(and i could have titled that first part 'Welcome to Fapture', oh well. Anyway on to the next part, Medical Pavilion: The Doctor is In-and-Out)
-
"Now Steinman certainly ain't gonna be as loving and merciful as everyone else you've encountered," Atlas advised.
Jack was... Seeing evidence of that all over. Blood splashed everywhere, mutilated diagrams, abandoned corpses and unsettling audio diaries. It made his stomach turn, it made his hand clench tighter around the wrench and radio, and it made him more sure than ever that he did not want to end up down a similar path.
Even if it would put down whoever did... all of this.
Jack swallowed, as he observed another mosaic of a face, Steinman's new idea of perfection.
"There ought to be some weapons laying around. Even if there ain't, that telekinesis plasmid ought to be good for something more than demolition..."
Again, Atlas was trying to prepare him for violence. Jack listened, and thought about how he could use his newest ability to do harm.
But he'd seen how fast it threw things - it could easily snap someone's neck, and even if it was quick, just imagining it made him shudder.
There had to be another way. If he could talk to Steinman and convince him to let him through the emergency access -- but going by everything here, Steinman was - to be blunt, literally insane. Atlas had been right - this was someone who wasn't even capable of listening to anyone.
He hit play on the latest of Steinman's diary, and realized as it played that no - Steinman could listen, but just to one thing in particular.
He took down the defaced (and refaced) memorial picture, and started to work.
-
So there was Steinman. Screaming, ranting, stabbing the hell out of someone who might have still been alive until, well. He stabbed the hell out of them. Lights flicked on, conveniently, and lit up... even more dead bodies, suspended somehow on - lights or tables or something hanging from the ceiling, Jack didn't want to look too hard. He felt sick enough as it was.
Jack swallowed down his nausea and fear, made sure his tie wasn't straight, and then stepped forward.
"What's this, Goddess? An intruder?! He's---" Steinman started to say, snarling, but then he froze, and even from the balcony, Jack could see how wide his eyes were.
With reason - Jack looked pretty ridiculous. Wearing a mask made from the memorial picture, in an uneven suitjacket done up asymmetrically, mismatched gloves and shoes (since he wasn't dedicated enough to this idea to actually break the pairs of things he had), topped with a hat raked a little far to one side. He felt a little like a clown, and the longer Steinman stared at him the more he felt like this was an absolutely moronic idea and that he'd better get used to the idea of hanging from the ceiling like those other bodies.
But then, something shifted in Steinman - almost like he was melting, from how he went from aprehension to dazed wonder.
"Oh, Aphrodite... He's beautiful..."
Jack sighed, relieved. Well, so far so good.
"So beautiful... Could you be -- no, you can't be Aphrodite, you must be Apollo."
"Sure," Jack said. The important part was that Steinman liked him, and was willing to talk instead of riddling him with bullets or scalpels.
"Doctor Steinman, I understand you have the key to the emergency access," he started.
"Have you come to guide me too, Apollo?"
Having two different conversations right off the bat, that was a good sign. No, Jack, focus. He nodded.
"Yes, in exchange for that key--"
But Steinman had already rushed over to the doors of the operating theatre, unlocking them and pulling them open.
"Come in! Please! Tell me how I can improve these --" Steinman stopped to glare over his shoulder at the bodies in his theatre, addressing them with a voice dripping with disgust and disappointment:
"Failures."
Jack couldn't come up with anything to say, so he just nodded and walked through the doors, trailing behind Steinman as he briskly walked back to the table and started gesturing angrily at the bodies, 'this one too tall, this one too fat' et cetera. Jack heard enough the first time, and was only partially listening this time around, nodding a little to make it looked like he was paying attention. To be honest, that was all the had the stomach for. He kept his ears open for a way to interject, to propose some kind of deal
"Please give me your divine inspiration! I could never speak poorly of Aphrodite, but she's maddeningly hard-to-get." His eye twitched when he said that.
Jack just nodded slowly, hoping that would come of sagely instead of completely fucking lost. Or completely fucking lost until Steinman undid the top button of his coat and gave Jack was was unsubtly a flirty look.
... All right, sure. Jack rearranged his plan: Look really good to Steinman, check. Avoid getting murdered by Steinman immediately, check. Talk to Steinman, assess sanity, check. Negotiating...
"All right - If I inspire you, doctor," Jack said slowly, as much to sound professional as it was an optimistic attempt to get Steinman to understand the words he was using, "would you give me the access key?"
Steinman's eyes lit up like Aphrodite herself just dropped in and asked Steinman to carve her up like his other patients. Which, hell, he'd probably actually fantasized about.
"Yes! Share your beauty with me, Apollo!" Steinman exclaimed as he grabbed the lapels of Jack's coat.
Jack was in the middle of reconsidering his ‘Steinman could listen to certain things’ observation when the man smashed their faces together in what Jack was going to assume was a kiss. With two paper masks in the way, it was hard to say. Jack thought he was playing it pretty cool, though, until Steinman pulled them onto the table. The one with the freshly dead body.
Jack's eyebrows made a break for his hairline, something his mask thankfully hid, considering the consequences all the pointy medical tools and dead bodies around them promised.
"Ah," he said breathily, trying to interject with something anyway. Maybe a suggestion, maybe trying to negotiate down to mutual handjobs and then never being within fifty feet of each other ever again, but Steinman threw his coat open and started undoing his pants, shouting some more about filling him with inspiration.
Jack weighed his options. He weighted them a lot, for as long as he could, until he decided he was just going to have to wing it.
He started to undo his own pants, pausing when he realized there wasn't much in the way of lubricant, and that he didn't want to see what Steinman would be 'inspired' to use instead. Thankfully, he could spot a jar of something useable on a far-off shelf, so this wasn't the most worthless hospital in the world. He used telekinesis to make it fly to his hand, which must have looked like magic to Steinman in his current state. Steinman was pleased with his magic trick though, eagerly and gleefully snatching the lubricant out of Jack's hands and getting right to work, uh. Uhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhh...
Jack was staring for other reasons now, lips pursed as he watched Steinman eagerly and gleefully started working himself with his fingers, and quickly too. Maybe it had been rude of Jack to assume he hadn't seen much action post-insanity. But wait, shit, right, he had a part to play, and it was time to play it.
And play it he did, and good god he deserved an award for it. He tried to keep his eyes on Steinman, but they kept trailing to the dead body Jack was just about fucking him on, even though she - it - the body was the last thing he wanted to look at.
Actually it was more challenging to not look at a dead body in here than any room had a right to be, but Jack managed it. Jack managed it, and kept it up at the same time, which was a truly herculean effort to make. He deserved a trophy of some kind at least.
If not for his slick moves in Steinman, then for his slick moves in Steinman's coat pockets, where he found and slipped the access key out in between thrusts.
Steinman came screaming Aphrodite's name, and Jack came by shutting his eyes and thinking really hard about anything but hospitals or dead bodies.
And then while Steinman recovered, Jack slipped himself out, back into his pants, and through the nearest door as fast as he could, shuddering. He needed a fucking shower.
"Atlas, are you still there?"
"Unfortunately," Atlas answered wearily.
Jack felt his ears heating up.
"Tell me you at least got the access key out of that?"
"I did," Jack reported, "I'm heading to Neptune's Bounty now."
"Great. Try to keep your pants on while you do, if you can."
BioSchlong 2/?? alternately i guess i could also call this 'make love not war'
-
"Now Steinman certainly ain't gonna be as loving and merciful as everyone else you've encountered," Atlas advised.
Jack was... Seeing evidence of that all over. Blood splashed everywhere, mutilated diagrams, abandoned corpses and unsettling audio diaries. It made his stomach turn, it made his hand clench tighter around the wrench and radio, and it made him more sure than ever that he did not want to end up down a similar path.
Even if it would put down whoever did... all of this.
Jack swallowed, as he observed another mosaic of a face, Steinman's new idea of perfection.
"There ought to be some weapons laying around. Even if there ain't, that telekinesis plasmid ought to be good for something more than demolition..."
Again, Atlas was trying to prepare him for violence. Jack listened, and thought about how he could use his newest ability to do harm.
But he'd seen how fast it threw things - it could easily snap someone's neck, and even if it was quick, just imagining it made him shudder.
There had to be another way. If he could talk to Steinman and convince him to let him through the emergency access -- but going by everything here, Steinman was - to be blunt, literally insane. Atlas had been right - this was someone who wasn't even capable of listening to anyone.
He hit play on the latest of Steinman's diary, and realized as it played that no - Steinman could listen, but just to one thing in particular.
He took down the defaced (and refaced) memorial picture, and started to work.
-
So there was Steinman. Screaming, ranting, stabbing the hell out of someone who might have still been alive until, well. He stabbed the hell out of them. Lights flicked on, conveniently, and lit up... even more dead bodies, suspended somehow on - lights or tables or something hanging from the ceiling, Jack didn't want to look too hard. He felt sick enough as it was.
Jack swallowed down his nausea and fear, made sure his tie wasn't straight, and then stepped forward.
"What's this, Goddess? An intruder?! He's---" Steinman started to say, snarling, but then he froze, and even from the balcony, Jack could see how wide his eyes were.
With reason - Jack looked pretty ridiculous. Wearing a mask made from the memorial picture, in an uneven suitjacket done up asymmetrically, mismatched gloves and shoes (since he wasn't dedicated enough to this idea to actually break the pairs of things he had), topped with a hat raked a little far to one side. He felt a little like a clown, and the longer Steinman stared at him the more he felt like this was an absolutely moronic idea and that he'd better get used to the idea of hanging from the ceiling like those other bodies.
But then, something shifted in Steinman - almost like he was melting, from how he went from aprehension to dazed wonder.
"Oh, Aphrodite... He's beautiful..."
Jack sighed, relieved. Well, so far so good.
"So beautiful... Could you be -- no, you can't be Aphrodite, you must be Apollo."
"Sure," Jack said. The important part was that Steinman liked him, and was willing to talk instead of riddling him with bullets or scalpels.
"Doctor Steinman, I understand you have the key to the emergency access," he started.
"Have you come to guide me too, Apollo?"
Having two different conversations right off the bat, that was a good sign. No, Jack, focus. He nodded.
"Yes, in exchange for that key--"
But Steinman had already rushed over to the doors of the operating theatre, unlocking them and pulling them open.
"Come in! Please! Tell me how I can improve these --" Steinman stopped to glare over his shoulder at the bodies in his theatre, addressing them with a voice dripping with disgust and disappointment:
"Failures."
Jack couldn't come up with anything to say, so he just nodded and walked through the doors, trailing behind Steinman as he briskly walked back to the table and started gesturing angrily at the bodies, 'this one too tall, this one too fat' et cetera. Jack heard enough the first time, and was only partially listening this time around, nodding a little to make it looked like he was paying attention. To be honest, that was all the had the stomach for. He kept his ears open for a way to interject, to propose some kind of deal
"Please give me your divine inspiration! I could never speak poorly of Aphrodite, but she's maddeningly hard-to-get." His eye twitched when he said that.
Jack just nodded slowly, hoping that would come of sagely instead of completely fucking lost. Or completely fucking lost until Steinman undid the top button of his coat and gave Jack was was unsubtly a flirty look.
... All right, sure. Jack rearranged his plan: Look really good to Steinman, check. Avoid getting murdered by Steinman immediately, check. Talk to Steinman, assess sanity, check. Negotiating...
"All right - If I inspire you, doctor," Jack said slowly, as much to sound professional as it was an optimistic attempt to get Steinman to understand the words he was using, "would you give me the access key?"
Steinman's eyes lit up like Aphrodite herself just dropped in and asked Steinman to carve her up like his other patients. Which, hell, he'd probably actually fantasized about.
"Yes! Share your beauty with me, Apollo!" Steinman exclaimed as he grabbed the lapels of Jack's coat.
Jack was in the middle of reconsidering his ‘Steinman could listen to certain things’ observation when the man smashed their faces together in what Jack was going to assume was a kiss. With two paper masks in the way, it was hard to say. Jack thought he was playing it pretty cool, though, until Steinman pulled them onto the table. The one with the freshly dead body.
Jack's eyebrows made a break for his hairline, something his mask thankfully hid, considering the consequences all the pointy medical tools and dead bodies around them promised.
"Ah," he said breathily, trying to interject with something anyway. Maybe a suggestion, maybe trying to negotiate down to mutual handjobs and then never being within fifty feet of each other ever again, but Steinman threw his coat open and started undoing his pants, shouting some more about filling him with inspiration.
Jack weighed his options. He weighted them a lot, for as long as he could, until he decided he was just going to have to wing it.
He started to undo his own pants, pausing when he realized there wasn't much in the way of lubricant, and that he didn't want to see what Steinman would be 'inspired' to use instead. Thankfully, he could spot a jar of something useable on a far-off shelf, so this wasn't the most worthless hospital in the world. He used telekinesis to make it fly to his hand, which must have looked like magic to Steinman in his current state. Steinman was pleased with his magic trick though, eagerly and gleefully snatching the lubricant out of Jack's hands and getting right to work, uh. Uhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhh...
Jack was staring for other reasons now, lips pursed as he watched Steinman eagerly and gleefully started working himself with his fingers, and quickly too. Maybe it had been rude of Jack to assume he hadn't seen much action post-insanity. But wait, shit, right, he had a part to play, and it was time to play it.
And play it he did, and good god he deserved an award for it. He tried to keep his eyes on Steinman, but they kept trailing to the dead body Jack was just about fucking him on, even though she - it - the body was the last thing he wanted to look at.
Actually it was more challenging to not look at a dead body in here than any room had a right to be, but Jack managed it. Jack managed it, and kept it up at the same time, which was a truly herculean effort to make. He deserved a trophy of some kind at least.
If not for his slick moves in Steinman, then for his slick moves in Steinman's coat pockets, where he found and slipped the access key out in between thrusts.
Steinman came screaming Aphrodite's name, and Jack came by shutting his eyes and thinking really hard about anything but hospitals or dead bodies.
And then while Steinman recovered, Jack slipped himself out, back into his pants, and through the nearest door as fast as he could, shuddering. He needed a fucking shower.
"Atlas, are you still there?"
"Unfortunately," Atlas answered wearily.
Jack felt his ears heating up.
"Tell me you at least got the access key out of that?"
"I did," Jack reported, "I'm heading to Neptune's Bounty now."
"Great. Try to keep your pants on while you do, if you can."
That time, Jack just didn't say anything.