badpirattitude | Prisonstuck X

Prisonstuck X

Dualscar wakes up early, his eyes opening under the water and just staring at the ceiling for a moment. Did he really sleep the entire night and day away? It feels like it; it feels like he's been under for a long, long time, and he woke up feeling rested and relaxed for the first time in perigrees.

Then he remembers exactly why he slept so well, and he can feel a flush of purple rise on his face. He tentatively moves his legs and hips; he's sore, but it's a deep, pleasant ache, nothing that he can't work through just by moving around. And there's something he needs to do today, something important... oh yes. The little helmsman is getting delivered today.

That thought gets him out of the shallow pool where he'd slept, and he sits up, gasping quietly as he switches back to using his lungs and his gills seal themselves shut on his sides.

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The irony here is that the title Orphaner was given to him as part of a cruel joke, but that's neither here nor there. Dualscar does realize, though, how such a thing could make the little troll nervous, and he takes a step backwards, his hand still on the Psiioniic's back.

"Tell her I have no intention of hurting her lusus, only of retrieving it. The sooner she tells us wwhere it is, the sooner she can have it back, if it's still alive."

Still more silence before she ducks her head down again. Finally, after waiting for what feels like forever- Psiioniic's ears twitch as he listens to her carefully.

"...You know Reticulum, right?" City on a river that leads to the ocean, a trader city more than anything. If he had to guess, he'd say she was a domestic slave before being commissioned. Also with a lot of expansive plains at its back. From what he's heard, lots of highblood bickering over there. "Thould be around there, might be underground."

Dualscar nods, and turns to the drones who have just re-entered the room, carrying a tray with a pitcher of water, a bowl of soup with steam wafting off the top... and an orange. Great, all the drones have caught the meme now, they'll think lowbloods get oranges until the end of time.

"You." He points at the largest, most fit drone. "Go to Reticulum. Wwear my standard and take the fastest land-speeder in the armory. Check the plains around the city, and find a yellowwblooded lusus wwithout a charge. Bring it back here at once."

The drone chirps in acknowledgement and hurries off.

"It hath thpineth!" he yells helpfully after it before settling back down. His own psionics can feel Sonica's reaching out, just barely, connected through the wires that are stuck in her skin. But with no power source hooked up, there's nowhere for them to go.

He really needs that orange right now.

Snagging it with his own psionics, he tears into it, skin and all, as he adjusts Sonica in his lap until her back is resting against his chest. "Alright, get over here, bring the water- water firtht, thoup later."

Wait, what?

"You... you wwant me to help feed her?" Come on, Psiioniic, you were a slave once, you should know that highbloods bearing gifts tend to not get a very good reception. Instead, Dualscar snaps his fingers at the drones, and the Psiioniic's rushes forward, chirping excitedly and eager to please. It offers Sonica a glass of water.

"Well, I didn't know if you wanted to thtand there, pretending to be a really thitty chair." A snort, and the Psiioniic watches carefully as his drone brings the glass up to her lips. There's a bit of fumbling, and sloshing, but most of it manages to get in her mouth.

After a minute, most of it also gets thrown up onto the floor in front of them. Okay. Too much, too soon. Still patting and rubbing at her shoulders as she fairly hacks her lungs out, Psii grits his teeth. Of course, Helmstroll- they wouldn't have their stomachs filled in ages. Something actually getting put inside would make any troll vomit.

"We might need a straw." Right now, he doesn't trust either the drones or Sonica to be exactly... careful.

"I'll go get one."

Dualscar turns and almost runs out of the room, blindly making his way to the kitchen. Once he's there, he grips the countertop with both hands, leaning over it and gritting his teeth. God... they're going to turn the Psiioniic into that. All his brilliance, all his personality, ripped away from him and consumed by creeping biowires. Dualscar can feel bile rising in the back of his throat, and he turns towards the sink, almost retching...

...until the kitchen drone tugs at his cape and offers him an orange.

He stares at the fruit for a moment, hardly recognizing it, before taking it with numb fingers. "A straww," he tells the drone, using his claws to pierce the orange's skin. "Find me a straww."

In the room left behind, he's doing his best not to think about his fate. Because the Psiioniic knows that if he starts, he won't be able to stop. He'll be locked inside his own head, useless to anyone and everyone and trying not to just scream from the thought of it all. Even when he was nothing more than a slave, paranoid and a coward, he still had at least a little freedom. But as a Helmsman, as Her Helmsman...

Sonica wouldn't be the only one sick on the floor.

So the Psiioniic tries to occupy himself. He remembers her homecity, remembers visiting with Signless to spread the word, to try and see if there were any higherblooded traders who might be interested in helping the cause. It wasn't that strange, really; Signless could talk the moons down from the sky, really, if it so pleases him. Psiioniic is certain of this, as certain as his own two eyes. So he whispers to her, telling her about the traders, the river, who he saw and if she recognized any of the names- things to make her think. Things to keep his mind busy.

Dualscar returns a few moments later, armed with a straw and another orange. He plunks the straw in the glass and refills it with water, then kneels in front of Sonica, holding it to her lips.

"I wwant you to drink, but only a little. You haven't had anything in your stomach for awwhile, so only one sip." It makes his stomach churn, ordering her around like this, even though he's trying hard to be nice about it, but he gets the feeling that if she doesn't have strict orders to the contrary, she'll try to gorge herself again and make herself sick.

Sonica shrinks back against Psiioniic's chest, her eyes flickering from Dualscar's face down to the cup he holds. Psiioniic just rubs her shoulder reassuringly. "He'th a big moothball, don't worry, you're thafe here." He's said this probably a hundred times already, but he can't stop saying it. He knows how hard it is to believe, after all. Taking care about the biowires, he guides her hands to press around the cup and she tentatively leans in to obediently take just the one sip. In the meantime, the Psiioniic reaches towards Dualscar and begins to stroke along the bottom of one fin.

"I am not a big mooshball!" Dualscar snaps, his fins flaring up in irritation. Wow, totally not helping the whole 'he's not a scary highblood' cause here, Psiioniic.

Sonica recoils against the Psiioniic's chest, her eyes wide and a dribble of water spilling out the corner of her mouth, but then the Psiioniic reaches out and touches one of Dualscar's fins, and that gesture calms her down. She keeps her eyes downcast, for the most part, occasionally sneaking glances up at Dualscar's face.

Dualscar watches her, and when it seems like she's going to keep that swallow of water down, he offers her the straw again. "One more sip."

The defensive words earn a snort. "If you're not a moothball, then I don't like orangeth. And, fun fact, it ith a clinical fact that they are the motht amathing thingth on thith entire planet and you are a lying dick." Briefly, his other hand makes a small gesture. "The more you know." But then it's right back to holding Sonica close and stroking Dualscar's fin over and over.

He's pretty sure, he thinks, the key here is to make both of them more comfortable. Dualscar is an idiot, there's no denying that, and the girl is scared out of her mind even now.

Yes, but now he's your idiot, Psiioniic. You're stuck with him.

Dualscar grumbles under his breath, but he doesn't pull his fin away. Quite the opposite: he fans it out under the Psiioniic's fingers, curling it towards the gentle touches.

Sonica takes another sip of water, a slightly longer one this time, and it makes her cough. She winces and presses back against the Psiioniic, away from Dualscar with her eyes screwed shut, and it occurs to Dualscar that she expects him to hit her. The muscles in his face tense a little, then relax entirely, and he pulls away, trying to untangle his fin and hand the cup to the Psiioniic.

"Here. She'll be more comfortable if I'm not here. I'll be in the library."

A part of him wants to push, but Signless' words echo in his mind. Some things took time, and he knew better than anyone that it took a long goddamn time to get over how you'd been treated by the highbloods. Reluctantly, he pulls his hand away from the fin so that he can take the cup.

"I'll come to vithit you when I'm done."

"Yeah, okay."

Dualscar leaves without looking back, and retreats to the library. He brushes the drones aside as they try to pester him, and hides in the room behind the shelves. Once there, he pulls out a very old, very tattered and well-loved book, curls into a ball on a pile of cushions in the corner, and starts reading.

Once the sound of footsteps has faded from their aurals, Psii feels Sonica relax in his arms. There's so many questions he can tell she wants to ask him, but her throat won't stand for it right now. So he just has her sip water in intervals and murmurs to her. Reassurances, mostly. The occasional sermon from Signless, and she always seems to stir most at those before realizing that moving hurts because the biowires are still in her skin. The hours pass, and his psionics keep on buzzing. He could do this for ages, he knows it, it's just a low sinking of power into another and nothing like what he's really capable of.

Eventually, he cranes his neck around to look at her face and he realizes she's asleep. Gently, he gathers his clothes and makes a right pile of them for her to lay down in. She'll be tormented by nightmares, no doubt, but they can't put her into the sopor slime. At least, Psii thinks they can't. He's not sure what would happen if sopor and wiring mixed. So he just lays her down, keeping his psionics around her as he leaves.

"Tell me if thee waketh up or thtartsth moving about a lot, you got it?" he tells one of the drones before he strides right into the library. There's just a cursory glance through the rows of books to make sure that Dualscar isn't there before he heads to the hidden room. Carefully, he knocks before opening it up and sticking his head in. He looks a bit tired, but it's a more emotional kind of weariness.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Dualscar looks up from his cushion pile, and carefully, reverently, sets his book down, although he takes the time to make sure it's facing downward, so the Psiioniic can't see the title. The seadweller looks tired too, his eyes almost hidden in shadowed purple hollows.

"Howw is she?"

"Full of wiring and feeling like hell, what do you think?" Slipping inside fully, he immediately goes to lay down against Dualscar's chest. Sorry, was this pile a one troll type of gig? Not anymore. Practically clinging to the other like a koala, he gives a low growl.

"The hemothpectrum can rot in a meteor headed thtraight for the thun. Fuck thith. Fuck the whole thing!"

Oh, whelp, guess he's got a psionic all cuddled up on top of him then. Dualscar freezes for a moment, unsure of what to do, before putting an arm gently around the Psiioniic's shoulders and patting him awkwardly on the back.

"Day after tomorroww, the blueblood wwill be here to take her wwires out."

It's a cold comfort, but it's all he's got right now.

"You'd think he could come fathter..." But it's just complaining because there's honestly nothing he can do right now. It's a horrible feeling and he wants to tear things asunder for it.

"God, 22... What am I going to do?" A sigh and he holds on harder, shaking in anger and fear. "That'sth a hypothetical, everything ith fucked for me and I know it."

Dualscar holds tighter, shaking his head slowly back and forth. He wishes he had an answer; he wishes he knew.

"Artollo... there is... there is one thing..."

He's quiet for a brief second at those words. On one hand, he isn't quite sure, so much paranoia and pessimism built up over the sweeps that he's so sure he's doomed. On the other hand.. Dualscar suggested the move into this hive, so...

"What?"

Unless he's just giving more bad news, but he's prepared for that.

"At the last moment... I could cull you."

There it is. Dualscar has killed prisoners before, their breaking ending with them completely and totally broken, in every way imaginable. It wouldn't be the first time, but it would be the last.

...Oh.

Slowly, Psiioniic untangles from Dualscar and pushes himself up so he can stare down at him. Silence as he looks over his face, the look in his eyes, the way his mouth is formed...

"Could you do that?"

Dualscar lets go, giving the Psiioniic his space, but he looks up at him when he asks that question. He looks into the face of the troll he's given himself to, completely and totally, and knows that he wants to remember him like this, not the way he would become as a helmsman.

"Yes."

He could do it. He knows he can... he's sure...

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and suddenly they were a pair of dads

alright who gave Dualscar a parenthood license, fess up

sob, how does he always end up with kids flocking around him?

miracles

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and suddenly Dualscar ends up becoming Judas and blowing everything for the Holy Bros