re_alignment_logs | Hallways always [OPEN]

Entry tags:

Hallways always [OPEN]

who: Vandal and any visitors. [OPEN]
what: Vandal is bed-bound, recovering from her month-long detainment and torture.
when: All this week.
where: The Medbay
warnings: very yes
notes: Tag in your own threads, it can be set during any point in the week.

The beep of the monitors is loud with her head this eerily silent. Whatever he did to her, between the needles and questioning, he separated it. Took something. Now that static in her head is far quieter. It's almost as maddening as when it was present.

Now she's almost lonely without it. Well- she was lonely before, but now even more so.

She doesn't sleep, no. It's not safe to sleep anymore. She wants to scream every time she's left alone, but it's not practical to have someone with her all the time. Prism is dead, the Gatherer is dead, but the way she goes back to that place every time she shuts her eyes.

So she lays in a space between waking and sleep, startling back to consciousness every tie she starts to drift. Shaking. Thinking about it. What it did to her.

She reaches up to smooth a finger over the gauze covering what used to be her right eye.

Ruined. He ruined her worse than the church did. The mental, the physical.

Everything. Ruined.

She wishes they'd have killed her when they found her.

But she's also a coward, and afraid of death, so here she sits and lets the stitches heal.

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"Oh."

Well, that's not nearly so bad. He's not sure what he's going to do with coal, but, that's better than what his mind automatically jumped to.

"What is he going to give you, then?" he asks. Because, clearly, she's going to get a present.

He nods slowly. "I won't tell anyone. Okay?"

She lets out a little chuff.

"Coal for me, babe. I haven't been on the nice list for a long time."

Mass-murderers aren't on the nice list.

"You should write him a letter and ask for something."

His head tilts. That doesn't make sense to him. Maybe he's a terrible judge of character, but she's never seemed 'bad'. Not to him. A little abrasive, sure, but...

He squares his shoulders, tilting his chin up. "You can be on mine, then." As... if he actually had one. But with all she's gone through, why would she deserve coal?

"I don't think anyone can bring me what I want to ask for."

Like a soul. Or someone who's missing.

"Okay." She's not going to argue. It's incredibly cute how he takes everything so seriously.

"You never know. Don't doubt Santa. He can do anything. He's magic."

Not to give anyone false hope or anything.

Friends are serious business. At least, to him. Now he just needs to figure out what he's going to do for her. Somehow.

He shakes his head, shifting to touch her hand again.

"It's a nice thought... if magic could help someone bring you a soul. A heart..."

Life, in other words.

He earns a dubious look.

"Is that what you want?" She shakes her head, "You already have plenty of soul, Kagerou. Probably more than some of the folks here. A soul isn't a tangible thing. It just means you have the capacity to feel. And for compassion, and all of that nice shit."

She shrugs and lays back.

"Among other things," he admits.

Though he doubts anyone is going to be capable of bringing him the other thing he desperately wants -- it's safer though, to say this alone. He's surprised, though, at her answer. It's more than she's really spoken so far.

"I trust you," he says. "But I'm not used to a human being thinking so highly of my life... I should be, though. Shouldn't I? You always have..."

"S'okay. I'm not used to anyone thinking very highly of me, either. This had been my own world? I'd have been abandoned."

Here she gets way more than a handful of people running to her rescue.

"You deserve it though. Be treated right. You're just as much a person as I am. Probably more."

"Abandoned...?" He's stunned. His experience is limited, sure. But he'd always thought human beings valued their own kind highly. Why else go to the trouble of creating AI to protect them? "That's..." Then his shoulders square. "That won't happen to you here. All right?"

He doesn't say it aloud, but it's as much of a promise as any. She's his friend. He won't leave a friend. No matter the risks.

Recent events have proved that much, anyway.

"Don't say that," he tells her, more firmly than he usually tends to speak. "You... have the capacity to feel. And for compassion." A hesitation, and the slightest of smirks as he finishes repeating her own words. "And all of that nice shit... A soul. As you put it."

He tilts his head. "I don't know what's more human than having that."

"I know. Not with bots like you around." She tries, but it's hard to sound confident after you've spent a month being tortured.

The moment he repeats her though... that earns a raise of an eyebrow.

Did he seriously just say 'shit'?

"Kagerou... you ever hear the phrase, 'do as I say, not as I do'?"

Well. Whatever. She'll leave well enough alone. Serves her right for cursing so much around him.

"Anyways thanks. You're too sweet for your own god."

"Because we're your friends," he says. It's all right if she doesn't sound confident -- in this case, he can do it for her.

The confidence fades quickly, though, when she asks the question. He blinks, shaking his head slowly. Had he said something wrong? He was trying to make a point. To help.

"No...? Should I have?"

He'll learn. Eventually. He already found out the hard way not to say "buttfuck".

"Sweet. I wouldn't say that." Another shake of his head. "Sweet implies goodness. I've... done things no one would consider good."

"We are." She relents, nodding at him tiredly.

"Ah don't worry about it. I should know better than to swear around you anyways." He's like a small child that's bitg and made of metal.

"You know, a lot of people here say that exact thing, including me. Doesn't matter what you did in the past, okay?"

He lets the first matter drop. He won't press her, not on that, and not when they agree. No point in it.

But he does frown, then. "I don't mind," he says. "You can speak how you want. It doesn't bother me."

Probably because he hasn't heard those words before, but, there you go.

"If it doesn't matter for me... does it matter for you?" If he's not allowed to claim he isn't a good 'person', then his friend shouldn't, either. At least, that's how it works in his mind.

"If you're sure. Just feel like a bad influence, but I guess it's a little late to change my ways."

She shrugs.

"I-" That's a tough question, one she can't answer.

She closes her mouth, looking away.

"I am sure," he says. "If I were bothered, I would have said so. I'm... apparently good at that."

Even when he doesn't mean to be. Besides, she can't be more of a bad influence than the robot who told him human intercourse involved the phrase "penis excitement".

When she looks away, he tilts his head, waiting to hear her continue. She doesn't. His hand inches forward a little, fingertip brushing her arm again.

"I don't think you're a bad person," he says, quietly, firmly. "You've been better to me than any human in my world ever was. You care for the other robots, even though they aren't your kind." He shakes his head. "I can't think poorly of you." The bare flicker of a smile again.

"You don't have to agree. But... that is how I feel about you."

She doesn't agree but, well she has no will to argue it and it wouldn't seem appropriate anyways. She lays back and closes her eye briefly.

"Okay." She'll just accept that for now.

"You don't have anywhere to be do you?" She's hoping he'll say no. Maybe if he stays she can get some rest...

"Okay."

He'll take it at that. She's already been through a lot. Pushing wouldn't help anything right now.

Instead, he shakes his head. "I told Kay I would be here. If she needs me, she knows where I am..." So, no. He doesn't have anything pressing, unless the girl calls for him.

"Would you mind staying for a while?" It will probably be boring for him, but she very desperately wants company right now. She hates that she still feels scared, even knowing that Prism and its Gatherer were destroyed.

"Yes."

He answers almost immediately, before thinking about that for a moment. He shakes his head. "I mean... no, I don't mind. Yes, I'll stay."

He shifts closer to her side, fingers resting on the side of her bed. "Do you want me to be quiet for you? Or speak...?" Because, more than anything, he just wants to help her.

"Whatever you want. Just as long as you're here, it doesn't matter. Why don't you tell me a story. Something about your past. Something that makes you happy."

She wants to hear about happy things right now. Things that don't involve pain or suffering or sadness.

"A story about... Hm."

And something that makes him happy. Honestly, that leaves him really only one option, in his opinion. She might as well have flat-out asked.

"Do you want to hear about him? The one they designed after me?"

She asjusts, trying to get comfortable, looking up from under her messy bangs.

"Yeah. Tell me about him." Something that seemed to make Kagerou happy, and that was good enough for her.

He nods, and settles down beside her bed. His hands rest on the edge of it, alternately hovering over her and sitting beside her. It's comfortable that way. There's a slight smile on his face.

"I wasn't supposed to meet him when I did," he says. There is a lot of warmth in the words. "I broke in. Into the room they were keeping him in. I don't know why we were kept separate at first... Maybe he wasn't ready. But I wanted to meet him. Badly. So... I broke in."

The smile turns a little sheepish. "I think I frightened him at first. Barging in like that. He... was very shy. Back then. But I saw someone worth living for, even then. Even hooked into the repair bay like he was. I... Released him early. He wasn't supposed to be walking, and almost fell down."

He paused, waiting to see if she wanted him to keep going.

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Hallways always [OPEN]

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