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

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.

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.

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?"

Sinclair pulls back, holds Jack by the shoulders. "You've only been down here a few days, son, what do you think could've happened?"

Wow, Ryan must have gotten to him big time. A few days in this city and already the kid's afraid of the apocalypse.

"I'll tell you one thing. Whatever's up there?" he adds, pointing to the ceiling, "There ain't no way it's anything worse than what we're living in right now."

He went on Journey to the Surface, that shit really opens your eyes man

Jack swallows and nods, staring into Sinclair's face and telling himself to trust what the man is saying. It does have to be better, it really does. Jack doesn't know which of his memories to trust right now, but Sinclair's been there for sure, so if he says it's better then...

There still won't be a family waiting for him up there.

His face crumples again, but he makes himself think about how it'll be better it'll be better, and he manages to hold back from crying this time.

"Alright?" Sinclair says, shifting for a moment so his weight is just slightly more on Jack's shoulders, relieving the strain on his leg. "Let's get a light on in here and I'll fetch you that wash cloth." After all, there's no way he's going to be able to fall asleep again after this, and he seriousl doubts Jack will be able to either.

Jack doesn't speak, because he's in that choked-up and nebulous stage where you're not exactly crying but you still might start. He just nods gratefully, and wipes his nose again.

Uh, sorry about the snot on your shoulder, Sinclair.

It's okay, it's just an undershirt. Nothing a good run-in with a mob of splicers won't entirely cover up with blood stains.

Sinclair nods and leaves Jack in the living room, limping back through his bedroom to the bathroom and turns on the faucet to wet a wash cloth. It's a white one, and he's sure whatever damage Jack did to his undershirt, the wash cloth is going to receive at least three times that. But it's all he has, and honestly who needs a complete set of towels anyway? People who don't harbor emotional man children, that's who.

He wrings the wash cloth out and returns, handing it over to Jack and letting himself drop down onto the sofa.

"What do you want to do once we get out of here?" he asks. You know. Maybe it'll give Jack something else to focus on, or even better, something to look forward to.

Jack has gone back to the sofa, and while he's sitting with his shoulders low, he's not the tangled heap of misery he was when Sinclair first found him.

He accepts the towel, smiles like a man in a concentration camp, and then blows his nose like a chainsaw.

"Eat a feast," he says, quietly but with a spark of enthusiasm. He's trying!

Well he certainly has the appetite of an entire pack of wolves. Sinclair wishes he had a little more food at his disposal, but things are in short supply these days. Even for a successful guy like himself.

A feast actually sounds spectacular right about now.

"When I was a sprout, my mama used to cook us this...huge supper every Sunday. Worked all morning and afternoon in the kitchen preparing it all. Ham and sweet potatoes and the best gravy in the whole southeast," he says. And jesus, what he wouldn't give for a meal like that down here. There was good food here and there, the expensive places, the Kashmir, Andrew Ryan's meetings. But it wasn't the same. Though he hadn't really thought about it until now.

Jack bites his lip and tries to enjoy the anecdote for what it is -- be a big boy. Be a brave boy. He can't keep the Deep Hurting from passing across his face, but he can keep from blubbering.

He wipes the old tears and other crying gunk from his face with the towel, which he has at least folded in half since blowing his nose on it.

"When we get out," he says, "we should have a corn pie, and a turkey, and toffee apples, and ice cream, and sausages. A hundred sausages."

This is actually helping! Sinclair, you're the best.

"Kid, you can have all of that and more once we get up there. We're gonna be swimming in money, you won't even know what to do with all of it," Sinclair says, patting Jack's knee.

Okay, he's collected himself a bit more, that's good. That's progress. So Sinclair ventures a question.

"...Are you alright?" he asks. "I mean I know things are rough down here, I know you've had it rougher than most, but...are you sure there's nothing else?"

Don't get him wrong, he's not asking out of concern, though maybe (hopefully?) it sounds that way. There's something to figure out here and he very much intends to do just that. One way or another.

Jack's face turns as blank as he can manage. Sure, Sinclair sounds concerned, but... they're back to that question, are they.

"...I still can't tell you."

Sinclair musters up a concerned look.

"If it's something I can help with, you should just say."

"Only if you can change the past," he mutters to the floor.

"Well I can't do that," Sinclair frowns, "but I might at least be able to make it a little easier now. Besides, it's not healthy to keep these things to yourself. Weighs you down."

Slowly, Jack shakes his head.

He's given Sinclair a lot of trust, but that's just with his life. He has plenty of those.

His past is more delicate by far.

And he has too much experience of people turning on him to encourage it with wild stories about how he's... something less than a man.

"Please can I just... think about it."

It seems Jack does an awful lot of that anyway, for how quiet he always is. But okay, it'll wait.

"Sure," Sinclair says. "Take your time." He reaches over to the table beside the sofa and pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of the drawer. "Y'want one?" He asks, holding the cigarette between his lips.

"Thank you," he says, nodding. For dropping the subject as much as for the cigarette.

He lights his cigarette and passes the box and the lighter to Jack before relaxing back into the sofa. He tried to quit once, several years ago, when he decided it was a waste of money on a small luxury. That was, of course, before he started earning more than the last two generations before him combined. Now, he figures he can waste money in however many small ways he wants. There's always going to be more to replace it.

"We're gonna need to get a hold of a submarine," he says after a few moments of silence. "That or hack a bathysphere."

Jack lights the cigarette quickly and takes a drag, the most underage smoker in history. It calms him down a little more.

"I'm good at hacking," he offers. "But I haven't tried a bathysphere yet."

He's not really sure where he'd start, but he figured out the turrets and things by trial and error. Why not give the spheres a go?

"I'm sure it'll be easier when it's not something that shoots at you," Sinclair laughs. "We can give it a shot tomorrow... probably on one in Persephone. Less chance of a scuffle." And maybe Sinclair can leave here with at least one functional limb.

"Tomorrow morning," Jack agrees.

"Where is it from here?"

"Well if you want to try it out on the one we came from, the docks under the detention center are almost completely uninhabited. That would be our best bet, don't think anyone would bother us there," he says, reaching over to tap his cigarette into the ashtray. "I still need to figure out where we're gonna find a submarine if that doesn't work. Seems like a lot of them've been destroyed, but there's got to be a few left over."

And they talk. Information about the city and its possible escape routes is swapped. Cigarettes are smoked to glowing stumps.

Sooner or later, Jack begins to yawn over a bag of potato chips.

It's time to go back to bed.

And then later, it's the morning.

There's a note on the arm of the couch, written on a scrap of paper scavenged from the waste-paper basket. The handwriting is an awkward cursive, very careful, every t crossed and every i dotted with great concentration.

Gud Morning I
am at the
Bathisfear

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