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]

There's definitely a threshold between an I'm-thinking-about-what-you're-saying stare and a now-I'm-thinking-about-something-else stare and it's not really making Sinclair uncomfortable, but he's not exactly sure what to say now either.

Actually, he almost anticipated a fair amount of incredulity on Jack's expression, but that's not there either. It's just blank, nothing. He can't read it and that alone unsettles him a bit.

"You alright?"

[did_unkindly]

Jack comes back. He starts to chew on his lip again.

He keeps thinking of Atlas and how he never realised the whole man was a lie, he couldn't tell. He wants to ask, now, if Sinclair is telling the truth. It's like being blind and the only way to see is to ask other people. But he also feels like accusing Sinclair of lying isn't the best way to foster a happy working relationship.

Oh no. Is this why people in Rapture are always deceiving each other? This is awful.

He takes a breath and opens his mouth.

"I want to go to bed now."

[modestman]

Something doesn't sit right here, and the only plausible explanation is that Jack doesn't believe him. Either that or there's something else he's not saying. But whatever it is will have to wait, Sinclair doesn't think either of them have the energy to figure it all out right now.

"I think I'm about done for one day myself," he nods. "Don't forget your pillows."

And so much for making sure the valuable things were hidden and locked away. He doubts Jack would run off with anything, but it never hurts to be safe. Guess he'll have to risk it this time.

[did_unkindly]

Jack nods.

He's none too familiar with the niceties of bedtime, so there's no good-night or sweet-dreams, but he gives Sinclair another nod -- this time a well-wish, maybe the mute equivalent of 'goodnight' combined with 'hope your leg feels better' -- before he leaves the room.

[did_unkindly]

It's later.

During his time in the city Jack has catnapped, dozed, slept with one eye open. On a dirty floor, wedged into a hole, behind a hacked turret that would deafen him with bullets every time he closed his eyes. Here, in relative safety, even though he's in a stranger's house, he falls asleep quickly.

And before long, he starts to dream.

He's a boy again -- small, bald, limbs out of proportion. Pushing the plough through crowds of golden wheat. On the farm -- his parents' farm in Kansas. The great metal frame feels light in his hands; the uneven ground doesn't even slow him down. He's good at this. He's at home.

Then suddenly there are voices in the corn, shouting instructions, and he realises they've been telling him which way to go. Anonymous at first, they quickly turn into raucous laughter and snarls, and the splicers appear all at once. Go left. Go right. He does. Pick up the plough. Sing a song. Stand on your head. Jack tries to keep up, but it seems like he's moving at a snail's pace, like a stuck video, and the orders layer over each other until he doesn't know what he's doing.

As soon as the tears start, he's in his mother's lap, telling her all about it, and she's holding him tight and whispering shh, shhh, it's all right, it's not real, you're safe, you're safe, it isn't real, you made it all up... you made it all up, kid.

She smirks and all at once she's Fontaine, standing without apology in front of him.

Tough break, kid.

Fontaine makes a break for it down the leaking hallways of Rapture. Jack tries to chase him, but he's going too slowly again. He can't move his legs quick enough, he can't run. Only when he loses sight of Fontaine does he realise that it's because of a weight on his back, something bearing him down, something large -- Sinclair?

Sinclair, the southern gentleman, is riding on his shoulders. Kicking his feet, pulling on Jack's hair. Jack, an adult again, throws him overarm onto the ground, and tears open his stomach.

Instead of a slug, there's a tape recorder. The kind he's been finding and listening to. Jack presses a button. But instead of playing, it starts to record.

Help, he says into it. Help. Help. Get me out of here. Get me out of here!

Then he puts it down beside the body -- just a body now, not a dead person, just a body -- and looks around, desperately, for someone to find it, anyone to come by and listen to the message. But nobody's coming. Nobody's coming.

Hahaha, kid, says Fontaine on his radio, ya never did amount to much.

There are plastered statues all around him. They give him an idea. He props up Sinclair, stands him on his feet, invites him to start a conversation; Sinclair stares accusingly at him for a few moments before crumpling back onto the floor. And Jack doesn't understand why.

His mother and father are shaking their heads. No wonder we aren't real, son. Never would have wanted a boy like you.

Pathetic, says Ryan behind him.

Jack wakes up.

He's on the couch in Sinclair's dark apartment. Metal and timber groan quietly behind him. The turrets are silent. His blankets are on the floor and he's curled around his pillow as if afraid it will escape.

Quietly, his face buried in the back cushion of the sofa,

Jack starts to cry.

[modestman]

Sinclair, on the other hand, while managing to sleep better than Jack usually got to, has been unable to sleep a full night since he came to Rapture. There's a constant glow coming in the windows from the neon of the city and those Wales geniuses decided that no one in Rapture would need blinds. There's more to it than that, he thinks, but he doesn't care to examine it any further. He misses the sun, same as everyone else down here, but it's not that. Still, when he and Jack reach the surface, he intends to take a full day to do nothing but lie on the beach. Sometimes he just feels pale, it'll be good to get some color again.

And, you know, it doesn't hurt that once he's settled in up there he'll be able to have a whole island to himself if he wants it. Which he does. You better believe he does.

He lies in bed, staring out of his window at the sea. The tangled seaweed that flaps about in the current, the ugly brown fish that settle above the muck. It's not exactly a tropical paradise. And yeah, the city is beautiful, the entire concept is nothing short of a miracle, but at the end of the day he sure as hell is not going to miss this place.

And then there's a sound that interrupts his thoughts, through his open door out in the living room. It's quiet, but usually his entire suite is dead silent, any noise is out of place at night. It occurs to him that it's not impossible his concerns were valid ones, and his guest is politely plundering his drawers and cabinets. But then again, he doubts Jack's abilities to do something like that this quietly.

Sinclair swings his feet around to the ground, pushing himself up onto his good leg using his night stand. He limps along the wall until he can lean in the door frame and tries to listen a little more closely.

It sounds like...sniffling. And in the pallid light filtering through the windows, he can make out the indefinite form of shaking shoulders pressed into the sofa cushions. Jack is crying.

Oh christ, Jack is crying. Sinclair is now faced with the option of attempting to console him or ignoring him and listening to his quiet piteous whimpers until one of them falls asleep again.

And that sounds utterly miserable.

Sinclair clears his throat. "Can I get you anything, son?"

[did_unkindly]

Jack startles and turns over, half-rises onto his elbows, and sees Sinclair.

He just stares for several moments. Holds his breath. His eyes are wide and wet and his face is stained with snot and tears. The tears have cut pinker lines through the layers of soot and grime. You know how when people cry in movies and it's kind of contained and not too ugly? This isn't that.

Then another sob forces its way out of him and he swallows and scrubs at his nose with a dirty shirtsleeve.

His head kind of wobbles from left to right, not enough to be shaking it no, more like indecision.

He's not embarrassed to be caught crying, exactly. Well, he is, but that's not it. It's more like... he feels like he's done something wrong. Maybe someone in his past didn't have patience for babies that cried at night. Maybe it's just a holdover of the hollow feeling the dream gave him.

"I didn't mean to _cry."

[modestman]

The appropriate thing now would probably be to go to Jack's side and pat him on the back, but given the state of Sinclair's leg that's not exactly an option. Which is sort of a relief, he's never been good at that kind of thing.

"It's alright kid," he says quietly, "Do you want to talk about it?" That's consoling, right? He's trying here.

[did_unkindly]

Paaaaaause to breathe.

"I had a bad dream," Jack confesses. He's kind of proud of himself for getting all those words out without sobbing. Sinclair's appearance has helped to startle him out of it, a bit.

[modestman]

Sinclair shifts to settle his weight a little more comfortably against the door frame, prepared to listen. When he was younger, it always helped to be able to talk his dreams out. Usually trying to describe them pointed out a lot of the absurdities and it eliminated the cold uneasiness that had settled over him as he slept. But it had been years since the last dream he remembered, longer still since his last nightmare. He just assumed he didn't sleep long enough to have them anymore.

"What was it about?"

[did_unkindly]

Jack shifts into a sitting position, back bent, elbows on his knees.

"Things that've. Happened."

[modestman]

Of course Jack wasn't going to just come out and say it, what was Sinclair thinking.

But okay, he'll bite. "What happened in your dream?" He figures that is a little more likely to get answered than "what happened", if only because so far Jack has been incredibly reluctant to talk about his past. At least this way he doesn't have to commit to any particular parts of it being true.

[did_unkindly]

Jack sniffs like a big gross baby, and rubs industriously at his face with a cleaner part of the same awful sleeve. Now that he's awake, he's swallowed down the sobs at least.

"Splicers. At home. And... people from here. And. I got stuck here." He trails off. Some of the details he doesn't want to share; others are already getting muddled by the shock of waking.

At this point he just kinda wants a hug.

[modestman]

See? Already he's started to calm down. Sinclair earns the trophy: Entry Level Nice Person.

"Can't say I blame you, some of these splicers are damn ugly," he says, grinning. "How about a cold wash cloth? Might help you feel a bit better."

[did_unkindly]

"Can I," he asks quietly, "have a hug?"

He doesn't realise that that's an odd question to ask, for a six foot something machine of a man who's apparently in his mid-twenties.

[modestman]

...Well that was not something Sinclair expected. He hesitates for a moment

and then another moment

and probably another moment or two more before he says anything.

"Don't think I'll be able to bend down there with my leg, sport," he says. A good, non-committal answer. Not a yes but not a rejection either.

And there are those questions again. The ambiguous feeling that there's something really big here that he's missing. He's going to need to figure it out eventually. Not right now, but soon.

[did_unkindly]

Jack can fix that problem! He slowly stands up, and bunches his sleeve over his wrist to wipe his nose again.

...jfc Jack stop being so tall and hulking, this is going to be like getting hugged by a big daddy

[modestman]

And the next best non-committal thing Sinclair can do is stand there and leave himself open for a hug without actually initiating it. It's not that giving Jack a hug is the last thing he wants to do or anything like that, in fact looking at Jack now he feels a great sympathy for the kid. He's not sure what he would have done at Jack's age, early to mid-twenties, forced to fight for his life and kill his own father. He's not sure he would have made it out of a situation like that with his sanity 100% intact.

But Jack is still technically a stranger, despite saving Sinclair's life. And the trust that Jack is apparently willing to place in Sinclair already, while it should be considered a win on a business front, is actually somewhat disarming. This doesn't have anything to do with business, but it has everything to do with a scared, lost kid who doesn't really know what else to do. How can he not feel sorry for him? So sure, if Jack wants a hug, why the hell not.

[did_unkindly]

Carefully, not sure if Sinclair is actually down with this or just tolerating it, Jack approaches and puts his arms around the other man. Just drapes his arms around him and rests his forehead on Sinclair's shoulder.

He's tense, he can't help it, it's been a long time since he was this close to someone without bloody murder taking place. But the presence of someone friendly reassures him a bit. Banishes the dream a little further.

[modestman]

Sinclair responds in kind, getting his arms around Jack and patting him gently, but earnestly, on the back. "It's alright, kid," he says quietly. "It's okay."

[did_unkindly]

It reminds him of being held by his mother, and for a few moments he feels better.

Then he remembers what's wrong with that statement.

And despite his best efforts, the muffled sobbing starts again.

[modestman]

He can feel Jack tensing up, shaking, and before he knows it he's sobbing all over again.

"Hey now, come on," Sinclair says. "It was just a dream, you're alright."

It was obviously more than that, but he knows better than to try and get information out of a man when he's an emotional wreck. At least not when he's at his lowest point, as Jack clearly is right now.

This sort of openness has always made Sinclair relatively uncomfortable, but he's trying here.

[did_unkindly]

He shakes his head against Sinclair's shoulder. This isn't even really about the dream any more; the dream only illustrated and made more vivid the things he's learned and been unable to deal with over the last two days.

But he doesn't know how to explain. If he says all the things that are really bothering him -- well, he's afraid of the repercussions. From Sinclair, from himself. It'd make it all too real, somehow. He doesn't have a family, he doesn't have a past, he's hardly done anything himself. People just point him the way they want him to go and fire. He's a made thing. He's nothing more than a walking, talking security bot.

It's been playing on his mind for a while, but he's been busy staying alive. Now it's all coming together at once.

[modestman]

Jack shakes his head and it's a confirmation, no, it's not just a dream.

"Yes it was," Sinclair assures him, "we're gonna get you outta here as just as soon as we can, I swear it. You're not gonna be stuck here as long as I have anything to say about it."

And just like that, the situation becomes something he can handle. He has an objective: laying the groundwork for a future conversation, if he can't get it out of him right now.

[did_unkindly]

Man, at least one of them knows what the hell he's doing.

Jack holds his breath, hiccups out another sob and tries to believe him.

"What if... there's... nothing up there?"