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pinnithin-writes · 3 years

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I Realized. Then I Couldn’t Stop Realizing.

Chapter 8: Pleck

Depending on where he looked, it was going to be over before it even began.

After their initial disorganized start to AJ’s sixth birthday, the rest of the festivities had gone quite well for the CLINT. He had enjoyed his trip to the zoo, rolling excitedly between exhibits with his palms gleefully pressed against the glass like, well, like a six year old.

That was what Dar had told Pleck, anyway. He himself had missed most of the zoo trip on account of that bizarre vehicle train and his subsequent run in with Derf. He sat alone at the scroll-strewn table, watching AJ open his gifts from afar while he knotted and unknotted his own thoughts.

Feeling like an idiot wasn’t new to Pleck, but in this moment he felt particularly stupid. All he had just discovered about the Stuff and the Allwheat gnawed at him. Was this something every Zima already knew about, and he had just been floundering by himself in the Space, none the wiser? His eye fell to the paper tangle in front of him. None of his scrolls hinted at the existence of the religion’s other half - at least, as far as he could tell. Perhaps he just needed to give the texts another pass with this new lens.

He wanted to dismiss Derf’s words as nonsense. The old man never really had his shit together, but their latest encounter told Pleck that his mentor was really starting to lose it. It felt appropriate that the two of them had dressed up as clowns earlier. They were just a couple of clowns following a clown religion on a clown mission in a clown galaxy. It all was starting to feel like a big cosmic joke to Pleck.

As he washed the makeup off his face a few hours prior, however, he was compelled to consider the facts. Derf had never been wrong before. As outlandish and hare-brained the man’s guidance was, it was still mired in truths and half-truths. He had been right about Pleck’s destiny. He had been right about the Space. He had been right about the Emperor. Why wouldn’t his crazy old mentor be right about the Stuff?

Pleck watched Horsehat babbling to their father distractedly as he considered this. It was good, as always, to have Nermut aboard the ship. No matter what was going on between the crew’s manager and their captain, it never got in the way of Horsehat being a happy, well loved sentient. Dar’s child was a good kid, and Nermut was doing his best to be a good dad. Seeing the gleeful smile the two of them mirrored at each other made warmth swell in Pleck’s chest.

He loved this chaotic, disjointed little family of misfits. He would love them every single day of his short tellurian life. He would do anything he could to keep them safe and happy.

A monumental task, considering the screaming black sun bearing down on them all. Derf had casually mentioned Pleck sacrificing himself to the being before he so unhelpfully went and died on him again and, well, it ate at Pleck. This was a notion that was all at once ridiculous and terrifying to him. To willingly face an entity that was chewing through planets like so much hard candy? It was undeniable suicide.

But he couldn’t ignore the horrible truth that had haunted him for the past six months. The Allwheat was his fault. Hi s fault. Pleck’s. He was the one who had singlehandedly jucked over the galaxy. It only made sense that he should be the one to un-juck it.

He found his eye lingering on the frame of his best friend across the room. C-53 was patiently explaining his birthday gift to AJ - a handheld educational spelling game set - while the clone fiddled with powering the device on. Working with C-53 to silence the voice in his head had given Pleck a newfound sense of hope in these past few days. The droid’s gentle, reasonable tone grounded and reassured him when he felt his sanity was going to snap like brittle thread.

Pleck had begun to fantasize about the future, an impossible treat he allowed himself in the privacy of his mind. He entertained an idealized, romantic version of their reality, where Nermut and Dar made amends, Bargie was satisfied with her career, and nobody’s life was endangered by an evil, galaxy-wide threat. And who knows, maybe he could have finally told C-53 how he felt about him. Maybe the droid would have even returned his feelings. Maybe they could have been something.

It was a fantastical dream, rose-colored and improbable. But the hope at least had been his, and it had kept him afloat, for however short a time. Now, Pleck could feel that hope being crushed around him as he stared his newfound destiny in its ugly, screaming face.

Pleck suddenly felt very sick and sad. His wants were simple, but so far out of reach. He shouldn’t be guilt-ridden over desiring happiness. Happiness should just be an intrinsic part of living and working with the people he loved. This was unfair, so infuriatingly unfair. To want something so basic and to feel he didn’t deserve it.

Throat tight, eye burning, Pleck scraped his chair back from the table and strode quickly out of the room. He didn’t need to start crying in the middle of AJ’s party. That would bring down the mood for everyone.

“Pleck!” Dar’s voice called at his retreating back. “You okay, bud?”

Pleck managed a weak, “yeah, I’m just-” before choking on his words. He fled, taking his insurmountable failures with him.

---

That night, when things had quieted down, the Allwheat’s voice started picking at Pleck’s mind like a scab, driving him out of his quarters in search of solace. Locating C-53 was starting to feel natural to him now. He padded silently through Bargie’s darkened hallways and sought out his soft, familiar blinking lights.

The droid was in the common area, as was his tendency, resting in a low power state. Pleck habitually collected one of the cushions off of the couch, placed it on the floor next to C-53’s frame, and settled down onto it. He leaned wearily against his friend for support. Still more comfortable than his phone booth of a room, he mused.

It was dark in the common area, the air thick with a resting silence that Pleck didn’t dare break. He sat with his ear pressed against C-53’s side, listening to the machinery dutifully working away within, even in dormancy. He focused on the gentle sound instead of the Allwheat’s taunting remarks until its terrible voice faded into the background of his mind.

Pleck was just beginning to doze when he heard the resonant sound of C-53 booting up to consciousness. He blinked sleepily as the droid powered on, oriented himself, and noticed the tellurian curled up beside him on the floor.

“Oh, how long have you been there?” C-53 asked, vocal modulator lagging in his delayed wakefulness.

Pleck shrugged in a halfhearted way. “A while.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Pleck responded reflexively. “Things are just… y’know,” he trailed off lamely.

C-53’s head angled toward him. “I’m afraid I don’t know, actually. You seemed more shaken than normal today.”

The fact that he possessed a “normal” amount of shaken would make Pleck laugh if he didn’t feel so shitty. He reached to trace his knuckles across the surface of C-53’s arm, where it loomed protectively over his head. He knew the droid couldn’t feel it. This was just a nice, private thing he did for himself.

“I mean, I did just watch Old Derf die for the fourth time in a row,” Pleck explained into the empty silence. It wasn’t exactly what was bothering him, but of the many ways his mentor had kicked the bucket, this was probably the weirdest.

“Okay, yeah, I guess that was a little unnerving to witness,” C-53 admitted.

Pleck went on. “Did you know he talks to me too, sometimes? Like, sure, I’d rather hear from him than the Allwheat, but my brain isn’t free real estate, y’know?”

C-53 gave an affirmative, “Mmm. I can understand that.” There was a faint clicking sound from his processor before he continued. “I felt that way when the Federated Alliance installed their protocol on me against my will.”

Peck paused, connecting the dots. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he responded quietly.

“It’s hard when you don’t know where the thoughts in your mind are coming from.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, but the words washed over Pleck and engulfed him. He felt deeply, intimately known. It chilled him as much as it excited him. Pleck sat there, next to his best friend, caught in the dangerous knowledge of being understood and yet completely certain that he was safe. He wanted to freeze time right there, to keep that moment to himself forever.

But time didn’t wait, and neither did destiny. His breath hitched in his throat.

C-53 didn’t miss the sound he made. “What’s really bothering you?” he asked.

Gradually, Pleck took out the bundle of thoughts he had been turning over in his head and showed them to the droid. He made sure to keep the part about entering the Allwheat to himself, but he laid out everything he’d learned about the Stuff, his frustrations with Derf, and how his destiny was far from over. C-53 took it all without judgment as the tellurian poured himself out messily between them.

When he was done, he sagged heavily against the droid’s frame. He was so tired. He just wanted one good night’s sleep.

C-53 was silent for a time, but Pleck could hear the uptick in his processing power as he thought things over. “Does this mean you’re going to have to spend six months training alone again?” he asked finally.

“I…” Pleck hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t want to, but...”

The time he had spent mastering the Space had been lonely but necessary, and he still regretted leaving his crewmates to flounder on their own in Holowood while he practiced swinging a stick around. Dar had done alright, but the rest of them had suffered in his absence. He wasn’t sure he could voluntarily do that to them again.

“Well, I don’t want you to, either,” C-53 said.

“You don’t?”

“No.” he responded. “I don’t like it when you disappear. Things just aren’t the same without you.”

Guilt flooded Pleck’s heart. “I’m going to disappear eventually,” he muttered, then immediately regretted it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” C-53 asked as his fan kicked on.

“I mean like-” Pleck attempted to backpedal, but he ended up gushing out more words like an open wound. “Like I’m not gonna be around forever. You and Bargie are essentially immortal, Dar will live decades longer than I will-”

“Pleck-”

“And who knows how long a CLINT’s lifespan is. I’ve got what, sixty, seventy years if I’m lucky? I’m just not gonna be a part of your lives that much longer, okay?”

The astonishment in C-53’s voice was unmistakable. “Pleck, where is this coming from?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t-” He choked on his words again, hot tears threatening to spill down his cheek. “I gotta go.”

He scrambled to his feet, ignoring C-53’s protests. He had to get out of here. This was all too much for him, to sort through what parts of himself to keep and what to give.

“Pleck, talk to me,” the droid’s voice echoed down the hall after him. “What did Derf say to you?”

He squeezed himself into his room and shut the door, crouching down to hug his knees against his chest. He should never have let C-53 see this side of him, let him get this close. Pleck couldn’t compartmentalize his feelings all neat and orderly like the droid could, and it was foolish to think he could share so much of himself while keeping certain parts hidden from him. He was tellurian, organic and messy, and all of C-53’s hard work to put Pleck back together was going to be wasted when the Allwheat ate him for breakfast.

Pleck held himself and cried silently. Hoping had been a mistake. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Chapter 7 <-----> Chapter 9

#ink #fanfiction #mission to zyxx #part of my endeavor to relocate all my ao3 work

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pinnithin-writes · 3 years

Text

I Realized. Then I Couldn’t Stop Realizing.

Chapter 4: Pleck

Depending on where he looked, it had begun two years ago.

Pleck was folded back in his bedroom-closet, comfortably drunk, fingers tingling subtly. He wasn’t sure if this was a side effect of lingering dust in Bargie’s vents (she had claimed it was safe to go aboard half an hour ago) or his conversation with C-53, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. It was two in the morning. Pleck tucked himself in the corner, drowsy.

The Allwheat was blessedly quiet tonight, giving him some room to think. That was the first time anyone had asked him about the voice in his head with any sincerity. It had caught him off guard, and it was laughable how easily everything had come rushing out of him. At least C-53 had received Pleck’s turmoil with uncharacteristic gentleness. Maybe it was the dust mellowing him out.

The last time he had spilled his guts to the droid like that, C-53 wasn’t even conscious. Pleck had been curled up in this very room, holding his friend’s life in the palm of his hand. A dangerous thing, in retrospect - Pleck wasn’t exactly graceful in handling breakable objects. But Dar was shuddering with the realization of what they’d done to their colleague and insisted he held onto it. To keep it safe.

Pleck’s eye fluttered shut as he lost himself in the memory.

“Listen, listen, Dar,” Pleck said, holding a hand out toward the security officer like one would to a spooked animal. “He’s not dead. You didn’t kill him.”

“No, I obliterated him,” Dar responded, chest rising and falling heavily.

The wreckage of C-53’s frame lay in a heap just inside Bargie’s loading bay. Pleck could see the remains of a gun poking out of the rubble, torn from his body after he had pointed it at Centurion Tittle. What kind of C unit would be equipped with guns? he wondered. And what kind of person would aim one at a child ?

C-53’s flat voice and the glow in his eyes in that moment had frightened Pleck, and he had froze in the same moment Dar had surged forward to dismember him. He was already awed by his coworker’s strength, but it was still a terrifying sight to see them rip apart raw steel with their bare hands. Doubly so when that raw steel was one of Pleck’s friends.

They were both feeling a little jelly-legged as they stood there in the bay while Bargie lifted them out of Klongdtt. Dar was still shaking slightly, slowly calming themself down as they drew in breath after breath. Pleck had seen them shaking with fury plenty of times (often aimed at himself), but not like this. He tried again to reassure them.

“He told us he lived inside his cube or something, right?” he asked, trying to sound composed despite the strain in his own voice. “Is the cube still there?”

Dar raised a clawed hand to rub at their face. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” they murmured. They dropped their hand and surveyed the twisted heap of metal. “It would be in his torso, right?”

“Yeah, what’s left of it,” Pleck couldn’t help blurting, wincing even as he said it.

Dar shot him a withering look. They circled C-53’s ruined frame, sifting through the machinery they had just torn apart like paper, until they discovered the piece they were looking for with a small, “aha!”

Pleck hurried over to Dar as they knelt to extract a dented chest cavity. They turned it over in their massive hands until they found the panel containing their friend’s consciousness. With a small amount of gentle jimmying, Dar was able to slide it open, revealing the crystalline blue cube inside. Miraculously, it was unharmed. Pleck could see Dar’s shoulder’s visibly slump with relief.

“Oh, thank Rodd,” he exhaled, some of the brittle anxiety in his own lungs breaking up at the sight. “See, Dar? He’s fine. You didn’t kill him. He’s alright. He’s gonna be alright.”

At this point, he was reassuring himself as much as he was the security officer. C-53 looked so fragile and vulnerable in this small, shining state. “Hey C,” he ventured. “Can you hear us, buddy?”

Silence. It was crushing.

Dar took in a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s able to… be…without a frame,” they guessed. They tilted the droid’s torso, dented like a tin can, in Pleck’s direction. “Can you take it out? I’m afraid to touch it.”

“Dar, I don’t think you’re going to hurt him-” he began, but Dar gave him a pleading look that shut him up.

Delicately, he reached out and removed the cube from its slot. He wasn’t expecting it to be warm, and the latent heat on his skin surprised him. It lay in his palm, glowing softly, and Pleck was overcome by a sense that this was transgressive in some way, like he shouldn’t be touching his friend like this. Holding onto him with his bare fingers.

“We should uh,” Dar’s voice pulled him out of his trance. “We should tell Bargie what happened.”

“Oh, right,” Pleck answered, eyes still glued to the cube. “Yeah. How should I…?” He did not want to carry C-53’s life around loose in his hand like this, terrified of dropping it.

Beside him, Dar stood from where they had knelt beside the wrecked droid frame and gazed down at Pleck from their full height. There was still a hint of worry in their eyes. “I don’t know. Does your uniform have pockets?”

The question struck him as odd. “Yeah. Does yours not?”

“My whole body is pockets.”

“Right.”

They made their way to the bridge, and Pleck slipped C-53’s consciousness into the cargo pocket of his shorts, where he hoped it would be jostled the least as he walked. The cube was light, but the importance of it weighed heavily against his leg. To Pleck, this would be like if someone could just take out his heart, or his brain, and keep it close until they found a new place for it. He already knew he was underqualified for this ambassador position. He felt overwhelmingly underqualified to be handling a droid’s soul.

They confessed to Bargie and deflected Nermut with varying levels of success. And that night, Pleck was expected to just sit there, in his cramped little room, like everything was normal. Bargie had offered to let C-53’s consciousness rest on one of her shelves, but Pleck couldn’t bring himself to let the cube out of his sight.

He didn’t know why he felt so protective all of a sudden. It wasn’t like the droid had ever needed him. C-53 had always been so self-assured, powerful in his infinite knowledge, cool and in control. But now he was just… tiny. Vulnerable. It settled uncomfortably in Pleck’s chest.

It was weird that he was just sitting there staring at it, right?

His room was dark, save for the soft blue glow diffusing from the lexicon. Pleck held it delicately in his fingertips, shifting its position every few minutes as he gazed at it. He wouldn’t describe himself as an individual with sweaty hands, but he remembered C-53 saying he couldn't get wet without being critically damaged, and Pleck wanted to be safe. Should he wrap it in a towel, or something? Set it on a pillow? Would that be more comfortable? Could he even feel anything, his consciousness reverted in this way?

“Hey, C-53,” he said quietly. “I know you probably can’t hear me, but uh.” He faltered, wondering if he even had a reason to speak or if he was just scared. “Just wanna say I’m here for you.”

The cube warmed his hands gently, silently.

Pleck went on, filling the unbearable space around him with words. “I may not uh. Y’know, be the best ambassador in the Federated Alliance or anything, but,” he broke off, unable to finish the sentence without laughing a little at himself, “I’m not jucking this one up. We’re gonna bring you back, okay?”

He was definitely talking to himself, he considered. C-53 couldn’t hear him. At least he didn’t think he could. Surely he would have something witty to say in response if they were actually having a conversation. This was just a self-soothing compulsion Pleck was doing to make himself feel better about holding his friend’s soul in his hands. Maybe he should put it away so he wouldn’t think about it.

“Look, I don’t know what happened to you back there,” he sighed. “You kind of went all murder-bot on us all of a sudden. Was that you, or was that some weird thing with the Federated Alliance wiping your memory or whatever?”

C-53 didn’t answer him, as he knew he wouldn’t. Pleck kept talking. It helped him sort himself out.

“Whatever it was, I’m glad you’re okay. So is Dar. They feel terrible about having to uh. Y’know. Wreck you like that.” The security officer’s concerned face surfaced in his mind. He hoped they were alright. “Please don’t blame them for breaking you. Heh, if anything, you can blame me for not knowing what to do. Dar was the one who actually carried you back to the ship.”

Blame me. Blame me. The crew already did it all the time. It would be easy for him to take that on and lift some of the guilt from Dar’s shoulders. He could do that at least, he thought.

Pleck’s face was awash with C-53’s warm blue light. He rotated it in his hands, running his fingertips along the edges, over the corners. So marvelously designed. So elegant. It suited him. Pleck leaned his head back against the wall of his closet and sighed.

“C-53, I know you don’t think of me as a friend, but I really do care about you.” Pleck could not keep the wistful strain out of his words, and was grateful the droid couldn’t hear him like this. It was much easier to hide under a laugh that was always waiting for him at the surface. “I’m gonna keep you safe. We’ll get you a new body. And you can go back to correcting me every time I’m wrong, okay?”

There was no bitterness in his voice when he said that. C-53’s vast knowledge of intergalactic protocol had saved the crew’s skin multiple times in their service to the Federated Alliance. Pleck was beginning to like the sound of the droid’s vocal modulator chiming in mildly to steer him back on the correct course. It was a comforting sound. He missed it.

Yawning, he slumped down and settled onto his side, setting the cube in front of him. “I’ve got you, C,” he whispered. “You’re safe with me. Just like I’m safe with you.”

Pleck had drifted off like that, curled protectively around C-53’s soul.

Now, Pleck didn’t need to keep such a careful eye on his friend. He was housed in a loader frame, large and intimidating, powerful enough to lift even Bargie, probably, if he wanted to. Pleck couldn’t shake his fondness for the droid even now, with a blank face and a cold, unyielding body. When he’d told him on Biktar that he was beautiful in every frame, Pleck had meant it.

C-53 wasn’t the body he lived in. He was the heart inside of it, and as long as he was there to keep Pleck gently grounded, he didn’t care what form he took. He bit back a laugh, remembering that he’d realized his feelings for the droid when his cube was housed in a humidifier. That was so long ago. He hurt with the strain of still keeping it to himself.

A whisper on the edge of his thoughts yanked him violently out of his reverie. The Allwheat was back, with its insults and its unfathomable truths.

“That’s my cue,” he sighed.

Pleck let unconsciousness take him before he could think about anything else.

Chapter 3 <-----> Chapter 5

#ink #fanfiction #mission to zyxx #part of my endeavor to relocate all my ao3 work

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