"Aje, you can't be serious!" Nick protested as he quickly made his way over to the rebel, who was now gearing up to complete Brian's aborted mission. "Did you not hear a word of what was said?! This isn't a game or fucking entertainment purposes anymore, we're dealing with the dead body of a murderer!"
AJ remained silent as he strapped on his camera and holstered his walkie talkie to his belt. The logical part of his brain knew that Nick was right; the game had changed on them and he lost sight of them doing this for entertainment purposes when Kevin had turned and snapped on him. He no longer cared about the stupid missions that were given to him; his sole mission now was to get their eldest brother back. "I need you to navigate me." was all that he said in reply.
Nick watched in disbelief as AJ walked away from him completely and made his way to the door to leave. "Okay wait, stop... just, stop for a minute and, can we be fucking rational for a moment here?!" he turned to Howie and Brian, who were looking equally just as defeated "Are you two seriously gonna just let him go back into this place? Am I seriously the only one thinking this out right now?! Back me up with this!"
Howie glanced up sadly at their youngest brother, "I.. I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?!" Nick retorted, mouth agape in shock.
"I don't expect you to understand, but we need to finish this Nick..." Howie tried to explain, but was cut off by an irate Nick.
"Of course you don't expect me to fucking understand; you all think I'm some dumbass idiot that can't figure shit out or know what's right from wrong! Yet, here I am, being the sensible one in saying this is way out of our league and that we need to call the cops! Fuck the fame and money we may garner from this shit, our lives are now at stake! How selfish can you all be?!"
A slight chuckle of disbelief was what finally broke the few seconds of silence that had befallen them. "Honestly, I truly wish I could say that I'm being selfish in making this decision." AJ finally spoke up as he fidgeted with his walkie talkie. "In fact, being selfish is what got us into this mess in the first place, right? Making a comeback, being the first of our kind to be on this show, generate money."
He stood there for a while in silence, his attention seemingly still transfixed on his walkie talkie. Suddenly, he placed it down on the table near the door and began to undo the gear with the camera that he had strapped on earlier "My decision to complete this mission isn't me being selfish Nick, because all this shit..." he threw the camera down, startling the three of them, who were now staring down at the broken piece of equipment on the ground in disbelief "doesn't matter to me anymore..."
Nick glanced up sheepishly, ashamed of how he had just accused his brothers of being selfish after hearing AJ's response. "We're no strangers to Kevin's odd behaviors as of late..." AJ continued, "we've all witnessed the fact that he's no longer himself, and we can't explain that?" he glanced down at the broken camera, "That's when I thought to myself fuck the cameras, fuck the publicity, fuck the money... I'm doing this to get Kevin back, and bring us all the fuck home."
Though embarrassed, Nick nodded in understanding and agreement, "Then, Howie will have to navigate, because I can't do it..."
AJ frowned slightly; he had hoped his "heroic" talk had made sense to their youngest member. It wasn't often that he stood up to do what needed to be done; he left that for real life heroes, like doctors, policemen, hell even Kevin! But, the fact of the matter was, they didn't have the first two, and they were losing their third; someone had to step up and do it. "I understand..."
"I can't navigate you... because I'm going with you."
That surely caught AJ off guard, his head shooting up to now find a fire of determination burning within Nick's otherwise radiant azure eyes. "You don't have to..."
"Look, lets not make me look like even more of a prick after my whole 'selfish' spiel, that's now intended more for me than anything." Nick tried to crack, causing the others to break a small grin despite what they were now going up against. "I'm sorry guys," he glanced over at AJ, "and as much as I love you being badass and all, I gotta be selfish and say I can't let you take the glory all alone... I figured it'd be cool for once for you guys to say 'Nick saved the day', or some cool shit like that."
AJ gave a lopsided grin as he gave a hearty slap to the back of his shoulder, "Or some cool shit like that."
Nick laughed as he opened the door, allowing AJ to walk out first before filing out after him. "Alright D., radio Aje, and navigate us if you will."
As soon as the door closed, both Brian and Howie looked over at each other, both of their expressions unreadable. "Did we just place our fate into the hands of the two youngest and allow them to venture off together?" Brian voiced, moreso in disbelief.
Howie chuckled and shook his head, making his way over to the computer. "Yeah... yeah we did."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Almost as if they knew the hospital like the back of their hand, both AJ and Nick found themselves entering the chapel Brian had visited not long before. The lingering scent of their religious friend still lingered, but the sharp odious stench of aged blood clung to the thick, stale air.
The both of them immediately lifted the collar of their shirts over their nose and mouth, hoping to filter the rank air. "Dear God, I feel horrible that Brian had to be the one to come here..." Nick stated as he looked everything over, "I wish he hadn't seen this."
AJ waved his hand back in forth in front of him, warding away the persistent buzzing flies that were fluttering everywhere; from the hanging corpse to the blood-stained wooden floors. "This is just fucking sick!"
All of a sudden, their walkie talkie cackled to life, startling them a bit. "AJ, Nick, come in..."
AJ quickly unclipped his walkie talkie from his belt, radioing back in. "Talk to us D., what do we gotta do?"
"It says here to locate a chest that holds instructions and objects that will be needed to perform a ritual."
AJ sighed, "And I'm assuming they don't give a hint as to where we could fucking find this chest, huh?"
"You assume correctly."
Nick reached over and had grabbed the flashlight from AJ's belt, clicking the button on and shining the faint burst of light all over the dark chapel. "Well, not seeing a chest out on any tables or pews in the open... perhaps floorboards?"
"We weren't really given anything to unhinge the floorboards, nor do we have anything..." AJ muttered as he tapped his foot around on the ground, listening for a hollow point, to which he found one in the exact center of the satanic star. "We'll have to find something to break it..."
"What about this box?"
AJ looked up and over to where Nick was shining his light. Up at the altar, directly underneath the crucifix where George's body hung, was a black box on a stand. "Do you think that's the chest they're referring to?"
"It's a tabernacle..." AJ replied, more to himself, as he slowly approached it.
"A taber-who?"
"Tabernacle," he repeated, "moreso Roman Catholic Church practices. It's where they put the rest of their consecrated bread, or what represents God's body."
"Wow... did you seriously just school me?" Nick tried to break the tense and somber mood.
"You asked, I answered. Now I have a question..." he broke his gaze from the tabernacle and turned to look back at Nick, "Which one of us is gonna check it out?"
Nick shrugged, "I figured you, since you're closest to the... tentacle..."
"Tabernacle." AJ corrected. "And what happened to wanting us to say that you saved the day?"
"This would not warrant my moment of saving the day!"
"Then we'll both go and look!" AJ concluded as he reached out to grab and drag the blond over, "Just... ignore what's above us."
Nick cringed as he held the collar of his shirt even tighter to his face, almost to the point of cutting off his air supply, "Easy for you to say, you're shorter than me and not height level to his..."
AJ ignored his grumbling as he reached out and quickly opened the doors to the tabernacle, revealing what looked to be a small notebook or diary and the ritual object they were looking for. "Guess this is it." he said as he quickly removed everything in the box and handed it to Nick.
They both quickly stepped away from the alter and the body, looking the items over. "Okay, so we have a goblet..." Nick held the golden, jeweled-encrusted cup up, "not liking where this is going... some rope, a paring knife, DEFINITELY not liking where this is going, and this book."
AJ sighed, not liking how they were immersing themselves deeper and deeper into something that was beyond paranormal. He lifted up his walkie talkie to radio in, "Alright D., we found it, what's next?"
Chapter End Notes:
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