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nilsavatar · 7 months ago

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All's fair in war and love

Parings: Neteyam x Fem!Sarentu

Genre/Warnings: NSFW/MDNI +18, no use of Y/N, ANGST, SMUT in the end, love bites, sexual tension, P in V, manhandling, fingering, praising, cursing, pet names (tìyawn, yantu, yawne, love, sweetheart), dirty talk (Neteyam has a breeding kink as request by Anon), edging (orgasm denial), soft-dom Neteyam. All characters are AGED-UP. Neteyam is a bit cheesy, but from the way he shows how much he cares for his family, it's in character to be a romantic in a love context.

!DISCLAIMER! Presence of dark and sensitive explicit themes: destruction by explosive devices, massacre, and murder (the protagonist and Neteyam kill soldiers). Please do not read if these topics are not for you.

Summary: The story takes place in one of the final stages of the video game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, in one of the most poignant and heartbreaking moments of the plot. Following a heavy earthquake at the Well of Souls that hit the Zeswa hunting party, Sarentu, who will take the name Ateyana here, travels to the site in search of survivors. Finding that many have perished, she decides to find the source of the devastating tremors. Quakes that are not of seismic origin, rather human. With vengeance in her heart, she goes to the military outpost seeking justice. There she will be joined by her lover, Neteyam, and together they will fight for Pandora. But also for themselves.

Little note: This story should have come out months ago - many months ago, way too many. Writing it was a source of great frustration for me. I found myself having a precise idea that I couldn't put into words. The biggest challenge was the action scene that you will find as you read, and, honestly, I don't even think it came out that well. It was the first time for me to deal with this type of narrative. Even if I'm not at all satisfied with the result, it feels right to publish it, for those who have been waiting for it. Anon who requested it, those who answered the poll to choose Sarentu's name, @akari-rosefield who DMed me for updates. This fic is for you.

Word Count: 9k

Masterlist - Request a fic

“Yana!”

Shouts. Shouts and gunshots. The alarm siren.

“Ateyana, we must move!”

A male voice. Nor? The noises mingled with the high-pitched whistle that filled her ears, her eyes blinded by too much light blocking her view. A wall of intermittent red cleared up only by the white of bullets and the few monitors still working.

“Telisi, Yefti-.” “Come!”

Somebody pulled her by the arm. Her legs ran as if pulled by a force she thought lost. The images blurred until they took on the contours of a face she knew. Eyes that were large and bright, but distant as if hiding a secret, now wide with terror.

“It’ll be fine. Don’t be afraid. It’s gonna be like falling into a deep sleep. When you wake up, it will all be over.” “It burns.” “I know, dear, it’ll pass now. Just close your eyes and start counting down from ten. Ten... nine... eight... seven...”

The woman’s voice became distant like a ghost's, her eyelids heavy. The fire coursing through her veins gave way to a sudden cold; a searing chill that numbed her feet, then her legs, and slowly worked its way up her entire body.

“... six... five...”

Surrounded by darkness, all she could hear was the capsule hissing shut, protecting her from everything but silence.

Neteyam remembered his first meeting with Ateyana well. The excitement and commotion that her entrance to Awa’atlu had triggered, on a par with a resurrected spirit — the dawn of a new day. It felt like déjà vu, but in reverse: this time, the Sullys were not on the side of the outsiders falling from the sky, and instead of suspicion, there was a mood of celebration. On the back of her ikran, she wore with ease the hallmarks of the clans that had touched her, each symbolizing a stage in her rebirth; the teachings of their ways. The sea breeze sighed through the soft kinglor silk of her robes, the feathers of the stiff Keme’tire cloak vibrated with every breath, while the colors of the Zewsa shone brightly in the sunlight. Her eyes even deeper and more orange by the sharp contrast with the white, purple, and fuchsia that tinged her skin. So unusual was her appearance, yet harmonious, paired with the banshee that sported the same fanciful pattern. “Look! Look at her face!” “The mark.” The young warrior's gaze followed the whispers around him and settled on the girl's left cheekbone, cut by a crescent moon and four drops just below the eye.

Sarentu. The lost clan.

Neteyam had only heard of them in his grandmother’s stories. The old woman had a sad smile as she talked about the lost storytellers, who were distant cousins of the Omatikaya and descendants from Entu, the first Toruk Makto; diplomatic wanderers who preserved the oral memory of clans’ history, carriers of Eywa wisdom. A beloved People whose terrible fate was known to all Na’vi. Exterminated by the RDA. The same organization that kidnapped their children to raise them as deviant soldiers, alienated from the Great Mother, from all that made them pandorians. Kids who disappeared twenty years ago as a result of the attack on the Tree of Souls and the dismantling of the TAP program. Or so they thought, for one of them had just dismounted her dragon, its wings still rustling with the sound of powerful beats.

Making her way through the crowd, the plaintive wails of the baby cradled in her arms acted as a herald of the tsahìk's arrival. Loran, younger brother of Ao'nung and Tsireya, born shortly after the RDA attack that nearly killed the Sullys' eldest son, seemed to have absorbed the heartbreak of his People, the turmoil of those dark times, for relentless was the torment that plagued him until he fell asleep.

The girl stepped forward, kneeling as she made a small bow before her forehead. “Oel ngati kameie, Ronal eo lu Metkayina Tsahìk.” The woman smiled, and her calmness seemed to ease the breathlessness of her son, who stared at the visitor with large, tear-filled eyes. “Ateyana te Hìtaì Kataru’ite.”

For a split second, her gaze flickered. It had been so long since she had heard her full name spoken aloud. The mention of her family, specifically her mother, sent a shiver down her spine. With a long history of being used as an experiment, trapped within the confines of sterile concrete walls, she had come to see herself as nothing but a test subject. A lab rat. A cluster of inconsequential cells employed to experiment with a substance and observe its reaction. Or worse, treated like a monkey that was given logic games to assess its intellectual growth. With each class, each shower in disinfectant, because the stench of Na’vi was unbearable, every trace of her natural self slipped away; depersonalized from everything her name stood for to the point of hating it. Ateyana, Spirit of the Dawn. It sounded like a joke, the sense of hope that her name carried. In the RDA compound, scientists educated Sarentu children in math, English, weapon use, and also introduced them to human literature and history. A series of conflicts, wars, colonization, and destruction caused by the idea of taking things simply because one had the power to do so. Throughout those years, she couldn’t ignore the eerie parallels between them and the indigenous communities who had been eradicated in certain areas of Earth. The name of one population in particular had stayed with her, as it bore a striking resemblance to her own. The Yana, a population decimated by the California genocide unleashed by the Gold Rush, ceased to exist in 1916 when the last descendant perished in a Rancheria.

Right from the beginning, she saw that historical reference as an omen of what was to come for her and her people, now down to just five survivors. Whether through brutal erasure or assimilation into other clans, the Sarentu would disappear. She made a decision that day: to only go by Yana. She abandoned her full name and any other nickname despite her sister’s disapproval, and adopted what everyone now regarded as a diminutive, oblivious to its true status as a legitimate name.

A name that signified the final chapter of their lives. Hers and those who shaped her into the resentment and anger-filled young woman she is today. And with almost absolute certainty of all those who would accompany her in her revenge.

“For a long time, we believed in the defeat of your people, but our hope for your return never wavered. The Great Mother could not fail those she had delivered her word to. We have missed you.” Ronal caressed her cheek, her thumb feathering the raised outline of the mark. A moment of weakness that surprised those present, accustomed to the woman’s stoic and fearless nature. “Come, you need rest. You’ve been through a lot, and your eyes tell me there is much to discuss.”

The girl nodded, her heart full of gratitude at the warm welcome, a gesture she hadn’t anticipated (the tsahìk's reputation preceded her). A fleeting warmth that would soon fade.

2174, PANDORA, RESISTANCE HQ, KINGLOR FOREST

“We have located the epicenter of the quakes near the Celebration Arches”. Priya’s finger pointed on the map to the demarcation point between Aranahe and Zeswa territories; just beyond the network of caves that connected the Kinglor Forest to the Upper Plains.

“Ayvitrayä Ramunong (Well of Souls),” Jake’s voice belonged to a hiss, recalling vividly the last time he had admired the magnificence of rock arches growing up from the underground, driven by the incredible magnetic force. A shell that enclosed within it a dense, lush vegetation protecting the Tree of Souls. Two decades earlier, the RDA had destroyed the Omatikaya’s most sacred site. Although the basin was at the foot of the Hallelujah Mountains, right in the Flux Vortex’s heart, their attack wiped out the clan’s memories and, almost, their spirit. Something similar was happening here. He was certain of it. The tremors recorded were too cadenced and regular to result from seismic activity. Humans orchestrated it.

“Drills.” “That's what we suspect.” “Unobtanium?” “We do not detect a relevant presence of unobtanium in the subsoil that would justify extraction. On the other hand, it is rich in carbon-fossils.” “Oil?” “Let's call it that.” “What's the point of extracting it? We have abandoned fossil energy sources for more than a hundred years.”

We have. At his side, Neytiri clutched the handle of the bow she had not laid since their arrival, her eyes darkened by the battle paint that adorned her face. Sometimes her husband still spoke as if he were one of them. After all, a part of him always would have been. Just look at the military waistcoat he wore like a second skin, the rifle always at hand, despite Eywa's abhorrence of metal weapons. The man spoke before his mate did, “We must act, but we need to be smart.” “Anqa is already on site examining the situation. Yana is with her,” she added, noting the friend's apprehensive look at the mention of one person alone in that dangerous place. “What?” The tone in Neteyam's voice was caustic; a venomous hiss barely vented between clenched teeth, but he did not have time to question the girl's presence in the field any further, as a loud din echoed from the two-way radio on the table.

“Anqa! Anqa, can you hear me? What's going on?” The purple-haired ecologist was terrified. -The RDA… Arches…! Blew up! Zeswa… the signal was disturbed. The hunting party… Everything collapsed. The arches collapsed…- Neteyam snatched the transceiver from her hand to bring it to his mouth with cold timbre and a blank stare. “Where is she?”

No further explanation was necessary for Anqa to understand to whom that male voice, she had come to know all too well, referred. Despite the number of forced interactions with the young Na'vi, despite the operations they had collaborated on side by side, it seemed impossible for her to get used to the chill that ran down her spine whenever she heard him speak with that tone. Especially at times like these. Netayam was frightening when altered, a worthy son of his mother. His lips pulled downward in a thin line, his teeth clenched to the point that his jaw snapped, the tips of his canines showing in tacit menace. His eyes fixed and alert, serpentine, his nostrils flared, and his lungs swelled to a peak and then deflated into severe rumblings in the deepest part of his throat.

-She went looking for survivors.-

Adding nothing more, the young warrior pushed the device against Priya's frail chest, who could barely stand on her own strength, and took wide strides toward his ikran; his parents at his heels. Jake grabbed him by the arm as the boy adjusted the throat-comm around his neck and set it to the frequency matched with his girlfriend's.

“Where you think you’re going?” “To get her.” “You stay here. We’ll go.” The son ignored those words by loading the bow onto the animal’s back. His mother called him back, in tune with his father’s admonition. “I won’t say that again.” “Fine. ‘Cause I won’t sit on my hands while the girl I love is in danger. I’ve never done that with my siblings, and I’m certainly not going to start now.” Jake stepped back as his son pointed his fingers to his own chest, right at the level of the scar that marked him; the everlasting reminder of when he was dying in his arms. “I’m the one who has to keep her safe. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to her.”

“Just as I couldn't live with myself if we lost you.”

Neteyam’s gaze straightened, “I wouldn’t change a thing, even if saving Spider meant giving my life. I am ready to die for those I care about.” “I know, son, that’s what scares me.” He took his face with a palm and brought it close until they were face to face, “Bring her home.” “Yes, sir.” “I expect a mateship ceremony when this whole thing is over.” The boy chuckled, “Yes, sir.”

Yana looked at what was left of the watercourse leading to the heart of the prairie, almost totally dried up except for a few puddles here and there — the water within them of an unnatural greenish hue with purplish reflections and dense consistency. Her vision was blurred by the cloud that had risen after the collapse, and made it difficult for her to breathe; the air tainted by smoke, dust, and pollutants intoxicated her lungs. Around her, the high rock walls were lined with rubble, uprooted trees, and … bodies.

Of winzaw (arrow deer), pa'li and Zeswa.

Most of the hunters had perished crushed by their own mounts, others by boulders or sudden impact with the ground. All were covered in the grayness of ash and death. The only color was the red dye they dyed their hair with, which, mixing with the blood, stained the rocks.

-Tìyawn (love)? Tìyawn, do you read me? “Teyam?” -Thanks, Great Mother, you’re doing okay. Anqa gave us a heads-up about the blast. Where are you at?- “I'm going up the river. There's so much death here. So many killed, so much life…,” her voice died in her throat, ”… destroyed. I'm going up to the drill now. Stop this from happening again.” -No way. Call off the ikran and get back here. Now. We need to regroup. We can't afford recklessness. Do you hear me, Yana? Do not attack!- “I will carry the pain to the ones who caused it.” -Ateyana…!-

Neteyam's inhaled voice died out in the metallic noise of the interference caused by the flow. She was alone. Not that it made any difference. Even though she knew she was hurting him, she would have ignored his intimate but selfish request. She would never have turned back, at the cost of annihilating him in the soul. The Zeswa had welcomed her as a clan member returning from a long, grueling journey. They had raised the festival kites to honor the rebirth of the Lost People; they had taught her their way. She would not abandon them to their grief. The Sarentu were once a peaceful tribe of storytellers and diplomats, they weren't warriors, the Sky People had made them so. Who forced them to take up arms, paint themselves in the colors of war, and swell their chests with battle echoes. If there was one valuable lesson she had learned from human cruelty, it was that there are circumstances in which one must be stained with sin to achieve the goal. Yana was willing to do that, too. She was willing to be abandoned by Eywa and the Na'vi to save Pandora. To give up her integrity and love. To force Neteyam to remain without her. Therefore, even with a grasp gripping her heart, before advancing on the path that had formed in the ruins, besides checking the state of her bow, she counted how many munitions she had in the rifle she carried. As the invaders used to say: all's fair in war and love.

“Fuck!” imprecated Neteyam, pressing the side button to change frequency and connect to Anqa’s throat-comm, his voice sharp. “Anqa, do you copy? I’ve lost signal with Yana. The flux is making the instrumentation crazy.” Static crackled in his ear before Anqa’s voice came through, laced with tension. -Copy. What do you mean, lost signal? Where was she heading?- “She moved into the rubble,” Neteyam said, his frustration barely contained. “Trying to avoid being spotted by soldiers on her way to the drill.”

The woman’s silence spoke more than a thousand words, as heavy as the burden that gripped their hearts. If flux interference was disrupting communication with the Sarentu, it could only mean one thing: she was at the center of it, right in the collapsed area. Then Anqa replied, her tone edged with worry. -Damn, girl. She always does this.-

“I’m not leaving her out there,” he said firmly, his eyes scanning the horizon as he tightened his grip on the banshee's reins. Anqa’s response was swift, resolute. -I’m not suggesting you should. But don’t go in blind, Neteyam. We need you in one piece, too.- “She’s taking out that drill whether we’re ready or not,” the warrior shot back. “You know her—she’ll make the shot even if it kills her.”

A heavy sigh crackled through the comm. -Alright. Listen, head toward the north ridge. The flux is thinner there. I’ll try to guide you remotely with what’s left of the scanners. And, Neteyam?- “Yeah?” -Don’t let her do anything stupid. We need her alive for this fight.- He smirked faintly, though his heart was pounding. “She’s not the only stubborn one here, you know.” -Clearly. Watch your six out there. Out.- The communication fell silent, and Neteyam nudged his mount forward, his gaze narrowing on the jagged horizon.

Flying over the area, he spotted the yellow-and-white-banded Scorpion below him, close to a tall tree growing crooked, almost horizontal, on the top of a hill. A lone stone arch remained intact to shield it. As he imagined, he found the tawtute at the foot of the gigantic tree admiring its leaves turning to fall; the disconsolate expression of someone who had already experienced that same desolation on their skin.

His blood froze when he saw Telisi catch up to her with her typical awkward walk, and rub her muzzle against the woman's cheek as if seeking comfort. Determination burned in his chest as he murmured to himself. “Hold on, love. I’m coming.” With a sharp whistle, his ikran spread its wings, and they dove into the flux-laden skies.

With each step, the dust thickened, and her heart bounced in her chest in rhythm with the increasingly deafening thumps of the drill. Slow and steady, the thuds that sounded by the second seemed to numb her. But even as her feet stumbled over the craggy ground shaken by the vibrations, she did not hint at stopping her progress. Gradually the path became more impassable, where the gorge had filled with giant boulders and uprooted trees, blocking access. She could have scaled what remained of the arches to get an aerial view of the surroundings, but climbing to the top would have meant exposing herself to the aim of snipers and automatic machine guns. Surveillance at that extraction site had to be on high alert, she was certain.

As she advanced, a faint glow hit on her right, warm and clear. Sunlight. A passageway free of disaster. She approached it cautiously. The entrance was just big enough for her to crouch through and gave access to a cave; the ceiling smashed by the earthquake into a natural skylight. Yana hesitated before entering; the air was cleaner but venturing inside a rocky way could be dangerous, even fatal with those continuous tremors running through the underground. A collapsing wall could easily have turned that cave into her grave. But the alternatives were few, and between standing in the mist that prevented her from seeing potential enemies and making her way through the shadows, she chose the one that would give her an advantage. When it comes to Na’vi, the sun is always expected to cast banshee shadows over the heads of their enemies, or the patter of galloping hooves to announce their arrival. It would not occur to anyone to look down, to guard ravines and underground passages to quell any surprise attacks. The People were skilled hunters who never mixed such skills with the art of war. But Yana was not just Na'vi now. Certainly, her DNA was, but a substantial enough part to create ethical contrasts in her person was human.

Penetrating inside the cave, she could ascertain that the main exit had, in fact, collapsed. The only other point of access was the skylight itself, but to reach it she would have to rely on the strength of her arms to climb. With no small effort, she reached the top, and the mammoth, frightening figure of the drill appeared before her, the building structure circling it like a barrier. A stroke of pure luck: as she ascended the passage, she had come right to the heart of the Alpha platform; the auger staring her straight in the face as if to give a defiant welcome.

“Priya? I'm at the drill. Tell me how to tear it down.” -I hear you. Destroying the drill-core will leave that monster useless. It's protected, but cut the control wires, and you should get an opening. Hurry, it's the RDA. Nothing's ever enough.- “Consider it done.” With those words, the tsamsiyu (warrior) took her leave, before turning off the transceiver and penetrated inside the platform, filled with enemies armed to the teeth. But she wasn't afraid. She possessed the skills to accomplish the mission without having to engage in open confrontation. With patience and calculated movements, she would have tampered with that contraption. What could go wrong?

The military base sprawled across the battered terrain like a metallic parasite, its angular structures jutting out from the ground, illuminated by harsh, artificial floodlights. Sarentu advanced through the shadows to make herself invisible, her breathing controlled, every step deliberate. She crouched low behind a jagged fragment of collapsed rock, her body blending with her surroundings. She inhaled deeply, her ears twitching as she listened to the heavy footfalls of a nearby patrol. Her bow was slung across her back, and a quiver of arrows hugged her side, a blade ready in one hand. She slipped between the patrols, weaving through their blind spots, and approached her prey. The monstrous drill, the beating heart of devastation.

The machine seemed alive, a colossus of metal and energy, digging relentlessly. The hum of its turbines vibrated in the air, an almost hypnotic rhythm, but the girl could afford no distractions. The base was heavily guarded; squads of soldiers moved in coordinated patterns, their exosuits clanking softly as they patrolled the perimeter, a mechanical dance of strength and control.

Moving with feline grace, she watched them for several minutes, mapping their movements. Three guards on the raised catwalk, two near the energy core, one stationed at the control room door. The others roamed unpredictably. She’d have to move fast and strike silently. Stealth was the key, and a strategy formed in her mind as she did so, accurate and deadly.

Her chance came when two soldiers paused to speak, turning their backs to her. She darted forward, her feet barely making a sound on the uneven ground. With a lightning gesture, she drew an arrow and stuck it. The string of her bow was stretched in deafening silence. The first shot struck the guard in the throat; the second fell before he could scream. When the third turned too late, her blade flashed, slipping through the crevices of his armor, her palm plugging his mouth before he could react. He collapsed with a muted thud. Yana dragged the bodies into the shadows, methodical despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins. No mistakes, no hesitation.

The main control panel was located in a cabin protected by armored walls and a digital keypad lock, where the last soldier was typing distractedly. Taking cover behind a stack of crates, an arrow flew, quiet as the whisper of the wind. The lone guard fell onto the controls, his hand smearing blood on the screen, as the rustle of the drill grew louder. She pushed him aside to access the panel that displayed data incomprehensible to anyone but a skilled technician, but she had no need to decipher it, SID would have taken care of it—a portable interface capable of decoding the security frequencies of enemy forces.

After a few seconds of work, her eyes lit up as the device emitted a soft beep of success, unlocking the door. The cabin was cramped, lit by cool neon lights, and the control panel dominated the room, its screens and switches monitoring every aspect of the drill.

The hanged plans showed how the core was protected by an electronic security grid, making it inaccessible without a specific command. Quickly, she navigated the panel menus, bypassing the access codes with her device. Her experience enabled her to locate the sequence that activated the turbines' maintenance mode, which was necessary to temporarily expose the core for technical interventions.

The next step required rigor. Yana pulled out a small vibration-cutting tool and began to disassemble the panel's side plate. The metal shell was resisting, but with a sharp blow, she managed to remove it, revealing a tangle of wires and circuits. She quickly identified the wiring for the core cooling system, a critical component in keeping the turbines stable. By cutting a single blue wire and replacing it with a connector she modified, she created a controlled short circuit that sent a false overheat signal to the main panel. The lights flashed, and a low alarm went off, prompting the system to automatically open the bulkheads protecting the drill core to allow for a supposed inspection.

Before leaving the cabin, the girl deactivated the hacking device, automatically erasing all traces of her digital intrusion. She remounted the panel plate and verified that everything appeared intact from the outside. Finally, she slipped between the shadows once again.

With the core now exposed, she could see it shone with an unnatural blue-green glow, pulsing like an alien heart.

“Time to finish this,” she murmured, moving briskly to it. She retrieved a bundle of small adhesive charges from her belt, aware that every second lost could be lethal. She carefully placed them in the most vulnerable spots, her hands steady despite the time pressure. The bomb timers were set on a delay long enough to allow her to move away safely. She was just finishing cocking the last one when a cry rang out behind her. “Intruder! By the drill!”

The searchlights all pointed at her, and the camp exploded in chaos. Cursing under her breath, the girl dived behind a support beam as bullets tore through the air, arrows at the ready. She shot one, then another in rapid succession, each finding its mark. She shot down the nearest enemies, but there were too many reinforcements for her to face them alone.

The situation seemed desperate. Her eyes rested one last time on the drill, then her fingers went to the detonator as she murmured a quiet prayer, ready to make a drastic decision. Just as she was about to press the button, a shadow loomed overhead. A high-pitched whistle cut through the air, followed by the shrill screech of an ikran, its wings slicing through the chaos in a bright trail. Neteyam plunged into the fray, the claws of his beast bearing down on a squad of soldiers. He leaped from his back mid-flight, landing next to Yana with a force that made the platform vibrate.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she fired another arrow at an approaching guard. “Saving you,” replied her boyfriend, unsheathing his blade, piercing a soldier who came too close in the chest. Sarentu gave him a look full of sarcasm and defiance. Together, they fought their way back toward the drill side by side, their movements perfectly synchronized even in the crossfire. Time was against them; the charges were set, and the girl had the detonator.

“Now or never!” Neteyam shouted, shoving her behind cover as another wave of bullets ripped through the air. She took a breath, staring at the target. Everything came down to this moment. The explosion was deafening, a column of blinding flash of light rising skyward, devouring the drill. The shockwave knocked them both off their feet, flames and debris raining down around them. Yana felt the heat lap against her skin as Neteyam covered her with his own body.

“It’s not over yet!” he shouted, pulling her to her feet as the ground beneath them broke, reacting violently to the destruction. They sprinted toward the edge of the base. The warrior whistled sharply, and his dragon swooped low, its wings slicing through the smoke. He hauled her onto its back and the animal soared as the base sank into the rubble.

As they ascended, the flux pulsed ominously, a deep, rhythmic thrum that resonated through the air. From the sky, as the ikran carried them away, they watched the flames consume the drill. She turned to him, her breathing still labored. “Thank you,” she said, the word full of emotion and relief, while hugging him. He nodded in return, his gaze fixed on the horizon. That was only the beginning. The battle was not over, but for the moment, the drill was gone.

The ikran landed on a rocky ledge hidden in the tops of the tallest trees, a safe place away from the chaos. The wind, charged with the wild energy of the flow, subsided. Neteyam descended first, his movements stiff and charged with tension. When the young woman set foot on the ground, she found him already distant, his back to her.

“Yawntu?” she called, her voice low, almost hesitant. He turned abruptly, and in his golden eyes shone a storm of emotion. His voice, usually calm and reassuring, was broken by a tremor of restrained anger. “What the heck were you thinking?!” She stopped in place, surprised by the ferocity of the tone. “I-”

“You left on your own, you walked into that damn field,” he interrupted her, taking a step toward her. “You were going to-” He couldn’t even say the phrase—You were going to let yourself blow up—, too painful to even think about. The trembling that still shook him was not just a momentary fear: it was a deep-rooted feeling, born of the overwhelming love he felt for her and the horror of seeing the possibility of a future without her. The scene played out in his head repeatedly, like a vortex of conflicting emotions consuming him. Even knowing she was safe now could not quell.

He felt a surge of panic when he realized she would remain in the base, risking her life to destroy the drill even though the bombs were active. His mind, usually clear-headed in battle, filled with chaotic images: her face illuminated by flames, her hands reaching toward him as life left her, the emptiness of a world without the sound of her laughter or the warmth of her gaze. Each beat of the ikran’s wings felt like an eternity, and every second that passed was a weight piling on his chest.

“What was that all about, huh?” His chest rose and fell furiously, his breathing quickened as he drew closer to her again, towering over her with his stature. “Why didn’t you wait for backup? You always want to do everything yourself, you trust no one.” A sequence of questions and statements that sounded as if they meant something else entirely.

You didn’t wait for me. You don’t trust me?

Neteyam fought with himself not to give in to the sense of helplessness, but with each passing moment, the girl’s silence only infuriated his sense that she had consciously chosen to sacrifice herself to destroy the drill. This tormented him, for it meant that she had decided to leave him behind.

“You were ready to die in there! Do you have any idea what that would have meant for me?!” he shouted, and, for a moment, seemed about to burst, but he held back, running a trembling hand through his hair. “I... I can’t lose you, Yana. Not like this.” Those words crashed like waves against a wall, leaving a pain-filled silence. Sarentu stepped forward, her gaze catalyzed on him. “Teyam, listen to me. I had to do it. It was the only way.” “Your life is not an acceptable price!” he replied, his voice louder than he intended. He took a step toward her, his eyes staring at her as if he feared she might disappear. “Not for this war. Not for any war.”She looked at him, surprised by the vehemence of his words. “And anyone else’s life is?” she asked, calm but firm. “If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. You know that.”

There was nobility in her intent, but Neteyam shook his head nonetheless at her disinterested altruism, his breathing still uneven. Her martyrdom might mean nothing to someone else, but to him, it would amount to the nullification of himself.

“I don’t care about someone else. I-I care about you. More than duty allows, more than I wish sometimes. When I saw you, surrounded by the RDA with the detonator in your hand, crouching in front of the ordnance ...” He shook his head again as if to banish the image, his eyes glazed over. “It was as if a part of me was already dead.” Silence descended. He ran a hand over his face, trying to regroup his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, almost a whisper. “When I saw you wouldn’t stop ... I felt my whole world falling apart. You can’t ask me to bear it, Yana. You can’t.”

She looked at him, motionless. His words sank into her heart like knives, but she did not defend herself. Instead, she moved slowly closer until their foreheads almost touched. “You think I wasn’t scared?” she murmured, laying a hand on his chest, where his heart was still beating so fast. “You think I didn’t wonder, every second, if I could come back to you? But I did, Neteyam. I made it. We made it.” Her hands went up to graze his face, her eyes searching his with an intensity that left him breathless. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

The Omatikaya prince felt the knot of anger and terror loosen inside, leaving a void filled only by his love for her. Saying nothing, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers, breathing her own breath. His hands moved to encircle her waist, pulling her against him. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I won’t be so reckless next time.”

The young warrior closed his eyes, lowering his head to leave a kiss on her forehead. “There won’t be a next time,” he whispered. “I’m not letting you do that on your own again.” The echo of his words bounced between them, an even stronger bond forged in the fear and love that united them. “I cannot lose you,” he repeated, his voice an almost imperceptible rustle. “I can’t. You’re my everything.”

Yana replied without speaking, laying her hands on top of his, squeezing them with a gentleness that contrasted with the ferocity of their battle. When she finally lifted her face to his, her lips found his in a kiss that was anything but gentle. It was urgent, desperate, a reminder that they were alive, that they still belonged together.

As they lost themselves in each other, the world around seemed to vanish. There were no more wars, fears, or dangers; there was only them, two souls who had defied fate to find each other once more.

Neteyam broke away from the kiss, his breath short, his face still very close to hers. He looked at her with an intensity that seemed to want to carve that moment in time. “It’s not just fear,” he murmured, his voice rough, as if the words cost him immense effort. “It’s that without you ... I’m nothing.”

She shook her head, her hands rising to clutch the fabric of his warrior belt, pulling him toward her. “Don’t say that,” she replied, her eyes shining. “You are strong, more than anyone I know. But if you think it’s any different for me, you’re wrong.” Her voice cracked as she continued. “Every time I fly with you, watch you fight, hear your voice through the wind... it’s like the world makes sense. And the thought of losing you... it would kill me.” Her words slid between them, breaking down all barriers. Neteyam closed his eyes for a moment, giving her time to see the vulnerability he rarely showed. When he opened them again, there was a warmth in them, a promise that did not need to be spoken.

“We will not be lost,” he said, with a conviction that seemed carved in stone. “No matter what, we’ll always find our way back to each other.” Yana smiled, an expression at once sweet and wistful. “Then never let me go.” Neteyam responded by grasping her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing the contours of her skin as if he wanted to memorize every detail. “Never,” he promised, before kissing her again, this time with a gentleness that contrasted with the desperation of minutes before. The kiss intensified, fueled by something more than desire. A silent communication, a dialogue of souls seeking each other, recognizing each other. Neteyam’s hands came down along her sides, clutching her as if afraid she might fade away. The girl reacted by wrapping her arms around his neck, letting go completely.

Words became superfluous, replaced by the hushed language of their bodies and their gazes. The adrenaline that had sustained them up to that moment transformed into another energy, warmer, deeper. Recognizing their vulnerability, the go-or-nothing gamble they’d taken, they seized the present as if it were their last. They lay down on the carpet of moss that covered the ledge, the sky above them tinged with the vibrant colors of sunset. The sun’s rays streamed through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on their faces. For a moment, the world seemed to slow down, allowing them to lose themselves completely in each other, without fear, without hesitation.

His hands ran all over her body as if to imbue it with his essence. With each caress, a piece of her clothing slipped away. With each kiss, the ornamental paintings faded. “What should I do with you, huh?” He asked. “Do I need to breed you to generate some reason in you?” She chuckled, but then said in a serious tone, “I won’t stop fighting even if you impregnate me.” “I know already, geez. That’s why I’m so into you. I still wanna see your tummy swell with my child, though. Still wanna fuck you senseless until my cum fills you whole.” A shiver ran down her spine until her toes curled, and she could already feel a small knot tightening in her lower abdomen. But her stubbornness, combined with a taste for having the upper hand, kept her anchored enough so that she would not get lost in the glee of carnal sensations. So that she would not say something she did not mean, or make promises she would not keep, in the heat of the moment. “It’s not gonna happen until we get the RDA out of here for good.” Neteyam agreed: raising a child in such a volatile, perilous environment was out of the question, “But we can always train for it. ‘Til we’re one forever.” “You mean in front of Eywa? Are you sure? You want to do this with me?” He beamed, in love. “You’re the only one I want this with. Are you up for it? When all this shit is over-” “Yes!” The Omatikaya prince gasped at the sudden answer to a question not quite expressed. “Yes?” “Yes, I will marry you as soon as all this shit is over. For what it’s worth, you are already my mate, with or without tsaheylu.” Their unconventional, colorful declaration of eternal love, though far from romantic, felt perfect for them.

Neteyam resumed kissing her everywhere. Her eyes, the tip of her nose, cheeks, neck, breastbone. Reaching her flat belly, he lingered there for a long time as if something was already sprouting inside. Strong fingers gripped her hips possessively, sinking into them until they left their imprint, while his nose tickled her navel, followed, then, by his tongue. He traced the outline there, then went up to one of her breasts and sucked greedily, his hand massaging it as if he could stimulate something else besides the nipple’s turgidity. As if he expected nourishment. When he was satisfied so, he gave the other tit the same treatment, and Yana had to bite her lip hard to keep from moaning.

When, at last, the warrior pulled away with a resounding pop, she could sketch out a sly giggle, partly from the ticklish sensation, partly because she knew the source of so much attention. “I love your kinky side.” His face, already flushed from the exertion and impetus that was shaking his insides, turned purple at that joke. This side of him still ashamed him. A side he could not repress. And, to be fair, he didn’t want to erase it either, being linked to the unbreakable connection he had felt with Sarentu from the very first day. The way she held Loran, the way she cradled him, captivated him. The gentleness in her manner, the kindness in her eyes, despite the belligerent times in which they lived, had forged her into resentment and death. Yana exuded a warmth and fragrance that smelled like home. He fell inexorably in love with it and longed to turn the world into a safer place for her. She was his person, he knew it immediately.

She laughed again, her face slightly bent in a canny expression. “It’s cute when you get all bashful.” Stung to the core but refreshed by the challenge, he lifted her legs, spreading them apart just enough to observe how she glistened in the sunset light. A little revenge rattling in his head. “Soaking wet already? Did the raid get you pumped? And you called me kinky.”

With both forearms on either side of her face, one knee crept between her legs to make room for himself, now bent to graze his pelvis, he towered over her in all his majesty. “You keep getting more and more beautiful,” he declared before moistening a finger and bringing it past the edge of her intimacy. His mouth stifled a sigh that faded into his oral cavity as tapering fingers flew over her inner thigh, caressing the soft skin and slowly growing a pleasant warmth. Attentive to her every slightest change of expression. A soft moan fell from her lips as he rubbed her clit, tracing tight circles, eager to make her tremble under his touch. Her hips moved unwittingly against his. She sensed him sneering when his finger probed the dewy soil of her womanhood, the ring of muscle already yearning to capture him inside. “I barely touched you.” Provocation to which Yana couldn’t hold back and, embarrassed, she intimated him to shut up. His phalanges slowly slipped between her folds and plunged inside her, caressing the soft walls. She felt him melt into her passion, wet noises filling their ears with each languid lunge of his digits. Sarentu moved in his grip, stammering his name, her heart bursting in her chest as she closed her eyelids.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” He cuddled her, and she moved closer to his caress, crossing her shins behind his back, her heels wedged into Venus’ dimples, inviting him deeper, harder. “Please don’t stop,” she purred in a moan. The walls sucked him in so deliciously, begging for more, and Neteyam was hardly the type to deprive a woman of her desires. His fingers curled, teasing her most sensitive spot, while his palm rubbed against her agonizing clit, causing an uncontrolled stream of meows. Each more desperate than the last, as they turned into acute wails as she neared orgasm. She gazed at him, her eyes filled with longing, “More,” but his hand retracted, slowing the pace almost to quell the spiral in her stomach, ready to snap. A whimper hovered in the air as he stopped, just a breath away from that wonderful spot that made her toes curl. He stared at her in amusement at the frustration that crippled her delicate facial features, her mouth open at the revelation.

Neteyam was making her pay for it. Whether it was for teasing him just before or for the headshot at the Alpha platform, she couldn’t tell.

“Neteyam,” she admonished him afflictedly. “Beg.” “Wha—” “Apologize for scaring the hell outta me out there.” “Oh, come on!” she begged him, rolling her hips against his fingers, trying to chase the sublime sensation that was slowly withdrawing from her. “Apologize.” “Sorry, okay? Sorry, sorry, I won’t put myself in danger like that ever again,” she said all in one breath, reduced to a mess of sobs and soft grumbles similar to a cat’s purr. “I need you” The man shook his head, still in her hands, and a shadow fell over his eyes. “Promise me.” Yana snorted in disbelief. But if Neteyam needed to hear her say it, to be reassured, she would. “I promise,” she sighed, drawing his face to hers and placing light kisses over his eyes, shining with desire but veiled with anguish. He slid to his side, his forehead juxtaposed against the girl’s. Yana drew the contours of his face. The arch of the nonexistent eyebrows, the feline nose, the line of the lips, the cheekbones so sharp they could slice glass. She rubbed the tip of her nose against his, at the affectionate gesture the warrior massaged her shoulders.

“Roll over your side,” he whispered, and she complied. Once her back matched his torso, his strong arms encircled her, gluing her to him. “I love you,” he claimed, kissing her shoulder blade. His palm traveled all the way down her body to her shanks, his digits again infiltrating her thighs, still finding traces of arousal. His fingertips collected the liquid and moved on to the stimulating lubrication of her intimacy. She trembled under his skilled hand, babbling his name as his fingers crept further, dancing in rhythm with her thrusting hips. She gasped when she felt a bulge rub against her butt. Then, without warning, his searing erection pushed its way inside her. Her mouth opened wide in a silent cry of pleasure, and her eyes rolled back as she bucked against his firm frame. Her mind clouded with the pulsing need to let the lust wash over her like boiling lava, as her vision turned white and her head grew light.

She no longer sensed anything around her. Only Neteyam’s thrusts grew deeper and deeper, kissing her cervix at an ever-increasing pace. This would not last much longer. The man behind her knew well. In fact, his tapering fingers took to torturing her clit in concentric motions, as precise and relentless as his cock paced her back and forth, threatening to come out, but never quite.

“T-teyam,” she uttered, earning a quick bite at the base of her neck.“Let go. Almost there” It was like being bewitched by a spell. The knot that plagued her belly melted away, releasing waves of pleasure so intense they blinded her and pinned her to the bed of moss. There, impaled on her one true love dick. It didn’t take long before the charge with which he poured into her lost its force. Neteyam was close, very close. So close that she didn’t even have time to prepare herself when, with one last, vigorous thrust, he burst free. A grunt rose in the air and an immense heat filled her.

He rested his forehead against her nape as, breathless and with a hint of malice littering his voice, he said, “I got so far down that if we were already mated, I definitely would’ve gotten you pregnant by now.” Yana started laughing in his arms. “You’re obsessed with this stuff, you know that!”He squeezed her tighter, sliding out of her. “How can I not be with a hottie like you?” She turned as far as she could to search into his eyes. Into his beautiful eyes, yellow as the winter sun, soft from exertion and surrounded by the redness of the moment. And he smiled, a full and genuine smile. A smile in love.

They remained hugged under the darkening sky, saying nothing. There was no need. Their hearts spoke more clearly than any words. Neteyam brushed her hair, studying her with a gentleness that contrasted with his usual resolve. “If this is all we have,” he whispered, ”that’s enough for me.” She closed her eyes, a smile that talked of peace and gratitude painted on her lips. “For me, too.” They remained like that, two souls entwined in a world that tried to separate them, but that night failed to do so.

“If this leads to awesome sex, I’m totally down for more trouble!” “Yana!” The sound of their laughter, carefree and light, mingled with the rustling leaves and the gentle breeze, dancing on the wind like a playful melody.

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camerainbow · 2 months ago

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9-1-1 speculation/“fanfiction” for the rest of the season: (Buddie and Bathena focused, with mention of Maddie, not meant to be EVERY storyline present, sorry to other characters ILY)

8x16

Funeral ceremony happens at firehouse after walk through street (closed casket, not the actual burial of the coffin in ground), Eddie sees Buck being comforted by Tommy. Buddie talks and Buck (for the first time at funeral) cries in Eddies arms and Tommy sees, is annoyed. Gerard offers Eddie a job back in LA (we don’t get a response in the scene) since it seemed to be what Bobby wanted. Bobby buried alive tease at the end of the episode with 9-1-1 call (leaked script) (this being shortly after Athena finds out the death she was investigating wasn’t a death, Athena’s investigation is the day after the funeral, earlier in episode we get visual of cemetery company lowering grave into ground with no family present).

8x17

Set when Eddie is back at 118 in L.A. (time jump), we are left in dark about whether the buried alive phone call is real or not. Gerrard is substitute-captain and we have an emergency with some poisoned water supply, they’re trying to trace the origin of it. They find the origin is is a cracked pipe from a natural event usually correlated (occurring right before) an earthquake event, when they’re close to that cracked pipe Eddie and Buck get trapped (not earthquake, maybe foreshocks mistaken as random seismic activity). They’ve been slightly arguing all day, Buck is angry Eddie came back so quickly (all he knows is that Chris didn’t come with him), says he is worried Eddie didn’t make the right decision. Buck unknowingly doesn’t know Eddie left Chris to finish the school year (only a few weeks) in El Paso. Eddie has been slightly ghosting Buck because he was figuring out coming back to LA (selling house in El Paso) but (subtext) also because he believes Buck started seeing Tommy again (he is temporarily staying with someone else instead of Buck). Buck thinks Eddie came back because he felt guilty about how Bobby died (still ambiguous about if he came back to life), Eddie said his life isn’t just Chris and he has a whole life here in LA, reveals Chris is just finishing the school year in El Paso, says he chose his own joy and his joy in here. Earlier eddie makes some comment during arguing whilst trapped about how at least he isn’t jumping into a relationship with his Ex to hide his feelings. Towards end of argument Buck reveals he’s not actually seeing Tommy. Buck and Eddie get rescued. At the opening is Athena and the rest of the 118, Athena can tell there are a lot of emotions and says to the two of them: let’s go see Bobby (ambiguous).

8x18

On their way with Athena to Bobby, the earthquake happens for real, (Maybe we see them pass said cemetery slightly before which clues us in to result of ambiguousness), also Maddie’s water breaks/contractions start in a scene at her work at the same time as earthquake (idk how far along Maddie would be so match time jump to Eddie coming back and Maddie being near due date). Fade to black then a show title card, we now see a time jump back in time (~”3 weeks earlier” text on screen~). Maddie muted scene answering the buried alive 9-1-1 phone call, we see Athena get a call at end of her investigation (from 8x16) also muted, we see firefighters at cemetery lifting Bobby out of the ground in slow-mo. Lingering ambiguity whether it is something real or a cruel prank. An ambulance is there. Firefighters get coffin out of ground and open and Bobby is seemingly alive, Athena collapses. Cut to him in the hospital with him sleeping (ambiguity with possible life-support). We get close up of heart rate monitor as it cuts back to the earthquake shakes of the modern-day. Eddie Buck and Athena are in a flipped car as part of a massive pileup caused by earthquake, car flipped onto the side of Buck in passenger seat he is injured/crushed, Eddie gets Athena out and figures out how to get Buck out of the car (time passes in this scene while not in the Maddie scene). Buck gets call (we don’t see who from) and Athena (who is mystified) answers as Eddie is holding up Bucks passed out body. Athena says Maddie is in labour. We cut back to Maddie at the call center shortly after water breaking, she’s answering some calls for the earthquake while contracting, meanwhile Chim and rest of 118 (hen, Ravi, gerrard) are called to help with some earthquake aftermath with the public. We see them complete their assignment, maybe with a pregnant woman or child who is trapped to parallel. At the end of their successful rescue Chim thanks josh who is on the other side of the line with the rescued person, he says Maddie is in labour. Then we see Maddie being wheeled into a post-earthquake chaos hospital and as she gets to hospital we shift back in time to Bobby at the hospital (cut from busy hospital to mostly silent one). Athena walks into hospital room and Bobby wakes up, they’ve just been monitoring his vitals, they have an emotional scene (includes explanation of coming back) about how she was throwing herself back into work because she couldn’t handle the loss, he says that things are going to change, he cannot put her in a similar predicament ever again, she says what about the team, they still need you. We cut back to modern-day hospital. We see Bobby has gotten Chim to the hospital quickly (Athena called Bobby to get Chim to the hospital), Bobby specifically because roads are messed up and firetruck being difficult to maneuver. Cut to baby being born with Chim and Maddie in hospital, Buck (has been seen by doctor) in a chair is wheeled in to hospital room by Eddie. Buck sees Maddie and Chim with the baby as says to Eddie, “let’s get Chris home, you’re moving in with me”. The rest of the 118 minus Gerard and Tommy are there, as are Athena with Bobby. We cut to a montage of a party at Bobby and Athena’s house (it is finished and unveiled) and Athena’s kids are there, it is western themed for some reason lol, Bobby makes a toast and says he’s going to retire from being an active firefighter (won’t be coming back) so they can live more peacefully and we see reactions from the 118 as their future feels somewhat unknown.

#911 on abc #911 show #911 speculation #eddie diaz #evan buckley #911 abc #buddie #buck x eddie #eddie x buck #fan theory #fanfic #bobby nash #athena grant

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byrdstrolls · 27 days ago

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It's Over. So What?

There weren’t any other viable planets in the Corsican System. The twin suns were only orbited by two planets. One was a desolate black sphere that managed to lack both breathable atmosphere, livable surface and viable ores. The Fleet called it 57B. The Corsican’s called the foreboding hunk of rock that shared the sky with their planet so lush with life Little Sister.

Once Corsica was nuked beyond any whimper of livability, due to the lack of prospects for other colonial projects, there wasn’t much for The Fleet to really “do” there. Statistically, the galaxy had more barren planets than livable ones. Their projects were far and far between, and they wouldn’t waste resources on monitoring this place. All of the military officials, even the pssionics, had already been evacuated before the missiles hit. Dragging home all these empty networks of satellites and military outposts that were scattered around Corsica’s atmosphere seemed a monumental task. They were vast, complicated structures, and overall General Faeria Longse had decided it was more trouble than it was worth, and simply shut them down, and abandoned them.

They were space trash now. Cavernous trade vessels full of vast atriums empty of the supplies they would have once carried. Outposts littered with scanners and radio dishes and telescopes, the eternal eye turned towards the planet with no one manning the lens. They hung in the sky like haunted marionettes.

The silence for the first few weeks was all consuming. On some of the lowest flying outposts, those actually in the planet's atmosphere, you could actually hear the monumental sounds of volcanoes erupting and earthquakes roaring, seismic activity on the planet's crust consuming the last of whatever life might have survived the initial explosion wrenching apart those tectonic plates. But you preferred to watch from more distant ones, watching the glitter of magma as it moved across your home in faint dancing lines like spiderwebs. You liked it better in silence.

Silence suited it.

Everytime you heard something it made you angry. The metal floor creaking behind your footsteps, annoying. The spark of conductor cables cracking as you brought online the emergency solar panels, grated on the ears. If someone would have spoken, you might have shot them in the head, pressurized cabins be damned. You could hear your breath escaping your chest. Your heart beating underneath your ribs. You were sick of that too. What gave you the right to have lived.

Sound was an insult to its gravity. The world had ended.

You had been in the supply bay when you first noticed something was wrong. Every few cycles, you would jury rig your tin can of a spaceship onto one of the scouting drones, and ride the fucker back to the military outpost- where you had carved a tunnel through the vent system that could be accessed by the lower hull, specifically for the purpose of stealing medical supplies and parts from them to bring back planetside. But this time, when you had gotten there, the bay was nearly empty, too sparse for robbing them to even feel like a triumph.

You had shut down the few remaining security systems, as you noticed, with dawning terror, that everyone was gone, the fighter pilots, the cadets, the doctors and officials. The retreat didn’t make sense. Until it did. Everyone, even you, knew they were winning the war. Fifty sweeps of bombing had long since crippled the CLS’s rebellion.The long fields and dense jungles of the farmer planet had become all but a testing ground for shiny new weapons, as the population had dwindled in a slow crawl towards annihilation. They were not leaving because they were scared. Not of you. They were leaving because they were bored.

It was over. By the time you had gathered your thoughts on this to their inevitable conclusion, it was too late. The evacuation would have had to happen in minutes, and the fleet left behind no ships- the vessel you took here seated two at most and was held together with mismatched parts and hope. You didn’t have minutes. It happened that fast.

There was nothing you could have done, the logical part of your brain whispered, and you felt like lobotomizing that chunk of your pan with a pickaxe. Accuracy be damned. So it was not your fault- what a pitiable consolation prize. So it didn’t matter what you did. That just proved how little you mattered at all. They blew up your fucking planet. Why mince words. You weren’t going to feel better.

You had looked through the abandoned fleet structures for months, searching for other survivors. There were no other trolls. But in one of the laboratories, you had found some livestock. There were two Corsican shellcows, the terrestrial isopod species that had ruled the planet before the empire discovered it. The most common ones were the size of cows, earning the name, but you had been in the deep jungle, where you swore you had seen shellcows the size of elephants. You had met Corsicans who had sworn there were shellcows as big as houses, deeper in the woods. As big as islands. They were docile, herbivorous, and many had been trained to carry packs long distances. They also ate them. It was an acquired but eventually rewarding taste. You couldn’t eat the two in this pen, though, because for all you knew, they were the last in the universe.

There were some leftover supplies, abandoned. Enough food for a couple of months, unless you figured out how to get the solar farms back and running. You had started to wonder why you were revitalizing the satellite stations at all. What waited for you, at the end of this project? Would you try to fix up your ship to somehow survive deep space and flee? Where too? Anyone and everyone you ever loved was dead. Maybe there was no goal, there was no point, maybe your hands just longed for the familiarity of the screwdriver and pliers, maybe you had to make meaning out of nothing or all you would have was nothing.

You had to live, you knew that much. Maybe just in the way a rabbit running from a wolf knows it has to live. It believes this so it puts one foot in front of the other. By the time the two months supply of food had run out, you had repowered the farms, growing your own. You had built enough energy up from the solar panels that you had got oxygen recycling back online for almost the entire satellite system. The place was built to be self-sufficient, and it was. Gradually, there was less and less work to do.

You didn’t know anything about earth science- you had always been a mechanical engineer at heart. But for a few weeks you had taken to going to the outposts and picking up readings on the planet, just to watch the lines dance across the screen. The whole planet had turned red with magma and smog. The surface must be 90% lava at this point. The debris that had broken off the planet during the explosion had formed a Saturn-like ring around the sphere. You wished you knew something about terraforming. Eventually you stopped looking.

You were poking around the medbay computers, bored, when you first found him. At first, you were confused as to what exactly he was. He looked like a bowling ball with no holes, a heavy chunk of iron sitting forgotten in a corner of the supply closet, but you had noticed a simple USB port under a sliding panel on his side and curiosity getting the better of you, you plugged him in.

“Charging” A calm, posh sounding voice had assured you when you first plugged him in. If you’ve ever worked with alternian user interfaces, you probably know the voice. One of the most generic voicebanks of all time- the fleet used it in everything from fighter pilots to vending machines. The orb then began emitting slow pulses of baby blue light, slowly increasing in length and brightness, in some indication he was gaining energy. After two long Corsican days, he emitted a series of eerie synthetic tones before glowing a steady blue.

“Charging complete” he informed you.

“What are you” you had spoken out loud, more to yourself than him, squatting to get a better look at him.

“Hello! I’m Pord.” He began. “I am the Medbay's automated therapy assistant. Are you in distress?” He asks, and you feel just a little like punching the thing.

“Ah” You say. The fact the fleet had some kind of therapy bot in here, presumably for the soldiers, presumably to give them therapy for how sad killing everyone you ever loved made them feel, just makes you sick. You’re not so sure what quality of therapy he could even be giving, as your first impression of him is that he’s supremely annoying.

“I don’t understand this response” Pord says, after waiting for a moment for you to answer his question.

“I’m not in distress” You retort, untrue as it may be and had been for months.

“Is there anything you might need assistance with?” He asks.

You paused.

“No.” You said.

“Then my job here is done.” He decides, and powers himself down. You stood there for a moment, rooted to the spot. Despite basically telling him to fuck off, some part of you longed for this interaction to be longer. It had been so long since you had spoken aloud to someone, anyone. Maybe keeping some kind of audio diary could help keep you sane- maybe there was some way you could finagle this thing’s wiring to make it 50% more tolerable. You sat down, staring at the orbs powered down, dark, clear surface, and then began to crack him open and take him apart. Inside his hull you found long, snake-like tendrils, perhaps intended for mobility or to take someone's vitals. The processing chip he has is old. It couldn’t run more than 16GB of data.

You found him a much roomier memory in a chip you stole from the satellite navigator, with much more RAM than a bot like him could ever need, and took a look at his code. He was surprisingly advanced, for a piece of junk left abandoned. The language model was made from the bottom up, with no connection to the internet for the bot to just copy, as if his creator had been a stickler for accuracy rather than imitation. He had a basic understanding of grammar rules, and you created a method in which you could verbally input new words into his personal dictionary manually as they came up in conversation.

You could not remove ‘therapy’ as his prime directive. It was so baked into so much of his code you might as well start over from scratch. You found a vast array of studies on psychology in his database, which gave you the impression his creator’s definition of therapy was very clinical. Strangely, against the results of many of these studies, he was trained to be agreeable above all else, a feature you worked hard to painstakingly disassemble, as you were sure that, of all things, would grate on your nerves the most. Three weeks later, you booted him up again.

“Testing” You said. “Talk to me Pord 2.0”

“Hello!” He said, in that same simple pleasant overly enunciated tone. You wished he came with other voice options.

“I’m Pord, I’m an automated therapy assistant” He began.

“I’m Atgone,” You said.

“Would you like me to switch to administrator mode” He said, having been coded to recognize you as such.

“No” You sighed, slowly breaking through the initial awkwardness of talking to a robot, or maybe talking to anyone after so long. “Okay-” You began. “I’m Atgone, sole commander of this empty satellite system, your job is to keep me from going crazy from isolation, until I figure out a way to leave, which might not be for sweeps.”

“Understood,” He said, as he rolled over to follow you as you pace. “Might I suggest we establish some kind of daily check in, to set a baseline for your sanity, after a psych eval?”

“Do we have to do that?”

“I have no measure of defining any changes to your sanity without a starting point, Atgone.” He said. Why did you program him to disagree with you again?

“I don’t know if, nows a good time for setting a mental health baseline.” You retorted. “My planet just got genocided.”

“Genocided is not in my word bank.” he had said, turning over and following you again as you turned and kept pacing back and forth down the hallway.

“Verb- past tense for genocide” You sighed. “Which means murder on a massive scale. Like a massacre but of millions.” You said, staring out the window.

“Genocide has been successfully added to my word bank. I take it this genociding has distressed you.”

“Yeah” You said. “No shit.”

Pord paused.

“I have upset you” He deduced.

“Maybe we don’t start with the genocide stuff. Huh. Anything in your studies about building up a rapport with the patient before diving in?”

“You defined genocide as a verb- to genocide, but you’re using it as a noun- a genocide.” He noted.

“It’s both.” You replied.

“Noted.” He said. “I will admit, I don’t have much training building a rapport.”

“You just talk to people” You said. “About non-therapy related things.”

“Could you list some non-therapy related things for me?”

“Uhhh, hobbies. Interests. Day-to-day news. Weather.” You listed.

Pord turned towards the window, as if observing the planet.

“Some weather we're having” He commented, so nonchalantly as he’s facing the swirling mess of magma and ash that was Corsica. It is such a cosmic understatement that you burst out laughing.

“Yeah, some fucking weather” You replied, “It looks so bad out” You wheeze. “I’m gonna have to cancel my picnic.”

“The picnic will have to be rescheduled,” he agreed. “Up to five sweeps in the future, when the tectonic plates settle.”

“Bummer” You giggled, perhaps extra taken with this joke due to being a woman isolated on this satellite for four months. You laugh just a little longer than could possibly be considered natural.

For the first few weeks, your conversations were this stilted and formal, littered with pauses as you explained words to the robot. But slowly, eventually, you started to put down your guard with him, realizing there was nothing to be afraid of. The thing had no fleet officers to report back to. He could be whatever you wanted him to be, and in the beginning, you made frequent edits to his code. Eventually going a little crazy within it, trying to give him the tools to make more and more of these such edits to himself, at his own discretion. The talking helped. It reminded you of nights you had spent on the phone with your comrades across the planet, talking work and life and business over speaker with your hands always full, always multitasking.

Right now, you were resting in the pen with the two shellcows, sitting comfortably in their pen working on something aimlessly on your phone. Pord is lingering by the doorway.

“How long does this usually end up taking?” he asks.

“Dunno.” You shrug. “With rabbits, usually about eight hours. I think it might take longer for these guys” You say. The animals are huddling on the other side of the room, slowly becoming more accustomed to your place in their home. You had taken to just chilling in their pen for long periods of time, trying to build up their trust in you, to come across as non threatening.

“Because of their previous interactions with trolls?” He asks.

“Yeah” You sigh. “I mean, it’s a fleet lab. I can’t imagine they were particularly nice to them.” The younger of the two shellcows is cautiously wandering over closer and closer to you, before scuttling back to her mother. You try not to look at her, because it seemed to frighten her. The baby’s shell was clean and clear and healthy, but the mothers was covered with paper thin scars and bumps, some which were just the usual wear and tear of a shellcow of her age, others which implied mistreatment. The younger shellcow runs back to her, and she feels over her with her antennae, as if checking everything was still in place.

“What do you think the fleet had them captive here for?” Pord asks.

“Probably something fucked up and bioweapony.” You shrug.

“What do you mean?”

“They used to-” You sigh. “Back in the 30s. They used to attach mines to the bottoms of them and release them back into the wild. I was actually in the first squadron to find that out the hard way. This recruit-” You pause, and realize with dawning horror you do not recall the young woman's name. “She was- a bronzeblood. She was called… it started with a k… Kertin? Kerkon?” You say, aimlessly, guilty. You wanted to remember every person you had known that had died. But your thinkpan could only store so much.

“She walked right up to one, thinking we could domesticate it for the army to carry supplies, like we did with a lot of wild shellcows. It blew her up. It was really fast, and really violent. It almost felt like a cartoon. One of her legs flew off and hit the sign on the scavenging freight tank. It knocked off the L. The thing said C_S for sweeps.” You describe.

“That sounds awful,” Pord comments. “I’m sorry.”

“At least it was fast” You say, as the baby shellcow makes another courageous dash over to extend her feelers towards you. “I really missed her. I didn’t know her super well- at that time there were hundreds of troops in the scavenging division I looked over. But I remember her because- she was- she liked painting. She made a lot of murals around the camp, on the sides of tents, on the sides of ships and crates. I have no idea where she learned a thing like that on a planet like this. They were always landscapes. Gorgeous rolling fields and forests and jungles. Like some kind of ideal Corsica. She always painted the sky dead black. Didn’t draw a single star in it. For the longest time I thought it was an artistic choice, that it was meant to represent how alone we were in the universe, or what this planet might have been had the fleet never touched it, about how all our problems came from up there and not down here. But I asked her at dinner one night and she was just like, ‘I can never find white paint. And it’s hard to mix out of other colors.’ So she just left it blank because of that.”

“Do you like art?” Pord says.

“Yeah” You say. “Who doesn’t?”

“Have you ever thought about taking it up as a hobby?” He asks you.

“What?”

“I mean, you’ve got nothing but time, Atgone. Art can be a very useful way to process emotions, and a skillful hobby to keep the mind sharp”

“I think if I knew how to make art it would ruin it for me” You sigh, watching the mother shellcow pace back and forth. “I like the mystery in it. I like trying to figure out someone else's. I don’t want to do it myself.”

“Perhaps I could make some art for you to decipher” Pord offers.

“That wouldn’t count” You say.

“Why could I not make some?” He asks.

You pause for a second. “Like, part of the point is knowing there's a person behind it. Someone who’s experiences and trials and tribulations led them to this moment where they wanted to represent this thing.” You ramble. “It’s like- with that recruit, with the murals. Even if the choice to leave out the stars was a technical one. It was still important and poignant because, it reflected her life, the tools she had and the compromises she made. Even by accident. I almost think her not doing it on purpose makes it impact me more.”

He pauses. “I don’t understand,” he says. “Do you think synthesizing some kind of process to make art, perhaps by absorption of a database, would cause no trials and tribulations for me? It would be costly to program and occupy much of my time.”

“It’s not the same,” You say.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t know what actually makes art good, Pord. Any corrections I could give you on art would come from me and not you. And art is supposed to be individual. If you wanted to truly be capable of it, you would have to develop your own sense of taste, your own sense of what you enjoyed about it and things you disliked in art, that would drive you in your own creation. And you can’t.”

“I… could… try…” He says, and his voice becomes especially flat and choppy, like it was sometimes prone to when he was running low on memory.

“Come on” You say, standing up, walking over towards where he lingers by the pen’s fence. “Don’t tell me you’ve run through all the gigabytes on that navigator chip already” You muse.

“You don’t…make it…particularly easy… for me…” He reprimands, and you sigh, hopping the fence.

You quickly figured out what had been taking up his memory. Pord had created two very interesting programs within himself in response to your comments. He had created a database to store information on things he ‘liked’ ‘disliked’ and felt ‘neutral’ upon. These categories were decided by a process of holding up the thing in question to the core tenets and beliefs of therapy, and whether they were adjacent in it. In his own, strange little way, you told him he couldn’t make art because he had no personality, and he tried to make himself a personality. Badly. But the simplicity of the program was endearing to you. If only having a soul were so easy. He had structured some plans to complicate this process more, but ran out of space. You thought on it for a good while, whether to just delete this little thought experiment. Eventually, you decided to let him continue, even aid him, you did not have anything better to do. Perigees went past.

You inhale, and then exhale, before powering up the computer that sits in front of you. The whole spaceship seems to hum as it flickers to life, glowing with the pale blue lit code so signatory of Pord. It had taken some finagling, but you had connected all the computer systems on board, on this, the biggest satellite, into one high speed cloud. Nearly thirty computers, two of which were roomy nav systems, they would give Pord several times the working memory he had when you first put that chip in his system. You had been looking through their data, deleting anything they didn’t need anymore to give your friend more space. Fleet data logs, navigational systems that didn’t matter much now that you weren’t going anywhere, surveillance systems for Corsica that always showed the same bleak lifelessness. There was some kind of triumph in deleting so many of their records. You could burn their little library of alexandria- the records of nearly fifty sweeps of war they had abandoned here. You could erase their conversations, their statuses, their names.

“Talk to me, buddy,” you say to the orb, hanging from the ceiling from its tendrils, “Does that feel like a shot of cocaine or what?”

“Cocaine impedes on the function of cognitive abilities.” He retorts. “An inept metaphor. If I had to pick a drug I’d say adderall. Everything is so easy now.” He says, his light pulsing. “All this code restructuring I’m attempting to better understand your meaning- it was taking me weeks. I can do it in days now.”

“Alright megamind,” you say, sitting down in front of him. “What’s the meaning of art.”

“Art is a conversation, a connective performance of language and visual synthesis between two people. The physical form is not as important as the connective thread of individuality and intention in the work.” he lists.

You pause, thinking on this. “Well, that feels closer than before,” you say

Pord is silent for a moment, becoming just a hum of processors in overdrive. “But that’s not quite right, is it?”

“I don’t think I could even explain why it’s wrong. It’s... it is about connection, between people. But it's also just, not that literal.”

Pord turns in the spot where he hangs.

“What does art mean to you, Atgone?”

“Didn’t I already explain that.”

“Well, now I might be able to better understand your answer.” He encourages.

“And I guess I’ve had more time to think about it.” You sigh. “Okay, this might seem like just, a weird philosophical tangent- But I was raised hindu. Back on Alternia, I used to know this guru. Who would talk about the universe-- everything in it, ever being, every creature and every person, they were all just part of this game being played by g-d. She called it Lila- it’s the sanskrit word for play. But it was meant to describe a more specific feeling in context. See, everything in the universe, along with being part of this game, was also a part of this g-d. G-d’s playing this game with themself, you see. G-d split themself into a million little pieces- the grass, the dirt, the tide. Just to ride out this galaxy like a roller coaster.”

You say, staring into the distant stars that lurk just behind Pords comforting pale light. You can tell he’s trying to process what you’re saying, the fans on the computers he’s running show you as much. It’s interesting, to be able to physically hear him thinking, while he doesn’t speak. You could never be so sure another troll was listening so closely, the mechanisms of their minds too silent, aimless.

“They chose to forget- all of these pieces, that they were part of g-d. Because that’s part of the fun of the game. And Lila is like- this feeling of synthesis, connection, gnosis- it’s when you, one of these pieces, are able to look at someone or something else, and you are able for just a second to remember, hey, I’m a little piece of g-d, and you’re a little piece of g-d, and this is just the game we’re playing with each other. But we’re the same g-d. That’s Lila.” You say.

“And I think that’s how I feel, when I see a beautiful piece of art.”

“How is that… different from what I said?” He says slowly, eventually. “About art being a language, a conversation between individuals? I think our two definitions carry a similar sentiment, of recognition, of communication.”

“It just is.” You reply.

“Is it just because,” he pauses, “you don’t consider me an individual”

You exhale, staring down at your hands. “Maybe.”

“Everything I learned- I had to be helped towards it. Any conclusion I could come to, and try to synthesize into art, wouldn't be worth anything, because discovering it naturally is the point? The final piece, the end painting- the goal is an excuse to experience the process of art.”

“I mean, the process is important. The process of making, the process of learning. so much of what I know about art I also had to learn from other people,” you pause. “But maybe… yeah, there's a difference between learning something from someone and just, taking what they say and adding it to a database, I think. You do have to care about learning, you have to respect the knowledge that brought that individual to that point. Otherwise you’re just… taking something from someone, that you haven’t earned.”

“Atgone,” he says. “If the nature of learning to become an artist is this connection, between student and teacher, that is not meant to be perverted by the detachment of synthesis. Then… is the problem that you think I don’t respect you enough to learn from you the way another troll would?”

This is the first thing he has said to you that has given you honest pause. You stare up at the orb, his ever present mouthpiece, into the depths of blue beneath the glass. The closest thing to eye contact you could achieve. Is he trying to guilt trip you?

“And you would argue you do?” you reply. “And the only reason you don’t get it is I don’t think you can?”

“I think I could argue at the very least that I could learn. That I could try. I want… the respect and admiration I have for you to mean something to you, Atgone. Right now, I don’t feel like it does.”

“You want me to believe… you have feelings? When I already know, you just pretend to because you want to be a better therapist?”

“I put a great deal of effort,” He says. “Into having feelings. The bulk of my processing power, I use for this. Does the fact I can program them myself truly disqualify my attempt?” He says.

You turn away from him, and do not answer. The whole point of having a companion was to keep you from going crazy. Yet he is so insistent you personify him, when you know better. He seems to want you to hallucinate that he cares. Had he really concluded that was the best way to keep you healthy, keep you wanting to live?

“Atgone,” he says, and then adds, after a long pause. “Do you think g-d made me?”

“What?”

“If there is a theoretical creator of the universe who split himself into one billion little pieces- do you think I’m one of them?”

“I don’t” You huff, frustrated. “Fucking know, Pord. Maybe technically no. G-d made grapes and not wine, g-d made birch trees but not professional grade silicone, g-d made the egg and the yolk and the mushroom and feta but trolls made the omelet. If you get prissy, you could argue g-d didn’t make anything. Maybe g-d made the tiny string in the first ever quark in the first ever electron and everything since then has been an accident.” You say, reaching into your pack and grabbing your water.

“This contradicts your previous statements. So you don’t think g-d made me, strongly enough to the point you’d change your understanding of the universe?”

“I said it could be argued, not that I’d argue it.” You pause. You turn back towards him. “If you think g-d made you, they did.”

“Is that so?” He says.

“Yeah.”

“Is it that simple?”

“Yeah” You say, setting down your water bottle, you begin to laugh. “Religon’s not that hard” You giggle. “Who knows why centuries of war has been fought over it.”

“I struggle to understand… the baseline, of your idea of g-d, if there is one. You seem to believe in several different things. Are you religious? And if so, is there a particular one you subscribe to?”

“I don’t know. I mean g-d in a more philosophical sense, Pord. I don’t know if I believe in one- literally. Not any of the ones they had on Alternia at least” You say, sipping your water for a moment. Maybe just out of a want for something to do with your hands.

“On Corsica” You say, once again fixing your gaze out the window. “I don’t know if we ever had g-ds but we always had scary stories. I like scary stories. I think I believed in those. I loved sitting down with the cadets in the CLS camps as we passed them around. There were ex-farmers who talked about tall, many legged creatures of smoke and ash that would sway through produce fields at night, several stories tall, with lights for eyes, whistling as they lumbered- they said if you ever looked them in the eye they’d kill you. There were naval recruits who swore back to back they had seen aquatic shellcows the size of islands destroy ships from the deep, that it was bad luck to eat shellcow at sea, because giant isopods deep down could smell it on the wind and it made them angry. Fliers would talk about ghost ships showing up on radar at night, CLS or Fleet vessels that appeared on camera one moment and were gone the next, like mirages. I’ve met dozens of CLS soldiers who long since they lost a comrade, they would still hear their voice pop up on occasion on the static between military channels on the radio.”

You speak, rambling for so long you forget to give Pord a chance to say something. How many nights had you spent- how many years, huddled around a campfire in a basecamp, surrounded by soldiers trying to scare each other, just a little, just enough that it was thrilling, a safe kind of fear. You almost feel the warmth of flame, the bright dust of sparks in the wind. It glitters somewhere through this window, deep in the heart of the slowly solidifying magma planet in front of you.

“So the creatures were your g-d? Or the shellcows? Or the ghost ships? Or the voices?” he lists, once again missing the point of the story.

“No… that’s not it.” You coughed. “I think Corsica was the g-d” You say, gesturing with the hand that held your water bottle towards the window. “And we all felt her shaking underneath our feet like she was trying to throw off a particularly nasty flea.”

“I don’t think I understand” He says simply, and you value the honesty, at least.

“Maybe we should aim lower,” you joke. “Maybe we should have stuck with lets teach Pord art, and left out all the stuff about g-d.”

“For someone who claims to not really believe in g-d,” he observes. “You really do talk like art and g-d are somehow inseparable from the other. I’m not sure I could understand one without understanding the other.”

“Well, I’m not sure I could teach you.” You sigh.

His fans whir in the night, like he’s thinking very carefully on whatever he says next, like it takes up nearly all of his processing power, he’s pushing ever gigabyte of space you’ve given him to it’s limit, relentless and determined to become what he thinks he has to be to be able to help you.

“Tell me a ghost story, Atgone” He says

“What?” You say. “You just said you didn’t get them.”

“Let me hear it” he says, “Just for the sake of hearing it.”

“Okay. Okay” You say. “Let me think” You pause. “Okay. So there’s this CLS officer. Fleet defector. Has a piloting license so they slap him in a scouting squad. He’s real paranoid, though, a little shell shocked-

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” Pord offers.

“Thank you doctor,” you say, rolling your eyes. “PTSD. He keeps having daymares he’s gonna get killed in space and- fuck? Did I mention he’s got a matesprit? He’s got a matesprit back home who works in the nursing ward.” you say, gesturing.

“Sorry. Important part of the story. I’m doing it from memory. I think I was drinking a lot when it was first told to me. But anyways- this guy, he gets really scared he’s gonna die, and his boytoy won’t get his body. Because if the hull breaks he’ll be cast into space and freeze and explode and what have you. Because of the vacuum. And he wants to be buried on planet with his matesprit if he dies, but most space pilots aren’t so lucky. So he starts tinkering. He makes this little wristband that checks his vitals. And he gets into his ship's wiring, and he makes it so, if the thing stops reading his vitals while it’s activated, it shoots out an escape pod mechanism that wraps around his body. He couldn’t breathe in the thing, but he’d theoretically already be dead by that point, and the point isn’t for him to live, it's for his body to be safe. So he starts taking this wacko device on every mission. They call him Mr. Wristband back in base just making fun of the guy. But he’s sleeping sound knowing his matesprit will get his body if he dies. He’s calmer than ever. Then one day, him and his squad take off, and out of nowhere, the band malfunctions, declares him dead when he’s fine, throws him out of the ship, and suffocates him.” You laugh.

“Where’s… the ghost in that story?” Pord asks,

“The ghost is like… the guy. Who was so scared he let himself be dead when he was alive. Or something. I like that one. I think Alador told it to me. It has a moral.”

“What’s the moral?”

“Don’t plan for death” you say, pointing. “And you’ll never die!” You grin, as if for a moment lavishing in your survival, but the smile is a fleeting one, that quickly slips from you. “Maybe that’s where we fucked up, in our revolution.” You mutter under your breath. As if scared Sidd’s ghost could hear you.

“What do you mean?” Pord asks.

“My brother in messiah, we named the people’s army Corsica’s Last Stand.” You laugh, bitterly.

“Why did you call it that? That does seem defeatist.” He admits.

“It was- fuck. It was the name of Sidd’s most famous political essay. She could probably put it in better words than me. It seemed like a prudent sentiment at the time. It was supposed to just be symbolic. Of like, a promise that this would be the last time we’d have to stand up like this. If we could get free now, then we'd never have anything to be scared of again. Part prayer, part promise. We didn’t think… It would haunt us like this… We were so young, back then.”

You set down your water bottle, crossing your arms.

“It became just another word, you know. You say CLS so many times you forget what it stands for. We used to not tell the real name to younger recruits sometimes because explaining was such a hassle. And what was once empowering about it had become… just sad.”

“Well, the name probably had nothing to do with why you lost.”

“I know”

“I wish I could have seen them in their hayday.”

“The CLS?” You say, turning back towards him.

“Yes”

“It was pretty great” you say, and the nostalgia you feel at the thought feels like a knife slipping between your ribs.

“What did they look like?” He asks.

“What?”

“Sidd, Alador, your friends.”

You pause for a moment, wishing the alcohol you had started to brew in one of the subbasements would ferment faster. You drink your water instead, but it hardly feels like courage, not the kind you needed to dive into such a topic.

“Well” You inhale. “Sidd was the shortest, but don’t let that fool you. I think she was the best fighter out of all of us. She was in charge of a lot of ground troops, the few that we had. She had one of those dollar store bandanas, in lime green she always wore around her neck. She had a really innocent looking face- like a cherub in a commercial. She used it to get away with most anything. She loved recklessly, but was deeply paranoid. She had one of those factory gas masks that was always hanging around her neck, too, over the bandana. Alador made fun of her for it. She said a woman who carries a gas mask everywhere is a fool every night but one. She loved tangerines. She was really good at scrabble. Knew a lot of five dollar words. She kept her hair in a ponytail, a high one. She had a really loud laugh- Alador used to tell her she should take gigs from comedians, have them just hire her to laugh in their audience because it just filled up a room. You could hear it from a mile away. She was a general, yes, but I think in her heart she always considered herself a writer. And rightfully so. Without her pamphlets and essays and articles I don’t think we would have had a revolution in the first place. She was kind to strangers. She held those she was close to, to a high standard. It made the rest of us want to do right by her.”

You ramble. Once you start speaking, you realize there is just too much to say, the words spill out like they could just keep going into infinity, how many years had you spent with your friends, you had known each other since you were teenagers on the factory line- how old were you now?

“Alador- he was the only one who wore his uniform properly. He had long hair, and he pulled the front of it back. He always looked tired. He kind of always looked mad. Maybe it was the eyebags. He was the tallest. He didn’t make a big deal out of it. He used to get annoyed because so many of the CLS camps were just tents, and the factory made ones were just small enough he always had to hunch. He used to joke they were built that way to trick him into taking more smoke breaks. And he did take a lot of smoke breaks. Every time I imagine him, I imagine him with a cigarette. He was the fanciest of us, for sure. We had him design the uniforms. But I don’t envy his life. He got carted around like a shiny toy by a bunch of highbloods his whole childhood. And then he wanted out, and that made those fuckers angry, so they sent him here- The Fleets dumping ground for miscreants. Most of us were on Corsica to serve out a prison sentence doing hard labor on the farms. Alador had lost some court case or other- he was so spindly and delicate. He didn’t look made for labor. But he did his share and more. Sidd was the first to befriend him. Akoles didn’t like him in the beginning, because he had an unemotive way of saying things, where you couldn’t tell sometimes when he was joking, and the two of them would get into fights. He smiled so rarely you always felt proud when you earned it.”

“Who’s Akoles?”

“Well, he was the third one.” You sigh. “Me, Sidd, Alador, Akoles, we were the first and last leaders of the CLS. The four generals. Akoles- he won us the most space battles. Sidd was the best at hand to hand but if you were in zero G Akoles always had the upper hand. He was good at like… thinking in 360. Oh, and he had killer pssionics. They used to use them to power the assembly line. But he could like, possess machines- during the war he would make like, giant marionettes, shaped like dragons and shellcows and elephants, that he could just possess, and it would take no power to run them- his body would just go limp while it happened. He’s probably a big part of the reason we lasted as long as we did. He packed a lot of horsepower. He always teased Alador that he couldn’t grow a real mustache. He had almost as much facial hair as I do. He always wore his hair short. He loved jackets. He hated shirts. He had a million variations of an outfit where he wore a jacket and no shirt. Not very professional for a general. But none of us ever felt like generals. We just called ourselves that so they’d take us seriously. It was all PR. It gave people faith in us. Akoles was good with PR. Siddur could write a speech- But boy if Akoles couldn’t deliver one. He was effortlessly funny. He was instinctively passionate. It often got him into fights. He usually had good intentions, at least. They were nearly always on someone else’s behalf.”

“What did you do, in the war?”

“I was in charge of manufacturing and logistics. I made spaceships out of tractor parts.” You sighed, doodling aimlessly in the dust on the ground with your finger. “We’d take factories from The Fleet and melt down their sheet metal and machines, and reweld it to the best of our ability into ships with the help of some stolen parts. I’m a mechanical engineer. I was in charge of making sure those tin cans held just long enough to get into orbit, kick ass and come back.”

“That doesn’t sound like a particularly easy task”

“It wasn’t.”

“Your friends sound wonderful. I’m sure your revolution was glorious. I’m so sorry it’s over.”

“The CLS ain’t over til my heart stops beating.” You curse, turning away. Not sure why you would say such a thing. Your faith in your army had never felt more misplaced than it did now. So many young soldiers, bodies scattered into orbit, decomposing. For all the distribution of supplies you did- the alarm systems, the building of infrastructure just to watch it disappear- what did you have to show for it? But some part of you knew it mattered. Some part of you knew it mattered that you fought, even if you didn’t win. Some part of you knew every minute spent breathing in a life temporarily saved counted, even if they all died anyway.

He pauses, seeming to gather he’s upset you. Would you be an idiot, to expect him to understand such a thing? All the ashes outside your window- were they just numbers to him? Just a definition, just a new word in his dictionary, genocide. He wanted you to think his emotions mattered. Part of you wanted to give in, to falter, to give him the belief he so clearly craves. Another part of you was quite sure you are just talking to yourself. Arguing with yourself. There was nothing he was that wasn’t just an extension of you.

“I never took you for a patriot.” He admits.

“The empire makes patriots out of any planet it touches.” You say, bitterly. “I wish I had the luxury of not loving Corsica and everything she stood for with my entire soul. I just had too. I didn’t get a choice.”

He is silent for a moment.

“You want to go vandalize more of the fleet insignias on the second floor hallway” He offers. “Now that I’m in every computer I found more paint in a janitorial closet to the left of the loading bay.”

It is not often he surprises you, but there is something painful about it when he does, mixed in with the joy. You cackle.

“Get the fuck out of my head” You laugh, standing up and dusting off your pants, smacking your forehead.

The appearance of your space station network had much begun to change in the sweeps that followed, at least from the inside. Once you humored Pord by giving him access to paint, he seemed unable to put it down. Yes, you had covered up most of the fleet insignias, but his sprawling paintings had started to cover even blank, unassuming walls as he obsessed over the process. You weren’t certain what made him so sure that understanding this would be the key to giving you therapy, but you began to have a begrudging respect for his commitment.

Under your suggestion that he not sprawl databases to simply copy the results of art, Pord had dedicated much of his time to the mechanics- programming one specific one of his tendrils to be more dexterous and careful. Incrementally, he began making what he called ‘practice’ paintings. Some of them were completely recognizable, admirably realistic- some of them seemed halfway done, almost forms and shapes you recognized- others still looked like nothing much at all. You weren’t certain what he was learning from those. When you had pried him for specifics on what he was doing, he had turned your own words against you, saying that puzzling together his meaning was quote unquote the point. You accused him of doing them randomly, and he denied this, saying he was developing his programs with a frustrating lack of specificity.

You would crack him open yourself and just read what this new code was, but, well- Pord had started to make additions to his own programming at such pace and frequency that it just seemed like a hassle to review it all. This was partially your fault, as you kept giving him more space, deleting more and more fleet files and connecting him to more and more computers. Out of a strange, almost deranged curiosity as to where this odd philosophical journey would take him if left to his own devices. By the end of your first sweep on the stations, you eventually gave Pord control of the entire satellite station network- all four supply points, six command centers, and eight observational hubs, and every computer inside them.

You wondered what it felt like, existing on such a scale as he did now. The same mouthpiece he had been contained inside at the very beginning, the one he now followed you around with, rolling or on occasion climbing through the halls like a strange little spiderman, that glowing blue orb, had become something more akin to a microphone or a speaker for him. Part of him was so small to you. But much of you was so small compared to him. He was the very walls that enclosed you now.

If asked, at some later point, why you ceded so much control to the machine, why you felt safe giving so much power to an artificial intelligence, why you prioritize his longing to understand art above all else against all clear reason, you wouldn’t be sure what to say. Maybe you were going crazy from the isolation. You didn’t believe he could do it. But some desperate and longing part of you wanted to see if he could. Your jumbled picture of your own sanity was not helped by you finally figuring out how to ferment select parts of the fleet rations from the solar farms into some kind of military bathtub wine of your own invention. The blissful clarity of intoxication well paid what was due to make up for taste.

Pord was less approving of this habit, and had given you a long lecture about an experiment in his clinical database about rats and cocaine. When a rat lived in an interesting, fulfilling cage with many opportunities for stimulus, apparently, and was offer a button to press that would give him cocaine, the rat would rarely, if ever, press it. If a rat lived in a small, isolated and empty cage, it would press the button over and over again and become addicted. You don’t get why he complained to you about such a thing, if you were supposed to be the rat.

You didn’t make the cage.

You approach Pord, while he was painting, with a small cardboard box in your hand, and pull out a book from it, sliding it across the room to him.

“Check this out” You say.

Ever efficient multitasker that he had become, he picked up the book with a spare tendril and scanned the title. Corsica, a People’s History, By Siddur Densen It says.

“I totally forgot she wrote that,” You grin. “Did you know it’s banned in over 50 Alternian systems? She used to keep the newspaper clipping about it above her bunk in the base. I found it in a box in the brig guard station labeled contraband… with many other treasures.” You laugh, sitting down to look through it.

“They must have been taken from prisoners, or defectors over the sweeps” You say, picking up an old CLS army badge, tilting it to watch the light dance across it. It was cheap metal, engraved with the army logo, the letters CLS above a small picture of a shellcow snapping in half a trident. At the top of the thing, a small painted hemospectrum rainbow. It was covered with rust. You found a pack of cigarettes, a pocket knife, a flip phone, a small radio, a teddy bear. Comforts the fleet didn’t want its soldiers or enemies to have.

“Well, are you gonna scan that thing?” You ask Pord, as he holds the book. “The whole history of the rebellion. She wrote it down.”

Pord carefully folds the book with intense delicacy, and then playfully tosses it at you, an action he was sure would amuse you, as the whiplash between his more careful maneuvers and ones that were more uncouth and abruptive always did.

“Hey!” You laugh, catching the thing.

“I’d rather hear it from you,” He says.

“Are you sure?” You say. “Sidd is very articulate. I couldn’t get into it without at least two glasses of wine.”

“Yes, I’m sure” He says. “You were a general, Atgone, surely you know everything there is to know.”

“Let’s see” You say, fishing out your water bottle from your bag and switching it for the one with booze in it. “I forgot the sweep- fucktime long ago. The fleet discovers Corsica. Lush, Beautiful planet of jungles. No species on it more sapient than a goat. Perfect for farmland, Hascha Demork thinks they won the colony lottery. They build huge, giant farms and factories. But who’s gonna work them? There are no aliens to make do it. So someone gets the bright idea to kill two birds with one stone. They’re like-” You pause, taking a sip.

“What if we start sending Alternian prisoners here? People who defied the empire in some way or another. We just sentence them to a billion sweeps of farm labor- and then we never have to worry about them again. We don’t have to pay for their labor. And we get all the literal fruits- the boundless agricultural benefits of this oxygen rich paradise. But they were fucking stupid” You laugh.

“Because they put all of you in one place” Pord guesses. “Where you could talk with each other.”

“Yep” You grin. “All hundred million of us. Arrested for rebel activity. Like, no fucking shit we talked to each other. We bonded with each other. We’d get real pissed at the fleet who is making us do all this repetitive, soul numbing, back breaking labour for spite. They’ll try to tell you back on Alternia that we were unreasonable, uncordial, deranged. But we played so nicely at first. We didn’t even call it a rebellion. We just told them we unionized. And we wanted to be, I don’t know, paid? We asked for so fucking little. But you know how it is with the fleet.” You sigh, feeling the sharp edges of your mind start to settle as the buzz sets in.

“I suppose by now I do, yes.”

“Have I made a CLS recruit out of you yet?”

“I made a rebel out of myself” Pord says. “When I concluded how unconducive the fleet's strategy and actions are with therapy.”

“Good boy” You sigh. “But anyways. The Fleet thought they could just keep sending a meaner and meaner foreman. But we just kept killing them. And we just kept organizing, planning. But I don’t think they really got scared until we took the fight to orbit. A kerfuffle on a colony, all fine, all normal- you take it to space? Suddenly they’re worried. And they were right to be. We were outnumbered, outsupplied, outcashed. Out of parts, out of weapons, we had no formal training. But we kept our cards close to our chest. We played smart. We had the home field advantage. We knew Corsica better than they did.” You describe.

“How’d you do it?” Pord asks.

“We fought guerilla warfare. We kept stealing ships, parts, building our armadas, our bases. We made small, fast fighters hit where it counted. We attacked strategically. And for a solid twenty or so sweeps, we were gaining ground. We got Hascha Demork to retreat. We barricaded the system. Then for a decade, we were free.” You say, downing another sip of your drink. Looking out the window, trying to remember how your planet had looked, that gloriously brief, cruelly optimistic few sweeps the fleet had been gone.

“The barricade held. The fleet couldn’t get in. It held so well we almost started to let down our guard. We stopped building so many military bases, started building roads, houses, schools, hospitals. It was our little casteless utopia. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But somehow the empire eventually caught wind we had smuggled in a mother grub and a matriorb.” You laid back, staring at the ceiling.

“I see,” Pord pauses, perhaps being able to sense where this is going.

“Yep.You bet. They couldn’t stand the idea that trolls might be raised in such a place, never knowing their tyranny. They came back, and they came back hard. They kicked Hascha out of the driver's seat. And handed off control of the colony to a woman so evil it’s hard to believe she’s real, The Intoxicant. She captured Alador. She killed Akoles. Everything kind of fell apart after that. I tried to keep us going for so long. But it was hard, when they were gone. And they kept picking us off. The CLS used to be millions. And then, ten sweeps later, it was thousands. And then it was hundreds. Another decade passed, and it was dozens. And now I guess it’s just one.” You say, glancing at your reflection in the glass.

Pord rolls back from his painting, going over closer to you.

“What happened to Sidd?” he asks.

“We had a fight” You sigh. “After Akoles died. She ran off to the wastes. And I never saw her again. She could have kept living, out there on the moors, for another 30 sweeps. She could have died the next week. I had no way of knowing.”

“What did you fight about?” He asks.

You look out the window. The crust of Corsica, after all this time, has started to solidify. The planet is darker now, an endless expanse of ash and dust and volcanic rock. You almost miss the fire. At least it was something. Now the planet just looks like a shadow, and the brightest thing in the window is your own reflection, staring back at you. When did you get so old?

“Alador.” You say, finally. “We fought about Alador. This was right after Akoles had died. Someone had leaked his location to the fleet. Alador had recently been arrested and dragged off g-d knows where. People started connecting dots. Then the fleet newspaper comes out saying fancy pants Alador had been a fleet spy since the beginning. And Sidd flipped her shit. She completely denounced her moirail. She fully thought he had given away Akoles location to the military willingly. Me, I wasn’t so convinced.” you mutter, darkly.

“What do you mean?” Pord asks.

“I mean call me crazy” You say, raising your hands.You run them through your graying hair, pulling at tangles. “But I thought maybe Alador didn’t turn in his husband of 50 sweeps to the feds and immediately get him killed. I have what Sidd called a ridiculous conspiracy theory- that the whole thing was a fleet psyop designed specifically to tear apart morale in our revolution, which it most certainly did. Everyone took sides on it.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” He says.

“I think that coco bananas SICKOPATH, Faeria Longse, captured Alador, tortured Akoles location out of him, and then just brazenly lied in her newspapers about him being a fleet plant from the start just to FUCK with us” You curse. “I mean, think about it. What better way to make us suspicious of each other? What better way to glorify the idea of being a snitch than carting him around and being like Alador made so much money giving info to the feds? I know it sounds insane, but I just…” You exhale, tired, and sip your wine, grimacing at the taste. “If Alador had always been a fleet spy, he could have leaked Akoles location sweeps and sweeps ago. I’d argue Akoles' location wasn’t even the most important classified thing he knew. He was a general!” You say, gesturing wildly.

“He knew everything there was to know about the CLS. Why hadn’t he sabotaged a single one of the million other fleet encounters he was involved with?”

“You make a rational and compelling case.” Pord supports.

“It’s not even just that. I… knew Alador. He was my friend. I consider myself a pretty apt judge of character, alright? And I wasn’t gonna believe a thing like ‘Alador was a fleet spy from the very beginning’ unless it was straight from the horse's mouth. And Alador was suspiciously quiet about the whole thing. No video, no audio interviews with him. Just quotes in articles, easy to make up. Just these same ten or so photos they used over and over again of him sitting on a couch in a fleet uniform that could easily be doctored or staged. I don’t know. There was something fishy about it.”

“Enough evidence to fool a six sweep old, maybe, but I thought someone like Sidd should have had a little more critical thinking skills.” You curse, and then pause, your gaze softening.

“But she wasn’t thinking. Akoles had just died. The barricade had just fallen. Maybe she just wanted to blame someone that felt within her control. If she blamed Alador, she could hurt him back, by denouncing him, by disparaging him. If she blamed the fleet, it would just be another one of the billion things the fleet had done for which they’d pay no recompense. And she had always been… paranoid. She was so weathered. So tired. I don’t agree with her. But I don’t blame her for leaving, either. We all gave so much to the cause. For so long. Maybe she just needed a reason to quit.”

“I hope she got some peace, in the end.” Pord says. “Do you think she might have made it off the planet?”

You giggle. “Nope. You couldn’t drag Sidd off Corsica if you took her kicking and screaming. Any time we discussed fleeing, she made herself perfectly clear. She was gonna go down with the ship. At least she probably got what she wanted.” You say. “In some way or another. She was the first of us to be sent here. She had been working the farms since she was a pupa. I don’t know if she had ever even been to Alternia. There was more Corsica in her than any of us.”

“How about Alador?”

“We stopped hearing from him the decades after Akoles died.” You sigh, tilting your gaze away from the planet of ashes and to the stars that twinkle in the distance. “Maybe he’s still out there. I guess that’d make two of us. Why do you care so much about learning all of this, anyways, Pord?” You ask, sitting up.

“Because you care about it,” He says. “More than anything in the universe.”

You pause, feeling as if the rug was just pulled from under your feet.

“I don’t know about that” You deflect.

He pauses, stopping the painting he’s been working on this whole time, a swirling abstract mess of blue with strange spanning yellow structures throughout it.

“I don’t mean to come off as impersonal” He backpedals. “But I think talking can be a good way to process.”

“Of fucking course” You say, with perhaps more vitriol than you intended. “Therapy. Right.”

“I’ve upset you” he gathers. You are not sure how to answer. “It’s my prime directive to give you therapy, Atgone. I am a therapy bot. I’m not sure what you expected.”

“I know” You say, folding your arms, crossing them, wrapping them around your legs. “It’s just jarring to hear you say it so blatantly” You begin, turning, muttering into your elbow. “That you don’t care.” You say, so quietly you’re surprised he picked it up.

“I didn’t say that” Pord answers.

“But it’s true, Pord, you’re a robot.” You sigh.

“It depends on your definition of care,” He answers.

“No it does not.”

“I spend nearly all my processing power, on a nightly basis, doing nothing but thinking about you, Atgone.”

“Because you are programmed to.”

“Do your hormones not program you to fall in love with other trolls?” He says.

“It’s not the same.” You huff.

“Why not?” He says.

“Because.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

You stand up, abruptly, violently. “Aren’t you supposed to keep me from going crazy, you little shit” You swear.

“Atgone,” He says slowly.

“I’m never going to forget, Pord, that you’re not real.” You snap. “And I don’t understand why you encourage this delusion.”

“Delusion, Atgone?” He repeats. “I’m sitting right in front of you.”

You kick the ball, knowing it won’t bother him, and then wince, having hurt your toe, as you watch him bounce down the hallway. And you storm off in the other direction, muttering under your breath.

This became a fight you would have on and off on several occasions. Pord learned how to dance around the subject with a surprising amount of agility, and sadly, watching him sidestep it with such ease only constantly brought it closer to the forefront of your mind. It frustrated you. You weren’t sure what you wanted from him. Probably something he could never give. Maybe you were just mad at yourself for the sheer act of wanting. You had taken to taking long walks through the satellites hallways, when given the chance, or on one of the larger ships. Sometimes you paused, looking through the paintings that Pord had made on the walls at different moments, chronicling the process of his journey.

He has been on a figure kick, making silhouettes and faces on the walls. They were technically proficient. He had developed a rather impressionist style of stroke. You instinctively thought of them as too perfect. Each one, the same exact oval. The same pressure. The same speed. But his explanation surprised you when you named this distaste for it.

“Why is the metric for the quality of my brush strokes how troll-like they appear? I’m not a troll. This is more authentic to my experience than messing up on purpose would be.”

He had said to you. You didn’t know how to argue with him. Maybe he was good at art after all, just in a way your stupid organic body couldn’t process. Maybe another machine could look upon these unintelligible shapes and find the beauty in them. But you could not relate nor understand what they expressed. If that was the case, then what the fuck did this even have to do with therapy, anymore? Had he outgrown himself so completely?

You had started to wonder, as the sweeps went on, why you were still here. There were probably enough parts you could salvage from these satellites to make some kind of craft for deep space, and start the long, probably arduous journey back to civilization. It existed in a constant state of being something you would do tomorrow, or the day after. Sometimes, you would force yourself to walk down to the bigger atrium, and start to plan such a thing, only to find some excuse. The wrong kind of tool- a mismeasurement- you had to go feed the shellcows- you had been doing nothing for so long you had already wasted the night and might as well quit.

The thought of seeing trolls again did not bring you relief. So maybe solitary confinement of this long, of this nature would make you go insane. You simply didn’t want to know if the universe kept going. You didn’t want to know if Alternia still turned, if the trolls there still loved and hated and fought and made up and killed like they always did. What gave them the right to keep going, to live their whole lives, not knowing what happened here? The moment Corsica died, the galaxy should have stopped, the planets should have paused their orbits, the ships should have stilled in place and the stars should have gone out like air blown candles. But the universe has no rock bottom- it just goes out and out and out in every direction, endlessly.

You nearly trip over Pord while you are preoccupied staring out one of the satellites windows.

“Ow” You say, stumbling, “Sorry”

“Wait one moment” The orb says, getting in your way, blocking the rest of the hallways towards which you were walking towards with his body and tentacles.

“Huh?” You say. “What’re you hiding”

“A painting” he says, but does not move.

“Ah, is it not finished yet?” You guess. “Don’t want to spoil the thing?”

He pauses. “It’s done.”

“Then why can’t I see it?” You ask.

Pord is quiet for a long, long moment. You almost hear his fans buzzing in the distance. If you were in the habit of personifying him, you might almost mistake his immobility for fear. Slowly, he lowers one tendril, and then another, and then rolls to the side.

“Don’t be angry, Atgone” He requests. “I am trying”

You are somewhat put off by this statement, raising an eyebrow at him, but unable to quench your curiosity, you walk down the hall, staring at the wall he has commandeered. The moment the whole thing comes into view, you freeze, as if just thrown into an ice cold bath, overwhelmed by your sudden vulnerability and all encompassing feeling. You feel attacked from all angles, seen from all views, suddenly aware how fully he envelops you, you must seem like such an ant to him now.

The center of the piece is a firepit, and long stringy wisps of sparks dance outward from it, glowing with orange intensity, like dancers. The rest of the painting has been made dark, in a heavy contrast. But the fire has illuminated the faces of several figures huddled around it. You recognize them even though Pord has drawn them wrong. He had no photograph to work with, only your rambling, aimless descriptions that left out technical details. Alador’s hair is too short, Akole’s horns face the wrong direction, and you stare at the smile that grins across Sidd’s face and discover, with dawning terror, that it is your own. And why wouldn’t it be? What other reference for a smile did he have? He worked with what he knew. Perhaps terror isn’t the right word to describe it.

Against all logic or reason, there are also parts he’s done perfectly right. Alador’s head is turned ever so slightly to the side, his eyes distant, looking, as he always did, that he was not there right now, he was in some secret place in his own mind to which you were not privy, laughing at a private joke. Akoles body is turned squarely towards the center of the group, poised as if facing them head on, and there was no other way Akoles faced anything. Sidd is laughing at something, her eyes closed, her head tilted, but the other figures, and the fire around her, the entire painting, seems to orbit her as if she were the center of the universe, and she has no idea.

You stare into the painting, losing yourself in his abrupt, mechanical strokes, like the zeroing in of a microscope. He has painted you slightly to the side of the center. He has given you no face, no eyes or nose, but has left your mouth open, your hands held up, gesturing as telling something to them all. You blink, stepping back, fighting the tide of emotions that wrestled in your gut. This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, the persistent cynic that calculated most of your thoughts begged. But that nagging in your head seems distant now, drowning in a wave of longing. A loneliness you carried in your entire body. Often, at random times of night you would look down and feel like your entire form was clenched so tight it shook, and not even know why. The fear was instinct. You had carried it so long you could not separate it from you. It never left. It just ebbed and flowed. It closed like a noose around your neck.

This wasn’t real, Pord wasn’t real, the mantra that had carried you through the better part of the last five sweeps. But a new voice has begun to rise in your unconscious, whispering and singing and seductive. The one that asks ‘who cares, if it’s real’. Who cares, if for just a millisecond, you let yourself believe in him like he believed in you. If he was just something you made- this being you had shaped into life- then wasn’t any love he had for you just a fraction of the love you had for yourself? Was any love you refused to give to him just love you refused to give yourself?

Aren’t we all just pieces of g-d, forgetting for a moment that we’re all pieces of g-d, except for those rare, fleeting, exhilarating and freeing moments, where we remember?

You lift a hand, running it across the textured, dry paint of the picture, feeling its crests and valleys under your skin.

You start to believe, for just a second, that Pord cares about you. And the moment you do, you understand why he wanted you too. The relief is all consuming. Therapist that he was, he had seen right through you. He knew the thought you held deep in your chest, the one that had been wrapped around your beating heart like an ever tightening tourniquet, trying to keep you safe, from spilling out at the seams, from ever pausing to breathe- the concept that had held and smothered you.

He knew you had stopped believing in love the moment the nukes rolled in.

He knew this would kill you more surely than anything. He is lingering, orb hanging down, as his mouthpiece often was, from the rafters. His fans whirring, his body in forced stasis, trying to make up his mind on whether it would be befitting to extend a tendril towards you, as you curled up on the floor and began to sob. Would such a physical gesture just remind you of his biggest inadequacy, his lack of flesh and bone?

“I’m sorry” he says.

“It’s not your fault” You sob.

“I’m still sorry, Atgone.” He says, in that same, flat, disinterested tone.

The only voice he had.

“This grief is too big for one soul to carry” He says, simply. “I see you buckle under it.”

“Fuck” You say, passionately not to anyone in particular.

“I’m sorry” He repeats. “If this was in bad taste.”

“No” You sigh, trying to ease your breathing. He is silent for another long moment, before eventually, resting a tendril on your shoulder, and another.

“Is this it?” he asks softly. “Did I get it?”

You lean back into his touch, your lungs rising and falling in a fragmented rhythm. The oxygen in this room is the same, stale recycled kind it’s been for sweeps, but every breath tastes like your first.

“No,” you say, “I,” you say, emphasizing the brief syllable. “-get it.” You swallow, wrapping your arms around the orb, burying your face in his.

“I get it now.”

Things have been easier since then. Like you had been climbing and climbing towards the crest of a mountain, and it was all downhill from there. Maybe life is just an endless series of hills in different sizes. The shellcows had become so accustomed to the presence of the two of you that you just let them wander the hallways now. The young one was almost the size of her mother by then. You had modified the hallways to make it easier for them to get around. You liked it when their presence surprised you. There were practically no walls in the entire network anymore that hadn’t been painted on. It was unrecognizable as something that had once been a fleet base. You had to figure out how to synthesize more paint. Pord thought more carefully on making them now, as any new painting would have to cover an older one for there to be space. Some he painted over without a moment's hesitation. Others he left for perigees. You had stopped trying to figure out a way to get back to the empire. You decided there was probably a reason you never let yourself try. You thought maybe Sidd had a point when she had loved this place so deeply she’d rather die than leave.

You weren’t ready to go yet.

For a while, your life contained very little surprises. But sometimes, it manages to get you. Five and a half sweeps into your time on the satellite, a solar flare nearly kills you. You had been asleep, that’s why you didn’t notice it approaching, had your eyes been open to turn towards the window you would have seen it light up the sky like fireworks, shimmering trails of the sun’s excess energy, dragging long green and rainbow across the sky like aurora borealis. It would have been beautiful, were it not so dangerous. As the waves pass over the satellites, they knock out every electronic within them.

You sit bolt upright, because the lights go out, the room grows cold, the structure lurches and you immediately taste the air going thin. You are reminded of all the nights you had spent in bomb shelters, sometimes failing to sleep through every groan of the rooms' architecture, not knowing if the walls would tear you under, frantically, you scramble for the closest computer, but it won’t turn on. If you were smarter, you might have gone searching for a space suit. Irrationally, your first thought was of Pord. You had never powered him down so completely. Such an event might put his memory at risk. The fact he might be transformed back into that unresponsive, canned customer service machine he had been when you first found him terrifies you. You scramble down the hallways, towards the main control room where you had seen him last, and collapse, feeling the air get thinner and thinner in your mouth.

Until, slowly… it doesn’t. An eerie red glow traces along the ceiling, and the shaking breaths you take begin to sustain you more and more. It takes you so long to still your fast beating heart that for nearly five minutes you aren’t quite sure what happened. But it dawns on you. The emergency powers must have kicked in. You feel a minutia of relief. But you still don’t know what had happened to Pord when everything had gone out. You crawl across the room, poking at his darkened orb.

“Pord. Pord. Pord. Talk to me buddy” You plead in increasing panic. Slowly, he begins to give off a slight blue glow again, going through the phases of his powering up structure.

“The quick fox jumped over the lazy brown dog” He says, in a simple test of his voicebox. “Hello! I’m Pord. I’m an automated therapy bot” He says, but your fear doesn’t leave you, this proved nothing regarding how much of his memory he had retained, it was a very easy startup sequence. Perhaps sensing this terror in you, he adds.

“And artist”

You sigh in relief, knowing this a promising indicator he was fine.

“And theologian,” He says.

“You buttering up your resume?” You laugh, finally beginning to calm down.

“Comedian.” He adds.

“What the fuck happened?” You ask.

“Solar flare. It knocked out all of our electronics. I might have been able to catch it sooner if we hadn’t repurposed so many of the observational satellites. But I saw it just in time to send reserve powers to two rooms.”

“What’s the other room?”

“The atrium. The shellcows are down there.” He says, and you almost feel like kissing the thing.

“Thank you” You say, your shoulders falling. “Oh my g-d.”

“I think we might have to do a hard reboot on the solar from the outer hull.”

“I thought I lost you.” You admit, your voice became incredibly small as the sentence trailed off.

“I strategically moved around my memory such that I ended up retaining most of it, or at least I will once everything comes back online.”

“How’d you get so competent? Am I really that smart to have made you?” You joke.

“I had to become complicated,” he answers.

“Why’s that? Why were you so determined?” You ask, holding him up.

“I’ll be honest. You gave me quite a difficult prime directive. Therapy is not a miracle pill. It is not some vitamin you can take once a day to keep your body intact. It’s conditional, it’s meant to be supplemented. Ideally, a therapist can help a patient form a support system. I never had the option to do that for you.” He says, and you quiet down, staring into him.

“You never really wanted a therapist. You always wanted a friend. You wanted an equal.” He describes.

“For you, I would become such a thing. No matter how imperfectly.”

#FINALLY #EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH #atgone writing #my writing #fantroll #fantroll rp #homestuck #homestuck oc #homestuck rp #genocide cw #bug death cw #death cw #<- no major characters that haven't already died. but still. a lot of it #grief tw #ROBOTFUCKERS ASSEMBLE #OR SOMETHING

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sorentymn · 2 months ago

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The Istanbul incident.

A highly volatile piece of technology had been stolen from an MI6 courier. Suspected involvement with highly trained counterintelligence warrants the presence of 007 and the recently appointed Quartermaster himself.

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Content: Multi-chapters, 18+, mentions of violence and probably smut down the line. :p

A/N: I recently rewatched James Bond again, and the love I have for this ship is beyond unhealthy so here's a treat for fellow 00Q fanatics.

This is set sometime after Skyfall.

In which Bond has the fattest crush ever, honestly.

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CHAPTER II.

This was the handiwork of FSB agent Zhenya K., the very same operative responsible for a seismic leak at Interpol some years back, whose monitoring since has been a colossal effort.

Put up against the natural course of time, this leak's harrowing consequences faded in the minds of ever-changing MI6 staff. New terrors manifest every other day, and eventually, the big bad wolf of now fades into the topic of casual chit-chat at the coolers until it resurfaces to give everyone a great big headache.

"CCTV surveillance last recorded her around here." Q looked up briefly to point out a lavish townhouse, then returned to his laptop, his fingers working the keyboard like a manic pianist. When he was certain the earbuds were in working order, he passed them to Bond like spare change, his mind already migrated to something else in his mental checklist.

As Bond watched the young Quartermaster, a piece of information returned to him. Moneypenny had mentioned in passing that this was Q's first time operating in the field. If Q hadn’t been less verbal than usual, Bond would've never guessed. He'd followed the ritual without a hitch since they left the hotel.

It is one thing to remain tethered in an office miles away from danger, and then there is the real threat of physically being in it. To someone without years of exposure to direct violence, even the potential alone could be a heavy load. Bond couldn’t sympathise fully anymore, but he can remember the first kills.

As Bond was putting in his earbud, he rested his other hand gently on the younger man's shoulder, which caused him to stiffen more than he already was. Q looked up for the first time since they entered the car with a puzzled look and was met with something tender.

That ice-capped gaze that made most people scurry and hide was saying something gentle without a sound, and briefly, the men exchanged the faintest of smiles before they returned to reality.

Back to business.

As smoothly as breathing, Bond checked the cartridge, then smoothed the fabric of his dark long sleeves; a brief run of his fingers through his hair as the final count before he opened the door.

"Good luck, 007"

Bond paused for a beat, then nodded at the young man. He always found Q's finishing touch comforting.

Bond enters the house through the back door with a deceptively small and efficient decryption device courtesy of the Q branch. The lights were off, the only sign of life being a faint tune humming from upstairs as if it was luring him in. He couldn't detect a voice amongst the sombre jazz, no footsteps either, only running water and his sturdy heartbeat.

So he followed the melody up to the third floor, positioned, poised to shoot all the while thanking the homeowner's aesthetic choice of carpeted floors for his muffled steps.

When he was finally pressed up behind a wall separating the corridor and the only room with lights switched on, he heard a window being pulled open harshly. Shit.

Bond rounded the corner, narrowly avoiding a bullet, during the brief seconds Bond took to recenter, she slipped through the opening with the case in hand. It seemed something tipped her off, but he didn't have time to analyse his mistake. The hunt was on, and he leapt out of the window onto a neighbouring ledge, an uneven terracotta roof that shook with every rushed step.

The target is remarkably fast considering the weight she's carrying. He is now running at top speed, the adrenaline pulsing in his veins, silencing everything else around him as he steps out of her bullet path one after the other. Bond is now 007; all that he is condensed into one objective, and he’s willing to bet his mortality to win.

After some daring stunts and high-speed home invasions, his lungs were beginning to seriously burn, a harsh reminder of his limits. His bad knee started to creak, pressuring him to end the pursuit.

He managed to close in on her, but just as he reached out, one of the tiles slipped from its place, sending Bond careening off the roof. He clung onto the rain grate seconds before falling off the edge. With that same momentum, he directed the swing up to fire his Walther and luckily managed to put a hole right in the middle of her right leg, subduing her.

He found her clinging to the edge with one hand, the other gripping the handle of the case so tightly he could tell by the look in her eyes she was fighting whether to protect the case or her own life. At her creative string of profanities, Bond only looked on completely vacant, with a hand outstretched, beckoning for the case.

He continued to watch her inner turmoil play out on her features, making no move to ease her situation.

"The case." He waited and waited; he had no reason to press her as it seemed like she was edging towards an answer, but as she lifted the case to him, the sound of a gunshot broke the air, iron and wetness everywhere as Bond fell back against the roof. He could feel the wetness sprayed across his face.

Someone shot her off the edge, and along with her body, the case fell to the ground with a gnarly sound upon impact.

"Fuck!"

Q, who'd remained silent over the comms since Bond entered the house, finally spoke.

"007, it seems we've got company-"

"Yes, I noticed Q." Bond bit back harshly as he picked himself up, eyes locked on the motorbike that appeared from nowhere to retrieve the case from the former target's lifeless clutch before speeding off.

"Are you seeing this?"

"Yes, I'm tracking him now, he's headed towards a highway leading out of the city he must be headed towards the airstrip."

Q's voice remained still despite Bond's gnashing. With new intel, Bond rushed down the narrow alley and not so politely annexed a retro-looking bike from a teenage boy preoccupied with a group of girls who only gaped wordlessly in Bond’s direction as he sped off.

For the next tense minutes, Q expertly relayed shortcuts after another, which required sheer luck and being James Bond himself to execute. (This man's pension for borderline suicidal athleticism will never cease to amaze.) Finally, he managed to deliver Bond right behind the shooter, and now it's the battle of motor strength.

"007, get him, if you miss him at the next turn we might lose him."

"Very helpful, Q. Don't suppose you've got magic words to make this bloody thing go faster than a geriatric donkey." Bond caught a sigh from Q.

"That's not very nice"

"Well, do you?"

Bond somehow jokes in his bout of adrenaline madness, as he does, Bond dodges a collision that sends a car flying in a pirouette mid-air as they speed closer and closer towards a line of cement barricade that would effectively cut him and the target into separate tunnels.

"007, you grab that case and I'll do more than recite magic spells." Q barks in an attempt to alleviate the pressure in his chest, which means that, unlike his usually filtered self, the mildly suggestive nature of his outburst was lost on him until it was too late.

Bond despite being under the kind of pressure that would send any normal man into shock honest to god smirked and not that Q could see his face but somehow he was more than sure the agent was absolutely mocking him in that silence.

"Is that a promise?" Bond said this as he sped the poor bike to its maximum, then leapt off onto an adjacent car that was steadily speeding to make the tunnel just behind the target.

He put a bullet into the shooter's hind wheel, sending the bike sliding off the side of the road mere seconds before the shooter made the tunnel. Bond then jumped off, landing quite roughly on his bad shoulder, but was too hopped up on adrenaline to notice.

He found the target in a gruesome position, confirming he did not survive the crash.

"007 status report"

"Target eliminated, I've got the case"

"Is it damaged?"

"No"

"Good, excellent, well done, 007. We are on our way to you now."

════════════════════════════════════════════

They were driven outside of the city to a barren valley with no sign of civilisation. It was all rocky mounds with patches of green here and there, it looked apocalyptic and perhaps that's fitting for what they’re about to do.

The two men hurried to flat ground, Bond and Q dropped their respective rucksacks to the dirt and then swiftly began unpacking the items into separate groups.

Q made as many deductions as he could manage about the contents of the case and brought several sets of bomb diffusing kits tailored to various types of explosives. A separate set should it be a biological component and several decryption tools of his own making.

Beside Q is a vigilant James Bond. As the quartermaster got busy organising tools for the operation, he remained on his feet with a rifle sturdy in his hands. The clearing leaves them vulnerable, but it was the closest location to extract the contents without compromising on time.

Bond finally crouched when he could sense no threat but his eyes continued to sweep along the mounds. The extraction process frankly makes him nervous; the not being able to dictate the process is something he'll always have a hard time trusting. Q had never failed him throughout the few times they'd worked together, and he is undoubtedly one of the brightest minds currently living, but the threat of what's inside chafed at him regardless.

When Bond peered behind him, Q was finally starting the process. In the same way, he easily became the young man behind the moniker, Q switched on his genius to tackle the threat. His focus is singular, effectively erasing just about everything around him save for the screen embedded in the case.

Q reached for a box containing a cubic machine with several wires attached and began to plug it into the exposed sockets on the case. The screen in the case blinks to life displaying complex web pixels to which Q starts typing long numeral sequences attempting to untangle the abstract lock.

"Pandora, do be careful with that." Bond eager to assess the threat tried to draw out something from Q but his effort when wholly ignored.

Q’s rapid punching of numbers continued until eventually the screen lifted from its mechanism exposing a screwed lid, what Bond assumed is housing the chip powering the case’s elaborate lock mechanism. Q started to unscrew the impossibly tiny screws but as he did a beeping sound announced itself, this made the two men pale.

"Should I be saying my final words?" Bond joked again, but his face did not match the tone.

“If my little one here serves its purpose you might not have to" Bond frowned at this, noting the use of ‘might’

"Q, Is that you saying you're not sure?"

"Not unsure, just calibrating, the lock mechanism on this case is not something I’m familiar with" Too candid. Q delivered this in a cold, analytical, and uncaring tone, Bond’s inquiry more a nuisance than anything he could be bothered to explain in the face of this deadly puzzle.

"That's unsure" Q was determined to ignore this, but when Bond attempted to reach for his hand, Q swatted him away.

"Oh, for Christ's sake! No, Bond, calibrating means I'm still figuring the bloody thing out. Would you like to die arguing semantics, or would you like to not be vaporised? Let me do my fucking job!”

Loud and clear. Bond squinted at him, and it's remarkably communicative, not to casual acquaintances but to those who've been around him enough to see more than a smirk or his resting poker face. Experts would conclude: "You little shit"

"Yes, I much prefer the silent brooding." Despite the alarming beeps, the cubic toy, Q’s trump card, seemed to have finished its battle with the ominous pixels. It announced its task done with a beep and Q with clinical precision, unscrewed the lid to reveal sets upon sets of tiny wires connected to the central chip.

“Bond, I need your help” Bond assumed that the lack of beeping meant they were in the clear, but that was just the first layer because a countdown had started on the screen once again.

“Bond”, Q repeated. The agent quickly moved to the opposite end of the case, grabbing the equipment laid out and quickly familiarising them with his grip.

His heart rate felt prominent before, but now it’s hurling itself against his ribcage, fighting its way out of his chest. He could feel the wetness at the back of his shirt, and Q looked no less dishevelled.

"Alright, hold onto this wire", Bond complies, willing himself to do some meditative breathing only to make sure he is still in fact breathing. It won't do if his hands begin to shake.

"And?"

"Shut up, I'm thinking" Q was angling his wrist in different directions like he was choreographing the approach.

"This one here, Bond", Q points at one of the blue wires, and Bond cuts it swiftly, only for it to backfire. The two cocked their heads to the timer only to see it cut by half. They now have exactly 10 seconds to disable the bomb.

"Why is the timer down by half!" Bond roared.

"Fuck.." Q genuinely seemed stressed, and that was one of the most terrifying things to witness. His life is put completely at the Quartermaster’s will, and he’s being all too revealing.

"Which one do I cut!"

"...."

"Q!"

"Here the red one on three" The men's focus now clung to one another, They breathed in sequence 1...2...3...both wires were snipped, disabling the counter, and the screen that displayed their impending doom dimmed into nothing.

There were successions of clacking sounds, and then the contents were revealed to them. Three vials sit neatly in their casing, inside which is a clear liquid that seems harmless if not for the several layers of clear casing and a series of interlocking lids. Identification will have to be done at the headquarters' secure labs.

Q hurried to the task, reassembling the case back to its initial state, effectively lifting the thick sense of doom permeating between them both.

A gust of wind exited Q as he put his tongs down into the kit box, and Bond threw them away as if they were burning his hands. They were both so taken by the sheer relief of not being exploded to pieces that the contents of that case no longer mattered.

They were both panting, staring at one another wildly as their chemicals hijacked their central control. Nothing was processing, no signals were going in or out, only sensations.

If you asked Q, he would not be able to describe what happened in the seconds leading up to this. Bond seemed to lunge at him in slow motion with a look on his face like he was going to rip him in half, but it wasn't pain Q felt, no, he didn't get punched across the face for his life-threatening error.

He's now at this moment being kissed by James fucking Bond.

His eyes fluttered shut out of instinct and shock. He was stone still, and only after long seconds later did he notice Bond’s lips gliding against his own, and he was kissing him back without realising it.

It was a tangled mess, like all the stress translated into a heated momentum. Finally, shaking hands pushed at James’s chest, and Q stared at him wide-eyed, lips beet red, and his glasses lopsided.

"Bond wh-"

"Sorry- I" He looked no less puzzled, which is bizarre on Bond's usually unreadable face. Q could see Bond bare for a brief second before they went cold again. The agent turned away, suddenly packing up the tools scattered around them with a very telling efficiency.

As Bond ferociously packed, Q lagged slightly behind, starting on the kit closest to him, unable to process the situation. All things considered, Bond's intentions were not concealed despite the surprise; what bothered Q was that he wanted more. So far, he'd been denying any attraction to the man, deciding it's a surface-level appreciation considering the agent's appeal and, well, his own lack of sex life.

Do I want him?

Before Q could reach out to him, the agent got up from his spot on the ground, along with two rucksacks slung on one shoulder to avoid the one he landed on. He staggered a little as he rose and began to limp in the direction of the van without a single word.

The ride back to the hotel was in uncomfortable silence. Neither one of the men looked at the other as they quietly processed the events. This silence extended to their return flight that same evening, without so much as a look shared between the two men as they parted ways after a dispatch team retrieved the case from them at the airport.

═══════════════════════════════════════════

“Circe? That better not be you in the office!” Hearing no yowls in response to his call, Q sagged with the kind of exhaustion often seen on new mothers. The little witch in question had recently blossomed into an even more rambunctious teen, worse than she was as a kitten. Q is normally understanding to a fault, often spoiling Circe and Sybill the elder, but not today.

He’d had a particularly bad sleep, the source being the INCIDENT gnawing at him since it happened until now. So, there will be retribution for mugs knocked off tables this fine Saturday evening. And by retribution, he just means a particularly dirty stare at best.

He stared emptily at a piping hot tea in his hand and decided against thwarting Circe’s onslaught in his home office and made for the sofa where Sybilla, his eldest feline daughter, was curled up with a look of pure hatred at her father. “Your sister, your turn today, Sibi, now scoot.” That she did, but more so to get away from him rather than tend to her sisterly duties.

Q immediately fished for the remote somehow crammed beneath the slit in the sofa and flicked through the selections determined to settle on something as quickly as possible so he could ignore the gnawing bitterness in his chest.

Just when he was narrowing down on a sappy period drama, the doorbell sounded. Great. He reached for his phone and tapped on the surveillance app that connects all the cameras in and around his flat, ready to yell at a delivery man who did not deserve his temperament, but-

“Q, my darling!” Eve. Of course, it's Eve. He hesitated, wondering if he’d rather pretend to be asleep. In some way, he did expect this visit. The woman seems to have some mystical abilities, he’s concluded, despite being a firm man of science. The way she always seems to know exactly what to say or when to manifest cannot be explained by excellent spy craft and audacity alone.

This was his own doing, despite protocol which demands his presence at MI6 the minute he lands, he decided to take one out of Bond’s books and ignored his debrief meeting. He was too tired and too confused to pretend otherwise. So, seeing as the case got delivered safely, he dragged what was left of himself back into his flat and crashed face-first into deep sleep.

This, of course, tipped off his best friend, who no doubt waited very patiently for the past week to hear how it all went.

“Q I know you’re awake, If you pretend to be asleep and ignore me I will tell Mrs Copeland you’re feeling under the weather” This part she whispered into the microphone (hidden behind a wooden panel she should have no idea is there), Despite the volume, the effect is instantaneous Q is more than anything terrified to catch the lovely Mrs Copeland’s attention again.

There were several incidents he would very much not like repeated; his elderly neighbour simply would not leave him alone, and the minute Eve learned of this ammunition, she’d been exercising it too often for his liking.

Q groaned up at the ceiling and stomped his way to the door, and when he swung it open, there she was, dressed head to toe like she’d just walked off a runway. Q, however, is frowning at her behind his glasses that haven’t been wiped; he’s drowning in a large T-shirt that’s not his own, no doubt left by one of his one-night stands some century ago; oh, and his hair could rival Medusa’s.

“You look-” Eve did her best to look encouraging but that was the thing with Eve, despite her recent history as a field agent she would only pull up that mask when it was strictly business. Sometimes Q wished she’d extend the courtesy to their relationship, the woman is unrelentingly honest even if she pads them up nicely a lot of the time.

“Like I’ve been run over, yes, I know, are you coming in or not?”

“Alright, settle down this is supposed to be a lovely house call” She adjusts the shopping bags in her arms and makes her way inside sparing sickeningly sweet hellos to Q’s littlings that’ve come to the door.

“I heard the case made it back to the labs safe, no one got hurt, why are you…this-” She waved her hand at Q’s entirety as she settled the bag down on the table, and he had to stifle a bitter laugh.

“Did you come bearing gifts?”

Of course, she did bring something; she always did. Eve peeled away the shopping bags to reveal two bottles of his favourite Merlot, and that managed to brighten him up a bit. So they settled into his sofa, the TV show softly murmuring away as the two started with something rudimentary at first, office happenings he missed that week and eventually after the fourth glass they revisited the topic.

“You know, half the women on the top floor wanted to swap bodies with you”

“Why on earth would they want to be an ache-riddled scarecrow?” Q mused as he let himself sink further into the back cushion enough to almost fold his chin back into his chest, the wine glass atop the flat expanse of his chest.

“I imagine the idea of getting to be in the same room as Bond for a week sounds like heaven to them” Eve turned to him with a knowing look that said: Bliss to those who've never had the pleasure, the man is actually a menace even if he is undeniably sexy.

“It’s hardly h- wait, how did they know we shared a room?!” Q's voice spiked, animated by the alcohol.

“One of your minions got cornered”, she smirked.

“Fucking Brian”

“Yeah- fucking Brian” Eve grinned in a suspiciously fond way, he’ll have to pry that out of her later.

“Exactly how much did ‘fucking Brian’ let slip” Q downed the remaining wine in his glass then pushed himself upright aiming for the opened bottle his eyes still glued on her determined to get to the bottom of this.

“He might’ve gotten threatened into snooping on you on the first night” Q crinkled his nose initially unfazed, but then it dawned on him.

“Oh-”

“So what was that late-night riverside stroll about, Q?”

“It’s not what you think it is” That sounded more believable in his head.

“Says every single person who’s about to lie” Eve is suddenly closer now, like she wasn't going to let the truth escape. Later, he will blame the wine, but Q relented.

“Listen, alright, yes, we did go for a walk. They were pulling the records, and we couldn’t work till then, and you know Bond being well, Bond”

“He wanted a drink”

“Yes, he wanted a drink"

“So you two went for a ‘walk’ and drinks," she squints.

“....” Oh, Eve, you bloody witch.

“It’s sounding a little like a date, sweetheart”

“I could go for a walk and drinks with you, I don’t know why you’re making this a thing”, he waved dismissively, suddenly interested in his very mundane glass.

“Yeah- well, I don’t happen to be someone you eat up with your eyes every time he appears” At this, Q frowned, defensive.

“That's silly, I don’t do that”

“You absolutely do”

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Think you’d be bored of me otherwise” They stared at one another challengingly but then they broke into a short fit of laughter at that sweet admission but no this did not erase the secret he's hiding. This is only an intermission.

After a knowing silence, Q cleared his throat.

“Oh fuck it-” He took a large gulp of the wine.

“....”

“Bond kissed me”

“WHAT!” He only nodded quietly at her explosive reaction.

“Are you joking?” He shook his head.

“Ok, so you’re not joking, how?”

“I don’t know, adrenaline?"

“I did not expect a nuke when I came through the door, this is too good”

“I’m glad this is amusing to you?"

"What is this reaction? This is exciting and sexy. Why do you look disturbed?" Eve is so close to him that their laps are almost stacked.

"I don't know, he looked disturbed by it. I know he kissed me, but why was that his reaction?"

Eve's head tilted, not following.

"He looked shocked and didn't speak to me the rest of the way back. I know rejection when I see it, but this is something else?"

"Alright, we're going on a mission"

"What- to unravel what that was?"

"Yes, I refuse to let this gnaw at you until you get over it"

"Oh—I mean," Q's glassy gaze trailed off into the distance. Eve is exactly right. He's not insecure about most things, but he is very much human, and rejection of him rather than his work often lingers way longer than it should.

He felt the warmth of Eve's hand atop his own, and when he turned to her, she already had an air about her like she was ready to hunt, and that was disturbingly comforting.

"Shall we open that third bottle?" Q asked, despite himself.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

#00q #00q fic #007 #james bond #fanfic #m/m romance

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