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starsficOh, RPM. Just when I think your lack of positive role models is the last straw, you do something to inspire hope, creativity, and/or beauty. Sometimes all three, as in digitalruki's amazing artwork! ♥♥ Sometimes just deep and abiding amusement (valuable for its own sake), as in rangergreen's twitter (?!) page.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the show itself makes me want to quote everything Ziggy says.
Ziggy: Look in a mirror, people. We're in no position to be sitting in judgment of anything weird!
Dillon: Man's got a point.
Ziggy: If Dr. K could hear you now...
That aside, this story follows straight up and starts at the very end of the episode "My Brother's Keeper." RPM doesn't shy away from Big Moments just because it doesn't know where to go with them. I respect that ♥
steering you home
One minute he was pacing the floor of the lab, bright cracked cement under his feet and that damn buzzing noise in his head as he tried to sort through dozens of results a second. Normal, normal, NORMAL. All a lie. His body was betraying him, telling him everything was fine when at any second he could find himself--
Lying on that same floor, staring up at the lofty struts running power and equipment to every part of the building. With a blasting cannon right next to him. Ziggy was giving him too much space and Scott looked like he was about to pounce. Summer's voice, the first one he heard, saying, "The virus has fallen back to its original growth rate!"
Well, fuck. Now he was supposed to be happy that he was only losing control of himself as quickly as he had been before. Charming.
"I'm getting really sick of asking this," Dillon gritted, shoving himself up. Scott was sizing him up. Ziggy was trying to nonchalantly sidle toward the cannon, probably to pick it up and get it out of the way. Summer seemed to be the one in the know, so he directed the question at her. "What happened?"
Flynn was right behind her, which definitely didn't bode well. Summer could kick his butt when he wasn't trying, so if Flynn thought she needed backup then he must have been trying. She was shaking her head, opening her mouth and probably--annoyingly--about to say she didn't know.
"What just happened," a familiar voice cut in, "is I that entered the base code for the Venjix virus."
She was standing up behind her computer screens, face just visible over the forward monitor. She looked defeated but not physically hurt. The team would have protected her at all costs.
The rest of the team. Everyone but him. Because he was the one they had to protect her from.
"I know it," she was saying, "because I'm the one who wrote it."
Holy shit. His brain finally stopped analyzing and started synthesizing: he had no idea what she had done, but he knew what she was saying. She was telling them, all of them, that she'd created the thing that took over the world.
"I'm the one who released it. Everything that's happened--everything you've been through--it's all my fault."
He'd given it some thought. She'd trained them all to stay calm, so he figured any retribution on their part would be calculated. She shouldn't be in immediate danger. But she cared what they thought, whether she admitted it or not, so he'd tried to project likely reactions and most effective counter-arguments.
Ziggy wouldn't believe it, not at first. Then he would assume it was an accident and nothing they could say would ever dissuade him. There was no threat from that corner.
Flynn would accept it, because redemption was part of the way he looked at the world. Bad guys did bad things, and if someone was doing good things then they obviously weren't bad. Flynn might even feel sorry for her, carrying the kind of guilt she did.
Which left Summer and Scott. They had both lost more on the way to Corinth than they had found once they got there, and their moralities were more ambiguous. It was entirely possible that either one of them might decide the consequences of the Venjix virus outweighed any effort made to stop it.
"Did you mean it?" Ziggy asked at last.
She gave him a look like she didn't even understand the question. "Mean what?"
"To release a virus that would destroy the world," he said.
"No, of course not." She didn't even sound indignant about it. She sounded like she didn't care, like it didn't matter. Like her intent was immaterial.
"Well, there you go then," Ziggy said. "It was an accident. You're trying to fix it. We're on your side, Dr. K. End of story."
"Okay, wait a second." Scott held up a hand, giving his head a shake like he hadn't really heard any of it the first time. "Did you just say you wrote the Venjix base code?"
"Aye, well, it sort of makes sense," Flynn said carefully. "I mean, our technology isn't that far removed from theirs, is it."
Carefully, Dillon noted, but not slowly.
Flynn had already known.
Summer looked confused, but Dillon knew better than to think she wasn't noting everyone else's reactions just as carefully as he was. "I thought you wanted to stop Venjix."
"Of course I want to stop Venjix," she said sharply. "Venjix is my fault; I have to stop it. There's no alternative."
Summer turned on Dillon. "You knew."
He raised his eyebrows. Even for her, that had been quick. "Why do you say that?"
"Because you're still here," Scott said wryly.
They were all staring at him now, and Dillon shrugged. "We've all done things we're not proud of. The only question is whether we're capable of doing more."
It made Scott pause, but Summer ignored him to frown at Ziggy. "Did you know?"
"Uh, no?" Ziggy held up his hands, glancing sideways at Dillon. "I mean, not until now. But it's kind of a good thing, right? If she created it, you gotta figure she's our best chance of stopping it."
No one could change the past. Ziggy didn't even try. He didn't even factor the past into his decisions. Someone created Venjix and Ziggy didn't stop to think, that's a dangerous person. He just stood up next to them and tried to beat it.
Like leaping over the side of a building, Dillon thought with sudden icy clarity. Someone fell, and he didn't think, gee, what are the odds that them falling means I could fall too? He just dove after them.
And that was how Ziggy was going to get himself killed.
It actually made perfect sense, up until the point where he slammed the back of his car closed and swung into the driver's seat. That was when he saw the tape on his steering wheel. Electrical tape, indented by pen, almost unreadable in the darkened garage. He touched it and the letters took shape under his fingers.
I'm sorry, the tape said. K.
He slammed his fist into the horn without thinking. Well, he did think. He thought too fast for the action to make any sense, and he knew perfectly well why he did it. For the same reason Ziggy was the first one out of his room at the sound of the horn. For the same reason Summer was the second. For the same reason Scott hadn't slept in his car tonight, and the lights didn't come up while the screens stayed black.
He couldn't leave them and they couldn't stop him.
"God damn it," Dillon muttered, not moving from his car.
"Look, man, if you're havin' some sort of crisis, we're glad to help you out," Flynn called down over the railing. "But if you're just venting your frustration, do you think you could do it a bit quieter? Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Flynn," Summer hissed, in a way that wasn't at all subtle given she was standing on her own balcony on the other side of the garage. "Cut it out."
"Dillon?" Scott called, sounding suspiciously awake. "You all right?"
He stared through the windshield at the only transparent screen in the garage. The one in the briefing room, across from the kitchen, angled and barely visible from where he was now. The one that looked in on the control room. Dark, but with a funny reflection, and he couldn't see through it but he knew what the light meant when it looked like that.
She was watching him. She'd been expecting him to make a run for it. She hadn't told anyone--or if she had, they hadn't believed her. He didn't know which one made him angrier. And she was just...
She wasn't scared of him; he knew that from long and often painful experience.
She didn't think she deserved his loyalty.
He shoved the door open and got out. "I'm fine," he growled, loud enough to be heard from above. "Go back to sleep."
That probably didn't reassure any of them, but he only heard one set of footsteps on the stairs. He continued on toward the training room, ignoring it. He made an "I see you" gesture at the screen as he passed, even though he didn't, and the doors slid open for his approach.
The door to the control room was already open. There was no dedicated illumination in there, either, but he could see the glow of her pajamas from the status lights on the board. She'd turned her chair to face the door. Waiting for him.
Dillon stopped in the doorway, leaning against it. He couldn't make out her face. He braced his forehead against the door, wondering when the fuck he'd started to believe. To believe that she really could do anything, that he couldn't kill her, that being here was worth the risk if he was wrong.
"I meant it." Her voice drifted to him in the quiet.
"I'll kill you," he mumbled.
Her voice didn't change. "You can try."
His lips quirked. He heard her move, pajamas slippery on the chair, bare feet making one false start on the floor before they were muffled by fuzzy slippers. She didn't have far to go: two padded steps, and then he felt her hand on his arm.
Gentle. Astonishing. She didn't touch people... not first. Sometimes not ever.
But she had touched him.
"Hey," Ziggy's voice called, wary and uncertain in the dark. Coming from the doorway of the training room. "Everything okay in here? I mean, Dillon doesn't usually talk when he's possessed, and Summer says she's sure that chip thing can't affect him anymore, but... well, we've said that before, right?"
She lifted her voice. "We're fine, Ziggy. Come in."
Steps tracked across the floor, promising rescue if he lost it, and Dillon finally gave in. He pulled her into a rough hug. She stiffened momentarily, fingers tightening on his arm, her other hand pressed to his chest--then she relaxed. "You leaving doesn't help us," she murmured, head resting against his shoulder.
"Me leaving doesn't hurt you," he corrected.
"Um, hi," Ziggy said. "So... I'm guessing you're good?"
Dillon didn't realize he didn't mean it literally until he'd already answered, "Yeah."
"No," she said. "We need you."
There was a pause, and then Ziggy said, "Really?"
"I'm not sure I can make him stay," she said. Her voice sounded almost normal, except that it was muffled by his shirt. "I need you."
It was impossible to tell which of them she was talking to, and Dillon's arms tightened around her.
"A wise person once told me," Ziggy said thoughtfully, "that you can't make anyone stay. All you can do is let them know that you really want them to."
Dillon closed his eyes, but he still heard her ask, "How do I do that?"
Despite the smile in his voice, Ziggy sounded serious when he said, "I think if you ask Dillon, you'll find you're doing pretty well."
"Okay, shut up," Dillon muttered, letting go with one hand to clamp down on Ziggy's shoulder. Then he briefly thought better of it. "Did you know about the tape?"
"Are you kidding?" Ziggy scoffed. "I put a letter in the glovebox."
Dillon tightened his grip, ignoring a protest from the slight figure between them as he pulled both of them close. He didn't say anything. He figured he probably didn't have to.
"Holding you close, running down dreams
Figuring out what love really means
Baby, giving you my heart
Is a real fine place to start"
~Sara Evans
"A Real Fine Place to Start"
digitalruki's amazing artwork! ♥♥ Sometimes just deep and abiding amusement (valuable for its own sake), as in rangergreen's twitter (?!) page.And sometimes, just sometimes, the show itself makes me want to quote everything Ziggy says.
Ziggy: Look in a mirror, people. We're in no position to be sitting in judgment of anything weird!
Dillon: Man's got a point.
Ziggy: If Dr. K could hear you now...
That aside, this story follows straight up and starts at the very end of the episode "My Brother's Keeper." RPM doesn't shy away from Big Moments just because it doesn't know where to go with them. I respect that ♥
One minute he was pacing the floor of the lab, bright cracked cement under his feet and that damn buzzing noise in his head as he tried to sort through dozens of results a second. Normal, normal, NORMAL. All a lie. His body was betraying him, telling him everything was fine when at any second he could find himself--
Lying on that same floor, staring up at the lofty struts running power and equipment to every part of the building. With a blasting cannon right next to him. Ziggy was giving him too much space and Scott looked like he was about to pounce. Summer's voice, the first one he heard, saying, "The virus has fallen back to its original growth rate!"
Well, fuck. Now he was supposed to be happy that he was only losing control of himself as quickly as he had been before. Charming.
"I'm getting really sick of asking this," Dillon gritted, shoving himself up. Scott was sizing him up. Ziggy was trying to nonchalantly sidle toward the cannon, probably to pick it up and get it out of the way. Summer seemed to be the one in the know, so he directed the question at her. "What happened?"
Flynn was right behind her, which definitely didn't bode well. Summer could kick his butt when he wasn't trying, so if Flynn thought she needed backup then he must have been trying. She was shaking her head, opening her mouth and probably--annoyingly--about to say she didn't know.
"What just happened," a familiar voice cut in, "is I that entered the base code for the Venjix virus."
She was standing up behind her computer screens, face just visible over the forward monitor. She looked defeated but not physically hurt. The team would have protected her at all costs.
The rest of the team. Everyone but him. Because he was the one they had to protect her from.
"I know it," she was saying, "because I'm the one who wrote it."
Holy shit. His brain finally stopped analyzing and started synthesizing: he had no idea what she had done, but he knew what she was saying. She was telling them, all of them, that she'd created the thing that took over the world.
"I'm the one who released it. Everything that's happened--everything you've been through--it's all my fault."
He'd given it some thought. She'd trained them all to stay calm, so he figured any retribution on their part would be calculated. She shouldn't be in immediate danger. But she cared what they thought, whether she admitted it or not, so he'd tried to project likely reactions and most effective counter-arguments.
Ziggy wouldn't believe it, not at first. Then he would assume it was an accident and nothing they could say would ever dissuade him. There was no threat from that corner.
Flynn would accept it, because redemption was part of the way he looked at the world. Bad guys did bad things, and if someone was doing good things then they obviously weren't bad. Flynn might even feel sorry for her, carrying the kind of guilt she did.
Which left Summer and Scott. They had both lost more on the way to Corinth than they had found once they got there, and their moralities were more ambiguous. It was entirely possible that either one of them might decide the consequences of the Venjix virus outweighed any effort made to stop it.
"Did you mean it?" Ziggy asked at last.
She gave him a look like she didn't even understand the question. "Mean what?"
"To release a virus that would destroy the world," he said.
"No, of course not." She didn't even sound indignant about it. She sounded like she didn't care, like it didn't matter. Like her intent was immaterial.
"Well, there you go then," Ziggy said. "It was an accident. You're trying to fix it. We're on your side, Dr. K. End of story."
"Okay, wait a second." Scott held up a hand, giving his head a shake like he hadn't really heard any of it the first time. "Did you just say you wrote the Venjix base code?"
"Aye, well, it sort of makes sense," Flynn said carefully. "I mean, our technology isn't that far removed from theirs, is it."
Carefully, Dillon noted, but not slowly.
Flynn had already known.
Summer looked confused, but Dillon knew better than to think she wasn't noting everyone else's reactions just as carefully as he was. "I thought you wanted to stop Venjix."
"Of course I want to stop Venjix," she said sharply. "Venjix is my fault; I have to stop it. There's no alternative."
Summer turned on Dillon. "You knew."
He raised his eyebrows. Even for her, that had been quick. "Why do you say that?"
"Because you're still here," Scott said wryly.
They were all staring at him now, and Dillon shrugged. "We've all done things we're not proud of. The only question is whether we're capable of doing more."
It made Scott pause, but Summer ignored him to frown at Ziggy. "Did you know?"
"Uh, no?" Ziggy held up his hands, glancing sideways at Dillon. "I mean, not until now. But it's kind of a good thing, right? If she created it, you gotta figure she's our best chance of stopping it."
No one could change the past. Ziggy didn't even try. He didn't even factor the past into his decisions. Someone created Venjix and Ziggy didn't stop to think, that's a dangerous person. He just stood up next to them and tried to beat it.
Like leaping over the side of a building, Dillon thought with sudden icy clarity. Someone fell, and he didn't think, gee, what are the odds that them falling means I could fall too? He just dove after them.
And that was how Ziggy was going to get himself killed.
It actually made perfect sense, up until the point where he slammed the back of his car closed and swung into the driver's seat. That was when he saw the tape on his steering wheel. Electrical tape, indented by pen, almost unreadable in the darkened garage. He touched it and the letters took shape under his fingers.
I'm sorry, the tape said. K.
He slammed his fist into the horn without thinking. Well, he did think. He thought too fast for the action to make any sense, and he knew perfectly well why he did it. For the same reason Ziggy was the first one out of his room at the sound of the horn. For the same reason Summer was the second. For the same reason Scott hadn't slept in his car tonight, and the lights didn't come up while the screens stayed black.
He couldn't leave them and they couldn't stop him.
"God damn it," Dillon muttered, not moving from his car.
"Look, man, if you're havin' some sort of crisis, we're glad to help you out," Flynn called down over the railing. "But if you're just venting your frustration, do you think you could do it a bit quieter? Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Flynn," Summer hissed, in a way that wasn't at all subtle given she was standing on her own balcony on the other side of the garage. "Cut it out."
"Dillon?" Scott called, sounding suspiciously awake. "You all right?"
He stared through the windshield at the only transparent screen in the garage. The one in the briefing room, across from the kitchen, angled and barely visible from where he was now. The one that looked in on the control room. Dark, but with a funny reflection, and he couldn't see through it but he knew what the light meant when it looked like that.
She was watching him. She'd been expecting him to make a run for it. She hadn't told anyone--or if she had, they hadn't believed her. He didn't know which one made him angrier. And she was just...
She wasn't scared of him; he knew that from long and often painful experience.
She didn't think she deserved his loyalty.
He shoved the door open and got out. "I'm fine," he growled, loud enough to be heard from above. "Go back to sleep."
That probably didn't reassure any of them, but he only heard one set of footsteps on the stairs. He continued on toward the training room, ignoring it. He made an "I see you" gesture at the screen as he passed, even though he didn't, and the doors slid open for his approach.
The door to the control room was already open. There was no dedicated illumination in there, either, but he could see the glow of her pajamas from the status lights on the board. She'd turned her chair to face the door. Waiting for him.
Dillon stopped in the doorway, leaning against it. He couldn't make out her face. He braced his forehead against the door, wondering when the fuck he'd started to believe. To believe that she really could do anything, that he couldn't kill her, that being here was worth the risk if he was wrong.
"I meant it." Her voice drifted to him in the quiet.
"I'll kill you," he mumbled.
Her voice didn't change. "You can try."
His lips quirked. He heard her move, pajamas slippery on the chair, bare feet making one false start on the floor before they were muffled by fuzzy slippers. She didn't have far to go: two padded steps, and then he felt her hand on his arm.
Gentle. Astonishing. She didn't touch people... not first. Sometimes not ever.
But she had touched him.
"Hey," Ziggy's voice called, wary and uncertain in the dark. Coming from the doorway of the training room. "Everything okay in here? I mean, Dillon doesn't usually talk when he's possessed, and Summer says she's sure that chip thing can't affect him anymore, but... well, we've said that before, right?"
She lifted her voice. "We're fine, Ziggy. Come in."
Steps tracked across the floor, promising rescue if he lost it, and Dillon finally gave in. He pulled her into a rough hug. She stiffened momentarily, fingers tightening on his arm, her other hand pressed to his chest--then she relaxed. "You leaving doesn't help us," she murmured, head resting against his shoulder.
"Me leaving doesn't hurt you," he corrected.
"Um, hi," Ziggy said. "So... I'm guessing you're good?"
Dillon didn't realize he didn't mean it literally until he'd already answered, "Yeah."
"No," she said. "We need you."
There was a pause, and then Ziggy said, "Really?"
"I'm not sure I can make him stay," she said. Her voice sounded almost normal, except that it was muffled by his shirt. "I need you."
It was impossible to tell which of them she was talking to, and Dillon's arms tightened around her.
"A wise person once told me," Ziggy said thoughtfully, "that you can't make anyone stay. All you can do is let them know that you really want them to."
Dillon closed his eyes, but he still heard her ask, "How do I do that?"
Despite the smile in his voice, Ziggy sounded serious when he said, "I think if you ask Dillon, you'll find you're doing pretty well."
"Okay, shut up," Dillon muttered, letting go with one hand to clamp down on Ziggy's shoulder. Then he briefly thought better of it. "Did you know about the tape?"
"Are you kidding?" Ziggy scoffed. "I put a letter in the glovebox."
Dillon tightened his grip, ignoring a protest from the slight figure between them as he pulled both of them close. He didn't say anything. He figured he probably didn't have to.
"Holding you close, running down dreams
Figuring out what love really means
Baby, giving you my heart
Is a real fine place to start"
~Sara Evans
"A Real Fine Place to Start"
no subject
Date: 2009-06-22 08:04 am (UTC)...huh. I think it's possible to put this RPM universe together with your main SPD one: the feel is similar. Maybe because these are both universes you're trying to fix?
(Even when your JF stories got under the skin - the Sparkles universe is a prime example - it wasn't like this. There was always the sense that things have a solid base that's All Right, even if the surface and a bit beyond are turbulent; here - maybe what gives this feeling is the sense that you're trying to find your way in this universe, too.)
(The Own the Night universe, that one's in the same category as the JF stories, I think: the sense that there is a sound base, even if it takes time to sweap aside some confusion.)
Thank you not only for your stories and the comfort you're offering through them, I suppose, but also for giving Important Things to think over ♥.