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#A JOKE DO YOU HEAR ME
linddzz · 26 days
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Bro 6’1” and 5’0” isn’t a predatory relation that’s a long distance relationship 🙏
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carpe-mamilia · 6 months
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Ghosts’ Larry Rickard Explains Why They Chose the Captain’s First Name
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Photo: Monumental,Guido Mandozzi
It couldn’t be a joke. That was one rule laid down by the Ghosts creators when it came to choosing a first name for Willbond’s character. Until series five, the WWII ghost had been known only as The Captain – a mystery seized upon by fans of the show.
“It was the question we got asked more than anything. His name,” actor and writer Larry Rickard tells Den of Geek. “Once we got to series three, you could see that we were deliberately cutting away and deliberately avoiding it. We were fuelling the fire because we knew at some point we’d tell them.”
In “Carpe Diem”, the episode written by Rickard and Ben Willbond that finally reveals The Captain’s death story, they did tell us. After years of guessing, clue-spotting and debate, Ghosts revealed that The Captain’s first name is James. At the same time, we also learned that James’ colleague Lieutenant Havers’ first name was Anthony.
The ordinariness of those two names, says Rickard, is the point.
“The only thing we were really clear about is that we didn’t want one of those names that only exists in tellyland. It shouldn’t be ‘Cormoran’ or ‘Endeavour’. They should just be some men’s names and they’re important to them. The point was that they were everyday.”
Choosing first names for The Captain and Havers was a long process not unlike naming a baby, Rickard agrees. “It almost comes down to looking at the faces of the characters and saying, what’s right?”
“We talked for ages. For a long time I kept thinking ‘Duncan and James’, and then I was like ah no! That would have turned it into a gag and been awful!” Inescapably in the minds of a certain generation, Duncan James is a member of noughties boyband Blue. “Maybe with Anthony I was thinking of Anthony Costa!” Rickard says in mock horror, referencing another member of the band.
Lieutenant Havers wasn’t just The Captain’s second in command while stationed at Button House; he was also the man James loved. Because homosexuality was criminalised in England during James’ lifetime, he was forced to hide his feelings for Anthony from society, and to some extent even from himself.
In “Carpe Diem”, the ghosts (mistakenly) prepare for the last day of their afterlives, prompting The Captain to finally tell his story. Though not explicit about his sexual identity, the others understand and accept what he tells them – and led by Lady Button, all agree that he’s a brave man.
Getting the balance right of what The Captain does and doesn’t say was key to the episode. “It wasn’t just a personal choice of his to go ‘I’m going to remain in the closet’,” explains Rickard. “There wasn’t an option there to explore the things that either of them felt. That couldn’t be done back then – there are so many stories which have come out since the War about the dangers of doing that.
“We wanted to tell his personal story but also try to ensure that there was a level at which you understood why they couldn’t be open, that even in this moment where he’s finally telling the other ghosts his story, he never comes out and says it overtly because that would be too much for him as a character from that time.
“He says enough for them to know, and enough for him to feel unburdened but it’s in the fact that they’re using their first names which militarily they would never have done, and in the literal passing of the baton”.
The baton is a bonus reveal when fans learned that The Captain’s military stick wasn’t a memento of his career, but of Havers. As James suffers a fatal heart attack during a VE day celebration at Button House, Anthony rushes to his side and the stick passes from one to the other as they share a moment of tragic understanding.
“From really early on, we had the idea that anything you’re holding [when you die] stays with you. So it wasn’t just your clothes you were wearing, we had the stuff with Thomas’ letter reappearing in his pocket and so on. And the assumption being that it was something The Captain couldn’t put down, it felt so nice to be able to say it was something he didn’t want to put down.”
Rickard lists “Carpe Diem”, co-written with Ben Willbond, among his series five highlights. He’s pleased with the end result, praises Willbond’s performance, and loved being on set to see Button House dressed for the 1940s. He’s particularly pleased that a checklist of moments they wanted to land with the audience all managed to be included. “Normally something’s fallen by the wayside just because of the way TV’s made, it’s always imperfect or it’s slightly rushed, but it feels like it’s all there.”
Rickard and Willbond also knew by this point in the show’s lifetime, that they could trust Ghosts fans to pick up on small details. “Nothing is missed,” he says. “Early on, you’re always thinking, is that going to get across? But once we got to series five, there are little tiny things within corners of shots and you know that’s going to be spotted. Particularly in that very short exchange between Havers and the Captain. We worried less about the minutiae of it because you go, that’s going to be rewound and rewatched, nothing will be missed.”
The team were also grateful they’d resisted the temptation to tell The Captain’s story sooner. “We’d talked about it every series since series two, whether or not now was the time, but because he’s such a hard and starchy character in a lot of ways you needed the time to understand his softer side I think before you had that final honest beat from him.”
“What a ridiculously normal name to have so much weight put on it for five years,” laughs Rickard fondly. “Good old James.”
From Den of Geek
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I'm going to force you to play the joke FNAF dating sim my friend and I are making
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daily-odile · 3 months
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Odile patting Molly Epithet Erased on the head, you know why
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have two bc i care them
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sapoz-ni · 11 months
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I really like the game, but honestly, I don't want to think it's a horror/murder novel anymore. I just want to keep making cookies, watching movies with Jacob and telling him how adorable he is 😔😔😔
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I literally feel like this лол
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strawbbz · 1 month
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Can u draw traves and cscoop
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Please never ask me for anything else ever again
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uncanny-tranny · 6 months
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It's weird how people paint "daddy issues" and even "mommy issues" as, like, a joke or a failure on part of the person who has those issues, rather than recognizing that daddy and mommy issues stem, for so many people, from abuse. What this all is is just abuse apologia, and nobody seems to either notice or maybe even care.
When somebody with daddy or mommy issues opens up about the "why," I can't ever seem to shake the fact that they tend to have gone through a ton of abuse and bullshit as a child. It's just crazy that other people would look at that and see a joke or a failure of the once-child who was abused.
#abuse#abuse tw#abuse mention tw#child abuse#child abuse tw#mental health#it really goes to show (to me) that people either can't or don't WANT to acknowledge that parents can be the ones to have fucked up#if all the blame is placed on their child/ren then you can maintain the illusion that the parent is always right...#...that parents know what is best and they will always do what is best for their child/ren#it's just weird to be somebody with parental issues and all that gets steamrolled into 'mommy issues' that then become a Big Joke...#...especially because i'm a man (and because people are misogynists who think it's just so funny that women are people)...#...i find that my own issues are expected to be treated as a joke or a punchline or something i must whisper in the dark...#...so that others may have the luxury of pretending to not hear it or to have the luxury of forgetting in the morning...#...and it just sucks because that leaves me to remember and grieve and doing that with the knowledge that my abuse Is A Joke at My Expense#if you wonder why so many abuse victims/survivors become unsavoury: this is why#i'm too bitter about this topic specifically to care about the comfort of people who don't get it and don't WANT TO...#...because it is THEY who are uncomfortable with the very NOTION that abuse happens#if you can't acknowledge that abuse happens WITHOUT downplaying to for your sense of comfort you will NEVER help abuse victims/survivors#you will find that you start prioritizing YOUR sense of comfort over the safety and continued survival of victims/survivors
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tswwwit · 3 months
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Though I haven't gone into much detail about Stan and Ford in the Familiar AU, I've thought of something funny.
The Stans went on Unspecified Adventures together when they were younger men. Partners, in fact! And while I'm likely never going to get into the details of their eventual falling out - there's potential in those adventures!
Who knows. Maybe monsterfucking kinda runs in the Pines family, but not the one you'd think.
Stan chatting up a Siren, before Ford has to yank his brother back by the shirt. Wondering where the hell Stan went, only to find him partying with some nymphs in a lake and coming THIS close to being drowned. Hell, maybe when Stan describes one of his exes as a 'shrill harpy', he's being literal about it.
A twenty-something on the prowl and on the adventuring path is gonna run into SO many tempting creatures - and the number of times Ford saved Stan's dumb ass from human-ish ladies would go into the DOZENS.
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covertblizzard · 4 days
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Maybe I'm being sensitive but this whole scene just frustrates and annoys me because like
comparing Steph and Tim so callously with comments that he's "better" and a "quick learner" after her death
having Cass lowkey victim blame Steph for her own death "But she chose--" and "She messed up." plus trying to convince Tim that it's not Steph's fault
the "Maybe it's time I gave you a lesson" like I don't really have a good reason for this one it might just be a personal thing but the tone of that whole sentence makes me feel frustrated and talked down to
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bitchthefuck1 · 11 days
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It's always so funny to me when people call Kaz a serial killer or a murderer bc like. boy do I have news for you about the other crows.
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restinslices · 2 months
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Some of y'all ain't thinking about being Ares' favorite mortal lover and him watching as you get in a new relationship with a guy that treats you terrible so he pulls up on the guy and reveals he's a god and goes over all his titles and ends on him being the protector of mistreated women then asking "have you been mistreating my woman?" AND THAT'S WHERE WE DIFFER
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neurospicyyy · 6 months
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Y’all stop romanticizing and/or dismissing ocd and adhd, it’s not a joke. That’s stuff we have to live with. Thanks. 👍
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I swear studying criminology is a joke, i have this assignment where i have to ~observe~ a form of crime of my choice and this alone already sounds insane and dangerous like???? but the funniest part is, some of my classmates chose shoplifting and they plan to stand in a store for an hour watching people and like who's gonna shoplift when there's an anxious student with a notepad breathing down your shoulder and watching your every move????
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mykingdomfor · 1 year
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Dream blunt rotation
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muzzlemouths · 1 year
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"Squeeze my hand." from the prompt list? - @clxckwork-sun-n-moon
Moon centric // Wordcount: 4245
You do your best not to wake him.
Getting two hundred pounds of deadweight metal off the ground and into a cart was already hard enough on its own, and doing so without becoming entangled in the mess of exposed wiring was another challenge all together, but you had somehow pulled it off without so much as a twitch from his end. It had been concerning, at first - the thought that Moon wasn’t just out for the count but well and truly broken - and you won’t lie, that had scared you.
But a rude awakening from his emergency startup protocol had told you he was okay - functioning, at least - bleak consciousness that lasted long enough to send him forward a few ‘steps’ before his eyes darkened and gravity dragged him back to the floor. A deep purple was already blossoming where he fell against you.
Not wanting to repeat the process, you quickly got him onto wheels so you could reach Parts and Services while you still had some time left to your shift. You’re painfully careful about it, fast and quiet, you take every shortcut downstairs. If he woke now, you’d never reach within an inch of the place without a fight. And Moon’s fight meant more than accidental bruises.
Ironically, it’s your haste that inevitably wakes him. An unpatched crack in the flooring jolts the entire cart as it’s run over and rocks his body from side to side. It results in another attempt at booting up, this one more successful, because in the next moment he’s sitting up and looking around - albeit not without some trouble. You don’t stop the cart. If you can get there before he realizes where you’re going, you might still have a chance.
He rests his forehead against one hand and curls the other over the edge of the cart for stability, bent forward at the waist, his joints creak with the effort. “What happened?” He groans - then, looking up from his palm to face his surroundings - “Where are we?”
You reach the elevator just in time.
“Morning, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?” You make a point of avoiding his questions. He’ll figure it out himself soon enough. It’s better for both your health and his own if you just keep moving. “You’re a little out of sorts, took a bit of an impromptu nap for a while.” The elevator takes you down, down, down, and right as it opens again, Moon realizes.
He moves fast to get out of there - or tries to, anyway. A failed attempt at leaping from the cart has him giving his body a second glance, only now seeing the way his waist has twisted, the metal there grossly dented and his legs contorted backwards. A position that is perfectly normal for him on a good day. But this isn’t a good day. The angle of his limbs is wrong, and his wires have paid the price. You’re sure he figures out the rest immediately after; that they’re as numb as gears can be. That he can’t move from the waist down.
Moon swivels as best he can, hoisting himself into the air with the help of one arm while the other reaches behind him and clasps around a wheel, just barely reaching - the whole cart swivels and then jerks to a stop.
“Dude!” You struggle to keep yourself from faceplanting against it and falling right in with him, “Come on!”
“Where are we going?” He repeats, meeting you with a look of steel.
Your fingers tighten on the cart handle. “Moon,” a sigh escapes, your frustration settling into defeat, you try not to make a big deal out of it in hopes that he won’t, either, “you know where.”
He doesn’t immediately answer you. His expression changes like rapid fire; confusion, fear, if you reached, and then anger. “No,” he spits, “Take me back to the Daycare. I’ll fix it myself.”
You try not to laugh, but a snort escapes you anyway. The cart doesn’t budge when you try again. “Not this time, buddy,” you tell him, “this isn’t something you can just wrench together with your own hands. You need real help. The kind you can only get downstairs.”
“Get me the tools then,” Moon argues, hand glued to the wheel, “You can go and bring them back up, can’t you?”
“Moon,” you try to make your voice stern, but you know your own resolve pales in comparison to his determination to not get any closer to that dreaded metal chair, “I’m not changing my mind. Either you let me take you down to P&S or I’m bringing out the big guns.”
His eyes narrow. “Which is?”
“I turn on the lights.”
Stiffening, now, his expression turns dangerous, “You wouldn’t dare,” he growls, “Sun can’t handle that place any better.”
“It’s not up to me. The Daycare opens in six hours and they’re expecting an attendant who can manage the job, much less use their legs. If you don’t go in, he’ll have to, and it won’t be me carting him down there.” You hated utilizing such a cruel tactic, but your words are honest. They needed fixing and, one way or another, management would ensure it happened - likely with a staff member much less kind or patient than yourself. Moon was often selfish to a fault but, when it came down to it, he prioritized Sun’s safety over his own. Always had. The rest of your night hinged on that remaining true. “So, what’ll it be?”
He simmers something fierce, fitting you with a look that might scare you a hell of a lot more if his legs were in proper working order. As it stands, you would at least have a running start were things to go sour.
But his temper visibly fizzles out into nothing more than an angry bite, shoulders slumping with defeat, and a moment later he releases the wheel.
“Thank you.” You breathe a sigh of relief as he slumps back against the cart, “I promise I’ll get you fixed up as fast as I’m able. It should just be a simple tune-up and a chest piece transplant, maybe some rewiring. You’re in and out within two hours, tops.”
“Mhm.” Is all he has to say in return. You don’t push him for more than that.
The remaining walk to Parts and Services is entirely uneventful. The halls are empty and pin-drop silent, save for the creak and heave of the wheels as they turn several corners. You pause at the entrance to the big bad room itself and ensure it’s as dimly lit as it can be while not hindering your ability to work, then you drag the cart in the rest of the way and stop it just outside of the repair cell.
Moon doesn’t look up from his disfigured lap until you come to pause beside him with arms extended. He squints, attempting to figure out what it is you want from him now, and when he does he responds by hunkering down further inside the cart. “Not helping,” he grunts, “I refuse to be cradled into that chair.”
Your arms fall dejectedly to your sides, groaning, you again roll your eyes at him, “Come on, don’t make me do all the work here. The faster your ass is in that chair, the faster you’ll be done. Don’t you think it would be easier that way - for both of us? Just wrap your arms around my shoulders–”
“No.” his arms cross over his chest, face turning away from you. You have to wonder how much of his refusal stems from stubbornness, and how much of it is just plain embarrassment.
Either way, it’s wasting your time.
“It’ll only be for a second!”
“Not. Happening.”
You inhale sharply, frustrated, balling your hands into fists, you exhale hot air and come to a resolve. “Fine. If you don’t want to help, I’ll do things my way.” You round the corner right as his chin lifts to face you again, a question stirring in his voice box, but before any proper words get out you’re already behind him and reaching in for the hook on his back.
“Wait–”
Your fingers curl around metal and give it a firm tug upward. His limbs move accordingly - going limp like a cat that’s been scruffed - an effect that lasts only long enough to get his upper half out of the cart. His joints move awkwardly as control slowly returns and your hand releases the grip, arms hugging around his waist, instead, successfully hoisting him over the edge from there.
It takes the last of your strength to keep him upright and not simply drop him to the floor once the entirety of his weight is in your arms, but you manage, and half-carry, half-drag him into the cell before haphazardly releasing him onto the chair. He lands with a grunt and a look that could kill.
“Who told you?” Moon hisses.
“No one,” you practically sneer back, “You pick up on a few things when you’ve worked here as long as I have. Sun went stiff last time I accidentally grabbed it, and your body sags for a quick second whenever you use the cord. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.” You leave out the part where Sun had let the information slip. It’ll save you from having to negotiate another argument later on. Luckily, Moon seems to buy your excuse. He doesn’t like the answer either way.
You leave him to his grumbling and find a seat beside the repair monitor. There’s plenty to do and not a lot of time to do it. You can’t waste any more of your shift humoring the little pity party he’s hosting, so instead you get right to work imputing all the necessary information into the system so it’ll register what all needs done. A small machine like a projector lowers as you do so, making him freeze up entirely, and scans him from top to bottom. He is rigid from the very start up until the machine blinks and folds back into the ceiling. He doesn’t ease up any when it’s over.
The results are as you expected; a chest piece transfer - easy enough, if you let the service machine do any necessary welding for you - a manual realignment of his limbs, and finally, rewiring of whatever had become tangled and unplugged that is causing the loss of movement. That would be the hardest part by far. You were a jack of all trades kind of employee, an amateur technician, not a professional by any means. One wrong wire input and it would cost you your life or, at the very least, your job.
Not that you had a handful of options at your disposal. If it took this much convincing for Moon to let you play doctor, you doubted he would allow an actual mechanic anywhere near him. It was you or nothing.
“Hey,” Moon’s voice breaks you from your thoughts, forcing you to look past the monitor where he sits with a body still coiled tight, knees tucked up to his chest. “You never answered my question,” he says, not bothering to look up at you.
“What question?” You stand from the chair and begin to head for the tool cabinet.
He’s fiddling with the dents in his stomach, thumbing at the upturned metal there, “What happened?” His nail scrapes against a particularly gnarly piece, “I didn’t look like this a few hours ago.”
You keep your back turned to him. “Don’t know for sure. You were already out of commission by the time I entered the Daycare. The wire snapped, from what I gathered, and you fell from pretty high up. Landed wrong.” You try not to shudder, brought back to the moment where you found him lifeless in the dark, his wires exposed and splayed out like entrails, “I’m not sure how long you were like that before I found you.”
From the corner of your eye you see him grimace.
“Nothing we can’t fix,” you’re quick to reassure, “I’ll get you back in working order before my shift is over,” squinting into the cabinet, you brush some tools aside with a frown,“…as soon as I find what I need.”
“Off to a great start,” he grunts, “Remind me to get severely wounded with someone more proficient on the clock next time.”
“I can easily find someone else to poke and prod at your body, if you’d prefer.” Silence returns. You take his immediate lack of an answer as you having won that argument. “Oh, here it is!” Your hand grasps around the handle of a specific screwdriver. One that will get you inside his chestplate and on to business. You turn with it in hand and avoid the look in his eyes as you near him with it - if robots could go pale, he would be.
Fortunately for him, it isn’t yet time to put the tool to use. You set it on a small rolling table beside the chair and reach for his legs with your newly freed hands, lifting your chin to meet his gaze, “I’ll need your help with this part. Do you think you can lift your waist for me?” Your expression softens in response to his immediate hesitation to do so, “Please? I need to get you facing the right direction again.”
He isn’t so easily persuaded. It takes you attempting to do it singlehandedly, first, for him to realize you aren’t going to back down. Only then does he rest his palms on either side and lift himself into the air so you can properly get his waist to turn. It does so with an audible screech of metal on metal that makes both of you flinch.
“That’ll be fixed when we replace your chest piece,” you promise. He doesn’t look convinced.
Next came the worst part. You expect him to fight you tooth and nail when you reach for the screwdriver again and angle it against his torso, but instead he reacts in the opposite direction; with listless apathy. His fingernails dig into the seat beside himself with a strength that leaves dents and stands as the only thing giving away how he’s really feeling about this whole situation, beyond that he says nothing - does nothing - and makes no attempts to stop you. The screws fall away one by one.
Soon, the metal plating over his stomach comes undone beneath your fingertips and you pull it away entirely, setting it on the table beside you. The mess it was hiding is ugly and grotesque; wires strewn in every direction, tangled around each other, some knotted, others unplugged entirely, and some, still, that are severed and beyond repair. “Shit, dude,” you cringe outwardly, “it looks like a warzone in here. I’m not even sure where to start–” your hand dips, but pauses just within reach of him.
“Go on,” Moon senses your uncertainty like a bloodhound and suddenly remembers his attitude, and his smirk, “stick your hand in there. I want to see what happens.”
You have half a mind to grab a fistful of wires and give them a hearty tug just to wipe the shit eating grin off his face. You don’t, though. That would spell bad news for both of you. “Don’t be so cheeky,” you warn, “and hold still. I’m not looking to get my hand tangled in all of this.” You stand, again, leaving him propped open while you hunt out a pair of safety gloves. He makes a dissatisfied tsk but remains in place. Thankfully. Returning to your chair, you roll your sleeves up to your elbows and reach above your head for a light, dragging its metal neck down to your level so you can better see the disarray you’re being forced to work with, and look up at him. “Ready?”
Eventually, he goes still, nodding, and you convince yourself to start with the sections that are the least tangled and only need rearranging. Your hand carefully tucks into his wiring with stilted breath and you separate what you can, successfully managing to sort a handful before your knuckles brush against an exposed wire. Even through the gloves you can feel the zap of electricity shoot through your skin. Your hand pulls back as though it were bitten. His head tilts to the side inquisitively, smirk fading.
“What’s wrong?”
“The gloves aren’t enough,” you grimace, “your wires are shorting all over the place. It’s a death trap in there.”
“Get better gloves.” He says.
“Moon,” you pause, looking up at him, “I - I’m going to have to shut you down for this.”
His expression falls entirely. Not a frown, but a gape, this time you don’t have to look far to see the fear. “I can retrieve them myself,” he tells you, “and then you don’t have to–”
“I don’t know what those wires do, or how they could effect you if they’re torn out while you’re still awake.” You stand, and again head for the cabinet, “I’m sorry, there’s no way around it. You’ll be fine, though, I promise. It’ll be like taking a nap.”
“No!” His waist jolts and the metal twists, signs of him willing his legs to work and failing painfully, he sits upright to the point of nearly doubling over, “I won’t do it. The ones that are chopped up just go to my legs, right? They’ll be fine if I pull them out!” and he reaches to, immediately, hand diving in with blind ambition–
“Hey–Hey!” You swivel on your heel and take hold of his wrist just as his fingers wrap around a pair of red and blue wires, one shorted, and the other going strong, “fuck, Moon, what’s gotten into you?”
His chest moves on its own; mechanical breaths that stir with quick movements, up-down, up-down, up-down, eyes blown wide like a wild animal. He doesn’t attempt to pull away from your grip, but he doesn’t loosen his own, either, forcing you into a stalemate. “Let go,” his voice dips with venom, but it’s fickle, shaking, “I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“I can’t let you do that.” Your hand relaxes, slightly, but doesn’t release entirely. Your other hand raises to his faceplate, slow and careful, and you watch him flinch, “Tell me what’s going on,” you try to keep your voice soft, try to keep it from bottoming into pity, “why won’t you let me do this? Is it the thought of going under?”
You can understand that much, at least. It isn’t a nap at all, more like a medically induced coma, but that’s still better than sure death, isn’t it? “It’ll be quick, I promise.” Your thumb gently caresses the line up his cheek, hoping to bring him some kind of comfort, “I’ll power you down nice and easy, get the bad wires out, put some new wires in, and then wake you back up as soon as it’s done.”
“What if you don’t?”
You blink, stunned. Your hand goes still. “What?”
His eyes raise to meet you fully. “I’m not afraid of powering down. I don’t feel anything. I don’t dream. It doesn’t matter. But–” He pauses, and suddenly he doesn’t trust you with his gaze, and it slips just past you, instead, then falls to his lap. He goes silent.
“You’re…afraid I won’t power you on again?” He doesn’t answer. Your hand cradles again at his cheek, forcing him to look at you, “Moon, why wouldn’t I?”
His breath quickens, again. The hand in his stomach loosens, then goes vice, then loosens, the cords straining against their plugs. He holds them hostage like a gun to his head. “It’s stupid,” his voice is barely audible, a whisper so quiet, at first, you aren’t sure it’s there at all, “never mind,” it becomes a whine, like a low whirring fan inside his throat, “never mind, never mind, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, no, it isn’t stupid. I want to hear it,” you encourage, “you’re safe with me, you know that. You can talk to me.” Then, after a beat, “I promise not to tell anyone. Not even management.”
Slowly, reluctantly, his eyes find you. His fingers sag around the wires.
“There you go,” you further ease your own grip as a show of peace. Your thumb pads along his face and dips beneath the hat, worrying over the crease there, easing away the soreness. “Moon,” you try again, “Why wouldn’t I wake you up?”
He hesitates. Then, slowly but surely, he releases the hold on his wires. You let go of his wrist in turn, and both hands fall into his lap. “It would be easiest that way,” he mumbles, “Wouldn’t it?”
“What would?”
“Getting rid of me.” Moon answers.
Your stomach drops, lungs seizing, the room sways as you try to digest his words. You make a noise in your throat, something guttural and hopeless, lips moving, but no words come out. You make a second attempt at saying something - anything - but Moon is faster.
“I’ve thought it over a thousand times. How easy it would be.” His voice is bitter, but the poison in his words is turned in on itself, fatefully resigned, “Take care of the problem while the problem can’t fight back, you know?” He clears his throat, fingers intertwining in his lap, it strains like an old record.
“Stop that,” your hands find his and separate them, pressing your own palms against them instead, “You know that won’t happen–”
“I wouldn’t know the difference,” he continues, a dry laugh escaping his voice box, “It’s just a nap, after all. That’s what they’d tell me.”
Your breath catches in your chest. You aren’t sure what to say - what can be said to that. How are you meant to reassure someone when you’re just as powerless yourself? If it’s what management wanted, they would make it happen. It’s nothing you could prevent.
But damn it if you wouldn’t at least try.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Moon,” you bring his hands into your own lap and hold them there, hoping he hears you, hoping he takes your words for all their worth, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. That’s a promise.”
His eyes flicker upward for a brief moment, and he almost smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. You can tell he doesn’t believe you. Maybe he wants to - maybe he’s desperate to. But it’s not enough.
“Wait,” you pull one hand away from your lap and use it to bring the table closer, ensuring it had everything on it that you would need, “I have an idea. A way for you to know for sure that I won’t leave you behind.” You pull only one glove away and reach for him again, fingers wrapping fully between his own, intertwining them. “You can lock your joints, right?”
Moon looks at you uncertainly. “I can.”
Your smile is hopeful and genuine, “Squeeze my hand,” you tell him, “Squeeze it and don’t let go.”
He looks at you with a blank expression. His fingers twitch, like he starts to agree, but then he stops. “Won’t that make it hard for you to work?”
“I have one free hand left,” you wave it, flexing your fingers, “I can work just fine with that.”
“But–”
“I won’t be able to pull my hand away from yours while you’re powered down,” you continue, “you can let it go when I wake you back up. But not until then.”
He’s quiet. You can’t read his expression, and he doesn’t give you anything to go off of that might tell you whether or not he thinks your plan is too silly to pursue. A stupid thought. A bad idea. Then, suddenly, you feel his hand squeeze back. “I’d like that,” he croaks, “I’d like that a lot.”
Relief floods your lungs. “I really will be as quick as I can,” you promise him.
He nods. “I trust you,” he mumbles, then, “Let’s do it.”
Your free hand reaches up and past his faceplate, fingers drawing for the latch beneath the hat and behind his head. The panel there pops open once you find it. Carefully, you move, locating the small and innocent button to the bottom left of his panel that will power him down. You feel the bump and pause afterward, finger hovering just above it. “Ready?” You ask him.
You feel his knuckles go rigid, the fingers stilling in place. A short and unsuccessful flex of your own hand proves that it isn’t going anywhere. You smile, and for once, he smiles back.
“Ready.”
His chest continues its rhythm; up-down, up-down, up-down, then it goes still. The light behind his eye fades as your finger comes back from the button, and his hand remains firmly in place.
You get right to work.
The process is harder this way. It takes twice as long, and you’re nearly breaching overtime by the time his wires are properly back in working order, but you don’t mind any of it. Your hand fell asleep an hour ago, but you don’t mind that, either.
When he wakes, it’ll be to new wires, functioning legs, and the promised face of someone who refuses to let him do this alone.
You wouldn’t have it any other way.
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sskk-manifesto · 9 days
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Me for the whole episode:
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Me for the 15 seconds of sskk interaction at the end:
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