tallulahgs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tallulahgs) wrote2016-02-25 06:54 pm
tallulahgs) wrote2016-02-25 06:54 pm
Entry tags:
40fandoms: Fandom 4
[Title] Chosen Ones
[Rating] PG
[Fandom] Battle Royale/Portal
[Notes/Summary] Doug Rattmann and Mizuho Inada know each other from way back. Mizuho's happy about the reunion. Doug's not so sure.
When Doug is food shopping he goes into full-on optimization, travelling-salesman, how-can-I-maximise-the-efficiency-of-my-route mode. So it takes him several seconds to realise a) there’s a person at the corner of the aisle b) that it’s an Asian girl in a store uniform holding a plate of crackers c) that she’s greeted him by name as if they’re old pals. He stares at her, searches his memory for her face, hopes like hell he hasn’t been making cheerful conversation on autopilot with her for the last few shopping trips and completely forgotten –
“Oh, you don’t remember me,” she says, not sounding too bothered about it. “I’m Mizuho Inada. We were at Pinewoods together.”
Doug jolts and almost trips over nothing, which is dumb, but even his family don’t ever just say it like that. Mostly they don’t talk about that disaster of a summer at all – when they do, it’s always when you were quote-unquote Away – so to have some complete stranger come out with that thing we all try and pretend never happened is offputting, to say the least.
Although now she’s said it, he’s starting to place her. Yeah. A girl with dull bobbed hair and kind of bulgy eyes. Had a breakdown due to the stress of escaping a totalitarian regime with her parents and adjusting to life in the land of the free. Had a thing for... Dungeons and Dragons? Something like that.
“Yeah, I… I remember,” he says. “Uh. How have you… how have you been?” Now he’s aware of people. People wandering up and down the aisles and not everyone will be as zoned out as he is when he shops. People will probably pick up on the words psychotic breakdown.
“I’m very well, thank you,” Mizuho says. Yeah, she really does have an intense stare. It’s that which is bringing it back. Her marching up to him in the rec room, fixing him with her gaze, and telling him something like he was a chosen light warrior. The thing about Mizuho was you could never tell whether this was her being crazy or her being really geeky and stubbornly keeping going with stuff that interested her even though she’d been institutionalised.
“Do you still like computers?” she says. “I remember you were always thinking about them. You were always writing programs to stop the bad guys in the cameras from looking at you –”
Okay, they need to not start reminiscing. “Yeah, I still… I work in programming, I… at Aperture Science. You know. The big place out on the industrial estate? And you, you work at… you work here. That’s cool –”
“Aperture Science is amazing,” Mizuho breaks in. “I used it in the last campaign I GM’ed for. It was secretly building killer robots to take over the world. We blew it up in the end.”
“Uh… right. So you’re… still into the whole tabletop game thing, huh?”
“I’m not a Light Warrior any more,” Mizuho says. “The gods just speak through me when I GM. We agreed that I couldn’t be a fighter myself. People don’t understand.”
This is all said blankly, with no hint that she’s goofing around. Around them there’s the same noise of wailing kids and checkout bleeps and canned music but Doug is thinking, oh, shit, she’s… kind of not okay still and resisting the urge to back away like relapses are catching.
“I’m okay,” Mizuho says, her eyes narrowing a little. “I’m okay. I’m not doing anything wrong. And you’re okay too. I can see.”
“I…”
“You know, maybe I’m not crazy,” she carries on. “The gods rescued me from the Program – my class was picked, if we hadn’t gone I’d be dead now – so maybe it’s real. Maybe how things look is how they really are.”
Doug does really not want to be hearing this.
“I mean,” she carries on, “with you, maybe they are still watching you through the cameras. Like, computers can do anything these days, can’t they? Maybe they do have special messages for you –”
Doug has wrenched his shopping cart forward and round into the next aisle before he can even think. He’s wandering past pet food and bin liners, neither of which he wants to buy, and trying hard not to talk out loud because that doesn’t help with the not-being-crazy thing but really, really wanting to pin reality down to something he can hear…
He’s too rattled to finish the shopping. Pays and gets out and is halfway home before his heart rate’s back to normal.
He’s fine, he’s okay, relapses aren’t catching and even if Mizuho was screwing with him she’s still clearly stable enough to hold down a job. He still reckons he’s going to go shopping on the other side of town next time.
[Rating] PG
[Fandom] Battle Royale/Portal
[Notes/Summary] Doug Rattmann and Mizuho Inada know each other from way back. Mizuho's happy about the reunion. Doug's not so sure.
When Doug is food shopping he goes into full-on optimization, travelling-salesman, how-can-I-maximise-the-efficiency-of-my-route mode. So it takes him several seconds to realise a) there’s a person at the corner of the aisle b) that it’s an Asian girl in a store uniform holding a plate of crackers c) that she’s greeted him by name as if they’re old pals. He stares at her, searches his memory for her face, hopes like hell he hasn’t been making cheerful conversation on autopilot with her for the last few shopping trips and completely forgotten –
“Oh, you don’t remember me,” she says, not sounding too bothered about it. “I’m Mizuho Inada. We were at Pinewoods together.”
Doug jolts and almost trips over nothing, which is dumb, but even his family don’t ever just say it like that. Mostly they don’t talk about that disaster of a summer at all – when they do, it’s always when you were quote-unquote Away – so to have some complete stranger come out with that thing we all try and pretend never happened is offputting, to say the least.
Although now she’s said it, he’s starting to place her. Yeah. A girl with dull bobbed hair and kind of bulgy eyes. Had a breakdown due to the stress of escaping a totalitarian regime with her parents and adjusting to life in the land of the free. Had a thing for... Dungeons and Dragons? Something like that.
“Yeah, I… I remember,” he says. “Uh. How have you… how have you been?” Now he’s aware of people. People wandering up and down the aisles and not everyone will be as zoned out as he is when he shops. People will probably pick up on the words psychotic breakdown.
“I’m very well, thank you,” Mizuho says. Yeah, she really does have an intense stare. It’s that which is bringing it back. Her marching up to him in the rec room, fixing him with her gaze, and telling him something like he was a chosen light warrior. The thing about Mizuho was you could never tell whether this was her being crazy or her being really geeky and stubbornly keeping going with stuff that interested her even though she’d been institutionalised.
“Do you still like computers?” she says. “I remember you were always thinking about them. You were always writing programs to stop the bad guys in the cameras from looking at you –”
Okay, they need to not start reminiscing. “Yeah, I still… I work in programming, I… at Aperture Science. You know. The big place out on the industrial estate? And you, you work at… you work here. That’s cool –”
“Aperture Science is amazing,” Mizuho breaks in. “I used it in the last campaign I GM’ed for. It was secretly building killer robots to take over the world. We blew it up in the end.”
“Uh… right. So you’re… still into the whole tabletop game thing, huh?”
“I’m not a Light Warrior any more,” Mizuho says. “The gods just speak through me when I GM. We agreed that I couldn’t be a fighter myself. People don’t understand.”
This is all said blankly, with no hint that she’s goofing around. Around them there’s the same noise of wailing kids and checkout bleeps and canned music but Doug is thinking, oh, shit, she’s… kind of not okay still and resisting the urge to back away like relapses are catching.
“I’m okay,” Mizuho says, her eyes narrowing a little. “I’m okay. I’m not doing anything wrong. And you’re okay too. I can see.”
“I…”
“You know, maybe I’m not crazy,” she carries on. “The gods rescued me from the Program – my class was picked, if we hadn’t gone I’d be dead now – so maybe it’s real. Maybe how things look is how they really are.”
Doug does really not want to be hearing this.
“I mean,” she carries on, “with you, maybe they are still watching you through the cameras. Like, computers can do anything these days, can’t they? Maybe they do have special messages for you –”
Doug has wrenched his shopping cart forward and round into the next aisle before he can even think. He’s wandering past pet food and bin liners, neither of which he wants to buy, and trying hard not to talk out loud because that doesn’t help with the not-being-crazy thing but really, really wanting to pin reality down to something he can hear…
He’s too rattled to finish the shopping. Pays and gets out and is halfway home before his heart rate’s back to normal.
He’s fine, he’s okay, relapses aren’t catching and even if Mizuho was screwing with him she’s still clearly stable enough to hold down a job. He still reckons he’s going to go shopping on the other side of town next time.