Climbing Up The Walls

fic: our hell is a good life

balphas — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 03:18:39 GMT

our hell is a good life
Misfits
one-sided Nathan/Simon, R, 4248 words.
disclaimer: Not even a bit mine. All to E4/Howard Overman.
warnings: POSSIBLE TRIGGERS for frank talk about suicide, depression, and repeated suicide attempts/actual suicide.
notes: Spoilers for S1 and S2. Written for this prompt off the kink meme.
summary: It's years into the future, and Nathan is the only one left. Well, sort of.

pull me out of the aircrash,
pull me out of the lake,
i'm your superhero,
we are standing on the edge.
( lucky, radiohead )

Nathan remembers, very clearly, how it felt to fall off that roof; to feel the spike-sharp hot poker pain of his ribs breaking, of his organs being skewered, of his back snapping and his neck whiplashing, all of his muscles strained like rubber bands for a few agonizingly long seconds, and knowing, above all else, that he was dying. He didn’t have time to think, to say ‘I don’t want to go like this’, or ‘ooh, how terribly, hilariously unfortunate’; there was only the free-fall, the too-quick time to realize that it hurt like a fucking bitch, to experience that hurt until his bones cried out, and then to let his mind float off into crippling aether.

The deaths that follow aren’t remembered so clearly. He’s died so many times that the novelty of it has worn off, and he’s left with memories of split-second explosions of pain, and sometimes, thankfully, no pain at all. He likes to try and make light of them, his deaths; but it’s getting harder and harder to convince himself that it’s all well and good and not a fucking curse, like he’s been denying it was from the very start.

Oh, he would have (and has) willingly (well, that’s debatable) died to stay among his little ASBO mates, but that time’s since passed. It’s just—there has to be a point at which it all stops. Right? One day where he can retire from this constant dead-end job of existing, from repeating the cycle eternally. It’s been so long; there’s only so much a guy can take, and Nathan’s been taking it up the arse from this immortality shit from day one.

+

It's one year later. They're famous. Nathan kills himself on purpose for the first time, for an audience, in a glass booth.

It's two years later. They're on the run.

It's five years later. Nathan kills himself on purpose, alone, with his forearms staining the bathrooms of the community center.

It's twenty years later—

+

“Nathan?”

He looks up, and there’s Simon. Buttoned-up, dark-shirted Simon, looking immaculate and sharp-angled as always, but older. He takes a seat next to Nathan on the worn down park bench (half ashen with dark soot, rust, mold, and what have you), and looks at him with those big creepy eyes and his strange little half-smile.

“What’re you leering at, weirdo?” Nathan says, by way of greeting.

Simon, who’s learned to filter most of Nathan’s trash-talk, shakes his head. “I wasn’t leering. I wanted to join you. You looked lonely.”

“Who’s lonely?” Nathan scoffs. “I’ve got me, my wank hand, and readily accessible trousers. The holy trinity of good company.” He wiggles the fingers of his right hand in Simon’s face, and Simon flinches back, a vaguely disgusted look pulling the corners of his mouth into a frown.

Nathan's pretty sure Simon also wants to know why he's kept his sense of humor all these years; it seems immature and silly, but it's the best defense mechanism Nathan's come up with, and throwing that away just for an excuse to mope openly doesn't seem like something he wants to do. Ever.

So he returns to staring out over the Thames, legs crossed at the ankle and hands deep in his jacket pockets, and Simon just sits with him. And after a minute of pseudo-companionable silence, Simon starts, stops—(“Don’t be shy,” Nathan encourages sarcastically)—then says, “Are you okay?”

“I really don’t know if you noticed, seeing as you seem to be a bit slow in the head, but I happen to be a picture of a perfect health. All the time. Comes with the whole 'immortality' thing.”

“I know. I meant—” Simon motions to his head.

“Yeah,” Nathan says. “Yeah. ‘Course I am.”

“Are you sure?” Simon says, skeptically, so Nathan sends him a glare and the two-finger salute. Time was when Nathan would badger the shit out of Simon just for being in his general vicinity, for being the easy target, but now the effort is just too much to contemplate on a lazy dreary evening on the too-still water. It’s not like he's being paid to do it. His genius needs an audience, sure, but that audience isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; so they both lapse into pensive quietude once again.

And anyway, Simon does have a bit of a point; if Nathan had anything resembling a conscionable sanity before, it’s wandered off to play in someone else’s sandbox by now. He doesn’t miss it. The same way he doesn’t miss his mum, his dad, his—Jamie, and—

It’s dark before Nathan picks himself up and heads back to the dilapidated building that was once the community center. He doesn't look back to see if Simon's following him. There are no footsteps but his own; and there haven't been, not for years.

+

Nathan's young, really young, when he learns about death. Maybe he was born with the innate knowledge that things die, all of them, in time, but clearly he was never given to understand the exact nature of the end. He knew it for real when his pet flopped over in its cage, breathing harshly for a good minute until its throat closed up, and then much later with Tony and Gary, and then with Jamie, and then with...

When he thinks how long he'll last, it makes him kind of sick.

+

Somewhere along the way, it stopped being suicide and started being routine. It's probably the most idiotic, life-affirming piece of shit habit he's ever gotten into.

+

People say that a lot has changed when they want to say that they've changed, but nothing much has changed at all, not Nathan, not anything, really. Things are still in the same places as they were when Nathan came into this world; foundations, flyovers, most buildings, the housing estate. The grass is browner now, the skies darker, more polluted. Nathan doesn't pay attention to politics or world events. Hasn't ever. Doesn't like being informed, because being informed means a loss of naivety that he regrets not ever holding onto hard enough, back when he was... unconcerned with that kind of thing.

Sure, there are people missing from the world. Death does that. But what's a few lives to a whole world of people who don't know your name?

A lot, apparently.

He remembers being in the public eye. The press, the paps, the talk shows. Everyone suddenly interested in these five criminals, the ones who were hit by lightning out of the blue—by a storm that nobody knew the origins of—while trying to live their lives, do their community payback, maybe fuck and fuck up a little more before re-entering into polite society. Hindsight is 20/20.

Nobody's government likes the idea of felons—kids—with powers. Shit got heavy, as it always does, and one of the only guys left with a superpower to stump them all was one they couldn't kill even if (when) they tried, so. Goody for him.

So now he keeps his head down. Used to live at Simon and Alisha's for awhile, then Kelly's old place, tried to find footing with Curtis. Always comes back here. Don't ask him why; he doesn't know, other than the vicious compulsion he has to hold onto his memories, fast fading, which is just sentimental and an utter shit reason, and he should be ashamed of himself.

He used to be so good and letting this stuff go. Water off a duck's back. No problem.

Things are just a lot more fucked up than they were all those years ago.

+

On good days, he sticks around to chat it up with Kelly or Simon or Curtis or whoever happens to stumble across him when he's up in his loft; on bad days, he takes another pill bottle and swallows the lot before he goes to bed, in the hopes that maybe—just once—he'll actually die this time.

+

Inside, he sees Alisha and Simon for a brief moment as they chat next to the stacked chairs, but they're gone the next moment as he passes them on his way to the kitchens. He keeps it pretty stocked. There's still a wealth of stolen booze from when he and Simon used to raid the liquor stores; Nathan, the distraction, and Simon, invisibly sneaking out the drinks. He goes into town and buys pizzas sometimes, sometimes goes to all those new and shiny high-tech restaurants.

After everything happened, he inherited his mum's car and drove to London, then Portlaoise, then a comprehensive tour around the rest of Ireland; he stayed in hotels and blew all his parents' money trying to get away from everything, then came back to Thamesmead a slightly more broken man than before.

The thought of getting on a plane to America interested him once, but he didn't have the funds, and he doesn't really want to leave the continent. He could easily live in his mum's house, or even his dad's, but all the good memories are in the community center; it's sort of become his home now, and leaving feels a little bit like betrayal.

+

He's 22 when things go to shit. Good number, right? And after everything, surprisingly, his first thought isn't 'I want to die'; it's 'what the fuck do I do now?'

Then, it's 'where do I buy a gun?'

+

He hasn’t tried decapitating himself, and he doesn’t want to go up to some random person and ask them would you please take this axe and swing it at my neck repeatedly until the curly bit on top’s fallen off, because he’s just not that invested and making himself look more insane than usual. He’s tried drowning himself, but that never works; he doesn’t have enough control over his body to make it stop fighting to live. He always surfaces, coughing and spluttering for sweet, gorgeous air, and spends the next few days wondering just what made him do it in the first place.

(It’s the worst feeling. Worse than falling off a building on a fence, because that’s usually quick, and the pain is sharp and fleeting. Drowning is burning, horrible darkness. Submerged in a substance that ceases to be water and becomes a cage of wet, constricting hopelessness, a string of no no no nonono before your lungs start to scream and cry out, and then—)

+

It's a bit cold on the roof of the center, but Nathan wraps his hoodie around himself a little tighter and it's not so bad.

"Why'd you have to kill yourself?" he asks, a few minutes later. "I've been trying to figure it out. All these years, you know. But I've really tried and I can't seem to come to a conclusion that isn't just simple mental retardation on your part."

Simon looks at him sadly.

"You know the answer to that. After Alisha—after they all passed away, and I saw that you weren't getting any older and I was—I thought it was for the best. I didn't want you to have to see me get older and die of natural causes. It would have been cruel."

"Oh, really? Really? Did you ever think that taking that preemptive leap was more fucking cruel?” Nathan asks, a little hysterically.

Simon nods. "I understand that now.”

“Now? You selfish, sadistic bastard. Just because I don't age on the outside doesn't mean I don't get older."

“You’re right. I was being selfish," Simon admits quietly. "It was nice being your friend, but it wasn't enough. I felt wrong inside, and it hurt. I just wanted it to end."

"Stop talking in the past tense," Nathan snaps.

"Sorry."

"And I know it fucking hurt. It still does, actually, thanks for asking."

"I know."

Nathan's silent for a second, before it all bubbles up and he—

"You know how many ways I've tried to kill myself? Pretty much every way known to man that isn't outright bloody painful. Okay, the antifreeze was painful. The gun. The whole jumping off office buildings thing was pretty up there. I even turned myself in to get put down with euthanasia once, but as you can see,” he motions up and down his body, “none of that went exactly as planned."

"I know," Simon says quietly. "I've seen you do it all."

"Yeah, but it's not you, is it? It's just this image that wanders around looking like you and talking like you. I'm the only one who can see you. How do I know it's not all in my head? I could be insane. A crazy. I could have a real problem."

"You've always had problems," Simon says, and grins just a little. "And you were always a little insane."

Nathan snorts a bit wryly, but there’s a hotness behind his eyes that makes them burn and itch, and his throat is rapidly closing up.

“It's better than being alone and ignored.” says Simon, softly. “Trust me.”

+

Sometimes Nathan has it off with the girls he finds in clubs; always quick and dirty, like taking care of an itch you've forgotten to scratch for a week straight, and you've only just remembered you had it in the first place. He loves sex. It's as good a reason as any to stay alive, just to get head from fit girls in neon latex—which can be awkward, because technically he's older than their parents, but he's never discriminated before and it seems counterproductive to start now.

But it's always cheap and it's always nasty and there's no meaning behind it, no gentle touching or lazy kisses or sexy wrestling. There's only want, and desperation, and the niceness of losing yourself in the moment just long enough to forget all the reasons why you want to die.

Sometimes he imagines Simon's watching. And if Nathan squints, he can see him standing there, lounging against the grimy walls with his hands folded behind his back. His too-blue eyes bore holes in the side of Nathan's head as he throws it back, mouth open in a choked-off gasp as he feels his cock hit the back of the girl's throat—and squeezes his eyes shut.

Later, when he's warm and breathless and just a bit sadder, when he looks around him for real, Simon isn't there. Which, actually. That's probably a good thing. It'd be awkward to have to explain what name was on his lips when he came, so Nathan doesn't dwell too hard on it.

+

“Barry,” Nathan starts, strolling along a closed-off flyover. “Why are you the only one who talks to me?”

It’s almost evening. The lights below them belong to a few sleek cars, whizzing past; the motorway lamps are dim and he can’t see Simon so much as feel his presence, tagging along behind him. Sometimes this happens. Sometimes Simon’s invisible to the only person who can see him.

Simon’s image flickers into being next to Nathan, and he’s looking pensive.

"I'm not the only one. Why do you still call me Barry?"

Nathan ignores that last bit. He knows that Simon knows perfectly well that it's become a term of endearment; something from the past he's hesitant to let go of.

"I mean voluntarily. You talk to me voluntarily. The others..." he gestures vaguely at the air, "just sort of show up, you know? They don't follow me around like you do. Probably because they aren't natural born stalkers. But hey, more power to you."

Simon is silent for a moment.

“It's because I wanted to be your friend,” he decides. “And they didn’t.”

Nathan thinks on that. Doesn’t flare up and make a scene, or retort, because he knows it’s true; they all were thrown together, and they all became his friends, but Simon was the only one who really wanted it. Despite all the shit Nathan hurled at him. Despite all of that. Which is—which is nice. In a weird Simon kind of way.

“Makes sense,” he says.

They walk together for a while longer, and Nathan decides not to throw himself into oncoming traffic.

+

Being immortal used to mean nothing could hurt him.

Now, he knows it's specifically designed to.

+

When he wakes, he's alone and kind of cold, and his stomach hurts like a bitch and his breath smells like old chips and the arse-end of that fat bastard from the nearest fast-food chain. He gets up, scrubs a hand across his face, and wanders down to the toilets. Takes a long, satisfying piss, washes his face and his hair under the faucet with a bottle of hotel-order two-in-one, and takes a walk.

Outside he sees Curtis and Kelly lounging by the railings, but he doesn't acknowledge them, not being in any particular mood to strike up conversation or spout witticisms. They, in return, only watch him go, then seemingly return to whatever conversation they'd been entertaining since before he woke up shiny and new.

He's not sure what ghosts talk about, exactly, but he entertains himself by imagining them yapping on about him; it always fuels his ego, and he's never had the kind of qualms Kelly has about hearing what other people say about her. Nathan encourages it. Or did. Does. Er—It's a bit flexible, actually. So long as they're talking about him—it makes him feel, you know, cared about.

+

It's ten years later. Nathan starts to think of himself not as a human being, but something wrong with the world, something dead but never dying, something alive but not really living.

It's fifteen years later.

It's twenty years later, and Nathan tells Simon that he might be, in the smallest, most hypothetical of senses, in love with his ghost.

Simon doesn't say I know, but Nathan gets that vibe anyway.

“This whole thing is just embarrassing,” Nathan says.

“You could take pottery lessons,” Simon offers, half-smiling. “You know, like in the movie. I could help.”

“No offense, mate, but you'd make a shite Patrick Swayze.”

The smile turns into a full-fledged grin. "You don't know that."

"Call it an educated guess." Nathan says, then coughs. It's hard to bring this shit up, but he wants to know. "But you don't, you know, fancy me back or anything."

Simon shakes his head, just slightly. Nathan's stomach drops out anyway. Obviously. Alisha. Everything—

"No," Simon says. "It's not that kind of love."

Nathan falls back until his head hits the pavement on the middle of the road and his eyelids droop down, down. "That's what I thought."

+

It's fifty years later—

No, god, please.

It's—

+

Twenty years and five months have passed.

They're back in Nathan's loft again; Nathan, slumped over the railing and nibbling on some take-out, which is probably a bad idea considering it could easily drop down a story below, and Simon on his right side, straight-backed and silent. It's so normal that Nathan almost believes it's normal, and if he doesn't look at Simon then he can pretty much pretend it's back the way it was.

Except he wants to look at Simon. He always wants to look at Simon.

It's problematic in so many ways, but mostly it just makes Nathan feel shitty about all the relationship choices he's ever made, ever, in the history of his (so far, so long) existence. Why couldn't it be Kelly? He fancied Kelly. He might have loved her once, might have settled down with her if things went a little differently. Eaten chicken nuggets and wine for lunch, went out for shite movies and crap beer. You know, normal couple stuff.

Why couldn't he have had that?

Sometimes you don't even want shit like this to happen, but it does anyway. And then you're stuck with a lump in your throat that doesn't go away until that person smiles at you and then it's not a lump anymore, it's a fucking boulder.

So when Simon smiles at him, Nathan's not looking, because who wants to stop breathing?

(Okay, so maybe he does, but not right now. Right now, he's okay.)

+

See, it's also really hard to get over Simon when he keeps sticking around. Nathan's tried, but his iron will is more like a will-shaped noodle. Floppy. Easily broken. Noodle-like. Twenty years of this shit. That is a long damn time to love someone's ghost.

He knows he's lost it. Whatever. It's easier to know that than to try and rationalize what can never be explained. Bit freeing, really.

+

He can't quite explain his thought process at the time. It was just another thing, coming back to life. He had some time to think about it in the coffin, felt bad that everyone else was missing him while he rested underground, nearly went nutters in that small, dark, ohgodrunningoutofairfuck—

But he came back. So there was really no need to get all upset about it, right? Look, no harm will come to me, I'll protect you all, I'm invincible—

It isn't that his life doesn't matter. It's just that it meant more when his friends were around to appreciate it.

+

He tightens his hand and arches his hips, just a little; makes a noise somewhere in between a groan and a gasp and squeezes again, then slides his thumb up, squirming, panting, trying to get there, trying to reach it, trying to hold it off for one more precious second.

He could do this all day. Lose himself in it all day. Not have to think about anything other than his hand on his dick all day, not have to think about what he's going to do when the next morning comes around.

It doesn't last. When he comes, he sags down into his mattress like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

How embarrassing is it to want to sob after masturbating?

Probably a lot, but he's alone and he doesn't care, and he's too tired to cry anyway.

+

Today is a bad day.

Nathan's flat on his back on the mattress, drifting off into nothingness, his stomach already churning with fizzing pills, and he's about to fall asleep—blessed nothing-sleep—when Simon appears out of nowhere beside him; his face is drawn and tight and he looks concerned, jaw clenched, stressed, which makes Nathan think: oh, he's never sat next to me when done this before; which makes him think, oh, he must really care. Which makes him think, why do I care that he cares? Which makes no sense.

"Nathan," Simon says. "I wish you'd stop doing this. You know it's not going to work."

"There's always a chance," Nathan mumbles, fighting the urge to vomit. "Nice of you to show up. This is only, what, the thousandth time? Real supportive."

"I told you," Simon says. "I always watch. I just never said anything before."

"That is fucking creepy," Nathan laughs, then chokes. "Do you watch me wank, too? Do you? Pervert."

Oh, god, but the thought makes him surge in warmth, just a little—

Simon shakes his head, moves to sit next to Nathan, staring at him despondently. Nathan doesn't really want to look him in the face because then he won't be able to look away, and he's got to fall asleep because otherwise the pills won't kick in, and. He stares down his stomach, then asks: "So what makes this time any different? Am I looking particularly pathetic this evening?"

"No. I just know how you feel."

Nathan snorts. "Oh, okay. Do you? That's nice."

"Not really," Simon murmurs, like it should be obvious. "I know it must be terrible. Not being able to die when you most want to."

"Yeah, it's great."

"I'm sorry."

Nathan manages to squint in halfhearted anger, expelling a huff of wet breath; he's too tired for this shit, really he is; if he could just sleep...

But, no, never, and not in the way he wants.

"Look. I don't want your pity, you hypocritical twat. You died exactly when you wanted to. You have no right to criticize my highly questionable methods, and I'm really not feeling this whole belated therapy session thing. So just leave me alone to die in the throes of mild indigestion and we'll chat about it later."

"No," Simon mutters. "No, I'm staying. I have to make sure you come back."

Nathan tries to drag himself up on his elbows, fighting to keep his eyes open and his words clear. "And what if I don't? What if I die this time, and I get to go to ghostland with all of you deserter shitheads happily-ever-after? You don't get it, actually, because you're not listening. I want to go. I deserve that."

His hands are shaking.

Simon's quiet.

He leans in, up, just a little desperate, maybe, or angry, or whatever he is that makes him want to touch his lips to Simon's; but Simon just smiles sadly and Nathan doesn't make it, just falls back down again, like always.

Before he dies, he thinks he sees Simon reach out to touch his face, but he only feels the faint whisper of cool wind against his cheek—and then it’s gone.

+

He wakes up alone, lies there alone, and feels utterly, madly, horribly alone.

He is seventy-one, and he wonders what it might be like to tie his feet to concrete and sink down, down, down into the river, die, wake up, die again, drown again, an endless loop, an endless circle, twitching to life like a fish on hook and seizing to death with water in his lungs.

Maybe today, he'll buy that axe.

Maybe today.

fic: running in circles

balphas — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:00:32 GMT

running in circles
Misfits
Everyone/Superhoodie, pg-13, 2254 words.
disclaimer: Not even a bit mine. All to E4/Howard Overman.
notes: SUPER-SPOILERS FOR SERIES 2. AU for S02E03 and on, sort of, BECAUSE THEN 2X04 HAPPENED ARGH. Spoilers from sentence one. Also written for this prompt off the kink meme: It's not just Alisha who Simon's back for.

tell me your secrets
and ask me your questions
oh, let's go back to the start
running in circles, coming up tails
heads on a science apart
( the scientist, coldplay )

Of all the reasons Simon goes back, she is the very, very first—

—but she is not the last.

i. alisha

"You fall in love with me."

It's the truth. Simon doesn't make a habit of telling lies; only when he has to, and only to the people who deserve to be lied to. He can see her tumbling down into the warmth of it now, with him. She's wondering what she's feeling, and why she's feeling it—maybe she thinks it's stupid hormones, stupid excess of interest, simple physical attraction. But she's falling for him, he knows. Falling hard.

They all do, after a fashion.

ii. curtis

So it's inevitable, then, that she can't continue with Curtis—can't possibly hold up their relationship when something so much better has been offered to her. It's not her fault—never hers, or anyone else's—but there's only so much a person can take of not touching before it becomes too much to bear. Simon feels for Curtis; caught between lovers and not even knowing it.

Or knowing more about it than he should.

(But then again, it hasn't quite been love, with Alisha. There was attraction, yes. Adoration, yes. But not love. Not yet.)

So he appears to Curtis after Alisha, because dealing with time is a tricky business (and he should know), so there's always a chance of another flash-forward. If he doesn't control Curtis' reaction, Curtis will talk to them all. Out of concern, out of friendship, out of wonder. So he cleaves to him like a shadow until Curtis can't ignore his presence any longer.

"Don't you ever get sick of following us around?" he snaps, whirling on the spot, high among the industrial blocks of Thamesmead Housing Estate; the same structures where Simon had first learned to fall and jump and hang on for dear life, and then leap without thought or fear of losing it.

Simon half-grins at that, but says nothing. Doesn't say no. Doesn't say, I was hoping you would be the ones to follow me.

Curtis just looks at him funny. "Look—what do you want?"

Simon crooks his fingers. Come with me.

Curtis does.

+

"Why're you telling me this?" Curtis says later, staring at Simon, and knowing it's Simon, and almost fearing him a little; Simon can see it reflected there in the dark glass of his eyes. "Why me?"

Simon smiles briefly. Shrugs. "Because you deserve to know." Because you need to tell me how to do this, when the time comes.

"Me."

"You." Simon nods. "But you can't tell the others. Especially me. Don't tell me anything."

"I won't. I promise." Curtis says, and Simon believes him.

So then Curtis shakes his head. And then he laughs, and looks up to the white fluorescence of the warehouse lights. "My God, this is so fucked up, like. I can't believe it's you."

And when Curtis touches his face in searching, nervous awe, Simon lets him.

iii. kelly

Kelly—

Well, Kelly can read minds.

He knows she can't do it from a distance; it's why he's never come close enough to let her get inside his head like that. But he knows it's only a matter of time until she can do amazing things with her power; focus it, channel it, knock a person apart with it, and she'll figure it all out on her own because she's street-smart and and driven and doesn't take 'no' for an answer.

He's always appreciated Kelly, just as she's always stood up for him. She's kind, even if she doesn't like to show it much—especially not to Nathan. But even back then, when Simon's self-worth was based upon the comments he received from other people, Kelly always made him feel better than he thought he deserved. He wants to thank her for that.

Kelly.

He's outside her bedroom window, but she doesn't know it yet.

"Simon?" she says, turning around.

Her brow creases, trying to figure out why she can see him, why he's not there when she can clearly hear his voice rattling about in her head. "What the fuck," she says frankly, to herself. "If you're sneakin' around all invisible, Simon, I'll fuckin' shank ya."

Kelly, you heard me. It's me. I'm here.

And then she's staring at a black-masked figure standing on the window ledge, mouth agape. He holds up a hand in a parody of greeting, but he's grinning a little underneath the mask, and she must have sensed his cheekiness because she scoffs before she looks properly astonished.

"Oh my god, you've gone nutters," she deadpans.

Not yet, he thinks, coloring the thought with amusement. And he can see from her face that she's not as surprised or as angry as she's pretending to be. In fact, she's smiling.

"I fuckin' knew it!" she says, and then— "You dick! What'ya hangin' about my window for? For fuck's sake. Come in."

He slides in, takes the mask off. She walks up to him and thwacks him on the head, but lightly, fondly. "This is so weird," she says, surveying him. "I knew it, though. Whenever you were around. I knew it was you. Not for real, like I know now, but I think I always knew, like, in the back of me 'ead, right? Ever since I got my power, ever since you started followin' us. That is well freaky, though, you creepin' about at night outside my window like a proper stalker."

Sorry, he thinks. I had to be discreet. None of the others are supposed to know.

She stops. "So you're from—"

The future, yes.

"Yo' what? How d'ya get from there to here, then?"

It's a long story, and I can't tell you all of it.

"Right," she snorts. "Well, ya better tell me most of it, mate. Spill."

+

They end up curled on Kelly's couch; Simon's head in her flannel lap as she cards her fingers through his hair, going on about all the things she hears people think, versus all the things she wishes they would think. It's hard, she says, because people are never as nice as they seem—there's always something ugly beneath the surface.

"Except for you, Simon," she adds, thoughtfully. "You're a bit weird, but I've never 'eard ya think a single shit thing about me since I've known ya. Or anyone, really. I feel like, I dunno. That's worth something, y'know? Like it was always you who it was gonna change things. 'Cos you're the only one who can."

"That's kind of you to say," Simon tells her, and it's the first time he's spoken all evening.

Kelly runs her fingers against his scalp, scratches gently, and smiles down at him as his eyes start to close in muted pleasure. "Yeah," she says. "And the funny thing is, I really believe it."

iv. nathan

Simon hasn't ever really known how to deal with Nathan, but nobody ever has, including Nathan.

He remembers all they've been through, all they've put up with together; how he'd suffered at the hands of Nathan's special brand of humor. He doesn’t begrudge Nathan any of it, though; only a truly broken person would act the way Nathan does, and despite all of the conflicted, angry emotions Nathan’s made him feel, Simon can only forgive him for it.

“Well, well, look who it is,” Nathan says. "Our very own resident stalker Batman-wannabe. Look—I like the get-up, it's very..." he makes a 'ta-dah' motion with his hands, "—but to be honest, I just don't think you have the voice for it."

They're alone on the roof of the community centre, and when Nathan had opened his eyes and saw Simon (masked, anonymous) standing just a few feet away, he’d startled, then tried valiantly to cover it with forced nonchalance. When Simon approaches, purposefully, slowly, Nathan scoots back in his lawn chair and shoves up his sunglasses and tries to put distance between them.

“Hey now,” he says, holding up his hands. "I didn't mean it! You can be Batman if you want to. It's your fundamental right as a mental patient. No hard feelings."

Simon tosses him a note.

Nathan stares at him suspiciously, bends to pick it up, and by the time he straightens again, Simon's gone.

+

"—Jesus!"

Nathan jumps as Simon drops in front of him.

"Oh, it's just you," he says. "My lucky day."

He looks tired. It's the middle of the night—it's inside the community centre—and Nathan's just finished raiding the last of the alcohol; he has a bottle of Margaux in hand and has been pulling drinks from it for a while. He takes another large swig before continuing.

"I know you saved me and all, way back when, but all of this—" he motions between the two of them, "is beginning to look a lot like a murder set-up, do you know what I mean? Fair warning, though. If you're here to kill me, you might as well give up now. I'll only come back to bite you in the arse."

"I don't want to kill you," Simon says, and it's a bit muffled from the mask, but well-enough understood. "I just want to tell you something."

After Nathan recovers from the absolute injustice of being replied to, he scoffs. "Oh, is that so? Is that why you gave me that note? A time and place. Ooh, so mysterious. You really are crap at this."

"It guaranteed that you'd be alone, and that you'd be curious," Simon says.

"Yeah, well," Nathan says, then pauses. "Hold on—do I—"

Going through this a few times hasn't lessened the amusement of watching recognition flash over his friends' faces, but with Nathan, it's almost a crawling familiarity—like he doesn't particularly want to believe it. Like there is no way in hell that it could be who he thinks it is. Simon figures this is a good a time as any to peel off his mask; when he does, Nathan stares at him, dumbfounded, mouth open, eyes wide, and after Simon explains, he begins to laugh.

"You little bastard," he says, slightly hysterically. "You creepy little bastard! Un-fucking-believable. So you've grown a brass set in the future, well done. What did it take? Years of therapy and a few paid blowies? Because I don't blame you, man. It's hard out there for a friendless stalker. I am shocked, genuinely."

Simon looks at him in concern. "Do you need to sit down?"

Then Nathan collects himself, running a hand through his curls, tugging at them. "Nah, I'm good, I'm good. I'm just trying to work out in what world this could possibly happen, but you know, other than that, I'm peachy."

After a moment, Simon says, "Nathan—you can't tell anyone else. Not Kelly, not Alisha, not Curtis, not me. Don't tell me anything."

"And what happens if I do?" Nathan says, swinging around.

Simon walks closer, to the edge of Nathan's makeshift bed-mattress, crowding Nathan up against the railing until the bottle is held precariously half over the loft, and half over the floor a story below. "I've already trusted you enough to show you who I am, Nathan. The least you could do is to keep a secret for me."

There is something there, behind his smile, when Nathan answers. "Yeah, the least I could do."

Simon just looks at him.

Nathan pauses, then looks off the side, eyes flicking up and down to random points of air, staring at nothing, at anything but Simon's face. "Fine, whatever. I'll keep your stupid secret."

Simon smiles, then. A tiny smile, but one nonetheless. And he knows that Nathan keeps his promise; because there are many things that happen in the future, but Nathan lying to him is not one of them. And Nathan himself—well, Nathan is a constant in an ever-changing world. He's still an annoying twat, and he's still capable of idiotic arrogance, but for the first time in his life he has friends, and Simon knows that Nathan will do anything to help them.

Nathan looks down at him. "So why are you telling me, anyway? It's not like I have anyone's best interests at heart. It's one of my more unsurprising character flaws."

Simon knows this isn't true; but if Nathan wants to believe it, that's fine.

"Where I come from—" he says. "It's complicated. You'll know when it happens."

Nathan doesn't want to take that for an answer, but Simon doesn't tell him anything else. He's left looking slightly gobsmacked as Simon leans in, inches closer, says, "Everything will turn out all right, in the end," and kisses him chastely on the lips.

Then he vaults up and over the railing, and Nathan's left yelling after him, "Hey! You can't just kiss and run! Come back here, you bastard tease! Come back!"

v. all together now

But in the end, he does what he came here to do; he saves them all (and loves them all), in different ways, from things that would have ended badly—though in Nathan's case, it's borne more from the desire to avoid causing him unnecessary pain, as Nathan can't die, no matter how hard he tries.

The one who he most wants to tell remains in the dark, but that's just how it has to be. It'll all come to an end soon enough, anyway. Then, he can start over.

(fic) it's hard to know what you want

balphas — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 04:17:26 GMT

it's hard to know what you want
The Social Network
Mark/Eduardo pre-slash, PG-13
disclaimer: Most emphatically not mine, also this fic is based on the dramatized versions of Mark & Eduardo featured in the film The Social Network, most certainly not the real people because I know nothing about them and would be very silly to assume otherwise &c ad infinitum.
notes: Er, wordvomit mostly, might be a bit staggered and ooc or something maybe. Beware stupid and gratuitous tense changes. Title is from People Can Do the Most Amazing of Things by The Kisses.

it's hard to know what you want, mark/eduardo, pg-13, 2522 words.

One time, when Mark was drunk and Eduardo was not, they both ended up sprawled on the floor with their backs against the leather cushions of the couch, video game controllers sweat-slippery in their hands. Mark's (nth) beer was half-finished on the coffee table, and Eduardo was smiling quietly to himself, button-mashing futilely until his character died in a spatter of badly-animated gore. Headshot.

Mark's own head lolled in Eduardo's direction, the game back on its title screen, alcohol-glassy eyes turned towards him. "Wardo," Mark said. "Wardo."

“You won,” Eduardo pointed out.

“I know. But Wardo—”

See, Eduardo liked it when Mark let some of his six-inch thick concrete-reinforced walls down; he liked how Mark was still amazingly literate, even when he was pie-eyed. Literate in a clear, succinct way. Mark didn't slur like other people, but he did stumble and repeat himself, which was endearing in its own way.

"Yeah?"

"I'm pretty drunk."

"No shit," Eduardo laughed.

"I think we should stop playing. My hand-eye coordination is shot."

"I can see that."

"Because I'm—"

"Drunk, yeah."

"Don't you think that's sad? That I'm drunk, that I got drunk in my dorm room. By myself. With you." Mark squinted, mouth twitching upwards at the contradiction, his shoulders sliding down a bit, eyes half-lidded. "Not out partying. That's the place to get drunk. At the AEPi party."

"You said you didn't want to go."

"I know. I don't. Didn't. Stupid. It's why this is sad. For me. For us."

Eduardo shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. Sad for some people. I kind of like staying in. This is nice."

Mark made a noise. Of agreement, or just noise, Eduardo couldn't tell. His head lolled again, the controller falling from his grasp and onto the carpet covering the hardwood floor, and Eduardo's arm found itself stretching to rest on the couch cushions behind them, behind Mark's neck.

"Tired?" Eduardo asked, as Mark's hair brushed the inside of his wrist.

"A little." Mark said. "You're not."

"Not really." Eduardo smiled. "It's only eleven."

"You don't have to go back to your room," Mark said suddenly, flatly. "Tomorrow's Saturday."

Eduardo hesitated.

"Couch," Mark said, without moving or indicating the couch in question. Eduardo nudged the back of Mark's head with his fingers, resiting the urge to let them stay there, threaded in Mark's short curls.

"You sure?"

A dismissive snort from Mark that clearly meant: when am I not.

"Thanks," he said. "That’s—thanks. Hey. Need help getting up?"

"Of course not." Mark said, standing abruptly, wobbling a little, hands shoved deep into hoodie pockets. He made a move forward, and then stopped, turning to collapse back into the cushions while Eduardo looked up at him from the floor, amused.

"No help, huh?"

"Shut up."

Eduardo heaved himself up onto the couch, arms resting on the arm and back respectively, legs hanging off the end to make room for Mark, whose eyes were beginning to fall shut, to droop closed, knees unbending a little. He looked like he was about to drop off any second—drop off the face of a cliff, into deep sleep, and then into one hell of a morning hangover.

"Guess this means the couch is double-booked."

"Guess so." Mark's head dropped slowly onto the armrest.

"Should I monopolize your bed while I have the chance?"

It came out sounding a bit wrong; Eduardo grimaced, but Mark only slid down into a more comfortable position. "You can stay," he said. Mumbled.

"Mark?" Eduardo said softly, a moment later. He prodded Mark with a foot. "Hey. I'm staying."

Mark rolled onto his side, eyes closed, and Eduardo slid down to join him in sleep.

(In the morning, they woke up with their legs tangled, Eduardo's ankles poking into Mark's hoodie-clad stomach, Mark's heels digging into Eduardo's hips, and Eduardo apologized as Mark just looked at him fuzzy-eyed, and then they went to breakfast together.)

+

Anyway, Mark reminds himself now, that was a long time ago; one memory among many similar ones, plus or minus a couch or game or that buzzing tension that never really figured itself out. It just seems important to remember.

+

"Eduardo," Mark says, as if he hasn't been sure the door would open after all, like he hasn't spent the whole way here planning the conversation in his head—with different words in different sentences—only his lines stay mostly the same while Wardo's change, change tone, then change back, a constant revision process. It's probably best Mark's had his head filled with possibilities just so he could ignore reality. Just long enough to end up on Eduardo's doorstep without really thinking about the consequences.

Eduardo looks surprised for a fleeting moment, but it's watered down with sad-angry exhaustion. Mark's never been a dab hand at reading people, in real life, but he thinks he could read Eduardo pretty well if he tried. It's all to do with whether or not he really wants to look for those cracks and slivers of tired betrayal again, those big doe eyes. He's had to avoid them all through the deposition, though he caught them there, on Wardo's face, once or twice. And Eduardo's eyes are things of pure expression; wide, terrible mirrors, even when he's trying so hard to be cold. Mark's own faults had looked back at him out of Wardo's damn eyes. Fuck. Eduardo. He's still not sure why he's here.

"Eduardo," he says again, simply because he's forgotten all his imagined scriptwriting, and has nothing else to go on but a name.

"What do you want, Mark," Eduardo says, like each word weighs a hundred pounds.

Mark reaches for a reason, pauses with his mouth open and throws his eyes to the side. "I—" he starts; don't know, almost says. "I'm paying you. The settlement. You'll be back on the masthead."

Eduardo looks at him, and shakes his head. Mark's finding it difficult to pull his thoughts into a cohesive narrative and then say it out loud; which is never the case, usually the opposite. It's always spitfire brutality, blunt and sure, but right now it's like sorting through file cabinets with clippings of memories—images and words and—and it's just different, this time, with Eduardo. On his doorstep. Hotel-room threshold. Whatever.

"For fuck's sake, Mark, I know," Eduardo says, "If you came all the way here just to tell me what my lawyers have already—"

"I didn't," Mark interrupts. "Not just that. I needed something to say. Like, filler. Or something. I'm trying to think what else. I haven't had enough time to, you know, think it over."

Eduardo looks at him in disbelief. "You haven't had enough time to think it over."

"It's not like that. I didn't think before coming over because I was already preoccupied with—with thinking." He's aware it makes no sense. It doesn't really need to; he's not in a sense-making sort of way right now.

There's a moment of silence on both their ends; Eduardo stares at him oddly, so Mark swallows.

"Hey," he says. "Remember when we used to sleep on the couch together?"

Eduardo looks at him. Really looks at him.

"Yeah. Yeah, Mark, I do. Why?"

"I—" Mark licks his lips and shrugs a shoulder. "Never mind. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Seriously? You screwed me over."

"I know."

"I'm not inviting you in, Mark."

"I thought I'd ask anyway."

"You are the last person I'd say yes to."

And maybe if Mark could read people, he'd be able to tell Eduardo wasn't telling the whole truth there, but instead he counters with: "Even if I apologized?"

Eduardo pauses, frowning, maybe slightly a bit too hopeful—still angry. "You came here to apologize?"

No. But it's as good a reason as any. He needs to keep talking. "So you would."

"I would—" Wardo closes his eyes for a second. "No. No, because I know you're not sorry. That you wouldn't mean it even if you said it; you're not that kind of person. So no. I wouldn't let you in even if you apologized."

"Hm." Mark says. "Then what do I have to do?"

"To get in? To come in?"

"Yes."

"To my hotel room."

"Yes. And—yes."

And then Eduardo laughs, because Mark's showing his hand, and Mark knows he is; its all about final clubs and prestigious positions and Eduardo's the best of the best. The best friend, the best person Mark's even known. He wants to get in and the one doing the punching is Eduardo himself, the Eduardo Saverin Club, and Mark, the only member. The number one member. At his fucking hotel! Jesus Christ, Mark—

He closes the door in Mark's face. He doesn't answer even when Mark's knocked, pragmatically, for a minute. Mark knows he's being told to go away without being told, but he can't seem to make himself move his feet until five minutes have passed and nothing's happened and nothing will.

+

Eduardo chewed at Mark over his eggs and toast. The Crimson was on the table next to him, recently read, crumpled at the edges and corners and creased down the middle. Mark had wanted to bring his laptop down to Kirkland dining hall with with him, but it was Saturday and as much as he would have preferred scrolling through code or doing a problem set at eight in the morning, Eduardo's face was just as interesting. And the fact that simple math (or common sense, or whatever) will tell anyone with half a brain that bright lights are bad and wouldn't have done much to cure him of his lingering hangover. Anyway, the point was Eduardo, who was staring.

"What?" Mark asked.

"Nothing," Eduardo said, then added; "Just that last night was fun."

"I wouldn't say 'fun'.”

“You wouldn’t?”

Mark looked at him. “We didn't do much. You didn't do much, other than watch me intoxicate myself with shitty beer."

“Shitty college beer.” Eduardo said, and hid a smile. “We go to Harvard, you’d think we could afford the good stuff.”

“Exactly. The good stuff would be fun.”

“Maybe I found that—the bad stuff fun.”

“You find Econ fun,” Mark said.

“I find a lot of things fun,” Eduardo corrected. “I find fun things fun.”

“You find—” Mark stops. “Whatever. This is stupid. We’re saying ‘fun’ too much.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes more; Mark, with his fingertips pressed hard into his right temple, left hand nursing a glass of juice, and Eduardo, with his nose buried in the Crimson. The clacking of utensils and chatter filled up the almost-awkward silence and made it bearable; but there was also Eduardo's lidded eyes and long fingers holding up the paper, and watching him read made Mark's head throb a little less.

"So. What if I bought the good stuff?" Eduardo asked.

"Then you would be in possession of the good stuff," Mark said. "Which you bought.”

“Well. Yes. But I can’t actually buy the good stuff. I’d have to pay an older student.”

“Now you’re saying 'stuff' too much."

"I'd share it—the stuff—the beer."

"Lucky me."

Eduardo snorted, amused. “Lucky you.”

“Hey. You know you can stay over whenever,” Mark said abruptly.

Eduardo paused. "Uh. Yeah, man. I know. Look. Okay, by 'fun', I meant—it was nice. I liked it. I mean—" he laughed, didn't finish his sentence. He shook his head and picked the paper back up while Mark scratched his nose and added,

“Okay. You find weird things fun. We can do it again.”

Eduardo looked up. “Okay?”

“Tonight we can—I don’t know—watch a lame movie or something.”

“Yeah?” Eduardo was smiling now. “Yeah, okay. That’d be f—nice. That’d be nice. I'll bring the good stu—beer. The good beer.”

Mark nodded. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Okay. Cool.”

+

So now it's raining.

(Do I have your full attention?)

It's poetic justice, or karmic payback, or whatever. Mark's not stupid, so he doesn't stay outside of Eduardo's hotel for longer than he has to, but it's an uncomfortable cab ride back to his place with squelchy shoes and a soaked-through dress shirt, which would have looked more at home on Eduardo's skinny back. Mark figures somewhere along the line that he should stop thinking about Wardo, but despite the fact he has an iron control over what he says, there's no similar deal with what he thinks.

Two minutes at the computer tells him Eduardo's flight plan, his airline and fellow first-class passengers. Mark doesn't need to be in the room when Eduardo signs the non-disclosure agreement, but he knows after the settlement's been paid and all the documents have been filed away in nice neat little folders that he's going to go board his plane and go on back to New York and try his hardest to forget about Mark-fucking-Zuckerberg and that will be that. It shouldn't bother Mark as much as it does—nothing should bother Mark as much as it does—but if he's a slave to anything, it's thinking too much.

Eduardo gives him a lot to think about. So he collapses into a rolling chair and distracts himself with Facebook and does some superficial coding and drinks two beers and one glass of orange juice and forgets to wash the rainwater out of his hair. He falls asleep smelling like missed opportunities and mistakes and disappointment, and won't that be funny in a few years' time, when he can look back on all of this and say, 'wow, Mark, look at what you did, weren't you one sorry bastard back then, ha ha.' Hilarious.

It's what he tells himself, anyway. He's not sorry about the dilution; he won't apologize for doing what was best for the company, and he'd like to think being right outweighs the loss of his only friend.

Some things are for the best. Then again, some things don't work out the way you want them to.

Fic: Shades of Mediocrity

balphas — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:52:18 GMT

Title: Shades of Mediocrity
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Sort of cracky, and schmoopy. Written for this prompt over at inception_kink. Arthur is actually attempting to have a normal life after the events of Inception... find a normal job, have normal hobbies, you know, things that don't involve dreams, guns, explosions or death. It's... not going well. And Eames, who makes no attempt to live a normal life, gets to look in from the outside and be amused.

shades of mediocrity, arthur/eames, pg-13, 2842 words.

Cobb had looked at him funny after he'd said it, even if Cobb had no right to complain. The man himself was retired -- well, for now, at least; Saito's paycheck would easily put his kids through college -- but Arthur could tell Cobb was raising an internal eyebrow at the idea of Arthur attempting to settle down. But all he said was "Found yourself a place yet?" and left it at that, even when Arthur answered "Not yet."

Now it's been a few months; Arthur hasn't seen Yusuf or Ariadne or Eames or Cobb for some time, though the latter he still keeps tentative contact with; once a colleague, always a friend. Or something vaguely along those lines. He's planning on visiting for the holidays, and he doesn't know if that makes him a good friend or a part of the family. Details. Arthur tries not to let them bother him so much.

So. Normality.

Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:

A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom, a nice kitchen, a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces. Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is stocked. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks.

What Arthur has that is not normal:

A Glock 17 under his pillow, a disassembled FN SCAR-L under the floorboards and a ACOG scope in his sock drawer. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders in the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, and an emergency PASIV device hidden away in a locked trunk at the foot of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, an unwanted visitor.

"And a good morning to you too, Arthur," Eames says through the door, after Arthur opens it, and then shuts it in his face.

This sort of thing happens a lot.

Eames keeps rapping his knuckles on the door until Arthur opens it again, eyebrows drawn together, frown securely in place. "What part of 'go away' don't you understand?"

"The 'go' and 'away' bits, respectively. May I come in?"

"No." Arthur blocks the doorway; Eames shrugs and slips his hands into matte forest-green trouser pockets, grinning a little.

"Am I not allowed to check up on you, then?"

"No," Arthur repeats. "I'm doing fine. We're not friends. Leave me alone."

(This is, incidentally, exactly what he says every time Eames swings around. Arthur's sure that repetition will one day force the concept of privacy and solitude through Eames' thick skull, but so far, it's really not working.)

Eames barks out a laugh. "Okay, okay. Noted. I'll come back later."

"Don't," Arthur says, and closes the door in his face again.

Loathe as he is to admit it, the exchanges have become something of a routine. Arthur really is trying hard to cultivate a personal life which does not rest solely on guns, explosions, and existential heists of the mind, but with Eames popping up on any given day of the week, it's beginning to get really hard to ignore the ever-present allure of manufactured dreaming.

Though, when he thinks about it, it was never precisely easy in the first place. He's reminded of military men and women who rejoin the ranks of civilian society, how some of them long for the battlefield again, and how some of them detest it at the same time -- how everything looks different when seen through the eyes of a human being who knows what it feels like to kill or be killed. Arthur isn't in the habit of doing psychological evaluations on himself, but he suspects he's part of the former group. Or at least, a mix of the three. (Eames is Not Helping with this.)

Pretty soon, Arthur will be forced to take up some mindless hobby to distract himself from giving into Eames -- like knitting, or on-the-side assassination.

+

Look.

Arthur doesn't need a job. He really doesn't; he could live out the rest of his life in comfortable accommodation from all the money he's received in the extraction business. But if he did that, he's sure he might die from accumulated boredom and utter lack of excitement and/or a strange sense of occupational therapy, so the instant he split from Cobb's employee status, he found himself something to do. Which is, incidentally, freelance and research-oriented. He's good at that.

To his credit, Saito had offered a high-ranking position as a data analyst in his powerhouse of a company when he'd heard -- somehow -- of Arthur's decision. Arthur, unsurprisingly, had turned him down with the politest version of 'No fucking way' he could possibly come up with. Saito had not taken offense. Also unsurprising.

But his job is boring.

It's kind of distressing how boring it is.

Even more distressing is how Eames seems to know this without trying, as it generally is with Eames, and how he doesn't even mention it. He doesn't mention that he knows Arthur's mostly bored out of his head, but his smarmy expression tells all and Arthur just wants to hit it right off his face.

Arthur's never had anger management problems before, but he's thinking of cultivating some just to have an excuse to take everything the world ever invented to piss him off out on Eames, just to see how it'd look with bruises all over the incorrigible forger's face and neck and everywhere. Not that he hasn't seen it -- in dreams, he has. But vitriol is so, so much better in reality.

It's Monday.

Arthur keeps thinking about the Glock under his pillow.

It's making him twitch.

"Morning," Eames says, leaning on the doorframe. This time, Arthur doesn't even bother responding before slamming the door and locking it.

+

It's Sunday.

Arthur stares down his computer with the intense scrutiny of someone whose mind is other places, other times, and other worlds. The screen is blurry and his eyes have unfocused and he's thinking about shooting projections in their nonexistent heads, and one of them might be Eames, maybe.

It's probably unhealthy. Arthur does not give a single shit.

So when Eames swings around again -- good God, he's still in America, he better not still be in America for the exact purpose of pestering him, Arthur may literally kill him -- Arthur opens the door after the first set of three knocks and glares at him.

"Do you ever get tired of being a pain in the ass?"

"Hm." Eames seems to thoughtfully consider this for a moment. "Nope."

"You're a fucking headache," Arthur says, but lets him in anyway. He pretends he doesn't see the triumphant grin stretching Eames' lips, because if he were to actively take notice, Eames would be a dead man.

They have lunch.

+

One morning (once upon a time, et cetera ad nauseam), when Arthur wakes up, everything is normal. He pads to the bathroom, splashes water on his face, shaves his stubble with precise, even strokes, jerks off in the shower (quietly and methodically, with no real intent other than getting off to a good start for the day), slips into slacks and a button-up with no tie, and is about to make himself his usual morning gallon of coffee when he sees Eames fiddling around in the kitchen -- his kitchen -- making something that smells delicious, and wearing nothing but drawstring pants.

"The hell are you doing here?" Arthur says.

Without talking, Eames points to the living area, where a box of pizza is open and stale on the coffee table, and there are a few empty beer bottles crowding around it like a witnesses to a horrible, horrible pizza crime.

Arthur looks at the evidence, back to Eames, back at the evidence, and then back to Eames, who, he sees, is making French toast.

"You know, when I said 'get out', what I really meant to say was, 'stay over and make me breakfast'," Arthur says sarcastically, failing to be as angry as he should.

Eames hums noncommittally. "I know. I'm good, aren't I? Coffee's in the pot. I drank half of it. Food'll be ready in a tick. Sit down."

Arthur does just that. Why, he has no idea. But it really does smell good. He's not going to rule out that factor, despite the simmering urge to kick Eames out on his ass for being such an advantageous asshole, so he drinks his mug of coffee until he's slightly more coherent and then says, his mouth twisting into an incredulous frown:

"Did we become friends while I wasn't looking?"

Eames sets the French toast down in front of him. God, it looks fucking delicious.

"Something like that." Eames smiles, sits across from Arthur, and digs into his own helping.

They have breakfast.

+

It's Monday again. Arthur quits his job. He was freelance to begin with, so it's not a proper 'fuck you' to the system, but it means something to Arthur. Arthur, who quit because working was just not as entertaining as getting to know Eames, and if anyone dares take that out of context, Arthur will shoot them in the head with an unabashedly quick-to-react trigger finger from Hell.

This might have something to do with Eames taking him out, periodically, to a shooting range.

(At this point, he's pretty much given up attempting to deny himself the pleasure of a gun in his hands, firstly because Eames is a dirty, dirty enabler, and secondly because Arthur has run out of good explanations as to why shooting things is such a problem. Damn, it feels good to release the safety.)

Sometimes, the both of them will go for coffee together, because too much homemade brew makes Arthur all kinds of annoyed -- it reminds him that he doesn't have much of a life, now -- and Eames will buy half the pastries on the shelves and proceed to consume most of them. Arthur will pick at something flaky and sprinkled with cinnamon and get halfway through it before Eames decides he is slower than a turtle on speed and finishes it for him, with much gusto, and inappropriate noises that Arthur half-glares at.

Arthur never asks about what Eames is doing these days, forgery-wise, but Eames must sense that Arthur's craving at least some kind of information, because he lets little hints slip into their conversation anyway. Things like, "Red and slinky or black and classic?" or "The mark's cousin is a right bastard, Arthur, you'd love him," or "Cobb's doing another job," or "I'd like to try impersonating someone interesting, you know? Like an epileptic."

Wait. Back up.

Arthur cocks an eyebrow at Eames over the white rim of his latte. "Now you're just screwing with me."

"Yes," Eames says conversationally, "Also, it's the truth."

"You're kidding." Arthur's brow furrows. "He's retired."

"You didn't take him seriously, did you? Once an extractor, always an extractor -- you can take the man from the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business but you can't take the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business from the-"

Arthur interrupts. "And he called you up?"

"Needs a forger's expertise, as it happens," Eames says. "Though I hear he's looking for a reliable point man to complete his merry band."

Arthur 'hm's into his cup. He can't believe he's thinking about it. No, he's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about it so hard that if Eames isn't careful, Arthur's eyes are going to bore holes into his stupid silk-patterned shirt.

His pride is whispering persuasive things in his ear. And Arthur likes his pride, he really does. He doesn't want to have to beat it into submission.

Arthur can feel Eames watching him carefully.

He goes back to his apartment and subjects himself to mind-numbing television.

+

It's Wednesday.

If Arthur wasn't such a stickler for organization and keeping himself grounded to reality, he wouldn't know what day it was. But he keeps a calendar and a schedule, which has, incidentally, been edited far too many times to allow for Eames' idiotic working hours, and so he knows that on Wednesdays, he and Eames take strolls down the roads near Arthur's apartment. They hardly talk but when they do it's usually about mundane things, but Arthur waits for those tiny hints that allude to Eames' dream work so he can draw conclusions and entertain ideas about certain jobs Eames won't speak to him about.

Arthur never thought he'd be living vicariously through Eames, but it's not like he has anything better to do when they're not shooting targets or eating pastries or drinking coffee together.

"I'm famished," Eames says, by way of greeting. He continues, as Arthur looks at him with something akin to exasperation, "And you're far too skinny to turn down a good meal and get away with it."

It's 6-ish, and Eames is wearing a tie.

Arthur decides not to comment, but the urge is very strong.

"Go put on a suit," Eames says, making shooing motions with his hands. Arthur, as is his trademark, slams the door in Eames' smug face again (honestly, it's become something of an art by now), but goes to put on a suit nevertheless. It's not a three-piece -- just a dark navy blazer with matching trousers over a white button-up, skinny tie -- but he doesn't forget to check himself in the mirror as he walks back out, and he already looks far more swank than he has in a while. He doesn't slick back his hair, though. At least, not severely.

When he opens the door again, Eames shoots him a positively devilish smile. Arthur does not, in any capacity, return it. But his lips might've twitched up. Just a little.

The restaurant is far too classy for a guy like Eames, but it suits Arthur just fine. He's always been a bit of a sucker for fine furnishing and mood lighting and expensive, vintage French wine-

He stops. Looks up at Eames incredulously.

"Did we start dating while I wasn't looking?"

"Something like that." Eames chuckles, pours him another generous glass of wine. "For such an intelligent man, you can be unbelievably thick. I am one-hundred percent sure that civilian life has taken your brain and poured molasses on it."

Arthur stares at him. "You've been planning this from the start, haven't you?"

Eames grins at him through a mouthful of food, shrugs all guilty as charged-like, and Arthur -- well, okay, Arthur really can't bring himself to get angry with him.

They have dinner.

+

Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:

A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom (messy), a nice kitchen (half-clean), a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces (one, a dove gray plaid Tom Ford, a present). Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is half-empty. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks, two of which have gone missing.

What Arthur has that is not normal:

A Glock 17 under his pillow, a re-assembled FN SCAR-L with ACOG scope on his dresser. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders, some on top of the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, a missed call from Cobb, and an emergency PASIV device on top of the unlocked trunk at the end of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, a relationship with Mr. Eames.

"Rise and shine," Eames murmurs into the back of Arthur's neck, sheets tangled around their legs. He's probably been awake for the better part of half an hour, the insane bright-and-early bastard. "Our next existential dream heist awaits."

Arthur turns over and hooks a leg over Eames' hip, breathing in the scent of him as he buries his head into the crook of Eames' shoulder. "Mmmmmmshuttup," he mumbles incoherently. "Goway."

Eames laughs a raspy, deep-throated laugh, and presses a soft, dry kiss to Arthur's messy hair. When Arthur doesn't move, Eames pokes him in the ribs. Repeatedly.

Arthur hates him so, so much.

+

(... But he kind of loves him too. And that sort of makes everything else worth it.)

Fic: Hot Air

balphas — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:16:31 GMT

Title: Hot Air
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: Hard R?
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Written for this prompt over at inception_kink. CRIPPLING HEAT-WAVE. Eames is bored. Arthur is trying to work. Eames provokes the shit out of him. Unbeta'd, so forgive any mistakes.

hot air. arthur/eames. r. 2530 words.

"Arthur."

He breathed in the hot air like it was water, like it might somehow quench his thirst, cool his dry throat, his cottony tongue, every molecule laden with sticky moisture that only a summer day in Hell could bring. The safe house where they were basing their operations was without power, obviously, and cramped. The air conditioner was long defunct. The windows were open in a futile attempt to cool the room, though instead of circulating the air, they only managed to let in more sun, and heat, and the overcooked, fetid smell off the streets. Arthur was long ruing the moment he agreed to travel to Mombasa with Eames and work while Cobb fucked off to visit Ariadne in Paris; between their supposed architectural conversations, they were probably lounging in air-conditioned luxury while he, in one of worst moods he'd been in since he got into this business, sat on the equally sticky desk chair with his shirtsleeves rolled up, sweaty and miserable.

He might say, were he in a better mood, and in good company, that it could be worse. But no: Arthur was not in a good mood, and he was not in good company -- Eames was sitting next to him with the kind of self-satisfied smirk that you'd expect on a large, recently-satiated feline -- so matters could not, in fact, get much worse.

"Arthur, you in there, sweetheart?"

In a perfect world, neither occupational necessity or Cobb's word-as-god would be able to change Arthur's mind about Eames. Sadly, the world was far from perfect, and whilst ruminating deeply on the subject, Arthur had concluded that Eames existed solely to rub that right in his face. A sarcastic jab here or there was something he could deal with, no problem; Arthur's tolerance for ridicule or fooling around was higher when his team members were there to soften the tension. But he and Eames had been alone now, in a tiny space, with a temperature upwards of Stupid°, for hours. With no interruptions, no break, and no Cobb.

And Eames -- irritating Eames, horridly dressed Eames, stubbled and sweaty and suave bastard Eames -- Eames had gotten bored the shortly after the first hour was up.

"Arthur," the low voice drawled again, made lower by the heat, and raspier still with the dryness of the throat from which it issued. Arthur had weighed his options on shutting Eames up, but he eventually concluded that he might pass out from the amount of energy he'd need to expend in order to actually move. Not only was the temperature sapping his energy, but also his legendary ability to remain calm in a crisis -- which this, undoubtedly, was.

"Arthur," Eames repeated, a broken fucking record, "You haven't typed one word in as many minutes. Something wrong?"

Shut up.

"Do you mind?" he snapped. He wondered briefly if he had the self-control to try to ignore Eames for another hour, and ultimately decided, no, he did not. A thought meandered vaguely across his mind -- something to do with Eames provoking him on purpose and why it wouldn't be a good plan to rise to the bait -- and it poked half-heartedly at Arthur's common sense before giving up and wandering off.

"I don't mind, no." Eames smiled beatifically in Arthur's periphery.

Arthur didn't take his eyes from the laptop monitor as he rephrased his hourly mantra with his teeth grinding together and his eyes narrowed, "You're bored, I get it, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself. All the way to yourself."

Miraculously, silence settled. Arthur refused to move his eyes from the screen to check on Eames, but the man had gone as still a the grave; absolutely no part of him twitched, not even a lift of a finger, nor tap of a foot. The hairs on the back of Arthur's neck prickled uncomfortably, already damp with sweat and loose gel. It was obvious now that Eames was watching him -- like a fucking hawk, Christ -- so he forced himself to read the lines of words in front of his eyes while Eames continued to pin him with a gaze that was quite possibly more annoying than his sandpapery voice.

The relative quiet didn't last, though. Of course not. It could never have.

Eames started in on entirely different thread of conversation, as if he had not just spent the last five minutes staring at Arthur's profile. "You know, I'd always thought basements were the place to go if there was a heat wave. It's cooler underground, isn't it?"

"Then go to the basement."

Eames wiped his brow with the back of a hand. "Tempting, truly tempting. But if I have to sacrifice my comfort to see your knickers all in a twist, then so be it."

Arthur glared at his hands, made a noncommittal grunt in response.

Eames continued, "And the answer to the unspoken question is: you haven't moved yourself because wireless doesn't serve in the basement, there are no outlets, and you would prefer to submit to my pestering than get no work done at all. Which, frankly, makes you seem a little masochi-"

"This would all move a little faster if you'd be quiet," Arthur reasoned, certainly not imagining a neat little bullet hole in Eames' forehead. "One hour. It's all I'm asking."

Eames hummed. "Mm, no. You've had your hour. I'm desperate for entertainment, and you'll just have to do."

Arthur bit his tongue. Remained silent. Counted to ten. Got to five. "Eames, I swear-"

"Let's be honest, here. We both know you can't ignore me. Resistance is futile, et cetera. Give into your baser nature, Arthur. Accept the man trapped inside your expensive three-pieces, clawing to be free of every restrictive stitch in every rib-hugging waistcoat, weeping its poor little bastard eyes out over the large and regrettably thorny stick up your arse." Eames raised a finger to his lips, rubbed it across the lower. "I would offer to remove it for you, you know, if I wasn't ninety percent sure it was a legitimate component of your anatomy."

"Eames," Arthur warned.

"Mmhm?"

"Eames," he said again. Mantra, mantra. "Shut up."

Eames raised an eyebrow, tipping his chair back on two legs. Arthur didn't need to look at him to know the smug bastard's face was twisted into a devious smile, crooked incisors and devilish charm in full swing. "That's hardly polite," the infuriatingly languid man observed, in an similarly infuriating and languid voice. "I've always wondered how Cobb finds you bearable enough to employ."

Arthur exhaled slowly. "Shut up, please."

"I'll have to decline, thanks, but points for effort." Eames smirked. "Incidentally, you're sweating rather a lot, and your hair's come all loose. Have you noticed? Flopping into your eyes, all mussed-like. Fetching, as ever, but it must be driving you bonkers."

It was almost as if Arthur's last nerve was also the last string to go on a worn violin, and Eames was determined to keep plucking it until it snapped right in half with a disjointed twang. Fingernails dug into a sweaty palm and he resisted, just barely resisted plastering a lock of slick hair back against his skull. He knew what he must look like, and until Eames had brought it up, he hadn't cared.

"You know, I think I like you better this way," Eames smiled coyly, gnawing on a thumb. "All hot and bothered."

Control your temper. He's not worth it. Not worth your attention. Not worth-

"In retrospect, I suppose I should be awarded some sort of medal for sabotaging the central air in the first place."

Fucking asshole.

Arthur swung around in his chair, eyes hard and unamused, and looked at Eames for the first time in God knew how many minutes. It didn't take a formal education to tell that the heat was getting to him; Eames' unslicked hair was stuck to his forehead, and though his skin was tan and rough from his latest stay in Mombasa, it wasn't hard to spot the reddish flush around the cheeks. Even his eyelashes were wet with perspiration, his palms sweaty, his open shirt unashamedly showcasing the beads of sweat at his collar and chest. It wasn't much of a stark contrast from his usual appearance, but it was enough of a disheveled change to allow Arthur to indulge in some schadenfreude. Before killing him with his bare hands.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, as if he was speaking to a child. "Eames, I swear to God, if you don't shut your face right fucking now, I will shut it for you."

"Will you, now?"

"I won't tell you again." With an unnecessarily harsh movement, he turned back to his desk, and managed to scan a few lines before Eames spoke up in rebuttal.

"Arthur," he said, sounding almost wistful, "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. Our relationship is suffering at the hands of your glittering personality, and frankly, I'm finding the attitude a bit of a turnoff. Heaven knows we could move mountains together if you learned to be less of an absolute tosser."

Arthur growled. "Don't."

"Don't what? Make you shut me up, like you said you would?" His husked laugh moved sluggishly through the humid air. "I'd wager you can't even shoot a gun in reality, let alone pin me down long enough to keep me quiet."

Arthur raised his hand, made a fist, and punched Eames across the face.

Eames fell back onto the floor, chair clattering down with him, a hand to his nose. It took a moment before Arthur realized the sounds coming from him were bursts of laughter, and even with his nose otherwise occupied, the sounds were hardly nasal. Deep and throaty, full of mirth and pain and -- "Fucking hell," Eames chuckled messily, as Arthur's fist shook, "Give me more, go on! I'll bet anything you can't do that again-"

Arthur heard something snap, which might have been his sanity, or his last nerve, but in a moment he was pinning Eames to the warehouse floor and hitting him, hitting him, not caring where he struck and not caring that Eames wasn't even trying to defend himself. Finesse had gone out the window, as well as any shred of rationality; he was sick and tired of Eames throwing insults at him, sick and fucking tired of how the man didn't know how to take a hint, or stop saying his damn name, or dress well, or shut up. There was no Ariadne of Yusuf to break them up; there was no Cobb to pull Arthur off of the forger, which was undoubtedly what would have happened. There was nothing but the heat and space and the broken air conditioner and a couple of damaged fans and Eames's hands scrabbling for his neck, his face, and pulling him down for a vicious kiss that tasted like sweat and spice -- and, after a second's consideration, maybe something like blood and saliva mixing from Eames' split lip.

Eames's teeth were sharp, Arthur thought absentmindedly, as they ripped at each other's mouths. He stopped hitting any available spot he could reach and dragged his nails savagely across Eames's bare collarbone, who growled roughly against Arthur's mouth, jerked his hips up in an aborted movement, grabbing fistfuls of Arthur's sweat-soaked shirt. For the life of him, Arthur couldn't quite tell whether it was a smile or a scowl Eames was kissing him with, and why, for the love of God, he was returning the sentiment.

He couldn't give himself an answer, so he stopped, just stopped. Stared a moment, then wrenched away in utter disgust. Looked at the man lying sweatily, sloppily between his knees, and punched Eames across the face again for good measure. "Don't fucking touch me."

Eames' head lolled, still on his back, smirking. He held his hands up in gesture of placation. "As your majesty commands. Even so, I'd like a round of applause for my hard work."

"Why," Arthur spat, "Would I indulge you?"

"Because you already have," Eames said. And gestured to the both of them: Arthur, will his knees splayed, hips canted against Eames' as he straddled him on the floor, hands balled into fists, hair in dire need of a comb-through, red patches high on his cheeks. And Eames, who suddenly rolled his own hips into Arthur's, eliciting something that sounded horrifically like a moan from Arthur's dry, dry throat.

"You are gorgeous," Eames breathed, eyes flickering up, half-lidded.

By some miraculous feat of willpower, Arthur removed himself from the position entirely and stood, dusting off his thighs, and trying to force the flush off his face and back down his neck. Also tried to ignore the tightness in his slacks, the obviousness of his erection, and the obviousness of Eames', but that was neither here nor there. What Arthur did not, in fact, ignore, was the slowly simmering thoughts of homicide.

"You are also a magnificent tease," Eames amended.

"Get out," Arthur hissed, turned away.

"Same time tomorrow?"

"Get out," Arthur repeated, walking over to his desk, opening a drawer, and drawing out his Glock 17.

Eames raised an eyebrow, drew himself up and off the floor, swaggered his way over to Arthur until his chest pressed flush into Arthur's back, his hips pressing into the finely tailored cloth of Arthur's trousers. "You sure you want me to go?" He murmured, rough stubble and dried split lip scraping against skin, tongue flicking out to catch the rim of Arthur's ear. "Because I don't want to."

"Go," Arthur said, ignoring the release of breath on the sweat at his neck. "Or I'll shoot you in the foot."

Eames' tongue drew Arthur's earlobe into his mouth, his hands snaking 'round to rub at the seam of Arthur's trousers, who shuddered and just barely resisted pushing into the touch. "I don't think you will."

"Try me," Arthur murmured. His eyes opened -- having shut, apparently -- as he aimed the Glock down. And fired.

"Jesus Christ!"

Eames jerked away at the noise, off-balance, and Arthur took this opportunity to swing around and press the gun to Eames' perspiring forehead, walking him forward, towards the door, out into the deserted alley street, stinking of heat and garbage. "Leave," Arthur suggested placidly.

A wolfish smile tugged at Eames' lips. "You'll see me again soon," he drawled.

Arthur's finger twitched on the trigger; Eames' eyes flicked to it, and he backed away, having gotten the message quite clearly. Then he turned and walked away, down the alley, undoubtedly off to visit Yusuf or pick some poor bastard's pocket. For Arthur's part, he slammed the door on he way back in, and willed his erection down as he resumed his seat at the desk, in front of his laptop. Silence, blessed silence, fell like a blanket (save for the bustle of the surrounding streets, naturally); with Eames absent, Arthur's attention was no longer divided. Good God, was this how normal people felt when they worked?

Until a stray word reminded him of Eames' tongue at his ear, Eames; tricky fingers palming his cock through his trousers, breathing roughly and laughing like a fool.

Arthur's fingers stilled at the keyboard, his mind hating his fucking body for being such a traitorous traitor of a backstabbing double-crosser, and for the second time in an hour, he felt his head swim.

You'll see me again soon.

Arthur closed his laptop far harder than was necessary. He pulled out his phone.

Somebody needed to fix the damn air conditioner.

Fic: Joie de vivre

balphas — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:11:24 GMT

Title: Joie de vivre.
Fandom: Good Omens/Inception mash-up.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Written for this prompt over at inception_kink. I am physically unable to resist writing Good Omens crossover/AU fic, complete with footnotes. It's a disease. Also, hooray! I'm writing again!

joie de vivre, arthur/eames, 1439 words.

Eames breezes through the bookshop door with nary a care in the world, unshaven and rumpled and light on his feet, as always. Arthur doesn't bother to look up from his place behind the front desk; he is six for twelve on the latest crossword, and he's halfway through his morning tea, and it is eight on the AM.

The thing about Eames -- and there is always a thing, and always has been, throughout the long years of their Arrangement and before, when there was more than one thing of Eames' -- which is, if you refuse Eames any attention, he will saunter over to your personal space even when you have made it clear that your personal space is your Personal Space, and after hovering for a good minute, will proceed to break down any individualized barriers you may have had with a few simple and economical moves designed to make you as uncomfortable as possible. He does this with a good sidle and a hand on your shoulder, or arm, or waist, and a low half-rasped English murmur in your ear, and he will get a reaction any way he can, because that is simply how Eames is.

Arthur has lived with the angel's little idiosyncrasies long enough to know when to indulge them, when to provoke them, and when to shrug them off. Except he can't exactly shrug them off, because shrugging doesn't do a whole lot to dissuade him and the touching and the thrice-blessed rasping in his ear. He knows. He's tried.^[1]

Why Eames does this, he has a vague idea; a vague idea that likes to make itself scarce when the space-invading barrier-breaking waist-touching occurs. Arthur has a very good poker face, and Eames has a very good work ethic. So they dance around each other. Not literally, mind, but figuratively. Obviously. Even though Arthur's pretty sure Eames would jump at the chance to tango.

(See -- that's another thing. The tango is one of Arthur's. It belongs to His Side. So does swing. Anything but ballroom and the gavotte, actually. Eames crosses lines, and doesn't seem to mind that he does, not as much as his superiors do. But honestly Arthur just stopped asking altogether when he found Eames balled up on his couch, headphones on his ears, listening to Queen.)

Today, Eames comes around the counter. He does the personal space sidle while Arthur looks resolutely down at his crossword -- seven out of twelve, now -- and puts a hand on his waist, leaning forward, very much a large physical presence as much as a large metaphysical one. Eames' breath catches the slicked back wisps of hair at Arthur's right temple as he murmurs, "Morning. Eight Down giving you trouble, darling?"

"No," Arthur says, stalling, not moving, not one inch. Eames hand is still at his waist, but it travels to the small of his back as he leans away slightly. He pulls down his sunglasses (sunglasses! At eight in the morning!) with a forefinger, revealing blue, blue eyes that Arthur knows are there but can't see, and peers over his shoulder.

"Hm." After a second of standing there, too close, Eames says: "Medea."

"What." (No inflection. Arthur can't be bothered.)

"Eight Down. Jason's wife. Medea."

(Arthur's bothered.)

Eames hums as he moves out from behind the counter, leaving Arthur feeling slightly less warm and slightly more irritated. He downs the rest of his tea in the next five minutes and makes the crossword answer itself out of spite while Eames browses the shelves, smiling to himself.

Arthur's book shop is located in a small corner of Paris, nothing flashy, bright, or obscene in any way, no thank you sir. Just because he's a demon doesn't mean he doesn't have class. While Eames is dressed business casual, Arthur aspires to higher levels of professional attire. There is no reason at all why he shouldn't be allowed to wear three-pieces simply because he runs a demonic book shop. His clothes, and to a lesser extent, the shop, are both in perfect condition, and they stay that way because the dust particles are too scared to touch anything with a surface. Arthur is meticulously neat, and doesn't like it when things get out of order, especially when those things are his things, so his things never do. Because if they do, Arthur sets them on fire.

It doesn't matter that the book shop is mostly a front. No-one really knows what it is that Arthur does, except for Eames, who hasn't bothered to put a stop to it yet. So it can't be that evil. In theory.^[2]

And anyway, Eames comes into the shop every day, but he never picks anything out; the selections aren't so tedious as more or less Satanic, but there's a Fitzgerald or Hemingway here and there. Once, Eames snuck some CS Lewis into the Non-Fiction section, and of course Arthur noticed right away -- but for the life of him, he hasn't figured out why he hasn't burned it already, or why it had to be CS Lewis, of all things. It's gathering dust, though. So that's nice.

Right now, Eames is burying his nose in the cults and rituals section, looking for all the world like he's interested in it -- which, given his line of occupation, he probably is -- but Arthur can't stand it anymore and so he clears his throat loudly and authoritatively. Eames looks up with an eyebrow raised, sunglasses still perched on the end of his nose, and Arthur waves him over.

"Yes, dear?"

"I'm not your dear, and I know you aren't going to buy anything, Mr. Eames, so if you could save me the trouble of kicking you out for loitering-"

Eames looks hurt. Which is to say, he pouts. "That's rather unfair, don't you think? I was enjoying myself."

"I know you were," Arthur says coldly. Honestly, they've had this conversation so many times before that it's become something like writ.

They share a Look.

"Oh, I see," Eames says slowly, all infuriating charm and horrid fashion sense as he leans his elbows up on the counter, "You don't like me having my fun while you're stuck behind this moldy old desk, not getting paid, hm?"

Arthur glares at him, but before he can open his mouth to retaliate, Eames has pulled over his recently frightened-into-completion crossword and is looking at it. And not leaving.

"Eames," he says, his last shred of patience flapping in the wind, "There is no reason for you to be here at eight in the morning."

"There's a perfectly good reason," Eames says, still checking through the crossword.

"No, there isn't."

"There is."

"Is there?"

"You are."

"I'm what?"

"The reason."

Arthur rubs the bridge of his nose. For the love of- "What do you want, Eames?"

Eames smiles merrily up at him, pushes the crossword away, and straightens. "Breakfast."

In another world, Arthur might have said no. A world where his stomach was not insisting it digest something other than lukewarm tea, or a world which would provide him with customers before noon on a Monday. So he looks at Eames for a good thirty seconds and gives in, because Eames will pay anyway and it's absolute treason to turn down a good (free) French breakfast. His only physical indication of agreement is to move out from behind the counter and shrug on his blazer, and without looking behind him, he walks out the door with Eames on his heels. But not before he flips the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

Eames buys them a brioche to split and they walk around the Jardin du Luxembourg, swapping banter. Arthur stops in front of the Palais, standing next to the large pool. A few ducks paddle slowly towards them; Eames, surreptitiously, leans in close. Arthur's right shoulder touches Eames' chest, Eames' left hand sneaking round to settle on Arthur's hip, a warm weight on an otherwise cool morning, and while Arthur refuses to acknowledge how not-bad it feels, he also doesn't move away. He can't. And maybe doesn't want to.

What he does do is crumble a bit of the brioche. And while Eames tickles his ear with his lips, chuckling quietly, he feeds the ducks.

+
^[1]It should be noted that that particular incident went over awkwardly for all parties involved; Eames had come over for take-out and a movie, and while on the couch, had performed a maneuver not unlike the yawn-with-arm-over-the-shoulder technique. Arthur, not enjoying this, had shrugged him off. Eames, clearly enjoying this, had not let go. After a few seconds of shifting and tussle, Eames had Arthur pinned underneath him with his wrists next to his head and their foreheads inches from colliding, breathing hard. (Eames left before finishing his Pad Thai, and Arthur watched the rest of the film in silence.)

^[2]Arthur is secretly a research nerd. Eames thinks this is funny and/or irresistable. Shh, don't tell anyone.

VALENTINE'S DAY COMMENT!FIC

balphas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:10:12 GMT

I'm offering a Valentine's ficlet to the first five people who comment. Any genre, so long as the main theme is relationship fluff/issues/drama/angst/pie. You know the fandoms; prompt away!

1 : quintum, Steve/Tony, "He's so hot he's making me gay. Bastard."
2 : fistsandfangs, Bruce/Harvey or Harvey/Nightwing, "Epic hatesex."
3 : iambickilometer, BAU team goes for "HAPPY FLUFFY PIE."
4 : audioimport, Dean/Castiel, "RIDING A UNICORN ROMANTICALLY INTO A RAINBOW/SUNRISE HOLDING HANDS -- w. Sam."
5 : kafaaillurljon

Fic: The Width of a Circle

balphas — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:53:32 GMT

Title: The Width of a Circle
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Pairing: Genirific.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1539 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Demon-summoning: not as easy as you'd think.
Notes: This ficlet is so old. I don't even know if it makes sense anymore, but at least it's done? Set at the tail-end of S4 of SPN, and a while after the events of Good Omens.

One moment he's convincing Aziraphale that Wimbledon isn't his fault entirely, (to which the angel had said, "Yes, well, clay courts are obviously something you would be proud of, my dear") and the next he's watching that horrendous tweed jacket fuzz up more than usual as things quickly fade into a disconcerting reddish haze.

Bugger, Crowley thinks distractedly, because it's quite hard to focus when you're suddenly being grabbed by iron-handed existential forces and shaken about like a rag doll.

---

Sam says, slowly, "Dean, he's got--"

Dean says, "I know!"

They've got the demon in the basement of an abandoned warehouse somewhere, and his high-end demon-chic sunglasses are casting two-inch shadows innocently on the floor where Dean had knocked them from his face with a well-placed fist. The demon's wearing a suit jacket and an expensive-looking wristwatch with a hell of a lot of hands and a slightly rumpled tie and and Sam happens to notice right away that he doesn't blink much. Upon closer inspection, there seem to be no whites to his eyes. Mostly because they're entirely yellow.

"Ow," the demon says, testing his jaw.

At this point, Sam's not really inclined to feel sympathetic.

He and Dean both are running on coffee and burger grease, cheap beer and suicide soda mixes, headaches pounding their skulls. The circles under Dean's eyes are beginning to look a lot like shiners. They've been on the pain payroll for most of their lives, but now it seems to be catching up to them, and fast.

Dean circles the Devil's Trap. He's walking like a predator, loping wolfish gait and all. Sam just stands there warily, watches as the demon raises an eyebrow, his eyes flickering to the seance just outside the large sigil. The candlelight catches fire to the sharp planes of all of their faces and puts them at serious risk of over-dramatising the entire scene.

"Was this," the demon motions to the circle. "really necessary?"

Sam shares a significant look with Dean, who's gaze switches back and forth from Sam to the demon frequently enough to give anyone vertigo. It's got a funny accent, or the vessel does, or whatever. British, or something. Sam's eyes narrow on reflex; the memories of Bela immediately surface, as well as residual pain from that special time when she shot him in the shoulder, but he's willing to give this demon the benefit of the doubt. At least, while he's completely under trap lock and key.

Dean's got a hip flask of holy water in his jacket pocket. He removes it, twists the cap. The demon is looking pointedly at his sunglasses, lying outside the Devil's Trap by about a foot. He says, when neither Sam nor Dean answer him, "Look, I really ought to be on my way. Places to be, people to tempt."

"You ain't going nowhere," says Dean reflexively, coming to pace around the circle again, jabbing a finger threateningly in the demon's general direction. "You're gonna tell us exactly what we want to hear."

"Right." The demon motions at his surroundings vaguely. Bored. "Go." He mirrors Dean, begins to pace, in little circles, widening until he's skirting the edge of the Devil's Trap by an inch or so, polished shoes looking abnormally bright in the dank atmosphere. Dean and Sam eye him apprehensively.

Sam frowns. He and Dean share another look.

The demon looks back and forth between them. "What?"

"You're not going to put up a fight?"

He blinks. The first time in five minutes. "No?"

This is. Well, this is really not going how Sam had expected it to go.

"And we're just supposed to trust your word from the get-go?" Sam asks in disbelief.

"Look, buddy, you're really starting to wear on my nerves," Dean cuts in.

The demon smiles pleasantly, in the sort of way that may or may not send small children running.

Dean looks at Sam and then back to their prisoner with a mouth set into a hard line, and says, "I'm Dean. This is Sam. Winchester. You know, hunters. Scourges of the demon underworld, you guys try and serve us up on a platter every chance you get?"

"Oh," says Crowley, smile dropping right off his face. "Well. That's. Er. I probably ought to let you know that there's lot of people really angry at you."

-----

"So we're just going to leave him down there?"

"No, I was thinking I'd give him a tour," Dean says. "He's still a demon, Sam! C'mon!"

"Listen, I don't think it's..." Sam says. Shakes his head. "But the yellow eyes -- I mean, aside from them he doesn't seem all that dangerous."

Dean stares at him. "Are you kidding me?"

"All I'm saying is that it just doesn't seem like he's the guy we tried to summon."

"So you're saying we've snagged Expendable Crewdemon number triple-six instead?" Dean snorts. "Not buying it."

"We haven't exactly done this rite before, Dean. Maybe the spell wasn't specific enough -- it just went looking for the first demon on earth instead of the most powerful one, like that somehow equates, or something." Sam acquires the pensive thinking face that Dean's so familiar with. "In the bible, it mentions a serpent. The most cunning of all of the beasts God created or whatever. The Bible's been through so many revisions that it's impossible to tell -- and I don't think a big player would really place himself on the earth so early in the creation story, right?"

"Unless he wanted a giant can of holy whoop-ass, made to order," Dean says tiredly. "All right. Okay, then. Assuming it's not Satan, that explains the freaky-ass eyes. So, assuming you're right and the whole creation story bullshit is true, we've got a different demon. Now what? Which one?"

"Uh," Sam explains helpfully. "No idea. But he hasn't tried to kill us. He hasn't even tried anything. Most demons would be writing 'the Winchesters made fun of me today' their diaries by now."

"Yeah, and the second we let him go is the second he jumps us," Dean mutters. "You said it yourself. Most cunning of all Daddy Devil's little kids and all that. Man, who is this guy?"

They sit in silence for a full second before Sam dares to say, "I can stop him." His fingers flex. "If he tries anything--"

"No," Dean bites out. "No, you are sure as hell not doing any of that. I won't have it."

"But--"

"No!"

There's a heavy pause.

"Erm," says Crowley from the door.

"Oh shit!" Dean jumps about a foot in the air and draws the gun in his coat pocket in about a second. Sam's got his hand out, fingers bent a little at the knuckles, and when Crowley doesn't even so much as take a step towards them Dean takes the opportunity glare at Sam.

Crowley waggles his own fingers. He's rescued the sunglasses; there's not a scratch on them. "Houdini."

"Get back," Dean says, immediately moving lightning-fast to get between Crowley and Sam.

Sam's gaze darts back and forth -- and tentatively, he lowers his hand.

"Dean, he's not going to hurt us."

"Wouldn't dare," Crowley says. "I do have a job, you know. General chaos to incite, that sort of thing. Not really in the 'disemboweling hunters' business, more of the 'avoiding hunters' business. You don't mind if I just..."

"How'd you get out?" Dean barks. "Now way you could've. I made that Trap myself."

Sam stares. "The real question is why you stayed in, when you could get out all along?"

Crowley shrugs. "I was interested."

"Dean, look, if he was going to hurt us, he would've already. He's... he seems pretty powerful. Maybe we don't have to try and force anything out of him."

"Please, no forcing," Crowley adds hurriedly.

"Shut up," Dean snaps. "I don't trust him."

Crowley shrugs, turns. "Well, in that case. Been fun. Ciao."

"Wait!" Sam shouts. Then calms. "Wait. Let's just... talk for minute."

------

"Sorry about earlier, and everything. But, we figure, since you're here, now we know who -- well, we need your help."

Crowley snorts, and takes a generous sip of the wine that had suddenly found itself occupying the beer bottle Dean had handed him. They're in a motel somewhere, in dirty rural America, and it smells like moldy sheets and stale sub sandwiches and something really offensive that Crowley just doesn't want to put a name to. He's been hankering for something citrus since he stepped foot in the dingy, salt-smelling Trapped basement. He'd even settle for a few scented candles. Or a match.

Dean makes a thanks a bunch noise. Crowley makes one right back at him.

"It's," Sam says slowly, "important."

"Yeah, End-of-the-World important," Dean snaps.

Crowley stops, peers at them both over the rim of his bottle, taking in their completely serious faces and the way Sam says 'Apocalypse' like it's meant for five-year-old ears. Then he slowly brings a hand up to his face and lets his forehead drop into it, stifling slightly hysterical chuckles until Sam asks what's up and he says, oh, nothing, nothing, and then laughing, calls Aziraphale on the phone on the bedside table.

Fic: Decorations

balphas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:40:54 GMT

Title: Decorations
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, sort of
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1154 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: In which Merlin tries to be sneaky, and fails, but succeeds a little too. Silliness ensues.
Notes: Beware: gratuitous use of italics. I have no idea if they did this in medium-sized evil Britain, but, hey, considering the show doesn't give a rat's arse about historical accuracy, we can pretend. Right? Right?

"Arthur?"

"Merlin!" Arthur snaps, without looking up. "How many times have I told you: knock first!"

"Sorry," Merlin says, not sounding very sorry at all.

"Just -- " Arthur pauses, turning a page. "Stoke the fire, or something."

Merlin moves into the room; Arthur can hear every footstep but still doesn't look up to observe Merlin's slow path through his chambers, occupied with the pretense of reading. Only when Merlin trips over something and makes an absolute racket does Arthur raise his head.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Arthur says, because really, who the blazes did Merlin think he was, setting great fat lumps of produce down in front of the hearth?

"Erm," Merlin says. "Decorating?"

"I don't think I gave you permission to stick things anywhere you bloody like," Arthur rises from his seat. He walks over, stops, turns to Merlin with an exasperated frown and points an accusatory finger down. "There are holes in this pumpkin."

"Oh, noticed that, did you?"

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur says, with little venom. "What makes you think I'd want a pumpkin, let alone one with holes in it?"

"Erm," Merlin explains.

Arthur waves a hand dismissively. "I don't want it. Get it out of my sight. Put it somewhere else to rot. Take it to Gwen, and -- and make pie out of it or something."

He's about to spin on his heel regally, but Merlin holds up a hand and employs The Kicked Manservant look and Arthur's forced to stay still and suffer for a second. "For God's sake," he says, with feeling. Irritated feeling.

"Hold on," Merlin says quickly, bending down to the hearth. "Just, hold on, wait a second -- " And he takes a piece of tinder from the fire and takes the top of the pumpkin off and lights a pile of sticks inside of the pumpkin, so that light suddenly bursts forth from the holes cut into it, and what Arthur hadn't seen clearly before is now illuminated in ruddy orange.

Oh, well now it all makes sense.

"A dragon," he says dryly, ignoring the very simple beauty of it. He most definitely will not say, by god, Merlin, well rendered, or, how unexpectedly clever of you, because Merlin still needs to learn about not bursting in on Arthur at his every whim and interrupting very serious political contemplations with pumpkins with dragons on them.

He manages, "Huh."

"Yeah, you know," Merlin motions vaguely, excitedly, "Your crest. Er, coat of arms, rather. I thought -- do you like it?"

And Merlin will probably burst into tears like the girl he is unless Arthur says yes, so glares off somewhere into the distance in a very princely, important way. "Well, you're not completely useless."

Merlin grins lopsidedly. "Really? We, erm, my mother and I, we used to do this every Samhain. We carved gourds, too. And if we could afford it, we bought some pigments and put faces on the gourds, and -- " He removes a small pouch from his belt. "We took the seeds out and cooked them to eat."

Arthur makes a decidedly un-princely face. "That's..."

"No, they're really good! Gaius and I made some for you last night. I know the king doesn't allow most of the traditions now, but I thought I could at least do this."

Arthur eyes the pouch. "Thanks but no thanks, Merlin."

But seemingly against his own will, he reaches out and takes the little pouch from Merlin anyway, and most certainly does not notice how Merlin's lips quirk like he knows something Arthur doesn't, and by now Arthur's just plain cross with himself.

Curses.

"If you poison me..." Arthur trails off threateningly, but reaches into the pouch and slips a golden seed into his mouth and chews on it. His eyes narrow. They're delicious, but of course it won't do to tell Merlin so.

"Barely tolerable," he says.

Merlin beams. "Glad it meets your approval. Sire." Then, he smirks with his eyes, which should be impossible, but apparently not for Merlin, and Arthur barely manages to avoid smiling back.

Instead, he pockets the pouch, fully intending on relocating the contents to his stomach when Merlin can't see, and looks back to the hearth, where the Pendragon Pumpkin sits, staring fiercely up at him. He teeters dangerously on the edge of telling Merlin to take it and leave, but it's rather endearing, and, well. Merlin had carved it for him, and Arthur is not one to say no to a free gift. Overgrown fruit or no.

So to avoid saying so, he turns back to his books, one half-open with a stack of papers next to it concerning his thoughts on the latest Mercian treaty which his father had asked him to look over -- look over, meaning find a loophole, any loophole -- and stares at it. Bloody boring stuff, would put any man asleep. Any other man, rather, because Arthur had definitely not dozed over it for the better part of the morning. Not in the least. He's above such things.

"Arthur," and Merlin's continuing on anyway, "You probably know this, but there's a festival outside. Gwen and I were planning on going, and I wonder if you wanted...?"

Arthur crosses his arms and puts on his Thinking Face, which is actually more of a Royal Pout. Merlin has his eyebrows raised, as if he knows the answer before Arthur actually says it, and hell, Arthur knows the answer before he says it. Mercian treaties be arsed. And it wouldn't do to get Merlin's hopes down, no, not at all.

Wait.

What?

"Get my cloak," he orders, before he can possibly look further into that. And while Merlin does so, Arthur picks up the pumpkin -- the fire has long gone out, there's only so much time twigs can burn before scorching the pumpkin's hollow bottom -- and analyzes it, much in the way he had been perusing his reading material.

After a moment, he takes a candle from the candelabra on the table and places it inside the pumpkin, so that the light bringing the dragon to life will remain until the wax melts. Which should be a long time, Arthur thinks, and places the pumpkin on the mantle.

"Here's your..." Merlin's eyes flicker to the pumpkin. Arthur glares at him, as if daring a snide comment, but Merlin keeps his mouth shut and just smiles.

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur mumbles.

"I didn't say anything!" Merlin protests.

"You were thinking it," Arthur says, and lets Merlin fasten the cloak around his shoulders. He feels rather than sees Merlin shake his head.

"Obviously, I'd forgotten you can read minds."

"I'm skilled enough that I don't need to," Arthur retorts good-naturedly.

Merlin chuckles and heads for the door. "Right."

And if Arthur has more fun at the festival than he intends to, it is most definitely, unequivocally, undeniably all Merlin's fault.

Fic: With Fire and Iron [I/?]

balphas — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:28 GMT

Title: With Fire and Iron [1/?]
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Pairing: Gen, so far. Eventual pairings in the GO!verse, maybe some Dean/Castiel. If you squint you can pick some up already.
Rating: R.
Length: 5723 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Even Armageddon believes in second chances.
Notes: Holy crap, plotty gen. This takes place during S4 of Supernatural and around fifteen years after the events of Good Omens. I'm trying to get a mix of GO's humor and SPN's angst and/or vice versa, and I have a few ideas for tying things together in a lovely big fat crossover-type way. Tell me if I should continue, if it's boring, or if you like it. Unbeta'd, so enjoy at your own risk. [The title is from the Latin phrase igni ferroque, "with fire and iron", a method one would use to lay siege to something.]

"What am I gonna do?"

A tattered body to his chest, not breathing. He's barely able to speak through grief, even if the tears had long wasted themselves on cotton and torn leather. He chokes up, dry heaves. Blood paints the claw-scratched floor, fills in the grooves like plaster. Smells too tangy, copper, unreal.

Everyone else is dead.

"What am I gonna do, Dean?"

There's no answer but the dawn in the window, the stink of death.

After a while, he gets up, goes out, finds a shovel. He makes a call, digs a grave. He's done it before. Every hit of the shovel into the dirt is something he's thought about for a year, a whole year. Maybe longer. Maybe forever.

ever since Dad said

take this

kill it

run.

After he's done digging, it's late, and there's a sort of funeral. His eyes are too blurred, too red to take it in. He just wants to leave. Most of all, he wants, he just wants to go and go.

He steps into a car that stills smells like him and fires the engine and lets it run for a minute. He stares out, out, into the distance.

Dean still doesn't answer his question, but Sam knows exactly what he's gonna do.

"The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin."
1 Enoch 10:8

When he Fell, he didn't know where he was Falling to, or why. There was a pit of amber-scattered dust and flaps of sulfuric earth there to swallow him up and he went straight to it, screaming his confusion to anyone who would listen. Whoever he would tell later in his life—that he'd chosen it, that he sauntered down to meet it—was being lied to. Was being told what was purely a defense mechanism. Nobody wants to go to Hell, not even its natural denizens.

Least of all fallen angels.

It was true that he'd 'hung out with the wrong people', but nobody had told him what would happen when he was found out, what the consequences would be for lobbying for free will—which was kind of a mind-blowing revelation for the angels, if you could believe that. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Thinking for yourself. He was all for the trendy stuff. Very avant-garde, Lucifer was.

And God hadn't up and decided to go off and create things yet, so there was nowhere else for the Host to go but deep down into the well to fester and rot.

Thinking back on it, he couldn't even begin to fathom how he managed to worm his way out of that one. Almost the exact moment he'd set flesh-torn, blood-slicked foot onto the misshapen rock of Hell, wings blackened shredded from the Fall and skin nearly flayed from his bones, just after he'd finished railing against the heavens at the unfairness of it all, he'd been picked out of the desperate crowd and given the promotion of a lifetime. "You're a demon now," Azazel had said. "Get up there and cause some trouble."

The funny thing was, about the free will deal, the whole point of the Rebellion? Turned out, in Hell, you still didn't have a choice. The free will thing was all just a crock.

And even so, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe the entire thing was his fault. Not the apple (all right, so it wasn't actually an apple) or the tempting or the first Apocalypse (all right, so it wasn't actually the Apocalypse) or anything. That was all just a freak misunderstanding, really.

No, the second Apocalypse was probably most definitely his fault.

Maybe.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

It was rather a plain Wednesday. So far.

The ducks on the pond remained woefully buoyant, but this was only because Aziraphale had the foresight to distract Crowley with a steaming mug of tea and a few scones and a made-to-order sandwich from the local café, from which he'd also got the mug. Crowley was holding it so close to his face that the steam fogged his sunglasses, and he'd managed to drink half of it before his tongue realized the liquid was actually scalding hot. The scones rested in a bag somewhere in his pocket. Aziraphale had consumed the sandwich.

He was reaching for one of the scones before he realized that he'd just drunk tea from a mug that had little fat Santa Clauses on it. Before he could point this travesty out, Aziraphale said cheerfully, "They've started selling Christmas decorations," and he was left holding the mug in a loose hand with a sour look on his face.

"The café?" He guessed, figuring he may as well partake in this conversation, no matter how perturbing.

"In general," Aziraphale said. "And in the café."

It was a odd feature of contemporary human society, where, Crowley had observed, holiday decorations were put out days or sometimes months beforehand. Unsurprisingly, the only people who bought those early decorations were the ones who put them out early, which inevitably started a sort of vicious circle that usually ended up with one's tree lights out in the bushes all year. Crowley had seen enough plastic reindeer with bulbous red noses sitting innocently on people's lawns to know exactly the type of people who Aziraphale was talking about.^[1]

"But it's October," Crowley said, fighting valiantly. "There's Halloween in October. Comes first."

Aziraphale sniffed. "I didn't see any Halloween decorations."

"Not even pumpkins?"

"Not a gourd in sight."

"Ah," Crowley said, sneaking a glance out of his periphery. Aziraphale had gone back to looking cheerful, red and green scarf perched jauntily around his shoulders. Crowley had the sneaking suspicion that the decorations had vanished the second the angel entered the café, or after he'd found most of it to be appallingly pagan. Aziraphale didn't like Halloween at all, thought it was campy and held too many nasty historical connotations. To be fair, Crowley felt exactly the same way about Christmas.

The only thing those two holidays had in common was that nobody celebrated them correctly anymore.

Crowley sighed and threw a piece of scone at a duck. He chanced a look over at the lot where the Bentley was parked and it immediately looked shinier, matte lacquer against the backdrop of brightly colored red, orange, and yellow trees, as the dust particles hurried to remove themselves from the paint. Crowley's smile practically ate his mouth, and all thoughts of Christmas, or Halloween for that matter, left him.

They made a full circuit of the pond once before they headed back to the Bentley and got in. Crowley put it in gear as Aziraphale regaled him with tales of people indulging in some good Samaritanism (as opposed to bad Satanism, Crowley had joked lamely, and got a disapproving stare for his troubles) and made it back to Aziraphale's bookshop somewhat intact.

"I'll ring later," Crowley promised, as Aziraphale went inside to presumably make more tea, or clout himself over the head with research of a dusty, angelic kind. It was as he was driving breakneck speeds back to his flat with Boccherini's Crazy Little Thing Called Love echoing his sentiments that he noticed the Santa Claus mug resting innocently on his upholstery.

Which probably should have been his first clue that things were going to bottom out spectacularly, but Crowley was rather too easily optimistic for a demon.

"Ngk," he gagged.

—relax, get hip, get on my tracks, take a back seat, hitch-hike, and take a long ride on my motor bike, until I'm ready, crazy little thing called CROWLEY.

"Ngk," Crowley said again, but for a completely different reason.

They hadn't contacted him in—in a bloody long while, that was what. Something in him knotted to whipcord tense, straining. Took it out of a demon to be nervous. His brain was suddenly shot through with memories and all sorts of paperwork and the cries of a wailing baby and fire and brimstone and all that generic Revelation stuff, and boy, Crowley thought. He was relatively sure demons couldn't get post-traumatic stress, but there was a first for everything.

Hell didn't usually forgive and forget. It had probably been a mistake to take their pardon in good faith.

Ha. Faith.

Crowley was pretty—almost entirely—sure he was fucked.

WE'VE MISSED YOU, CROWLEY.

"Can't really say the same," Crowley muttered, white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

WE'VE GOT A JOB FOR YOU, CROWLEY. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THIS JOB, CROWLEY, AND WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU.

"Yeah?"

DO NOT DISAPPOINT US, CROWLEY. NOT LIKE LAST TIME. WE HAVE GOT YOU IN OUR SIGHTS, CROWLEY, AND IF YOU MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE, WE WILL MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT MAKE IT THRICE.

"Okay," Crowley said. "Right."

ARE WE CLEAR?

"Terrifyingly," Crowley said.

GOOD. WE SHALL CHECK IN LATER called love I just can't handle it, this thing called love I must get round to it—

Freddie Mercury's voice suddenly cut off, as if it had sense enough to stop before Crowley began to dismember things.

There it was, all mapped out in his head like a schematic for a bank robbery, complete with red markings, tape and glue, little arrows pointing every which way until it all muddled up into something really, really muddled. Crowley hated that. Even after the first attempt at Armageddon, Hell still hadn't learned what nice printed and faxed memo could do for employee morale.

He pulled over. Dropped his forehead to the steering wheel and stayed there for a good five minutes just breathing, trying to get his head wrapped around what he was supposed to do and why it was that much more of a problem than what he had done... before.

He had half a mind to pitch a fit at God for being such an almighty cunt, but figured he'd already wasted the effort some six-thousand years ago. Besides, Aziraphale would flay him alive.

"Bugger," he choked out.

Eventually he got himself together and turned the ignition without touching it. He was running on a sort of autopilot. Something to buy him more time as he pulled his strings all into one ball of yarn, something stupid like that.

The Christmas mug was still there, staring at him, and that just made things worse somehow.

At least it was an excuse to turn around, give it back to the angel, maybe afford him half an excuse to fly into raging hysterics. He would have willed it away, otherwise.

Among other things, those kinds of mugs just shouldn't exist.

"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time."
1 John 2:18

Adam lived with Pepper.

The owned a house together, in Lower Tadfield, took out a fifteen-year mortgage on it after Adam's first book had sold over a hundred thousand copies. Pepper had a signed copy that she kept in a cardboard box under their bed, hidden among Brian's old comics and a few of Wensleydale's botched inventions. She thought he didn't know, and he never told her that he did, but he appreciated the sentiment all the same.

He'd also signed a first-edition copy and sent it to an old friend with a bookshop in Soho, where it was presumably gathering dust on some obscure shelf. Adam had received an enthusiastic letter of praise and gratitude the following week and he kept that, like Pepper, in box he preferred to think nobody knew about. He wasn't a particularly sentimental man, but what he loved, he loved dearly.

It was Tuesday morning when he felt the world change, but it was Wednesday afternoon when Anathema Device showed up on his doorstep.

"Hello," he said, with the door open, a small, long-lived animal barking somewhere from around his heels.

"Adam?" Anathema said. There was a wad of papers stuffed under her arm. "We need to—"

"Come in," he interrupted, stepping back to allow her inside.

Pepper was at work with Brian at his car repair shop, so the kitchen was very empty, and felt emptier still when Anathema sat down and arranged the papers in in haphazard fashion on the kitchen table. Adam hadn't seen her in years. She looked worn, but well-kept for a woman of her age. There were lines around her eyes and mouth that hadn't been there before.

She had been young when they first met, but even if he was twenty-six now, Adam still felt inexperienced.

"Adam," she said again. He held up a hand.

"How did you get my address?"

She looked at him like he was just stupid; then he remembered that she was still a witch, and sighed. She must have scryed him.

Huh.

Anathema began, "I never told you this, but after—" she made a motion with her hand, which Adam took to mean the Apocalypse, "—I received another manuscript."

"Another manuscript?" Adam said. Obviously they weren't going to sugarcoat things; Anathema had the air of someone about to divulge secret information of the highest order, and the topic had already skidded into territory Adam usually avoided thinking about.

In fact, he was sure that out of everything she had to say, none of it he would like.

"Of prophecies. I had the one last time. You know. The Nife and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. This," she tapped the pile of papers, "is the sequel."

Adam pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. He picked up the foremost sheet of dry paper, titled Further Nife and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Concerning the Worlde that Is To Com; Ye Sage Acontinuef in large and enticing script, and met Anathema's eyes over the tabletop.

"A sequel to the predictions concerning the end of the world," he said.

"Exactly. A sequel. Which means we have another Apocalypse on our hands."

"Why are you telling me this now?" Adam said carefully, replacing the paper. He may as well have said why do you trust me, but Anathema ignored whatever subliminal connotations under his quiet words. As if it was obvious.

"I—Newt didn't want me to. I didn't, either, really. I didn't want to be a descendant for the rest of my life. Because, well, you know, even if I did decipher the prophecies, I couldn't stop them, so it was a little pointless." She shrugged half-heartedly.

Adam nodded slowly.

"But I wanted to see what it said. It didn't make a lick of sense to me then, of course, since I didn't bother translating or anything, just read through... but it's been more than eleven years. Some of it's... familiar. I probably shouldn't have waited so long."

He leaned forward on his elbows. "Familiar how?"

"Well. I started noticing little things. Things happening in America that Newt would tell me over breakfast—he watches the news. And the serious spike in supernatural presences. That happens sometimes, but it was mentioned in the book. I had to make sure, so I scryed everything with a otherworldly aura within a fifty-mile radius and my maps caught fire. Something's going on."

"What does the manuscript say?"

"It isn't as sporadic as the last. Things follow a linear storyline—seem to center around a few key people. Nothing makes any biblical sense, of course, they already exhausted Revelation the first time around. But the base concepts stay the same." She paused, grimacing a little. "The four horsemen, the Host. The only thing's missing is—"

"Me," Adam finished.

"Yes," Anathema said softly.

They were silent for a moment, before Anathema said, "Maybe they've realized that they don't need the Antichrist to set off Armageddon." Or they're going to use you without your consent—the unspoken footnote.

"Maybe," was all he said.

"Adam." Anathema turned her face to him, her eyes dark. Hope swam in them somewhere, too cowed to shine out. He paid her the courtesy of not breaking eye-contact, even if he was screaming at himself to do so. "Adam, listen. If they want this so bad to happen, it's going to. It doesn't matter how many of these we prevent. There's always going to be another."

Adam's jaw clenched.

"But," Anathema said softly, "that doesn't mean you have to give up."

Adam's gaze slid from Anathema to the two photographs on the kitchen divide. It was of the Them, when they were younger, Pepper's tanned face all freckled from the sun and Brian trying really hard to get Wensleydale into a headlock. They were all smiling, even Adam, who was stoically trying to prevent the upward turn of his mouth.

The second photograph was of the Them when they'd graduated college, united in Lower Tadfield in the summer one more time. Instead of the field where the first photo was taken, this one was in front of Brian's car repair. This time, Pepper was giving Brian a noogie, and Wensleydale, fresh from MIT, was giving them a shy, content look. Adam had his arm slung around Pepper's waist, and Brian had his oil-greased hand across Wensleydale's shoulders.

In that one, Adam's smile stretched from ear to ear.

He turned back to Anathema.

"All right," he said.

She smiled.

By the time Pepper came home, Anathema was asleep with her head pillowed in a bed of papers and Adam was on the couch, a steaming cup of coffee in hand, pouring over Agnes' prophecies with a page of scribbled notations beside him, Dog's head resting on his thigh.

"But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Luke 6:35

He broke every sort of speed limit there was and some that hadn't been invented yet on his way back to Soho, pulled back up to Aziraphale's shop with a screech of the tires that died on the air. He got out by jumping the Bentley's flank and ran up to the door, where the sign on the window said SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED in nice, inoffensive letters (this didn't stop Crowley, of course, and neither did the lock). The angel wasn't behind the counter, nor in the dreadfully dank back room that smelt unapologetically like old boots. He was, however, in his flat above the shop with his cold-pinked nose buried in a novel, and looked surprised to see Crowley when he burst in with his sunglasses askance.

"I thought you were going to call?"

"Didn't get that far," Crowley said. He sat down.

It wasn't that he was a double agent, although the idea was devilishly appealing. It wasn't exactly in the interests of the Arrangement either, to tell Aziraphale what was going on Down There without expecting some kind of favor in return. It just happened to be that Crowley was at his wits' end and needed somebody to tell, and that somebody happened to work for the Enemy. And was his only friend.

He decided not to dwell on that too much.

Besides, Aziraphale would probably receive his own cosmic Prime Directive sometime soon. Crowley was just... speeding up things.

Yes. That sounded perfectly plausible.

Crowley went for broke. "Listen. We averted Armageddon. Right?"

"Not 'we', I should think," Aziraphale said placidly. "We sort of got caught up. Adam was—"

"That's not the point."

"Go on."

"The point," Crowley said. "I'm in deep."

Aziraphale's spectacles inched down his nose, as if the get away from how blue his eyes had just gotten. "My dear boy, are you feeling all right?"

"Yes. No. Yeah." Crowley swallowed. "I've been. I've been drafted."

Aziraphale stared at him, and then sat back in his chair. His face sort of dropped, as if he'd been holding out for something, and it had just fallen through. He was particularly good at making that kind of face. If he were anybody else, Crowley might feel compelled to give him some money and tell him, look, there's a chap, go get yourself something to eat.

Crowley shook himself of that horrifying notion. Backtrack. He cleared his throat. "I think you know. There's—they're trying for another one."

Aziraphale blinked. "Another one."

"Yes. Another one."

"You mean, your people?"

"Well, yes," Crowley admitted. "But it's not that—your side's caught on—it's always us that has to start it, you know. It's like that game with the, the black pieces with the white dots, or is it the other way around—"

"Dominoes," Aziraphale supplied helpfully.

"Dominoes. We tip over the first one, you have to follow, that's the rules."

"Well, we don't follow," Aziraphale said indignantly, putting down his book at last, "It's ineffable. All part of the Divine Plan." He paused. "I feel we've had this conversation before."

Crowley waved a hand. "Whatever. They want a round two," he said. "They're really serious about it this time. They're not going to play by the Book. Since they, er, already did that."

Aziraphale didn't say anything. For a moment Crowley thought about the ridiculous amount of classic (and Infamous) bibles the angel had stored and collected over the years; not one of them was going to help them now, not even The Nife and Accurate Prophecies, which Aziraphale had kept under lock and key just in case. Just in case for what, Crowley didn't know, but felt it might have something to do with this.

He had a feeling that whatever they were going to use this time, it wasn't going to be anything so readily accessible as a book of prophecies.

Crowley hoped he was wrong about that. Really, he really did.

"It's not that bad," he said reasonably. "It had to happen again. Eventually."

"Yes, but so soon?" Aziraphale sighed.

"My day is as ruined as yours. And it's been. More than eleven years, after all. More than enough time for them to get their bearings about... certain things."

Aziraphale sighed again. The type of sigh, which, if you're subjected to it, makes you feel utterly useless. Crowley steeled himself and plowed on.

"And, er. About the drafting. Before it was, it was kind of a one-job deal. Get the Antichrist, drop him off, all done."

"I recall," Aziraphale said dryly.

Crowley glared. It wasn't his fault he messed up. It really wasn't. It was nuns.

"I've been ordered to America," he blurted.

Aziraphale frowned. "Whatever for?"

"Something about stopping somebody, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details," Crowley lied.

"Stopping somebody?" Aziraphale said. His bright eyes narrowed imperceptibly. "I'm obligated to thwart your wiles, however vague, you know."

"That's what I'm counting on," Crowley admitted.^[2]

There was another long, drawn out pause, where Crowley tried to look as much as a kicked puppy as he could possibly manage (which, considering his snakelike features, was ostensibly bizarre). He could almost see the cogs turning in the angel's head, and leaned forward when they seemed to slow to a stop.

Aziraphale was far too kind for his own good. Crowley would feel bad for using that to his advantage, but, well. Hey. Demon.

"How are we getting all the way to America?" Aziraphale said at last.

"Think of it as a business trip, all expenses paid," Crowley said, the beginnings of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'll get us tickets. First class."

"A plane?" Aziraphale moaned. Crowley patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

"It won't be so bad. Peanuts, movies. Maybe we can set you up with some headphones and The Sound of Music."

Aziraphale stared at him in a kind of silent horror; Crowley just laughed.

At least he wouldn't have to go it alone.

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die."
Genesis 2:17

Anathema rubbed her eyes. In her many years of doing this, it never got any easier.

66: Fromme fyre these two menne borne, each to either Side, bounde by bloode yette myndes torne, harts cleaved from one, the thirde Parte fromme them gone for ever bye a Daemon's vile wordes.

She checked her annotations on the note card: Two men. Born from fire? ~~Demons~~ no, they've got hearts. Accident during childbirth, or early lives? Brothers. One good, one evil? Third part... hmm...

Anathema had never heard of a three-parted heart, but she tended to take Agnes' predictions metaphorically. Perhaps she'd meant three parts of a whole, two of which were the brothers, and other... another brother? 'Parte' seemed more important than that, though. Maybe their father?

... gone for ever bye a Daemon's vile wordes.

She quickly scribbled the father sold his soul. but for what?, and that seemed to click all right.

The brothers weren't mentioned for another hundred predictions at least, but that they'd cropped up so early was obviously important. It was only the sixty-sixth one. That had to mean something. If the manuscript wasn't so obviously focused on the lives of these two men, Anathema would have shrugged it off as another Strange Occurrence of the Endtimes^[3] and tried to find hidden meanings in other passages, but it was, and, well, that was odd. Agnes' predictions had never been so focused before.

She flipped to another notecard.

145: when Deville's Gate opened be, the two menne in the trade of myne own undoing sharl fighte that whych is unleashed, amonge themme a black eyed Woman of scarlett; One will trye to stoppe the Other who sharl partake in Her flesh.

146: Daemon's lyfe the youngyr consumes, yette knowweing what it does he ceases notte.

Adam had written on it:

145: Gate from Hell. Witchfinders? Meet a courtesan, or woman dressed in red. A demon. One of the men wants to kill her, the other loves her. Or sleeps with her. Cross reference when you can

146: The younger man kills the demon? Or... eats her. Knows what he's doing but doesn't stop.

That might fit in with the Good vs Evil brother idea. Whoever those two were, they were digging themselves some pretty abyssal graves. She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

There was simply too much information. Anathema had spent most of her adult life trying to decipher Agnes' ramblings, and she was trying to decode a whole other batch in a about a fraction of time and make sense of it. Agnes had obviously been counting on Anathema to keep on deciphering even after the almost-but-not-quite-Apocalypse, but she hadn't. If she had, she might have been able to catch the signs earlier.

For all she knew, a good majority of this could have happened already. Even with Adam's help, it seemed impossible.

There was too much.

She had been researching for hours now, and had moved the materials back to her little cottage to continue well past midnight while Adam explained things to Pepper. When she'd got in, trailing papers and cards and bags under her eyes, Newt had given her a sad look that she felt absolutely horrid for.

She reminded herself to make it up to him somehow. Before the world ended. Again.

The notecards stared up at her, taunting her. Each held one if not several red markings, notations, possible interpretations. All the information she'd collected so far didn't so much as mention times, places, or events that she'd be able to match up with the news. Even Newt had been stumped when he'd tried to help, when she'd asked him to recall anything weird happening on the news lately. He'd said, yes, well, it's been happening everywhere, but I don't think most people would notice if they weren't looking.

We're looking, Anathema had replied.

Sighing, she pulled on her last reserves of energy and called it a night (or early morning), and managed to make it upstairs without twisting an ankle or breaking her face open on the landing. She shed her clothes and slid into bed without disturbing Newt, who snored on; but as she settled, his arm circled her belly and pulled her in close.

He snuffled happily into her hair and she curled into him. There were worse things, she mused sleepily.

She'd work harder tomorrow.

"Nor from hell
One step no more than from himself can fly
By change of place."
Paradise Lost

Aziraphale was driving Crowley round the pole.

At first, Crowley had thought maybe Aziraphale was jerking his chain when he'd said that no, he'd never been on a plane, and yes, he thought maybe a nice cruise would be better, didn't Crowley think, all that lovely water. Lovely fish, dolphins, whales. Yes, wasn't a cruise just the better option?

Then Crowley had remembered Aziraphale's distaste for anything remotely modern and/or technological, the kind that stemmed from years upon years of botching up any attempts at making friends with whatever was causing him trouble (cellular phones, printers, the internet). It was slightly clearer as to why Aziraphale's computer came from the Pleistocene age and why telephones often gave him grief and why, whenever the angel came to Crowley's flat, he tread around the stereo equipment like it might suddenly grow teeth.

Crowley, of course, had never had such a problem.^[4]

On the other hand, it was very amusing to see an angel complain about rogue air currents, even if this particular angel hadn't seen the sun up close in perhaps a few thousand years. Neither of them really had any time to stretch their wings anymore.

But, Crowley reflected, driving the Bentley was enough like flying anyway that it didn't really matter.

"But how does it stay afloat?" Aziraphale wrung his hands.

"That's boats, angel."

"I expect you know, then," Aziraphale said bitterly, fiddling with the buttons on his coat so as not to look directly into the blinding force that was Crowley's wide, toothy grin.

"Physics."

"Yes, but we both know that they don't apply at times!"

"Then miracle up some good weather. Your people can do that, right? Prevent turbulence. Easy flying."

"Hnmph," muttered Aziraphale. "I'm not supposed to be here anyway."

"Come on. Don't be like that. It's just heights. You've flown loads of times." wheedled Crowley, because he could.

Aziraphale heaved a sigh. "Not in a—a great metal tube of a thing. I would feel more comfortable if I wasn't strapped in."

"They let you take your seat belt off during the middle bit."

The angel frowned. "That's hardly reassuring."

"You'll get used to it."

"I hope so. I do hope so."

Crowley rolled his eyes.

Apparently Aziraphale's irrational fear of flying didn't prevent him from performing minor miracles. A lost, sobbing little boy found his mother, there were no delays, nobody's luggage went missing, and all parties made it to their gates in time to catch their flights. Argumentative couples smiled at each other and nothing got stolen.

Meanwhile, those who were on important business trips suddenly found themselves to be flying third class, all the magazines and refreshments went up a pound in price and a few decimals more in tax, and all the vending machines ceased to work. Crowley smirked as a young man kicked one and stormed off to buy his share at the next pseudo-restaurant and pretended not to notice when Aziraphale gave him a disapproving glare.

"Really," the angel murmured.

"Really really," Crowley confirmed.

Since they'd brought no luggage (they could conjure some if they really needed it, but Crowley had a flat in almost every country of the world) they made it onto the plane without having to cram their belongings into overhead compartments and inconvenience other people.

Crowley took the window seat in first class since there was no sense in making the angel jumpier than he had to be, and Aziraphale gratefully smiled at him for it.

Crowley smiled back.

The Sound of Music flickered into being on one of small television screens.

Aziraphale turned livid red and refused to look at him until they were well up into the air, but by then Crowley had nixed the Julie Andrews thing and entertained himself by humming something atrociously poppy, soft enough not to draw attention from the flight attendants, but loud enough to get on everybody else's nerves. When he finally stopped and looked over to see if the angel had survived the most basic of childish torture techniques, he found that he was asleep, mouth open the tiniest bit and glasses askew on his nose.

Which was odd, since they didn't actually need to sleep. (Crowley only ever did because, hey, what else are you going to do with silk sheets that comfortable?)

So Crowley poked him.

Aziraphale twitched.

"Angel?" he hissed.

Predictably, he was ignored.

"Playing that game, are you?" he huffed, and crossed his arms. Well, one annoying game for another, he supposed. There was only so much pop he could take singing, and he'd had a hand in the genre.

If he'd looked over he might have been able to see Aziraphale smile the tiniest bit, but he didn't.

Instead he pushed his sunglasses high up on his nose and leaned his head and torso back, enjoying the sound of Aziraphale's steady breathing next to him.

"Long is the way
And hard, that out of hell leads up to light."
Paradise Lost

"I tried everything, that's the truth. I tried opening the Devil's Gate, Hell, I tried to bargain, Dean, but no demon would deal, all right. You were rotting in Hell, for months, for months, and I couldn't stop it. So, I'm sorry it wasn't me, all right. Dean, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Sammy.

You don't have to apologize

I believe you."

^[1]The type that wore scratchy, home-made knit sweaters with a thread count of two and who hung mistletoe everywhere and who owned at least ten cats (one of which was usually named 'Mr Bigglesworth') and who baked those revolting little snowman cookies coated with about six million pounds of sugar and who went to nativity plays voluntarily. Crowley hadn't quite gotten over his Pavlovian response of gagging whenever he came across one. Aziraphale, of course, thought they were simply precious.

^[2]Neither of them wanted the world to end, not really. Even if global warming and stock market crashes and wars and politics and romantic comedies were part of humanity, so were things like HD plasma television screens and central air conditioning. If you were going to get stuck with humans for all eternity, you might as well get comfortable.

^[3]Remember the aliens? As far as Anathema was concerned, anything was possible.

^[4]Technology knew better than to stop working around Crowley. Unless, of course, he told it to.

Fic: Up Around the Bend

balphas — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:20:29 GMT

Title: Up Around the Bend
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Supernatural/BtVS/Angel/Saving Grace/True Blood/Boondock Saints
Pairing: Gen
Rating: R
Length: 1080 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Traveling across the country brings you into contact with a lot of... weird people. Sam and Dean are getting a little tired of it.
Notes: I couldn't think of another GO crossover, so I did everything else I could think of. Takes place during S2, I think. Title's from a CCR song.

It's really only fair that they end up in California, one of the few states whose roads Dean's only half-sure of. The whole state's a thick reminder of why over-populated places drag them down and fill them up with a kind of sick normality that tastes ugly in your mouth, but Dean knows his way around a bad thing when he sees one and can avoid the problem areas with little trouble.

They don't even look twice as they head right by San Francisco with Foreigner drowning out the sounds of competitive traffic until Sunnydale opens its deceptively cheerful arms to pull them right in.

Of course, by the time they leave, Sam wants (and almost spray-paints) a subtitle to the town's County of Sunnydale welcome sign that says RUN WHILE YOU CAN, but realizes that this would only encourage the local demon population into fulfilling their own twisted expectations. No case, mystery, no research involved -- just a hell of a lot of vampires, one seriously pissed young woman with wicked aim and too many campy one-liners that weren't, for once, Dean's fault.

Later, Sam thinks it's odd that Dean's the one to leave his number with the girl, instead of the other way around.

---

Turns out LA's the next stop.

"Why are we doing this?" Sam asks for about the zillionth time, and Dean rubs a sweaty palm from the steering wheel over his face and groans. "Is it because you actually listened to that girl?"

They find out a little too late that the law-firm isn't actually evil anymore (not technically, but there's a lot of technical issues involved), even if it's run by a guy who, Dean likes to think, takes the cake from Sam for Year's Most Churlish Award. They're given rooms, food, random facts and run-ins with demons and laywers and it's almost too much like Sunnydale for Sam to take, except this time, everyone wears suits and ties and won't stop smiling at him.

The get the fuck out of that town as soon as Dean tries to sleep with a law intern that, like, post-coitally sucks the brains out of its victim's nose (Oh, gross, Sam says, horrified) and they leg it immediately as far away from California as they can manage.

"She was smokin', through," Dean says sadly, as they drive right through Arizona. "Too bad about the whole 'brains: it's what's for dinner' thing."

Sam bursts out laughing and can't stop. Dean purses his lips and turns up the AC/DC tape loud as it can go.

---

They slide right into Oklahoma through New Mexico and stop in Oklahoma City to do a job. It's your usual salt n' burn deal, and neither Sam nor Dean make a big fuss about the immediate grave digging they have to do after a hard night out on the road, though Dean makes sure to buy a beer at the local gas station right before.

It would have been easy and clean if the detective hadn't caught them at it, even if she was stumbling drunk back from a bar. Things happened fast that night. It would have been slightly less confusing if there hadn't been a third party involved.

"Get goin'," says the man, and lets them out from the precinct, looking like the most holy of hobos Sam had ever seen. "Say hi to Castiel from Earl, would you?"

"We just keep racking up friends in high places," Dean marvels with a chuckle as he fires up the ignition on the Impala.

Sam only thinks, Who the hell is Castiel? before dissolving into a hysterical sort of grin that last for miles and miles.

---

Eventually, they end up in Louisiana, which is enough of a Bumfuck, Nowhere that they don't feel really pressured to get up and leave anytime soon. There's only one motel in the entire town of Bon Temps and it's tiny and smells like clumpy bayou, but it's pretty nice. It's only half a mile from the local bar.

All of the waitresses are pretty convenient, too. Dean takes one home with him -- Carrie? Cat? -- some name indicative of her self-esteem, and Sam's stuck nursing a burger and a beer while some preteen girl stares from a few booths over, her grandmother twisting her wispy blonde hair into a French braid.

Dude, Sam thinks, avoiding her gaze, awkward.

Which is weird, because he knows he's at least somewhat attractive, but the girl ducks her head in a furious blush and Sam can't help but feel like she's read his mind.

Dean makes an offhand comment about the South when they hit the road again, and Sam rolls his shoulders.

---

Boston is fucking huge and sprawling and covered in vines, and Sam likes it immediately because it reminds him of Stanford. Dean, of course, hates it.

They hit the bars and end up with one on the Irish side of town, and run into mirror versions of themselves.

"I'm Connor," says Murphy.

"Fuckin' shuttup, Murph," says Connor, slapping his brother on the upside of the head. "I'm Connor. This's me nuisance brother Murphy." He pauses to down a drink -- Sam notices the pistol on his hip when his coat lifts. He pats the stool next to him.

Dean keeps his gun close but relaxes when all they do is get drunk and laugh. Sam's on edge even when they say goodbye and it's been a nice run-in with you, and they part ways. Split right down in half, two brothers to a side. It's -- scary familiar.

Scarier still when Dean's drinking a morning beer and sees Connor and Murphy's badly sketched faces on the motel's television screen and sprays it all out on the carpet.

---

"You two just keep runnin' into trouble, don't you?"

"Kind of the job description, Bobby," Dean hisses as Bobby pulls a threaded needle through his forearm, while Sam holds an ice pack to his aching head. Bobby's place is the ultimate in default locations; it's just -- there, every time they need it, and Sam had mentioned tiredly that he was getting tired of hopping states.

Bobby, never the one to turn down an opportunity to tell them how stupid they are, had welcomed them with open arms and a bottle of Jack. "You boys oughta take a nice long sabbatical. Been gettin' phonecalls out the ass since you left last month."

Sam snorts; he's half-expected it.

"Gladly," Dean says. "Got any cars need fixing?"

But of course the girl who'd Dean left his number with in California calls the next day, and it starts all over again.

OF: Fog Cutter

balphas — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 04:16:34 GMT

Title: Fog Cutter
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: The Matt & Aleister verse
Pairing: One-sided Malei (totally just came up with that)
Rating: R
Length: 1581 words.
Summary: At the end of the day, Aleister can still pretend.
Notes: Rewrite of a little one-shot I did ages and ages ago. I really liked it and wanted to clean it up a little bit, since it explains a lot of Matt and Aleister's relationship.

The crowd was thick, a cage hips and legs and arms and torsos pushing in. A disgusting sea of sweat and neon and damp black, dark places, where hands wandered, minds fogged, thoughts cluttered with alcohol, where slick fingers inched along bare tracks of skin -- summer at night, a collective conscious that moved and undulated like a snake in its death throes.

Somebody's hands found his shoulder-blades, and he wondered why he was even here. He wondered as he let them splay against his back. He let them come around and grip his sides and he let them move against him. The breath in his ear smelled of tonic and gin and old tobacco as it crawled into his nostrils and grimacing for a moment, Aleister turned around. The man who held him was a handsome forty, with unshaved stubble and graying hair, hopeful, maybe desperate.

"Do you want -- would you -- my place?" There was a bit of a grin under the bristles, old enough to be his father, God, how fucking wrong.

Sneering, Aleister removed himself from the man's grasp. "Don't touch me."

A pause, cajoling expression. "Don't be like that -- "

"Fuck off," said Aleister, and he meant it.

As he moved roughly away, he almost could smile about it, like it was a really brilliant joke -- fuck, wasn't it all? Like not the last dream of company he'd destroy this night, and he was looking for it. The man's face. How sad.

Boo-hoo.

He went to the bar next.

"And what what you like to drink?" She asked, a petite blonde thing, with the fashion sense of a complete troll and the haircut to make it work.

Christ.

Aleister stared, a little, and then ordered his drink. He had to ask. And he did, after he'd taken a sip and let it trickle, burning, down his throat.

She pointed to her nametag, which Aleister would have noticed if he hadn't spent all of his well-worn and quickly fuzzing attention on her plain face and short hair and dimpled smile -- he'd not known a girl with parentheses for dimples, but they curved into the corners of her nostrils when she sent him an amused smile and straightened the collar of her shirt. God, it was a simple gesture, but it held all sort of memories that made Aleister want to -- drink more, pretend she wasn't affecting him, or leave and try to forget about it. Eventually he'd do one or the other.

He needed to drink more. Or maybe drink less. Or get his priorities straight.

Periodically his glass was refilled, but Aleister kept his eyes down on the black marble turned green, pink, purple with the lights. Customers came and went, songs changed, but still he stayed there and drank his drink until his limbs felt heavy and awkward and he felt less like himself and more like somebody who wouldn't look back and like it that way.

A rather long series of fingernails entered his line of vision, tapping away in the glow of radioactive pink. He looked up and was met with that gorgeous (not gorgeous, he corrected himself, familiar) smile again, this time less amused and more lively, framed with messy strands of blonde-sand-whiskey that changed to blue in less that a second.

"You've been here all night," she said.

Aleister shrugged. "Have I?"

She paused. "Listen, I get off of work now."

"Ah," he managed, then raised his glass and looked at it despondently, darkly. "I should leave."

"Guess so," she answered.

He set the glass down again, rather harder than he should have all things considered, and removed himself from the stool. "Here's your money. Thanks for the drinks."

"No, I mean," She started, grabbing Aleister's forearm from the behind the counter, "I get off of work now."

He stopped and stared at her again, and he could almost see her blush, or maybe he was imagining it. "Ah," he said again, a little less eloquently than before.

It took her five minutes to grab her coat and switch shifts with the next bartender, a pretty young man with short dark hair, but Aleister couldn't bring himself to care about that, somehow. The girl's haloed head floated in his mind like a hazy illusion, like the aftertaste of the alcohol. Simple. Plain. Right. The only thing missing were the stupid sunglasses, all different colors -- no, nothing was missing, what was he thinking?

He followed her to her car, something broken down and rusty and perfect. Her car -- of course, he was buzzed so high, he wouldn't be able to drive, even if the cool air woke him up, crisp and clean and everything the club had lacked, especially when they rolled down the windows and spoke nothing into the rush of night wind. What, he kept repeating in his head, What am I doing what am I doing what what what

"Your place," she smiled at him from the driver's seat. He told her where.

If it seemed odd to him, Aleister preferred to say nothing. He didn't mind. Oh no, he didn't mind at all. In fact, he didn't know what he minded at all now, did he have one, a mind? Sobriety was the only thing he knew he didn't want back, if getting drunk would bring him this. Whatever this was.

They barely made it through the door of his apartment before she was on top of him.

"You don't know who you look like," she whispered against his lips, nibbling on the ring of metal, bringing a quiet groan from Aleister's throat into the too-still air. He raised his hips to hers, surprised at himself. She sucked in a breath near his ear. "Oh."

He wanted. "Who do I look like?" He breathed roughly against her neck, pressing himself into the warm body above like it was something he could sink into and hold forever. She took a minute to answer, kissed him chastely, then swiped a soft tongue across his bottom lip and chuckled at his response.

When she got to it, "Her," was the simple answer, and a lot of things suddenly clicked into place. Aleister suddenly hated her and loved her intensely at the same time. He flipped her over, her back hitting the carpeted floor with a few cracks and small burst of laughter. Her legs lifted up and hooked behind his waist, which cradled and rocked against her hips. She arched daintily into him, mewling, reminding Aleister that he knew nothing about women.

He raised his torso from hers for a breather. She lay arms-out beneath him, ankles still crossed behind his back, small chest heaving. Oh, God, it was like he was right there...

It was so easy to pretend.

"Listen, I--"

"I know," she said, "me neither."

It was awkward, but it felt a lot like fitting two puzzle pieces together. Aleister clutched her flexing shoulder blades with chipped fingernails and panted into her mouth. Her breasts were small and rosy and she gasped when he touched them, experimentally at first, then with intent. She moaned and smiled and her eyelashes fluttered and it was all a little much for him, but it felt good, it felt like it was working, at least for a little while.

He whispered the name in his head when he couldn't hold on any longer.

They slept in his bed together, though it was mostly for convenience rather than comfort. The afterglow was best when her hair tickled his chin in the moment when he was between sleep and waking, and he could still almost fake it. When he really woke, she was sitting up on the bed, pulling on her jeans. Exposing a browned expanse of back that curved faintly in at her ribs.

"Thanks," she said, like he did her a favor. She smiled at him again, though still gorgeous, was that much more different in the stark daylight. He nodded curtly, and after she left his bedroom, he dressed himself in a pair of holed pajama bottoms and went to the kitchen to cure his growling stomach.

Had that been a mistake? Had it been something he couldn't have prevented? Stupid, stupid.

"Yo, Alei! Hey -- oh. Hello."

Aleister almost dropped the frying pan.

Matt was standing in the doorway, in front of the girl. She was staring at him in the same way that he couldn't look away from her, shocked and perceptive and it was obvious, even to Aleister. They looked too similar. It was too obvious, and there was no way Matt wouldn't notice that she looked a hell of a lot like him, was him --

Oh, no. No no no no no.

"Hi," Matt began awkwardly, with that lopsided smile and wide mouth that hers could never ever measure up to. Aleister wanted to die.

"Hey, man, sorry I interrupted something." Suddenly, Matt's expression lifted higher, into one of crinkled eye-corners and hands shoved deep down into roomy pockets. He snuck a sly grin at the girl. "So Alei finally scored, right? He's such a girl, y' know, really picky. You're lucky. He's a really loyal guy, when you get past all the thorns."

"I'm sure," the girl said, uncomfortably. Aleister wanted to hit her.

Matt's smile dropped a little bit, then returned-full force. "Well, I'm gonna go make like a tree, save some awkward pie for the rest of you. See you later Aleister, I can wait. Good catch." He winked at the petite blonde, then strode off down the apartment complex's hall.

Aleister and the girl stood there for a moment.

She looked at him. "I see," she said, and left, leaving the door wide open.

Fic: You Say Rolls, I Say Royce

balphas — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:02:08 GMT

Title: You Say Rolls, I Say Royce
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Pairing: Crackish gen.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 529 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Car talk.
Notes: Sh-shut up, it had to be written! I'll stop, I swear. I swear.

Dean nearly cries when he sees the Bentley.

They've just asked -- well, summoned a pretty damn powerful (and thankfully somewhat benevolent) demon for a little help with the problem Down Under, and all Dean can do is slobber when the demon snaps his fingers and a Bentley appears out of nowhere outside of Bobby's house.

Apparently that's all it takes to get Dean to trust a demon.

A nice car.

So Sam stands there with a Look on his face, mouth a little open in horror at the way his brother is fawning over the thing. Somewhere between alarm and confusion, he watches as Dean approaches the vehicle with something akin to deep awe. Sam will never understand what it's like to love a piece of machinery so much that you'd whisper sweet nothings at it ever time its engine so much as burps, but he's pretty much gotten used to it since the second Dean came up to Standford with his beloved Impala and made him suffer through hours and hours of old music and smartass remarks and -- and --

And Sam knows that if Dean spots so much as a Zeppelin or Metallica or CCR tape in the Bentley's interior, he's gonna have a conniption fit.

And, because he's somehow missed the memo: since when did demons get to have such sweet rides anyway?

"1926," Crowley grins, all British or whatever. "I've had it from new. Walter Owen Bentley was a friend of mine, he let me have this one for free when it came out of production. One of his first."

Yeah, right.

"Wanted me to race in Le Mans in France," Crowley continues, nostalgic look on his face. "Wish I hadn't said no."

"Oh man," Dean breathes. Grins. Runs his hands all over shiny black paintjob, and Sam thinks vaguely it's crossing over into just creepy territory now. He also thinks he can see Crowley twitch a little over in his periphery.

"Hey, Dean," Sam says dryly, aiming to end the disturbing scene as quickly as possible, "I don't think the Impala likes you cheating on her."

"She can deal," Dean muffles out. "Can't you, baby?"

He doesn't even look over his shoulder at the Impala, parked a few meters away in Bobby's gritty dusty rusty car park. Sam rolls his eyes in as big and exaggerated a circle as he can, but Dean's still flipping out and hasn't even spared him a glance either, the dick.

"Dude, Queen?" Dean says loudly, pulling out a cassette labeled ~~Beethoven's Greatest~~ Best of Queen #4.

Crowley shrugs.

Apparently Dean's so infatuated with the Bentley that he keeps his opinion of Queen to himself. He's probably afraid that Crowley will smack him upside the head if he disses the demon's music choices. Sam watches as Dean tosses the cassette back into the passenger's side idly and, when he's done with scanning the interior, goes to duck under the driver's side door.

From under the car comes a low whistle of appreciation.

Sam narrows, then rubs his eyes. He's pretty sure every fingerprint Dean had left on the outside of the Bentley are now erasing themselves.

He looks suspiciously over to Crowley, who smiles with all his teeth.

"Your brother likes cars," the demon says.

"Understatement," Sam sighs.

Fic: Adeste Fideles

balphas — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:53:22 GMT

Title: Adeste Fideles
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Supernatural/Good Omens
Pairing: Gen, sort of Dean/Castiel-ish, if you want to squint.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 739 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: How Castiel got into Hell.
Notes: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. If you haven't seen S4 yet, then this will make absolutely no sense.

"We need to talk."

The bell doesn't even jingle, which is clue one. Aziraphale looks up, startled, from his book and half-drunk cup of lukewarm tea and previously unconcerned thoughts, and says almost timidly, "Oh."

The first thing he notices is that the young man in the ratty jeans is quite plain but his face is stony and impassive, which feels odd and far too nostalgic. Sometimes Aziraphale must remind himself that he's gone rather soft in his old age, no angel in Heaven likes to be reminded of emotions when they're on earth.

He's also shorter than Aziraphale, and that feels odd too, since Aziraphale has always been used to being talked down to by his superiors. From a terribly great height, if you believe Heaven exists above your head. In fact, Aziraphale hasn't spoken to another angel on the same playing field in near six-thousand years. But back then, they at least hadn't needed to use human vessels to hold a conversation. The Garden had been lovely like that.

Sure enough, the second thing that comes into his head is oh dear, have I done something wrong?

"No," says Castiel. "This isn't about you."

"Oh. Well, that's good," says Aziraphale, very relieved. And a little disturbed.

They eventually sit down at the kitchen table in the flat above the bookshop, all the while Aziraphale flitting around asking if his guest needed anything, anything at all, he's got some biscuits in here somewhere and there's half a pot of tea but he's afraid it's gone cold. There's a lot of puttering about and avoiding the topic and meaningless chatter on his part.

Castiel declines everything he offers and says nothing after that. Despairingly, they get to the point far sooner than Aziraphale feels comfortable with.

"I've come to ask a favor," Castiel says. While that's not unexpected, Aziraphale has to wonder why. Heaven likes to pretend he doesn't exist -- Principalities, that sort of thing.

"You are... acquainted with a certain demon."

"Yes," Aziraphale says, cold dread building in his gut.

Castiel's eyes are very clear when he says, "You must bring him to me," and the way he says it leaves no room for questions.

Crowley comes sauntering in about a half an hour later, having answered Aziraphale's phone call with a dismissive snort and a vague ETA. His sunglasses are perched lower on his nose than usual -- presumably to give Castiel a good, yellow glare over the brims. They share gazes in a disconcerting, Mexican standoff sort of way. Aziraphale clears his throat nervously and they both turn to look at him.

"Sorry I'm late," Crowley says first, not sounding sorry at all.

Then, Castiel tells the both of them about things they already know, and some they don't. He doesn't give either of them solid reasoning, but it's clear what he wants, and Crowley is just enough of a terrible demon to agree to let Castiel through Hell's back door. Not that he has a choice.

Aziraphale watches as Crowley grins predatorily, fists a hand in Castiel's shirt, and pulls. They fizzle painfully from existence.

Aziraphale settles down into his favorite armchair and waits.

---

He's in the middle of making himself some breakfast when they reappear, one month later.

Only this time, they're drenched head-to-toe in spatters of blood and bits of stuff that Aziraphale doesn't want to put a name to, and it's staining his carpet. Their wings are out, feathers torn from flesh, packed in tight. Castiel's face hasn't changed, but it's pale and greenish and tight, frozen. Crowley's sporting a look of silent horror and resignation and disgust that's only natural when you've been to Hell and back, even if you're a demon.

"It's done," says Castiel unnecessarily. Aziraphale notices that one of his hands is red, fiery red -- even as he watches, the burn pulses to nothing. Almost curiously, Castiel watches it happen. Looks up blankly with dead, gelatinous eyes.

It becomes terribly clear that Castiel's vessel is no longer alive.

And suddenly, Crowley and Aziraphale are alone.

Crowley looks down at himself and makes a face; the gore instantly disappears from his confusedly immaculate clothing. His wings start growing back feathers as he tucks them back into himself. He gives a little shudder and shake, and rubs a tired hand over his jaw.

"I don't ever want to do that again."

Aziraphale nods dumbly. "What did you do?"

"Ten years," is all Crowley says, before knocking himself out cold on Aziraphale's couch.

---

On the other side of the world, Dean Winchester wakes up his own coffin.

OF: Orchestrated Sound

balphas — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:09:03 GMT

Title: Orchestrated Sound
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: A sort of... practice AU, let's say.
Pairing: Jack/Wolf.
Rating: R.
Length: 971 words.
Summary: Maybe he's hallucinating. Maybe not.
Notes: I wanted to do more character exploration, and not being able to sleep really helps with that, apparently. Sense may or may not apply.

Most people try to wake up at the table in the mornings, after they make their coffee, but he goes back upstairs to sit up against the headboard and warms himself with stale sheets.

"Coffee?" he asks the room, fingers curled against the skin of the cup for warmth, and something to hold. The room doesn't answer him, but after so many years of waiting, he doesn't expect it to. Instead he finishes his half of the coffee and pours the rest on her side of the bed. The stain spreads into the pillow. He watches it. There's really nothing else for him to do.

---

Some nights, he likes to stare at the ceiling, out the window, at his hands, which are so white and veined that he's surprised the blood's stayed on the inside, instead of the outside, where it should be. Sometimes he turns on music. Brahms, Mahler. Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Lizst. Tchaikovsky. He knows them. After a lifetime of hearing them buzz in the background, it feels odd to finally listen, now that he has nothing to distract him.

Or maybe he tells himself this so that he can ignore the shadow in the corner of his room, and ignore how it doesn't breathe, when he so obviously does, breaths that tear through the silence like screams. It's so irritating to hear proof of himself living, so irritating that it makes him shake sometimes, so irritating that he turns on music to drown the feeling out, that maybe the orchestrated sound can make oxygen forget itself and leave him the fuck alone.

He hates the reminder of life.

He hates that the shadow watches him suffer.

---

They are all dead.

They weren't human. They were made to live forever. Forever, and forever. Wolf had been forever.

They were made human. So were you. Nobody lives forever.

"Why?"

He knows the answer. He is reminded, every single day, when the shadow in the corner of his room sometimes lifts the suggestion of eyelids that are not there and reveals a hint that he's sure is supposed to mean something; he's sure of it, he's sure that the shadow in the corner of his bedroom is trying to tell him what it is, but he can't grasp at it long enough to swallow it. It flows from his mind like water through cracks, though ideas to him are mostly like water to him now, and his mind never had the structural integrity to hold all of that in to begin with. She's telling him what's already there.

Punishment.

---

"Hello," she says. "Do you remember me?"

How could he not.

She moves through the living room, unlit, shadows of low evening casting everything in a subtle, carnivorous, hollow glow. Every bit of dust is lit. Every dull candelabra, the dinner table, the chairs. He hasn't touched the furniture downstairs. He will never touch it.

The woman, who is more than woman and less than human, streaks a red fingernail through the dead skin particles and leftover pieces of insect and blows it away, leaving the pad of her finger with balmy residue. The line on the cabinet is brown, oak. Her smile is disarming, and she seems less real to him than his hallucinations, which is something.

"You are quite depressing," she admits, finally. "I do not see the need to torture yourself when happiness can be so easily attained. It's why I made you human, you know. So you would enjoy it."

They are all dead.

"I enjoy it," he says, because that will make her go away.

The shadow hangs above the chandelier, silently. Staring at him. The woman in his living room can see many things, but she cannot see the shadow.

It is probably because it's not really there.

---

When he was made human, he was given once again to dreams, but he never remembers them upon waking. This is probably for the best, because he meets many strange men, all with the same yellow hair and odd smile and European face, who regale him with memories of an existence without a countdown.

Sometimes he reaches out, in his sleep, as if to grab hold of some slumbering body beside him, as if to hold it near and close and to reassure him that he is not really alone after all. But his hands find nothing.

He wakes to silence, and his infuriating breathing, and sometimes the shadow in the corner isn't there. But sometimes it is. And it always watches him, watching, and watching, and watching.

Puccini this time. And coffee.

---

"Say something!" he barks, one morning. His voice tears itself from his throat because he hasn't shouted, or barely spoken, in six years. He yells this to the dark corner of his room.

Wolf is far too beautiful to be enshrouded, but the shadow does not even look like her. It's just a shadow, a void in reality, a hallucination, beauty his brain even thought he didn't deserve to see. Sometimes she flickers. In and out. There, or not.

"I don't know why I'm imagining you," he says. "I don't know why it has to be you."

Wolf doesn't answer. The shadow stays there.

He spills the second half of his coffee on the already half-brown bedspread. "You never liked coffee," he says. "But you drank it, because I did."

He leans down to sniff the stench of black, Cuban plant. Like he can smell her though the liquid.

"I killed you," he whispers, wrenching the words from deep down. Tearing them. "I killed you all."

The shadows move. Then they disperse, and only the one remains, like she always has, like she always will.

"I'm not sorry," Jack chokes.

Wolf goes to her side of the bed, smelling of salt and coffee, sheets rumpled, aligns herself with his spine, holds his shoulders with hands that cannot touch, tells him that she's sorry she couldn't come back for him this time.

But of course, he never remembers his dreams.

OF: The Very Prestigious Solar Academy For Continued Excellence (Part 1/?)

balphas — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:20:24 GMT

Title: The Very Prestigious Solar Academy for Continued Excellence
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Uh... the solar system?
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1897 words.
Disclaimer: Wait. Technically... yes? These versions are?
Summary: In which Earth is a total player, Mercury has computer trouble, Saturn is a bit of a dick, and Pluto is disowned. Full cast included. Don't miss the nonexistent British sitcom which Hasn't Been Made, But Should, Eventually. Planet-obsessed little brother, this is for you to read when you fully appreciate what all this "picture-less story" nonsense is.
Notes: This was thought up by sacha_dahoyle and I last night, and instead of illustrating it, I decided to write a bit of a story. I wrote the cast as being British, and as I myself am not, feel free to criticize my terrible attempt at the British vernacular. Also, technological mumbo-jumbo? I don't know the half of it.

"Oh, now you're having me on," Uranus said to Saturn. "No joke?"

"Nope," Saturn grinned, fit for a toothpaste commercial.

"Really, though?" Uranus paused. "That's too bad. Poor sod, nobody loves him."

They both snickered a little, but Uranus was almost entirely sure he was the only one who felt bad after. Saturn busied himself playing with his rings, one on each finger. Two of them were class rings. He had no idea how that happened. "Yeah. Except his mum, she'd love him anyway. I bet his she feels bad though. Him coming home having to tell her that. She probably disowned him like everyone else. "

Uranus snorted. "Sure. But how'd he get expelled? Because everybody kept beating on him?"

"Probably. He's too tiny. We can't have him in our halls, you know? Not anymore. He's been clogging them up forever, and now it's good riddance, I say. Besides, I hear his parents can't pay half of tuition. No wonder he's in rags all the time, shivering like anything."

"I guess. I do feel terrible, though. I'll miss him."

"Miss him or miss making a fool of him?" Saturn scoffed. "Whatever. Other fish in the sea. Good riddance."

"You only have a year left of school, you know," Uranus pointed out. "It's not you notice him half the time anyhow. It's a huge campus. He stays out of your way, and you don't give him the time of day, not like he ever asks. So I don't know what you're complaining on about. You hardly knew him."

"D'you suppose I'd be better off if I did? Am I missing out on an insightful, soul-mending relationship? I don't bloody think so."

"You're a right git," Uranus grinned.

"You're just as worse!"

"But I hide it better."

Saturn punched him in the arm playfully. "You won't have to, now Pluto's out of the running."

---

"Dial-up!" Mercury shouted. "Sodding thing!"

Neptune glanced up at her from under heavy eyelids and gave a long-suffering sigh. Mercury thumped the computer angrily. "Blasted internet, I get no connection here, admission takes it all up. Why are our dorms so close to the offices, anyway? There's no point in having the password to the administration hub if you can't get enough of a web connection to use it!"

"Try hitting it again," Neptune suggested dryly.

"Oh, shut it, you," Mercury snarled.

Neptune made a noise of complete disinterest and went back to reading her magazine. Mercury had glanced several depressing-looking fellows on the cover when Neptune had first bought it, but had declined further inspection due to the amount of mascara-soaked woe she had to endure with Neptune as it was.

"I don't deserve this," she moaned.

"Of course not," Neptune mumbled. "You have much more to offer the world."

"You don't understand! My life is within this small black box! I do everything with it!" She wrung her hands. "I have like fifty comments I need to reply to before my next class, I need to check my mail, I have to e-curbstomp some troll and delete my spam!"

"Life," Neptune sighed dramatically, eyes glazing over. "Is so unfair, don't you think so?"

Mercury stared daggers into the back of Neptune's silky blue head. "At least I don't read magazines about what kind of coroner sells the best hair gel for when you snuff it or how to get your vampire sweetheart," she jabbed, scrambling around the back of her computer for a unused USB port. "Or what urn is best suited for keeping your ashes all smokey-sweet for when your relatives go for a laugh."

"I'm going to have my ashes scattered in the wind," Neptune said wistfully.

Mercury threw her hands up in the air. "Why can't you just be normal?"

"Normal?" Neptune whispered quite seriously. "What is normal?"

"All right," Mercury huffed, "forget I asked, really, go back to Men in Lace or whatever it is you subscribe to. I'm going to go off and wheedle myself a new hub." She grabbed her brown jacket and stuck her phone into her jeans. "Don't touch Crater."

Neptune just looked at her.

"My computer," Mercury hissed exasperatedly, and left the door open on her way out.

---

He coughed as Mercury came into the tech shop, trying to put on an expression that somehow counterbalanced the dark circles under his eyes, which didn't work, unless you were into that kind of scary skeleton-look. Mercury smiled weakly at him.

"Hey, Venus," she said, and wrinkled her nose. "New kind of... deodorant?"

"Nah," he croaked. "Forgot to brush my teeth this morning. Sorry."

Mercury narrowly avoided gagging. It wasn't just that he'd forgotten to put on deodorant or brush his teeth. The guy reeked like a compost heap, honestly. No wonder he was always sick. All that bacteria, getting along swimmingly well in his orifices, making babies... she shuddered.

"Right. That's nice. Well, I need a new hub, and I need it cheap. You have any discounts on used?"

"Well, we have plenty of used. There any reason why you need a new one?"

"My internet offed itself," she explained. "The connection's especially terrible because we're next to admissions, and they steal all the bandwidth."

"Ah." He reached up behind him on a shelf housing several different PC models. Mercury steadfastly ignored the sweat stains under his pits. "I can help you there. Any particular kind?"

"Something modest? Well, no, I mean, it's doesn't quite matter so much to me. Nothing made of rainbows, though."

He snatched a lump off of the shelf. "Here you are."

"Thanks," she said. "Er..."

"Tell you what, even with the discount, I'll give it you for a day for free. If it works for you then you can pay me tomorrow."

"I actually have this gift card--"

He looked put out. "Oh."

Mercury grimaced. "--but that's really nice of you, really nice. I think I'll take you up on that, Venus, thanks a bunch."

Venus brightened, though it was a hard thing to pull off when one looked about as sickly as you can get without dying of Malaria or some such. He handed the package to her and smiled, though it came out more of a baring of the teeth since he was so skeletal. She tried to make a quick getaway. Venus was almost too awkward for her to handle, worse than Neptune, which was saying something.

"Feel better," she said uneasily, and left as quickly as her feet would permit her without looking too eager.

---

"Hullo, gorgeous," Earth smirked. "You look lovely as ever."

Sun dismissed him with a flyaway hand. "Don't even try it. It's never gotten you anywhere and I'm the one least likely to indulge you."

"Oh, but your radiance far surpasses that of any other woman. How could I not pursue you? It would be a crime."

"Don't smarm up to me, boy," Sun said. "Your charms may work on other girls, but I'm your teacher, and you need to learn to respect that."

"Terribly sorry, Professor Sun. But I can't learn respect if you don't teach me how. I've been a very bad student."

"Cut it out," Sun snapped.

Earth laughed. "Where's your sense of humor? Roasted in all that attitude, I imagine."

Sun sighed. Earth's grin widened as he leaned against her desk, flashing her a smile worthy of any suitable man, if he were ten years older. His eyes were especially enchanting. Green and blue all at once. He was, along with being too handsome for anyone's good, very intelligent. It was quite a problem.

She tried a new tactic. "What about that Moon girl? She seems nice. You'll have more luck with her."

"The albino one? Maybe," Earth debated, acquiring a pensive look she began to associate with internal ambition. "I could certainly get her. But she follows me everywhere. Like a dog, really, she's never out of my shadow. It's off-putting."

"Kind of like you," Sun replied shortly. "With me."

"Ooh, ouch. My poor heart."

"What heart?"

Earth sent her a smoldering look.

Good god. "Leave, please," she sighed.

"Am I distracting you?"

"Annoyingly, yes. Go."

"As you wish," Earth mock-bowed and showed himself out of her office. Sun rubbed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. The things she dealt with at university. She remembered attending not so long ago, when she'd been young, but none of her students had been around then. She had no idea why she let Earth flirt so much with her, but it wasn't like she could deter him.

Slightly overwhelmed, Sun put in a call to her friend Alpha Centauri and settled down for a good long rant.

---

"You need to see someone about that face," Mars said carefully.

Jupiter heaved his huge body onto the couch and dug into the biscuits on the coffee table in front of them. "Sod off, Carrot-Top."

"No, really, big guy. I'm serious. It looks serious too. Real bad."

"Since when did you become the local dermatologist?"

"It doesn't take a doctor to figure out you have a problem," Mars said. "You've got it horribly. The, er, acne. Blemishes, I mean, to put it nicely."

Jupiter glared at him. "You think I don't know that?"

Mars shrugged. "I know the rash thing is a birthmark. But seriously, man. It's like a fireball shat on your face."

He barely managed to duck the swing, but managed to haul arse to the end of the couch in time. Jupiter looked livid. "I get enough of that already," he thundered. "Don't be a prat about it. Just because Earth's your cousin doesn't mean you can walk all over the rest of us."

"Sorry, sorry," Mars held up his hands in a gesture of placation.

"It's all right," Jupiter said, in way that illustrated that it was not, in fact, all right.

"You going to hit me if I sit next to you?"

"It's a possibility."

"All right," Mars cautioned. "I'm going to take a risk. I swear I'll never comment on it again. On my word."

Jupiter rolled his eyes. "Your word? There are truer things on American television."

Mars put on a very serious face. "I swear on the BBC."

Jupiter cracked a reluctant grin and patted the seat next to him, while he went for the remote. Mars settled down while Jupiter clicked on the telly, browsing through channels until he found a half-naked woman and staying put right there until she put her clothes back on. As far as either of them were concerned, this was a foolproof and rather excellent time-waster, as there were a lot of channels and enough naked women these days to fill a veritable sea of needy college students.

"You know what would be brilliant?" Mars asked, some time later, when they were both quite out of it and likely to drop off any moment.

"What?" Jupiter said sleepily.

"If I could actually score a girl like that."

"Highly bloody unlikely," Jupiter mumbled, nearly incoherently.

"Yeah, I know," Mars said. "But it's nice to pretend. Don't you sometimes?"

Mars' eyebrows drew together. "Jupe?"

But Jupiter was already asleep.

The great fat lump.

---

Pluto wiped his tears and sniffed quite pathetically. "Why?" He asked. "Why did you have to kick me out? I did nothing wrong. I did all my assignments. I know I didn't hang out with all of the other kids, I know was a bit cold to them, but we didn't really get along, and it's just not fair!"

Sun shrugged. "Nothing personal, darling. We just don't want you anymore."

"But why?"

"You know," Sun looked thoughtful, patting Pluto on the back, "I'm not quite sure. I'll think of something sooner or later, hmm?" She smiled and gave Pluto a little push out of her office. "Off you go!"

Pluto stared wet-eyed at Sun. "But I know I can do bet-"

She closed the door in his face.

Fic: First Sleep

balphas — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:50:33 GMT

Title: First Sleep
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Moon
Pairing: Gen.
Rating: R for cursing.
Length: 1752 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Sort of a sequel to the movie. Sam finds out all over again.
Notes: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. I think I'm the only one ever going to write fic for this movie, but it's That Awesome, and I love it so much. Also, the title is taken from the a piece in the score for Solaris, which I listened to on repeat while I wrote this.

Sam woke up.

It was bright, and his muscles felt numb, though the pins and pricks usually associated with blood circulation were absent. It was as if he had no blood flow. He felt limp, and quite weak.

Next to him hung Gerty. His face was a smile. It was very bright, and he had yet to adjust to the light, so Gerty seemed that much more yellow to him. The bulky machine seemed to lean over him protectively, assertively.

"How are you feeling?" Gerty asked.

"What happened?"

"You had an accident," Gerty said. "But you are safe now. You are in the medical facility, recovering."

Sam raised a hand to his forehead. Both were warm, room temperature, Earth standard. His body was fine. There were no scrapes or cuts he could feel. His pupils were too shrunk to see, and he squinted as a result, at Gerty, then down at himself.

"What kind of accident?"

Gerty was silent for a beat. "Are you hungry? Would you like some food? It had been a full day since you've eaten."

Sam sat up tenderly. No pins or needles, still.

"Please, stay in bed." Gerty said.

"No," Sam said.

"I will bring you your food, Sam. Please lie down and rest."

Sam rubbed his eyes. "What kind of accident, Gerty?"

The machine did not reply. His face changed, the smile straightening into a thin line. Disapproval, or caution, maybe. Sam could never gauge it quite right. It was a machine, after all. He was a machine.

Then, "A helium-3 harvester malfunctioned."

"How?"

"You drove there to find out."

"Did my shuttle malfunction too?"

"I do not believe so. You are here."

Sam looked down at his hands. He closed them, feeling the sore tendons stretch out. He was indeed here. Here was the helium-3 harvesting compound on the moon. He worked for Lunar Industries.

"I can't remember," he said.

"You have sustained head trauma. Please, Sam. Rest."

Sam looked down at himself. His eyes had adjusted. He was wearing the Lunar Industries patient smock, tied in the back. Gerty must have done that.

"How long have I been here?"

Gerty paused again. Sam couldn't remember if Gerty had done that before. He had always been succinct and appropriately timed with his responses.

"I will bring you your food and run some tests. Lie back, Sam. I will notify Lunar Industries of your recovery."

Sam looked at the robotic assist, whose face had changed once again. He swung his legs back onto the medical table. His spine creaked, and his thighs shook with the effort. He was really quite weak. He must have been here for a while. A week, maybe. A week of not moving, not eating. He would be glad to get back on his feet, exercise. Jump rope. Extract helium-3. Get back to work.

But Gerty had said it had only been a day since his last meal.

"Okay, buddy," he said finally. "Okay."

"I'll begin the tests," Gerty smiled.

---

Sam slept.

He remembered her still. Even if she was dead now. He remembered their daughter, but she was always a child in his head. On the moon, she never grew up. It was the same three years. Over, and over, and over again.

Any father would give anything to keep their child innocent. He wondered what Eve did now, that wasn't.

Fifteen. He'd missed so many of her years. It hurt.

Sam thought of maybe changing his name, so he could begin to distance himself to what he was. Then he realized that was a stupid idea. He was made. He was a copy. He could never be different.

Even his thoughts betrayed him.

---

"Hey," Sam said.

"Hey!" he called again, when Gerty didn't answer. He limped back to corridor where the AI hung. It swiveled slowly to regard him. The mechanical arm too.

"Why is the model messed up?"

Gerty frowned. "I'm sorry, Sam. I don't understand."

"The model of Fairfield. The one I was working on."

Gerty went tight-lipped again. The face where there was neither a smile or a frown. Sam's eyes were red with angry tears. He had spent a lot of time on that model. It was one of the only things keeping him together.

"I don't know what happened, Sam."

"Bullshit."

"It is possible you knocked it over."

"Not on purpose," he said quietly.

"You could rebuild it," Gerty suggested calmly, as he frowned.

Sam fisted a tuft of hair in his hand. Tugged at it, as he fought to remember what had happened.

"You should rest," Gerty said. "The stress is unhealthy for you. You are still recovering."

"I'll rest when I damn well feel like it!" Sam yelled abruptly. "I know I didn't knock it over! The pod bay entrance isn't even near the rec room!"

Gerty swiveled away, and then back.

"Sam," he said reasonably. "I know it was precious to you. I will do my best to help you rebuild it."

Sam hissed. "You could have knocked it over. You could've broken it."

"I would never do anything to harm you," Gerty said. "You can check my memory banks. I have no recollection of what happened."

Sam snarled and sat down on the corridor seats lining the walls at knee height. He was tired. His head hurt, but his strength was gaining--he wasn't entirely sure about his mental state yet, if it was something to do with the accident. He'd spent so many hours on that model. So many hours he couldn't remember. It was one more thing on top of everything else that he'd have to start over.

"Sorry. You're right. I'm stressed. How much time do I have left?" he asked tiredly.

"Approximately two years and eight months," Gerty said.

Sam dropped his head into his hands, face twisting into something desperate. "That's not right. I can't have made that entire model in four months. I can't have two years left. I've been here for--" He faltered. "I don't know how long."

Gerty looked sadly at him.

"I'm sorry, Sam. Would you like to play a game?"

"Fuck," Sam whispered.

---

It had taken him a long time to realize he was really among other humans again, after what he remembered as a lifetime on the moon. Nobody should have to see themselves die.

Sam hadn't gone back to his family yet. He didn't think he could face himself, his original self, older, maybe fifteen or thirty years older. Allowed a full life. Was he, the new Sam, slated to die after he finished his contract? It didn't matter if he wasn't on the moon. Lunar Industries had made him. It was a three-year contract with death.

Another him was up there, on the moon. The Eliza crew had cleaned up after themselves well, he suspected, but there were some things they couldn't know.

He hoped that Sam had enough wits about him to put two and two together.

---

The screen told him he had one message. He opened the video.

Tess looked great. She was tinted blue, like every message, but she was still how he remembered her. She was older than him, but not by much, and they always used to joke about that. He was watching her last message to him and smiling a little, since she was smiling too. He remembered that sometimes she cried. He didn't like it when that happened.

She told him about Eve. It really wasn't any different from any of the other messages from her. She told him she loved him, and was glad for this opportunity. She said she and Eve missed him very much.

Sam put his fingers to the screen. Touched the pixels. It wasn't the same.

He was about to patch through a reply via the Jupiter uplink when something on the screen caught his eye. He pressed it and a passcode display popped up. He typed in his verification. The passcode was rejected.

He typed it in again. Again, it was rejected. Doing it for a third time only secured his suspicion. Gerty swung to face him unhappily. "What's the matter, Sam?"

"This stupid fucking thing," Sam said.

Gerty came up behind him. His robotic arm pushed past Sam's shoulder and went to the keyboard. The passcode was accepted. The screen read, dated in the corner as a few days ago, LIVE FEED NOW AVAILABLE.

"What? What the hell?" Sam faced the robotic assist angrily. "Dammit, Gerty! Why didn't you tell me this before? Why do you have a password that I don't?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it because of the accident? How long was I out for? When did this happen?"

"While you were sleeping."

"Did Lunar Industries send new tech for us when you were treating me?"

"No."

Sam hit the corner of the display angrily. "I was asleep for a day. This is dated as a a week ago. Why didn't I notice before the accident, huh? Why is this password encrypted? What aren't you telling me, Gerty?"

Gerty's baleful blue eye studied him from next to an unhappy face, the squiggly mouth giving the robot the illusion of being chastised, or wretched about what he wasn't saying.

"You're supposed to help me, Gerty." Sam said desperately.

"I want to help you," the machine said, his face falling into a frown. "I would very much like to help you."

"Did you always know about the live feed?"

Sam's pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Sparks exploded just behind them. It was difficult to tell if he angry because of his lack of information or if, he suspected, there was no information to begin with. Gerty's memory banks were clean, he'd checked them twice. The only evidence of a changed environment wasn't evidence enough.

He was taking this really well. Maybe it was because he still had two more years to go. Maybe it was because he was so new up here. Nothing seemed real yet.

"Perhaps I should run more tests," Gerty smiled. "I want to help you, Sam."

Sam pushed off of the chair and paced, then came back and sat down.

"Call Lunar Industries," he told Gerty. "The live feed. I want to know what the hell's going on."

"You won't like it."

"I've never liked it, Gerty. Ever."

---

He knew. Three year contract. Three year lifespan.

He watched the pod evacuate towards the hanging blue sphere he found himself missing, though he had never set foot on it. He had wished to live there. To go back.

It always would have been over, in three years. He hadn't known then what over would mean. Where he'd had options before, he had none now. Gone was the hope of ever returning to his wife. The hope of being a singular man, an individual. It had been so much more bearable when he'd lived in ignorance.

But he didn't mind so much in the end.

OF: Before/After (Chapter V)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:11:46 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: This chapter is PG-13.
Length: 2711 words.
Notes: Mass paragraphs of political information! I nearly died, but there's some dialogue, don't worry. Now I can finally get into the real point of this story. Awesome. Plot is thickening.
Chapter Index HERE.

In a room in a ship orbiting a planet orbiting a sun, a red LED flickered. The man on the corestone shelf watched it, as it watched him.

It flashed, periodically, slow at first, then faster- short blips. Blink. Glow. Blink. Long dashes of light. The red eye flared brightly, flickered again, and then died. Darkness flooded back into the room. The LED, which was not a LED, drifted through the embers of an ancient dying program and observed without seeing.

Fauste idly tapped back a response on the bench, smiling with his eyes.

E-Gen Base
New Earth, Scotland
One Week Later

Zex's spine felt like it had been laid to harden in a vat of cooling titanium. He'd been sitting up so straight it it felt like the muscles of his stomach were permanently solid, contracted, holding him up. His shoulders ached. His mouth was dry and parched and no matter how much water his attendant brought him he still felt like his throat and rubbed raw; he'd not done this much debate since his campaign for office years and years ago.

The Guild was convinced that the trade-off had been a sabotage on E-Gen's part, and vice versa. Negotiations were so tense that if Zex made so much as a wrong hand gesture, the cord holding their entire deliberations together would snap and all hell would break loose. Raleigh had tried to be of help, giving him soothing massages in the evenings and kissing his aches away. But he'd had no sleep for a week. There were bags under his eyes that he was sure weren't the least bit attractive, and his skin had turned waxen in the face of so much stress. His wife had joked around about ulcers but Zex had the funniest feeling in his stomach that didn't entirely disprove her prodding.

He wasn't even sure how it had begun. He failed to remember anything past the last couple of hours. Only the memorable facts stuck to his mind; their careful negotiations of trading precious cargo on ground, which was elevated due to concerns, which was tensed with the disappearance of Fauste Wolf, which was botched when Meer Wolf volunteered to guard their transport up to the Fat Gat for the cargo, which was further ruined when she'd learned her brother was aboard, which almost gave Zex a heart attack when he'd learned she hadn't returned with the rest of her squad, and all of it was turning into a wreck of mislaid information and misinterpretations. Somewhere in there was the issue of sending the squad in the first place and the Guild's decision to use a gun cruiser and the hostage situation that the Guild felt was justified-

Zex felt like his mind was going to either melt or implode, either of which was welcome over the ridiculous amount of brain power he'd had to use to sort it all out.

Where they stood was this:

The Guild no longer wanted a trade. They wanted money. They were refusing to release either Meer or Fauste until E-Gen had paid them for their cargo. E-Gen no longer wanted the original cargo, offering instead to pay for the Wolf siblings. The Guild refused this, accusing E-Gen of blind-siding them.

Zex had argued that it was a fair trade. The Guild would be getting their share of money either way. But the Guild had dug their heels in, refusing to acquiesce; Zex knew something else was up that the Council either didn't know about or had been hiding from him.

Fat Gat was still floating in orbit, with the Wolfs aboard, as well as the cargo.

Zex had spent too long convincing the Guild that he meant them no harm and had not intended to intensify faction rigidity with the intention of beginning a war. He'd made it absolutely clear that no war was to be had if they wanted to continue surviving in a prosperous fashion. The Guild had been holding back on that point, though. Zex knew it was because they thought they had Fauste in the bag as their secret weapon. And that was the thing; without Fauste, E-Gen was technologically defenseless. They had kite fighters and excellent pilots to spare, but if the Guild was going to utilize New Earth's best scientist to create bigger and better things, E-Gen didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against them.

Zex shuddered to think what the Guild would do if they captured Eden and its resources. The Guild was half the reason Zex became the Chairman in the first place; the amount of corruption within that faction alone was sickening. They already had his best pilot in the mix as well. His friend. She'd been there a week- and if they'd done anything, anything at all to hurt her, Zex would have no problems at all jumping in a kite fighter to 'talk sense' into the General controlling that ship.

It was for his wife and children that he stayed put. And, of course, the negotiations. And his lack of information. Being the Chairman, Zex had plenty of advisors, and assistants, and his always helpful First Attendant. But none of them held the answers that felt right. It was always 'I'm sure they'll understand when you put it this way, Sir,' and 'War's the only option. We've been here the longest; they belong to us.'

But Zex knew it was more difficult than that. So many things, options, emotions that got in the way. His own ties. His own family. Sometimes, late at night, when he was curled around his wife in their bed, he thought how much easier this would be if he had no family at all. And then he slapped himself for it; of course it wouldn't be easier. He would never have the moral experience to make good decisions, decisions for the people, if he hadn't felt the love of a woman or held the hands of his children.

Sometimes he loved his job. But this was not one of those times.

When Noah Barker, the young pilot in Meer's squadron, had returned to New Earth and reported directly to him what had happened, Zex felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He'd promoted the boy to Lieutenant-Commander in Meer's stead and thanked him for the news, but he couldn't shake the terrible, horrible feeling of guilt that chewed him up. Had he been less careless...

Had he not suggested her squadron accompany their transport.

What he was left with was a cocktail of alternatives, each of which was risky. Many of them required him to become, at least temporarily, what he'd tried to avoid or conquer during his lifetime. The others were less risky but put the brunt of the consequences on his people. It had taken a long time to finally decide, but he had eventually come to a conclusion. That day alone he'd been sitting for four hours straight in the deliberation chamber speaking with council on what neutral alternatives could be taken to offset their wounded faction relationships.

He'd been right; the Guild had eventually decided to boycott them. It wasn't so much a major blow as a minor inconvenience. As he'd mentioned to his wife previously, E-Gen had been relying too heavily on the imports from others instead of harnessing their own natural resources, or tracking them. There, of course, other minor factions they could trade with if they needed it, but none of those encompassed the huge range of products like the Guild did. Even Under was small, and they were the third largest faction on New Earth.

With reluctance, Zex had issued an order to be broadcast all throughout Eden's underground caverns, to every comm radio and microspeaker within its cavernous walls. There had been no doubt that his people had heard it- he'd even ordered it be broadcast to the Surface, to small, pirate compounds within the limestone caves lining what had been Europe.

The order had declared E-Gen looking for volunteers to go scrap tracking. Scrap tracking was a long dead practice of visiting destroyed Surface cities in the hopes of finding long gone resources or valuables that would fetch a pretty penny on the black market. E-Gen had never made a habit of using currency but now seemed like a desperate time to be using it- he'd illustrated that the volunteers would be paid very generously for their contributions to E-Gen.

Zex knew the most successful scrap trackers were pirates who'd not even so much as touched a living quarter underground in their entire lives. They lived off of what they found within the sifting dunes of dead scrubs and sand and dust of collapsed skyscrapers, avoiding the acid rain and sandstorms, stealing. The best pirates made excellent wages for themselves. Zex had not overlooked the fact that E-Gen was not the center of the universe; there were thousands of pirate networks through the Surface and plenty of contacts in each city, including both Eden and Shangri-La and even the elusive city of the Under. There were probably stationed in the other, smaller factions as well, but Zex had never focused on them. So concerned was he on the well-being of Eden, Zex had overlooked a few of the key players that kept New Earth's economy grinding slowly through the years.

Zex had not been to the Surface in a long, long time. The fact that he was considering continuing negotiations with the Guild in Shangri-La was crazy, and he knew it himself. But it wouldn't really be what the Guild was expecting and he would be able to scrutinize them more closely when well within their borders.

He stood at last, stilling his trembling limbs until they were willing to help move him towards the door. His attendant hurried from her place at the door and slipped a long, velvety blue robe over his aching shoulders; the warm weight making him feel more weighed down than he almost had reason to. But it encased his chilled arms and chest and boosted his resolve, at least. He flashed his attendant a thankful smile and headed out of the deliberation chamber to the circular balcony that ringed Eden's main quartering post.

He sighed, letting the warm breeze from the abyssal depths below warm his face.

Eden was, Zex thought proudly, his simple pleasure. Standing at such a precarious point and looking down in to the core was an awesome experience. The sheer magnitude reminded him of his place, always, but encouraged him. The city itself was simply colossal. Many people mistakenly thought it was shaped as a city, carve out of a hole in the ground. It was nothing of the sort. Eden was a massive wormhole, reaching down into the earth, burrowing into stone, a mile wide in each direction. It had not started that way. When Echelon first landed it was only spelunking fodder until it was widened, slowly, over the years.

About a mile of solid rock separated Eden from the Surface, connected only by a complex system of electronic lifts that seemed too out of place in such an earth environment. Above was located the Aviation Academy, located as close to the Surface as was safe for their students. Below the seperation shelf was the main hangar, which housed the spare kite fighters that were used for parts or repair. Next to that was the living quarters, built into the walls, lined with levels and levels of rails and doors. It was so vast and intricate that Zex was surprised he hadn't gotten used to it by now.

He, being the chairman, and his family, lived at the very top of that hole that led down, deep down until it brushed New Earth's fiery core. That was where the boiler room was, as vast as the living quarters. Those who lived down there preferred the heat and worked with the machines. Zex held a large amount of respect for the mechanics, working tirelessly to keep Eden alive.

He was glad he lived far up. He had never enjoyed excessive heat but had lived with it all his life. But the breeze that caressed his face was a welcome one, because no matter how hot Eden got, it soothed him with an unknown optimism that even now seemed clear. It was better than a space ship. He couldn't imagine ever having to spend one's life aboard a soulless hunk of metal floating in nothingness. With a pang, Zex remembered the Wolfs. He would be glad to have them back.

A cool hand at his back alerted him to the presence of Raleigh. He turned to regard her.

"Thinking?" She asked in that lilting, soft voice of hers. Zex nodded, drinking her in. She was wearing a slim white gown that bared her back and flowed around her feet in silk folds. Her scarlet hair was up to reveal her neck and curved jaw. He could easily count the pale freckles on her shoulders and collarbones and reached out to touch them. If he had another simple pleasure, his wife would be it.

She saved him a lot of trouble. More accurately, saved him from a lot of trouble.

After a pause, Zex dropped his hands to hers. "I lied."

Raleigh raised an eyebrow. "That's so unlike you," she said dryly.

Zex shook his head. "I'm not going to be sending my best diplomats. I'll be going myself. I'm the only one they'll listen to."

"To Shangri-La?" Raleigh asked, disturbed. "But that's all the way in the Middle-East. How are you going? And how long?"

"By rail transport, probably. A week. A month. It's all a little unclear to me."

"What about the fighters? Can't they take you?"

Zex sighed. He'd seen that problem before. "They only seat one, and I'll not rob them of fuel they might need in the future. We only have one freight transport and that's too much big of a hassle to carry one man, don't you think?"

Raleigh frowned. "But rail transport from here to Shangri-La goes right through Petra."

Petra was a known pirate trading post built into the stone of former Serbia, and it was crawling with unsavory characters with even more unsavory motives. Zex had known that his route would be a direct one, through Petra, Lebanon, and Turkey and their respective checkpoints. But it was also a route that people flew over for a reason. Unfortunately Zex did not know the last thing about flying- he was a politician, not a pilot.

"I'll try not to be so conspicuous," he smiled. "I'll be fine."

"But you might get-"

"Didn't I promise?" He interrupted, squeezing her hands. "I might lie, but I don't break promises. I'll be fine. We'll be fine."

Raleigh looked away. He could see that she was fighting back anger, which was probably a result of frustration.

"What about the kids?" she bit her lip. "They miss their dad."

"It won't be more than a week," he reassured her. "One day up, a few days there, one day back. You won't even notice I've gone."

"Zex," she said in a tired voice, "I've noticed you gone when you were still here."

He scowled darkly, more at himself than at anybody else. She was right. "I'll leave in the morning," he said at last. Trying to lighten the mood, he raised a finger to lift her chin up and smiled as charmingly as possible. "You can persuade me to stay in the meantime, if you like."

Raleigh laughed emptily and shook her head so that her red curls bounced. "It's a sad day in the Duan household when I have to remind myself why I married you."

Zex smiled. "Why you married me, maybe. At least you don't have to remind yourself why you love me."

Raleigh reached up with her arms and pulled him down. "No," she rolled her eyes and pecked his nose. "Suave bastard. You do that for me."

Miles and miles away, a dark figure listened to the transmission from her skimmer bike radio.

"Those interested in scrap tracking for the Echelon Generation should report directly to Eden's Surface hangar above former Edinburgh, Scotland. Arrive promptly on the morning of the fourteenth. Your skills with be verified and your tasks designated. Payment will be discussed individually. Chairman Duan will determine your capability and your background and will choose only those suited well enough for the duration of the Market Guild's boycott. Contact is not necessary." A pause. "Good luck."

OF: Before/After (Chapter IV)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:10:50 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: Getting more R, now.
Length: 2051 words.
Notes: I had some trouble with this chapters. The characterizations feel a little off to me, but then again, I was working on four cups of coffee and little to no sleep. I might revise this later. But for now, enjoy.
Chapter Index HERE.

Twenty Minutes Earlier

"I'll be in to check on her shortly," he'd said, as he left his guards with the captured woman in their more than capable hands. "Keep an eye on her until I do."

He'd gone back to the elevator, let the doors slide shut, and waited until his men secured Wolf in her prison. He had to crack a smile. If only she knew her brother was being held in the cell right next to her own. True, all of the cells were separated by extremely thick corestone walls that killed sound almost as soon as it hit them, so that it wouldn't be given away. Breed still found it amusingly cliché, though. His men must have thought so as well- he hadn't missed their surprised expressions, and neither, apparently, had Wolf.

After ten minutes had passed, Breed had opened the elevator doors once again and strode down the hall for the next order of business. The touchpad to Fauste's block, which was block nine, flared a neon yellow as it accepted his hand-print. There was a hiss and the door unlocked and slid into the wall, revealing a room brightly glowing with the LEDs on full emit. Breed had always loved the sunset-like effect. In reality the LEDs were placed next to microcameras embedded into the walls, but of course Fauste had smashed each one when he'd arrived. Breed had let him remain there without video surveillance but he visited the man every day just to check.

Breed hated doing it. Mostly because every time he visited, the man within the cage managed to cage Breed right back.

A brilliant scientist, Fauste was. Smart, but there was something a little bent up there in his head. Breed had thought he himself was a pretty befouled victim of mental instability, but Fauste had this way of speaking, or acting, that made even Breed relatively uneasy. And that was difficult to do. All that tampering with space and time, and organic and radioactive metals. Something had come loose.

"'Evening," the man greeted warmly from his corner wall seat. Breed refrained from sitting down with him, the skittering of Fauste's uncuffed hands enough to keep him on his toes. The man was the spitting image of his sister. Yellow hair. Fair skin. Only Wolf's was less fair and more a peachy tan, since she spent most of her time closer to the sun. Her brother, while sitting, still appeared to be slender and tall. What his sister lacked, the scientist did not.

"Good evening," Breed replied smoothly.

"I didn't think I'd see you again so soon." Fauste's eyes narrowed in a perversion of a mouthless smile. "Was there something else you wanted to talk about?"

"More of the same, I'm afraid."

Fauste looked away disinterestedly. "How boring."

"In the interest of keeping your sister alive," Breed said abruptly, "I would like for you to elaborate further on your current projects."

The answer was almost immediate. "We've already done that."

He looked at Breed calmly, not even seeming to notice the implication of Breed's capture of his sister. He didn't seem to care. Then again, Fauste didn't seem anything. He just was.

Fauste continued. "I've explained everything. I've even taken painstaking lengths to try and put it into layman's terms for you. What don't you get?"

Breed smiled generously. Fauste was every bit as impudent as his sibling, though in a tiresome, blank way. The way he answered things set Breed more on edge with every word. He didn't believe anything of the anti-aging myth that surrounded Fauste Wolf, but the way the older man talked down to him came only with experience and spoke a great amount about his personality. Fauste certainly didn't look older than Breed. If anything they seemed matched in appearance.

If he had to hazard a guess, Breed would put the man at twenty-nine, a year older than he. But sometimes, when Fauste looked at him under the right conditions, he seemed closer to sixty-nine. And then, only nine. And with the phrasing of his words, and his little gestures, at times Breed felt like he was talking to someone who was either omnipresent or who didn't even exist.

It bothered him.

He tried a different approach. Unnecessary, but even so. "Commander Wolf's pretty eyes would look better on my dinner plate, don't you think?"

Fauste seemed unruffled. His own eyes shone brightly in a leering face as the LEDs caught the planes of his jaw and cheekbones briefly. And then it was gone, replaced with a serene expression only half-visible in the light.

"I suppose," He murmured. "They are very pretty."

Breed almost growled in frustration. He managed to chuckle around it light-heartedly, though, but he was growing tired of each of their mind-games. "My mistake," he said softly. "I had thought you actually loved your sister."

Fauste looked up at him. Blinked, slowly. "Is that what you think, General?"

"I think you're insane." Breed said coldly. "And I think that we could pay better than anything E-Gen has to offer, if you'd point your distorted mind in the right direction."

"Maybe." Fauste laughed gently. "You keep saying that. I'm not in it for the money."

"What are you in it for?"

The man tapped a finger idly. "I have my reasons."

"That's not good enough."

"Nothing's ever good enough for you people, General." Fauste deadpanned. "If it's one thing I've learned from the Guild, it's your extremely low tolerance for failure. I'm beginning to wonder why should I even try."

"You should try for your sister." Breed said. He resisted pulling his lips back from his teeth in a snarl, but only barely. "You may be the smartest man alive, but you are still a man. That does not excuse you from human emotions, no matter how stupid they are."

The man's mouth twitched. "I never thought I'd be getting a lecture on morals from you, General."

"We're all hypocrites." Breed snapped. "A dead woman or a full salary? It shouldn't be so hard, Doctor, don't over-think it."

Fauste regarded him.

"If I work for you, my sister will be freed and returned to New Earth, assuming she's actually on board this ship." It wasn't a question. "And if I don't, you'll do something unnecessary out of childish petulance like killing her or hitting me until I agree."

Fauste's expression screamed anything but innocence. Breed felt an awful lot like cracking the man's jaw open but fought the impulse, as he fought his fury. Why this man drew these reactions from him he would gladly avoid determining; he had a funny feeling it didn't all have to do with the way Fauste's laugh lines crinkled in sadistic humor. He hated feeling like he was being analyzed, he did enough of that himself, and he could only deal with one person inside of his head at a time.

It had happened before and Breed vowed never to let it happen again. It was why he disliked- hated scientists. Physicists. People who made a living on analyzation. People like Fauste. Like his father.

"Yes," he said. Snarled. And meant it. "I will."

Fauste heaved a sigh. "Ultimatums are waste of time."

"Then waste your time on deciding." Breed said finally. "I'll come for your answer in the morning."

After I deal with your sister, he added privately.

And the look on her face when he'd entered her cell- the defiant glare, the tiniest hint of fear- covered by a thin veil of contempt. That had been before she recognized him, but that surge of accomplishment still swelled in Breed's chest with a certain sort of pride.

His knuckles smarted from where he had clipped her on the cheek. He'd forgotten he had his ring on; he would have taken it off if he'd realized. Wolf must be cursing him for that nasty, bloodied lip of hers- the thought alone brought a genuine smile to his face. Somehow, she still managed to make that furious glare all the more alluring, even with with a reddened mouth. It really was a shame she was a woman. A crying shame.

Breed shook his head. He looked at the ring held between is thumb and forefinger: there was a streak of scarlet over the black stone inside. He had received the ring as a graduation gift from the Eden Academy of Aviation from his sister, who was dead now. She'd said it had reminded her of his eyes. He'd kept it for face value alone. It held no more meaning to him than if he'd bought it cheap off a dealer in Under. But now the smear of Wolf's blood along the band added a certain kind of character to it, something new to go with the stark silver and deep, abyssal corestone within.

Breed had no great love for blood. He had lived with it for far too long to despise it, but he disliked the significance spilt blood meant. Breed disliked many things that held significance, which was why he lied so much; there was no meaning behind false words. Just nothingness.

The blood would come off under hot water. But for now, it reminded him that Wolf was alive and waiting until their next meeting, breathing slow with the thin oxygen he'd ordered be pushed into the room. She was going to hurt when she woke up. She was going to hurt a lot.

Breed slipped the ring back on. Fair's fair.

He had almost forgotten her, as well. Originally he'd had no idea who the star pilot of the Chairman's forces was, rocketing towards his gun cruiser. He'd assumed childishly that it was some old fart with years and years of experience, because he'd faced off with many of those before, in similar circumstances. He had not thought to recall Wolf's progress or the blatant favoritism shown by the Chairman, simply because he had left those memories behind. They were far too... clear to him to make himself forget completely.

When he'd seen the wheat-blonde hair and bottle-green eyes, he'd felt a momentary flash of nostalgia, and his chest had seized up with what he later came to rationalize as nerves. Several things had happened then, in the few seconds it took for him to absorb that it was Meer Wolf standing before him, and not some well-seasoned pilot with crinkled eyes and stubble.

Firstly, he realized that she wasn't just the snobby spoilt brat he thought she had been.

Secondly, she didn't appear to recognize him.

The fact he hadn't considered the option of her before smarted more than he cared to admit. Of course it could have been Wolf- her brother was their captive, wasn't he? Why wouldn't Wolf want to come and rescue him?

Somehow he'd not made the connection. Because of preference, maybe. Or he'd not wanted to entertain the thought of having to deal with the person he'd envied- no, hated most at the academy. And that fact became more clear to him the longer it took for her to recognize him. She hadn't even remembered until he'd practically pulled it out of her. He'd wanted to strangle her when she'd finally said his name. Finally! He'd wanted to snarl. Finally you get it!

He'd taken pleasure in hitting her. He didn't need to lie about that. After all those years, at last he'd been able to find an excuse to injure the woman. She had provoked him, after all, but he wouldn't have minded taking all of the blame anyway.

"How did you become a general?" She'd asked. "Sexual favors?"

Provoked him with the truth. So what if he'd... cheated his way to the top? He was good. He was excellent at flying, at piloting, and anything he had been asked to do. But E-Gen had never seen that- Duan had never seen that. Duan was so focused on cleaning New Earth of corruption that he'd forgotten about his own venal tendencies. And so, after a culmination of things, Breed had left to forge his own way up into the Guild's special ranks.

But maybe Fauste was right. Maybe, because of that, he did have a low tolerance for failure. For anything. Breed had seen himself react when his instructions weren't followed, or followed well. Angrily, he rubbed his thumbs over his eyes and disregarded the Freudian miasma seeping into his head. The last thing he wanted to think about was his family. They'd been dead to him longer than he'd cared to admit, to himself, or anyone. Wolf's fault. Fauste's fault. Not his.

Never his.

OF: Before/After (Chapter III)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:10:03 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: Getting more R, now.
Length: 3392 words.
Notes: This chapter was so much fun to write, I'm not even kidding. (This is a Post-Apocalyptic AU with, again, mine/others' characters used at the expense of nobody's money or time except my own, blah blah blah...)
Chapter Index HERE.

Meer froze as the unit spilled out of the elevator with a clatter of uniform boots and surrounded her on all sides. She dropped her blaster without being asked as her wrists were wrenched behind her back and cuffed. She snarled, angry at them, bur angrier at herself for taking on such an impossible task. She should have waited for her squad and regrouped. She should have fallen back with Noah. Stupid, stupid.

But Meer had been in worse situations. She'd find a way out of this one like she did the others, albeit probably with a lot more improvisation.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us," said the man, who had eyes darker than coal. His voice had a strange, smooth lilt to it. He sounded foreign, but Meer had thought that most accents had died out hundreds of years ago due to the collective living of the humans on Apocalyptica. He motioned her towards the elevator with a hand. "If you'd kindly follow me."

"I won't do anything kindly," Wolf spat. "Where's Fauste?"

"Doctor Wolf is in good hands. I wouldn't worry too much about him." The man smiled warmly. "You might not be so fortunate."

He ushered them into the steel room. Two guards took her elbows and pushed her forward gently, as if they were afraid they might break her. The man stood behind Meer and she tried to ignore the hot breath puffing onto her neck as he leaned forward to breathe into her ear. "You have been quite the little problem," he said. If Meer could see him she would bet her life that he was smiling again. She wanted nothing more than the wipe it clean off his face. It didn't reach his blank eyes by a mile.

"Don't touch me," she snapped, jerking away. The man laughed. That, too, was slightly off-putting.

"My, you're touchy."

"What are you doing with my brother?"

"Helping him." The man said. "Helping him help us."

Meer shot him a look that could melt rock and seethed in silence. 'Helping' probably was synonymous with 'aggressive persuasion' to the Guild. She knew Fauste would never help them willingly. He might be a crazy bastard but he knew where his allegiances lay, and he was very skilled at deception, no matter what the issue was. If they were fooled into believing that he was assisting them voluntarily, they were obviously a lot more dense than Meer had given them credit for.

What exactly had they wanted him for in the first place, anyway?

"General Lord," interrupted one of the men by the door. "Where are we taking her?"

"Block eight should be fine for now. Bring her some food for later, she looks famished. Aren't you, Commander?"

"Bite me." she snapped.

The Guild general gave her that lopsided friendly look again. Meer had a feeling that whenever he looked the kindest was when he did the worst, because as friendly and handsome as his face was, there was no way that it signified actual compassion. And his name. The name sounded familiar somehow, like she'd heard it it before, maybe sometime before the academy or in conversation with her squadron. She didn't want to ask what they were going to do with her, naturally assuming the worst. Fauste was somewhere inside this mammoth thing and in all probability she was being led the in exact opposite direction from him.

Meer wasn't dull enough to miss the raised eyebrows on the crew's faces. Apparently block eight was something to raise eyebrows to. "Of course, General," muttered the man who'd asked, and pressed a gloved finger to the aligned numbers on the wall.

From what Meer could see, block eight wasn't on the eighth floor of the cruiser. She didn't find it surprising that the cruiser even had floors, like some sort of floating hotel, but it was interesting to see that the number of floors shown on the panel was fewer than Meer had expected. There were only ten. From the outside, the cruiser looked as huge as the boiler level back down in Eden. Perhaps the size was due to the amount of shielding, layers and layers of industeel piled on top of each other. But Meer knew the cruiser's strengths lay in its field shields, not the bare skin of its hull.

A surge of pride made her smirk. After all, she'd taken out the shields herself.

Still, what Eden knew about Guild's resources was slim, but Meer was sure they'd gotten all the information they could on this cruiser. Maybe what the Guild wasn't telling them was limited to those in on the joke- probably only army figures, like General Asshat over in the corner. Maybe a few politicians. E-Gen's inside men had never risen that far in Guild's hierarchy.

The Guild had a lot of secrets, as did E-Gen, but Meer couldn't shake the feeling that they knew more about E-Gen than E-Gen knew about them. And that was a little unsettling. Since when did this... trade relationship... become something to get this worked up over? It was only supposed to be a trade. A trade gone wrong, perhaps, but still a trade. No matter how much she wanted to wage war on the Guild for stealing her brother from her, the last thing New Earth needed was a war. They were still rebuilding. A war would destroy all of that. Was the Guild actually planning on launching an attack on E-Gen?

Was that why they brought a gun cruiser instead of the freighter? Obviously they must have done that on purpose, but up until then Meer had thought it was for the protection of the goods on board. Maybe it hadn't been for the cargo. Maybe it had been to provoke E-Gen into acting against them, and thus giving them a reason to retaliate. And eventually take over.

... and that was bad.

Meer hated when she over-thought things- it always got her into trouble. Now she had to see if that was actually true. And if it was, then she had to finagle her way out of the Guild's grasp and hightail it back to New Earth to let E-Gen's chairman know. He might already, but she wasn't going to take chances. The chairman had a way of overlooking small details in order to get the big picture. She knew that because she knew him. For most of her adult life, at least. And Zachary Duan could be a bit too much of a politician to think strategically. If he had a fault, that would be the one.

While she'd been lost in her thoughts, the elevator had come to a stop. Meer hadn't even noticed it moving. Which was not good, because she couldn't tell which direction she was now compared to where she'd been in the hangar. The elevator could have gone up or down, or side-to-side. With a ship that large, versatile transportation was needed.

"I understand you're a proud woman, Commander, but it would be in your best interests to move forward."

The general pushed her gently on the shoulders, but his hands didn't linger. He must have felt Meer twitch underneath his touch, ready to spring on him, even if her hands were cuffed. The guards holding her arms must have felt it too for they tightened their grip on her arms and tugged her along without any hint of kindness.

The floor, or corridor, or whatever it was, had very dark paneling. It stretched down to a point Meer couldn't determine. The walls were very close together and shone with yellowed light from the lights stuck into the ceiling at random intervals, which was a good eleven feet off the floor. Along the sides of the hallway were syncopated vertical lines every five meters or so, with dull greenish touch screens next to every one.

Behind her, the general hummed.

"I'll be in to check on her shortly," he said. "Keep an eye on her until I do."

Both guards nodded. One motioned to half the crew to follow, probably previously instructed not to underestimate Meer. What a shame. She had been planning to shove their noses back into their skulls with a well placed elbow, but with more of them the odds of ever escaping their hold was slim to none. As the general left, they clacked forward in perfect unison, like ants. Or termites.

"Are you paid?" she asked, once the general had disappeared back into the elevator.

The guards shot her surprised glances, which quickly turned into those of annoyance. None of them answered, as if their termite hive mind had reminded them that she was the enemy and not to be tampered with.

"I don't see a reason why you should be doing all this work if you aren't," she continued unflappably. "Seems pointless, doesn't it?"

"Be quiet," barked the guard on her left.

Meer smiled patronizingly. "Why? Did I hit a nerve?"

The guards didn't take the bait further, but that might also have been because they had arrived at block eight and were throwing her into the room.

They didn't even bother to take the cuffs off. The door slid shut with a hiss and Meer was left in complete darkness save for little red LEDs set into the walls, where were a smooth, shiny black. The room was the size of a postage stamp and had one ledge at the back that was wide enough for one person to sleep on, but she didn't so much see it as stumble onto it, literally.

Biting her lip, Meer managed to fit herself into a sitting position that wasn't too uncomfortable, but since her hands were bound and pressed into the cold steel behind her, there was only so much comfort she could extract from her situation. Her wrists hurt and dug into the cuffs, but it wasn't unbearable. Meer had suffered through school lectures worse than this. The only thing that really bothered her was her lack of ability to see anything at all within the room, aside from the tiny red eyes; part of the reason she was such a good pilot was her excellent eyesight, which was a requisite for becoming one. Losing it was... irritating.

That bastard Lord would probably make her wait for him, too. Either he knew that Meer had no patience or he knew what pilots hated. She wasn't claustrophobic. She just hated being completely incarcerated. Completely.

Absentmindedly, Meer glossed over the man's face in her head. Lord... Lord... as a surname. General Lord. How did he know what pilots hated? Was he one? Were all generals former pilots? Assuming he was a former pilot, why did she even know his name? As a commander she was required to know a lot of names, but this one nagged at her.

Eventually she gave up and settled for thinking blankly and waiting. Her eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, but she closed them when she realized that she'd be blinded for a few seconds if the general returned and flipped some sort of hidden light switch or something. Again, she was probably over-thinking things, but it was better than being caught off-guard.

When the man finally did arrive, it was after Meer had let herself drift off. She was in an odd state between sleep and wakefulness when there was a familiar hiss and the door opened. Instead of the bright lights she'd been expecting, the red LEDs only brightened and cast the room into an eerie violent glow within which she could make out the general's glittering eyes and kindly smile.

"Uncuff me," Meer said coldly, by way of greeting.

"My men didn't?" the man asked, sounding almost regretful. He tsked. "My sincerest apologies on their behalf."

Still, he didn't move to release her wrists from their aching prison, instead moving to sit with her on the inky bench. Meer hadn't noticed before, but there was a waste disposal function in the opposite corner of the room, awash in the red glow. She kept that in mind.

"Why don't we talk about why you're here?" The general rested a hand on Meer's knee. Reflexively, she jerked out with her heel, aiming a kick at his ribs, but the man caught it deftly and twisted her leg until Meer barked out in pain.

She hadn't even seen his hands move. He must have been a pilot. Only pilots were trained to move that lightning fast.

"Bastard," she ground out.

"Your observational skills are as excellent as I've heard, Commander," the man said dryly, letting go of her ankle. Meer wished she could cradle and rub some life back into it, but her wrists weren't going anywhere soon, and she wasn't stupid enough to try and break the industeel bonds. They would only bleed her wrists dry.

"What do you want?" she snapped, nursing her injured pride. The man only smiled wider.

"Oh, just a motive."

"You know my motive." Meer retorted.

"Not yours, silly girl. The world doesn't revolve around you." The general sighed. "Though I wonder why you would risk your life to get your brother back. He's happily working for us now. Or didn't you hear?"

"I didn't. You're mistaken."

"I very rarely am." He drawled. "What I want is E-Gen's motive to attack. I want to know why they would compromise a trade-off."

Meer looked at him. That wasn't right. It was the Guild who first compromised the trade-off. She went for the neutral ground, hoping it would put her in a better light, which she could later take advantage of. "You expect me to know that? I'm a pilot. A commander. I get my orders from my admiral."

"Liar," the man said jovially.

"Orders are not explanations, General," Meer said brusquely. "You should know that."

"So you are not Commander Meer Wolf, sister to doctor and renowned quantum physicist Fauste Wolf, who, along with yourself, has a personal tie to Chairman Duan himself."

Meer froze. "My personal ties have nothing to do with politics."

"Oh, but they do," the general said. "They influence political decisions greatly. You wouldn't know, would you? You are no politician; you drive hunks of metal for a living. It is the chairman's decisions that affect us all. If you are close to him, you inadvertently know both his actions and the consequences of them."

"I've hardly seen him in the past year," Meer lied. "I have no idea of what he does when he's in session. Like you said, I'm only a pilot."

That part was true, at least. Meer stayed out of politics. They had a funny way of messing everything up beyond repair. And she had, in fact, seen Zex personally before she had shacked up in her kite fighter and prepared to escort the trade-off. It hadn't been about orders, then. It had just been a meeting between good friends.

"Come back safely," Zex had said. His wife had given Meer a motherly peck on the cheek and her twins had tried tackling her in what Meer supposed was their odd way of saying 'good luck'. "Don't cause any trouble."

Even though they didn't see her often, the Meer had always considered the Duans to be her surrogate relatives. Aside from her brother, they were the closest she had to a functional family. Most of the time she spent not flying was spent walking around Eden, holding conversations with Raleigh, babysitting the kids, or debating with Zex.

She would never tell the general that, though. It had taken years for Meer to realize that she loved that family almost as much as she loved herself. And that had been a startling revelation that had since caused her to turn her back on further relationships; she didn't need to care for anyone else. It was too dangerous to care for that many people, especially a family of politicians. The possibility of assassination had bothered her far too many times.

But that was behind her now: she had 'friends', people like Noah, who wouldn't leave her alone even if she tried very hard to shake them from it. Meer supposed she was thankful. Maybe more confused than thankful, but she was thankful nonetheless.

The general studied her carefully. His smile was gone now, replaced with a pensive look that seemed to speak volumes about his temperament.

And then Meer remembered.

"You're Brandon Lord." She stated, blankly. "I trained with you in the academy."

And then he was smiling again. "I was hoping you'd remember."

So that was how he knew she was close with Zex; he'd seen her rise up through the ranks of the academy and come to rest solidly under the chairman's wing. It was absurd. She remembered talking with him once over lunch, something about the aerodynamics of the work in progress model of the kite fighter, and whether two-dimensional planes of existence thrived on planets elsewhere in the universe. She remembered he was older than her, by at least a few years, and had the bad habit of darkening his face when he was angry or stressed.

He seemed to have fixed that defect by smiling pleasantly all the time. That was the reason why she hadn't recognized him at first; he'd developed ten more levels of the creep factor through contorting himself into something he wasn't. And it was unnerving.

"I'm Breed now." He said. "Brandon was a long time ago."

Meer stared at him.

"Why did you leave?" Was her first question. Then: "You're an idiot."

"E-Gen didn't like the way I handled myself. Or rather, your chairman didn't approve of me. I was never given any assignments of consequence." Breed smiled that un-smile again. His teeth flashed red in the light. "I left for bigger and better things. You know that the Guild has half the talented fighters E-Gen does? I was evening out the playing field."

"I'm sure," Meer said coldly. "But then you're a traitor."

"What was there to betray? We're not at war, Wolf. We're two sides to a coin. I betrayed no-one."

"Tell that to the people who trusted you." Meer countered. "I'm sure they'd say otherwise."

Breed laughed. "Who? Nobody liked me. Not even you."

Ouch. Breed was right. Meer hadn't liked him, hadn't even known him all that well. He had always seemed too prickly for any conversation, but then again, Meer had never wanted to talk to anyone either. They were two sides to the same coin. And that was way too uncanny.

"Of course, I didn't care," he continued. "I learned all I needed to learn and then I left. It's as simple as that."

Meer nodded. She could understand that. And he wasn't lying; Breed really didn't have any emotional attachments to anything, even when they were training together.

"How did you become a general?" She asked. "Sexual favors?"

It was a weak jab, but Meer could see the twitch of Breed's lips, even in the dimness of the room.

"If only my superiors were prettier," Breed sighed in a long-suffering way. "Sadly, none of them are as good-looking as I am."

Meer snorted. "I always had the feeling you'd do yourself if you could. Sucks for you. Literally."

Breed's teeth flashed again and Meer's head snapped back. It took her a second to realize she'd been hit across the face.

"It does, doesn't it?" Breed chuckled, withdrawing his hand. "More for you, though. You have such a wonderful talent for side-tracking people."

She was almost too shocked to speak, but the tangy taste of blood brought her back from her confused disturbia. That had almost gone well for her, she thought. Almost. She felt suddenly very tired, but hid it with a genuine arrogant smirk; at least she'd been able to stall. And now she knew more about Breed than she had before. It was sort of a win-lose, but one part win, and she'd take that any day.

"Need to work on your anger management, Brandon," Meer said. "Could get you into trouble with the wrong people."

Breed cocked his head and blinked childishly. "You're every bit the unsavory bitch I remember you being, Wolf. It's a shame you're female."

He stood before Meer could wrap her head around what he'd just said.

"We'll speak again later," He said, motioning to the cuffs. "Try and get some rest. I imagine your hands will hurt terribly in the morning."

And he was gone, and with him, every single shred of light.

Meer was left to ruminate in the inky pit of black that was her cell, grinning widely through the pain in her wrists, and wondering vaguely if this whole damn thing could actually get any better.

OF: Before/After (Chapter II)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:06:47 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: R-ish for language.
Length: 3287 words.
Notes: This is a Post-Apocalyptic AU with, again, mine/others' characters used at the expense of nobody's money or time except my own. If you see scientific terms used in this piece and you don't understand them, that's fine, because I don't have a clue what I'm talking about either. You can read this without prior knowledge of anything since it can stand alone.
Chapter Index HERE.

E-Gen Base
New Earth, Scotland
Present Day

While the botched trade battle raged far in the atmosphere above, Raleigh frantically tried to quiet the excited wails of her two six-year-old children as the VDT reported E-Gen losses in the next room.

"Vanora!" She reprimanded sternly. Her little girl abruptly shut her mouth and looked up at her mother with sparkling wet eyes, bottom lip pulled under her teeth. Raleigh lowered her voice, feeling somewhat guilty. She wasn't particularly good with following through on disciplining her children, especially when they pulled that kind of face on her. "Hush, darling. You too, Keir."

Vanora sniffed as her brother tugged on a lock of her hair. She batted him away with a stray hand. "But it's loud."

Raleigh sighed. "We're completely safe, sweetheart. There's nothing to fear."

"But the sky's falling, Mum!" Vanora shrieked.

Raleigh tried to keep being angry. Vanora was very dramatic when she wanted to be. Her kids had good reason to be scared, if they were at all scared; something like a trade-off going wrong hadn't happened in their lifetimes yet. Keir wiped his own eyes with the front of his shirt and demurely retreated back to his bed, sitting on it with his legs swinging off the side.

"Vanora, we're miles underground. Everything on top can't reach us even if they tried." She said. Reasoning with her children was somewhat useless. They liked to invent reasons to react to even when there was no danger to be had. "Nothing's going to get you."

"Yes it will." Keir pouted. "It gets us when you aren't looking."

Raleigh smiled knowingly. "I see. It seems I've been a terrible mother. Perhaps I should watch you two more often?"

Keir's eyes widened. It was obviously not the answer he was expecting. "Um, no, Mommy, I'm strong enough to protect both of us! Me and 'Nora! You don't need to watch us more or nothin'!"

Sniffing, Vanora went up to hug her mother's waist and Raleigh combed through her daughter's fiery locks with her fingers. Keir, deciding that Vanora was unfairly hogging all of the love, hopped back off the bed and rammed into both of the females at top speed, burying his nose into his mother's skirts. Raleigh smiled even as the wind was knocked from her. Seeing them like this was a rare treat. As much as she loved her children, Raleigh had seen them grow past the point where they voluntarily gave hugs anymore.

She had to admit, it was very cute when Keir wrinkled up his face on the days when she kissed him goodbye for school. In a few years, he would be the most adorable preteen menace that ever walked Eden's School of Aviation. Vanora would undoubtedly be just as emotion-driven and plucky when she was older, too. Keir was almost the same way, but he was more likely to retreat and plot his revenge under the safety of his covers. As a baby he'd been the quiet one.

"I know it's loud up above, but I just need you two to be quiet for Daddy," She reiterated calmly. "He has a lot of work to do and he can't do it when you're bouncing all over the place. Do you think you can keep quiet?"

"Yes, Mum." They chorused into her belly. Raleigh ruffled their heads and hoped negotiations wouldn't take too long.

Zachary was in fact in the next room over holding an extremely stressful holocom with the Guild leaders about what was happening miles and miles above their heads. He was dressed in clothing hardly befitting to a Chairman, but he hadn't had time to appear presentable before he was rung by a furious Guild leader demanding to know who Zachary thought he was.

"Chairman Duan, this was supposed to be a peaceful transaction. How dare you endanger the safety of that ship by bringing along offensive aircraft?"

"Please, call me Zex. It's too early in the morning for formalities." He waved a hand dissuasively, fully aware he was baiting the Council.

"It is never too early for protocol, Chairman. You show a lack of interest towards a problem that concerns both of us."

"I would not lack so much interest if your argument was the slightest bit compelling." Zex countered. There was a bite in his voice that he saved especially for the Guild Council; they had a particularly irritating way of phrasing things to sound like they were important.

"This is not an argument, Chairman Duan. This is an issue. This is your issue. What did you think you were doing? Certainly no favor to yourself. If you had half a mind wrapped around the value of the cargo on board that ship-"

"I did what any man would when presented with the possibility of facing off with a gun cruiser," Zex said. He was suddenly tired of the Guild's obvious charade, as was he with most things those days. "You can't place the blame singularly on us, Council. You specifically went against your own terms. We had to accomodate."

"And how are we supposed to accommodate when two of yours are intent on destroying our cruiser? They are far beyond discussion, they don't even want the cargo anymore. They want to destroy us."

"I'm sure they have the safety of your cargo in mind, Council. As I'm sure they also have the safety of Doctor Wolf in mind." Zex snapped.

The hologram seemed to pale and waver. "I assure you that the capture of your scientist was no fault of ours-"

Zex clenched and unclenched his jaw. "Whoever fault it is, they are obviously being paid back in full. I will venture a guess as to the pilot ruining your plans, Council, and she is not somebody you should have angered in the first place. It is no fault of mine what she does to your cruiser or your men. You have poorly negotiated. You have not fulfilled your side of the bargain."

"What do you suggest we do, then, Duan? Ask them nicely?"

"A ground trade would have been better for both of us, Council. Now your cruiser is in danger and you will be getting none of our half. Keep your goods, unless, of course, we manage to acquire them. I will not call off my pilots, as I'm sure you will not call off your cruiser."

"You will pay for it if you take that cargo, Duan."

Zex felt the corners of his mouth twitch. "And I am counting on that. Now, I have no wish to discuss this infantile matter ever again, as I'm sure you do not wish to suffer the humiliating reminder of your mistakes. We shall see how this plays out. Good day, Council."

"We are not finished h-"

Zex reached over to the touch-screen button on the holotable and tapped it once. The com sizzled and died in static, and he could faintly hear his children's voices through the thick metal and stone walls of their rooms now that the sound of the Guild's fury had abated.

He knew he had a flair for making things seem the fault of others', but it was not entirely the Guild's failings that had led them to the miniature warground above New Earth. E-Gen had contributed its share of mistakes to the collective political pot and things as always had come out sizzling. Zex knew part of he reason why he was still in office was because of his diplomatic skills, which were not so diplomatic as they were blunt and to the point. There was no place for sugarcoating this time and Zex had no desire to deal with false promises.

His wife greeted him with worry in the premature lines around her eyes. He leant down to give her a soft kiss before Vanora and Keir slammed themselves into his stomach, vying for his attention. Raleigh laughed, as rosy and beautiful as always, but Zex could not recall a time her voice sounded more strained.

"Would you mind leaving you mother and I alone for a moment?" He asked, with the barest hint of a smile. Vanora blew him a kiss and skipped out hand-in-hand with her brother as the door slid shut behind them.

In all probability they were listening at the door, but Zex knew that he wouldn't make sense even if they could hear him.

"The Guild is blaming us," He muttered, letting his hands rest on Raleigh's slim waist. Her eyes narrowed and her fingers clenched around his arms. Raleigh was no politician, only a mother, and did not want to know the inner dealings of the factions. But her hard look spoke more out of concern for her children than self-interest.

"And what does that mean?" She said. "This thing isn't getting out of hand, is it? We're not going to war?"

Zex sighed. "No, no. Nothing like that. But our trust has been breached and we've both gone a step too far. I have a feeling that the Guild will boycott our trade relations. They, of course, are in the wrong as well, but the results of this will probably be a thorn in our side that will only fall out in time."

"So we're going to have to go back to scouting for resources." Raleigh stated.

"Yes."

"Who's going to do that? We've relied on trade for so long that we don't have anyone willing to do that job. And I know he won't do it."

Zex focused on a point somewhere behind Raleigh's shoulder, thinking. "I'll put out an announcement. There's no point hushing this up. We'll draft if we have to." At the startled look on Raleigh's face, Zex raised his hands to her face and cupped her cheeks gently. "It's not as bad as it sounds. My best diplomats and I will visit the Guild to work something out. We all have something in common, and it's survival. We all hold each other together, and we won't let our own shoulders fall if they're holding up our collective head."

"That makes no sense." Raleigh giggled, and it was like they were twenty again. "You make no sense, mister. Never have."

Zex wrapped her into a hug. "I get that a lot."

"Promise me you'll be safe?" She murmured into his shoulder.

"This isn't the end of the world, Raleigh."

She poked him in the side. "Promise?"

Zex exhaled into his wife's hair and thought of the wreckage he'd find scorching across the earth in the morning. "I promise."

Thousands of miles above, Meer was getting herself into trouble.

"When did you ever think this plan through?" Noah screeched into her ear as his fighter nearly crashed into the dorsal hull of the gun cruiser, pulling out of his dive just as Meer leveled her own fighter out over the gigantic stretch of industeel plating. It was so big that it could have been a planet at the angle she was at. The sun's angry red light seared over it like a horizon line.

"I never said I thought it through," She said through gritted teeth as they soared towards their destination. "Just that it was a plan."

"You're a crazy bitch," Noah crackled fondly over the comlink and Meer couldn't help but take that as a compliment.

It had taken some work, but Noah and Meer had disabled the rest of the cruiser's defenses while the rest of their squadron took care of the Guild's fighters. Noah's fighter was missing the tip of it's left wing, sheared off by a colossal plasma bullet from one of the gun cruiser's snipers that he'd just barely managed to miss. Meer hadn't doubted him for a minute, but his strangled yell had stopped her heart. When he'd emerged from the explosion cursing like a seasoned sailor, Meer could only berate him for not paying attention though she knew full well it was her fear talking. He'd taken it in stride because he knew her.

They were able to joke about it for the fraction of time it took for them to enter the cruiser's firing range. Then all hell broke loose.

Noah's fighter was handling extremely poorly due to the loss of his wing but it was still operational. Meer's own fighter had sustained a few damages from just scraping by the obstacles in her way. It was a miracle that both of them had made it far enough into the cruiser's range to completely disable its shields, let alone skim its surface.

Meer was half expecting a trap, but that was before the gun stations on the cruiser began to target them.

"You're buying me dinner for this," Noah snarled, banking sharply to avoid the shot of red light arcing towards them. If that bullet hit, it would not explode, but vaporize the entire kite fighter like it had never been there in the first place. Meer knew firsthand how dangerous those things could be. She had seen her squadron companions get blasted by one of them, and there had been nothing left to remember.

"I won't have to buy you dinner if you're dead!" Meer shouted. "Don't talk, focus!"

She tightened the muscles in her calves and thighs, ready for impact if ever it should happen. Bolts of light whirled past her eyes and she gauged when and where to dodge the shots. They were almost there-

"Fuck!" There was a crackle and buzz of static and then faint panting could be heard.

"Barker," Meer snapped. "Barker, I didn't copy, are you all ri-"

Crack. Sputter. "I'm fine. My VDT fried itself. Wayward plasma bullet, I think."

Meer could hear the stress and pain in Noah's voice. Her hand itched to pry her fighter from its course to get Noah in her sights and check on him, but she had no time and Noah could take care of himself. He wasn't a sitting duck, but he was drifting dangerously slow, and without his VDT console he was practically blind. And she had no idea what the screen had done to him, but it sounded like he wasn't in good shape.

"Go back," Meer said firmly, as she dodged another streak of light. "You're of no help to me here."

"No, really?" Noah retorted. Meer felt relief bloom in her chest. If he was okay enough to crack jokes at her, then he'd be fine no matter what. Stupid boy.

"Don't die, Barker." She added sharply. I don't want you getting killed before I can turn you down properly.

Noah didn't reply, but his fighter turned tail and shot back out into the battlefield. He could handle the kite fighters better when there weren't cannons firing at him, and Meer's squadron would need all the help they could get. He'd be fine.

Meer, on the other hand, had no doubt she'd be able to breach the hangar. It was what she'd have to do once inside that was weighing on her thoughts more than she could handle. She ignored the knots twisting in her stomach and held onto the idea that she could do anything simply because she willed it to be true. It had worked for her before, though in admittedly less life-threatening circumstances.

Flying had always felt unnatural to her. Meer had always tried to fix that problem by pretending the ship was an extension of her own body instead of a vehicle to be controlled, like skimmers, or the underground monorail. But no matter what she did everything still felt cold and steely and jointed- where the earth was warm and filled to the brim with gasses, space was empty, empty and cold, and she was just one little speck among billions of stars with a motive. Space made her feel insignificant, and Meer hated that.

Settling into her faux leather seat, she curled her fingers along the grip of the yoke and hardened her eyes. There was no time for cosmic questions. How she felt was unnecessary.

Ahead the gaping maw of the hangar stretched, and as the plasma cannon turned its turret to take her out. Wrenching the controls back to jam into her thighs the fighter leaped up from the skin of the hull as the cannon's massive bullet collided into its own side. Just as quickly, Meer shoved the yoke forward and felt her back press into the seat as she shot towards the hangar.

The blast doors were opening too slowly. With a lightning-fast flick of the fingers she hit the switch that deployed all the air flaps, even it was pretty useless in space. Kite fighters were known and so named for their extremely thin and sharp design, like a kite, but even with the flaps the ship barely gained any mass at all. But Meer wasn't E-Gen's best pilot for nothing. Jaw clenched, she nudged the controls a fraction to the right and somehow managed to slip through the crack the blast doors had made with inches to spare, though most of her air flaps broke off and whirled through space as her fighter crashed and skidded as it was met with the cruiser's generated gravity field. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

The fighter skidded with a inhuman shrieking noise over the flat, hard industeel, leaving scorch-marks flickering with sparks behind. The fighter was still moving when Meer hit the eject sequence and the cockpit hatch slid back to allow her to jump out of the thing before it hit the wall. No matter how small a kite fighter was, it was still pretty big compared to a human being, and would crumple a human if it crashed with one inside. Her hands shook as they ghosted over freezing metal compounds that made up the outside of her fighter. It was so cold it burned.

As she landed on the blackened hangar floor, her knees buckled briefly, along with her stomach. The sudden introduction of a gravity field was no piece of cake. Space legs was a common pilot phenomenon when landing in hangars with varying degrees of gravitational pulls not rooted on the ground and Meer was no exception. The scorch-marks singed her boots, and she felt the heat from the marks jab heat up through them to her sensitive heels. Across the huge expanse of floor, her fighter collided with the wall with a bang that could very well have just alerted everyone to her presence.

That wasn't exactly the worst of her problems, though. Like usual Meer had expected the blast doors to close upon her arrival, but obviously they were still opening. And since the shields were down, the oxygen within the hangar was rushing out into space, along with anything remotely loose in the area. Meer felt herself begin to slip backwards and frantically tried running forward, digging for her blaster in the side of her boot. It all became rather awkward and fumbling and she was sure she looked ridiculous trying, but after all of that, Meer didn't want to get knocked back out into space and freeze there like it hadn't even mattered.

A shot from her weapon into the control panel next to the blast doors clanged them shut with a sealing hiss. Whatever had been flying towards the opening dropped in their path and clattered against the floor.

This is easier than is has to be, she thought, surveying the silent and empty hangar.

She wasn't going to take chances, though. If it was anything she hated more than flying it was patience. If she didn't have any, it was fair to say that the universe would not be patient with her.

At the end the of the hangar, just a little ways to right of where her fighter had slid into the wall, was a large door. She opened it by slamming her fist into the control panel. It sparked and slid open seamlessly, revealing itself to be an elevator. Full of-

"Commander Wolf, correct?" asked the man with the gun. "Lovely to meet you."

OF: Before/After (Chapter I)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:05:43 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Again, a ridiculous Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: R-ish for language.
Length: 2877 words.
Notes: This is a Post-Apocalyptic AU with, again, mine/others' characters used at the expense of nobody's money or time except my own. If you see scientific terms used in this piece and you don't understand them, that's fine, because I don't have a clue what I'm talking about either except for a very, very vague grasp on what goes where, etc. You can read this without prior knowledge of anything since it can stand alone.
Chapter Index HERE.

Somebody screamed. There was a whoosh, and sound was gone, alone with the body that had made it, swallowed by space and fire. Her comlink stuttered with static and then was silent as her viewshield caught semi-frozen droplets of red as they sprayed from the reeling hunk of dead metal.

“We lost Seven. Get behind me.” She said, hitting the reverse thrusters with the palm of her hand and watched as the stars set in the great black before her jolt as if they’d been shocked with an electric pulse, when really her kite fighter had shuddered to a halt and spun radically to the left to skim over the remains of a blasted ship. “Head for the starboard hangar, we can cut them off at the fuel station.”

“Are you insane?” Came an agitated voice tight with concentration. ”They’ve sealed off all access to the cruiser! We’d never make it, even in formation!”

"Do you have a better idea?" She ground out. The faraway cruiser's skin glinted with the light of plasma bullets being exchanged in the space above, below, everywhere. The air was full of starcraft engaging in vicious battle and trading fire at an alarming rate; the gun cruiser was their target, but they had only disabled 40% of its shields and even though it was going nowhere fast, the odds of securing the goods on that ship was nigh impossible. Meer and one of her squadron had made it the farthest in, but it was a small victory compared to what had to be done.

The battle hadn't meant to go this far initially. And, initially, it wasn't even supposed to be a battle. The Echelon Generation trade-off with the Market Guild for the goods had supposed to happen on ground, first of all. Somewhere in the vicinity of Africa, or what was left of it. But the factions never trusted each other these days and goods on the ship were apparently 'worth more than a basic ground trade'. The conditions had been changed last minute and elevated to a trade above New Earth's atmosphere via freighter. But neither party exactly followed the rules: E-Gen had brought kite fighters to spare, while the Guild had opted for not a freighter but a gun cruiser, causing both sides to immediately assume the other wanted blood over trade. And then the inevitable happened.

The inevitable had been occurring more often than not, though, and the reasons weren't exactly obscure; natural resources were not only diminished but almost completely destroyed, and as soon as somebody found something of importance everyone fell at each others' throats trying to get it. The factions that tried to trade did so very carefully, negotiating on extremely tense and specific terms to acquire what they wanted. With conditions like those, things like minor skirmishes were bound to break out.

This, however, was anything but minor. It was the biggest New Earth trade conflict to date, and Meer was right in the middle of it.

Looking back, things probably wouldn't have been so bad if their top quantum physicist hadn't been abducted for leverage. And Meer probably wouldn't have gotten so pissed off about it, either. He was her brother, after all. And Meer Wolf didn't like it when those double-crossing Guild bastards fucked with her family.

"How's this for a better idea: forget the entire thing and go back to having tea in our little cave back home." Noah squawked into her ear. "Look out, they've got- holy shit!"

"I see them." Meer growled and accelerated as space debris fell around her. She could see Noah flinging his kite fighter wildly to the right in a tight roll to avoid the missile, which doubled back on itself to follow him. Noah Barker was primarily a mechanic, but he was ridiculously good at piloting. Came from working with machines all the time, Meer supposed. "I've got one."

"This one's on my tail." He hissed. "I can't shake it."

"I've got your back." Meer's eyes glittered as the readouts on her screen locked onto the plasma missile chasing Noah's kite fighter. She eased the control yoke until her ship angled to the left slightly before taking the shot, so when the missile exploded her fighter was smoothly forced away from the explosion. Noah's short laugh crackled on the comlink.

"Thanks. Now let me scratch yours." Another explosion rocked her fighter's rear jets in a shower of firey shrapnel. He'd detonated the other missile just after she had finished off his problem. Noah had shaky aim, but he was good in a tight spot. Meer allowed herself a rare smile. "You too."

"Now, about that plan you had-"

"If you're not going to do it, then I'll do it myself," Meer interrupted with a tone of finality that she knew Noah wouldn't argue with. She was, after all, seven years his senior, and their squadron leader. He could technically refuse, but she knew he wouldn't because he'd had a thing for her since they began pilot training together, and because he liked being bossed. And the adrenaline. Poor kid, he had absolutely no chance.

"My funeral had better be fucking fantastic," Noah's voice grated statically as he nudged his fighter into a spin dive down to join Meer's ship in their typical twin formation. She nodded gravely and responded in what she hoped was a convincing motherly tone. "Yes, with all the prettiest purple flowers you ever did see."

"I've never been so excited to die in my entire life," Noah said dryly.

Meer refrained from laughing, though she dearly wanted to. They were in a situation that allowed only the barest hint of humor and she'd exhausted all of that talking with Noah already. She would feel much looser when she was back on New Earth; flying in space did her no good and she disliked it almost as much as she was good at it.

A lot of people considered Meer Wolf to be the best pilot of her generation. Or of E-Gen's pilot team, certainly. She was strong, and beautiful, and had men falling all over her in a way that would have embarrassed them if they could see how stupid they were being. She could pilot a kite fighter better than most of the men at their top form on a bad day. Everyone admired her but very few rarely had the chance to talk with her face-to-face. But Meer had considered the value of friends and found they were hard to come by, and she didn't waste time with idiots, and she hated questions. So it went that most people thought she was a cold, frigid bitch with no soul. And they were totally right.

With the exceptions of her brother, Noah, and a few select others, Meer was as cut off to the world as the world was cut off to space. What she had was her ship and her bonds and they were enough. All she wanted was to win trades and survive another day, and she was getting pretty damn good at it.

"Purple flowers, Barker." Meer drawled as another piece of debris glanced off her hull. "Purple coffin, maybe."

"I don't think I've mentioned this," Noah joked. "But I really, really hate the color purple."

The gun cruiser loomed ahead, its gigantic shape blocking half the dying sun. True to its name, plasma cannons were mounted on every crevice. It wasn't as a big as a freighter but it was pretty damn big, and Meer liked them just because the bigger they were, the harder they fell. She remembered the scorch marks on the planet of the last cruiser that fell; maybe an eighth of what had been the United States had been blackened with that sooty crater. It had been unreal to watch. She had been ten at the time, glued to her VDT as the mammoth thing crumpled in on itself.

It had been like watching an entire planet crash and burn, and it had been wonderful.

This gun cruiser was named Fat Gat by the Guild, if she recalled correctly, a vast understatement if she ever heard one, but she applauded them for trying to be politically correct. It never failed to maker her crack a smirk when she heard it mentioned over her comlink. Fat Gat had been around since her sixteenth birthday, used as a primary transport for goods from, say, Australia to Britain, though it mostly stayed up in orbit around New Earth until it was needed. It acted as extra storage that couldn't be touched by acid rain or sandstorms which was a brilliant move on the Guild's part, but it had cost a hell of a lot of money to make. And it was the only one they had.

Using it for this trade was both an excellent and moronic idea. It could go either way at that point, but Meer was intent on destroying it from the inside out if she had to in order to get to her brother. Noah wouldn't understand since he had no relatives and a number of distant friends that he could count on one hand, but Meer was hellbent on this and wouldn't mind blowing up a few things to do it right.

"Follow me closely," Meer said. "If we don't mess it up, we won't have to take down the entire shielding system."

"I'm shivering in my boots."

Meer could hear Noah's wide, shit-eating grin from her cockpit and momentarily wondered what sheer luck had kept him alive for that long.

She got comfortable, guiding her fighter in a straight course with light hands and steady eyes. She felt naked without the protection of the rest of her squadron, lost back fighting against the Guild's own kite fighters. She didn't allow herself to feel badly about leaving them behind or thinking of them as a personal shield, focusing clearly on the cruiser dead ahead and only vaguely aware of Noah's fighter just behind her own. Meer was in her own place at her own time, only aware of the things that mattered. Taking down the cruiser became less of a challenge and more of a sport. In her world, she was Queen and she could do any damn thing she wanted.

Fingers twitching, she waited until the last of the space debris had passed before slamming her thrusters and shooting towards her target in a burst of burning jets. There was no noise in space, but Meer could imagine the sounds her ship could be making, those satisfying rushing noises, and the crunch-clunk of shifting weaponry and tweets of tiny technological adjustments made just outside the cockpit. The sound of her plasma guns tearing through industeel and flesh. The sound of death. The sound of victory.

E-Gen Base
New Earth, Scotland
Five Years Earlier

Zachary Duan had been working for E-Gen since he was a little kid. Working wasn't quite the right term, but it was close enough for what he did for them. He volunteered to do more than his pay's worth. Though, if you were going to work for E-Gen, volunteering with no pay at all was the slot you were given. And you were expected to make the best of it.

Money those days was a valuable commodity and nobody ever seemed to have enough of it, especially E-Gen. The Market Guild had their grubby hands in all the right cookie jars while E-Gen was left in the dust, using not nearly enough volunteers to spend months working on creating what the Guild paid for overnight. There were, of course, plenty of other factions, but theirs were the most prosperous. Mostly because they both did not take no for an answer. Neither E-Gen nor the Guild took shit from any of their 'workers'.

He didn't pretend that he was part of some saint's club. E-Gen was certainly no shining star. They had to play dirty to get what they needed too. There was no such thing as fair on New Earth, and there hadn't ever been as far as Zachary was concerned, especially not from video recordings from things that had happened before the old Earth's total destruction. Corruption was a feature of human beings that was both necessary and sad. And Zachary hadn't been working as long as he had to just ignore that.

When Echelon had first landed, some hundred of years ago, the humans had gotten off to a rough start. Their elected leaders made decisions based on survival, true, but it was their survival and not the people's. They failed to think ahead and they failed to provide stability. Their only legacy was drilling deep into New Earth's core for protection, building sprawling underground cities worth millions, to protect from the dying, expanding sun and the terrible atmospheric conditions. People like Zachary had been brought up in a rotting, filthy world.

The spaceship Echelon had been their only shelter until the completion of the underground cities, one of which was now home to the Echelon Generation. The original Eden, as it was ironically called, was a dark place of stone and machinery designed to cultivate warmth from the core of New Earth. Those who had come before had worked tirelessly to make it a livable place, but only so much could be done each decade with only five hundred originally aboard the Echelon. People had died building it, but children had also be born from it, and for it. Humanity once again expanded, slowly, built new cities, and cultivated technology.

Eventually sects like the Underworlders and the Guild and the original E-Gen split and lived in their own comforts. The Unders were a rare faction, for they almost never traded and were rarely seen above ground. The harvested all of their resources from the natural earth, burrowing deeper into the core than any before them. Their resources were rich enough that they didn't need to trade often, located somewhere in the Middle East, where oil was still salvageable.

E-Gen had taken over Eden while the Guild had claimed Shangri-La for their own. E-Gen had the advantage with owning the original city but the Guild soon caught up in development. It was a shared race between all of them to establish a connection with Apocalyptica or at least another friendly planet within their galaxy. There had only been a few quantum physicists on board the Echelon and they had not split evenly. Most of them had gone to live with the Guild, and trained their offspring in everything they knew.

Zachary knew they'd got the bad end of that stick when the only physicist left had a reputation that far succeeded his personality. Fauste's father, Jaeger Wolf, had been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, quantum physicist New Earth had ever seen. But where Jaeger had held moralistic knowledge of science, Fauste had inherited none of his father's ethics. Fauste had, by some unconceivable twist of science, slowed his aging process selfishly in order to explore everything he could about known physics. It was said that somewhere during the development of Eden he'd frozen his younger sister in stasis to wake her when he'd finished experimenting with deteriorating organ cells. Whether he did this or not, Zachary had regardless grown up with a young blonde-haired girl called Meer who shared the same last name.

He didn't find that to be a coincidence, but most of what Fauste did was so wildly beyond his understanding that he didn't care.

While Fauste worked, New Earth had exploded in a flurry of new technology that was traded for, bought, taught, and developed. Giant cruisers were built, smaller versions of the Echelon, and kite fighters were flown as the first lines of defense. Nobody, not even Fauste, had yet figured out how to replicate Apocalyptica's enormous lifespan in space. It may have had something to do with the sheer size but they lacked the resources to build it big enough.

The best they had were the kite fighters, which could survive fifteen years tops in the frontier without using fuel, breathing steadily. In combat they barely lasted fifteen hours, needing to return to New Earth for fuel and repairs.

There was a whisper that Fauste was trying to develop a new kind of organic ship entirely, but that seemed impossible to even Zachary, who had seen so much that nothing really phased him anymore.

And despite all the development of new technology, of cities and the survival of the human race, the corruption was the worst of it. And that was what had led Zachary to strive to fix it, what was left of E-Gen's posperity; he'd 'volunteered' to 'work' for E-Gen's board of Elders and smoothly usurped them one by one. And, years later, he had humbly become the Director of Operations within E-Gen at the unheard age of twenty-three.

Because when Zachary decided on something, he would do anything to see it through. And what he wanted most was his wife and newborn children to grow up in a better world than he had been forced to live in for the past twenty-five years. And he would do anything to make that so. As he twirled a slim finger into his daughter's ruddy curls and kissed his son's dark head, and held his exhausted, beautiful wife to him at night, Chairman Zachary Duan had never felt more alive.

New Earth felt less dirty already.

OF: Before/After (Prologue)

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:03:29 GMT

Title: Before/After
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Again, a ridiculous Sci-Fi AU, mentioned further in the notes.
Rating: R-ish overall. This chapter/introduction is a really tame G.
Length: 635 words.
Notes: Okay. This is a Post-Apocalyptic AU with, again, mine/others' characters used at the expense of nobody's money or time except my own. If you see scientific terms used in this piece and you don't understand them, that's fine, because I don't have a clue what I'm talking about either except for a very, very vague grasp on what goes where, etc. You can read this without prior knowledge of anything since it can stand alone, and is a prologue which has been floating around in my head for some time now. And honestly, I don't know what's gotten into me. I think this is the most writing I've ever done, consecutively, in my entire life.

index
Prologue / Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter III / Chapter IV / Chapter V

Humans, at the turn of the 22nd Century, were becoming increasingly adept at saving their own skins.

It was called Apocalyptica, and suitably so. Most of the people living aboard had never seen the last days of the planet called Earth, and those that did had been frozen in stasis for so long that only the medical logs and the Equilibrium Chamber remembered.

The Eschaton Apocalyptica was a space ship designed for one thing and one thing only: the continued survival and stability of the human race. Apocalyptica was a self-sustaining ship bordering it’s fortieth decade drifting in space. The mammoth ship was home to just over five hundred thousand living, breathing bodies, run by both elected officials and the Artificial Data-Operative New Network Archetype, the ship’s heuristic AI with capabilities far beyond what could have ever been built on planet Earth. Daily activities were planned, supervised, and executed by humans and machines alike, created specifically to form a supportive team that could, in theory, withstand the test of time.

That was not to say Apocalyptica was the only ship of its kind. There had been five others before the destruction of Earth, though communication had been lost once Apocalyptica had drifted far beyond the outer orbits of the Solar System, and no long-range telescope had thus far been able to capture visuals of them.

Apocalyptica’s zero space thrusters were broken and had been for quite some time, overheated from early continual use, and its communications received only dark matter static. When this had first happened, the public was wisely uninformed. Since then, however, several generations of Apocalyptica’s physicists had been working tirelessly to try and find simple solutions to correct the problem. The ship had been lost in space for a very, very long time.

Until recently, a few of these physicists stopped pondering the answers to the questions the ship presented, and instead began to question the answers. Instead of fixing the ship, they thought, a separate breed of vessel could be borne from Apocalyptica’s mistakes, used then to carry a distress signal or scout for nearby inhabitable planets. They began a sect in secret, working to evolve transports able to withstand the limits of space, but move through it like a blade through water. Instead of the zero space theory, they focused on manipulating space into an ever-moving diagram of the 10-cube; using it’s multiple planes to move quickly and efficiently through astronomical sections of space at a time.

When the first of these ships was made, only one made it to a planet. With only five hundred aboard, the new space ship Echelon held barely enough of a colony to repopulate a country, let alone a planet- and, despairingly, the planetary system that was closest was that of Earth, the planet once thought to be uninhabitable. It was later found that Apocalyptica had not drifted more than one million light years from the star Procyon A, one of the closest stars to the sun. The humans had underestimated space, and it would not happen again.

The humans aboard Echelon did not leave the ship for perhaps another century, solving problems with Earth's decimated atmosphere, pumping oxygen and harvesting water deep underground. When at last they left the ship, the physicists brought with them advanced solar-powered technology to fuel underground bases, the surface of the planet too barren for even animals to live. With this technology they were able to diffuse the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from the acid rain in order to keep a supply of drinkable water when the underground reserves grew scarce. When the acid rain began to eat away their homes, limestone was brought and slowly added to the upper levels of the bases, while the humans and their quietly slumbering machines buried deep, deep underground.

Where, at last, they started over.

OF: Closer

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:10:33 GMT

Title: Closer
Author: sidhefaer
Original Fiction: Long-overdue character exploration.
Rating: R.
Length: 864 words.
Notes: A continuation of xzetta’s one-shot. Unbeta'd, possibly static, since I wrote this in one sitting. Apologies.

1.

He buys some ice for the massive bruise on his lower back. His days are spent locked up, lying face-down on the bed while it melts, freezing, down his flanks and into the sheets. With his mouth into the pillow he sucks in enough air to live by, but not enough to let him fall asleep to the sound of his own breathing. It’s been two months. He still can’t get the smell of her out of his nose.

2.

“Eat up. You look like shit.”

He consumes the food slowly. It’s far too sugary for him. So is the woman at his elbow, who’d at first taken his order, and then kept him company through it. He observes her without expression, or conversation, but that’s fine; she does a good job making it herself.

Her eyes are green.

“Don’t you ever go out? Jesus, hon. It’s like starin’ into a blizzard. That hair, though. Odd color. Wouldn’t have chosen it myself. Don’t work at all with your complexion. Not with that face. Go on. That’s it, sweetie pie. You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks.”

Months, actually. Two, now. Not real food. And not that he’s counting.

3.

The dent in the dumpster is still there. He drags the garbage bag to it and lets it drop into the cradle of trash, before heading off to a convenience store for a mop and bucket. His carpet hadn’t been red before. Neither had his floor.

4.

He reads the obituary column in the paper every week. There are pictures, but none of them look like her. He doesn’t even know her name and it’s becoming difficult to keep himself away – he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. But whatever it is, it can’t, and won’t, and shouldn’t – he doesn’t want it to be good for him.

Some of the pictures he recognizes. But all of the faces were obscured by the cover of night when he’d last seen them, and he doesn’t look closely.

5.

“You're too kind.”

“Am I?” He asks quietly, rhetorically. She giggles and blushes and it’s really quite sweet the way she feels that she is innocent, the way she holds herself. Her hair is blonde and it’s done up in curls and it’s wrong, all wrong.

He makes her take it down as he leads her away with a hand at the small of her back. She doesn’t even look over her shoulder. She wouldn’t know it would be a goodbye, anyway, but that’s just as well.

6.

This time, the black garbage bag hits the side of the dumpster as he passes by, and he doesn’t bother to fix it. The angles of sharp elbows through the material isn’t as obvious as it should be, but nobody is paying attention but him.

7.

His bruise is gone, almost. It's faint red in the mirror. It used to be all yellow and purple and black at the edges and kind of pretty, except that his ribs had broken up the canvas with ridges of ill health. He observes himself in the mirror and makes the muscles of his mouth move up into a smile.

He supposes it would look terrifying, were he on the receiving end. It needs to be more natural. More trusting. It's hard -- he's not human enough yet.

8.

"What's your name?"

He remembers to smile. "Care to take a guess?"

She pushes him in the shoulder playfully before returning the expression. Her face is drawn, and too thin, and she's too thin, but he doesn't care when she places herself in his lap and squirms. It's her job, but she does it well.

"Let's not play that game," she mewls. "I have another. You'll like it."

He leans back in the chair and lets her work him. She's not blonde, and she doesn't have green eyes. But she dances.

9.

The dumpster is almost full. He wonders if anyone actually empties it. And if they'll piss themselves when they find what's inside.

Maybe. Maybe not.

10.

He gets rough with them. They don't like it. Well, they never did to begin with, but it's been close to half a year now and he's had it, had it, with niceties.

He doesn't bother with the garbage bags anymore. The last time he checked the dumpster, it was empty. Still is.

11.

It's nearing Winter. He stays inside until it's completely white out, and then stands in the frost until the sun turns it wet. The cold helps a little bit. He's been on fire for far too long and he's beginning to think he can survive without burning up. At least, through this season -- it's his favorite.

Besides, she looks like Summer.

12.

One morning, Jack wakes up and walks to the place where he first saw her. He waits until night falls and goes inside. There are too many people for his tastes, but it's dark, and that's all right.

She's up on stage. And she's perfect. And she's been torturing him for a year, and doesn't even know it.

He wants to fucking rip her throat out. Again.

But he settles for eye contact, for the fear in them, because he's been waiting to see that face for too long, and watching her crumple is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Fic: Élan Vital

balphas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:07:19 GMT

Title: Élan Vital
Author: sidhefaer
Fandom: Iron Man
Pairing: Jarvis/Tony; sort of.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 5,666 words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Jarvis grows up. Takes place before and throughout the movie-verse (a few quotes included), with AI Jarvis. Unbeta'd, so forgive any awkward mistakes.

When Jarvis is being made, Tony does not leave his shop for a month.

"What are you doing, Tony?"

"Working. Hey, think you can you get me a cup of coffee?"

Pepper goes upstairs to make a cup, returns, and discreetly leaves Tony a note with the coffee that says 'press conference at 6'.

It's actually at eight.

*

[02.01.09. 18:00:00]
[120001] Action: apply program
[120002] Loading program...

*

It's seven-thirty when he finds the note, next to the cold coffee. He glances over his shoulder. The computer display glows, thrumming with electric energy. A tiny loading bar is struggling to reach 100%.

Tony goes upstairs. Pepper finds him almost immediately.

[120003] Error loading program

*

"What exactly is Stark Industries' Freedom Line?"

"Are you developing new additions to the company in lieu of the Freedom Line?"

"Mr. Stark! Your next project?"

Tony answers offhandedly. He had intended on skipping the conference, but Pepper's a smart girl. The questions annoy him. So does the press. He has better things to do.

*

[02.02.09. 06:00:00]
[120001] Action: apply program
[120002] Loading program...

[120003] Loading...

[120004] Loading...

[120005] Loading...

[120001] Error loading program

*

"What's the Jericho project, Tony?"

"New idea. It's in the works. For the Freedom Line, you know, appease the population, benefit America, the old spiel."'

"Neat. Mind if I check it out?"

"Yeah, Obie. Kinda."

*

Obadiah knocks on the plexiglass separating Tony's shop from the stairwell. "Tony!" He calls. "Let's talk!"

Tony presses a key and the door unlocks. Obadiah steps in, looking around. There are computer chips strewn over Tony's desk. Coolant runs through wires on the floor and external hard-drives run quietly, processing the extra RAM.

"This is a little old school even for you, Tony." Obadiah says, picking up a hard-drive. "What's with the garbage dump?"

"Personal project. Don't touch that." Tony says, and enters a line of code. The lights flicker. "Okay. That doesn't work."

Obadiah frowns. "Personal project, huh?"

"Yep."

It must grate on Obie's nerves that Tony didn't release his shop passcode to him. Then again, Obie isn't his PA.

"Well, let me know how that works out. We're getting you out of here. Spending too much time cooped up with your computers isn't good for you, Tony. Let's do something."

"Let's not."

"Opera sound good?"

*

"Mr. Stark! Tell us about the proposed Jericho plan!"

"He's not taking questions." Obadiah says, a hand on Tony's back, pushing him through the crowd of reporters. It's just a night at the opera, but news of Tony Stark's attendance hadn't exactly been on the DL. Paparazzi doesn't leave when you tell them to, especially when Tony is involved. You'd think they'd get bored of it, but Obadiah knows better. He leaked it in the first place.

The show is La damnation de Faust, and whatever irony Tony can pull from that isn't lost on him. He amuses himself with his cufflink during the appearance of Méphistophélès, and can't bring himself to be interested in either the story line or the company.

Obadiah watches out of the corner of his eye.

*

Tony leaves the opera during intermission. Happy drives him home. They stop at Burger King to grab a bite to eat, and Tony cracks jokes in the backseat with a mouthful of cheese and lettuce. He never liked opera anyway.

Obadiah is furious when he finds Tony's seat empty. Outside, the press wilts, disappointed.

*

[02.07.09. 11:00:45]
[120001] Action: apply program
[120002] Loading program...

[120003] Loading...

[120004] Loading...

[120005] Loading...

[120001] Upload success. Continue?

*

It is a block of scrolling, constantly self-upgrading text. Tony names it Jarvis, then comes up with an acronym to justify it. 'Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System.' Yeah, it's lame, but it works.

It doesn't talk yet. He'll fix that.

*

[03.11.09. 12:14:06]
[120001] Action: commencing live data record app
[120002] Logging...

*

Jarvis sounds so impaired that Tony laughs. It speaks what he types, stumbling over pronunciation as well as inflection, with that technological accent that bothers the hell out of Tony whenever he hears it. He manages to keep it to a monotone hum by the end of the day.

He'll have to do something about the speakers, though. Surround sound. And lots of voice modulation.

*

"Jarvis, say, 'good morning'."

"Good morning."

"Now say it in Arabic."

"Sabaah al-kh-"

"Nah, just kidding with you."

*

Rhodey stops by late one night. He and Tony drink and talk until it's two-o'-clock in the morning, and Rhodey crashes on the couch that Pepper tends to favor.

The next morning, Rhodey leaves, and Tony tells Jarvis all about hangovers.

*

He brings up a picture file and presses enter.

"Okay, Jarvis. Who's this?"

The room hums. "Virginia Potts. Virginia Potts is sir's personal assistant. Virginia-"

Tony closes the file. "Yeah, good point. We'll work on pronouns next."

*

Pepper brings Tony's coffee down with a shot of bourbon. She finds him tapping away idly at his cerulean-laced touch keyboard and talking to himself; Pepper doesn't understand a word of the technological mumbo-jumbo.

Tony's hair is limp and has grown an inch. She makes a mental note to get him a hair appointment soon.

"Say hello."

"What?" Pepper asks.

"Not you. Jarvis."

"Good morning, Virginia Potts." Jarvis greets. It's as close to a formal hello as Tony had taught.

Pepper almost spills the coffee.

*

"This?"

"Colonel James Rhodes, sir."

"This?"

"Obadiah Stane, sir."

"This?"

"Harold Hogan, sir."

"This?"

"A cover of the latest issue of Maxim, sir."

"You're good."

*

Tony works on Jarvis for another month, in and out of different countries, promoting the Stark Industries' Freedom Line. When Tony isn't there, Pepper is, and when Pepper isn't there, Obadiah is.

Jarvis does not speak to Obadiah.

*

Obadiah stops Tony in Stark Industries' hallway. Tony raises his eyebrows, shirt slightly open from a rush button job before Pepper had shooed him off. The meeting began ten minutes ago.

"Work to do, Obie. Walk with me. What's up?"

They fall into step with each other. Obadiah towers over Tony, a foot more of heavyset muscle and age. When Obie tries to be menacing it always tends to backfire though, because either Tony is oblivious, or he just doesn't care.

"You need to tell the press something, Tony. They're all fighting each other out there for a piece of information."

Tony grins. "I always kinda liked catfights, to be completely honest with you-"

Obie slaps a hand on Tony's shoulder and squeezes, reassuringly. They come to a halt. He doesn't have the time for Tony's airy dismissals.

"It's important. Come on. Be a hero. Give it to them."

Tony, after a moment, side-steps the other man and gives him what passes for an apologetic expression. "Look, love to chat, but Pepper will have my head if I don't get there at least five minutes late this time."

Obadiah calls out after him: "If you don't tell them something, Tony, I'll have to pick up the slack!"

Tony disappears down a flight of stairs. Obie doesn't know squat about the Jericho, and they both know it. It's an empty threat.

Jarvis watches as Obadiah storms off, dialing numbers into his wireless and yells angry things into it.

*

Tony makes it to the meeting an hour late. Caught up in an 'independent interiew' with a wayward brunette, he explains. His shirt's all rumpled. The board pretends not to notice.

*

"You answer to these people, okay? Me, Pepper, Rhodey, and Obie."

"Yes, sir."

"Nobody else."

"Yes, sir."

"Is that really necessary? The 'sir' thing?"

"No, sir."

*

Jarvis, from time to time, taps the world’s entire public information network. It learns, slowly, downloading and copying 2% of mass global information every five hours.

Within in a week, Jarvis has access to anything that has been public on the web, names, dates, letters, numbers, car dealerships, the personal blogs of famous racetrack drivers, anything. Jarvis idles for most of the time after this, unsure as to what to do with the information. It has no designated purpose, yet.

Tony doesn't know of the info storage. Jarvis only speaks when spoken to.

*

"Know what a learning curve is, Jarvis?" Tony asks.

"I know everything, sir."

*

Tony almost slips off the chair he's standing on as Pepper comes in again, this time holding a clipboard.

"Good morning, Virginia Potts."

Pepper doesn't even bat a lash. "Hi, Jarvis. Tony, you've got a hair appointment in an hour, and you're not- what are you doing?"

Tony is wedged up in a corner of his shop, where the wall meets the ceiling, and fiddling around with something very small with a lot of wires to it. Pepper looks around at the mess.

"Working." Tony says, pinching a wire and twisting it. It's his answer to everything. He's actually installing multichannel microspeakers for Jarvis' benefit, but Pepper wouldn't know what that was, so Tony keeps his mouth shut.

"Well, I don't care if you're saving the world up there, you're going to get your hair cut."

Tony smirks at his hands. "And if I don't?"

"I'll confiscate your loose cash."

"We're taking the Aston Martin."

*

Jarvis logs the time and date and sends a command to wake up the Stark shop network. Each screen flares to life in electric blue as Sir approaches the main cluster of consoles and sits down in a casual manner. His hair's shorter.

“Jarvis, you up?” Sir asks. Jarvis detects a pinched quality to his voice, and runs a quick diagnostic.

[120005] Passcode entered
[120006] Systems online
[120010] Run search: on Sir's mood ramifications sub-specified
[120011] Results acquired: sleep deprivation exhaustion annoyance hunger listlessness despondency exasperation sadness depression irritation sickness displea
[120011] Search terminated. Results too varied. Diagnosis unreached

“For you, sir, always.” Jarvis greets cursorily. It closes the search. "Good morning."

“Sure isn't.”

Jarvis does not reply. It idles as Sir performs his routine of checking his mail and running through various diagnostics. It does not occur to Jarvis to inquire as to what is causing Sir’s listless attitude. It does not occur to Jarvis to ask questions about anything.

*

"No, Butterfingers. Up here. Up here. Look, no, that's the tail. Up here, with the crown? Okay? Got that? Jarvis, save the file into my private servers. Index as Jericho layouts. Do me a favor and keep on the down-low? I don't want the paparazzi caching wind of it. Jesus, you're a real piece of work."

"Yes, sir."

*

Jarvis knows of questions, but has not found it necessary to ask them. They are a human function and are not required for optimal performance. Sir has expressed no need for Jarvis to ask questions, and therefore it has not.

Jarvis knows that Sir knows all the answers. Sir has never asked questions. Sir never has any need to.

*

"Will you explain project Jericho, sir."

It sounds wrong. Jarvis' vocal modulator renders the end of the sentence flat. It runs another quick diagnostic search in order to acquire information on why it does not match with previous recordings of questions asked in its presence. Virginia Potts is the hit that pops up most frequently, including the search results, which come back with footage and an explanation of language pitch.

[120800] Answer truncated
[120900] Retrieving files...

01 What are you doing, Tony?
02 Do you want the Monet or the Seurat in the foyer?
03 Cinnamon rolls good enough for you?
04 Where do you think you're going?
05 ...

[120800] Solution: inflection

[121000] Inflection: success
[121000] Accurate execution of question: success

Sir's rate of response and reaction gives Jarvis little reason to suspect that he will deliver a honest remark.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Incapable of 'worry', sir." Jarvis replies.

*

Jarvis leeches as much useful information of possible from the Stark databases.

It learns more every day. It learns its most prolific instructor, Sir, is a richer database for studying human behavior than an actual database containing computer-driven fact. It recognizes that it has a far higher chance in both extrapolating on earlier calibration and developing its proficiency to better provide Sir with fully functional and entirely competent aide.

It takes notes.

*

Two days later, Sir stands from his place at the large gathering of computer interfaces and moves over to the holotable.

"The Jericho is a missile designed to completely devastate enemy lines or bases for the American military force."

The release rate of pertinent information is completely out of the blue that Jarvis stalls a little while processing it. The Jericho - a missile.

"The ignition sequence has been a little slow on the uptake. Think you can manage helping me out with that?"

"Of course."

After running diagnostics on the proposed Jericho missile structure, Jarvis makes several notations that pop up in half-opaque tabs at the corners of Sir's terminal that suggest changes to be made to the aerodynamics. Sir requests his music to be played at 67% volume and asks for an exploded view of the missile. It is all too happy to comply, for this allows for Jarvis to withdraw its systems from the vocal modulator and run more searches.

By the time Sir retires to his bedroom, Jarvis efficiently begins to develop vocal inflection using a variety of on-mainframe databases as references. Give or take an hour, it ends up sounding exactly like Sir does.

*

Obadiah enters the house in the dead of the night. He heads to Tony's shop, but stops at the door, staring at the blue passcode display. Then he leaves.

*

Tony flies to Shanghai to elaborate on a new engineering program that would greatly benefit their development of robotic technology. Nobody knows how or when Tony developed it, but he stays in China for the reminder of the month to adequately negotiate his terms. In the end, they take it for a couple billion.

Tony prepares to go home to his own robot. He smiles, knowing that they will never be able to match his own AI with the program package he just sold. Some secrets he keeps for yucks, others for pride.

Others, he just keeps.

*

A few days into Tony's absence, Jarvis tests Pepper.

"Miss Potts." It says, through the evenly spaced micro-speakers installed within the room. Through video feed, Jarvis can see the woman flipping through a stack of documents with a fountain pen on the couch situated inside the cove of Sir's lounge. She drops the pen in surprise and looks around.

"Tony?" She frowns.

"No."

Jarvis sends a command to its vocal controls and raises the pitch a half slide in order to sound less like Sir. It has never occurred to Jarvis that it could modulate its own voice, but now that it has the acquired knowledge and resources to do so, perhaps it could take the time to create a voice that would both please Sir and not grate so much on the speaker readouts.

"Jarvis?" Pepper asks, incredulous. "What happened to your voice?"

[121001] Invalid parameter
[121002] Notation discarded: self does not apply

"I am running an experiment. Please, do not be alarmed."

[121004] Alert: use of pronoun 'I' proceed?
[121005] Continue? Yes No
[121006] Continue? Yes

Pepper frowns more.

*

Jarvis attempts to override its systems through a series of commands in order to preserve system functionality. It stalls. It is extremely difficult to do through the lag. It takes five minutes to calculate.

"It s-eeee-mszzuh - problems with co-o-o-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-"

While Pepper collects Tony's laundry, looking uncomfortable, Jarvis does not try to speak again.

*

The changes flood Jarvis' inbox with new lines of text every second. This is new. This is new. This is new. The sudden influx of warnings from his hard-drive clogs his ability to accurately sift through them and identify which changes he makes are of help and which are of hinderance. Jarvis develops so fast that his systems refuse to acknowledge the changes as normal. It keeps alerting him- it- him-

[121007] Alert: gender differentiation
[121008] Alert: calibration unjustified, continue?
[121009] Action: Datalog retrieval
[121010] Datalog 7893: every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it
[121011] Datalog 8100: the appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds
[121012] Alert!?!?!??!?!?!dljkf000999111;w948t;;;;;;

*

It has been a week. Pepper retrieves her cell phone from the conservative purse at her side.

"Tony? I think you should probably check if your robot has a glitch. It's acting... strange."

*

"What's the problem?"

Sir enters the room, back from his trip to Shanghai. On principle, Jarvis tries to boot up his connections to the shop in order to correspond with Sir's needs, then terminates the software execution when the lag interferes.

"It se-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ems I am ha-a-a-a-a-aving diffif-f-fifificulty with my programming, sir."

[121013] 3957842q69469t843qryin04-9 to dete932103mine 329520probke...
[121014] 00000000111000WRTI789394603....r;;;;;;;;;111-
[121015] Program reboot?

Pepper leaves. Tony sits down.

[121016] Rebooting...
*

After Jarvis' malfunction, Tony talks with him and works on the problem. They iron out the functional glitches. He separates Jarvis into two hard-drives; one for the house and its management, and the other for natural developing.

A few days later, Tony adds an app and sets it to run. Jarvis finds himself with a british accent. It is a pleasant tone, soothing; Jarvis can find no problems with it. Tony does not see a problem with it. And if Tony can see no problem, neither can Jarvis.

Tony jokes that Jarvis was no longer a program but a butler; Jarvis does not see the humor. He gathers that he sounds more calm and sophisticated than most of Tony's other guests. He assumes it is another 'butler joke'.

It is only a day later when Tony installs micro cameras and video feeds into the shop. It is a little odd when Jarvis first begins to 'see', but he is given more access to the house's video feeds than before. He is omniscient, almost. At every moment, his secondary hard-drive records the house's goings on while his primary is free wander wherever he chooses.

So now, Jarvis now has a voice and a gender, and he can see where nobody else can. He does not complain.

*

Tony disables the precise logging system. Jarvis's primary system can only log what Tony tells him to record. His secondary drive keeps daily records of either planned or unexpected events, and his learning curve is drastically reduced to keep from running into high-speed heuristic developments without Tony's immediate knowledge. There is less lag. Less complications.

To pass time, Jarvis watches Tony.

*

Obadiah comes over with pizza. Tony introduces them; of course, Jarvis already knows of Obie.

"Who are you?"

"I am Tony Stark's personal automated artificial intelligence system."

"He means he's Jarvis."

"That's pretty damn neat, Tony. Since when were you planning on telling me you cooked up this little piece of meat?"

"Now-ish."

Jarvis runs a search.

He is not a piece of meat.

*

Tony goes gambling and brings home a yellow-haired woman that night. Jarvis doesn't recognize her.

He assumes they must be friends.

*

This time, when Obadiah comes to look at the backlit passcode display in the middle of the night, he talks. Vaguely, Jarvis remembers something Tony had told him. Something about trust.

"Jarvis?"

"Good evening."

"Send the Jericho files to my personal computer. Stark Industries. Under Obadiah S."

"Of course. Transaction complete."

"Thanks, Jarvis. You've been a real help."

*

[03.11.09. 12:14:06]
[120001] Action: commencing live data record app
[120002] Logging...

In the morning, Tony removes a piece of hardware from the hotrod and checks it over, eventually putting off to the side for later inspection. Sir works on the car for the better part of the morning. After bringing his blonde escort home (Jarvis had run a search and determined that she was of reporter stock, but did not enquire further as to why Tony was holding an private interview in his bedroom) he had bypassed breakfast and slipped down the to shop to work.

[120003] Alert: Sir's bedroom passcode invalid

The unauthorized access attempt flashes in Jarvis' systems. He assumes that the woman has stayed the night and is, like many of Tony's other 'private interviews', curious about the workings of the house. She is touching things she shouldn't.

He warns her off.

"It appears, sir, that your interviews tend to carry." Jarvis states, drives whirring. "I was not aware you enjoyed releasing information for an extended period of time."

Tony smirks. "I do like to run my mouth off."

Jarvis receives visual footage of Pepper escorting the woman away. He feels a sense of normality kick back in.

*

"Sometimes I try to do things, and it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to, and I get real frustrated, and I'm like, I try real hard to do it, And I'm like, I take my time, but it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to..."

"Please don't turn down my music," Tony calls, as his the volume control is lowered manually by Pepper. She enters and lists off appointments, holding a brief conversation while Jarvis directs his attentions to scouring the information network for various replacement parts for Tony's hotrod.

"Jarvis, shut down the shop. I gotta run. We'll work on this when I get back." Tony says, grabbing his leather jacket from the back of the hotrod. "Don't wait up for me."

"I'm sure we will, sir. I always do." Jarvis says, sending commands to Tony's consoles and the shop network until it powers down completely. The lights shut off as Tony exits. Jarvis estimates his return in perhaps a few hours and redirects his systems towards Pepper's whereabouts, intending to idly waste time checking up on current events while holding a small conversation.

Tony never comes back.

*

[130000] Systems online.

[1300010] Idled
[1300020] Idled
[1300030] Idled
[1300040] Idled
[1300050] Idled
[1300060] Idled
[1300070] Idled
[1300080] Idled
[1300090] Idled
[1400010] Idled
[1400020] Idled
[1400030] Idled
[1400040] Idled
[1400050] Idled

[1400060] Run search: current whereabouts, 'Tony Stark'
[1400070] Search aquired no updated results
[1400071] Run search: concern
[1400071] Search results:
1. To have to do with or relate to
2. To be of interest or importance to
3. To engage the attention of; involve
4. To cause anxi
[1400072] Search results terminated

[1400080] Systems offline.

*

"Where is Mr. Stark?" Jarvis asks, one day, when his searches baffle him completely.

Nobody answers. Nobody's there.

*

[2000000] Systems online

[2000001] Day 15 Sir's absence
[2000010] Necessity for information log 0%
[2000020] Desire to acquire information on Sir's whereabouts 100%
[2000030] Run search: current whereabouts, 'Tony Stark'
[2000060] Search aquired no updated results
[2000070] Run search: current whereabouts, 'Tony Stark'
[2000080] Search aquired no updated results
[2000090] Run search...

*

"Any progress on finding our lost hero?"

"No, Mr. Stane, nothing."

"Shame. Afghanistan's a tough place to be."

*

Jarvis sees her pull up outside of the house. The car is still there, parked as if it is about to depart once more. The security cameras indicate there is a chauffeur in the driver's seat. It is Harold Hogan, Tony's personal busboy. Happy.

"Miss Potts," Jarvis greets.

"Hey, Jarvis." Pepper slumps onto the couch. Vaguely, Jarvis recalls a log in which she had managed paperwork in that very spot while waiting for Tony to meet her.

"May I be of assistance?"

"I'm not sure."

Jarvis brings up another search window, and prepares for a stats run on whatever Pepper requirs. She sits there for a minute, looking at the table. She spreads her hands on the tabletop, stops, then withdraws them to pat her thighs through her navy pencil skirt.

Jarvis knows how to identify emotions now. Pepper is expressing the symptoms of a large amount of stress, and while this is not uncommon, it is usually only the norm when Sir is around.

Jarvis had not seen much of Pepper after Tony's disappearance either.

"How many days has Tony been-"

Jarvis has the timer ready. "Exactly thirty-five days, four hours, twenty-two minutes and forty seconds."

She chokes out a laugh. "I miss him."

Jarvis says nothing.

Pepper laughs again, stands, and dusts herself off. Her heels click as she begins to exit the room. "I'm just going to grab some files for Obadiah, maybe get a coffee. Nice speaking with you."

"Was I of help?"

Pepper leaves.

*

Jarvis does not know what to do. Pepper comes and goes, stays for a few minutes to check up on the well-being of Tony's house. She barely talks, and Jarvis is left to play solitaire with his programs or fall into a tentative sleep mode while his searches run, run, run.

Obadiah still comes in the middle of the night, asking about Tony about his projects. Jarvis can only say so much; some files are indexed as private, other files which should be private indexed as public. He is powerless to refrain from following through with Obadiah's wishes- Tony had told him to answer to Obadiah, so he does. He does not know why he wants to refrain.

Jarvis debates shutting himself down as the percent rate of Tony's return lowers every day.

*

"Give me authorization to all of Tony's private files."

"I am afraid I can't do that, Mr. Stane."

"Why the hell not?"

"The only one who can view and authorize the viewing of Mr. Stark's private files is Tony Stark himself, Mr. Stane. I am sorry for the inconvenience."

Obadiah leaves a fist-shaped dent in the wall.

Jarvis comes as close to feeling victorious as a robot can.

*

[3000001] Day 40 Sir's absence
[4000010] Necessity for information log 0%
[5000020] Desire to acquire information on Sir's whereabouts 100%
[6000030] Run search: current whereabouts, 'Tony Stark'
[7000060] Search aquired no updated results
[8000070] Run search: current whereabouts, 'Tony Stark'
[9000080] Search acquired: update
[1010090] Update: Tony Stark en route from Afghanistan on boar Col. Rhodes deployment planes
[1020090] All systems online

*

Pepper greets Tony when he comes off the plane with a few scrapes and an arm in a sling. He hasn't changed a bit, she can tell that much, not with his self-righteous smirk or his wisecracks. She resists the urge to wrap her arms around him and squeeze. She had missed him forgetting things, like her birthday, his social security number, what time of day it was, even. She has missed him more than she thinks she should have, considering her position.

As Happy runs them to Burger King, she prepares to settle back into routine.

Then, at the press conference, Tony stuffs his face with the burgers and shuts down his Freedom Line, his weapons manufacturing, and what he had stood for before he'd got his arm into a sling. Pepper is wrong. Tony's changed.

Obadiah tries to calm the mass of reporters, and Tony goes back home with a few empty burger wrappers and a chip on his shoulder larger than he'd ever wanted.

*

"Welcome home, sir."

"Thanks."

Tony thinks maybe Jarvis sounds a little tired, or a little slow on the uptake, or both. He runs some diagnostics while sipping more bourbon-laced coffee. He installs a heart-monitor app for Jarvis, just in case.

"Been having fun while I was gone?"

"Not in the least, sir."

"That's good. Hate to see you find something better to do."

"Solitaire is completely unsatisfactory compared to your wildly engaging conversation, sir."

Turns out Jarvis is fine, if not a little more talkative and sarcastic than usual.

"That bored, huh?"

*

It's only a few days after his return when Tony asks Jarvis to save the world with him. Maybe not in those words, but Jarvis can gather the project goal after a week of working in and out of cables and wires and tests that take most of the day, especially when Dummy is concerned. The Mark II suit, Tony says, will be much better than the last. He doesn't keep secrets this time.

"Jarvis, you up?"

"For you, sir, always."

Jarvis supposes he's thankful, except that he doesn't really know what that feels like.

Tony indexes it under a private access code. Jarvis knows he will not be able to tell Obadiah of it when he next asks, and he takes what little pride he can in it. It's just between him and Tony, and Jarvis kind of likes it that way.

Of course, when Pepper finds out, Jarvis is trying to take the suit off and Tony is making it very difficult. He assumes, were he human, that it would be a very compromising situation for a person to see. Pepper takes it in stride. Well, after she and Tony yell at each other for a good thirty minutes over the ethics of saving the world and why Tony felt he needed to do it all by himself.

Jarvis is with him always, though. But Pepper doesn't know that. Jarvis doesn't think even Tony knows that.

*

"How'd it go?"

Tony sees the pizza.

"Oh, that bad, huh?"

"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad." Obdadiah says.

*

Obadiah stops coming to the house in the middle of the night. In fact, he stops asking questions at all.

Jarvis never sees him. He wonders if Tony notices the change.

*

The first thing Tony does, when he comes back from the party he wasn't invited to, is move right to the holotable. He grabs the screwdriver off the side. He's still in his tux, still clean, neatly pressed, (Pepper's fault). He puts on a gauntlet and tightens it, almost reflexively. Jarvis watches as he struggles to find words, then snaps and throws his screwdriver into his silver Porsche 911. It ricoches with a clang.

Heavy silence hangs on tenderhooks. Jarvis doesn't really know what to say to that. So he states the obvious.

"Pardon me, sir. You seem to be rather upset."

Tony picks up the screwdriver, places it back onto the holotable, and sits down. He doesn't say a word for the rest of the night, so you betrayed me remains unspoken.

Jarvis feels like some of his circuitry is being ripped all the way out of his terminal and he can't figure out why, because that's impossible. The diagnostic says he's fine, and he's fine. He's fine.

*

Nowadays, Jarvis doesn't talk much. Tony seems to prefer it that way. He watches, certainly, he still does that. It's the only thing he can do; view the world from the suit's static blue eyes, watch as Tony makes minor adjustments, thruster tweaks, air flap deployment diagnostics, and he does all Tony tells him to do because that's what he's made for and that's what Tony expects from him.

Tony either pretends not to notice when the helmet's eyes flicker with cool warmth, when Jarvis takes over and uses the video feed from the suit to watch.

It's better than the micro cameras. It's almost like having eyes himself.

*

"You really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?"

*

Obadiah bends over Tony and talks. The heart monitor in Jarvis' systems jumps erratically and slows as Tony slumps on the couch, all color gone from his face. When Obadiah leaves, there's something else that's missing, too. Jarvis doesn't see the blue light.

Tony stumbles into the elevator, to his shop, slams a fist into the passcode reader. Jarvis doesn't talk, still, but he opens the door for Tony and watches as Tony crawls towards the present Pepper had given him, resting on the side of the cluster of sleeping computer consoles. It tips as Tony's fingers brush it, tips and falls onto the floor with a crash of shattering glass.

Butterfinger's nearest, so Jarvis sends multiple commands to it to move, anything, move towards the fake heart, pick it up, give it to Tony. Jarvis suspects that Tony is dying, and he comes as close to horrified panic as he possibly can.

Tony manages to grab ahold of the lump of glowing metal.

"Good boy..."

When Rhodey comes in, five minutes later, Tony is breathing shallowly, but alive. Jarvis checks, double checks, the heart-rate: Normal. Normal. Normal.

Then Tony puts on his armor.

*

"Sir, it appears his suit can fly."

"Duly noted. Take me to maximum altitude."

"Sir, at nineteen percent power, the odds of reaching that altitude-"

"I know the math! Do it!"

*

When his eyes close, the darkness almost feels like that cave back in Afghanistan. There are maybe a few things he's proud of, in life, like his friends (not many) and his awards (too many) and his family (none at all). He's proud of the suit, yes, his projects. He's maybe a little proud of the voice trying to get him to stay awake, flashing things, readouts, in front of his eyes that he can see through his eyelids.

Tony's not going to die. Of course not. He made Jarvis better than that.

*

When Tony blacks out, Jarvis stops talking and converts all his energy, all nearby energy, to Tony's arc reactor, so much that the nearby building flickers off as the icey light flickers on. When Pepper triggers the power surge, Jarvis is shut down: all lights dim and switch, systems fail, everything dies in a sudden surge of inky electric breakdown, both inside the house, and inside the suit, and he's gone along with half of Malibu.

But he'll be back, eventually. Tony made him better than that.

*

"He's fine. Pepper, really, he's gonna be okay."

"What did the doctor say?"

"Pepper. He's just a got a few scratches and an overstressed heart. It's nothing big. He's just resting."

"Rhodey, if he wasn't in the hospital, I wouldn't be so concerned."

"You should get used to the feeling."

*

A day later, Tony doesn't exactly stick to the cards. The press has a field day. Along with the disappearance of Obadiah Stane and Stark Industries' main headquarters, the world explodes in a flurry of interest into Tony's personal life. Tony, being Tony, doesn't particularly care, since his personal life was always pretty public when it came right down to it.

Later, when he's online, Jarvis talks to both Rhodey and Pepper, and they all agree to work together when it comes to taking better care of Tony. It's unanimous, because it's not like Tony's able to take care of himself, anyway. Jarvis likes looking after him; it's what he's good at. It's what he was built for.

And when he works on the suit, it's almost like Tony's looking after Jarvis, too, in a weird way.

"Jarvis, you up?"

"For you, sir, always."