FIC: Meeting (Terminator; John Connor)
Feb. 5th, 2017 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schizoauthoress_libraryTitle: Meeting
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: takes place in the middle of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"
Warnings: canon-typical violence
Prompt/Fill: none
Word Count: 703
Summary: John Connor's life is finally normal again... unfortunately, it's his mother's definition of normal.
Note: an older fic-bit polished up to stand alone
Word of the Day: integument, noun:
1. A natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind.
2. Any covering, coating, enclosure, etc.
Meeting
The whole building shakes with an impact -- John flings up an arm to protect his head from flying chunks of cement -- and then it shakes again, this time with a rush of heat as something explodes outside. He lowers his arm in a moment to see the wrecked remains of a huge truck, dented in the exact center of its grill. A heap of broken cinder blocks and splintered wood is piled before it. The strong white beams of its headlights illuminate the wall closest to his cage.
He resumes his lock-picking endeavor; the adrenaline coursing through his body sharpens his senses to almost painful keenness -- though his hands don't shake at all, his short gasps of breath seem overloud, his progress too slow. A sharp, loud sound -- followed by another that reminds him of crumbling stone -- breaks his concentration.
John turns to face it... and sees. He sees, as if out of a nightmare, a slender and skeletal hand that has punched up through the debris -- a skeletal hand that gleams in the headlights, fingers flexing as if beckoning the tiny quicksilver streams of liquid metal to gather around it. The air huffs out of him, a despairing, disbelieving sound, and a rush of panic nearly closes his throat. But he turns his back to it, turns to his work, and tries again to pick the lock of the cage.
He wants to scream in frustration, wrestling with the lock, but the sound stays a deep growl in his throat. There's a tiny click as his all-purpose tool finally loosens it, and he kicks at the cage door -- just once, and thankfully its enough -- and gets out.
For a moment, John is transfixed at the sight of his enemy, frozen in awe as the liquid metal creeps upward to sheath metal bones, a fleshtone color rippling along its length to hide the Terminator's nature. Somewhere in the back of his head, out of memory, he hears his mother's voice -- "Run, John! You run!" -- and he bolts.
He pulls open one of the double doors and steps out into the smoky hallway. The fire on the floor is small, he can get out without running and taking the risk of injuring his leg further. He takes three limping steps and then, for the second time, freezes where he stands. Out of the haze of smoke, a familiar dark shape turns the corner and heads right for him. Heavy motorcycle boots click against the floor in a measured, machine-deliberate pace while his heartbeat thuds loud in his ears, a frantic and organic counterpoint.
John lets out a shuddering, terrified breath that has him gasping for air, not caring that it stings in his throat and lungs.
"John Connor." The Terminator speaks in a voice out of his memories.
(If his lower jaw hadn't practically become unhinged from the shock, John would have cried out, "Uncle Bob!") Strange as it seems, those days when he was protected by the Terminator, running from the T-1000, are some of the few happy memories that John has.
"It is time."
John blinks. Logic reasserts itself. This cannot be Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is dead, terminated, melted to slag in a vat of hot steel. John wavers, and voices his deepest fear, "You're here to kill me?"
The Terminator takes several more steps toward him, and John's heart rate climbs painfully fast, right before the metal man before him states flatly, "No. You must live."
And then one large gloved hand darts out, faster than John's eye can follow, and grabs him by the collar of his coat. The Terminator leads him out of the veterinary hospital at a quick pace, but not fast enough to aggravate his injury.
He must live.
John Connor's existence is defined by his continued existence, his survival bought with the lives of other people for some distant 'someday' that he only rarely believes in. But now that someday is before his eyes again, and John's skepticism melts away. It only ever was a fragile shield to keep him from crumbling under the weight of possibility.
John feels that weight looming upon him again, and wonders if it will crush him this time.
*-*-*-*-*
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: takes place in the middle of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"
Warnings: canon-typical violence
Prompt/Fill: none
Word Count: 703
Summary: John Connor's life is finally normal again... unfortunately, it's his mother's definition of normal.
Note: an older fic-bit polished up to stand alone
Word of the Day: integument, noun:
1. A natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind.
2. Any covering, coating, enclosure, etc.
Meeting
The whole building shakes with an impact -- John flings up an arm to protect his head from flying chunks of cement -- and then it shakes again, this time with a rush of heat as something explodes outside. He lowers his arm in a moment to see the wrecked remains of a huge truck, dented in the exact center of its grill. A heap of broken cinder blocks and splintered wood is piled before it. The strong white beams of its headlights illuminate the wall closest to his cage.
He resumes his lock-picking endeavor; the adrenaline coursing through his body sharpens his senses to almost painful keenness -- though his hands don't shake at all, his short gasps of breath seem overloud, his progress too slow. A sharp, loud sound -- followed by another that reminds him of crumbling stone -- breaks his concentration.
John turns to face it... and sees. He sees, as if out of a nightmare, a slender and skeletal hand that has punched up through the debris -- a skeletal hand that gleams in the headlights, fingers flexing as if beckoning the tiny quicksilver streams of liquid metal to gather around it. The air huffs out of him, a despairing, disbelieving sound, and a rush of panic nearly closes his throat. But he turns his back to it, turns to his work, and tries again to pick the lock of the cage.
He wants to scream in frustration, wrestling with the lock, but the sound stays a deep growl in his throat. There's a tiny click as his all-purpose tool finally loosens it, and he kicks at the cage door -- just once, and thankfully its enough -- and gets out.
For a moment, John is transfixed at the sight of his enemy, frozen in awe as the liquid metal creeps upward to sheath metal bones, a fleshtone color rippling along its length to hide the Terminator's nature. Somewhere in the back of his head, out of memory, he hears his mother's voice -- "Run, John! You run!" -- and he bolts.
He pulls open one of the double doors and steps out into the smoky hallway. The fire on the floor is small, he can get out without running and taking the risk of injuring his leg further. He takes three limping steps and then, for the second time, freezes where he stands. Out of the haze of smoke, a familiar dark shape turns the corner and heads right for him. Heavy motorcycle boots click against the floor in a measured, machine-deliberate pace while his heartbeat thuds loud in his ears, a frantic and organic counterpoint.
John lets out a shuddering, terrified breath that has him gasping for air, not caring that it stings in his throat and lungs.
"John Connor." The Terminator speaks in a voice out of his memories.
(If his lower jaw hadn't practically become unhinged from the shock, John would have cried out, "Uncle Bob!") Strange as it seems, those days when he was protected by the Terminator, running from the T-1000, are some of the few happy memories that John has.
"It is time."
John blinks. Logic reasserts itself. This cannot be Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is dead, terminated, melted to slag in a vat of hot steel. John wavers, and voices his deepest fear, "You're here to kill me?"
The Terminator takes several more steps toward him, and John's heart rate climbs painfully fast, right before the metal man before him states flatly, "No. You must live."
And then one large gloved hand darts out, faster than John's eye can follow, and grabs him by the collar of his coat. The Terminator leads him out of the veterinary hospital at a quick pace, but not fast enough to aggravate his injury.
He must live.
John Connor's existence is defined by his continued existence, his survival bought with the lives of other people for some distant 'someday' that he only rarely believes in. But now that someday is before his eyes again, and John's skepticism melts away. It only ever was a fragile shield to keep him from crumbling under the weight of possibility.
John feels that weight looming upon him again, and wonders if it will crush him this time.
*-*-*-*-*
