Rule 26 (3 of ?, j2 au)
Unbeta'd and unameripicked. Sorry to those of you following for the delay! ♥ ♥ ♥
Rule 26 (3/?)
(J2 au, some possibly disturbing themes but nothing graphic)
On a rock barely big enough to be classified as a moon, at the hind end of a fairly insignificant planetary system, was Doctor Nekrotik's secret base.
It wasn't lost on Jared that if Doctor Nekrotik was letting him know the base's location, there wasn't any chance of Jared getting released alive. His life expectancy had just dropped a good couple of points.
The moon's surface was pale silver dust, and, entering atmosphere, the sky turned a hazy soft lilac. It was exceptionally pretty. When the shuttle dipped low enough, the ground glittered and sparked beneath them, and Jared realized the dust was, in fact, tiny crystals.
"Don't say we never take you anywhere nice," said Kane, flicking him a glance as Jared craned over his shoulder to take in the view. Then he cocked his head back at Jeff and Wisdom, and called out, "Home in five, people. Please ensure you take all your luggage with you when you go, that includes any sleepy mad scientists you might'a brought on board."
"You know he's not kidding about the wipe threat, Kane," Jeff said evenly. "So you might wanna rethink calling him mad when he's just in the next room."
Jared only realized how close Jeff was by the sudden creak of armor behind him. He turned to face him, and Jeff gave him a washed-out grin.
"Kane's gonna get us landed," Jeff said. "Then he's gonna take you in, find a room for you, and explain the many, many security features that are gonna make you trying to break out a waste of your time." He clapped Jared lightly on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, take some time, then come find one of us and we'll give you a tour of the place."
It felt a lot like going mad. Everybody had apparently completely lost their grip on the exact nature of the situation. "This isn't a vacation for me," Jared blurted out, not even thinking the words through. "I don't wanna be here. So you can stop being nice to me, okay? I'm not your friend, I'm a prisoner."
To his bewildered annoyance, Kane shared a look with Wisdom, and they both laughed loudly at him. At least, Jeff seemed to take him seriously. He sighed and took his hand off Jared's shoulder.
"Things aren't about to change just 'cause you don't like 'em, kid. Might as well deal with them with grace and good humor."
"I'd fucking prefer to deal with them with your blaster," Jared snapped back.
Jeff glanced skyward and turned away, and Jared might have pushed the issue, but just then, Doctor Nekrotik's base rose up on the surface.
It was a cancerous knot in the middle of a stunningly beautiful landscape. It was big, and black, and jagged, and as they drew closer, Jared realized it was one immense crystalline structure. The smooth strands poked like blades into the belly of the sky, and the shadow bled dark across the ground.
Behind Jared, Wisdom was tucking his book away in his bag, and Jeff had disappeared into the back, presumably to fetch Doctor Nekrotik. Kane's hands flew over the panel of instruments as he readied the shuttle for descent.
They skimmed the ground briefly, and the crystal dust jumped up like waves around them, before they swept into the dark heart of the base. Sensors in the shuttle registered the change of light, and a pale blue illumination flicked on, turning Kane's skin ghostly in its glow.
After the shuttle was settled, its hum dropped into silence, Kane straightened up, and turned to Jared with a wide, unsettling grin. "Guess I'm your new sitter, baby-boy."
Wisdom close behind them, Kane brought Jared out into the hangar, and Jared wasn't surprised anymore by the sleek and silver style that seemed to be Nekrotik's trademark in design. The base interior was eerily quiet, and Jared had the impression that they were the only living souls inside the massive crystal structure.
Jared glanced back as they left, in time to see Jeff carrying a still-sleeping Doctor Nekrotik off the shuttle. He had Nekrotik's gasmask in one hand, and his other arm was keeping Nekrotik in place over his shoulder. Kane prodded Jared in the shoulder.
"You stare that much when Doctor Nekrotik's awake and you probably ain't gonna like what happens," said Kane. Then he shrugged. "Maybe you will, though. Hard to tell 'til you see what mood he's in, y'know?"
Inside the base, everything was so silver and bright that Jared kept forgetting they were encased in black crystal. They passed a window, and Jared glanced out at the softer silver of the moon's surface. Stopping by his side, Kane reached out, tapped a fingertip to the glass. There was a sudden, spitting crackle of green sparks, and Kane smiled grimly, and showed Jared his burned fingertip.
"Whole place is like that," he said. "Don't recommend going out the windows or doors, unless you want your ass barbecued." He started them both walking again, before adding, "And there ain't anything else out on this rock, even if you did get out. 'Cept for wild animals. And they're great if you wanna get yourself eaten, but they're not so helpful 'bout getting a ride off this place."
He led Jared through so many passages and stairways and huge empty rooms, that Jared was pretty sure that finding his way around the base would be as much of a challenge as breaking out of it. Finally, they ended up at a suite of rooms that was easily three times the size of the entire ground floor of the apartment block Jared had lived in at Stantone.
"Ain't much, but it's yours," said Kane. He gestured at various points of the room, sounding bored and eager to get away. "Clothes in there, but they're probably all way too small. Bathroom through there. Holoscreen's up there if you get bored. You get hungry or you wanna know something, wander around the corridors 'til you find a droid."
He headed for the door. "Now, we're all gonna be catching some shut-eye, so if you wanna run around, tryn'a escape and getting yourself crispy-fried, you mind doing it quietly?"
:::
If Kane had been lying about all the windows and doors being charged, Jared had yet to prove it. He did, however, have one very burned fingertip from testing the theory.
He'd run into a couple of droids, which were silver hulks about as tall as he was, with blue crystal eyes. They'd been polite and helpful, until Jared had asked where Doctor Nekrotik was, at which point they'd politely and helpfully informed him they were programmed to respond with deadly force if Jared asked that question again without providing the correct security code.
They'd also assured him that security was at one hundred percent, and that there were no breaches in the field.
With their directions, Jared had made it back to the hangar. He'd burned himself trying to touch the shuttle, and then again trying to get the hangar door open. He'd had a go at the computer panels, but hadn't got any further than their blank insistence that he needed to enter a security code.
Jared was screwed.
He was also tired and unhappy, and kind of emotional. His jumpsuit was sticking to him in places that weren't comfortable. Finally getting back to his room, he peeled the jumpsuit off, and decided that jumpsuits just weren't designed for guys who sweated as much as he did.
It was almost pathetic how much of a relief the hot water in the shower was. It apparently didn't take much to be a bright spot in a day as crappy as Jared's. He lingered under the water, the air slowly thickening with steam, and he watched the accumulated dirt from his body vanish down the plughole.
Nobody and nothing was clean in Stantone, and it almost felt weird to rinse all of the grime away. Like he was saying goodbye to that life. Jared refused to believe that any part of himself was giving up on the possibility of escape.
Kill Doctor Nekrotik and escape. Those were his objectives, though the former was really the only one that mattered. Maybe they weren't achievable right now, but an opportunity would present itself. Jared would wait for his opportunity.
In the meantime, he would marvel at the fat fluffiness of the towels, wonder how much they'd go for on the market at Stantone, and whether he should take some with him when he escaped.
He rummaged through the closet, and managed to come up with a t-shirt and some pants that were just about big enough for him. He laid them over the back of a chair, paused to look out of the window again, at the unchanging crystal desert. It felt as silent inside the base as it was out.
Then he looked over his shoulder at the bed, temptingly huge and soft. His bed in Stantone had been a fold-out couch. Way things were, Jared didn't think taking a nap could make his life that much worse.
He smoothed a hand over the covers, and immediately wanted to add them to the list of stuff he was stealing from Doctor Nekrotik when he left. He crawled inside, letting some of the tension inside his body go, and was surprised to realize just how tired he was. The second his head touched the pillow, his eyes were falling shut.
He would just sleep for a little while. And then he'd have the energy to kill Doctor Nekrotik and escape.
:::
When he woke, it was to sunlight on his face. The room was warm, and the bed was awesome, and Jared didn't think he'd ever been so comfortable in his life. Then, of course, he remembered that he was in the secret base of the scourge of the universe, and he felt less comfortable.
He tumbled out of bed and tugged on the clothes he'd laid out earlier. He checked the mirror and decided he didn't look completely ridiculous. In fact, the t-shirt stretched admirably over his chest, his hair was all soft and freshly-washed, and his skin glowed with health, and he really looked pretty good. Which was probably a very bad thing, considering he still had a nasty suspicion why Doctor Nekrotik had picked him up.
The passages of the base were as quiet as before. Jared tracked down a droid on its patrol route.
"Is everyone still in their living quarters?" he said.
"Negative," it replied, its voice a strange combination of metal and music. "Chief Commander Morgan, Commander Kane, and Doctor Wisdom, are in the kitchen at this time."
"Thank you," said Jared. He took a few steps down the passage, then looked back. "Uh, where's the kitchen?"
The kitchen was in a whole other part of the base that Jared hadn't even realized existed. Which meant there were even more windows and doors for him to test.
Like the rest of the base, the kitchen was done out in polished silver. The effect of the clean lines was somewhat ruined, though, by the coffee stains and toast crumbs on the counter. Kane and Wisdom had shared out a newspaper between them, and Jeff was getting grease all over the tabletop while he cleaned his blaster.
Wisdom flicked his eyes up to him as Jared entered, and said. "Get in quick if you want coffee."
The coffee machine was surprisingly archaic, and if the dried dribble-stains down its front were any indication, it had seen a lot of service. Left to get on with it, Jared found a mug that was a tacky souvenir from 'The Magical Three-Rings of Rylegia', and pressed buttons on the machine until it gave him coffee.
He sank into a seat at the table warily, and watched the other three. Kane snorted inelegantly on a mouthful of cereal, and pushed his newspaper page across to Jeff. It was the cartoon section. Jeff looked at the page, chuckled, and pushed it back.
The thought that planets across the universe were living in absolute dread of these people, and the man they served, could have caused a severe disconnect in Jared's brain if he let himself think about it too long.
"You want salve for that?" said Wisdom, and Jared noticed his gaze was on Jared's burned fingertip. Kane and Jeff looked up, and also took it in. Jeff rolled his eyes, shook his head, while Kane laughed again.
"I warned him," said Kane.
"No point," said Jared, to Wisdom. "Don’t think I'm done burning it yet."
Wisdom shrugged. "It's a way to spend the day, I suppose," he said. The corners of his eyes were creased with amusement.
"My mouth tastes like ass," Doctor Nekrotik announced from the doorway.
He was dressed in thin pajama pants and a t-shirt, and was bizarrely still wearing one black glove. His hair was sleep-rumpled, and he yawned hugely as he padded across to the coffee machine.
Jeff and the others had gone very still watching him, but were gradually relaxing.
"Morning to you, too," said Jeff finally.
"I couldn't figure out what I was tasting, but then I remembered," said Nekrotik, addressing the coffee machine for all intents and purposes. "The atmosphere of Xas 12 is full of hydrochroic particles. Which, aside from being a pretty toxic carcinogen, taste like ass. The statistics for lung disease among the population must be sky-high. It's a wonder any of them survives."
He stabbed a few buttons on the coffee machine. The coffee machine stayed silent. Nekrotik frowned, jabbed at another button, then turned to the others with a long-suffering expression. "The coffee machine's broken."
"It's not broken," said Wisdom, with the air of someone who had plenty of practice at this exact conversation.
"If it doesn't give me coffee when I tell it to, it's broken," said Nekrotik. He reached around the back to find the cable. "I should take it down to the lab and fix it."
"For the love of god, don't," said Kane. "Last time you tried to fix the toaster, you ended up lobotomizing it. Jeff, tell him."
"Don't lobotomize the coffee machine, Jensen," said Jeff, his attention clearly on the blaster parts spread out in front of him.
Jensen. It took Jared a stupidly long moment to realize that that meant Doctor Nekrotik. He guessed nobody was damaged enough to actually name their baby Doctor Nekrotik, but it still sat awkwardly with him that Nekrotik was human enough to have an actual, honest-to-God name.
Apparently taking pity on him, Wisdom crossed to the coffee machine, punched a button, and coffee began to fill Jensen's mug. He gave Jensen a pointed look, and then went back to his newspaper, straightening it with a crisp shuffle of pages.
Jensen yawned again. He propped himself up on the counter, coffee in his gloved hand, and the other hand preoccupied with picking at a slice of bread. Slowly, as if he were still in the process of waking up, his gaze tracked to Jared. His eyes went wide.
"Oh," he said. And then he smiled, bright and pleased and so very very pretty. "Hi."
"Go to hell," said Jared. "I meant what I said, I'm gonna kill you one day."
Jensen's smile froze, then sharpened. "Okay," he said. "That's nice for you." Dry as his tone was, it was surprisingly short on hostility. With one last glance at Jared, he looked to Jeff. "Did the samples from Ibola come back with us?"
"In your lab," said Jeff.
Jensen nodded. "Good, okay. Imma go get some work done on them." His gaze shifted back to Jared, then flashed away again when Jared's expression didn't soften at all. The corner of his mouth lifted in a dissatisfied tilt. "Plenty to do."
"People to kill, planets to burn?" Jared suggested, with acidic cheeriness.
A muscle in Jensen's throat flickered as his jaw clenched. His fingers flexed around his coffee cup. He didn't look at Jared again before he left the kitchen.
There was a long, pointed silence left behind.
"It's like Beauty and the Beast," said Wisdom eventually, not looking up from his newspaper. "Except, right now, you're both doing a pretty good job of the Beast."
"Can't expect the kid to cut him any slack," said Jeff. He fitted the pieces of his blaster back into place, the metal clicking together like the tiny crack of a trigger. He got to his feet, dumped his mug in the dishwasher, and followed Jensen out.
Kane was close behind him, and, as he left, he looked Jared right in the eye to say, "Maybe Jeff's right, but it don't mean I approve of your bad manners."
When it was just them, Jared turned to face Wisdom. "Don't think I'm gonna warm up to him in time, or come to appreciate his good points, or decide he's pretty cuddly for an evil dictator. I'm gonna kill him."
Finally, Wisdom shuffled his newspaper shut. He rose sedately to his feet, and drained the last little bit of coffee from his cup. Then, at last, he directed his attention to Jared. He looked him over, then huffed out a laugh. "Boy, you try a damn fool thing like that, and I've half a mind not to give you anything for the pain when you wind up on my table."
:::
If he'd been in the mood to relax, Jared found there were plenty of ways for him to pass the time. The holoscreen in his bedroom had a dizzying number of channels. There was a library, with actual books that had actual pages, just one of which would have made Jared enough on the black market to last a year. There was also a gym, which Jared would have explored further, except Kane was on the running machine, and Jared didn't think either of them would enjoy the other's company.
From everything Jared had seen so far, the base was pretty fabulous, for a prison.
He continued testing windows and doors in the wing the kitchen was in, and the only progress he made was having to switch to a new fingertip because the other was too badly burned.
The kitchen wing was obviously for utility purposes, whereas the other wings Jared had explored had been grander, with huge empty rooms with high vaulted ceilings. Jared wondered if Jensen - Doctor Nekrotik - made it a habit to bring people back here. And what had happened to them.
And even as he was thinking, he turned the corner in the passage, and came face to face with the man himself.
Jensen was carrying the elderly coffee machine, its cable swinging like a tail around his legs, and he started guiltily when he saw Jared.
There was something Jared found peculiarly unsettling about the combination of the white lab coat Jensen was wearing, and his gloved hands. Jensen's hands, wrapped up tight in shiny black latex, were fast becoming an object of morbid fascination to Jared.
"Oh, it's you! Thank god!" said Jensen. He grinned. "Thought Kane had come to defend this crapped out hunk of junk."
Jared didn't answer. Just looked at him steadily. Jensen stopped grinning, made to side-step Jared, then paused. He was still for a moment, probably oblivious to Jared's fantasizing about putting his hands around Jensen's pale throat and squeezing.
"I don't suppose you wanna have dinner with me, do you?" Jensen said finally.
Jared blinked. Jensen was watching him, one eyebrow raised and his lower lip pinned between his teeth.
"Are you gonna destroy a planet if I say no?" said Jared.
Jensen gave him a devastatingly charming smile. "No, but my self-esteem would take a real hit."
"I'm betting it won't be a fatal hit, but I'm okay risking it," said Jared, and brushed past him.
He heard Jensen's short, unhappy sigh, heard it clearly, and it occurred to him that there was nobody else around. Not Jeff or Kane, not Wisdom, not even a droid. It was just him, and this vulnerable, human version of Doctor Nekrotik.
If he failed, Obraxus would suffer, Jared knew it.
So he just had to not fail.
With smooth deliberateness, Jared turned back around and went for Jensen. Jensen had a split second to look back over his shoulder, that was all, before Jared's arm was around his throat. The coffee machine crashed to the floor, and Jensen staggered back against Jared, awkward and struggling.
Jared would kill Jensen up-close and personal, Jensen's head snug against his shoulder while Jared kept a nice tight grip around his throat and pressed the life out of him.
This close to Jensen, watching him gasp and his soft pretty mouth flutter for breath, Jared could properly appreciate how green Jensen's eyes were. Such a pretty face for such an evil guy.
His own breathing was coming short with the force he was putting in to his grip on Jensen. Clawing at Jared's arm, Jensen jerked his body backwards, trying to throw Jared off, and only succeeded in slamming them both into the wall. Their feet scuffed through the broken parts of the coffee machine.
All along the lengths of their bodies, they were right against each other. It was such an intimate way to kill someone, Jared thought. He'd never killed anyone before, but the few times he'd thought he might have to, it was with a blaster or explosives. Never like this, with the hot, slender weight of a body thrashing against his.
He snapped his grip tighter, felt Jensen twitch, and he watched as one black hand shakily rose up, fumbled backwards. And then it was on his face, smooth and light and nothing like skin.
Jensen's fingers spread out over his cheek.
And then Jared was holding onto nothing, and Jensen was on his knees in the passage, cursing under his breath as he gathered the pieces of the coffee machine. He glanced up at Jared, and his lips tightened.
"Are you okay?" he said. It didn't sound friendly.
Jared searched his memory for the missing time. But there was nothing, only the after-effects of what he'd lost. Jensen wasn't dead. Jensen was asking him if he was okay.
Doctor Nekrotik was not dead. It was a huge, cold thought in Jared's mind, and he didn't have enough words to make it right.
"I'm sorry," said Jared. "Please, I'm sorry. It's my fault. Don't punish them because I'm a dumb bastard. I won't do it again. I promise. I'm sorry. Punish me, not them."
Jensen's hands stilled in the act of fitting as much of the machine back together as he could. His brows drew together in a frown. He didn't look at Jared as, after a moment's pause, he said, "Last chance."
Jared fled.
:::
For four hours, Jared hid in his room, and watched the news on his holoscreen. Every reference to Obraxus, no matter how trivial, was an awesome one, because it meant Doctor Nekrotik hadn't made good on his threat.
When the light started to get dim, Jeff knocked on the door, and invited Jared down to dinner. Jared flatly refused as soon as Jeff admitted that, yes, Jensen would be there too. No way was Jared going to sit down at the same table as the guy who'd wiped out his home planet.
So he was left in what passed for peace.
And then, midway through Jared's latest rotation through the holoscreen channels, the screen went black and the lights went out. There was a long, horrible stillness, where Jared's heart beat too loudly in his chest. He scrambled off the bed, and went to the door.
The corridor outside was equally silent and dark. What little light there was came through the windows, and was an unfriendly silver.
Kane's voice floated through the air towards him, small and distant. "What the hell just happened?"
The sound of his footsteps was getting louder, closer, and Jared instinctively drew away from it.
It was Jeff who answered Kane.
"Jen's screwed the system. He's playing with that goddamn coffee machine, and he's screwed the system again. System's foolproof but it sure ain't geniusproof," he said. "I'll go for him, you find Jared and get him locked down. Wisdom'll have the basics back online shortly."
The system was down. It took a second for the full significance to hit Jared.
Casting a glance back in the direction of Kane and Jeff's voices, Jared hurried to the closest window. He took a breath, then touched his fingertip to the surface.
No green sparks. Just flat, dead glass.
Jared's face cracked into a smile. He was getting out.
next
Rule 26 (3/?)
(J2 au, some possibly disturbing themes but nothing graphic)
On a rock barely big enough to be classified as a moon, at the hind end of a fairly insignificant planetary system, was Doctor Nekrotik's secret base.
It wasn't lost on Jared that if Doctor Nekrotik was letting him know the base's location, there wasn't any chance of Jared getting released alive. His life expectancy had just dropped a good couple of points.
The moon's surface was pale silver dust, and, entering atmosphere, the sky turned a hazy soft lilac. It was exceptionally pretty. When the shuttle dipped low enough, the ground glittered and sparked beneath them, and Jared realized the dust was, in fact, tiny crystals.
"Don't say we never take you anywhere nice," said Kane, flicking him a glance as Jared craned over his shoulder to take in the view. Then he cocked his head back at Jeff and Wisdom, and called out, "Home in five, people. Please ensure you take all your luggage with you when you go, that includes any sleepy mad scientists you might'a brought on board."
"You know he's not kidding about the wipe threat, Kane," Jeff said evenly. "So you might wanna rethink calling him mad when he's just in the next room."
Jared only realized how close Jeff was by the sudden creak of armor behind him. He turned to face him, and Jeff gave him a washed-out grin.
"Kane's gonna get us landed," Jeff said. "Then he's gonna take you in, find a room for you, and explain the many, many security features that are gonna make you trying to break out a waste of your time." He clapped Jared lightly on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, take some time, then come find one of us and we'll give you a tour of the place."
It felt a lot like going mad. Everybody had apparently completely lost their grip on the exact nature of the situation. "This isn't a vacation for me," Jared blurted out, not even thinking the words through. "I don't wanna be here. So you can stop being nice to me, okay? I'm not your friend, I'm a prisoner."
To his bewildered annoyance, Kane shared a look with Wisdom, and they both laughed loudly at him. At least, Jeff seemed to take him seriously. He sighed and took his hand off Jared's shoulder.
"Things aren't about to change just 'cause you don't like 'em, kid. Might as well deal with them with grace and good humor."
"I'd fucking prefer to deal with them with your blaster," Jared snapped back.
Jeff glanced skyward and turned away, and Jared might have pushed the issue, but just then, Doctor Nekrotik's base rose up on the surface.
It was a cancerous knot in the middle of a stunningly beautiful landscape. It was big, and black, and jagged, and as they drew closer, Jared realized it was one immense crystalline structure. The smooth strands poked like blades into the belly of the sky, and the shadow bled dark across the ground.
Behind Jared, Wisdom was tucking his book away in his bag, and Jeff had disappeared into the back, presumably to fetch Doctor Nekrotik. Kane's hands flew over the panel of instruments as he readied the shuttle for descent.
They skimmed the ground briefly, and the crystal dust jumped up like waves around them, before they swept into the dark heart of the base. Sensors in the shuttle registered the change of light, and a pale blue illumination flicked on, turning Kane's skin ghostly in its glow.
After the shuttle was settled, its hum dropped into silence, Kane straightened up, and turned to Jared with a wide, unsettling grin. "Guess I'm your new sitter, baby-boy."
Wisdom close behind them, Kane brought Jared out into the hangar, and Jared wasn't surprised anymore by the sleek and silver style that seemed to be Nekrotik's trademark in design. The base interior was eerily quiet, and Jared had the impression that they were the only living souls inside the massive crystal structure.
Jared glanced back as they left, in time to see Jeff carrying a still-sleeping Doctor Nekrotik off the shuttle. He had Nekrotik's gasmask in one hand, and his other arm was keeping Nekrotik in place over his shoulder. Kane prodded Jared in the shoulder.
"You stare that much when Doctor Nekrotik's awake and you probably ain't gonna like what happens," said Kane. Then he shrugged. "Maybe you will, though. Hard to tell 'til you see what mood he's in, y'know?"
Inside the base, everything was so silver and bright that Jared kept forgetting they were encased in black crystal. They passed a window, and Jared glanced out at the softer silver of the moon's surface. Stopping by his side, Kane reached out, tapped a fingertip to the glass. There was a sudden, spitting crackle of green sparks, and Kane smiled grimly, and showed Jared his burned fingertip.
"Whole place is like that," he said. "Don't recommend going out the windows or doors, unless you want your ass barbecued." He started them both walking again, before adding, "And there ain't anything else out on this rock, even if you did get out. 'Cept for wild animals. And they're great if you wanna get yourself eaten, but they're not so helpful 'bout getting a ride off this place."
He led Jared through so many passages and stairways and huge empty rooms, that Jared was pretty sure that finding his way around the base would be as much of a challenge as breaking out of it. Finally, they ended up at a suite of rooms that was easily three times the size of the entire ground floor of the apartment block Jared had lived in at Stantone.
"Ain't much, but it's yours," said Kane. He gestured at various points of the room, sounding bored and eager to get away. "Clothes in there, but they're probably all way too small. Bathroom through there. Holoscreen's up there if you get bored. You get hungry or you wanna know something, wander around the corridors 'til you find a droid."
He headed for the door. "Now, we're all gonna be catching some shut-eye, so if you wanna run around, tryn'a escape and getting yourself crispy-fried, you mind doing it quietly?"
:::
If Kane had been lying about all the windows and doors being charged, Jared had yet to prove it. He did, however, have one very burned fingertip from testing the theory.
He'd run into a couple of droids, which were silver hulks about as tall as he was, with blue crystal eyes. They'd been polite and helpful, until Jared had asked where Doctor Nekrotik was, at which point they'd politely and helpfully informed him they were programmed to respond with deadly force if Jared asked that question again without providing the correct security code.
They'd also assured him that security was at one hundred percent, and that there were no breaches in the field.
With their directions, Jared had made it back to the hangar. He'd burned himself trying to touch the shuttle, and then again trying to get the hangar door open. He'd had a go at the computer panels, but hadn't got any further than their blank insistence that he needed to enter a security code.
Jared was screwed.
He was also tired and unhappy, and kind of emotional. His jumpsuit was sticking to him in places that weren't comfortable. Finally getting back to his room, he peeled the jumpsuit off, and decided that jumpsuits just weren't designed for guys who sweated as much as he did.
It was almost pathetic how much of a relief the hot water in the shower was. It apparently didn't take much to be a bright spot in a day as crappy as Jared's. He lingered under the water, the air slowly thickening with steam, and he watched the accumulated dirt from his body vanish down the plughole.
Nobody and nothing was clean in Stantone, and it almost felt weird to rinse all of the grime away. Like he was saying goodbye to that life. Jared refused to believe that any part of himself was giving up on the possibility of escape.
Kill Doctor Nekrotik and escape. Those were his objectives, though the former was really the only one that mattered. Maybe they weren't achievable right now, but an opportunity would present itself. Jared would wait for his opportunity.
In the meantime, he would marvel at the fat fluffiness of the towels, wonder how much they'd go for on the market at Stantone, and whether he should take some with him when he escaped.
He rummaged through the closet, and managed to come up with a t-shirt and some pants that were just about big enough for him. He laid them over the back of a chair, paused to look out of the window again, at the unchanging crystal desert. It felt as silent inside the base as it was out.
Then he looked over his shoulder at the bed, temptingly huge and soft. His bed in Stantone had been a fold-out couch. Way things were, Jared didn't think taking a nap could make his life that much worse.
He smoothed a hand over the covers, and immediately wanted to add them to the list of stuff he was stealing from Doctor Nekrotik when he left. He crawled inside, letting some of the tension inside his body go, and was surprised to realize just how tired he was. The second his head touched the pillow, his eyes were falling shut.
He would just sleep for a little while. And then he'd have the energy to kill Doctor Nekrotik and escape.
:::
When he woke, it was to sunlight on his face. The room was warm, and the bed was awesome, and Jared didn't think he'd ever been so comfortable in his life. Then, of course, he remembered that he was in the secret base of the scourge of the universe, and he felt less comfortable.
He tumbled out of bed and tugged on the clothes he'd laid out earlier. He checked the mirror and decided he didn't look completely ridiculous. In fact, the t-shirt stretched admirably over his chest, his hair was all soft and freshly-washed, and his skin glowed with health, and he really looked pretty good. Which was probably a very bad thing, considering he still had a nasty suspicion why Doctor Nekrotik had picked him up.
The passages of the base were as quiet as before. Jared tracked down a droid on its patrol route.
"Is everyone still in their living quarters?" he said.
"Negative," it replied, its voice a strange combination of metal and music. "Chief Commander Morgan, Commander Kane, and Doctor Wisdom, are in the kitchen at this time."
"Thank you," said Jared. He took a few steps down the passage, then looked back. "Uh, where's the kitchen?"
The kitchen was in a whole other part of the base that Jared hadn't even realized existed. Which meant there were even more windows and doors for him to test.
Like the rest of the base, the kitchen was done out in polished silver. The effect of the clean lines was somewhat ruined, though, by the coffee stains and toast crumbs on the counter. Kane and Wisdom had shared out a newspaper between them, and Jeff was getting grease all over the tabletop while he cleaned his blaster.
Wisdom flicked his eyes up to him as Jared entered, and said. "Get in quick if you want coffee."
The coffee machine was surprisingly archaic, and if the dried dribble-stains down its front were any indication, it had seen a lot of service. Left to get on with it, Jared found a mug that was a tacky souvenir from 'The Magical Three-Rings of Rylegia', and pressed buttons on the machine until it gave him coffee.
He sank into a seat at the table warily, and watched the other three. Kane snorted inelegantly on a mouthful of cereal, and pushed his newspaper page across to Jeff. It was the cartoon section. Jeff looked at the page, chuckled, and pushed it back.
The thought that planets across the universe were living in absolute dread of these people, and the man they served, could have caused a severe disconnect in Jared's brain if he let himself think about it too long.
"You want salve for that?" said Wisdom, and Jared noticed his gaze was on Jared's burned fingertip. Kane and Jeff looked up, and also took it in. Jeff rolled his eyes, shook his head, while Kane laughed again.
"I warned him," said Kane.
"No point," said Jared, to Wisdom. "Don’t think I'm done burning it yet."
Wisdom shrugged. "It's a way to spend the day, I suppose," he said. The corners of his eyes were creased with amusement.
"My mouth tastes like ass," Doctor Nekrotik announced from the doorway.
He was dressed in thin pajama pants and a t-shirt, and was bizarrely still wearing one black glove. His hair was sleep-rumpled, and he yawned hugely as he padded across to the coffee machine.
Jeff and the others had gone very still watching him, but were gradually relaxing.
"Morning to you, too," said Jeff finally.
"I couldn't figure out what I was tasting, but then I remembered," said Nekrotik, addressing the coffee machine for all intents and purposes. "The atmosphere of Xas 12 is full of hydrochroic particles. Which, aside from being a pretty toxic carcinogen, taste like ass. The statistics for lung disease among the population must be sky-high. It's a wonder any of them survives."
He stabbed a few buttons on the coffee machine. The coffee machine stayed silent. Nekrotik frowned, jabbed at another button, then turned to the others with a long-suffering expression. "The coffee machine's broken."
"It's not broken," said Wisdom, with the air of someone who had plenty of practice at this exact conversation.
"If it doesn't give me coffee when I tell it to, it's broken," said Nekrotik. He reached around the back to find the cable. "I should take it down to the lab and fix it."
"For the love of god, don't," said Kane. "Last time you tried to fix the toaster, you ended up lobotomizing it. Jeff, tell him."
"Don't lobotomize the coffee machine, Jensen," said Jeff, his attention clearly on the blaster parts spread out in front of him.
Jensen. It took Jared a stupidly long moment to realize that that meant Doctor Nekrotik. He guessed nobody was damaged enough to actually name their baby Doctor Nekrotik, but it still sat awkwardly with him that Nekrotik was human enough to have an actual, honest-to-God name.
Apparently taking pity on him, Wisdom crossed to the coffee machine, punched a button, and coffee began to fill Jensen's mug. He gave Jensen a pointed look, and then went back to his newspaper, straightening it with a crisp shuffle of pages.
Jensen yawned again. He propped himself up on the counter, coffee in his gloved hand, and the other hand preoccupied with picking at a slice of bread. Slowly, as if he were still in the process of waking up, his gaze tracked to Jared. His eyes went wide.
"Oh," he said. And then he smiled, bright and pleased and so very very pretty. "Hi."
"Go to hell," said Jared. "I meant what I said, I'm gonna kill you one day."
Jensen's smile froze, then sharpened. "Okay," he said. "That's nice for you." Dry as his tone was, it was surprisingly short on hostility. With one last glance at Jared, he looked to Jeff. "Did the samples from Ibola come back with us?"
"In your lab," said Jeff.
Jensen nodded. "Good, okay. Imma go get some work done on them." His gaze shifted back to Jared, then flashed away again when Jared's expression didn't soften at all. The corner of his mouth lifted in a dissatisfied tilt. "Plenty to do."
"People to kill, planets to burn?" Jared suggested, with acidic cheeriness.
A muscle in Jensen's throat flickered as his jaw clenched. His fingers flexed around his coffee cup. He didn't look at Jared again before he left the kitchen.
There was a long, pointed silence left behind.
"It's like Beauty and the Beast," said Wisdom eventually, not looking up from his newspaper. "Except, right now, you're both doing a pretty good job of the Beast."
"Can't expect the kid to cut him any slack," said Jeff. He fitted the pieces of his blaster back into place, the metal clicking together like the tiny crack of a trigger. He got to his feet, dumped his mug in the dishwasher, and followed Jensen out.
Kane was close behind him, and, as he left, he looked Jared right in the eye to say, "Maybe Jeff's right, but it don't mean I approve of your bad manners."
When it was just them, Jared turned to face Wisdom. "Don't think I'm gonna warm up to him in time, or come to appreciate his good points, or decide he's pretty cuddly for an evil dictator. I'm gonna kill him."
Finally, Wisdom shuffled his newspaper shut. He rose sedately to his feet, and drained the last little bit of coffee from his cup. Then, at last, he directed his attention to Jared. He looked him over, then huffed out a laugh. "Boy, you try a damn fool thing like that, and I've half a mind not to give you anything for the pain when you wind up on my table."
:::
If he'd been in the mood to relax, Jared found there were plenty of ways for him to pass the time. The holoscreen in his bedroom had a dizzying number of channels. There was a library, with actual books that had actual pages, just one of which would have made Jared enough on the black market to last a year. There was also a gym, which Jared would have explored further, except Kane was on the running machine, and Jared didn't think either of them would enjoy the other's company.
From everything Jared had seen so far, the base was pretty fabulous, for a prison.
He continued testing windows and doors in the wing the kitchen was in, and the only progress he made was having to switch to a new fingertip because the other was too badly burned.
The kitchen wing was obviously for utility purposes, whereas the other wings Jared had explored had been grander, with huge empty rooms with high vaulted ceilings. Jared wondered if Jensen - Doctor Nekrotik - made it a habit to bring people back here. And what had happened to them.
And even as he was thinking, he turned the corner in the passage, and came face to face with the man himself.
Jensen was carrying the elderly coffee machine, its cable swinging like a tail around his legs, and he started guiltily when he saw Jared.
There was something Jared found peculiarly unsettling about the combination of the white lab coat Jensen was wearing, and his gloved hands. Jensen's hands, wrapped up tight in shiny black latex, were fast becoming an object of morbid fascination to Jared.
"Oh, it's you! Thank god!" said Jensen. He grinned. "Thought Kane had come to defend this crapped out hunk of junk."
Jared didn't answer. Just looked at him steadily. Jensen stopped grinning, made to side-step Jared, then paused. He was still for a moment, probably oblivious to Jared's fantasizing about putting his hands around Jensen's pale throat and squeezing.
"I don't suppose you wanna have dinner with me, do you?" Jensen said finally.
Jared blinked. Jensen was watching him, one eyebrow raised and his lower lip pinned between his teeth.
"Are you gonna destroy a planet if I say no?" said Jared.
Jensen gave him a devastatingly charming smile. "No, but my self-esteem would take a real hit."
"I'm betting it won't be a fatal hit, but I'm okay risking it," said Jared, and brushed past him.
He heard Jensen's short, unhappy sigh, heard it clearly, and it occurred to him that there was nobody else around. Not Jeff or Kane, not Wisdom, not even a droid. It was just him, and this vulnerable, human version of Doctor Nekrotik.
If he failed, Obraxus would suffer, Jared knew it.
So he just had to not fail.
With smooth deliberateness, Jared turned back around and went for Jensen. Jensen had a split second to look back over his shoulder, that was all, before Jared's arm was around his throat. The coffee machine crashed to the floor, and Jensen staggered back against Jared, awkward and struggling.
Jared would kill Jensen up-close and personal, Jensen's head snug against his shoulder while Jared kept a nice tight grip around his throat and pressed the life out of him.
This close to Jensen, watching him gasp and his soft pretty mouth flutter for breath, Jared could properly appreciate how green Jensen's eyes were. Such a pretty face for such an evil guy.
His own breathing was coming short with the force he was putting in to his grip on Jensen. Clawing at Jared's arm, Jensen jerked his body backwards, trying to throw Jared off, and only succeeded in slamming them both into the wall. Their feet scuffed through the broken parts of the coffee machine.
All along the lengths of their bodies, they were right against each other. It was such an intimate way to kill someone, Jared thought. He'd never killed anyone before, but the few times he'd thought he might have to, it was with a blaster or explosives. Never like this, with the hot, slender weight of a body thrashing against his.
He snapped his grip tighter, felt Jensen twitch, and he watched as one black hand shakily rose up, fumbled backwards. And then it was on his face, smooth and light and nothing like skin.
Jensen's fingers spread out over his cheek.
And then Jared was holding onto nothing, and Jensen was on his knees in the passage, cursing under his breath as he gathered the pieces of the coffee machine. He glanced up at Jared, and his lips tightened.
"Are you okay?" he said. It didn't sound friendly.
Jared searched his memory for the missing time. But there was nothing, only the after-effects of what he'd lost. Jensen wasn't dead. Jensen was asking him if he was okay.
Doctor Nekrotik was not dead. It was a huge, cold thought in Jared's mind, and he didn't have enough words to make it right.
"I'm sorry," said Jared. "Please, I'm sorry. It's my fault. Don't punish them because I'm a dumb bastard. I won't do it again. I promise. I'm sorry. Punish me, not them."
Jensen's hands stilled in the act of fitting as much of the machine back together as he could. His brows drew together in a frown. He didn't look at Jared as, after a moment's pause, he said, "Last chance."
Jared fled.
:::
For four hours, Jared hid in his room, and watched the news on his holoscreen. Every reference to Obraxus, no matter how trivial, was an awesome one, because it meant Doctor Nekrotik hadn't made good on his threat.
When the light started to get dim, Jeff knocked on the door, and invited Jared down to dinner. Jared flatly refused as soon as Jeff admitted that, yes, Jensen would be there too. No way was Jared going to sit down at the same table as the guy who'd wiped out his home planet.
So he was left in what passed for peace.
And then, midway through Jared's latest rotation through the holoscreen channels, the screen went black and the lights went out. There was a long, horrible stillness, where Jared's heart beat too loudly in his chest. He scrambled off the bed, and went to the door.
The corridor outside was equally silent and dark. What little light there was came through the windows, and was an unfriendly silver.
Kane's voice floated through the air towards him, small and distant. "What the hell just happened?"
The sound of his footsteps was getting louder, closer, and Jared instinctively drew away from it.
It was Jeff who answered Kane.
"Jen's screwed the system. He's playing with that goddamn coffee machine, and he's screwed the system again. System's foolproof but it sure ain't geniusproof," he said. "I'll go for him, you find Jared and get him locked down. Wisdom'll have the basics back online shortly."
The system was down. It took a second for the full significance to hit Jared.
Casting a glance back in the direction of Kane and Jeff's voices, Jared hurried to the closest window. He took a breath, then touched his fingertip to the surface.
No green sparks. Just flat, dead glass.
Jared's face cracked into a smile. He was getting out.
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