Warnings: Rampant misuse of pseudotechnobabble. I'm so, so ashamed, now with ADDED PRETENTIOUS LATIN.
ps: dear quickeditor, you suck. rocks. give me back my formatting. you don't like my backslashes, you don't like my equal signs, is there any pleasing you, baby?
Nox Noctis
He'd never had the experience of struggling out of sleep before, because he was a realian and realians did not sleep - they disabled their superficial personality layer, suspended their operating systems, and initiated auto-nanorepair, which, for all it outwardly resembled the human act, had nothing to do with REM cycles - but he thought, perhaps, that it might be something like this. His body felt heavy and sluggish; he tried to open his eyes, and thought that he'd managed it, but all he was met with was more darkness.
He could hear someone counting, vaguely, as though from very far away, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. There was a crushing pressure against his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe - but he wasn't breathing, and he recognised part of the deep ache as carbonic acid buildup. The count repeated itself - one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. A warm mouth pressed itself to his and blew, feeding oxygen roughly into his lungs, but it didn't feel like air. It was too warm, almost scorching, rich with heat and power.
He'd never dreamed before, either, but he couldn't help but think maybe this is what dreaming is like, and with a sharp swirl of conflicting data, all his systems snapped back online, so quickly that it almost hurt.
This time, when he opened his eyes, he was met not with darkness, but with striking, worried blue. That strange navigator was hovering far too close, kneeling next to him with one ungloved hand still on his chest.
"Hey," he said with a relieved smile. "You're back. Can you tell me your name?"
Canaan coughed thickly and sat up, or, to be accurate, was pulled up - chaos was a lot stronger than he looked, slim hands supporting him without any difficulty.
"Codename Canaan," he said, coughing again. His lips felt numb, and tingled, as though he'd just received a mild electric shock, or short-circuited his sensory network somehow. He scrubbed at his mouth hard with one hand. "Vector prototype combat pilot, designation DXM 110-"
"That's enough," chaos interrupted, smile widening. "Good. I was getting worried."
"What happened?" he asked, but the memory was already playing itself back without any difficulty. He inhaled sharply, flinching a little from the pain, and looked up. The sky was a deeper shade of black than clouds could account for, darkness swallowing Miltia like a living thing, except for the ruins of the building that they were standing on.
"You went through a complete system shutdown," chaos said, hand still resting against his back. The material of the Federation-issue jumpsuit was thick, but he could feel the heat of of chaos' skin through it, like a brand. "Your heart stopped."
"Realians don't have hearts," he said automatically, and chaos made a sound that may have been a sigh, or a laugh, and ignored him.
"I administered CPR," chaos told him. "I could have broken a rib," he said, apologetic.
He took a slow breath, testing the ache he felt deep in his bones. "No," he said. "But you cracked two. That was unnecessary. Vector's failsafe would have automatically jump-started my system after three minutes."
"That's a little cold, don't you think?" chaos said, voice mild. "Considering you just stole my first kiss and all."
Involuntarily, his hand came up to brush at his mouth, the skin still faintly numb. He raised an unamused eyebrow at chaos. Most humans didn't like looking realians in the eye; there was something about the deep, unnatural gold that they found disconcerting. But chaos' smile didn't fade, and it wasn't as though the near-glow of those blue eyes was any more natural.
"Unnecessary," he repeated, irritated at his own wandering thoughts. He pushed himself to his feet, waving off chaos' attempts to either help him up or keep him down.
"You should rest more," chaos said. "You were out for almost twenty minutes."
He blinked. "That isn't possible."
"I'm afraid it is," and this time, chaos didn't sound apologetic in the least. "Rest a little more."
"There isn't any time," he said.
chaos opened his mouth, looking as though he wanted to protest, then closed it. "No," he said finally. "There isn't." Wordlessly, chaos picked his gloves up from where they had been dropped and pulled them on. The chill around them increased exponentially, but Canaan ignored it.
He walked over to a clear patch of concrete without waiting to see if chaos followed, and initiated the E.S Asher's startup and autopilot sequence, the code as familiar to him as breathing. His ribs ached, but climbing into the pilot's seat had never been an effort for him. Warming up the engines, he flicked through the coordinates that chaos suggested. Even the E.S Asher's sensors couldn't pierce the thick fog that was Miltia now, and he couldn't help but remember the captain's warning.
/This place changes people/. But he wasn't a person, was he, and who knew about chaos?
He rubbed at his mouth one last time; the tingling had almost entirely faded by now. The dull whine of machinery trailed into a purr, and he barely waited for the navigator's acknowledgement before launching. He wasn't programmed to be superstitious, but there was something deeply, deeply wrong about Miltia.
The sooner they got out of here, he thought, the better, and they had a job to do.
end-