weathertop | darling it's better down where it's wetter

darling it's better down where it's wetter

It's been a day, it's been a day, it's been a whole damn day -- as near as it's possible to tell in this soggy excuse for a city. It's been a day since he killed Fontaine. And Jack is no closer to getting out. He's still down here. He did everything he was supposed to do and he's still down here.

All he's found is locked-down bathyspheres. Broken submarines. Even the goddamn boats are out of service. Where's Tenenbaum? Where's his fucking rescue?

Jack stares about into the greenish gloom, checks the ammo in his pistol, and then kicks and yanks off the rusting panel of a vending machine. His hands are soon full of little wires and pipes. A few seconds later, he straightens up with a grunt, and the machine gives him a tidy discount on a couple glowing hypos of EVE.

With his visit extended indefinitely, he's begun to wonder how many of them are left.

Now arbitrarily divided into chapters!
Part One: A Scene at the Rapture Adoption Agency ~or~ You Found [Pot of Ham]!
Part Two: Come On-A My House, I'm Gonna Give-A You Candy ~or~ Sinclair? More Like Sin Pantalones!
Part Three: Dream Sequences are a Fresh New Concept in Fiction ~or~ It's My Existential Trauma and I'll Cry if I Want To
Part Four: Southern Education Jokes ~or~ Engineer, Engifar, Engiwherever You Are ~or~ The Grave Escape
Part Five: Golfing Accident Memoirs ~or~ Mom... Dad... I'm Immortal ~or~ How To Make Friends And Immolate People
Part Six: Is It A Pie? Is It A Plane?? ~or~ Two's Company, Three's a Row
Part Seven: Escort Missions! In Rapture! Council's In An Uproar ~or~ Bioshock: Cheesecake Edition
Part Eight: Bread, Milk, BATTLE! ~or~ Pleasant Conversations, How They Bore Me
Part Nine: Choices, Schmoices ~or~ Baby's First Moral Philosophy ~or~ Go Away I Want To Take A Damn Bath
Part Ten: A Man Snoozes; A Slave Delays ~or~ The Four Second Rule Applies To Drugs
Part Eleven: A Hearty Meal ~or~ Skeletons In The-- That's Not A Closet
Part Twelve: We All Live in a Secret Submarine ~or~ Plasmids: Not Even Once
Part Thirteen: Paging Dr Tenenbaum To Surgery ~or~ Bribery And Deduction
Part Fourteen: The Prodigal Son Returns

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Without looking at him, she holds up a finger to silence Jack. No. After everything, you get to wait.

"Forgive me," she says in a voice that does not want forgiving at all, at least not for this, "I prefer to make my own arrangements."

Translation: she doesn't trust you as far as she could throw you, and especially not as far as your safehouse, you shady bastard.

Now, and only now, does she look at Jack again.

She wants to think it's something -- an apology. A comment that displays some remorse. Something. But she doesn't expect it will be.

"What could you have to say?"

Tenenbaum's voice is cold, of course. But underneath the ice, there's something else: a deep, sorrowful disappointment.

What could he have to say? A million things.

How could she abandon him, after Fontaine? How come she never told him who he was for so long? How can she be mad at him about the Little Sisters when she made them? How come she made him -- how could she think that was okay? How many of his memories are total lies? Did he ever live with somebody or talk to somebody back in the world, or is all that was real sitting on a plane and reading a note? Who the hell is he? Does anyone give a shit?

He stands there with his mouth open, as all these things fight each other to be said.

And at last, he just says:

"You never answer the radio any more."

In a voice that's a lot more hurt than he meant it to be.

Fair enough, if he were in her shoes he might reject that offer as well. It wasn't really made for her convenience, though, it was made to keep Jack from doing something they might both regret. Whatever that may be.

But when Jack speaks...

there's obviously a good amount of history here that Sinclair doesn't know about. That he won't know about, at least not right now. For now, he lets himself stand back and listen. He doesn't want to jump to any conclusions just yet.

She stares at Jack for a moment. Of all the things he could say, of all the questions he might have, of all the --

"You are surprised, child?" she asks sharply. Then her eyes go to Sinclair, and she bites her tongue.

"Now is not the time."

This is so not a public discussion, and anyway, she wants to get away before the inevitable random encounter wandering splicers show up.

"When is the time?" he asks miserably.

Thin-lipped:

"Perhaps if you do not shoot me in the back as I walk away, there will come a time."

She isn't joking. With Jack's history, it's nice to have the insurance.

Okayyy...there's obviously some history here that Sinclair isn't supposed to know about. That they don't want him to know about. And that's a little annoying, but it's nothing he hasn't dealt with before.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Tenenbaum," Sinclair says to break the tension. "Hope we run into each other again soon."

Jack is silent.

He doesn't understand why she thinks he would do that.

(Punch her, sure, probably in or around the face, but not kill her. Okay, maybe sometimes kill her when he's been really angry. But not, you know, right now. And that's what matters!)

And she looks away from Jack again, to Sinclair, quite decisively.

"Pretend I am returning the compliment."

She turns on her heel and sets off at a trot, perhaps a shade faster than she usually would -- she's very aware of the men and their weapons at her back. Particularly Jack's. The man is a weapon, and as she leaves, her stomach feels heavy at the thought of that weapon finding its way to the surface.

Sinclair watches her in silence until she rounds a corner and disappears from view.

"Charming girl," he says, shaking his head.

And then he turns to Jack, looks at him for a second or two and is about to speak when he hears a noise behind them, a quiet whoosh of air and some distant inaudible muttering. They're not alone, they need to get out of there now. There's time to talk later.

He motions for Jack to go first and follows behind him.

You're presuming a direction in which Jack moves.

He watches Tenenbaum go as well, his fists opening and closing, struggling with himself. Almost more than anything else he wants to run and stop her leaving again. The only thing holding him back is the vague promise that they can talk again -- and that means not now -- but he could make her talk -- but that's not the kind of interaction he wants. He thinks. He doesn't know.

Then she's gone, it's too late, he didn't decide. Sinclair says something but he barely pays attention.

Now that she's vanished from his life for a second -- a third -- time, more than anything else he wants to hurt something.

And what do you know? Something teleports in somewhere behind them.

Jack takes a long, deep, angry breath. Then he turns: not the way they're going, but the way they came.

"I'm here, you piece of shit!"

His voice is hoarse.

The answer is immediate, a woman's screech. "Who's there? This is my home! Get your own!"

Jack's already running around the corner, regardless of Sinclair, flinging electricity. Doesn't matter if she's a Houdini. So long as he can stop her for long enough to bury the wrench in her skull.

The second Jack turns around, Sinclair knows what he intends to do. He tries to reach for Jack's sleeve, but he's too slow and Jack disappears around the corner before he can even get a word in. There's the vicious buzz of Electro Bolt, a woman screaming nonsense and Jack screaming obscenities back at her. It echoes down the hall so loud it almost hurts his ears.

Jack will kill her, and he'll feel better for it. It won't fix anything, but it'll be a relief. So Sinclair hangs back, watching from around the corner.

Zap her, whack her. Jack's swing is even stronger and angrier when he remembers Atlas telling him how to do it. The splicer wails in pain and she's already coughing blood when she throws fire.

Jack swears and beats out his burning sleeve, and she has time to teleport, red mist blending with the spatter already around her. Her mistake is not teleporting away. She stays in the fight, and the second she reappears she meets fire -- lightning -- a heavy metal wrench.

She falls, and then a couple blows later, she's dead.

A couple blows after that, she's very very dead.

Uh, Jack?

You can stop now.

Splicer successfully overpowered, he returns to Sinclair, hurrying until he sees that the man has waited. His sleeve and arm are burned to a decent degree. His front is splattered with very close-range blood.

He doesn't say anything; his face is drawn up, scrunched.

He doesn't look as if he feels much better.

Sinclair looks Jack over in silence for a moment before his eyes land on his burnt arm.

"You oughta use a med kit on that, son. Looks painful."

Unfortunately a med kit's not gonna take care of whatever else Jack is carrying around right now, whatever's darkening his expression, making him look much older than he is (...reality of the situation aside).

Jack ducks his head, fishes out the kit Sinclair found earlier and jabs its hypo into his burned up arm. He stiffens, because second degree burns aren't generally the best place to stab giant needles, but doesn't react otherwise as his skin smooths over into smooth pinkish scars.

Doesn't do anything for his sweater, but let's be honest, his sweater had already seen better days.

"Coast's... clear," he says haltingly.

It's a deliberate echo of what he said when he went through the crawlspace. Remember that, Sinclair? That was a happier time, can they savestate back to that and forget all... this?

Things have definitely changed since the last time Jack said that, and the worst part is that Sinclair can't figure out exactly why. He needs to ask questions, but it's bad timing. Even if they were in a safer spot.

"...You okay, kid?" he asks, keeping his tone soft.

Unfortunately, Jack's a little more sensitive to his variety of regional nicknames than usual.

"Stop calling me kid," he snaps, "I'm a grown-up."

Sinclair frowns, an uncomfortable cross between annoyance and pity. "You're still a kid. You've got a lot ahead of you. A whole lot."

An entire life, actually. A brand new one, once they can get out of this hell hole.

"Don't leave me down here."

It's halfway between you'd better not, if you know what's good for you, and please, please don't.

'Kid' and 'child', the word in a Georgia or a Brooklyn accent, they're all tiny similarities but he hates them and he wants to be able to trust Sinclair. And he does, he thinks, but he's shaken. And he needs to be able to trust someone.

And with that, any trace of annoyance leaves Sinclair's expression. It becomes more of a sympathetic smile, and he thinks he's figured out at least part of what's going on here. He reaches up to squeeze Jack's shoulder, giving him a sincere look although he's not really sure what to say.

He decides on, "Let's get back to Olympus, chief. This place gives me the creeps."

After all, they need a chance to regroup if they're going to escape. Which they will. Both of them.

The narration is impressed with Sinclair for getting over the grossness of the shoulder in question enough to make such a fatherly gesture. The shoulder he squeezes is tense like a spring, shaking like a body with too much feeling and no clear direction for it.

Jack lowers his head slowly.

That wasn't a yes or a no. But the look and the tone were about right.

"Okay, mister Sinclair."

He doesn't sound miserable or happy, one way or the other. He just sounds agreeable: the one interpersonal skill he can always fall back on.

Jack may be the grosser of the two, but let's face it. They're both pretty gross. The shoulder squeeze was the least he could do, even if it was the most he could think of.

After following the hallway for a few more seconds, they pass through a set of double doors and are emptied out into another room. A sizable room, it looks familiar to Sinclair but not enough to point them in a specific direction.

"Catch a scent yet?"

...

Jack looks at him weirdly, but obediently sniffs the air.

The narration assumes he will be interrupted before getting a chance to report his findings.

"I mean do you know where we are?" Sinclair interrupts, completely unpredictably.

Sometimes he has to wonder if Jack is intentionally playing dumb, but then he remembers that Jack doesn't really have the sense of humor for that. It must be that he just didn't get out much back in Kansas. Or at all. Ever.

"Oh."

He has the decency to look embarrassed. Really quite embarrassed. Capital work not standing out as the freak y'are, boyo.

You know, this does look familiar. At a certain point either terror or tiredness just started to make everything blend together, but he thinks he recognises this.

"Ye-es. I think we can go through Emergency Access," he says, and sets off at a cautious pace. There'll be splicers jumping out at them, for sure. He remembers Med Pavilion being a pretty shit-scary place the first time he was here.

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