You stir to wakeness with your face pressed to a shoulder blade, not an uncommon happenstance for you but still your pan shudders over that puzzle until you are conscious enough to solve it.
...moirail, he smells like your moirail, everything is right in the world.
For what feels like sweeps, you’re tempted to tuck back against him, bury your nose in his neck with a purr and go back to sleep, but... you have things to do, and you must do them. ...in a few moments, he’s rather warm.
Alright, enough of this, a sigh and you pull away, propping yourself up to orient yourself and find... ah, there, you have put your phone over there. Has anyone messaged you in the day?
It’s routine like the rest of this is, reaching out for it with your pan before your hands. Too many sweeps in the rig, too used to technology responding at a thought rather than through touch you’ve only recently regained. In a moment you’ll remember where you are, to use your hands-
The screen lights up and the inbox opens to show it’s empty.
You don’t realize you’ve frozen in panic until Sollux’s hand fumbles a pap across your face and groggly asks you what your damage is, the tightness with which your hand has gathered fabric enough to rouse him. You’re shaking slightly when you blink down at him, surprised at your own reaction, but you tell him.
That gets him actually waking up, tugging you back down for snuggles, abandoning the phone for discussion and more on target petting. Don’t you want this? Yes, but that does not mean it doesn’t terrify you. You’ve just moved one step closer to being a helmsman again, the prison you left is very real in your mind. ...but you do want this, you miss it far more than it scares you.
The things you need to do get put off for snuggling into your palemate, letting him card your hair while you let the panic leave your system. You’ll need to tell someone about this... eventually. But later, after this.
Fingers tack across keys, your pan attempting yet again to lead you towards guilt. There are still they who do not know you are a god, and while one is a reasonable avoidance with the warnings you have gotten, the other... the other is your matesprit, and there is very little keeping you from him.
Aside from this project, you remind yourself, pushing away the guilt. You need this done, to stop the itching of your scars, the burning on your chest. This was supposed to be done before you tiered, that was the plan, but you know better than to expect your Path and your plans to always line up. However, knowing what you are to become could happen with the the claiming mark still on your chest... no, you could not sit idly by and let it happen. You tried that, your nerves shredding as a result. This had to happen first.
The last key is pressed, the code filling the window on your husktop completely transcribed. A savable document containing the fragment of your hide etched with the Empress’s sign in the middle of a heart, copied by hand to make sure you caught all the nuances. True, the scarless patch of hide you’re going to replace it with could simply write over it, literally deleting it from existence, but... even as much as you hate it, you can’t just wipe it away completely. This is the best option for now, and you will take it eagerly, getting the mark’s talons out of you and your existence completely regardless.
Your focus returns to your personal code, hovering where you can see it with your eyes. It doesn’t take much to copy/paste your project to where it belonged, replacing what needed to go, and, after a moment of unfounded hesitation, let it compile. You’d tested it in Sparks’s castle, nothing horrid should happen, why are you so worried? Do you think it won’t work... ?
Another deep breath as you strip yourself of your shirt, needing to see it for yourself, to see if it worked, are you free or will you never remove that shackle... fingertips brush over hide that hasn’t been smooth in thousands of sweeps. It’s gone, gone in a way that doesn’t leave a single trace, save the document on your husktop, which you take a moment to save before you become too entranced. Absolutely gone, the last of her talons torn from your being, and you can’t help the grin slowly spreading, the tears welling in your eyes. Your setup is abandoned for going to find your moirail, to show him what you’ve managed, to share your glee with someone who knows how badly having it affected you.
Freedom tastes better and better every time you reclaim it.
Your alarms startle you awake, this time from where you're curled around Sollux. You hadn't actually meant to sleep; you just wanted to relax for a while on a friend. Apparently you relaxed right into unconsciousness. Regardless, it's time to drag yourself off of heat and comfort and back into coding, and that's what you're going to do.
More coffee gets poured into you, and you follow your path back into the Helmsman's system easily. Nothing sets off alerts, and the whole thing doesn't lock down on you. A grin. Perfect.
Step 2 part A you've already planned on as just scouting: learning everything you can about this system and how it works. It shouldn't take you that long; you can literally read this kind of thing, but first thing's first.
After that? You're most definitely copying all the information you need to successfully mimic the admin privileges in place. You've already seen what happens when someone tries to add in another admin, but the system's not going to question orders from the existing sysad. That'll be handy for information gathering when you get to the physical part of the rescue, among other things.
Mental rescue comes first though, and you need to talk to him freely for that. You need to make a secure area in the system, and set up a funnel system that'll send threat alerts to you instead of the actual admin. That'll unfortunately take time to put into place, seeing as you need to code them yourself. Nothing you can't do, but keystrokes take time after all.
You're refreshed and ready to go after that sleep on Sollux, and your claws click against the keys in a steady rhythm.
Your outcries bring Sollux around out of curiosity, leaning on arms crossed over the back of your head.
He doesn't even have to ask what's wrong; you know that's why he's here. You don't lift your face from the desk as you point to the newer husktop, the "Connection lost" window still overlapping the window of code and the one with "ACCESS GRANTED Command? _". A moment to make sure he's seen it and you point to your old one, screen showing your internet browser and the Tumblr tabs, the active one showing the discussion between you and devotedharlequin, waiting for you to add your reply. Tonight is not your night, and it's obvious.
He strokes your hair and asks if you want coffee, booze, or some sort of junk food to help, which gets a "yeth" from you, muffled by the hardwood. He's gone for a few minutes, returning with spiked coffee and some sort of pastry that smells like it's 90% sugar.
He is much too good to you, and you tell him this as you nuzzle into his shoulder with a raspy purr. Much too good to you.
This will help much more than just trying to meditate will.
Five fucking days. After five fucking days, you still haven't gotten-
A ping and a command prompt appears, underscore blinking as it requests where you'd like to access.
...you're in.
YOU'RE FUCKING IN.
FIVE FUCKING DAYS AND YOU'RE IN.
A "FUCK YEAH" is definitely heard by anyone in the hive, a victorious cry that you don't notice you've made. Scouting's step two, and you start looking at code in a different windo-
and the connection shuts off for the day, a window popping up and calmly informing you.
A fist gets slammed on the desk, causing the husktops and the empty dish and mug to jump around with a clatter. "THON OF A BITHHH." YOU WERE SO CLOSE, YOU COULD TASTE FUCKING AROUND IN THERE. FUCK.
It takes you a moment to get the sparking under control again and to stop growling, forcing yourself to breathe evenly to calm yourself. All is not lost, Captor. You still can have access tomorrow. It's not even a minor set back. You can work and plan while he's offline.
...you can also get food and coffee. That first, before you start doing anything else. And then updating people you said you'd update.
There is good news and bad news. As there always is.
The bad news is that it looks like the Royal Fishfucker shuts off the Helmsman's connection to at least the Tumblr server hub when she logs him off, meaning as soon as she sleeps, you're locked out. If there's no connection, you can't reach where you need to, and no progress can be made.
The good news is while she sleeps, so can you. And eat. And curl up against Sollux and stop scowling for a while, stop pretending that you don't want to fight the Helmsman on every little thing. You know you need to be on your best behavior and save the debating for a later stage, but fucking hell it is a bitch.
You glance at the clock in the corner of your screen and quirk a brow. She should be asleep, but there're still posts coming from him. You're not complaining, the longer she's awake the longer you can work.
Curling up on your host and getting food will have to wait until later, then, as will everything else. You're more than a third of the way in; you can't stop now, not that you even considered it.
You crack your neck and start typing, claws clacking across keys, eyes following the characters turn into lines of code, in for the long haul.
That's not how this works, and you know better. Hacking is not just some button you press to solve things. There's details, finesse, especially if you want to go undetected. And you most definitely want to go undetected.
This is a deep problem, one that needs to be handled with care and caution. It's going to take you days at the least with how cautious you're going, a week maybe. You'd ask for help, but right now? One can sneak in better than many. If the time comes, you might change that opinion.
==> Twoblade: Gently tiptoe your way into the Helmsman's system as quietly as you can over the course of several days.
That's more like it.
On your old husktop, you troll Uraeus and tell her that school is cancelled until further notice for personal reasons. That one you keep active for communications, normal things, leaving the full processing speed of the new one for this task.
You should probably let Sollux know you're in for the long haul here so he can remind you to eat and sleep occasionally.
An unnecessary cracking of your knuckles and you begin.
