piper90 | Sure Got Kafkaesque in Here

[ This is grotesque. Someone’s gotten ahold of Saturday’s comm - killed her? - and is now masquerading as Brainy like a morbid sock puppet. It’s sick. They’re fucking sick. ]

We saw the video feed. You assholes just can’t stop getting worse, can you? What’s next? Are you going to actually parade his corpse around?

Oh thank gods.

How bad is it?

You gave Goodnight Moon. Merl's favorite.

Celery bouquet.

When we met, inhibitor broken. Wanted to make sure I was safe.

Gonna be honest. This wouldn't even be in the top ten of weird things I've heard of back home.

Fuck's sake - Brainy, point it at me a sec.

[the camera flicks on. Saturday's face comes into view, flecked with blood but uninjured. shouting and gunfire echo in the background]

I ain't dead. Kinda insulted you thought they could without the collar! Brainy's a vinetopus now. Big weird day. Oops, gotta go -

[a furious war cry; Saturday disappears, and offscreen there is the sound of a body falling, close enough to be distinct over the general chaos. feed ends.]

Bad.

No longer humanoid. Or mammal.

Taxonomy unidentifiable.

Apologies that my suffering isn't more novel.

[If there was any doubt over whether it was him, the sass sure was an indicator it was the same mind.]

Didn't mean it like that, mon ami. Just more meant that I believe it's you.

[There's something of a delay with the response. Not alarmingly so, but enough to take note of.]

Sorry, couple of stragglers didn't quite get the memo that I literally have more power over this place than they do.

I'm not gonna lie, that's...pretty bad. Bright side, at least you know who you are and can communicate. That's not exactly a guarantee with Stuff exposure.

...which probably isn't the most helpful thing to say. Although I'm not exactly sure what would be, really.

Edited 2021-09-14 03:52 (UTC)

[ ... telepath. It could be a telepath. Or a digital scan of his brain implanted as an AI in a server somewhere.

But... yeah, Robbie doesn't care. ]

I still want to make sure you're safe. You're REALLY bad at it. Where are you?

[ Is it suspicious that Robbie is avoiding the camera and sounds like he's talking with something in between his teeth? Probably. ]

I didn't say I thought you were dead!

[ The tinge of 'oops' still comes through. He absolutely thought Saturday was dead. ]

Now tell me where you - Saturday?!

[ He is going to find them, and he'll deal with whatever a "vinetopus" is later. ]

Bullshit you didn't. How else would Jorg have gotten my comm? You costume types got no faith in anyone who doesn't wear spandex.

[where is she getting the verve to crack wise right now? well, not being dead when you really thought you would be does wonders for the mood. robbie can still hear active combat in the background, though.]

We're heading back to the Rig, still in the factory area, not sure of our bearings. See a fire exit up ahead. Looking for transport if you've got any ideas - we met some friends who are gonna blow this place sky high as soon we're clear.

Saturday wants to go fight.

Will go to the gardens. Through vents. Easiest place to hide. Camouflage.

[And Farmer Bob proudly uses no pesticide or weed killer so it won't make him sick.

Will hide near orchard.

[An area that has lots of nearby shrubbery and berry thickets for Robbie to hide in too.]

Bring comm, leaving this one with Saturday. Need text to voice.

No longer able to talk.

[It's that bad.]

Holy shit, you're

Brainy. It's happening. The collars. You left us everything I needed to get going and then some other shite happened and I figured it out. We're almost free.

[ That's good news, right? She doesn't know what to do with the whole 'I've totally changed species' thing, okay, there's people close to him for that, but she can at least tell him this. ]

Brainy died.

[ And he is audibly upset at having to say it outloud, even though it's confirmed that Brainy is alive in some form. ]

What was I supposed to think? What would you have thought - what makes the most sense with the least crazy - crap!

[ There's some huffing on his end, and what sounds like a team's worth of heavy boots echoing down a hallway. After a moment, Robbie continues in a whisper.]

I'm sorry. Next time, I will assume you fart miracles and marshmallows. I promise.

Stop. Fighting.

Not now.

I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll give you my comm.

[ He doesn't make a joke about how he's sure to have the last word for once. Because Brainy doesn't want to fight. And, maybe worse, he's not discouraging Robbie from taking himself off the board to check on him.

So, it's THAT bad. ]

Damn right you will.

[the good mood fades from her voice]

Listen, can you page Kerrigan? Brainy's new body can't seem to talk and it's freaking him out. He's doing better now, but like...

[she trails off]

Maybe she can help him? He's got some kind of psychic thing going on, I dunno if he could do that before, but it ain't words, just feelings.

I'll get you to your people first, Brainy.

[It is that bad. When Robbie arrives, Brainy is nowhere to be seen.]

[At first.]

[But then some leaves in one of the shrubs starts to move, flowing down to the ground. They hesitate in the shadows of the bush. This is not easy. This is horrifying. This is painful. It is an anguish he doesn't want to share. He wants to find a hole to crawl into and never come out again.]

[But he knows relationships involve sharing in the pain, not just the joy.]

[So he crawls out slowly, a mass of green and blue flowing vines, gliding across the ground. His overall mass is probably less than what it once was but there are enough tentacles to conceivably be made from a humanoid body, now unraveled.]

[Strange little glowing stalk eyes stare up at Robbie.]

[He tries, again, to take on a humanoid form and manages slightly better this time, the torso holding for a little longer, the face almost right - if you could call a face that looks like the composited greenery on a parade float right - glowing eyes put where there used to be irises.]

[He still can't manage legs.]

[Little harder pieces of greenery come together to form something that resembles a voicebox, some softer pieces form a membraneous air bladder. He tries to force air through the voicebox and use some vines to fill in for lips, a tongue. He still can't make words. Only a sad little wheeze comes out.]

[He extends a hand towards Robbie, but it unravels and so does the rest of him. The vines rise but can't take shape again. Fall.]

[Vines wrap around the mass closest to his stalk eyes and the yellow flowers that were briefly his hair. Like someone wrapping their arms around their head in shame and embarrassment.]

[Again, like with Saturday, the harmonica wheezing takes on the rhythm of someone sobbing.]

Exceptional.

My notes may have helped. But this was your doing.

Thank you for finishing.

[ He had had an idea about the state Brainy would be in. Vinetopus was the sort of goofy, evocative portmanteau that he himself would come up with to describe a similar creature as what’s moving towards him right now, if he didn’t know that this wasn’t how Brainy was supposed to be.

He’s known people to experience negative secondary mutations, even a few that were fucked over by the first one. It’s not a laughing matter.

He does appreciate the warning, though, because his mental image was… fairly accurate, minus the flowers. Robbie doesn’t flinch away or try to defend himself, but he’s not sure he believes what he’s seeing.

It isn’t until the eye stalks pull a pseudo face together around them that his brain starts to redefine Brainy. And when a hand coalesces and reaches for him, Robbie starts to reach back with his unbandaged arm only to draw it back slightly when the green hand falls back the loose mess of Brainy’s vines and leaves.

Seeing the shape fall back into tendrils dredges up bad memories of other friends who skirted being an eldritch horror temporarily. ]

Querl?

[ Robbie doesn’t read entish body language, but he gets the sense of hugging knees to chest and hiding your face in the space. He sits down what he hopes is in sight of the eye stalks - which, uh… are a thing he will have to get used to - and puts his comm down between them. It doesn’t take an expert in xenolinguistics to grok that Brainy’s crying, or near enough. Those aren’t neutral sounds. They’re the sort of cries that rip him apart because he can’t make this better. There’s nothing he can do, but he’d do anything to fix it.

One hand reaches to hover over the yellow flowers. Flowers are delicate, right? So easy to damage or tear. ]

Are - are you fragile? I don’t have to hug you - I won’t touch you if you don’t know. I don’t want to hurt you.

[Brainy's response to that is to reach up and initiate the hug himself, assuming that if Robbie's asking, he's okay with being hugged by him in this state. Vines wrap around and cling. Some of them shake back and forth at the crook of Robbie's neck, giving just enough of a sensation of a shaking head to make it clear he's saying no to being too fragile.]

[The wheezing continues.]

[ The hug is so different from what he’s used to, but the only adjustment Robbie does is to keep the vines off the makeshift bandage. There’s more vines than humanoid limbs, and no real center of mass to bear hug tightly. He can’t promise that it’s okay, or going to be okay, or that they’ll get home or through this. Their relationship has all the space in the universe for stupid humor, but that doesn’t leave much room for specious stories or whatever Querl would call it.

Robbie probably would try platitudes if Querl could raise an eyebrow at him and say something snarky and syllabic, but he doesn’t have eyebrows anymore.

And that, of all the stupid thoughts, is what makes him start to cry. Wanting to get closer to proper hug, Robbie scoops up as much of Brainy as he can gather onto his lap. ]

I thought I lost you.

[ It’s selfish to feel any sort of relief, but everyone’s always said that he’s a selfish idiot. Robbie chokes down the apologies, but he can’t hide how sorry he is. ]

I should’ve been there. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.

[ At least next time, they can shoot at Robbie first. ]

She’s about as paged as it gets.

He’s an empath, here. I don’t know how much that will help with communicating, although exasperation comes through the link really well.

well son of a bitch

sorry it's bad

good news dickwash felt guilty enough he helped us take the nanochains down

Yeah, I heard. Maybe she can boost him, help him use it to talk? That'll help, I think, until we can figure out how to unfuck the situation.

[the idea that it might not be a thing you can unfuck is simply not worth entertaining at this time; they don't really know enough about anything. but it had been clear that being unable to speak clearly had been terrifying Brainy]

[The vines are careful, skirting the wound, and the stalk eyes briefly look at it. There is a noise that is maybe concern but at least it's bandaged. It's hard when Brainy can't talk, when the only way of talking - typing it out - is so laborious without thumbs.]

[He does have a shortcut, though. One vine goes to Robbie's temple, the way Brainy's hand sometimes did, when he used his empathic power to calm him.]

[And even despite his sadness and horror there is still that pervasive sense of calm. Of love. That is still strongest. Brainy makes that the strongest that he projects over. The other - worse - feelings are there, being felt, but held back from the link.]

[Of course he'd comfort Robbie at a time like this. Of course.]

[ There’s no discernible analog for touching someone’s cheek when they don’t have a cheek anymore. The hand that had moved to return the gesture instead pats a vine, but the unfamiliarity is devastating. He doesn’t even know if the contact registers the same way.

Robbie’s head is an agitated bee swarm of emotions that he doesn’t have under control at all, so there’s no hiding any of it from the link. He’s just so overwhelmed by everything that a different emotion is proclaiming itself king of the mountain every two minutes. Grief, anger, confusion. Pain. But they all stem from the same place: love. ]

I’m okay. I love you, too.

[ Brainy’s current state doesn’t change the truth of that. They just need to get home. Everything will be fine if they can get back to ultra modern medicine and bizarre body-modifying ice cream flavor research scientists. ]

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought there’d be a better time. And then… there wasn’t. This still isn’t. It’s just… I’m not getting another chance to mess this up.

[ If they can’t get back home, then the poor circumstances won’t matter anymore. With the rapid restructuring put into place by Jorgmund, something’s gonna change pretty quick. Might as well have something nice while to hang onto. Querl knows that Robbie loves him.

Querl probably already knew. Querl also probably knows that Robbie hasn’t read his letter now. Which makes him almost laugh, and the inappropriate amusement and sheepishness crowd out affection and regret. ]

If we’re still alive in a few weeks, you have to let me know when it’s okay to make stupid jokes that needle us both. For now, you get a exasperation vacation. Except for that one. And… that one. This is how I cope.

[ The hand that he wasn’t sure what to do with? It finds a natural resting spot on the vine touching Robbie’s face. No further anguish or thought. Just seeking contact. ]

Sure Got Kafkaesque in Here

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