#rat-king

How the hell did you miss this? How did you not realise that you’d crossed a line into being official? Into dating? Kissing him is one thing, but dating has rules and codes. Things you’ve never quite understood but which seem to be very important to people who actually understand how romance works.

(Maybe your obliviousness shouldn’t be a surprise. Most of your experience with romance comes from reading Shakespeare, and those relationships tend to have significantly more stabbing than the real world. Or more conveniently identical twins.)

Hiding your face is an attractive concept right now, so you tug your hoodie over your head. ‘I just never thought about it that way. It’s hard to tell when these… definitions… start applying.’

Herald is now waging a furious war on his temptation to laugh. ‘Maybe you should talk to him?’

‘Definitely not. I wouldn’t even begin to know how.’

Then again, you don’t know how to date someone, either. Which you are apparently doing.

And after everything you’ve done to Ortega, everything you’re yet to do… shouldn’t you at least try to get this one thing right, while it lasts? Do some research, figure things out?

You shove your hands into your pockets, scowling at the ground. Research. Right. Into dating. That’s just bound to go smoothly.

Your first research opportunity comes three days later. Except it’s not really yours, because you’re in your puppet, a drink in your hand and Dr Mortum at your side. She’s pretending to complain about you dragging her away from her work, but for once she’s sitting back with a smile, her lab coat discarded. No tension in her shoulders, no distracted glances towards the workbenches. The sight makes contentment settle over your chest, as if a cat’s curling up to sleep there.

‘Complain all you like,’ you say, ‘but you need the break. It’s not good for you to stay here all the time. Disconnected from everything.’ You’re parroting Ortega, but it’s what Adam would tell her.

‘I recognise the voice of experience there, mon ami. Neither of us are…’ She hesitates, running a finger along the side of her glass. ‘Adept at emerging into the world.’

‘You got me there.’ Your own body’s response would have been a frown, an averted gaze, but you give a rueful little smile instead. Being Adam is a careful, if comfortable act: lines to rehearse, mannerisms to remember. 'Being around people is... so much effort. The rest of the world talks and chatters and goes on dates, and I could do that, but it’s exhausting. Finding the right people. Not driving them away. You know what I mean?’

‘Intimately. Though – really, you find it so hard to find people? If you took a seat in Joes for a few hours, and sat there looking appropriately tall and handsome…’

You snort into your glass. ‘Why tall, specifically? Are you suggesting there’s a height restriction on dating?’

You’re only half-joking. Dating is weird, you don’t know the rules, and if there is a height restriction then your real body most certainly fails it.

‘Relationships are not a theme park ride, mon ami.’

‘They’ve got just as many ups and downs.’

You remember belatedly that Adam does not mutter like this, but Dr Mortum only smiles at you. ‘You have some turbulent experiences in your past?’

You take a slow sip from your glass. Perhaps the gesture will hide Adam’s face, make sure the doctor won’t see any of your feelings, Wren’s feelings, displayed there. Won’t see any memories of Ortega’s arms pulling you from the wreckage and his lips closing around yours. His voice screaming after you as you crash through the window.

‘Something like that,’ you say, and Adam’s voice is not meant to shake like this.

Dr Mortum looks at you for a moment, her gaze even. And then she does something you did not expect: she reaches across the couch and lays a hand on your arm. Just below your shoulder. Gentle. Steadying.

‘Neither of our greatest skills are with people. And yet, here we are. Sharing a drink.’ The smallest of squeezes before she lets go. ‘I am hardly one to talk, but… I think half the difficulty is in the overthinking. Perhaps you’re not quite so bad at this as you think, mon ami.’

She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Adam might not be so bad, but Wren is.

You’re grateful, all the same.

‘What about you? What do you think?’

There’s a pause before you get a response: a brush against your mind that’s eager enough to make you smile.  ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ… :{D…???

‘Yes, him.’ You give the Rat-King’s canister a pat. ‘And I know you’ve only seen him when he was fighting me, so I guess he didn’t make the best impression. But he’s a lot nicer when he’s not being punched.’

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ… you… <3?

You bite your lip. Trust the Rat-King to get right to the heart of the matter. ‘Maybe I do. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. I just know I feel a lot.’

But not enough to stop you from putting him in hospital. People who date do not do this. People do not do this.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ… :{D… <3????

‘I want to believe that he does.’ There’s a lump in your throat, so you tuck the canister into the crook of your arm. Wrap the Rat-King’s simple, uncomplicated affection around your thoughts. ‘But there’s no happy ending here. I’m not…’

You bite back the sentence, because you’re not sure the Rat-King will understand the significance of you not being human. In their minds, the only difference between you and other people is that you can talk to them. You’re more real than the rest of the world.

The thought makes you hug them tighter, because it doesn’t work like that, but oh god, how you wish it did.

‘Herald thinks I should talk to Ortega. Is that what real people do? Talk to the person they’re sporadically kissing and just… ask about how their relationship should go? There’s no universe where I don’t screw up that conversation. He’s going to think I’m an idiot.’

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ … (ง'̀-'́)ง!!!

The laugh that breaks from you is startled, and genuine. ‘I’m sure that’s not gonna be necessary, but... thanks for the support.’

You tug them even closer, cradling the little minds against your chest. Deep breaths. Remember what Herald said about Ortega caring. Remember what Mortum said about you overthinking. It’s just a conversation. It’ll be awkward and terrifying, but that goes for most conversations you have.

ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ … <3 <3 <3 …

A smile tugs at your lips. When it comes from the Rat-King, you can be sure it’s true.

The Farm always considered you a good investigator. Unmatched at combing minds, gathering information, acting only once you’d put the pieces together. It’s why you were dangerous in their hands. It’s why you’re even more dangerous now, as Myriad. It’s why you feel like an utter mess knocking on the door to Ortega’s office. Being so woefully under-prepared is nauseating.

You really need a coffee.

He calls you in, and here’s another thing you weren’t prepared for: the way he smiles when he sees you. Your gut’s reaction doesn’t help, either.

‘Hey, Wren-bird.’ He’s grinning, and it’s so easy for him, isn’t it? Crack a smile, drop the old nickname as if seven years never happened, try to make you stop frowning. And it works. Every time, it works.

‘Hey.’ You try not to mumble. ‘Got a moment?’

‘For you? Hours of them.’

You roll your eyes and hop up onto his desk, trying to ignore the yawning mess of nostalgia in your stomach. You spent hours perched on his desk like this when you were Sidestep. You think you were sitting here when you told him your name.

Pushing those thoughts to the side, you look him in the face. ‘Are we dating?’

Here’s something you never expected to see: Ricardo Ortega, speechless. But it’s what you’re seeing, and you’d better make the most of it. ‘Because… I don’t know, Herald said we were, and I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yeah, I can see how we might be. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I wouldn’t know how to date someone even if I was trying to. I mean, apparently I ended up dating you without meaning to, so... if I do try to date you, I’ll probably somehow manage to end up not doing it, and –’

‘Wren.’

You stop, because your throat hurts. And apparently that’s all the opportunity Ortega needed to slip around the side of the desk, wrap a hand around your head, and kiss you. Softly, his lips curved into a smile against yours, and you want to roll your eyes again but they’re already slipping shut.

‘You can’t do this every time I start making things awkward,’ you tell him, as he draws back.

He nudges your forehead with his. ‘At least it stopped you panicking. Has it occurred to you that you might be overthinking this?’

‘Sure. I overthink everything. Including my overthinking.’

Another kiss, just barely brushing your lips. ‘You’re not supposed to do anything. If you don’t feel comfortable calling this dating, then we don’t call it that. If there are any… dating things you don’t want to do, we don’t do them. There’s no rulebook here. And if there was, I’m pretty sure you’d throw it out.’

You’re ready to protest, to tell him it can’t be that easy, but he speaks again before you can. ‘We’re going at your pace here, okay? The only thing you need to do is to not change a thing.’

One more kiss, to the top of your head this time, tender enough to make a drowsy, unfamiliar calm melt through your insides. It’s not safe, relaxing like this, but... you can give yourself a few moments. Because’s he’s definitely right about the rulebook. And because what you feel right now is something very like what you felt as you hugged the Rat-King: warm affection, without any complications. Simple.

This isn’t simple, and it never will be, not while you have amber brands on your skin and a suit of armour in your closet and a mess of secrets in your head. But you can pretend it’s simple. Just for a little while.

alarm, memory of buzzing shocks, the presence is angry, you-we-i tasting fear. from the presence? new-rare, concern over prying little claws bringing memory of the devil-knives in white and nothing? the presence is gone. where is the presence? there, still angry, still fearing, grabbing at the shape-void entwined with it, like grasping the water that kills. you-we-i push, chitter, call the presence

the presence isn’t coming?

where is this you-we-i roll to? the shark-dogs are thinning, too many whiskers snipped off to borrow for tasting, seeing, smelling

a push, warm like memories of the small suns, an opening wall in the maze in to a void-shape, clearer then even the presence ever was. a new set of whiskers to borrow to taste, see, smell with under the void-shape – shape masking a pattern. a pattern which loops and repeats carrying feelings of prizes at the end of testing

a… rat-king…? this new pattern-presence feel-thinks, not of you-we-i but to you-we-i. it’s a think that can shatter you-we-i into scattered chattering but you-we-i has been around a few turns of the wheel and holds together as one-five. rat-king? you-we-i taste the concept with you-we-i’s shape memory you-we-i’s own and borrowed. rat-king?

rat-king?

rat-king…

rat-king

yes, this is you-we-i: rat-king, a coiling of thought-tails binding together in borrowed memories of metal and multiplicity

the new pattern-presence thinks in undertones of looping patterns. this is going to be even weirder then i thought it feel-thinks. it reminds rat-king of another shape-void hiding a pattern-presence, but it can’t be the same one as that. this one is heavier, clearer, steeped in shock-memories, hanging off like ungroomed fur.

rat-king rat-king chitters back, tasting the new pattern-presence’s looping.

but rat-king has a new maze to run! promises of whole new kinds of prize-thoughts to find and to taste, see, smell. clearer and brighter and realer then ever. no more making do with dozens of clipped, sheared, burned, half-whiskers.