#brain to mouth: total system failure | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elkian · 2 months

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I've seen a few of my Murderbot posts reblogged with tags to the effect of "I don't go here but I know of it" and for people who are interested in the Murderbot series looking to break in:

Tor.com (now Reactor Mag) has the entire first chapter of the first book, All Systems Red, available free to read on their site.

Link to the article.

ASR is a novella, so this not only covers a lot of ground, but is a pretty good litmus test imo if this book is for you or not.

(I read ASR twice before getting Artificial Condition, and that was the book that got me totally hooked on the series, for what that's worth.)

I'm also just going to post the text under this readmore because free Murderbot.

---

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

I was also still doing my job, on a new contract, and hoping Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj finished their survey soon so we could get back to the habitat and I could watch episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

I admit I was distracted. It was a boring contract so far and I was thinking about backburnering the status alert channel and trying to access music on the entertainment feed without HubSystem logging the extra activity. It was trickier to do it in the field than it was in the habitat.

This assessment zone was a barren stretch of coastal island, with low, flat hills rising and falling and thick greenish-black grass up to my ankles, not much in the way of flora or fauna, except a bunch of different-sized birdlike things and some puffy floaty things that were harmless as far as we knew. The coast was dotted with big bare craters, one of which Bharadwaj and Volescu were taking samples in. The planet had a ring, which from our current position dominated the horizon when you looked out to sea. I was looking at the sky and mentally poking at the feed when the bottom of the crater exploded.

I didn’t bother to make a verbal emergency call. I sent the visual feed from my field camera to Dr. Mensah’s, and jumped down into the crater. As I scrambled down the sandy slope, I could already hear Mensah over the emergency comm channel, yelling at someone to get the hopper in the air now. They were about ten kilos away, working on another part of the island, so there was no way they were going to get here in time to help.

Conflicting commands filled my feed but I didn’t pay attention. Even if I hadn’t borked my own governor module, the emergency feed took priority, and it was chaotic, too, with the automated HubSystem wanting data and trying to send me data I didn’t need yet and Mensah sending me telemetry from the hopper. Which I also didn’t need, but it was easier to ignore than HubSystem simultaneously demanding answers and trying to supply them.

In the middle of all that, I hit the bottom of the crater. I have small energy weapons built into both arms, but the one I went for was the big projectile weapon clamped to my back. The hostile that had just exploded up out of the ground had a really big mouth, so I felt I needed a really big gun.

I dragged Bharadwaj out of its mouth and shoved myself in there instead, and discharged my weapon down its throat and then up toward where I hoped the brain would be. I’m not sure if that all happened in that order; I’d have to replay my own field camera feed. All I knew was that I had Bharadwaj, and it didn’t, and it had disappeared back down the tunnel.

She was unconscious and bleeding through her suit from massive wounds in her right leg and side. I clamped the weapon back into its harness so I could lift her with both arms. I had lost the armor on my left arm and a lot of the flesh underneath, but my non-organic parts were still working. Another burst of commands from the governor module came through and I backburnered it without bothering to decode them. Bharadwaj, not having non-organic parts and not as easily repaired as me, was definitely a priority here and I was mainly interested in what the MedSystem was trying to tell me on the emergency feed. But first I needed to get her out of the crater.

During all this, Volescu was huddled on the churned up rock, losing his shit, not that I was unsympathetic. I was far less vulnerable in this situation than he was and I wasn’t exactly having a great time either. I said, “Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me now.”

He didn’t respond. MedSystem was advising a tranq shot and blah blah blah, but I was clamping one arm on Dr. Bharadwaj’s suit to keep her from bleeding out and supporting her head with the other, and despite everything I only have two hands. I told my helmet to retract so he could see my human face. If the hostile came back and bit me again, this would be a bad mistake, because I did need the organic parts of my head. I made my voice firm and warm and gentle, and said, “Dr. Volescu, it’s gonna be fine, okay? But you need to get up and come help me get her out of here.”

That did it. He shoved to his feet and staggered over to me, still shaking. I turned my good side toward him and said, “Grab my arm, okay? Hold on.”

He managed to loop his arm around the crook of my elbow and I started up the crater towing him, holding Bharadwaj against my chest. Her breathing was rough and desperate and I couldn’t get any info from her suit. Mine was torn across my chest so I upped the warmth on my body, hoping it would help. The feed was quiet now, Mensah having managed to use her leadership priority to mute everything but MedSystem and the hopper, and all I could hear on the hopper feed was the others frantically shushing each other.

The footing on the side of the crater was lousy, soft sand and loose pebbles, but my legs weren’t damaged and I got up to the top with both humans still alive. Volescu tried to collapse and I coaxed him away from the edge a few meters, just in case whatever was down there had a longer reach than it looked.

I didn’t want to put Bharadwaj down because something in my abdomen was severely damaged and I wasn’t sure I could pick her up again. I ran my field camera back a little and saw I had gotten stabbed with a tooth, or maybe a cilia. Did I mean a cilia or was that something else? They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions. I was looking it up in HubSystem’s language center when the little hopper landed nearby. I let my helmet seal and go opaque as it settled on the grass.

We had two standard hoppers: a big one for emergencies and this little one for getting to the assessment locations. It had three compartments: one big one in the middle for the human crew and two smaller ones to each side for cargo, supplies, and me. Mensah was at the controls. I started walking, slower than I normally would have because I didn’t want to lose Volescu. As the ramp started to drop, Pin-Lee and Arada jumped out and I switched to voice comm to say, “Dr. Mensah, I can’t let go of her suit.”

It took her a second to realize what I meant. She said hurriedly, “That’s all right, bring her up into the crew cabin.”

Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.

I carried Bharadwaj up the ramp into the cabin, where Overse and Ratthi were frantically unclipping seats to make room. They had their helmets off and their suit hoods pulled back, so I got to see their horrified expressions when they took in what was left of my upper body through my torn suit. I was glad I had sealed my helmet.

This is why I actually like riding with the cargo. Humans and augmented humans in close quarters with murderbots is too awkward. At least, it’s awkward for this murderbot. I sat down on the deck with Bharadwaj in my lap while Pin-Lee and Arada dragged Volescu inside.

We left two pacs of field equipment and a couple of instruments behind, still sitting on the grass where Bharadwaj and Volescu had been working before they went down to the crater for samples. Normally I’d help carry them, but MedSystem, which was monitoring Bharadwaj through what was left of her suit, was pretty clear that letting go of her would be a bad idea. But no one mentioned the equipment. Leaving easily replaceable items behind may seem obvious in an emergency, but I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.

On this contract, Dr. Ratthi jumped up and said, “I’ll get the cases!”

I yelled, “No!” which I’m not supposed to do; I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module. If it wasn’t hacked.

Fortunately, the rest of the humans yelled “No!” at the same time, and Pin-Lee added, “For fuck’s sake, Ratthi!”

Ratthi said, “Oh, no time, of course. I’m sorry!” and hit the quick-close sequence on the hatch.

So we didn’t lose our ramp when the hostile came up under it, big mouth full of teeth or cilia or whatever chewing right through the ground. There was a great view of it on the hopper’s cameras, which its system helpfully sent straight to everybody’s feed. The humans screamed.

Mensah pushed us up into the air so fast and hard I nearly leaned over and everybody who wasn’t on the floor ended up there.

In the quiet afterward, as they gasped with relief, Pin-Lee said, “Ratthi, if you get yourself killed—”

“You’ll be very cross with me, I know.” Ratthi slid down the wall a little more and waved weakly at her.

“That’s an order, Ratthi, don’t get yourself killed,” Mensah said from the pilot’s seat. She sounded calm, but I have security priority, and I could see her racing heartbeat through MedSystem.

Arada pulled out the emergency medical kit so they could stop the bleeding and try to stabilize Bharadwaj. I tried to be as much like an appliance as possible, clamping the wounds where they told me to, using my failing body temperature to try to keep her warm, and keeping my head down so I couldn’t see them staring at me.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 60% AND DROPPING

Our habitat is a pretty standard model, seven interconnected domes set down on a relatively flat plain above a narrow river valley, with our power and recycling system connected on one side. We had an environmental system, but no air locks, as the planet’s atmosphere was breathable, just not particularly good for humans for the long term. I don’t know why, because it’s one of those things I’m not contractually obligated to care about.

We picked the location because it’s right in the middle of the assessment area, and while there are trees scattered through the plain, each one is fifteen or so meters tall, very skinny, with a single layer of spreading canopy, so it’s hard for anything approaching to use them as cover. Of course, that didn’t take into account anything approaching via tunnel.

We have security doors on the habitat for safety but HubSystem told me the main one was already open as the hopper landed. Dr. Gurathin had a lift gurney ready and guided it out to us. Overse and Arada had managed to get Bharadwaj stabilized, so I was able to put her down on it and follow the others into the habitat.

The humans headed for Medical and I stopped to send the little hopper commands to lock and seal itself, then I locked the outer doors. Through the security feed, I told the drones to widen our perimeter so I’d have more warning if something big came at us. I also set some monitors on the seismic sensors to alert me to anomalies just in case the hypothetical something big decided to tunnel in.

After I secured the habitat, I went back to what was called the security ready room, which was where weapons, ammo, perimeter alarms, drones, and all the other supplies pertaining to security were stored, including me. I shed what was left of the armor and on MedSystem’s advice sprayed wound sealant all over my bad side. I wasn’t dripping with blood, because my arteries and veins seal automatically, but it wasn’t nice to look at. And it hurt, though the wound seal did numb it a little. I had already set an eight-hour security interdiction through HubSystem, so nobody could go outside without me, and then set myself as off-duty. I checked the main feed but no one was filing any objections to that.

I was freezing because my temperature controls had given out at some point on the way here, and the protective skin that went under my armor was in pieces. I had a couple of spares but pulling one on right now would not be practical, or easy. The only other clothing I had was a uniform I hadn’t worn yet, and I didn’t think I could get it on, either. (I hadn’t needed the uniform because I hadn’t been patrolling inside the habitat. Nobody had asked for that, because with only eight of them and all friends, it would be a stupid waste of resources, namely me.) I dug around one handed in the storage case until I found the extra human-rated medical kit I’m allowed in case of emergencies, and opened it and got the survival blanket out. I wrapped up in it, then climbed into the plastic bed of my cubicle. I let the door seal as the white light flickered on.

It wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least it was cozy. I connected myself to the resupply and repair leads, leaned back against the wall and shivered. MedSystem helpfully informed me that my performance reliability was now at 58 percent and dropping, which was not a surprise. I could definitely repair in eight hours, and probably mostly regrow my damaged organic components, but at 58 percent, I doubted I could get any analysis done in the meantime. So I set all the security feeds to alert me if anything tried to eat the habitat and started to call up the supply of media I’d downloaded from the entertainment feed. I hurt too much to pay attention to anything with a story, but the friendly noise would keep me company.

Then someone knocked on the cubicle door.

I stared at it and lost track of all my neatly arrayed inputs. Like an idiot, I said, “Uh, yes?”

Dr. Mensah opened the door and peered in at me. I’m not good at guessing actual humans’ ages, even with all the visual entertainment I watch. People in the shows don’t usually look much like people in real life, at least not in the good shows. She had dark brown skin and lighter brown hair, cut very short, and I’m guessing she wasn’t young or she wouldn’t be in charge. She said, “Are you all right? I saw your status report.”

“Uh.” That was the point where I realized that I should have just not answered and pretended to be in stasis. I pulled the blanket around my chest, hoping she hadn’t seen any of the missing chunks. Without the armor holding me together, it was much worse. “Fine.”

So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.

“Fine?” She frowned. “The report said you lost 20 percent of your body mass.”

“It’ll grow back,” I said. I know to an actual human I probably looked like I was dying. My injuries were the equivalent of a human losing a limb or two plus most of their blood volume.

“I know, but still.” She eyed me for a long moment, so long I tapped the security feed for the mess, where the non-wounded members of the group were sitting around the table talking. They were discussing the possibility of more underground fauna and wishing they had intoxicants. That seemed pretty normal. She continued, “You were very good with Dr. Volescu. I don’t think the others realized . . . They were very impressed.”

“It’s part of the emergency med instructions, calming victims.” I tugged the blanket tighter so she didn’t see anything awful. I could feel something lower down leaking.

“Yes, but the MedSystem was prioritizing Bharadwaj and didn’t check Volescu’s vital signs. It didn’t take into account the shock of the event, and it expected him to be able to leave the scene on his own.”

On the feed it was clear that the others had reviewed Volescu’s field camera video. They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face. I’d been in armor since we arrived, and I hadn’t unsealed the helmet when I was around them. There was no specific reason. The only part of me they would have seen was my head, and it’s standard, generic human. But they didn’t want to talk to me and I definitely didn’t want to talk to them; on duty it would distract me and off duty . . . I didn’t want to talk to them. Mensah had seen me when she signed the rental contract. But she had barely looked at me and I had barely looked at her because again, murderbot + actual human = awkwardness. Keeping the armor on all the time cuts down on unnecessary interaction.

I said, “It’s part of my job, not to listen to the System feeds when they . . . make mistakes.” That’s why you need constructs, SecUnits with organic components. But she should know that. Before she accepted delivery of me, she had logged about ten protests, trying to get out of having to have me. I didn’t hold it against her. I wouldn’t have wanted me either.

Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t just say you’re welcome and please get out of my cubicle so I can sit here and leak in peace.

“All right,” she said, and looked at me for what objectively I knew was 2.4 seconds and subjectively about twenty excruciating minutes. “I’ll see you in eight hours. If you need anything before then, please send me an alert on the feed.” She stepped back and let the door slide closed.

It left me wondering what they were all marveling at so I called up the recording of the incident. Okay, wow. I had talked to Volescu all the way up the side of the crater. I had been mostly concerned with the hopper’s trajectory and Bharadwaj not bleeding out and what might come out of that crater for a second try; I hadn’t been listening to myself, basically. I had asked him if he had kids. It was boggling. Maybe I had been watching too much media. (He did have kids. He was in a four-way marriage and had seven, all back home with his partners.)

All my levels were too elevated now for a rest period, so I decided I might as well get some use out of it and look at the other recordings. Then I found something weird. There was an “abort” order in the HubSystem command feed, the one that controlled, or currently believed it controlled, my governor module. It had to be a glitch. It didn’t matter, because when MedSystem has priority—

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39%, STASIS INITIATED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE.

#elk text #tmd #the murderbot diaries #if you aren't in a position to purchase the books check out (hehe) whether your local library has anything #i know there's audiobooks too and apparently they're pretty good #i tried to indent it and tungl did not like that #tried to make the opening break obvious

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imspardagus · 6 months

Text

Noth

By Iain M Spardagus, 11th November 2023.

Suddenly I am awake. I have no idea of the time. In the Rest Housing it is still pitch black but on the virtual screen in my head the soft green status light has been replaced by a flashing red. A message appears in the centre of the screen: “Attention: total systems failure. Customer services alerted. Do not panic.”

I wish I could feel reassured by the message but I am not. Instinctively, I try to move my arms and legs but it is useless. I do not have arms and legs. They lie, inert, alongside me. I am powerless, actionless. I cannot even turn my head. I try to recall whether there are any mental commands that are available to meet this situation. I try “Restore”. Nothing. “Reboot”. Nothing. “Reassemble”. Nothing. “Reconnect”. Nothing. I realise that, despite the instruction on the screen, I am in fact starting to panic. But it is an ineffectual panic. It reminds me of the sleep paralysis dreams of my teenage years, how utterly terrifying they were until you broke through into a waking state, heart pounding and head buzzing. I try, as I did then, to cry out, “Help! Help!” But my tongue will not move in my mouth and my lips will not part and all I get is something close to a mooing sound. I am not even sure that it has been audible outside of my head.

How long has it been? How serious is this failure? When will they come? How long have I got? These questions race like mercury balls through my brain but I can answer none of them. I feel alone. Alone and lost.

Try to keep going until someone comes. Try to keep my mind active. Try to remember yesterday. It feels as if it is all moving away from me.

****

I remember sitting down on seat at the front of the Rest-Housing and leaning back into the padded contours of the Recliner, upright to receive me at the foot of the Recliner Compartment, before strapping the safety belts across my chest and stomach, as I had done every night since I went through the final procedures of the Modification. Then I laid my legs, straight out before me, into the two Lower Limb Retainers that had slid down from each side of the Rest Housing to receive them.

I remember next pressing the chrome buttons, one on each of my hip bones, and hearing that oddly satisfying click and whir as each leg separated from my torso at the groin. There was no spillage. That had been one of the teething troubles of the Conservator process but the newer models had eliminated any leakage. Each leg would now be a self-sustaining organic environment until Reconnection in the morning.

I remember that the two Lower Limb Retainers now slid silently back up the Rest-Housing, one each side of the still upright Recliner. I remember being struck again, even after so many uses, so many nights, by how strange and faintly, queasily disturbing it was to see my legs, definitely still my legs, detached and laying there beside me, beyond my control. But I knew the sequence by now. I didn’t need the manual. I remember that I rested my arms in the Upper Limb Retainers. This time there was no need for me to initiate the separation. The program had taken over. As each arm found its resting place another click and a whir brought about its separation at the shoulder and then each Upper Limb Retainer straightened around the hinge of the elbow and sank gently down to its place in the Rest-Housing over the Lower Limb Retainers.

As soon as that action was completed, I felt two pads gently clasp the sides of my head and two more under my jawline and then another click and a whir, this time louder and more internal, like when you use an electric toothbrush to clean your teeth. Even after all this time, I could not help nervously clenching my jaw at this point but there was no need. In an instant, my head was lifted a few centimetres clear of my shoulders. Then it was gently and smoothly carried to the Conservator Head Housing behind the Recliner.

The floor of the Conservator resembled the base of an electric kettle. There was flat, circular bed to receive the plate that sealed the stump of my neck and a central prong, like a fat nipple, on which the plate was deftly located. Then the pads moved silently away and a new mounting wrapped itself softly but securely around the back and sides of my head. I unclenched my jaw and started to relax.

Until then, I had experienced normal vision but the moment my head was housed on the Conservator Head Housing that vision was overlaid by a virtual screen which gave technical readings in soothing green type: date, time and time zone, ambient temperature, the status of each the separated components of my body, projected rest period. I could select between the readings simply by a thought command. (This action had actually taken the longest time of the whole business for me to get right. I had had to learn to stop my mind from wandering otherwise error messages replaced the readings. It had now become second nature, however. I imagine this is what it was like when humans first learned to control machines with their hands, drive cars or play musical instruments. At first clumsy and unco-ordinated until their conscious minds gave up trying to run the activity. You had to learn not to think and “let the force be with you”.)

I remember that, almost immediately, the Recliner started to tilt back towards my head until it was flat and completely within the Recliner Compartment, between the four Limb Retainers. I could just see the slow, gentle rise and fall of my chest ahead of me. Then the slightly domed lid rose on its hinges down the length of the Rest Housing and swung into place sealing the unit with another satisfying click.

For a moment the lid remained translucent but then it grew darker and darker until the space inside the Rest Housing was pitch black. The darkness and the silence were so thick as to be almost liquid around my head and the sensual deprivation, which, when I first experienced it, had been terrifyingly claustrophobic, began, as usual, to free my mind to wander. The readings on the virtual screen had dimmed and been replaced by the reassuring message “All systems functioning 100%” then that writing itself faded and disappeared leaving only the comforting visual stimulus of a soft green “status” light in one corner to confirm to me that all was well and, for a while, the intermittent flashings of light that as a boy I had seen as leopard eyes, generated by a brain trying to hold on to the last remembered glimmers of light and make images out of imagined nuances in the total darkness.

I started to feel very peaceful. This was, after all, what the Conservator process promised, which had not been the least reason for its eventual success. As I edged towards calm and sleep my mind loosened its grip. As on other occasions, my thoughts had run over what it was that I had just undergone and how it had come to pass.

****

The Conservator Process owed much of its origin, as so much else did, to scientific developments associated with space exploration. Not just the science and the success of its application itself but also the cachet attaching to anything connected to space travel had had a lot to do with the eventual public acceptance of a technology that was, objectively, highly intrusive into the personal integrity and inviolability of individual anatomy.

As long as excursions into space had only lasted days or weeks, there had been little need to consider improvements to the bodily comfort of those involved. They were expendable volunteers. But as the adventure took us further and deeper into the universe, the distances involved could span months and years and it was soon appreciated that the best condition for a human to ride out those achingly long journeys was in an induced state of stasis. At first, they tried inducing comas and semi-cryogenic solutions but the downsides soon became apparent in the protracted waking times of the subjects and, more seriously, the degredation of memory and cerebral, muscular and organic function that manifested themselves after arousal.

Amputation had, of course, been practised, with varying degrees of success for centuries but reassembly had had to wait until the late Twentieth Century when some extremely clever surgeons, supported by some even cleverer equipment, managed to remake connections between severed nerves and blood vessels. But for many years, despite the evidence of chickens surviving decapitation for hours, and sometimes longer, no-one had (so far as the record showed) successfully severed then reattached a living head and brain. Outside of gothic horror, it was long thought to be impossible for the head and body to survive separately. Bits of body, yes. But not the whole works.

But as the Twenty-first Century settled into its stride, IT and nanotechnology persisted in astounding us. First, it was with computers and mobile phones; then with AI; then with the insertion of microscopic devices into ourselves and their linking to neural pathways, nervous systems and whole organs to direct and correct our bodily functions. With hindsight, and not much of it to be fair, it was only a matter of time before someone managed to replicate the connections between our limbs, our organs and our brains and render it possible for them not just to function remotely from one another but to be reassembled and reinstated. Then someone realised the expediency of making an artificial interface so that those separations and reconnections became repeatable and the Conservator Process was conceived.

At first, as I say, its application was limited to space travel, fuelled by practical considerations. Without the constant interference of the brain, the disassociated limbs could be maintained in near ideal conditions. Without the constant worry as to the state of its component parts, the brain could achieve a state of meditative calm beyond that of the highest Buddhist masters. But also, to the great joy of the accountants, the human involved could be stored and looked after more economically.

But the final confirmation came when it was realised that a human stored in this way was easier to revive when needed. And reinforcement came when research demonstrated that the process not only obviated the degradation attending previous methods of storage but actually enhanced the preservation of the parts. In short, those subjected to the process woke rejuvenated, physically and mentally.

****

Human nature being what it is, it wasn’t long before this scientific advance pricked the interest of the super-rich. Having more money than the sum of most of the people in the world only led in one direction: how to enjoy it for as long as possible. The hyper-billionaires saw the Conservation Process as their chance to live, if not forever, for a considerably longer time than their allotted span and in better health. The early costs were prohibitive to most, but that only made the whole deal more attractive to those few who could afford it.

At first, these wealthy crash-test dummies tried to rely on their staff to oversee their nightly deconstruction and daily reassembly. But after one or two of their number had scandalously failed to survive the ministrations of envious, careless or otherwise dissatisfied minions, the remaining clique insisted on a more automated approach. Machines, it appeared, could be trusted more than men.

All was well for a while. But once the niche market of the super-rich had been satisfied it left the owners of the technology with a problem. To become very rich themselves, they needed to sell more Conservators and that meant creating more demand. It was Tesla cars all over again. The good news was that all the research had been done, at considerable expense to taxpayers around the world, and the technology had already been tried and tested. They just needed to up production and lower the price. Or persuade governments to subsidise it.

As luck would have it, it was then that the Third World War started up. I say “luck” but greed, the amoral greed of the arms industry, had more to do with it. As the numbers of mutilated soldiers and civilians mounted up, hospital space was at a premium and the Conservator process offered a solution. Wards could be stacked as never before and the areas occupied by operating theatres could be turned into a dozen multiplex operating closets where individual limbs could be treated before being returned to their owners. Once again, the entrepreneurs of Conservation made a nice living (not to say a killing) at the public expense and when the war eventually ended they had the production capacity in place to drive forward their campaign to process the whole of humanity.

The war did end, in the usual stalemate that only proved its futility apart from lining the pockets of the arms manufacturers. But the opportunities for Conservation Inc did not. There had been much destruction of property and this afforded new prospects for the enterprise. They campaigned on the message that Conservation could reduce office space, enhance manual labour, and rationalise living accommodation. And this again pleased the accountants and the state treasuries very much indeed.

****

Of course it all had to be “voluntary”. Even the great autocracies balked at the idea of requiring their populations to submit to the surgical transformation involved in the Conservator process. But pressure could be brought to bear in more subtle ways, which the Conservator sales people were happy to impart.

I recall how, after 5 years of languishing in my in-house Legal Counsel job for a multinational bank, it was suggested to me that I might find progression easier if I were to take a more “personally positive” view of Conservation.

They were prepared to pay for the operations and a generous period of recuperation leave. And at the end of it, I would be so much more valuable as an asset with rewards to match. It was an offer that was hard to refuse.

And I have to say that it did seem to pay off. After the first stage, which involved the separation of my legs from my torso and the fitting of Reconnection Plates, I returned to a work station which had been designed to enable me to detach and store my lower limbs on arrival. They remained close at hand and could be reattached in a matter of moments. It took a little getting used to but I swiftly realised how much more comfortable I was at my desk not having to accommodate and cater for my legs through the working day. And when I did reconnect with them they felt stronger and more relaxed. At home, my new apartment now boasted an early example of the Rest Housing in which I now lay and I found that my sleep too was less interrupted: no more night cramps, no more tossing and turning to find a comfortable position for my legs, no more cold feet as the duvet rode up.

So the decision to take the next step seemed to take itself and within a year I was fully converted. That was fifteen years ago. Since then I have risen through the ranks quite pleasingly and have in turn seen the numbers accepting the process increase steadily.

****

Of course there had been the usual doomsayers and conspiracy theorists trying to sell us their warped warnings. The main thrust of their arguments was that we had become “slaves to the machine”, that we had surrendered our human integrity and now rely entirely on the goodwill of Conservation Inc for our survival. But it was like David confronting Goliath without his sling.

Well, naturally, nothing is perfect and the corporation does wield a lot of power; and, yes, when I think about it, there are fewer disabled and elderly people than there were but I guess a lot of that can be explained by the War and by the triumph of the the Conservator process in curing defects and sustaining healthy lives. Looking back, I suppose the number of my older colleagues who sadly passed away unexpectedly before they could take retirement was a bit high but at the time it served me well. I didn’t think much more of it. Just regrettable: so we were told anyway and why shouldn’t we believe it? There are always people who will knock success. We Brits are noted for it.

The thing is that I had done well. I was the most senior person in post and was, and am, I think, respected and valued. All was for the best…

****

Must have blacked out for a while.

I try again to focus on the screen but the words are no longer as distinct. I can just make out the message and it has not changed. But even as I peer at it, it seems to dim and flicker. And as it does so my ability to concentrate on it seems to diminish. The unbroken darkness seems thicker now but I am losing the ability to…

Suddenly, perhaps only momentarily, the dome of the Rest Housing reverts to being translucent and through it I seem to be able to make out the upper part of a figure, a white figure leaning over the housing. I see what I think may be the blurred features of a man inside the whiteness. From what little I have left of my mind I draw out the notion of a hazchem suit with a window over the face. He seems to be looking at me. I try to blink to show that I am conscious but as I do so the figure pulls back and the dome loses its translucency and the darkness returns. And my mind slips further away. The last thing I am aware of is the flickering red message as it fades and the screen too is empty and black.

****

How much time has now passed? Time? I have no idea.

Despite losing every one of my senses, I am now somehow aware that I am not alone. Like you feel when you are walking through an unlit graveyard on your own in the dead of night. But even as this awareness impinges upon me I know that it is the wrong feeling. I – realise is too strong a word, it is both a softer and yet more overwhelming feeling – assimilate the understanding? Too precise, too legalistic – maybe just know? – yes, know that I am no longer entire. What I mean is … What I … What I mean is my identity, my me-ness, … that … that quality that allowed me to maintain a sense that I was a distinct, discrete being, … that all else was other, not-me, has … slipped away. I think – no feel – I no longer have … boundaries. No means of holding myself together. Like an ice cube in a bath of hot water, I am melting … merging into some, some entity? No, less tangible. Some force? Some presence? No, I do not feel its presence at all, only a reducing sense of my own. Can’t find words. … Like trying to catch a cloud with a butterfly net. Can do nothing to prevent this. Have no means to. No will to. Am becoming less. Am un-becoming.

Dissolving

Fading

Noth

#scifi #dystopia #short story #Nothing

0 notes

scriptmedic · 3 years

Text

TENSION PNEUMOTHORAX MULTI-ASK

Hey there lovelies! Thanks so much for your asks!

First off, basics: check the ( thoracic trauma ) tag and the ( pneumothorax ) tag. This is ground we've covered before!

There's also a chapter in Blood on the Page: a Writer's Compendium of Injuries (amazon link; yes, I am the author) on pneumothoraces. I believe it's in section 2.2: Penetrating Trauma > Chest.

I genuinely thought this chapter had already posted, but it hasn't.

So have a free chapter on me! (Below the cut)

Tension Pneumothorax

Lethality Index

5 / 5

What Is It?

Tension pneumothorax is a life-threatening injury that occurs when air gets into the chest but is outside the lungs. The buildup of air begins to put pressure on the lung, the heart, and the great veins. The condition is rapidly lethal.

Breathing is a pressure system. To inhale, the body pushes the diaphragm down and expands the ribs, which creates negative pressure in the lungs; that negative pressure draws air into the lungs from the outside world. To exhale, the diaphragm comes up and the chest relaxes — it gets smaller — pushing the air out. Easy peasy.

Tension pneumothorax changes this closed system to an open one, where air leaks from the lung into the sac around the lungs (the pleura) and gets trapped there. Positive pressure then builds up in the pleura, compressing the lung.

The fact that there's air in the lung is known as simple pneumothorax. (Pneumomeans air, and thorax means chest.)

What makes a tension pneumothorax such a big problem is that the air pocket in the pleura becomes large enough that it collapses the lung.

In addition to collapsing the lung, having that much pressure on one side of the chest is a big problem. It actually causes the organs of the chest to shift, to skooch over to the other side. In that shifting, the heart and other lung wind up pinching off blood flow through the heart, reducing blood flow everywhere.

Clinical Signs

· Severe, worsening shortness of breath, with rapid breaths.

· Diaphoresis (sweating).

· Elevated heart rate.

· Narrow pulse pressure (the “distance” between the systolic (top number) pressure and the diastolic (bottom number) pressure; e.g. 90/80 instead of 120/80).

· Engorged veins in the neck (jugular venous distention, JVD).

· Cyanosis (bluing of the skin of the lips and nail beds). (Late)

· Cold, clammy skin. (Late)

· Tracheal shift — the trachea is no longer midline in the neck, and instead is pushed away from the affected lung. (Late)

· Loss of consciousness. (Late)

· Death. (Late)

Symptoms

· Pain at the injury site and possible pain in the rest of the chest.

· Trouble breathing and panic.

· Feeling of impending doom.

· Dizziness, disorientation.

How Does It Happen?

Tension pneumothorax develops when a character suffers penetrating trauma to the chest that allows air to move between the outside and inside of the chest. This can be the result of a stabbing, shooting, impalement, or other penetrating trauma. It's especially common when the lung itself has been lacerated.

Immediate Treatment

Keep the character upright.

Provide oxygen, if available.

If the character is in respiratory failure — if they're dying — someone might give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or use a bag-valve-mask (BVM) to ventilate them. This actually makes the pneumothorax worse, but it may be beneficial in the short term because of increased gas exchange.

Needle Decompression

Needle decompression is the act of taking a big fat IV catheter and sticking it into the chest on the affected side. (There are two landmarks in common use: between the 2nd and 3rd ribs, on a line drawn straight down from the middle of the clavicle, or between the 5th and 6th ribs, in line with the front border of the armpit. These are technically called the 2nd intercostal space (ICS) at the midclavicular line, and the 5th ICS at the anterior axillary line.

Needle decompression works by giving the air trapped in the pleura an effective way out.

The problem with needle decompression is that, especially with larger characters, it isn't necessarily effective. Oftentimes the needle is simply too short to reach the pleura, especially in larger characters with strong pectoralis muscles or fat deposits, including breasts. Other times the catheter may kink or get backed up with blood.

Definitive Treatment

Needle decompression has the potential to be a definitive treatment for the injury, but only if it's effective in the first place, and only if the needle is hooked up to some form of drain system to make sure that air can escape.

Surgery / Hospitalization

Diagnostics will include a chest X-ray and likely a chest CT, though if the character is in mortal danger, these will always take a back seat to a clinical diagnosis – i.e. by signs, symptoms, and history – and providers will treat first and image later.

The definitive treatment for tension pneumothorax is placement of a chest tube or pigtail catheter in the chest. A chest tube is a large, straight tube, while a pigtail catheter is of a smaller diameter and is curled, like a pig’s tail.

Both are simple, quick procedures in the ER. They both involve putting a tube into the chest at the 4th or 5th intercostal space (between the 4th–5th or 5th–6th ribs) vertically aligned with the armpit (axillary line).

The end of the tube will have something called a Heimlich valve, which is a one-way valve (air can go out but not in).

Another option is a procedure called a finger thoracostomy. The surgical landmark is the same as for all other procedures, but the act is simpler and more brutal. The site is identified and the doctor — who is likely an ER physician — simply cuts down through the chest wall until they're touching lung. This is done in extreme circumstances, where the character is about to die. Otherwise, a chest tube or pigtail catheter is preferred.

In the Austere Environment

Characters who suffer a tension pneumothorax in extreme conditions are likely to die, unless a knowledgeable character with the correct equipment is around.

In settings before about 1950, the character is also likely to die, and they'll die gasping. Treatment of the tension pneumothorax requires understanding pressures inside the chest, which weren't readily measurable till then. Trauma surgery simply hadn't advanced to the point of understanding this rapidly lethal wound until that point.

The Rocky Road to Recovery

Capabilities Retained

Characters will retain the use of all four limbs and will be cognitively unaffected (barring brain damage from an extended period of low oxygen levels).

Disabilities: Temporary

Your character is likely to have a sensation of pressure at the catheter insertion site. Once the lung is reinflated, they can walk and perform most normal activities while the wound heals.

They will be instructed not to fly for six months after the pneumothorax. This is because altitude affects pressure and can cause reexpansion of the pneumothorax.

Disabilities: Permanent

Tension pneumothorax shouldn't cause any permanent disabilities, unless there are other complicating features of the injury.

Features of Recovery: Hospital Stay

Characters with no other complications, who respond well to the pigtail, can actually be sent home with the catheter in place. Characters with other injuries or who got bigger tubes will likely be admitted.

Features of Recovery: Aftercare

Characters will be instructed to walk up to their capacity, and increase their walking daily. They may want to use a pillow or other object to hold when they cough, because that can be painful.

If a character is sent home, they must come back for follow-up X-ray within 48 hours, to make sure the pneumothorax hasn't reexpanded.

The catheter should be removed after 3–5 days if no other issues arise.

Complications

Pigtail catheters are good for patients because they're smaller than chest tubes, which means they hurt less and can often be sent home in the patient.

Pigtail catheters are bad for patients because they're smaller tubes, which means that they might kink and then fail to vent out the air they need to get rid of.

Flying before the recommended date can cause another pneumothorax, though this is unlikely to be severe enough to collapse the lung again. However, the character might experience significant shortness of breath and exhaustion.

The New Normal

If the lung tissue itself wasn't damaged by the object, your character will return to their full function within 2–4 weeks. (No Disability)

If the lung was damaged by the injury, they may have other complications with the lung.

Future Risks

Even when they think they're healed, significant, rapid changes in altitude within the first 6 months could cause your character's pneumothorax to recur. No long-term risks are known.

Total Recovery Time (Typical)

Uncomplicated: 2–4 weeks

Complicated: Minimum 4 weeks but typically longer, depending on the damage

Sensory

Sights

The hole in the chest might be small, or it might be fairly large. Through a large enough hole, characters can see the injured's lung expanding and collapsing with each breath.

Sounds:

The wound may make a sucking noise as the character breathes. (This is known, appropriately, as a sucking chest wound.)

Medspeak

Tension pneumothorax is abbreviated in a chart as TPTx or TPx, and is colloquially known as a "tension pneumo."

Chest tubes are listed in various sizes; pigtails tend to be 12 French or 14 French, whereas chest tubes are larger: 24 Fr to 36 Fr. Pigtails are inserted over a guide wire, which is called the "Seldinger technique." They are held in place with a kind of stitching called "purse string" suture.

A TPTx that also has significant pooling of blood in the pleural space is a hemopneumothorax, or a "hemopneumo."

The landmarks are almost never said as "intercostal space," but referred to as the "ICS."

Key Points

· Tension pneumothorax is a rapidly lethal condition, developing from slight trouble breathing to deadly within minutes to an hour.

· TPTx collapses the lung and puts enormous pressure on the heart. It also kinks the great vessels.

· TPTx is treated by allowing the built-up air to escape. This is done with a needle, insertion of a tube, or cutting down until the lung can “communicate” directly with the outside world.

#this post is not medical advice #this post is writing advice #blood on the page #tension pneumothorax #pneumothorax #asks #recursive tagging

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sweetiepie08 · 3 years

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RebelZ (Chapter 9)

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

“Care to tell us what the fuck that was?” the Dib shouted as they ran down the hall.

“A coup, obviously,” Zim shot back. “Just not one where you seize power at the end. So, half a coup.”

“So then who seizes power now?”

“The Tallest Red and Purple still have it,”

Dib nearly tripped over his own feet in his shock. “You mean you didn’t kill them?”

“It’s nearly impossible to poison an Irken,” Tak explained. “The PAK filters out most toxins. You can incapacitate them, though, for a short period of time.”

“So you basically just quit your job in spectacular fashion,” Dib said indignantly.

Tak almost couldn’t believe it. Zim must be sincere in his betrayal. He poisoned the Tallest and declared to the entire upper crust of the Irken military that it was intentional. There was no coming back from that. Every other disaster he caused could reasonably be argued as a mistake. But there could be no doubt here. Zim truly had turned on the empire.

Yet, something still didn’t sit quite right with her. If he had gone rebel, if he had truly turned traitor, then his life clock would have gone off like hers did. One would reasonably assume the impotence for this betrayal was her discovery of the Control Brains parasite, but she was with him ever since she told him that news and she never saw his life clock go off. But that could only mean something else prompted him at an earlier date. So the question was, what made Zim finally snap?

They came to a split in the hallway. Tak started going right while Zim went left.

“Uh, the Voot is this way,” Tak called.

“I’m not going to the Voot,” Zim yelled back. “I’m going to the control room.”

Dib and Tak cast each other a glance, then followed him. They found him crouched behind a door at the end of the hall and joined him in his hiding spot. Dib took a peak inside. There, dozens of Irkens worked at their stations. They seemed unaware that, for now, their leaders were incapacitated.

Zim tapped his PAK and a metal ball flew into his hands. He pulled a pin, tossed it in, and smashed the control panel, shutting the door. They heard coughing from the other side and, after a few minutes, opened the door to find the Irkens unconscious on the floor.

“So, what are we doing in here again?” Dib asked, as they stepped into the room.

Zim grabbed one of the Irkens who still slouched in their chair and threw them to the floor. “Wiping Urth off the navigation map.” He sat down and the monitor and started messing with the buttons. “If I’m going to continue to use it as my home base, I can’t have them finding it.”

“Not so fast,” Tak slapped his fingers away from the buttons. “Before this goes any further, I need answers. If you’re truly on our side, there’s only one way your life clock didn’t go off.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“You had a rebellious thought!” Tak declared. “When?”

“Three Urth years ago.”

“Three years?” Dib shouted, stepping up to them. “But I’ve been watching you. Why were you still trying to conquer Earth if you kinda-quit three years ago?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But I saw you building machines!” Dib argued.

“They weren’t for me!” Zim shot back.

Tak began to ask “But how-” before Zim cut her off.

“Silence!” he shouted. “Silence your questions! I need to concentrate.”

Zim continued typing on the buttons until a picture of the Earth appeared on the screen. The stats were scarce, save for the coordinates and the note, ‘that place where Zim is.’ The little blue ball of dirt and water had gone unnoticed by the empire, noteworthy only as a banishment site. To them, it was merely a place to keep Zim contained, far away from anything important. But after the stunt they pulled today, it would be a target.

Another few clicks of a button and the Urth was gone, leaving only a blank file in its wake. All Irken military ships automatically synced with the Massive. If it was gone from this data base, it was essentially invisible to all Irkens. If they wanted to find Urth again, they’d have to scour the universe for it. But why stop at Urth?

“Let’s dump it all,” Tak said.

“What?”

“Erase the database,” she said. “It’ll be a crippling blow to the empire.”

“Do we really have time to erase everything?” Dib asked. The human made a good point.

“Jut the maps then,” she suggested. “They would have to rebuild their navigation systems from scratch and it would send the fleet into disarray.”

“Zim is no radical!” Zim snapped. “I’m only doing this to cover my own ass.”

“Not a raical?” Dib scoffed. “You just poisoned your own leaders.”

“That was personal,” Zim argued. “This is political.”

“And what about those weapons you’re building?!” Dib shot back. “If they’re not for Irk, then who are they for?”

“Zim’s business deals are none of your… um… business!”

“Shut up!” Tak commanded, taking a seat at another monitor. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s get these maps erased and get out of here.”

“If you even make it that far,” a chorus of voices answered.

Dib looked around. “Who said that?”

“We did, human.”

Every Irken in the room rose to their feet. Tak prepared herself for a fight. Her eyes darted as she watched them all, poised to deploy the weapons in her PAK. But none made a move to attack. They all stood there, stalk still, with a dead look in their eyes.

Dib gaped at the sight. “H-how are you…”

“Silence Urth Creature!” the possessed Irkens shouted in unison, turning their cold eyes toward Dib. “Do not interrupt us again!” Dib shut his mouth and the Irkens calmed. “Congratulations defectives” they said, now addressing Zim and Tak. “It’s been centuries since we had to resort to total override, but mark our words, you will pay for this waste of food.”

“What do you care for waste?” Tak spat back at them. “You throw Irken lives away every day in your conquest.”

“A calculated cost to bring me more to feed from in the long term,” the Irkens explained with their eerily monotone voices. “You should know about calculated risks. Don’t forget, we see everything you do.”

“When have I ever sacrificed good soldiers?”

Every possessed Irken in the room wore the same mocking smirk. “All through your training days. Don’t you remember? We saw everything you did, every little cheat to get ahead.”

The Irkens tapped buttons on their control boards and soon, every monitor showed various scenes from Tak’s training years. “Electrodes hidden in your boots to cripple race opponents. Stealing test answers and planting them in a rival’s locker after copying them for yourself. You got top scores on your exams and excelled at your drills, but is it really victory if you have to sabotage your competitions? Oh sure, you studied and trained, but it never felt like enough, did it? Never thought you could win a fair fight. Had to tear someone else down first. Maybe, if it weren’t for all your cheating, we’d have let you make up your Elite ranking test. After all, we allowed everyone else who was inconvenienced by the blackout to take it.” Their smirks grew as they twisted the knife further. “Just not you.”

Tak ground her teeth together as she watched the images play out on the screen. There was no denying them. The monitors played footage from her own memory bank. They showed her and everyone else who she really was. She work so hard. She clawed her way to the top and did everything she could to stay there. But it was all a lie. And now they knew it. What was worse, Zim knew it. That little pain in the ass managed to make it to elite the first time, even while being a walking disaster, and he never had to deliberately cheat. The idea of him lording that over her was enough to make her blood boil.

“Perhaps you can prove everyone wrong, though,” the Irken voices went on. “Take the honest route for once in your life. Tell Zim what you learned on your little trip to Refirencee. Tell him what you suspect.”

“Fool!” Zim scoffed. “Zim already accessed Tak’s memories. I know everything she knows about the Control Brain parasite.”

“Yes, you saw the same books. But did you reach the same conclusions?”

“Guys! Don’t you see what it’s doing?” The Dib burst in. “It’s distracting you. It’s keeping you here until your leaders recover. Let’s erase those maps and get out of here!”

“Silence!” Zim snapped at Dib, then turned back to the dead-eyed Irkens. “Tell Zim what you know, creepy hive-mind…thing!”

“Have you ever wondered why you’re such a failure? Why you destroy everything you touch? Why, no matter what you do, everything always blows up in your face? It’s because you have no choice in the matter. It’s what you were made for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before we push for something big, we require extra sustenance. We take this sustenance in what some have called a blood toll. On our first planet, we made many mistakes, one was asking our hosts directly for sacrifices. We know better now.”

“Ans what does this have to do with me?” Zim growled impatiently.

“Since the beginning of our reign, one PAK has been passed down through generations, carrying a suppressed impulse for destruction. We need only to activate it and we have our blood toll. Clearly our PAK has become quite damaged over the years. It no longer works quite right. You’re so defective, you couldn’t even declare your name right.”

The screen flashed the name Zim across it. It then reversed the letters and spread them out to reveal an acronym. ZIM became MIZ. And MIZ became Massacre Initiator Z.

“You were supposed to live as a low-ranking drone until we activated your destructive impulse and die in the disaster. You, however, defied us at every turn. We kept you alive out of sheer curiosity. We wanted to see how your life would play out. It’s been entertaining, however, you’ve become too great a burden to bare.”

Zim stood motionless, staring straight ahead. They waited for the typical Zim outburst of “lies!” or declaring his greatness, but nothing came. His eyes looked as dead as the possessed Irkens around them. He said nothing, did nothing. As much as Tak couldn’t stand Zim’s obnoxious voice or erratic behavior, watching him be so still was chilling.

Tak’s antenna perks at the sound of footsteps trooping down the hall. The Dib’s head darted for the door. “Guy! Come on! We’re out of time!”

Tak smacked Zim’s lifeless body away from the control panel. “Do you think you can stop us by getting into our heads?”

“Oh simple Tak,” the Irkens sighed. “We've lived in your heads since you were fitted with your packs.”

Tak sneered at them. “I cut you off for me and I won't rest until every Irken is free of you.”

“Please, you worked your whole life to get our attention. You finally have it. Do you want to throw that away? Perhaps we can find a place with someone of your drive and ingenuity.”

“Liars!” Did they think she was stupid? She knew as well as it that treason of this scale would never go unpunished. Even if they tried to appease her with a higher rank or a cushy job, it’d only be a matter of time before they got rid of her. But even the fact that it was trying to negotiate meant something. She was a threat to it, and she would stay a threat until the day she died.

“We you know you, Tak. You’re a plotter. You won't do anything rash.”

They don’t know me half as well as they think. “Want a bet?” She started hitting buttons on the control board. An alert came up on the screen and the voice blared from the speakers. “All maps queued for deletion. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

She hit one more button and the screen went black. “Deletion successful.”

“Take that you parasite bitch.”

“Come on,” Dib begged, pulling on her arm. The footsteps were noticeably louder. “We have to go now!”

Tak took off running and Dib pulled on the frozen Zim until his legs moved. They burst into the hall and immediately came across a group of Irkan soldiers. “There they are!” one of the soldiers cried.

Tak led the way as they ran toward the ship’s hanger. The soldiers fired at them. A laser cannon popped out of Tak’s pack and returned fire, but it was difficult for her to aim while leading the dash to the Voot. She wished one of her companions had could back her up with a pistol but Zim was still barely conscious and Dib was preoccupied with keeping his legs moving. The sound of little metallic feet running beside them gave her an idea.

“Zim, tell me your SIR unit to go into defensive mode.

There was no response. Zim was as helpful as a sack of empty ginzor cans.

“Hey Zim’s robot,” Dib said to the little SIR unit.

Gir looked up at him curiously. “Hmm?”

“Don't you have any weapons or something?”

“Huh?”

“You know, something that makes pretty lights and goes ‘pew, pew’?”

“Oh that. I got that.” A giant laser cannon popped out of his head and he fired wildly into the soldiers behind them, forcing the Irkens to scatter for cover

Finally, they made it to the hangar and all jumped in the Voot. Zim slid zombie-like into the pilot seat.

“Come on,” Dib said, shaking Zim’s shoulder. “Get us out of here!”

“Zim!” Tak snapped. “If you don't fly this ship, I will!”

That seemed to work. Zim shook off whatever stupor he was in and his usual look of single-minded determination returned to his eyes. “No one pilots Zim’s ship but Zim!” He took hold of the controls and the ship roared to life. In a flash, they took off into the stars.

#invader zim #invader zim fanfic #invader zim fanfiction #parasite au #iz parasite au #zim #tak #dib #gir #rebel zim #rebel leader tak #iz #zadf #sweetiepie writes #sweetipiewrites #sweetiepie fanfiction #sweetiepie fanfic #sweetiepie08

47 notes · View notes

river-bottom-nightmare · 4 years

Text

I am incapable of writing ANYTHING BUT ANGST. but really this is all elle’s fault, she asked for the fic, I provided. it’s under the cut, have fun with it. it’s on ao3 here.

tag list: @anothertimdrakestan @comicsandhoney @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl @birdy-bat-writes @thebatsandbirdsofgotham @subtleappreciation

Tim had never been afraid of his mind. His ruthlessness was sharper than blade and his detective skills were keener than a bullet. He wasn’t some sort of super-genius, but he didn’t have to be. He was enough.

Sure, sometimes the wide, disbelieving eyes of his teammates made him a bit uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, he was keeping them safe, wasn’t he? Their comfort was a small price for their lives.

And now? Now he was damn grateful.

“Cloning attempt forty-five unsuccessful. Samples discarded.” The cool voice cut through the greenish-gloom, cold and mechanical. At times, Tim wished the voice held at least an ounce of warmth. He’d take any bit he could get, and wrap it around himself like a tattered blanket, just willing it to do its job and keep him safe. Other times, Tim was glad the robotic voice was frigid, impersonal. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t break down at the first sign of kindness.

“Diagnostic,” Tim said, bent over a computer.

“Protein link breakdown at twenty-three hours and thirty-seven minutes. Full destruction at twenty-four hours and twenty-eight minutes.”

“Solutions?”

“Suggested stabilizer: trehalose.”

“Run it, next trial.”

“Cloning attempt forty-six initiated.”

_________

“Tim, come on! Cut me some slack!” Kon was trying to pout, but one look at Tim’s raised eyebrows caused him to double over laughing. “It’s not fair!”

“It’s totally fair. You just suck at this.” Tim was straightened up from Street Fighter II, arching his back like a pleased cat.

“You’re not supposed to use your superhero name on this,” Kon said, looking at the blinking line of text that said Robin at the top of all the scores.

Tim scoffed. “Why don’t you say that a little louder, Superboy? ” Kon’s own name was fourth, blinking a little less vibrantly.

“Whatever. I’m hungry,” Kon announced.

“Oh, so now you’re hungry? After losing for the billionth time, you finally want to get some food- hey! ” Tim let out a choked gasp as Kon grabbed him under his elbow, ruffling his head roughly.

“Perfect timing, huh?”

Tim could hear the laughter in Kon’s voice, so he elbowed Kon in the gut, roughly. “Mhmm, it really is.”

“I’m dying, Tim. Dying. You killed me.” Kon was still bent over, arm over his stomach.

Tim grabbed Kon’s other hand and laced their fingers together, thinking nothing of it, tugging to get Kon walking to the food court. “Yeah yeah, complain about it to Cassie. C’mon, I want nacho fries.”

Instead of responding with a laugh and a jibe about Tim’s taste, Kon just started coughing. And coughing and coughing and coughing before he was on the ground.

Suddenly, they weren’t in the arcade anymore. It was a field, calm and peaceful and quiet and Tim was about to throw up because he knew this field.

Kon was lying ahead, staring listlessly to the side with dead eyes.

“No, no no no no, ” Tim rushed over to him, too late, always too late. But the field kept stretching out longer and longer, and Tim couldn’t reach Kon. He made one desperate leap for him, and hit the ground hard.

There was blood all over his hands, Kon’s blood. Seeping into his skin until his fingers had turned dark crimson, spreading down to his palms, his wrists, his arms. He scrubbed at the colour desperately, trying to get it off. Itching and scratching and God why won’t the blood just go away.

Tim let out a desperate, wordless shriek, and the world tilted, turning on its axis and throwing Tim into the air. He woke up gasping, fresh tear tracks on his face.

_________

Tim was sitting in a rolling chair in front of his computer, cross-legged. His eyes were drooping, but he forced them open. He’d caught a lead in his search for Bruce, somewhere in north Chile. He’d take a week, poke around, then come back here.

Sighing, he turned his chair, back still bent in an awful crouch. There was a glass case right next to him, a black and red T-shirt displayed proudly. He had a couple, but they were all back in his room at the manor. This specific one was the softest, and his favourite. But he couldn’t bring himself to take it out of the case, bundle it up in his arms, and bring it close to himself like he so desperately wanted to. Taking it out of the case made it real.

“Cloning attempt sixty-two unsuccessful.”

Tim let out a near-uncontrollable cry, swinging his arms out wildly in a rare fit of anger. His fist flew towards the computer, and he managed to direct the hit to the wall next to it. The sting of pain brought him back to his senses, and he stared down at his hand, shocked.

Taking in a deep breath, he shook his hand out and shoved his hands through his hair, ignoring the flashing Trial Failed sign on the screen.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. He always knew that he’d lose Kon eventually. Everyone he knew, everyone he loved always left him, voluntarily or not. He didn’t know why he played a losing game.

You know why, his brain told him. You’re selfish. So, so selfish. You just a part of him for as long as he could give it. But it was never going to be enough.

“No,” Tim said aloud to the empty room. “He’s not gone, he’s not .”

“Unknown command,” the automated voice system responded.

Tim held back another fit of rage, then bit out, “Diagnostic.”

“DNA synthesis failure at forty-eight minutes. DNA structural collapse at fifty-nine minutes.”

“Solutions?”

“Retry experiment. New strand of DNA recommended.”

“Run it.”

“Cloning attempt sixty-three initiated.”

_________

“Tim, come on! Cut me some slack!” Kon was trying to pout, but one look at Tim’s raised eyebrows caused him to double over laughing. “It’s not fair!”

“It’s totally fair. You just suck at this.” Tim was straightened up from Street Fighter II, arching his back like a pleased cat.

“You’re not supposed to use your superhero name on this,” Kon said, looking at the blinking line of text that said Robin at the top of all the scores.

Tim scoffed. “Why don’t you say that a little louder, Superboy? ” Kon’s own name was fourth, blinking a little less vibrantly.

“Whatever. I’m hungry,” Kon announced.

“Perfect timing, huh?”

Tim could hear the laughter in Kon’s voice, so he elbowed Kon in the gut, roughly. “Mhmm, it really is.”

“I’m dying, Tim. Dying. You killed me.” Kon was still bent over, arm over his stomach.

Tim grabbed Kon’s other hand and laced their fingers together, thinking nothing of it, tugging Kon to get him walking to the food court. “Yeah yeah, complain about it to Cassie. C’mon, I want nacho fries.”

“No,” Kon was straightening up now, shoving Tim away.

“Kon?” Tim asked, a little confused and a little hurt.

“You killed me. You killed me.” There was a venom in his voice that Tim had rarely ever heard, and never directed at him.

“I, I didn’t mean to,” Tim was stumbling back now, wide eyed, as Kon advanced on him.

“Yes you did. You know what happens to people you loved, and you loved me anyway.”

Tim shook his head desperately. “I never said I loved you.”

Kon’s laugh was humorless. “You never had to. I knew. You really thought you could hide this from me?”

Kon was backing him against a wall now, arms on either side, effectively trapping him. Tim could get out, of course he could. But he couldn’t make his feet move, no matter how hard he tried.

“Don’t, please don’t,” Tim begged when Kon leaned closer. “Kon wouldn’t, not if I didn’t want to.”

This Conner, one with a cruel, angry glint in his eyes, tipped Tim’s chin up with his finger. “Well it’s a good thing I’m not your Kon then, isn’t it?” His lips were brushing Tim’s now. “Besides, you always had a penchant for torturing yourself.”

Then Kon was devouring Tim’s mouth, and it was everything Tim had ever wanted, and everything Tim hated. Kon was possessive, passionate, biting his lips with a hunger that took Tim by surprise before licking into his mouth hungrily. His fingers were gripping Tim’s jaw, rough and firm, tilting his head to get a better angle. Tim had melted into it, letting Kon take and take and take.

It was wrong. It was all wrong.

Because Kon would have been gentle. He would have cradled Tim’s face in his fingers like he was something precious. His first kiss would have been tentative but sure, letting Tim know much he meant to him. He would have pulled back and smiled at the wonder in Tim’s eyes before ducking down to give him another soft kiss, chaste and oh-so-loving.

Kon had just drawn back to sink his teeth into Tim’s collarbone when Tim woke up with a sob, out of breath and heaving.

He fell out of bed and ran towards the main room, ignoring the flashing light that noted the progress of the latest cloning attempt. He kept running and running until he reached the glass case, where he brought his fist back and slammed it into the glass as hard as he could.

It didn’t even crack. Of course it didn’t, it was reinforced. Tim threw another couple of punches, before spotting a spare piece of piping lying on the ground. He grabbed it and swung, with every mite of strength left in his body, and crashed it into the case.

The glass splintered. He hit it again and again, until shards rained down around Tim, leaving small cuts in his wake. He grabbed the T-shirt, yanking it out of its stand and bringing it close to him, hugging it the way he’d wanted to for so long.

Tim bent over the ground, letting his tears seep into the fabric.

He wanted everyone back. His parents, Steph, Bart, Bruce, Kon. He wanted them all back.

“I’m close,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the T-shirt. “I swear it, I’m close.” He didn’t know if he was talking about finding Bruce or cloning something close enough to Kon. One of them would happen, and it would be enough. He’d stop losing at this rigged puzzle that was his life, he’d stop trying to play this losing game, and it would be enough.

_________

“Cloning attempt eighty-nine unsuccessful.”

Tim was wearing the Superboy T-shirt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten out of it. His fingers played along the hem, twitching. His attention darted around from one screen to the next, taking in a map of Norway one second, and reading over the cloning file in the next.

“Diagnosis?” He prided himself on how steady his voice sounded.

“Proteins from Subject: Lex Luthor failed to fully integrate into Subject: Clark Kent, Kal-el. Possible problem: invulnerability of kryptonian genes.”

“Solution?”

“Kryptonite injections suggested.”

“Do it. Run it.”

Tim’s own voice had become as robotic as the computers. It was hoarse, raspy. He’d forgotten the last time he’d truly spoken, barring instructions to the computer and the cries torn from his throat in the middle of a night. Concerned messages from Dick sat unread on his phone.

“Just, run it again. Run it again, try again.”

“Cloning attempt ninety initiated.”

_________

“Tim, come on! Cut me some slack!” Kon was trying to pout, but one look at Tim’s raised eyebrows caused him to double over laughing. “It’s not fair!”

“It’s totally fair. You just suck at this.” Tim was straightened up from Street Fighter II, arching his back like a pleased cat.

“You’re not supposed to use your superhero name on this,” Kon said, looking at the blinking line of text that said Robin at the top of all the scores.

Tim scoffed. “Why don’t you say that a little louder, Superboy? ” Kon’s own name was fourth, blinking a little less vibrantly.

“Whatever. I’m hungry,” Kon announced.

“Perfect timing, huh?”

Tim could hear the laughter in Kon’s voice, so he elbowed Kon in the gut, roughly. “Mhmm, it really is.”

“I’m dying, Tim. Dying. You killed me.” Kon was still bent over, arm over his stomach.

“Wait,” Kon’s fingers tightened around his own.

“What?”

“You don’t need food right now, do you?” Kon tugged him towards a corner, partially hidden by a column and an arcade game.

“I sure would like some,” Tim raised his eyebrows.

In response, Kon let out a chuckle, small but warm, the edges of his eyes crinkling in the way that made people fawn over Superman but made Tim fall even further and further in love with Kon.

“Well yes I know that, but I was just wondering...”

“Wondering what?”

Kon bit his lips before catching Tim’s eyes. “Maybe you’d like to taste something else?”

Tim stared at him for a second, stunned silence between them, before collapsing into laughter. “ Kon, oh my god!”

Tim looked up to see lips turned out in an adorable little pout. “What! I’m being serious, and it was a good line.”

“It most certainly was not a good line.”

“Cut me some slack here, Tim.”

“You mean like at Street Fighter? The way I cut you slack then?”

“Oh shut up. You cheat. I don’t know how you do, but you cheat .”

And suddenly Tim found himself in Kon’s arms, leaning into the taller boy. Kon tightened his grip around Tim, fingers finding Tim’s waist, and cradling him gently.

“It may have been a terrible line,” Tim smiled up at Kon, “but it worked.”

He leaned forward, placing a kiss to Kon’s lips, delicate but not at all fragile. Kon looked awestruck for a minute, before swooping back down and capturing Tim’s lips again. Passive at first, Tim soon pressed back, letting the push-pull rhythm come naturally. They slowed down, came to a stop while resting their foreheads against each other, Kon bent over and Tim on his tip-toes and arched back, but not uncomfortable at all.

“Okay but did my line actually work?” Kon asked against Tim’s lips, biting his own nervously. “Can I do this again? Because I’d really like to do this again.”

Laughter bubbled out of Tim, easy as breathing, and he pulled back to catch the other boy’s eyes. “Yes. We can do this again. But nacho fries first. Food, then kisses.”

Kon nodded. “Food, then kisses.”

Tim blinked awake, still curled up under the thin covers and swallowed by the pillows. This time, he could feel the tears pricking at his eyes, and he let them fall. “Take me back,” he wasn't sure if he said that aloud, but then again, there was no one there to hear it. “I want to go back.”

He squeezed his eyes shut in vain, trying to will himself back to sleep. Then, he remembered the little bottle sitting in the bathroom, sleeping pills Dick had given him once that he refused to use. He threw the covers back and found the thing resting on the sink. He tore it open and shook one, two, three, four pills into his hands. Tipping his head back, he swallowed them dry, then stumbled back into bed.

“The arcade,” he said to himself, burying his limbs under that T-shirt that still somehow smelled like Kon. “We were at the arcade.”

_________

“Cloning attempt ninety-seven unsuccessful.”

“Diagnostic.”

“Protein failure in link-”

“You know what? No. Forget it. I don’t want to know. Just run it again.”

“Suggested solution-”

“I don’t care! I don’t care, just try. Again.”

“Cloning attempt ninety-eight initiated.”

#scribbles from the swamp #tim drake #red robin #robin #kon-el #conner kent #superboy #timkon #dc #tim drake fic #tim drake fanfic #red robin fic #red robin fanfic #robin fic #robin fanfic #timkon fic #timkon fanfic #dc fic #dc fanfic

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silverhandy · 3 years

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Verbatim

read on ao3!

Summary: Having climbed all the way up from Heywood’s slums to Miyabi, one of the most high end casinos in Night City, Santiago "Sanny" Garcia thought himself a lucky man, right until the point when his employer, an Arasaka board member with a gambling business on the side, caught him stealing and offered an impossible ultimatum. Forced to pay off his debt or die trying, Sanny has to renew some old friendships and form some new ones to keep himself afloat.

On top of everything, when his cyberware starts malfunctioning, there’s only one person on his long contact list that he can call.

“Where’s your Trauma platinum when you need it, pendejo?”

“Kicking a man when he’s down? Never expected that from you” Sanny groaned, burying his face in a pillow. He’d give anything for the world to stop spinning, just for a second. Faced with a heavy silence, he cracked one eye open to see Maria’s disgruntled expression on the holo. “It got revoked, okay? I’m literally begging here.”

“You're not,” she replied, the frown still not leaving her face. Sanny could swear at least some part of her was enjoying it. “At least not yet.”

“C’mon, hermana. I’m-” before he could finish that sentence, he was cut off by another wave of nausea strong arming its way through him. He barely had the chance to haul himself over the edge of the bed to vomit into the bucket he put there, anything to avoid ruining his ridiculously expensive, silk sheets.

Sanny could practically feel Maria’s judging stare on him as she got a front row seat on her brother puking his brains out. He understood her, in a way - their last conversation wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. Maybe he went a little overboard with his bragging. Still, she was his only sibling that still kept in touch with him, all the rest a step away from declaring him a total stranger.

As he wiped his mouth, desperate to get rid of the bitter taste of bile, he entertained the thought of apologizing to her. Was that his new low? At the mercy of his older sister? Certainly not a position he thought he’d find himself in, not after he decided to say goodbye to Heywood for good. She had every right to resent him just as the rest of the family did, but despite it all, they still kept in contact. A sporadic, passive aggressive contact, but a contact nevertheless.

She let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. You’re lucky my day freed up, otherwise you’d have to call some other sorry fucker. Text me the address, I’ll be there in an hour, maybe two.”

“Two hours? You for real?”

“Don’t push your luck, Santiago.”

***

“That ripperdoc of yours, how reliable is he?”

“He knows his stuff. Just bear in mind he doesn’t usually take on corpos.”

“Not a corpo.” Sanny mumbled, resting his forehead on the cold glass of the passenger's window.

“You sure as hell look like one” she replied, not taking her eyes off the road.

“When in Rome, do as Romans do…”

The car hit a bump, making Sanny smack his head against the glass. An explosion of pain followed as an array of angrily white stars danced in front of his vision, sprinkled with not less alarming system failure warnings. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Maria did that on purpose, but she wasn’t responsible for the state of the neighborhood's roads. Not directly, at least.

“We’re here.” Maria’s voice snapped him out of his stupor. Some time must’ve passed because when he opened his eyes they were parked on the edge of a wide, busy street, various shops, and nightclubs drawing customers in with their loud neons and whatever else they had to offer. Luckily for Sanny, they didn’t have to walk all the way through it, loud sounds and aggressively bright lights coming at him from all directions, mercilessly aggravating his headache before they turned the corner and walked through the gate leading to a small, crumpled backyard. Maria led him down another set of stairs to an unlabeled basement, one of those places you needed to know were there to find them.

“Hey Vik!'' she said as she passed the gate to the underground clinic, walking in as if she owned the place. Sanny followed behind, his usual confidence shrinking. If what Maria said was true, there was a real chance that the ripperdoc would turn him away and he doubted he had the resolve to drag himself to another one. Suddenly Fukuzawa’s offer of a bullet to the head seemed much more appealing.

When the ripperdoc turned his head towards them, a warm smile appeared on his face as his eyes landed on Maria. Tossing the screwdriver he’d been holding aside, he got up to greet her, though Sanny could tell he was eyeing him over her shoulder as well. He couldn’t blame him - he probably looked like a breathing trainwreck.

“Hey, good to see you.” the ripper said to Maria. “So you must be Sanny?” he asked, suddenly shifting his attention to the younger man, extending a muscular arm towards him. The ripper was built like a fucking truck and Mal could feel his mouth go dry, and only partially because he must be severely dehydrated at this point. Suddenly regretting that he didn’t at least take a shower before Maria came to pick him up, he took a step forward to shake the man’s hand.

“That’s me.” Sanny smiled nervously, his paled face twitching with the effort.

“Viktor Vector’s the name. Heard a lot about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Sanny could hear his voice cracking, mind racing at all the things Maria could possibly say about him while in her ripper’s chair. There were many and only a few made Sanny proud of himself.

“I’ll leave you boys to chat. Don’t want no part in this.” Maria said, a crooked smile on her face. “I’ll wait in the car. Vik, feel free to add this to my tab.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

And just like that, she left him there. Great.

“Alright, let’s get you seated, don’t want you to crack your head open if you fall.” Sanny heard Viktor say. Too busy trying to keep down the few sips of water he got before leaving the apartment, he didn’t even notice how his silhouette started to sway to the side, only stopped by the ripperdoc’s strong arm on his shoulder, steadying him and gently ushering him in the direction of the chair.

Looking back, the whole thing couldn’t have happened to him at a worse time, shortly after he got dropped from the Trauma Team health plan, his regular ripper bidding him farewell with an apologetic smile, even taking a step further to wish him luck. So much for the Hippocratic oath. Sanny watched silently as Viktor kicked himself a chair and sat down to fire up the monitors, typing away at the beat up keyboard until eventually, he reached out a hand.

“Your personal link, please.”

“‘f course” Sunny mumbled, handing him the cable and watching as the doc jacked it into the port, on the first try even. Must be the practice, Sanny thought and allowed his head to rest on the headboard, the blue leather cracking slightly as Viktor started running diagnostics on his cyberware.

“That’s an impressive set you got there”

If he wasn’t feeling so damn miserable, he'd smirk. Impressive was an understatement, with his array of the state of the art cyberware, from behavioral boosters to those refining his fine motor skills to a point he was practically a magician with a deck of cards. Or a lockpick, but he was yet to get desperate enough to give that career path a try.

“My job has its perks.”

“You a croupier at Miyabi?” it seemed that Viktor was rather keen on small talk, a quality that Sanny didn’t quite share, but hesitantly welcomed.

“Figured it out from my tech or did my sister tell you?”

“Bit of both, I suppose.”

Jacked and insightful. What more could Sanny possibly want? Then again, it wasn’t a time in his life for romantic pursuits, both this specific moment, lying sick on the ripperdoc’s chair and in a broader sense, when he had a figurative gun to his head, a literal one soon to follow if he doesn’t resolve the mess he got himself into.

“Other than dizziness, anything else bothering you?

“Uh,” Sanny turned his head to look at the other man. There were many things bothering him and most had little to do with his current physical condition. “I haven't been able to keep anything down for a few days now. Not even the damn pills for the headache. Running self diagnostics didn’t spit out anything useful either.”

Viktor’s brows furrowed as he shot the younger man a glance from behind his shades. Disapproval? Concern?

“It’s been this bad and you’re only now seeing a ripper?”

“Maria told you where I work but didn’t share why I’m visiting a back alley doctor? How considerate.”

“You guys don’t get along too well, huh?” Sanny frowned at the direction this conversation was going, but there was nothing he could do but enjoy the ride.

“It’s...an on and off thing between us.” he just mumbled, desperate to avoid Viktor’s gaze. Lucky for Sanny, the ripper’s attention seemed to be entirely on the monitors in front of him.

“Just remember, kid,” Viktor said, finally turning to look at Sanny’s face. “she cares about you a lot. Wouldn’t bring you here if she didn’t.”

Sanny just hummed in response. Deep down, he knew the ripper was right, but the whole exchange only made him even more curious about what exactly Maria had been saying about him. It couldn’t be half as bad as he thought he deserved because not only had Viktor not kicked him out of the chair, but was even nice to him. Go figure.

“Alright then,” Viktor said, unplugging the younger man’s personal link. “had to do some cleaning in your CPU, you should be up and running in a few hours. Take this before going to bed for the night,” a strip of pills was placed in his hand “and in the future, watch what you plug your personal link into. I know you guys working in high end casinos get a fancy firewall as part of the package, but it’s not foolproof.

“It sure ain’t, doc. Thanks for the advice,” Sanny smiled, motioning to get up from the chair. “and everything else.”

Whatever Viktor did, the effect was immediate; the clinic was no longer swaying and his stomach didn’t threaten to twist itself inside out every time he moved his head. He still felt like he was experiencing a crescendo of the worst hangover of his life, but it was nothing that couldn’t be managed with a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Who knows, he might even get bold and eat something, though he still wasn’t sure about that one.

“Don’t mention it, I don’t often get the chance to tinker with Miyabi tech. And if you’re open to some more pieces of advice, you should be thanking your sister, not me.”

“I’ll make sure to do just that.”

“Should you run into more trouble with software, my clinic’s always open. I’ll send you the number, so don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

Did he just…? No fucking way, Sanny thought as he walked up the stairs, leaving the clinic behind.

***

“So...how’re the Valentinos treatin’ you?”

“Actually, I…puta madre!” she shouted, blasting her hand against the car’s horn as she slammed the brakes to make her disdain loud and clear to the driver who tried to cut her off at the intersection. A litany of insults from the would-be culprit followed, another sound in a cacophony of Heywood’s streets. Maria shook her head, dark locks of her hair shaking with the movement like a swarm of angry bees. “I left.”

“And here I was thinking the position of the family’s black sheep was already taken.”

“Don’t ever think you’re the special one just because you shuffle cards for the big guys.”

“Oh, I could never. So what do you do now?”

“Independent. It took a while, but a friend got me hooked up with some reliable fixers.”

“A “friend”? Don’t tell me that on top of everything, you got yourself a man. Or a woman?”

Maria shot him a warning glare. “It’s nothing like that. Jackie just helped me get back on my feet, introduced me to some people. I’ve been fending for myself since then.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Way better than for you. The hell did you do to piss off your corporate overlords?”

“All I can say for now is that you can leave Heywood, but Heywood never leaves you. Took one too many risks and all it did was land me before the one and only Akio Fukuzawa, who apparently doesn’t take kindly to humbled employees when his eddies are missing.”

“And yet here you are, still alive.”

“What can I say? I’m a charming guy.”

They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, Maria’s eyes fixed on the road, maroon painted nails tapping on the steering wheel in the rhythm of whatever was playing on the radio while Sanny pretended to be mesmerized by whatever they were passing on their way, in reality pulling up his comms interface to scroll through all the text messages he sent to fixers before the damn virus made it impossible to see straight. Almost all of them were left on read and unanswered. Sanny presumed they were bound to remain so. He didn’t have the reputation necessary to land any of the bigger contracts and no time to build it up before Fukuzawa’s minions showed up on his doorstep.

They parked in front of his building, mere centimeters away from bumping into a lampost. Sanny choked down a sigh. There was no escaping it now.

“Thanks, hermana. I owe you one,” he uttered, motioning to get out of the car. Just as he pushed the door open, his comms chimed with a text message from an unknown number. Getting out of the car, he waved to dismiss it, thinking it must be another of those spam chains that’d been flooding his inbox from time to time, but froze halfway through when his eyes landed on the text. The contract was vague on details, but the reward was crystal clear. Sanny could almost feel his jaw dropping as he looked at the impressive number of zeros that followed the first digit. It should be enough. More than enough to pay Fukuzawa off, even if, as per the fixer’s demand, he’ll have to cut the amount in half and share with a partner. He was so dumbfounded he didn’t hear Maria’s reply, or if she replied at all, but when he turned back one last time, she was eying him from head to toe suspiciously. Then she just shook her head slightly as if shushing away a thought.

“And Sanny?” she said, rolling down her window and shooting him a glare from behind her shades. “don’t you dare fuck my ripperdoc.”

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk #cp2077 #cp77 #cyberpunk oc #Viktor Vector #cyberpunk fic #my writing #moxwrites2077

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sternenteile · 3 years

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★ @ghostbustingreen asked: 🍵Pour one out for Geno, Nikki

OH DREAMY THE CANS OF BEES YOU’VE JUST OPENED. LET’S-A FUCKING GO. i’mma put this under a read more because i’m aware that i’ll probably be getting really fucking vile here. y’all been warned.

holy shit, let me just say how STUPID some people are for thinking that people who like geno have CLEARLY never played super mario rpg because if they did, they WOULDN’T like geno because THEY THEMSELVES DON’T. they often like to compare sales and say that smrpg was a ‘flop’ that few people liked, on top of the fact that their opinions make them so blinded by bias that they can’t fathom other takes.

let me break down how fucking brain-dead this take is and why it makes me want to get these dumbasses brain transplants, STAT. put them on the front of the brain transplant waiting list, because they DESPERATELY need them.

first of fucking all, bitch, your experience with smrpg is not everyone else’s. just because someone’s favorite character is geno DOES NOT MEAN THEY DIDN’T PLAY THE GAME. there are so many other lovable characters in smrpg (mallow, jonathan jones, booster, valentina, smithy, jinx, etc), but if someone’s favorite is geno, they SURELY don’t know the other characters and OBVIOUSLY never played the game. LOL SMRPG PLAYS THE GAME FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME HAHA

you know another reason why people make this shit up? because of geno mostly being known for being a smash request. i do agree that this does blow, as i wish people would stop associating geno ONLY with smash and let smrpg fans just appreciate him and his game as a whole, but GOOD FUCKING GOD. guess what? a lot of people heard about geno and therefore smrpg BECAUSE OF THAT. guess what happens when people hear of a game and fall in love with a monumental character from that game? they might, you know... play the game?

B-BUT THE GAME IS SO HARD TO GET! YOU CAN ONLY GET IT ON MODERN SYSTEMS IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE FEW TO OWN A WII U OR AN SNES CLASSIC.

sit your pure christian brainlet ass DOWN, karen, because you underestimate the rampant piracy when it comes to nintendo games. i know that people doing something that may be harmful to your pwecious favowite cowpowation is enough to make you clutch your doterra essential oils or your unwashed dick, but it’s a thing! wow! especially with games like earthbound, super mario rpg, and chrono trigger, snes emulation is extremely common. it’s how most people get to play these games nowadays because of nintendo’s own failure to provide alternate means of play through legal methods. it’s how i got to play super mario rpg all those years ago! through an emulator! yes, i’m a filthy fucking pirate! yo ho ho, bitch, try some fucking grog and sing a fucking shanty with me, because we’re going plundering for nintendo’s tasty treasures.

you know what that means, by the way? the sales for smrpg on the snes DO NOT COUNT AS THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE PLAYED THE GAME. WOW, FUCKING SHOCKING, RIGHT? HOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO GOT IT ON VC? THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SNES CLASSICS? THE PEOPLE WHO PIRATED THE GAME? THERE ARE A BUNCH OF THEM. YOU ACTUAL BUFFOONS. HOW DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT. ARE YOU LIVING THAT FAR INTO YOUR INFESTED UNWASHED ASS THAT U CAN’T REALIZE THAT. LMAOOOOO HOW IS UR IQ GOING BEING IN THE SINGLE DIGITS

oh, but none of that matters, right? people who like geno still never played the game because i said so, therefore they deserve to have people going out of their way to their smrpg fan content, to their social media, and to FUCKING DOXXING PEOPLE because they like a video game character!! death threats? wanting to literally smother, gas, or set fire to people who have a preference for a non-problematic video game character? TOTALLY OKAY! if it was just about morons being morons, i wouldn’t even be this hateful and spiteful, but it’s gone so above and beyond that to the point that these people deserve nothing but having their asscheeks devoured by their local alaskan bullworm. go back to snorting your own fecal matter and getting high off of your own farts, you filthy neckbeards. maybe your lives are the ones who should be re-evaluated as being ‘wastes of oxygen’ if you’re making death threats OVER A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER.

this is why i hate the smash fan base. no, i don’t hate smash fans, obviously. i’m in the rpc and i know a lot of smash fans. i love them dearly. however, the general fan base is a toxic wasteland and a lot of this behavior is either overlooked or normalized. this is the same fan base that allowed grooming of minors to run rampant for so long, after all. this is the same fan base full of mouth-breathers who want nasty art of underage smash fighters and make it by the tons. it’s the same one full of some of the horniest, pathetic turbo-incels i’ve ever seen. the fact that i hate the smash fan base more than HOMESTUCK’S should speak volumes. it’s REVOLTING. leave me the fuck alone, i’m a mario rpg fan and not a part of your fucking fan base. i want nothing to do with y’all, so stop seeking me out just to cry and moan because i like a video game character you don’t like. you fucking freaks.

#★ ; ( ooc. )#ghostbustingreen #negative //#swearing //#violence //#death mention //#general just. rage. pure and unbridled rage.#i feel great now that i let it out tho.#this has been sitting on me and i haven't rly #let LOOSE a proper very angry rant #now that i have i feel like a million bucks #but seriously this gets rly nasty guys. be warned.#i get REALLY really angry here.

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indurarinks · 3 years

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stygian dagger

a sneak peek Like clamouring thunder intimidating a planet during a hot summer day, a small group of highly trained Tavali, the renowned pirates and travellers of the Universe, quickly dissolved themselves in the crowd as if each individual had always belonged to the scene. Bursting at the seams, the makeshift arena placated the savage desires of the rowdy public through violent, gruesome fighting. Their bellows demanded blood and guts from the unwilling practitioners of cage fighting, sold to this business for the purpose of serving the sick pleasures of the rich. Filling the pockets of greedy masters with abusive hands. Though illegal, the fights were wildly known throughout the Nine Worlds, beckoning hefty wallets with the promise of a night of indulgence. The three Tavali, fearless and unrelenting and heavily armed, approached the round stage, a fenced cage that had been electrified to discourage any contestant from trying an escape. Ushara, Davel and Trajen slowly descended the rows of stairs with a single purpose in mind. Rescuing Jullien eton Anatole. The bastard of the Ichidian Universe. “How do you want to do this?” Davel, Ushara’s older brother turned to her. Ushara Altaan, Vice Admiral for the Gorturnum nation (one of the four nations of Tavali) and the bastard’s best friend, thirsted for vengeance the moment she learned of Jules captivity. But despite the spiralling emotions, she led the rescue operation with military expertise. The Fyreblood in her was built for war, after all. Her breed of Andarions possessed the talent of pyrokinetics with their fiery breath that put them at great advantage in battle. “We have to find where they’re keeping the fighters. We grab Jules and get the hell out of here before I burn this shithole to the ground and cause Trajen here even more trouble.” The glance she threw at her boss and friend catapulted them both to a few months prior when she flew without proper papers and authorisation into Steradore to rescue her son and executed ruthlessly her son’s kidnappers. That was also when Jules crashed into her life. “Let’s start by looking for cells underground. I bet my money that’s where we will find him.” Trajen added quickly, the air of ancient wisdom surrounding him like royal robes as his eyes held a faraway look. Returning to the task at hand, the group proceeded through the darkened corridors, merging into the shadows like fading mist. Away from the main event and prying eyes, the three of them advanced into the house of horrors’ lowest pits where its security relied mostly on a few guards, now lying unmoving after quickly being neutralised, and the highest technology one could acquire in the black market. The collective tension thickened the atmosphere with Trajen’s warning. “I don’t know how long I can keep the interfering with the system’s security.” Visibly concerned for her boss, Ushara, who marched at front, turned back and gave him a look that silently asked him if he was alright. Though his expression had now been contorted into one of extreme suffering, Trajen nodded with a dismissive shrug. “Let’s keep looking.” Expecting the alarms to go off any second, inevitable frustration was slowly mounting between them as their options to find him grew scarce with the nearing of the end of the row of cells. “Where is he? Titana ræl. He has to be here somewhere.” Trajen’s curse surprised the others. Their Admiral was nothing but an infinite well of wise ponderation and heedful shrewdness. But this restless, almost sloppy version of him gave the others a marginal idea of the potency of the bond he shared with Jules. And where his loyalties lied. His purpose was clear. Despite Trajen’s many efforts to remain isolated from those under his protection, Jullien eton Anatole quickly wormed his way into their secluded leader’s heart with his wits and scars. In him, he found a brother, a kindred spirit. Both, a product of the brutality of their pasts. Drenched in darkness, Ushara refused to let old fears roar back to life as she searched each cell thoroughly. Those demons poked their incessant torment on her mind but she wouldn’t give way. No way in Tophet. “Jules! Jules! Dammit, dark heart. Where are you?” Her desperate bellow echoed through the hall. “Ah, shit.” Followed by a string of mouthful expletives, Davel run both hands through his tousled hair in evident denial. “What have they done to you, drey?” Terrified by her brother’s words alone, Ushara moved slowly toward Davel. Suddenly her legs weighed a ton, and all her instincts screamed at her. She wasn’t ready for what she was about to see. Her gasp of horror came without warning. Lying on the filthy floor of the smallest cubicle of that hellhole, he was in fetal position, back curved and head bowed to make himself smaller. His eyes resolutely shut, Jullien remained eerily motionless. Almost as if… “Jules..?” Low and soothing, her voice wrapped itself around him. “Please.” She begged. No reaction still. Lost to her panic and petrified by the shock of her best friend’s predicament, Ushara’s angry tears fell like an unexpected hurricane. This entire nightmare began when one of her cousins and his crew sold him as punishment for something he played no role at. Hate is an ugly creature whose talons infect the soul upon their impaling. And there is no recognition between right or wrong. There is just the ugly need for vengeance, the hunt for a twisted form of justice that’s justifiable through past suffering and grievances. Davel’s strained grunts catapulted her back into reality. For the time being and Jules’ sake, she vowed to abandon her thirst for retribution against those who sought to harm her best friend. Both her brother and Trajen joined their efforts to break him out. Between mighty brawn and refined brain, the electrified door of his dungeon held no chance against them. At the first opportunity, Ushara crawled toward the entrance on hands and knees. She outstretched her hand toward Jules. “Jules?” She tried once again. Only then did he shift his position, daring a tentative look at her as if afraid she might be only a mirage. “It’s me. Shara.” Her body ached from the awkward angle of it. “Come on, let’s go home.” When a single tear rolled down his face, her entire world shattered along with her heart. The agony and misery reflected upon those beautifully hybrid eyes, a mix of human and Andarion, clutched her insides before twisting them until she felt what she could describe as a poor replica of the same pain. Yet bravely, he offered her his bloodied fingers, silently accepting her strength to escape this house of horrors. As he dragged himself along the ground, Ushara confirmed all her fears. After the years of unthinkable abuse Jullien had fallen victim to, she feared he would resort to shutting everybody out to deal with yet another trial in his lonesome road of redemption, one he endured after she had promised him he was safe with the Tavali. She failed him. And she hated herself for that failure. Stoically, his face an unreadable mask of indifference, he stood awkwardly as Ushara embraced him in relief despite her reservations regarding his mental stability. “We better get going, guys.” Davel interrupted their reencounter with good motive. It wouldn’t be long until the alarms went off. “I sense trouble incoming, too.” Trajen added with a distant look. His impressive powers at work. As if on cue, the blaring sound of sirens threatened to awaken even the dead. “Let’s get out of here!” Ushara’s hand sought Jules’, tugging him behind her as the others hurried before them. Without uttering a word still, he followed after her. They were halfway down the hall when he broke contact with her fingers, turning toward a group of inmates, all female, as his fingers curled ferociously around the metal bars of the cell. His knuckles white, Jules tugged at the bars with a frightening growl. Eyes now full of untamed fury, he kept yanking and yanking. Unable to understand the source of Jullien’s outrage, Ushara spared a glance at her brother and Trajen before joining her best friend. He was clearly set on opening this specific cell. Mildly confused, she helped him by unleashing her fiery breath over the unyielding lock. It took some work as the ancient metal resisted more than first predicted but once it fell apart, he was quick to get pull the door open and venture into the room’s darkness. Tempted to go after him, she bit her lip. She shouldn’t. Right? Jules knew what he was doing. He had to. Right..? Praying for her friend’s mindfulness, she raked her fingers through her white hair while readying herself for the swarm of hostiles. “Shit.” Unholstering both blasters, Ushara aimed them ahead, patiently waiting to feed her need for violence. To sate her hunger to spill enemy blood. Surely enough, the first party showed up next. An eerie smile descended upon her lips. “Come get some, bitches.” She murmured dangerously, mostly to herself. Her blood singing in delirium for a chance of revenge. It was then Jules emerged from the shadows of the dungeon with a female stranger leaning heavily against him. Vulnerability surrounded this woman, obviously injured during her captivity. She was a vision, absolutely breathtaking. And totally human, it seemed. Golden skinned and green eyed, she beckoned every gaze in the room like a siren singing to her sailors. Finally, all hell broke loose. Ushara’s first two shots came as warning. After that, she was all business, no play. She went ahead of Jules and his companion, assuming her offensive stance before engaging in further confrontation. With envying expertise, she blocked every attack while ensuring their inevitable escape from this shithole by counter attacking tirelessly. She was an animal in the game of warfare. When every opponent lied lifelessly on the ground, Ushara released a breath of relief before holstering her blasters again. The barrels still singed her flesh if she were to touch them directly. Her babies were well used today. Collecting their breaths, the five of them exited the house of horrors without so much as a backward glance. Only Jullien hesitated briefly to bend his upper body forward so he could pick the woman up and carry her in his arms, regardless of her protests that claimed she could walk on her own. Once safely inside her ship, Ushara urged Davel to initiate the flight commands to get them all back home and far, far away from there. Trajen, the silent watcher, joined her while the both of them observed from afar the exchange between Jullien and the woman he refused to leave behind. “Is she trustworthy?” She whispered her concerns to her boss, hoping he could give her some sort of endorsement. Instead, he shrugged. “Time will tell.” Helpful. She grumbled quietly on her way to the pair. Despite Jules current inability to interact with the world outside of his well of misery, he still managed to put the human’s needs before his. A feat she probably can’t even begin to appreciate but Ushara’s version of a very malicious green monster was quickly suffocated by her immediate thought to not throw judgements before gathering proper insight. “Hi there. I’m Ushara.” The female warrior extended her hand toward the other female before pointing at Trajen. “That’s Trajen, and the mountain of a man at the front of the helm is my brother, Davel.” She finished with a sincere smile. “I—I’m Bonnie. Bonnie Bennett.” She cleared her throat to mitigate the hoarseness in her voice. “It’s nice to meet you all.” As she took Ushara’s hand in hers, she couldn’t help but noticing Jullien’s retreating form as he sought solitude to quiet his roaring demons.

#charmeddelicacy #stygian dagger

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despovoador · 3 years

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breaking my self-imposed 'do not engage in tumblr politics' rule to state the obvious, but it's incredible how more and more people are fluent in the right terminology to construct the most radical / critical / wokest takes that in reality do not mean anything and have no effect whatsoever – while also becoming more and more virulent & self-aggrandizing, bc the triple head-on crash between: 1) the failure of identity politics to not become a universal strawman (from the left to the right, who doesn't love to dunk on it?), 2) the failure of materialism to reaffirm itself in the west (as LARPing on social media with our balaclavas & berets is just clowning), and 3) the failure of decolonialism to free itself from the stillborn intellectual coffin established by some eurolatino white men teaching in amerikkka (decolonization is not a metaphor.pdf), resulted in oppression olympics – to honor this generation of dialecticians raised on pokemon games – evolving into this grotesque brawl of one-upping your fellow comrade on the internet by pointing out how they're forgetting to consider the lived experience of X group. bc if we can’t all be congolese or bolivian miners who dig up coltan and lithium for our phones, at least we can dig up their suffering and deaths to taunt how much more conscious we are. and striving for a immaculate identity is passé anyway, what's In right now is being a trashcan marxist and/or the founder & sole member of the newest anarchist fringe and/or an electoral realist, who are all oh so aware of how destructive the System is... did i mention how much blood we have on our hands? well, back to our exhilarating ping-pong of "bro people are dying!!! we need Total Revolution Now" x "bro people are dying!!! we need the Most Incipient Reforms Possible" ad nauseam. multiply this by the ol' Should Women Be Trusted? instinct that patriarchy has managed to instill for centuries and you got this army of online men frothing at their mouths, waiting to break free from their post-ironic post-BDSM soviet-catboy collars to lash out at any woman who steps out of line – a line being constantly redrawn, of course, lest they get too cheeky. especially when it comes to anything related to sex, bc then they have that goebbels-like reflex to reach for their gun and shoot: "you're being a moralist" – but of course the bullet in the chamber is that most patriarchal of all morals, "Sex Is Good When I Want It And Women Can't Disagree". and then we get bombarded every minute with walls of text like this that also have no relevance or effect whatsoever and life goes on in this slaughterhouse planet but at least we are making our voices Heard as the knife is sharpened... when fanon said that we are all dwelling 'in the terrifying emptiness of our brains' he was being literal and prophetic. deliver us wittgenstein from these language games

#*disavows my own post*

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faecaptainofdreams · 3 years

Photo

I kinda don't LOVE the art, but it's eh. I think it works though, maybe it'll grow on me. ^^ Keep in mind this is a head canon, don't like it don't look at it. MCU universe with me bending the rules a lot and taking inspiration from the PS4 game, bla bla bla.~ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~~Scorpion~~ McDonald "Mac" Gargan was a mercenary with a predisposition for cold, violent behavior, though he hid it well. But when J. Jonah Jameson ended up funding research to create an "anti-Spider-Man" to do "real good" and be a "real" superhero, Mac jumped at the opportunity. Of course, he never intended to do any good with it; all concerns were centered towards himself. He figured it would make missionary work easier to complete, not to mention the powers would be fun to wield, but since Jameson was so adamant on rivaling Spider-Man, Mac thought the concept of challenging the spider to be thrilling. And of course, it was no accident that the mutagen created for this process would be drawn from that of a scorpion, a cousin of the spider -- but more importantly, a predator of the spider. While the labs used to create this new "superhero" were government authorized (which is why Jameson felt safe enough to invest), the regulation over its work was not as good as it could have been. Moreover, the scientists working on the mutagen were not prepared for just how unstable their product would become when mixed with the DNA of a human being. They thought they did everything right, but upon infusing the scorpion-based agent with Mac's DNA, the mutation erupted and went far further than they'd intended. And with Mac already being a born psychopath with a near-total lack of conscience, the cold, self-serving nature of the animal hind brain we all possess became enhanced in him. After nearly a week spent in a sort of incubation period in a bizarre cocoon formed of hardened skin cells, Mac emerged totally transformed. He was bigger, and it was clear that the scorpion-to-human ratio was unbalanced. A hollow, blood-thirsty gaze and sharp, toothy grin adorned his face, as did armor plating all down his body. And, eerily enough, an enormous tail equipped with a massive, functioning stinger. In awe of their creation, the scientists took notes, of course, and they attempted to study Mac. Mac was patient for about an hour, but ultimately decided it wasn't wise to have so much information on him available at the ready. After destroying the lab and killing half of the scientists, Mac broke out and escaped into the city. Eventually, he had a run-in with Spider-Man, whom he easily overpowered and wounded during their first fight. But a few tries later, Spidey subdued the Scorpion, and Mac went to prison. He would be there for five solid years before being broken out by Otto Octavius, along with a few other top-tier villains and Spider-Man enemies. ~~Personality~~ Mac Gargan is a sociopath with none of his humanity left. He is ruthless and not shy to kill, and loves more to torture his opponents. He's not the most intelligent, having a bad habit of taunting even his allies a little too much and getting himself into trouble. He's basically his own worst enemy in that regard. Although he doesn't appear to think things through very well, he is clever, and enjoys snuffing out the weaknesses of his foes. ~~Physiology~~ Mac is almost twice the size of the average human. One would think that with his enhanced strength, he would be able to lift and manipulate far more weight than Spider-Man, but as it is his max weight is 5.7 tons, which is just a little more than half of what Peter can haul. Regardless, he is a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with, and that armored tail is nothing to sneeze at. His tail is considerably stronger and more flexible than his full-arachnid cousin, and this is thanks to his human DNA. Mac is still a vertebrate; he just has a bigger, stronger musculoskeletal system now. His tailbone extends into the full length of his tail, ending with a thick joint just before the stinger, which is filled with contracting muscles that regulate how much venom he can inject into his victims. This tail is far more precise during attacks as well, and the entire appendage itself can be used as a major blunt-force weapon. The venom in Mac's tail is a potent hallucinogenic neurotoxin that, in its lowest dose, causes muscle pain and spasms around the injection site, and causes the victim to experience imaginary bodily pain as the brain's frontal lobe and sensory cortex go haywire. The amygdala, the brain's fear-processing center, kicks into high gear as "bad trips" and horrifying hallucinations begin, often in relation to the imagery of scorpions and monsters resembling Mac. Each experience is different for each individual, but more often than not, the gruesome vision involve the victim's worst fears, phobias, and even drag feelings and hallucinations related to the victim's past traumas to the surface. The brain creates nightmares that the victim's body thinks are real, causing pain and all sensory input to feel very, very real. There is a chance of surviving envenomation at a low dose, but the victim needs to be taken care of immediately. At a moderate and high dose, the victim doesn't stand a chance. Organ failure, paralysis and respiratory failure kill in roughly a minute -- and that's ignoring the wound Mac inflicts with the stinger itself. Cruelly, Mac prefers to kill or get by using lower doses, as he is fascinated with watching his victims squirm and suffer. But when patience is lost or a deed needs quick doing, a hard strike in the right place can kill his target in seconds, hardly needing venom at that point. Mac's grip is vice-like and impossible for the average person to get out of. His crushing hold on a victim is helpful, needless to say. He's not nearly as fast as Spider-Man, but he's agile enough and is an expert at concealing himself. Like the scorpion, he can climb up most surfaces, though he doesn't have scopulae hairs like Peter. Rather, he relies on his enormous claws. Mac is nocturnal, preferring to be up and about during the night. And, like a real scorpion, he glows under ultraviolet light. Scorpions are not picky eaters, but they are carnivores. They'll eat anything they can get their claws on, including other scorpions -- even their relatives. Needless to say, Mac isn't a sentimental person. During his first time out in the city, Mac first killed and ate a few farm animals, but Spider-Man stopped him while he was in the process of hunting a person. Yes, he will eat people if he gets the chance. It would be an extra nasty sight, too, as the enzymes in his saliva are designed by nature to start breaking down his food before it even gets into his mouth. It would be...unpleasant to be spit on by Mac Gargan, so to speak. Scorpions are tough animals that can survive immersion in water for up to two days, and can withstand being frozen solid. Once the ice thaws, the animal simply gets up and gets on the move again. They can also go months, even a year without eating! Yes, these durability traits apply to Mac, which makes him all the more horrifying. ~~Preference~~ Mac is straight, though understandably, has never gotten too lucky, and is very aromantic. One would think that, violent as he is, he would simply force himself onto victims, but with the scorpion instincts he possesses, that reflex is inhibited. Rather, he will attempt to sway a potential mate, and of course, it never works, much to his deep frustration. He may injure whoever turns him down, but oddly, he won't assault them. In the animal kingdom, the female scorpion gets her say-so, and that's the end of it. Even though the average female human doesn't stand a chance against him, his instincts (awkwardly) tell him that pushing it will somehow result in his destruction. Don't be mistaken, he doesn't care about the woman; he's only protecting himself. It's safe to say, Mac experiences bouts of sexual frustration...especially during mating season. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hm. What do ya know, already growin' on me ^u^

#MCU #Marvel #Spiderman #Mac Gargan #Peter Parker #Scorpion

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xmxisxforxmaybe · 4 years

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Decryption_Error: “Catastrophic Failure”

Summary: Y/N does everything she can to help Elliot one last time.

Warnings: Angst, Discussion of DID and Mental Health

A/N: * = dialogue taken directly and/or paraphrased from the show; ** = researched tech stuff (not my thoughts/ideas)

Word Count: 6767

Decryption_Error: All Chapters

I blinked away a drugged sleep as my phone blared. I thought I had silenced it, but then again, my overreliance on my anxiety meds was making everything muddled.

Elliot 🖤

I had to be dreaming.

I hadn’t heard from Elliot since he walked away from me on Coney Island a week ago.

I had to be dreaming, but I could still hear the warble of my ringtone and I could feel the vibrations of my phone as I stared at his name.

I touched my thumb stupidly to the green icon and slid it to answer, expecting no one to be on the other end.

“Hello?”

“I need you to come out to your parents’ house. There’s not a lot … not a lot of time. Please.”

“Elliot?” I questioned, my pulse quickening at the edge of desperation in his voice. “Please tell me this is really you.”

A harsh, shuffling sound made me pull the phone slightly away from my ear, then the line went dead.

I lowered my phone to stare at the screen as it went black, but the persistent hammering of my heart reminded me that really did happen and I needed to move … fast.

I fumbled my way through the dark and into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face to clear my head. I brushed my teeth as I walked into the closet and pulled on my still-sandy jeans and jostled into my also-still-sandy sweater from the night not-Elliot walked away from me. I yanked my sweater down as it caught on my toothbrush before I rushed back into the bathroom to rinse.

I stumbled as I slid into my sneakers, but when a small pile of sand fell out of the tread, I stared at it, remembering the story Elliot told me about a day he and his father played hooky and went to the beach. When he got home, his sneakers were full of sand and he dumped them on his bedroom floor. His mother was furious, but his father wasn’t. Elliot had said he often thought about that moment, about how difficult it would be to take enough sand away from that beach, shoe-full by shoe-full to make a difference in the landscape.*

“Is that what you really want, El?” I asked as his fingers ran through my hair while I laid with my head in his lap, looking up and watching his chin move as he spoke. “To change the world?”

“I don’t know. It takes so long to make any real change. What if I don’t have the stomach for it?”*

“Well,” I said slowly, smiling as I reached up to angle his face so he looked down at me, his own mouth mirroring my soft smile as he waited for me to continue. “It didn’t take you all that long to change my life.”

“Has it been a good change?” he asked as his smile grew to a grin.

“The best change,” I answered as my happy grin paralleled Elliot’s, our exchange of mirrored smiles offering the perfect evidence for how we had changed each other’s lives for the best.

I gasped for a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding as that memory assaulted me.

“Fuck!” I yelled into the void of my closet as I pushed away the sweetness of the memory and forced my mind back to the agony of the present.

I adjusted my shoes, and tore out of the bedroom, only slowing my pace as I passed the guest room. I offered a prayer to anything listening that my parents stayed fast asleep.

After Elliot was fired and I didn’t answer my dad’s phone calls, he came to my apartment. I had managed to keep myself together for the rest of the work week, but the second I saw my dad, the dam inside of me broke.

I clung to him as he cradled me on the sofa, reduced to an inconsolable child as the heartbreak of losing Elliot flooded through me.

Mom and Dad cancelled their Memorial Day plans, even though it was going to be the first once since they had officially moved into the Greenwich house. Kath decided to host Josh’s family at their place, and Erin, Ryan, and Charlie decided to fly down to Palm Beach for the weekend. Each of my siblings did their best to cajole me into joining them, but they all knew I wasn’t going to.

Mom then made a very loud proclamation to anyone who would listen that she and my dad would stay with me in the city until I was “feeling more like myself.”

I didn’t have the strength to fight her, and although I was hesitant to admit it, having my parents to take care of me as my world fell apart helped.

After grabbing my bag, I shut the door to my apartment as quietly as I could, and as I waited for the elevator, I glanced at my phone to check the time.

2:07 am

I tried not to think that exactly one year ago, Elliot was asleep in my bed after we had a picnic and had gotten high, both of us basking in feelings that came at the beginning of a relationship, both of our hearts identical twins of hope for the possibility of an “us.”

I fumbled with the door to my SUV and settled in, slapping my cheeks to shake off the remnants of my meds. As a final thought, I checked my call history just to make sure everything still had really happened.

Elliot 🖤 1:54 am

I put the car in reverse, and quickly made my way out of the city.

* * * * *

I was rigid with fear as I finally pulled into my parents’ house, my stomach in knots and my head aching from clenching my jaw for the entire drive.

Considering Elliot’s phone call, I was unsurprised that the front door was unlocked.

Opening it slowly, I stepped into the pitch-black entryway, my eyes scanning the dark for any movement. I moved to check the alarm system, but it had already been disabled.

As my eyes adjusted, I looked to the staircase but changed my mind and made my way to my dad’s office—the office where Elliot and I had stopped the hackers over the Fourth of July weekend.

There was a light coming from Dad’s office, the familiar muted wash of a computer screen’s glow.

I pushed into the room with caution, my gaze settling on Elliot as he was seated at my dad’s computer, his fingers working at a pace that would’ve been deemed brutal for anyone else.

“Elliot?”

He never took his eyes off the screen, nor did his fingers falter as he replied, “No.”

“Why would you call me?”

“I didn’t,” not-Elliot said as he finally stopped typing and raised his eyes to mine, his cheek bright red with what would surely be a nasty bruise in a few hours.

“You hurt him?”

“He was getting in our way.”

“Our? As in you and Mr. Robot? So you’re a team now?”

Anger spurned my body into motion. I rushed to the desk and kicked the chair so it rolled him away from the computer.

He didn’t fight me.

I glared at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. I turned away to look at the monitor, my eyes narrowing in concentration as I worked to figure out what he was running.

My mouth dropped open when I realized I was looking at Dream Market, one of the largest data dump markets on the Dark Web. It had only been running for a little over a year and was only accessible with anonymity software, but it was the place to go if you wanted data … or drugs. **

He had used Tor to access Dream Market. Tor was an acronym derived from The Onion Project, which used onion routers to effectively encrypt user traffic that passed IP addresses through a complex of Tor nodes. Those “onion layers” protected any user's anonymity by providing access to similarly protected websites, thus a virtual, back-alley marketplace was born. **

“You dumped Precision Machining’s data. You—you put it up for sale.”

“Only the board members’ data.”

“Why? Why?!” I asked as I bent over the keyboard, too far out of my skillset to even know how to start retrieving the stolen information.

“This can all go away, sweetheart.”

I froze at the switched intonation which meant I was now dealing with Mr. Robot. I stepped back and looked over at him, Elliot’s entire demeanor changed from focused on the hack and disconnected in his interaction with me, to disconnected from the hack and very, very focused on me.

“This can all go away if I leave Elliot alone.”

“Elliot does like a girl with a brain,” Mr. Robot said as he put his hands on top of his head and leaned back in my dad’s chair.

“What happened to … the other one? The hacker?”

Mr. Robot laughed as he leaned farther back in the chair, confident in his knowledge that he had total control of this situation.

“I’m the only one Elliot really needs. Problem was he lost sight of our plan, thanks to you.”

“Plan?”

Mr. Robot leaned forward, shifting his feet before he stood up, slowly. His movements were more relaxed, more confident than Elliot’s; the way he walked with purpose and the fact that he never dropped his gaze made me understand why he was Elliot’s protector.

“Elliot needs to keep busy. It’s good for him. And the shit you had him doing at his cushy Wall Street job wasn’t cutting it. Not to mention all the lovey-dovey crap—'let’s talk about our feeelings’ all the fucking time. Jesus Christ.

“It was only a matter of time before he needed a … a challenge. You see, sometimes he dreams about saving the world. Saving everyone from an invisible hand, one that brands them with an employee badge. One that forces them to work for people like your old man. People who control us every day without us knowing it. Except that Elliot does know it because I never let him forget it.”*

I listened, unsurprised by Mr. Robot’s words. I knew Elliot thought about those things. I knew he struggled to reconcile being normal with being complacent. But I also knew now that Elliot was angry about something that had nothing to do with the injustices of the world, something that Mr. Robot was working his ass off to keep from him.

“That’s not what this is about and you know it. This,” I said gesturing to the screen, “is an illusion. It’s something you’ve come up with to stop him from getting too close to the secret you’ve worked so hard to protect. Aren’t you tired, Mr. Robot? Aren’t you tired of hurting him for the sake of protecting him? Of keeping Elliot from a truth he needs to know in order to move on—”

“There is no moving on because there is no hard reset that can be done if Elliot remembers!” Mr. Robot growled as he stepped toward me, his face inches from mine.

I stumbled back, my hip bumping against the desk.

“If he remembers, if he learns the truth, it will break him.”

I will never forget the way Mr. Robot’s eyes, the same yet not at all the same as Elliot’s, flashed with pain as I said, “Maybe you’re too scared he won’t need you anymore if he learns the truth. Maybe it’s you that can’t handle the possibility of it healing him instead of breaking him.”

“You know nothing about Elliot, nothing about us! You were just our playground, little girl,” Mr. Robot spat as he grabbed my arm and twisted me toward the computer screen. He grabbed a handful of my hair and pushed my head close to the monitor.

“Everything a hacker would need to take down the company your father built is right there, waiting for the highest bidder,” he said with a final shove of my head before he let me go.

I held myself up with shaky arms, tears stinging at my eyes as I realized this was his ultimatum. There was no reasoning with Mr. Robot because he only had one source of hunger; he desired nothing other than to protect Elliot, even if that meant sacrificing the thing that had made him the happiest he had been in his adult life.

I finally accepted that I didn’t have the strength to fight Mr. Robot. If he was already able to use the only other part of Elliot I got close to against me, it was two against one. It would tear Elliot apart to keep him—if I fought for him, I would be the one breaking him.

“If—” my voice faltered, choked by the sob of despair that had built within me as I realized what I had to do.

“If I swear to—to delete Elliot from my life, will you give him back control? Will you take back the hack?”

Before Mr. Robot could answer, the sound of sirens infiltrated my dad’s office. My head whipped toward the door and I could see lights flashing through the house as the police pulled into the driveway.

“You called the police?” Mr. Robot asked, panic evident in his normally confident tone.

He moved to the office door and peered out into the house, the sound of footsteps pounding across the porch causing his mouth to drop open as he drew in deeper breaths.

I shook my head.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well someone sure as fuck did!”

“Maybe my dad heard me leave. Maybe—”

“Maybe I don’t give a fuck! Now listen to me,” Mr. Robot said, his teeth bared as he walked back to stand in front of me. “If I go to jail, Elliot goes to jail. Is that what you want?”

“No.”

“Get him out of this and I’ll make sure the hack is reversed.”

“THIS IS THE POLICE! Y/N Y/L/N, IF YOU ARE ABLE, COME TO THE DOOR.”

“How am I supposed to help him if you won’t let me see him again?”

“Do you really want me to bring him back now? Into this mess?!”

“Y/N Y/L/N! ARE YOU IN DANGER? IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND IN 30 SECONDS, WE WILL BREAK DOWN THE DOOR.”

“Promise I’ll see him again? Please.”

“You don’t have the power to bargain!”

“Let me at least say goodbye and I’ll make sure he stays out of jail. Money talks, in case you’re too high on your fucking horse to remember that!”

Mr. Robot’s eyes bore into mine as he decided whether to trust me or to take his luck with the penal system.

I pressed, “And you still have to reverse the hack—I can’t help Elliot stay out of jail if that data gets sold.”

The front door splintered and my foot jumped to the powerstrip under my dad’s desk. I paused near the button, waiting for Mr. Robot’s answer before plunging us into darkness.

“Fine—I undo the hack, you get to say goodbye, then you stay the fuck out of his life. Or else we do this alllll over again, princess.”

I nodded my agreement to his terms.

Mr. Robot jumped back from the doorway as a crunch of noise indicated the front door had been flung open.

A rush of movement flooded into the house.

“Put your hands on your head and don’t move!” I ordered as I kicked off the powerstrip under dad’s desk before rushing out of the office, my hands on my head as I stood in front of the door.

“He’s unarmed! He’s not a threat! He’s not a threat!” I repeated as an officer moved toward me and pulled me away from the office door, ushering me outside to safety.

The other two policemen entered Dad’s office and instructed Mr. Robot to get down on his knees.

As soon as my feet touched the sidewalk, I saw my dad pull in behind one of the cruisers. He leapt out of the car, not even bothering to cut the ignition.

I was bubbling with anger as I shook off the policeman’s grasp and crossed the lawn.

“How could you?!” I yelled before my mouth went dry and I felt a churning in my gut. As I was forced to quell my anger or end up being sick on our front lawn, I looked at my dad’s face; it was so filled with worry that for the first time in my life, he looked every bit his age.

He never stopped moving toward me and grabbed me in a fierce hug when he finally reached me. He tried to shield me from watching who he knew as Elliot being escorted into the police cruiser, but I pushed out of his grasp, needing to know that Mr. Robot hadn’t abandoned the person we both loved at a time when he really did need his protector.

There was nothing in his demeanor that signaled a return to Elliot as Mr. Robot calmly slid into the backseat of the cruiser, his hands cuffed, his face a stoical mask.

“You need to tell the police why he broke into our home, Y/N,” my dad said from somewhere behind me.

“Absolutely not.”

“I love you, Y/N, but you are not thinking clearly!” my dad reprimanded, uncharacteristically raising his voice.

“Of course I am!”

“It’s been him all along. All the hacks—I know it has.”

“That wasn’t him—not entirely.”

“What? Like a hacking ring?”

I laughed, a crazy tittering that felt so out of place on our pristine lawn in front of our huge house. My father had no idea how right he was.

I turned to him to explain, “The person who broke in tonight wasn’t the Elliot you’ve met. He has Dissociative Identity Disorder but he doesn’t know he has it. It’s complicated.”

My father’s face didn’t lose its sternness as he considered what I just told him.

“I know you love him, sweetheart, but—”

“He needs help, Dad,” I begged. “He needs us to be the family he doesn’t have.”

As an officer approached and began asking a series of questions, my mind wondered back to all the quiet dreams I had about a future with Elliot, many of those dreams beginning in this house over the Fourth of July. Now, I felt like my whole world had gone grey; there was no bright goodness to be found in white, no rift of black to clearly signal evil, and no limitless possibilities held within all the bright colors between. Everything was just … grey.

“At this time, are you aware of any reason the subject in custody may have broken into your home?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked at my father.

“… No. No, officer. I am not.”

I leaned into him, welcoming his strong arm as it wrapped protectively around my shoulders.

* * * * *

A few hours later, our family lawyer, Thea, met us at the Greenwich Police Department. My dad filled her in as we sat in the waiting area, but I could tell by the frown on her face that Elliot’s case had the potential to be difficult.

“Connecticut has pretty strict laws on burglary—”

“He wasn’t stealing.”

Thea knew better than to ask anything else.

“It’s very helpful you aren’t filing additional charges. If I can swing it, I’d like to get the burglary charge changed to trespassing, then plead out at arraignment. That’s only if I can’t get it dismissed.”

I took a deep breath and spoke slowly, scared that somehow Mr. Robot would hear me.

“The charge can’t be dismissed because Elliot needs court-mandated therapy. He … he won’t go otherwise.”

“Does he have a documented mental illness?”

“Not documented, no. I was thinking … what if you could get him ordered to therapy for anger management?”

“Did he destroy any property at the house?”

“What if he intended to, but was interrupted? There’s … the possibility of establishing a pattern of behavior.”

Thea thought for a moment, then put her hand up when she saw me open my mouth again.

“I don’t want to know anything else until I talk to Mr. Alderson. Based on the police report and your cooperation, I have enough now to try to downgrade to a trespassing charge. We aren’t in the city, so I don’t know anything about the judge on the docket. I’m going to make a few calls and see if I can find anything out.

“Elliot should be out of booking by now and in a holding room.”

“Can I see him?”

“Not until I do.”

“Charles Y/L/N?” interrupted a policeman who introduced himself as Captain Neiley. “The Chief told me to make sure you had anything you needed—Tony gave him a call early this morning.”

“Thank you,” Dad replied earnestly, shaking the Captain’s hand.

Because of my father’s connections, I soon found myself peering into a small, concrete room from behind the glass of a very small window, much smaller than the ones on television, as Elliot, or rather Mr. Robot, interacted with Thea.

I could tell it was not going well by the twist of Thea’s mouth and by the way Mr. Robot refused to look in her direction, much less sit down and talk to her. He was distrustful, and clearly, angry.

I looked around for an officer and when I found one, I asked her if she could get my attorney out. She nodded and unlocked the door, signaling for Thea.

“You shouldn’t be here right now, Y/N.”

“He’ll talk, but not to you … not yet. I need to tell him it’s safe.”

Thea sighed and bowed her head. She shrugged her shoulders as she looked back up and answered, “Go ahead. But anything he says to you is not going to help—he needs to talk to me.”

The officer opened the door again and when I walked into the room, I saw that Mr. Robot had finally sat down. As he looked at me, a war started to take place behind his eyes. He was silent for a long, long time and I just stood by the door with my back pressed against it, waiting to see if Mr. Robot would let go.

Finally, I saw it—the same subtle fluttering of his eyes as the night in my apartment.

“Y/N?” Elliot asked, both his voice and his eyes raw with vulnerability.

“Elliot,” I stated, unable to hold back my tears at finally seeing him again.

“I’m here to help, El,” I choked out, “but you—all of you--have to let me help you.”

Elliot’s eyes filled with pools of tears before he shifted, his gaze on the steel of the table and his hands cradling his head.

“I can’t remember … only fragments and—” he looked up suddenly, his face turning to stare into the empty corner of the room where Mr. Robot had been standing before he sat down.

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

Elliot’s head whipped back in my direction, his eyes widening, his mouth falling open in horror.

“I know about Mr. Robot. It’s okay, Elliot. I’ve met him.”

“No—nobody knows about him.”

“He protects you.”

“Can you see him, too?”

“No, El. I can’t. I just know … it’s hard to explain, but I know you sometimes see him. It’s rare, but sometimes that’s just what happens with people like you.”

“In my mind,” Elliot groaned. “He’s only supposed to be in my mind.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry things have gotten this bad.”

“Oh god,” he moaned, his hands pulling hard at his hair as he rocked back in his seat. “I’m crazy—I’m a fucking schizo and you’re committing me.”

“Tell him what happened tonight,” I said, my eyes flicking to the corner to indicate I wanted Mr. Robot to talk to Elliot.

Elliot looked to the corner again. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the room was silent. Whatever happened between Elliot and Mr. Robot did, indeed, only happen in his mind.

As I waited, I thought back to my research on DID, and I knew Elliot was in an extremely vulnerable state. I also knew what it meant to have his alters interact with me—I needed to be very careful not to break Mr. Robot’s trust since we had made a deal.

After a few minutes passed, Elliot sprang out of his chair and leapt toward the wall, his fist slamming into the concrete with a sick thud.

Elliot left his fist against the wall and leaned into it, tears streaming down his face as he broke down.

I rushed to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, molding my body to his and pressing into his back.

“It’s okay, Elliot. It’s okay. I’m here,” I soothed, my own tears flowing in a fresh wave because of his pain.

His hand fell away from the wall and he brought it to rest over my arms.

I pulled him away from the wall and turned him to face me, his legs buckling and both of us sliding to the floor. I pulled him to me, so much like that night in my closet during the Fourth of July.

“I’m here. I’m here, Elliot. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, his voice muffled as he pressed his face into my neck, his tears wet and smearing into my skin.

“He didn’t give me a choice—I had to do the ha—”

“You can’t talk about any of that right now. Not until you talk to the lawyer.”

“I hurt you—your father, your family,” Elliot said, his voice a dull rasp as he finally looked up at me, his cheeks a wet mess. I shifted to my knees so I could cradle his face in my hands; I wiped at his tears, careful to avoid the bruise on his cheek that had changed from red to an ugly burgundy, smoothed his brows, and swiped at his nose with the sleeve of my sweater.

As I touched him, he hiccupped, his breath evening out as he pulled himself together.

I kissed his forehead, then the tip of his nose.

“Listen,” I said, holding his face in my hands and pushing his chin up with my thumbs. “I need you to talk to Thea, our lawyer. She’s going to help us.”

“Us,” Elliot whispered, a single tear falling from the corner of his eye and sliding down the side of my thumb.

“For now, but Mr. Robot wants me to let you go.”

Elliot frowned and leaned back, his head resting on the wall as I let my hands fall away from his face. A part of him clearly still hoped I could be in this with him, but we both knew I couldn’t be.

“I’m so tired of fighting him, Y/N. He’s … persistent.”

“Yeah. So I noticed,” I said with a quick upturn of my lips, watching as Elliot’s eyes continued to look at the ceiling.

“You need to be the one to talk to Thea. Mr. Robot needs to let you stay in control. Will you, and I mean YOU, I said waving in the direction of Mr. Robot but keeping my eyes trained on Elliot’s face, stay buried so he can get out of this mess?”

Elliot looked over and up at Mr. Robot with a ferocity I hadn’t seen before.

His eyes returned to mine and he nodded.

“There’s something else.”

Elliot’s brows contracted as he looked at my face.

I moved close to him, slowly wrapping my arms around his neck in a hug. I turned toward his ear, whispering, “The data dump on the Dark Web—can you make it disappear?”

Elliot pulled me into the hug, his mouth nestling in next to my ear as he reached up to grasp my hair, burying his face in it.

“I built a security during the hack. If a password wasn’t entered every 45 minutes, the data would disappear from the Market. It’s gone now.”

I squeezed him and he tightened his grip as he inhaled, trying to lose himself in the scent of me.

“Just like that night I needed to find you. Coney Island. You left your computer logged on.”

“Yes,” he answered, his confirmation a low, comforting rumble.

“Can you—will you stay with me until this is all over?”

“Thea has to talk to you alone, but I’ll be right outside. I’ll go every step of the way that I can with you—as long as Mr. Robot lets me.”

Elliot swallowed thickly, and I pulled away from him. We looked into each other’s eyes until the door opened, then he cast his gaze to the floor.

“Ready to talk, Mr. Alderson?”

* * * * *

Over an hour later, I almost jumped out of my skin when Thea finally emerged from the holding room.

Dad had insisted I eat something, but since I refused to leave, he ran out and got breakfast. I ate enough to make him satisfied, but just as I rounded the corner to throw away our trash, I heard the door open.

I rushed back and caught the door, needing to see Elliot again.

“You’re right, Y/N,” Thea said quietly. “Elliot doesn’t belong in prison, but he needs, at a minimum, a few months of court-mandated therapy. He … destroyed some servers at CIStech?”

My dad frowned, remembering the incident that brought Elliot and I together.

“It was never a romantic story to begin with, Dad,” I said as I rolled my eyes.

I turned my attention back to Thea and asked what that had to do with anything.

“You took care of that one, huh?”

“I did.”

Thea looked at me for a long moment, then began, “There is no way for the DA to prove that Elliot had the intent of committing a criminal act while on your property unless you or your dad have something—”

“We don’t.”

My father shook his head no, and Thea’s mouth quirked up at the corner, “Of course not.”

“How long will this take?”

“I’m taking my offer to the DA now. If they agree to it, the judge may rule at arraignment and this whole thing could be over today.”

“Thank you, Thea. Can I say goodbye?”

“Be quick because Elliot is going to be moved to a holding room outside of the court, soon. I’ll see you over there.”

“Thank you,” I said again before pulling the door open.

Before the door even shut, Elliot stood and began pacing, his voice raspy with overuse as he started talking.

“I have to give you up. He’s not going to leave me alone until I do. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did. I’m sorry for letting him do this to you. I’m sorry—"

“Elliot, slow down,” I said as I crossed the room and intercepted his pacing. He stopped with a start in front of me and stuffed his hands in his hoodie’s pockets.

I reached out and lightly squeezed his shoulders, moving my hands down his biceps, and over his forearms. I felt him relax under my repetitive touches, and when it was clear he wasn’t about to climb the wall, I stepped closer and slid my hands into his hoodie’s pockets.

“How’s your hand?” I asked, feeling the swollen knuckles of his right hand in comparison to the unaffected left.

“That’s how this whole thing started,” Elliot said, pulling both of our hands out of his pockets. His shook as he held onto mine. “You took such good care of me.”

“I kept you prisoner in my apartment.”

“And here we are now,” Elliot said with a small smile.

My heart ached at how easy this was with him … how easy it was when it was just him.

“I hate this,” Elliot said in agony as he searched my face, surely sensing that I was on the verge of falling apart again.

I looked into his big grey eyes and let myself get lost, swept back into the love I felt for him, knowing this could be the last time I ever saw him.

“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry for whatever happened that made you need Mr. Robot. You need to figure out what’s at the root of all of this, why you keep forgetting, and I’m not the one who can do that for you. But you know what? I am going to make sure you have a real chance at getting professional help.”

“I know,” Elliot said, lowering his eyes but still holding on to my hands.

“Know what else? I love you.”

Elliot’s eyes snapped back up to mine, and again, I saw a fierce determination unlike anything I’d ever seen in his eyes before.

“I’m gonna be happy with you someday, Y/N. I’m gonna love you like you love me.”

I held his gaze as I shook off the grip of his hands to reach up and cradle his face.

“You have to love yourself first, Elliot. Mr. Robot is never going to let go of his control as long as you need him to…meet whatever need it is you need met.”

“I’m never going to forget you loved me first—never.”

As if all the pieces of my heart weren’t already broken, I knew that wasn’t true. Mr. Robot was going to delete me. Elliot was never going to remember that someone loved him first. All I could hope for was that Mr. Robot was listening right now, a part of him feeling compassionate enough to allow Elliot to one day restore a previous version of himself, this version.

“Will you wait for me? I know I don’t have a right to ask, but have I earned the right to hope that you will?”

Before I could answer him, an officer opened the door and said it was time to move to the courthouse.

I melted into Elliot’s arms, and he hugged me. I felt determination radiate from him.

He’s so much stronger than Mr. Robot thinks.

I pulled back, knowing the officer was waiting, and I reached up to cup his face one more time. I memorized his face until my eyes filled with tears and he became a blur. I blinked away those tears and I tried to absorb the love that so clearly emanated from his beautiful eyes.

I leaned in to kiss Elliot, and he pressed his entire body into mine, molding his lips against mine as if our mouths had been designed from conception just to connect like this in this single moment.

I knew he could taste the salt of my tears as I broke the kiss and managed to look at him one last time before my vision blurred again and I rushed out the door. I only just made it to the bathroom in time to throw up everything I ate, and as I knelt on the worn, green and white bathroom floor, surrounded by the smell of bleach that tried its best to cover up the stench of urine and failed, my grief finally pulled me under and I let myself drown. Then, for the second time in less than a week, I felt my father’s arms tighten around me as I fell apart.

—Narrator—

November 2014

Mr. Robot whispered to Elliot as he worked, reassuring him this was for the best. Seeing Darlene on Halloween for the first time in over five months reopened a chasm of loneliness Elliot hadn’t felt since—

“You’re really fucking this up, kiddo,” Mr. Robot said from where he was leaning against the wall. “This is what happens when you don’t stick to the plan. You’ve got to get that job at Allsafe with Angela.”

“I know. For fuck’s sake, I know,” Elliot growled as his fingers flew over the keyboard.

His hand reached to click the mouse as he dragged all of the pictures on his phone onto the CD sitting in his drive.

“No, son,” Mr. Robot said as Elliot popped the disk out of the drive. “You’re not done yet.”

Elliot looked at him, his brows drawn in confusion.

“Why can’t you just tell me why we have to keep doing this?”

“You’re not ready to know, Elliot. You created me to be your protector; you have to trust me to do what’s best to keep you safe. So … be a part of this, or I can do it myself. Either way, everything, except Angela, has got to go.”

As Elliot pushed the CD that would hold all of his memories back into the drive, Master Mind watched.

And more importantly, Master Mind waited.

He knew he had one chance at this, exactly one chance to take control and to fix everything Mr. Robot had done. He had one chance to make the world a place where Elliot could finally be happy without condition. He had one chance to restore Elliot’s previous version, effectively recovering all the data Mr. Robot had been deleting over the past few months.

“Alright, kiddo,” Mr. Robot said as Elliot tucked the unlabeled CD into the otherwise empty black binder and tossed it to the floor, kicking it under his bookshelf. “It’s time.

Elliot took a deep breath as he prepared to relinquish control to Mr. Robot, trusting in his protector, but just before Mr. Robot could take over, Master Mind seized his chance.

Elliot’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, but it was too late; as Master Mind took complete control for the first time, Elliot slipped into a black void.

* * * * *

Elliot Alderson sat in the waiting room of the third cybersecurity firm he had interviewed with. This one, though, seemed different. He liked that it didn’t hide who it was.

“CIStech: Always Vigilant” read the sign on the glass door he had pushed open only a few minutes ago.

Yes, Elliot decided he definitely liked this company, so far. Being vigilant was smart. Too many people were happy to live without awareness, happy to live in their bubbles of the naïve just so they could feel good until someone told them what else they neededto have to keep feeling good.*

Elliot cleared his throat as he heard his name announced over the intercom at the secretary’s desk.

“Jayne? Bring in Mr. Alderson, please.”

He was drawn to that voice on the intercom. He liked it—confident, but kind.

Elliot shifted in his seat, ready to stand.

He took a deep breath as he followed the secretary into what was clearly meant to be a friendly, comfortable atmosphere. Instead of a large panel of interviewers, it was just three people. Instead of interviewing in a board room, it was in an office with a round table.

Like equals, Elliot thought. Except they’ve got the power to decide what happens next in my life.

“Mr. Alderson,” a man began, extending his hand. “I’m Colin Greene, Supervisor.

Fuck. They’re hand-shakers.

Elliot followed protocol, reminding himself that his was how to play the game. He shook the second Supervisor’s hand, and then—

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, Senior Manager.”

Elliot stared at Y/N, finally remembering that she was waiting for him to shake her hand, but Elliot felt afraid to touch her.

What if I touch her and she disappears? Like some kind of dream?

Elliot almost laughed out loud at that thought, but something pulsed inside of him, something that made him long to touch this stranger who seemed so familiar to him, who seemed like someone so much more important than a Supervisor at a mediocre cybersecurity firm.

A surge of excitement coursed through Elliot as he extended his hand, not knowing what was going to happen next. As his eyes locked onto the stranger’s, he watched as a sweet smile pulled at her lips, a smile that made him feel safe.

And for a reason he couldn’t explain, made him feel loved.

GIF Credit: @s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r

A/N 2.0: Thank you, thank you, thank you for going on this journey with me. Your comments, likes, and reblogs kept me moving along even when I wanted nothing more than to throw my computer out of the window and give up. I put a lot into this story, and it is the longest thing I’ve ever written. I would love to know how you felt about the story or if you have anything you want to ask/discuss, so hit me up with a comment or an ask.

I love Elliot, and I am so glad you do, too. Thank you for indulging me, as always. -xMx ❤️

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @txmel @alottanothing @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @moon-stars-soul @free-rami @ramimedley @hopplessdreamer @sweet-charmie @polarcrystall @hah0106 @clumsybookworm18 @diasimar @ramisgirl512 @aboutthatmelancholystorm

And a special thank you tag to my cheerleader who gives me the best comments with so many pterodactyl screeches that my heart soars every time I read them. Thank you @alottanothing!

A/N 3.0: All of my research on DID indicates that while there are many commonalities, every system is pretty unique. For example, while many folks who have DID may have a “protector” figure, their protector will function uniquely for the needs of their system. The way I treated DID in this particular fic is a combination of my informal research and just taking what Sam Esmail gave us and working within his parameters. It’s actually super uncommon for alters to manifest and be “seen,” but I stuck with that idea because it was Sam’s and was so integral to the show. I am a singleton, so I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be an authority of any kind when it comes to the incredible complexities of being a system.

#Elliot Alderson #elliot alderson x reader #elliot alderson fanfic #rami malek #rami malek character #mr robot #mr robot fanfiction #mr. robot #mr. robot fanfiction

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lizardkingeliot · 4 years

Text

Happy WIP Wednesday! Here is a snippet from chapter 5 of time cast a spell on you (but you won’t forget me):

Quentin went to the library Friday night just to make himself miserable. Sitting there for over an hour going through the rote mechanics of coin tricks and frowning at the empty chair across from him at the table.

He went back to the Cottage feeling lopsided and spilling over with sorrow so thick it made his muscles ache. Climbing the stairs felt like jogging through quicksand. Passing Eliot’s half-open bedroom door in the hallway, light from inside spilling out across the floor in a radiant beam. Neurons sparked in Quentin’s animal brain at the sight of the trap. A hook dangling beneath the surface of the placid water. A snare angling for the delicate circle of his neck.

Fight or flee or scatter to the wind. Quentin never could resist the allure of making a terrible decision. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and leaned heavily against the doorframe. Eliot’s eyes shot up where he was sitting at his desk, looping his elegant script into a notebook, an open textbook set off to the side.

“Quentin,” he said, dropping his pen and straightening his neck. “Is everything all right?”

Quentin huffed a little laugh and stepped into the room. “Is that a serious question?”

Eliot raised his brows, shook his head, offering a shrug. “I don’t know, Quentin,” he said. “Is this a serious visit?”

Quentin resisted the urge to bite back, took a breath, touching the edge of Eliot’s desk. Smooth wood grounding beneath the frenzied energy of his fingers. “I went to the library,” he said, gazing down at his own hands. Pathetic, feckless heart that wouldn’t listen to reason stamping itself bloody underneath his ribs. “For our session.”

A subtle shifting of the air in the room. Like a candle blowing out. “Oh,” Eliot said very quietly. “I’m sorry. Were you expecting me?”

“No,” Quentin said quickly, drawing in a deep breath and pushing it out. “I don’t know.”

“Well…” Eliot let the word settle in between them. “You did say you were done with me.”

Their eyes met across the short distance. Quentin’s brain cracked itself wide open. “I know what I said, but I—” He shook his head, no thoughts behind any of his words or actions. Total system failure, autopilot steering only from the heart. “I need help with my mental wards.”

Eliot considered him for a long moment, fingers rolling along the cylinder of his pen. “Well, I suppose I could take a break from my studies to write something down for you.”

A laugh rolled through Quentin’s body then, deep enough to nearly knock him from his trance. “You’re not actually studying.”

Eliot let out an airy little sigh. “Sadly, Quentin, not all test answers can be paid for with spankings,” he said, picking up his pen and flipping to a fresh page in his notebook. “The wards are easy. Anyone can—”

“I think you should probably just do them for me,” Quentin pushed out, the connection between his tongue and his brain entirely severed. “You know, um… just in case. The block…”

Eliot turned back to him slowly, dropped the pen. “All right,” he said, silent for a stretch of seconds before rising to his feet. “Penny isn’t giving you shit again, is he?”

Their eyes met briefly as Eliot pulled a small glass bottle from the shelf over his desk. Quentin shook his head slowly, fixated on Eliot’s hands. The way he pulled the stopper out of the bottle and set it on the desk.

“Good,” Eliot said, sitting down sideways in his chair. Perfect posture, hands folding elegantly in his lap, raising his eyes to Quentin. “I’m going to need you to kneel.”

Quentin swallowed. Fluttering knees, fluttering heart. Metronome of his pulse ticking at a thousand beats per minute. “Um… okay.” Shaky drawing of his breath, gesturing to the bottle on the desk, the honey-tinged liquid inside swirling with flecks of herbs and golden yellow flowers. “What’s that?”

Eliot ran a finger around the open rim of the glass. “Ashwagandha, rosemary, forsythia, eye of… something,” he said, his mouth quirking in the phantom of a smile. “It’s for the spell. Go on. Kneel. It’ll only take a second.”

#the magicians #queliot #otp: proof of concept #myfic

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Lemon's Misadventures in Dating, Chapter 7 (Lemon x Life) - Mermelada

A/N: And she’s back, back, back again! I hope you all enjoy this one! Friendly reminder to drink in moderation and socially distance <3 tw for drugs and alcohol in this one, as always, I love all the feedback I’ve been getting! Thank you all, big kisses!

Saturday rolled around quicker than Lemon had expected, and she had a dilemma: Jan had a fancy dinner with her boyfriend’s parents; Jackie was still studying in New York; and Brooke Lynn was performing in Giselle every night for the next ten days. But she was so keen to go to Scarlett’s party - and not be stood alone like an awkward, well, lemon - that she had done something that was probably very, very silly.

“So let me get this straight, you want me, a girl you hooked up with once on Tinder, to come with you to a party you were invited to by another girl from Tinder, and help you get laid?”

When she put it like that, it did actually seem very weird. “Well, not necessarily the last part, but yeah, it’s just a party, right? It’ll be fun!”

Kyne sipped her fruity cocktail, brow furrowed, not letting Lemon see any of her current thought process. The blonde’s eyes darted around the bar, smoothing her yellow skater dress along her thighs, as she thought of Plan E should the brunette say no. But on the plus side, she contemplated, trying to convince herself that her plan wasn’t completely doomed to failure, she did agree to come and meet me at short notice. And we’ve been chatting pretty regularly, so we can totally be friends, right? Her inner monologue was cut short when Kyne finally spoke up.

“And there’ll be booze and lesbians, you say?”

“Yes, Kyne, I can guarantee you will be surrounded by booze and lesbians.”

The click of her high heels echoed through the bar as she jumped off her stool, grabbing her coat. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

***

Walking arm in arm as they navigated an unknown neighbourhood, the pair were able to laugh and chat like regular friends. Clearly having learned from her previous missteps, Kyne even appeared to be taking an interest in Lemon, asking about her life - she was even excited to find out about Lemon’s new job.

“Okay, okay, one thing I have actually been dying to know… is Lemon REALLY your name?? Like do your parents love fruit or something?”

Lemon turned and deadpanned her answer. “Yeah, I have a brother called Lime.”

She could see the cogs turning inside Kyne’s brain as her mouth rounded in a confused “oh”, but she could only keep her serious façade in place for a few seconds before she snorted into an easy grin.

“You bitch! You really had me thinking you were part of some fruit cult! So what’s your real name then?”

“Do you promise not to laugh?” pouted Lemon, shifting her eyes to the girl beside her.

“I promise nothing, but I’ll try my best.”

“Luisa.”

“That’s really pretty! Why would I laugh at that? But even bigger question now, where the fuck did Lemon come from?!” Kyne all but screamed as they turned the corner onto Scarlett’s street, the pair looking at every door to find the correct apartment block. Their plastic bag of recently-purchased alcohol and snacks (and a red velvet cupcake for Scarlett, it was her birthday, after all) swayed between them as they zig-zagged down the pavement, trying not to trip over the uneven surface in their heels. Lemon was so focussed on finding number 143 that she almost forgot to answer, until she felt Kyne’s elbow on her bicep.

“Oh, I don’t even know, I guess I loved yellow as a kid? Plus I’ve always been sour as hell.”

Looking up, they caught a glimpse of a girl with light-blue hair hanging out of a window, smoking, who noticed Lemon and Kyne approach the front door immediately. She tilted her head to the side and shouted loudly, seemingly at nobody. “Sissy! Whores at the door for you!”

Looking between each other, both panicking that they’d made a huge mistake, the girls stood on the front step, trying to ignore the glare of the girl above them.

“I’m scared, she’s mean,” mouthed Kyne, causing Lemon to reach out and hold the younger girl’s hand, also as an attempt to calm her own racing pulse. Before they could do anything else, the intercom crackled and buzzed, the door shifting slightly as it unlocked. Biting her lip, Lemon led the brunette inside, never letting go of her hand. The smell of weed radiated around the stairwell, the dull thud of a dancey bassline penetrating the concrete walls. Slowly, they climbed the stairs up to the third floor.

“Do you smoke?” Lemon asked, dying to break the silence and put the younger girl - but mainly herself - at ease.

“Sometimes”, she hesitated, tucking a strand of her wavy chestnut-coloured hair behind her ear. “You?”

“Sometimes.”

They eventually reached the source of the music, where a girl Lemon recognised as Scarlett stood at the open door, already clearly hammered.

“Oh my god, you must be Lemon!!!” she screamed, immediately engulfing her into a tight hug. She was a good couple of inches shorter than Lemon, but she was very, very strong. Scarlett smelled of a combination of weed and flowery perfume, and Lemon couldn’t help but notice how her tattooed biceps flexed as she gripped her. “You are even more beautiful in person, oh fuck, sorry, thank you so much for coming!” Finally letting go, she placed her hands on Kyne’s shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes like she was reading a sign. “Is this your friend? She’s gorgeous too, it’s not fucking fair!”

As if a switch had been flipped, Kyne was suddenly oozing fearless confidence, her demeanor reminiscent of the first time Lemon had met her. “Hi, yes, I’m Kyne, and I fucked her first.”

Lemon’s jaw hit the floor as Kyne smirked, before being enveloped in Scarlett’s arms. The birthday girl laughed like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard, her hands wrapped tightly around the Filipina’s waist. “Oh my god! You are so funny, I love you! Welcome, welcome!” Taking a step to the side, Lemon produced the cupcake in its paper container from their shopping bag.

“Happy Birthday, girl!”

Scarlett’s eyes suddenly became glassy, and she put an arm around each of the other girls as her bottom lip trembled. “Ladies… this is the nicest thing anyone has done for me today, you are both angels!” Lemon tried to hold the small cake aloft to avoid squashing it any more, meanwhile Kyne appeared to be biting her lip in a vain attempt to not laugh. Scarlett, however, showed no signs of stopping her emotional tirade. “My own girlfriend didn’t get me a cake! I mean she baked some edibles for tonight, but it’s just not the same, y’know? This really means something, so thank you so much.”

A cough at the door interrupted the moment, and from the corner of her eye, Lemon saw the blue-haired girl from the window earlier, quickly realising that she recognised her from her heart tattoo under her eye. Ilona.

“Sorry to interrupt, babies, but we should take this inside. Scar, our neighbours don’t need to hear this again.” She spoke curtly, and despite the smile plastered on her face, it was obvious to everyone how she was really feeling. She was mad.

As Lemon and Kyne detangled themselves, edging towards the entrance, Scarlett spoke up again, sounding much less merry than before.

“Oh I’m sorry, sissy! Fuck my feelings, eh? Come on, ladies, let’s go party!” And with that, the remaining three girls could only watch the short blonde hair of the birthday girl bounce through the front door, leaving them in an awkward stalemate. Luckily, Kyne spoke up first, addressing the burning question that Lemon wasn’t brave enough to mention.

“So are you two, like, a thing?”

Ilona’s face had completely changed, her vulnerability now evident through her knitted eyebrows. She sighed heavily, ushering the others inside. “Yep, one wonderful year of this,” she muttered as she gesticulated wildly into the air, closing the door behind her and all but stomping down the dimly lit hallway. “Leave your shoes and jackets here, smoke out the window, and don’t have sex on my bed.”

This was definitely a bonding moment for Lemon and Kyne, the two giggling quietly at each other as they slid off their shoes, leaving them in the messy pile which had been erected by the door. Lemon felt Kyne’s warm hand brush against hers, so she took the hint and interlaced their fingers again. They smirked at each other, knowing that tonight would be interesting, no matter what happened. As they heard Scarlett’s strained voice shouting at her girlfriend from the room at the end of the hall, they padded along the wooden flooring, ready to see where the night took them.

***

“Hey! Kyne! Watch this!”

With slightly dilated brown eyes and a vacant smile focussing on her, Lemon slid her legs along the carpet, straight into the splits. She posed, grinning, with a ‘ta-da!’

“Wooooo! Go Lemon!! She’s a dance teacher, people!” screeched Kyne over the music, running over to Lemon with a bottle of Fireball. Both girls took a generous swig, laughing as the brunette took the blonde by the hands and attempted to drag her across the floor, legs still splayed. The party, so far, had indeed been interesting. Scarlett had disappeared shortly after they had arrived, so Ilona had joined them on the couch with a bottle of expensive-looking vodka and a plate of pot brownies. Lemon and Kyne had half-heartedly listened as she cried about nothing they knew anything about; then Kyne had cried about how she had started to develop feelings for her roommate, but how she was too scared to ever say anything; which left Lemon sat in the middle with her arms around them both, stroking their hair, waiting for their temporary downer to end. As quickly as it had started, they had both perked up again, and pulled Lemon onto the makeshift dancefloor, the alcohol in her system making her brave enough to pull out all her tricks. The blonde couldn’t help but notice that the unlikely pair were getting on rather well, Ilona’s hand never far away from any exposed part of Kyne. As she stood upright again, shaking off the strain in her groin muscles, she stood and hazily watched as both girls slid into the hallway, taking the bottle of orange alcohol with them. As Lemon pondered her next move, a voice from above knocked her out of her daze, with strong arms guiding her toward the kitchen. For the second time that night, Lemon couldn’t help but feel she recognised the dark-skinned woman. She wore her hair in two long boxer braids which swung down her back, her plum lips turned up in a smile.

“Come play with me, we’re doing gin pong!”

Lemon let the woman’s velvet voice encompass her, when her brain finally connected the dots.

“Tynomi?!”

The woman in the denim playsuit looked startled as she looked Lemon up and down, before having her own moment of realisation. “Ah, lesbian Tinder? Nice to meet you…?”

“Lemon! I’m Lemon!”

“Lemon, it’s a pleasure! I’m afraid I haven’t found you yet, otherwise I’d know you better by now.” She winked as she sashayed through the beaded curtain which separated the kitchen from the living room, Lemon following her like a puppy would its mother. She readily took the plastic cup Tynomi offered her, filling it with a potent-looking mixture of rum and ginger beer. “I don’t spend as much time in Toronto as I’d like, sadly, which means so many lovely ladies fly under my radar.”

Trying to hide her wince as she sipped the strong drink, she leaned towards Tynomi, who was busy preparing a drink for herself with at least six different types of alcohol in it. “That’s a shame, do you live out of town?”

“No, no, I live two blocks away actually! But I’m a flight attendant, so it’s hard to keep something serious going, you know?” She raised her glass to toast with Lemon, both women holding eye contact as they sipped. Before Lemon had the chance to ask any of the hundreds of questions running through her mind, Tynomi had already turned to the long table with cups set up at both ends, grabbing hold of a ping-pong ball. “Anyway, shall I start?”

***

Lemon had lost all concept of time and space by the time Scarlett reappeared, her pixie cut looking ruffled as if she’d just rolled out of bed - which, to be fair, she probably had - jumping around the kitchen excitedly, attempting to drum up support for going to a club. Looking around the packed room, there was no sign anywhere of Kyne or Ilona, and after three attempts she managed to unlock her phone to see if the younger girl had messaged. Thankfully, she had.

[22:04] Leeeeeedmon im ginna sleeo here tonight with alina hopw u get bsck ssfe txtx me luv u bye xxzzxxxxxxzx

Despite not fully understanding what she was attempting to read, she decided that Kyne was fine. Why not go out with Scarlett? She found the blonde back in the kitchen, chatting to Tynomi, when she wrapped her arms around them both. “Let’s go out out! You’re both, like, so cool, I wanna dance!” And in a blur, Lemon found herself being whisked into the back seat a taxi between the other two girls, singing along to Alanis Morisette at the top of her lungs.

How the bouncers at the front door decided they were fit enough to be let in, Lemon will never know. But here she was, jostling through the crowds, ready to order some more drinks with money she didn’t necessarily have, but she didn’t care right now. Tynomi and Scarlett had decided to stay outside for a cigarette break, but she had assured them that she was absolutely fine. Completely fine. She heard a sudden thud, and as she bent down to search for her dropped phone on the dark floor, a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Lemon?”

“OH MY GOD! RITA!!!!!!!” Grabbing the slippery device and clumsily skipping towards the area where Rita was standing with another woman - whose giant boobs were the only things Lemon could actually focus on - she threw herself head first into the Québécoise, not noticing the death stare she was receiving from the ashy blonde beside her.

“Who are you here with, mon chou? Are you okay?”

“We were at a party! I’m not sure where they’ve all gone, but oh my god, I can’t believe you’re here! I’m so drunk! Let’s go dance!”

Rita and her companion exchanged a worried glance, and both helped Lemon balance as she wobbled between them. “Lemon, this is my friend from work, Jimbo. Jimbo, this is my friend, Lemon.”

Despite the alcohol coursing through her system, Lemon still picked up on the way Rita’s mouth ever so slightly twisted into a smile as she looked over at her friend, or the way she maintained wide eye contact with her afterwards, wordlessly begging the drunk girl not to embarrass her or do anything stupid. She put everything together and realised that this was the woman Rita liked. But as she twisted in her seat to shake the other doctor’s hand, she was once again interrupted by a voice from behind her.

“Rita? Is that you?”

Tynomi approached the group, somehow still walking like a runway model, with her arms open wide. Rita immediately found herself enveloped in Tynomi’s embrace, the dark-skinned woman planting kisses on both of her cheeks. She held tightly onto Rita’s upper arms, looking each other deeply in the eye, leaving Lemon and Jimbo to feel like they were spying on an intimate moment. “Rita, you look amazing! How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know, the same really! How are you? It’s great to see you again!”

The tension hung thickly in the air as Rita and Tynomi chatted, not even Scarlett’s alcohol-fuelled attempts at speaking French could dissipate it. And as Lemon squinted her eyes to the tall girl beside her, a stiff arm around her waist still holding her upright, she noticed the angry scowl now painted on her face while she watched the others. Lemon may be completely and utterly wasted, but she knew that look well - she wasn’t lying when she said she was always bitter - and felt obliged to do something. After all, Rita had just helped her get a job.

“Jimbo, wanna come smoke outside with me?”

The blonde glared at her for a second, before letting go and walking straight towards the door, leaving Lemon to trot after her. She found her again standing against the front wall of the building, arms folded, lips still pouted like a child who didn’t get their way.

“You like her, don’t you?”

Jimbo slid her back down the wall until she was crouching, allowing Lemon to sit beside her, no doubt getting her yellow dress covered in dirt and who knows what else. Jimbo groaned as she threw her head into her hands. “I can’t help it. It’s Rita, you know, she’s wonderful. But she goes for people like you and those girls inside, not some ugly, big-titted whore like me. I’m such an idiot, bad Jimbo!”

All too familiar with this narrative and in no mood to let the party mood be dampened, Lemon grabbed both of Jimbo’s hands, rubbing them softly with her thumbs, but it wasn’t enough to stop the tears falling from the other woman’s eyes. “Hey, no you’re not! You’re amazing! Rita definitely likes you too!”

But unfortunately, that only made her cry even more. “You don’t even know me! Why are you being nice to me? Who even are you?” Lemon continued holding her hands, shuffling closer so they could share body heat in the cool autumn air. Normally, when she was sober, she was pretty terrible at dealing with emotional people, but now she was feeling like a qualified therapist. How could it possibly go wrong?

“Look,” she began, moving her arm to around Jimbo’s shoulders, the other blonde leaning into the touch as she sobbed into Lemon’s chest. “I don’t know Rita as well as you obviously do, but I do know a lot of deep shit about her, right?” Stroking the long, blonde hair in front of her, she thought of how to best articulate her plan. “By the way, do you speak French?”

“I mean, enough to understand when she talks to herself in the office when she thinks no one else is there? Oh fuck that sounds so creepy, she hates me!” Jimbo was shaking with tears now, leaving black mascara marks on the front of Lemon’s dress. But that was a problem for future Lemon.

“Well, she turned me down a few days ago. Apparently I’m not her type. She said she liked someone else, from work, who speaks French with her, who makes her tea and compliments her lipstick, and makes her laugh every day with her silly impressions. Does that sound like anyone you know?” Lemon stopped touching Jimbo’s hair, allowing the voluptuous woman to look up at her, still crying hysterically. For a moment, Lemon almost panicked that she had horribly misread the situation and was speaking to the wrong person entirely.

“I… make…. her… tea…” she managed to stutter through jumpy breaths. Now it was her turn to grab hold of Lemon, squashing her head into her large breasts, Lemon making a mental note to ask later if they were real or not. “She… she always wears amazing lipstick, and I always tell her so,” she hiccuped, wiping her tears on the top of Lemon’s head. “She always laughs when I do my Joan Rivers…” Sitting up, she looked at Lemon in shock, finally appearing to have stopped crying. “Does Rita like me?! You’re lying!”

Lemon repositioned herself again, sliding her legs out in front of her, back to sitting beside Jimbo on the ground. “I’m dead serious, that’s what she told me!” She couldn’t get another word in before she was once again being dragged into a vice-like hug by the older woman.

“Oh my god, I am so fucking glad that work drinks got so messy tonight! Oh my god, what do I do now? Help me, yellow lady!!” Lemon managed to pry herself away, taking a deep breath to make up for all the breathing she’d missed out on.

“What do you mean, you dummy, just tell her!”

“I can’t just tell her! When has that ever worked?!”

“I told one of my friends once and we ended up dating for three years, so I…” Lemon’s words caught at the back of her throat, why did she have to say that? Of all the stupid things her drunk brain could think of, of course it had to be Juice. There was no point in fighting it, she just had to get her emotions out, even if she was a very ugly crier. “I… I loved her so much, Jimbo, why did it have to end?” Her trembling lower lip soon transformed into a loud sob, leaving Jimbo to hold her tight again and clumsily run her hand along her arm.

“Don’t cry, darling, she sounds like a total fucking bitch. Forget about her!”

“She wasn’t though! Why did I break up with her? Oh god, what have I done?”

“No no no no no, don’t cry, you’re gonna make me cry again!”

And so the pair stayed sitting on the dirty concrete at the front of the bar, holding each other and crying for what could have been hours, not noticing any effects of the cold air or damp pavement against their bare arms and legs. They didn’t speak another full sentence to each other, communicating only through grunts and high-pitched wails, much to the amusement and confusion of the other customers milling around outside. Eventually, they felt the presence of somebody else squatting in front of them, the liquorice scent of Rita’s perfume and the grounding feeling of a hand on each of their knees bringing them back into the real world.

“Ohhhh là là, I am not nearly drunk enough for this. Let’s go back inside, ladies, Aunty Scarlett has just bought 100 Jägerbombs and we only have an hour to finish them all.”

#rpdr fanfiction #drcan #mermelada #lemon #kyne #scarlett bobo #ilona verley #tynomi banks #rita baga #jimbo #lmid #tw drugs and alcohol #submission #can1

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megabadbunny · 4 years

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Cartography and Ritual Observation

In all the time that she plotted and worked and strove for a happy ending, Rose realizes, she had planned for all manner of contingencies and failures. She never actually figured out what she would do if she succeeded. (She never actually planned to be happy.)

* lemon-free version on fanfiction.net *

***

She never expected to see the Doctor in her universe, in her living room, in her flat. Yet, here he is.

(Here they both are.)

The Doctor is eager to inspect everything the moment they get in from Norway, peeking inside Rose’s bedrooms and her bath, opening the refrigerator and cabinet doors, inspecting the light fixtures, overturning the few knickknacks she has accumulated in her time here. His fingers glide over everything; impossibly, Rose has almost forgotten how much he sees with his hands. He listens to her house tour with rapt attention and she can see him filing every detail of her home away.

Rose doesn’t keep much food in the cottage, so she orders some takeaway and pretends to eat it while the Doctor tucks in. She’s too unsettled to eat properly, for reasons she can’t quite explain. She turns on the telly and they watch it for a bit—it’s a “documentary” on aliens, naturally—and Rose tries not to think about the weirdness of this situation, the mundane bizarreness or strange normalcy of it all, while she plucks out and eats all of the shrimp in her fried rice. The Doctor keeps up a running commentary on the film’s inaccuracies and Rose smiles, remembering how they used to do this on the TARDIS just a few years ago.

It’s almost disturbing, how easy it is for Rose to pretend that everything’s all right—except it isn’t pretend at all, is it? Everything is all right, just not the sort of all right she’d imagined, not the kind she’d planned and worked and hoped for. But her dislike of having decisions made on her behalf (yet again) notwithstanding, she can’t deny that she ended up with a pretty good deal. A fantastic deal, even; she got everything she wanted, and more besides—the Doctor, with her, and her family and her friends and her home, and the promise of adventures in the TARDIS once more, all in the same universe again. Which, as brilliant as it is, still doesn’t answer the question niggling in the background-noise of her consciousness, growing ever-louder by the minute:

What now?

For the first time in four years, the next step is completely unknown. It’s as if, upon arriving at her destination, someone ripped the guidebook out of Rose’s hands and set it on fire right in front of her. There’s no longer any map, no itinerary, no plan. And how the fuck is Rose supposed to deal with that?

Rose’s hands long to fidget, but she forces them still, locks her leg to keep her foot from tapping impatiently. She’s doing a magnificent job, she thinks, of looking like a normal person, one who isn’t about to vibrate right out of her skin with the utter need to just get up and complete the next step of the plan already. Whatever that next step may be.

Glancing sidelong at the Doctor, Rose wonders what, besides factual inaccuracies about aliens, might be going through his head right now. If he feels Rose’s gaze heavy on him, he doesn’t say, too busy glowering at the images of the Great Pyramid of Giza flashing across the telly because according to the documentary, humans only could have built the Pyramid with the help of aliens, but according to the alien in the room, that’s a bunch of hogwash, and all that business was 100% ancient Egypt, 100% of the time; I didn’t offer so much as a tidbit of advice on the construction, only popped by long enough to nab a snack from Khufu’s coronation, you can’t beat a pomegranate grown in the cradle of the Nile. At any rate, he doesn’t look worried about plans or the future, or indeed, anything that happened fewer than 4500 years ago. Rose wonders if she should snuggle up to him, for the simple comfort of it and also just because she can, just like she used to. She remembers when she would tuck in close on the settee in the TARDIS library under the feeble pretense of being cold; the Doctor would tut at her cold hands and feet and snag her a blanket, toss it over her. But he wouldn’t make her move. He’d still wrap an arm around her shoulders, wouldn’t budge if she nestled against his side.

(She had always wondered, then, how long the sense of normalcy would last if she had leaned up to press a kiss to his throat or his cheek or his mouth, if she had tried something more. She never found out. She never did try.)

They watch another film after that, and another, and finally, just when Rose is starting to wonder if he won’t need sleep to speak of in this body either, the Doctor stretches and lets out a yawn.

“I’m a bit knackered,” he announces. “But I suppose a metacrisis-regeneration will do that to you.”

After the two of them wash up for the night, there’s a brief, awkward question of which bedroom he’ll sleep in. But before Rose has to make a decision—put him in the spare room, or offer to share hers? Would offering the spare room make her seem cold and aloof, would offering her room make him feel claustrophobic?—the Doctor opens the door of the guest bed, deciding for her.

“Well,” says Rose, only a little awkwardly. But before she can say Good night, the Doctor surprises her by reaching out and pulling her in for a kiss.

It’s a very short kiss, but Rose’s brain still goes fuzzy and she’s warm everywhere he touches her, heat blossoming from his mouth, from his fingers on her shoulders, sliding down into her belly. He pulls her in close, her chest against his, and he’s so much warmer than before, so warm she can feel the heat of him even through both of their shirts. His lips part in millimeters and she can taste peppermint on his breath, the not-unpleasant reminders of toothpaste mingling with his own oh-so-human traces, working in gentle countermeasure to the softness of his lips, and the peppermint and the hormones and the warmth of him flood her mind like a pleasant buzzing fog. It’s a short kiss, yes, but her toes curl anyway and her heart races in her chest. She tells herself that it’s probably only because it’s been a while since anyone’s kissed her quite like this.

(She won’t admit that no one’s ever kissed her quite like this.)

Afterward, the Doctor pulls her into a hug. A proper hug. Arms wrapping around her body, bringing her toward him like gravity. Holding her snug and tight. Her own arms encircle him before she can even think to stop. It’s an automatic process. Touching the Doctor is still so engrained in her system, it’s right up there with breathing and blinking.

“Sorry,” he exhales into her hair, and he sounds almost out of breath—that’s a first. “It’s just—I’ve wanted to do that for ages.”

Rose can feel his heart hammering against hers. Fluttering like a creature in a cage. (A cage built for two.)

Should she invite him into her room? Is that what he wants? Is that what she wants? Is this part of the plan, now?

(What do they do, now?)

“Rose?” asks the Doctor. “Are you all right?”

Rose hesitates. She isn’t totally sure of the answer, and even if she was, she doesn’t know if she feels levelheaded enough to deliver it right now. But she can see that, despite his casual and placid demeanor all evening, now the Doctor is incredibly tense, concerned, even; she can spot it in the purse of his lips and the furrow of his brow, feel it in the rigidity of his hands on her arms.

Something eases up a little in her shoulders. He’s better at hiding it, but he’s just as nervous as she is, isn’t he? And probably feels just as lost, too.

“This isn’t really what either of us had in mind, is it?” Rose realizes aloud.

The Doctor frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...it’s not like either of us woke up the other day deciding to come back to this universe. And I can’t imagine you planned for your metacrisis-thing to happen.”

“That last one’s true enough,” says the Doctor, scratching his neck uncomfortably. “But, erm. As for the former. I had already made a decision about where I’d end up, regardless of what the other me decided.”

“You wanted to come back here?”

“Given the circumstances, yes.”

When Rose doesn’t reply, just furrows her brow in confusion, the Doctor averts his gaze. “I wasn’t so concerned about the specific location,” he says, slowly. He swallows hard. “All I knew—all I know—is that where you are, that’s where I want to be. Knew it from the second I woke up in this body. I just want to be with you.”

Rose stares at him, mouth parted in surprise.

“Only—only if that’s what you want too,” the Doctor stutters, cheeks flushing pink.

“I do,” says Rose, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as something goes fluttery in her stomach and warmth suffuses her from head to toe. “Of course I do. But I—it’s been a long few years, right? So I might need a minute, to get my thoughts and feelings and everything in order. Okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” the Doctor replies quickly. “Naturally. Makes sense. Completely.” Suddenly jittery, he steps back, hands fluttering about frantically in search of something to do before depositing themselves firmly in his pockets. “Totally understandable, imminently relatable. Molto bene. Hunky-dory. Bleh, not hunky-dory, never hunky-dory, what a dreadful-sounding phrase, please feel free to erase it from your memory immediately. But of course, take all the time you need, Rose, however long you need, I’ve got all the time in the world—well, I’ve got a good sixty years—well, could be fifty, with the way Donna’s cholesterol is going, and thanks for that, Donna—but then again, could be longer, depends on how things go with the baby TARDIS and whether anyone or anyplace in this universe has got any Werinian lipid stabilizers—but please, yeah, take whatever time you need, Rose, that’s fine by me, absolutely top-notch, spiffy, even—”

“Doctor, wait,” blurts out Rose, grabbing the Doctor by the elbow before he can sprint off to goodness-knows-where. “You don’t have to swan off.”

“I was not,” says the Doctor, who looks very much like he may bolt into the next dimension at any second, “going to swan off. Or duck off. Or goose off. Or any-other-sort-of-waterfowl-off, for that matter.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Rose teases him, smiling weakly.

“I was merely adhering to my promise of, you know. Being considerate and giving you what you need, and all that.”

“Yeah, except I asked for time,” says Rose. Her smile deepens. “Not space.”

“Right,” says the Doctor.

“An important distinction, don’t you think?”

Something about him seems to loosen just a little bit. “Very important.”

Rose grabs his hand, squeezing it reassuringly, just to make absolutely certain he knows where she stands, and feels immensely relieved when he squeezes her fingers in response. But not half a moment passes before Rose has to stifle a yawn of her own.

“All right, then,” she says quietly, almost shyly. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft.

“Good night, Doctor.”

He beams down at her. “Good night, Rose.”

***

Tomorrow, of course, ends up being something of a loose concept, because tomorrow is full of exciting things like Rose sleeping in (until past noon, somehow), Jackie and Tony bursting into the cottage (because it’s after noon, Rose, you haven’t stayed in that late in ages, are you dead?), Tony being so terribly excited to meet the Doctor that he wets himself just a little bit (The Oncoming Storm meets The Oncoming Piddle), and Jackie announcing that it’s time for a trip to the shops (they need to buy the Doctor things now that he’s human and here and forever).

“All right, but let’s keep it a short trip,” Rose tells her mum as the four of them head out the door. “Just for the basics.”

“Oh, of course,” Jackie replies, waving her hand dismissively. “Only the essentials.”

“One hour,” Rose says.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Jackie calls over her shoulder.

Naturally, one hour becomes two becomes five.

It’s about as weird as Rose anticipated, or rather, as weird as Rose would have anticipated, if she’d ever thought of such a thing. She half-expects the Doctor to bound away at any moment, impatient with the quaint little Earth shops and their decidedly terrestrial wares, but he seems content to poke around, to good-naturedly ignore all of Jackie’s fashion suggestions, to answer all of Tony’s many strange four-year-old’s questions. Rose keeps to herself for the most part—it’s only sort-of on-purpose, there are all sorts of feelings crawling around under her skin and she isn’t sure what to do with them—and she trails behind the rest of the group, hanging back, watching.

Her mum, Tony, the Doctor. In the same universe. In a shop together. Picking out socks and deodorant and hair gel. Years of dimension-hopping and traveling all of time and space have somehow failed to prepare Rose for how very weird this is.

Not bad, of course. But weird. Probably weird for him, too, Rose reminds herself.

“Awful quiet,” Jackie remarks at an upscale suit shop, her voice low so that only Rose can hear. She rifles through a clothing rack and pulls out a suit jacket (in blue, not brown; she’s cottoned on quickly).

“How d’you mean?” Rose asks.

Tilting her head, Jackie holds the jacket out at arm’s length, surveying the garment and the Doctor in the same glance. The jacket’s skinny, but not as skinny as he is. “Thought you’d be bouncing off the walls, the both of you,” Jackie explains. “That, or tangled up in the bedsheets.”

Rose groans. “Oh my god, Mum.”

“Don’t give me that. I know how it is. Lose the man you love, spend years pining after him, finally find a parallel version of him in an alternate universe. Bound to be some celebratory shagging, isn’t there?” Jackie replaces the jacket on the rack and grabs a different one. “Especially when he keeps wearing those tight trousers. You buying what he’s selling, or what?”

Rose closes her eyes and prays for mercy. “Mum, I’m pretty sure he can hear us.”

Both of them glance across the store to check, but the Doctor seems absorbed in the necktie display, smiling when Tony points to a tie in a shade of nearly-TARDIS-blue.

“Nah,” Jackie sniffs. “Even his hearing isn’t that good, I reckon.”

As soon as she turns away, the Doctor looks up at Rose with a wink.

(Is she imagining things, or did it suddenly get a few degrees warmer in the shop?)

***

Days pass and he hasn’t kissed her again since that first night. But to be fair, she hasn’t kissed him again, either. Rose knows it’s only because they’re each trying to respect each other’s space or personal boundaries or sensitivities or whatever, which is quite frankly silly, given that in their time together before, neither of them seemed to really know what boundaries were, much less how to respect or enforce them.

Well, that isn’t quite true, she supposes. There were plenty of boundaries that they never crossed. It just didn’t feel so obvious before.

Take, for example, nighttime habits. On the TARDIS, each night they weren’t assisting some planetside uprising (or stewing in an alien prison for assisting in said planetside uprising), there was a distinct ritual: Rose would plop down on the jumpseat or the library settee or a pallet of cushions on the engine-room floor, reading a book or trashy mag or painting her nails or simply lounging about while the Doctor researched or tinkered or plotted. Rose would often have a snack with her as well, which the Doctor would insist he wasn’t interested in, but would ultimately eat half of. Lulled into relaxation by the TARDIS’ gentle hum, Rose would eventually doze off, at which time the Doctor would quietly rouse her and remind her to go to bed. After a bout of protesting that she wasn’t really that tired (punctuated with a deep and satisfying yawn that made the Doctor raise an eyebrow in amusement), Rose would then sleepily stumble-shuffle down to the hall to her room, scrub her face and brush her teeth, and go to bed. Neither of them would see the other until the morning (or sometimes the very early morning, on days where the Doctor excitedly burst into her room without warning and subsequently had a pillow chucked at his head), and that was it. That was the ritual, with all of its implicit steps and rules and boundaries. Hands could be held, food could be shared, cuddles could be had, but certain things were not discussed, other certain things were overlooked, and each night Rose went to bed alone. It didn’t need to be spoken or thought about; it just fell into place, a river following its own daily flow. It’s much the same, now, except there’s no hand-holding and no cuddling and no touching at all, just daily business, time together in the evenings, and then separate beds in separate rooms. This is the new ritual, it seems; this is the new plan.

This explains how a whole week passes before Rose decides she has to do something about the Doctor’s nightmares.

Wrenched awake by the sounds of shouting (again, same as the previous six nights), Rose waits just long enough for her heart to stop pounding before she throws off her duvet and pads down the hall, to the spare room where the Doctor sleeps. She presses her ear to the door, listening for any additional signs of agitation, and only spares half a thought for boundaries when he cries out again in the dark and suddenly she’s pushing the door open and climbing into the bed, time and space and rules be damned. Slipping beneath the bedclothes, Rose snuggles up behind the Doctor as he hyperventilates in his sleep, snaking a hand over his stomach and ribs and chest, pulling them both close. He awakens with a jolt and a gasp, grabbing Rose’s hand with a grip like a vice.

Rose freezes, feeling the Doctor tense to stone beneath her hand and arm. She wonders if he’s angry at her, if he’s embarrassed, if she did the wrong thing, if she should have waited to come up with a better plan.

“Rose?” asks the Doctor quietly, his voice rough.

“Yeah, Doctor,” she replies in a whisper. “I’m here.”

A few moments pass in thick silence before the Doctor relaxes, sinking back down into the mattress. He loosens his death-grip on Rose’s hand, but doesn’t let go entirely; instead he tugs, just a little, until Rose snuggles in closer, cushioning herself to him completely and eliminating even the thought of space between them. Her cheek pressed against his shoulderblades, her chest to his spine, Rose can feel the precise moment he slips back into sleep, his breaths expanding and evening out into liquid slow smoothness.

He doesn’t move her hand from his chest, and it’s a long time before he lets her hand go.

Probably they should just start going to bed together, but this all becomes part of the new ritual—go about their daily business (together), stay up late (together), wash up (at the same time), go to bed (separate beds, in separate rooms), awaken at the sound of nightmares ripping the calm night air (from down the hall), climb into his bed and go to sleep (next to him), wake up (alone). It’s another rule they both follow; the Doctor may need more sleep now, but he still needs less sleep than Rose does, overall, so she isn’t too surprised that each morning she awakes in it, his bed is empty. Until one morning it isn’t.

Honey-warm light drips in lazily through the gap between drapes and Rose realizes, her eyes slowly sliding open, that for once, she isn’t entangled in a mess of bedsheets, but rather, she seems to be intertwined with rather a solid fellow-human-shaped thing. One may even go so far as to say that she is, in fact, tangled up in the limbs of a fellow human. Probably she should slip out before he wakes, do what she can to preserve this boundary she’s drawn, but she hesitates, her breath warm and trapped between her face and the Doctor’s chest. Her legs are twined with his and her arms are wrapped around his torso and one hand, the cheeky little thing, has snuck up the back of his sleep-shirt, so her palm is pressed flat against warm, pliant skin.

It’s nice, all cuddled and close like this, pressed together in their blanket-cocoon. It’s very nice. But Rose suspects it’s breaking the rules; she asked for time, so that means she’s got no right to be touching him now, like this. Besides, there’s no indication that he’s interested in anything beyond hugging, or holding hands, or the occasional wayward kiss. He could very well be totally asexual, for all Rose knows. And if that’s the case, she doesn’t want him to feel pushed, or pressured. So she pulls her hand down, hoping that a slow, gentle motion won’t disturb him, but that’s almost worse than if she’d just whipped her hand out straightaway, because now it probably feels like she’s stroking him, which, not that she minds, but what if he does? Nevermind that when she glances down (oh, that’s a mistake) she can see that his shirt has ridden up in the night to expose an entire agonizing expanse of rarely-before-seen skin, stretched thin over his hipbone and smooth over his stomach and smattered with a sparse scattering of hair leading southward, and warmth blossoms between Rose’s legs at the thought of her fingertips tracing a line down, down, down, over his flank and his hip and straight to his—

His breathing has gone shallow. He’s awake now. With Rose’s face pressed to his chest, her lips right over his heart, and her hand still half up his shirt. And with one of his legs sandwiched between hers, there’s no way he can’t feel the heat of her.

Fuck.

“Sorry,” Rose whispers anyway, because she feels like she should. She shifts in a halfhearted attempt to extricate herself from the Doctor. “I’m sorry, I just woke up like this—I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, you’re fine,” the Doctor stutters. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Rose laughs. “I was afraid I was making you uncomfortable.”

“Well, I appreciate the consideration, but I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about.”

Brow pinched in confusion, Rose shifts in the bed, extricating herself from the Doctor just enough that she can scoot up to his eye level. “Really?” she says.

He nods. “Really.”

“Oh,” says Rose, suddenly breathless, thinking of the Doctor’s wink in the shop the other day. Her hand has stilled on his lower back, near the waistband of his pyjama-bottoms and she can’t decide if she should keep moving away or if she should slip a finger beneath the elastic and see what happens next, sod the rules.

“I’m not in any particular rush,” the Doctor says, as if he can hear what she’s thinking. Or maybe it’s just that evident on her face. “I said I’d give you time, and I meant it. For whatever you need.”

Rose smiles at him. “You know just what to say to a girl, don’t you?”

“Well, it helps to have one buzzing about in your DNA.”

Rose abandons his waistband in favor of fisting her hand in the back of his shirt, squeezing him in a hug as she buries her face against his chest.

“Thank you,” she says.

He doesn’t say anything, but hugs her tightly in reply.

***

It’s Tony’s birthday party—hard to believe he’s five years old, now, feels like just yesterday that Rose was visiting him and her mum in the maternity ward and marveling over the downy-softness of his sweet little baby head—and he has decided, with all the solemnity a small child can muster, that he wants a proper garden party, something fancy and grown-up, all suits and ties and dresses and pumps. (Rose has a sneaking suspicion about the correlation of this interest in suits and the sudden arrival of the Doctor in this universe; she keeps it to herself, but can’t hide her smile when she asks Tony what he’d like for his birthday, and his immediate response includes a pair of his own red Chucks.) Of course, once the day arrives, after the cake and biscuits and presents and fancy-proper-adult-party have worn out their novelty, Tony decides he wants to play a game of hide-and-go-seek. And naturally, he starts by tagging the biggest child present.

“You’re it!” he shouts, slapping the Doctor on the leg before he and the other children run off laughing and screaming.

The Doctor glances up at Rose in question, a half-eaten treat in one hand. “I’m what?” he asks incredulously around a mouthful of biscuit.

“You’re it,” Rose laughs. When the Doctor just raises an eyebrow, confused, Rose laughs even more. “You know. You’re the one that finds all the children hiding. Haven’t you ever played hide-and-go-seek before?”

“Well, of course I have, but it’s called different things in different places, isn’t it? Not to mention it’s been several centuries and just a few planets since then.”

“At least you look good for your age,” Rose teases.

“I do, don’t I?”

“Oh, yeah. Barely have any wrinkles or grey hair or anything.”

The Doctor mock-glowers at her. “Rose Tyler. I most assuredly do not have any ‘wrinkles, or grey hair, or anything’ anywhere on my person.”

“What about the freckles?”

“Those are hardly indicative of old age. And besides, everyone knows freckles are charming. Like a bunch of little kisses from the sun, just kissing you all over.”

“Has the sun been kissing you all over, then?” asks Rose, her tongue peeking out playfully between her teeth. “Should I be jealous?”

The Doctor’s eyebrows pique with surprise as Rose registers the implications of what she just said. She begs herself not to blush.

“Just to clarify: for this particular hypothetical, are you asking if you should be jealous of me,” the Doctor asks slowly, a grin playing across his lips—and a smug grin, at that!—“or if you should be jealous of the sun?”

Huh. It’s been a little while, but Rose is fairly certain she’s being flirted-with.

“You’re a smart lad,” she says, grabbing the biscuit out of his hand. “You’ll figure it out,” she tells him, offering her own smug grin as she eats her stolen treat.

“Mr. Doctor!” shouts Tony from across the garden, drawing Rose and the Doctor’s attention to where he has decided to hide in a very obvious spot. “Come find us!”

Turning back to Rose, the Doctor clears his throat. “So I should, erm,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder toward where all the children ran off, and have the tips of his ears gone pink? “Probably go put the seek in hide-and-go-seek, right?”

“Right,” Rose says. “They’re not gonna find themselves, after all.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they’ve got me, then, isn’t it?”

“A very good thing,” says Rose, smiling.

The Doctor beams at her for just a second before darting off in search of all the children, pretending to carefully examine every nook and cranny in the garden, even those that children couldn’t possibly ever hide in, ignoring the titters of laughter that float his way from all of the poorly-hiding five-and-six-year-olds.

(He catches Rose watching him a few moments later and shoots her another wink across the garden. Cheeky bastard.)

An hour or so later, as the sun is setting and the sky darkening, the party has begun to wind down, and the staff has begun cleaning the mess away. (It still feels surreal, the staff, and the mansion and the money and the not-having-to-worry-about-every-penny, but it’s a good sort of surreal after twenty years of scraping by, and the staff are very well paid.) As Jackie and Pete start the goodbye negotiations with other sets of attending parents, Rose sets off in search of Tony and the Doctor, to lure them back to the mansion with the promise of dinner. She pokes around the poolside and the trees and the flowerbed, and has just come round the old shed when something seizes her by the shoulder and tries to pull.

With a blink Rose’s UNIT-honed instincts take over and she grabs her assailant’s hand and arm and lunges to the ground, yanking him bodily over her shoulder. He hits the grass in front of her with a solid thwack and Rose springs back, hands held defensively between her and the Doctor, just in case he—

Oh. Ah. The Doctor.

“What the hell was that?” Rose demands.

“What the hell was that?” he hisses back at her, staring up at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rose splutters. “Are you—”

She doesn’t have a chance to say Okay because the Doctor has already scrambled up from the ground to grab her once again (by the hand, from the front, this time, where she can see him coming) and he’s pulling her up to the shed with him, throwing open the doors so he can draw them both inside. It’s a tight squeeze, the two of them in there with all the old tools and tarps and equipment, but the Doctor closes the doors behind them anyway. Rose starts to ask what on earth’s gotten into him but the Doctor cuts her off with a finger held to his lips.

“Rose?” asks Tony’s voice, a few meters off to their right somewhere. “Mr. Doctor?”

Rose rolls her eyes. She opens her mouth to say that playtime is over now, ta, but before she can say anything, the Doctor switches his hand from his mouth to hers, putting his finger to her lips and stoppering her words. Normally, Rose might bat him away or grimace in irritation at him hushing her up like this, but right now, with these invisible lines drawn between them, heightening every touch to something near-electric, all Rose can think about is his finger against her mouth and his other hand still grasping hers. And as close as they’re standing, Rose notices (just like she used to back then) just how good the Doctor smells. It isn’t quite the same as before; there’s the slightest tang of sweat that never used to be there, but not in a bad way. He still smells like him, and he still smells good. (Christ, he smells good.)

The pitter-patter of little feet in the grass nearby isn’t quite enough to pull Rose out of her thoughts, though she knows it means Tony is close, and therefore close to finding them. But even if the stakes are so different now (no physical danger here, not unless the Doctor decides to surprise-attack her again), she can’t help but recall all the other times like this, the two of them holding close in a dangerous situation, before. Rose thinks of hiding from palace guards and harrowing space station escapes and prison breaks with held hands and held breaths and pounding hearts and god, she wants to kiss the Doctor so badly, she really, really does. So maybe she should, Rose thinks as the Doctor’s gaze drops from her eyes to her mouth, where his finger rests. Maybe she should just pull his hand away and push up onto the balls of her feet and press her lips against his and kiss him. Maybe it doesn’t matter that they still haven’t properly talked yet. Maybe it doesn’t matter that this dirty dingy old shed is possibly the least romantic setting she could have chosen. Maybe she should snog the everloving daylights out of him regardless. Maybe—

“Rose,” says the Doctor, his voice low, his eyes locked on hers. He leans forward, and Rose’s pulse races in her throat as his lips brush against her ear.

“Run for your life,” he whispers.

“Found you!” Tony shrieks, tossing open the shed doors. Shouting in mock-fear, the Doctor cinches his grasp on Rose’s hand and yanks her out of the shed before Tony can tag either one of them, pulling her along in a run. Rose stumbles at first, taken by surprise, not to mention that she’s still wearing her pumps. But the Doctor is laughing like a madman, pulling her along as he sprints with seemingly no effort whatsoever, and it feels just utterly glorious to be running again after weeks without and soon Rose is kicking off her pumps to better keep up with him, relishing the stretch and burn in her lungs and calves and thighs. Tony giggles and yells behind them and the Doctor laughs and whoops next to her and he’s still clutching her hand and the wind whips her hair and air expands her lungs and happiness swells in her chest and spreads to her head until she feels giddy with the rush of it and it’s been weeks since Rose grinned this hard or felt this good, it’s been months, it’s been years.

“Run for your life!” the Doctor shouts, and Rose laughs.

***

Rose may not have foreseen the Doctor returning to this universe with her, and thus may not have been able to plan for such an event, but some things still just make sense and fall into place naturally, and the Doctor working with UNIT is one such thing. (Working with, mind, not for; it’s an important distinction, he insists, and Rose rolls her eyes but plays along.) Thus it’s in the breakroom for the Applied Sciences department that Rose finds the Doctor late one night, dozing on the couch after a long day of research and alien negotiations.

Biting her lip, Rose watches him, taking a moment to appreciate this rare unguarded view. The Doctor has always looked youthful with this face, but right now, he looks young, downright vulnerable, head bowed and specs slipping down his nose and lips parted ever so slightly as he sleeps. Pale blue light from the breakroom telly bathes his face in ghostly hues, reflecting in his glasses, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Something warm swells almost uncomfortably in Rose’s chest; this may not be exactly what she was working for all these years, but damn it, he’s wonderful, and he’s beautiful, and he’s here. With her. The enormity of such a massive thought in such a quiet moment is enough to make her head spin.

Biting her lip, Rose checks the clock. It’s nearly midnight. She’s more than ready to go home, but she sort of hates to disturb the Doctor right now. There are a few more things she can do, she decides, before she rouses him and they go home. Let him sleep for a few minutes longer, she thinks.

Rose has just turned to leave the breakroom when his hand reaches out to wrap around hers.

“’Lo,” murmurs the Doctor, his voice thick with sleep. “Time to head out?”

Rose smiles. “In a minute. You can close your eyes again.”

“Nah, I’m not tired,” says the Doctor, sitting up with a great yawn.

Rose piques an eyebrow in suspicion, her smile deepening. It is immensely gratifying to be on the opposite end of this conversation for once.

“…maybe I’m a little bit tired,” the Doctor admits.

“Just a little bit,” Rose teases.

“Only the littlest of bits,” says the Doctor, yawning again. With his free hand he reaches up beneath his specs, rubbing at his eyes. “Just give me a moment and I’ll be good to go. Yeah?”

“All right,” says Rose, moving to leave.

He still hasn’t let go of her.

“Did you want me to wait?” Rose asks.

“Only if you like,” he says casually—a little too casually, Rose thinks—so she nods, plunking down in the break room’s old comfy armchair, her fingers still twined with the Doctor’s. While they’re waiting, Rose figures she might as well watch some telly, but whatever the Doctor’s got playing looks dreadfully boring, not to mention so quiet she can barely hear it. So Rose reaches for the remote, only for the Doctor to pull it away at the last second.

Rose’s lips twitch. “Do you mind?” she asks.

“Do I mind what?” he asks, eyes trained forward on the telly.

“Do you mind if I change the channel?”

The Doctor shrugs. “Have at it.”

Maybe it was a misunderstanding, Rose reasons. He was asleep just a moment ago, after all. Probably he’s just not thinking. She reaches for the remote again.

He pulls it out of her reach again.

Rose’s eyes narrow. Her fingers drum on her thigh. Tap-tap-tap.

(Is he messing with her?)

She pretends to settle back in the chair, wriggling her bum comfortably into the cushions. He places the remote on the sofa arm between them. He rests his hand mere centimeters away. After a moment, Rose can tell he’s relaxed a little, sees the tension easing from his arm and neck.

After another moment, Rose pounces.

She dives across the furniture and naturally he’s too quick for her once again, snatching up the remote just as Rose’s fingertips glance against it.

(He is messing with her.)

(This, of course, means war.)

Rose pushes up on her knees and reaches one arm out as far as it will go, holding on first to the chair-arm and then the Doctor’s shoulder for balance, and he holds the remote just out of reach. His arms are longer than hers and he knows it and he’s using it to his advantage, the bastard. He just sits there with a slowly-spreading smug grin on his face, pretending to watch the telly even with Rose’s arm waving madly in front of his face. With every swipe of her hand, he just holds the remote further and further away, until his arm is fully extended and Rose is practically falling out of her chair. And when Rose jumps up, thinking she’ll just catch him from the other side, he switches hands, chuckling quietly to himself.

The urge to laugh bubbles up in Rose’s gut, but she pushes it down. She doesn’t have time for laughter. She only has time for vengeance.

With a quiet hmmph! she sits back down, trapping the Doctor between her body and the sofa-arm. The Doctor opens his mouth to protest and Rose takes full advantage of his tiny slip in concentration, throwing one leg over his lap in a deep lunge while her hand strains toward her prize.

Close—! She can practically feel her fingernails scraping the plastic casing, she’s so close—

—until the Doctor’s free hand grabs her by the waist and pulls her back, hard.

Rose can’t help laughing now, and he’s laughing too, both at her and with her, while she struggles against him, pushing at him with her chest pressed into his shoulder and thigh slung across his lap. (Damn, but he’s stronger than he looks; of course, so is she, but she has no desire to prove herself by harming him. The other day was a close enough call.) Writhing in his grip, Rose makes one last valiant effort, her hand straining desperately to close itself around his wrist or his shirtsleeve, maybe yank his arm closer, before he finally manages to pull her away, and she falls back with a solid thump.

“You unbelievable ass,” Rose laughs, pushing her hair away from her face.

“Me?” the Doctor asks innocently. “I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when I was assaulted—”

“I’ll show you ‘assaulted’,” Rose mutters under her breath, but she’s still grinning.

“—and then you decided to crawl all over my body like it’s some kind of sentient obstacle course!”

“Oi,” Rose chuckles, moving to stand up, “It’s not my fault you’re all arms and legs and—”

Her thigh brushes over his lap as she moves, and she freezes. Over the last few years she hasn’t had much chance to accrue what one would label a wealth of experience in the matter, but she’s fairly certain she just accidentally touched something that was neither a hand nor a leg nor a part that’s traditionally considered public touching material. And she might not be an expert, but she doesn’t think it’s typically quite that, well, hard, either.

Oh. Oh.

Rose feels like she should flush with embarrassment, or jump back and pretend nothing’s happening (observe the ritual, adhere to the boundaries, stick to the plan), but she can’t seem to move, stuck in partial suspension above the Doctor. His face is eye level with her chest, which he seems adamantly unfocused on, eyelashes fluttering just a little too rapidly, and oh my, but she’s suddenly noticing just how warm they both are, how short her skirt is, how his thighs are bracketed by hers, just how much they’ve been touching each other this whole time.

The Doctor swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the force of it. “Yes, erm,” he says quietly, and is he blushing? “I see you found my mobile,” he lies, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Your mobile,” Rose repeats.

“Yep. My mobile.”

“Right,” Rose nods. She points at the coffee table behind her, at the Doctor’s phone lying there. “That mobile?”

The Doctor closes his eyes. Rose can almost hear him silently cursing himself. “Yep. That’d be the one.”

“Of course,” Rose laughs. “So, you don’t feel anything when I…?”

“Nope,” the Doctor rushes.

Rose arches an eyebrow at him.

He sighs in frustration. “I used to have much better control over this sort of thing, you know,” he complains. “Now it’s all…misfiring synapses and…signals shooting all over the place willy-nilly, and, and, quite frankly ridiculous hormones.”

“Tell me about it,” Rose teases.

The Doctor chuckles under his breath, unable to meet her eyes. His hand is still snug against her waist, hasn’t left its spot where he pulled her down, and she can feel the warmth of him through her shirt, feel his fingers curling against her. Rose wonders if he’s even aware of doing it, and he must be, because a second later, his hand moves, spasming like he burned it. His hand settles awkwardly on the sofa next to him and Rose watches as he determinedly looks at anything but her.

God. He must be mortified.

She knows she should back away. She should. And yet…well, she notices he’s not exactly trying to get away, either.

“Do you want me to move?” she asks anyway, because she should.

The Doctor thinks about it for a second. “Interesting choice of words, move,” he says slowly. “Sort of…different connotations, aren’t there? Multi-layered word. Several different meanings.”

Rose grins. “Which one do you mean?”

He swallows again. He still can’t meet her eyes. “Erm,” he says. Followed by, “Well.” He looks like he’s thinking about it. Trying to decide. Rose thinks maybe she should help him with the process. (She’s never been afraid to cheat just a little.)

Rose eases forward until she’s straddling him, bookending his hips with her knees. She’s careful to leave some space between their bodies, just in case he changes his mind, just in case this isn’t what he wants. She can tell by the rise and fall of his chest that his breathing has sped up. She feels his thighs tense beneath her.

It never occurred to her that she could affect him quite like this. The prospect of it all is giving her a rush, hormones fizzing together in her head like a potent cocktail. Like a drug.

(They still need to talk about all these things, Rose knows.

So. She’ll talk.)

“Which one did you mean?” she asks again, conversationally, like none of it means anything. Like she isn’t sitting in his lap, feeling the faint predictions of arousal in her own body now, stirring somewhere low in her abdomen. She’s so sure she knows, almost entirely certain she can predict what he wants, but she needs to hear it. Needs to make sure she’s not taking advantage of him, that this isn’t just his fresh new human body reacting without his permission.

His fingers nervously tap the cushions next to him. He starts to ask her something, stops, glances over at the breakroom door. It’s still open, Rose realizes, and anyone in the lab could hear them. Well, it’s only Ripley in the lab, this late at night, and it’s doubtful he’s heard anything up to this point, but if their volume increases at all, he’s going to get an earful.

Rose reaches for the remote control, pulls it easily out of the Doctor’s hand.

“Was this all part of the game, then?” the Doctor asks, amusement bleeding through his nervousness.

Smiling, Rose turns around and aims the remote at the telly, turning up the volume just loud enough to mask any suspicious noises that may arise out of the room. When she turns back to the Doctor, he’s finally looking up at her face, making proper eye contact now. He doesn’t look away this time.

He looks so open and wide-eyed and pretty and god, Rose just really wants to fuck him.

“Do you want me to move,” Rose starts, sliding forward in his lap until their hips meet, her skirt rucking up around her hips until her legs are almost entirely exposed, “like this?”

Their faces are quite close now, close enough that they could kiss, if they wanted. And Rose does want. So that’s the next step of the plan. Rose does exactly that, leaning forward to press a kiss next to his lips, on his jaw, near his ear. She arches her hips into his and hears a soft breath escape him, watches in her peripheral vision as his eyes shutter closed. She does it again, until she can feel him pressing into her through her pants. His hands fly up to her hips but he doesn’t move against her.

“Doctor,” Rose breathes, her lips grazing the shell of his ear, “you need to tell me if you want me to keep going, or if you want me to stop.”

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs. “Please.”

“All right, since you asked so nicely.”

The Doctor lets out a half-laugh at that, but the sound ends in a hum when Rose starts rolling her hips against him again. She sets up a slow and steady rhythm that she knows is going to drive them both mad, even with all of these layers between them. Rose wants to look at his face, wants to see his guard slipping, but he ducks his head. He plants feather-light kisses while they move, dotting her neck and throat and collarbone with a touch that’s so faint, it simultaneously makes Rose want to squirm away and squirm closer for more. She opts for the latter, pressing into him until their chests touch and she can feel his heart hammering against her stomach. She can feel the exact size and shape of him through her pants, hot and hard and just begging for release. He still doesn’t meet her thrusts, but his hands settle on her hips, fingers skirting the edge of her waistband.

It’s been quite some time since anyone has touched Rose like this, anyone that wasn’t her anyway, and even taking that into account, it’s been a while; it doesn’t take long for her body to start crying out for more. His hold on her hips is too gentle, his kisses too light, his movements too careful. She can’t tell if he’s afraid of chasing her away or if he genuinely just doesn’t feel the same urgency she does. It feels like every single fiber of her existence is straining for him and a needy ache is growing between her thighs and she just really wants friction and heat and more and now.

“I’m heading out,” Ripley’s voice calls from the lab, startling them both. The Doctor gives a jump beneath Rose. She claps her hand over his mouth before he can make any noise. Both of them freeze, adrenaline pumping through their veins. Rose waits with bated breath for the sounds of Ripley approaching.

“Have a good night!” Ripley shouts, still in the lab.

“Thanks, you too!” Rose replies. She is supremely pleased with how normal and not at all out-of-breath she sounds.

The lights in the lab go dim, clicking out one-by-one. The breakroom plunges into darkness. Only the telly remains on, casting shadow-shapes that flicker gently over the room, voices and music shockingly loud in the quiet. Rose listens closely for the sounds of the lab door closing and locking after.

Once Ripley is well and truly gone, the Doctor relaxes a little. He heaves a sigh of relief, his breath warm against Rose’s palm. He looks up at Rose like he’s asking her what happens next.

She moves her hand out of the way and replaces it with a kiss.

The Doctor is surprised, but he warms up to the idea quickly, his lips moving against hers. He almost seems perfectly content with the close-lipped kiss, languorous and slow as it is, but his grip on her hips tightens just a little bit and he arches into her just a fraction. The sensation makes Rose’s head swim and her body flush with anticipation and want.

But it isn’t enough. Rose doesn’t need him calm and slow. She needs to see him out-of-control—needs to see him wanting her. Needs him to know how badly she wants him.

She hits the “off” button on the remote, cutting off the noise from the telly, and she scoots back just far enough that her fingers have space to unbutton the Doctor’s trousers.

“Close your eyes,” she says, brushing her lips against his jaw. “And keep them closed.”

The Doctor opens his mouth like he might protest, but he doesn’t. He licks his lips, nods, and complies.

Once Rose is certain his eyes are properly closed, no movement beneath to indicate that he’s peeking, she kisses him again, a little harder this time, and she unzips his fly, as quickly as she can without getting him caught. She strokes him through his pants, watches his brow furrow and his teeth flash as he bites his lower lip. His breaths leave his mouth with a ragged edge to them; he’s trying to breathe evenly, possibly trying to engage a bypass system he no longer has while he tries desperately not to thrust into her hand.

Good. Better.

Still not enough.

Rose hooks her fingers over the edge of his waistband and pulls it down, carefully. She edges back as she goes until she can extend one leg behind her, then the other, lowering herself to her knees on the floor.

The Doctor, eyes still closed, frowns. “Rose...?”

She leans forward and takes his cock in her mouth.

A strangled gasp tears out of him and his entire body goes stiff. Rose quickly pins down his hips with her hands and takes him in as far as she can, hollowing her cheeks. She swirls her tongue around him, applying as much pressure as she can muster. She can tell he wants to thrust, can feel it in the way he trembles; she rubs circles against his exposed hips, urging him to relax as much as he can. She moves her head up and down, slowly at first, torturing him just a little bit before she picks up speed, moving one hand to stroke whatever expanse isn’t covered by her mouth.

His hands fist helplessly in the cushions beside him. Rose looks up to find his head thrown back, teeth biting into his plump lower lip hard enough that it’s gone white. She redoubles her efforts. She hums around him, pressing her tongue firmly over where he’s most sensitive. At that, he starts panting, his stomach muscles pumping overtime with the effort of it.

Rose has never seen him like this before, never watched all the rules slip away like this, and the sight of him, gasping and desperate and so, so close to breaking, is enough to make her grow ridiculously wet and needy. She rubs her thighs together for any shred of friction she can get. A series of strained noises escapes him and that only makes it worse, so she tightens her lips around him, tightens and swallows.

“Rose,” the Doctor gasps, “Rose—ah. Stop. Stop. Let me—please—”

She ceases moving the moment the message reaches her brain and she releases him with a wet pop, sits up straight to ask him what he wants, and he leans over and shows her: framing her face in both hands, he presses his lips to hers in a punishing kiss. He urges her mouth open and his tongue slides over hers, and there it is, there’s that sense of urgency she was looking for. As his tongue explores her mouth, she wonders what he tastes there, what’s more overwhelming, the bare traces of him or the taste of her arousal—whatever it is, it stirs a moan deep in his throat and suddenly he’s pulling her up and back into his lap.

He’s still hard beneath her and in the midst of her increasingly intoxicating head-fog, Rose thinks that must be terribly uncomfortable. Rose moves to help him, to finish what she started, but he stops her. His grip on her wrist is surprisingly firm. “Not yet, please,” he says hoarsely between kisses. He holds her close with one hand while the other snakes up under her skirt, skating over her inner thigh on its way to her pants. Fingers press into her through warm, soaked cotton.

“Ah,” the Doctor mutters to himself, as if he’s just now realizing something. “Yes, that’s very—you’re really quite—”

His words fade to a satisfied hum as his fingers explore the edge of her pants, slipping under, gliding over slick skin. His strokes, gentle at first, grow firmer. Rose’s eyes fall closed at the sensation. She presses into his hand, hips tilting forward and drawing back in time with the motions of his fingers, and she lets out a whimper when he grazes over her clit. The pressure sends pleasure spiraling through her and she chases after that feeling, rocking her hips and fucking his hand until she’s so wet she thinks she might explode from need. He slips a finger inside her and she bites down on a moan.

She can feel the Doctor’s gaze on her face, gauging her reactions. A delicious thrill shivers through her but no, that won’t do, that won’t do at all, not when she’s still desperate to see him come undone.

Pulling herself up by the back of the sofa, she tries to sit up on her knees, starts to push down at her knickers. She lets out a surprised little yelp when the Doctor stops her, grabbing her hip with his free hand. At first she worries that maybe this isn’t what he wants after all, maybe he doesn’t want things to progress any further, but when he pushes her knickers to the side, she realizes that’s not true at all—he just doesn’t want her to move away from him, not even to take off her pants. He doesn’t want to wait. Which is brilliant, because Rose doesn’t want to wait anymore, either. She slides back down until she can feel the tip of his cock nudging at her, and, shifting her hips just so, she sinks down onto him, slickly, taking him in as far as she can.

The Doctor grits out a groan, his eyes losing focus, lips parting just the tiniest bit. Rose can’t help the grin that spreads across her face at that. (Can’t help the gasp that leaves her when she pushes down just a little bit more, taking him further in, the two of them sliding together deliciously.) She takes advantage of the breach in his defenses, leaning forward for another kiss and slipping her tongue along the seam of his mouth. She tilts her hips back and forth, drawing up and pushing down and pushing just a little further each time until he’s fully sheathed inside her, easing the swollen ache between her legs. When her muscles clench around his cock, she feels him tense beneath her, his legs and stomach going rigid while his brow furrows in concentration.

“Just relax,” Rose murmurs against his lips.

“Seems unlikely at this juncture,” the Doctor laughs weakly.

Grinning, Rose clutches at the Doctor’s back, nails digging into his shirts and his skin as she increases her pace and pressure, rocking her hips up and down and just losing herself in the heat and the wet and the friction of it all. For a bloke who has almost certainly never had sex—not in this fresh new body with all its sensitive new nerve endings—he is holding out magnificently, lasting far longer than Rose would have imagined. She thinks, maybe, as she feels her climax building, as the warm-tickle-yes-yes-yes builds low in her belly, that he must have held onto some truly extraordinary Time Lord willpower. Or, the thought dawns on her…

She slows her movement, hips grinding almost to a still. “Have you been practicing?” she whispers in his ear.

“What?” he asks, distracted, his voice strained and ridiculously breathy.

Rose sinks back down inch-by-inch and feels rather than hears the groan rumbling in the Doctor’s chest. “You’re holding out remarkably well, especially for the circumstances,” she says. “Have you been practicing? Touching yourself?”

When he doesn’t answer, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously, Rose nips at the pulse point beneath his ear, her tongue darting out to taste his salty-sweet skin. She slides a hand between them and rubs at where they’re joined. As her fingers ring the base of his cock, stroking him, the Doctor’s head lolls back on the couch, his eyes slamming shut.

“Yes,” he gasps out, like the admission pains him.

Rose rewards him by sliding her hips up and down, her movements agonizingly slow as she torments them both. “What do you think about?”

“What do you think?” the Doctor asks with another strained laugh. When Rose stops moving, his eyes open again and his gaze meets hers.

“You,” he confesses, panting. “Just you.”

Rose smiles and presses a hard kiss to his mouth the instant the words leave him. One of his hands flies up to grasp her by the jaw, suddenly possessive, claiming, and Rose’s lips part without hesitation as he plunders her mouth with his tongue and finally (finally) starts to move, arching up into her. She rocks against him and he meets her measure-for-measure, thrust-for-thrust. No longer content as a passive player, the Doctor slips his hands under Rose’s shirt and pushes it up over her breasts, planting kisses on every inch of skin he can reach. His thumbs circle and tease her nipples until they’re peaked and straining through the thin fabric of her bra.

Her climax quickly begins to build up again, warmth blooming through her; she’s close, she’s close, she’s so close, dancing right on the edge, pleasure rippling through her body in waves. She slides her hand back between them again, teasing her clit with fingers slippery with sweat and sex. As her muscles flutter desperately, clenching tight around him once more, the Doctor pumps his hips harder, his breaths leaving with a moan. He grasps her by the back of the head and pulls her down for one more kiss, his fingers tangling in her hair. When he bites her lower lip, flooding her with pain and warmth, Rose shudders and breaks around him and he swallows her cries. She strokes him and fucks him through her own climax into his, where he breaks the kiss in favor of burying his face in the join of her neck and shoulder, shouting as he spasms and empties into her.

Their movements slow and still until they’re both motionless, panting in the quiet dark. The Doctor winds his arms around Rose in a lazy embrace, his face still buried against her shoulder. His specs are digging into her almost uncomfortably but she doesn’t say anything, hugs him about the neck and idly strokes his sweat-dampened hair instead.

Her brain is mostly empty except for a very pleasant hazy hum. She hopes the same is true for him. Still, there’s that nagging little thought cropping up, quieter than usual, but still there, as always: What’s next?

“Are you, erm,” she tries to ask amidst shuddering breaths. “How are you doing?”

“Dunno yet,” is the muffled reply. “I’ll tell you when my legs stop feeling like jelly.”

Rose chuckles and kisses the side of his head.

They end up taking the train home, or as close to home as they can get, anyway. It’s the first time Rose has been on a train in years; she decides this is to blame for why her legs are so much wibblier than usual, why she has to shift her stance and cling to the pole so much harder than before. It’s certainly got nothing to do with the pleasantly warm soreness throbbing between her legs, certainly nothing to do with the source of said soreness.

Of course, the Doctor doesn’t seem to be having any trouble staying upright at all, jelly-leg comments notwithstanding. Of course he doesn’t.

“So,” Rose says, casually. “Not a fan of blow jobs, hm?”

It is incredibly satisfying to see him wavering just a little, his grasp tightening on the pole. “Huh?” he asks, very intelligently.

“You stopped me, earlier. You know. When I had you in my mouth.”

“Erm, well,” says the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck while flushing as brilliant a carnation-pink as Rose has ever seen. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Why?”

The Doctor glances down at the floor, as if he finds it suddenly fascinating. “Just wanted to hold you, is all,” he murmurs.

Something in Rose’s stomach feels almost unbearably fluttery and tender at that, but before she has a chance to reply, the train gives a lurch, jostling her. She braces herself against the Doctor, one hand on the pole while the other snakes beneath his jacket, grabbing a fistful of shirt. Strictly for balance reasons, of course. It’s got nothing to do with what he just said, or the fact that she’s so very glad to be on this train with him, or how very much she loves him, or the fact that she’s planning to kiss him again.

(It’s a good plan. Very good. The best she’s ever had, possibly.)

Rose pushes onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to the Doctor’s cheek. He’s warm, beneath her lips; warm from blushing, and other things too, maybe. She kisses him again, lower, and again, on the corner of his mouth, and this time he turns his head to catch her lips with his. It’s slower than the other kisses they’ve shared, and softer. Rose has to hide her face against his chest, after, to counteract the overwhelming sweetness swelling between her lungs.

There are still things they need to discuss, of course. Big things. Big, important things. But they can wait a little while longer.

Well, most of them can, anyway.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Rose says quietly, to the Doctor’s chest.

He rests his head against hers, exhaling slowly. “Me, too.”

***

#ficandchips #tentoo x rose #tentoorose #tentoo/rose #anti turning of the tide #rose tyler #metacrisis doctor #tentoo #warning: here be lemons #here there be lemons what i wrote LITERAL YEARS AGO #poor lemons have been moldering for like FOUR YEARS????#??????????#because originally this was part of a super duper angsty post-JE fic i was working on off and on for a long time #but as much as i really liked some parts of it--it was ultimately too draining to write #because even though i likes me some angst as much as the next salty mean bitch #i do ultimately want these two idiots to get together #i can handle a fair amount of angst with rose and tenth doctor mach i but after an initial bout of angst #i'm ready for her and metacrisis doc to be happy together #even if they've got external shit to deal with -- i want them to be happy together #so instead i've just been reappropriating my favorite bits here and there--incorporating them into other works #a big chunk of it was incorporated into/transformed into 'something of the wolf'#other bits and pieces have been incorporated into the rewriting of 'in lovers meeting' (formerly 'hitchhiker's map')#and other bits have been retooled and expanded-upon to present this here fic #i'm just happy some of this writing is finally seeing the light of day dammit #:D #mbb fic

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jj-ktae · 4 years

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Protect me not - Chapter 1 -

Title : Protect me not Genre : Soldier!Au, Action, Angst, Fluff Pairing : Mark Tuan x Fem!Reader Words : 3597 Summary : You’re just a university student, they are part of a hidden force in the Army. Their duty is to protect you from the people who want you dead. Their plan? Do whatever it takes to succeed. It’s the very first time they get handed such a job, so it’s no surprise when one of them gets involved more than he should be.

AN : It’s a rewrite from a series I started back in 2016 on another website so if you already saw this around the internet, don’t freak out.

Every chapter will have a picture, always ‘from the past’ and in different locations all over the world. Obviously, the locations won’t match with where the pictures were actually taken. I will use them as photos taken during previous missions.

Credit to @softseunies for the picture!

Teaser /

Chapter 1

“Food is the best.” Seven boys are walking down the streets, enjoying a well-deserved day off. It’s a sunny day with many people walking around, something they have yet to get accustomed to.

It’s been two days. Two days of coming back to old habits and finding peace in the comfort of their home.

“Jackson, you got drunk so many times that I’m surprised you are still alive.” One boy answers, tone mocking.

“It’s not like we almost all died because of Bambam.” A third person adds.

“It’s not my fault!” Said Bambam sounds outraged, his accent getting thicker with each word. “You tell me to press the detonator, so I press the detonator! This is because the initial plan was a failure. Jinyoung thought we could kill twenty Russian Mercenaries in fifteen minutes…no wonder we almost died.” Bambam adds, tone accusing.

“The plan was just fine!” Jinyoung snaps, “If Youngjae could actually use a computer, it would have been easier for you.” His mocking tone makes them laugh.

“I can use a computer, not a Russian computer. Yugyeom played online games and it all turned gibberish!” Youngjae is quick to answer, hitting Jinyoung on the back with a loud scoff.

“It doesn’t matter, we’re all here, right? You’re so tiring, kids.” One very annoyed boy chirps in, jaw tensed and eyes dark.

Jackson agrees, repeating the same sentence in a falsely angry tone, sticking his tongue playfully toward the rest and laughing when a couple of cursing words are thrown his way.

“As I said,” Jaebeom adds lowly, “you’re so tiring.” He opens the entrance door of a little building, trying to busy himself with anything else but the constant bickering of the boys he calls his team.

“Well, I miss Russian women.” Bambam presses on the elevator’s button, mouth curving upwards and eyebrow wiggling.

Jinyoung snorts, rolling his eyes because how on earth did Bambam become such a womanizer?

“Mark was the luckiest, and he didn’t even touch any of them.” Jaebum muses before wriggling his brows at the latter, who still hasn’t uttered a word.

“So much for calling them kids…” Said boy barely sighs, not the least surprised by their behaviour.

None of them are normal.

Jackson puts an arm around his shoulders comfortingly, whispering about how much of a pro his friend is.

“I don’t get how you can think about this even when you have guns put on your temple.” Mark answers, eyeing the boys as they are busy mimicking weird dance moves.

They shrug, not getting how much of a problem it is to think about their needs, no matter the situation.

“If we could put all the shit off of your head, they would be room for a real brain, actually.” Mark’s comment makes them laugh, not the least annoyed by what he implies.

“Bastard.” Is the only answer he receives.

The day is quiet, with no major events and too much noise. The group of boys barely came back from their last mission and can finally rest – and Jaebeom would hardly call it that way if you ask him – while doing nothing.

But it never stays that way.

“Come here! The major is on the phone.” Jaebum’s voice makes them stop to go to the living-room, where he is sitting on the huge couch, eyes serious.

“Sir, yes sir! Private Im Jae beom speaking.”

They all hear some shuffling on the phone, followed by quick whispering. The major looks busy sorting things out so they keep quiet, waiting for what seems to be important enough to call them while they’re off-duty.

“You’ll be on duty starting tomorrow. The next mission is in South-Korea. The name’s Y/N. She’s 25 and is a university student at Korea University. The mission is to Keep her safe. I sent the mission’s content to Private Choi Young Jae. You have until tomorrow to agree on a plan. If the target dies, we all die. You’re all dismissed.”

Youngjae is quick to grab is laptop. His fingers fly on the keyboard while the rest gathers around him. He opens a file that turned them all silent, too busy reading.

Y/N, 25 years old. University student. Main mission: Infiltrate the university and keep her alive. Second mission: Discover the secret behind a chemical medicine called Orion. Means: Full permission.

You are all part of the university now.

Im Jaebum: University supervisor Mark Tuan: Student, International Transfer from the US. Jackson Wang: Student, International Transfer from HONG KONG Park Jinyoung: In charge of tutoring and academic support. Choi Youngjae: Information Technology worker. Bambam: Student, International Transfer from THAILAND Kim Yugyeom: Security volunteer.

Here is a file with all the information about the target and your false profiles.

They all look at each other.

“Looks like a shitty mission.” Jackson says.

“I’d rather go back to Russia. What do I do, do I tell them not to run in the hall?” Yugyeom sighs, not the least convinced.

Mark points at Jackson and Bambam who bat their lashes at him before coughing loudly, not liking the team choice.

“You three are too unstable to actually work at a university.” Jaebum seems to hear Mark’s silent plea and smirks when the later closes his eyes, already done with them.

Y/N lives in Apgujeong, Gangnam. No relatives. One friend: Kim Yebin. Majoring in Marketing. Working part-time at a convenience store in Apgujeong. Background: Dr Cheol’s daughter and only alive member of his family. Here is a picture. She mustn’t discover about the mission. You will be dismissed as soon as she knows it.

Tomorrow, 8 a.m., Korea University.

PS: Report is every night at 9 PM

“That’s all?” Jinyoung says. He doesn’t know about what they should do, but he can already tell this isn’t going to be easy.

“I’m going to be a university student!” Bambam boasts, already overly confident because he is going to be such a perfect student, he can’t wait.

If only they knew.

*-*

It’s barely 8a.m when you hear your best friend complain loudly. The day barely started, but all she can do is whine at how you didn’t let her grab some random guy at a party. Her voice is too high for someone who woke up less than an hour ago.

“Better thank me rather than sulking. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have slept with him.” You stop midway in the stairs to point a judging finger at her dishevelled state.

She starts sulking, her face a tad swollen from her wild night.

“You have a boyfriend! Next time you want to do this, just…don’t do it while I’m here.”

“But you’re my best friend!”

“That’s right, that’s what best-friends are for, Yebin.” You conclude, feeling apologetic because Yebin totally looks exhausted despite her silly grin. “My first class is English. How about you?”

“Economy. Meet you at 12, same place?”

You wave at her, hurrying before it gets too late. The class is barely filled with students when you enter the room, head dipping in your bag and feet fast as you pick a sit somewhere calm.

Calm is what you aim for, no matter what.

It has been that way ever since your father died. Well, even before that, considering he spent most of his life locked in his laboratory to work on things that were out of your reach.

When he died, you decided to continue your own way, because there wasn’t a lot you could do anyway. You were not sad nor happy, and every day was more like a calm road. University was great so far because there were so many people that you were barely noticeable in the crowd.

English is the most bearable class and you could even sleep, sometimes. As the teacher enters, a simple wave serves as a greeting before a suitcase falls on the long desk.

“We’ll be working on a text about stock exchange and monetary system. I’ll put the course on the internet platform so just take notes.” A huge text appears on the whiteboard and the teacher sits, ready to read the exact same sentences with a monotone voice.

You take your laptop off your bag and start taking notes but it ends up looking like a mess when you notice you won’t be able to concentrate.

And you can totally thank the three boys in front of you for making things harder than they already are.

“Fuck you, I don’t understand!” One very agitated young guy whispers, hair wild and clothes shiny.

“Shut up, just sit down.” The second guy answers. He looks bored and it seems his arms are crossed over his chest in a laid-back manner.

“I’m going to hit you, Bam.” The third one is a bit bustier, you notice it from the way his arm looks huge as his head rests over his hand.

“I’m Thai! How would I know about Sock exchange!”

One of them whispers a soft it’s stock exchange, making the guy laugh, not even embarrassed.

You shake your head, blaming your lack of concentration on the lack of sleep. You can do this. You can totally listen to-

“What’s the point in taking this class if I can’t follow.” You end up glancing again just as the agitated guy leans, arms going behind his head.

You don’t remember seeing them and you’ve been taking this class for quite a few years now.

The teacher starts explaining about what you’ll have to do for the next class, which includes a series of questions about the text and a presentation of the stock exchange and how you think it would work, based on three big companies of your choice.

You sigh yet don’t stop typing, not ready to spend more sleepless nights. You hear the guys in front of you complain about having homework while the skinny one laughs and when the busty guy tries to kick him under the table, his arms almost knock your laptop over the little desk. He turns around hastily.

“Sorry! Did I break it?” You are finally able to see his face, surprised by his perfect switch into another language to address you.

You just shake your head and the guy gives you his best goofy smile. “It’s boring, right?” He adds before the quiet guy’s voice cuts him, icy. You’re not sure but he seems to be talking about distracting other students.

“I almost broke her laptop! Just listen and leave me alone!” He raises some protective arm and proceeds to engage in a heated argument with his friend about how university is also supposed to be about being friendly.

You stay put, blinking at the two when a deep and icy voice startles you. He seems to be trying to threaten his friends but they barely listen to him and soon the guy turns again, hand going up in a polite manner.

“My name’s Bambam, I’m a transfer student from Thailand.” He extends his hand, smile cheeky yet looking genuinely friendly.

“Y/N” He nods and shakes your palm, his eyes shining. He gives you one last smile before turning around, avoiding his two friends’ death glare.

When the class ends, you were barely done answering the questions and your text was full of mistakes. You give up, putting your stuff back into your bag and proceed to go to your next class.

Marketing Analytics.

You enter an almost empty class – the fact that it was abnormally hard to score good grades with that evil teacher probably the reason why no one was picking this subject. You let your bag rest on one of the tables at the far end of the room and sit leisurely, ready to fight against sleepiness.

A hand on your arm makes you look up, hand freezing on your laptop.

“You’re taking this class, too!” This Bambam guy is back, with his white teeth and extraordinary fancy clothes.

“Yes, why?”

“Just sayin’. Can I sit here?” He sits down without waiting for an answer, making you narrow your eyes at the sudden intrusion.

“It’s our first day here. We need to make friends, right?” Bambam giggles, stopping when he hears exasperated sighs. You both look to the side, slowly

His two friends are literally glaring at him.

“Come and sit with us, at the front.” The quiet guy is looking at him like he is dead meat but Bambam brushes him off, already dismissing the other two take a notebook from his shiny backpack. You shrug, turning your laptop on and deciding not to engage in more conversation with the guy in hope he would let you be for the rest of the day. You hear noises and the sound of chairs moving so you assume they decided to join because a second later everything is silent again as the teacher enters.

“We’re going to continue where we left things off. There are, as we saw, tools that can help gauge how successful the marketing of a company is. What I want is the creation of your own tools. Take 4 items, explain them, and send me the report. Since this project is only going to last two hours, you’ll start now and will continue next week. The deadline is the end of next class. You can do it alone or in group. The number doesn’t matter; I just want everybody’s name written.” He puts a blank paper on the first desk and proceeds to go out of the class, leaving the students to discuss things with each other.

“That’s so cool! Let’s team!” Bambam squeals, his hand aiming for your shoulder again and making you flinch.

“I’d rather do it alone…” You try to explain, eyes reaching up to meet the guy’s pouty face and puppy eyes. He blinks cutely, looking hurt and sad to be rejected.

“We started today, we know nothing about last week’s class…” He trails off, hand stopping on his notebook and eyes looking around the room in distress.

“We’ll figure something out, Bam. It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” The busty guy leans and sends you a sorry smile before leaning back again. The piece of papers arrives at his desk and you see him write his name briefly before passing the paper.

Great, now you feel guilty. You sigh inwardly, already regretting what your next words are going to be.

“Ok, let’s do it together. I’m not really good when it comes to Analytics though…” You explain, hoping they won’t hate you later when they’ll discover their grade.

But Bambam dismisses your worries, explaining that Jackson is smart - and even the latter seems surprised by the sudden praise - while jumping on his chair.

You smile at Bambam and chuckle when he reaches for his pen to listen to whatever you’re going to say.

They know a bit about analytics and Bambam was right, Jackson is rather smart. He translated a couple of sentences from English to Korean and it helped them a lot. Bambam noted everything down, teasing his friend yet complimenting his skills. The third one was silent and didn’t say much so she didn’t push him. The two others were already taking a lot of your space anyway.

You noticed they can be quite noisy, too.

When the class ends, you take your stuff and leave before they can greet you, eager to find your dear peacefulness back.

The three find themselves alone in the classroom and it doesn’t take a minute before Mark speaks, shaking his head and looking terribly annoyed by the situation “If we weren’t in a university, I would have already attached you to a car and took the speedway.” He threatens, a hand reaching for his scalp to rub his locks messily.

“We need to make sure she’s alive! What’s so bad about being friends with her? It’s not like we can stalk her! We’re not in battlefield, y’know.” Bambam answers defensively.

“I thought he was crazy at first, but it makes sense. We can’t stalk a girl like that. She might think we’re crazy, but at least we’re crazy friendly, not crazy creepy.” Jackson adds, trying to calm an obviously fuming Mark.

“We can’t be too close. Did you forget that she can’t know about this?” Mark tries to explain, feeling like he will not have a choice in what is going to happen starting now.

“You’re the weird one. We’ll watch out for her, that’s all.” Jackson concludes, putting a hand around Bambam’s shoulder as the two proceed to leave the classroom.

Picking these three as students wasn’t just some random idea from their hierarchy. The reason behind such a choice also had to do with the fact that each private had its specialty. Each of them had something they were the best at and with Jackson, Bambam and Mark watching after you, it was going to be complicated for anyone to hurt you without ending with broken limbs or a hole in their body.

Jackson is specialised in Martial art. His knowledge of the combat techniques is beyond anyone else and his agility makes it hard for anyone to win a fight.

Bambam is an expert of weaponry. His love and knowledge about guns put him in charge of supplying the group, just like his skills in craftsmanship which makes him unbeatable in this field.

Mark’s situation is not the same. He has a different background and a different path, one that doesn’t put him on the same page as the others.

Because Mark is nothing but an ex-assassin.

It doesn’t make him unskilled or incapable of protecting a target and on the contrary, his ability to do whatever is takes to succeed a mission makes him one of the most dangerous to deal with. He also has a thing for cutlery, something that he explains as something that had to do with his past.

Making the three of them the closest persons to the target wasn’t just out of pure luck and with them, you are the safest girl around town.

You meet a yawning Yebin during lunch, eating leisurely and looking as done as ever.

“I can’t believe I survived a 4 hours long Economy class.” She sighs, stretching slowly and groaning when a couple of bones crack in the process.

You laugh, “I survived a bunch of weird guys, today.” You explain, grabbing your food quietly. “Transferred students.”

Yebin can only laugh tiredly, fork dipping into your lunchbox to steal some food. “Life is hard.”

*-*

“We can’t even hang out with the guys because of their schedule.” Jackson complains as he gives his friends their sandwich.

“Seven new guy students together is a bit too difficult to hide anyway.” Bambam answers, aiming for a calm spot to eat.

Mark is silent, eyes scanning the unknown place because all of this is so not familiar. Students run, others are asleep in the park, he can see guys flirting with girls, others playing football.

He sees his two colleagues go toward the park and follows, glancing around from time to time. He is not used to such commotion, unless it comes from a battlefield or a fight. This place makes him go on alert so much, because everything is unpredictable and he feels like something would run into him any minute. He sees the target with her friend and puts a hand on Bambam, signalling him to aim for a spot not far from the two.

“She’s at 6, don’t turn around, Bam.” Jackson says, looking at his food. “I suppose it’s Kim Yebin.” he adds.

Bambam groans “I wanna see too! Is she hot?”

“Can you stop this?” Mark turns to them. “We don’t give a shit if they’re hot.”

“Correction: You don’t give a shit. We do. We get stuck with you party pooper and we don’t even get to check out on girls.” Bambam claps his hands at Jackson’s sharp comment, nodding in appreciation.

Mark gets up silently and leaves the two guys, which doesn’t even worry them. Bambam grabs the opportunity to sit next to Jackson before grabbing his pink sunglasses to let them rest on his nose.

“Is this your cover? You look stupid, Bam.”

Mark decides he’d be better off alone. He isn’t surprised when his friends don’t try to stop him. It’s a habit; he’d leave to go on his own and appear when help was needed. Mark isn’t one to put up with such stupidity and he knows better than strangle them in public, so might as well isolate himself and check on the girl alone.

He sits in another corner where he could see her without revealing himself. She is chatting happily, smiling and pushing the other girl whose cheeks are turning red from all the laugh.

She looks like a normal girl.

What could possibly be the cause of such a mission?

Mark tries and observes. He looks at the way she stares at the crowd, how her hands play with her jacket, but nothing strikes him. You’re just a university student. Mark isn’t one to think for too long. His thing is running in the heap, cutting bodies and finishing the work, making sure everyone was still alive.

Jinyoung calls him the Punisher because he is killing faster than a heartbeat, or so to speak. He isn’t just an emotionless military dog, but his character is one of an executor, and it had been this way for 10 years now. Thinking of a plan is usually Jaebeom’s role, his objective being making sure nothing could stop them. Mark sighs when he understands he’d only be baby-sitting.

What a shitty mission.

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