IC Inbox for Apocalypse Now

[energyfieldgood]

"This is McKay. Leave a message if it's important. And I stress. Important.
Don't make me call you back and reiterate what important means."

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[text, 11/13, un:rue]

[ruevealing]

Dearest Doctor McKay,

It pleases me greatly to have made your acquaintance the other day. To be true, I do not know what I would have done if I'd been left to my own devices and you hadn't swept in to save me. Verily, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I do not say this lightly, but I am most in debt to you.

All the best,
Rue ♥

[energyfieldgood]

[It pleases me greatly, they write and this pleases him greatly, too. All of this, the thanks, the acknowledgement, the flattery. Rodney preens at the screen, and well, maybe this is what this world needed all along? Him to fix it? It just makes sense, doesn't it? He pulls up the keyboard to respond...

... Wait, what was their name again? Something really long and French. Oh God, he doesn't remember! A quick glance at the un jogs his memory - what a good thing they wrote to him first.]

You're very welcome, Miss Rue. If there's anything else you need help with, don't hesitate to ask. I mean, let's just be real, I'm going to be a lot faster than these wannabe scientists anyway.

Hope you're settling in okay. I guess I'll see you around.

Dr. R. McKay


[After a moment, another message blips up.]

How are you typing this?

With the talons, I mean.

Is it like a speech to text function?

[ruevealing]

To the esteemed Doctor McKay,

Just Rue please, my friend. I must insist. I find that most gendered terms to do not fit me in the way they do others. I promise you'll have no offense from me for using my name alone. I have left my previous titles behind with my Court, so I am simply Delloso de la Rue for now.

Again, I must thank you for your generosity. I admit that most of the going-ons of this place are foreign and strange to me, so having someone with your expertise at hand is a boon I'm most grateful for. When - and I do believe it will be when, not if - I find need of your guidance, I will reach out to you.

The answer you seek is this: carefully, my good sir.

Until your next letter,
Rue ♥

Text un: Pegasus - cw: stalking, body horror, blood, violence, altered mental state/being high

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[It's a dream again. He knows it's a dream, but he can't wake up--even if he tried.

He's in Atlantis again, but it's all wrong, somehow. It's quiet, too quiet, and he's on the pier, and there's a figure at the end of it.

It's himself. But it's not himself. It's himself but it's a monster, a shadow, something with his face but not, a smile that's too sharp and too big, claws and teeth and glowing, yellow Wraith-eyes and it laughs with his voice. It's also not his voice, and he knows who this is. It's the same thing that made him hunt Misty and Neal, the same thing that whispered to him when he wanted blood.

You know that you can't protect yourself from us, he--it--grins. You can't protect Rodney.

John nearly launches himself at the thing and it seems delighted at this, and he can feel that was a bad choice--but it feels like every choice he makes seems to delight this thing.

What do you want!?

I want what you want. It holds out a clawed, shadowy hand to him. You know what you need to do. And you'll have what you need from me.

The worst part about it, he does. If he agrees to...work with this thing, to accept what it's trying to give him...protection.

He'd do anything to protect Rodney. No matter the cost.

I wish you wouldn't be so happy about it, John mutters, as he reaches for the thing's hand. It closes upon John's wrist and yanks him forward, into the beast, and all he hears is laughter.

He wakes up with a start, terrified and soaked in sweat, realizing he was yelling when he woke up. What was...was that real? Somehow he knows, deep in his soul, that was unfortunately...very real. And there's something else, too, something else he felt in the dream before. Misty's words come back to haunt him...and he knows that he's going to be in so much trouble.

Maybe he can just ignore it. But what if he did get something from an Entity? He won't know if he did until he does something to...to activate it, right? And that means scaring someone. He checks the clock. It's early. It wouldn't be that hard. And he's not doing anything really that bad--a little scare wouldn't hurt anyone, right?

There's a guy heading home from a late shift, maybe a bar, maybe a factory worker. John waits in the morning shadows, wondering if he just jumps out and yells boo, if that'll be enough. But he finds himself starting to simply, well, follow the guy, and the man starts walking faster and faster, realizing that someone was following him. He soon breaks out into a run, and John follows--faster and faster, faster than he's ever ran before, and it's easy to catch up to him--fun, too, and he grins, caught up in it, and he jumps, pouncing on the man. He shrieks, terrified, and John remembers that he probably needs to stop because the last thing he needs is the cops getting involved, or worse, ADI--so he lets go, backing off and running back into the morning shadows.

He feels...almost high. He feels almost like he did when he was suffering from the retrovirus.

Dangerous. Monstrous. That makes him stop.

The claws sticking out of his fingers when he looks down also make him stop.]

Oh, crap.

[He texts Rodney with some difficulty a few minutes later.]

Are you up yet?

You better be up.

Wake up.

Now.

I need to talk to you.

[energyfieldgood]

[He's up but he's not up, having falling asleep over his laptop and work project like he is prone to do. Sheppard's messages chime in the penumbra of the room and he jolts away, one hand coming up to wipe at some drool that found its way down his chin and probably on his keyboard.

Ugh.

He stares at the screen blearily, rubbing at his eyes before hacking out some curt replies.]

I'm up.

I wasn't planning on being up so this had better be an emergency.

What do you want.

Are you drinking blood again.

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

It's something.

I need to talk to you in person. Privately.

No.

Wait, why is that the first thing you thought of?

[energyfieldgood]

Fine.

I'm coming over.

I don't know, it's the last thing that happened to you? Maybe some of it lingered.

Or you really are a vampire.

If this is a ruse and you bite me, I won't talk to you for a month.

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

Great. Don’t knock, I’ll unlock the door.

I mean maybe but you just seem kind of convinced that I’m really a vampire.

Listen if I was really gonna bite you I’d put you under some mesmerizing spell first. You wouldn’t even know it happened until you woke up with bite marks.

text \ un: dontron

[semilethal]

In the interest of professional transparency I must let you know that my brother is the one who broke the centrifuge

I'll fix it once I get back tonight

text; un: imwithgenius

[energyfieldgood]

[Wow, Donnie, he leaves to have his mind broken by Entities for five seconds--]

Aside from me being VERY DISPLEASED, this requires additional information. Where did this brother come from? Why did he use the centrifuge? Why did he use it in a manner that leaves it damaged and potentially unusable?

[Unfortunately, he very well remembers that no siblings touching the gear wasn't an explicit rule they made, so he can't quite call him out on that. Dammit.]

I feel like the workspace arrangements need some sub-bullets.

[semilethal]

The brother came from my home dimension, though technically a month earlier than my own arrival

But it's not unusable. I've repaired my own centrifuge at home more than six times. I know exactly how to fix it, I just was unable to do so before I had to leave for ADI. If you take a look at it before I do, it's easy to tell

Bullet points acceptable. If you'd like to leave them on my door, I'll review them when I come back

[energyfieldgood]

Is he scientifically inclined and if so, what is his specialty? Which one of you is the smarter one?

[He gives Don the benefit of the doubt since Leo is the alleged centrifuge-destroyer but he also has a genius sister he may or may not be in constant competition with so a biological sibling not up to par is an alien concept to him.]

Fine. I will.

[And, just in case,]

To counter any uncomfortable conversations when we see each other again, I happen to have had a series of mishaps at Dogtown so I am currently incapacitated and visibly injured. It has been taken care of by medical.

[semilethal]

Leo doesn't care about science, or discovery, or literally anything academic. He has his own gifts, though. A good strategist. Adequate with people in a way I'm not and don't care to be. [Rodney's already reached 'honest opinions about my brothers instead of bluster' status. that's what comes from letting a teenager use ur shit]

Noted RE: your injuries. May I ask what was worth the risk in Dogtown?

text - end of februaryish

[semilethal]

What if I DID go to Dogtown, though

[energyfieldgood]

[!!

!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all how dare you evoke these feelings of apprehension and responsibility in him.]

You'll have to be more clear about your desired output. Are you asking about your inevitable demise or my dwindling estimate of your intelligence?

[semilethal]

[excuse you]

You've been twice. Possibly thrice, I don't know, I haven't put a tracker in you yet

[energyfieldgood]

Okay, first of all, we should probably add that to the agreement.

[Unless he puts one on you first if he suspects you of sneaking out into Deathtown.]

And second, it was reluctantly and against better judgment to protect those with less common sense from themselves.

un: Pegasus, Text

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

Hey, are you still up?

un: imwithgenius, text

[energyfieldgood]

[He has a little notebook these days. It's analog, which is weird because he's never been one for writing by hand but... now he'll make an exception.

When the message comes in he flips it open to the current day and quickly jots down texting with John, leaving some space to later add whatever they will be discussing.]

Yes. What is it?

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

nothing much, I was just kinda bored. Can I come over?

[How many of these has he sent recently, who can say]

[energyfieldgood]

[How many of these has he sent recently, who can say? What were his answers?]

Sure.

[He can't remember a single reason why he shouldn't.]

Bring snacks, I'm running out.

Action - cw: deteriorating eyesight, mild body horror

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

Things are both very strange and very right. Cozy, even.

He's not sure how they got here. He's not sure how he got here from sitting in a chair in Antarctica to being a beastial Avatar of a fear entity with a technomagic artificial arm, who's currently in love with another Avatar who's made up of tiny nanites. Like, he was pretty into sci-fi and this was a lot, even for him. He knows that he's messed up. Knows that he takes fear now from innocent people like it's nothing, and the only thing that's holding him back is simply the need to not piss off ADI so that he can still use their resources.

It's frightening, how much he doesn't care.

It's frightening how much he cares about Rodney.

He flips through the boxes of DVDs (it's so annoying how nobody watched DVDs anymore, and the whole streaming thing, while convenient, was not reliable enough for him), before picking a movie and putting it in the player, and settling back down on the couch.

There's a bowl of popcorn on the table and he sets it in his lap, before patting the other side of the couch for Rodney. His tail lashes back and forth, and it's rare these days that he doesn't have it out. He's often settled in between one form or another, or maybe he's just lost control of his humanity. But it's probably fine.

Sure, the world may be on the verge of an apocalypse but if there's one thing that can pull him away from his obsessions, it's Rodney.

Since Rodney's one of them.

John grabs a pair of glasses he has in his pocket and pushes them on his face. He hopes Rodney doesn't notice how thick the frames have gotten. His eyesight has gotten really bad lately, and he's terrified it's only going to get worse. Even with these, the movie was going to be blurry. But he's seen Jurassic Park enough that he had it memorized anyway.

"You ready for dinosaurs?"

[energyfieldgood]

Things are both very strange and very right.

There are not many moments like these left. Moments where he can allow himself to relax and just be, where he doesn't rationalize his feeding, the way he goes out and terrorizes people, the way he helps the apocalypse further along. Moments where he can ignore the absence of any organ matter in his body, where he can pretend he's still the same, is still human. Moments that almost feel like they're back on Atlantis, in their quarters, relaxing after a close call or daunting mission. With their friends and family, with Teyla and Ronon instead of a nagging guilty feeling when he realizes how often he hasn't thought of them lately.

It almost feels like a date night, and that still has him a little shy and a little giddy, date night, like they're dating (they are), like they're really boyfriends (they are). Like it's not something that Rondey just made up in his head (it isn't).

He flops down on the couch, reaching over to grab some popcorn and glances at John.

"You're not going to hiss at the dilophosaurus again, are you?"

Just saying.

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

"What if I do?"

He's just saying. He smirks at Rodney, a sharp-toothed grin.

"I can't be held responsible for what I hiss at."

He digs through the popcorn and tosses a few in his mouth, before using the remote to turn on the TV.

His tail curls around Rodney's waist and he leans a little bit against him.

There might be the sound of a purr.

[energyfieldgood]

"You could be. Totally holding you responsible."

Rodney slows in his chewing and glances down at the tail.

"... Seriously?"

But the lean is nice so he relaxes against his frame. After a moment he starts poking at the tail's end.

"Is this like, the Hunt equivalent to an arm around the shoulder..."