Fic: Portal - 5 to 1 - 2/2
Title: 5 to 1
Fandom: Portal/Portal 2
Pairings: Adventure Core (Rick)/Fact Core (Craig) [HUMANIZED]
Description: Something I wanted to write. There's been a lot of Factventure fics (which I am very happy about because I ship them SO HARD), but most of them focus more on Fact/Craig and his weirdness, exploring who he is more than they explore Rick. This was written because I wanted to do something cute, something bittersweet, and something that looked at and theorized about what Rick's got wrong with him.
Rating: PG-13 for cursing, making out, sexual references, and some angry discussion of body image issues/eating disorders/etc.
FIRST PART: http://nakkistiltz.livejournal.com/3519.html
(okay, here's the dumb dramatic H/C part. SOB)
:
“Rick. Wake up. …Rick!”
“Mmhn - what?” Rick blinked blearily, his eyes opening to the sight of Craig staring at him. They were sitting in a darkened conference room - oh, right. Presentation day. Shit.
“Rick, wake up. You’re going to have to go up there and do your presentation in a few minutes,” Craig whispered. Rick groaned and mopped his face with one hand, then rubbed at the circles under his eyes. Craig regarded him as he did this, sitting pencil-straight in his chair. “…Are you okay? You seem sort of… out of it, today.”
“Nah, nah, ‘m fine,” Rick murmured. He sat up a little straighter in his own chair and tried to pay attention to the scientist droning at the front of the room.
“Your skin is 23% paler than normal, you’ve been less energetic all morning, and you have been having trouble maintaining consciousness throughout this meeting. Are you sick?”
“I’m fine, Craig. Honest,” Rick said, and tried to do one of his charming smiles. It didn’t seem to have the same effect as usual, with Craig huffing at him and turning away.
“It’s time for you to go, Rick, get up!” Craig hissed as the scientist finished up, and he gave Rick a small shove.
“Fine, fine, I’m going, I’m- I’m…” Rick shot up out of his chair, but apparently this was a bad move - he swayed uncertainly, much to the interest of the other people in the meeting, before he grabbed the table for support.
“Rick?” Rick heard Craig say his name, but he didn’t pay attention to it - everything was blurring and he was a little too concerned with keeping his balance.
“I…” He tried to stand up again - shit, now everything was blurring even more. This was not good; this was not good at all.
After a moment of uncertain swaying, Rick announced loudly to the room: “I- I think I’m gonna be a sissy and faint… s-sorry!…”
1.
Everything was quiet, which was more than a little weird when he thought about it. When Rick normally woke up in the morning, it was to the sound of cars beeping, birds cooing - the sounds of the city beneath his apartment. Where ever he was, it was definitely not the city. The only things he could hear were a muted beep every few seconds and the constant soft hum of an air conditioner.
When he opened his eyes blearily, it became even clearer that he wasn’t at home. He was lying flat on his back in what looked like a hospital bed, covered in gray and white sheets, in a room with white walls (one of which had Aperture’s logo painted in blue on it). When he turned his head to the right, Rick could see an IV drip and a monitor which was emitting the intermittent beep; looking down, the IV’s end was stuck firm in his arm and a few wires from the monitor were down his shirt, undoubtedly monitoring his breathing and his heart.
Rick gave an exasperated sigh. Well, shit. What a lovely thing to wake up to.
Then, Rick looked to his left - and his heart sank in his chest. Hunched forward in his sleep with a clipboard clutched in his white-knuckled hands was Craig, seated in a shitty folding chair. His reading glasses had slid down onto the tip of his nose and his brow was furrowed with stress and worry; his clothes were wrinkled and unkempt, and there were dark circles starting to form under his closed eyes. With his breathing nearly unnoticeable, it was almost as if he were dead.
Rick’s mouth was dry, but he managed to croak: “…Craig?”
Craig jolted awake, his eyes going wide and his whole frame jumping when he heard his name. “Wha? What - “ He cut off his own words with a small gasp, pink eyes trained on Rick’s face. “R-Rick! You… you’re awake…”
“And you weren’t. Way to guard me from danger, hon,” Rick joked halfheartedly with a half-smile. However, even that disappeared when he saw the severe look in Craig’s tired eyes.
“…Rick.” Craig scooted forward in his chair, getting closer to the edge of Rick’s bed. “Rick… why didn’t you say anything?”
Rick looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you with this!”
“Helped me with what, exactly?” Rick looked back at him, a tired sort of exasperation in his eyes. “I don’t have anything you could help me with.”
Craig glanced at the clipboard in his hands for a moment before looking back up and matching Rick’s gaze. “You’ve been avoiding eating around other people or avoiding it in general, which in conjunction with other evidence leads me to believe that you’ve been binging when you’re alone. There wasn’t any evidence of dental damage or esophagitis when the doctors checked on you, which leads me to believe you do not engage in the customary ‘purging’ but rather compensate for your binges by either a form of fasting or excessive exercise, the latter of which would fit with your character. One thing the examination did show was that you’ve got a minor case of hypokalemia and a more serious case of dehydration…” The pink-eyed man trailed off as he watched Rick look away, straight forward, and saw his expression grow stonier by the second.
When he spoke, it was enough to make Craig explode. “It’s not a problem. I have it under control.”
“That’s what everyone says about things like this, Rick!” Craig nearly shouted, leaning forward in his chair. “If it’s under control, then why did you pass out from exhaustion in the meeting? God, Rick, you idiot - you need someone to help you!”
“Oh, and you think you could help me?” Rick nearly shouted back, glaring at Craig under thick black brows. Craig’s eyes were angry, accusing, and red - when they’re this wide open Rick can see the veins at their edges that must have come from the stress. “You’re a mess! You’re an obsessive, OCD, anxiety-medicated sociopath! The only thing keeping you from flipping your shit on everyone someday is your medicine!”
“At least I had the thought to get help so that I wouldn’t flip my shit in the first place!” Craig shouted back; the moment after he froze, realizing how loud he’d gotten. When he began again, he was much quieter, much more controlled. “Rick, I’ve… I’ve had some contact with disorders like this before… people tend not to realize they have them. Th-they tend to have delusions.”
Rick ignored Craig speaking, preferring to look over at the monitor and watch the electric green line peak and flatten. “Now I’m not saying you’re delusional… well. Maybe a little. Possibly. But most people with things like this are. They believe that what- that what they’re doing to themselves isn’t hurting them. …I know you feel like… I know you probably feel like you have to do this. That you have to keep yourself… likeable, I guess…”
“Stop putting words in my mouth,” Rick said tiredly, still watching the jagged green line.
“Well, how am I supposed to figure out what you’d say this is about if you won’t say it?” Craig snapped somewhat angrily, but then he stopped and calmed himself down again, pulling his reading glasses off his face. Rick looked down at his feet, covered by the white sheets.
“Rick. Rick, you can recognize a problem when you see it, I know you can. Why didn’t you recognize this?” Craig’s voice was a tiny bit softer - a tiny bit more hurt. “Did you just not see it?”
“Maybe I didn’t see it because it wasn’t a problem,” Rick gritted out, eyes not moving from the end of the bed.
“Maybe it wasn’t a problem until now, but now it is officially recognized as one.” Craig had a little more venom in his voice, now. “Ugh… Rick, I just…”
He trailed off, and for a moment they sat in a tense silence that neither broke - Rick out of stubbornness, refusing to answer, and Craig out of awkwardness.
Finally, Rick spoke. “How long was I out?”
“Nine hours and… forty-four minutes, I think. You had brief moments of lucidity when the doctors were examining you in the first hour, though.”
Another pause was filled by silence, and then Rick spoke again: “How long were you here?”
Rick didn’t see him do this, but he heard Craig take a shaky breath. “…The whole time. I used my entry status to make the doctors let me in and get me this chart of your results.” He heard a flutter of paper - something on the clipboard was Rick’s guess.
For a moment it was silent again; then Rick let out a long, soft sigh through his nose. “Is it really that bad?”
“…Yes. Do you want to see it?”
“Nah.”
“O-okay.”
For a fourth time silence reigned over the room. Rick kept staring down at the foot of the bed, his thoughts punctuated only by the monitor’s beep, and he didn’t know what Craig was doing until he felt a thin hand rest on his left arm, then move to twine into his fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He turned his head to look at Craig, whose eyes were cast towards the floor. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t look at what was happening, under that stupid grin and the bravado and everything else. I-I didn’t see…”
Rick tightened his hand around Craig’s and let his eyes drop down as well. “Hey. Shut up, don’t cry. It’s not your fault, I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being an idiot. For thinking something like this was the right thing to do.”
They both looked up to each other at the same time, pink and green meeting like magnets. After a moment of staring Craig reached out his other hand to wipe something from the corner of Rick’s eye, then kept his hand there. Then, they kissed - soft and long, just lips instead of teeth and tongues. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a way to be closer to each other, to get a handhold so that they wouldn’t get separated.
When they broke for air they stayed close, Craig’s forehead resting on Rick’s and their hair mixing to make a pattern of black and blonde. Their eyes met again, both pairs hooded and tired.
“…I love you.”
“…I love you, too.”
“And because I love you I’m going to help you with this, whether you like it or not.”
“…Thanks. I… I could use some help. I guess.”
Craig smirked a little at that, and that made Rick smile back, and that made Craig snigger the tiniest bit, and before they knew it they were chuckling into each other’s shoulders. The chair was scooted closer. Later, anyone passing through and perhaps looking in on the patients in the Aperture Science Emergency Employee Medical Center would have found the two men asleep, with Craig curled up next to Rick as best he could, Rick’s arm around his middle, resting his head on the other man’s shoulder.
Fandom: Portal/Portal 2
Pairings: Adventure Core (Rick)/Fact Core (Craig) [HUMANIZED]
Description: Something I wanted to write. There's been a lot of Factventure fics (which I am very happy about because I ship them SO HARD), but most of them focus more on Fact/Craig and his weirdness, exploring who he is more than they explore Rick. This was written because I wanted to do something cute, something bittersweet, and something that looked at and theorized about what Rick's got wrong with him.
Rating: PG-13 for cursing, making out, sexual references, and some angry discussion of body image issues/eating disorders/etc.
FIRST PART: http://nakkistiltz.livejournal.com/3519.html
(okay, here's the dumb dramatic H/C part. SOB)
:
“Rick. Wake up. …Rick!”
“Mmhn - what?” Rick blinked blearily, his eyes opening to the sight of Craig staring at him. They were sitting in a darkened conference room - oh, right. Presentation day. Shit.
“Rick, wake up. You’re going to have to go up there and do your presentation in a few minutes,” Craig whispered. Rick groaned and mopped his face with one hand, then rubbed at the circles under his eyes. Craig regarded him as he did this, sitting pencil-straight in his chair. “…Are you okay? You seem sort of… out of it, today.”
“Nah, nah, ‘m fine,” Rick murmured. He sat up a little straighter in his own chair and tried to pay attention to the scientist droning at the front of the room.
“Your skin is 23% paler than normal, you’ve been less energetic all morning, and you have been having trouble maintaining consciousness throughout this meeting. Are you sick?”
“I’m fine, Craig. Honest,” Rick said, and tried to do one of his charming smiles. It didn’t seem to have the same effect as usual, with Craig huffing at him and turning away.
“It’s time for you to go, Rick, get up!” Craig hissed as the scientist finished up, and he gave Rick a small shove.
“Fine, fine, I’m going, I’m- I’m…” Rick shot up out of his chair, but apparently this was a bad move - he swayed uncertainly, much to the interest of the other people in the meeting, before he grabbed the table for support.
“Rick?” Rick heard Craig say his name, but he didn’t pay attention to it - everything was blurring and he was a little too concerned with keeping his balance.
“I…” He tried to stand up again - shit, now everything was blurring even more. This was not good; this was not good at all.
After a moment of uncertain swaying, Rick announced loudly to the room: “I- I think I’m gonna be a sissy and faint… s-sorry!…”
1.
Everything was quiet, which was more than a little weird when he thought about it. When Rick normally woke up in the morning, it was to the sound of cars beeping, birds cooing - the sounds of the city beneath his apartment. Where ever he was, it was definitely not the city. The only things he could hear were a muted beep every few seconds and the constant soft hum of an air conditioner.
When he opened his eyes blearily, it became even clearer that he wasn’t at home. He was lying flat on his back in what looked like a hospital bed, covered in gray and white sheets, in a room with white walls (one of which had Aperture’s logo painted in blue on it). When he turned his head to the right, Rick could see an IV drip and a monitor which was emitting the intermittent beep; looking down, the IV’s end was stuck firm in his arm and a few wires from the monitor were down his shirt, undoubtedly monitoring his breathing and his heart.
Rick gave an exasperated sigh. Well, shit. What a lovely thing to wake up to.
Then, Rick looked to his left - and his heart sank in his chest. Hunched forward in his sleep with a clipboard clutched in his white-knuckled hands was Craig, seated in a shitty folding chair. His reading glasses had slid down onto the tip of his nose and his brow was furrowed with stress and worry; his clothes were wrinkled and unkempt, and there were dark circles starting to form under his closed eyes. With his breathing nearly unnoticeable, it was almost as if he were dead.
Rick’s mouth was dry, but he managed to croak: “…Craig?”
Craig jolted awake, his eyes going wide and his whole frame jumping when he heard his name. “Wha? What - “ He cut off his own words with a small gasp, pink eyes trained on Rick’s face. “R-Rick! You… you’re awake…”
“And you weren’t. Way to guard me from danger, hon,” Rick joked halfheartedly with a half-smile. However, even that disappeared when he saw the severe look in Craig’s tired eyes.
“…Rick.” Craig scooted forward in his chair, getting closer to the edge of Rick’s bed. “Rick… why didn’t you say anything?”
Rick looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you with this!”
“Helped me with what, exactly?” Rick looked back at him, a tired sort of exasperation in his eyes. “I don’t have anything you could help me with.”
Craig glanced at the clipboard in his hands for a moment before looking back up and matching Rick’s gaze. “You’ve been avoiding eating around other people or avoiding it in general, which in conjunction with other evidence leads me to believe that you’ve been binging when you’re alone. There wasn’t any evidence of dental damage or esophagitis when the doctors checked on you, which leads me to believe you do not engage in the customary ‘purging’ but rather compensate for your binges by either a form of fasting or excessive exercise, the latter of which would fit with your character. One thing the examination did show was that you’ve got a minor case of hypokalemia and a more serious case of dehydration…” The pink-eyed man trailed off as he watched Rick look away, straight forward, and saw his expression grow stonier by the second.
When he spoke, it was enough to make Craig explode. “It’s not a problem. I have it under control.”
“That’s what everyone says about things like this, Rick!” Craig nearly shouted, leaning forward in his chair. “If it’s under control, then why did you pass out from exhaustion in the meeting? God, Rick, you idiot - you need someone to help you!”
“Oh, and you think you could help me?” Rick nearly shouted back, glaring at Craig under thick black brows. Craig’s eyes were angry, accusing, and red - when they’re this wide open Rick can see the veins at their edges that must have come from the stress. “You’re a mess! You’re an obsessive, OCD, anxiety-medicated sociopath! The only thing keeping you from flipping your shit on everyone someday is your medicine!”
“At least I had the thought to get help so that I wouldn’t flip my shit in the first place!” Craig shouted back; the moment after he froze, realizing how loud he’d gotten. When he began again, he was much quieter, much more controlled. “Rick, I’ve… I’ve had some contact with disorders like this before… people tend not to realize they have them. Th-they tend to have delusions.”
Rick ignored Craig speaking, preferring to look over at the monitor and watch the electric green line peak and flatten. “Now I’m not saying you’re delusional… well. Maybe a little. Possibly. But most people with things like this are. They believe that what- that what they’re doing to themselves isn’t hurting them. …I know you feel like… I know you probably feel like you have to do this. That you have to keep yourself… likeable, I guess…”
“Stop putting words in my mouth,” Rick said tiredly, still watching the jagged green line.
“Well, how am I supposed to figure out what you’d say this is about if you won’t say it?” Craig snapped somewhat angrily, but then he stopped and calmed himself down again, pulling his reading glasses off his face. Rick looked down at his feet, covered by the white sheets.
“Rick. Rick, you can recognize a problem when you see it, I know you can. Why didn’t you recognize this?” Craig’s voice was a tiny bit softer - a tiny bit more hurt. “Did you just not see it?”
“Maybe I didn’t see it because it wasn’t a problem,” Rick gritted out, eyes not moving from the end of the bed.
“Maybe it wasn’t a problem until now, but now it is officially recognized as one.” Craig had a little more venom in his voice, now. “Ugh… Rick, I just…”
He trailed off, and for a moment they sat in a tense silence that neither broke - Rick out of stubbornness, refusing to answer, and Craig out of awkwardness.
Finally, Rick spoke. “How long was I out?”
“Nine hours and… forty-four minutes, I think. You had brief moments of lucidity when the doctors were examining you in the first hour, though.”
Another pause was filled by silence, and then Rick spoke again: “How long were you here?”
Rick didn’t see him do this, but he heard Craig take a shaky breath. “…The whole time. I used my entry status to make the doctors let me in and get me this chart of your results.” He heard a flutter of paper - something on the clipboard was Rick’s guess.
For a moment it was silent again; then Rick let out a long, soft sigh through his nose. “Is it really that bad?”
“…Yes. Do you want to see it?”
“Nah.”
“O-okay.”
For a fourth time silence reigned over the room. Rick kept staring down at the foot of the bed, his thoughts punctuated only by the monitor’s beep, and he didn’t know what Craig was doing until he felt a thin hand rest on his left arm, then move to twine into his fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He turned his head to look at Craig, whose eyes were cast towards the floor. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t look at what was happening, under that stupid grin and the bravado and everything else. I-I didn’t see…”
Rick tightened his hand around Craig’s and let his eyes drop down as well. “Hey. Shut up, don’t cry. It’s not your fault, I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being an idiot. For thinking something like this was the right thing to do.”
They both looked up to each other at the same time, pink and green meeting like magnets. After a moment of staring Craig reached out his other hand to wipe something from the corner of Rick’s eye, then kept his hand there. Then, they kissed - soft and long, just lips instead of teeth and tongues. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a way to be closer to each other, to get a handhold so that they wouldn’t get separated.
When they broke for air they stayed close, Craig’s forehead resting on Rick’s and their hair mixing to make a pattern of black and blonde. Their eyes met again, both pairs hooded and tired.
“…I love you.”
“…I love you, too.”
“And because I love you I’m going to help you with this, whether you like it or not.”
“…Thanks. I… I could use some help. I guess.”
Craig smirked a little at that, and that made Rick smile back, and that made Craig snigger the tiniest bit, and before they knew it they were chuckling into each other’s shoulders. The chair was scooted closer. Later, anyone passing through and perhaps looking in on the patients in the Aperture Science Emergency Employee Medical Center would have found the two men asleep, with Craig curled up next to Rick as best he could, Rick’s arm around his middle, resting his head on the other man’s shoulder.