#also wrt implant stuff short version: alien outreach bc biotic shit can get so dicey

[astorythatwritesitself]

Hmmmm. 97 for the ficlet game :)

There's a drumming noise inside my head

That starts when you're around

I swear that you could hear it

It makes such an almighty sound

👀 you got one that is definitely here due to being on the Shrios playlist, so congrats, you're getting a

uh

I think this went a little beyond snippet or ficlet but oh well you get pure ship indulgence, enjoy?

look I had to at least attempt to try and match this fuckin mood xD

It’s the implant.

Absolutely has to be the implant, and therefore it’s a problem that can be easily solved by getting through the next however many minutes and then going to Miranda and asking what, exactly, the fuck was wrong with the Serrice implants she’d had since childhood. A good 'no, Lawson, I don’t care about risky brain surgery, I want this to stop, the Serrice amps never gave me headaches at all.’

Except, the L5 implant itself hadn’t shown any signs of trouble, and her vitals were all solid. 

Except there's never actual pain involved in these headaches. Just a rush, a noise pounding in her ears that made it difficult to focus.

‘Except’, she's certain someone (multiple someones) would point out, ‘you had no trouble with it until about three weeks ago.’

(Which would still be wrong, anyway.)

A week and a half since it had gotten this noticeable. Maybe two. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since that chat with Thane, since he spoke of what it was to be Whole and how something clicked… not quite into place, but closer than it had been for a while. Since she’d asked (far too elegant a word, actually) for his help, because Jack and Jacob and Miranda put together hadn’t been able to get her to throw so much as a spark in over a month, so hey, any help would be appreciated. 

She expected a no. Which was reasonable.

She recieved this instead, time in life support or the observation deck spent discussing body and soul and muscles that didn’t know the memory that segued to vids of old fights she still had; an idea that should've been obvious from the start: studying her own form. Recreate, rather than assume she had to start from scratch. Progress to mimicking those movements and guidance that was undeniably unsettling, the way he could pick out such a minute difference in movements she never would have caught. Unspeakably helpful, every exercise since felt like falling closer in step with those ghosts she's spent years chasing. 

And now: a question only half heard over the pounding in her ears, that she could only answer with a nod because everything felt like it had that time she’d nearly drowned as a kid, all muted sound and the sense that opening her mouth would just steal whatever breath she had left. A hand, that had no right being so gentle, on her wrist, halting it in a position that was right, that made her skin prickle with combat memory, with static or maybe it was that those were claws more than nails at her pulse-

Then nothing but ringing in her ears and an actual splitting headache, since she'd Thrown herself head over heels and right into the wall.