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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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...

"You can't back out." Shifting closer, he cups Dualscar's face with one hand and presses their foreheads together. "I won't be able to live with it, Trafal. I can't. Tho if you're going to kill me..." His voice shakes, just slightly. "Keep to it."

"I wwon't... I wwon't let them do that to you." Dualscar reaches up and circles his fingers around the Psiioniic's wrist, pressing his head forward, close against the other troll's. Besides his face, his fins swirl and dip, not saying anything but fanning towards the Psiioniic, reaching out to brush at his cheeks. "I wwon't let them change you."

It should be easy, dying. Hadn't he come close to it a thousand times before he met Signless, before he decided to make something of himself? He always said he'd die before becoming a Helmsman anyway...

But he's still shaking. Just slightly.

"Make it quick." His eyes close, body tense. "Through the throat thould do it."

"I'm not going to do it noww!"

God, Psiioniic, the way you're tensing up like that, Dualscar thinks you intend for him to do it immediately! He pushes out, shoving the Psiioniic off his lap and staring at him with horrified eyes.

"Wwe'll wwait, it might be swweeps before your friends are captured, I'm not culling you in here!"

Ow shit fuck right on his ass. Thank you for that, Dualscar. But Psiioniic doesn't even seem faintly bothered. He's out of energy. He can't do this right now. He can't do a lot of things right now. Death or sleep would be beautiful things.

"I never thaid you had to do it right now. I'm jutht telling you how you thould do it."

"You act like I've never done it before," Dualscar grouses, but it's complaining to cover up how difficult this is to talk about. He climbs off his cushion pile and tries to gather the Psiioniic into his arms so he can drop him in the recuperacoon.

Psiioniic is, for the most part, limp in Dualscar's grasp. He only stirs once they're closer to the recuperacoon. "I have to watch over Nica.."

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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

darnit, Dualscar

he hesitates at the last moment, and the Imperial Troops bust in and take the Psiioniic away

this is like the one thing he had to NOT BONE UP sob

he paused because he wanted to tell him he loved him one last time...

crying kathryn i hate you all my tears

you love me and you know it!

all my weeping it's true