A Curse Upon Thee 1

Chapter 1: Waking Up is Hard to Do

Son of a-

The first thing that clawed its way into his brain was the smell. He knew that smell more than he knew anything; the same kind of sharp chemical bite that scraped the insides of your nose all the way raw. Why does antiseptic gotta feel so clean it’s dirty? The urge to breathe through his nose was a strong one but he fought it back all the same, fingers gripping the sheets tight at his side.

…sheets?

The second thing…

The second was the sandpaper scratch of the sheets against his skin; cheap, thin, and rough too. For all he knew, these things were probably boiled in bleach a thousand times by the time they got to him. Don’t tell me…

One eye cracked itself open to stare up at the soul-crushing expanse of white tile and blinding fluorescent lights. He knew those tiles… and he knew those lights…

Which meant one of two things.

Blue eyes darted down to his hands, no handcuff anywhere around his wrists. So, not option one, which means…

Hospital.

Ah, hell.

With a groan, he pushed himself up, legs swinging right over the side of the hospital bed in one fluid motion. Eyes darted around the place, the frown on his face slowly easing up as he took it all in slowly. Huh…

The hospital was… nice?

Not like he expected it to be shitty or nothing, but the place was way nicer looking than what he expected from the tiny little town he remembered stumbling his busted into… 

He blinked again, shaking his head as he realized the dull hammering throb in his temple from… yesterday (was it yesterday?) was gone. Instead, he felt a whole different kind of throb,energy thrumming in his veins that felt like a single note from a Gibson or something. Past that electric guitar buzz, his whole body felt… fine. 

Better than fine, honestly, almost coiled up, ready for a fight he couldn't remember starting.

His head felt like it was on the whole other side of things, though, as he tried to blink through his thoughts and found a whole lot lacking. Why can’t I… can’t I remember? It felt like looking at a Jackson Pollock, a messy splatter upstairs full of things he was supposed to know, things he knew he knew but also things he didn't know how he knew.

Phineas McHale. That was his name. Wait, nobody calls me that. Nobody ever did, because he wasn’t an old man who wore suspenders and tweed or whatever. 

No, it was Finn. 

Finn McHale, eighteen years old, and roguishly handsome. He flipped his long bright red hair back.These were facts, solid as rocks in a sea of fog.

Okay, Finn, my man. He clicked his tongue as he got serious again. What else you got?

He blinked a second later, blue eyes going wide as the ‘what else’ made itself known.

You’re a wizard, Finny.

A Sorcerer, to be exact. The same way he knew his name was Finn, he knew he knew the foundational principles of something called Cursed Energy. Hell, he could feel the stuff in this very room, the clean floors, white walls and bright lights doing nothing to keep it away. 

Finn took in a breath, sure he wasn’t crazy, because this… this wasn’t crazy talk. On an academic level and in his bones, he could trace it, the faint traces of Cursed Energy clinging to the corners like dust bunnies. He knew it in the way all of his fingers twitched, itching to form the hand signs for a Simple Domain. He knew how to throw a punch, knew how to circulate his Cursed Energy and he knew, above all else, that the most efficient way to exorcise a Grade 3 Curse was a clean decisive strike to the core.

It didn’t stop there either, even if he kinda wished it would. Finn worked his lips silently as he realized he knew how to find the best ramen shop near Shinjuku station. 「すみません、一番美味しいラーメン屋はどこですか？」The Japanese phrase surfaced whole and perfect, the rhythm and pitch as familiar as his own name even though he'd never… had he? 

When did I…?

The fact that he also knew how to ask for a pint in a pub in County Cork like he’d been born on the Emerald Isles almost. The fuck? 

Sure, all that was confusing, yeah. Confusing as hell.

What was even more confusing was how he didn't have a goddamn clue about was his parents' faces looked like.

Or where he was yesterday morning.

Or how, precisely, he'd ended up walking out of a forest in the dead of night with his clothes soaked and his head split open.

My head… That had to explain it, because you don’t just come out perfect when a car hits you and… yeah., that must be it… right? Last night… he remembered the woman. The weight of her in his arms as he walked into that town, the scent of rain and something else… leather? 

And then…

Huh.

Nothing. 

Before he could let out a groan, frustration taking all the words right out of his mouth, the glass door to his hospital room slid right open. Finn glanced up as a man walked into the room, clipboard in hand. The guy wore a white doctor's coat over a blue dress shirt, dirty blonde hair slicked back from a face that was all angles and smugness. 

The little name tag on his chest read Dr. Whale and his smile was a lopsided line that didn't come within a mile of his eyes.

Oh, I don't like you already.

"Mr. John Doe. Good to see you've rejoined the living." The doctor's voice was as slick as his hair, every syllable almost drawled out like the guy was trying to sell him a car that had like two-hundred thousand miles on it for “an unbelievable deal.”

Frowning, Finn's mouth worked silently for all of three seconds, English feeling weird on his tongue. "Doe? It's..." He blinked as a flicker of something hit his thoughts, the sound of someone (who? who?) saying his name. "...my name's Finn. Finn McHale."

"Well, Mr. McHale," Whale said, making a little note on his chart with a fancy pen; all black and gold glittering in the fluorescent light. The doctor's eyes flicked from the clipboard to Finn and back again, smile tilting up even higher to one side. "You gave us all quite a scare. You've been asleep for about a day or so but otherwise…" The pause stretched just long enough to be deliberate, the smile widening by a fraction. "... just fine."

The redhead blinked at the older man, something about that feeling like bullshit. Wasn’t I hit by a car or something? “Just fine?”

Maybe it was just a bad dream or something, but he definitely remembered getting his ass shoulder checked by Herbie with a bad paint job out of nowhere. Don’t think I should be just fine after that.

“Just fine,” the doctor repeated, smile faltering a little. “No, no, no, I know. I’m as surprised as you are even. In my professional experience, it’s not every day someone gets hit by a moving vehicle and just… walks it off.”

“I’m fine,” Finn said, the words flat. It was true… y’know except for the fact he didn’t remember anything since before yesterday. More than anything, though, he didn’t want any more reason to be stuck in this hospital, especially with the way this doctor was looking at him like a science experiment. “I’m fine.”

“That’s the thing, though. The… just most remarkable thing here, you know?” Dr. Whale’s lopsided smile widened into something that looked more like a grimace than a grin as the blond man tapped the chart with that expensive-looking pen. “You are. No fractures. No internal bleeding. Not even a significant concussion, according to the scans. Your recovery is… medically unprecedented. Forgive me for my poor bedside manner, but you should be in a coma. If not, you know, a morgue.”

Before Finn could come up with a suitably sarcastic reply for Dr. Ghoul, a second man entered, his presence sucking the air out of the room. He wore a simple, tan uniform and a sheriff’s badge that looked like it had seen better days. Tall too, with a beard that Finn was sure he wouldn’t be able to grow, and sad-eyed, he had the kind of face that belonged on magazines.

Like the doc, Finn hated this guy on principle.

Just different principles.

“I’m Sheriff Graham.” Oh great, even his voice sounds handsome. Fuck this guy. 

“I need to ask you a few questions about last night, son.”

Son, oh fuck this guy especially. Finn leaned back against the propped-up pillows, the scratchy fabric a constant, low-level irritation. Dr. Whale, you’re no longer my most hated. 

Clicking his tongue, Finn crossed his arms over his chest, the low hum of negative energy in his chest just waiting for him to do something with it. Considering he didn’t remember having a Cursed Technique, he wasn’t sure what that something was yet. “Hit me, lawman.”

“Two nights ago, you were found walking into town, covered in blood and carrying a woman, a Ms Emma Swan.” Sheriff Handsome’s pen hovered over a little notepad, eyes on the paper as he kept talking. “How about you tell me what happened to you?”

“Well, I got hit with a car,” Finn said bluntly. No point sugarcoating it.

Graham’s pen finally stopped. He looked up, his gaze steady, searching. “She hit you. And then you were able to carry her back to town?”

“She was about to fall. Pretty much passed out when I carried her, ” Finn rolled his eyes at the line of obvious questions being thrown at him, rolling his shoulders instead of bothering with a shrug. “An rud ceart le déanamh. S-seemed like the thing to do.” 

Fuckin… Japanese apparently wasn’t his only problem. I’ve never even been to Ireland. He wasn’t even one-hundred percent on whether he’d been to Japan before either, and that was a mess to deal with already.

Doctor Whale's eyebrows shot up at the sudden splash of another language (yeah, freaked me out too, doc) even as Graham's expression stayed exactly the same. The doctor leaned in a little closer, clipboard and pen meeting the bed as the sheriff did the same. "And what were you doing walking on the outskirts of town at two in the morning during a rainstorm?"

Good question.

Finn worked his jaw for a second, the only answer he had sounding more pathetic than anything else. "...I dunno, actually." 

The sheriff’s head tilted right, that gentle look cracking into something a bit more serious. "So you just make it a habit to walk through random woods miles from anywhere else?”

“...I might?” Finn shrugged again. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

“In the middle of a storm, too?"

"Man, I just told you I don't remember. Only thing I know is I was walking in the woods with a headache and then I hit the road." His lips turned down, everything leaving his mouth only making his frown deeper. "Anything before that… it’s a blank, man."

"You don't remember where you were going?" The sheriff pushed, voice still quiet but insistent now as the man kept pressing him like a bruise. "Or where you came from?"

Jesus Christ, man. "If I did, don't you think I'd have led with that?" These questions were useless, frustrating even, poking at the black holes in his memory with a stick. The hum under his skin kicked up with his heartbeat, buzzing with adrenaline as it tried to force its way out of him.

…Shit. He tried not to flinch as fluorescent lights overhead flickered hard, buzzing loud for a half-second. 

Both Doctor Whale and Sheriff Graham looked up at the light, a shared moment of what the hell was that before they looked back into Finn’s glaring eyes. "Are we done?"

The glass door slid open before either of them could answer.

The woman from last night walked in, her blonde hair catching the fluorescent light. Emma Swan. She looked tired, her face pale under the harsh hospital lights; still wearing that (honestly pretty cool) red leather jacket.

"Sheriff," she said, nodding to Graham. Her voice came out flat, low; the kind of tone that said she'd rather be literally anywhere else. Then her eyes landed on Finn and they widened just a fraction. "I'm… I'm glad you're okay. I am so, so sorry about what happened."

He nodded back at her, not sure what else to say. At least one person in this goddamn town isn't treating me like a science experiment.

"He doesn't seem to remember anything," Graham said, attention shifting to Emma even though his eyes kept flicking back to Finn. Yeah, keep watching me, Sheriff. I'm real dangerous.

Whale stepped forward, that smarmy smile sliding back into place on his face. "A classic case of dissociative amnesia, most likely brought on by the trauma of the… well, the trauma of being struck by a vehicle." He paused, letting that hang there for a second. "It's a miracle he's even coherent, really."

Emma's eyes narrowed at the sheriff, ignoring Whale completely. "So you're badgering a kid who has amnesia? Great police work, Graham."

"I'm just doing my job, Swan," Graham replied, voice still soft but with some steel underneath now.

"Well, your job is stressing him out."

She's not wrong. Finn felt his shoulders relax just a fraction, the tight coil in his chest easing up a little bit.

Whale cleared his throat, holding up his clipboard like it was a white flag. "Perhaps we should give Mr. McHale some time to rest, hmm? I'll be back to check on you later," he nodded Finn’s way, that same lopsided smile back on his face before he slipped out of the room.

The sherrif sighed, a long drawn-out sound that seemed to take forever as he tucked his notepad back into his jacket. "I’d prefer if you wouldn’t try to leave town," he said, eyes meeting Finn's one last time. "I might have a few more questions for you later."

And then he was gone too, leaving behind silence that stretched thick and awkward; the kind that made you want to say something stupid just to fill it. 

Emma shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her red leather jacket. "Look, I know 'sorry' isn’t really gonna cut it. Y’know for hitting someone with a car.” 

“Not usually, no.”

“I… I'll pay for the medical bills, obviously. All of it." She blew out a breath through her nose, glancing up at the lights for a second.. "And since you don't… you know. Since you don't have a place to stay… I can set you up at the local inn. Granny's. Until you get on your feet."

Her mouth twitched for a second, the woman clearly trying not to smile. "Or remember where your feet are supposed to be."

Comedian… love it. Finn watched her, a sigh pushed down in his throat. He had nothing. No wallet, no phone, and nothing to his name. Nothing except Dr Whale’s expensive-looking pen he’d slipped underneath the covers. 

Pickpocketing his way to a life didn’t seem like a good long-term plan so… Fuck it.

“Fine.”