Partner

Note: a good deal of this is inside Mik's head.

It for some reason made me think of matrix. Which only made me want to have Mik will off Paw's clothing because that is so totally what I would do. Didn't happen that way. Sigh.

I'm not exactly certain if this one really plays much use in this all... although Mik can now say he did as Paw said so the make up sex can begin!

Anywho.

Read, review and enjoy.




Breath in. Breath out. Put all distractions from one’s mind. Allow the world to pass out of one’s body and one’s soul and into the surrounding plants. Breath in. Hold. Breath out.

Repeat.

Until one’s mind is a pile of mush and actually believes that shit.

Mik rubbed his face and tried not to wonder why the Sidhe thought this and the crazy hippie people. Even though the crazy hippie people sounded… well, crazy. Sidhe seemed not to be obsessed with it, they acted like it really helped and perhaps for them it did.

He sighed out and looked out the large windows that covered the one wall. City lights, drones blinking across the way and two people fighting in the nearest apartment. He was angry, she was angry but she was defensive. Mik’s gaze shifted down and across.

A man with a … telescope.

Oh sweet glorious gods, he was looking into the program’s apartment.

Mik stood and turned towards the steps, to call Koln, and there Paw was, arms crossed, an annoyed look on his face. This was not the gentle, calm, loveable Paw. This was the leader and the dangerous male with the power and strength to do what was necessary. Leaf green eyes had turned to the dark shade of a perfect emerald. Those eyes caught the light in just the right way and there was that animalistic flash that always seemed to appear when he could no longer separate Sidhe from people.

“You are not trying.”

“I am. But that man is spying on us.”

“What man?”

“That man,” Mik turned to point at the window where the man had been, but there was no window there, “I… must have gotten the floor wrong,” he frowned and looked over the apartment.

“Let it go, Mik. A people concern.”

“I am people,” Mik turned back to Paw, “what don’t you get about that? I am people. I am not Sidhe, I am-”

“Mik. You are a being that exists and breaths and wears the skin of a people. People,” Paw held up one hand, “and Sidhe,” he held up the other, “it is just the raising. Raise a Sidhe in people lands and they seem people. Raise a people in Sidhe lands and they seem Sidhe. Physical is but a thing that keeps our people from becoming one people.”

“Then… Sidhe are autistic.”

“We see a plant and we see the plant. People see the plant and they see. Dust collector. Never moves, never changes, never alters. We see a rock,” a motion at the rock that sparkled in the dim light, “and we see the rock. People see a thing that dares to get in the way. Dares defy them. No autism.”

“You focus so thoroughly-”

“We refuse to be bound by your every day pittance. The world will not end if a super condo is not built. The world will not end if you all drop your addictions and walk away. Sidhe will not be addicted, Sidhe will not bow to one man. Sidhe will not vote. We refuse to stoop to your level. You give us a fork and tell us to be civilized yet there are countries where one’s only utensils are ones hands. It does not make us autistic because we scream when you advance on us with needles. It is the only way we know of to communicate that we want nothing, absolutely nothing to do with this.”

“Why?”

“Your needles couldn’t save your brother, how can they save us?”

“Science can-”

“Can impregnate our women, clone our children but the Sidhe would be dead, the culture would be dead. The old time trees would die and for what, why? Because you think you can save the world with the poke of the needle.”

“We are trying the only way we know how.”

“No. The only way people know? There is no one way with your people. You do not pick a flower to smell it. You pick it for the colouring, for the softness of the petals, for the caressing smell in your nose and the last taste of its honey on your tongue. You pick it for a love but also for yourself. You pick it to smell it. You pick it for its beauty, you do not simply pick it because that is what happens when you see a flower, and that was how it is.”

Mik sighed, running his hands through his hair, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”

“You need a book?” Paw murmured, “a book titled, The Answers to All Mik’s Questions?”

“That’s not funny.”

Paw shrugged, “if you could have all the answers that are already inside your head, then where would you be? The smartest man alive, or the most frightened? If you could look at your life and understand your existence.”

“This isn’t about existence. This is about you. And me.”

“No. This is about you. You and your problem with… this,” a hand motion to it all. “You hate people but…” Paw walked up to the window and looked out over the scene, “what would happen if all the lights went out?”

Mik frowned as Paw turned to him, as the lights of the apartment across from them, the drones, the street lights below and the satellites above all winked out, one by one, “Millions would die.”

“Million’s more would live. Millions of species would be saved. How far has your species truly come? No further than it was twenty thousand years ago. No further than it was before the last major ice age. You live enslaved to the same ideals. Following the same bullshit scent on the air.”

“And your people, what? Rose to the pinnacle of society, could have been the dominant species on the planet and you chose not to.”

“Who said that we are not dominant?” Lightning flashed outside, “What makes you think you are in control?”

Paw’s voice dropped in pitch as the lights of Mik’s apartment went out. Mik glanced around, waiting anxiously for his eyes to adjust to the light.

The lights. The lightning. The whole godly insanity of the entire thing should have given it away long before, the fact that this all was a dream.

Yet even as Mik grasped that, the entire thing vanished a moment later and he stumbled after the thought, losing himself so completely that all he could do was stare around him in the dark.

“They gave up everything to live in trees. In trees, something they saw, from their seats of high power, showed them that they could not, should not rule. It frightened them so much that they dropped everything they had and retreated to trees,” the lightning flashed again, the lights came back on and Mik was looking at himself, “the destruction they could bring down on us.”

The lightning flashed, caught up in it was an image the likes of which Mik could barely describe, let alone grasp the concept of.

“Now they are broken up into tribes, into shattered peoples, but if they united. If they came together.”

Sidhe had always been the creatures of nightmares, which was why so many people could, and did, turn the other way when they were poached and killed. A Sidhe was a predator, a destructive animal with the cunning and body to destroy a people with their bare hands. Tooth and nail, they were known to fight, fight strongest for their children, for their kin.

“Kill the Whisper. Kill the candidates,” the not-Mik stepped closer, “Make him Whisper and they will follow your every whim because he will follow yours.”

“No.” Mik responded, surprised to find his voice so even despite the fact that there he was, suggesting such an insane idea to himself. As if … as if he believed it was possible, “No. That isn’t right.”

“Right? I say what is right.”

“No, I do. I am Mik, not you, not anyone else, I am Mik and I will not be party to that plan. Paw will not be Whisper, I will not control him.”

“You can.”

“I won’t.”

“Yes.”

“NO.” Mik lunged at the not-Mik and stumbled, hit the ground, on hands and knees as he panted. A pair of feet stood beside him, soft slippers of the kind that Sidhe wear. Mik huffed as he looked up.

Lillow. She blinked down at him, cocked her head to the side and said, “why Mik zoo-zoo.”

“Paw…” Mik pushed off the floor and found that his legs weren’t strong enough to hold him.

Lillow reached out and snatched up Mik as he fell, drawing the man to his feet, “Paw tell Mik zoo-zoo? People no zoo-zoo.”

“Tell Paw that.”

Lillow blinked at him and cocked her head to the side again, “Oh? Oh… people can zoo-zoo. People no zoo-zoo.”

“If zoo-zoo means that you have fucked up dreams and all that jazz… then yes, I did,” Mik grumbled, feeling the bone go back into his legs as Lillow allowed him to stand on his own.

She was strong for a girl her size.

And she had brought Hohi. The male Sidhe was watching this all without actually watching. His eyes were above and to the left of Mik’s head.

“Why are you two here?” Mik asked Lillow, looking between the two of them.

“Souse,” Lillow pointed down, “Ehm… Paw… no happy.”

He wasn’t happy? Mik growled as he walked past Hohi, realising too late what he had just done, and turned to apologise. The male hadn’t moved. Was it some sort of dominance thing, or did Hohi know that Mik didn’t mean it?

Or was it because Hohi know Mik couldn’t back his growl with the physical strength necessary to show dominance over the Sidhe?

Mik made his way downstairs and found Souse sitting at the kitchen table, a half filled mug of tea sitting at an empty space. Souse’s eyes drifted to Mik slowly and the male sighed out loudly.

“He’s upset.”

“I might have told him the sex wasn’t good. By accident,” Mik took the seat across from Souse, “then he threatened me.”

Souse licked his lips, “Mik’s been sharing Paw’s dreams.”

“Only twice.”

“So Paw told you to zoo-zoo.”

“Fuckin’ strange, and-” Mik stopped as Souse held up his hand.

“What happens in zoo-zoo is between you and the universe. We zoo-zoo when we question ourselves, our motivations, our everything. Zoo-zoo tells us what we truly want. It separates what we think we want from what we do want. I suppose what you saw was dark, it unsettled you.”

“It did.” Mik hadn’t even realised that he had ever considered using Paw to manipulate the Sidhe, to… turn off the lights as the dream Paw had said.

“Knowing that you are capable of that thought, knowing what decision you came to… has it helped you?”

“I… I don’t know.” like being in love, Paw had said. One doesn’t understand it as it first happens, “Do you, you Sidhe, have an ulterior motive?”

“No,” Souse responded without hesitation, “we were caught and though doomed for dead, then your Koln purchased us and treated us with the most kindness a people has ever treated us. Yes, we could escape at any time. But… where would we go? North is not safe and there are no old time trees to take new seeds from. We have chosen to stay.”

“We, or you?”

“We. The other tribe has chosen as well. You people will protect us, feed us, will look after us. When the time comes for us to part ways, we will,” a shrug, “well. When the time comes for the tribe to part ways with the program, we will. When that time comes, you and I shall have to have a long discussion as to your future.”

“Paw doesn’t exactly-”

“I meant about what job you shall do, you fool.”

“Right. I’m just… going to go to bed now.”

“Try the tea first, see if it does anything for your sleeping habits,” Souse murmured, bemused.


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