(no subject)
Title: Who We Are Not
Pairings: Show Pony/Dr Death Defying
Rating: pg
Wordcount: 1365
Summary: It takes Show Pony and Dr Death Defying a long time to figure out who they really are.
Prompt used: loss of identity for h/c bingo
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author's Note: This began as a mix for reversebb. But the story was too strong in my head, and it took place in a version of the 'verse that I was already writing (All Inclusive). So I gave up and just wrote it myself.
Download here.
1- Mark is a good Battery City citizen
When Mark gets quiet and unlikeable he takes the blue ones. Composition 4xdf98. They make him smile in the way other people approve of. When Mark gets excitable he takes the red ones. Composition 12xwm2. They calm him to the appropriate levels others approve of. Better Living Industries makes him likable.
2- Ben is a good Battery City Citizen
Ben loves life. He enjoys getting his work done quickly; every form gets filled in triplicate as is required. He enjoys his food; each calorie measured so his paycheck doesn’t get docked for weight allowance. He enjoys sleeping; minutes logged so as to not exceed proper levels. Most of all, he enjoys the medication that allows all these things to happen.
3- Mark is not emotionally stable
The first time it’s not on purpose. He takes his sleeping pill and climbs under the blanket. He is asleep before the city automatically shuts off the lights to the tower. But instead of waking refreshed eight hours later -he spends more for the deluxe pill, 3qhw0- he wakes up with a scream in the middle of the night. He’s been hallucinating as he’s sleeping. It doesn’t take long to figure out his sleeping pill was past it’s expiry date.
Instead of disposing of them and purchasing more he takes another old 3qhw0 the next night. It’s madness. It’s curiosity. But he does it anyway.
4- Ben is not a responsible employee
He has a bad day. It’s no one’s fault but his own, of course. He fills out a form four times instead of three. It takes the employee the papers are forwarded to nearly fifteen minutes to figure out why she has two sheets instead of one. He’s damaged the productivity of his entire company. His wages are docked accordingly. It’s humiliating at the time, but the repercussions really hit at the end of the week, when he can’t afford all the medications he needs to buy.
He ends up following rumors to an off brand dealer. Better Living Industries will not be happy, but Ben will not survive without his cocktail.
5- Mark is not an accepting viewer
He still buys 3qhw0, so the pharmacists don’t wonder about the sudden change in consumption. But he doesn’t swallow it at the end of the evening. It turns out it’s not old medication making him hallucinate while he’s sleeping, his body does it by itself. The only problem is without 3qhw0 it takes a while to get to sleep. He ends up sitting by the radio, listening to the music it plays. The longer he listens, the less he likes what it plays. All the songs that sounded so different and brilliant under the influence of 4xdf98 and 12xwm2 is nearly identical and really pretty shitty with unmedicated ears.
6- Mark is not a socialite
He hasn’t left his apartment in over a week. Everywhere he goes it’s all meaningless noise. No one ever shuts up, and the billboards never top flashing commercials, and all the music on the radio says nothing. He just wants to be somewhere quiet, and if that means staying indoors fine. It’s not quite quiet enough. He can’t help but think of running past the noise.
7- Ben is not a good Wavehead
Waveheads are junkies, men and women who will take any drug available, made by BL Industries or not. More than that, they do things that aren’t even pills. They smoke things, and snort things, and drink things. Three months ago it might have seemed insane to burn something and inhale the smoke, but a lot of things can change in three months. Sometimes he wakes up with a headache and his productivity is barely above termination levels. He doesn’t care. It’s their rule number one: don’t care about what Battery City wants from you.
Things all come crashing down the day that Ben finds out the real Wavehead rule one: don’t come between a person and their fix. It goes from meeting a smiling old man in Zone One with a handful of friends to score some alcohol to Draculoids in all directions in a matter of seconds. You don’t need to work for the SCARECROW division to know what happens when the Draculoids find you. Ben’s not stupid. He runs. The last thing he sees is Kelsey taking a grocery bag of pills from one of the Draculoids as the rest shoot all his friends.
8- Ben is not cool, collected and medicated
It’s harder than he would have ever thought to make it in the Zones. All daring plans of getting a Drac’s motorcycle are dashed by the pesky issue of wanting to stay alive, though he does manage to find a pair of roller skates. It’s nearly impossible to get a gun, all the vending machines are keyed to explode if the proper credit cards aren’t used. Eventually he has to trade favours with a guy who goes by Demon Shark Deluxe, a name that makes him want to find his own. Once he can travel and protect himself, he can get food and water. And after he’s got basic needs down, he can work on emotional needs. Primarily ghosting the traitor that got his friends killed. Revenge will be as sweet as any pill.
9- Mark is not a capable citizen
They find him sitting in silence. He’s got nothing in his system, not even 8avt1, which is nothing more than a vitamin. They take him, labelling him as insane and in need of caretaking, which he’s expecting. In the rehabilitation tower they hold him down and hook up an iv, also expected. The drug makes him black out, also expected. He wakes up, which isn’t. The doctors letting him live takes the back burner to waking up without legs. That’s really fucking unexpected.
10- Ben is not a motorbaby
Being the only person in the zones without a vehicle makes him strange. Nobody seems to understand that skates get him wherever he wants to go. Being the only person in the zones without a collective of friends makes him potentially dangerous. Every night he safehold-surfs someone stays up watching him. The thing that really throws the motorbabies off though is how he’s still looking for a pill connection. He’s here because the hates the bullshit rules of Battery City, and he hates the Waveheads on the fringes even more. He doesn’t need to be sober to hold on to that hate.
11- Mark is not a cripple
The doctors claim it was an accident. A mistakenly given expired medication that gave him deep blood poisoning. It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re giving him money for his loss but they won’t build him new legs, only give him a motorised chair. He sits in the chair, in his apartment, this time with the radio turned on so they can’t get suspicious for a second time. He doesn’t hear the music the channel plays. He hears the music his mom used to sing to him; cats in cradles with silver spoons, and MMMBops, and Jenny was a friend of hers. It has to be out there somewhere. He think daily, hourly, minutely, every fucking second about using what’s left of himself to go find it.
12- Ben is not meek
Molko has the radio on when Ben visits him next. He’s counting pills, listening to something Ben has never heard before. It’s hardly even music, it sounds nothing like any synth wave Ben’s ever heard. But somehow he knows it is music. In an instant he knows everything. He knows that this person is a genius among cretins, a soul among the soulless. He knows it’s more important to find the DJ than it is to stake out shacks in Zone One waiting for traitor Waveheads. And he knows this kind of music is something that he can live for, instead of hate and stolen pills.
13- Show Pony and Doctor Death Defying are lovers
Or at least, they’re in love. It’s only a matter of time before the silence breaks, the stillness stops.
Pairings: Show Pony/Dr Death Defying
Rating: pg
Wordcount: 1365
Summary: It takes Show Pony and Dr Death Defying a long time to figure out who they really are.
Prompt used: loss of identity for h/c bingo
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author's Note: This began as a mix for reversebb. But the story was too strong in my head, and it took place in a version of the 'verse that I was already writing (All Inclusive). So I gave up and just wrote it myself.
Download here.
1- Mark is a good Battery City citizen
When Mark gets quiet and unlikeable he takes the blue ones. Composition 4xdf98. They make him smile in the way other people approve of. When Mark gets excitable he takes the red ones. Composition 12xwm2. They calm him to the appropriate levels others approve of. Better Living Industries makes him likable.
2- Ben is a good Battery City Citizen
Ben loves life. He enjoys getting his work done quickly; every form gets filled in triplicate as is required. He enjoys his food; each calorie measured so his paycheck doesn’t get docked for weight allowance. He enjoys sleeping; minutes logged so as to not exceed proper levels. Most of all, he enjoys the medication that allows all these things to happen.
3- Mark is not emotionally stable
The first time it’s not on purpose. He takes his sleeping pill and climbs under the blanket. He is asleep before the city automatically shuts off the lights to the tower. But instead of waking refreshed eight hours later -he spends more for the deluxe pill, 3qhw0- he wakes up with a scream in the middle of the night. He’s been hallucinating as he’s sleeping. It doesn’t take long to figure out his sleeping pill was past it’s expiry date.
Instead of disposing of them and purchasing more he takes another old 3qhw0 the next night. It’s madness. It’s curiosity. But he does it anyway.
4- Ben is not a responsible employee
He has a bad day. It’s no one’s fault but his own, of course. He fills out a form four times instead of three. It takes the employee the papers are forwarded to nearly fifteen minutes to figure out why she has two sheets instead of one. He’s damaged the productivity of his entire company. His wages are docked accordingly. It’s humiliating at the time, but the repercussions really hit at the end of the week, when he can’t afford all the medications he needs to buy.
He ends up following rumors to an off brand dealer. Better Living Industries will not be happy, but Ben will not survive without his cocktail.
5- Mark is not an accepting viewer
He still buys 3qhw0, so the pharmacists don’t wonder about the sudden change in consumption. But he doesn’t swallow it at the end of the evening. It turns out it’s not old medication making him hallucinate while he’s sleeping, his body does it by itself. The only problem is without 3qhw0 it takes a while to get to sleep. He ends up sitting by the radio, listening to the music it plays. The longer he listens, the less he likes what it plays. All the songs that sounded so different and brilliant under the influence of 4xdf98 and 12xwm2 is nearly identical and really pretty shitty with unmedicated ears.
6- Mark is not a socialite
He hasn’t left his apartment in over a week. Everywhere he goes it’s all meaningless noise. No one ever shuts up, and the billboards never top flashing commercials, and all the music on the radio says nothing. He just wants to be somewhere quiet, and if that means staying indoors fine. It’s not quite quiet enough. He can’t help but think of running past the noise.
7- Ben is not a good Wavehead
Waveheads are junkies, men and women who will take any drug available, made by BL Industries or not. More than that, they do things that aren’t even pills. They smoke things, and snort things, and drink things. Three months ago it might have seemed insane to burn something and inhale the smoke, but a lot of things can change in three months. Sometimes he wakes up with a headache and his productivity is barely above termination levels. He doesn’t care. It’s their rule number one: don’t care about what Battery City wants from you.
Things all come crashing down the day that Ben finds out the real Wavehead rule one: don’t come between a person and their fix. It goes from meeting a smiling old man in Zone One with a handful of friends to score some alcohol to Draculoids in all directions in a matter of seconds. You don’t need to work for the SCARECROW division to know what happens when the Draculoids find you. Ben’s not stupid. He runs. The last thing he sees is Kelsey taking a grocery bag of pills from one of the Draculoids as the rest shoot all his friends.
8- Ben is not cool, collected and medicated
It’s harder than he would have ever thought to make it in the Zones. All daring plans of getting a Drac’s motorcycle are dashed by the pesky issue of wanting to stay alive, though he does manage to find a pair of roller skates. It’s nearly impossible to get a gun, all the vending machines are keyed to explode if the proper credit cards aren’t used. Eventually he has to trade favours with a guy who goes by Demon Shark Deluxe, a name that makes him want to find his own. Once he can travel and protect himself, he can get food and water. And after he’s got basic needs down, he can work on emotional needs. Primarily ghosting the traitor that got his friends killed. Revenge will be as sweet as any pill.
9- Mark is not a capable citizen
They find him sitting in silence. He’s got nothing in his system, not even 8avt1, which is nothing more than a vitamin. They take him, labelling him as insane and in need of caretaking, which he’s expecting. In the rehabilitation tower they hold him down and hook up an iv, also expected. The drug makes him black out, also expected. He wakes up, which isn’t. The doctors letting him live takes the back burner to waking up without legs. That’s really fucking unexpected.
10- Ben is not a motorbaby
Being the only person in the zones without a vehicle makes him strange. Nobody seems to understand that skates get him wherever he wants to go. Being the only person in the zones without a collective of friends makes him potentially dangerous. Every night he safehold-surfs someone stays up watching him. The thing that really throws the motorbabies off though is how he’s still looking for a pill connection. He’s here because the hates the bullshit rules of Battery City, and he hates the Waveheads on the fringes even more. He doesn’t need to be sober to hold on to that hate.
11- Mark is not a cripple
The doctors claim it was an accident. A mistakenly given expired medication that gave him deep blood poisoning. It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re giving him money for his loss but they won’t build him new legs, only give him a motorised chair. He sits in the chair, in his apartment, this time with the radio turned on so they can’t get suspicious for a second time. He doesn’t hear the music the channel plays. He hears the music his mom used to sing to him; cats in cradles with silver spoons, and MMMBops, and Jenny was a friend of hers. It has to be out there somewhere. He think daily, hourly, minutely, every fucking second about using what’s left of himself to go find it.
12- Ben is not meek
Molko has the radio on when Ben visits him next. He’s counting pills, listening to something Ben has never heard before. It’s hardly even music, it sounds nothing like any synth wave Ben’s ever heard. But somehow he knows it is music. In an instant he knows everything. He knows that this person is a genius among cretins, a soul among the soulless. He knows it’s more important to find the DJ than it is to stake out shacks in Zone One waiting for traitor Waveheads. And he knows this kind of music is something that he can live for, instead of hate and stolen pills.
13- Show Pony and Doctor Death Defying are lovers
Or at least, they’re in love. It’s only a matter of time before the silence breaks, the stillness stops.