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rainbowfic2023-07-15 10:39 pm
wallwalker) wrote in rainbowfic2023-07-15 10:39 pm
Vienna Orange 5
Name: Wallwalker
Story: Stifled
Colors: Vienna Orange: 5. Where do I go when every 'no' turns into 'maybe'?
Supplies: Brush ((https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salvo), Pastels (Postage Stamp from July Break Bingo. See here for card and prompts)
Style: Photograph, Graffiti (11 Years of Rainbowfic pt 7)
Word Count: 1800
Rating: NSFW.
Warnings: Drug use, luxury, sex, medical mentions, discussion of being kept in a location against one's will. 2nd-Person POV.
Summary: You begin to learn a bit more about why you're here, and how it differs from what you've been told.
Notes: Pt. 1 is here: https://rainbowfic.dreamwidth.org/1392750.html
---
You weren't always trapped in here.
Sometimes, when the drugs are slowly wearing off and your latest bedmates are snuggled next to you on the soft sheets, you think of earlier times. Your memories are fuzzy at best, and you think that may have been their intention to suppress them, but you still fight to hold onto the images that you still have.
You remember standing next to the rocket, a photo-op that you hadn't wanted any part of. But someone had insisted - who was it that had insisted? You can't remember that part but you know that they said it would be good publicity for them to see that even as the future owner, you were still an explorer. A scientist on your own merits.
(Why? You hadn't done this for glory, you'd done this for... for what? Just because you wanted to know what was out there?)
There was a device in low orbit. You remember that you were one of the few people who could look at the complicated equations that they'd used in its creation and understand what was being written. They were using a form of... of... what was it? You can't remember how it worked. Just that it was supposed to take things from one place to another.
You remember something else, too... cold hands gripping yours, a shaking voice. Don't go, it said, there are so many others who could go and take the risk. Why don't you just stay? Please?
I have to know, is all you remember saying.
---
They always say no when you ask if you can go outside. They will probably never change their answer, no matter how much you wish they would; even if you could get out, there are men stationed around your dome ready to fire their salvo of tranquilizers. It is inconceivable that all of them would miss.
At one point you give them a more innocent request, just to hear them say something other than no again. You tell them that you'd like to start to paint, and can you please have an easel and a supply of paint and canvas?
At first, they practically fall over themselves to meet the demands. They bring you tubes of paint, a wide variety of brushes. Your visitors, as you have taken to calling them, are delighted, and beg you to paint pictures of them. The drugs blur the images into strange states, but they are happy to see what you create as they pose for you, and they show your their appreciation when they let you take them back to your bed.
You paint even when there's no one there; you don't have any memories of doing this before, but it's soothing, somehow. At first you can manage little better than splotches on canvas; you ask for someone to teach you more. They send you a teacher on a video feed. When you ask if you can have them visit, to maybe show you the best techniques to keep your wrists from hurting, they quietly shake their heads. This is the best we can do, they say apologetically.
That's one rule. No visitors, except for the ones that they allow him to take to bed. Is that why the person with the cold hands and shaky voice has never come to see you? You rarely remember your dreams; that person's wrinkled hands is one of the few exceptions.
On one strange day you wake up in the middle of the night, when most of the drugs were out of your system and you were alone. You get up and you take the paints, orange and black and yellow and silver, and you start painting, as if in a daze.
An image takes shape, even through your exhaustion. An orange, man-shaped form in a black void, arms spread wide. A bright light hovering above him, reaching down to touch him -
That is all you remember. You know they must have tranquilized you and put your back to bed when they burst in; that always makes you forget what happened before. But you know that the paints and canvas are gone, and no matter how much you ask, they'll never give them back. You ask for pastels, pencils, paper, anything to make art with. Nothing.
Another rule. No memories allowed. So you do your best to keep them to yourself.
---
There are so many contradictions to their stories, you think at times. For instance: They say they keep you here because they need you to run the company with your sharp mind, but if they need your mind so badly, why do they work so hard to dull it?
There is something that they are not telling you, and you are desperate for someone to talk to. So you talk to yourself when no one is listening. You talk about those few memories, the cold hands, the quiet words. The orange shape floating in darkness. The stars....
You miss the stars the most, you think.
It doesn't matter. You speak too quietly for the cameras to pick up; no one can hear you. No one is there to listen.
---
One day you find yourself, aware and paralyzed, on a silver table. You try to open your eyes, but nothing happens; you cannot so much as lift your fingers. But you can still hear bits and pieces of what is happening around you.
Most of the voices are unfamiliar. They sound like doctors, speaking crisply and quickly.
"These wave patterns are getting stronger, do you think...?"
"Vitals are steady, thank goodness, we don't need a repeat of -"
"- sure we should be pushing this? Seems like it would cause some unpleasant interactions -"
They start to melt and blur around you as you feel a pinch on the back of your hand, then a sudden warmth in your body as your heart begins to slow. They're keeping you asleep, you realize, but you aren't asleep; your mind is awake. How is that possible?
listen
Something whispers in your mind, and you strain your ears to listen.
"- still think it's a bad idea to have her here, sir," someone is saying.
"So do I," said an older, more worn voice, "but the higher-ups insisted. It's the only way she can see him, and it's not like he'll remember it."
"We've already had one close call - the painting, remember? We don't need any others -"
Footfalls nearby. Clicking of hard shoes on hard floor. "Quiet," the older voice said, "unless you want to explain why she can't see him. Won't end well for you, I promise."
"You should've just said that," the other voice groused.
More clicking - then a hand reaches down to touch yours, and you would have gasped at it if you had any control over your own breathing. There are more wrinkles, maybe, but it's just as cold as you remembered.
"Madame CEO, welcome," the older voice said.
"Doctor," said the shaky voice. "How is he? Still healthy?"
"Physically healthy, yes. Unfortunately, the anomalous brainwaves are growing stronger despite our best efforts to contain them. We've noticed outbursts of emotion that he doesn't remember, for instance, and we believe them to be the cause."
Something in the back of your mind scoffs. You cannot ask why.
"What are you going to do? Do you have any sort of treatment plan?"
"Madame..." The doctor coughed. "I know your opinions on this, but I still believe resective surgery is our best option here. The waves are coming from -"
"Out of the question," the shaky voice snapped, no longer shaking so much as it had before. "There has to be something else that can be done without mutilating his brain."
The doctor breathed in slightly, then out again. "I understand, but we are running out of non-surgical solutions."
"If you would let me talk to him -"
"Madame, you know that's not possible -"
The voices fade as you hear more footsteps, this time walking away. The first voice had stayed silent during the confrontation. Now you feel a tap on your shoulder. "I still don't know," it says in a conspiratorial tone, "if you're the luckiest man in the world or the unluckiest."
"You think any of this is worth coming back from the dead for?" someone else asked. "Can't even let him see his own mother...."
"I don't know," the first voice admitted. "I just don't know...."
The voices stopped all at once, and you briefly find yourself floating in a void, the metal surgical table no longer pressing into your back. Truth, something whispers in your mind, before you lose consciousness once again.
---
When you wake up again in your own bed, sandwiched between two of the night's lovers, you don't move. You don't even open your eyes, feigning sleep - you have no desire to attract their attention.
You feel... strange. Worn out. If it was a dream, you think, it was a remarkably specific one. You don't remember having ever been on such a table, and the only voice you recall from there is the shaky voice, the person with the cold hands. Your mother, you think, weighing the word - you think it's right, but you can't be sure, not anymore. But they'd called her your mother, hadn't they?
Can you really rely on anything you heard, even if it was real? You already know your mind is playing tricks on you.
Unless...
Is someone else there? you think. Someone told you to listen. Someone knew you would want to hear what they had to say. If it was just a part of you, that was one thing... but this feels different. And you aren't a neurologist, but you've read a bit, and they talked about brainwaves, different patterns... Who are you? Are you trying to help me?
No response but the quiet music, and the light snoring of one of your bedmates.
Okay, you think. I guess that if you are there, you don't want to talk. It's not like I can make you. You sigh deeply - doesn't this raise more questions than answers? Are you finally going mad, making up another personality to talk to? But if you do want to say more, I'll be here. I've got nothing but time.
You almost feel something as you relax again, like a wind passing through you... and you remember the painting, an orange suit and a halo of light, and can't help but shiver. There has to be an answer here, you know it. Whether it's from you or something else in your mind, you don't care. You just want your freedom again.
Story: Stifled
Colors: Vienna Orange: 5. Where do I go when every 'no' turns into 'maybe'?
Supplies: Brush ((https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/salvo), Pastels (Postage Stamp from July Break Bingo. See here for card and prompts)
Style: Photograph, Graffiti (11 Years of Rainbowfic pt 7)
Word Count: 1800
Rating: NSFW.
Warnings: Drug use, luxury, sex, medical mentions, discussion of being kept in a location against one's will. 2nd-Person POV.
Summary: You begin to learn a bit more about why you're here, and how it differs from what you've been told.
Notes: Pt. 1 is here: https://rainbowfic.dreamwidth.org/1392750.html
---
You weren't always trapped in here.
Sometimes, when the drugs are slowly wearing off and your latest bedmates are snuggled next to you on the soft sheets, you think of earlier times. Your memories are fuzzy at best, and you think that may have been their intention to suppress them, but you still fight to hold onto the images that you still have.
You remember standing next to the rocket, a photo-op that you hadn't wanted any part of. But someone had insisted - who was it that had insisted? You can't remember that part but you know that they said it would be good publicity for them to see that even as the future owner, you were still an explorer. A scientist on your own merits.
(Why? You hadn't done this for glory, you'd done this for... for what? Just because you wanted to know what was out there?)
There was a device in low orbit. You remember that you were one of the few people who could look at the complicated equations that they'd used in its creation and understand what was being written. They were using a form of... of... what was it? You can't remember how it worked. Just that it was supposed to take things from one place to another.
You remember something else, too... cold hands gripping yours, a shaking voice. Don't go, it said, there are so many others who could go and take the risk. Why don't you just stay? Please?
I have to know, is all you remember saying.
---
They always say no when you ask if you can go outside. They will probably never change their answer, no matter how much you wish they would; even if you could get out, there are men stationed around your dome ready to fire their salvo of tranquilizers. It is inconceivable that all of them would miss.
At one point you give them a more innocent request, just to hear them say something other than no again. You tell them that you'd like to start to paint, and can you please have an easel and a supply of paint and canvas?
At first, they practically fall over themselves to meet the demands. They bring you tubes of paint, a wide variety of brushes. Your visitors, as you have taken to calling them, are delighted, and beg you to paint pictures of them. The drugs blur the images into strange states, but they are happy to see what you create as they pose for you, and they show your their appreciation when they let you take them back to your bed.
You paint even when there's no one there; you don't have any memories of doing this before, but it's soothing, somehow. At first you can manage little better than splotches on canvas; you ask for someone to teach you more. They send you a teacher on a video feed. When you ask if you can have them visit, to maybe show you the best techniques to keep your wrists from hurting, they quietly shake their heads. This is the best we can do, they say apologetically.
That's one rule. No visitors, except for the ones that they allow him to take to bed. Is that why the person with the cold hands and shaky voice has never come to see you? You rarely remember your dreams; that person's wrinkled hands is one of the few exceptions.
On one strange day you wake up in the middle of the night, when most of the drugs were out of your system and you were alone. You get up and you take the paints, orange and black and yellow and silver, and you start painting, as if in a daze.
An image takes shape, even through your exhaustion. An orange, man-shaped form in a black void, arms spread wide. A bright light hovering above him, reaching down to touch him -
That is all you remember. You know they must have tranquilized you and put your back to bed when they burst in; that always makes you forget what happened before. But you know that the paints and canvas are gone, and no matter how much you ask, they'll never give them back. You ask for pastels, pencils, paper, anything to make art with. Nothing.
Another rule. No memories allowed. So you do your best to keep them to yourself.
---
There are so many contradictions to their stories, you think at times. For instance: They say they keep you here because they need you to run the company with your sharp mind, but if they need your mind so badly, why do they work so hard to dull it?
There is something that they are not telling you, and you are desperate for someone to talk to. So you talk to yourself when no one is listening. You talk about those few memories, the cold hands, the quiet words. The orange shape floating in darkness. The stars....
You miss the stars the most, you think.
It doesn't matter. You speak too quietly for the cameras to pick up; no one can hear you. No one is there to listen.
---
One day you find yourself, aware and paralyzed, on a silver table. You try to open your eyes, but nothing happens; you cannot so much as lift your fingers. But you can still hear bits and pieces of what is happening around you.
Most of the voices are unfamiliar. They sound like doctors, speaking crisply and quickly.
"These wave patterns are getting stronger, do you think...?"
"Vitals are steady, thank goodness, we don't need a repeat of -"
"- sure we should be pushing this? Seems like it would cause some unpleasant interactions -"
They start to melt and blur around you as you feel a pinch on the back of your hand, then a sudden warmth in your body as your heart begins to slow. They're keeping you asleep, you realize, but you aren't asleep; your mind is awake. How is that possible?
listen
Something whispers in your mind, and you strain your ears to listen.
"- still think it's a bad idea to have her here, sir," someone is saying.
"So do I," said an older, more worn voice, "but the higher-ups insisted. It's the only way she can see him, and it's not like he'll remember it."
"We've already had one close call - the painting, remember? We don't need any others -"
Footfalls nearby. Clicking of hard shoes on hard floor. "Quiet," the older voice said, "unless you want to explain why she can't see him. Won't end well for you, I promise."
"You should've just said that," the other voice groused.
More clicking - then a hand reaches down to touch yours, and you would have gasped at it if you had any control over your own breathing. There are more wrinkles, maybe, but it's just as cold as you remembered.
"Madame CEO, welcome," the older voice said.
"Doctor," said the shaky voice. "How is he? Still healthy?"
"Physically healthy, yes. Unfortunately, the anomalous brainwaves are growing stronger despite our best efforts to contain them. We've noticed outbursts of emotion that he doesn't remember, for instance, and we believe them to be the cause."
Something in the back of your mind scoffs. You cannot ask why.
"What are you going to do? Do you have any sort of treatment plan?"
"Madame..." The doctor coughed. "I know your opinions on this, but I still believe resective surgery is our best option here. The waves are coming from -"
"Out of the question," the shaky voice snapped, no longer shaking so much as it had before. "There has to be something else that can be done without mutilating his brain."
The doctor breathed in slightly, then out again. "I understand, but we are running out of non-surgical solutions."
"If you would let me talk to him -"
"Madame, you know that's not possible -"
The voices fade as you hear more footsteps, this time walking away. The first voice had stayed silent during the confrontation. Now you feel a tap on your shoulder. "I still don't know," it says in a conspiratorial tone, "if you're the luckiest man in the world or the unluckiest."
"You think any of this is worth coming back from the dead for?" someone else asked. "Can't even let him see his own mother...."
"I don't know," the first voice admitted. "I just don't know...."
The voices stopped all at once, and you briefly find yourself floating in a void, the metal surgical table no longer pressing into your back. Truth, something whispers in your mind, before you lose consciousness once again.
---
When you wake up again in your own bed, sandwiched between two of the night's lovers, you don't move. You don't even open your eyes, feigning sleep - you have no desire to attract their attention.
You feel... strange. Worn out. If it was a dream, you think, it was a remarkably specific one. You don't remember having ever been on such a table, and the only voice you recall from there is the shaky voice, the person with the cold hands. Your mother, you think, weighing the word - you think it's right, but you can't be sure, not anymore. But they'd called her your mother, hadn't they?
Can you really rely on anything you heard, even if it was real? You already know your mind is playing tricks on you.
Unless...
Is someone else there? you think. Someone told you to listen. Someone knew you would want to hear what they had to say. If it was just a part of you, that was one thing... but this feels different. And you aren't a neurologist, but you've read a bit, and they talked about brainwaves, different patterns... Who are you? Are you trying to help me?
No response but the quiet music, and the light snoring of one of your bedmates.
Okay, you think. I guess that if you are there, you don't want to talk. It's not like I can make you. You sigh deeply - doesn't this raise more questions than answers? Are you finally going mad, making up another personality to talk to? But if you do want to say more, I'll be here. I've got nothing but time.
You almost feel something as you relax again, like a wind passing through you... and you remember the painting, an orange suit and a halo of light, and can't help but shiver. There has to be an answer here, you know it. Whether it's from you or something else in your mind, you don't care. You just want your freedom again.
no subject
no subject
sameThank you, will try to write the next part soon!
no subject
Holy shit this is so cool. I've put together a little bit of what might have happened, but only a little- you're doling out information at exactly the right rate. Can't WAIT for more.
no subject