An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/2
Fandom: 重返未来: 1999 | Reverse: 1999 (Video Game)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Marsha Rosenhart/Sentinel
Characters: Marsha Rosenhart, Sentinel (Reverse: 1999)
Additional Tags: Smut, (light) angst, improper use of arcane skill in multiple meanings, immovable object (the drawbacks of marsha’s pain-siphoning) vs unstoppable force (marianne’s determination to give her girlfriend nice things), 4+1
Summary:
Four times Marsha wanted to draw the pain from Sentinel, and one time she took in something else entirely.
-
A thought forms, half there amidst concern and impotent frustration. This is what results when Marsha uses her skill to absorb painful things, terror and panic and sharp wounds. What if she were to take something good, something from Sentinel without the usual protest, something like–
Oh but sûrement pas, unless…
Fleeting and embarrassing as the whim is, she will not remember it again for weeks yet.
IV. Beware of Dog-biting Comments and Communicating Devices
Medicine Pocket glares down at the heap on their desk, sensing their pupils dilate to carnivorous coins as they prowl faded diagrams and feral equations. Every sheet promises the same quarry: warped metrics, lensing artifacts, nonlocal couplings, the fingerprints of the “Storm.” They’re meant to untangle this cosmological tantrum, the thing that tore chronology like wet paper, shearing present from past, smearing the future into low-resolution noise. Yet each time they prepare to sink teeth into it, jaws set, mind bristling, their attention veers, tail chasing a different stimulus.
The other night. X with that boy.
A trench coat in antique drape, knee socks, an umbrella-wand cocked like affectation: Oliver Fog. Not a transient vapor but an institutional weather pattern—“fog clearing,” as if that qualifies as labor. Blegh. Medicine Pocket has read up (they always read up), and the summary irritates their gums. He pops in at odd hours, occupies air that should belong to experiments—and to X—and laughs in a register that scratches the inner ear. Time with X is a finite resource; by conservation law, what goes to Fog cannot go to them. This offends physics.
They catch themselves gnawing the end of a pen—canine against plastic—with the round-the-clock pressure of a dog worrying a toy. The barrel whacks. They spit the bitter shard onto the desk with a low growl that vibrates in the throat. X, who listens when others shorten their sentences. X, who nods through lunatic hypotheses until lunacy resolves to method. X, whose bench should be within nose’s reach. And each time they consider loping across the corridor, the echo slips through the wall: Oliver’s neat, civilized laugh, like polished cutlery, cutting into the warm lode of X’s.
“What a waste of time,” they mutter, and sweep the “Storm” stack aside with the heel of a hand. Paper fans into disordered tessellations. A plot of geodesics skids under a rack of pipette tips. Fine. Let havoc have it.
They stand fast enough to creak the stool, shoulders bunching like raised hackles. Door: open, slam; hallway: theirs, for now. They stalk, pace efficient, steps ticking like a timepiece set two clicks too fast.
“Move! Out of my way, blind fool!” they bark, clipping a Laplace tech who has the audacity to exist in their compass. No apology. They gander back, lip curling. “What, are you a dumbass?” The tech shrinks. Good. The corridor keeps clear the way a field clears around a charged body.
Enigma first. If anyone has coaxed signal from the distortions, it’ll be the one who pretends not to care.
They shoulder into his office without knocking. Hinges protest. Paper and instruments sit in stratified neglect; dust writes footnotes.
“Enigma,” they snarl, hands on hips, posture like a threat diagram. “Have you figured out anything useful about the particle distortions I sent?”
He looks up, face composed into that beautiful, infuriating null. “Busy, Pocket. Very busy.”
“Busy? Doing what?” Their gaze enumerates the mess with a surgeon’s contempt. “This place looks like a landfill.”
“Busy with things that don’t involve your distortions or the fact that time imploded,” he says, dry as silica. His eyes fall back to the page. An intentional snub; a data point.
“Utter incompetence,” they mutter, scanning for a glint of worth and finding only neglect. Enigma’s attention lifts just enough to cut.
“You’re welcome to leave, you know.”
“Hah.” A clean, derisive exhale. “Let me know if you miraculously contribute anything.” They spin and bolt, heels ricocheting off linoleum, zeroing on the next gatekeeper: Lucy.
Bucket Head, the mind supplies, unkind and amused.
They hit Lucy’s door like a meteor. The panel takes it badly; screws complain. Inside, the mechanical calm of a woman made of precision—a face tuned to human-friendly, eyes that never quite forget their divergence routines.
“Researcher Medicine Pocket,” Lucy says, voice serene, almost mothering. “You do know each broken office door is deducted from meal allowances?”
“Take it out of mine, Bucket Head. I don’t care.” They plant both palms on her desk—claiming territory—and scowl. “Tell me you’ve got something nontrivial on that stupid tribulation. Or are you too busy playing at being human?”
Her lips hint at a smile, a software feature toggled on. “If you’re suggesting I act more ‘human,’ I can attempt it. I’ve been learning humor. Regulus says it ‘boosts morale.’ Would you like to hear a joke?”
Patience snaps—a thin solder joint heated past tolerance. “No. Absolutely not.” Fists close; tendons chord. “Do you know anything useful about the Storm, or will you sit there and parrot nonsense?”
Unfazed, Lucy folds metal fingers, a small, reflective choreography. “Progress is being made, but it’s inconclusive. Current data is fragmented. More breakthroughs are expected but not guaranteed. I will inform you if they occur.”
“Inconclusive.” They spit the syllables. “Of course. Ask a toaster for advice; get crumbs.”
“Feedback noted,” Lucy says, imperturbable. “I’ll keep you updated as the information becomes… less inconclusive.”
They roll their eyes skyward, find no help there, and fling the broken door wider on exit, hinges now officially hypothetical. Back into corridor glare, back into the temperature-controlled wind where everything stenches vaguely of disinfectant and thwarted ambition.
This place has gone soft, the mind snarls. All this hand-wringing over ‘humanity.’ Survival is not a feelings vector.
A flicker ahead. Ears—figurative, not entirely—pierce. X’s lab. The biomechanical reflex is to swerve, to enter, to shoulder out interlopers, and plant a flag. They pace past the door. The sound arrives first: X’s laugh. Spontaneous, round. Interleaved with the pleasant, civilized little laugh they now recognize as Oliver’s.
Jaw: tight. Saunters: louder, declarative. What is he even doing with him? Fog-clearing tips? Weather advice? Polished nonsense? The thought abrades from the inside.
“Ts—tsk.” They rake fingers around a clipboard snagged from a passing cart, grip whitening, an animal urge to clamp down rising fresh. They contemplate the metal edge with frank carnivore interest, then think of cracked enamel and decide against it. Whoever designed Laplace is anti-teething, they think, half a growl, half a grin.
A junior researcher rounds a blind corner too fast, and a collision nearly happens. “Excuse you!” Medicine Pocket snaps, sidestepping with exaggerated disdain. “Are your visions not working? Or are you another of the Foundation’s dumbasses, blocking the corridor like furniture?”
Mumbled apology. Flight. The corridor restores to quiet.
They reenter their lab like weather changing—pressure drops, doors seal. Chair: down; bones: folded; stare: lethal. The same scatter sits where they left it, plus a few new insults: the snapped pen, a scalpel, a printout of gravitational shear annotated with venom. They should be knuckle-deep in data, mapping malformations, triangulating causality chains—profitable work. Instead, the cognitive buffer overflows with loops about a boy with an umbrella and X’s smile bending toward him.
They inhale sharply through the nose, scenting air as if it might tell a different story, and snatch up the scalpel, spinning it by the neck. Forget X. Forget Oliver, they order, and the command rings hollow even to their own auditory cortex. Laughter—muffled by walls, still audible—ghosts in, soft as air return, and feels like a taunt.
Knuckles blanch around steel. It doesn’t matter, the mind lies. None of it matters. The Storm will eat the map eventually. We’re all rationing time on a burning platform.
The door slides a hand’s width. A small cluster of staff peers in, mid-question. They don’t parse it. “Busy!” Medicine Pocket barks without turning. “Now get out!” The door shuts with satisfying obedience. Silence re-accumulates; they begin tapping the scalpel point against the desk—click, click, tak—an arrhythmic telemetry.
Their gaze drifts, finds the screwdriver they always reach for first. Under it: a square of paper massed with a hex key, X’s spruce, earnest handwriting. Test went well. Added ideas for safety lock + privacy mode. Spoon brilliant. Pourer still pouring. See you tomorrow? — X.
The chest does a small, traitorous thing. They reach, pretend to dismiss, then, abruptly, snag the note, bring it near, inhale like a creature cataloguing scent: faint graphite, bench alcohol, a trace of him—whatever that is in chemical. The lip twitches, something like a snarl, something like a smile. They slide the note into the inner pocket where the lab coat falls warm against sternum, pat it once as if to tamp it down, supposing heat could erase handwriting.
Work. Back to work. They slap the “Storm” diagrams into a stack with a flat palm and force the frontal cortex forward: timeline bifurcations, destruction gradients, non-Gaussian noise. Manus Vindictae intrudes—self-important terrorists citing revenge as if the universe negotiates. “They’d all die anyway,” they tell the empty room, tone clinical, not cruel, and then bark a laugh with no humor in it.
The scalpel resumes its sundial. A beat passes; another. The mind, deserter, wanders back to the corridor—platinum hair pinned with scissors, eyes narrowing, the quick pivot away, Enigma and Ulrich parked in the periphery. Then to the wall-thin laughter next door. Then to the note now warming in their pocket.
Who even let Oliver Fog into the picture in the first place? The thought scratches like a flea at the brim of attention. Unbidden, ridiculous, persistent.
They lean back, chair creaking, a cruel little smile crooking one corner of the mouth. The day lies in front of them. Long, pale, technically salvageable. “Fine,” they tell the ceiling, the Storm, the Foundation, their own refractory limbic system. “We’ll bite something that bites back.” They pull the nearest plot toward them, reach for a tonic pen, and bare their mental teeth. The tapping stops. The room waits.
And under lab coat, against bone, paper zaps—miniature artifact, low-mass gesticulation, like a secret the body already knows how to keep.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Medicine Pocket slumps over the cluttered workspace, nose almost touching the brass bracket of the tea-pourer they and X coaxed into good behavior. A fingertip flips the lever with absent precision; the cam ticks, the linkage trembles, and the spout offers an imaginary pour with all the enthusiasm of a tired faucet. Functional. Boring. Their lip curls. They set it down and snatch the mood-measuring spoon. It wakes on contact, cycles through a tired spectrum, then gives up at a muddy gray—sensor fusion reporting null affect like a dead ECG.
They scowl. Out of things to do. The spoon clatters back to the table. Break would be rational; rampage would be medicinal. Better: prowl Laplace and find the designer of this dull, gray cage masquerading as a research wing. The entire sphere feels kennel-small today. They’d trade ten hours of fluorescent light for one open field in Utah—frisbee physics, wind in fangs, barking at strangers for the principle of it.
They sigh, reach for their Beagle 0-1 Fluid Analysis Apparatus (the name still amuses, the beagle in them pleased), and flick the switch. The chamber answers with a tidy burble, indicator dye eddies in laminar swirls. Paperwork solvent only, they think, bitter. The last good fight, real adversaries, real tusk, was epochs ago.
The door swings. They whip their head around, “What—” already loaded in the throat, and cut the word off when the hat crosses the threshold. Vertin. Pristine suit, impossible hat, composure like a metronome. The Timekeeper in full plumage.
Their gaze narrows. Hatted Cuckoo.
“You,” they drawl, flat as a service line. “What now?”
An eyebrow lifts; Vertin steps in as if invited. “I’d like to ask for your assistance.”
They snort. “Assistance? Since when do you need my help? Everyone else dead?” A sweep of the arm takes in the chaos. “Besides, aren’t you more into flashy, save-the-world types?”
“No. No one’s dead—”
“Oh, joy…”
“Indeed,” Vertin continues, unfazed. “I require a medical professional. Several Arcanists need exams after recent field assignments.” Her gaze moves through the lab—tools, half-finished devices, solder bloom—and returns to them with that unrelenting patience that abrades like sand. “You’re skilled and qualified.”
They look away, make a show of indifference. “And let me guess—last option.”
“First,” she supplies, as if reading from a clinical note. “You’re efficient.”
They roll their eyes, plant a boot on the table edge, feeling petulantly territorial, and then mutter, “Flattery won’t get you far, Timekeeper.”
Vertin exhales (neither sigh nor laugh) then chooses brevity. “To the point: I need you to accompany me to the suitcase for evaluations. A few Arcanists require attention.”
Medicine Pocket rolls the Beagle 0-1 in their palm, weight testing. “And I get… your gratitude?” A beat. Suspicion pricks. “Isn’t your suitcase immune to the reversed raindrops anyway? Wave your hat, say an incantation, call it a day.”
“The environment is stabilized,” Vertin says, folding gloved hands, “but examinations require more than incantation. I asked you because you are one of the best we have.”
Their mouth opens—snark cued and ready—when she adds, perfectly mild:
“Oh, and X is also tagging along. He’s assisting with a few tasks in the suitcase as part of the assignment.”
Hand freezes mid-fidget. Close mouth. Blink.
“X… is going?”
“Yes.” Vertin’s look is a restful hieroglyph. “He agreed earlier today.”
They clear their throat; indifference fails the quality check. Mentally, they kick themselves. “Why would he be tagging along on something like this?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” The faintest glint touches her eyes. “He’s capable and eager to help beyond his usual bench.”
They angle their head away, thoughts scrambling like startled birds, then settling. The suitcase’s skewed manor, the weirdly polite physics, the way rooms seem to listen, suddenly seems… less intolerable. It’s just exams, they tell themselves, entirely unconvincing. The notion of Alphabet Boy within nose’s reach, close enough to hear his laugh unfiltered by drywall, close enough to hand tools without asking, buzzes the mind like low voltage.
Vertin dilly-dallies. Medicine Pocket tosses the Beagle 0-1 onto the counter; it lands with a hollow, obedient thunk. Arms fold—habitual reluctance.
“Fine,” they click, tongue against teeth. “But let’s be clear, I’m not doing this because you asked.” A dangerous sentence nearly completes itself—because X is going—and they snip it mid-air. A curt nod instead. “Because I might as well put my time to use in that ridiculous suitcase.”
“Good,” Vertin nods, immune to scorn. “We leave in fifteen minutes. Foyer.” She nods once and retreats, hat and all, without leaving a wake.
Silence resettles. Medicine Pocket slumps back against the desk, rolling their eyes at themselves with something like a growl under it. Of course, Alphabet Boy would go. The one reason I’d bother. Their glance drops—spoon, still fairly alive; pourer, imperturbable and prim. Irritation spikes, then slides sideways as their hand, unsolicited, touches the inside pocket where paper melts against brisket. X’s note—Spoon brilliant. Pourer still pouring. See you tomorrow?—sits there like a tame animal that chose them anyway.
They scowl harder to scare off the softness and crash, just a fraction. “Fifteen minutes,” they tell the room, the spoon, the machine, the note, their own wayward pulse. “Heel.” Then they shove off the bench, grab a med kit with their teeth—because it amuses them to carry it that way—drop it into a bag with a pop, and stalk for the foyer, tail invisible, wag felt.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
So they loiter by reception, one boot heel tapping an impatient, isochronous click while their thumb niggles the small dog sticker on their Laplace ID. The laminate outline plucks up; they dig a nail under it, resisting the very canine urge to bite. They hadn’t wanted another of Vertin’s droll errands—but if a friend is coming, acceptability hikes up. Even if that friend recently behaved like a turncoat. “I had somewhere to be,” he said, then promptly ran off with that Fog boy. Ugh. They glunch (an internal sulk they can’t help having) pressing harder at the sticker until the adhesive squeaks.
A scent cuts the ambient bleach: warm espresso, feeble citrus top note. They look up. X is right there—cheery, unweaponized, somehow even cuter in a pressed lab coat with an enormous black butterfly stitched over the chest pocket. His traitorous little face.
“Hey, Medpoc,” he greets, kindly. “Didn’t know you’d be joining us. This is wonderful, we’ll—”
“Yeah, well, save it,” they bite before the filter boots. They look away sharply. “I’m here to assist, not to make another one of your useless little inventions.”
The edge slams; they see the flinch, small and controlled, the way his mouth almost dips before the perpetual good nature contends. Shoulders reset; the smile returns like a rooted onset.
“Oh, of course,” he says lightly, brushing off the impact with that maddening sangfroid. “I didn’t bring any of the projects, anyway. Just here for fieldwork.”
They sneak a glance, annoyed at his natural tolerance. What is it with him? Why does looking at him feel like taking a bowling ball to the torso? It’s a regular face—heterochromic eyes, yes, a ridiculous advantage; an ordinary nose; a mouth; ears mostly hidden under that ash-gray mop. Fine, maybe he is grudgingly, stupidly cute—but still. Slow-witted. Oblivious.
He’s watching, head tilted, which should be illegal. “You, uh… good to go?” he asks, gloved fingers fidgeting with the mint-green ribbon on his top. Voice weightless; gaze carrying something earnest—concern, probably, the menace.
“Yeah, yeah,” they grumble, tugging their coat collar into obedience. “Just waiting on the Hatted Cuckoo to bring her magic bag of tricks.”
“Hatted… Cuckoo?” The corner of his mouth twitches.
“That’s what she is,” they say, not quite meeting his eyes. “All grandiose titles and enchanted suitcases. ‘Timekeeper,’” they repeat in Vertin’s crisp register. “Slapstick.” The mimicry buys them a heartbeat; unfortunately, the payoff is X’s smile, too innocent to be strategic, and therefore worse.
“Well,” he says, playfulness encompassing his tone, “it could be worse. She could’ve brought us somewhere even less exciting than the suitcase.”
They raise a brow, arms crossing. “As if anywhere’s worse than that house-in-a-box. Nowhere to train. Nowhere to run.” A beat. “No… frisbees to chase.” The admission arrives, ill-advised, and heat ticks up their cheekbones. They keep their head angled away, daring him not to have heard it.
He only titters, soft. “So, you’d rather be running outside?”
They give him a withering look; his vague smile warms it at the corners despite themselves. “Forget it,” they mutter. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Maybe not,” he says, voice lower, gentler. “But I’d like to try.”
Silence rectifies the room. Their gaze drops to the ID badge—dog sticker slightly frayed—hyperaware of his proximity now, of the espresso trace in his coat. They grit their teeth. This boy is enraging. He has no idea what he’s doing to the room’s chemistry, simply standing there with curiosity like a headlamp—uncritical, total.
Polished heels tick toward them, cyclical, unmistakable. They look up as Vertin approaches, wide-brimmed tophat casting inch-perfect shadows. Sonetto walks at her side, ginger hair framing a face tuned to gentleness. Medicine Pocket mutters “finally” under breath, grateful for a stimulus change.
“Ready?” Vertin asks, cloudless scan flicking between them. Her gaze lingers on Medicine Pocket a precise fraction longer than standard, and then she turns, guiding them down a side corridor toward the reserved chamber—special transport, as if that euphemism accomplishes anything.
‘Special transport,’ they think, suppressing an eye roll. They’d rather walk—or better, not go. But one look at the way X’s eyes brighten—pure data uptake, on tenterhooks—and they shelve complaint for later use.
In the chamber, Vertin lifts a gloved hand. A scrupulous sweep; the suitcase’s boundary conditions unlock. Air pressure carries a hair; the seam blooms into a doorway rimmed by muzzy, pulsing luminance, a topological expansion you can step through without losing your lunch.
“Please,” Vertin avers, the word smartly balanced. “After you.”
X nods, steps across the doorsill with an officious minute smile that somehow isn’t performative. Medicine Pocket follows close—closer than necessary, admittedly—and the scent profile flips: old paper and polished wood, beeswax and cut flowers. The suitcase domain exerts its aesthetic: château logic. Lush carpets dampen sound, portraits observe with candlelight caught in their varnish, panes present a garden so well groomed it feels manufactured. To Medicine Pocket, it’s all itemized: just a house in a box. How thrilling.
“Thank you both for joining us,” Sonetto says, mellow, posture composed beside Vertin. “Several Arcanists will need examinations before the next assessment.”
“Fine, fine,” Medicine Pocket says, arms folding tighter, registering the climate’s politeness as a personal affront. “I’ll do my job.” They cut a look to X, who is turning slowly, wide-eyed, starry, nosing the details. Of course, he’d like it, they think, swallowing a groan.
Vertin inclines her head, either oblivious to their disdain or uninterested. “We’ll begin shortly. Please acquaint yourselves with the area. Sonetto and I will return with the first group.”
The two exit through a side door, leaving the sitting room to candle-flicker and their uneven companionship. Medicine Pocket turns away, intent on avoiding conversation; the intent fails when they catch his gaze anyway—petite, marginally roguish smile pulling at his mouth as if tethered.
“See?” he says softly. “Not so bad, right?”
They scoff and fall into an armchair, hands deep in pockets, glaring at him with only half the venom advertised. “If by ‘not so bad’ you mean pardonable, then sure.” He takes the opposite seat, still smiling—that smile—and they feel the scowl soften at the verges like wax near a flame. Unacceptable.
Silence expands. Balmy, oddly stable. Candlelight throws long, moving shapes across rugs and cheekbones. A strange pleasantness pools behind their ribs, recognizable and alarming. They glower harder and look away.
“Stop smiling like that,” they say, voice low.
“Like what?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.
“Like…” A searchlight swings through vocabulary and finds nothing scientific enough. “Like a… like a puppy.” They freeze, heat again. “It’s distracting.”
He chuffs a laugh, warm and small, and it lands in the room like a good instrument finding pitch. “Alright, Medpoc,” he says, surrendering with histrionic meekness. “No more then.”
They don’t look back, but their mouth cheats them—a stealth curve, stubborn and uninvited—while they sit in the suitcase’s prefabricated dusk, waiting for Vertin to return with patients and pretexts, the dog sticker sultry against their thumb, and the note in their inner pocket toastier still.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Medicine Pocket has only just negotiated a reluctant, semi-comfortable slouch in the overstuffed armchair when the door opens again. Vertin and Sonetto reappear—hat, poise, and businesslike calm intact—and behind them floats a presumptuous feature. Short brunette curls, the languid carriage of someone permanently unimpressed. Mesmer Jr., hands buried in skirt pockets, scans the room like she’s grading it a B minus on arrival.
They groan loud enough to ripple the candle flames. “Oh, fantastic. The last person I wanted to work with.” A glare, scrubbed and uncamouflaged. “What’d you do, show up to ruin my day?”
Mesmer cocks a brow; the corner of her mouth twitches, not sufficient to count as a smile. “Relax, Medicine Pocket. I’m here because the Timekeeper needed extra hands. You’re not that special.”
Hackles: up. “I don’t need help from a curly-haired pest who can’t run a proper experiment without me breathing down her neck.” Arms fold; eyes narrow to micrometers. “One wrong move and I’m biting your head off, Mesmer.”
“Right,” she drawls, unruffled. “Noted.” Her gaze slides to X, then back, acquiring a glint of hanky-panky. Brat. “Got something to prove, Doctor? Or are you just showing off for an audience?”
Hoot barks out of them—acute, hound, thrilled by its own threat. Mood slews from snark to cocky in a heartbeat. “Audience? Please. If I were trying to impress someone, you’d know.” They shoot a sidelong glance at X and hate the way the heart gives a foolish, involuntary kick. They mask it with a sneer that feels like a lab coat buttoned too high.
X glances between them, eyes wider than average, a downy laugh escaping like steam from a kettle. “Well, uh… I think we’ll handle this pretty easily. Right, Medpoc?”
Heat crawls up their cheekbones. Chin lifts. “Obviously. This is nothing.” A razor look at Mesmer. “Assuming you don’t trip over your own feet and wreck the operation.”
Mesmer snorts, produces a small notepad, flips it open with ostentatious boredom. “We’ll be fine. Not everyone’s as chaotic as you are, Medicine Pocket.” Her eyes dance, then narrow with intent as she leans in just enough to be impolite. “In fact, some of us can actually work well with others.”
Teeth meet—gentle pressure, audible in the jaw. From the periphery, they catch X’s amused half-grin and dislike how quickly annoyance and something else tangle. They shift in the chair, drumming fingers on the armrest at a frequency only a seismometer would admire. “Maybe you should stick to whatever boring task you’re here for and leave the real work to me.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be handling plenty of ‘real work’ here,” Mesmer answers, then pauses—sly, satisfied—cutting her glance between Medicine Pocket and X. “Especially with X here to, you know… lend you a helping hand.”
Eye roll deployed; heat spikes again. Idiotic. “Stop acting like you know anything, Mesmer,” they say, aiming for removed and landing closer to fluster. “Keep it up, and I’ll drag you outside and bury you in the garden.”
Mesmer shrugs, perfectly amused. “If you say so, Doc.” She takes a seat opposite, as serenely immune to threats as a rock to rain.
X, oblivious to half the voltage in the room—or pretending well—offers a bright nod in their direction. “Anyway, it’s good to have everyone here. It’ll make things run smoother.” He catches Medicine Pocket’s eye, his expression warm to read as a low, steady current. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
They huff, meaning to be dismissive, but the mouth misbehaves and bends, barely, at one corner. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Alphabet Boy.”
Mesmer notices. Of course she does. She pins them with a pointed look, the kind that writes margin comments. “Right. ‘Just work,’” she murmurs, savoring it. Whatever this is.
Medicine Pocket lets the glare whet, pitches the voice down a register. “One more word out of you,” they rumble, “and I swear I’ll take a bite out of that smug face.”
“Got it,” she says, nonchalant wink and all, grin widening as if they’ve proved her thesis.
The room holds the moment like a specimen slide—candlelight, carpet, the distant hush of the suitcase’s impossible garden. Sonetto moves to a sideboard and begins laying out instruments with tidy competence (thermometer sheaths, tongue depressors, sterile packets), while Vertin consults a ledger, hat umbrage slicing across the page. Medicine Pocket clocks the layout with automatic triage: vitals first, musculoskeletal checks, dental quick-look for the younger ones, then the more interesting assessments—arcanum overload markers, EEG anomalies, post-Storm lag signatures. They track it all, ears pricked in the mind if not on the head, and store it next to the summery quadrilateral weight in their inner pocket. X’s note. The paper sits there like a tamed electromotive force source.
They scoot again, claiming more chair than necessary, and angle their body half toward X without meaning to. He’s watching the room the way he watches a mechanism—attentive, curious, ready to fetch tools before asked. A nuisance. A delight. Both can be true.
“First group is ready,” Sonetto announces, voice carrying just so as to gather attention without disturbing the air columns. Vertin nods, closes the ledger with a meticulous thap, and the door at the far end opens on a small cluster of Arcanists—three kids and a teenager—eyes bright, steps vigilant.
“Positions,” Vertin mutters softly.
Medicine Pocket rises in one smooth motion, coat settling like weather, annoyance and affection and hunger for work collapsing into something steadier: execution. They snap a glove on with their teeth (because it pleases the dog in them), let it pop at the wrist, and cut Mesmer a look that is all choppers and no apology. “Try to keep up,” they tell her, then to X, more quietly, a sliver of warmth smuggled under brusque: “You—stay close.”
Mesmer rolls her eyes, already moving to the side station. X stands and falls into stride like a well-trained assistant who refuses to be anything but himself. The first child steps forward, Vertin’s hand light on their shoulder, Sonetto’s smile moored as a chronometer.
And under the consummate cadence, pulse, breath sounds, reflexes, arcs of light where no lamp is, the awareness persists. A note against bone, a grin caught across a room, a rival’s curls, a Timekeeper’s hat, an abode in a bag, and the sudden certainty that this foolhardy, infuriating day might still deliver something worth masticating.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
The work Vertin assigns begins with the orthodox, cursory rigor. Triage theater performed at assembly-line efficiency. Medicine Pocket, X, and Mesmer move mostly in silence, an elegant three-step. Vitals, measures, samples. Cuffs hiss, thermometers chirp, lancets click; Sonetto floats charts like a benevolent courier and logs everything with immaculate, librarian fidelity. Medicine Pocket adapts to the room’s rhythm—stethoscope warmed in their palm, pulse oximeter clipped, tongue depressors aligned by the dozen like cedar shingles.
The arcanists, especially the under-twelves, refuse to behave as compliant datasets.
They roll their sleeves and reveal the usual terrain of occlusive dressings on their forearms, random Band-Aids like field markers, each the fossil of a self-injection or sensor tap. The dressings are the first variables the kids lock onto. Sticky hands materialize, and fingers prod with the fearless curiosity of organisms that have not yet learned about boundaries. Geez.
“Hey!” Medicine Pocket bursts, batting them away with the back of a wrist. “Hands off, you tiny fiends! This is a lab, not a petting zoo!”
A green-eyed boy tugs at an edge of beige adhesive, delighted. “Why do you have so many? Do they make you look more like a real scientist?”
They bare fangs in a smile that reads as everything but gentle. “Do you want a bandage? Because I’ll happily give you a reason to have one.”
Across the improvised exam row, Mesmer smothers a laugh while she pumps a pediatric cuff and watches the needle dance. “Careful, Medicine Pocket. The kids might think you’re… you know, friendly.”
“Like I’d ever be friendly,” Medicine Pocket mutters, sliding a pulse oximeter onto a small finger and reading SpO₂ with professional boredom. They glance up just long enough to catch X’s mouth tilt, the quiet, impossible smile he wears whenever the world misbehaves and somehow endears itself.
As if responding to a cue, a little girl with tangles like a Van de Graaff generator reaches up and twists one of Medicine Pocket’s loose platinum strands. “Your hair’s like a mop!” she announces, gleeful. “Do you ever brush it?”
Medicine Pocket jerks back, scowl immediate. “Hands off the hair, you mutt!” The girl giggles and makes another grab.
“Oh, come on, Medpoc, she’s just curious,” X says mildly, sliding a stadiometer headpiece down onto another child and reading out centimeters with a pleased, conscientious tone. A small boy stares enraptured at the butterfly embroidered on X’s coat, counting stitches like stars.
“‘Just curious’?” Medicine Pocket repeats, scandalized. “They’re tiny menaces.” They peel the girl’s fingers free and free the strand, then catch Mesmer’s smirk and release an overdone sigh. “If I find out who taught them manners, I’ll have their head.”
“Oh, please,” Mesmer deadpans, handing a completed chart to Sonetto. “As if you’d recognize manners on sight.”
Before Medicine Pocket can retaliate, the green-eyed boy resurfaces at their elbow. He tugs on a lab-coat cuff with the gravity of a grand inquiry. “Are you a doctor? Or a scientist?”
“Both,” Medicine Pocket grumbles, snapping open an alcohol swab and scrubbing a fingertip with brisk, antiseptic circles. “Now stay still, or I’ll put another bandage on you for symmetry.”
“Cool.” The boy squints, unimpressed by the credential claim. “Are you sure you’re not just playing dress-up?”
“Dress-up?” The tone lubricates with sarcasm. “Why, you little gremlin—if you weren’t four feet tall, I’d—”
“Medpoc,” X interjects, a gentle hand landing atop the boy’s head like a blessing. “Plenty of patient education for one day, don’t you think?”
A retort loads and times out. Heat touches their cheekbones; they look anywhere but at X. “Fine,” they grunt, flicking a microtainer to seat the blood. “But next time I’m bringing muzzles. Point blank. Pediatric size.”
The line thins, resistance wanes. They get through ear checks, reflex taps, basic cranial nerve runs—flashlight cones and follow my finger—then, for the teenagers, a quick arcanum-overload screening: pupillary response to ambient rune-light, tremor index, post-Storm lag signatures on a pocket EEG that Medicine Pocket refuses to let anyone else touch. Throughout, Sonetto’s timing is exact, Vertin’s presence quiet and supervisory—hat like a portable shade that keeps the room from overheating.
At last, samples are labeled, height and weight plotted onto percentiles, and the gaggle corralled back into something like order. Vertin dismisses them to the manor gardens; Sonetto conjures a spread on the long dining table. Sandwiches with their crusts aligned, steaming soup that smells convincingly of herbs, biscuits that break along polite crumb lines.
They gather gratefully, the fatigue you only feel when you stop moving, settling in like a saddled blanket. Medicine Pocket claims a chair, bites a sandwich with mimetic petulance, and is deciding whether the soup deserves their respect when their pocket buzzes.
They extract Laplace’s sleek “cutting-edge” slab—the communicator they’ve ignored since it tried to teach them voice commands. The screen throws a polite notification: Incoming Call: Lucy. Psh.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Medicine Pocket says to the device, as if shaming were a supported protocol. X looks over, puzzled; they deny him context with a withering glance, then tap.
“Researcher Medicine Pocket,” Lucy says in her unflappable, neighborly cadence. “I have an urgent matter regarding the yellow particles you left in the lab yesterday.”
Medicine Pocket leans back, crossing one knee over the other. “What about them?”
“Approximately thirty-two percent of the particles have dispersed beyond containment limits,” Lucy reports. “I’ve received numerous complaints from your colleagues regarding an… ‘unpleasant odor.’”
Mesmer snorts into her tea, shoulders shaking. “Unpleasant odor? Nice work.”
Medicine Pocket glares at the speaker grille, ignoring her. “Bucket Head, did you really call me mid-meal to say my particles stink? You stink. That ‘stench’ is called science.” (Privately: probably the azobenzene-tagged thiol carrier off-gassing under suboptimal HVAC. Publicly: righteous.)
X’s hand flies to his mouth; he’s very obviously biting the inside of his cheek. His eyes are bright with suppressed laughter—treacherously bright—and Medicine Pocket experiences the unhelpful impulse to perform harder.
“Understood,” Lucy says, never not composed. “However, due to the unusual scent, I was instructed to inform you that you will be charged for additional cleaning services.”
“Huh? Cleaning services?” Medicine Pocket snarls a howl, clutching the slab as if they might throttle kinesics. “I’ll clean you, you tin-plated toaster. Next time I see you, you’d better be shiny. I’ll bring polish. We’ll do your rusty exterior first.”
“Thank you for the suggestion, Researcher Medicine Pocket,” Lucy replies. “However, I do not require polishing. I am clean as is.”
“No. No, you’re not. You require a total overhaul,” Medicine Pocket growls, and ends the call with a decisive, tactilely satisfying tap. The device disappears back into the pocket.
“Everything all right, Medpoc?” X asks, grinning like a man who knows he’s baiting a tiger with string.
“Everything’s perfectly fine,” they rumble, cheeks hot with spleen they refuse to admit prevails. “Just that bucket-headed nuisance sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Mesmer leans back, tea balanced like an experiment that always works. “Maybe she’s fond of you. Laplace does have a way of assigning you… admirers.” One eyebrow rises; she cuts a glance at X, likely meaningful, because the git never wastes an opportunity to annotate a moment.
Medicine Pocket bristles, scoops a spoonful of soup purely to occupy the mouth with something legal. “Oh, shut it,” they hiss once they’ve swallowed. “I wouldn’t call that clunky tin can an admirer. She’s a hazard. A rolling ANSI symbol.”
X chuckles. “Seems she thinks highly of you, at least.”
They twirl the spoon and avoid his eyes, studying the thin meniscus as if it held intelligence. “Yeah, well… she can keep her admiration in her server room.” The spoon sets a gentle ripple that resolves; the soup forgets it was disturbed. Medicine Pocket does not.
A beat of quiet settles. Sonetto passes a basket of biscuits, while Vertin checks a ledger and closes it with that tidy thap again. Overhead, the suitcase’s candlelight breathes.
Medicine Pocket huffs, softer now, and leans back. “For the record,” they add, dry as desiccant, “those yellow particles are a triumph of volatile delivery chemistry. The odor is a byproduct. Like you, Mesmer.”
Mesmer lifts her cup in salute. “Then congratulations on your byproduct.”
X does, finally, laugh (out loud this time), and the sound goes through Medicine Pocket like a well-timed stimulant. Pulse up a notch, annoyance down by half a standard deviation. They lour to keep the averages honest and break a biscuit in two, offering him the larger part without looking.
“Eat,” they say, as if it were an order and not a reflex. “You’re useless when you’re hypoglycemic.”
He accepts, still smiling. “Yes, Doctor.”
“Don’t get used to it,” they snap, and pretend very hard they don’t notice the way their own mouth has started to curve.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Vertin clears her throat in the manor’s sitting room, the kind of polite sonic event that somehow carries across carpet and candelabras like a tuning fork through bone. “Thank you for your work today,” she says, gaze taking a measured tour of faces. “However, there are still a few more unregistered Arcanists that need evaluations, and I need you to stay on for a couple more days.”
Medicine Pocket belches an audible groan that would discombobulate a cello. “Stay? Here? In this… this fancy manor luggage of yours?” A sweep of their eyes inventories parquet, brass sconces, well-bred upholstery—everything that makes their skin itch for solvents and open air. The aesthetic offends their biochemistry. Too many surfaces that insist on being nice.
Vertin’s expression remains lull, an hourglass set to apathy. “Yes. I’d like you all to stay. This task is important, and as three of Laplace’s finest specialists, I trust you’ll give it your best effort.”
X brightens like an LED freed from a bad ground. “Really? That’s fantastic! I’d love to stay and help out a bit longer.”
Beside him, Mesmer sighs with the full weight of an exhausted barometer. “Oh, great. I get to sleep in a magical suitcase for the next couple of days with weirdos. Just what I needed.”
Medicine Pocket recoils as if someone suggested tap water in a sterile line. “There’s no way I’m doing this free of charge,” they bellow, arms crossing in a posture recognizable to any primate. “If you want me here, you’re going to give me funds, Vertin. I have standards.”
Vertin nods, unoffended. “Of course. You’ll be compensated and have a budget extension for your future lab expenses.”
“Funds,” Medicine Pocket repeats, and a grin shows too many teeth. Dopamine ticks up a notch. “Oh, you bet I’ll be using those funds.” (Reagents. Sensors. A centrifuge that doesn’t whine. A new ERM motor because the spoon deserves it.)
They are led to quarters—“temporary,” Sonetto puts in, as if any arrangement ever isn’t. The room is small but functional: wooden furniture, soft linens, the hum of the suitcase’s HVAC pretending to be a breeze. Medicine Pocket performs a rapid environmental scan and arrests on the sleeping schema: one single bed against the wall; a double-decker bunk beside it. Their face falls like a finely tuned curve gone awry.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” they mutter, scandalized on probity.
Mesmer’s mouth quirks; her eyes are already on the top bunk like a cat considering a ledge. “I call dibs on the top.”
“I’ll take the bottom,” X says, almost pleased by the idea of containment, which is a very X thing to be.
Medicine Pocket eyes the single bed, arms still folded—ownership by trajectory. “I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m resting,” they announce to the room at large, then append, “by anyone.” The word lands with the crispness of a warning label.
“Sure, Medpoc,” Mesmer says, unpacking with a grin that tests the definition of friendly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Vertin and Sonetto excuse themselves with neat, low-impact exits; Mesmer disappears to wash up. Silence does its slow, comfortable creep back in. That’s when Medicine Pocket becomes hyperaware of X—stillness reading like a new signal superimposed on a familiar noise floor—sitting on the edge of the lower bunk, hands arranged in a careful, unthreatening geometry. They busily sort the suitcase-issued sleepwear to avoid acknowledging their own awareness. Fabric quality: acceptable. Thread count: irrelevant. Distraction value: insufficient.
“Hey, Medpoc,” he says, and the voice is the uncertain one, the one he uses for delicate mechanisms and wounded birds. “Can I ask you something?”
They glance up, frown already scaffolded. “What? What is it?”
“It’s just… earlier, when you said…” He trails, eyes dropping to his fingers, then heaves with a wee, lopsided smile that feels like a test of tensile strength. “You said my inventions were… useless.”
Blink. The word useless echoes in their skull like a dropped wrench. Damn. They shift, a prick of discomfort running under the skin like static. “So?”
“Well,” he continues—gentle, maddening—“I just thought… you said before that they weren’t mediocre. You even said they were…” A shrug, shoulders a quiet apology. “You know. That they were interesting.”
A short laugh escapes them at the wrong volume, all klaxon and no trumpet. They scratch the back of their head, find nothing there to save them. “Oh. Well… they’re not mediocre, per se. Just… some of them are a bit, you know.” A hand gesture that might mean whimsical, impractical, glorious. “Pointless.” A beat. “But that doesn’t mean I think they’re bad.”
His face brightens the way an instrument’s readout brightens when you stop wiggling the wire. Shoulders relax. “You don’t?”
“Of course not!” They snap it, because softness must be sheathed in noise. “Just because I don’t… say it all the time doesn’t mean I think they’re garbage.” Arms cross again, an exoskeleton of grump. This would work better if he didn’t look at them like that—composed relief, almost judicial gratitude.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, softer now. “I… I really value your opinion.”
Heart skips—just the one beat, but loud enough to register. They pivot hard to the pillow, which has apparently become urgent. “Yeah, well. Don’t get sentimental on me. We’re just… work partners.”
“Partners,” he echoes, and the word pleases him. Of course it does; he’s an engineer of people without meaning to be.
“So, anyway…” Medicine Pocket says, throwing a lever on the conversation. “How’s that… Fog Boy, or whatever his name is?” Casual tone attempted. Sarcasm mixed to taste. “He’s still hanging around Laplace?”
“Oliver?” X blinks, sounding genuinely puzzled. “He… works there, but I don’t see him too often. Why?”
They shrug with spurious indifference and pull the pillowcase tighter than necessary. “Oh, no reason. Just curious, is all.”
“You’ve never asked about my friends before,” he says, head tipping like he’s trying to see the underside of a thought. He purses his lips—earnest confusion. “Is there something you’re worried about?”
“Me? Worried?” A scoff loud enough to chase worry back under the bed. “Please. I don’t worry about anybody.” The eye roll is textbook. Unfortunately, the tenderness in his expression messes with the vector math. “Just… if that umbrella boy’s hanging around, I should know.”
“Right…” He nods, then smiles as if he’s choosing not to press a button that would make them explode. “Well, he’s not really around much. But… if you did want to meet him sometime, I could introduce you?”
They balk—an instinctive jerk of mind and mouth. “Ha! As if I’d waste my time. Forget it.”
“Sure, Medpoc,” he says, digesting the no with good humor. “If that’s what you want.”
Silence descends again, thicker now, not hostile. His gaze lingers. There’s a fondness in it that feels perilously like a solvent. Medicine Pocket slides under the blanket and lies back, boots still planted like they might need to sprint. The mattress accepts them with irritating grace. They focus on the ceiling’s shadow algebra, but it fails to provide a counterargument.
Just work partners, they tell themselves, looping the phrase like a mantra, trying to bind it to a gate in the brain. The feeling dithers anyway, a low, persistent oscillation that refuses damping. There’s a note against bone, folded paper now homely at the breastbone, a day’s work behind their eyes, a boy on a bunk saying “partners” like a promise—
And the scientist in them, traitor that it is, files it under ongoing experiment: uncontrolled sub-categories, high interest, proceed with caution.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Medicine Pocket’s eyes flick open to the realization that neither Mesmer nor X is remotely trending toward delta waves. Circadian discipline: nonexistent. With a put-upon huff, they sit up, arms folding in a posture that declares peer review is pending. Mesmer climbs to the top bunk and performs her nightly shutdown with the grace of a cat powering down mid-stretch. X, on the lower bunk, glances over with a sleep-warmed smile before sliding off the mattress.
“I’ll just… freshen up before bed,” he says, gathering the issued pajamas Vertin supplied—plain shirt, drawstring pants, virtue by design.
Medicine Pocket tracks him to the bathroom door, then rummages through the suitcase-issued amenities for their toothbrush. They tap the handle against their palm at an impatient two hertz, the canine part of them fighting the appetite to scratch at the door. When X returns a few minutes later—hair slightly disordered, an adorable statistical deviation from his daytime mean—they stand a touch too quickly and scowl to acknowledge self-possession.
“Finally. I need the bathroom,” they mutter, throwing him a glance sharp enough to exfoliate, then stalk out with a toothbrush, a thin baton of authority.
The bathroom’s light is a wheeze of old filament, spectral output a crime, and the mirror has that woolly foxing you get from indifferent humidity control. They squint, load the brush, and start working over enamel with small, furious circles. Sodium lauryl sulfate foams, peppermint stings; their reflection glares back like an adversary they’ve beaten before. X’s earlier words replay—a hitch on useless inventions—and something tightens just below the gut, an organ-level twinge they’d rather classify as indigestion. Perhaps they were harsher than intended. They spit—laminar sheet, perfect aim—and the growl slips out anyway. Not my fault he has that effect. I don’t soften for just anyone. Homeostasis is a choice.
They kill the light with more force than required and slip back into the room, already dark. Mesmer is a curled silhouette on the top bunk, breathing at a steady eight per minute; X lies on the lower with eyes open, gaze soft, tracking them the way he tracks a mechanism settling into tolerance.
They cross to their chosen single, deposit Laplace ID and pocket miscellany—paperclip, folded note, a dog sticker peeled halfway from its backing—onto the nightstand, then collapse back with a pillow hauled to the chest like a shield. Ceiling: contour archetype, candle-residual brilliance. The nagging voice at the back of their mind keeps tapping a petri dish with a pencil.
Silence inflates. The room runs on parasympathetic. Eventually, they roll onto their side, face angled toward the bunk, and speak into the dark in a register that pretends at monotony.
“Hey… Alphabet Boy?”
Sheets rustle; his answer is a hush. “You’re still awake?”
“Yeah,” they say, eyes rolling even though no one can see it. “Sleep is for losers.”
A quiet chuckle; it lands like a small, warm pulse at the edge of hearing. They feel the corner of their mouth threaten to move and crush the rebellion with a throat-clear.
“Just so you know, Alphabet Boy,” they continue, words finding traction, “I’ve seen countless useless inventions and Goldberg machines—enough to last several lifetimes. Full taxonomies. I could publish a field guide.”
There’s a pause in which they can practically map his face by inference—worry crease between brows, breath held a half-count. “Oh…”
“But…” They tighten their grip on the pillow; fabric squeaks, a tiny admission. “I… suppose I find you interesting.” A beat. “You, kid. So I may or may not actually enjoy spending time with you. Not just because of your… ideas.”
Another small silence; then the softest, palpably astonished, “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Heat climbs their cheekbones; they keep the voice secured, rational, as though dictating a note. “So now you know. Go to sleep, loser.”
The laugh he gives is barely audible—marsh-soft, tepid, kind—and it threads their ribs like a low-current stim. “Um. Okay. Goodnight, Medpoc.”
They close their eyes and let the sound hang, a pleasant residue in the signal. “Mhm. Goodnight, X.” The room resumes its slow see-sawing; upstairs, Mesmer’s breathing keeps time like an alarm; in Medicine Pocket’s chest, something wagless and wordless settles down beside the folded paper on the nightstand and decides, against protocol, to stay.
“Bon voyage, they told her before she left… When I met her, I wished her sweet dreams with this piece.”
Synopsis — Voyager comforts the weary and insomniac Medicine Pocket with a secret lullaby she composed for her first earth friends.
Words — 2.3K including the bonus scene.
CWs — References to animal space programs.
A/N — Pure fluff!!! + In this fic, it is suggested that they already have an established relationship. It could be interpreted as romantic or not. Up to the reader, really. Also it contains my headcanon that Medpoc is a dog caretaker.
Last night wasn't a good night for the young researcher.
Enduring a tedious three-hour youth meeting at Laplace was bad enough, but it was followed by a private lecture filled with the same complaints they heard for years, endlessly repeated for a whole hour. Frustrated thoughts swirled in their mind — Decrepit old rats who fail to understand their work should just shut the fuck up, they think. The only thing preventing them from barking back was sheer exhaustion. The fatigue had caught up with them, otherwise they may have bitten someone, really.
The complaints themselves weren't the issue; The real problem lies in how they just wasted their damn time. They could have returned to the suitcase and done their own thing much earlier if only they hadn't been forced to endure the droning of old-timers. By the time they attempted to rest, they were too weary to sleep, resigning themselves to working on obligatory papers through the night... Yet achieving almost nothing by morning. The sense of frustration lingered - more precious time wasted.
…Perhaps it's a call to sleep. Or at least, they should try.
Medicine Pocket stifled a yawn as they wandered through the corridors of the suitcase. The early hour ensured that the halls were deserted, providing a rare moment of solitude. Despite the lack of activity, they still sought out a secluded corner where they could be undisturbed for a while.
As they made mindless beelines around the suitcase's main building, they couldn't help but catch a faint sound. To be precise, music. A very familiar tune played with a very familiar instrument. The violin. Accompanied by the sound of… pups? Wait, they recognize those barks! Those are their pups!!!
Medicine Pocket followed the sounds. Their exhaustion was momentarily forgotten as curiosity piqued their interest. As they rounded a corner, they were met with… Quite the sight.
Dappled sunlight poured through the windows, casting a soft glow upon the scene unfolding before the young researcher's eyes. There on the floor, in an isolated corner of the suitcase, sat Voyager, her slender frame illuminated by the morning light as she delicately wielded her violin. Beside her, their puppies frolicked and danced to the sweet strains of her music, their tails wagging with unabashed joy.
Her eyes were closed, a serene smile gracing her lips as she lost herself in the piece. Her glimmering hair would catch the sunlight in a subtle gleam of colors and bloom, akin to a celestial halo. The alien visitor was playing Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, a quite popular classical piece but fitting for this moment. With the beagles frolicking playfully around her. They would catch her giggling when one of the puppies tried to climb onto her lap. Cute…
As they stood there, silently observing, one of the pups perked up when it caught eye of them. It immediately rushed to their feet, its tail wagging furiously as it bounded toward Medicine Pocket with unrestrained excitement. The others followed suit, their playful barks filling the air as they said hi to their beloved caretaker.
Caught off guard by the sudden attention, Medicine Pocket crouched down to greet their furry companions, a tired smile tugging at the corners of their lips. Despite the exhaustion weighing heavily upon them, the attention of their beloved pups filled them with a sense of warmth and comfort.
Voyager stopped playing, a gasp escaping her lips as she opened her eyes, her gentle gaze locking onto the newcomer with a mixture of surprise and delight. The music faded into silence as she watched them interact with their puppies, a smile of awe tugging at her lips. Voyager’s violin and bow vanished into thin air before she greeted Medicine Pocket with her usual cheerful wave, accompanied by a giggle. A truly pleasant sound.
They’re showered by the puppies’ licks and pawing but they manage to return her greeting with a weary but genuine grin.
Noticing their tiredness, she gestured at her own lap, patting them. They know what it meant, they’ve been here before. She’s offering them comfort as she did many times before. Despite her silence, Voyager is incredibly caring and observant. Not to mention a great listener, and an even better secret keeper. She’s the only one they could trust to stay by their side through the most risky and taboo self-experiments. The only one allowed to see that side of theirs. And the only one to hold their hand through it all. Especially since she revealed glimpses of her nature several times too. They know what lies under the mask of this ‘girl’. And they adore her for that.
That said, they are close enough to her to lay their head on her lap.
With one pup held closely to their chest, another also on Voyager’s lap right next to their head, and the others scattered around them, they sighed contentedly. She smiled at them as she gazed down, a smile they’d seen many times, a smile that never fails to ease them. The soothing floral fragrance of her uniform and hair, added by the scent of the sun and freshly washed dogs, was a great change in comparison to Laplace’s clinical, chemical, and antiseptic-riddled atmosphere.
Delicate fingers traced their scalp as Voyager carefully untucked the scissors from their hair, causing their locks to fall loose. She set it aside before returning to pat them. Her other hand lingers on the pup snuggling on their torso, also patting the little guy. Their gloved hand would join her, caressing the pup’s back. It barked with soft glee at the attention.
“Mmh… You took care of the puppies while I was away, didn’t you?… I didn’t ask you to. But thank you. Daisy smells great for once,” they finally spoke out, their voice thick with gratitude and fatigue.
She nodded, giggling again. Her other hand, the one that had been patting them, suddenly moved towards their face, gently caressing their cheek. A gesture that is a bit surprising. Medicine Pocket blinked at the sudden change of pace. Her hand was so smooth and warm. It was a good kind of surprise.
Their eyes closed, leaning to the touch. They sighed once again, their lips tugging into a soft smile. “I hate everyone at Laplace. I missed my friends. I missed you, too. I kind of wished we could go on an outing this morning but I… Urgh… I’m so fucking tired. I can’t sleep either… It’s just… Damn it.”
Voyager listened attentively as always. She gave their cheek another pat before moving to the top of their head, gently stroking their messy locks. A gentle signal to ‘go on’. One they understood since they confided in her countless times before.
They chuckled and obliged. “I had to endure those damn old people yapping about the same shit again. It was a waste of time. I could have been doing other things. I could have finished my projects, you know? It was so damn annoying. I wanted to leave but… They kept me there because they told me it’s good for me. They’re probably jealous of me, right? I can bet that it is. Hah! They wished they have my guts to do the things I do. They would still say things like age doesn’t matter, but continue to think they know better than me. It pisses me off… They also made me do some papers. What’s the point of research papers really? The results are right there! I…” they continued to ramble on.
The alien visitor simply sat there and listened. Her hands still moved in soothing, repetitive motions. The puppies have also joined in the soothing, providing comfort in their own ways, like snuggling and nuzzling. They can feel their own breathing calming, the tension in their body loosening. They didn't realize it earlier. Their rambling was a way for them to let go of their pent-up frustrations, allowing their mind to settle down and their body to relax.
A long pause fell over them. A sigh escaped their lips. They then looked up at her and said, “...I'm sorry. I was rambling. I think… I really need to sleep.”
“Ah!” Voyager’s eyes widened as if a lightbulb flashed in her head.
“Hm?” Medicine Pocket looked at her curiously.
She smiled at them, materializing her violin and bow in her hands. Before they could say anything, she spoke. Her voice was barely above a whisper. Yet it was loud and clear enough for them to hear.
“I think… I want to share a new secret with you,” she began.
Her words surprised them. She never initiated any topic of conversation before. It's always them who start talking about themselves and the things they did. It's a bit jarring, but not unwelcome.
Their eyes remained fixed on her.
She moved the bow in one slow stroke, eliciting a gentle long note from her violin.
She continued, "I made it… For one of my first earth friends while I was in orbit. And I… I think she slept very well… So I kept playing it for the next 49 friends who came after her before I touched ground with earth…” Her voice was soft, and her eyes were cast somewhere far far away as if she was reminiscing a fond memory.
She motioned the bow in the opposite direction, playing a lighter note. “I haven’t played it for a long… Long time. But I want you to hear it… Perhaps… It can help you sleep, too.”
They have a hunch on who these 50 friends are; The pups sent to space in the 50s and 60s by the humans. They expected Voyager to know about them, but to actually make contact with them? And play a song for them? They were surprised and a little touched. It is a beautiful thought. And somewhat… Comforting. Is that why she adores puppies very much?
“Do I deserve to hear it?” they asked her. She merely responded with a soft chuckle, continuing to play.
Her playing is delicate and slow. They could see her eyes close, the smile on her lips growing. A peaceful look on her face. The melody is gentle and relaxing, reminding them of moonlight and stars. The puppies seemed to have noticed, as their tails began wagging more slowly, their soft barks quieting.
Medicine Pocket let out a long, contented sigh, their eyes fluttering shut as they settled against her lap. They didn’t mind the puppies snuggling and settling around their body.
They listened quietly.
The lullaby sounded like a gentle goodbye. Goodbye to the tiredness. Goodbye to the weariness. Goodbye to the frustration. Goodbye to the pain. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. It was a gentle lullaby of farewell, and a gentle hello of tomorrow. A lullaby that said: "It's okay now. A sweet dream is waiting for you. Rest, dear friend." Behind the sense of departure, there’s also a hint of yearning for home. Or perhaps, a welcome.
The soothing melody wrapped around them like a blanket. It was as if they were drifting away in the middle of a starry sky. Slowly, ever so slowly, they could finally sleep.
Their breathing steadied, and the last thing they heard before drifting to slumber was a faint, reassuring whisper.
“…Bonne nuit.”
Bonus Scene
“Erm… Ugh…”
Medicine Pocket wobbled their way out of the room they slept in. It was already afternoon, so the morning sun they departed with had turned into the warm saturated hues of a sunset by the time they woke up. Voyager and the pups were nowhere to be seen when they awoke, and she must have moved them to the couch with a blanket draped over them (woah she’s pretty strong… But alas, they’re a lanky person).
They reached the lobby. It was quite lively. There’s the girl scout and the girl with a red hood helping that one bunny girl in the kitchen, the TV girl presenting some sort of slideshow about cooking grilled cheese with Lilya’s plane to the pilot herself who looked intrigued, the infamously spooky twins playing cards with the photographer spirit and Necrologist (she’s losing), and so on… Some greeted them, some didn’t.
With the blanket held close to their chest, they kept looking out for the alien with blue hair. They couldn’t find her inside, so they went to the wilderness.
Unsurprisingly, they almost immediately found sitting at the picnic spot, taking a rest from walking their dogs. When she noticed them, she immediately smiled warmly and waved at them. The dogs responded in kind to their presence too, trying to run to them while barking happily, but held fast by the leashes held firm by Voyager’s hand.
Their face lit up, and they briskly made their way to her. “Hey!!! Hi!!! I slept well!!!” they declared with newfound energy. The puppies started to climb up their leg the moment they were in range.
She giggled. She seemed to have noticed the change in their energy level. They could see her shoulders move as she silently laughed.
They sat next to her and let the puppies pile onto them.
After they petted the puppies, they snuggled up to her. She leaned onto their shoulder. A gesture they reciprocated, resting their cheek on her head. They felt her body warmth, along with the faint smell of the sun and her flowery perfume as the usual. They smiled, sighing in relief.
She picked up a box near her lap, and opened it to reveal their favorite — Plain white bread with a little butter on it as a treat. She offered one to them, which they bit and ripped with their shark-like teeth like, well, a dog of course. It was soft, buttery, and still warm. Their favorite. What bliss. She fed some to the pups, too. The puppies certainly wolfed it down, making an endearing mess all over the mat, blanket, and their laps. The two could only laugh it off.
After that, they will be the one to walk the dogs. And then perhaps go back to whatever work they have going on. But now, that doesn’t matter. They’re in good company. This mysterious, lovely, alien darling, and the many many lively pups.
It was a good morning… Afternoon, I mean. Godspeed to their sleeping schedule.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” —Carl Sagan
Synopsis — Voyager figured that it’s about time she revealed the true form she hid beneath her uniform to Kaalaa Baunaa, someone very close to her. Understandably, the reveal was quite a shock for the astronomer.
Words — 1.2K words.
CWs — Cosmic horror? I mean if a girl holds the essence of the fabrics of the cosmos in her very form and made me touch it, I would be horrified too.
A/N — This is like an elaborate coffee-induced BRAINSPILL, my bad. Voyager brainrot. May write another fic with this pairing that’s less “fuck it we ball” than this one.
The uniform she held onto for years upon years vanished into thin air, revealing the starry void that is her bare skin, illuminated by the moonlight.
“I told you… It’s nothing like yours,” Voyager chuckled, her voice soft.
And indeed, she spoke true. The only semblance of familiarity in her form was the faint outline of a slender humanoid figure she possessed. Otherwise, she’s a canvas painted with the colors of the cosmos. Kaalaa Baunaa's breath caught in her throat as her gaze trailed the patterns of stardust that danced across Voyager's skin. Cluster of stars, planets, nebulas, galaxies, supernovas, quasars, pulsars, and black holes, all woven together in a mesmerizing, swirling tapestry. Some parts of her body, like her face, arms, and legs, were still veiled by a layer of white. The very thing concealing her true nature from the others.
“Hmm?…” Voyager tilted her head as she approached the astronomer on the couch, giving her a closer look at her form. It’s almost intimidating, truly. Having who may be the essence of the universe itself towering over her in such proximity. Yet, there was no trace of arrogance in Voyager's demeanor, only a gentle curiosity that radiated from her being. It seemed that Kaalaa Baunaa’s reactions were quite a delight to this enigmatic creature. After all, who could blame an astronomer for being completely and utterly awestruck by a beautiful being, beyond her feeble comprehension, baring herself in front of her naked eyes?
To be in the presence of such magnificence was both humbling and exhilarating.
As Voyager drew closer, Kaalaa Baunaa felt a rush of emotions swirling within her like a black hole. She could sense the gravitational pull of Voyager's presence, a force that threatened to pull her into the depths of an unknown abyss.
And that description wouldn’t be too far off.
And in that moment, Voyager took Kaalaa Baunaa's trembling wrist, guiding it to her abdomen. Expecting to feel the warmth of skin, instead, Kaalaa Baunaa was met with a… Truly startling revelation.
“Ah!—” she gasped sharply when the flesh of her hand did not meet the resistance of Voyager’s skin. Instead, she felt her hand sink deeper into the alien’s abdomen. She’s… This… Her hand… It… It felt chillingly, hauntingly cold, and empty. The astronomer retaliated, pulling her hand out of Voyager’s abdomen in a cold sweat. What is this feeling? Horror? Fascination? Dread? Wonder?
“I’m sorry… I… Hah… It was too fast. I wasn’t ready,” the woman panted. Was that actually space, or was it something else? Another realm? A portal? A mirage? No. She couldn’t sense any illusions, or was her intuition failing her? Oh, it’s terrifying. She’s terrifying. She wouldn’t expect her work partner to contain the very universe within her all this time. The implications of what she had just experienced sent shivers down Kaalaa Baunaa's spine. Like an ant meeting a god, yet have no words to describe or comprehend what god is.
Voyager's eyes softened with understanding as she watched the turmoil unfolding within Kaalaa Baunaa's soul. She reached out a hand, her touch gentle, and cupped the astronomer's trembling cheek. It proved to be effective, the woman slowly calmed under Voyager's touch, her racing thoughts gradually subsiding as she focused on the warmth emanating from the alien's hand.
“I'm sorry for startling you…” the usually silent Voyager murmured, her eyes shimmering with a mixture of emotions that the astronomer couldn’t lay her finger on. “But I wanted you to see... to understand.”
“No… It’s alright, truly… I just… I… I’m sorry, again… I hope my reaction didn’t offend you… But what was that?” she leaned into Voyager’s touch, clinging to her hand like a vulnerable tiger cub.
Voyager could only respond by looking up in thought, before closing her eyes and shaking her head with a smile. “It’s okay…” Voyager mumbled, her voice barely a whisper against the backdrop of the silent room. “I understand that it's overwhelming… I don’t think I can describe it myself… But… That was me. As I am.”
Kaalaa Baunaa sighed, taking deep breaths. That wasn’t a satisfying answer at all. But in a way, she understood her place as a mortal, and how hard it would be for Voyager to explain herself to her.
“I don’t think I can ever wrap my head around it. I don’t think I can truly ever understand you, just like how I could never understand the universe itself. But I can do one thing I do best… I can try.” Kaalaa Baunaa looked up at the alien with determination in her eyes, a newfound resolve settling within her. She may never fully grasp the intricacies of Voyager's existence, but she was determined to cherish every secret they shared. This is a chance like no other, she thought. A chance to truly witness, even touch, someone beyond her with her own hands.
As Kaalaa Baunaa gazed into Voyager's eyes, she saw a reflection of her own curiosity and wonder mirrored back at her. That’s everything she needed to see.
With a newfound sense of awe and reverence, Kaalaa Baunaa reached out once more, this time with a steadier hand, and gently touched Voyager's abdomen again. This time, she felt the chill of emptiness and the vastness of space with a sense of reverence rather than fear. Each inch of her skin that passed through the other’s created soft ripples throughout the canvas, as if she were delving into a veil of mist. The stars would gleam against her skin and silver jewelries, casting brilliant colors unto her hand. Truly nothing like anything she has ever since before. Not even in the meditator’s realm.
The initial seconds of coldness were just as piercing as before. But the longer her hand lingered in there, the warmer it was. She couldn’t sense the celestial energies she commonly associated with the stellar. But she could feel something truly other. One that she could only describe as… Voyager herself. A cosmos unique to her. Such a revelation is… Endearing, to say the least.
This is the essence of the Voyager she held dear, a beloved friend and partner who is both beyond her yet incredibly connected to her, the same being who enjoyed playing the violin, the girl who admired animals and their sounds, and the mysterious entity who had captured her heart in ways she couldn't fully comprehend.
She felt… So small compared to this being. And yet, this being is embracing her with her essence, her love, her all.
What an honor. A privilege.
As Kaalaa Baunaa withdrew her hand, a sense of peace washed over her, replacing the initial shock and uncertainty with a newfound sense of acceptance and understanding. She looked at Voyager, her eyes alight with a newfound appreciation towards her.
The uncertainty, questions, bewilderment, and countless indescribable emotions stirred in her heart, but the astronomer smiled tenderly, her cheeks tinted with warmth. Is an answer what she wants? Not really… She doesn’t feel the hunger for explanations or justifications. It’s not something Kaalaa Baunaa wants to put her through. But instead… She wants Voyager to know one thing.
“You’re beautiful, dear, please remember that…” she rose from the couch, lacing their fingers together as she pulled Voyager into a gentle embrace, planting a kiss on the alien’s cheek. Voyager returned the embrace with a softness that belied her cosmic nature, her arms wrapping around the astronomer.
“You truly are… Out of this world. I love you. I truly, truly do love you.”
Despite everything, what matters the most to her, is to let Voyager know that she is loved and adored, no matter the mysteries that belies her.
Synopsis — A moment of respite in the wilderness. Voyager invites Vertin to a little dance.
Words — 600+ words
A/N — Voyatin fluff for @definesanity as a part of our trade! Was listening to Erik Satie’s Je Te Veux while writing this soooo yeah! Get well soon btw!!! I still absolutely love the KaalaaPocket fic you made RAAAHHHH!!!
As the light dipped below the horizon wilderness, it casts a golden hue over the expanse. The timekeeper wandered among the flower bushes recently installed near the picnic area, their fragrances carried by the breeze like a sweet perfume. She stumbled upon Voyager, who was gracefully twirling to the faint classical melody of a record player tucked away on the picnic mat. Vertin’s eyes were drawn to the mesmerizing sight, she was dancing alone whilst humming softly to the music, the skirt of her uniform subtly swayed to the breeze, swirling around her. And she looked like she was in gentle bliss.
Intrigued by Voyager’s dance, Vertin approached with a curious smile. "Excuse me, Voyager. Do you mind some company?" she asked, her voice soft, tinted with the familiar accent.
Voyager stopped, with eyes that sparkled like stars once she noticed the timekeeper’s presence. She nodded in response, but instead of gesturing at the picnic mat, she offered her hand to Vertin, a silent invitation to join her in the dance. Vertin hesitated, an eyebrow raised, her lack of confidence in her dancing abilities momentarily holding her back.
“Oh… You want me to dance with you?” Vertin asked to confirm.
“Mhm,” Voyager nodded.
“I… Don’t know about that... I’m not really good at dancing,” she admitted sheepishly, casting her gaze downward.
Voyager’s expression softened with understanding, but she smiled with an ounce of cheekiness. She stepped forward, squeezing the timekeeper’s hand in hers, shaking her head softly. She was close. And she smelled like flowers, different from the ones around them. A note of lavender, her signature fragrance.
She guided Vertin’s hand up, placing it gently on her shoulder, while her other hand rested lightly on Vertin's waist. With a subtle sway, Voyager began to move, her steps slow and deliberate, as if inviting Vertin to follow her lead.
Vertin, feeling the warmth of Voyager’s touch and the gentle rhythm of the music, tentatively mirrored her movements. At first, her steps were hesitant and awkward, her body stiff with self-consciousness. Her eyes couldn’t meet Voyager’s throughout the first few minutes. She was looking down at her feet, trying to coordinate herself to Voyager’s moves and the music.
Voyager let her do so for a while. But suddenly, she paused her steps, using a hand to lift Vertin’s chin with care, guiding her to meet Voyager's gaze. Vertin’s eyes widened with surprise, meeting the softness and encouragement in Voyager’s gaze.
“It’s okay, Vertin,” Voyager spoke with a whisper. “Don’t worry about the moves. We’re just dancing to wind down.” She giggled softly, the sound like a melody blending with the music.
Vertin couldn’t help but smile at Voyager’s reassurance, it’s an honor to hear the usually quiet alien visitor speak, so a flicker of confidence ignited within her. With a nod, she took a deep breath, allowing herself to relax into the dance. As Voyager resumed their gentle swaying, Vertin focused on the feeling of Voyager’s hand in hers, the comforting weight of her touch grounding her to the moment.
With each step, Vertin felt herself growing more at ease, her movements gradually syncing with Voyager's in a harmonious rhythm. She began to lose herself in the dance, the worries and insecurities of the day fading into the background as she surrendered to the moment. For those few minutes, there were no storm, no Foundation, no Manus Vindictae, no nothing… Just the alien visitor’s starry eyes, the momentum of their moves, the scent of flowers, the music, the breeze, and them.
Chasse… Whisk… And sometimes, a playful messy natural turn… The two of them giggled whenever Vertin did a misstep or Voyager led her into a spontaneous twirl.
So, the evening light becomes witness of time and space’s little waltz before it bids its goodbye to welcome the wilderness night. It was peace not often found amidst throes of uncertainty beyond the suitcase. A precious, fleeting moment.
Assessing the Effects of Mutated Tooth Fairies (Mediocris dens) Ingestion in Periodontitis and Ulcerated Teeth Treatment • Tooth Fairy x Medicine Pocket
By Campbell E., & Pocket M.
ABSTRACT
This research paper explores the potential effects of ingesting mutated tooth fairies (Mediocris dens) as a novel treatment approach for periodontitis and ulcerated teeth. Through meticulous examination and subject experimentation, the study investigates the physiological responses and therapeutic outcomes associated with the ingestion of these mutated tooth fairy specimens. Preliminary findings during the initial phase suggest promising results in reducing gum inflammation and alleviating discomfort associated with ulcerated teeth. The following phases... [ Read More ]
TL;DR — Medpoc gets experimented on by Tooth Fairy + hints of femdom + a fairy gets eaten + I am down bad for Tooth Fairy sorry.
Words — 1.7k words
CWs — Descriptions of live fairy eating in classic Tooth Fairy fashion
A/N — I did not know what came over me but that was fun. This is purely just the fairy experiment stuff except there’s Tension.
Read on Ao3:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
V. Proximity Panic and Canine Chaos in the Kitchen
Medicine Pocket wakes slowly, cortex booting like an old oscilloscope—phosphor incandesce first, motion second. They blink, focus, and find Sonetto standing beside the bed with that practiced, pastoral calm that makes Medicine Pocket’s hackles rise on principle.
“Huh?” they mumble, voice still gravelly from high-amplitude brain wave.
“We were supposed to wake you before noon,” Sonetto hums, unruffled as a stratified flow hood, “but X insisted we leave you be.”
“Before noon?” They scrub at their eyes, as if friction alone can accelerate diurnal recovery. “So that means… it’s afternoon now?”
Sonetto’s mouth twitches at one corner. “Late afternoon. Around three.”
They jolt—adrenal microspike; sympathetic surge—falling a fraction out of bed and catching themselves on the mattress edge with a palm slap. “Three?! I slept that long? Damn it.”
“You don’t sleep much, do you, Researcher Medicine Pocket?” Sonetto asks, clinically curious, not actually judging—though what’s the difference to someone built of judgment?
“Of course not! Sleep is for losers,” they grit, with all the dignity of a raccoon caught eating the evidence. Grumpiness seats itself like a loyal dog. They swing their legs out, heat rising under the skin as last night’s leak of honesty replays without consent—the quiet, the bunk, the partners, the reckless admission. Ugh. Redact, redact, redact.
Boots: on. Buckles: ratcheted with the impatience of someone late for their own experiment. They scowl at the room and remember: Right. Still in Vertin’s ridiculous portable diorama. Not the blessed chaos of their lab; instead, curated wood and domesticity designed to soothe the species. Reality checks out—too vivid to be a dream, especially the part where a heterochromic nuisance exists somewhere nearby. Why did they allow themselves to go there? Stupid. Contamination event.
Sonetto, haply immune to muttering, waits while they stalk to the bathroom barefoot. Subtle pads, loud aura. Cold water, handfuls; they scrub cheeks until capillaries argue. Hair: chaos as policy. They twist it back into a loose knot and spear it with their trusty scissors—improvised chopsticks—then clip a small device at the hairline to keep errant strands from fouling their field of view. The mirror returns a satirical mugshot; they bare teeth at it, then smirk back, unconvinced by the performance and doubling down all the same.
By the time they stomp out, Sonetto has ghosted, leaving a gentle note about “meeting outside.” Great, they think, venom sweet as cough syrup. They’re probably starting without me. Adorable. Satchel: grabbed. Boots: thudded into. Buckles: retightened because fury prefers structure.
They’re halfway down the corridor, monologuing, when indignation outruns respiration. “Just letting me rot like a corpse in that stupid bed—who thinks leaving someone to sleep is a good idea?” They round the corner to the main sitting area, ready to harvest a throat, and—freeze.
The living room is a cramped, self-contained squeal of chaos. X is in the center of it, running with a pack of younger Arcanists, all elbows and glee. He jukes left, feints right, lets a toddler almost catch his coat before slipping free with a laugh; the kids shriek like tuning forks. He’s clearly having a… blast? The word offends them and lands either way.
Medicine Pocket gawks. The day’s acid evaporates a touch. What is he doing? And why does this sight pry open a rib and set something warm inside? Their mind fogs with a feeling they would happily autopsy but refuse to name. Attachment is for organisms with lower survival priorities.
“Look who decided to show up,” a familiar dry voice says, and the fog snaps back to air.
Mesmer leans against a wall, arms folded, eyebrows lifted into exaggerated amusement. Indoor cat energy. The annoying kind.
They switch faces in a beat—distaste back, scowl locked. “And look who’s still here, taking up valuable space like an indoor potted plant.”
Mesmer’s eyebrows go higher, unimpressed. “Indoor potted plant? Please. Don’t be jealous just because I’m actually productive—”
“Oh, spare me,” they cut in, wrist flicking an elegant dismissal. “If you call standing there like a smug weed productive, congratulations, Mesmer—you’re Laplace’s top horticulturist.” A glance over the shoulder catches X noticing them, the way sunlight notices glass. The sarcasm ratchets automatically. “I bet you’d wilt if someone whispered the word responsibility in your general direction.”
“Interesting words from someone who just spent half the day sleeping,” Mesmer returns, smirk affixed. “Three in the afternoon, Medicine Pocket? Really?”
They roll their eyes so hard the sockets might file HR complaints. “Excuse me for needing to recover from the sheer torture of being trapped in this—this museum of domesticity you all seem to adore.” Even as they lob it, X has stopped running. He wipes sweat from his brow (adorably, infuriatingly) and smiles across the room.
“Medpoc!” he calls, cheer warming the name. He jogs over. “You’re finally up!”
“‘Finally up,’ he says…” They huff, resisting the twitch at the corners of their mouth. “Maybe I would’ve been up sooner if someone had the decency to wake me instead of leaving me to corrode.”
“We figured you needed the rest,” he says, voice softening like a blanket. “Besides, you looked so peaceful sleeping.”
“Peaceful? You’re hallucinating,” they reply, deeply offended. “I don’t do peaceful.”
Behind him, Mesmer snorts. “I don’t know, Medicine Pocket. You looked pretty cozy. Probably dreaming about funds.”
They send her a look that should cauterize. “Oh, go count ceiling tiles, Mesmer.”
X laughs—actual out-loud laughter—and his eyes do the twinkle thing they need to patent. “Glad to see you’re… well, back to your usual self.”
They manufacture a sigh, long-suffering and thespian. “Yeah, yeah. I’m back, I’m grumpy, and I’m ready to bite someone’s head off if you’re all still playing house in this witless suitcase.”
But the edges are already decreasing against their will. He stands there, smiling with that gentle, ruinous expression, and the remnants of chagrin melt like ice under a bunsen. Fine, they think grudgingly, storm clouds surrendering a millimeter. I’ll stay. Only because they’ll mess it up without me. They reframe it as quality control, as one does when the truth is unpublishable.
“Where’s the first patient?” they bark, just to reset the room’s pH. “And if any of you wake me ‘before noon’ again, I’ll file for hazard pay! And a muzzle budget.”
X’s grin widens. Mesmer’s smirk sharpens. Somewhere in the suitcase’s false sky, the HVAC hums, and Medicine Pocket’s boots find stance: ready to work, ready to snarl, ready, traitorously, to be exactly where they are.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Vertin eventually gestures them toward the suitcase’s kitchen, a surprisingly capacious, well-groomed volume pretending not to be formulated. Countertops gleam like freshly autoclaved steel in wood cosplay, while cabinets wear polish the way lab glass wears a thin patina of pride, and a dining table is big enough to stage a small mutiny, anchoring the room. Medicine Pocket scans the space with nonmanual suspicion. Too clean. Too intentional. Still, a node of curiosity pings. Heat sources, cutting perimeters, liquids obeying gravity—chemistry in domestic drag.
“Right,” Sonetto starts, clapping once, stepping to the counter with the economy of who can mise en place a hurricane. “We’ll make something simple for dinner. It’ll be quick if everyone pitches in.”
Medicine Pocket clicks their tongue and folds their arms, protective of dignity and lab coat. “Cooking? Not my style. Hand me a machine to strip to atoms and I’ll give you a disclosable outcome. Don’t expect me to know a spatula from a scalpel.”
Mesmer rolls her eyes as if lubricated. “Honestly, Medicine Pocket, it’s not rocket science. It’s dinner. Try not to break anything.”
They open their mouth to produce something cut like a diamond and twice as mean—but a small hand tugs their sleeve. They look down into googly, too-wide eyes on a face still missing a few deciduous teeth. Huh. Uncanny little entity.
“So, you really are a scientist,” the kid says in a dreamy tone, grinning. “Like a real scientist who does, like, experiments and stuff, yeah?”
Oh.
Medicine Pocket narrows their eyes and lets a fubsy, theatrical growl rumble in the larynx. “Yeah. A real one. And I’ll experiment on you if you don’t clear my bearing.”
The child giggles as if they’ve been told the punch line to oxygen. Another small hand claims the other sleeve. “Can I help with your experiments? Pleeease? Pretty pleeease?”
A groan leaves Medicine Pocket like steam past a bad gasket. They mime an overripe bite near the kid’s ear—snap of teeth in air. “Back off or I’ll chew your head off!” Ferocious face: deployed. Result: more delighted giggling, as if threatened mauling were enrichment time at the zoo.
From behind: “Yeah, Medicine Pocket! Experiment on me next!” The tiny mob closes ranks, tugging lab coat, chirping, vibrating like excited molecules at a phase transition.
Medicine Pocket throws both hands up and seeks help with a look torn between panic and I will set this place on fire. “X! Get these ankle-biters off me before I go feral.”
X is already bent over laughing, hands braced on his knees, looking like joy personified. “I don’t know, Medpoc… looks like you’re the kids’ favorite.”
“Ugh,” they mutter, gingerly swatting away another exploratory finger. “Favorite? I did not enroll for this! These kids are like… like gnats. Persistent gnats!”
One of the braver ones taps Medicine Pocket’s cheek. “But you’re so funny, Medpoc!”
They bare teeth in a playful snarl. “Funny? Keep saying that and I’ll show you my canine teeth up close.” Another snap in the air. More blissful noise.
X keeps watching, entirely too amused, as Medicine Pocket’s shooing efforts fail at scale. It takes a bolder Arcanist reaching for the scissors pinned in Medicine Pocket’s hair to flip his expression; the light in his eyes darkens by a few Kelvin.
“Nah-uh,” he says, voice low enough to thread a warning. “That’s enough, okay?”
Hands freeze. The kid releases the scissors and blinks, chastened. “Whoops. Sorry…”
Medicine Pocket swallows—subtle, almost solemn—and folds their arms across their chest to restore posture. “Yeah, that’s right. Listen to X, the voice of reason.”
X’s lips part—there’s an answer loading—but Sonetto clears her throat with surgical timing, glancing back from the cutting board where she’s turning vegetables into precise shapes. “Researcher Medicine Pocket, if you’re done fending off your fan club, you could make yourself useful by handing me those carrots.”
They arch a brow, prior tumult already in the outbox. “Carrots? What do I look like, a rabbit?”
“Just pass them over, please,” Sonetto says, bemused but busy. “I’m sure even you can handle that.”
A grumble (obligatory), then they grab the bundle and toss it to the counter with the controlled recklessness of someone who trusts their aim. “There. Don’t say I never helped.”
Sonetto resumes her clean mechanics: batonnet, julienne, coins. A proper knife song. Beside her, Mesmer has posted at a burner, stirring a simmering pot with earnest concentration, as if viscosity were a moral question.
“Oh, look at you, Mesmer,” Medicine Pocket says, letting the smirk surface. “Playing chef. I didn’t know stirring soup was such an art form.”
Mesmer doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure this is too highbrow for a chaotic lab rat like you to understand.”
“Cooking. It’s… so important,” they deadpan, rolling their eyes to the rafters. “Personally, I’d rather be tearing into a dog chew toy than doing… household things.”
That earns coruscating laughter from the peanut gallery; their peeve simmers beautifully at 85°C. They open their mouth to escalate, then catch X in peripheral vision, palms lifted in a gesture of harmless conjuration.
A delicate porcelain teacup appears from thin air, enchantments playing barista, followed by a clean stream of steaming tea that curls into it. He steps close, the conjured heat scenting the gap between them with comfort and tannin.
“Here,” he offers softly. “Thought you could use a little pick-me-up.”
Medicine Pocket blinks at the cup as if it might reveal a second trick. Odd: one, that he thinks to do this out of nowhere; two, that their grimace is demonstrably failing to remain attached to their face. They accept with reluctant fingers, let the heat seep into their palm, and take a cautious sip. The warmth slides down like a well-behaved reagent, unknotting facial muscles they had intended to keep pledged.
“Thanks… I guess,” they mutter, supposing gratitude were a diagnosis and they intend to seek a second opinion.
His answering chuckle is dinky, varnished; the corners of his eyes do that infuriating twinkle. “You’re welcome.”
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
The kitchen becomes a field experiment with too many modifiables. Sonetto and Mesmer run the main protocol. Knife work, heat control, and seasoning titrations, all while Medicine Pocket ends up as unintended enrichment for a swarm of underage Arcanists whose kinetic energy exceeds any reasonable safety margin. Small hands keep steering into their personal space, tugging at sleeves, testing for elasticity like they’re evaluating polymer strain.
“Back off, you little… puppies!” Medicine Pocket hisses, baring teeth in a not-quite-dangerous display. “No boundaries, you tiny gremlins, honestly.” They add a pair of mock bites to the air—demonstration only, no contact (they should be thankful)—and the result is catastrophic, degrading: peals of joyful laughter, further clustering, more pulling. The rascals have discovered a positive feedback loop.
From the pot, Mesmer sing-songs without looking up, “Look at you, Medicine Pocket—soft and cuddly.”
“Soft?” They guffaw a chortle, one brow spiking. “If by soft you mean rabid and barely tolerating the lot of you, then sure—marshmallow.”
Somewhere to the left, X snickers, observant and pleased, clearly enjoying the spectacle of Medicine Pocket losing ground to creatures half their size. “They’re just excited to see you, Medpoc,” he says, voice unreasonably gentle. “They like you.”
A faint, treacherous warmth licks their cheekbones; they smother it with a glare. “They’re overgrown puppies—clingy, damp, entirely too invested in violating frontier,” they grouse—only to be hoisted by their own simile.
“Puppies!” squeals a little girl, flinging both arms around Medicine Pocket’s leg. “Woof!”
They look down, scandalized by the audacity. “That’s enough, you mutts.” A finger points like a laser sight. “Unhand me or I’ll have you flung into the ocean.”
Leaning against the counter, X takes a sip from his teacup—still steaming from his earlier conjuration—and dissolves into laughter. “You’re really good with them, Medpoc.”
“Oh, shut it, Alphabet Boy,” Medicine Pocket snaps, attempting a scowl that keeps trying to slip its harness. “If they keep at it, they’ll be my next test subjects.”
“Right,” Mesmer says, rolling her eyes. “Experimental puppy muzzles, coming right up?”
“Ha-ha. Hilarious.” Medicine Pocket makes a face at her and nudges one of the braver specimens away with the side of a boot, muttering something anatomically improbable that the kids somehow find even funnier.
When dinner finally coheres, they migrate to the larger table. Steam rises from bowls, roast vegetables gleam, and bread cracks open with a satisfying acoustical crunch. Medicine Pocket hardly claims a seat before the smaller bodies reassemble around them, squabbling for adjacency as if proximity confers status. Eye-rolls threaten; instead, something smaller and more dangerous inserts itself—a nascent fondness that refuses to be centrifuged out. This noise, this table, these ridiculous puppies…
They’re two bites into soup when Vertin clears her throat, the diplomat at a plenary session. She glances at Medicine Pocket with a smile that thinks it’s subtle. “Researcher Medicine Pocket, to catch you up: we wrapped the evaluations while you were asleep.”
Fork pauses airborne. “Wait… really?” They scan the table, one brow rising. “So… we’re done?”
“Yep,” Sonetto confirms, efficient even over bread. “Finished just before dinner. You’re free to leave the suitcase after tonight.”
“Leave?” The word fetches oddly, heavier than its mass. Just when the environment ossifies, Medicine Pocket thinks, eyes drifting—against orders—to X laughing at something Mesmer’s dramatizing. “So… that’s it, huh?”
Vertin nods. “That’s it. Unless, of course, you’d like to join us again for these assignments.”
They scoff on reflex, eyes rolling to distribute disbelief. “Please. As if I’d willingly reenter this circus…”
The door answers with a long creak that behaves like a curtain lift. “Oi oi! How are you lot doing?” Regulus sweeps in, accent bright, energy set to stage-ready. Mr. APPLe glides behind her with the serene dignity of a floating chaperone in a necktie.
But it’s the third figure who magnetizes attention: Oliver Fog. Trench coat, top hat, umbrella etiquette—and that proprietary calm. X pops upright like a spring. “Regulus! And Oliver!”
Oliver’s smile is modest, crackerjack. He steps forward with an easy old-world grace, but Medicine Pocket notes the quick ocular scan, taking the room, sorting subgroups, landing on them. Recognition, yes. Something else too: interest, skirted with aloof novelty. The mouth twitches; the hypothesis writes itself: Fog Boy knows exactly who I am.
Great. Exactly what this evening needed—control group contamination.
X, oblivious to the wavelengths arcing through the area, beams as he steps between them. “Oliver, meet Medicine Pocket! Medpoc, this is Oliver Fog. Two of the best people I know!”
Two of the best? Medicine Pocket can’t help raising an eyebrow, irritation dressed as cool. “I’ve… heard of him.”
“Likewise,” Oliver counters, tipping his hat in a nod so polite it borders on provocation. His gaze returns, unblinking but not unfriendly. “Medicine Pocket, Laplace’s… infamous scientist, I believe?”
And ruined. “And you’re the Foundation’s prized fog-cleaner, aren’t you?” Medicine Pocket replies, letting the sarcasm drip to a measurable thickness.
Peacemaker-logic at full tilt, X laughs. “Medpoc, Oliver’s more than that—he’s practically a legend for his work. And Oliver, Medpoc’s been at all sorts of breakthroughs in Laplace. The picrasma candies, for one!”
Oliver’s eyes warm with amusement without losing their edge. “Oh, I’m aware,” he says smoothly. “Very aware, in fact.”
“Are you now?” Medicine Pocket folds their arms, settling into a posture that says try me. Who exactly do you think you’re sizing, fog prince?
Regulus drops into the empty chair between them and X with the confidence of someone who only sits where the plot happens. “This is one weird crowd,” she declares happily, giving Medicine Pocket a friendly nudge. “Good to see you in a group, mate.”
They shrug her off with minimal violence. “Don’t acclimate. I wouldn’t be here if necessity hadn’t committed a crime.”
Regulus grins wider, entirely immune. “Admitting you like the company would fracture your jaw, eh?”
A growl answers—low and embarrassed, unserious—and their eyes slip, betrayed, to X, still mid-story with Fog Boy.
Oliver feels the glance. He meets it with a faint, amused smile that suggests he’s read the page they’re on and turned it anyway. He leans back, content with X’s attention, unruffled by the heat of Medicine Pocket’s stare. The unbotheredness grates exquisitely.
Across the table, Mesmer clears her throat, the smirk audible. “Jealous, Medicine Pocket?”
The word detonates at close range. They snap their gaze to her, chair skidding a portion of an inch. “Huh? Of that thing? Don’t insult me. He’s barely worth noticing.”
“Is that so, Researcher Medicine Pocket?” Vertin interjects mildly, just loud enough to track the room. The Timekeeper’s eyes pose a question in Queen’s English.
Jaw sets; they angle away. “Yes. That’s so.” The sentence hits the table with a thud that betrays its hollowness. Because X laughs again—something Oliver quips, something easy—and the sound puts a tight, inconvenient spasm under Medicine Pocket’s sternum, right where useful organs live.
Regulus, blithe as sunrise, leans toward X. “Quite the crowd tonight, isn’t it? And here I thought you only had foggy friends.”
X chuckles, glancing warmly over everyone, including Medicine Pocket, who pretends not to be caught. “It’s just nice to have everyone together, you know?”
“Nice,” Medicine Pocket repeats under their breath, the word fraying. Right. How nice to be trapped here while Oliver Fog occupies the bandwidth of their—no, a—friend.
Conversation swells. Laughter shakes glasses. Medicine Pocket sits arms-crossed, eyes narrowed to slits, performing a quiet, thorough risk assessment of the newcomer. Each time X laughs, a prickle skates their spine; each time Oliver answers, another internal meter ticks toward a red line. Their mind mints interference fantasies with professional efficiency: introduce a harmless lab odor; “accidentally” reroute a chair; drop a clinical story about aerosolized despair. None survives ethical review. They do nothing—sulk like a dignified storm cloud and drink soup as if it wronged them.
Under the table, a boot taps a small, involuntary tempo. Above it, their expression stays in the haughty scientist range, estimated and cold. Inside, the model updates with unasked-for data, and the conclusion that keeps trying to form has a name they won’t give it.
Annoyance, they tell themself, spoon steady. It’s just annoyance. The laugh three chairs over says otherwise and—worse—makes the lie taste sweet.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
The post-dinner dawdle into the living area compacts the group into a single warm system—specific heat high, heat loss low, conversation buoyant like bubbles rising through a viscous medium. Residual aromas of roast sugars and Maillard fossils cling to the air; laughter skims the surface. Sonetto sits with hands folded in her lap, posture textbook-proper, absorbing praise like a well-tuned capacitor.
“Sonetto, that roast was divine,” Vertin remarks, exhaling the contentment of a solved equation. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
“It was nothing,” Sonetto demurs, brushing a ginger strand from her cheek, blush diffusing like dye in water. “Just simple recipes, really.”
“Simple but effective,” X adds, bright as an overhaul LED. “I haven’t eaten that well in a while.”
“Oh, sure,” Mesmer drawls from her lazy lean along the couch arm. “But let’s not forget the soup was my doing.”
Perched stiffly at the edge of another chair, Medicine Pocket lifts one brow to a skeptical altitude. “Your soup? Yes—passable.” Finger taps find a steady cadence against their knee. “If we’re using a scale where ‘edible slop’ gets a participation ribbon.”
Mesmer angles a glare, dry as silica gel. “Thanks, Medicine Pocket. Your feedback is always appreciated.”
“Anytime,” they reply, smiling the way a scalpel shines. “I like to keep things honest. Especially when the truth is funny.”
Small laughter ripples. Next to Mesmer, X tries and fails to suppress a giggle, and Medicine Pocket’s chest does that stupid contractile thing, a brief ischemia of composure, when he smiles. Ridiculous.
Across the coffee table, Oliver Fog occupies an armchair with the prudence of a well-made mechanism, pocket watch spinning once, twice, catching light like a controlled research. “A fine meal,” he comments smoothly, chin tipping to Sonetto. “You have the makings of a true chef, Sonetto.”
“Oh, stop,” Sonetto murmurs, deflecting with both hands.
Medicine Pocket’s gaze slides off Oliver and inevitably finds X; he’s leaning toward Fog Boy, voices overlapped, mutual signal-boost. They try—honestly try—not to attend, but the ear is a traitor; X laughs at something Oliver says, and the sound pings off ribs as if the thorax were a poorly damped cavity. Not a big deal, they tell themself. Friends befriend. That’s his entire brand. That’s why I— they strangle the clause—that’s why I tolerate him. Friendly liking. Just friends. No reason to get territorial. None.
And yet, under the skin, an unnamed force tears at connective tissue and gives it a name they refuse to learn.
Conversation continues. Medicine Pocket fidgets, awareness tightening like a tourniquet. Sympathetic nervous system: upshift. Hands find the badge lanyard, dog sticker worn to a soft gloss. They don’t register the gradual drift until X is there, inch by trivial inch, closing range like a benign particle with terrible timing. He sits down beside them, and the shoulder-to-shoulder angle nearly engages—no contact, just an electrical possibility at the margin of the field.
The body goes rigid. Internal monologue scrambles the deck: Proximity breach. Boundary conditions compromised. Where did the inverse-square law of comfort go? Heart rate ticks up six beats, palms micro-sweat, hackles—imaginary but present—levitate.
X doesn’t notice the autonomic hullabaloo. He smiles as if the room were a promise kept. “Hey, Medpoc,” he whispers to them. “Enjoying yourself?”
They do not answer. The chest strains, a foreign respiration error; the sensation of gentle invasion short-circuits their language center. Why? Why does a centimeter of air become a loaded dry run?
“I—uh…” Eyes flick left, right, like they’re checking blind spots in a lab where danger is always labeled elsewhere.
The body moves before they can sign off on it. They stand abruptly, and chair legs scuff, the small table wobbling with a subdued clink of glass. Heads turn, of course, much like conversations hiccup.
“I think… it’s time for me to head back to Laplace,” they blurt, smoothing the front of the coat as if stress wrinkles were crimes. (Maybe they are.) “Yep. Just remembered I’ve got… uh, loads of unfinished reports to submit to Bucket Head by tomorrow.”
“Bucket Head?” Mesmer echoes, brow hitching.
“Madam Lucy,” Medicine Pocket clarifies, too quickly.
The room shatters into muffled laughter: Mesmer outright snorts; Sonetto hides a smile behind her hand; even Vertin’s mouth acknowledges uplift. The nickname does numbers on morale.
Everyone laughs—except one.
Shoulder bag in hand, they glance up and catch X’s expression: soft gone quiet, the brightness damped to a low flame. The smile has dropped out, and in its place, an optical property they can’t quite classify—sadness? disappointment? some third state for which they lack vocabulary. The look lands with burden, mass times gravity, a presence you can feel in the brisket.
They mutter something incoherent, noise labeled as language, refuse the data in his gaze, and whirl to the door. The flight impulse settles its bill, and for once, they pay it in full. Out into the corridor they go, leaving behind the residual warmth, the braided laughter, and the heavy vector of a boy’s attention they cannot afford to graph, let alone integrate.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
Medicine Pocket knifes through Laplace’s main hall, boots ticking a sharp pendulum on terrazzo that’s been polished to a monastic sheen. The building’s noise is tonic, almost pharmaceutical-grade. Compressor lungs inhale and exhale, chiller coils sing an ultrasonic thread, automated trolleys murmur past with slatted trays of labeled tubes, and somewhere, a vacuum manifold hisses as a tech snaps on a flask. Overhead, holo-screens stack matrices and differential flows like stained goggles made of math—temporal gradients pulsing in false-color blues; a wireframe of the Foundation’s east wing annotated with field-strength isobands and redacted notes. In the glass galleries, six-axis arms solder microvias with jitterless grace; pick-and-place gantries shuttle components on carbon rails; a laser galvanometer writes barcodes in smoke. Laplace buzzes like a high-Q cavity. This is habitat, not that velvet-lined paradox of a suitcase.
They take a longer breath than they’ll admit and feel the sinoatrial node concede a gentler rhythm. “Finally,” they mutter, raking their hair into purposeful anarchy. “Back where I belong.”
The elevator doors iris open; they jab the plate, and the car rises with a maglev whisper. On their floor, solvent and ozone ride the ambiance like perfume. They cut down the corridor toward their lab—and stop. The placard hangs where it always hangs: a battered rectangle of wood that declares KEEP OUT, letters scarred, edges gnawed. It sways, displaying tooth pocks and claw tracings like a private seismogram of bad weeks.
Of course, it’s still here. It’s always here. They watch it rock—one, two, three—annoyed by the seconds they’re losing to sentiment. Why does X get to ignore that sign?
“Because I let him,” they answer themself, a dry hiss. Because I invite him in. Because I’m turning into some domesticated animal with boundary issues. Since when?
“Ah—Researcher Medicine Pocket. You’re back.” Trina blinks from the cracked door, a study in crisp compliance. Not a dust mote clings to her lab coat; her hair bun could clock a wristwatch. The look triggers a rash halfway down Medicine Pocket’s soul.
“Yeah, you see me,” they say, shoulders already angling through. The placard thunks the door and flutters behind.
“Nice to see you too,” Trina deadpans, sealing the room and its pressure differential with a soft click.
They beeline to their bench: an ecstatic disaster of schematics, capless pens, conduit boxes, amber vials, and a sacrificial tower of devices halfway between autopsy and rebirth. Onto the stool; into the slump. They palm their face and scrub downward. Ugh. Mismatched eyes and the memory of laughter. The gall of a warm coat smell and a note folded with intent. “What’s wrong with me?” they ask the acoustic tile.
Work is the solvent. They sweep a stack into order—Lucy’s neat, massacre-proof hand on every page, each stamped with the Foundation header and the same thesis: The “Storm” Phenomenon.
“Bucket Head and her catechism of the unknown,” they sneer, already hooked. Fine. Storms, not feelings.
Pen uncaps with a click, and attention zooms. The Storm: not mere weather, but a temporal shear that takes causality into its mouth and chews. For the timid: unknowable. For them: a machine with parts and a failure mode.
Questions spool into clean columns:
Onset mechanics: spontaneous symmetry break vs. seeded perturbation?
Why does the Timekeeper float above the massacre while everyone else decoheres?
Spectral drift: do hue regimes correlate with energy state, curvature, or boundary geometry?
Is response to disturbance Markovian, hysteretic, or governed by a hidden attractor?
They thumb Lucy’s logs. Flux heatmaps. Sampling intonations. Half a dozen caution boxes that say DO NOT DO WHAT YOU’RE THINKING OF DOING in various administrative dialects. “Patterns,” they snort. “As if this beast reads calendars.” Chaos, yes. But even chaos loves an attractor.
A thought taps the occipital cortex with a black claw. It didn’t rewrite politely; it plasticized time, kneaded it, extruded timelines like filament, and snipped them with invisible cutters. Scribble, underline, box. What if it’s not random? What if it’s a hunter—target preferences, taste for certain world-lines?
“Storm as predator,” they whisper, writing it twice, bold. Hunting… what? They gnaw the pen’s cap until the plastic complains. Pft.
The mind skids, as it always does, onto forbidden acreage. Margins blossom with apostasy:
Why does X’s proximity change HRV and micro-sweat rates?
Could a Goldberg chain react not only to gravity but to affect, if wired to the right biofeedback loop?
Groan. Pen clacks onto aluminum. Forehead to forearm. “Excellent. Even math can’t bleach this contagion.”
They sit with it one heartbeat, two, then hook a hand, catch the old stress ball—pocked, nearly spherical, one bite missing from some heroic night—and bounce it at the wall. Thwack. It returns, skitter-wobbles, spins in a tired wobble, ends as a comma.
“Stupid… emotions,” they tell the void. “Stupid… Researcher X.”
Peripheral vision snags the placard’s sway, back and forth, like a metronome for their shame. Heat rises in the breastbone and throat—uninvited, unfunded. They press a flat line where a mouth should be and drag the Storm pages closer.
The pen becomes a scalpel again. The fog thins; topology clarifies; the little demons in the data start pointing at the same corner. The grin knifes across their face—white, unapologetic. They write until handwriting devolves into waveforms.
“Trina.” They swivel. “Whiteboard. Now. Blue marker—red makes me itch. We’re pinning this down.”
Trina sighs, rises, uncaps blue. “What am I immortalizing this time?”
“Local temporal stress thresholds,” they bark, slapping the board. “Axes labeled. If you omit the third column, I will remove it from your skull later.”
“Charming,” Trina drawls, already scribing, wrist accommodating the avalanche.
“Column D,” Medicine Pocket snaps, jabbing the air like a conductor. “Don’t get clever.”
“I’m not—you’re broadcasting at 120 words per breath,” she counters, keeping pace.
Satisfied she’s barely holding the line, they whirl back to the bench, murmuring. Phase portraits, separatrices, basin boundaries; alteration by counterphase injection; the moral question of whether you equalize a wolf or open its rib cage. They snatch the marker from Trina mid-sentence and scrawl an equation that reads like a threat.
“Got it?” they say without checking. “Fantastic. Keep up.”
Flow state arrives, wearing a lab coat. For a bright interval, nothing exists but the dance. Notes, numbers, nerve endings aligning like a crystal under field. The body hums. The room lightens. The world agrees to cooperate.
And then—laughter, thinned by doors, still unmistakable: bright, elastic, syllables tumbling. Looks like they’re back.
A second chord joins soon after—Regulus, sanded and amused; then the urbane basso of Mr. APPLe; Mesmer’s dry ribbon; and—
A flare in the nostrils. Oliver Fog.
The grin drops as if pulled. Found focus tremors. Ignore them. They shake their head as if to dislodge a tick. Fog boy can haunt atmospheric cross-sections and leave their lab alone.
Marker cracks against the rail, just as a drawer yanks. Syringe: effervescent green, singing its chemical psalm. No theater. Skin, bevel, plunger. The solution slips into vein and unrolls like a bright flag. Perception sharpens from there, colors notch up, and so the whiteboard reads like scripture.
“Better,” they declare, rolling the shoulder that was never out of place. The syringe arcs, lands in the sharps bin with a stainless kiss.
They pivot back, pupils catching the overheads. “Trina,” they bark. She flinches, marker squeaks. “Forget thresholds. New vector. We destabilize a node on purpose.”
“Exactly,” they say, elated. “And when the singularity is temporal, what’s on the far side? That is today’s sacrament.”
“Wait, we are not—”
“Take notes.”
They pace, a route field given legs, hands carving hyperplanes in the air. The modulation outruns stenography; Trina’s script devolves into a monumental scrawl. Outside voices blur; the corridor might as well be vacuum. It’s just chalk-dust and capillary action and breath again.
“Let’s crack open the Storm and see what gives it appetite,” they order, knuckles drumming the bench like a vibration test.
They throw another line onto a loose sheet then, where the ink slashes and the smile tilts feral. They sketch an apparatus: coaxial rings to bias local time curvature, a feedback loop for fluctuation quench, sacrificial clocks to measure drift, and a photonic lattice as the cage. A hand-note to order more picrasma infusion because the current batch of candies runs too bitter at scale and someone (not naming names) keeps stealing them “for optimism.”
“Align the coil pairs,” they rattle off. “Phase the counterfield to π out of phase, then detune by five parts in ten thousand. If it screams, we’re close.”
Trina blinks. “If what screams?”
“Reality,” they impart, as if she’s missed a memo. “Have a tachyon proxy ready—obviously, we can’t have actual tachyons, but give me a synthetic metric we can abuse.”
“Pocket—”
“Relax. We’ll test in miniature. Two microliters of time in a jar.” A beat. “Kidding.” A thinner beat. “Mostly.”
They scrawl a hazard matrix: collapse risk, thermal runaway, paradox spillover, Lucy filing an incident report in ten-point font. They add a column labeled MITIGATION and write, in neat letters: Don’t die. Don’t let X die. Don’t let the building learn new tricks.
They catch their reflection in the cabinet glass—hair pinned with scissors, eyes brighter than ethical. The KEEP OUT placard ghosts in the reflection behind them. The grin falters a millimeter. He walked past that sign like it were decoration. Because you let him. Because this place, which needs no one, has started allotting space.
They turn away from the ghost and bury it under science.
The corridor swells again with chatter—just the crevices—and they imagine the scene without wanting to: Regulus performing a riff about guitars in sterilized hallways, Mr. APPLe bobbing with stately approval, Mesmer needling, and Fog boy spinning his umbrella charm. X, chuckling, which lands somewhere under the trunk and makes an unhelpful protein misfold.
They tighten their jaw until the hinge pops. “Noise,” they tell no one. “We love a good, noisy floor.”
They turn to the whiteboard and, with relish, add a line across the bottom: Phase 0—nuisance filtration. Then, smaller: emotional artifacts treated as measurement bias; subtract during processing. The fiction almost helps.
“Okay,” they say, crisp again. “We start with toy geometries—ring resonator inside a Faraday cage, saturate with white noise, watch for self-organization at the brink of instability. If we see a color shift? Log. If your watch runs slow? Log. If your handwriting looks like someone else’s? Log and tell me immediately; you might be a liability.”
Trina’s mouth edges toward a smile despite herself. “I adore being called a liability on a Tuesday.”
“Don’t make me schedule it for Wednesday,” they shoot back, sketching a fine-grid coil, annotating with amperage. “And bring the Beagle 0-1. The green channel reads microvolatility better than Lucy’s pet instruments.”
“Your dog gun?”
“Fluid analyzer,” they correct, testy and proud at once. “But yes.”
Movement in the glass. The hall group passes—a blurred constellation—and then they are gone. The hum of the building rises to fill the lacuna they leave. The lab regains its shape. Medicine Pocket’s pulse recaptures a useful undulation—steep upstroke, quick down.
“Let’s go hunting,” they murmur, almost content. “If the Storm is a predator, we’ll bait it with its own hunger.”
They draw one last box on the board and print in square letters: MEASURE. DON’T TRUST. BITE LAST. The final word makes them snort through the nose, almost a laugh against policy. They spin the stool, grab a clip of sacrificial clocks, and begin to map time like a butcher weighs meat—cautious, rigorous, secretly diverted.
In between ticks they do not acknowledge, a thought flashes. Mismatched eyes in a lab doorway, the one time they were in proximity on a couch, words whispered and not spoken normally. They label a dial, ruthlessly correct a decimal, and press the memory flat between pages of math where no one will think to look.
⋆₊ ⊹★ 🧪⭑⋆｡˚
They jerk awake to the sodium glow of the task lamp, the world a slurry of paper trims and vascular coffee rings. A sheet clings to their cheek, a chill line of drool cools along the jaw. They peel the page away—a portion of an equation now tattooed across skin—and squint at the wall clock. 01:19. The second hand ticks like a Geiger counter in a muffled paddock.
“Damn it,” they rasp, vertebrae popping as they lever upright, paraspinals protesting the hours they let their thoracic spine impersonate a paperclip. The lab’s an empty cavity now, it seems. No Trina, no technicians, just refrigeration drone and the tiny, stolid respiration of instruments asleep but listening.
They stand, shedding papers the way a shaggy dog shakes off rain, and catch their reflection in the polished aluminum lip of the worktop: hair like charge-frizzed filament, collar skewed, a small crescent of graphite on the mouth. “A public heap,” they diagnose. “Shower. Then glucose.”
Laplace’s showers are claustral and immaculate. Stainless, tile, and drain. They scrub until antiseptic eats the day’s oil from skin; steam obscures the mirror, then collapses in rivulets. Fresh coat, damp hair twisted into deliberate disorder and skewered with the faithful pair of scissors like a makeshift collar wrench; an extra clip anchors a good-for-nothing lock above one eye. Under the disinfectant, their own chemistry returns—chlorhexidine top note, adrenaline tapering, cortisol nipping the circumferences. The stomach contributes a barbaric yawp.
“Fine,” they tell the gut, palming the ID badge, stepping into the corridor’s refrigerator-light. “We negotiate with sandwiches.”
They plant in front of the elevator, fingers drumming a dull-rubber beat against crossed forearms. The call pad’s capacitive ring blinks its acknowledgment, and a fan somewhere overdrives for a second, then settles. Their abdomen growls again, an acoustic event at ~120 Hz, and they glare down as if the sound has committed misconduct. (It did!) “If it’s another night of pre-masticated rectangles,” they mutter, “I will dismantle the vending coil and eat that.”
Footsteps break the field. They look left and immediately regret the data acquisition.
Oliver Fog approaches with the balanced barometry of someone whose life obeys good tailoring. Hat at a mathematically satisfying slant, umbrella-wand in hand as if fused, gaze soft-focus and opportunistic. He nods; a smirk flares—a cat ear twitch you could almost misfile as pleasant. Tch.
“Medicine Pocket,” he says, voice varnished, settling at regulation social distance to their right.
They generate a subtle current of displeasure. “You again. Here to dehumidify the hallways? Fog cleaning inside the building now?”
A light chuckle, engineered not to rattle anything fragile. “Not tonight. Just making my rounds.” He adjusts the brim like it’s a dial, then drops the thing with orthopaedic casualness: “I was actually just leaving X’s lab.”
A tiny muscle in Medicine Pocket’s jaw misfires; arms uncross without permission. “X’s lab?” The words arrive too fast, then slow as if crossing viscous media. “And why, exactly, would you be there at this hour?”
Oliver shrugs, precisely the adroit frugality of someone who bills by the sly smile. “It’s been happening for some time. Old friends. He seemed happy to accommodate me every time.”
The elevator dings, and the doors part with a soft hissing kiss. They step in like a blade; the fog boy follows, a sleek object falling into a well.
“Didn’t realize you were rostered for midnight nostalgia,” they say, tone lab-grade flat as the doors feather shut.
Oliver’s mouth widens by a limited millimeter. “No schedule needed. I tend to drop by when it feels right.”
They laugh once—a yelp that belongs to a throat that prefers directives. “How nice. Appearing unannounced, sampling environments that didn’t request quality control.”
His head tilts, that faint-mirth SOS, eyes gauged. “You sound annoyed, Medicine Pocket. Is there a fitful perturbing your mood?”
“Annoyed?” Their fingers find the brushed steel rail and tighten until bone registers the micro-texture. “Why would I be annoyed? You are terribly charming.” The sarcasm arrives in discrete packets, fathomable in decibels.
Another chuckle, tolerant as the weather. “Well, X didn’t seem to mind.”
That’s the tracer. They wheel, stepping into his magnetosphere by a centimeter—close enough to cloud a monocle. The lab lights film their irises gold. “Listen, Fog Boy,” they begin, pitching low to be a private frequency. “You can loiter outside his door, rehearse your drop-ins, twirl your little watch. But let’s run a clarity test.”
One of his eyebrows articulates; the umbrella’s tip kisses the floor. “Do enlighten me.”
They retreat half a pace, the generosity of a hunter letting the prey see the trap, and smile with all the vitreous surface they can afford. “I don’t need to hover. I don’t need to stage accidental collisions in corridors. You know why?” Arms fold again, posture finding a stable equilibrium. “Because X comes to me. Without summons. Without charting. Naturally.”
It hits. For the first time, his smile misaligns by a detectable unit; the umbrella’s knurling prints deeper into his palm. A small, bright fibril of appeasement warms something mammalian in Medicine Pocket’s midline—data, not vindication. Hypothesis, minor confirmation.
The elevator dings again. Doors yawn onto the familiar geometry of their floor. They step out with the vivacious inevitability of a timepiece tick and, over shoulder, release a final measurement: “Keep hovering if it feeds you, Fog Boy. Send me your results.”
The doors cinch; the car swallows him. For three beats, his composure holds—then a fissure: a hairline crack through porcelain, there and gone. The column of the indicator starts its upward glide.
They stand in the empty corridor, pulse doing an annoyed swing, the aftertaste of words still metallic on tongue. “What was that, exactly?” they ask no one in particular, a hand already coming up to rake hair back into prescribed uproar. “Declaration? Territory? Dog behavior?”
The stomach ripostes with a bass grumble. They roll their eyes at their own anatomy and aim toward the cafeteria, steps loud enough to convince the floor of purpose. Sandwiches, then maybe the Beagle 0-1 for dessert, then multiplication runs because the whiteboard still wants blood. As they walk, they replay the elevator like a pastureland test—input, output, system response, Oliver’s micro-crack graphed against time. Petty, yes. Also detail.
By the time they arrive at the vending alcove, fluorescents at 50 Hz flicker, coin mech wheezing, they’ve downgraded the incident to “uncontrolled emission with useful telemetry.” They smack the selection, coils turn, and rectangles thunk. They tear into the first with canine efficiency, halfway to a growl. The antiseptic on their skin has faded, and the lab smell returns—epoxy, solvent, ionized air. Home.
They shove the second sandwich into a pocket, thumb the folded note from a different pocket (creases diagramed by fingerprint oils), and don’t take it out. Not tonight. They square their shoulders, head for the lab, and tell the corridor what they trust more than any person, “Back to numerous phenomena.”
On the trestle table, the clocks wait, the board waits, the apparatus waits. They set the sandwich aside, roll a sleeve, and pick up the work where the drool line ended—dog, scientist, predator—mouth quirked, eyes bright, hunger repurposed.
