ormery
in
owlpellets
FIC - Bluescreen - part two
Title: Bluescreen (part two)
Author: squeakyorm
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: made-up slang, some swearing. AU.
Length: 1500 words, give or take a couple
Pairing: Deidara's POV - possibly SasoDei at some point in the future, perhaps. I'm not promising anything - this isn't a romance fic - but if there's any pairing it'll be that. The only characters likely to appear extensively in the near future are Akatsuki, but a fair few others are due to worm their way into things as time goes on.
Summary: Deidara-centric Akatsuki-fic set in a dystopian sci-fi/cyberpunk AU - that's pretty much all there is to say, really.
Part One
There's a rain warning a couple of minutes before I get home, and I get inside seriously point eight seconds before it starts. First monsoon of the year, yeah, they'd been on about it it for weeks now but I completely forgot. It's overdue, too. It goes from dry to torrential in three point five seconds or something, so I make sure all the skylights are closed and prepare myself for a few days indoors and underground. I wish I could afford an umbrella, 'cause I'd love to run in the rain, but those things are seriously expensive, yeah, so I just lie on my back on the kitchen floor and watch it through the skylight. It's unreal, all that water just falling down out the sky like that, but there's a lot of things that don't make sense and I figure life's too short to wonder about it too much when you can just enjoy it, yeah?
I stay like that for a couple of hours, thinking a bit about going in the back to sculpt or something but mostly just sort of hypnotised by the rain, kind of thing, and I'm just thinking about getting up when I get a message. That's weird on its own, yeah, 'cause when it pours like this the internet gets crappy, so people don't usually email each other just when it's just started raining. I always want to ignore it, but when you're trying to do nothing it's always really hard to pretend there isn't anything blipping through your brain every point four seconds, so I read it, and thank god it isn't an admin message, 'cause like hell I want to witness for the job I did today. I mean, I could lie, but I know once I got up there in the stand I'd just tell 'em it was me whether I wanted to say it or not, and technically I'm lab property so they'd probably recall me or something and Jah knows I don't want that.
...
Yeah. Jah knows I don't want that.
It's from the boss, though, which I guess looking back is almost as bad, yeah. Or not. I dunno, it's hard to tell sometimes. It's not a job. It says, In light of recent events I am considering you for full-time employment, and that he'll get back to me in a few days and not to reply to this email.
I want to say, I don't need full-time employment, what I get paid for what I do already is more than enough and I like having time to myself, but it said not to reply and there's this tone to the words the boss uses that's like, if I disobey, I'll end up at the bottom of the Rhine with lead in my clothes. So I don't reply. I stare at the rain a moment more but it seems darker than before, so I get up and go put the light on in the back room, pull my gloves off, get out some clay.
It feels so good for my hands to breathe. So, so good. I wouldn't wear the gloves, 'cause it's not like I'm ashamed of being a freak and man, I've seen twists way worse than mine but you never know what's on whatever you've just put your hand on, and when that also means you don't know what you've just put your mouth on, then gloves are pretty much a good idea. It's hell when they get infected, yeah.
The clay feels good, too. Been a while since I've done this, 'cause I had to work pretty much non-stop on the bomb for the conference hall to get it done on time. It's cool and wet on my hands, and it tastes like nothing else. It's artificial, yeah, I know that I've never even touched real clay from a ... a riverbank or whatever it is it's supposed to come from, but I still love it. It's like speaking for my mute mouths. The lab bastards never did manage to work vocal chords into my arms properly. They tried, but they never really worked for talking, and they severed them after I learned to croak Dau Gi Bach with my left hand anyway. I always thought it would be cool to sing in harmony with myself, yeah, but I don't think anything'd be better than clay. I mean, I'd like to be able to get more of the animated stuff, you know, comes to life when you're done with it, but you know, that's like ... well, the same day I can afford the umbrella, yeah, I'll buy some of that clay and I'll make some little birds, and we'll dance in the rain together. Yeah.
*
The rain keeps up for another three days, and even after then the water's too deep to go anywhere unless I use the tunnels. I've never much liked them, never liked enclosed spaces like that, and I haven't actually taken them since I saw that fucking creepy android a few months ago. Some of the jobs I've had have been a way away, but I've walked instead of taking a train. I just don't want to run into him again, yeah.
But I'm getting sick of staying inside and by now there's this whole line of birds and dragons and turtles and stuff, all round my room and I don't really like keeping them this long. I'm running out of clay, anyway. So I load some of them in the shelves on the wheelie box and wait until zero forty when there's not gonna be so many people about, and take them out of the bottom door to leave them places. I leave the biggest one, this dragon the size of a dog or something, on the platform up by Peace Zone Central. If I'm lucky it won't get shifted before the morning rush hour. It's hard for me to move it with the little ramp I've got, but then again all the security they have up Peace Zone is really henched-out clinical strong-guys, and if there's one thing the labs did succeed with it was giving me the arm strength of a ten-year-old, yeah all the muscles had to grow different to make room for the jaw stuff and windpipe and stuff. People don't generally tell me I hit like a pussy more than once, though, mostly on account of I kick their teeth in before they can say it again.
I unload the last one reaaaally slowly, and by then it's one forty-three and I've ended up at Pilgrim's Over. I haven't seen any androids, and I gotta admit I'm actually a little bit disappointed. Morbid curiosity, yeah? Like, sometimes you end up just looking back over and over at something just because it's really nasty, even though you hate it. I think about hanging around a bit if I don't see anyone after the next train comes but ... nah. Like hell this was just some excuse to look for some creepy-ass robot, yeah.
I stare into the darkness at the end of the platform, waiting for the light from the train that'll come, and then there's this voice by my shoulder: "Did you make that?"
I spin round like someone dropped acid down the back of my shirt I swear to Jah I never heard anyone coming and fuck it it's him. The android. Right next to me, but he's looking away from me down to where I put the tortoise sculpture at the end of the platform. I can see all these wires at the back of his neck, and here's the fucking creepy bit, yeah the skin's all raw and red around where the wires go in. I'm starting to think, shit, what if he's not an android? 'Cause seriously, what kind of freak would make a robot like that?
He looks back at me.
Shit. His eyes are real.
Shit.
The last guy I saw get implants like that plugged in was experimental and he fucking died after a week or two. I didn't think they still did that any more
I'm staring at him. Fuck. He's giving me this look like, complete and utter disdain, and just then the train comes screaming in like a saving angel on wheels, and I'm just like, "This is my train, yeah," and he's all "Oh really, mine too," and he steps in next to me when the door opens.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He doesn't say anything else to me, yeah, just stands there giving me this look like he's almost amused or something not angry, but like I'm complete scum. I'm just glad he's not talking, 'cause there's something about his voice that's just too fucking weird, that sounds wrong, yeah. I wish I could get off the next stop and walk, but I can't with the rain, so I just I don't look at him all the way back, and when I get home and go to sleep I have nightmares for the first time since I left the lab.
Author: squeakyorm
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: made-up slang, some swearing. AU.
Length: 1500 words, give or take a couple
Pairing: Deidara's POV - possibly SasoDei at some point in the future, perhaps. I'm not promising anything - this isn't a romance fic - but if there's any pairing it'll be that. The only characters likely to appear extensively in the near future are Akatsuki, but a fair few others are due to worm their way into things as time goes on.
Summary: Deidara-centric Akatsuki-fic set in a dystopian sci-fi/cyberpunk AU - that's pretty much all there is to say, really.
Part One
There's a rain warning a couple of minutes before I get home, and I get inside seriously point eight seconds before it starts. First monsoon of the year, yeah, they'd been on about it it for weeks now but I completely forgot. It's overdue, too. It goes from dry to torrential in three point five seconds or something, so I make sure all the skylights are closed and prepare myself for a few days indoors and underground. I wish I could afford an umbrella, 'cause I'd love to run in the rain, but those things are seriously expensive, yeah, so I just lie on my back on the kitchen floor and watch it through the skylight. It's unreal, all that water just falling down out the sky like that, but there's a lot of things that don't make sense and I figure life's too short to wonder about it too much when you can just enjoy it, yeah?
I stay like that for a couple of hours, thinking a bit about going in the back to sculpt or something but mostly just sort of hypnotised by the rain, kind of thing, and I'm just thinking about getting up when I get a message. That's weird on its own, yeah, 'cause when it pours like this the internet gets crappy, so people don't usually email each other just when it's just started raining. I always want to ignore it, but when you're trying to do nothing it's always really hard to pretend there isn't anything blipping through your brain every point four seconds, so I read it, and thank god it isn't an admin message, 'cause like hell I want to witness for the job I did today. I mean, I could lie, but I know once I got up there in the stand I'd just tell 'em it was me whether I wanted to say it or not, and technically I'm lab property so they'd probably recall me or something and Jah knows I don't want that.
...
Yeah. Jah knows I don't want that.
It's from the boss, though, which I guess looking back is almost as bad, yeah. Or not. I dunno, it's hard to tell sometimes. It's not a job. It says, In light of recent events I am considering you for full-time employment, and that he'll get back to me in a few days and not to reply to this email.
I want to say, I don't need full-time employment, what I get paid for what I do already is more than enough and I like having time to myself, but it said not to reply and there's this tone to the words the boss uses that's like, if I disobey, I'll end up at the bottom of the Rhine with lead in my clothes. So I don't reply. I stare at the rain a moment more but it seems darker than before, so I get up and go put the light on in the back room, pull my gloves off, get out some clay.
It feels so good for my hands to breathe. So, so good. I wouldn't wear the gloves, 'cause it's not like I'm ashamed of being a freak and man, I've seen twists way worse than mine but you never know what's on whatever you've just put your hand on, and when that also means you don't know what you've just put your mouth on, then gloves are pretty much a good idea. It's hell when they get infected, yeah.
The clay feels good, too. Been a while since I've done this, 'cause I had to work pretty much non-stop on the bomb for the conference hall to get it done on time. It's cool and wet on my hands, and it tastes like nothing else. It's artificial, yeah, I know that I've never even touched real clay from a ... a riverbank or whatever it is it's supposed to come from, but I still love it. It's like speaking for my mute mouths. The lab bastards never did manage to work vocal chords into my arms properly. They tried, but they never really worked for talking, and they severed them after I learned to croak Dau Gi Bach with my left hand anyway. I always thought it would be cool to sing in harmony with myself, yeah, but I don't think anything'd be better than clay. I mean, I'd like to be able to get more of the animated stuff, you know, comes to life when you're done with it, but you know, that's like ... well, the same day I can afford the umbrella, yeah, I'll buy some of that clay and I'll make some little birds, and we'll dance in the rain together. Yeah.
*
The rain keeps up for another three days, and even after then the water's too deep to go anywhere unless I use the tunnels. I've never much liked them, never liked enclosed spaces like that, and I haven't actually taken them since I saw that fucking creepy android a few months ago. Some of the jobs I've had have been a way away, but I've walked instead of taking a train. I just don't want to run into him again, yeah.
But I'm getting sick of staying inside and by now there's this whole line of birds and dragons and turtles and stuff, all round my room and I don't really like keeping them this long. I'm running out of clay, anyway. So I load some of them in the shelves on the wheelie box and wait until zero forty when there's not gonna be so many people about, and take them out of the bottom door to leave them places. I leave the biggest one, this dragon the size of a dog or something, on the platform up by Peace Zone Central. If I'm lucky it won't get shifted before the morning rush hour. It's hard for me to move it with the little ramp I've got, but then again all the security they have up Peace Zone is really henched-out clinical strong-guys, and if there's one thing the labs did succeed with it was giving me the arm strength of a ten-year-old, yeah all the muscles had to grow different to make room for the jaw stuff and windpipe and stuff. People don't generally tell me I hit like a pussy more than once, though, mostly on account of I kick their teeth in before they can say it again.
I unload the last one reaaaally slowly, and by then it's one forty-three and I've ended up at Pilgrim's Over. I haven't seen any androids, and I gotta admit I'm actually a little bit disappointed. Morbid curiosity, yeah? Like, sometimes you end up just looking back over and over at something just because it's really nasty, even though you hate it. I think about hanging around a bit if I don't see anyone after the next train comes but ... nah. Like hell this was just some excuse to look for some creepy-ass robot, yeah.
I stare into the darkness at the end of the platform, waiting for the light from the train that'll come, and then there's this voice by my shoulder: "Did you make that?"
I spin round like someone dropped acid down the back of my shirt I swear to Jah I never heard anyone coming and fuck it it's him. The android. Right next to me, but he's looking away from me down to where I put the tortoise sculpture at the end of the platform. I can see all these wires at the back of his neck, and here's the fucking creepy bit, yeah the skin's all raw and red around where the wires go in. I'm starting to think, shit, what if he's not an android? 'Cause seriously, what kind of freak would make a robot like that?
He looks back at me.
Shit. His eyes are real.
Shit.
The last guy I saw get implants like that plugged in was experimental and he fucking died after a week or two. I didn't think they still did that any more
I'm staring at him. Fuck. He's giving me this look like, complete and utter disdain, and just then the train comes screaming in like a saving angel on wheels, and I'm just like, "This is my train, yeah," and he's all "Oh really, mine too," and he steps in next to me when the door opens.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He doesn't say anything else to me, yeah, just stands there giving me this look like he's almost amused or something not angry, but like I'm complete scum. I'm just glad he's not talking, 'cause there's something about his voice that's just too fucking weird, that sounds wrong, yeah. I wish I could get off the next stop and walk, but I can't with the rain, so I just I don't look at him all the way back, and when I get home and go to sleep I have nightmares for the first time since I left the lab.