Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (The Messenger Archive Book 1)

by DC Bastien

  "How long has it been since you saw him?" he asked, delicately. Or as delicately as he was able to.

  "Eight years, now."

  "Wow. And we've known you one?"

  "I..." A pause. A sigh. She started again. "First I went to study. I declared myself on sabbatical, and I spent five years refusing contact with my friends and family back on Raboros, as I immersed myself in my learning. Then I spent two years studying how to teach what I had learned, and then I... then I took passage on the Messenger."

  "Right. I see."

  "I do care deeply for him, and for my people. I just... I did not wish to explain my motivations to him. If he did not agree, he would be obliged to make me stay, or disown me. I did not want to shame him, so I... disowned myself."

  "Kre, he's your father. When we met him, he was anxious about your well-being. Threatened to bring down his whole fleet on Lineon, just to get you back. He doesn't care what you've been doing, just that you're safe and happy."

  "He... he said that?"

  "Well, the bit about the fleet, he did. But why would he make a Human his right-hand, if he didn't want you happy? He never demanded we bring you back to him, just that we get you out safely."

  A pink tongue flickered out at that, her furry brow knit in confusion and contemplation. "I... see."

  "Just... think about it, alright? You don't need to talk to him just yet. Maybe make a recording, and Avery will see it gets there okay. Work up to a real dialogue. I don't know him as well as you do, but I can see he cares a damn lot about you. And it's probably killing him not to talk to you, much as it's killing you."

  "Thank you, Captain."

  "Don't sweat it. C'mon. Let's make you and Loap some lunch, you must be starving. And if it makes your workaholic mentality relax, you can tell me how this bug-sweep will work while we chop things up."

  She snorted. "Food does sound good. I cannot remember the last time I ate."

  "Then it's much too long ago."

  ***

  [Ashroe: Hey, you. Late on.]

  [Sianor: Yeah, I didn't sleep last night and I just... well I crashed.]

  [Ashroe: Oh no, you okay now?]

  [Sianor: A bit wiped, but I'll be OK. I don't feel so much like verbing the noun, though.]

  [Ashroe: Well we do need to work out how we're going to co-ordinate saving the galaxy. I updated the plot thread idea doc.]

  [Sianor: I saw, I just haven't read it yet. Give me a few hours to wake up and I will :)]

  [Ashroe: You want to just talk?]

  [Sianor: You sure? I know it's late for you, and you'll need to be up early. I don't want to take up your writing time.]

  [Ashroe: You > writing time. Anyway, this is the most prolific I've been in years! I am sure my word-count will cope with a night off.]

  [Sianor: Aww, you're sweet.]

  [Ashroe: It's how I lure my prey in.]

  [Sianor: And we love it. So how are you today?]

  [Ashroe: Eh. Had another one of 'those' meetings. You know, where they tell you they're keeping you informed of all the changes, but not what the changes are, or when they'll happen, or what they entail. Just that they want more, for less, same old.]

  [Sianor: You're painting such a wonderful picture of the adult world for me.]

  [Ashroe: I'm sure it's better than I make it out to be. You can have icecream for breakfast and no one judges you for eating bacon ten days in a row. And you can spend money on geeky things. Sometimes you might get a 'oh how lovely, your son will love that' and you can either say 'yes, if I sired offspring, no doubt he or she would' or smile and nod...]

  [Sianor: Sign me up!]

  [Ashroe: For a kid, or for being an adult?]

  [Sianor: I'm not averse to kids, I just... I'm not going to have any.]

  [Ashroe: Me either. Even if I could find someone who swings my way and wants to bring them up surrounded by replica weaponry and high-end gadgets.]

  [Sianor: I am sure plenty of people will have them for you to borrow if you need one.]

  [Ashroe: Yes, but why would I need one? I see kids' films if they appeal to me. I am shameless. Utterly shameless.]

  [Sianor: You are living the dream.]

  [Ashroe: What about you? How is being an academic going?]

  [Sianor: Not bad. My papers have become more - uhm - concise. My tutor thought it was great because I was getting to the point faster. Didn't have the heart to tell her it was because I'm rushing through them to get back to writing with you!]

  [Ashroe: Nothing like a fire to reveal your priorities. A fire in your time.]

  [Sianor: Did you see imphart20 has started reading the story?]

  [Ashroe: Yeah, sadly the sysadmins can't put a CAPTCHA on the archive. Just on the feedback page.]

  [Sianor: BURN. But yea. I don't know why he's reading it. I guess he'll freak out when he comes across the Vavery.]

  [Ashroe: And how I shall laugh. But seriously... Ithon's really smitten. They need to have a proper manly fight soon to get over the goo.]

  [Sianor: Mmmm. Man-goo.]

  [Ashroe: You're filthy. I love it.]

  [Sianor: You know I've only really done some - er - moderately racy stuff before.]

  [Ashroe: I do, but it doesn't show.]

  [Sianor: Heh. Well... thanks. I just... I wanted to say thanks for popping my 'cherry' I guess.]

  [Ashroe: Aww, I'm your first?]

  [Sianor: Yep. Now don't you feel special?]

  [Ashroe: Actually, yeah. I know you've seen I write stuff all over the field, but... well. I never even wrote smut with my last co-author. That came after. Soooooo. It's new to me, too.]

  [Sianor: Oh I... I just assumed you had.]

  [Ashroe: Nah, back then I just let her handle all the filthy stuff. Took me ages to get over my endemic Britishness. And then I never looked back.]

  [Sianor: Wow.]

  [Ashroe: Now I am just a pervert.]

  [Sianor: Is it... is it weird to sort of... get bleed-through? From muses, I mean?]

  [Ashroe: If it is, then I'm weird too. If I let someone inside my head enough that they babble to me, then I get the full brunt of all their emotional responses. Including if I'm watching something else and they decide to get triggered by it.]

  [Sianor: I know that feeling! And you're happily watching some old movie and all of a sudden they turn it into all about them, or a song sets them off and you have to jot out a brief - heh, brief - one-shot?]

  [Ashroe: Hello, my name is Kay - some of the time - and the voices in my head and I have a problem. Nice to meet you.]

  [Sianor: I feel so much more normal around you. Or... more happily weird, hehe.]

  [Ashroe: It's hard for non-writers - or, I guess, non-muse-writers - to understand how it feels. It's not that you really have MPD, just that you're running so many thoughts in parallel, like you're mirroring another personality upstairs. You live through everything at least twice over, and then have an in-depth conversation with a fictional entity about what socks to wear.]

  [Sianor: I make mix-CDs.]

  [Ashroe: Me too. Well. 'They' do.]

  [Sianor: And sometimes I... I don't want to say 'I'.]

  [Ashroe: We understand ;)]

  [Sianor: I think if I saw a therapist I'd have to either lie or spend half my sessions explaining the life-stories of my fictional voices you know? Which would get me committed.]

  [Ashroe: Lie. If they lock you up, they might not give you a laptop. Or... wait until the book is written, then get locked up. They liked Van Gogh after his suicide.]

  [Ashroe: I realise that sounded like I was advocating suicide. I am not.]

  [Sianor: No, I realised that!]

  [Ashroe: I just... I wish I could get this attached to my own characters. You know?]

  [Sianor: You mean, ones you make up?]

  [Ashroe: I don't know if I'm not good enough to create my own, or if it's laziness, but I click sometimes with ones on the screen and that's it.]

  [Sianor: But you make them your
own. You have to go into every little reaction they make, and internalise it, and understand it. Yes, you're writing 'someone else's character', but how many wildly different versions have you seen online?]

  [Ashroe: I guess you're right. It's like how my Saidhe would never do what the canon!Saidhe did.]

  [Sianor: Oh, of course she wouldn't. But any fic writer worth their salt goes deeper than the show, that's why they're writing. Because an idea from it, or a character has inspired them. We explain their behaviours, we put them in new situations, we mess about. We don't just rehash, we add to the world.]

  [Ashroe: And other fans understand that, but try telling Joe Bloggs what you're doing?]

  [Sianor: Not everyone will understand art, you know that. Even if you wrote those characters yourself, if you put your books into some people's hands, they would not get it. Or maybe it's not their genre, or their taste. I can't stand period drama, but I don't think it's terrible. Just... not for me.]

  [Ashroe: Hmm. Yes. I suppose we're a self-selecting community. It's just hard when people don't get why you're holing yourself up in a coffee shop with a laptop for hours. They want you to come out drinking, or go to the match. Some days I want to, some days I want everyone to go away (except my barista) and leave me alone. It's not that I don't like people, it's... it's that I have to write.]

  [Sianor: And when you can self-select who you spend your time with online - into such a specialised group as how fandom has evolved - when you're forced into the wider world with people from different backgrounds, you resent it?]

  [Ashroe: Sometimes, yes, I do. I mean, there's plenty of people who I can get on just fine with, and we find what we have in common and we talk about it. And they might tell me what their latest child-adventure entailed, and I'll explain I worked out this great plot-twist. That's fine. I am interested in their stories, even if I don't want that in my life for me. It's...]

  [Sianor: Something happened, didn't it?]

  [Ashroe: I guess it's hard to cover it up when I am soap-boxing, isn't it?]

  [Sianor: A little. But I'm here for you.]

  [Ashroe: It's... it's this girl I kind of liked. It fell through about a year ago, but she was back in the office today. She works on another floor. I just... I hadn't seen her in a while, and it all came flooding back.]

  [Sianor: Do you want to talk about it? I don't want to push.]

  [Ashroe: No... I think it would help. Thanks. You can tell me to shut up if I get boring.]

  [Sianor: Never :) I mean - never boring.]

  [Ashroe: Well, you know I swing both ways. I've sort-of dated boys in the past, but not really dated girls. I mean, a few drinks, here and there. Nothing serious. Just - well. Stuff. So when I bumped into her at the rainbow end of town one night, and I recognised her from the building, we sort of clicked a bit. Probably because there was that air of familiarity. We chatted and we went for coffee a few times.]

  [Sianor: I am sensing a 'but'...?]

  [Ashroe: She was lovely. I mean, she was pretty, funny, nice and kind. But... well. I admitted I wrote, and then a bit later I told her what. And she was confused why I'd spend my life writing things just to put them online for free.]

  [Sianor: Ah.]

  [Ashroe: Yes. Ah. Like, it's fine to paint and put those up on your walls or give to friends, or it's fine to spend your days making your garden pretty when no one really looks at it, but writing should be for 'money'. It wasn't even a fight, it just... it got me down.]

  [Sianor: I can see why.]

  [Ashroe: I kind of was a dick to her, then. We went for drinks a few more times, but... I just... I couldn't. I couldn't explain why I wrote how I did, and I felt... judged. She hadn't even said it nastily or anything, but this whole... part of who I identified as... it was like it was something stupid, or childish, or wasteful in her eyes. And I just... I quit writing for a while.]

  [Sianor: Oh no! That's awful :( It sounds like she hurt your muse?]

  [Ashroe: Yeah, my 'writing' muse, not any 'muse' in particular. I started to get more self-critical, and I kind of vanished up my own ass. I just... I couldn't put words down. I couldn't read. And then the show I was writing for got cancelled and it was sort of like an omen, and I gave up hope.]

  [Sianor: If I was there, I would give you the biggest hug right now.]

  [Ashroe: Thanks :)]

  [Sianor: I know you're writing again, but... well. Can I soapbox too?]

  [Ashroe: Hey, you listened to my old, existential whining, I think I can listen to yours.]

  [Sianor: Even if I am an emo twenty-something? Lol. OK. Art is art. I don't just mean fanfic, I mean fanart, I mean comedy skits, I mean great paintings and I mean all of it. Art is when we... when we make a thing to mean a thing. That's what art is. When it means something else, and it's that something else that is important. My terrible paintings from when I was five meant something to me, and to my mom.]

  [Ashroe: Yep. I'm with you.]

  [Sianor: Even those shitty, barely-literate stories which are like someone had a fit on the keyboard mean something to whoever wrote them. They spent their time and their love on it. Sure it might suck donkey-balls, but they did it. Just because it is fic doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I mean, look at all the movies and books about King Arthur and Merlin. Those are just fanfic. Or Hamlet-with-lions! It's still Hamlet! If you're inspired, and it makes you happy, screw 'em. She probably didn't mean to hurt you, but she did. Maybe if you told her how it made you feel happy and you got feedback and it made you feel connected she would have understood. Or maybe not. But you do what makes you happy, and that's it. Well. As long as you don't go around breaking laws or hurting people I guess...]

  [Sianor: Sorry. That was a bit wall-of-text.]

  [Ashroe: No, no. It was good. I wish I'd been as together as you are, when I was your age. I'd probably be Prime Minister now, if I was.]

  [Sianor: Or Minister for Gay Porn.]

  [Ashroe: If that was a position, I would fill it. I would fill it so long and hard.]

  [Sianor: Could I be your assistant filler?]

  [Ashroe: Baby, we'd double-penetrate that damn hole.]

  [Sianor: Hahah. Aww.]

  [Ashroe: This is why I like fandom. And the internet. You live somewhere that's literally just waking up when I have my lunch break, and you're like ten years younger than me and if we didn't both like this weird little TV show, then we'd never have met. And here you are, making me laugh through my tears. You're such a lovely young woman.]

  [Sianor: Stop it. Stop it right now!]

  [Ashroe: Not used to nice!Kay?]

  [Sianor: Damnit. If it wasn't stalkery, I would buy tickets to come out there. Or... or find some program to study near you. Or... something.]

  [Ashroe: Your parents would freak out.]

  [Sianor: I don't think they would. You're like... you're like the sanest, nicest person I've ever had as a friend. Mom says she can tell my life is going better. Hell. So are my grades.]

  [Ashroe: Now you're going to thank me in your acceptance speech? 'I would like to say thank you to my parents, God, and this creepy old lady on the internet, without whom I would never have written this lovely piece of escapist fantasy...']

  [Sianor: Hah. Yes. I am so going to thank you the next time I get something to thank for.]

  [Ashroe: When you graduate and you have your residency as a famous author, I hope you remember me.]

  [Sianor: Dude, you're going to be right there on the dust-cover as my co-author.]

  [Ashroe: Sweet. I'll ride your coat-tails to glory.]

  [Sianor: !!! Look at the time !!!]

  [Ashroe: Shit. Okay, okay, Mum, I'll go to bed. I don't want to, though :p]

  [Sianor: Take the cell phone up, I want to cuddle you again.]

  [Ashroe: Perv.]

  [Sianor: Bite me.]

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Mission: Cannibalisation

  That night, Vadim lay in bed. He felt pleasantly exhausted from the fighting, then
the EVA. His muscles were there. Not throbbing, but... there. He knew that the exertion would help him sleep, but... but. There was the other thing.

  Without Messenger's AI running, someone had to stay on the bridge for most of the time, just to keep things ticking over smoothly. As Kre and Loap had been incarcerated and exhausted, and Vadim had been running around the ship's hull for what felt like an ice-age... Avery had, of course, volunteered. He knew the man would be semi-dozing up in the Captain's chair, sleeping that un-sleep that he had.

  He'd also volunteered to give Vadim the excuse for space. He was - unfortunately - smart like that. It would be easier if he wasn't so capable of tact. Vadim couldn't help but admire it, because it was a skill he'd never honed.

  Kre and Loap had to have smelled the same thing on them that Kre's father had, but neither of them would comment. And if they never... well. Consummated again, he knew they would not judge him, or even mention it. It had been a moment of slightly-drunken weakness. Stress-relief.

  No. No, it really hadn't. He could lie to himself all he wanted, but he'd enjoyed it. He still had - admittedly confusing - feelings for him. Always had. Likely always would. Maybe not to the level of 'mate', but certainly to the level of...

  Damnit.

  Vadim went up to the bridge.

  "You're in my seat."

  Ithon smiled.

  "So I am."

  "C'mon. There's two up front. We can keep watch together, until Loap wakes up. I ain't leaving you all by your lonesome."

  "Aren't you the gentleman," Ithon purred, but his gratitude was obvious.

  They were something. And Vadim... Vadim liked that.

  ***

  [Sianor: BABIES!]