Farscape Ficathon: Mind to Love
Author's Note: Written for gigerisgod in the Farscape Potluck Ficathon. Her request: Alternate ending to LGM where the cavalry doesn't save our hero - bonus for use of the corridor scene. Hopefully you don't mind that I'm sort of cheating since it was this drabble done last week that finally inspired me and that I consider this a continuation of sorts to it. The actual premise comes from a nightmare I had a few years ago after falling asleep to Liars, Guns and Money while it was on repeat in the DVD player. I'd like to thank Sarahjane's extra eyes on this and ivorygates for beta'ing my grammar. Sadly she was the one to suffer under my abusive tense switching. Flowers can be forwarded to her LJ for the memorial service. Thank you both, ladies!! *smooch*
Setting: End of Season 2, beginning of Season 3.
Rating: PG (for one Earth curse word)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If it was, we'd have a Farscape channel.
Mind to Love
They worked side by side in silence, human and half-breed. Their shoulders hunched in concentration, in theory and mapping the unknown wormholes that were just outside their grasp. When they did speak, those that listened carefully believed it was in a code that only those whose very natures were bound by science could possibly know, their cadences indistinguishable from one another.
Those that questioned Scorpius' judgment in continuing the hunt after Crichton into the Uncharted Territories fell silent when he brought his prey back, but they were dubious about the fact the human was standing beside him without chains and heavy guard.
Dissent vanished when Crichton quickly set to work in front of a computer, its display filled with schematics, attempting to achieve Scorpius' goals. Tamed, he was no longer seen as just a barbarian alien or the hated monster propagandized by the Counsel.
What was not seen, behind closed doors and closed eyes, without the watchful glare of an audience - was madness and rage.
Rage that rivaled a half-breed's vengeance and infinite patience. No one, not even Scorpius, could see the curses that spewed forward beneath ice blue eyes, that if spoken would ensnare and trap even the most stable star.
The chip was supposed to be removed; instead its purpose was changed to that of subjugation. Further safeguard to ensure the knowledge was always ready, always within Peacekeeper hands - even if the host was unwilling to spill the secrets ingrained with it.
His mind was as a loosely-woven fabric, frayed edges that were teased apart and woven back together allowing for a minute portrait of the knowledge to be seen, captured and held in Scorpius' gloved hand.
In the moments of increasingly sporadic lucidity, Crichton would stare back, glaring, at Scorpius - unable to control the words issuing from his lips, nor how his body reacted to the touch of leather upon leather.
But he could feel. He could scream inside his own mind. And fight. That never ended.
All that was needed were the building blocks of Crichton's subconscious. A moment spent in a far off schoolyard leading eventually to the scribbling of drawn out equations on a blackboard sprawling across the mindscape, they were all linked, unable to sustain themselves without the catalyst - a lone human’s life. One memory upon another as another fell into place.
They gave birth to a wormhole. Beautiful. Stable. Magnificent and terrifying.
It was all that
they could have hoped for.
And it wasn't enough.
With each successful creation, Crichton withheld his own inevitable joy. The rapture he could not help but feel even as the clone - Scorpius' - desires spilled into his own imprisoned thoughts.
Half-breed and Human. Scorpius and Crichton. Their names became interchangeable. Where one was seen, the other was within an arm's reach.
Scorpius wouldn't have it any other way.
They watched together on the bridge of the carrier as the first fist of Peacekeeper might struck out, leaving nothing in its wake. Crichton wished that it would swallow him - them all - within it.
Once Scorpius allowed him release from the cognitive limbo he inhabited. It didn't last beyond the center of the room. Crichton no longer knew how to control his own limbs and he fell in a crumbled pile of twitches and false starts, wanting only to rip out his captor's throat. His bloodied fingers were pulled away from his own neck before the clone was satisfied of the lesson learned.
Crichton now saw the world through a distortion - sight and sound. Everything filtered through the chip, through the neural clone - through Scorpius' personality. He felt only what was ordered and offered. A limit set to everything.
It was when the body slept that Crichton felt freedom, though limited to the small confines of the room just off of Scorpius' private quarters. Kept under special guard and staff - with only the ship's commander holding the key, he was visited when it came over the surveillance monitors that he had gained a measure of control and needed to be restrained before he could cause harm to himself.
No amount of pleading, no deals could shake the fate that the Ancients had sentenced him to when they had bestowed their gift. He was no more than a incubator for genocide. A living Pandora’s box that could never be closed. Not until the pulse stopped in his veins.
But Scorpius couldn't stop his memories. They sustained him. Shimmering and elusive, but there for him to reach out and touch.
There's an itch in the center of his chest when he opens his eyes. It burns. Teases his senses when he turns his head and stares into the darkness and it stares back - minimal light reflecting off of edges that aren't really there
He sits up, running sweaty palms over weary eyes. Knows it was all a dream, facilitated by loss. Thinks that it would have been better if maybe he hadn't been saved and becomes angry at the self-recrimination - at the unintentional insult to the sacrifices made by those that care too deeply.
The lights of DRDs can be seen moving outside the latticework of the door; it doesn’t help secure him back in the here and now. In fact, it makes him feel as if this is the dream and that other world, the one where he lived his life as Scorpius’ favorite wormhole Rosetta stone, was reality. He doesn’t want to know which one is right. At least there, he hasn’t been the cause of the deaths his friends - his family.
When he thinks of Zhaan calling him innocent, he wants to cry. That word is so very far from the truth that he wants to laugh, to be back in the dream, allowing himself to drown in the madness.
Drawing his knees up, he ignores the imaginary specter that reminds him silently - constantly - insistently - of what could have been (or is?). Catches his breath, lets the sweat cool and dry on his chest and back before lying down and turning on his side, facing the door once more.
“Get the fuck out of here - I’m done with you now.”
fin
Setting: End of Season 2, beginning of Season 3.
Rating: PG (for one Earth curse word)
Disclaimer: Not mine. If it was, we'd have a Farscape channel.
Mind to Love
They worked side by side in silence, human and half-breed. Their shoulders hunched in concentration, in theory and mapping the unknown wormholes that were just outside their grasp. When they did speak, those that listened carefully believed it was in a code that only those whose very natures were bound by science could possibly know, their cadences indistinguishable from one another.
Those that questioned Scorpius' judgment in continuing the hunt after Crichton into the Uncharted Territories fell silent when he brought his prey back, but they were dubious about the fact the human was standing beside him without chains and heavy guard.
Dissent vanished when Crichton quickly set to work in front of a computer, its display filled with schematics, attempting to achieve Scorpius' goals. Tamed, he was no longer seen as just a barbarian alien or the hated monster propagandized by the Counsel.
What was not seen, behind closed doors and closed eyes, without the watchful glare of an audience - was madness and rage.
Rage that rivaled a half-breed's vengeance and infinite patience. No one, not even Scorpius, could see the curses that spewed forward beneath ice blue eyes, that if spoken would ensnare and trap even the most stable star.
The chip was supposed to be removed; instead its purpose was changed to that of subjugation. Further safeguard to ensure the knowledge was always ready, always within Peacekeeper hands - even if the host was unwilling to spill the secrets ingrained with it.
His mind was as a loosely-woven fabric, frayed edges that were teased apart and woven back together allowing for a minute portrait of the knowledge to be seen, captured and held in Scorpius' gloved hand.
In the moments of increasingly sporadic lucidity, Crichton would stare back, glaring, at Scorpius - unable to control the words issuing from his lips, nor how his body reacted to the touch of leather upon leather.
But he could feel. He could scream inside his own mind. And fight. That never ended.
All that was needed were the building blocks of Crichton's subconscious. A moment spent in a far off schoolyard leading eventually to the scribbling of drawn out equations on a blackboard sprawling across the mindscape, they were all linked, unable to sustain themselves without the catalyst - a lone human’s life. One memory upon another as another fell into place.
They gave birth to a wormhole. Beautiful. Stable. Magnificent and terrifying.
It was all that
they could have hoped for.
And it wasn't enough.
With each successful creation, Crichton withheld his own inevitable joy. The rapture he could not help but feel even as the clone - Scorpius' - desires spilled into his own imprisoned thoughts.
Half-breed and Human. Scorpius and Crichton. Their names became interchangeable. Where one was seen, the other was within an arm's reach.
Scorpius wouldn't have it any other way.
They watched together on the bridge of the carrier as the first fist of Peacekeeper might struck out, leaving nothing in its wake. Crichton wished that it would swallow him - them all - within it.
Once Scorpius allowed him release from the cognitive limbo he inhabited. It didn't last beyond the center of the room. Crichton no longer knew how to control his own limbs and he fell in a crumbled pile of twitches and false starts, wanting only to rip out his captor's throat. His bloodied fingers were pulled away from his own neck before the clone was satisfied of the lesson learned.
Crichton now saw the world through a distortion - sight and sound. Everything filtered through the chip, through the neural clone - through Scorpius' personality. He felt only what was ordered and offered. A limit set to everything.
It was when the body slept that Crichton felt freedom, though limited to the small confines of the room just off of Scorpius' private quarters. Kept under special guard and staff - with only the ship's commander holding the key, he was visited when it came over the surveillance monitors that he had gained a measure of control and needed to be restrained before he could cause harm to himself.
No amount of pleading, no deals could shake the fate that the Ancients had sentenced him to when they had bestowed their gift. He was no more than a incubator for genocide. A living Pandora’s box that could never be closed. Not until the pulse stopped in his veins.
But Scorpius couldn't stop his memories. They sustained him. Shimmering and elusive, but there for him to reach out and touch.
There's an itch in the center of his chest when he opens his eyes. It burns. Teases his senses when he turns his head and stares into the darkness and it stares back - minimal light reflecting off of edges that aren't really there
He sits up, running sweaty palms over weary eyes. Knows it was all a dream, facilitated by loss. Thinks that it would have been better if maybe he hadn't been saved and becomes angry at the self-recrimination - at the unintentional insult to the sacrifices made by those that care too deeply.
The lights of DRDs can be seen moving outside the latticework of the door; it doesn’t help secure him back in the here and now. In fact, it makes him feel as if this is the dream and that other world, the one where he lived his life as Scorpius’ favorite wormhole Rosetta stone, was reality. He doesn’t want to know which one is right. At least there, he hasn’t been the cause of the deaths his friends - his family.
When he thinks of Zhaan calling him innocent, he wants to cry. That word is so very far from the truth that he wants to laugh, to be back in the dream, allowing himself to drown in the madness.
Drawing his knees up, he ignores the imaginary specter that reminds him silently - constantly - insistently - of what could have been (or is?). Catches his breath, lets the sweat cool and dry on his chest and back before lying down and turning on his side, facing the door once more.
“Get the fuck out of here - I’m done with you now.”
fin