bakerstreet | The Attached Meme

The Attached Meme

The Attached Meme

Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode of the same name.

Comment with your character, specifying name, canon, and gen/shipping/smut preferences, and/or tag someone else.
You and the other person now have two problems. One, you're aware of each other's surface thoughts regardless of either of your wishes, and two, if you try to distance yourselves from each other you're struck with nausea and vertigo until you manage to get close again.
Optionally, roll for or choose details:
1. You've been captured by some hostile force and had devices surgically implanted into the backs of your necks in order to facilitate interrogation. The mental link between you and dependency on proximity are just side-effects. Can you escape under these conditions?
2. You've been cursed by a spellcaster or supernatural being who wants you to "learn a lesson". Whether that's a real lesson about each other made possible by forced openness and time spent together or just the lesson of "don't mess with me" is an open question, and figuring it out may be key to having the curse broken...
3. One of you has suddenly awakened to latent paranormal powers, or your existing powers are suddenly misbehaving -- perhaps due to unforeseen interaction with the other person's abilities, if they have them. Maybe you could solve this, or at least the part about having to stay near each other, if you could only gain control over your power...
4. You were both willingly part of a scientific experiment, whether one of your own design or something you both volunteered for, and this... was not the result you signed up for. The mental link may or may not have been a known goal, but the involuntary aspect and the inability to separate aren't things either of you expected. Can science undo what it has done?
5. You both came into contact with an unknown substance, whether by accident or simply because of mutual curiosity, and this was the result. Now if you're going to be able to have privacy relative to each other again, you're going to have to figure out what it is and why it had the effect on you it did in order to find a way to counteract it.
6. Your choice, or something new!
Have fun!

"I'm a scientist!" comes out somewhere between indignant and baffled, with a weary undercurrent of bloody operatives running through her thoughts. "I can't just not think about it, especially if we want any chance of getting this - this mess sorted out."

She folds her arms across her chest, the defensive gesture only serving to make her look younger than her years, and exactly as out of her depth as she actually is.

"I have no idea why they'd pick me."

It doesn't ring entirely true - SHIELD looms heavy in her mind, a collection of faces and a weight of secrets that she doesn't, mercifully, focus on clearly enough for anything specific to bleed through.

"Not unless they want something they can't get on their own. Or it's some sort of sick test."

That thought, he caught immediately and turned with his frown directed at her this time. "SHIELD. You're with SHIELD."

Shit fuck fuck shit no hell no can't have him--

"Do me a favour. Once we get out of here, forget you met me."

What if they have him--

Another deep breath and Mike turned back to the door. "Okay, so, they stuck a SHIELD agent and a FLAG operative in the same room with these things in our necks that are... at least transmitting thoughts and emotions, because I've got to tell you, I'm not going to hurt you, so you don't need to be afraid of me. Be afraid of whatever these people did to us."

"Scientist. I'm a SHIELD scientist. And we're not the bogeyman - I don't know who you're afraid of us having, but we don't go around just kidnapping people. That's nonsense propaganda."

Idealistic as she is, Simmons believes that with all her heart. Which doesn't make it even halfway true.

They're just very good at justifying it.

"Besides, if you want that...that thing out of your neck, we're your best bet. I doubt these people will give us access to a medical bay and the time to use it."

Even if we were clear on what they're meant to do. Oh, they'd better have files accessible.

He needed, he knew, to put Kitt out of his mind. If it was obvious just who he was, then eventually, they'd ask, and--

"Let me put it this way," Mike said quietly, his voice a little dark. "I've already met a SHIELD agent who tried to take him, so excuse me if I don't exactly believe you. Unfortunately, you're probably right about the surgery part."

He heaved a sigh and took a few steps toward her, extending his hand. Even in the dim light, the Army Rangers tattoo on his forearm was visible, sitting just beneath his elbow as it was. "So how about we call a temporary truce. Whatever SHIELD crap I hear from you, I won't tell. Whatever FLAG crap you hear from me, you won't tell."

Simmons hesitates for a moment, indecision writ clear in her expression even above the tattered edge it lends to her thoughts.

Skye wouldn't hesitate.

She gives her head a brief shake to dislodge the self-recrimination and her discomfort at so blatant a breach of protocol both, and reaches over to clasp his hand. Her gaze lingers briefly on the tattoo, drawn by the contrast between ink and skin. "All right. You have a deal."

She manages a smile, strained and wan, and squares her shoulders as she pulls away. "Right, so. Do you have any thoughts on how we're getting out of here?"

"Well, it depends." He looked over their surroundings, her clothes and his own, and took stock. "They took my belt, my wallet, my shoestrings, my knife, and my gun. I think they left you in about the same shape. No electric in here, no furniture, and the hinges are on the outside. And I'm betting you'd prefer it if I didn't kill our way out of here."

But his mind was already spinning out plans. They have to feed us sometime.

And once they opened the door, Mike could deal with it from there. It'd be easier if he could just down every one of them and make sure they couldn't get back up, but he could make do with unconsciousness.

Do I really seem that stupid?

Simmons bites the inside of her lip, wincing a little at the sting of the unconscious gesture, and shakes her head. "I'm SHIELD," she says quietly. "I might not be fond of the idea of leaving a trail of bodies behind us, but I'm not hypocritical enough to insist that our escape be bloodless. Besides, they kidnapped us, subjected us to medical experiment, and are planning to...I don't even know what they're planning to do. We're not the ones who started this."

Are we? What's the connection? Two organizations, both targetted. What's the connection?

Mike's verbal answer was easy enough. "I'm glad you don't care if I bust a few heads." It gave him a lot more freedom. It wasn't the FLAG way, but it was Mike's way and right now, Army Ranger meant more than FLAG operative.

But the answer to the second, unspoken, question came quick and instinctively. Tech. And he had no doubt that she heard that, and he let his reasons reel through his mind on that most obvious level. Rooms full of screens, government connections pirated, a shining black surface changing colour, changing shape, a voice--

It was the voice, though, that he squelched down.

"I bet they want to ransom us for information."

Simmons frowns slightly, brow furrowing in puzzlement. What--? half forms before she kills the thought, burying it under the same trained in protocols that keep her from going half-mad wondering at intel far above her clearance level.

It isn't that she doesn't ever want to know, it's just that she's learned not to ask.

"Too simple," she says, words coming a bit too rapidly, on the verge of sliding into babble. "They wouldn't need these for that, and they have to know neither of our organizations would treat it lightly, our being compromised." 'These' is punctuated by a vague gesture, from her head to his and back again. "Unless they can ransack our minds in an afternoon, the implants suggest a longer game. Which is truly, deeply disconcerting."

The image of a body, apparently unharmed but for the stain of blood leaching across the white of one eye surfaces like a soap bubble, laced with dull fear and quiet, simmering fury.

"These things..." He took a breath, shaking his head. "Yeah, you might be right, but these things aren't as... as nothing as you would think."

Mike paced away from the door, hands coming up to his temples to rub. There were subtle old scars there, subtle enough that it was likely she'd not noticed him and it would probably stay that way unless he pointed them out, but he could feel them under his fingers.

"It seems pretty benevolent now. I can think at you, you can think at me, we pick up some things that neither of us intends to share, but there it is anyway," he said, half-rambling, "but it gets worse. Like what if I keep getting angry, or you get scared, or I get stuck in a flashback. It isn't just one of us that's affected. It's both. It goes both ways. And what if they broadcast on a frequency that these things pick up. What if they start taking over?"

On those last two words, his voice tightened, belying that he knew more than what he was letting on - but he kept his thoughts tightly under control. Some things, she didn't need to know.

"It doesn't seem benevolent at all," Simmons protests, though any further argument is cut short with a spike of worry. She hasn't noticest the scars - in the dim light, it's unlikely she would, even had she known to look. She does notice the gesture, the near rambling - she's medic enough that her first thought is symptomatic.

She crosses the room to intercept the path of his pacing, one hand lifting to touch his shoulder in a silent request to stop. Her gaze searches his face - or rather, his eyes, searching for any hint of unusual pupillary constriction. As much as she can, without a proper light source. "Do you have a headache?"

In another situation, it would be ridiculous. Earnest as her concern is, it might be anyway.

His eyes, in this dim light, managed to pick up just enough to look red instead of their usual brown. Not unusual for him - something he's heard before, actually, but never something he was conscious of. And when she stood there in front of him, hand at his shoulder, he stopped, took a breath, and started to shake his head before he had to be honest and nodded. "Starting to. Probably just stress. Blood pressure. It happens."

The pain is part of the project, Mike, someone spoke in his memory, but he shoved it aside stubbornly. "Sorry. Like I said, flashbacks. Not my first tango with this kind of thing. Etcetera. And if that particularly loud thought hadn't been a giveaway, my name is Mike. Michael Knight."

The colour is unusual enough to provoke a flare of unease, and Simmons spends a moment longer than is strictly necessary examining his eyes. Long enough to ascertain that it's just an unusual pattern in the iris - or, if not, it's something she's never seen before. She steps back, dropping her hand away, and frowns up at him. "Or it's a side effect of the device of unknown origin interfacing directly with your central nervous system. I don't see anything amiss, but if it gets worse, or if you start feeling ill, let me know straight away."

Not that she could do much, with no med kit and an empty cell, save shout at their still-mysterious captors.

The rest processes a moment later, and her eyes narrow. "When you say 'this kind of thing', you don't just mean the captivity, do you?"

"No. Even though that's not new, either." The expression on his face wasn't pleasant - part wry, part dark. "At least we're not being waterboarded, which I will work not to show you, but I'm a few years out of practice with the whole keeping-my-thoughts-to-myself thing."

A few years and a nice amnesiac block which liked to waver in and out at its own happy little convenience, it seemed. Memories leaking through when he really didn't want them--

"Old governmental project," he said instead. "Black op. Probably blacker than SHIELD knows about. I can't tell you much about it because, thanks to that project, I don't really remember much about it. But I was an Army Ranger, so I can get us out of here as soon as they open that door."

A flash of realization bursts across the surface of Simmons' mind, not so much new data as something she'd been very carefully, if not entirely consciously, not thinking about. Regardless of the intended purpose of the implants, as torture devices they would be virtually unparallelled.

The magnification of recursive feedback alone would be astronomical...

She shakes her head sharply, hitching an unsteady breath. "Well, there's an apalling thought. Let's hope they do open the door before we need to find out just how creative they might be."

"And let's hope that you don't get the feedback of when they start hammering on me," Mike murmured. "So, since I'm going to change the subject, how about you give me your name since I gave you mine?"

Something nice and calm, something that would let him brace for when he started hearing footsteps outside in the hall.

Simmons blinks at him in surprise, the look fading into one of chagrin as she realizes that no, she really hasn't introduced herself yet. It's not that she doesn't have manners, it's just that they're incredibly easy to misplace.

Especially when there's kidnapping involved, which still isn't really something she's used to.

"I'm sorry. I'm Jemma Simmons. Not that anyone really calls me Jemma, except for my mum and dad. And Fitz, sometimes."

Fitz. You'd better be all right.

"Fitz, huh? Think he'll care if I co-opt your first name, or do you answer better to Simmons?" He was careful to keep a lid on the flirting. Now was not the time or the place, no matter how natural it was for him to drop straight into the usual flirtation. Now was the time to wait, to listen, to see if he could hear anyone approaching.

If it took too much time, he'd kick the door out, he decided. Surely he could get enough leverage in the right spot for that to happen.

"You're making fun," Simmons accuses, though in truth, it's almost a relief. Bickering and banter is enough a part of her everyday life that it's come to signify normalcy - or, at least, the absence of looming mortality.

"Call me what you want. Being inside each other's heads is intimate enough to put us on first name basis by anyone's standards."

She crosses her arms again, tight across her abdomen, willing herself silent and still. Her thoughts are harder to quiet, and she turns them toward cataloging the likely contents of a medical lab, and their utility in an escape attempt.

"Then call me Mike." The name 'Michael' still put a face in his mind that he wasn't sure about. He might actually have to talk to him if he got out of this.

Her mental cataloging was actually something of a comforting litany as he paced, this time more slowly, more calmly, across one side of the cell. "If I hand you a gun, will you freak out?" he asked, making his own plans. It was one thing to be able to have one gun, but if he could count on her to at least carry one and hand it over when he needed it, that would be better.

"I'm not afraid of guns," Simmons replies, looking up from the patch of floor she's been using as a mental background with a slight frown. "Unless you point one at me, but really, that's just common sense. I've had very little occasion to use one outside of a test range, but I won't panic if I have to handle one, and I won't shoot myself, or you."

She just isn't entirely sure, if it came down to it, how capable she would be of consciously and deliberately shooting anyone else, either. Nonlethal weaponry is one thing, but actual bullets can't be taken back.

He nodded, filing that away. "I'm not going to ask you to shoot anybody," he said. "But I will ask you to hand me guns as we go. They'll be armed somehow, I'm sure, since my tattoo isn't exactly invisible, and it'll take less time to switch guns than it would to scavenge ammo and reload since this isn't a video game." But there were other possibilities. "If they don't have guns, they'll have tasers or something like that, and that'll actually be more troublesome. I hate getting tased, but if I can get you a knife, the handle should insulate you from the current and you'll be able to cut the wires."

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The Attached Meme

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