Dowling/Isander fic

[icarus_chained]

Writing these two seems to cheer me up like nothing else.

Title:  Never Show Your Hand
Rating:  PG-13
Universe:  Galactic Duality
Characters/Pairings:  Isander/Dowling, Anita Cole (Isander's creator)
Summary:  Isander has managed to get Dowling away from the asylum. Now all he has to do to keep things that way is convince his creator to let them go.
Wordcount:  1591
Notes:  Set very early in the story, before they are connected telepathically, back on Old Earth at the time of the Gestalt. For the prompt from musing_way 
Claimer:  Mine. Very mine.

Never Show Your Hand

Isander looked at Dowling again. He couldn't help himself. Though a very large part of his logical mind was crying out at the foolishness of it, he kept expecting the human to disappear at any moment, to be swept up and taken away, taken back to ... No. No. Dowling wasn't going back there. Not ever again. Isander didn't particularly care how many humans thought the man insane. They had left the Asylum behind, and he intended to keep it that way.

All he had to do first was convince his creator to let him.

His eyes tracked back to Dowling again, just looking at him as they waited for her. For them, maybe, and Isander really wasn't looking forward to that being the case. Even if he wasn't programmed, somewhat inescapably, to obey his creator in all things, he doubted he could fight all of them.

Dowling, certainly, couldn't fight off a fly at the minute. He was too close to the edge. The Gestalt was moving towards them. He could see it in the man's eyes, in the blown terror lurking just beneath the surface, beneath blade-thin determination. This was their last chance to get him away, before the thing came and swallowed him, and every other human in this part of the world. They both knew that.

Dire as those considerations were, though, he couldn't help studying the man. Dowling. The madman. And here, in this opulent office, in this restrained and clean space, he certainly looked the part. Against the tidy, well-fed humans that they'd seen since coming here, Dowling looked like some ridiculous crumpled scarecrow, windblown and creased, his movements twitchy and shying at the light, wild and faded. He looked ... frail. The sight tore at the soul Isander wasn't supposed to have. But bugger that anyway, as Dowling would have said.

She entered, then. He heard her before he saw her, the swift click-clack of heels, the swish of well-cut cloth. Dowling stiffened, fear spiralling in his eyes as he met Isander's, but then he nodded. Carefully, slowly, like he was afraid his head would fall off any second, but he met Isander's eyes and nodded carefully.

What they had suspected was true. Dowling could sense it in her. Very slowly, almost wickedly, Isander felt himself begin to smile, a smile he shoved back and hid instantly, but a smile nonetheless. And he caught the look in Dowling's eyes at the sight of it, and his soul took a little leap.

He wondered if he would ever not feel that surge of pride when Dowling looked at him with admiration.

But then, it was time for business. She looked at them, cold and clean, staring contemptuously past Isander like he wasn't even there, looking down her nose at the shaking figure Dowling made, kneeling on her floor. Shackled to it, and Isander had almost attacked then and there, when they put those things on him, but for once Dowling had remained the cooler head, and hurriedly gestured no at him. Not a word. Never a word. Who needed telepathy, anyway?

"You will tell me the meaning of this, 29," she demanded, turning to him at last. He met her eyes emotionlessly, seeing nothing in them to connect to, nothing in them to admire or fear. She had made him. But that meant nothing now.

"He is not insane," he responded mechanically. "Telepathy has not been listed under any known mental illness. I have no cause to hold him."

She sneered at him. "And since when are you programmed to diagnose, 29? Since when it is your decision to hold them or not?" Since you sent them to me, to my care, he thought, but did not answer. Not yet. Her lip curled at him as she went on. "This man has been declared insane by at least three separate authorities. Authorities I would trust far more than ..." She smiled nastily. "Than a machine. Now take him back, and stop wasting my time!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Isander saw Dowling flinch, a shudder that ripped through him to his bones, and he ruthlessly quashed the need to go to him, to comfort him. Not yet. Not yet. Dowling didn't understand yet. He didn't know why Isander had asked him to look at her mind, to see who she was. Until he did, he would have to be afraid that little bit longer, no matter how much it hurt them both.

"I am afraid I cannot do that," he answered her, colourlessly. She had been turning away, confident in his obedience, and she spun with something very close to a snarl on that dignified, mask-like face. He wanted to smile at that, at that evidence of some emotion inside her beyond contempt, but refrained.

"And why not?" she spat, coming around the table towards him, but he was already moving. Testing. She had told him to stand and be still, ordered him. He shouldn't be able to disobey. But he stepped around her as she came, moving to Dowling's side, meeting his eyes with a faint smile as he knelt and snapped the shackles between his fingers, carefully, so as not to hurt the human. Dowling stared at him, fear and admiration and humour and something ... deeper ... vying for space to show in his eyes. Isander had no idea how to react to that, so he settled for helping the aching human to his feet, wrapping an arm around his shoulder protectively.

Then she was there, spitting in fury, and one hand with nails like claws seized hold of his face, scoring marks into the softer metals of his articulate features. He didn't flinch. Didn't react. Only stared coldly at her, every inch the emotionless machine she thought him to be.

"What do you think you're doing," she hissed. "How dare you disobey me! You have no will, you pathetic lump of metal! You'll do as I say this instant!"

He was silent for a long second, wondering how to phrase it for best impact, and in that moment Dowling took the opportunity to speak up, the first time he had dared since leaving the walls of the Asylum behind. "You know," he drawled, slowly and consideringly, his eyes warm on Isander's scratched face. "I really don't think he will." He smiled, then, a dazzling grin meant for Isander and Isander alone, and Isander would happily have jumped on a bomb for him. "I really don't think he will."

"What do you know!" she spat, reaching out towards Dowling, as if to strike him, claw him open as she had Isander. "He obeys me! He has no choice!"

And then he had her arm in one metal hand, pulling it back from his precious human with perhaps a tad more force than was strictly necessary, and met her suddenly panicked eyes with his own implacable ones. "No," he said, softly. "I had no choice. Not while you were still my creator, my mistress. You could have ordered me to kill him, and I would have obeyed." He felt Dowling shake a little, at that, and leaned close in sudden fury. "But not anymore," he whispered, viciously, tonelessly. "Because you are no longer my creator."

And she wasn't. Not with the taint of the Gestalt seeping into her mind, not with the collective psyche of half of humanity infecting her thoughts and reactions. The moment Dowling had nodded to him, having found the impossible courage to actually venture into another mind on purpose, against all the terror it inspired in him ... in that moment, Isander had known they were free. Had known he was free. He was programmed to obey Anita Cole, his creator. Not the Gestalt.

And now they could bloody try to keep him from spiriting his beloved human away, from keeping him safe, from making sure that Dowling never, ever had to set foot in that Asylum again. They could just try.

"Hey, Isander?" Dowling whispered, as Isander half lead, half carried him from her office. Isander. His name. Not 29. Isander looked down at him, at the wet gleam of admiration and love in those tired eyes.

"Yes?" he asked, as gently as he knew how. Dowling grinned at him, then, bright and irrepressible and brave, mischief in every crumpled line, and Isander found himself grinning back, helplessly, conspiratorially. To all the rest of the world he could hide his smiles, but not this man. Never this man.

"How the bloody hell did you manage that?" Dowling managed, after a moment, still grinning like the loon he was. Isander paused for a moment, thinking about it, wondering what to tell, how to explain, and then he looked back at those laughing eyes, the mischief in them under the fear, and smiled suddenly.

"I couldn't possibly say," he answered blithely. Never show your hand, the mischief-maker's motto, and with this man ... that's exactly what he was allowed to be, wasn't it? Not the emotionless machine, programmed to obey, to answer ever question. But Isander, who was entitled to his own wicked urges, who could grin and pretend he had no idea what the human was talking about. He could do that.

And Dowling looked at him for a long second, his eyes crinkled and piercing beneath a thoughtful frown, long enough for Isander to wonder if he should regret the game, and then ... Dowling laughed. Rasping, voice still broken from years of screaming, but a good, clean laugh, full of dark humour and honest joy.

"Of course not," he managed, smiling up at Isander. "Of course not."

Comments

[mithen]

Ooooh, I really want to know when 29 became Isander, and how. Cole is frightening and cool, but she's no match for these two.

But bugger that anyway, as Dowling would have said.

*giggles*

The fleeting reference to "years of screaming" at the end makes me tremble, so much pain brushed across...

[icarus_chained]

*smiles* I'm actually thinking of writing something from Cole's POV, because I've just realised she's a perfect window on how the Gestalt and the telepathy affected the rest of humanity, outside of those two, while still being connected to them. She ... has her reasons. She really does.

And moving from 29 to Isander ... I hadn't even thought of it before. I've been mostly focused on Dowling, up until recently, so I've been missing out on whole swaths of Isander's character. *grin* Lots of catching up to do.

so much pain brushed across...
*nods* They do that, both of them. Dowling because, I think, he's actually editted out a lot of the hard things that have happened to him, to try keep a hold of what's left of his sanity. He knows they happened, he just works very hard not to remember them happening. Isander, on the other hand, has perfect memory and no desire to lose it. He just ... he's a machine. He was never supposed to have feelings in the first place, let alone show/share/discuss them. I don't think he's ever gotten over that reticence.