AU Post of the Daemon Sort.

[xamotomax]

Two men. One bar. Nothing unusual. Businessmen will frequent bars now and then, it's just something people expect them to do.

And they're doing it.

Making their way past all the patrons this establishment has [no ordinary pub we have here], they head towards the bar and place their orders for hyper-distilled spirits [standing policy about intoxicants], a handful of business magazines, and possibly some light edibles as well.

That in hand, they make their way towards a table.

Here their breast pockets [on one man it's on his left, the other, the right (who happens to have a scar on his face)] begin to wriggle and bulge slightly. Something is in them.

One head pops out. Then another. It's an animal. A very small animal. Two. A pair of stoats, to be exact, eagerly waiting for the men to sit down so they can get out of those stuffy pockets and get some fresh air, thank you and please.

Request granted as seats are taken and the two animals begin to wrestle about on the tabletop, much to the amusement of the men.

Just another day at the Bar at the End of the Universe, where company might come from....

Comments

[acts_of_gord]

They're not far from a man who's met the humans before, although Gordon's never seen either of the stoats. He glances up from the flat-sided test tube he's rigged up a chain for- it hangs around his neck- and notices the wrestling mustelids. "Huh," he says. "I don't think I've seen those before."

[xamotomax]

One version of them has seen you. This is not the version in question.

Quickly bored with the wrestling the stoats take to running laps about the tabletop [pouncing on each other occasionally, or somersaulting, or something of the like], clearly in no danger of falling off or knocking something over since they show a remarkable awareness of physical boundaries.

All the while the men take their drinks as they turn the pages. If Gordon thinks this is gymnastics wait until he sees the brothers in action.

"You probably—"

"—Have not. They—"

"—Never saw you before."

They'll look in your direction momentarily.

[acts_of_gord]

"I meant that species," says Gordon. "I've seen weasels, but... those aren't weasels, are they?"

We'll assume, then, for simplicity's sake that he was wrong, and he hasn't met these humans before. Or something. It makes matters easier. Right?

[xamotomax]

"Stoats. Short-tailed weasels. Ermines."

"And they are—"

"—Mustelids, like all weasels."

The animals stop and sniff. They might have smelled an extra scent about the stranger just now.

[We can do that, or one can say they've met another version of them before. It's not like in Milliways you can't run into more than one version. Right?]

[acts_of_gord]

"Ah," says Gordon. "That explains a bit."

At the sight of the stoats blinking, Gordon looks down. "Sati, I think they're looking at you."

"You're probably right," says a quiet little voice from the test tube around his neck. "Hi there."

There's a part of the test tube which distorts its contents visibly; it's a high-powered magnifying lens of sorts. A tiny creature that somewhat resembles a segmented rice grain with six legs waddles ponderously into view and waves its foremost limb at the stoats.

[xamotomax]

Sati? Who is?

Pause.

They've seen things like that. Under a microscope. In the labs at Extensive where one scientist got the brainstorm to try and replicate some of the tardigrade's near-indestructibility.

Let's just say that's still on-going.

The stoats bob up and down as they sniff, going from bipedal to all fours with the kind of eagerness one expects out of mustelids.

"He's got a daemon!" one squeaks in a female voice.

"He does! He does!" squeaks the other, in a voice almost identical to the other's [in fact, just like their humans, they are mirror images of each other].

Before they smelled Sati, they thought this was a man from one of those daemon-less worlds so many of the patronage comes from. Now they're really excited. They don't get to meet many other-world daemons here.

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon smiles faintly. "Everyone does, back home," he says. "Except for the people who've been altered by the Combine."

[xamotomax]

Maybe the twins paled there. Can people even exist without daemons if they were meant to have them?

They recover quickly, though. If they try hard enough, they can believe that this Combine's effects were not harmful to the ones affected.

"As it is—"

"—With ours. Every—"
"—One has his or her own daemon. It—"

"—Pleases us to know that—"
"—It is the same—"

"—With others."

Goodness. Just thinking about going to a daemon-less world!

[acts_of_gord]

It doesn't go well for them, no. There's... a lot of horrible things involved.

"From what I understand most people here don't have them," Gordon says. "A lot of worlds seem to be like that. I'm not sure why."

[xamotomax]

Don't tell the twins that—they may be unrepentant psychopaths [don't like the term because it sounds deranged, but the DSM-IV has spoken] but they do have emotions. Selfish ones, but emotions still.

"We have noticed—"

"—That too."
They are just as puzzled by it—

"It is curious, that."

—but the people are unaffected, so they feel no need to be concerned and thus they lose little sleep over it.

The twins feel better for that—it's hard for anyone to carry out the business they do when they're bothered by a standard-issue conscience.

[acts_of_gord]

"No kidding," says Sati. "It's weird."

"Sati, shush. Someone might hear you," says Gordon. "Anyway. My name's Gordon. This is Sati. Who're you?"

[xamotomax]

The stoats giggle [outside of Milliways and in a non-daemon world, this is Very Strange]. They don't mind Sati's commentary. In fact, the furry psychopaths would encourage it if they could get away with it.

"I am Xamot Paoli, and this is my brother, Tomax."

Tomax smiles that politician's smile. The one that conned so many people back home.

"Pleased to meet you, this is—"
Tomax does not get to finish, because...

"We're Limar and Ramil!"

they say excitedly.

[acts_of_gord]

"Good to meet you," Gordon says. "All of you."

He's not entirely sure whether to say 'all four' or 'all two', honestly.

"You've been coming here for a while, then?"

[xamotomax]

You know what? Sometimes even the twins have trouble with deciding if it's "two" or "four".

"Yes we have."

The stoats continue their excited chatter.

"And you?"

[acts_of_gord]

"Off and on," Gordon says. "The door's a little tricky for people from my world, time-wise."

"You spent two months here and it was twenty years back home," Sati points out.

"The greyface interfered with that. That hardly counts."

[xamotomax]

"Not so much—"
"—With ours. It is—"

"Hard to run a—
"—Business when the owners are—"

At this juncture the stoats begin dashing between the men, and, like pets would, begin begging for attention. Like scratches.

Which they get. Without the flow of spoken dialogue being interrupted.

"—Unable to carry out their roles."

Nothing unusual there—

—until Lamir and Ramil swap places—

—and continue to do so—

—without seeming discomfort on either man's part.

[acts_of_gord]

"...."

Gordon's gonna boggle for a while, okay? He thought it was just him and Alyx in that particular situation.

[xamotomax]

Boggling does not go unnoticed.

The twins smile, rather enigmatically. And amusedly

"You are wondering how—"
"—We are able to do this."

"Correct?"

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon just nods silently, but Sati pipes up with, "Darn tootin' we are!"

[xamotomax]

Sati, they may be getting the impression, is, in some fashion, the opposite polarity when it comes to Gordon and dialogue.

Whatever he's not, she is. They've heard of how some daemons act as if they are their human's yin or yang.

"It is simple, really—"
"—You are already hearing—"

"—One aspect of it."

Lamir takes up her position on Tomax's shoulder, and pipes, "The Paoli brothers have a psychic bond. They are connected—" She looks over to Ramil, who takes up the proverbial ball, and continues, "—In mind, body and even soul. Then, like the brothers do, they speak as one: "What one feels or thinks, the other is aware of, and feels or hears, as the case may be."

Xamot and Tomax nod. Oddly, they don't seem to mind sharing this bit of information they normally take such pains to downplay back home.

"Exactly.

"And it allows us—"

"—To handle each other's daemon—"

"—Without pain. Almost as if we were one person."

This may not be exactly how it works, but is the best explanation they have, and they are content to think of it in this way.

In fact, it would distress them more if they were not bonded as they are now, so used to it they are.

[acts_of_gord]

"Huh," says Gordon. "I didn't think that kind of thing was possible without outside interference."

So to speak, anyway.

[xamotomax]

"It's not normally possible—"
"—Even in our own world."

They would become an object of academic curiosity as well as the subject of several studies trying to crack the secret of How Do They Do That if more people knew about it.

[Actually, there is some of the latter going on. Inroads made would improve things for the Crimson Guard when it comes to their own daemons and how to get around those whose daemons do not match.]

Pause.

"Outside interference?"

[acts_of_gord]

"There's a race of dimensional aliens in my world," Gordon says. "They've occasionally created bonds between humans."

Well. Once is an occasion.

"And the result's been the ability to handle the other's daemon, among other things."

[xamotomax]

All together, men and daemons: "Really now?"

They look at each other. It's hard for onlookers to tell what they're all silently saying to each other, but thanks to mun-supplied dialogue, it mostly centres around the Crimson Guard and their already-mentioned daemon problems.

Then the twins speak up.

"Is this knowledge something they freely shared with you when you met them?"

Define "freely shared".

[acts_of_gord]

"It wasn't something that ever came up," Gordon says. "The procedure was an extreme emergency action."

[xamotomax]

Only people who've had an event happen to them or were there as a witness can share such knowledge with another.

The twins have noticed this, and now know it's himself that Gordon is talking about.

"Is it just their daemon you can touch now?"

They know how it feels to share pain, and sincerely wish they could change that aspect of their bond. Change it to "off". Or at the very least, receive it the way one reads an email or an instant message. To be told without feeling.

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon inclines his head a moment. "And vice versa," Sati chimes in.

[xamotomax]

"Then you are—"

"—A fortunate man that—"
"—Touching their daemon without—"

"—Pain was the—"
"—Only thing the bond they—"

"—Made for you—"

"—Gives you both.

Without being asked, the stoats display their own frankness.

"They envy you,"

they say together.

Surprisingly or not, they are not shushed. But the twins' expressions do take on a stony, unreadable quality, as if to mask the depth of the truth their daemons had spoke.

[acts_of_gord]

"Her," says Gordon quietly. "Her daemon."

And it's not the only thing, but... well, the rest of it is too complicated to explain. Gordon's not entirely sure he understands it himself.

[xamotomax]

Perhaps it is not necessary to explain it.

They nod, their unreadable expressions lingering, then shift to that of one who wishes to discuss another matter.

While Lamir and Rimal display the usual mustelid restlessness.

The twins and their daemons have shared more information with a stranger than they have ever shared with an associate, and perhaps they are feeling a rare moment of regret for having done that.

"Tell us ... about your world."

Swapping stories about homeworlds might be easier to discuss than psychic bonds that can be both burden and blessing.

[acts_of_gord]

"Hm?" Gordon glances up. "Oh, well- it's 2021, where I am. Earth's been under the rule of an alien empire called the Combine for the past sixteen years or so. Trans-universal raiders. Conquered the planet in seven hours."

[xamotomax]

You may have to forgive the sudden change in subject—the twins were feeling somewhat uncomfortable there. No fault of yours, Gordon; they just were.

Now they want the discomfort to pass before they can discuss things again.

"And they ... did things to some of the people and their daemons."

[acts_of_gord]

"Something like that," Gordon says. "The humans they've taken for 'upgrading' into their Overwatch soldiers... no one's ever seen an Overwatch with a daemon. Or an Overwatch who does anything except what the Combine tell him. Most of their armies are synths- bionically upgraded and controlled organisms from half a dozen universes. The Overwatch is their way of testing whether we'd make good synths ourselves."

[xamotomax]

It is a sickening thought, even to men like the twins.

You just cannot live without a daemon. All they can think of is an army of dead men and women marching as slaves to an overlord from a distant world. One they had no hope of conquering.

Upgraded. But dead.

For all that they most desperately desire privacy from each other [the source of their discomfort and why Gordon was envied as he was], to be separated from their daemons is utterly unthinkable.

"How many survived the onslaught of the Combine?"

And should they worry? If they're extra-dimensional they can find the twins' own world, too.

[acts_of_gord]

"Not many," says Gordon. "I'm told there's maybe twenty million humans in North America in general. I don't know how it stands in the rest of the world. The people I'm with tell me it's pretty bad overall, though."

[xamotomax]

"—A population approximately equal to—"
"—That of Canada sometime—"

"—In the middle of—"
"—The Twentieth Century—"

"—Now survives as best—"
"—They can, across an—"

"—Entire continent, with—"
"—Similar scenarios playing out in—"

—"Other parts of the world."
A population reduction like that might make some of the more hard-core at the Optimum Population Trust and others of its ilk green with envy.

"Surviving but not thriving, and the danger still exists, does it not?"

The stoats become nervous and, in a move that might reflect the hidden emotions of the men, seek out refuge inside the breast pockets they rode into the bar in.

"Here" is better than "there", with the Combine taking daemons away from their humans.

[acts_of_gord]

"Unfortunately," Gordon says. "We've managed to cut them off from their home dimension. Just barely. But they've still got their forces on Earth... and that's a lot of forces."

[xamotomax]

Knowing that cannot offer much comfort to the survivors.

"Short on available manpower."

"Long on enemy ranks."
Pause.

"If this ends in your lifetime you will be extraordinarily lucky."

When the twins go home, they may find themselves appreciating it a little more.

Oh, they'll still work to take it over, but they'll appreciate it more.

[acts_of_gord]

The disturbing part is that it represents more hope than the human race's had in sixteen years.

"I don't expect it to," Gordon says quietly, glancing down at the test tube.

"I don't know, Gordon," Sati says. "If anyone's going to live to see this thing through it'll be you."

Gordon just shakes his head and reaches for his beer.

[xamotomax]

That's kinda what happens when a population that's lost sight of its perspectives on life suddenly finds itself in a fight for survival.

Here they wait for Gordon to take his drink. Wait. And think. A lot.

"Admittedly events in—"

"—Our world have been—"
"—Far less eventful than—"

"—It has been for you—"
"—Over the years, what—"

"—A kind of invasion—"

"—Of our own to deal with."

"Alien robots," Lamir says from Tomax's pocket.

"Really big ones," adds Rimal from Xamot's.

"And Earth has become the newest battlefield for two ancient factions, with humanity occasionally taking sides, and not always the side of either group."

Remember the appreciating? They're appreciating the fact that one: Earth is still intact, two: there's not a lot of robots even if most of them are at minimum five times the size of a human, and three: half of the robot population is dedicated to keeping the other half from wiping out the planet they found themselves stranded on four million years ago.

[acts_of_gord]

"That," says Gordon, "sounds like it'd be a step up. How bad do they get?"

[xamotomax]

"If everything is—"

"—Still standing after—"
"—A battle has taken place—"

"—Then it is a good day."
"The Decepticons want war. War and conquest. And the energy and resources to fuel it," squeaks Lamir. Acting every bit the terrified citizen caught in the crossfire.

"And the Autobots want to take this elsewhere. Somewhere where no one innocent gets hurt," adds Rimal.

What's left out of this is the mention of those times when the brothers through Cobra had found themselves working alongside the Decepticons when alliances between the alien mechanoids and the humans seemed most convenient and profitable.