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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everything seems to be taking Jack at least three times as long as it normally would, and that seems vaguely like something Sinclair should be worried about. But there's nothing he can do for him right at the moment. He just hopes that when they come across any splicers, the adrenaline will be enough to shake him back to real time.

"We'll be home before you know it," Sinclair says, leading the way out and stopping by the key pad to scramble the numbers again.

Jack follows, moving more alertly now that he's just moving -- a simple task and he can keep momentum going. He doesn't feel physically weak or tired, he just feels... stopped. Blocked up. Something cold and grey that he can't really find the words for.

It can only be the ADAM, can't it? The sudden lack of it over the last few days. It'd make him feel better, he knows that much.

...Huh. Apparently he's still quite capable of feeling fear.

Eventually, they reach Olympus Heights, and though Jack is more tattered and bruised than he might be -- he's taken more hits than usual, reacted without some of his speed -- they've gotten there in one piece.

Jack sinks onto the couch, more awake than before but still listless. Finds himself staring at no particular part of the wall.

There are things he'd like to do, but damned if it isn't going to take him a few minutes to straighten them all out.

Back inside, Sinclair makes a beeline for the kitchen. It's not what Jack needs, but then again it's not exactly something Jack doesn't need.

A couple minutes later, Sinclair appears back in the living room with two sandwiches. He sets one down on the coffee table in front of Jack and places himself at the opposite end of the sofa, immediately digging into his to assuage the persistent growling of his own stomach.

Man, that is never ever something Jack doesn't need. The day he loses his appetite is the day you should really start worrying.

Admittedly, it takes him a few minutes to realise that he's just been staring at the sandwich rather than eating it. But once he picks it up it's gone in seconds.

Wow, he needs to get moving his carcass before he calcifies here.

"...Mister Sinclair?"

Ah! It speaks!

"Hm?"

wow you can just keep your lip to yourself mister porkfeet

"I think I... should find another one."

Well, he's come out with it now.

wow rude, throwing insults around is a little unnecessary okay I'm gonna need you to calm down.

Sinclair opens his mouth to ask another one what? But a half a second later he knows, and he closes it again with a sigh.

"I think that might be a good idea, son," he says after another second.

Jack nods slowly and shifts on the couch, going from sack of potatoes to ready-to-stand. He's already shed most of his stuff onto it, but he straps his guns back on fast enough, and the wrench has never left his belt.

"I'll come back soon," he says, which is all the preamble Sinclair's really going to get before Jack heads off to the door. He may be having brain problems but he's not accustomed to procrastination.

The door clicks shut behind Jack and his flat is silent again. He picks up their dishes and walks them to the sink, deciding to come back to them later.

For now, there's a short wave radio on his sofa that he may or may not have been staring down for the past five or ten minutes.

Now that he's alone, he picks it up and radios Tenenbaum.

"...Doctor? It's Augustus Sinclair."

There's some thick clunking -- someone on the other end isn't being too careful about touching the microphone.

"Hello! I'm mama Tenenbaum!"

That is not Tenenbaum.

There's some giggling in the background, and then some shushing.

"I'm sorry to say... you smell bad and you need a bath!"

The giggling breaks out again, and some enterprising youth calls "Ewwwww!" in a high voice that indicates she's holding her nose.

Okay. It's impossible not to laugh at that.

"Well I'm terribly sorry, Doctor," he says with an obvious smile in his voice. "I hope I haven't offended you."

The giggling continues. "You're nicer than the other men," decides the girl.

"Paulina!"

Uh oh. Mama bear's here.

"Bitte, child, do not talk on the radio." Her tone's scolding, but otherwise it's worlds apart from any Sinclair has heard from her before. It's not the kind of voice that thinks the listener needs a punch in the teeth. At worst it's the voice of a mother who'd really like her child to stop running in the road.

It's probably the most human she's ever sounded.

"But he's not a bad man," says Paulina.

"Off the chair, come now. Isabel, this does not mean you will climb up. Down, the both of you."

"Aaaaaaawwww, mama!"

"I am sure I told you all to be practicing the spelling -- This is Sinclair?" she adds to the microphone, in between herding six-year-olds. She only heard the tail end of his voice, but it was enough for a positive identification. And what on earth is Sinclair radioing her for? "I am quite busy."

Sinclair clears his throat. It's serious business time.

"I apologize," he says, "I wouldn't call you if it wasn't urgent, Doctor. A few things have...come up. If you've got a moment, I promise I will not waste your time."

A pause, then, "--It's about Jack."

But of course it is, is there anything else they have in common at this point?

Apparently the girls have not yet been successfully shooed, because there's still that ambient noise of whispering and fidgeting and, now, a couple of noises of dismay. The 'eww' girl shouts "Ewwwwwwwww," again.

"Margaret," says Tenenbaum sharply.

"Why're you friends with him?" says Paulina. She sounds disappointed, as if knowing Jack is a major flaw in Sinclair's otherwise unimpeachable character.

"Paulina," says Tenenbaum with waning patience, "all of you, the other room while I speak with Mr. Sinclair."

She sighs and rubs her face as they finally begin to troop out, some of the more obedient and/or more self-preserving tugging on the others' sleeves.

"Bye-bye, mister! Tschüs! Bye-bye! Ciao!"

"Isabel."

"...Yes, mama." The last set of footsteps hurries off, with a proud background "I said goodbye to him!".

Tenenbaum audibly exhales. Young children are difficult.

And speaking of difficult children.

"What has happened?"

"I, um," Sinclair starts, but. This isn't a radio conversation. There's too much of it.

"A few things have come to my attention recently... and I think I may end up needing your help."

Those two statements are not directly related to one another, but they are still both very relevant.

"Not without compensation, of course," he adds quickly.

The question of whether and what compensation might be needed can wait until she knows what the problem is, and whether she'll even be helping.

But. She has a feeling she will, because--

"You say it is Jack."

There are soooooo many things that could be going horribly wrong with that boy. And there's a little worry in her voice, even -- in her home, the children close, she doesn't mean to be but she's a little less guarded.

"Something he has done, or..."

Or something pretty awful would have to happen to him before he'd need Tenenbaum's urgent help. So neither of those two options are exactly sunny.

"No, no, nothing like that. It's uh."

How can he put this in a way that's not going to sound as though he wants to bring her over simply to try and pry information out of her? Because there's more to it than that. He does need her help. Jack needs her help.

So stay away from the information part entirely.

"Doc, he's not holding up very well. As you know he's been going well out of his way to start trying to help your little girls, but now he's dealing with the consequences and. ...I'm just concerned, is all. I know you don't owe him a thing, but if you're willing to give me just a few minutes of your time, I promise I will make it up to you."

Dealing with the consequences.

"He is having a withdrawal?"

If she sounds alarmed, that's because she is. That shouldn't be happening. That should really not be happening. Of course it was all experimental, everything about Jack is experimental, but still -- did they get a calculation wrong?

"It looks that way to me."

But her surprise seems just a little unwarranted. If you give a man a drug, he's going to want more. If you keep giving him more, he's going to get used to always having more. And if you take it away, he's going to still want more. That's how drugs work.

She's a doctor, she knows that. So...what is he missing here?

She puts her hand over her face again, then strings her fingers together, steadying herself. Okay, yes, this is a pretty huge failure on her part. She must have made a serious scientific error somewhere along the line. But let's figure out how big that error was, and then instead of freaking out, let's find a way to fix it. That's what she does.

Has she really made a mistake? Is this what making mistakes feels like? She just doesn't make mistakes this big, at least not factual ones.

Regardless. It looks like -- what's that saying? -- there really is a first time for everything.

"Describe to me the symptoms," she says, very businesslike, very doctorlike. "No -- no, I will see him. Is he still -- to live at your apartment?"

Wow she needs to calm down and words properly. But she... doesn't fuck up. She tells other people when they're fucking up. She especially doesn't fuck up when the stakes are as high as they are here.

Sinclair nods, soaking in her tone.

Wow, Tenenbaum. What's gotten into you?

Wait, she can't see that.

"Yes ma'am," he says. "He's out right at the moment, but-- actually, he's out saving one of your girls. Something is better than nothing, I suppose, but it's not gonna last him."

"He is having a withdrawal from ADAM and you let him go out of your sight?"

Sinclair you're a [swear words in German meaning idiot].

Deep breath. Back to the steady tone. "Then you must describe for now."

"What was I supposed to do?" Sinclair nearly snaps, but reels his tone back in just in time. "The kid was shaking like a leaf, looked about ready to fall over any second. He needed the boost, I couldn't have kept him here if I wanted to."

He stops, exhales.

"Please, Doc. I...found out a few things I probably ought to've left well enough alone. Some things I need to ask you about. Both of us could use your help right about now, I will make it up to you."

"I will help, but I must know his symptoms."

She's already trying to help, if he'd actually give her anything specific to work with, jesus christmas. Tenenbaum is 300% done and rising.

"And then you will tell me what 'few things' you mean." Because that. Sounds bad. Quite, quite bad.

Sinclair breathes out in relief. She said she'll help, that's a step in the right direction.

"Well there's the shaking," he says, focusing on a spot on the carpet as he tries to recollect everything he can. "The shaking gets pretty bad. He gets quiet and irritable. Well." Ha. "Quieter and more irritable," he laughs.

Oh and the highlight of all of it-- "We were on our way back in just this afternoon and he nearly collapsed on a wall, turned white as a sheet, slow reaction time, seemed like everything was taking him a whole lot of effort."

There, are you happy?

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