I'm turning some of my most AU fanfics into Original short stories in the hopes of selling them to a publisher. (And thus get some cred to send my CV to Publishers and leave my job)
While I unfic them all, I'll post them here and you can read them with the tag #limited edition. I'll delete them after a few days
<7k words
Freddie is running out of time before the presentation for Stenson Industries and he needs a competent technician yesterday.
How fortunate, then, that someone who was waiting and overheard his problem is willing to help.
Freddie burst into the hall and everyone held their breath while the second son of the boss made his way to the head of department. The rest of the employees mourned the poor woman and settled to watch the dismemberment. There were three rules in the company. Number one: Don’t piss off the boss. Rupert was a clever bastard who should have been a lawyer. Number two: Don’t mess with Tim, he was under Rupert’s protection and Rupert would utterly destroy you if you dared contradict the guy. Number three: Keep Freddie as a friend, but only behind Rupert’s back.
Freddie had turned into a tyrant lately. He used to be the most understanding of the three and the one to go to if the others were being unreasonable. The Winter fiasco had taken its toll on him, but even with the new bitterness, he was far more flexible than his relatives and he was your man if you wanted something that was technically off-limits. Going against Freddie was a suicide too, especially after the winter thing. Today Freddie had his ‘I have had a horrid day and I’ll be polite about it until I’m not’ face going on. The head of the department was so doomed.
She didn’t know it yet, though, since Freddie was coming from behind.
“Rosita,” Freddie’s icy tone clued the woman in, so she was properly scared when she turned to face her boss. “May I inquire as to the whereabouts of our IT crew?”
Ow, he was using the big words, he must be royally crossed.
Oh, but the head of department was breathing relieved, she probably had an ace up her sleeve. Anyone who worked at the Intenur Company for longer than a year had to lean to be prepared for their bosses’ moods.
“I alerted them when you asked me; I have sent no less than three messages this week and three more during the morning in anticipation. They assured me that the material would be ready yesterday and that they wouldn’t work on it today.”
Wow! Perfectly deflected blame! And the IT crew wouldn’t have it too bad; they were Tim’s friends. This was not a surprising development all the same; they always messed up Freddie’s tasks, and everyone knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. Tim’s protection was the only explanation as to why they still had a job.
“And the material is there for Tim’s and Rupert’s worthless power points, but I told them there was a compatibility problem with my presentation a week ago.”
“With all due respect, sir, that is not my responsibility.” Rosita had brass balls, or ovaries.
Freddie pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed slowly. “I’m aware; Rosita, but now I need a solution.”
“The other presentations are not causing problems,” she had the cheek to mention.
“Of course not! They are using the company’s system!”
“And why is that a problem? Maybe if you didn’t insist on using your personal computer...”
“It is a problem because it is Pi-21’s stupid technology, Rosita. What kind of impression do you think we will give to Miss Lloid and Mr Stenson if we present our data with their rival’s technology?”
“I’m sure they know by now.” Rosita sent a furtive look at the clients whispering into each other’s ears; a businesswoman and some oil-stained technician. Freddie didn’t spare a look. They were probably gossiping about Freddie’s tantrum; that seemed to be the default these days. Maybe Freddie’s interruption was making them impatient, but Freddie couldn’t care less. He had bigger problems.
“I can’t just transfer my presentation; Pi-21’s software keeps wrecking everything, I could write the transfer code, but not in the next...” Freddie looked at the clock on his mobile. “Not in twenty minutes!”
“I could call the IT crew for you.”
“Today it is Sophie’s shift; she will say that it is my fault, for working with Stenson technology. She only works with simple ‘intuitive’ code like Pi-21’s. I want someone competent!”
One of the two waiting clients approached them.
“I-” he started.
Freddie didn’t give him the chance to complain.
“I’m terribly sorry for the delay, but there is an emergency in the company.” Freddie usually kept his cool like a boss, well, better than the other bosses. He was usually PR’s wet dream, but he could be downright irrational if the situation really got to him. The Winter Project had been proof enough. “Unless you can fix the computers in time, kindly stay put for a few minutes.” The ‘or else’ was implied.
“I certainly could,” the client said cheerfully. Freddie looked at him skeptically.
“But…” Rosita tried to intervene.
“Do you have a solution, Rosita?” Freddie asked.
“Of course she doesn’t, she is a clever girl, Pi-21’s software is not for clever girls. Show me to the problem, Mr Legs.” The man had the gall to walk to the door where Freddie had come from and open it for him.
Freddie regarded the man warily. Twenty minutes. He still had time to look desperately for someone else if the man couldn’t help and fail. “Why not? I’m doomed anyway.” Freddie walked to the door with a sigh.
“But, sir! He is Ryan Stenson!” Too late; the door was closed. “I’m so screwed,” Rosita muttered thinking of the moment when Rupert heard how she had failed to stop Freddie.
Miss Lloid put an understanding hand on her arm; she probably knew a thing or two about trouble with bosses.
*
Freddie took the man to the conference room where he would have to meet the head of Stenson Industries. He had his custom Stenson laptop there with his presentation and an enormous mess showing on the Pi-21 screen of the company. There wasn’t even an error message, just all the text overlapped with the images and the data, and then it had frozen. If Rupert wasn’t such a resentful man, they’d have Stenson’s holo-displays everywhere instead of that waste of space that Pi-21 called technology. Unfortunately, Rupert would own the company for as long as he lived and Tim would follow his steps like a trained monkey.
The unexpected client-turned-help didn’t ask for permission, he just sat in front of Freddie’s computer as if it was his. He sent a disdainful look at the problematic frozen screen and he turned to Freddie with an amused smile to say: “Let’s start with archaic solutions for archaic technology.” Then the technician crouched to unplug the projector.
“I’ve done exactly the same more than once today.” It was the only way to unfreeze the projector, but Freddie resented the know-it-all attitude of the technician.
The man seemed to take that as a challenge, so he cracked his knuckles and promptly opened the familiar black window of MS-DOS. He started to write while Freddie looked over his shoulder. He was pulling pieces of code that Freddie had not considered, and he didn’t even need to do much after he was done. He just opened the Stenson software for presentations and saved the file that Freddie pointed out in a format that wasn’t there before the man had touched the computer.
The smug bastard had a cheeky smile when he presented Freddie with the pen drive.
Freddie saved all his praise until he plugged the USB drive on the projector and it miraculously worked. The clock on the screen said it had taken the technician… less than five minutes. Freddie was pleasantly surprised; he was going to thank the stranger, but then the presentation played the music that Freddie had saved without hope of it working.
“This thing never plays music, at least never at the same time as the presentation!” He let himself slouch on the chair closest to the projector. The presentation was saved.
“It was just too easy,” the smug technician commented.
“I would have managed with a bit more than twenty minutes,” Freddie said, pride a bit hurt.
“If your coding is as good as your people skills, twenty minutes would have easily become a week of work.”
“What gives you the right to say that?” Freddie protested.
“You have not even asked my name.”
Freddie pursed his lips. Despite having collapsed on the seat, he was tense all over. He had been stressed since he found trouble with the presentation a week ago and predicted more trouble with IT on top of the other preparations. The man was right, he had been snappy and the presentation hadn’t even started yet, so he took the chance to breathe deeply. And to collect his politeness from the depths of despair.
“Excuse my manners, I-”
“Yes, you don’t need my name, just my services,” the man cut him without retracting that annoying smirk of his.
“Fortunately your coding is better than your own people skills, then,” Freddie said, annoyed.
“No, just as good, people love me, I have people skills to spare somewhere, just not today, and I have a lot of class.”
“And what are you implying there exactly?”
“That music in your presentation? Tacky.” Let it be known that Freddie knew when he was being mocked and when he was being teased, he just had more experience with the former.
“I didn’t expect it to work and I can put whatever music I want, because the content is solid.”
“Show me.”
Freddie leaned forward. “What?”
“I said show me!” The technician leaned forward too. “You have time, right? I want to see the monster I helped to create.”
Freddie didn’t have time to reply, because the man stood up, took the remote control from the table, walked in front of the screen and played the presentation. Freddie did have the time now; Stenson should be with Tim and his unproductive dreams of harnessing storms to generate electricity. The technician’s opinion wouldn’t be very enlightening, but this way Freddie would have the chance to check his own presentation one last time.
“This section, why is it so short?” The technician said about the grid connection as he sat on the table. Freddie sat next to him.
It was Freddie’s favorite section, but Rupert didn’t like it, so Freddie had only sneaked a basic idea. He was quite proud of having passed it under the old man’s nose.
“Rupert is old school.” Freddie smirked privately. “He likes the old power plants and he hates Stenson. Hates that his green approach to energy is harming our productivity, and he doesn’t see that an update could benefit both of us. After all, as you see here, we already have a power grid that Stenson wants; we would only have to update the power plants. It would be a great investment, but he doesn’t like it.”
The technician crossed his arms. “He doesn’t like Stenson?”
Freddie laughed. “It is more than dislike. Stenson is the bane of his existence, as Rupert says: who does he think he is, that short-sighted idiot? or whatever short joke he thinks at that moment; apparently the man is quite short.”
“Yes, people say that. Go on.”
“Well, Father always says that Stenson will destroy America, because Forbes might call him a hero but his technology is destroying jobs everywhere, his words, not mine.” Freddie rolled his eyes.
The technician kept playing the presentation and smirked at one of the references.
“That is the project I… saw in a magazine about Stenson. It is not well known, is it? Have you been stalking him or something?”
“I’ve done my research. That high-entropy alloy project is spectacular, but it is not showy enough for the press, or the shareholders, Miss Lloid and he will probably value that Intenur-”
“Your boss is not here, Legs.”
Freddie hesitated for a moment, but the man was smart, he was learning how the Intenur Company worked incredibly fast.
“They will value that I recognize the real potential out of the flashy prototypes for the general public.”
“Are you saying that they lie with their flashy prototypes?”
Freddie looked the technician dead in the eye.
“Of course they do. That’s what marketing is about.”
“Would you tell them that to their face?”
“Of course not. Rupert would behead me if I did something to hamper his deal.”
“Why would he want a deal with a man he hates?”
“I convinced him that he could push his hate aside for the good of the company and to leave a better legacy to Tim.”
“The company, of course, because clean energy and the bigger picture are nothing compared to stock numbers.”
“Obviously you have never discussed it with Rupert. I told him what he needed to hear; I won’t jeopardize the ‘bigger picture’ as you say, by telling him something as feeble as the whole truth.” Freddie leaned his hip against the table. “Then the shareholders gossiped about Stenson and how easy it would be to negotiate some changes with him and Rupert was sold.”
“Huh? And what did they say about Stenson?”
“Why do you ask?”
The technician shrugged and grinned. “Because I want to keep listening to your voice, but I don’t think you’d appreciate me distracting you from the topic.”
Freddie raised an eyebrow at the blatant flirting, but let it slide. “They said that it takes a lot to keep Stenson interested in a single topic unless it is really engaging, but they also told us to use eye-candy to keep him involved.” Freddie allowed himself a private smile, the one that people compared with a snake’s. “Tim called his girlfriend to play the part of eye-candy. She is an expert in the field of his presentation, so he was terribly angry that she was called only for her looks.”
The technician shared his smile with the same subtle touch of cruelty that Freddie found… endearing.
“Maybe you should have read more magazines, and you would know that you put eye-candy in your presentation anyway?”
The technician was looking up and down at Freddie quite obviously. Freddie’s lip twitched and he retreated any endearing thought that had passed through his mind.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he swings both ways, you know?” Freddie didn’t dignify that with an answer, which was a bad decision, because the technician came back. “Don’t tell me you are one of those bigoted idiots who think bisexuality is just...”
“You are lucky I needed you. That comment would have you in the street by yesterday if you worked here.” Freddie didn’t appreciate being called bigoted; he had enough putting up with Rupert daily trying to keep his second son’s “scandalous ways” in the closet, thank you very much. “I was merely surprised; I don’t think I’ve ever been called eye-candy before.”
“Why the hell not? Do you usually hang out with blind people? Wait, Rupert is the guy with the eye-patch, right? Does that count as half-blind?”
“That is very insensitive of you.” Freddie chastised, but his twitching lip was persistent. He would love to say it was annoyance, but deep down he knew it was amusement.
“Let me guess; that comment would put me in the street by yesterday if I worked here. How lucky that I don’t actually work here, don’t you think?” The man had no sense of self-reservation. “And let me tell you, if your definition of eye-candy is allowed to have brains, you totally qualify, take it from an expert in eye-candyness.”
“An expert.” Freddie deadpanned with only a badly concealed hint of interest showing.
“An expert indeed! I look into the mirror every day, after all.”
Freddie pretended to think seriously, looking the technician up and down on his spot sitting on the table. He was indeed quite handsome, but Freddie was not going to make the same mistake twice and appreciate a man within Rupert’s earshot. “No, I don’t really see it.” Despite the words, Freddie sent a challenging look at the technician that contradicted is words, just in case the presentation went well and Freddie decided to celebrate when he went home.
“I’ll have you know I look amazing in a suit, in any suit, or with nothing at all, I’m only wearing the workshop uniform to piss… my friend off. Hell, I could wear a corset and stockings and I’d still look hot as-”
Freddie’s phone pinged. He put a hand up to make the technician stop for a moment while he read Tim’s message and his face fell a little.
“Apparently the eye-candy won’t be necessary after all. Tim says that Stenson didn’t come; it was only Miss Lloyd in his presentation, and apparently she is headed here.” Freddie looked at the clock. “Early. You should probably leave, ask Rosita anything you want at the front desk and tell her I approved it. She’ll make an invoice if necessary.”
“Unless she’s giving me your phone number I’m staying.”
Freddie glared at the man.
“What? Pi-21’s technology is famously unreliable as fuck. What if you suddenly need a dashing hero to help you?”
Freddie glared harder.
“I told you that I wanted to keep hearing you; what makes you think you’ll get rid of me anytime soon?”
Unfortunately for Freddie, Rosita showed Miss Lloyd into the conference room at that exact moment and Freddie had to put on his public mask and shake hands with the woman. Lloyd excused Stenson for not coming. She said something about a last moment change of plans; she also said that her chief engineer was prone to last-minute impulses and ideas while sending a look at the technician by Freddie’s side. There was no polite way to get rid of the man in front of Lloyd, though, and the man knew it. So he rolled on with his presence and ignored Ms Lloyd’s look. She’d have to suffer his presence too.
Freddie would have said something scathing about Stenson’s absence, but his lips were sewn as long as there was a possibility of a deal on the horizon.
The presentation ended up being a disaster and it was the technician’s fault. He kept interrupting Freddie and addressing Ms Lloyd directly, to Freddie’s chagrin. Freddie couldn’t explain the man’s presence now and he couldn’t just throw him away in front of Ms Lloyd. His comments were on point, but Miss Lloyd wouldn’t appreciate that someone that Freddie had not even introduced interrupted like that. Also, Freddie had prepared the presentation with Stenson in mind, he didn’t know as much about the discrete CEO.
A complete disaster.
Ms Lloyd left the room an hour later to speak with Rupert and as soon as the door closed behind her, Freddie collapsed on one of the rolling chairs. The technician was giggling like Freddie’s career wasn’t crumbling before his eyes.
“That was brilliant!”
“No it wasn’t. You were interrupting!”
“I assure you she won’t mind, she is used to much worse.” And as an afterthought he added, “probably.”
“Even if that is true, I don’t think Rupert will see it your way.”
Freddie wallowed a bit more in his misery before the technician derailed his train of thought.
“If Stenson had known what kind of presentation you had in your hands, he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“I guess we will never know.”
“Hey! I’m telling you! I’m sure!”
Freddie huffed sarcastically, but the technician was having none of it. “How come you know about a small project of Stenson but you ignore the most basic things that everybody knows about him?” He had an elbow planted on the table and his teasing tone was both baffled and soft at the same time.
“When I started to investigate I didn’t know he was a celebrity. When I realized he was, I did everything in my power to avoid yellow-press literature. It’s just too unreliable, and it would poison my own vision.” Freddie was defensive over his choices. “I think that reading his papers is enough. Don’t you think?”
“You have read his papers?” His eyebrows lifted briefly.
“And patents. Of course.”
“But most of his patents have nothing to do with clean energy, why would you read those too?”
“He is quite inventive; the material innovations were clean solutions. Masterpieces in a field that still managed to convey how his mind works. You can follow his thought process by-”
“Reverse engineering?” The technician ended his phrase. Freddie didn’t like how surprised he looked.
“I might come across as Rupert’s left hand, and the convenient scapegoat but I assure you that I’m more than the company’s tool.”
“I don’t know you,” the technician showed his hands conciliatory. “Maybe you should show me how much more you are.”
“Don’t play with me. It is not a good moment.” Freddie regarded the technician; he wouldn’t be trouble. “I planned today’s meeting with a high risk to my career, things are already terrible as they are.
“Why risk so much? You would have convinced The CEO of Pi-21 instead easily.”
“First, no matter what Intenur does, I only deal with the best and second… Well, I was looking forward to meeting him in person.”
“Why?”
“That is not your concern.” Freddie knew he had said the wrong thing, because now this man’s interest was piqued.
“Awww, how cute, you have a crush on him!”
“What? No! I don’t know him!”
“Yes you do, why would you bother otherwise?”
Freddie was done with that conversation, but he was starting to remember that this technician was supposed to be a client who was owed an apology for getting dragged into this whole mess, so he ended up answering in defeat.
“His research into AIs. There is speculation about him having made great leaps, but he covers it with zeal. It’s been years since he last published on the subject and I think it is because he made something spectacular.”
“His AIs... You are a nerd, aren’t you?” The technician-maybe-still-client laughed. “Why would you want to know about that and not his super-amazing robotics sowcase?”
“Because… Well, I have a couple of AIs myself, and as I developed them beyond what we currently know about AIs... I understood that I would never expose them to the public, no matter the sum offered. You wouldn’t understand, it is a strange connection with something that you’ve created that sounds… ridiculous. A program…” Freddie shrugged. “Tim says it is unhealthy, being attached to a few lines of code. But I found that I want the best for them and to make sure they cause no harm either.” He turned to watch the man warily. “And you won’t make me feel ashamed of it.”
“Perish the thought.”
“Any joke about cyberphilia and I’ll make sure nobody finds your body.”
Freddie could see the alternative joke forming in the technician’s mind, but before he could brace himself, the communication system came to life and Rupert’s voice filled the room.
“Freddie, Ms Lloyd has left the building without a closed agreement. Your plan has failed! and the company will suffer for it!”
“Maybe if Tim’s presentation hadn’t been so bland, Ms Lloyd would have been more interested in that agreement.”
“Your brother’s proposal was bland because you let him down, to do your own thing, like you always do. I hope you are proud of yourself! I should have known that you would make this deal a failure. Do you know how much time I put into this? Time I don’t have, Freddie! Time I can’t waste if you can’t even make Stenson come to listen to us.”
“You can’t blame me for that too. He is the one who decided not to come.”
“I warned you, my son. That little man isn’t worth a single minute of our time. Now, you will make sure this has been your last failure, you will forget about this venture or, as much as it pains me to say this, you will leave the company.”
Freddie’s blood went cold. His whole world darkened around the corners, all of him was focused on that speaker. Leave the company?
“Sir, negotiations have only started; it was almost six months until we convinced Vanestia co. to sell the company. We could still strike a deal with Stenson Industries in that time.” Freddie tried to hide how much it hurt him to think of giving up on this opportunity.
“No, son.”
The communication system died and Freddie held his breath. Rupert had never been so direct, he always insinuated and implied that Freddie was a waste of time and space that should only help to make Tim climb higher, but he was never this blunt. Rupert knew how to make Freddie stay by the company’s side and Freddie tried to earn the same respect as his brother, well, his not-blood-brother, as Freddie had discovered during the last project. His efforts had been less and less effective since the winter affair.
Of course, Freddie had suspected that Rupert favored Tim; it was plain to see, but Freddie had expected to overcome that favoritism with hard work or trickery. Apparently nothing was enough, nothing would ever be enough. What was the sense in trying anymore? Freddie should give up, leave Intenur definitely before being pushed out. But what would he do? He had worked there his whole life; there was nothing he could do now. Other companies hated Freddie because he had inconvenienced them in favor of Intenur. There was nothing to do. No solution. Nothing.
“Hey, ravenlocks? Someone home?” Freddie looked up to the Technician. Freddie had been still looking at the loudspeaker for a few seconds after it disconnected. Without the man’s interruption, he would have kept falling for a long time, he was sure of it. “After that, you look like you need a drink.”
“I won’t have a career by tomorrow morning. I think I need more than a drink.”
“You need to stop thinking before you give yourself an aneurysm, pretty thing, and I know just the place.”
Freddie wouldn’t be needed anymore that day. Maybe ever, if Rupert was to be believed. Freddie could just… Let go. There was a chance that Rupert would want him to be there, but if Freddie only did what Rupert told him, he’d stay put quietly in a closet until the old man had use for him. Therefore, and to spite Rupert if he actually called, he sneaked out of the building with the technician, who still avoided saying his name claiming that Freddie had had his moment to ask and that the moment was gone.
Freddie wanted… Freddie didn’t know what he wanted now, but he was on the verge of wanting to find a cliff, which was probably bad for his continued existence. Being alone now would be his worst decision to date, so he let himself be dragged away. The technician made inappropriate jokes and kept the self-destructive feelings at bay, so Freddie decided to cling to the man until he felt better or until he found something better to cling to.
They drove through New York like a pair of clueless tourists and they hit all the bars in what Freddie had named ‘A list of the most outrageous places’. It seemed like the technician knew his way around a good number of holes in the wall.
Once there was enough alcohol intaken, Freddie answered the Technician’s questions very easily. He had always been quite private about the family part of the business, and he had never spoken badly of it, but nothing had been the same after the winter collapse. The company had lost his respect; the family had lost his respect. And today Freddie’s career had crumbled down; sometime after the sixth drink he had realized that he didn’t really have any career to speak of. All his skill set was built around making Intenur work. He didn’t have a job description; he embodied all the spare parts of the well-tuned machine of Intenur. He was… a puppet, even though he was the spine of the company… the spine of the machine… maybe he should stop mixing metaphors, or drinks, maybe he should stop mixing drinks.
In between realizations, Freddie had decided that there was nothing to lose if he talked with the technician. He wouldn’t get into more trouble and he would finally get it off his chest, even if the man didn’t believe him, so he told the cheerful and rather handsome mysterious man about the project Rupert had in the works to create energy out of cold.
The man had laughed loudly enough to startle the other tables and the sound had pleased a petty and vindictive part of Freddie.
It was a senseless monstrosity called Productive Winters; a stupidity, of course, anyone with basic knowledge of thermodynamics would know it: it was a ruse to keep some clueless, idiot, brain-dead shareholders interested, but Freddie’s brother had wanted to put it into practice. Tim had been in charge of the company while Rupert was recovering from an eye operation in some spiritual retreat center. One of the mildly intelligent shareholders, Mr Ludwig, had suspected that the whole thing was a huge lie and Tim didn’t take kindly to being called a liar.
Freddie had been in charge of damage control. Mr Ludwig had been dealt with, but the problem was far from over. Both Rupertsons fought over the path to take and Freddie destroyed the project behind Tim’s back so it would never see the light of day and uncover Intenur as scammers or worse: idiots. In doing that, Freddie broke the shareholder’s trust and when Rupert found out, he ordered the PR department to make Freddie into the jealous villain who wanted more power in the company, to save face.
In that click-bait story that Rupert’s PR department fed to the newspapers, Tim was the magnanimous, kind brother who took Freddie in back again despite his ‘treason’. The story was heartwarming enough to save Intenur in the stock market and there was everybody’s happy ending. Freddie had been willing to sacrifice his public image to save the company, but he had never realized how much of himself he was giving away. Now he saw it as it was: a cage of his own making.
Intenur was the place where Freddie could live until he retired if only he submitted to Rupert’s rule. Only now, after decades of loyalty and sacrifice, did Freddie realize that he was considered chaotic and a liar in the larger world of business. Freddie had been pleased to take the burn of any problem in the company; it was not as if he would ever need to have references outside of Intenur. But now he had nowhere to go. He had built his own golden cage one bar at a time and Rupert had provided the tools all too happily.
His only chance of staying away from this was his mother. He could still try to find her wherever she had escaped from Rupert and beg forgiveness. She would receive him with open arms, but after years of defending his father and brother, Freddie couldn’t bring himself to concede defeat, the shame was too great.
The lack of flavor in his latest drink made Freddie realize that he had a bottle of water in his hand and that he had been complaining out loud. The technician was still next to him; he had two untouched colorful glasses in front of him and a boozed smirk. It took Freddie’s alcohol-filled brain a few seconds to realize that the man must have been the one to change the glass for the bottle of water, but the reason eluded Freddie.
The feeling must have shown on his face.
“Believe me, you will hate yourself tomorrow enough as it is. You don’t want to worsen your prospective hangover.”
Freddie took another sip of the bottle. They were in a nook away from prying looks. It was comfortable. He wasn’t sure of what he had said and what he had only thought, but the technician had a strange, mellow look, so the silent part had probably been very small. Freddie prided himself in knowing facial expressions, but he didn’t know enough about the man, and he couldn’t concentrate on his face beyond the basic features.
“Why don’t you try to work abroad, my emo friend?”
The technician had slipped an arm around his shoulders. Freddie didn’t even care when; he was very very focused on the face in front of him. He was going to read that face, he knew he could if he tried enough.
“It is not the job, it is me. If they don’t fire me, I’m leaving tomorrow.” He sighed. It had always been him, hadn’t it?
“From where I stand, it is them.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I do! I do I do! Who do you think sinks the market points in my company?” The technician seemed to be quite drunk too, he wouldn’t have shared anything personal otherwise. Freddie was watching the corner of his lips; there was a tell when people lied… or was that the corner of the eyes? It didn’t matter, because Freddie kept getting distracted with the rest of the lips. “A company I didn’t ask for, too! A goddamned company that has almost killed me more times than I care to count.”
“Yes, Intenur is killing me slowly too.”
“And all because I had to carry on some kind of legacy, stepping on the heads of giants or something like that. It is what my father used to say to the ladies when my mother wasn’t around.”
“Wait, you have a company,” Freddie said unwisely. “And it was your father’s.”
“Ok, story time. My father built the company…” The man slumped against his seat. “No, I don’t think I’m up for story time.”
“What?” Freddie realized that he had scooted closer, to listen. Not because the warmth was nice and distracting. “You must tell me something, I told you a lot of things, now you owe me.”
“Since when are stories currency?”
“Since I want them, and you want me to stay, so I will have my stories.” Freddie hung his head back, supported by the nook’s headrest and closed his eyes. He opened one of them in what he hoped was a discrete move. He was not sure he was being successful. The man had that drunken smirk and his eyes half-lidded, as if Freddie’s gesture had made him sleepy in turn.
“Spoiled brat. Have it your way.”
The man said something about a company, a step-father? a story that seemed made to fit an action script, and Freddie was not sure why he kept mentioning the son of Sten. Freddie didn’t know, and only half of it could be blamed on the soft buzz in his head; the bastard was being cagey on purpose. He had the feeling that something in his brain was demanding he pay attention. He knew that story b- What if he is a corporate spy? The thought had already crossed his mind a hundred times during the day when he decided to let the man help with the presentation. He had ruled it out because… because of logic at the time. Logic that was not currently accessible.
Even though he didn’t know exactly what the man was talking about, he got the feeling that he was sad and Freddie had something to do with it. Oh! He was telling Freddie something sad about his company, or his family, or both, because Freddie had made him sad too.
“Hmm. I had planned to celebrate with you, not this.” Freddie most definitely didn’t whine.
“Don’t look at me! I’m the party king! I’m never a sad drunk! It is all your faul-hmpfmm.”
Freddie only knew that he had finally seen the sadness behind the smiling lips, and he had decided that he didn’t like it. The man was sad, he was also sad and they could make each other less sad, so the only answer to that was a kiss, obviously. Obviously? Huh. There was something about two negatives floating in his head, but logic was still not available.
For a delightful moment he wasn’t thinking about anything but the sensation of the other man’s lips against his, the sweetness of his latest drink, the tickling of his beard… He plunged deeper into not thinking when the technician responded by pressing and holding his neck first with one hand, but then he moved to sit on his lap and cradled his nape. Nothing mattered now, especially not when he sneaked an arm around his waist and pulled them closer together.
The water bottle and the time listening to the man had helped to clear his head moderately, so his brain had enough presence to kick in when he felt the man’s hand pushing him away. He let it happen, not without regret. The technician looked regretful too; he was breathing deeply as if he could get rid of the desire in his chest that way.
“Look, let’s stop here. Because tomorrow this will be very… interesting, but if we end up in my room…”
“Mmno,” Freddie protested and hid his face in the other’s neck. He felt the jawbone and cheek against him pressing back. “If I don’t work there, you can go back to being the client tomorrow and this would mean nothing.”
The hand that had been on his neck was still over there playing with his hair. “I’m not going back either. I shouldn’t make decisions right now, but I’m thinking of poaching one of their workers and be done with them.”
Freddie’s smile couldn’t be seen from his position, but it was audible. “You are lucky I don’t work there anymore, or I would have destroyed you for saying that.”
“You still work there.”
“Not mentally, no.”
“You made up your mind, then?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, but whatever I do, it’s going to be easier to decide if I don’t go back to Intenur. Beyond that… No idea.”
“I know exactly what you are going to do.”
Freddie emerged from his hiding spot, regretting not being able to kiss that neck. “You think so?”
The man climbed off of Freddie’s lap, but he didn’t back away from his personal space.
“Go to sleep.” He leaned on the backrest, trapping Freddie’s arm. But Freddie didn’t mind keeping it around the tech’s waist. “And once you have slept the hangover away, you are going to call me.”
“You are very sure of yourself.”
“You would be too if you were in my place.”
“If I were in your place I wouldn’t have stopped this.”
“Yes, you would.” The tech called the waiter over and asked for a pen, then leaned against Freddie’s chest for balance and took to writing on his white shirt, left side, close to the collar.
“Are you going to pay for this when I take it to the cleaners?
“I’ll be happy to, because you’d have to call me for that. And you’d have to use this number.”
After a few numbers Freddie was not ready to guess by feeling alone, the man paused for a moment, squinted while looking at Freddie’s face and went back to his task, but higher, closer to his neck.
The silence while he wrote was meditative. Freddie could still draw circles with his thumb on the man’s hip and he still squirmed very sweetly.
“Maybe I could leave the country, as you said,” Freddie wondered aloud.
“Call me first,” the man mumbled while capping the pen. He waved over the same waiter, gave back the pen and paid before Freddie could protest.
“Maybe I could start my own company,” Freddie kept daydreaming.
“Call me first,” the man insisted. He got close to Freddie’s ear. “We have much to talk about.”
Freddie woke up only a few hours later with his mobile in his hand. First, an alarm. He dismissed it. Then there was a 5% battery warning in red. He dismissed it. When the warning closed, he squinted at a perfectly composed e-mail, addressed at Rupert, cc’d at Tim, where he told them that he was leaving Intenur in not the politest terms. It was unsent.
He thanked his luck and the version of himself that had been too tired or too out of it to send the mail (but not too tired to spell asinine). He would have hated waking up only to see that email marked as sent.
He pressed send.
It was much more satisfying to do it when he was going to keep the memory of doing it intact.
He found the charger cord that he had failed to use the previous night. The phone died just before he could plug it in, but it was better that way anyway. He had no desire to dodge family calls for hours.
He turned to leave the mobile on the nightstand and he hugged his pillow, ready for some lazy extra rest now that he didn’t have a job to go back to.
Before tiredness could do him in, his eyes fell on the shirt that he had taken off the previous night and had discarded on the floor by the bed. It was no longer prim and proper, and from where he was, he could see a few numbers, written just an inch below the collar. The memory of the last night and the technician brought a smile to his face that was almost enough to wake him up all the way.
He stretched one foot to drag the shirt from the floor, grab it and memorize the number, or maybe write it down somewhere, but once he had the fabric in his hands, he noticed that over the phone number, under the shirt’s collar, there was more. He could see a “R”. Finally, a name! He flipped the collar up.
“Ryan Stenson xxx”
He threw the shirt across the room and rolled the other way, groaning into his pillow.
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Water
I initially wrote this as a standalone chapter but decided to make it a full chapter fic. This is for the stranded au, with Leonarado figuring out water and food to survive in the prison dimension. Once I start working on the fic and get the chapters going I'll probably delete this or at least edit it to have the chapter number and fic title.
Krang was leaving him alone lately.
He was laying in a comfortably shaped divot in the hull of one of the hundreds of ships that floated around. He was still healing from the big beatdown he had had with Krang a few weeks — had it been weeks — A week? — ago but he could probably thank his mutation or something for the quick healing. He would have to send Drax a thank you letter, or maybe a postcard.
He chuckled at the thought.
Leonardo had woken up some time ago — that’s all time was at this point, seeing as how the lack of sun rotations was throwing off his inner clock. When his stomach growled he ignored it until the gnawing sensation started to become unbearable. It must be because he didn’t eat before he laid down to sleep. He had just been so tired lately. Leonardo made it half way up before he collapsed back into the dust. With a grunt he forced himself up into a sitting position, and then he stood, choosing to ignore the subtle sensation of pins and needles in his hands and feet.He crossed his arms to stretch them, and then straightened with a groan.
“Good morning!” he shouted to himself with a smile. “The weather today is~” he announces, pausing for effect as he rotates a full 360 looking at the sky, “gray! There is no breeze, medium light, and a whole bunch of nothing!” His voice bounced into echoes as it traveled off and away into the gray void, leaving him in silence once more.
“Well, time for breakfast,” he muttered sourly, and he lept off of the platform. Gravity quickly fell away and he free-floated… fell? Fell through open space until he came into contact with some ruble. He propelled off of it towards a gargantuan Krang body, landing on a dusty white tooth the size of a taxi.
Gravity was weird in the prison dimension, which is why he was able to walk into its mouth, still technically being straight up. It was like space moved around him. The mouth was cavernous, the tongue a bristled carpet like a shriveled cat-tongue, and multiple rows of teeth pointing inward on the cheeks and roof of the mouth. Leonardo had guessed that at some point it might have smelled bad, but now it just smelled like dust. In the back of the mouth, blocking the throat in bulbouse, smooth masses was breakfast. Sepia colored orbs varying from the size of pencil erasers to softballs. Leo grabbed onto one a bit smaller than his fist, he found that the taste of these were a bit more bearable.
Back on earth there was a spoken rule about never eating an unidentified mushroom and the rule was probably the same here. He only learned these were edible when Krang shoved them down his throat to keep him from dying.
“Man, I miss pizza.” Leo mumbled before crunching down on the ball. Like always, it immediately turned to coarse powder in his mouth, sending a stinging, rotten vegetable taste over his taste buds. Leonardo held it in his mouth for a moment before bracing and swallowing the chalk-like substance down his throat. It hit his stomach like a rock and he gagged, “I miss pizza so much!”
Leonardo sat down and slowly ate his chosen fungus. He didn’t gag as much as he used to, but it was still bad. A few months ago — months? — he’d be having breakfast by now. If it was Saturday Mikey would make pancakes, mini waffles, or those crepes that everyone liked, with fruit or whipped cream. If April was over she’d be the one to drag Donatello from his lab, otherwise it would be Raph. Dad would be up and make Leo his favorite tea, they always did like the same types of tea. He and his family would all sit down together and eat, talking about silly things, or what they wanted to do that day. They might hang out at home and watch tv or play video games in the arcade, they’d wait until evening and head to the boardwalk and take the ferris wheel to watch the sunset while they ate funnel cake. Raph used to be so scared of heights when he was little, so when Leo would ride with him he'd hold his hand as they reached the top.
The memory was swallowed down with the last bit of mushroom. While his stomach was technically “full,” the shrooms always left his feeling dry and gross on the inside, like there was a thick film coating his intestines.
He sat inside the mouth for a moment, loosely hugging his knees as he stared out into murky dead space. If this wasn’t a gruesome prison he might have actually found some sort of “macabre beauty” in it. Leonardo chuckled, that’s what Mikey would have called it. He would have said it in his silly professional art critic voice.
‘Eh, not really my type of art.’ Mind-Mikey sat next to him, holding his legs the same way as Leo and looking past him out of the mouth and into the gray. With Leo’s attention he stuck out his tongue mockingly. ‘Never really flowed with me.’
Leo had a habit of imagining Mind-Mikey and his other Mind-brothers in their older, colored outfits. The mind version of Mikey wore his old colored knee and elbow pads, a call for older times as Dr. Feelings might call it.
The mental image of Michelangelo nodded, and then he was wearing a sweater with the rounded prescription glasses. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’
“Nothing.” Leo said flatly.
‘Well, you have to do something.’
“No I don’t,” Leo looked away from him, choosing instead to stare back into the gray as he rested his head on his knees. “I don’t have to do anything anymore.”
‘I don't think I have to educate you on the importance of doing enriching activities. You need some form of mental stimulation in order to live a full, happy life.’
“A full and happy life, huh?” Leo laughed dryly.
‘Well, as happy as you can get.’
There was no point. Leonardo didn’t want to do anything. He did what he was supposed to and he did what he needed too. His family was safe. The world was safe. There was no point in enrichment, there was no point in continuing this.
‘C’mon, get up.’ Mind-Mikey stood.
Leo turned his head to look at him. Mind-Dr. Feelings was standing over him, expectantly but patiently staring down at Leo as he waited for him to follow. Leo groaned but still stood up.
‘Let’s do something.’ Mind-Mikey smiled.
“There’s literally nothing to do, this prison dimension has nothing.”
‘Have you looked around?’
“Everyday I wake up and have to open my eyes to this place.”
‘Yeah but have you looked?’
Leonardo rolled his eyes, but with the patient stare of Dr. Feelings, he buckled. Leonardo sighed, “alright, hermano, i’ll look.”
‘That’s the spirit!’ Mind Mikey leapt out of the mouth and Leo followed.
Leo didn’t even humor the first ship. It was small in comparison to the others, the size of a small apartment building. He obediently followed the vivid hallucination of Dr. Feelings, not taking in any of his surroundings. They walked through together for maybe an hour, and at the end they hopped out of the front of a broken cockpit.
The second ship was larger, and with the weirdness of gravity they explored it with everything upside down. Leonardo took more interest, as it was comparatively clean, with more unbroken glass that you could use to look outside. It’s not like Leo took any notes or anything, but he definitely felt less bored after walking through.
It was at the third ship they were walking through. This one was almost the size of the technodrome, with dark hallways that sucked up the light. Leonardo stepped carefully over the body of a Krang that had long-since fused into the wall in the process of its decay. Something cold touched him and he flinched away. He rubbed his shoulder and came away with… water. Leonardo’s eyes widened. He put the trail of liquid in his mouth, yup, definitely water. Above where he stood was a tiny crack in the ceiling, the water grew, reflecting what little light there was in the room and falling into his hand. He looked to Mind Michelangelo and walked ahead of him, beginning to jog. He passed through corridors and jumped over gaps where the floor was missing.
And then there was a door.
As far as he had seen, Krang ships didn’t have doors besides the immediate entrance. He put his hand to the lumpy surface. It was ice cold. There wasn’t a switch, or a door knob, but next to the door on the wall was a panel, full of decaying, slimy masses.
“Any ideas on how to get it open?” Leo looked to Dr. Feelings.
‘Perhaps you just need to… hm,’ Mind Mikey hummed, ‘I’m afraid that this is out of my skill set.’
“Mind Mikey, can you maybe get Mind Donnie, please?”
A purple clad hand physically shoved Mind Mikey out of the way and an illusory vision of Donnie came into the view with a bright smile. ‘I was wondering when you would call upon my intellectual talents!’
“Yeah, so this panel has got some weird gooey stuff and I want to get inside past this door.”
Mind Donnie hummed as he scanned the door. ‘Well, ignoring the fact that Krang vessels don’t usually have doors and that definitely possibly means that whatever is inside was sealed away for the safety of a mutated monstrosity crew designed to be extremely physically resilient: put your hand in the panel.’
“What?!”
‘Don’t worry, I've done this before!’
“Yeah, but I didn’t exactly get details on how you did that!”
‘Oh, pish-posh I need to get a feel for it.’
“You mean I need to get a feel for it,” Leo mumbled but he obediently put his hand to the panel. His hand broke through the cold and slimy surface and he felt a bundle of thick slimy tube-like organs. He shivered from the feeling but pushed deeper, feeling around for anything that might indicate a switch or a pulley. Leonardo came into something a bit harder than the rest of whatever he had his hand in. It was more metallic in texture, and had less of a give to it than the rest of the mass he had his hand in.
‘Hm~ interesting.’ Mind Donnie hummed, narrowing his eyes in concentration. ‘You feel that thing under your fingers?’
“Yeah,” Leo choked out.
‘Rip it out.’
Leonardo gripped it and pulled. It came out and snapped immediately.
The door flung open and a cold temperature washed over Leonardo.
The room was huge. The ceiling reached five stories up, with large, claw-like gashes cut through the ceiling bleeding starlight into the room. Leonardo stood on a crumbling platform that sloped downwards to the left but dropped straight off in front of him. Hanging from the ceiling by meaty gray wires was a large Krang organ covered in white ice. Below it was a pool of water, and something glowed at the bottom.
‘This must be the ship's reactor!’ Mind Donnie was giddy with excitement. ‘It must have an endothermic decay property to it, causing the crystallization of water in the atmosphere and allowing it to naturally form ice!’
Leonardo immediately unclipped his belt and dived into the water before Mind Donnie could protest. Cold — Freezing cold water flooded his senses and he squeezed his eyes shut. For a few seconds his skin burned with how cold it felt. He blew out a jet of bubbles that coated his face and he slowly opened his eyes. The water was so pure it was like he was floating in the air. The pool was so much deeper than he had first thought, maybe… the depth of the original turtle's lair. Before shredder. There were the remnants of a tall platform in the water, starting at the top in a thin disk right beneath the reactor, with poles attached to it reaching all the way to the bottom, with two other disk platforms of the same size evenly spaced between the first platform and the floor. At the bottom of the pool, floating gently, were clusters of… something reaching up past the second platform. Cautiously, he swam closer. They were arctic blue collections of tiny cells, held together by a jelly-like membrane — similar to frog eggs. Leonardo poked it and it bounced away. He gripped it and ripped away a big chunk. Was this… edible?
‘Maybe don’t eat that-’
‘Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!’ Mind-Raph jumps into the picture, shoving Mind Donnie to the side
Leonardo immediately bit into it. It was soft, breaking between his teeth like a soft gummy. He groaned, this tasted so much better than the mushrooms. It was sweet, like licorice, with something pleasantly spicy like ginger underneath. Under the water Leo grabbed handfuls, greedily eating fist fulls of the stuff, only bothering to chew once between each swallow.
‘Oh-me-gosh stop you don’t even know what it is!’ Mind Donnie pushed back into the picture, yelling as he fought Mind-Raph for a voice in his head.
Leo only muttered in protest under the water, swallowing an oversized bite down his throat. He felt the need for oxygen and he swam up, sucking in a large lung full of air. He floated on his back, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, finally feeling full — in a good way for a change.
Leonardo covered his mouth as he burped. “What do you think it is?”
‘Probably something you shouldn’t have eaten six handfuls of.’ Mind Donnie glared at him, but after a moment, they sighed, ‘maybe it's some alien algae? This is strictly a hypothesis, but the microbes could have been picked up in another planet's atmosphere and then once there was a suitable place to grow, aka light and water — did so.’
Leonardo turned in the water, still on his back and kicked, allowing himself to slowly float under the Krang organ. If it wasn’t a literal giant intestine Leo might have called it beautiful, if still only in a morbid way. The crystals were almost transparent, softly reflecting the bleeding light from the ceiling across his face and body. As he floated under it he felt a thin stream of water dripping onto his shoulder and down his body as he floated away.
‘I guess the moisture in the air freezes when it comes into contact with it, and then melts from the natural temperature of the space.’ Comedically, Leo had now imagined Mind Donnie to be the size of his hand, sitting with his knees to his chest on Leo’s stomach.
“Yup.”
‘You know we’re coming for you, right?’
Leo didn’t answer.
‘I bet that I’m — well, the real me is working on a portal as we speak. We’ve been to prison dimensions before, like, with the shredder, and we have Draxum and the key, so it can’t be that hard.’
They would never be dumb enough to open up the portal again, no matter how much it hurt. The thought made his heart ache, and he tried his best to not think, but Mind-Donnie kept talking.
‘Raph is probably the leader again, and he’s training really hard to be strong enough. And Mikey’s probably… well, I don’t know what he’d be doing but he’s definitely doing it.’
“He’s probably beat my pizza box stacking record.” Leonardo lightly laughed. “What’s April doing?” She was probably back at school by now. Being awesome and continuing her pursuit in journalism like she always wanted, even when they were kids.
‘Do you remember that class she was excited to take?’
“Digital Photographic Imaging.”
‘I bet she passed that, she knows me and I am a - as the kids say - whiz at anything digital.’
“Has it been that long?”
‘Leo, it's been months.’
“You don’t know that,” Leonardo whispers.
Mind Donnie didn’t say anything else. Perhaps this was his way of not arguing with him, or at least not arguing with himself.
There are too many days where Leo thinks too much, and the illusory avatars of his brothers are a symptom of it. He doesn’t mind too much when the visions show up though, it makes this more bearable. The cracks in the ceiling let him stare into the dark void, and for a moment he allows himself to imagine that there are constellations for him to marvel at. Leonardo closes his eyes, allowing himself to draw a mental blank, to not think of anything anymore. He didn’t want to keep thinking.
“You need to get out of the water.” Mind Donnie broke the silence.
Leonardo ignored him.
“Leo, the water’s too cold, you need to get out.”
“Just another minute.” He didn’t want to get out of the water, this was the best thing he had felt in, according to Mind Donnie, months. After so long his skin didn’t feel dirty, and he finally had something in him that didn’t taste like an oil spill.
“Get out of the water Leo.” Mind Donnie’s voice began to rise.
“I don’t want to.” Leonardo rolled over, submerging his face to let the cold feeling wash over his front.
“Please.” Donatello whispered, fully in his head.
Leonardo opened his eyes again to stare at the bottom of the pool. He opened his mouth and let the water in, taking a few swallows. He breathed out.
He didn’t expect to stagger with his first step out. He fell to the ground on his face, feeling even colder than he did in the water.
‘Your experiencing early symptoms of hypothermia,’ Mind-Donnie said flatly.
“You don’t say.” Leo laughed dryly.
‘Get your body moving, there isn’t another heat source so you’ll have to rely on yourself.’
Groaning, Leo mutters out “yeah, I know.” Leonardo shakes his upper body, waking himself up a little before staggering into a standing position.
He was only in the water for about twenty minutes and he was already so cold. It wasn’t going to get any warmer here, so if he was going to come back and swim some more — which he most definitely was — he would have to cut the time down significantly. He had water. Finally he had water. And food that didn’t taste like poisoned chalk. It felt small, but it was something that he was finally looking forward to.
Note: Thank you Rott on Discord for beta-reading
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