#NNNNGH mindmeld mindmeld

[solaneceae]

how to (not) deal with asymmetry

a tazercraft oneshot. Years ago, an experiment gone wrong melded two souls together. One has learned to grow alone, the other still has some catching up to do. read on ao3

“Mikey,” he gasps, choking on the scent of smoke and static. “Mikey, cadê vo—” the rest of his words die, in a hacking cough that makes him taste metal at the back of his throat.

It hurts. God, everything hurts, and his brain feels like it’s splitting into dozens and dozens of little bloody shreds. He’s pretty sure he’s bleeding too — glass shards strewn about all over the cold tile floor of the lab, red stains — but the physical pain is nothing compared to the feeling of his deepest Self splintering like sandstone during an earthquake. He grits his teeth, hard enough to crack them — the alarms blare, loud and red and shrill, stabbing through his ears and directly into his unravelling brain.

Dói. Dói. Ajuda. Cadê o Mike? “Não,” he chokes out, despair swelling up disgustingly within him as he spots his best friend, his partner in crime, laying motionless against the gutted remains of their latest machine. “Não não não,” his arms pull him forward through glass and smeared blood (his? Mike’s?), to him, to reach him. Every fiber of his being is burning, thoughts getting fuzzy and muddled, unravelling at the seams. All that’s left is help, Mike, Mike, no, no. “Moço,” Pac sobs as cold fingers press against the younger man’s neck, sinks into despair when he feels nothing. “Não— por favor, ele não. Ele não…”

This was supposed to help. Mike— he said the machine could help with his leg, to control the prosthetic better. It was supposed to be his greatest achievement yet. But it was killing them instead, a parasitic chain reaction eating at their souls as the Labs burned down around them.

Mike just wanted to help. Help him. And now his friend is— “Mikey,” Pac gasps, because Mike’s jugular has granted a pulse — weak, slow and uneven, but a pulse. Still alive. Pushing through the pain, the oldest member of Tazercraft paws at his friend’s chest desperately, grabs his red-stained lab coat to pull his unconscious body away from the smoking machine, away from the flames. “Tâ tudo bem moço,” he wheezes out, fuck, it hurts. “Tâ tudo bem.”

He hears a high-pitched beep — then a soft shhhhh, and then water starts raining down on them. The fire system. “Caralho,” Oh, so now it kicks in. Now they’ll just die of having their souls shredded instead of burning alive, how delightful. Pac could laugh, if only there was anything funny about it all. A particularly vicious wave of white-hot pain washes over him, and Pac whimpers, pulling Mike tight against him. He’s burning, but Mike is cold, so cold. His face is lax, getting paler by the second, blood steadily trickly out of his nose — and from the sticky feeling and metal tang inside his mouth, Pac doubts he’s looking much better. “Disculpe, Mikey,” he utters as the world fades into grey sludge, static filling his ears and seeping into his vision. He’s fading, and fast. “Disculpe.”

What’s he apologising for the most? Not being able to save them, uselessly lying on the floor? Not being smart enough to figure his leg out?

Being stupid enough to lose it in the first place, for trusting a known murderer over his oldest friend? “Acorde,” he pleads, pressing Mike’s forehead against his. Cold. “Acorde, por favor— olhe pra mim, moço…” He can’t die like this. Can’t leave like this, without Mike knowing how sorry he is, how much he loves him, his best friend, his partner, his—

his other half

Mike’s eyes

his other half

Mike’s eyes are green

open

his other half

green

his world is green

grass and trees and toxic waste

pulling him in

his world is blue

Mike?

blue lips

Pac’s face, pale and slack, tears running down

blue lips, blue hoodie

Pac?

blue pie-shaped eyes among the golden sclera

pulling him in

Pequi?

Mikey?

  As the outside world melts away, two mangled souls reach out and find each other. Spin, spin, spin like two neutron stars trapped in an infernal cosmic dance.

Mike?

Pac?

você?

eu?

Nós

  They brush against one another. Barely a touch, barely anything, but the sheer force of the pull-longing-need makes them cry out in something like pain.

Pac!

Mike!

  He-they? Don’t understand. But maybe they do. Pac feels Mike, Mike feels Pac, close, yet not close enough. They are dying, they will die right there, if they don’t—

Do what? What? What is this?

  moço

moço

ajuda

sei, sei

tem medo, tem medo—

não, não

fique, fique

não me abandona agora

They collide. And it’s agony, and it’s ecstasy, and they might be screaming, or maybe they’re both already dead and this is just their last shred of consciousness stretching out into delirium. It’s a cacophony of voices, their voice (voices?) so loud, so loud, and it’s memories of their childhood and their many crimes and heists, of rage and laughter and nights spent huddled together in a thin mattress meant for one. Then under cold rain. Then surrounded by cold metal bars, sharp teeth and claws prowling just outside, distrust, regret, pain and blood and loss, Jv, Guaxi… Of vast expanses of grass under sunlight, freedom, catharsis and revenge and love, and love, and love, searing and all-encompassing and painful.

Pac and Mike scream as their shredded souls cauterize — pieces of themselves sealing the cracks and hollows in each other. It hurts, maybe worse than soul damage does even, but they want it to hurt. Because it means they’re still alive. It hurts, and it’s loud, too much too much too much—

Their entire Selves burn, together. Until it gets so overwhelming that their brains decides that alright, that’s enough, and unplug everything.

Things get muddy from that point on — their memories from that time would stay but a confusing blur in the future. But they do know that they wake sometime later, soaked and cold and not quite right. Mike? Pac? Yes. They blink, and everything still hurts, cuts all over him— them? “Pac,” he calls out, voice shot and throat like sandpaper, but… isn’t that him? Why is he… they…

Bleary eyes open. He sees blue. Blinks, and everything changes. He feels heavy, too heavy. Moço? I’m… here. No. Pac, that you? No, I’m… we…

A hand pushes against the tile, a body grunts and winces. Everything is wet, stupid sprinklers. He-They see Pac, curled up on the floor, cuts all over his arms. Pac sees, himself. That. That’s not right? They blink, and it’s like being in two places at once, two pairs of mismatched eyes meeting, a feedback loop. One of Pac’s eyes is green, one of Mike’s is blue. “Mikey,” Mike’s mouth lets out a whimper, and the voice, the accent… “Pequi?” Pac’s mouth responds in kind, scratchy, barely a mouse’s squeak.

A blink. The feeling of drifting, of losing time. And then Pac feels a little more like himself, Mike’s hands are cupping his face, and he leans into the touch. His eyes are green, green, green. What did we do? he hears his partner’s voice, even though his mouth isn’t moving at all. Meu deus, what did I…

Hurts, Pac’s voice rings through whatever space is forming between both their minds, chaotic and loud and God heir heads hurt so bad. Scared. My leg…

Mike’s eyes fall onto the prosthetic, bent out of shape and barley holding on to Pac’s stump. Colorful swears burst across Pac’s counciousness, and he presses his palms against his ears in an attempt to muffle it all out. It doesn’t. Stop! Stop! Can’t, too loud, can’t—

He feels something reach out and pull him in — something familiar, something good. He reaches back, feels himself drifting again. Gasps as he (Pac, he’s Pac now, but also never stopped being him?) finds himself staring down at his own body once more, and he almost falls over because leg, leg, he has a leg there, but it’s not his? “Imma be sick,” he hiccups, dizzy and nauseous all of a sudden. Pac (no, Pac is— him. That’s Mike, those eyes are green, it looks so weird) grunts something undecipherable from the floor he now lays on, piloting Pac’s body like an ill-fitting suit. “I hit my head on the machine,” Mike-in-Pac, and his words are slurred, like he’s struggling to use that foreign mouth, that unfamiliar tongue. “Concussion.” Mike picks himself off the floor, slowly, hissing as every move pulls at the cuts on his arms. “Shit—” he almost slips on stray glass, struggles to find balance. “Our leg’s busted. Fuck.”

Pac-in-Mike stares, unable to muster coherent thoughts. His skull is throbbing, and he has two fleshy legs. Mike’s body doesn’t respond like his does, wider, shorter, glasses lost somewhere around the wreckage of their failed experiment. And goddamn, he knew Mike’s eyesight was awful, but fuck. He blinks, drifts, and trades fuzzy mind and vision for a tangible pain in his arms and a phantom one in his missing leg. He hears Mike (Mike-in-Mike, he’s back again) vomit near him, and decides that they need to get out.

He’s not sure how they make it all the way to the medbay — time feels wonky, sluggish one second and then too fast the next, and they almost fall several times because they keep finding themselves piloting the other’s body, or both at the same time somehow. One blink, and it’s Mike hopping his way down the corridor, a hand on the wall and his own body slumped against his-Pac’s side. Another blink, and the frontier between them gets fuzzy, individual thoughts merging together into grey mush as they, struggle to coordinate two sets of arms and legs as a single unit.

They lose time, too — now they’re clumsily wiping off blood, pouring disinfectant on cuts that might or might not be his-theirs, long fingers sewing up a cut at the back of a head. Pink hair, that’s— that’s Mike’s. Don’t move. I’m not. Stop. I’m sorry.

White gauze is haphazardly wrapped around injuries because you’re so bad at first aid. Shut up. Do it better. I am. We are. Then the madbay is plunged into darkness and they’re both curled around one another, a knee digging into a gut, a face pressed against a clavicle. Not sure which is whose. Stay. Yes. I’m here. We’re here.

Touch is so weird — only half-tethered to their own bodies, consciousness in near perfect osmosis, every touch felt twice over. One pulls the other closer, neither can tell which one, and their shared mindscape lights up with warmth and hello, hi, it’s me, it’s you, me, you, us. And it’s still raw, still painful, still loud. But darkness beckons them anyway, exhaustion and hurt deeping deep in their bones. They don’t know whose eyes close first, and it doesn’t matter. Their thoughts scatter like dust in the wind, heavy, sticky sleep pulling them down, down, down.

Pac and Mike do not die that day. TazerCraft sleeps, now more than the sum of its parts, two half-souls melting together in a mess of shared memories and half-formed dreams. After a while, the sun rises and shines through the blinds of the medbay. 

They do not wake. It crosses the sky and sets, and still, they do not wake. It will take yet another day before one of them even stirs, lips chapped and dry from dehydration, eyelids cracking open with great struggle to reveal shades of blue and green. And they are raw, tender in a way they do not understand and filled with echoes of thoughts that won’t shut up, stop, not yet settled, not yet stable.

Pac and Mike, Mike and Pac. Together. 

 ***

Pac never did well with change. (Well, neither of them really, but Pac was worse about it.) Having to move out of a Lab to escape the authorities was never a good time ; Mike liked his tea to be made a certain way, liked his things organised a certain way ; Pac feared the unknown that came with change, almost as much as he revelled in the chaos it brought. They were a walking contradiction, masters of their craft, creation optimisation addicts that somehow connected to the entity of Chaos and disorder instead of the logical choice that was Knowledge.

They had experienced plenty of change. But they, themselves, hadn’t changed that much since their first meeting. Grown, come into themselves yes — but they had woven their souls and fates together, and stayed as they were because they were content that way.

The island has changed that, too. Things are… different. Pac is different. Because Pac has changed, despite himself, while Mike was gone. He doesn’t know how to feel about it just yet. He wonders if Mike minds that he did. It’s a little harder to know what his other is thinking these days, walls that they had no need for before shielding little pieces of themselves. Secrets to keep, even from each other. Pac has accepted that, he’s the one with the most out of the two of them — a promise to keep, for someone else, a promise of danger and grave consequences if aired out. But he can still feel some bitterness on Mike’s end.

Pac has grown. He struggled, broke, gave in to sickly-sweet mind-honey and chemical bliss. He fell in love, slowly. He confronted his own personal demon in the person of Cell, relapsed and crazed, and he killed him. Only to be hunted and killed all over again on that wretched island. And all of this, he did alone.

Oh, he had his friends, and he had Fit of course. But Mike hadn’t been there, his presence at the back of his mind imperceptible as he slumbered away in the Ordo’s medbay for all those months. And despite himself, Pac had gotten… used, to that. To Mike not being there.

Pac has changed. Mike has not, frozen in time by kelp-induced sleep. But that’s okay.

Pequi, Pequi. Moço. You’re so in love it makes you look stupid.

Pac huffs through his nose at Mike’s interruption, spinning the block he was about to place in his palm. Your face is stupid, he sends back, and feels Mike laugh at the back of his brain — a hum-buzz, familiar and more welcome than he’d like to admit. He smiles as their wavelengths sync up oh-so perfectly, letting himself drift through their shared mindscape until he fades into their greater Self, one, together. TazerCraft, one soul, one mind, all-encompassing love.

Then they separate again, physical sensations trickling back in slowly. Pac blinks, disoriented for a second, before the weight on his nose and lower center of gravity makes him whine in protest. “Mikey! Warn me before you do that!”

Now my face is your face, his other half sing-songs through their bond, stretching Pac’s body like a cat in a sunbeam. Oooh, strong. Been working out, moço? Need to impress someone? Maybe the one you’re building this thing for?

“Choke on a sandpaper dick, Mike.” 

On it.

Pac mumbles something, feeling his (Mike’s) face heat up. He wishes he could hide his face in his own hoodie, because Mike’s shirt just won’t cut it. Come on, it’s been too long, his other half croons from all the way over at the Labs, cracking his (Pac’s) neck with a smirk that would look odd to an outsider, on that face. Pac huffs, pushes green-fading-into-pink hair out of his eyes to look around the place he has found himself in. “...Why were you in some random cave?”

Needed the quiet. And more gold.

“Mmh.” Mike’s body feels a little strange to move around with, after so much time — like a suit he hasn’t worn in a while. Tight in a few places, not sitting quite right in others. So much happened while Mike was in his coma, and Pac knows he’s done some growing as a person — maybe that’s why. 

“Don’t worry too much,” Mike hums as he keeps placing blocks around the island Pac picked for his little love nest (blergh. Sure he’s happy for him, but he could do without Pac’s constant mental swooning over motherfucking FitMC from 2B2T.), picking up on his worries. “You are still Tazer. I am still Craft.”

Feels all rusty.

“It will get better. Let’s stay like this for a bit, yes? I can finish the base layers for you.”

Thanks.

“Would be faster with a machine though.”

“You’d take twice the time just to build the machine,” Pac rolls Mike’s eyes, digging his way out of the cave and pocketing coal and gold on the way. Mike’s pickaxe is shit. “Sometimes it’s just faster a la mano, you know?”

Pfff. Spoilsport.

“Nerd.”

Bitch.

Pac laughs, light and airy as he breaks to the surface, sunlight hitting in face and momentarily blinding him. Mike hums and pulls him in for a meld, and Pac lets him because he’s missed this.

There’s still a slight stutter to it — like lag but not quite, their shared mindscape rough from disuse after months of radio silence. But they both get into the flow despite it, curling around one another and letting the boundaries between what is Pac and what is Mike blur into almost nothing. Hi, hi, longing and joy and gentle hovering over the new scars in Pac’s psyche as well as on his body. moço, moço. you’re here, i’m here, hello. One of them might be crying, out there or maybe both are ; but it’s most likely Pac. The feeling of arms hugging them tightly, and is it self-soothing if you’re sharing your body with another person while you do it? Hello, you, me, I love me, love you, love us. Hello. Can we join? Yes.

The warp of teleport, barely phasing their osmosis. Two halves, one stumbling to the other half-laughing-half mumbling in mangled Portuguese, embracing, a head nestling in the crook of a neck. One of them gets a kiss on the forehead, or maybe they both do somehow.

Touch gets weird when they’re like this — only half-tethered to their own physical vessels, consciousnesses in near perfect osmosis. Every touch is felt twice over, a feedback loop. They spin, laugh at something one of them thought, and their shared mindscape lights up with warmth and hello, hi, it’s me, it’s you, me, you, us. “You’re ridiculous,” Mike’s body says, blue and green swirling in half-lidded, vacant eyes. “I missed you. Missed us. Yes.”

“A half missed this more. The other was in a coma, it didn’t miss like this one did,” Pac’s body purrs, sitting and basking in sunlight, head tilted to the side. Blue and green staring at the sky without really seeing it. “No. You’re supposed to say ‘me too’, asshole. I did. You did.”  Thoughts spin around endlessly, echoing between query and response in a pattern that only they can decipher. Pequi, Pequi. Mikey. No, I promise. Always? Yes. He won’t, it’s okay. No, I didn’t forget. Can we? Okay.

Then Pac traps Mike in an aggressive noogie, snapping them back into themselves as the shorter man hisses out insults and bats at the other’s face. The build does not progress a lot that day.