(no subject)
Title: A Rebellion of Caring
Characters: Gabe, Alex, mentions of Killjoys. Slight Gabe/Alex, future Gabe/Mikey.
Rating: R
Wordcount: 1981
Summary: Gabe doesn't fight out in the zones, but he does his best to liberate the people within Battery City and make them ready to run for freedom.
Prompt used: deprogramming 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 notes: Set in my Killjoys 'verse 'All Inclusive'. (otherwise known as the one where I write everyone ever in the KJ world, including Spice Girls) I went through about seven different deprogramming ideas before finally settling on this.
Gabe knows he’s not a Killjoy calibre rebel. He doesn’t really want to be, honestly. They take things a bit to the extreme, with the killing and the fighting and the raising of tiny children. In comparison his occasional kidnappings seem almost sane. Nor can he imagine living in the constant heat they do, car sizzling hot under the sun. The regulated weather of Battery City suits him much better. Besides, there’s a lower chance of getting caught and removed if he’s not pissing people off fucking around in the outer zones.
Seemingly quiet citizen or not, if SCARECROW finds out they will blast him. He’s not a Killjoy, that doesn’t mean he’s not a rebel. He considers himself a intermediary. His vocation is helping people escape the Better Living Industries mindset. Whether or not they want to literally escape to the zones is their choice, after he fixes them Gabe thinks everything should be their choice. If he orders them around he’s really not that much better than BL Industries.
For the most part, deprogramming is about getting people to live partially without drugs. Gabe doesn’t see the point in trying to demand full abstinence, there are a few things in the BLInd Party imprint of the corporation he enjoys on occasion. What you purchase is monitored, and not buying enough is highly suspicious. Once you’ve got something in hand, you might as well not waste your credit. Where Gabe sees the problem is BL Industries convincing everyone they need drugs to replace basic emotions. That’s not cool.
What he does is like what paparazzi used to do. In this day and age everyone is the star of their own universe, self interest obliterating any reference to outside. He’s the one who takes the snapshots that remind people they are only human. That they can eat or fuck or be fat, just like everyone else. Shame isn’t his favourite emotion, but sometimes it needs to come into play.
It’s not like he deprograms people against their will. Well, maybe. No one ever really asks to be deprogrammed. But it’s not just willy nilly, he doesn’t deprogram randomly. He looks for people that show glimmers of wanting to be free. Gabe doesn’t want to waste his time getting them through physical detox, he wants the people that once sober will choose to stay (mostly) sober rather than completely flood their systems with shit. Just as importantly, he needs someone capable of being mentally detoxed. The last thing he needs is someone that will rat him out, some asshole that heads straight for SCARECROW after leaving his house. It’s only happened once, he’d had no choice but to shoot Eliza in the back of the head. Gabe does what he has to do, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it, not like the Killjoys.
He goes out to party/scout, making sure to buy his pills at the front door as he pays the cover. He swallows them at the water fountain installed beside where the bot stands and heads inside. Gabe ends up spending most of the night with this guy Alex, sprawled on a couch with his eyes closed, wearing BL Industries boots meant to make his feet feel like he’s dancing. His entire body thrums with the chemicals, when they reach his ears he can hear music better than anything they play on official BLInd channels.
At the end of the night, when he starts to come down, he decides to take Alex home with him. He’d shown signs of believing in friendship, the entire time they were jiving he kept mentioning the guy he used to know. You can’t put a price on affection, it’s not supposed to matter. Actually remembering that the guy’s name is Ryland is a sign he retains some humanity under the veneer of drugs. It’s something Gabe can work with.
It’s easy enough to lure Alex to his house. Just mentioning having Composition 46 he wants to share for a reasonable fee because he has a surplus with a soon in the future expiry date does it. Gabe’s done this more than a dozen times, and he’s found it’s the best excuse to use. Invitations to one’s home have to be monetary based to not pique the attention of those watching the cameras monitoring everything. But the Dracs have their habits, just like every else. They understand buying too much of a drug you really enjoy and needing to get rid of the extras before they’re useless.
His house is old, run down in ways that Gabe can’t risk fixing. The houses near the edge of Battery City towards zone one are occasionally raided to check for trafficking, the high rise apartments have cameras in every fixture. Gabe was incredibly careful to get a place that was close enough to not attract attention without having it new enough to have the latest monitoring system. If he tries to get shit replaced it’s a sure bet whatever it is will have a bug in it, so when something stops working, he deals.
Alex doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until they’re in Gabe’s guest bedroom. He gets about five seconds to notice the restraints before Gabe’s shoving him down. Alex isn’t exactly small, but Gabe is taller, stronger, and has practiced these first few seconds more than he can count. Sometimes, after they’ve sobered up and have decided to run for the inner zones at least, Gabe teaches a rebel how to fight. While Dracs don’t really respond to anything besides a blast, SCARECROW elite are human and can be taken down. Hell, even a Drac will stop for a crucial second or two if they’re kicked in the face. It’s just unfortunate that most rebels aren’t tall enough for that sort of move.
Once he’s bound Gabe rolls him to his side. Depending on what Alex has been enjoying lately and how frequently, he might be vomiting non stop for the next day. Getting someone almost sober only to have them choke on their own puke and die isn’t Gabe’s idea of a plan well executed. He closes the door as he leaves, he doesn’t exactly want to hear the curses and names Alex is going to be shouting at him for the next day and a half.
Aside from occasionally entering the room to wipe the vomit off his chest, or change the padding on the bottom half of the bed, Gabe leaves him alone for thirty six hours. One good thing about Better Living medication; it doesn’t last long if you’re not currently popping it. It wouldn’t be cost effective for the company if the users didn’t have to pop it all the time. Gabe’s heard about old drugs, alcohol and tobacco and heroin. That shit could fuck you up for weeks, at least the new shit only takes until sunset the day after.
When dealing with someone just off pills it’s generally better, Gabe’s found, to do something pleasent. It’s wrong to think of it as easing them into it, the first twenty four hours stone cold sober are such a shock that it can’t be considered easy at all. But there are different ways Gabe could go about it, start in with a lecture of about the evils of Better Living Industries, or try to tune in and see of Dr. Death is speaking on his pirated channel. All of it seems a bit too much to start with though. He’s done this enough to know that headfirst rebellion after twenty years of conforming just scares them. The subtler the first step is, the more likely they’ll be curious about more. And of course the more questions that start being asked, the clearer the person’s mindset gets. The best way to start is to provide them with a sober experience that’s as similar to a drug trip as possible, but without the drugs.
There are a few experiences that can simulate pills, but Gabe likes to start off with sex. With the Better Living pills it’s instant orgasm within five minutes or your money back. Reminding someone that you can have other people around when you’re turned on is a good start to opening up the idea that bonding with others is okay. That being said, Gabe never fucks on the first night. Women’s bodies don’t yet know to get wet because of a person rather than under the command of chemicals. Men’s bodies can’t prepare themselves at all and it’s an almost certainty the guy would freak out if Gabe tried. Oral sex is safer.
Gabe unties Alex at the end of the evening, fist cocked just in case he decides to be a dick about the kidnapping. Alex doesn’t try to take a swing though, just shudders when he stands and the slime of everything Gabe wasn’t able to wipe off with a towel starts trickling down his chest. It’s easy to trust him enough to show him to the bathroom for a quick shower. He doesn’t look like a runner, and as exhausted as he is he probably has no idea where the front door is. Still, Gabe leans against the sink and waits. He’s seen people faint after detoxing, it would be bad to get this far only to have Alex die from cracking his head on the wall.
Without a thought beyond ‘step one started’ Gabe slips to his knees. Alex doesn’t even have a towel on, fucked up society that they live in making nudity just another meaningless thing.
“What are you doing?” Gabe appreciates the question. Some of the first, poorly chosen people he’d tried to rescue were so far into their own heads that they had forgotten how to talk. It had taken him weeks to force them to adjust, and he doesn’t doubt that they went back to a full blown buffet of pills once they left his house. He appreciates it, but that’s different from pulling off and answering. There’s nothing about sex with another person that talking can explain, it has to be felt.
Gabe never puts a timeline on this sort of thing. It takes as long as it takes to detox someone’s brain, teach them how to feel emotion beyond the standard Compositions that Better Living sells. Luckily, Alex seems to be one of the ones that reacts simply to the idea of someone else caring for him. Gabe doesn’t begrudge those that don’t need companionship. Some people just don’t need another person, they fit perfectly into the industry ideal. For the ones that don’t, Gabe is there to show them they don’t have to.
By the time Alex starts talking about leaving, Gabe’s feeling pretty confident that he’s going to continue fighting. Maybe he won’t run all the way to the death and desert that Zone Six promises. Maybe he won’t even get as far as the car modification scene that permeates through out Zone Two. But he believes in others, and that’s not something that pills can wipe out. At least, not the ones you take voluntarily.
The last morning they eat breakfast together, Alex pauses halfway out the door. “Look, if I find Ryland and-”
“Yeah. You can bring him to me.” Gabe’s never done a referral before. But he thinks that’s the sort of thing that friendships are built on; doing things for people that you wouldn’t do by yourself. He doesn’t know, of course. Friendships are discouraged in Battery City, there’s no monetary gain. It’s the one thing that Killjoys have that he doesn’t that he actually wants. Party Poison and Fun Ghoul and Jet Star and Demon Shark Deluxe, they’re all friends. If he does this for Alex, maybe then they can be friends, all three of them. It would be nice to have someone to care about.
Characters: Gabe, Alex, mentions of Killjoys. Slight Gabe/Alex, future Gabe/Mikey.
Rating: R
Wordcount: 1981
Summary: Gabe doesn't fight out in the zones, but he does his best to liberate the people within Battery City and make them ready to run for freedom.
Prompt used: deprogramming 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 notes: Set in my Killjoys 'verse 'All Inclusive'. (otherwise known as the one where I write everyone ever in the KJ world, including Spice Girls) I went through about seven different deprogramming ideas before finally settling on this.
Gabe knows he’s not a Killjoy calibre rebel. He doesn’t really want to be, honestly. They take things a bit to the extreme, with the killing and the fighting and the raising of tiny children. In comparison his occasional kidnappings seem almost sane. Nor can he imagine living in the constant heat they do, car sizzling hot under the sun. The regulated weather of Battery City suits him much better. Besides, there’s a lower chance of getting caught and removed if he’s not pissing people off fucking around in the outer zones.
Seemingly quiet citizen or not, if SCARECROW finds out they will blast him. He’s not a Killjoy, that doesn’t mean he’s not a rebel. He considers himself a intermediary. His vocation is helping people escape the Better Living Industries mindset. Whether or not they want to literally escape to the zones is their choice, after he fixes them Gabe thinks everything should be their choice. If he orders them around he’s really not that much better than BL Industries.
For the most part, deprogramming is about getting people to live partially without drugs. Gabe doesn’t see the point in trying to demand full abstinence, there are a few things in the BLInd Party imprint of the corporation he enjoys on occasion. What you purchase is monitored, and not buying enough is highly suspicious. Once you’ve got something in hand, you might as well not waste your credit. Where Gabe sees the problem is BL Industries convincing everyone they need drugs to replace basic emotions. That’s not cool.
What he does is like what paparazzi used to do. In this day and age everyone is the star of their own universe, self interest obliterating any reference to outside. He’s the one who takes the snapshots that remind people they are only human. That they can eat or fuck or be fat, just like everyone else. Shame isn’t his favourite emotion, but sometimes it needs to come into play.
It’s not like he deprograms people against their will. Well, maybe. No one ever really asks to be deprogrammed. But it’s not just willy nilly, he doesn’t deprogram randomly. He looks for people that show glimmers of wanting to be free. Gabe doesn’t want to waste his time getting them through physical detox, he wants the people that once sober will choose to stay (mostly) sober rather than completely flood their systems with shit. Just as importantly, he needs someone capable of being mentally detoxed. The last thing he needs is someone that will rat him out, some asshole that heads straight for SCARECROW after leaving his house. It’s only happened once, he’d had no choice but to shoot Eliza in the back of the head. Gabe does what he has to do, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it, not like the Killjoys.
He goes out to party/scout, making sure to buy his pills at the front door as he pays the cover. He swallows them at the water fountain installed beside where the bot stands and heads inside. Gabe ends up spending most of the night with this guy Alex, sprawled on a couch with his eyes closed, wearing BL Industries boots meant to make his feet feel like he’s dancing. His entire body thrums with the chemicals, when they reach his ears he can hear music better than anything they play on official BLInd channels.
At the end of the night, when he starts to come down, he decides to take Alex home with him. He’d shown signs of believing in friendship, the entire time they were jiving he kept mentioning the guy he used to know. You can’t put a price on affection, it’s not supposed to matter. Actually remembering that the guy’s name is Ryland is a sign he retains some humanity under the veneer of drugs. It’s something Gabe can work with.
It’s easy enough to lure Alex to his house. Just mentioning having Composition 46 he wants to share for a reasonable fee because he has a surplus with a soon in the future expiry date does it. Gabe’s done this more than a dozen times, and he’s found it’s the best excuse to use. Invitations to one’s home have to be monetary based to not pique the attention of those watching the cameras monitoring everything. But the Dracs have their habits, just like every else. They understand buying too much of a drug you really enjoy and needing to get rid of the extras before they’re useless.
His house is old, run down in ways that Gabe can’t risk fixing. The houses near the edge of Battery City towards zone one are occasionally raided to check for trafficking, the high rise apartments have cameras in every fixture. Gabe was incredibly careful to get a place that was close enough to not attract attention without having it new enough to have the latest monitoring system. If he tries to get shit replaced it’s a sure bet whatever it is will have a bug in it, so when something stops working, he deals.
Alex doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until they’re in Gabe’s guest bedroom. He gets about five seconds to notice the restraints before Gabe’s shoving him down. Alex isn’t exactly small, but Gabe is taller, stronger, and has practiced these first few seconds more than he can count. Sometimes, after they’ve sobered up and have decided to run for the inner zones at least, Gabe teaches a rebel how to fight. While Dracs don’t really respond to anything besides a blast, SCARECROW elite are human and can be taken down. Hell, even a Drac will stop for a crucial second or two if they’re kicked in the face. It’s just unfortunate that most rebels aren’t tall enough for that sort of move.
Once he’s bound Gabe rolls him to his side. Depending on what Alex has been enjoying lately and how frequently, he might be vomiting non stop for the next day. Getting someone almost sober only to have them choke on their own puke and die isn’t Gabe’s idea of a plan well executed. He closes the door as he leaves, he doesn’t exactly want to hear the curses and names Alex is going to be shouting at him for the next day and a half.
Aside from occasionally entering the room to wipe the vomit off his chest, or change the padding on the bottom half of the bed, Gabe leaves him alone for thirty six hours. One good thing about Better Living medication; it doesn’t last long if you’re not currently popping it. It wouldn’t be cost effective for the company if the users didn’t have to pop it all the time. Gabe’s heard about old drugs, alcohol and tobacco and heroin. That shit could fuck you up for weeks, at least the new shit only takes until sunset the day after.
When dealing with someone just off pills it’s generally better, Gabe’s found, to do something pleasent. It’s wrong to think of it as easing them into it, the first twenty four hours stone cold sober are such a shock that it can’t be considered easy at all. But there are different ways Gabe could go about it, start in with a lecture of about the evils of Better Living Industries, or try to tune in and see of Dr. Death is speaking on his pirated channel. All of it seems a bit too much to start with though. He’s done this enough to know that headfirst rebellion after twenty years of conforming just scares them. The subtler the first step is, the more likely they’ll be curious about more. And of course the more questions that start being asked, the clearer the person’s mindset gets. The best way to start is to provide them with a sober experience that’s as similar to a drug trip as possible, but without the drugs.
There are a few experiences that can simulate pills, but Gabe likes to start off with sex. With the Better Living pills it’s instant orgasm within five minutes or your money back. Reminding someone that you can have other people around when you’re turned on is a good start to opening up the idea that bonding with others is okay. That being said, Gabe never fucks on the first night. Women’s bodies don’t yet know to get wet because of a person rather than under the command of chemicals. Men’s bodies can’t prepare themselves at all and it’s an almost certainty the guy would freak out if Gabe tried. Oral sex is safer.
Gabe unties Alex at the end of the evening, fist cocked just in case he decides to be a dick about the kidnapping. Alex doesn’t try to take a swing though, just shudders when he stands and the slime of everything Gabe wasn’t able to wipe off with a towel starts trickling down his chest. It’s easy to trust him enough to show him to the bathroom for a quick shower. He doesn’t look like a runner, and as exhausted as he is he probably has no idea where the front door is. Still, Gabe leans against the sink and waits. He’s seen people faint after detoxing, it would be bad to get this far only to have Alex die from cracking his head on the wall.
Without a thought beyond ‘step one started’ Gabe slips to his knees. Alex doesn’t even have a towel on, fucked up society that they live in making nudity just another meaningless thing.
“What are you doing?” Gabe appreciates the question. Some of the first, poorly chosen people he’d tried to rescue were so far into their own heads that they had forgotten how to talk. It had taken him weeks to force them to adjust, and he doesn’t doubt that they went back to a full blown buffet of pills once they left his house. He appreciates it, but that’s different from pulling off and answering. There’s nothing about sex with another person that talking can explain, it has to be felt.
Gabe never puts a timeline on this sort of thing. It takes as long as it takes to detox someone’s brain, teach them how to feel emotion beyond the standard Compositions that Better Living sells. Luckily, Alex seems to be one of the ones that reacts simply to the idea of someone else caring for him. Gabe doesn’t begrudge those that don’t need companionship. Some people just don’t need another person, they fit perfectly into the industry ideal. For the ones that don’t, Gabe is there to show them they don’t have to.
By the time Alex starts talking about leaving, Gabe’s feeling pretty confident that he’s going to continue fighting. Maybe he won’t run all the way to the death and desert that Zone Six promises. Maybe he won’t even get as far as the car modification scene that permeates through out Zone Two. But he believes in others, and that’s not something that pills can wipe out. At least, not the ones you take voluntarily.
The last morning they eat breakfast together, Alex pauses halfway out the door. “Look, if I find Ryland and-”
“Yeah. You can bring him to me.” Gabe’s never done a referral before. But he thinks that’s the sort of thing that friendships are built on; doing things for people that you wouldn’t do by yourself. He doesn’t know, of course. Friendships are discouraged in Battery City, there’s no monetary gain. It’s the one thing that Killjoys have that he doesn’t that he actually wants. Party Poison and Fun Ghoul and Jet Star and Demon Shark Deluxe, they’re all friends. If he does this for Alex, maybe then they can be friends, all three of them. It would be nice to have someone to care about.