what's mistaken for closeness is just a case for mitosis [closed]

[lottawork]

Waking is not, historically, what Rush would regard as a favored activity. He is where he always is after being unexpectedly beset upon by sleep's inevitable grasp. The floor is solid and bracing, forming an aching spandrel between that plane and the paralleled arch of shoulders and spine. His skull is no longer the fractured mess it was, in reality left smooth and whole.

The entirety of the Rift's irritating, interfering traversal through the less fondly remembered aspects of his own past is etched into the anterior of his mind, still frames printed behind closed lids. He grinds the heels of both palms into his eye sockets with a fierce, fervent energy, as if it would be possible to scrub away the echo of that experience through execution of pressure alone.

He wonders how much of the dream's content is plausibly dismissible, an idea whose own plausibility he dismisses. Asadi was always too smart for direct obfuscation; it was what he liked about her, what he has continued to appreciate and value about her, but intimacy with one's past as exposed by the Rift is the unfortunate lead-in to a conversation he is certain they will be required to have and would prefer not to have, with her or anyone.

He is also aware, however, that he has been left very little in the way of personal autonomy in relation to that choice. Particularly since his latest endeavor in becoming more deeply acquainted with neuroanatomy has ground to a lamentable standstill, and to best acquire a more extensive knowledge base he will have to be - considerably more hands-on.

Fuck.

The trip to Asadi's apartment passes in its own dull-edged, lateral blur, instructions snapped out briskly to an unlucky taxi driver until he arrives, disheveled and recently woken and completely uninvited. It does not occur to him until after he has rung for her repeatedly that this may be potentially construed as socially unnatural or unacceptable, but he has already set certain events in motion and must see them to their uncertain conclusion.

Comments

[lottawork]

The voice in their heads - Asadi's reaction is a fair indication that it lacks an individualized effect - appears to operate on its own frequency, potentially telepathic. Certainly not a typical cat; perhaps something that simply chooses to appear as such.

Interesting.

His eyes dart to Asadi momentarily, noting her atypically subdued reaction.

Less interesting.

Also more than mildly concerning.

Fingertips splayed over the table, Rush rises, brusque and fluid, expression tightening with the barest fraction of distaste.

"I intend to assist her, yes," he says, his disdain smooth and restrained.

[ofschrodinger]

The cat thinks this over, still not moving. Still forgetting to move. Permissible, it decides. But I will not be so lenient if you make another attempt to interfere with...

What is the word? Even in their heads these creatures require words, and the cat lashes its tail in frustration as it grasps for the knowledge of how to express what it means. The concept is as familiar as anything can be, but the word --

Ah, that's right. It is a little word, difficult for its insufficiency. With the Rift, it concludes.

[etherthief]

Iman goes very, very still.

Not so lenient. Another attempt.

This cat - this thing it is speaking on the Rift's behalf.

She feels like a little girl being chided, as she often was, for 'trying too hard.'

She sits like stone, now staring at the table, frightened and cowed, because though it was clear she was being punished for overstepping the boundary, she never expected to actually hear it talk to her.

She wraps her trembling fingers tightly around the still-warm coffee mug like an anchor.

[lottawork]

Far beyond the typical telepathic feline, then, possibly something directly tapped into the Rift itself. Its choice of phraseology is sufficiently more indicative - 'permissible'. Clearly an authority, or something accustomed to being understood as an authority. Calmly self-assured, idly possessive.

Entirely more alarming is Asadi's acharacteristic silence. His stare remains locked upon the cat-shaped entity, composed and even.

"I will not be so lenient if you make any attempt to hurt her again," Rush says pleasantly. "I do hope we understand each other."

[ofschrodinger]

The cat blinks in surprise and finally pushes itself upright, tilting its head at the little apes before it. No, it says, curious as to Rush's meaning. I do not understand. What is it you believe you can do to me?

[etherthief]

Iman looks up sharply, staring at Rush, hair prickling all over her arms. What is he doing, what is he saying? He won't be so lenient? What's he going to do, does he honestly think he poses any sort of threat to this thing? Does he think saying something like that won't make him an automatic target? He's just casually poking a fucking beehive.

The cat is equally bewildered, coy and questioning, and her shoulders stiffen as she pushes her chair back and stands. "Rush," she says, somewhere between warning and shocked. "Shut up."

[lottawork]

"I'm certain I can think of something," he says, evidently pleased to have engendered a reaction from the thing. He tips his head to one side in a slow, deliberate display of insouciance. "Particularly since you let a few of your specimens slip away quite recently, didn't you?"

Asadi's tensed, warning hiss provokes a subtle twitch of a muscle in his jaw, his amused veneer sliding into a hard glint in his eyes, an edge suggestive of a latent threat. "To me, that proves something rather important: that you're fallible."

[ofschrodinger]

For the first time, the cat uses its physical voice, letting out a feline growl that does not befit its dignity. This form can be so lacking at times. It would not be difficult to damage you beyond repair, it says sharply, because it wouldn't, it really wouldn't. You do not understand how gentle I have been.

[etherthief]

"No," she says sharply, and walks around to put herself between Rush and the cat, facing him - much as she wants to talk back, tell the creature if it fucking dared to do anything to him she'd - well, what could she do, really, and therein lies the problem. She resists putting her hand on Rush's shoulder, though she half-reaches for him on impulse. "Don't you fucking get yourself killed. Not on my account. Don't you dare."

[lottawork]

Asadi rises with the scrape of chair over floor, placing herself directly between cat and cryptographer. He meets her eyes, a reluctant flicker of his gaze from the feline perched above to her locked expression, and holds it only a shade shorter than the typical interval.

"I fail to see how that's relevant," he says diplomatically, partially addressing the form or consciousness or entity in mammalian shape. "It hurt you. Call it an opportunity for a fair exchange."

[ofschrodinger]

What would be the purpose? asks the cat, ears flat in irritation. It still does not understand -- that is, it understands that this laughably tiny being is insulting it, but it does not understand the purpose of the insult. There is a purpose behind every exchange, or there should be.

[lottawork]

Rush shrugs fluidly in a motion he hopes conveys nothing but a complete lack of concern, nothing but composed civility.

"Retribution. Recrimination. However you choose to define it." A painfully human motivation, but he has never been beyond that, a fact of which he is wholly aware. His unperturbed air sharpens, his tone laced with a fierce, defiant bite. "You hurt someone who happens to be rather important to me. Surely you anticipated repercussions."

[etherthief]

Iman keeps her eyes fixed on Rush (because she doesn't dare look at the stupid cat), a complicated mess of expressions flickering across her features; she's tense, furious with him for playing the agitator so soon after they both witnessed the Rift's idea of 'gentle punishment' - she's desperate to redirect things, angry with herself for not fighting back alongside him. She's grateful for his, what, his dedication to her - the casual declaration of her 'importance' - sure. But that's a low priority in the grand scheme.

"This is inadvisable," she hisses to him, her one hand drawn into a tight fist.

[ofschrodinger]

You are capable only of -- the cat has to stop and search for a word again, one sufficiently diminutive, --annoying me. The repercussions would all be yours.

This was not its purpose in coming here. It does not care for these micro-interactions the way certain of its counterparts do. No, the purpose was to investigate the aftermath of an escape attempt, and the cat abruptly refocuses its blank gaze on Iman. You are correct, it informs her. The...pathways...you would have exploited are gone. You will not attempt it again.

[lottawork]

His eyes flick to hers in an even, perfunctory glance. She is quite correct. However, he finds himself utterly beyond the general giving of fucks in regards to this creature and whatever aspects of the Rift it represents.

It has, intentionally or not, made things rather simple for him.

He smiles faintly, a brazen, one-cornered twist to his mouth that approximates a bladed edge.

"I wouldn't be entirely certain of that."

[etherthief]

She shrinks slightly, left helpless and frustrated as they continue to talk around her, Rush continuing to be a stupid shit - she presses her hand to her face, peering between her fingers at the cat-creature.

"You can't cage and torture people without expecting them to try to escape," she says quietly. "That was your first mistake. Your second one being that you're trying to tell him what to do."

[ofschrodinger]

I can, argues the cat, because it can and it did. It's not the cat's fault these creatures are so unreasonable. Can they not see that they belong to it? It really is quite a simple matter.

I will do as I please with you, it decides.

[lottawork]

He fixes it with an even stare, cool and unrepentant, progressing them to whatever outcome is derived from two forces opposed.

"Likewise," he says, the word a charged hiss.

[etherthief]

She stares at him, eyes wide and maybe a little terrified in addition to impressed. She'd be saying the exact same shit if their roles were switched, she knows that.

And as scared as she is, as much as she's felt the sting of the Rift's wrath, nothing will make her demur when told explicitly that she belongs to something else.

So she turns on the cat, allowing herself to be bolstered by Rush's absurdly overconfident assertion, as well as bolstered by his general presence. "We are not your things," she says coldly. "And we are going to find a way out."

They are both making an immense gamble with an entity which, as Daniel's example has shown, can kill them at any moment, for no reason at all. And they're essentially giving it one. They are jointly assuming that they are interesting enough specimens that it will not destroy them completely; and they are hoping, too, that it will continue to underestimate them.

Let it do what it will, she thinks, reckless and afraid.

She needs a drink. No, fuck that. They just essentially declared war on a sentient spacetime entity. She needs, like. Thirty goddamn drinks.

[ofschrodinger]

You are...strange little creatures, says the cat, baffled by their collective insistence that they are otherwise than it knows them to be. It stands, staring down at them imperiously, seemingly unaware that its fur is standing on end. It is bigger, it is stronger, it is more intelligent. They should comprehend this. I may decide it is not permissible that you repair her arm. I may decide that it is not permissible either of you remains intact.

[lottawork]

They have left it in a state of imbalance, whether it is perturbed or unsettled or startled or some other variant. Feline body language is altogether somewhat beyond him, but its reaction is stark and unmistakeable. Asadi is, perhaps, equally unnerved, but she has aligned herself along his axis of ill-advised human brinksmanship versus that of a spatiotemporal aberration of a frankly indiscernible nature.

Rush lifts his chin, his expression one of unfettered scorn.

"I'd advise against it," he says in a tone that suggests that what he is saying is perfectly reasonable.

[etherthief]

All right, you know what, no. Iman swings back to Rush, looking somewhere between aghast and outraged. "OKAY," she says in a clipped tone, reaches out and grabs the first thing she can find, which is a small screwdriver. She uses this implement to gesticulate at him like a teacher scolding a student, which is mildly ironic, given their falsified relationship in the previous night's dream. "And now, instead of continuing this conversational arms race until it literally kills us, you're going to fix my fucking arm. You promised me you would, and you can't do it if you're dead, can you?"

Much as she is repulsed by the idea of letting him work on it under the luminescent eyes of this feline asshole, which probably won't leave until it wants to - much as she still isn't convinced he'll be able to do anything for her at all - this would be preferable to Rush willfully driving the thing to make good on its threats. Honestly, this arrogant idiot. How did he ever survive before he knew her?

She finds his eyes, holding his gaze with intensity, and a bit of a plea. "Please can we just do this," she says quietly.

[ofschrodinger]

It could break them, what does the ape not understand about this?! The cat leans off the edge of the refrigerator, looming over them as its tail lashes back and forth. Advise against it, will he --

It lets out a huff as the other one steps in, a voice of reason despite her ridiculous assertions of a moment ago.

[lottawork]

He continues to look at it, disconcertingly pearlescent eyes swirling with little more than pointed, possessive annoyance, or whatever other nebulous things are experienced by externalized aspects of spatially-temporally-anomalous entities.

It has occurred to him, in light of recent events, that this may not have been the intended outcome of Destiny's mission at all.

It has occurred to him that the Rift has the capability to be infinitely more powerful than whatever message happened to be buried in the cosmic microwave background radiation of his universe.

It has occurred to him that he has been untethered from his brane for a purpose, and this purpose did not entail any sort of reasoning as to wanting him for his talent or his genius or his mathematical ability. It amounted to a spatiotemporal irregularity's randomized interest. It amounted to something unpredictable, something that could have easily seized upon some other iteration of him or anyone else than it did this particular version of Dr. Nicholas Rush. It tore apart an Ancient ship at the event horizon of the intersecting chiral matter, shredded it beneath gravity and pressure and pure shearing force. Done out of spite, possibly, or, more simply, because it was in the way.

A muscle in his jaw works. His stare hardens, briefly, into something flinted.

He looks away.

There is a tool extended to him and he takes it.

"Yes," he says, his voice ringing rough and distant. "Yes. Of course."

[etherthief]

He's not okay.

She can't discern what precisely just happened under his stony features and that one little muscle spasm, but it wasn't good. She lets him take the screwdriver, eyes still flicking nervously back and forth over his face, though he isn't meeting her gaze anymore.

Having too, too recently been through a singularly unraveling existential crisis of her own, she's pretty sure she can spot its symptoms, but she can never be too sure with him.

They can't talk about it right now. And probably not ever. He doesn't talk.

She moves wordlessly to the kitchen, ignoring the prickle on the back of her neck as she passes directly beneath the cat's leaping range, opens a cabinet, pulls out the first bottle she sees, and returns to the worktable. She plunks it down between them with a matter-of-factness that is approaching nihilistic indifference, and sits, moving her arm to reach between them, the better for him to tinker.

The bottle may be utilized now, or later. Its presence is a clear indication that she has no fucks left to give whether or not he works sober; the ball is resoundingly in his court.