T:SCC Fic: all glory rites, trojan kings
note: hey, look. it’s a holiday fic! for goldenmelisande. who asked for a cameron fic, which started out as a cameron fic but got away? *laughs* enjoy, m’dear. ♥
all glory rites, trojan kings
he stands against the wall, staring to the side and over a spare pair of boots. they last, about two or three weeks. then he scopes out the dead - dead soldiers, men and women, children that burned crosses into their chests to die for him. he doesn't keep his hands clean. the machines must get a fucking kick out of that. john then, john now; it’s always the same side of the card. terminator: scc. john, cameron. (slight john/cameron, john/allison). future fic; all spoilers up until earthlings welcome here. 1,856 words, r.
-
The room is cornered somewhere between rats and piss, stretched against the east wall. There is an east wall.
It’s blanketed in bricks, one by one colored into gray; it could be a different room, if he wanted it to be a different room, with the same bed against the wall, under what could've been a window no less. Nobody remembers windows. Streets. Street lamps and skies, the walking of the stars. It’s hardly poetic, but if anything, he'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, Mom might've laughed.
He stands against the wall, staring to the side and over a spare pair of boots. They last, about two or three weeks. Then he scopes out the dead - dead soldiers, men and women, children that burned crosses into their chests to die for him. He doesn't keep his hands clean. The machines must get a fucking kick out of that. Humans, ready. Humans wanting to go and die for just one. A man, a prophet, a preacher. Fucking fire and brimstone, all ready to play. There are clothes too, but hidden and under the bed; two shirts, pants, and a weave of medical supplies that are given to him, wanted or not.
There are no secrets, even in here.
But Cameron's asleep. Or awake, matted into the mattress that masks as a bed. On blocks of wood and cement, old building pieces and a bank sign. He thinks, he doesn't. His hands are heavy against his side, his fingers at his hips. There's not grunt, no groan - this is her, he thinks, it has to be. The specific date, the time, the hour, and those minutes. Places here and there, everything happens for a reason. This is what she told all of them, time and time again.
His boots shift him away from the wall, scuffling against the brick. He shuffles. Someone’s walking, the echo facing his door. There’s a murmur, guards switching, and there's joke here, the savior of mankind and a prisoner of his own people. Or something like that. He's learned to be like Derek - he keeps a father figure somewhere - he's gotta thing for all those drinking songs. There's a laugh too and he hears more steps, feet and guns; it's late or early, a bottle of this and that scarce but here always arising at certain hours. Somebody turns a safety on.
It's almost funny, anyway.
He moves to the bed though, kneeling at her side.
"You did say this was going to happen."
It's too strange to come to terms with the sound of his own voice, the way it cuts and scrapes as he looks at her.
He doesn't remember what happened. He does remember what happened. It's a poor man's way of looking at the inevitable. She’s here. Was there. They all told him that Cameron was going to make him snap; but isn't that what the machines wanted, the question and the answer all coming later.
Advice, advice, advice. He never could listen.
His fingers draw over her face, along the line of her jaw, and then spreading over her throat. Her name was Allison. He could press his fingers. They could slip, just a little too hard. He learned too late, when there was two and two and Mom was still around, still breathing, and still believe in everything she broke their lives for. But she's beautiful, not like Allison - there's quality again, too perfect and too still, the strange tension in her mouth that is supposed to take that step into something, without questions or promises. A little too hard doesn't work anyway.
"I don't want to wake you up," John murmurs.
He’s pensive and drawn. In a little while, Derek will walk back, down the tunnel halls and tell him about dad and this and the memories that he'll cycle into again. They will never talk about Mom. This is rule, the rule, and the only thing that John knows that he has left.
"But I fucking have to, right?" he bows over her, Cameron, and presses his mouth into her hair. "I fucking have to for all of this to start again. And again. And again."
His throat tightens and twists, the dryness rubbing along the ledge of teeth. He misses whiskey. He never liked whiskey. It wasn't about whiskey until somebody fucked up and set the sky on fire. Over and over again, like Mom used to promise - even when it was too late. Sometimes, he thought she was crazy for real. Now, he just gets it.
Into the pillow, his fingers drop.
There’s no sound. They curl. And then curl again. There’s fabric stretching against his palm, into the lines of skin as he clutches a screwdriver. His nails scrape into his palm, his fist pressing into her hair. She doesn't move, she won't move. There’s nothing to wake yet. She’s beautiful. He’s not surprised. She was then too. But it's already been in his head, Cameron and Allison, Allison and Cameron - he should've left it at a dying girl the first time.
His fingers drop the screwdriver. Pick up the pliers. Drop the pliers. He’s sighing before he even realizes he's shaking, his hand curling and uncurling in a benediction, straight over her forehead. Outside, there's a laugh again. A shit, we're all fucked trying to be quiet as they stand guard his room. They're drinking again. John tries to remember the plan. Wake, sleep, and wake. Derek is coming. There’s a schedule to follow.
There’s always a schedule to follow. It’s lather, rinse, and repeat. It’s get up, school, come home, sleep. It’s all the possibilities that he's had and faked, everything's that made him in here. It shouldn't be any different. He picks up the pliers again, running his thumb against the legs. Handmade. It’s funny, right?
He sighs instead, shifting forward. His knees dig into the floor, sigh over the dust. There’s another laugh. Louder. But there's nothing to hear. Remember, Mom said, just remember that you've got to carry some things alone. He hadn't wanted to - but he was better at hating her then. Now, he's tired.
The pliers twist.
They’re in her hair, before he even notices, picking at scabs and skins; things that don't belong to her, people drink. Flesh and bones, bones are metal. The metal stole what makes humans human. There's blood. It’s all too Shakespearean, his wife would say. He had a wife. It felt like a span of fifteen seconds though. One year, she was blond and a teenage. The next, older and wiser. Some memories aren't meant to be his.
He picks away at the hair, a pound of flesh here. A pound there. The sheets were never white, what's a little red to spare? His mouth turns. There’s a moan. It’s him; soft and breathless, panicked over his lips. They’re peeling too, chunks of skin flapping into his teeth.
"Come on, come on."
She said she'd come. She would know. He trusted her. He's panting now. Sweat starts slink across his forehead, along his throat, and into his shirt. He was a soldier before all of them. They want to keep myth and lore. She would approve. And if she could, she would be amused too. Maybe, that's why he needs her. A memory, something lost. He hadn't even tried to stop her, Allison from -
From, from, from where?
"It doesn't matter," he says out loud; his voice, it stretches, and pockets in each corner. It turns, to be obsessed, and writes against the walls. Like mother, like son. If only he had a father.
There’s a loud crack. Outside, someone curses. Hey, watch it! His heart is starting to pound. He can hear it, churning over in his ears. And one and two and three. Four, five, six gives him her eyes. They wrinkle. He's tight. There's another crack again, louder as the pliers tighten in his fingers. He tries not to see her, see the wire and the salvation. This is what the machines had wanted. Dependency. Addiction. It's how they still live.
John’s hard.
Little by little, the space is too small. He can remember what she feels like. Or how she feels now. There's no difference. He gets a third crack, muffled into the pillow. She doesn't arch. Cameron doesn't arch. Doesn’t flinch. Her fingers don't even move. She can pretend. His gaze is to her eyes instead. Open, close, open, close - he can't decide what he wants to see. The floor quivers a little. It's his knees.
"I know you're there."
His voice is tight, over her. He waits. And waits. It was the wrong one. His hands move too quickly. Too slow. He didn't think fast enough. He’s tired, so very tired.
There’s no answer.
He pushes himself back slowly. He’s still clutching the pliers as he stands, turning away from the bed. His eyes close. There’s a schedule. Still, there's a schedule. It’s catching up to him. People dying. People martyring themselves for him, for a boy that he was supposed to be. He remembers crates and ships; Allison and the others, the dead that fly, the dead that sink, and the dead that face them back as ashes. It’s all here. This is what Sarah left him with. Mom. Sarah. Just Mom.
He whirls around, throwing the pliers hard into the door.
A wrench of sound rips out of his throat, swallowing the pliers as they hit the ground. They skid and crack into the wall, lying limp next to the door. There is silence in the halls. He doesn't fucking care, he thinks. Let them listen. It’s what they know how to do.
"You - "
But he can't even bring himself to finish. Always there, but never quite there. It's how the saying goes. Half the time, it's been him to talking to a memory. And then a girl. And then memory of a girl and a memory. He doesn't know how to function beyond that. Maybe, he's not supposed to. Or never was.
His hand covers his face.
The heels of his palms, they press into his eyes, and he can feel his shoulders start to shake. He won't cry. He hasn't cried. He’s not a child. He kills people. Sometimes, it feels a little like the same thing. He slumps too and shifts; his bones feel old, it might be a Connor thing. It's easier said than done.
The bed moans.
He's slow, as he turns, and then finds her standing. His heart is starting to pound again, even as he meets her gaze and watches her tilt it to the side. Blood is sliding down her skin, from the hair to the forehead, like some sort of Christ figure. His mouth parts with some sort of awe and her eyes close, only to open and stare at him. There should be a smile here, but there isn't. It’s started again.
"You are still a child," she says slowly, finally.
Somehow, she manages to sound disappointed.
all glory rites, trojan kings
he stands against the wall, staring to the side and over a spare pair of boots. they last, about two or three weeks. then he scopes out the dead - dead soldiers, men and women, children that burned crosses into their chests to die for him. he doesn't keep his hands clean. the machines must get a fucking kick out of that. john then, john now; it’s always the same side of the card. terminator: scc. john, cameron. (slight john/cameron, john/allison). future fic; all spoilers up until earthlings welcome here. 1,856 words, r.
-
The room is cornered somewhere between rats and piss, stretched against the east wall. There is an east wall.
It’s blanketed in bricks, one by one colored into gray; it could be a different room, if he wanted it to be a different room, with the same bed against the wall, under what could've been a window no less. Nobody remembers windows. Streets. Street lamps and skies, the walking of the stars. It’s hardly poetic, but if anything, he'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, Mom might've laughed.
He stands against the wall, staring to the side and over a spare pair of boots. They last, about two or three weeks. Then he scopes out the dead - dead soldiers, men and women, children that burned crosses into their chests to die for him. He doesn't keep his hands clean. The machines must get a fucking kick out of that. Humans, ready. Humans wanting to go and die for just one. A man, a prophet, a preacher. Fucking fire and brimstone, all ready to play. There are clothes too, but hidden and under the bed; two shirts, pants, and a weave of medical supplies that are given to him, wanted or not.
There are no secrets, even in here.
But Cameron's asleep. Or awake, matted into the mattress that masks as a bed. On blocks of wood and cement, old building pieces and a bank sign. He thinks, he doesn't. His hands are heavy against his side, his fingers at his hips. There's not grunt, no groan - this is her, he thinks, it has to be. The specific date, the time, the hour, and those minutes. Places here and there, everything happens for a reason. This is what she told all of them, time and time again.
His boots shift him away from the wall, scuffling against the brick. He shuffles. Someone’s walking, the echo facing his door. There’s a murmur, guards switching, and there's joke here, the savior of mankind and a prisoner of his own people. Or something like that. He's learned to be like Derek - he keeps a father figure somewhere - he's gotta thing for all those drinking songs. There's a laugh too and he hears more steps, feet and guns; it's late or early, a bottle of this and that scarce but here always arising at certain hours. Somebody turns a safety on.
It's almost funny, anyway.
He moves to the bed though, kneeling at her side.
"You did say this was going to happen."
It's too strange to come to terms with the sound of his own voice, the way it cuts and scrapes as he looks at her.
He doesn't remember what happened. He does remember what happened. It's a poor man's way of looking at the inevitable. She’s here. Was there. They all told him that Cameron was going to make him snap; but isn't that what the machines wanted, the question and the answer all coming later.
Advice, advice, advice. He never could listen.
His fingers draw over her face, along the line of her jaw, and then spreading over her throat. Her name was Allison. He could press his fingers. They could slip, just a little too hard. He learned too late, when there was two and two and Mom was still around, still breathing, and still believe in everything she broke their lives for. But she's beautiful, not like Allison - there's quality again, too perfect and too still, the strange tension in her mouth that is supposed to take that step into something, without questions or promises. A little too hard doesn't work anyway.
"I don't want to wake you up," John murmurs.
He’s pensive and drawn. In a little while, Derek will walk back, down the tunnel halls and tell him about dad and this and the memories that he'll cycle into again. They will never talk about Mom. This is rule, the rule, and the only thing that John knows that he has left.
"But I fucking have to, right?" he bows over her, Cameron, and presses his mouth into her hair. "I fucking have to for all of this to start again. And again. And again."
His throat tightens and twists, the dryness rubbing along the ledge of teeth. He misses whiskey. He never liked whiskey. It wasn't about whiskey until somebody fucked up and set the sky on fire. Over and over again, like Mom used to promise - even when it was too late. Sometimes, he thought she was crazy for real. Now, he just gets it.
Into the pillow, his fingers drop.
There’s no sound. They curl. And then curl again. There’s fabric stretching against his palm, into the lines of skin as he clutches a screwdriver. His nails scrape into his palm, his fist pressing into her hair. She doesn't move, she won't move. There’s nothing to wake yet. She’s beautiful. He’s not surprised. She was then too. But it's already been in his head, Cameron and Allison, Allison and Cameron - he should've left it at a dying girl the first time.
His fingers drop the screwdriver. Pick up the pliers. Drop the pliers. He’s sighing before he even realizes he's shaking, his hand curling and uncurling in a benediction, straight over her forehead. Outside, there's a laugh again. A shit, we're all fucked trying to be quiet as they stand guard his room. They're drinking again. John tries to remember the plan. Wake, sleep, and wake. Derek is coming. There’s a schedule to follow.
There’s always a schedule to follow. It’s lather, rinse, and repeat. It’s get up, school, come home, sleep. It’s all the possibilities that he's had and faked, everything's that made him in here. It shouldn't be any different. He picks up the pliers again, running his thumb against the legs. Handmade. It’s funny, right?
He sighs instead, shifting forward. His knees dig into the floor, sigh over the dust. There’s another laugh. Louder. But there's nothing to hear. Remember, Mom said, just remember that you've got to carry some things alone. He hadn't wanted to - but he was better at hating her then. Now, he's tired.
The pliers twist.
They’re in her hair, before he even notices, picking at scabs and skins; things that don't belong to her, people drink. Flesh and bones, bones are metal. The metal stole what makes humans human. There's blood. It’s all too Shakespearean, his wife would say. He had a wife. It felt like a span of fifteen seconds though. One year, she was blond and a teenage. The next, older and wiser. Some memories aren't meant to be his.
He picks away at the hair, a pound of flesh here. A pound there. The sheets were never white, what's a little red to spare? His mouth turns. There’s a moan. It’s him; soft and breathless, panicked over his lips. They’re peeling too, chunks of skin flapping into his teeth.
"Come on, come on."
She said she'd come. She would know. He trusted her. He's panting now. Sweat starts slink across his forehead, along his throat, and into his shirt. He was a soldier before all of them. They want to keep myth and lore. She would approve. And if she could, she would be amused too. Maybe, that's why he needs her. A memory, something lost. He hadn't even tried to stop her, Allison from -
From, from, from where?
"It doesn't matter," he says out loud; his voice, it stretches, and pockets in each corner. It turns, to be obsessed, and writes against the walls. Like mother, like son. If only he had a father.
There’s a loud crack. Outside, someone curses. Hey, watch it! His heart is starting to pound. He can hear it, churning over in his ears. And one and two and three. Four, five, six gives him her eyes. They wrinkle. He's tight. There's another crack again, louder as the pliers tighten in his fingers. He tries not to see her, see the wire and the salvation. This is what the machines had wanted. Dependency. Addiction. It's how they still live.
John’s hard.
Little by little, the space is too small. He can remember what she feels like. Or how she feels now. There's no difference. He gets a third crack, muffled into the pillow. She doesn't arch. Cameron doesn't arch. Doesn’t flinch. Her fingers don't even move. She can pretend. His gaze is to her eyes instead. Open, close, open, close - he can't decide what he wants to see. The floor quivers a little. It's his knees.
"I know you're there."
His voice is tight, over her. He waits. And waits. It was the wrong one. His hands move too quickly. Too slow. He didn't think fast enough. He’s tired, so very tired.
There’s no answer.
He pushes himself back slowly. He’s still clutching the pliers as he stands, turning away from the bed. His eyes close. There’s a schedule. Still, there's a schedule. It’s catching up to him. People dying. People martyring themselves for him, for a boy that he was supposed to be. He remembers crates and ships; Allison and the others, the dead that fly, the dead that sink, and the dead that face them back as ashes. It’s all here. This is what Sarah left him with. Mom. Sarah. Just Mom.
He whirls around, throwing the pliers hard into the door.
A wrench of sound rips out of his throat, swallowing the pliers as they hit the ground. They skid and crack into the wall, lying limp next to the door. There is silence in the halls. He doesn't fucking care, he thinks. Let them listen. It’s what they know how to do.
"You - "
But he can't even bring himself to finish. Always there, but never quite there. It's how the saying goes. Half the time, it's been him to talking to a memory. And then a girl. And then memory of a girl and a memory. He doesn't know how to function beyond that. Maybe, he's not supposed to. Or never was.
His hand covers his face.
The heels of his palms, they press into his eyes, and he can feel his shoulders start to shake. He won't cry. He hasn't cried. He’s not a child. He kills people. Sometimes, it feels a little like the same thing. He slumps too and shifts; his bones feel old, it might be a Connor thing. It's easier said than done.
The bed moans.
He's slow, as he turns, and then finds her standing. His heart is starting to pound again, even as he meets her gaze and watches her tilt it to the side. Blood is sliding down her skin, from the hair to the forehead, like some sort of Christ figure. His mouth parts with some sort of awe and her eyes close, only to open and stare at him. There should be a smile here, but there isn't. It’s started again.
"You are still a child," she says slowly, finally.
Somehow, she manages to sound disappointed.