The All Consuming
Giddy Darkness
AN: As quite a few of you will know, I am heading into some major exams in the near future, and so my fanfiction writing is basically being suspended until mid-December. I didn't intend to update this fic until then, but I was attacked by rabbid plot-bunnies (rivision of quadratic equations will do that to a person) so this happened. However, it is rather unlikly that this fic will be updated again until after my exams finish, in about three weeks time, if then, as I'll probably be recovering in bed with half my brain melting. ;) Anyway, enjoy!
Christieanne-Anna: Thank you!
Anzibanonzi: Thanks!
ANS4Christ: Thank you! I'm sure there will be repeats of season five at some point, especially knowing the Sci-Fi channle. And I really would recomend seeing them, for Rhade alone! -insert drool here- anyway, keep reading!
SomeoneElsesDream: Here you are, my greedy friend, just a little more!
Miikka: One of the best you've read read? Wow... thanks! I hope you enjoy the next chapter as much. Read and review!
CeredwenFlame: I can't gaurentee this'll get any happier, I'm afraid. I basically depends where the eps take them. I gonna try to stick as much to canon as possible, so if the characters stay angsty, the fics'll stay angsty. However, I can do dark humour, so this may well get funnier, even if it doesn't get happier. ;)
Jenn11: Thank you! I'm trying to stick to the realtionships we see on the show as closely as possible, so if you see the writing slip one foot outside of character, please, tell me! Enjoy the next chapter!
Iara: Thank you!
Oenone: Yes, someone -cough cough- will make him see, eventually, if I get my way. Happy reading!
Jade Rebel: I'm sensing a little bit of a rabbid fan-girl vibe coming off you. Just a teensy, tinsy one. ;D Nothing wrong with that, of course, speaking purly as a rabbid fan-girl myself... :) Anyway, how's your quest to buy Rhade on Ebay going?
Harper's Pixie: Well, I worked on String and Chewing Gum, and then the plot bunnies attacked me in all their feral visciousness until I wrote this, when I really should have been revising maths. So thanks, and enjoy!
eris: I couldn't agree more ;) Enjoy!
Sybille: Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy the next chapter!
shastalily: Oh, I'd love to take Rhade home with me to take care of... (un)fortunately he already kinda lives in my head. At least, most of what ends up here is thanks to his voice talking constantly at me until I finally surrendered and started writing... ;) Anyway, enjoy!
vampiregirl081: Thanks!
Donna Lynn: Hey, what's fanfiction for if not to give your favourite characters a gentle nudge in the right direction? ;) Enjoy the next chapter!
Jamieson Z: Thank you! Would it surprise you to know that I'm only fifteen? But I really wanna be an author, so what you're telling me is really encouraging. I have a tendency to miss little spelling mistakes and stuff. It gets to me in other people's writing too, but if I ever get anything published, I'll make sure my edditor goes over it with a fine tooth comb. ;) Enjoy the next chapter, hope your university-inspired chaotic days don't get too bad!
prin69: Thanks! It means a lot tha you're enjoying this so much! I am trying to make it so that Rhade is actually still dealing with Louisa's death, even though this fic is Rhade/Beka. It makes it way more realistic. Keep reading and reviewing and enjoy this next chapter!
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And don't ever leave here,
And mope at your leisure,
And straighten out your crease here,
And truth is in a tall beer.
Are you drowning your fears,
In a glass of deception?
When everything is easy,
Then everything will be okay,
When everything is easy,
Than you won't be sad that you stayed.
-Dashboard Confessional 'Drowning'
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The daylight shone and stung and swung giddily all around. The world was hyper-real, hyper-high, every sense sharpened and tingling and certain senses tingling more than others. Telemachus Rhade revelled in his own glorious stupor, disregarding all past, all future, only the here and the now and this wonderful, wonderful present. What was there to be so depressed about anyway?
But he left that ground untested, for he knew it would crack and let the demons free.
Present. Present. Focusing on the present. Stumbling forward to racuas laughter – his, or someone else's? – pulling… what's her name? Melony… Melody… Melacony… Malana… something beginning with 'm', he was sure… after him, and that other one – he wasn't even going to attempt to remember her name – with him, and he was sure the ground wasn't supposed to be that close to his nose, but it was suddenly dark and they'd definitely arrived now.
Next problem was to work out where… where were they going? Oh. Right, yes, the Maru. The Maru. Great little ship, the Maru. A lot tougher than she looks. Like her captain. Actually, coming here might not have been the best of ideas. Except that he couldn't really remember why. That was the joy of this stage. Before the shakes and the voices and fuzziness set in, there's this bit, where everything is overly real, and completely detached from anything like reality.
He liked this stage, because he could never remember anything else to compare it to.
Stumbling in. Senses, senses, a lot of them travelling south pretty fast. M-someone giggling hysterically. Kind of hurt his ears, actually. But he didn't care. The present, the present, the real and the now where the demons couldn't get to him.
"Get out!"
Ah. That's why this wasn't the best of ideas. Should have checked Beka wasn't here… should have… but he forgot. He liked his happy little stupors, but sometimes it had it's disadvantages.
"Not in here, Rhade! Not in your wildest dreams! Get out and go get some in the gutter! Not in here, you don't!"
She was angry, waving her arms in a way that was very, very distracting. He groaned. Trust her to be such a bloody spoil-sport. Trust her to bring the demons rushing back like shadows from the grave, screaming at him. Pig. Pig. Traitorous fool. Pathetic drunken bastard.
He shuddered, moaned, "Beka, come on…"
"You have got to be kidding me!" Hands on hips. That stare is never a good sign.
The girls had already departed. And all signs of the glorious stupor were gone. Depression was gnawing at his bones, snapping at his heals, wolves waiting to pounce now the alcohol had soaked in and softened just enough to make access easy, but not enough to make him too numb to feel it. Any second now… any second…
His hands started to tremble.
Damn.
"You bastard," her hiss, anger in those cold blue eyes.
He moaned, put his head in his hands, shook it, but only made the darkness come a little closer. He needed her… needs her… "Beka…"
"Out."
"Oh, for Christ's sake!"
"I mean it! Get out before I start shooting!"
Don't argue with her. Turn around and leave. There was no point arguing. He moaned again, turned, swayed, saw the floor swimming, and stumbled into daylight again. Stinging sunlight in his eyes. Something hit his back with a dull thud.
"And take this with you!"
A heavy object. Flask. He hit the dusty earth of the landing site, right on the outskirts of the town, with his own dull thud, and wrapped his shaking hands around the solid metal container, sniffing at the contents. Water.
"Sober up, you friggin' delinquent!"
Then she was gone. She left the door open. But it was open in the first place. It was too hot out here. Too hot in there. The air had to circulate or it got too damn hot everywhere. He could smell the sweat on her, just now, but he wasn't paying enough attention to notice it.
He lay back, stared at the sky, a lurid shade of sapphire. There were times when he felt like it must be mocking him, so high and mighty up there. Damn, damn, damn. What did he just do? He sat up and attempted to work it out, but his mind was foggy, all hyper-realism lost to a dull darkness that threatened to engulf him. His hands were shaking almost uncontrollably. He could hardly get the flask to his lips, but he managed, just, and swallowed hastily.
Cold water. That was real. That was something to focus on. Sitting in the dirt, dead drunk, shaking, with his back to the open Maru hatch, one seriously pissed off Beka Valentine therein. The shakes were refusing to abate. But the water, while not really cold, was cooler than his surroundings, and he still swallowed, feeling the liquid as it seeped, slow and unforgiving, into his body. Like spirits, but finer, softer, and lacking the taste of Oblivion he craved.
How far out was he?
Rhade attempted to calculate the scale of what had just transpired, get a little perspective, add in variable factors, the extremities of Beka's mood… Unfortunately, he could produce little more than 'me Rhade. Rhade done bad. Beka no pleased.
Such was the sacrifice he paid for the blissful release of Oblivion; and it was still a small one by comparison.
Lay back. Stare at the sky. Hope for something more than the darkness in his head. He needed to get back in there, talk to Beka. She was upset. Very upset. That whole thing… with the old man... – what was his name? Damn, today was not a good day for names! –Avineri, wasn't it? Right. That whole thing with him and the whole 'Vox's Secret' thing, it hasn't been good for her. The whole thing just felt freaky and out of sink to him, disjointed and unclear, even more so than most things, these days. But it definitely screwed Beka over a little, and it clearly did something to her… seeing that guy… thinking about her past…
God knew, he understood what thinking about the past could do to a person.
What did he do again?
Oh. Right. Crap. He's screwed.
He downed the last of his water and attempted the long and arduous journey back onto his feet. It took a few attempts. The ground was rocking in a way that couldn't be natural, even on Seefra. And the air was sticking to him, grasping the air away from his lungs until he knew he wasn't anywhere near sober yet.
But it'd have to do.
The Maru was cool, and dark. The sunlight filtered through a little, but petered around the shadows and dimmed away until there was only a comforting gloom left to blanket himself in. Beka… Beka… where was she? Hiding somewhere, crouched in her own misery, moaning to herself. That's what he'd be doing.
But she wasn't like him.
"Beka?" His voice was loud, off-putting, even to himself, in that dull, aching emptiness. "Where are you?"
But he'd already seen her. She was sitting on a bed, her bed… no, Trance's bed… a strange place to sit, behind a trellis with some God-awful creeper still somehow managing to climb all over it. She looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, like a child caught up after bed time, like a grown woman caught crying when she shouldn't have been. Except she should have been, if she wanted to. Freedom of expression, and all that crap Dylan liked to spout.
He remembered, suddenly, that she was younger than he is. A fact he felt oddly surprised by when he found out whilst curiously flicking through the crew's records on first joining the Andromeda, over a year and a lifetime ago. She looked younger, now, and tired, and worn. She'd been wearing herself out, running herself round and round in circles inside her own head. He knew the signs.
It was as if she was a piece of paper that someone had written the first line of a story on, then crumpled up and forgot about. She had been left to write the wrest of the page herself, but she had no pen, and no idea what to put.
Or maybe the alcohol just liked to bring out the vaguely depressing poetic charm in his soul.
"I thought I told you to get lost, Rhade."
But there was no energy, this time round. If she didn't want him to stay, she wasn't exactly telling him to go, either, and he knew he needed to sit down, because the shaking had started in his legs, and pretty soon he wouldn't be able to move at all. So he didn't say anything, grabbed the trellis to steady himself, and considered where the best place to fall was. The floor wasn't looking like much an option. Too hard. And he didn't want to end up next to Beka. She'd probably try to dislocate his jaw.
That left him… a dead shrub, and a slightly mouldy, flee bitten mattress on the floor opposite the bed Beka was huddled on.
He took the mattress, and collapsed.
This was not an unusual occurrence for Rhade. His knees often decided to pack up and head for fairer shores when he was in this state, especially when the shakes got good and going. A lot of the time, he wasn't fortunate enough to have the opportunity to pick his landing spot, either. Mostly, it was the floor of the bar, or the pavement, or occasionally the floor of someone else's… well, whatever they though passed as a bed room.
But Beka wasn't as used to him falling flat as he was, and jumped, shuddering in surprise.
"Rhade?"
He waved a hand at her from the flee-bitten mattress. It was lumpy, and smelled distinctly… wrong. But, better than the floor. "I'm okay."
"You really have to lay off that… whatever that stuff you drink is." She shook her head, still clutching her doll. It made her look even more like a child, all scrunched up like a little rag doll herself. She had her knees pulled up to her chest, and that weird angel doll trapped up against her. She looked so small and insecure… not the normal image for Beka Valentine.
He shrugged, "whaddaya gonna do?"
She looked away, fiddling with her angel doll, straightening out it's hair and clothes and tugging it's wings to the right angle. "You ever… think about your parents, Rhade?"
"I try not to." I try not to think about any of it.
But she wasn't listening. She was thinking out loud, fiddling, tugging, niggling at those irritating little dilemmas that haunted the dark and dusty corners of her mind. "You ever… wonder what… goes on, up there, in their heads, when they're raising you? You ever wonder what they really think of who you are?"
Rhade didn't bother answering. She was rambling, and he was incapacitated. However you looked at it, he was going to have to play the verbal sponge until she dried up and realised that the last week had just been another buck load of crap that the universe, in it's infinite wisdom, had decided to hurl at them.
"Sometimes, it's just like… you get the feeling that… there's so much going on around you that… you can't possibly be aware of it all…"
"Isn't this a conversation you would rather be having with Trance?" He enquired, diplomatically trying to stave off the head ache he could already feel encroaching on his sinuses.
She shook her head, "Trance gives me a head ache. Especially these days. I don't think she even knows whether she's coming or going anymore."
Rhade smirked, but had to agree.
"It's just that… sometimes… I just… is it possible? One life in two universes? Two… realities?"
The headache was getting worse. Rhade grimaced and closed his eyes.
"Beka," against his better judgement, he interrupted her, because he could see where this was going, "you don't really think that guy was your father, do you?"
She threw up her hands, "I don't know, okay? I just… this whole thing… it's just… beyond screwed up!"
"Tell me about it," Rhade muttered, covering his face with his hands.
Silence for a few, blissful minutes. Rhade cautiously opened one eye, to see that Beka had slumped over on the bed, still curled into that tight, fetal position, her face buried in the back of her doll.
"Beka?"
"Didn't I tell you get the hell out of my ship?" Her voice was slightly muffled.
"No."
"Oh. Well, get the hell out of my ship."
"And are you going to make me?"
She peered out from behind her doll, "You really wanna go there, Rhade?"
No. Not really. He didn't want to go there at all. He was completely incapacitated, the world was buzzing a little unpleasantly, and Beka was still on the wrong side of confused anger to dismiss her as a threat.
Unfortunately, something forgot to communicate the part of him that controlled his ego, because he smirked, which was precisely the wrong thing to do.
Beka leapt off the bed and jumped on him. He yelped and struggled, uselessly, as she straddled his stomach and preceded to beat his chest a bloody pulp. It reminded him horribly of the time she'd been possessed by that bio-armour, except that this time her eyes weren't glowing red and she wasn't attempting to excavate his heart from the inside out. She was just taking out her frustrations on his poor, helpless chest.
"Beka, for God's sake! Stop it! Stop it! What are you, on flash?!"
He grabbed one her wrists, managing to partially stem the flow of blows, but she her other hand was still good. In desperation, Rhade twisted from his back onto his side, just about throwing her off, but she had still got her legs tangled through his, and was clearly just a little past caring whether or not he was feeling any pain.
Which he wasn't. Thankfully, he wasn't quite sober enough to quite register any of the bruises he should have been feeling.
"Beka!" He grappled with her hands, just about managing to fend off one or two of the hits, then kicked out with his left leg to roll them off the mattress completely, and dumping him on top of Beka.
She yelped as her head cracked of the metal floor, and swiped at him, but Rhade had a temporary advantage, managing to pin both her wrists over her head. "Now," he began, "we can sit like this for the next few hours, or, you can promise not to do that again."
Beka made a face. "Screw that."
With a surprisingly strong jerk, she wrenched herself free of his grasp and shoved him over. In the swift and rather painful struggle that followed, Rhade found the world once again blurred into an inseparable sickening mix, ceiling, floor, flesh and hair, a heady mix of sweat and soap and engine grease; and then he was on his back, with Beka sitting smugly on his chest.
He sighed, "I'm drunk, Beka."
"And I'm exhausted," she told him, "but I can still get any Nietzschean I want on his back."
Rhade groaned and covered his eyes, then began to laugh, softly.
"What?"
He shook his head, "you just look… very Nietzschean."
"Which is more than I can say for you," she folded her arms, staring him down.
"Aw, get over it, Beka!" Rhade cried, attempting a half hearted swipe at her head, but missing, because he was actually seeing around three Bekas swimming over his chest.
"Get over what?" Beka demanded, glaring at him.
Rhade rolled her eyes, "I'm not your knight in shining armour anymore, okay? I'm not the academy golden boy I was last year! I'm not a fighter pilot, I'm not an officer of the high guard, I'm not even… God, half the time I'm not sure if I'm even human anymore! And I don't care! So why the hell do you?"
She looked a little taken aback at that, her head on one side. Rhade took a few deep breaths (a little difficult considering she was still sitting on him, but he got there) and managed to clear his swirling vision a little. A pounding headache was setting in. He wished he could get to his hip flask.
"Okay," Beka carefully settled herself back into a position in which she was more comfortable and began to score off his points on her fingers, "firstly, you were never my knight in shining armour, got that big guy? I don't even wanna know where you got that idea from. And secondly… secondly… someone's got to."
"Got to what?" That insolent grin. She wouldn't have minded punching it right off his stupid, Nietzschean-drunkard-wounded-warrior face. Idiot. God damn hot idiot.
"Someone's got to stop the resident village idiot drinking himself further into the gutter than he already has," Beka told him, poking his already bruised chest, "if your liver collapses, who's going to stand around looking jaded and sulky for Harper tell pointless jokes to?"
Rhade only snorted and closed his eyes, "are you gonna get off me any time soon?""Are you gonna get the hell out of my ship?"
"Are you gonna get off me?"
Beka sighed and rolled off him, lying next to him to stare blankly up into the dull gloom of the Maru's rafters. "Screw this."
"I… concur…" Rhade muttered, closing his eyes.
A short, soft silence, filled only with alcohol-heavy breathing and whispers of the darkness hanging coldly over head. Beka twisted a little, memories coiling and pressing themselves to the inside of her skull, confused and loud and threatening in their density. Some deeply buried issue hummed in the back of her mind, one she couldn't even begin to think of, fathom out, because it was too big, and she was too small and too tired and this was so… so… not what she had expected anything to turn out like ever.
"Rhade… Rhade, just to be clear," she began, quietly, "if… I start crying into your shoulder, it's because I've had one of the most screwed up… suckiest… days of my life, not because… of… well, anything else your alcohol addled, twisted little mind can come up with."
"Do I… have to… move… anywhere… at all…?" Rhade asked, turning his head a little to blink at her.
Beka shrugged, "guess not…"
"Then sure, whatever." Rhade raved a hand, distractedly, "if it's any help, I'm probably not gonna remember… most of this."
"Hmm…"
Beka closed her eyes, in the all consuming, giddy darkness, and, in the company of her bruised, jaded, drunk Nietzschean knight in shining armour, wished for oblivion.