug crawling out from between some of the pages. “Oh shit, careful - I think your book has one of those weird little bugs on it too. Maybe we should tell the librarian about this?” Just then she felt another small bite on her hand and as she looked down at the book she could have sworn she saw some of the words disappearing before her very eyes. 

Curiously, Cass leaned forward to look at the book in the other woman’s hand. Like hers, it was empty. Like hers, it shouldn’t have been. The mention of bugs in the book sparked some suspicion, too; Cass knew Leah well enough to know that she probably wouldn’t let the library become infested with insects. She looked down on the ground where the woman had dropped the book, spotting a tiny bug crawling its way back to the shelf.

It was only when the woman mentioned her book that Cass looked back to it, just in time to see one of the bugs crawl from the pages onto her hand. The resulting bite was sharp and felt something like an ant bite, and Cass hissed as she tried to shake the bug from her hand. The movement turned her head, ensuring that she was looking right at the book the other woman was holding as the words vanished from the page. “Uh…” She trailed off, eyes wide as she stared at the book. “Okay, something… weird is going on here. I don’t think these are, like, normal bugs?”

Portia looked back up at the other woman when she heard her make a noise. At least she wasn’t the only one these bugs felt inclined to bite. However, Portia didn’t love the phraseology that she used to describe the insects. Not normal bugs. It made her wonder if other people throughout her life, or at least throughout her time in White Crest, had said similar things in the past that she just never picked up on. Because until a few months ago the opposite of normal to Porita was strange… not supernatural. 

“Well, I don’t think any bugs are really normal. They all kinda gross me out.” Portia didn’t know if it was denial or fear that made her want to ignore things that weren’t normal. She looked at the ground where she had dropped the book originally to see one of the little worms crawling on the ground and squashed it with the heel of her shoe without thinking. “Luckily these seem… fairly easy to deal with.” Maybe they didn’t have to address the elephant in the room that both of them had seen the worms sucking ink off of the pages of these old books. 

There was a tightrope you had to walk in a town like White Crest. You never know if the person you were speaking to knew about the world beneath the surface or not, and revealing it to them could be a very dangerous thing. More dangerous for someone like Cass, who was something a little more than human, something different. But… Sometimes, the world sent a gust of wind your way, and staying balanced on that tightrope became an impossible task. This, Cass thought, might just be one of those times.

“I mean, some bugs are normal. Like, cockroaches are gross, but you see them all the time, right? But these are…” She trailed off. She didn’t want to have to say it, but she wondered if she’d be given much of a choice here. She thought of Metzli, of the way they’d revealed the supernatural to her in an explosion of ash and dust that had been shaped like a person only moments before. Bugs, at least, were a kinder introduction to this life than that, weren’t they? But still, Cass hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t her place. “How many of them do you think there are? If there’s a bunch, it might not be as easy as stepping on them, right?” 

There was a knowing tone in the other woman’s voice that Portia was trying to reconcile with. It was what she didn’t say that held weight, and Portia felt hyper aware of that. “Yeah, these are…” She let the silence speak for itself. As they spoke it seemed like more and more of these stupid bugs began to appear. Not wanting any more of them to bite her, she decided to sort of shake the book out to knock whatever bugs were in there to the ground. 

Rather quickly, she realized how much of a mistake that was. There were way more bugs in that book than Portia had anticipated. And as they tumbled down to the ground they began to disperse quicker than she would have expected. “Oh fuck.” She muttered. “Too many, evidently. There are too many of them.” She tried to stomp on as many as she could but it wasn’t gonna cut it. “I’m so sorry. You were right, these bugs are… we need to take care of this quickly before they spread.” 

There seemed to be some kind of understanding there, though Cass couldn’t be sure how much. Maybe she should have pushed a little more, tried a little harder to see if she could coax out an answer as to just how much the other woman knew about the parts of White Crest that were a little less Gilmore Girls, a little more Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there were more important things to worry about in the moment. Like, for example, the sheer volume of bugs that spilled from the book when the woman turned it over.

Quickly, Cass jumped back to avoid the scrambling insects, not wanting to find out what might happen if they got into her shoes. “Yeah, that’s not — It isn’t great.” She watched as the bugs moved towards the bookshelf, knowing that if they got to it, they’d bury themselves in more books and, presumably, eat more words from the pages. “Maybe we should bait them out!” She quickly moved to the nearby table, where someone had left a few copies of some romance novels out. It wasn’t great — any book being destroyed was hardly a win — but it was definitely easier to get more copies of romance novels than it would be to get additional copies of some of the books on this shelf, which looked a lot older and a lot rarer than the paperbacks on the table. “Help me try to coax them into these instead!”

Portia was pretty impressed with how quickly the other woman had come up with a solution to the problem. Well, maybe not a true solution, but at least a viable plan until they could either get help or figure out how to kill all of these little critters. Without missing a beat, she followed suit and grabbed a few of the novels with bare-chested men and damsels in distress before opening them up and tossing them in the general direction of the worms. 

“I really hope the library doesn’t charge us for … possibly destroying these books.” Sure in the grand scheme of things, it seemed far better for the objectively easier to replace books to get eaten up by the little pests, but Portia wasn’t sure if the librarian would truly understand what was going on here- especially considering that she didn’t even know what was going on herself. “Okay, I think it’s working? They’re moving away from the stacks.” Once she noticed a decent amount of them had crawled into one of the books, Portia tried to get a bit closer to it to slam it shut - hopeful that the force of doing so would kill them. “I can’t tell if squishing them actually kills them or not.” 

Luckily, the other woman was quick on the draw. She didn’t question the solution Cass put forth, and Cass was glad for it because, truthfully, she had no idea if it would actually work or not. For all she knew, they weren’t achieving anything with all this, but she threw the romance novels between the worms and the shelves, anyway, hoping that it might have some kind of an effect.

“Oh, don’t worry about it! I know the librarian, and she’s totally chill. She won’t be mad.” She was making promises on Leah’s behalf that she wasn’t positive were true, but she had to hope for the best here. She was sure the librarian would understand sacrificing easily replaced books for rarer ones. And if not… Cass would find some way to replace the books. “Yes!” Cass pumped her fist as the bugs migrated from the shelves to the romance novels. “I’m not sure, either,” she admitted. “Maybe… Maybe we just transfer them to the novels and get the novels out of the library?”

Portia had no way to know if the girl was lying about knowing the librarian, but it made her feel better about potentially ruining several books. “I like that idea in theory. Less thrilled about it in practice mostly because I can’t think of a way to transport these books out of here without touching those things and/or getting them all over me in the process.” 

“Unless we can find some bags to shove them into?” Portia looked around for something like a  nearby trash bin that could serve their purpose. “I don’t exactly know where we could take these to get rid of them, but the library does seem like the worst place for these things to be.” Finally she spotted a couple of seemingly abandoned backpacks nearby. She went over to them and carefully dumped out their contents before bringing them back over to the situation at hand. “I’ll clean and return them when we’re done.” 

The woman made a good point. Picking up the books now that they were crawling with the worms was a lot easier said than done, and they already knew that the little things had a bite to them. Cass wasn’t looking to get bit any more than she had already, especially not when she didn’t know much about the worms. For all she knew, they were, like, wereworms or something! She did not want to turn into a giant worm come full moon time. 

Glancing around quickly, she searched for something that might work. She spotted the backpacks just a moment after the other woman did, nodding at the find. “Yes! That’s perfect. As for what we can do with them… I don’t know. Set them on fire?” Or find someone who might know how to get rid of them. Maybe Metzli or Marina would have some idea.

“I never thought I’d be in a position where I was weighing the pros and cons of book burning…. feels sacreligious.” Unfortunately, Portia didn’t have a better idea. Or at least not one that wasn’t equally as destructive. It was almost odd how urgent a task this felt considering that the bugs weren’t moving as fast as she had previously thought they were. Maybe that had just been her adrenalin working in overtime. 

“Okay, fine. I guess we’re burning some cheesy romance novels.” With careful hands, Portia began to close and pick up some of the books once it seemed like a decent number of the worms were on them before quickly shoving them into the requisitioned Jansport. “Though once we’re done with this you should probably talk to that librarian friend of yours because I have a bad feeling you and I didn’t just happen to pick up the only two books that were infested.” 

“I know, I know,” Cass agreed with a sigh. She didn’t like the idea of it, either, but… It was looking more and more like it might be a necessary thing. The bugs weren’t too fast, but they made up for it with just how destructive they were, and stomping them all was unrealistic. Some were bound to escape, if stomping them killed them at all. Fire was a much surer thing, in her experience. 

There was some relief when the other woman agreed with the plan, mixed in with the guilt from the concept of setting books on fire. Cass didn’t think they had a lot of time to argue here, after all. She followed suit, waiting until the romance novel closest to her was full of bugs before closing it with a disgusted face, putting it into the backpack. “Oh, yeah. I’m definitely getting with her as soon as we’re done here. She’ll probably know a better permanent solution to all this.” Something that wasn’t a desperate attempt to minimize damage before it became too much.

The library wasn’t often the busiest place in town and Portia felt extra grateful that today was a slow day. What she was doing was strange enough without having to try to explain what was going on to anybody. Not that she really even had the words to explain any of it. “Any plans for the fire aspect of all this? Cause… not only is burning books in public sort of a bad look, but it would also technically, probably, require a permit. Which we don’t have time for.” 

At first she had been worried about the bugs trying to escape the backpack once they were shoved in there, but much to her surprise they seemed perfectly content staying put with their newfound snack of cheesy novels. “Besides,” Portia continued, “I don’t have matches or a lighter on me at the moment.” There were only a few stragglers writhing around on the floor headed to one of the few books still laid out - unknowingly inching towards a fiery demise.  

A permit. That was an obstacle Cass hadn’t really considered… probably because she rarely, if ever, considered the overall legality of her actions. “Okay, we may have to, like, technically break the law a little bit, then.” It was an obvious enough solution for Cass, who’s go-to often ended up being something a little less than lawful. The question mark in the scenario was how the other woman might feel about it… and it was a question mark that really stood to throw a wrench in things here.

It was the second obstacle put forth that provided more of an actual obstacle. Cass didn’t have matches or a lighter, either, and that made setting fires hard. “That’s… a pretty good point. Fire might be off the table, then. We could, um, throw the books into the sea?” Marina would not be happy about it, but they could fish the books out after the bugs had drowned, couldn’t they? Or, better yet, “Or soak them down in the sinks! Drown the bugs. Right?”

“Look, I love a good technicality… but if we’re getting technical, I did sort of swear an oath to uphold rather than break the law.” Portia grabbed the last book once all the worms she could see had climbed onto it, then shoved it into the backpack before quickly zipping it closed. “So, unless illegal fire is our only option here…”

As she took one last scan of the floor to see if there were any straggling bugs left behind, she heard the woman’s alternative option. “Technically that’s polluting…” Water wasn’t a bad idea though. Presuming these bugs died like normal bugs, depriving them of oxygen should do the trick. Before Portia was able to suggest a water-based alternative, however, her partner in non-crime had come to the same conclusion. “Great minds. Clean up might be a bitch… but can’t think of how that would be illegal.” Backpack in hand, Portia started towards the library bathroom. “Well, that’s not true. Destruction of government property by ruining the books… but honestly, these bugs are the ones doing the destruction.” 

“Oh my god, are you a cop?” Cass eyed the woman suspiciously, squinting as if she might be able to solve the ‘mystery’ of the stranger’s occupation just by looking hard enough. She didn’t know of any other career where someone might have to swear an oath to uphold the law… but, to be fair, she didn’t know a lot of careers to begin with. If public schools in Ohio had career days, she’d missed every one of them. “I guess it isn’t our only option.” But it was a fun one.

Polluting definitely wasn’t a very good alternative. The more she thought about it, the less Cass liked the idea of putting anything in the ocean. The lake wasn’t an option, either; Teagan was already disappointed enough in Cass, and she didn’t want to… add to that. The sink was the best option here, even if cleanup was going to be a headache. “We’re, like, saving government property! It cancels out. Two negatives making a positive… or something.” Cass trailed behind the other woman to the bathrooms, gripping the second backpack tightly. “And we’re gonna replace the books, anyway!”

“Okay, that’s the second time this week someone asked me if I was a cop. Do I look cop-y? I’m not trying to come off like a cop.” Maybe Portia would just have to start being more direct with her vague legal references. She really didn’t want people thinking she was a cop. “I’m a lawyer. Defense.” 

Drowning the bugs and books in the few sinks available was far from ideal. And Portia was honestly starting to have second thoughts about doing so. As they entered the bathroom, Portia plopped the backpack she had been holding onto the floor to inspect it. “Huh. They’re either not trying to get out… or they’re not successful at it.” She looked down at the small welts on her hand where the bugs had bitten her, then looked over at the brunette. “I almost don’t wanna open it up again, ya know?” Her tone was mostly joking, but there was a pang of truth to it. 

“You don’t look cop-y, the whole ‘uphold the law’ thing is just a cop-y thing to say!” Cass was actually pretty good at spotting cops most of the time. It was a side effect, she figured, of living on the streets for the years she’d spent there. “A lawyer,” she repeated with a nod. “Like She Hulk. Cool.” Okay, so maybe everything she knew about lawyers came from a mix of She Hulk, Daredevil, and Law and Order, but she was pretty sure it gave her a good base to go off of.

Cass definitely understood the other woman’s apprehension. Soaking books in a bathroom sink really did feel wrong, even if the books in question were cheesy romance novels. “I think they’re just… happy to eat what we’ve given them for now.” Until they finished their ‘meal,’ at least. But after that? They’d go right back to destroying more. “Maybe we can just take them away from the library? I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to do here. It feels like there’s no good options.” 

“You know, that’s wicked fair. Cops break the law more than they uphold it though, but that is some shit they’d say.” Portia actually laughed a genuine laugh at the woman's next comment. “I mean, I don’t transform into a giant green rage monster in a physical sense, and I’m pretty sure being a vigilante is frowned upon, but otherwise … not a bad comparison. Except in those runs when she was a ADA. That’s a very different kind of lawyer.”

“Two women with stolen backpacks filled with romance novels and worms standing in the bathroom of a public library with no idea what to do next,” Portia said as a sort of sarcastic narration of the pickle of a situation they found themselves in. “The thing is, these are… weird bugs. What if they’re amphibious weird bugs? Then we’ll be left with a pile of soggy books and very much alive bugs. If we just get them out of here, maybe we could… find someone who has a fireplace or incinerator? Or ask your librarian friend what we should do?” The irony was that Portia was trying to find a rational solution to an irrational problem. It didn’t stop her from trying, but it still felt impossible. 

“What they do and what they say don’t always line up with each other,” Cass agreed with a nod. She grinned as the woman laughed at her comment, pleased with herself for drawing a positive reaction out of a stranger — a holdover response from her foster care days, she figured. “I mean, aren’t the best things always frowned upon?” Being a vigilante was fun. Cass would know. “I don’t know the different kinds of lawyers, so I’ll just have to take your word on it.”

Snorting at the assessment of the situation, Cass nodded her head. “That pretty much sums it up.” She hadn’t even considered that the bugs might be amphibious, but in White Crest? Nothing was off the table completely. “Maybe we can take them to the forge in the Outskirts,” she joked. That was probably overkill. “Or… Soak ‘em in Off. Hey, maybe chemicals aren’t such a bad idea?”

“A chemical soak would probably do the trick. Even if they were bugs that could survive in water I doubt they’d be able to survive in chemicals.” Portia couldn’t believe how quickly this situation had gotten away from her. She was usually very resourceful, focused, and committed to solving problems. But this whole bugs eating words off of printed pages had thrown her for a loop. 

With what seemed like a viable solution on the table, Porita looked around to see if the bathroom had a supply closet in it. Bingo. To her delight, the door was unlocked. As she pulled it open it revealed a lovely large mop bucket and a few bottles of miscellaneous cleaning materials. “This should work, yeah?” She asked as she turned back to the younger woman. “Fill this thing bucket up with this stuff and… hopefully bye bye bugs.” She shrugged softly before wheeling the large bucket out of the closet and towards where the backpacks were laying on the floor. 

“Yeah! Yes! For sure!” If they weren’t destroying the library’s books, Cass might have felt bad about sentencing the little bugs to death, but… Well, the books were important. And she doubted there was any way to remove the bugs without killing them, at least no way that would ensure they wouldn’t come back. Some things just had to be done. Cass was learning that more and more, in White Crest.

The supply closet was a good find, and Cass nodded quickly as the woman pulled out the bucket. She wasted no time in opening the bleach on the cleaning cart and dumping it into the bucket, wrinkling her nose at the smell of it. Reaching into the first backpack, she pulled out a book. “Well, here goes nothing!” And, without further fanfare, dropped it into the bleach with a plop. “How do you think we know that it’s, like, working?” 

Portia grabbed a few more bottles of bleach and industrial-grade floor cleaner and brought them over to the mop bucket. She didn’t know much about science… but for a moment she wondered if they should be mixing random chemicals in what she presumed to be a poorly ventilated room. Figuring they’d be fine as long as they worked quickly, Portia followed suit and grabbed one of the books before submerging it into the bleach. 

She looked as the two books floated in the bucket, the liquid flowing between the pages and seeming to release the bugs from within as the pages began to soften. “I have no idea…” Portia placed her hands on either side of the bucket and gently rocked it. The books were floating towards the top, their pages seemingly free of strange little worms. “I think they’re sinking to the bottom? Which, even if that’s not killing them at least it’s getting them out of the books?” 

The stench of chemicals was strong, burning Cass’s nostrils as it wafted up from the bucket. She made another face, though she didn’t move away from the bucket. She could stand the smell just a little while longer if it meant the bug problem was solved. 

Looking down into the bucket, she watched as the pages were soaked through. The books were definitely ruined, but they would have been, anyway. The bugs obviously weren’t going to get out of them until all the words were gone from the pages, if the other books were any hint, and a book without words was nothing more than cardboard and paper, anyway. “Well, that’s good at least? We can dump them down the drain or something. Then they’ll be out of the library, even if they’re not dead.” And they’d tell Leah what was going on so that she could get rid of any other bugs and prevent them from coming back. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but at least it was a plan. “How long do you think we should let them soak, though? It smells.”

“Out of the library, sure. Not thrilled about where they might get to from the drains if a bucket full of bleach can’t drown them.” But there really wasn’t a better option. Not one that Portia could think of at that moment, anyway. So she reached into the backpack beside her and put the last couple romance novels into the bleach. 

As she stood up, Portia grabbed the backpack and cautiously examined it to see if there were any stragglers. There weren’t any. Whatever those worms were,  they didn’t seem to care about anything other than books. “We could always… just shove the bucket back in the closet without dumping it? Put an out-of-order sign on the bathroom door? That way your librarian friend can see what they look like at least? Maybe figure out what they are and how to properly get rid of them - presuming the bleach didn’t do that job already.” None of this felt right, but Portia also knew that either way a decision needed to be made. 

“That’s… a really good point.” A library might be the absolute worst place for book-eating-worms to be, but there were plenty of places that were only marginally better. A bookstore, someone’s personal shelf. They could destroy someone’s livelihood if they got loose in an author’s house somewhere, couldn’t they? Maybe releasing them into the drains was a bad idea, too.

Cass considered the woman’s idea with a nod. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly better than most of the other things they’d come up with. No one was likely to touch a bucket full of bleach for no reason, and Leah would be able to take a look at the worms and figure out what they were far easier if she knew exactly where to find them. “I think that’s the best plan here,” she agreed with a firm nod. “I’ll warn the librarian, and she’ll know what to do with them. One way or another, they’ll be taken care of.”

As Portia stood there, watching the bleach slowly wear and discolor the books they had dropped into it, it felt a bit surreal. She had come into the library today to learn more about fae and she wound up learning about something entirely different. And the other woman didn’t seem all that phased by what had happened. It made her wonder if they weren’t exactly human. But making presumptions these days always felt more risky than usual. “Yeah, that sounds good. Her library, her books… her bugs, technically. I think letting her make the choice on what to do with them is best.” 

Carefully, as to not spill any of the liquid, Portia pushed the mop bucket on its wheels closer towards the storage closet where they found it. “Th-” Old habits are hard to break. “I appreciate you jumping in and helping with all this. My name’s Portia, by the way. Portia Sullivan. I’d shake your hand but I feel like I should go home and soak in a tub for about seven hours before I touch anyone else after… all that.” 

“I’m sure she’ll be grateful we got them out of those books at least.” Their solution wasn’t a perfect one by any means, but the problem was, temporarily in any case, handled. There were probably more bugs in more books, but now that she knew they were there, Leah would be able to get rid of them. Cass was pretty confident that the librarian would know exactly what to do. Leah had, after all, proven plenty resourceful in the past. 

Smiling, Cass raised a brow but didn’t comment on the woman’s cut-off thanks. She must have known a thing or two about White Crest, at least. That was good. “Yeah, you too,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose and looking at her own hand with a nod. “Agreed. But I’m Cass. It’s nice to meet you, Portia, even if the circumstances probably could have been better.”