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February 25th, 2008

[original][-9r; original_100 #1] I Hate It When You Talk Like Me [1/1][PG13]

Remember this old thing?Original_100 still hasn't approved me, and I don't think it's ever going to. The comm appears dead, at least approvals-wise, seeing as I claimed in July and haven't heard back yet. Whatever. I'll do it on my ownsome.

I owe Anha-ki fics for the illustration he drew me, but what I owe him is Cahill/Sellis, because his OTP is weird like that. It didn't fit into what's already written, but I figure I can spend prompts on him, because I <3 Anhi like that.

The Big Damn Table will only be updated on tabulas, because I'm lazy. Unless I get a sudden rush of anything-but-work productivity. It's been known to happen.

Please be aware that prompt!fic may be spoilery or jump all over the timeline, even way, way beyond PoD. Like you care.

001. Beginnings
I Hate It When You Talk Like Me
In which Sellis knows what he wants, and hates how to get there, and Cahill is logical.

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It took about an hour for Cahill to realize that Sellis probably wasn't planning to come back. It took another hour for him to get fed up enough to want to see what the hell it was he was up to instead, but nannying Sellis Varaday hadn't really been a part of his job description, so he sent Lilaey instead. It wasn't her job either, but she at least had enough patience for the man that a question wouldn't become an argument.

Or so Cahill hoped. He suspected Sellis might not be in the mood for nagging.

Actually, he sort of suspected Sellis might be in the mood for heavy drinking instead, so when Lilaey also failed to return he sighed and pushed himself to his feet, directing a "Don't go anywhere," towards Marsh and an, "I'm too old for this shit," to no one in particular. Sellis, he thought, was too old for this shit, or at least too old to be pulling it. Sellis should have had the foresight to know what he was doing, and to realize he would have to live with his own damn decision.

"The thing is," Sellis said, when Cahill busted unceremoniously into his room, and told him so, "I knew exactly what I was doing."

"It's not like an engine upgrade, Sellis," Cahill said, needlessly. If Sellis hadn't already been aware of that fact, he wouldn't be hiding in his quarters with an open bottle of rotgut on his desk.

Lilaey wasn't there. Cahill wondered where she'd gone, and started to ask, but thought that if he'd been sent to talk sense into a man intent on ignoring his own internal logic and everyone else's to boot, he'd make himself scarce, too. Instead he said, "You can't just leave him out there, Sellis. He's yours now."

"I know," Sellis said, and the corner of his mouth twitched, pulling his mouth into a brief, disgusted scowl before he reached for the bottle. Cahill rolled his eyes.

"Sellis, if you didn't want a tag, why did you go out and buy yourself one?"

Sellis either had no answer to that, or he chose to keep it to himself, making a soft, unhappy noise in lieu of replying and took a swig. "Right," Cahill said.

"He's Tisi, you know that?" Sellis said eventually, gesturing towards the common room with the bottle. The liquid sloshed in the bottom of it, warm amber and looking for all the world like it wasn't the cheapest liquor this side of Midstate, "Weird, isn't it?"

"You bought a Tisi to fly the Rat?" Cahill hadn't known the TCE sold their tags. Wasn't, after all this time, really up to speed on the various factions that made a life and a life's work in the mostly uncharted expanse of the far-flung Reaches. He knew the TCE did maps and surface exploration. He was shaky on the details.

Sellis nodded, and grinned dopily at the irony as he said, "He jumps conscious. No recovery time. And they had him flying hoppers on surface flights."

"You bought a Tisi hopper pilot to fly the Rat?"

"I bought speed for the Rat." Sellis said, and took another swig, "I bought us some goddamn speed."

"From terrestrial cartography. God's sake, Sellis, do you even know if he even has experience flying something like the Rat?"

"He'll figure it out. He's good."

God, Sellis had done research. Sellis had thought it out and planned it, and still he was hiding from it like he'd been blindsided and was traumatized to find himself in sudden possession of a tag's papers.

"Papers?" Cahill said, now that he'd thought it, "Do you have any, or is this another heist we'll be running from for months?" He didn't like the idea of forgery. Didn't like the mess that could leave, both with authorities and with the tag himself.

Sellis snorted. Gestured at his desk, where a folder sat closed and weighted with a glass that Sellis had maybe meant to use, then ignored in favor of drinking directly from the bottle.

"Planned, signed," Cahill said, easing the folder out from under the glass, "paid for?"

"Yes. Paid for," Sellis paused and quietly added, "An honest purchase," and smiled tightly and without humor.

Cahill flipped the folder open. Scanned its contents, and yes, the tag was good, and he'd probably figure out the Rat, and how to fly the Rat, if he didn't know already, because the damn tag was Land's Child make, and how the hell had Sellis managed to find the damn thing, and with the TCE no less. "How long have you been looking into this?"

"Awhile," Sellis said, and put the bottle to his lips again. Tilted it back.

"And what? It never occurred to you until now that it would make you miserable?"

"It would make us fast. We'll be the fastest damn thing out there if he can do what he's supposed to."

"Sure, if you can hold it together. God's sake, Sellis." He had the urge to take the bottle from Sellis's hands and give him a good knock in the head with it. Instead said, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"What? To you?"

"No. To the goddamn fucking Ied. Yes, to me."

Another tight, humorless smile. "You'd have tried to talk me out of it."

And well someone should have, if owning a tag was going to turn him into a guilt wracked alcoholic. "Sometimes, Sellis, I don't know what the hell I was thinking joining up with you and your sorry excuse for a boat."

Sellis took another slow sip, solemn, eyes too bright and sharp for someone who had put away most of a bottle of bootleg. Cheap as the garbage was, it packed a punch.

"Are you going to talk to him, or what?" Cahill asked eventually, tossing the folder back to Sellis's desk and leaning easily against the bookcase--too rickety for a ship of any sort, Cahill thought, but Sellis was stubborn, and about ridiculous things, when he got into the mood to be.

"Later."

"Later, huh? You're just going to let him stew?" No answer, and Cahill sighed and said, "If it's this much of a problem, Sellis, you can probably just pass him on. You're not going to have a shortage of takers for a Land's Child tag.

Sellis snorted into the bottle, "And give someone else our edge?"

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rurounibug ; 01:25 AM|1 replies

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