#learn two queuequeue

[deterministpalindrome]

The only warning you get is the techs you've been following on the camera feed stopping at the helmsblock door, and you toss a H34D'5 UP at Pal a second before they enter. Your eyes narrow but your grin spreads, ready to run them through their paces. If you'd thought you'd gone soft, here's proof positive you haven't, thank fuck.

Pal blinks up at you, then turns to the doorway, eyes going wide when he spots the engineers, and all that assurance goes straight through the engines. He just looks so scared-

His lips curl back in an instant, every long daggerfang bared in a hiss. His ears pinning back is as graceful a movement as he can muster, but fuck, he sure as hell tries to get his hands and feet under himself. You're impressed, surprised, especially since you're sure you saw a red spark curl around a horn, and you can definitely see the power spike the biowire's siphoning. Half hooked up and drugged, and he's still able to do this? No wonder he took off the Highblood's arm.

The two engineers calmly watch the scrambling threat display from the safety of the doorway, one muttering into a radio, saying something about hitting him. And then they wait, and so do you, staring them down with that grin still plastered on your eager face, willing them closer. Your cameras, though, are on Pal, so you see the exact moment what they ordered hits.

His snarling start hitching, his blinks lasting longer, and his face contorts into fury and confusion. Fuck, they're doping him more, aren't they? You have your confirmation when his arms give out, the scraps of purchase he's gotten crumpling, and he lays there, snarls fading to growls that you can barely hear. Only then do the techs move, ignoring you and focusing on Pal, taking measurements, checking wires, testing wounds, making notes. They keep their hands away from his mouth, and finish fairly quickly, your pump sinking as they leave.

...they just judged him ready, didn't they.

Fuck.

The next few hours pass in silence, until his adrenaline stops fighting the drugging and the dosage drops back down to what he was at previously. It's only then you start talking again.

PR: K1D, 7H3 R1G'5 4LM057 D0N3. TR: how TR: do you know PR: WHY 7H3 FUCK 3L53 W0ULD 7H3Y M345UR3 Y0UR F4C3? PR: W3'LL M47CH 4NY 71M3 N0W. PR: 4ND 1'M N07 L3771NG 7H47 H4PP3N. TR: no PR: 50RRY K1D. PR: G0774 M4K3 G00D 0N MY PR0M153. TR: no no no no plea2e one more day TR: one more TR: plea2e TR: please

You look down at him, still flopped like a rag doll on the floor, as he looks up at you with drooped ears and fear in his eyes. Fuck everything.

PR: 7H3R3'5 N0 W4Y 1N H3LL 7H3Y'R3 W4LK1NG 1N H3R3 W17H0U7 D0U8L3 D051NG Y0U 4G41N. PR: N07 4F73R 7H47 5H0W. PR: 7H47 H4PP3N5 4G41N, 1'M N07 51771NG 84CK 4ND W47CH1NG, Y0U H34R M3? TR: okay TR: thank you PR: D0N'7 FUCK1NG 7H4NK M3 F0R K1LL1NG Y0U, 8R47. PR: 5H17. PR: WH47'5 WR0NG W17H Y0U.

He snorts at you with a weird grin, and you frown before going back to searching code, trying desperately to put any sort of distance between you and him. You can't be attached. He's going to die. You have to kill him. It's kinder that way.

One more night. Maybe two. And then he's gone.

And you have to be ready for that.

...fuck.

[deterministpalindrome]

The longer time goes on, the harder it is to rouse Pal into talking to you, and you wish you could say that didn't worry you but fuck, it really does. The odds that he'll be able to survive as a helmsman if you show him mercy are dwindling, and your resolve to fry him is coming back. You should be glad about that. You're not.

You don't like what this has done to him, all the sass and snap of the first few nights leaving him for dower responses. Even asking about his quads has stopped working as well, the bright eyed lovesickness when he spoke of his admiral kismesis gone and replaced by only a soft smile as he talks about how competitive he is, how understanding and kind, how he's scared they're not going to work out forever but he wants to hold on to him as long as he can.

When your bringing up his topleaf only results in him admitting he misses her, and the rest of his clade, you switch tactics. You start combing through the video feed until you spot someone you recognize, then invite him to join you. It takes coaxing, of course, but you manage eventually, and then he asks why you're staring at some troll making sure an update installed correctly.

You grin and tell him everything you know about this particular engineer, what he eats at his meals, his history with the ship, how he handles the bullshit you throw at him. That last part gets Pal's attention, prompting questions on what you mean. That starts a whole new tangent into the war going on between you and the entirety of the engineering brigade, where your only weapons are spite and time, exploiting the system you've been shoved into to make their lives hell. Is it unnecessarily cruel? Yeah, but so is being shoved into a computer and having your dignity pissed on for a thousand sweeps. You call it even.

That works for a while, you leading him through what crew is on board and telling stories, answering questions with a grin until he's got a matching one. He offers suggestions based on shit he pulled as a wiggler, and while you've been through all of that ages ago, it does spark more stories and a couple ideas.

And for a few days, you have him back again.

[deterministpalindrome]

[deterministpalindrome]

PR: R1GH7. PR: 83C4U53 4 G0D 0F 4LL 7H1NG5 W0ULD 3ND UP 1N 7H3 R1G. PR: 5UR3 K1D, 7H47 M4K35 53N53. TR: got voodooed TR: by gamzee PR: 5H17. TR: iit'2 okay. TR: kk'2 2afe TR: and ii took off hii2 arm He grins again, wide and pleased, and you start digging through reports and footage, trying to catch him on the ship at all. TR: can't fiind my wiing2 TR: or my fiire TR: or ii'd be out TR: two fuzzy You're only listening because you have to, too busy staring at footage of the new Grand Highblood escorting Pal on board and only sporting one arm, the other gone at the shoulder. He wasn't lying. You look at him again, turning his delusion over in your pan. If this is true underneath the story of godhood and alternates, what's the rest of the real one? How much of the normal shit he spouts off is true as well? PR: FUCK K1D, Y0U W3R3N'7 K1DD1NG. PR: N1C3 W0RK. --primaryRig sent file "Y0UR_H4NDYW0RK_F0R_P0573R17Y.MP4" ! -- He hesitantly accepts it, and you work him through how to save it to his pan and not the ship, and how to open and run it. He whines at you, reluctant to know how to do this, but you grin at him and tell him it's worth it, especially for this. The moment he succeeds is obvious, eyes blinking but unfocused, until that grin is back when the Highblood turns just right and his missing arm becomes obvious. He curls up a little, like he's a purrbeast snugging around a toy, and a rattle starts up that sounds suspiciously like a purr. Fucking dicks, he's adorable. He ignores you for hours, playing the video over and over you're guessing, pleased with himself. You're okay with the silence, ridiculously used to being alone, and focus on the ship again. A camera stays pinned to Pal, though, making sure his mood doesn't tip over into something horrible. For one brief second you consider not frying him when he's fully installed, but that would mean she wins, and you can't let that happen. Sorry kid. Spite's more important than you being even remotely close to happy.

[deterministpalindrome]

The more he talks, the more you're convinced that he's cracked his pan long before he ended up here, and the more you want to fry him out of his misery. His delusion is so ridiculously intertwined, like he's been working on it for sweeps, tucked away wherever he was found, weaving it nightly so he doesn't go raving mad. Even when you translate the loopy text, none of it makes sense as anything other than a fantasy.

The logical part of your pan screams at you that no one knows Atlais anymore, that his existence has been wiped from the records and the collective troll memory and has been replaced by the Sufferer, rage and fangs condensed into a justification for war. No one knows the kind troll who took pity on a slave who was nothing but a violent menace and taught him how to interact properly again. He's dead and gone, remembered only by one lonely computer's private memory banks.

And yet... here's some nobody who doesn't wear the Irons but knows of them, as the sign of his matesprit who's a spitting image of your best friend. Well, at least personality-wise; Pal hissed at you when you suggested memory file sharing, which just on its own is impressive as hell if you don't bring in the novel of NOs that flooded the chat, so you have no idea what the brat looks like.

But the kindness... and the patience... and the understanding and refusal to abandon someone because they're a challenge to deal with... fuck, it makes your pump ache. His face goes concerned at your expression, and asks if you're alright, but you brush it off the best you can. A hand inches closer, like he was trying to reach out and comfort you, and you watch it until he runs out of flesh with a frustrated noise.

And then it's your turn to talk, obvious like there was no other option, speaking of your sweeps as a slave and your rescue at the hands of the smiling troll who could crush metal with his hands. How you wiggled your way into his group since you had nowhere else to go, how well that went until you exploded someone for threatening him. How he fought for you to stay and taught you how to be a troll. How your progress won over the other two, how you kept them safe in less horrific ways after that.

Your story trails off when you get to Atlais's death, and you surprise yourself when a tear rolls down a cheek. He whines, a wisp of a noise that droops his ears. You can tell he wants nothing more than to get up and hug you just by how he looks at you, and you almost fry him on the spot. The life you had was fine, your soul hollowed out and empty, the sweeps of wanting to cry your eyes out long past. Reliving that bullshit is as far from your to do list as it can fucking get, and fuck this kid for bringing all of it back up again.

But you don't, of course. How can you so soon after talking about the troll that showed you what mercy was?

You drop a question about why he doesn't know this shit when Twoblade is a thing in the chat, and after you brush off his concern, he answers, something about different histories in different timelines. A lovely distraction to wrap your pan in as always, his bullshit story the perfect solution.

...much later it occurs to you that the number of trolls who know who Atlais was has just doubled, and your pump untightens just enough to notice.

[deterministpalindrome]

It's really obvious he can when he rambles on about his clade, which as far as you can tell means his quads and a few extra trolls included for baffling reasons. A clown who didn't cut off his leg, so now he trusts him with his life? His matesprit's topleaf, who's helped him with injuries and hospitals and taking care of his matesprit? Your... alternate? who goes by Twoblade, who he's sure thinks little of him but has his trust all the same? His brother???? whose promise of rescue he's clinging to? Fuck you with a rusty chainsaw, are you glad you're a computer right now.

There's no way in fuck you're forgetting that face when he starts talking about his quads proper, though, all grins and bright eyes and fucking lovesickness plastered on every square centimeter of his face. It makes your pump ache to think that either he's stuck here until he's dead and won't ever see them again, or he's made all this up to keep himself company, but you're remembering that look so you can ask him about them every time he starts curling in on himself.

He tells you things you're 200% sure he doesn't mean to tell you, probably because of the drugs. It doesn't matter, really, who the shit are you going to tell? Not that you would for a long list of reasons, most of which are spite based. And also maybe because it seems crueler than what he's been through perhaps. But mostly spite.

You are getting attached and you do not like it.

[deterministpalindrome]

[deterministpalindrome]