#doc: oh true. labcoat only it is

[shepscapades]

[dbhc flavored] Hermit a Day May: Day 31 — Ren!

[carminite-wyrm]

A Sunless Skies!AU fic, Part 1

So I've...ended up writing a fic for my Sunless Skies x Hermitcraft AU. At first it was meant to be just like, a ficlet, but it's kind of spiralled a bit into a multi-parter fic. So here's the Part 1!

Again, credit to @redstone-sun for the FL!AU that kickstarted my inspiration for the Sunless Skies!AU!

Ren and Doc, brave Co-Captains of the Octagon Van, seekers of secrets and conspiracies, have for once, decided to take a brief vacation from their adventures and accidental incidents in the High Wilderness. Their vacation of choice? A few days at the most desirable holiday destination in all of Albion: Worlebury-juxta-Mare.

An idyllic holiday spot, where nothing is amiss, and nothing can go wrong. Right?

(Spoilers for Sunless Skies lore!)

The admission passes for a weekend stay at Worlebury-juxta-Mare had been a gift from the Boatem Crew, after a series of incidents that were probably best to never be spoken about again, on both groups’ parts.

Specifically, Scar had handed over the admission permits with a wink, tipping them out of his top hat with a dramatic gesture, along with a pamphlet.

“Should be fine for a weekend stay, gentlemen! I’ve heard that they even sell genuine rubbery lumps there, tastes just like it does back in London, apparently. Haven’t tried any myself, admittedly.”

And with that parting note, the Boatem Crew had set off from their rendezvous, leaving behind Ren, Doc, and their horde of semi-displaced goats.

A few weeks later, they had finished finding decent homes for the goats across the entirety of the High Wilderness, with a few exceptions who were still very much at home onboard their locomotive. And finally, the two could head off to their first vacation in several months.

“So, Worlebury-juxta-Mare.” Ren commented, staring at the cursive writing on one of the passes, and checking the pamphlet’s travel details with the map in front of him. “Have you gone there before?”

“Nope.” Doc replied, most of his focus upon repairing his mechanical arm after their last goat drop-off resulted in a very close call with some of Albion’s native wildlife. “It’s…off to the east, isn’t it?”

“Past London, yeah. Not close to the Avid Horizon, though.”

“That’s good to hear, I don’t think they’ll be happy to see us again so soon after that one, uh, incident.”

“I thought we agreed to never speak of that again.”

“True.”

The journey to the holiday destination took a little under a fortnight, with the last of the goats willing to leave rehomed on the way. The one remaining goat ended up being named Vigenere, and appointed as the Octagon Van’s noble mascot, screams and all.

The island that Worlebury was located upon was shrouded in mist, which slowly parted to reveal a quaint-looking town, with multiple other locomotives docked at the port, and the faint outline of amusement park rides in the distance.

“Well, it certainly looks like what the pamphlet described.” Doc said, as their locomotive was guided to a docking station.

As they stepped onto the wooden planks of the docks, they followed the signs leading them to a sizeable queue in front of the main gates of the station. A few signs, all in the same fanciful cursive as the passes that they carried, directed visitors either to the queue for those with passes, those bringing supplies, those waiting for regular entry, and workers. Right by where all the queues began, they could see a bright turquoise banner for a Swaggon Inc. stall, set up in what looked like a cart, and selling all manner of knickknacks to the passing visitors.

“Suppose that’s us.” Doc pointed at one of the shorter queues, patrons in fine clothing and clearly of noble or wealthy backgrounds murmuring among themselves as their passes were checked and stamped.

As they waited, an official suddenly wandered by, stared at them for half a second, before making a ‘come over here’ gesture. Curious, the two headed over, and the man held out a hand, the badge of a government representative clearly affixed to his lapel.

“First time in Worlebury-juxta-Mare? Excellent, excellent, right this way then.” He said, a businessman’s grin fixed upon his face as he shook their hands in greeting. “I’m a representative of the Bureau of Entertainments, and I’d like to welcome you to our fine port. Now, I know queue jumping is a little uncouth, but well, for fine gentlemen as yourself, I am certain you would rather be enjoying the sights rather than mingling with the proletariat for hours.”

Ren and Doc shared an awkward glance, silently comparing their practical, but significantly less extravagant, attire with the shining emerald suit the official was wearing. Over by the admission pass queue, one of the women’s hats looked more expensive than all of Doc’s prosthetics combined, and Ren knew for a fact that Doc had not spared any expense with his equipment or materials for that.

“Uh, thanks? We do have passes though.” Ren held up the aforementioned two items.

“Consider this a courtesy for your first time visiting. We are, of course, absolutely certain that you will be returning guests, after all.” The man smiled at them, before showing them to a door that had a brass plaque with the words ‘Fitting Room’ etched onto it. “Now, there is a dress code, so please do step inside and let the good Couturier find you a suitable outfit.”

With only the slightest amount of hesitancy, the duo stepped into what turned out to be a sizeable room that had all manner of clothing hung up in the wardrobes and racks that lined its walls. The Couturier took one look at Doc’s labcoat (missing a sleeve after it was ripped too many times by him using his mechanical arm to physically fend off the creatures that attacked their locomotive), and Ren’s combination of overalls, tinted goggles, and a ragged red shirt, seemed to grind his teeth in silent outrage, and stalked over to one of the racks.

“Pick an article of clothing you imagine suits you, and I’ll…figure something out to match it.” He said shortly.

Doc immediately gravitated towards the rack of coats, finding a white coat that was almost like his labcoat except with all its sleeves, and also made in the fashion style of decades past. The Couturier seemed to calm down upon seeing his choice, and immediately busied himself with providing the rest of a three-piece suit to accompany it. Off to the side, Doc saw Ren contemplate a lavish velvet-lined hat, before putting it down and flicking through a selection of dress shirts and blouses.

Fifteen minutes later, they had finally shoved Ren into a tailcoat set, much to the relief of the Couturier, who had seemed close to sobbing after the twelfth time that Ren had thought the chosen attire did not suit him.

“I still think the fur coat would have looked better.”

“It looked like someone had stitched together a bunch of rats, Ren.”

Ren sighed dramatically, before immediately lighting up once again as they finally made it into the port town proper, and spotted the wide variety of shops and amusement park games that lined the streets.

“Oh, there’s a stall for the rubbery lumps that Scar mentioned!”

And with that, the hours whirled past as they visited shop after shop, Ren gleefully taste-testing several shops’ worth of tea variety before ordering a few caddies for them to take with them. At one point, Doc swore there was something more wormy than earthy in a particular cup of tea, staring suspiciously into his cup before setting it down. There was something…just a bit odd, besides the fact that the mists really were vaguely corrosive and causing their clothes from the fitting room to slowly disintegrate and unravel as time went by.

But, on the other hand, Ren did seem to be having a good time, and the shop with a wide array of elaborate tea sets, and other porcelain objects, was quite enjoyable to wander through, even if the screams from the nearby donkey ride was a little disconcerting.

Wait. Screams?

Doc whirled around, to where the donkey ride was. No, he must have been mistaken, it seemed like nothing was amiss, though his mechanical eye did focus upon an odd reddish stain that seemed to shimmer in and out of view. He blinked, and the stain was gone.

Huh, his eye probably needed a little bit of a tune up once they were back on board the Van.

“Hey, Doc, want to get some candyfloss?”

He turned away from the donkeys, to where Ren was tugging him over to a stand with multicoloured sticks of candyfloss. Still perturbed, he absently took a bite out of the pale green spun sugar that Ren had purchased for him.

It was sweet. A bit almond-bitter, if he thought about it for long enough.

Their hotel resort room was actually quite comfortable, considering they were essentially visiting for free. The Department official had said that their stay would be the equivalent of their usual pass, just without needing the actual pass, for some reason.

Ren tugged awkwardly at his clothes as they settled for the day, the fabric already looking a bit threadbare. Doc simply huffed, sitting down in one of the armchairs with relief after a whole day of walking and running around.

“They sure weren’t joking about the mists.” Ren joked, looking out at their beachfront view. “We’ll probably be lucky to get to midday tomorrow before we have to leave because our fitting room outfits are in tatters.”

“I thought we already saw everything today?” Doc eyed the bags of souvenirs that they had acquired, and the stack of cargo receipts he was dreading having to file away at a later time.

“There’s an art exhibition tomorrow, and we still haven’t seen the beach.”

“Hm, alright.” Doc sighed, sinking further into his armchair. “I’m going to be honest; I’m looking forward to being back on our locomotive, my eye’s been seeing some strange things and I think it might need a tune-up.”

“Probably isn’t anything serious, Doc!”

“I hope so.”

Roughly eight hours later, Doc was deeply regretting everything as the sky above the beach shimmered and doubled, the sight of an idyllic foggy day overlapping with scintillating tendrils of unsettling light. Off to the side, Ren was attempting to skip stones along the sea of mist, which quite frankly wasn’t working on account of the ‘water’ not being water in the first place.

“Ren, I think we should leave.” He said, catching the other man’s attention. “I’m…The place is starting to look a bit weird.”

“Ah, is the eye giving you that much trouble?”

“No, it’s-“

“Eh, we can always come back later, we still have the tickets Scar gave us.” Ren shrugged, and the two of them slowly made their way back to the dock. As they stepped back out onto the wooden platforms that formed the dockside, Doc blinked as the double vision he had been experiencing slowly cleared up, fading away almost like mist on a windy day.

An hour or two later, and Doc held up his mechanical eye to the lightbulb above his workstation, frowning in consternation. There didn’t seem to be any faults with the eye, and he even swapped it back out again with the spare, to compare the two. For all intents and purposes, his eye was perfectly functional, down to the polished glass lenses within it.

“Well, Doc? How’s the eye?” Ren poked his head into the tiny room that housed most of Doc’s tools and other equipment.

“It…seems to be working as normal. I don’t get it, I swear it was glitching out whilst we were in town, but there’s nothing wrong with it! I even pulled it apart to check if some of the internal pieces had corroded or fallen out of place, but it was all fine!”

“Huh, weird.” Ren shrugged. “So, you up for heading back in to the town, or do you want us to go? We did manage to get quite a bit of souvenirs, anyways.”

“Honestly? I think we ought to go, there’s just something not right about this place.”

“Hm, maybe something about the mists is making your hardware go a bit haywire? They do have a corrosive effect, even if its mild enough to only affect fabrics.” Ren nodded. “Anyways, I’ll go tell the crew to get ready to set off.”

“Uh. Captains?”

The two turned, to see one of the crewmembers looking at them with barely hidden panic on their face.

“Yeah?” Ren raised an eyebrow.

“Vigenere. The mascot. We can’t find them anywhere!”

[nitewrighter]

Perhaps gency #20? (Apologies for the double ask, I sent the last one before I was finished typing haha)

Let’s do some Pre-Fall of Overwatch featuring Genji-who-is-angry-and-has-not-yet-undergone-character-development featuring Young!McCree-who-still-has-both-arms!

—

Genji folded his arms in the front seat of the car as McCree frowned over the engine. He couldn’t really tell what he was doing to the engine with the hood up, but Genji figured McCree knew what he was doing more than he would. Mercy sat in the driver’s seat looking over a map and he realized he had never seen her in civilian clothes or out of a labcoat or scrubs before. Reyes and Morrison’s instructions were for them to keep a low profile, which Genji couldn’t really do with Genji’s whole... look. But with any luck they wouldn’t be pulled over. Besides, Genji was a ninja--his whole point was being unseen. Being stationary in a car though... it made him antsy. Even more so when the car wasn’t moving.

“This is a waste of time,” muttered Genji.

Mercy glanced up from the map. “You keep going on about taking the fight to the Shimada clan,” she said, raising an eyebrow. 

“It would be better to strike at the heart,” he said, looking out the window at the desert, “The Shimada clan conducts many weapons and drug deals with numerous criminal organizations around the world. It conducts these deals in order to keep them in line. One petty motorcycle gang—”

“Deadlock ain’t just one petty motorcycle gang,” said McCree from outside the car, “It’s an organization with an iron grip on the whole southwest, and it’s lookin’ to expand. It might just be the Shimada clan’s way of keeping them in line, but this weapons deal goes through and we’re all in a helluva lot more trouble,” he tweaked at something under the car’s hood. “All right, try turning it over.”

Mercy turned the key and the car rumbled to life. McCree shut the hood and threw his hands up, “Hallelujah,” he said with a grin as he made his way around the car again, “Scoot das boot, Doc. My turn to drive.”

“You do realize you’ve just said ‘Scoot the boat,’ right?” said Mercy, still looking at the map, “And it’s not my fault your car broke down.”

“I realize this is a joint Blackwatch-Overwatch operation, which means yours truly’s in charge,” said McCree, thrusting a thumb at his chest with a grin before putting his hands on his hips, “Now come on, scooch.”

Mercy sighed and clambered between the driver and co-pilot seats into the back and Genji realized why he had been thrown off by seeing her in civilian clothes–it was the shorts. He had never seen Doctor Ziegler with bare legs before. It was always either pants or dark tights. Her legs were surprisingly muscled, but then again, considering a childhood in Switzerland and how she was practically on her feet all day, it made sense. He caught himself and quickly turned his attention back to the front of the car as Mercy plopped into the back seat and buckled her seatbelt muttering “Scoot das boot” under her breath bitterly and unfolding the map again.

“The Orca would be quicker,” Genji said as McCree started driving down the road again.

“We send that thing into Deadlock airspace and they’re gonna clear out fast. We gotta take things easy,” said McCree.

“This location you’ve been speaking of isn’t anywhere on the map,” said Mercy.

“I’m the map,” said McCree. He elbowed Genji. “Loosen up. Both of you. It’ll be another 2 hours before we hit Gabe’s rendezvous.”

Genji leaned back in his seat slightly, but remained somewhat tense.

“So… not much of a driver?” said McCree, rolling his grip on the steering wheel.

“I am better with hovercycles,” said Genji. McCree’s face lit up.

“You shouldn’t have told him that,” said Mercy.

“Why not?” said Genji.

“Because he’ll want to race you,” said Mercy.

“You’re saying that as if it’s not an amazing idea,” said McCree, he glanced over at Genji, “But no kidding? Hovercycles?”

Genji nodded. “Back in Hanamura, we would have a driver. When I was old enough, I preferred riding among the hovercycle escorts,” he paused, “Easier to break off and go do other things.” He glanced out the window to see reddish-orange rock formations. “So this is where you grew up?” said Genji.

“Implying McCree grew up?” said Mercy, tucking the map away.

“In the vaguest sense of the word,” said McCree with a grin.

“It is beautiful,” said Genji, looking out his window as they drove past a lonely abandoned gas station, “In a desolate way.”

“Just like me,” said McCree and Genji snorted.

“Oh so you do have a sense of humor!” said McCree.

“That was not a laugh,” said Genji. He looked out the window again. “Do people still live here?” he asked.

“There’s some communities out here,” said McCree, “Omnic crisis shook everything up. They were targeting areas with big populations so some people fled out to the boonies, made cute little towns that wouldn’t be as big a target. I grew up in one of those towns. Not a whole lot to do except target practice with bottles on fences just in case the bots decided to come for you.”

“And you, Doctor Ziegler?” said Genji, glancing to the back.

Mercy suddenly broke her gaze away from the window. “What—Oh I was…” she seemed to force a smile and then tucked her hair back, “Well I certainly wasn’t shooting bottles off of fences.” She went quiet after that and Genji tilted his head and thought to question her further on it when McCree suddenly pointed out the window.

“Oh hey! Terah! That town’s still standing!” he said as the drove past a sign.

“Still standing?” said Genji

 “Well–you know how it is. Lots of people moved into the big fancy cities once the Omnic Crisis was over. But some people fell in love with the desert and stayed out here. Lot of ‘em were good people but…” McCree trailed off.

“They were vulnerable to the Deadlock gang?” said Genji, and McCree nodded.

Genji stared out the window, “The Shimada clan took advantage of the tragedy of the Omnic crisis as well,” he said, looking out the window, “In the panic of Omnic attacks on cities, we—I mean they would move in and wipe out their enemies.” McCree could see Genji visibly tensing further. “We had the resources to fight back against the omnics, to grant escaping civilians protection, and we only used the chaos to further our own power. I was only a child at the time. Father said looking after our own was what kept the Shimada clan alive.” He looked at his hand and then curled it into a fist, “But then…I was one of their own.”

He glanced up at the rearview mirror to see Mercy staring at him and he glanced off and uncurled his fist. Her brow was crinkled and her mouth was a thin line, like what Hanzo had done to him was somehow her fault. He never knew what to do when she made that face, so he simply straightened up in his seat and said, “So they have no true values, except in power. And they must be stopped.”  

“Well… good thing we’re shutting down this weapons deal then, right?” said McCree. He elbowed Genji again. “You’ll get your chance, I know it. We do this, then we gotta do this right. Right?”

“Right,” said Genji. He glanced back at Mercy and found himself making eye contact with her through the rearview mirror.  She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, then seemed to think better on it and looked out the window again.

—

Mercy was asleep in the back seat less than half an hour later. Unsurprising–she had a tendency to nap when she could. Sunlight was catching in her hair.

“You should get a visor,” said McCree.

“What?” said Genji.

“A visor. Y’know, like on Reinhardt’s helmet. Wouldn’t get dust in your eyes when you’re rushing forward,” McCree smirked, “And you could probably get away with staring more.”

“Staring--!” Genji started but then looked off, “I was not staring. I was just thinking while I happened to be looking in a mirror where she was reflected.”

“Sure,” said McCree with a smirk and Genji’s brows furrowed, “Okay, I’ll bite. What were you thinking about?”

“Doctor Ziegler seemed… reticent when the conversation turned to the Omnic crisis,” said Genji, “Did I overstep? Or say something wrong?”

“Ah–that one’s on me,” said McCree, “I probably should have changed the subject before we got too into that. You don’t know so she knows you wouldn’t…” McCree trailed off.

“Don’t know what?” said Genji.

“She’s a crisis orphan,” said McCree.

“Oh…” said Genji, “Was she there when it…?”

“Yeah. Bombs knocked the roof of her house in. Killed her parents. Messed up her spine something bad. She’s got spinal implants from the whole thing.”

Genji stared at McCree and glanced back at Mercy. “I had no idea,” he said. 

“Well she ain’t in the habit of talking about it,” said McCree.

Genji leaned back in his seat a little then stretched his prosthetic hand out in front of him, “It’s strange–I believe I’ve spent more time with her than anyone at Overwatch, yet I hardly know anything about her.”

“To be fair you’ve been pretty focused on this ‘destroying my family who killed me’ thing,” said McCree. Genji folded his arms. “Which is fair!” McCree quickly added, “Hell, if I went through that shit, I’d probably be derailing every conversation into ‘Reasons why I must destroy my criminal empire family’ too.” 

Genji’s eyes widened with some surprise and his shoulders shrank inward a little. 

McCree sighed, “Okay it’s not derailing–I mean, we are on our way to stop a Shimada-Deadlock weapons deal.”

Genji looked thoughtful. “Now that I think on it, you have barely spoken of Deadlock at all this whole trip,” he said.

“What can I say? I’m focused on the present,” said McCree.

“The present concerns Deadlock,” said Genji.

“Well I guess I don’t like talking about it then,” said McCree. They hit a pothole and Mercy muttered something in german in her sleep before readjusting herself against the window again. “All this time I’ve known her and she still has the most fucked sleep schedule in the world,” said McCree.

“You’ve known Doctor Ziegler a long time?” said Genji.

“Yup,” said McCree, “Couple years now.”

Genji glanced back at Mercy, then over to McCree. “Have you and her ever…?”

McCree snorted, “Nah. She shut that shit down pretty much her first day here. But I’d keep getting the stuffing kicked out of me on missions or just sparring with Reyes so we’d end up talking a lot.”

“What would you talk about?”

McCree snickered, “I dunno. Movies and shit. Maybe some old missions. Mostly just gossip and shit-talking around the Watchpoint. She liked to stay updated.”

“Gossip?” Genji repeated, looking up at the rearview mirror.

“Well that’s the best part about working with us,” said McCree, “No shortage of interesting people.”

“Hm,” Genji nodded in agreement.

“You’re staring again by the way,” said McCree.

Genji straightened up and then quickly turned his attention away from the rearview mirror and out the window. McCree snickered. 

“You know something?” said McCree.

“Mm?” Genji glanced up.

“I think that’s the first conversation we had that didn’t default to your usual ‘I must stop my criminal empire family,’ brooding,” said McCree with a grin.

Genji glanced off and scoffed. “Let us just get to the rendezvous point,” he said, looking out the window again.

[esmeralda-anistasia]

#Ren: haha at the point you might as well lose the double layers am I right <joke#doc: oh true. labcoat only it is#and then he never went back#if doc learns one thing about humans it’s that they always commit to the bit

[dbhc flavored] Hermit a Day May: Day 31 — Ren!