Chapter Text
The Shape is nothing more than a ghost story when Corey first sees him.
Shrouded by the rat infested cave’s shadow, covered by myths that play into everyday conversations like nothing more than rumors. A pain still envelops the town, remains of ruin that Michael caused, learning to rebuild, learning to move on.
In a state of disrepair - demolished like the remains of his childhood home on Lampkin Lane.
Corey is dragged into Michael’s new home, where he’s left to come to on his own. Woken up in a groggy daze, rats surrounding him, and the instinct settled within his gut that something in the darkness is here with him.
He heads towards the light floating through at the mouth of the sewer and Michael grabs him. A hand reaching out from a hole in the wall, wrapping around his throat, digging into his windpipe and holding him there.
And Corey sees him.
A dirtied and burnt white mask peering back at him - shadows for eyes, a blank canvas littered with damage and stories for an expression.
Michael’s grasp holds him there, but it relaxes slightly, letting the soured oxygen soar its way back into Corey’s lungs. Still, he holds Michael’s gaze, looking past the shadows, smoldering malevolence like a struggling flame in the midst of a heavy snow.
A part of his own self ignites, briefly, before being overcome with Michael’s darkness.
The moment lingers, as if the seconds are wading through quicksand, until Michael lets him go. His grip loosens around Corey’s throat, the hand retracts, and Corey flees. His instincts kick back in, his legs carrying him towards the exit and away from Michael as quickly as they can, before Corey’s mind catches up.
He pauses, the light filtering in and nearly hitting him, an almost assured safety. Corey glances over his shoulder, at the space he once inhabited, at the space Michael’s hand had been, before turning back and fleeing once again.
Corey leaves knowing he abandoned a part of himself within that sewer with Michael, and acquired a part of Michael to carry around on the outside. Within the world, within Haddonfield, haunting the town in his place.
“Why did he let you live?”
The words echo in Corey’s brain, filling his mind like a toxic smoke as he experiences his first kill afterwards. Sees the shine of blood upon his hands. Feels and knows what it’s like to truly take a life with those hands, and live up to the words and accusations whispered about him within his own hometown.
Corey goes home, finding the bruised imprints of Michael’s fingers against his skin as he examines himself in the mirror. Purples and red, four little dots decorating the side of his throat - a reminder of the encounter, one that will fade into yellows and greens and eventually into nothingness. Bare skin like the branches of trees in the winter after losing their autumn leaves.
He searches his reflection, knowing something is different but seeing nothing that might carry any results.
He can feel it, though.
His own words fluttering through his subconscious, an image of himself on the Allen’s couch with his hair neatly combed back, a paper airplane loosely clenched between his fingers. “The Boogeyman’s gonna get you.” Playfully mocking, unafraid - now look where he is. He got him, Michael fucking got him.
He can feel something of Michael inside him, bubbling over in the pit of his stomach like boiling water. Something changing the entirety of his being, rewriting his DNA, rewiring his brain, reorganizing his motivations and priorities. Or maybe, just enhancing them.
Something freezing him over like Michael’s cold and clammy grasp, icy nothingness traveling up through his veins and lingering there. Corey meets his own gaze in the reflection and sees emptiness - two pupils blown with the darkness that resides within him now.
Cobwebs decorating the looping staircase like ones you might find in a haunted house, a stain of Jeremy Allen’s blood remaining on the hardwood floors. Seeped into them, forever staying there. No amount of baking soda, vinegar, and steel wool could scrub it out.
The Allen’s house is a reminder of where Corey came from and where he is now - maybe that’s what 45 Lampkin Lane was for Michael, too.
Corey wants to see him again, knows he has to - knows Michael’s expecting him to. Waiting for Corey, just as he waited those 15 years and then another 40 more. That kind of patience is a quality Corey can’t help but admire.
So, he goes back to Michael, and he brings him Doug Mulaney.
Luring him into the cave, watching Mulaney wander around for a moment in the darkness, dimly-lit only by his flashlight. He knows, somewhere, Michael is watching, too.
Finally, the flashlight hits him, revealing his location to Mulaney, and Corey smiles at him. A bitter and gleeful resentment tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Then, Michael emerges from the shadows.
He bounds upon Mulaney, slamming him back into the wall, hands automatically around his neck. It takes Mulaney off guard, but he manages to fight his way out of Michael’s grasp, kicking him backwards and to the ground.
Corey intervenes immediately, beating Mulaney down with efficiency before turning towards Michael. “Show me how to do it,” He tells him, a desperate plea blanketing his tone. “Getupgetupgetupgetup Get Up.”
He can feel that something within himself calling out to Michael as Corey watches him stagger back to life, a rusted knife back within his grasp. Connecting himself at the chest, at the heart, at the veins running through his body and webbing themselves into Michael. A string made from a spider of the darkest fate intertwining them together.
The passing of a darkness, the finding of one who shares your soul.
Mulaney regains his composure, trying to attack Corey from behind, but Corey quickly gets him in a makeshift reversed body lock, revealing him to Michael, completely exposed.
When Michael swiftly slices at Mulaney’s throat, Corey’s yell echoes throughout the cave, and he falls back with the body still bared in his arms.
His breathing becomes labored and heavy, heaving from his lungs in a way that his entire body mimics the action, and falling shallow out of his open mouth. He watches Michael move towards him and Mulaney’s body, readjusting his grip on the handle of the knife. Corey catches the slight glint of it before it’s plunged into Mulaney’s stomach, a build up of something crucial that makes Corey feel like he’s boiling over again. A significant release, fully submerged in a quiet, but chaotic darkness.
Corey’s eyes flicker to Michael’s mask, watching the blank expression carved into it, watching the holes of the mask to try and get just a glimpse of his eyes. Michael retrieves the blade from Mulaney’s stomach and Corey sees his own feeling reflected within Michael, the other man practically vibrating with it.
The two of them sharing this small space together, this same powerful energy, the same overwhelming desire and bloodlust. Corey wants to ask what it feels like for Michael, but he knows. No longer decaying, no longer fading into the shadows of the cave, Michael is alive, now.
Michael stabs at Mulaney again, with more force, with a quicker pace, each stab reverberating back into Corey, and it feels like a revelation. He watches the knife, then he watches Michael’s face, a repeated and fluid motion. Corey knows exactly what he’s got himself into, he knows exactly why Michael dragged him into the cave and let him live. For this moment.
He watches life etch its way back into Michael’s being, his posture straightening, his chest heaving with a new air being forced into his lungs. Corey still remains on the ground, pinned down by Mulaney’s body, watching Michael regain his composure. Looming overhead like a demolished skyscraper rebuilding itself, beam by beam, brick by brick.
Corey finally pushes Mulaney’s corpse off of him, leaving it there with Michael, and pulls himself back up to his feet. Still, he watches Michael, only briefly turning away to exit the cave.
He feels Michael’s gaze on him as he leaves, and it follows him all the way to Allyson’s.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” He tells Allyson. “Did Michael Myers let you live - or did you escape?”
Even Michael’s name feels heavy on his tongue, weighted by the memories of him, the feeling of his fingers still burned into his throat. He closes his eyes and he sees Michael’s mask - corroded by time and fire and damage, probably seared into the man’s flesh, latex and blood and acrylic.
Allyson’s fingers brush away his hair from the scrape on his forehead, gentle and caring, so different from what Michael’s touch was. Precise, experienced, strong, unyielding, immovable -
“Does it hurt?” Allyson asks, concern laced so thickly within her voice.
“No,” Corey replies, but he wishes it did.