Unreasonable Addiction III

Chapter 4: Tag

By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth

"AhHAAAH!" Clair whooped as she sped upwards through the night, towards the roof-tops. She had never felt so powerful. In the lab had been one thing, but out here, climbing walls and striding from building to building as though they were children's step-stones, the actuators thrilled her. They gleamed in the streetlights, moving steadily and purposefully at her will, carrying her downtown. She raced ahead, then stopped, clinging to the side of a building to wait for Otto.

He couldn't help but allow a smile to cross his features, hidden as it was by the high collar of his coat, as he followed her, watching her skitter about the rooftops with glee. He wondered if he had ever enjoyed his peculiar mode of locomotion. Perhaps. A long time ago. Now it was just enough to watch Clair, her own metal arms moving smoothly and surely, as she leapt and skittered from one rooftop to the next, then clung to a building and waited for him again, a smile on her face and the wind in her hair despite the bandage tied round her head.

With a smooth movement, she pulled herself up onto the building's roof as he reached it, grinning madly. "Why did you never tell me how much fun this is?" she demanded, laughing.

He hung, still and quiet, and reached out a hand to the side of her face, thumb drawing against her cheek made red by the chill air before pulling away. "It's not something I think about," he said.

She bent one actuator, bracing it against the roof and standing on its curve to take her weight off the harness. She gestured around them with her good arm, indicating the clearing sky, the moon-light rooftops, and the soaring heights of the city center not far away. "Do you think about any of this? It's beautiful, Otto. A part of the world that most people never see."

"I'm accustomed to it."

She deflated slightly, sighing. "I guess I'm just too new at this to look at things that way. I suppose I'm being childish. I know that these aren't toys, and yet..." She turned around, indicating the city again with a broad sweep of an actuator. "I see all this, and I realize that there is nowhere out here now that I can't go. It's all like a carnival without the "you must be this tall" signs."

"Yours is a fresh perspective," he said, "and entirely different to mine. Do not think of it as childish, I..." he paused, as though just realizing what he was saying, but continued. "...rather enjoy seeing such ... simple exhilaration." The smile lingered a little longer this time, only just visible around the edge of his collar.

She smiled back, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She drew very close to him, her actuators weaving around his without touching them. "See it through my eyes, then. There's something to be said for simple exhilaration," she said, her mouth inches from his. Her voice dropped suggestively. "And after all. You're It." She tagged him on the chest with her hand and bolted away, sprinting across the rooftop, laughing madly, twisting to look back at him.

He paused for an instant, motionless with utter incomprehension. Had she just...? She had. She sped across the rooftops and almost before he realized it, he was charging after her, vaulting and leaping over the buildings, swinging from spires, flashing past the windows of taller structures.

Your average New Yorker out on a night like this was, in all actuality, rather accustomed to the sight of people on the rooftops--if it wasn't Spider-man and his webs it was Doctor Octopus with his tentacles or the Green Goblin on his glider. Like everything else, the concept was handled with that typical New York complacency. They barely bothered to look up at the sound of actuator claws striking the buildings in such rapid succession. Had they looked up, they might have greeted the sight of two actuator-wearing figures flitting across the narrow gaps between buildings with a mildly interested "Huh," before continuing on their way.

Nothing different for your typical New Yorker, but for Otto Octavius, it was something altogether new. And, yes, exhilarating.

Clair shrieked with laughter as he, having the advantage of longer actuators and longer experience, gained on her. "You'll never catch meeeheeheeheehee!" she shouted over her shoulder, trying to sound melodramatic and spoiling it by not being able to suppress a giggle.

This, of course, only prompted him to move faster, actuators stretching even further, catching up to her, the wind in his hair and a truly dangerous smile on his face. He came up behind her, following as she dodged and ducked, almost in reach of his own arms.

When she saw him so close, she grinned, and dropped abruptly as they passed over a gap between two buildings, swinging down onto a fire escape in a huge clatter of metal on metal. Unfortunately, this left her no where else to go.

He stopped, hanging over her, and two of his actuators snagged two of hers, lifting her up, then curling around her body as she came closer, eventually drawing her up to eye level with him. The smirk on his face was unmistakable. He'd won.

Still laughing, she twined her actuators around them both. "You win," she smirked, and then kissed him, wrapping her arm around his neck.

"Mmmm..." He closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss. "I always do," he murmured after their lips separated, opening his eyes again and looking at her, her eyes bright and her cheeks red. A smile crossed his face again and one hand slipped through her hair.

"Yes, you do. As much as I'd love to give you your prize, weren't we doing something?" she said reluctantly, pulling back. Her ribs twinged, reminding her that being too... playful had its costs right now. She would heal soon, she hoped, but until then...

"We were, weren't we?" he replied, his fingers lingering lightly on her face and neck. His eyes flicked about the cityscape until he found his bearings. "It's that way," he said, indicating a direction vaguely to the right and vaguely behind them.

She unwound her arms, all of them, from around him, suspending herself over the edge of the building. Her smile returned. She wasn't ready to stop playing just yet. "Race you there?"

He looked at her sidelong, as though he were about to say something, and in the next instant he was gone, leaping through the air toward their destination, actuators ringing against the concrete of the buildings, obviously far faster than he would usually go.

She grinned and followed as fast as she could, fairly flying above the streets. The wind was icy in her face, but it didn't matter as she caught up, slowly.

Another few moments of this passed and Octavius slowed, then coming to a stop clinging to the side of a building, between the windows of two apartments. "There it is," he said, indicating what was clearly a hospital building.

Clair caught up, perching on the window sill to his right. Absently, she rubbed her shoulder, which was beginning to ache. "A portable MRI would be kept near the ER," she supplied, looking down at the ambulance bay off to one side, quiet now. She could see two surgeons in blue scrubs taking a break just outside the double doors. "Let's go in, shall we?"

The desk receptionist wasn't as helpful as Hanover would have liked, and continued taking her time with the request even after he and Martin had shown her their IDs. Even now, she still sat at her computer, slowly going through the requisite windows, all the while telling him at every window what this meant in terms of the patient privacy laws and whatnot, as though in an attempt to exonerate herself from any legal entanglements this breach of privacy might create. Hanover leaned against the desk, idly listening to the television showing a rerun of Friends. What kind of hospital was this where they tormented the sick with godawful sitcoms?

Martin took a sip of coffee from her paper cup and almost spat it out. Apparently, the waiting room pot had been sitting there all day, and it was as thick as tar and about as potable. She sighed and set it aside. "You never realize how many ERs there are in New York until you taste each of their coffee. This one's the worst, what do you think?"

Just looking at the coffee caused Hanover to pull a face. "It's pretty crappy, but I think--" he broke off at the sound of screams, looking at the doors that led to the Emergency Room. "Some poor loser with a steering column through his chest?" he wondered aloud. Two seconds later it became evident that this was not your typical Emergency Room emergency, but the huge crashing thuds and then an rage-triggering familiar sound: metal thrusting itself forcefully into a surface. Actuators.

Octopus.

Whipping out his gun in one hand and his ID in the other, Hanover ran for the doors despite the receptionist's protests, pushing the doors open and running through them. Martin followed at a run, drawing her own gun. Inside the ER, she stopped just behind Hanover, staring at the scene.

The scene in question looked like something out of a cheesy movie. People still ran screaming and in the middle of it was Octavius, hanging from his actuators, motionless. One of the limbs shot out, grabbed a screaming nurse, and hauled her up to his eye level. "The MRI array. Where is it?" he asked, his voice a soft growl. Sweating, Hanover sidled round for a better shot.

Terrified, the nurse pointed to her right. "It-it-it's th-that way..." she stuttered. "Be-behind the d-d--d-door that s-says 'M-magnetic Imaging..."

He dropped the nurse and she fell on her rump on the floor before scurrying under a desk in the nurse's station on her hands and knees. "Come" Octavius said, heading in the indicated direction.

"Who's he talking -" Martins began, but then more of the metal-to-floor sounds came, and from the other direction. She snapped her head around to see a smaller figure come through the destroyed door, also on actuators. Much smaller. It took her a moment to recognize the grinning face of Dr. Holmes under a white bandage around her head. A grey longcoat hid the rest of her, one arm missing from its sleeve. Looking around the scene with an interested, academic sort of smile, she followed Octavius, her movements quicker than his, less smooth. Martin stared after them both.

Going white, Hanover nearly dropped his gun. "That ... bastard..." He raised his gun again and made to fire, but Octavius had disappeared around a corner. Cursing, Hanover chased after him--them. He couldn't believe Octavius had suckered Holmes in so completely that she now wore tentacles as well? That she accompanied him on these crime outings like some perverse kind of sidekick? He pelted round the corner, his gun still up, pushing past a petrified tech.

Martin was at Hanover's side as he ran around the corner, and as they both ran into an outstretched tentacle, blocking their path. Dr. Holmes smiled down at them, lifted almost to the ceiling on her extra arms. She was about to say something, but then she stopped, staring at Hanover. The smile crept back. "I remember you. Agent... Handover, wasn't it?"

"Hanover," Hanover corrected almost unconsciously. then he blurted, "My God, what's he done to you?"

Holmes's brows furrowed and she looked down at herself. Martin could see the shape of her other arm under her coat, pressed to her side and immobile, as if in a sling. "Nothing I didn't ask him to do," she said, shrugging one thin shoulder eloquently.

A feeling of the utter creepiness of her answer washed over Hanover and nearly made him nauseous. "Ask him... what are you talking about?"

Her grin broke open, and she laughed. "The arms, Agent Handover. He gave me the actuators because I asked for them. What are you thinking about?"

Hanover's gun came up at the sound of crashing and screaming nearby. "I don't think so," he said, his gaze flicking between Holmes and the source of the noise. "I don't think he could have done anything just because you asked him to. It's a means of control. You're in his debt now, or worse..."

"Oh, I imagine you'd think it much worse, Agent Handover," she said, bending at the waist to loom over him, in a very Octavian pose. "He not only gave these to me because I asked him to, he gave them to me because I needed him to. I couldn't have gone on without them. I'm not in his debt, Agent Hanover. I belong to him." She straightened, one eyebrow rising above her glasses. "I never did thank you for your gullibility, did I?"

"Th-my..." Hanover stuttered, for the moment lost for words, for witty arguments, for supposedly astute observations. There was a tremendous crash and an MRI machine came through the wall, supported by silvery actuators, followed by Octavius' looming form. Hanover's eyes flicked between Octavius and Holmes. His lips moved wordlessly. He swallowed audibly and raised his gun.

Clean in Hanover's sights, Octavius turned to look at him.

A rapid, jerky strike, and Hanover's hand was pinned against the wall by one of Holmes's actuators. Martin shifted her aim to the woman, then back to Octavius, trying to cover them both. Holmes's smile had disappeared, and she winced, her real hand going to her shoulder. "Otto," she grated, holding the joint. "You remember Agent Hanover, don't you?"

"Agent Hanover, I am delighted to see you," Octavius purred, leaning in closer. "Why, I hear you've been tailing me, haven't you? Tell me, have you any ... observations to make after so much information-gathering? I daresay by now you know what color my underwear is and where my mother and father met each other, isn't that right?" One actuator claw came up, grasping Hanover's head and his friendly tone dropped instantly. "I'll only tell you this once, you prying little weasel, stay out of my way. You and your partner," he finished, his gaze tracking to look at Martin, who was still trying to cover both him and Holmes.

Holmes left Hanover to Octavius and stepped towards Martin. Martin steadied her gun at Holmes, issuing a low warning. "Make him let him go." Clair froze in her sights, visibly losing some of her confidence.

One of Octavius' actuators shot forward, disarming Martin with a sickening crack against her wrist. The gun went flying. He returned his attention to Hanover. "This is your only warning. Perhaps you ought to sleep on it." The actuator gripping Hanover's head drove it against the wall with another meaty thwack and he slumped to the floor. "Come," he said again, and picked up the MRI array, exiting through the window.

Clutching her wrist, Martin could only stare as Holmes gave a sarcastic bow and followed Octavius out, taking some of the weight of the MRI herself. "I wonder what name Jameson will give me?" she thought she heard Holmes ask as she darted to Hanover's side, checking his pulse.

The police who had shown up at the site were at a loss as to what to do about what appeared to be two Doctor Octopuses--Octopi, and apart from firing a few shots at them as they retreated back up a building, their response was pretty much ineffective. Things grew as quiet as they could for New York City at this altitude and at this time of the evening, and Octavius and Clair made their way home with the prize held high in one actuator each, slowed by it considerably.

Clair was still laughing as they worked together to maneuver the MRI into basement through its rarely used outside door, which led into an alley behind the house. "I can't believe we ran into Hanover. What are the odds?"

"Surprisingly, not as slim as you'd think," Octavius replied soberly. "People like them have a tendency toward improbable timing."

"The man's an idiot," she remarked, sliding past the machine to clear a space for it, waving a greeting to their captive. "He still doesn't get it."

Between them the MRI was pushed into the corner that had been cleared for it and Octavius stepped back, looking the machine over for a moment before he turned his attention to Parker. Parker, for his part, watched them both warily. Clair looked proudly at the new acquisition, then set to hooking it up. "Not bad for a first job, right?" she asked casually, turning to look at Otto while her actuators made the connections.

"You let them intimidate you," he replied, peering at the Tesla scanner's readouts. "Never let them intimidate you or the whole idea is lost."

"I was doing fine until she pointed the gun at me," she said defensively. "I've never had a gun aimed at me before. I'll get better." She stepped back, rubbing her shoulder and making a face. "There, that's ready."

"You're going to see a lot of guns pointed at you if you continue in this kind of life," he replied, looking down at her.

"I'm perfectly aware of that," she said, hand on her hip. "That was just the first, is all. I'm allowed one moment of weakness."

Octavius had turned away from Holmes, but Peter was able to see his expression, and watched as the other's brow furrowed in that spectacular scowl he'd seen time and again. Octavius turned back. "One moment of weakness is all they'll need! There is no room for weakness here! You cannot afford it!" One actuator rummaged in a storage bin and came up with a familiar item--the gun Octavius had lifted off the man in the bar in Lort. Somehow he'd managed to keep it with him all this time. The actuator dropped it in his hand and he aimed it at her, cocking the hammer back. "This situation clearly calls for an object lesson."

She blinked, but held her ground. He wouldn't fire. She glared past the barrel at him. "This is stupid. We both know you won't fire that gun."

He fired.

The noise was deafening in the small confines of the lab, but what startled her even more was the blur of silver that crossed her vision. The bulled spanged off of it harmlessly, and the slender actuator lowered itself, revealing to her a view of Octavius still standing there, gun pointed at her, motionless.

She stared at him, not breathing for a very long moment. Her mouth slowly closed and she brought the actuator up again, looking at the tiny mar on its finish. She held very still as it snapped forward to tear the gun out of Otto's hands, joining with another to snap it in half and fling the pieces at him.

He remained motionless, silent, staring at her as the pieces of the firearm missed him by millimeters. His own actuators curled inward and his face remained impassive. Behind him, Parker stared.

The reaction coursed through her, leaving, after a seeming eternity, reason in its wake. She breathed out heavily, and nodded. "As... lessons go, that was effective. Abrupt, but effective."

"And what has it taught you?" Octavius asked, again leading her thoughts. Behind him, Parker started breathing again.

"That I don't have to be intimidated, just because they have a gun." she said. "As long as I remain in control, they aren't a threat."

He nodded. "Knowing that," he said, "Spells the difference between life and death. Whether it's a frightened cop with a gun or someone like him," he looked at Parker, who stared resolutely back at him. "Always maintain control."

Watching this abject lesson, Parker couldn't help but come to the conclusion that that was why he had to fight Ock time and again, why the man gave him more of a contest than possibly any of his other enemies. Ock knew that it all came down to control And now someone else knew, too.

She nodded, her face serious as she internalized the lesson, examined it from every angle. And found it sound. The actuator curled up under her hand. "I will remember that," she said at last, relaxing slightly.

"Good," he said. "Good." He looked as though he would say something else, but he remained silent, almost appearing as though he didn't know where to put himself. He looked at the MRI, he looked at Parker, he looked at Clair, his gaze traveled along the lab, stopping briefly at the hole the bullet left in the wall. He turned and started for the door, muttering something about needing a drink.

Clair reached out an actuator to clasp his shoulder. "Thank you." she said earnestly, without waiting for him to turn around.

Octavius paused, but didn't turn. "Join me?" he said, somewhere between a directive and a request.

She didn't say anything, but went to him, slipping her arm around his waist and accompanying him upstairs.

Parker watched them disappear, and let his head drop back onto the table. Great. Who knows what they'd end up doing there and here he was, still strapped to the table, hungry, thirsty scared to pieces ... and still without a television.

The study was probably the least sparse room in the body of the house, lined with crowded bookshelves and a trio of glowing computers in one corner; Otto's. But Clair's goal in there this time was the gorgeous oak liquor cabinet that stood benevolently by the door. Pulling away from Otto, she opened it and took out Otto's great blown glass brandy snifter and a bottle of the potent stuff, last of a shipment that he had lifted from a five-star restaurant nearly a year ago. She brought them both over to the table by his squashy leather armchair, following a ritual formed by occasional nights of his coming home empty-handed and beaten. She poured him his drink, but then she broke tradition by keeping the bottle herself, getting another glass and pouring her own dose, taking her seat on the other side of the table and regarding the liquor thoughtfully.

He dropped into the armchair and leaned back as far as the actuators would allow, his eyes closed. After a beat, he reopened them, found the glass, and took a pull of the brandy, feeling its burning warmth ease his insides at least a little. He looked at her over the rim of the glass, seeing she had one of her own this time. "You do realize," he said, setting the glass down, "that if you drink that, I will probably have thoroughly corrupted you." Here one corner of his mouth quirked upward, and he regarded her quietly.

She smiled crookedly and raised the glass in salute to him before downing half of it in a gulp, then choked and coughed as her throat rebelled against the burning stuff.

A full smile crossed his features this time. "Careful," he said, sounding amused. "It's best sipped, not gulped." He took another drink as though to illustrate his point. "It's smooth, but it still burns." A third pull emptied the glass and one actuator reached for the bottle and poured another measure into the glass, something he didn't often do.

She looked at him pointedly as she recovered, taking a much more moderate sip this time. She could feel her joints loosen and she sat back, leaning against the actuators. "I was going to say, it's a little late. I'd judge myself rather thoroughly corrupted already. And you don't get all the credit for it, either. I was doing illegal medical experimentation before you came back." Another sip, and she could feel her joints begin to loosen. The pain in her ribs and shoulder receded somewhat.

"Ah," he said, smirking. "But can you say that you would have done said illegal experimentation had I not abducted you in the first place?" Another pull, and he watched her over the rim of the glass as he drank.

"Now that, I can't say," she admitted, clearing her throat. "If you hadn't abducted me, I don't know that I would have ever completed the ZJ. It's all in the motivation, apparently. If I hadn't completed the ZJ, I doubt I would ever have come up against a situation where the testing I needed would be illegal in the first place." Another sip. "Or I might have dropped out of medicine entirely."

"So you see?" He drained the glass. "I can take all the credit." A beat. "And I will," he finished, his smirk maybe a little wider, now. The actuator poured a third glass, and he eyed the bottle.

"That's the last bottle," she warned, refilling her own glass. "You'll have to get more." She sat back again, thinking. "If I'd dropped out of medicine, I would have gone to work for my father." She didn't sound terribly pleased with that idea, and her lip curled slightly.

Another burning mouthful. "Oh? Doing what?" That look on her face and the tone of her voice pushed into his mind a memory of his own father, but he pushed that memory aside.

"He owns a little bar upstate. Both my older sisters work there as bartenders, and my little brother is the manager. A real family affair." She took another sip, holding it in her mouth for a while before swallowing it. "I was good at mixing drinks. If it weren't for the scholarship, I doubt that Dad would have let me leave when I graduated."

"That doesn't sound all that bad, the way you've described it," he murmured, looking into his glass.

She looked over at him, her face unreadable. "Do the math, Otto. I was fifteen, sixteen, working in what amounts to little more than a truckstop tavern. It's not conducive to fond memories."

"Mmm," he said, downing the glass. "I see. Yes, I can see how you'd want to escape it. It'd be a waste of a fine intellect in a place like that, surrounded by the dregs of what people think of as humanity."

She rolled the glass between her palms, thinking. She didn't think about her family often. "My oldest sister, Jennifer, has a daughter now, I think. I got a letter once while I was in Seattle, just once. I didn't even know she was married."

He leaned his chin on his hand and watched her. "Mmmm, quite a mundane existence," he mused.

She smiled at that, her eyes flicking sideways to his. "I'd have gone mad within a year, taken the local quilt group hostage, and started a life on the run. See, you actually delayed my ultimate corruption, the way I see it."

The actuator picked up the bottle and poured yet another glassful. "Delayed it," he said, watching this action, "to greater effect, wouldn't you say?"

She held her glass out for another refill as well. "Oh yes. Left to my own devices, I'd have botched the whole supervillain thing my first time out and ended up in some institution, writing my memoirs on the walls with my toes and a red crayon."

This struck him as strangely funny, and he chuckled, filling her glass. "I've done something similar. It's hardly a fulfilling use of one's time."

'No, I imagine not. And it would have been such a short memoir, too. Hardly Ockumentary material." She laughed, a little off-balanced. "I really will have to pick up a copy of the Bugle tomorrow. I can't wait to find out what cleverness Jameson will come up with." She looked back into her glass. "I wonder if my mom reads the Bugle."

"What would you think if she did?" he asked, softly, back to leaning his chin on his hand. He felt warm and sleepy, but watched her anyway through half-lidded eyes.

"I don't know," she said, taking another sip. It was getting to her head now. "She was so proud of me. Came to my graduation, brought me a huge orchid lei to wear so she could pick me out from the crowd. And then I disappeared, and it was almost a year before the Program let me call her. And they never let me give her a number so she could call me. My calls were screened the whole time I lived there." She raised her eyebrows. "Apparently, they thought a phone call from you was the greater risk. But that's neither here nor there. I haven't spoken to my mom in..." She took another sip, trying to think. "Four years."

"Family only serves to get in the way," he mumbled, looking at the glass and wondering why it was empty.

"She used to make the best cookies," she continued, smiling fondly. "Big round sugary ones. On Fridays after school. I never learned how. She taught Moira and Jennifer, but I was too busy to learn."

"Cookies ... pies ... cocoa with marshmallows in when it was cold and they hurt more..." he mumbled.

"When what hurt more?" she asked, shooting him a glance.

"Injuries... hurts when you're beaten up every day... more so when it's cold," he mumbled. Ordinarily this subject wouldn't have been the easiest to mention, almost impossible, really, but as warm and sleepy as he was, he simply found himself talking, words coming out as though someone else was pulling them out of his mind.

She nodded. "Mark was picked on in school, my brother. He was tiny, like me, but with a mouth like the bug. Always in trouble with someone. Dad used to get so mad when the other kids broke his glasses... He'd go to their houses and threaten to beat up their parents if they didn't pay for new ones. Dad's a big guy." she added, glancing up as if the man in question was standing in front of her.

"Used to punish me when they got broken" Octavius mumbled sleepily. "Used to take them off a lot ... just so they wouldn't get broken again..."

"That's not very fair," she said, indignant on his behalf.

"Mmmm," he rumbled. "No such thing as 'fair.' 'S just the way it was."

She got up and moved over to perch on the arm of his chair, wrapping her arm around his neck and resting her cheek against the top of his head. She couldn't think of anything to say. "It's as fair as you make it," she said at last. "It's a lot better now, isn't it?"

"Infinitely," he mumbled. "Old bastard's dead."

She sat back a bit, watching his face. "Did you...?"

He smiled ruefully. "No, though I wish I had. He was killed by injuries from an accident at a construction site," he said slowly.

"Hn," she said, considering. "I'd pictured your parents as artists or astrophysicists or something exceptional like that."

"Construction foreman and housewife," he mumbled. "Aggressively mundane."

"Certainly an argument against the inherited IQ theory," she said into his hair. "So where does your genius come from?"

"I don't know." he mumbled, leaning toward her, his hand finding hers. "I think I remember hearing about a few people on my father's side who were artists or some kind of virtuoso--" he inched his way through the word, "musicians."

"'Art in the blood takes the strangest forms,'" she quoted, wavering a bit on her perch.

As sleepy as he was, he saw her wobble and reached out, actuators curling around her and pulling her close to him. "I suppose it does," he murmured. "I saw art in what I did."

She leaned against him, tracing one of his actuators with a finger. "There's art in these."

"Mmmm," he replied. "Gleaming, sinuous of form..." another soft, slow chuckle.

"Powerful, deceptively dangerous..." She wrapped her own around them both, a slow, sleepy embrace.

His own arm curled around her and he leaned his head against her, sighing a long sigh. "Think I drank t'much," he mumbled, still smiling.

"Know I did," she mumbled back, her eyes drifting shut. "Think I'm a little drunk."

He sighed again, but didn't say anything, his breathing already slow and deep. His fingers curled against her side for a moment, then relaxed, and presently she heard the soft buzz of his snoring.

She rallied long enough to pull away, fumbling at the catch of the harness she wore until it gave way. The brandy made it so the withdrawal of the connections did nothing more than make her grunt sleepily as the actuators fell away, and then she arranged herself carefully against Otto, her head pillowed on his chest. She pulled a throw over them both, and soon was asleep as well.