Warehouse 13 AU: Persist In Folly (5/9)
Jul. 18th, 2012 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Persist In Folly
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,561
Characters/Pairings: Myka/HG
Previous: Part 4
Next: Part 6
Summary: Of course, no one ever notices that *Pete's* girlfriends never try to destroy the world.
Pete could give a shizzle about the Regents. As soon as he heard HG had gone rogue, he went straight on to worrying about Myka. They found her in the love nest, so knocked out she didn't even pee when her hand was put in warm water (that was Pete's idea). They brought her to the B&B, where Leena gave her the Norton Antivirus treatment. "I can feel her mind. It's very faint, but getting stronger. Slowly. I think she'll come out of it on her own in a few weeks."
"So long as the earth still has a crust? Oh no. When Wells came back, this one promised me she'd keep an eye on her, and she isn't getting out of that cuz of one measly coma!" Artie opened his doctor's bag and took to rooting around.
Claudia bit her thumbnail. "If my H.G. went Cabin In The Woods, I'd want to sleep through it."
"C'mon," Pete countered, "you know Myka. She's our H.G. Whisperer. If anyone's gonna talk the team psycho down, it'll be her."
"And before anyone does something unforgivable," Leena added.
"A-ha!" Artie cried. He held up a small clamshell. "Prince Charming's lipstick!"
"PC wore lipstick?" Claudia asked.
"It was the Middle Ages. He probably wore stockings too." Artie paraded to Myka, still holding the Artifact aloft. "We all know the story of Snow White, right?"
"What, was she really a vampire or something?" Pete asked.
"No! It happened exactly like in the fairy tale."
"Score one for Once Upon A Time, zip for Neil Gaiman," Claudia muttered.
"That kiss!" Artie continued loudly, "was so passionate that its healing properties were transferred to the lipstick. It conducts unconditional love from the kisser and into the sleeper, waking them up from anything."
"Alright, that sounds really useful. Why are we sitting on it?" Claudia asked.
"Someone tried it on a dead body. It wasn't a pretty sight."
Pete snapped his fingers. "And that's where the vampire came in!"
"…sure. Why not? Why don't you tell Myka all about it after you wake her up?" Artie held out the lipstick.
"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why does everyone assume that just because we're partners, we're of the opposite sex, and I'm a nine and she's a seven, that there's some hanky just waiting to panky?"
"It's just a kiss, P-man," Claudia said.
"Yeah, like kissing my sister, or a really young version of my mom. Sorry, I don't like Back To The Future that much. If it's no big deal, you do it!"
"I swore a solemn oath against club lesbianism. If I kissed a girl for the benefit of straight men, I'd never be able to enjoy Xena again."
"We could leave the room," Artie suggested.
"Oh, and let you imagine us kissing? If I was going to betray the feminist movement, I'd watch Supernatural. Artie, you do it, you're old and sexually nonthreatening."
"My love for Myka is very conditional on her not acting like this. And I choose to take that nonthreatening bit as a compliment."
"Leena!" Pete realized. "You're all Shirley MacLaine! A kiss is no big deal to you!"
"Yeah, but… she's white."
The room quieted down like a high school teacher had just walked in.
"Awk," Claudia said.
"So is the fact that Channing Tatum is a bigger star than Idris Elba!"
"Come on, people!" Pete cried. "There's got to be someone here who loves Myka unconditionally and doesn't mind slobbering on her for a few seconds!"
That's when Trailer ran in, leash in his teeth for walkies.
***
"Oh, Helena… why do you smell like dogbreath? And since when do you wear fur..?" Myka opened her eyes. The entire Warehouse was gathered around her. Trailer was wearing lipstick. "You guys suck!"
Leena handed her a breath mint. She took it and crammed it in her cheek. "Where's Helena?"
"There's no easy way to put this," Pete began, "but at least two stops past Crazytown."
***
Helena loved giving lectures. Her editors in the old days had called her on it often—how she spent so much time on the technical details of her adventures. She couldn't help it, what fascinated her most about her stories was how they'd really come about. And now that she was going down in flames, throwing herself on Christina's funeral pyre, she allowed herself the indulgence.
"This," she explained to the naked man bound to the bed—a sight that would've reminded her of Myka if not for differing apparatuses—"is Sealin9." She referred to the aerosol can in her hand. "It was designed by a quite bright young man of your own nationality. He made it to treat hospital patients with burn injuries. It works simply. You apply the spray to the damaged area of skin and a new, pristine layer is made. Therein lies the rub. You seem all skin is not created equal. As it so happens, the skin on your back has far fewer nerve endings than it does on your fingertips. Or your penis. That's why a papercut hurts so particularly. Imagine all your body was so sensitive. Oh, that's right, you won't have to."
She sprayed everywhere. She covered all of him. She wanted the Regent to feel everything.
Then she took his gag off.
"I have money!"
"I know."
"I'll do anything!"
"I know that too." She took out her scalpel. He didn't even have time to whimper before she made a shallow cut across his chest. Millions of nerve endings cried out. She heard him scream. It didn't make her feel better, but it stopped her from getting any angrier.
More men who had taken Christina from her…
"Who ordered the coin?" Helena asked, softly curious. "Tell me and live."
"I don't know! It wasn't a Regent—above our pay grade!" He started to weep, dampening his words.
Helena watched as his own tears scorched his skin. Chinese Water Torture for the microwave generation. "Did you know men could be driven mad by pain? They don't have the wherewithal of a female. When has a man ever had to give birth? I think that's why my sex cares for the children. We know exactly what they're worth, in tears, in sweat, in pain. How can I give you any less?" She cut all the way from his shoulder to the end of his pointer finger. "That's what my Christina meant to me. I went through ten times that pain to have her, and I would do it a hundred times more to have her back. How dare you pretend to understand me enough to pass judgment on me?"
"I know how you can find her!"
Helena rested the tip of the scalpel against his nose. At that sensitivity, the cold steel would be like getting doused with ice water. "See me listening?"
"The Regents have a caretaker, just like the warehouse! The Treasurer! We hardly see her! She never weights in on any decision but the most important. But—but she's the one who recruits the Regents! We don't know her name, where she lives, anything. She's a ghost!"
"How do I catch a ghost, love?"
"There's only one way. She's left standing orders to be informed of any Class-XX Artifact discoveries. She likes to assess them in person."
"Not very wise of her. Class-XXs can destroy anything, even other Artifacts. They're automatically placed in the Dark Sector."
"She says she has her reasons."
"Don't we all." Helena slid the edge down to his eye.
"Wait! You said you'd let me live!"
"How true. Yet you, of all people, should know there's a difference between being alive and enjoying it."
Downstairs, a door slammed. Helena instantly rolled off the Regent, scalpel pulled back to throw.
"Hey Dad, you didn't pick me up! What gives?"
Helena put her hand on the Regent's chin, ready to mute him if he screamed. "And who's that?"
"My son, Julian. Please, don't hurt him. He's not even supposed to be here, it's his mother's weekend…"
"Dad?" The boy's voice was outside the door now. He opened it.
Helena grabbed her gun and had him beaded even as he came into view. "Down on the ground. Hands on your head."
"Don't hurt him!" the Regent squealed. Helena slapped him and he whimpered with the hurt of it all.
Julian stood there, trying to make what he saw fit together like puzzle pieces. The beautiful woman holding a weapon on him, his father tied to a bed, and the blood, oh how you couldn't forget the blood.
He froze.
"It's not like any fear you've ever felt, is it?" Helena spoke to the Regent out of the side of her mouth, saw him out the corner of her eye. "Fearing for your own life, it's like being afraid of going to sleep. Once it's over, there's nothing. But the loss of family; that maims. And it keeps going on and on. Changing you." She pulled the trigger. The boy went down.
"No!"
That was the first of many. Helena let him keep screaming his disbelief as she holstered her weapon and prepared the chloroform.
"Relax, darling," she said at last. "Merely a Tesla. He'll be fine." She clamped the rag over his mouth and nose, waited for sleep to take him. "How did you like being me?"
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,561
Characters/Pairings: Myka/HG
Previous: Part 4
Next: Part 6
Summary: Of course, no one ever notices that *Pete's* girlfriends never try to destroy the world.
Pete could give a shizzle about the Regents. As soon as he heard HG had gone rogue, he went straight on to worrying about Myka. They found her in the love nest, so knocked out she didn't even pee when her hand was put in warm water (that was Pete's idea). They brought her to the B&B, where Leena gave her the Norton Antivirus treatment. "I can feel her mind. It's very faint, but getting stronger. Slowly. I think she'll come out of it on her own in a few weeks."
"So long as the earth still has a crust? Oh no. When Wells came back, this one promised me she'd keep an eye on her, and she isn't getting out of that cuz of one measly coma!" Artie opened his doctor's bag and took to rooting around.
Claudia bit her thumbnail. "If my H.G. went Cabin In The Woods, I'd want to sleep through it."
"C'mon," Pete countered, "you know Myka. She's our H.G. Whisperer. If anyone's gonna talk the team psycho down, it'll be her."
"And before anyone does something unforgivable," Leena added.
"A-ha!" Artie cried. He held up a small clamshell. "Prince Charming's lipstick!"
"PC wore lipstick?" Claudia asked.
"It was the Middle Ages. He probably wore stockings too." Artie paraded to Myka, still holding the Artifact aloft. "We all know the story of Snow White, right?"
"What, was she really a vampire or something?" Pete asked.
"No! It happened exactly like in the fairy tale."
"Score one for Once Upon A Time, zip for Neil Gaiman," Claudia muttered.
"That kiss!" Artie continued loudly, "was so passionate that its healing properties were transferred to the lipstick. It conducts unconditional love from the kisser and into the sleeper, waking them up from anything."
"Alright, that sounds really useful. Why are we sitting on it?" Claudia asked.
"Someone tried it on a dead body. It wasn't a pretty sight."
Pete snapped his fingers. "And that's where the vampire came in!"
"…sure. Why not? Why don't you tell Myka all about it after you wake her up?" Artie held out the lipstick.
"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why does everyone assume that just because we're partners, we're of the opposite sex, and I'm a nine and she's a seven, that there's some hanky just waiting to panky?"
"It's just a kiss, P-man," Claudia said.
"Yeah, like kissing my sister, or a really young version of my mom. Sorry, I don't like Back To The Future that much. If it's no big deal, you do it!"
"I swore a solemn oath against club lesbianism. If I kissed a girl for the benefit of straight men, I'd never be able to enjoy Xena again."
"We could leave the room," Artie suggested.
"Oh, and let you imagine us kissing? If I was going to betray the feminist movement, I'd watch Supernatural. Artie, you do it, you're old and sexually nonthreatening."
"My love for Myka is very conditional on her not acting like this. And I choose to take that nonthreatening bit as a compliment."
"Leena!" Pete realized. "You're all Shirley MacLaine! A kiss is no big deal to you!"
"Yeah, but… she's white."
The room quieted down like a high school teacher had just walked in.
"Awk," Claudia said.
"So is the fact that Channing Tatum is a bigger star than Idris Elba!"
"Come on, people!" Pete cried. "There's got to be someone here who loves Myka unconditionally and doesn't mind slobbering on her for a few seconds!"
That's when Trailer ran in, leash in his teeth for walkies.
***
"Oh, Helena… why do you smell like dogbreath? And since when do you wear fur..?" Myka opened her eyes. The entire Warehouse was gathered around her. Trailer was wearing lipstick. "You guys suck!"
Leena handed her a breath mint. She took it and crammed it in her cheek. "Where's Helena?"
"There's no easy way to put this," Pete began, "but at least two stops past Crazytown."
***
Helena loved giving lectures. Her editors in the old days had called her on it often—how she spent so much time on the technical details of her adventures. She couldn't help it, what fascinated her most about her stories was how they'd really come about. And now that she was going down in flames, throwing herself on Christina's funeral pyre, she allowed herself the indulgence.
"This," she explained to the naked man bound to the bed—a sight that would've reminded her of Myka if not for differing apparatuses—"is Sealin9." She referred to the aerosol can in her hand. "It was designed by a quite bright young man of your own nationality. He made it to treat hospital patients with burn injuries. It works simply. You apply the spray to the damaged area of skin and a new, pristine layer is made. Therein lies the rub. You seem all skin is not created equal. As it so happens, the skin on your back has far fewer nerve endings than it does on your fingertips. Or your penis. That's why a papercut hurts so particularly. Imagine all your body was so sensitive. Oh, that's right, you won't have to."
She sprayed everywhere. She covered all of him. She wanted the Regent to feel everything.
Then she took his gag off.
"I have money!"
"I know."
"I'll do anything!"
"I know that too." She took out her scalpel. He didn't even have time to whimper before she made a shallow cut across his chest. Millions of nerve endings cried out. She heard him scream. It didn't make her feel better, but it stopped her from getting any angrier.
More men who had taken Christina from her…
"Who ordered the coin?" Helena asked, softly curious. "Tell me and live."
"I don't know! It wasn't a Regent—above our pay grade!" He started to weep, dampening his words.
Helena watched as his own tears scorched his skin. Chinese Water Torture for the microwave generation. "Did you know men could be driven mad by pain? They don't have the wherewithal of a female. When has a man ever had to give birth? I think that's why my sex cares for the children. We know exactly what they're worth, in tears, in sweat, in pain. How can I give you any less?" She cut all the way from his shoulder to the end of his pointer finger. "That's what my Christina meant to me. I went through ten times that pain to have her, and I would do it a hundred times more to have her back. How dare you pretend to understand me enough to pass judgment on me?"
"I know how you can find her!"
Helena rested the tip of the scalpel against his nose. At that sensitivity, the cold steel would be like getting doused with ice water. "See me listening?"
"The Regents have a caretaker, just like the warehouse! The Treasurer! We hardly see her! She never weights in on any decision but the most important. But—but she's the one who recruits the Regents! We don't know her name, where she lives, anything. She's a ghost!"
"How do I catch a ghost, love?"
"There's only one way. She's left standing orders to be informed of any Class-XX Artifact discoveries. She likes to assess them in person."
"Not very wise of her. Class-XXs can destroy anything, even other Artifacts. They're automatically placed in the Dark Sector."
"She says she has her reasons."
"Don't we all." Helena slid the edge down to his eye.
"Wait! You said you'd let me live!"
"How true. Yet you, of all people, should know there's a difference between being alive and enjoying it."
Downstairs, a door slammed. Helena instantly rolled off the Regent, scalpel pulled back to throw.
"Hey Dad, you didn't pick me up! What gives?"
Helena put her hand on the Regent's chin, ready to mute him if he screamed. "And who's that?"
"My son, Julian. Please, don't hurt him. He's not even supposed to be here, it's his mother's weekend…"
"Dad?" The boy's voice was outside the door now. He opened it.
Helena grabbed her gun and had him beaded even as he came into view. "Down on the ground. Hands on your head."
"Don't hurt him!" the Regent squealed. Helena slapped him and he whimpered with the hurt of it all.
Julian stood there, trying to make what he saw fit together like puzzle pieces. The beautiful woman holding a weapon on him, his father tied to a bed, and the blood, oh how you couldn't forget the blood.
He froze.
"It's not like any fear you've ever felt, is it?" Helena spoke to the Regent out of the side of her mouth, saw him out the corner of her eye. "Fearing for your own life, it's like being afraid of going to sleep. Once it's over, there's nothing. But the loss of family; that maims. And it keeps going on and on. Changing you." She pulled the trigger. The boy went down.
"No!"
That was the first of many. Helena let him keep screaming his disbelief as she holstered her weapon and prepared the chloroform.
"Relax, darling," she said at last. "Merely a Tesla. He'll be fine." She clamped the rag over his mouth and nose, waited for sleep to take him. "How did you like being me?"
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-18 11:11 pm (UTC)Please more soon, this is giving me more unnecessary stress, excellent but unnecessary.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 10:18 pm (UTC)Favorite Line: "Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why does everyone assume that just because we're partners, we're of the opposite sex, and I'm a nine and she's a seven, that there's some hanky just waiting to panky?"
Okay, scratch that. The entire opening section where they argue over who gets to kiss Myka is golden!
But then we get to Helena's part. And it was...oh my lord! I wasn't sure if you were going to have her kill the boy or not. *wipes forehead* I have a feeling this is only going to get worse before it gets better...if it gets better at all. But this is an epic telling and I can't resist reading more, you awesome writer, you!
~RoseSama35~