darling it's better down where it's wetter

[did_unkindly]

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

Comments

[modestman]

He watches the splicer drop and after a second of staring at her dead, bleeding body, he exhales.

"You," he says to Tenenbaum, laughing a bit nervously, "are one hell of a shot."

Seriously, that was too close for comfort. He can improvise all day long, but when it's a matter of life or death it changes the game a little. And not in a fun way.

[so_shower_maybe]

"Remember it," she tells him flatly.

Uh... complement taken? I guess?

Tenenbaum carefully wipes some blood from her cheek, then starts to reload her pistol. The whole time she's watching Sinclair closely.

"Perhaps next time, you learn to shoot before you enter a fight, yes?"

[modestman]

It's probably a little late for that, if he hasn't learned how to shoot straight yet then he'll probably never learn. He shrugs in response, then decides to take the conversation a somewhat less embarrassing route.

"What are you doing out here? You're gonna get yourself killed." He keeps his tone amused, although he figures the information could be useful. Tenenbaum's flat is in Olympus Heights, but nowhere near his. She's got to have some reason.

[so_shower_maybe]

Yeah, because she's just going to straight up tell him she was trying to case his joint.

"Food is growing short. And I have many mouths to find it for."

A long, steady look. She's wondering how he'll answer. Sinclair might know something about those mouths, if he's inferred the right things from news articles, or if Jack has given them away.

[modestman]

Sinclair knows about the mouths. It's been mostly rumor, but it was plausible enough for him to believe. Really it didn't matter to him one way or the other. The Little Sisters weren't, aren't, his department. The Big Daddies who protected them...a little more so, but he has other priorities. And really, he can't say he disagrees with her cause, even if he wouldn't ever care enough to take it up himself.

"I was just heading back from the grocer myself, I didn't realize there was another one in this wing," he says with a wry tone.

[so_shower_maybe]

"Hah," says Tenenbaum. "Not all of us have goods to trade. Or are welcome among the traders."

Downside of inventing a drug that helped lead directly to the downfall of civilisation? If someone recognises you, the cost of a head of lettuce will mysteriously skyrocket before your very eyes.

She gets it. It's a huge pain, but she gets it. She just wishes it didn't do harm to the children as well.

[modestman]

Sinclair nods. He's dealt with that a couple times, but fortunately he's got the money to be welcome just about anywhere. Doctor Tenenbaum is, apparently, not as fortunate. But she seems to have done okay for herself so far.

He pauses, about to say something, but this isn't the place.

"Well," he says finally, reaching into his pocket, "I don't know about you, but after all of that I could go for a cigarette." He pulls out the box and opens it, offering it to her. It's a peace offering and an invitation. They've got a few things to talk about.

[so_shower_maybe]

Tenenbaum accepts a cigarette, and lets him light it, too.

"Perhaps somewhere more safe," she suggests. Together, if he's up for it. There are a few things Tenenbaum's curious to know, and while Sinclair himself is here...

[modestman]

Ladies first, of course. He lights his cigarette after hers and pockets the rest again, taking a few steps back to where he left his groceries around the corner where he'd been hiding.

"The kid's asleep right now, if you want to you're perfectly welcome to come back to my flat," he says, already starting in that direction. "Do you drink? You strike me as a vodka woman."

[so_shower_maybe]

"He is staying with you?"

She'd suspected as much, if they were trying to escape together, but confirmation is... something. Tenenbaum can't help but wonder how much Sinclair knows about what he's getting dragged into.

No word on the vodka, but after a moment of thought, she does begin to follow him. She was looking for his safehouse anyway, so here's a shortcut.

(Sinclair she thinks she could take in a fight if she has to. Jack... she hopes it wouldn't come to that; he didn't seem bent on revenge when they ran into each other before. It's a calculated risk.)

[modestman]

"As long as he doesn't start eating the furniture," he laughs. "I don't believe he's ever not hungry."

But there's a risk there too, he's not sure how happy Jack would be to wake up with her there. After their last run-in, he was...pretty upset. He's bringing her back with relatively high stakes in acquiring something in the process, whether it's help finding a way out or just an ally. Anything is useful at this point. But if Jack wakes up and Sinclair has nothing to show for it, he's not really sure what's going to happen.

[so_shower_maybe]

Something flickers at the edges of Tenenbaum's mouth. The massively accelerated growth did interesting things to his metabolism; if only it were so easy to get the girls to eat their vegetables.

She pushes it down; it wasn't a smile. If anything, if Sinclair is even looking, she might appear a little sick.

"You are not wrong about that."

Hey, it's no secret that she and Jack know each other.

[modestman]

Whatever face Tenenbaum is making, Sinclair definitely smiles. A small one, but there's no mistaking it. Apparently Jack has a reputation.

He lets them walk the rest of the way in silence, partly because he's got nothing to say and partly because he would rather not attract any more attention than absolutely necessary.

Once they get to his door, he motions for Tenenbaum to wait a moment while he goes in and adjusts his turrets to let her pass, and then reappears to motion her inside.

"I've got a study in the back, we should be able to talk there without disturbing him," he tells her.

[so_shower_maybe]

After a brief pause -- the time it takes to wonder if this is a huge mistake, and then dismiss that as emotion rather than logic -- she follows him in.

Jack is there, fast asleep, tossed around a bit but still curled around his wrench. He hasn't eaten the couch but he has drooled on it a bit. Maybe that's a preliminary warning sign.

He lies there like a living, breathing accusation.

Tenenbaum's glance is subtly pained, and goes on for maybe a few seconds too long. Then she gathers herself. Her face returns to normal.

Once they've made it to the study, she says quietly, her voice as dry as Rapture isn't: "You have given him a bath at last. My congratulations."

[modestman]

"He took it willingly too," Sinclair laughs, closing the door behind them and heading straight for the liquor cabinet. "Was it vodka? I'm a whiskey man, myself."

He pulls down the bottle for himself and a couple glasses, filling the bottom of his. There's nothing wrong with having a routine. This is how he executes most of his business conversations. Only this time, there's a little more at stake. Which, with as long as he's been doing this, is saying something.

[so_shower_maybe]

"I will take whiskey."

She raises an eyebrow at the fact that Sinclair literally has and maintains a liquor cabinet. There aren't many with the means for that in Rapture any more. Well, she won't look the gift horse in the mouth.

"Who knows what disgusting thing he will next find to roll in," she muses, as if the Big Daddy pheromones weren't entirely her idea.

[modestman]

Sinclair nods and fills her glass the same as his, passing it and he sits in an armchair across from her.

"I'm curious," he says, dropping his cigarette into an ash tray. "He's only been in Rapture for a few days, how is it you know him so well?"

[so_shower_maybe]

It's okay, she thought he might ask that.

"We have been in communication."

Her tone gives nothing away, if you don't count habitual iciness.

"The radio."

[modestman]

"Seems to me you're not particularly fond of the kid," he offers. If he has to pry information out of her, that's alright. Sometimes that's what needs to be done.

"Now why would you keep in communication with him if there's so much bad blood?"

[so_shower_maybe]

"Why should the blood have always been bad?"

She takes a sip of the whiskey, shudders briefly. Wonders whether to elaborate on what Jack's been up to with his moral choices.

"What makes you trust him?"

[modestman]

Sinclair shrugs casually, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip.

"I wouldn't say I trust him exactly, but I don't reckon he has anything to gain from stabbing me in the back. I'm his ticket out of this dump, he knows that."

That's part of it anyway. The rest of it was gut instinct. He's not usually wrong about people when he meets them. First impression is everything, and Sinclair's met some really crooked people in his time. Jack just didn't fall in with them.

[so_shower_maybe]

"Hah."

She's not disagreeing, just... yeah. Yeah, that's a motivation she can buy for the unholy union of Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine.

"Und with your weapons skills, I guess that you use him as a bodyguard?"

Would you guess that she won't buy 'I'm taking him out of the kindness of my heart'?

[modestman]

You wound him, narration. Sinclair is a charitable man, why would you believe otherwise?

"Call it a symbiotic relationship," he says. "Rapture's not getting any safer. And what about you? It sounds like something went wrong there, might I inquire as to what that was?"

[so_shower_maybe]

Tenenbaum looks at Sinclair for several moments.

Then she says bluntly:

"He kills the children."

(And do you know about that, she wonders? What do you think of it?)

Her voice remains steady, but disgust lines her face. Disgust and anger and disappointment.

[modestman]

Sinclair sighs. He should have known, really. Those pieces aren't particularly hard to put together, but without knowing the nature of their relationship there's no context. It makes sense, though. Of course.

"He needs the ADAM. He hasn't got much of a choice."