author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
fandom: scott westerfield's uglies trilogy
pairing: shay/dr. cable
rating: nc-17
notes: written for the 2007 v-day love bites porn challenge. YA!lit porn rocks!

summary: the secret to everything is knowing when to bleed.

* Shay doesn't question the way things have turned out. It all started when she ran away, when she told Tally about the Smoke. (No, don't think of Tally now, that self-serving bitch.) There were pranks, and there was being Ugly, and there was David who was somehow pretty despite not being Pretty.

(Dr. Cable's teeth against your neck, tracing your jugular vein with her powerful tongue, your new skin sensing the hairs on Dr. Cable's bare back standing up.)

But Tally came, and Tally took David away, and Tally took the Smoke away, and Shay found herself Pretty on the other side of the river, and somehow it didn't matter anymore. She doesn't talk about how she thinks she lost what it meant to be Shay back at the Smoke. She doesn't talk about how sometimes she can't feel anything at all, how sometimes the only thing she thinks she knows how to feel is hatred, rage, desperation. She doesn't talk about how Tally betrayed her, and left her, again and again.

(Your new eyes watching Dr. Cable move down your body as your lay on the operating table, new skin cold against the metal, metal inside you and outside you, metal bones and metal joints, her longue against your non-metal clit, electric just the same, currents through your body.)

When Dr. Cable comes, Shay knows she's made it. She finally has a purpose, gleaming eyes and sharp teeth. Shay realized she was alone in the world the minute she became a Pretty. No, before, the minute Tally took David away. It didn't matter what Tally said, it didn't matter how hard Tally tried, she took everything away from Shay and gave nothing back. She gave Zane the pill. (In retrospect, she should be grateful, the nanos could be eating her brain, but it was the principle of the matter that counted.) She left Shay out of the loop, left her to find her own way, once again.

("Such a smart one," she says, and you know that she's partly just pacifying you, that she doesn't really care about you, but for the moment she's here, and she's Dr. Cable, and you're used to people tossing you aside when it comes down to it. So you smile, showing your off your new teeth, and whisper, thank you, with your new voice, and you push her head back down because you're different and you're Special now, and this once, you're needed, you're wanted, you're someone. You're the youngest person to become Special - at least - no, her fingers are strong against your breasts and you refuse to think of Tally, refuse to think of how this might all be for her.)

Which Shay did. Ingenius, really, the cutting. She doesn't know how it came to her, the idea, but there it was and it made perfect sense, and even Dr. Cable was impressed. "You young people," Dr. Cable says, a note of admiration in her voice. "And even being Pretty."

Shay smiles. "Yes, even being Pretty." Shay thinks about the way the blood spilled across her arm the first time, how perfectly bubbly she felt, and she didn't need anyone to feel bubbly, how Shay was good enough on her own. And then, playing Tally both ways, the razor always hidden on her body, knowing Tally-wa had betrayed her yet again. Blood spilling across her thigh, blood dripping from her fingers, the taste of blood in her mouth. And Shay always had excellent powers of persuasion. It was only a matter of time before she found other Pretties to follow her, other people that needed a little something to get bubbly.

(You taste blood now, as your new teeth cut through your lip, as you hiss a yes. Dr. Cable's fingers are tracing your ribs, new and improved, bones of steel and figments of imagination. How far society could come. Dr. Cable is telling you how beautiful you are now, and you believe her, because you're like Dr. Cable now, and she's beautiful. A zillion milli-Helens, you think. She's powerful and strong and in control, and she wouldn't let someone like Tally fuck with her, at least not -)

Dr. Cable pushes Shay across the table, rolls her on her side. She traces Shay's spine, and Shay shivers. "Don't worry, Shay," Dr. Cable says, in a calm, soothing voice. "You're Special now, and once you're Special, you're always Special." And she had done it before Tally, Dr. Cable had heard of Shay and her Cutters and decided they were of primary importance, Dr. Cable realized how important Shay was, how important Shay could be.

(When you come, your new flesh tattoos spin wildly, spiraling across your face in iridescent patterns you picked out. Dr. Cable looks up at you and smiles. You realize that she's in control, that she's doing this on purpose. As if she needed to. You look down at your arms, new muscle prominent. You see your scars - you made the Pretty Committee agree to let them stay. And Dr. C, as you will come to call her, let's you have your way.)

Shay grabs Dr. Cable, shocked at how easily she can push the older woman on to the silver table. She laughs. "You did pretty well, Dr. C. A new battalion for your army of Specials?"

Dr. Cable wriggles on the table. "Something like that. Young blood always help things advance. New ideas, things us older Specials don't think of. It was brilliant, Shay, the cutting -"

(You cut her off because you don't want to hear her talk about it. Yes, the blood made things bubbly, but it was a different bubbly from the bubbly you shared with Tally-wa, in the beginning. It was diferent because it hurt, and Tally's bubbly was all about happiness and isn't that what bubbly means anyway? You only felt pain after, you only felt desperation, and it kept you going, it kept you alive and it gave you purpose and it made you think of something other than Tally, and that's why you made them keep the scars. But you don't want to talk about it, you don't want to go back to it. Cutting was, is, yours, and you don't want to share.)

Shay pushes the older woman down and smiles a feral grin that to anyone but a Special would look terrifying. "My turn," Shay says, and pushes Dr. Cable's legs apart.

(Your head between her legs, you can smell her desire, feel the power of her thighs. And though you know you have her for this moment, she could probably kill you. It doesn't matter though, because you don't really care about anything anymore. No, you just want to see how far you can go. Dr. Cable lifts her hips to greet your mouth, and you push her back down. "Not yet," you growl, and you're almost surprised at how powerful you sound. She obeys, and you bite the inside of her thigh, lightly, just enough to draw blood. Then you use your fingers, powerful in ways you never imagined, to bring Dr. Cable over the edge, and your thumb is circling like your flesh tattoos, and you can feel the fire in your eyes as Dr. Cable comes and you think, I'm someone, dammit. I'm someone.)

"Well, Shay," Dr. Cable says. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Help me find Tally. Tally Youngblood." Shay wonders if Tally ever saw the irony in her name and Shay's choice of ways to become bubbly. Probably not, Tally-wa, for all her strengths, wasn't the brightest bulb. And she definitely wasn't Special.

"Oh," Dr. Cable laughs, and the laughter sounds foreign and like glass breaking, "I think I can help you with that. Your little friend Tally has been causing me a lot of trouble." Dr. Cable pats Shay's head affectionately. "I think she learned the best from you, but unfortunately, she doesn't have your smarts."

(You like your new body, you like the sensation of feeling so alive. And when you say, "Oh, yes, Tally-wa," you'll think you've never been so happy, until you hear her call you "Shay-la", and you realize you're going to betray her the way she betrayed you, but fair's only fair and you're Special now, you have different rules, and you never needed Tally anyway.)

Shay laughs with Dr. Cable, and later, in her Special room in the Special Circumstances facility, she punches the wall until it crumbles, and she doesn't bleed.

*

. the end .
  . send a flower .
    . pick another.
       . back to the garden gate.