So, tumblr ate your ask, @randomlifeunit - that's fun! I'm sorry this took so long, and thank you for the submission, friend!
And, thanks as always to @badthingshappenbingo for the card!
After a devastating world war, the planet Perses had been reclassified to Class 0 – a certified “failure” of a planet. It was practically uninhabitable, with pockets of continents oozing with radioactivity. The Perseans that survived the war had been evacuated and relocated across the galaxy.
Slipper didn’t think a mission on Perses – even in a designated safe zone – sounded like a good idea.
He was right.
Slipper led the way through the streets, Brando and Tabby close behind.
“Okay. This is…great. I love it. I love this.”
“Brando, shut up.”
“No, it’s fine! It’s awesome. I love being in a ghost city on a planet that has two hours of sunlight a day.” There had been light while they were briefed, but night had fallen since they’d entered the city.
Yowling echoed through a nearby alley. Brando jumped.
Tabby rolled her eyes. “It’s just a roz fight,” she said. “Calm yourself.”
“Not all of us know every single creature in the universe by the sounds they make,” Brando grumbled.
“You shouldn’t waste your energy with focus on fear,” Slipper said.
“Easier said than done,” Brando said.
“Especially for a braveless like Brando,” Tabby teased.
Click.
Slipper stopped in his tracks. He looked down at his foot.
“What’s wrong?” Tabby asked.
“I appear to have tripped a trap,” Slipper answered. At the same time, there was a loud whistling sound as something hurtled through the air.
Slipper felt something strike his neck.
Tabby and Brando gasped. “Fuck!” Tabby cried. “Slipper, you –“
Slipper raised a hand to touch the foreign object. It appeared to be a syringe. He tugged, but the needle wouldn’t come loose.
“Holy shit – hang on,” Brando said, rushing forward. He reached up and touched the syringe. “Oh, okay – that’s a good sign,” he said in a voice too high to be genuine. “It’s, uh – it’s stuck between your scales. Tilt your head.”
Slipper tilted his head away from Brando, ignoring the prick of pain that followed.
Brando gripped the syringe with one hand and placed his other palm against Slipper’s neck. “I should be able to…” Slipper felt a pinch. “There we go. Got it.”
Brando stepped away, syringe in hand. Tabby stepped closer.
“Let me see that,” she demanded. Brando handed over the syringe. Tabby inspected it with a hum. “Um...Slipper, a bunch of this went into you.”
“I’m aware,” Slipper said, and collapsed.
“Slipper – Slipper!” Hands grabbed his arms as his knees buckled. A face entered his line of sight. “Hey, can you hear me?”
Slipper gritted his teeth and hissed. “What was in that syringe?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Tabby said. “Talk to me – what’s happening, and what can we do?”
Brando shushed them suddenly. He cupped his ear. Slipper raised his head to listen, but there was ringing in his eardrum. After a few moments, Brando threw Slipper’s arm over his shoulder and started to lift him. “I hear voices,” he whispered.
“No one should be anywhere on this continent,” Tabby said. “What do you mean, you hear–“
A bright light washed over them all.
Slipper could hear an engine revving somewhere within the headlight’s too-bright beam. He curled his lip and shut his eyes.
“Oh, Dioscuri,” Tabby swore. “That guy’s got a plasma burner.”
Brando nodded. “We’ve got to fucking move!”
Tabby threw Slipper’s arm over her shoulder, rose, and then all three fell in step to hobble onward. Slipper tried to walk faster, but his left foot had gone numb. He shuffled along with Brando and Tabby to support him.
An ear-splitting tseew pierced the air as a bolt of electric energy crackled past them. Brando gasped and tightened his grip on Slipper’s wrist. “I see an alley – past the library!” he said.
Tabby nodded. “Let’s hope there’s a back door.”
Another bolt of electricity shot past them.
As they entered the alley, Tabby slid out of the support chain. She rushed ahead and tested the door. At first, it wouldn’t budge. But she quickly picked the lock and the door slid open. “In!” she shouted.
Brando bore the brunt of Slipper’s weight as they entered the building. Tabby slammed her elbow down on the keypad, shattering the screen, and then followed. She shut the door the moment she was through and set the lock from inside.
“That should hold them, right?” Brando asked as he helped Slipper sit down on the floor.
Tabby nodded. “Yeah. Slipper, you still with us?”
Slipper’s nostrils flared. He spat something in a Hecatean hiss. Then he said, “My vision is compromised, and I have numbness.”
“What do you need?”
Slipper barely had a moment to process what she had said before it suddenly felt as if a solid mass were striking straight through his head. He folded over, grasping his temples with his claws.
“Fuck,” Tabby spat. “I’m getting in touch with Aegis. Brando, get ready to move him. We need to get to the roof and get off this planet.” She tapped her chest four times. “Nic’hel to Aegis,” she said. She waited. “Nic’hel to Aegis,” she said again. She tapped her chest another four times.
“Don’t tell me,” Brando said dryly.
“Yep. Scrambled signal.”
“Okay,” Brando sighed. “So we’re sieged by unknown predators on a planet that’s supposed to be uninhabited. We can’t reach Aegis. Slipper’s –“
“Brando, the recap is not helping.” Tabby reached into her sash and pulled out her glasses, hooked them over her ears, and tapped the frames. “Hm.” She forward to reach into the darkness and pulled something off a shelf. She held it out for Brando to see.
“Vitamins?” Brando said. “Are we in a drugstore?”
Slipper’s breath rattled, but he managed to croak, “Look for triptans.”
“I do not,” Slipper said, “but I know what it is doing." He hissed. “It has triggered a severe migraine.”
“Triptans or anti-inflammatories. On it,” Tabby said, slipping into the gloom. She moved stealthily through the racks, her eyes skimming the labels. Fortunately, they were written in Standard; before its reclassification, Perses had been a Gal-U affiliate.
It didn’t take long for Tabby to find a bottle of triptan tablets. She snatched it from the rack and returned to her crewmates. She announced her arrival, but kept her voice low, for Slipper’s sake. “I found some triptans.”
Slipper didn’t even crack open an eye. His nostrils flared, and he asked, “Water?”
“Yeah, I’ve got my flask,” Brando said, reaching into his sash.
Tabby poured three tablets into her palm. “Here,” she said, kneeling in front of Slipper. She took his hand and uncurled his clenched claws before dropping the tablets into his hand.
Slipper held out his other hand. Brando handed him his unscrewed flask. Slipper sipped at the flask, then popped the tablets into his mouth.
“How long will it take for these to help?” Tabby asked.
Slipper swallowed. “I have not eaten since the midwake meal,” he murmured, “so they will likely take effect within the hour.”
“And we were supposed to check in with Aegis at around the same time,” Brando recalled. “When we don’t, they’ll realize something’s wrong.”
“So, what? All we can do is wait?” Tabby asked.
Slipper closed his eyes and burrowed his face into his arms. “All we can do is wait.”
The fifth fill for my @badthingshappenbingo card! This was inspired by this prompt by @heartlesslywhumping. I’ve had that prompt in mind for a very long time and I finally got around to writing something for it!
Square Filled: Serum Injection
Fandom: Original Work
Word Count: 2,473
CW: Needles/forced drugging in a (sort of) medical setting
“No, stop! What are you doing?!” Blix shouted as the men in gray dragged him into the room. “What are you doing?!”
They gave him no answer as he strained against them. They pulled him back toward the bed in the middle of the room. He should have fought. He should have bared his fangs and punched and kicked, or even used his power. But instead, he’d tried to understand, tried to reason with them.
“I didn’t do anything!” He heard the way his voice cracked and he heard the desperate squeak of his boots on the floor.
“Doesn’t matter,” one of them grunted.
The four men hauled Blix’s lean body onto the bed with coordinated, unyielding force. He tried to shove them away, but they pinned his down arms and his legs. He arched his back and let out a frustrated breath.
“Let me go,” he tried as he flattened himself back down to regroup. His voice was edging close to begging. “Please.”
They didn’t acknowledge him. Blix imagined that, from their perspective, they may as well have been handling a wild, senseless beast. His mind screamed for his team to come and save him. Wren would have gone for Bowen by now. They were coming for him; they had to be.
His gaze leaped from face to face, but he found no sympathy on any of them. He searched for something, anything, that would help him. There was nothing. A man in a white coat, carrying a vial and a hypodermic needle, entered his line of sight. Blix went deathly still for a moment and his dark eyes went wide.
“What’s that?! What are you doing?!”
Blix’s tongue suddenly felt clumsy in his mouth.
“Shh,” the man said as he stuck the needle into the vial. “I assure you it’s perfectly harmless.”
Blix began to struggle again as the man - a doctor? -drew the violet liquid into the syringe. He snapped the cylinder, then pushed the plunger, forcing out some of the liquid. The drops glinted in the light as they rose, then plummeted. Blix shook his head from side to side as the doctor stepped closer.
“What is that?” he asked again. His heart slammed in his chest as he eyed the needle. He could hear the hysterical pitch his voice was reaching alongside his short, rabid breaths, but he was far beyond caring how it sounded.
“You don’t have to do this!” he yelled as he bucked. “No! Please don’t! Nonono.”
“Be still,” the doctor said. He put a firm, gloved hand on Blix’s jawline and turned his head to expose his neck. “You’ll just feel some discomfort.”
He was right. To Blix’s humiliation, he whimpered and screwed his eyes shut as the needle pierced his vein. The doctor was expressionless as he depressed the plunger, then withdrew the needle. The serum’s cold burn made Blix’s eyes go wide and he could feel the sting of tears.
“It’s done,” the doctor said without any discernible warmth or commiseration. Blix began to struggle again, but whatever was coursing through him forced his head back down and made the room spin.
What’s done? What did you do? He thought. His head lolled to the side; he looked at the still-open door and longed to see his boss and Wren come through.
Blix’s world lurched and he moaned as his fear and panic transformed.
---
Even after Bowen accepted payment for the job his team completed, he smiled and nodded and continued a dialogue with the man who paid them. Maintaining positive trade relations had become instinct over the years, and working with this station could potentially be very lucrative. In his mind, though, The Ferox was touching down on a planet without development or inhabitants. It had been too long since he’d taken anything resembling a vacation.
The team won’t be opposed to a break, he thought.
“I have another job for you and your team if you’re interested,” his client said.
It was Bowen’s impulse to say yes, but before he could, Wren found them. Bowen stopped shy of introducing his second-in-command when he saw that Wren’s ash-blond hair was more disheveled than usual and his lip was split.
“They took Blix,” Wren said.
“Who did?” Bowen asked.
“Some assholes in gray uniforms,” Wren said as he swept his hair back. His jaws were set and his shoulders were squared.
Before Bowen could ask where Blix had been taken, their client spoke up.
“Is your friend, by chance, Ventrexi?”
“Half,” Bowen said.
“Why does that matter?” Wren asked.
“I’m relatively new to this place,” the client said. “But long story short, if a Ventrexi visits this territory, they’re required to be medicated to prevent the threat their psychic abilities present.”
“That’s bullshit! Blix wouldn’t do anything like that!”
Bowen put a hand on Wren’s shoulder.
Easy, he willed him, though Wren was absolutely right.
“Unfortunately,” their client said as he crossed his arms and cast a wary glance at Wren, “That’s not a risk The Commission is willing to take. They probably took him to The Well.”
The client shrugged and minutely rolled his eyes when he saw that Bowen and Wren were nonplussed.
“I don’t know. It’s just what they call the place they take the Ventrexi if they have to.”
Bowen and Wren made their way easily enough, and they found themselves in a quiet, well-ordered section of the station. Bowen hadn’t known what to expect, but this wasn’t it. The pale gray walls and low lights purveyed a sense of drab, clinical calm that made him eager to get back to their ship.
A man in a white coat looked up from the screen he’d been focused on.
“Can I help you?” he asked as he looked over the pair as he awaited the answer to his dispassionate inquiry.
“One of my crew was brought here,” Bowen said. His voice was direct, but not antagonistic. He hoped it would remain so. “We’ll be taking him with us.”
“The young Ventrexi-”
“His name’s Blix,” Wren bit out.
The doctor looked between the two before continuing.
“I can’t allow him to leave. Not yet.”
“Why not?” Bowen asked. He kept his voice calm despite the fact he could feel his temper flaring. In his periphery, he could see Wren take a step closer to the doctor, who either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
“I administered the medication his people are required to have,” he said. “Unfortunately, he seems to have had a reaction to it.”
“What sort of reaction?” Bowen asked as he narrowed deep his gray eyes at the doctor.
“Not to worry,” the doctor said. “He’s being monitored closely.”
“I asked you what kind of reaction,” Bowen said, letting any pretense of cordiality slip away. The doctor seemed to weigh his options before answering.
“He’s disoriented,” he began. “His heart rate is elevated. I’m afraid he grew too agitated and we were forced to restrain him.”
Wren let out a low growl and Bowen worried it wasn’t just for show. He raised a hand up, calling for stillness and reason, though he was wrestling with it himself. The doctor didn’t balk at Wren’s deep, angry vocalization.
“Duomorphs are interesting creatures,” the doctor offered with a cold half smile. Intrigue glittered in his eyes as he regarded Wren. It added unease to Bowen’s ire.
“Take us to Blix,” Bowen said. He refused to take whatever emotional bait the doctor thought he was dangling. Apparently, thankfully, so did Wren.
The doctor nodded and gave Wren another thoughtful glance before turning and guiding them behind closed doors and into an equally sombre hall, the length of which boasted three observation rooms on each side.
Bowen’s own name reached his ears, and he and Wren sped down the hall until they found Blix on the opposite side of a window.
“Bowen?!” Blix called as he tugged at the restraints around his wrists. “Help! Help me, please! I’m sorry! Please?! Wren?!”
“He can’t see you,” the doctor told them as thought it would lessen the pain of what they saw. “Two-way glass.”
Wren tried to open the door to the room, but found it locked. A bustling rescue wasn’t going to be the order of the day and Bowen could see the anger mount in Wren when he realized that.
“Get him out of here,” Wren demanded as he wrenched at the knob again. His eyes flashed like hellfire. “Now.’”
Shit, Bowen thought. He trusted Wren not to transform, trusted him to control himself -he’d come a long way from the wild thing that Bowen had taken in -but he wasn’t sure that a display of Wren’s dual nature was the right pressure to add in this situation, especially if the people in this place were so intent on controlling powers.
“Give him back to us,” Bowen said. “And we’ll be on our way.”
The doctor shook his head.
“It’s in his best interest to stay here. At least for the time being. Just until the effects of the serum have lessened.”
“How long?” Wren asked before Bowen could.
“Difficult to say,” the doctor said. His hand hovered over the row of vials. “This serum is meant to suppress the Ventrexi’s ability to manipulate minds and emotions.”
The doctor turned his attention to his frantic patient and Bowen thought he saw something - Uncertainty? Aggravation? - ghost over the doctor’s features.
“I’ve never seen this reaction before.”
Bowen eyed the line of half a dozen vials on a metal table outside the room. Each was filled with a violet liquid. The knowledge that that was what was coursing through Blix’s veins made Bowen want to sweep them off the table and watch the glass shatter. With a deft hand, Bowen palmed a vial instead.
Blix’s pleas from the other side of the window grew in intensity. It made Bowen want to pull Blix close. Anything to banish all his dread and desperation. Bowen’s heart ached as Blix’s fearful, unfocused eyes searched for help and each of his limbs pulled so harshly at the restraints that there were sure to be bruises.
Blix fell back on the mattress. He panted as he continued to twist and beg. Bowen watched the sharp rise and fall of Blix’s chest and he knew the doctor was right. A controlled environment would be best for Blix until he was able to calm down.
When Blix began to sob, Bowen’s fingernails bit into his palms.
Wren’s hand remained on the doorknob as he glared at the doctor. Bowen knew he needed to do or say something that would move this situation along.
“Wren?”
Wren straightened and met Bowen’s eyes, prepared to act on his orders, violently if necessary.
“Go and find Wes. Tell him to meet us back at the ship. I’ll stay here until Blix is ready to be moved.”
Wren’s face fell, but his eyes burned. Bowen moved his head from side to side. The motion was nearly imperceptible, but it was enough that Wren relented. He spared Blix a worried glance before starting on his way. Bowen stepped in front of him.
“Make it quick,” Bowen told Wren as he pressed the vial into his hand. Wren’s features lightened with understanding and after a sharp little nod, he left.
Blix’s face was tearstained. He let out a feeble “Please,” as he tugged ineffectually at the restraints. “Help me.”
I can’t, Bowen thought. I’m so sorry, Blix.
Bowen questioned how long he could stand there, but he knew the answer. He would wait and watch as long as it took for his crewmember - brave, kind, empathetic Blix who would never hurt someone if he didn’t have to -to come out of this. The guilt would gnaw on Bowen for far, far longer.
The doctor entered the room and Bowen forgot to breathe as he watched Blix squirm and flinch away when the doctor tried to touch him. The straps held him tight. Blix’s pleading had become quiet; instead, he wept and writhed. And there wasn’t a damn thing Bowen could do.
When the doctor came out of the room, he suggested more time.
As long as it takes, Bowen thought as he cast the doctor a baleful glance.
Finally -Bowen didn’t know how long -Blix’s body went slack. His eyes remained open and staring, and though Bowen knew better, he would have sworn Blix was looking directly at him. When the doctor finally allowed him into the room to gather Blix, Blix’s head rolled toward him.
“Bone?” he slurred. “Knew you’d come.”
“Yeah, kiddo,” he said. He couldn’t meet Blix’s gaze as he unfastened the restraints. “Let’s get you out of here.”
The trip back to The Ferox was a slow one. Blix leaned against Bowen and apologized whenever he stumbled. Bowen just hushed him and felt his heart grow heavier each time. They drew little attention in the hangar and when they reached the ship, no one, including Wren and Wes had returned yet. Perhaps it was just as well. Blix didn’t seem to be in danger; for the time being, at least he’d be spared the prying eyes of the rest of the crew.
They made it to Blix’s room, (It was the sort of messy that would only require a few minutes of effort to clean up.) and Bowen lowered Blix down onto the bed.
“Go ahead and lay down,” Bowen said. He squeezed one of Blix’s shoulders and tried to smile.
Blix nodded and lowered himself down onto his side and pulled his legs up onto the bed. Bowen reached down and unlaced Blix’s boots before removing them and setting them down neatly by the foot of the bed.
“There,” Bowen said as he straightened. “Try to relax. Wes will be here soon.”
Bowen saw Blix’s lower lip tremble and thought perhaps his face was going to crumple and that he was going to weep. Bowen prepared himself to anchor Blix through a fresh bout of emotional turmoil, but Blix swallowed and looked up at Bowen with big, dark eyes. They were red-rimmed and weary, but they were more present than they had been moments before.
“Why did they do that to me?”
Bowen sat down helplessly on the mattress and put a heavy hand on Blix’s shoulder. He knew they had taken one look at Blix’s sharp canines and pointed ears, and seen only his Ventrexi lineage. They’d only seen vicious intentions. They hadn’t seen Blix.
Bowen should have known. He should have been aware of that situation in the area. He should have been able to warn Blix about it. He sat there, silently apologizing for something Blix would never think to blame him for.
“They were assholes,” Bowen said as his thumb rubbed back and forth across Blix’s shoulder. “You didn’t deserve that.”
