oedipusrat | TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

[several months after this initial interaction]

Rachette doesn't kick in the door. She's not a barbarian. But the door is definitely opened in a manner that is heavier and harder than strictly necessary. Being The Warden was pain enough; being a warden is...irritating.

"He talks too much."

That's a possibly very petty thing to complain to the mage (who has explained to her that he is not a mage, but she remains not entirely convinced of this) about his...companion? Compatriot? Person from his same world. But talking to her inmate, a man who seems to prefer the name Silva to any of the other potential names he could be going by, is as frustrating as talking to Sten sometimes. Roundabout. Never to the point. Why does nobody ever just say what they mean?

The dwarf huffs and blows a few strands of silver hair from her face. "He uses too many words in strange ways. Would it kill him to just talk like a normal person instead of blathering on? Before I kill him."

She won't. That's not what she's here for, and he hasn't given enough reason to make her want to. But by the Stone and all of the Ancestors, he makes her job so difficult. Fighting a mob of darkspawn sometimes seems preferable.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh. That is distressing. "There may be a saboteur aboard." But one thing at a time, okay. "I'd hate to leave such a mystery unsolved, but I am not plugging myself back in without your help." Not that he wouldn't mind seeing Q issuing another beatdown to alien geometry cube, but. He'd also like to still remain functioning by the end of all this trippiness.

"I should still be able to safely touch it." Nothing went awry until he plugged in, and he's far less machine than Q is. Is becoming. Has become. "...Maybe hand me the hammer, just in case."

"There may be, but this thing might be just an opportunistic parasite. A bit of grit at the heart of a metal pearl?" Standing up, he brushes off his trousers and hands Silva the hammer.

"Perhaps don't try to get too close and personal this time, hmm? Not for your own sake, but I wouldn't want to strain something if I have to carry you out. Again."

"Then maybe you should touch it. I won't complain about valiantly assisting your peripheral when you drop as though you disconnected entirely from this plane of reality."

He's skilled, more than skilled, but Q's hardware is...more advanced and growing, learning. Loath to admit defeat, but he isn't sure he could pull Q out if the tables were so turned.

It's cold to the touch. Colder than the ambient temperature. Not by much, though his sensors had picked it up, but touching it makes that clear. Perhaps not so dead after all. Gives the thing an offending look.

Wait--one more thing. Let's end this on a high note, shall we?

"Thank you, Silva." He doesn't touch him, but he does skim his hand near enough that there's a hum of power between them. The walls flicker with blue light and the door swings open.

"Let's get it far, far from here. Into one of the cells?" Q knows that maintaining a firewall all the way there will tire him out, but he doesn't want to risk the Thing getting out. "If it starts to twitch, reach out for me and I'll push it back. Or try to?"

"Mm, still prefer to chuck it into the nothingness of space, but. You know, when it's dealt with, we can dispense with the work and get to more interesting things, hm? See how bright you can glow~"

They make it into another song change, even, with Silva doing some grooving along the way, having a grand old time in being Q's polar opposite right now.

He stops dead when he reads a power spike milliseconds before the cube of stolen materials heats up in his palm, flickering back to green with a hum, shifting into that wrong static. He isn't even jacked into it physically, yet it almost seems angry to him. Projecting? Hard to say. But it hurts the way the way it did before, maybe worse, like it's doubled its efforts, and he whips an arm back to grab Q by the jacket.

Trust your partner.

The walls of the hallway that they're in ripple with blue light as Q is pulled closer to Silva. He moves in to touch him, to rest his own hand on the back of his neck and lean into the that humming, whirring power that amplifies between the two of them.

Hammer. Get the hammer.

Is he talking aloud? Or is his voice just coming from the tannoy system in the ship?

It's funny, in a way. He'll look back on this and think it funny. Q's voice coming from around him, bursting between k-pop beats, flooding in with adrenaline and power, popping with blue so blue pale blue robin's egg blue it's funny. But he can't laugh because his lungs have stuttered to a halt with his heart boom boom boom--

Amplified.

Careful, you'll take my breath away.

Amplified him, too, and he laughs to the beat when his lungs kick back into gear, comes out like a speaker. Swirling sickly green seems small in comparison. He sees the spinning ciphers like they're physically spiraling from it, can feel unearthly static clawing at his senses that's almost a song, almost like it wants to sing him a song but the song overtop is already a song pay attention 00, you've got a job to do. Q needs to concentrate, after all.

Be the blunt instrument. (Tell him to pull the trigger.) Even he doesn't seem fully aware when he's struck the first blow, hammer in hand and bringing it crunching down on the box. Again. To stop the squelching tuning static. Again. To rid his nose of sweet ozone thunderstorms coconut milk wet sand between his toes. Again. To rid himself of uniform worn but not worn rubbing his skin in the dry heat stealing everything from every breath sun baking him alive-

(where did that

familiar but not)

Again. To rid the glitter from his eyes and spit blood from his teeth the chatter of voices from just above smell of perfume no gasoline they mix together wash the blood out with water who--

who

He loses track of the mission. No. He knows the mission. Hammer. That's the mission. Loses track of himself? The green and blue and green-blue eyes and he hits, hits, hits wild, is he yelling or is he silent as the grave?

Sparks. Acrid stench. The box is shattered in some places, dented horrifically in others. The light is gone, the only static left is the buzz between them, far more than a buzz that thinking of them as separate entities on some level feels wrong but he knows that's right. Tangled. Dangerous.

The damned box was loud, so loud and wrong, and beautiful. It hurts to see it broken into so much trash when he could've held it in place, taken it apart, peeled back every layer and drank it all down. Later, much later, Q will accept that destroying it was the best and necessary thing to do, but in this moment, he misses the push-pull-challenge of it.

Something shines. It's not his own lights, nor the wreckage of the Thing, but it's as if he can see information hovering and swirling around Silva. Hammer down. Come here. Let me see. Let me see.

He scratches his fingernails down the back of Silva's neck, moving over the places where his own ports are. Come closer. Come and see. Wide, all-black eyes looking at him, coaxing him to ...to something? Q doesn't really know what it is that he wants, but he aches for it.

His mechanical eye is awash with information, speeding by, but it's not alien, not unreadable, unusable, but there's so much of it.

Who are you? Who are you now?

It's Q but it's something more than Q, or, it's Q as he was always meant to be beyond the confines of flesh and bone. Q dangerous in control--or out of it. Amplified, but, that isn't everything, is it? Inside him--is that Q already inside, the two of them as one? Or is that him trying to--

It feels lightyears better than squealstaticnoisepain and he turns to Q, hammer dropped in place of hands on that blue angel, pushing along his face, through his hair.

Who?

Q laughs and it ripples through the air, through the code connecting them together, and he turns to nuzzle into Silva's hand. His breath is fever-hot as he huffs out a word against the thin, soft skin covering his wrist. Who else?

Everyone speaking, talking, living, alive, and all through the words and wires and wireless. It's all blue. Blue all the way down. It feels delicious, delightful, dangerous.

He cups Silva's face and runs the pad of his fingers over his metal half, and then when he touches the eye, information surges forward. Here is a thought. A feeling. A half-mad desire. If I run, and run, and run, and run, you could only catch me if I wanted it.

He wants to play, does he? To chase down and run in deep and become--as if two can't play at this. As if he can't get himself under a jacket, to rip at a zipper so irritatingly analogue just like Silva's body just like his connections all analogue and hardware hardwired hard coded but he spreads fingers along ports and feels the glow and hum more than he sees. Curls into them.

You think you can, you think you can reach inside another person and pick everything out, not leave a trace, run as fast and as far as you need? Where I cannot find you?

Not. Such. A clever boy.

But in a battle like this, who would really win? Is it even a matter of skill? Perhaps a matter of will.

If you want to be chased. I am the adrenaline you want.

He leans forward, their bodies pressed together as he rolls his shoulders to help Silva get the jacket off. Why did he even bother? There's no way some bit of fabric could keep them apart, could keep him apart from everyone and everything and...and...

...and there's a spark and spike of something. The right touch to a port, the way it shivers up and down his whole, glowing nervous system, his circuits. There's a whimper. A soft, needy sort of sound of agreement. Let him run. Let him run free. Don't hold back. Don't let him hold back. That's all the energy inside him wants.

Where would you even go?

Maybe that's a better question. He they he could take this whole barge, maybe, but in the end, that's all the space there is. Confined. Yet becoming.

Both hands now, broad over Q's incandescant back, feeling the energy thrumming through. Laughs. Isn't sure if the sound is just in their head or if he's done it physically. But he is sure that he kisses Q, hot and hard and thrilled at the idea of potential mayhem, the freedom of being. Enamored with the danger. Because this is danger, glowing bright as day.

Why would you try to get away from me?

Q tastes of effervescence and he leans into the embrace. Yes, this is what he had been hunting. He is tired, so tired, of being the only one in this body, in the systems of his room, singing through the wires in the hallways.

To have the joy of running, pushing as far and fast as I can go. To have the pleasure of being caught.

He nips at Silva's mouth, then turns to bite at his jawline, bussing against the metal of his face. Let us and we and you have our victory. Pyrrhic to the end. Burning bright and swift.

Q makes it sound so simple, easy, good. Like that's what he wants, too. But--is it? Is that what he wants...? Or is that them blending together, with Q trying to push thoughts in, push himself inside?

Silva knows his mind is dangerous, minefields and pitfalls, acid baths and electric fences. A petty part of him wants to open up, let them be one. Show Q all he wants and let him consume the fallout and then only one rat will remain.

No. Stay here. Q isn't here, one of them has to be. Victory. Sweet victory. Eluding him. Stay here.

Oh. He supposes he might as well say it. Slipped out a bit there, but the intent hasn't changed. Both of them, stay right here.

I/We have burned too many times to leap so readily into flame again.

Q crackles in annoyance. He would much rather just ditch these odd peripherals and go into the wires, to sing, to dance, and to burn bright. Still, he won't go alone.

Stay. We'll stay.

With a hum that sounds like a computer fan, Q seems to be content. For now. He does give the nasty cube a look and a kick, just for good measure.

He thinks of burning bright, of explosions, of a great old mansion bursting into a star and the stars outside rushing into infinity.

Thinks of cyanide, and resurrection.

Keeps Q close, so very close, kisses his neck and strokes his back. "I will burn you." It's said deliberately, with air in his lungs and vibration in his throat and warm against Q's skin. "If you are not careful."

I know, I know, and it would be ... Q sighs, content and held close. He hides his face against the side of Silva's neck, holding him close and resting one hand on his hip, thumb stroking over the edge of his trousers.

"It would've been something spectacular."

He is slowly coming back to himself, settling into his body, but not willing to release his anchor. Wisely, he does not say anything about how careful he is or isn't. "Thank you. W-... I'm still a little off-kilter, I think."

"Shh, you are coming back to yourself. Stepping down." From a ledge. He knows better than most that madness is a form of energy that can't be destroyed, only changed.

Doesn't berate him for using past tense. He could burn Q up into a fireball, inside out, and even when this, too, has passed? There are all kinds of ways to burn. He's capable of it. He always will be. Too much kerosene in his gut, gunpowder in his arteries, bones like sticks of dynamite and muscles blocks of C4. Some days it feels less of a matter of if Q will get burnt, but when.

He doesn't mind floating in this between for a while yet, this connectivity. Only when it goes too deep and they fold in on themselves, recursive, errors and chaos and destruction, does he know it's too far. But this is nice. Pleasant in ways familiar and foreign all at once.

"Work is done." Nipping, moving up, catching an earlobe, pressing a kiss against hair. "Time to play."

A quiet noise of assent and then one a little louder, as he gives Silva access to his neck. The circuits start to dim, to fade to a darker blue that could be mistaken for veins, no longer burning bright with internal fire.

Long before he was Q, he'd know that there would be no easy end for him. He'd been warned many times about his habit of setting things alight. That it would catch him too, and he heeded the advice. Partly. Built a better system to contain and control the fire, but couldn't bear to put it out.

"Go on. I'm listening."

"Mm, I can help you be more...mindful of your peripheral." Silva's hands slide down until he's got a firm grasp of Q's ass. "More here, in the moment, and not shooting off everywhere and anywhere."

Well. Not yet, anyway.

As he's grabbed, Q rather instinctively pushes himself closer, his own legs bracketing one of Silva's. This is a terrible idea, but it might actually stop him from fizzling out into the ether and losing his connection with his p...with his body.

"Your altruism does you credit." Har har. These two are just a laugh a minute. "Not in a hallway. My days hormone-fueled exhibitionism are behind me."

"That's a shame." Don't mind if he just presses his thigh in. "You'll have to tell me all about it. I think I caught a taste of one of those days before."

To be fair, that in general is probably something they should talk about, the blended senses. Wonders if Q got anything flowing back into him or if he...wasn't aware of himself enough to notice.

He crushes Q's mouth with his own before drawing himself away, disentangling but keeping at least one hand on him. Grinning like the cat who's just about to eat the canary. "Be sure not to inadvertently broadcast yourself to everyone remotely. If you want to give a show, the least that you can do is make people pay for it."

Look, is it his fault that Silva has delicious thighs? Thighs that would be just perfect to rock against. Q whines into his mouth and, right, staying close and moving somewhere that's a little more private. "I'm trying not to share, nor to have this recorded by the wonderful, thorough security on this ship."

"I think you might've? I was thinking how it all felt a bit like being on molly, and ..." It must've just slipped through. "Don't let go? Being tethered here to you, it's helping. I can still hear a bit too much, but this is good."

"Was there glitter involved?" Hmm...that might make more sense. "Water? What about the--uniform, I believe?" Dry heat and gasoline but those could have been from himself, easily.

...These are also questions that could be asked another time. He wraps an arm around Q's shoulder, close, side by side to navigate the corridors. "I'll do my best to make sure you hear only yourself screaming out my name, yes?"

TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

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