Fic | So You're Here
Title: So You're Here
Author: attilatehbun
Recipient: scoured
Fandom: N.E.X.T.W.A.V.E.
Characters/Pairings: Tabitha Smith, Elsa Bloodstone
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,500+
Contains: cyborg cephlopod crimes against nature, 2nd person POV
Summary: Tabby drags Elsa along for a "girl's night out". It goes about as well as could be expected. Basically Gen, Tabby/Elsa pre-slash if you squint.
A/N: I am never listening to expletives again ever.
~*~Originally written for Yuletide 2009~*~
::
So you're here, and you have a rather long list of things you'd rather be doing than this. Said list ranges from the obvious (firing your guns, kicking people in the head, firing your guns while kicking people in the head), to the mundane (having a nice cup of tea, washing your underwear, watching paint dry), to the **** horrible (having the Captain give you a clumsy root canal while Anger's zombified corpse leads a troop of broccoli men in a synchronized display of urination into your hair).
(It's not so much the urination that sets your teeth on edge in the above unlikely scenario; rather the thought of having to listen to whatever boring drivel Anger decides to spew at you without being able to get away, or at least, knock his teeth in. Yes darling, we get it, you love H.A.T.E., isn't that wonderful?)
So you have several thousand things you'd rather be doing and even more places you'd far rather be, yet you're here, instead, and you can't even go on about them because you can't get a **** word in edgewise. Tabby has been talking nearly non-stop for the past thirty minutes, to the point where you're beginning to wonder if she has some sort of bizarre secondary mutation that eliminates her need for oxygen (which would really be a shame as it would mean that shutting her up by using a large and heavy object to knock her into space would be far less effective). Even so, you do consider the possibility for a few seconds before reminding yourself that for some reason you have promised yourself that you will be on good behavior and give this-- this-- thing a chance. And since since you are just as uncomfortable examining said reason as you are examining the reason you are even here in the first place, you let your thoughts of vacuum-based homicide die a quiet death.
Of course, it would be a lot bloody easier if Tabby was even talking to you. Instead, she is on her mobile, talking to god-even-knows, while you stand in a horrid little queue, surrounded by horrid little people, outside of a horrid little club, in service to the concept of a "girl's night out" that you have allowed yourself to be talked into. After two solid minutes of I know! Y'know? I know! I! Know!, you can't take it any more and you snatch the phone out of her hand, not even bothering to hang it up before popping out the battery and shoving it in your pocket.
This is the point when you remember that you do not, in fact, have any pockets, because for reasons just as unexaminable as for everything else that has happened thus far this evening, you've allowed Tabby to dress you as well. So not only are you weaponless (excepting your hands and feet, which, admittedly, are damn good weapons), you are barely wearing any clothes at all. You should just count yourself lucky that she didn't pick out anything with shoulder pads (you have seen old pictures).
Tabby is making annoyed noises at you, and you don't really have anywhere to stash the phone that she couldn't just steal it out of in a few moments, so you hand it back accompanied by a glare that could turn milk into cheese, cheese into moldy cheese, and mold straight into some kind of **** sentient organism that Nextwave will probably end up having to fight next month. Tabby doesn't even flinch, just rolls her eyes and flicks her hair a bit, and that. That makes you smile against your own instincts, and you're rewarded by Tabby putting the battery back into the mobile but not turning it on.
So you're here, now, and it is suddenly sort of awkward, because it's easy enough to do the arguing thing or the bantering thing or the arguing-that's-really-more-like-bantering thing when you're fighting monsters and demons and giant robot policemen, but you're not even entirely sure that you like each other as people, really, which makes it a bit difficult to find things to talk about. Sure, you can talk about the times you've hidden all of Aaron's beer or how Monica's been even more insufferable (assuming that's possible) since you all got that floating city, but those are well-trodden topics and only really use up about five minutes.
(Six and a half if you both talk slow.)
(Something Tabby is obviously incapable of doing.)
And while among the things she is capable of is dominating the conversation for the rest of the night, even Tabby apparently seems to realize that that would be contrary to the point of the evening.
Luckily, this is when large...somethings begin to fall out of the sky and crash through the roof of the club. (Luckily for you, that is. Not so lucky for the people in the club, judging by the crunching and the subsequent screams.)
The crowd is fleeing with all the grace of a herd of drunken cuttlefish in squirrel suits, but you move forward instead of back, grinning at Tabby as you yank the velvet rope (and good lord, do people really still use those? Apparently.) from a couple poles and lift the poles to your shoulders. They aren't your guns, or even your shovel, but they aren't bad for all that - good shape, nice heavy base - and in your hands they'll do a **** of a lot of damage.
Brilliant.
Tabby's already started exploding the things as they break through the club's front window, laughing with the boom lighting up her eyes. Then the things start to clear the smoke and rubble, and you realize that your earlier cephalopod thoughts weren't that far from the mark. The creatures are some sort of cyborg squid things (two, three-- yes, that is ten arms) and they seem to be spraying greenish-yellow bile over everything in sight. You don't wait for that **** to start reacting with what it hits to check if it's toxic acid; ooze that color always is. You just take one step, two, and flip into their midst, taking out at least thirteen tentacles with the first swing of your dual-wield rope-posts.
You spin and send another flying through a wall (you hear the satisfying crackle of its landing and subsequent electric death) and you curse the skirt Tabby's put you in. If your crotch winds up plastered across the internet tomorrow, your revenge will be swift and brutal and beautiful.
The good news is that there are a limited number of squidborgs. Unfortunately, that's also part of the bad news, as they are rather easy to dispatch (they don't even explode, though Tabby's doing an expert job making up for that lack) and you're barely warmed up. Honestly, now that B.E.Y.O.N.D. has bit the dust, it's nothing but upstart little splinter cells vying to fill the power vacuum, hardly a one of them worth a damn.
But even if the squidborgs were a disappointment, you've still got to find where the **** things came from, as monster squidbots rarely spontaneously generate from empty air. You wonder this aloud as you grind a still-twitching creature under your heel. Tabby punts one a fair distance, booms it in mid-air, and grabs your arm before its flaming remains hit the ground, laughing, telling you, like, to look up.
Hanging uncomfortably in the air above you is:
a) A bloated lab experiment from someone with clearly too much imagination and too little social contact.
b) An under-sea war veteran who had a medic that didn't understand that skin grafts are made of skin.
c) The product of a **** robot's too-friendly visit to the aquarium.
(That last is the least likely to be the explanation, but it produces they most disturbing visuals, so it's the one you'll be using when you tell this story to others.)
It is a Squid Mama.
It is also about to birth more squidborgs. Neither of is you packing a flight pack, but it's not that high in the air, so as soon as the baby squidborgs start popping out, you leap up and start springing from each to each, gaining a little more upwards distance with every one. Within seconds you are within reach, and you plant both feet (sending that squidborg stepping stone splatting on the ground beneath you) and fling yourself at the Squid Mama's head region. You aim the battered rope-poles downwards at its eye, and while the resulting slpurt is decidedly unpleasant, the resulting downward momentum is **** perfect, and as you fall you hear Tabby finish it off with a series of controlled explosions.
You flip one last time in the air (and again, if there's anyone with a camera, they are going to find out what squid-eye coated metal tastes like) and land neatly on your feet beside Tabby. She's cursing at the charred remains, but she looks over at you, pushing her hair out of her eyes and grinning.
So you're here, and you've just defeated a Mama Squidborg and its army of babies, and Tabby is at your side with promise in her eyes, and you think. You think that you don't know why you're here, but you're glad you are, and maybe even that "girl's night" wasn't actually a disaster.
You even almost manage to resist crushing Tabby's phone to bits under one of your poles when she pulls it out and starts dialing.
Almost.
::fin::
Author: attilatehbun
Recipient: scoured
Fandom: N.E.X.T.W.A.V.E.
Characters/Pairings: Tabitha Smith, Elsa Bloodstone
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,500+
Contains: cyborg cephlopod crimes against nature, 2nd person POV
Summary: Tabby drags Elsa along for a "girl's night out". It goes about as well as could be expected. Basically Gen, Tabby/Elsa pre-slash if you squint.
A/N: I am never listening to expletives again ever.
~*~Originally written for Yuletide 2009~*~
::
So you're here, and you have a rather long list of things you'd rather be doing than this. Said list ranges from the obvious (firing your guns, kicking people in the head, firing your guns while kicking people in the head), to the mundane (having a nice cup of tea, washing your underwear, watching paint dry), to the **** horrible (having the Captain give you a clumsy root canal while Anger's zombified corpse leads a troop of broccoli men in a synchronized display of urination into your hair).
(It's not so much the urination that sets your teeth on edge in the above unlikely scenario; rather the thought of having to listen to whatever boring drivel Anger decides to spew at you without being able to get away, or at least, knock his teeth in. Yes darling, we get it, you love H.A.T.E., isn't that wonderful?)
So you have several thousand things you'd rather be doing and even more places you'd far rather be, yet you're here, instead, and you can't even go on about them because you can't get a **** word in edgewise. Tabby has been talking nearly non-stop for the past thirty minutes, to the point where you're beginning to wonder if she has some sort of bizarre secondary mutation that eliminates her need for oxygen (which would really be a shame as it would mean that shutting her up by using a large and heavy object to knock her into space would be far less effective). Even so, you do consider the possibility for a few seconds before reminding yourself that for some reason you have promised yourself that you will be on good behavior and give this-- this-- thing a chance. And since since you are just as uncomfortable examining said reason as you are examining the reason you are even here in the first place, you let your thoughts of vacuum-based homicide die a quiet death.
Of course, it would be a lot bloody easier if Tabby was even talking to you. Instead, she is on her mobile, talking to god-even-knows, while you stand in a horrid little queue, surrounded by horrid little people, outside of a horrid little club, in service to the concept of a "girl's night out" that you have allowed yourself to be talked into. After two solid minutes of I know! Y'know? I know! I! Know!, you can't take it any more and you snatch the phone out of her hand, not even bothering to hang it up before popping out the battery and shoving it in your pocket.
This is the point when you remember that you do not, in fact, have any pockets, because for reasons just as unexaminable as for everything else that has happened thus far this evening, you've allowed Tabby to dress you as well. So not only are you weaponless (excepting your hands and feet, which, admittedly, are damn good weapons), you are barely wearing any clothes at all. You should just count yourself lucky that she didn't pick out anything with shoulder pads (you have seen old pictures).
Tabby is making annoyed noises at you, and you don't really have anywhere to stash the phone that she couldn't just steal it out of in a few moments, so you hand it back accompanied by a glare that could turn milk into cheese, cheese into moldy cheese, and mold straight into some kind of **** sentient organism that Nextwave will probably end up having to fight next month. Tabby doesn't even flinch, just rolls her eyes and flicks her hair a bit, and that. That makes you smile against your own instincts, and you're rewarded by Tabby putting the battery back into the mobile but not turning it on.
So you're here, now, and it is suddenly sort of awkward, because it's easy enough to do the arguing thing or the bantering thing or the arguing-that's-really-more-like-bantering thing when you're fighting monsters and demons and giant robot policemen, but you're not even entirely sure that you like each other as people, really, which makes it a bit difficult to find things to talk about. Sure, you can talk about the times you've hidden all of Aaron's beer or how Monica's been even more insufferable (assuming that's possible) since you all got that floating city, but those are well-trodden topics and only really use up about five minutes.
(Six and a half if you both talk slow.)
(Something Tabby is obviously incapable of doing.)
And while among the things she is capable of is dominating the conversation for the rest of the night, even Tabby apparently seems to realize that that would be contrary to the point of the evening.
Luckily, this is when large...somethings begin to fall out of the sky and crash through the roof of the club. (Luckily for you, that is. Not so lucky for the people in the club, judging by the crunching and the subsequent screams.)
The crowd is fleeing with all the grace of a herd of drunken cuttlefish in squirrel suits, but you move forward instead of back, grinning at Tabby as you yank the velvet rope (and good lord, do people really still use those? Apparently.) from a couple poles and lift the poles to your shoulders. They aren't your guns, or even your shovel, but they aren't bad for all that - good shape, nice heavy base - and in your hands they'll do a **** of a lot of damage.
Brilliant.
Tabby's already started exploding the things as they break through the club's front window, laughing with the boom lighting up her eyes. Then the things start to clear the smoke and rubble, and you realize that your earlier cephalopod thoughts weren't that far from the mark. The creatures are some sort of cyborg squid things (two, three-- yes, that is ten arms) and they seem to be spraying greenish-yellow bile over everything in sight. You don't wait for that **** to start reacting with what it hits to check if it's toxic acid; ooze that color always is. You just take one step, two, and flip into their midst, taking out at least thirteen tentacles with the first swing of your dual-wield rope-posts.
You spin and send another flying through a wall (you hear the satisfying crackle of its landing and subsequent electric death) and you curse the skirt Tabby's put you in. If your crotch winds up plastered across the internet tomorrow, your revenge will be swift and brutal and beautiful.
The good news is that there are a limited number of squidborgs. Unfortunately, that's also part of the bad news, as they are rather easy to dispatch (they don't even explode, though Tabby's doing an expert job making up for that lack) and you're barely warmed up. Honestly, now that B.E.Y.O.N.D. has bit the dust, it's nothing but upstart little splinter cells vying to fill the power vacuum, hardly a one of them worth a damn.
But even if the squidborgs were a disappointment, you've still got to find where the **** things came from, as monster squidbots rarely spontaneously generate from empty air. You wonder this aloud as you grind a still-twitching creature under your heel. Tabby punts one a fair distance, booms it in mid-air, and grabs your arm before its flaming remains hit the ground, laughing, telling you, like, to look up.
Hanging uncomfortably in the air above you is:
a) A bloated lab experiment from someone with clearly too much imagination and too little social contact.
b) An under-sea war veteran who had a medic that didn't understand that skin grafts are made of skin.
c) The product of a **** robot's too-friendly visit to the aquarium.
(That last is the least likely to be the explanation, but it produces they most disturbing visuals, so it's the one you'll be using when you tell this story to others.)
It is a Squid Mama.
It is also about to birth more squidborgs. Neither of is you packing a flight pack, but it's not that high in the air, so as soon as the baby squidborgs start popping out, you leap up and start springing from each to each, gaining a little more upwards distance with every one. Within seconds you are within reach, and you plant both feet (sending that squidborg stepping stone splatting on the ground beneath you) and fling yourself at the Squid Mama's head region. You aim the battered rope-poles downwards at its eye, and while the resulting slpurt is decidedly unpleasant, the resulting downward momentum is **** perfect, and as you fall you hear Tabby finish it off with a series of controlled explosions.
You flip one last time in the air (and again, if there's anyone with a camera, they are going to find out what squid-eye coated metal tastes like) and land neatly on your feet beside Tabby. She's cursing at the charred remains, but she looks over at you, pushing her hair out of her eyes and grinning.
So you're here, and you've just defeated a Mama Squidborg and its army of babies, and Tabby is at your side with promise in her eyes, and you think. You think that you don't know why you're here, but you're glad you are, and maybe even that "girl's night" wasn't actually a disaster.
You even almost manage to resist crushing Tabby's phone to bits under one of your poles when she pulls it out and starts dialing.
Almost.
::fin::