It's alright. [don't apologize. and - there's a little flicker of annoyance when the first sensation fades. just for a second! but she's very quickly distracted.
a beat, and then:]
No. [bluntly. not meanly, and not even end of story, but like. no, and also there's a flood of something that's like a strange mix of melancholy and a low, almost violent anger that she takes and neatly puts in a box. nope. not feeling that.
[Throné, repressing her feelings: stop repressing your feelings
He will not, though!!! Especially not in the face of hers. He lifts a hand on reflex, then pauses--but after a beat, he sticks with his choice, slowly extending a hand. If she flinches or cringes away, he'll let it drop between them; otherwise, he'll gently touch her arm.]
she doesn't cringe away this time because she can clearly see him doing it. there's no violence behind his action, and so she allows the touch. he is poisoned and he dies instantly (no).
she's a bit stiff, but she allows it! and even relaxes, after a moment.]
If I tried to force it off, it would flood my system with a fast-acting, incurable poison. [... wryly:] And I like living. So I'd prefer not to.
[In that case, he'll let his fingertips rest on her arm. As a combatant, she'll probably notice that they're not near her wrist, but rather, a little higher up--he could still grab her arm if he wanted to, but it would be a lot more awkward this way.
And then he keels over from poison damage HOORAY No okay. Actually, now it's his turn to feel a surge of anger; like hers, it's a cold, dark thing, a sharp knife just waiting to be aimed at the right target.]
...Is there a key? A code?
[FORGET ESCAPING THE SPACE SHIP THIS IS NOW HIS NEW MISSION no jk. He can multitask.]
no she - actually does not flinch away from the anger. she enjoys it, even though she knows she shouldn't. there's no guilt, nothing like that. just the acknowledgement that she shouldn't want to curl up in that fury and live there.]
There's a key. [she lifts the collar a little - shows him the locking mechanism hidden under the pendant.]
[He was doing so good at respecting her space a minute ago but right now he's too distracted by this to care--he leans closer, absorbed in studying the mechanism.]
Do you remember what it looks like? Could you draw a picture of it, if you had the supplies? [He looks like he's about to ask a bunch more questions, but then he catches himself, sensing the need to slow down.] I'm not--I understand your caution. I'd be the same way. It's just that, where I'm from, we have ways of dealing with this kind of thing. Tools and machines, all meant to dismantle dangerous devices without letting them hurt anyone. I doubt they'd have anything like that on this ship, [and if they did he'd have a LOT of questions] but if they were able to implant us with the I.R.I.S....
[Then maybe they have the technology to get it off of her safely, too?
It would take a lot of trust, though, even under much more normal circumstances than "y'all got convenient amnesia about this totally-not-a-kidnapping." He gets that.]
[she lets him look - she's tense, but she doesn't pull away or bat at him. it's fine. this time it doesn't seem like it's because he's in her space, it's just more because this is a tricky topic. i don't know a whole lot about the mechanism itself because it's kind of just vaguely talked about but you can imagine that for a medieval device that was probably infused with magic at some point, it's a pretty sturdy lock. it's lightweight.
as for all of his questions, she lets him get through it. her emotions are calm, but she's a bit shaky.]
No. [just, right off the bat.] I won't do it any other way than taking the key from the person holding it. I will break these chains with my own two hands.
[she knows that it sounds stupid or maybe even needlessly stubborn, but it's important to her that she's the one who does this. that she's the one who frees herself. she can't accept help, or it'll never feel right. ]
[Imagine if Luke was like "damn actually I have one of these in my shop I know just the thing" and made her a copy of the key out of chewing gum and a toothpick or something
That's... complicated, though. On the one hand, he understands--he's stubborn and self-reliant too, in his own ways. He can't condone a quest of vengeance, but it's not hard to understand where she's coming from, or why she'd want to do this herself. On the other...
She'd called him a knight, before. Though it was embarrassing to hear, the comparison wasn't wrong. Just below that icy anger, it bothers him, the idea of not being able to fix this, and fix it immediately. It doesn't take emotionshare for that to be clear; he doesn't try that hard to hide it.
Finally, he pulls away. He rests his forearms on his legs, hooking his fingers loosely together. His expression is still dark, but he fixes his gaze elsewhere, as if directing it at this distant, unseen foe.]
[that would be incredible he just macgyvers her a key
there's something that does appreciate the desire to fix it. seven other people in her life also reached out to her and told her they'd do anything they could do to help her, and she loves them dearly for it. so - knowing that it bothers him makes her feel... good, makes her feel bolstered. even if she wants to do it herself, she knows she has support. that's never a bad thing.
he pulls away, and she exhales slowly, watching him. that soft sort of melancholy is back, louder now instead of just distantly present. it sits deep in her bones, curls around her spine and lungs and heart like thorns.
when he asks, she hesitates. she doesn't usually have a problem telling people about her collar, it's just... the details that get her. but.]
[He's good at keeping secrets--it's a core part of his work, after all. If not for these incredibly unique circumstances, he wouldn't have even told her about that.]
[she watches him for a moment more, and then - seems to decide that he's trustworthy enough for this.]
... The leader of the Blacksnakes.
[a quiet, roiling nausea rises in her, and she takes a deep breath. and then she shows him her tattoo - a snake that he can really only see the head of on her hand, considering her arm is covered.]
[Comes back to this after gagtagging twenty years ago
He glances down at the tattoo, his gaze traveling partly up her arm, as if imagining how far the tattoo might stretch. His jaw is tight, displeased, and his eyes are still very dark.]
An organization, then. [Figures.] You have a plan to take them down?
[This is, perhaps, a dangerous question to ask when he knows what kind of work she does--work that is, in a way, the opposite of his. But he doesn't like the idea of her trying to take on a wholeass mafia all by herself either.]
... Yes. I do. [but she glances at him, meeting his gaze for just a second. he knows what kind of work she does, and she figures he won't like the answer very much at all.] Cut the head off the snake.
There... are two. [steady, steady. calm. it's a very practiced thing - a heartbeat that doesn't waver, breathing even.
[It's probably not unexpected, the tumultuous conflict in his emotions and his eyes. There's compassion, of course--a deep, genuine ache, and that fury on her behalf, much too dark to be righteous. But for all the time he spends in the shadows, he is, ultimately a creature of light.]
...I worked a case a little while ago. [He says, finally.] Investigating the death of a man named Gordon Grant. He owned a chain of pharmacies--he was a very wealthy man, very successful. His wife had already passed away, but he'd had a mistress, and she lived with him at the time. His son, too, the one he'd had with his wife.
He had a little girl by her--Joey. Eight years old. [...] She'd always been... ill. In her body, and her mind. And the more we looked into the case, the more we found that things weren't adding up. [His tone, already quiet, turns icy and dark.] Eventually, we learned that Grant had used experimental drugs on his mistress while she was pregnant. After Joey was born, he used them on her, too. She wasn't born sick--she was the victim of her father's selfish quest for eternal youth. [...] I don't condone murder. But every time I think about this case, I can't help but feel that Grant got what he deserved.
[He falls quiet for a little while, until the anger dulls to a low simmer. Eventually, he lifts his head to meet her eyes.]
Your parents... I have no doubt that you'll make sure they're brought to justice. For what they did to you, and anyone else they might've hurt. [He hesitates, then, choosing his words carefully.] ...But I hope the choice you make is truly yours. Not what you think they've made you. Not something you may regret, when you can breathe again.
and - maybe he'll find the way she responds to be unexpected in some ways. a little girl, eight years old, in a situation she didn't ask for - this one isn't strange, there's just a soft, pained feeling. empathy. familiar. it gets worse, as he describes what happened to her, and then it ends up what might be the unexpected part - a jolt, at eternal youth. something horrible and nauseated rises up in her throat and for a second it almost chokes her. makes her feel dizzy.
but she forces it back, away, and focuses on his anger. taps into that instead.
the quiet gives her time to recover. she looks down at her hands - at the tattoo.]
... I won't regret it. [she says, quietly. very, very sure. like it's already a done deal.] Not them.
[she doesn't look back up at him.]
I know what I am. The whole... the whole point of this was to find a way to someday put it behind me.
[He's too observant not to notice the shifts in her emotions, but while he tucks them away in his mind, he doesn't call attention to them now. He's too focused on her words, which...
Well. It's not like he expected to change her mind, really; they're strangers, after all, no matter the secrets they've dared to share. It hurts to hear nonetheless, but it's a broad, all-encompassing feeling, rather than a simple, straightforward disappointment. There's more than one shade of gray. He knows that.
There's a sadness, there, in his emotions--a mirror, perhaps, of what she'd felt for him, when she'd told him he was begging the world to stab him in the back.
At least there's hope in her words, though. That's a good sign. It's proof that she's looking ahead, that she wants to live beyond revenge.]
[it's always been the goal - all she wants is to be free. it isn't even necessarily about revenge, it's that she doesn't want to be caged anymore. it's all she's wanted for months now, traveling with her companions. the chains are so hard to escape, and they feel so heavy.
she appreciates that he doesn't try to convince her otherwise, because this is something she knows she has to do. maybe she doesn't know a lot about him, but she's not half bad at figuring out how people are, and to her - luke seems like the kind of person to know that the world is an awful, dragging place, that maybe there isn't any hope, and yet. still have it anyway.
she gives him a little smile. it's sad and tired, but she tries.]
Thank you. [...] ... And thank you, for wanting to help me.
[even though she systematically resists his attempts every time]
You deserve the offer. [She isn't like Gordon Grant, shamelessly stealing from and torturing his children. Joanne Scott, Irene Burke, Rio--there have been so many like Throné, the ones who simply did what they felt they must. Luke is hardly one to claim every person in the world is good and deserving of mercy, but he believes, wholeheartedly, that vigilante justice causes far more problems than it solves--and yet, at the end of the day, he's only human. He can see how the world must look through her eyes.] I hope you make it back to the light soon.
[...]
She's okay, by the way. Joey. My team got her taken care of.
anyway. i hope you make it back to the light soon hurts a little, but more in that agreement sort of way. she hopes she does too, she just isn't sure she'll get to.
she swallows hard.]
... That's good to know. [she says, after a moment.] But little girls never recover from things like that.
He sits, for a moment, still--but she allowed it once, so he reaches out and gently squeezes her arm again.]
No. [He agrees.] But there's a chance the doctors can reverse the damage, and she'll be looked after until she's grown either way. And we have... professionals, in my world, who help with... learning to cope.
she doesn't pull away when he squeezes her arm. just exhales slow, and that sadness, the sorrow that sits deep in her bones and stays, like a chronic pain, gets a little worse, feels a little more sharp. she doesn't seem to notice it, or at the very least, it seems normal to her.]
[This time, he'll leave it there, loose enough for her to pull away when she wants. The shifts in her emotions concern him a little, but he suspects calling attention to them wouldn't help--at least for now.]
I try. It's something I learned years ago, from my senior. [He tips his head back, his tone turning slightly nostalgic.] He said, "To children, the world is black and white, while adults can see a gray zone. But in our world, there's a lot more darkness. Not only because of the crimes we face, but because the limits of our abilities. The pain can be unbearable, so you have to find a way to keep yourself from being swallowed up by the darkness."
[He tilts his head slightly, considering.]
I carry regrets, just like anyone. There are people I couldn't save in time. Tragedies that could've been avoided, but weren't. Sometimes it's hard not to judge people--bad people can be victims, and good people can hurt others. [Shades of gray in the darkness.] So... I just try to bring more light into the world however I can.
Edited (the way my keyboard died before I could edit this tag) 2024-03-01 06:36 (UTC)
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no subject
a beat, and then:]
No. [bluntly. not meanly, and not even end of story, but like. no, and also there's a flood of something that's like a strange mix of melancholy and a low, almost violent anger that she takes and neatly puts in a box. nope. not feeling that.
well, the anger, anyway. the sadness stays.]
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He will not, though!!! Especially not in the face of hers. He lifts a hand on reflex, then pauses--but after a beat, he sticks with his choice, slowly extending a hand. If she flinches or cringes away, he'll let it drop between them; otherwise, he'll gently touch her arm.]
Why not take it off?
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she doesn't cringe away this time because she can clearly see him doing it. there's no violence behind his action, and so she allows the touch. he is poisoned and he dies instantly (no).
she's a bit stiff, but she allows it! and even relaxes, after a moment.]
If I tried to force it off, it would flood my system with a fast-acting, incurable poison. [... wryly:] And I like living. So I'd prefer not to.
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And then he keels over from poison damage HOORAY No okay. Actually, now it's his turn to feel a surge of anger; like hers, it's a cold, dark thing, a sharp knife just waiting to be aimed at the right target.]
...Is there a key? A code?
[FORGET ESCAPING THE SPACE SHIP THIS IS NOW HIS NEW MISSION no jk. He can multitask.]
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no she - actually does not flinch away from the anger. she enjoys it, even though she knows she shouldn't. there's no guilt, nothing like that. just the acknowledgement that she shouldn't want to curl up in that fury and live there.]
There's a key. [she lifts the collar a little - shows him the locking mechanism hidden under the pendant.]
... I know where it is, but I'm here, instead.
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Do you remember what it looks like? Could you draw a picture of it, if you had the supplies? [He looks like he's about to ask a bunch more questions, but then he catches himself, sensing the need to slow down.] I'm not--I understand your caution. I'd be the same way. It's just that, where I'm from, we have ways of dealing with this kind of thing. Tools and machines, all meant to dismantle dangerous devices without letting them hurt anyone. I doubt they'd have anything like that on this ship, [and if they did he'd have a LOT of questions] but if they were able to implant us with the I.R.I.S....
[Then maybe they have the technology to get it off of her safely, too?
It would take a lot of trust, though, even under much more normal circumstances than "y'all got convenient amnesia about this totally-not-a-kidnapping." He gets that.]
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as for all of his questions, she lets him get through it. her emotions are calm, but she's a bit shaky.]
No. [just, right off the bat.] I won't do it any other way than taking the key from the person holding it. I will break these chains with my own two hands.
[she knows that it sounds stupid or maybe even needlessly stubborn, but it's important to her that she's the one who does this. that she's the one who frees herself. she can't accept help, or it'll never feel right. ]
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That's... complicated, though. On the one hand, he understands--he's stubborn and self-reliant too, in his own ways. He can't condone a quest of vengeance, but it's not hard to understand where she's coming from, or why she'd want to do this herself. On the other...
She'd called him a knight, before. Though it was embarrassing to hear, the comparison wasn't wrong. Just below that icy anger, it bothers him, the idea of not being able to fix this, and fix it immediately. It doesn't take emotionshare for that to be clear; he doesn't try that hard to hide it.
Finally, he pulls away. He rests his forearms on his legs, hooking his fingers loosely together. His expression is still dark, but he fixes his gaze elsewhere, as if directing it at this distant, unseen foe.]
Who did this?
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there's something that does appreciate the desire to fix it. seven other people in her life also reached out to her and told her they'd do anything they could do to help her, and she loves them dearly for it. so - knowing that it bothers him makes her feel... good, makes her feel bolstered. even if she wants to do it herself, she knows she has support. that's never a bad thing.
he pulls away, and she exhales slowly, watching him. that soft sort of melancholy is back, louder now instead of just distantly present. it sits deep in her bones, curls around her spine and lungs and heart like thorns.
when he asks, she hesitates. she doesn't usually have a problem telling people about her collar, it's just... the details that get her. but.]
... Promise me that you won't gossip about it.
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[He's good at keeping secrets--it's a core part of his work, after all. If not for these incredibly unique circumstances, he wouldn't have even told her about that.]
no subject
... The leader of the Blacksnakes.
[a quiet, roiling nausea rises in her, and she takes a deep breath. and then she shows him her tattoo - a snake that he can really only see the head of on her hand, considering her arm is covered.]
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He glances down at the tattoo, his gaze traveling partly up her arm, as if imagining how far the tattoo might stretch. His jaw is tight, displeased, and his eyes are still very dark.]
An organization, then. [Figures.] You have a plan to take them down?
[This is, perhaps, a dangerous question to ask when he knows what kind of work she does--work that is, in a way, the opposite of his. But he doesn't like the idea of her trying to take on a wholeass mafia all by herself either.]
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she takes a deep, steadying breath.]
... Yes. I do. [but she glances at him, meeting his gaze for just a second. he knows what kind of work she does, and she figures he won't like the answer very much at all.] Cut the head off the snake.
There... are two. [steady, steady. calm. it's a very practiced thing - a heartbeat that doesn't waver, breathing even.
and then:] Mother, Father.
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...I worked a case a little while ago. [He says, finally.] Investigating the death of a man named Gordon Grant. He owned a chain of pharmacies--he was a very wealthy man, very successful. His wife had already passed away, but he'd had a mistress, and she lived with him at the time. His son, too, the one he'd had with his wife.
He had a little girl by her--Joey. Eight years old. [...] She'd always been... ill. In her body, and her mind. And the more we looked into the case, the more we found that things weren't adding up. [His tone, already quiet, turns icy and dark.] Eventually, we learned that Grant had used experimental drugs on his mistress while she was pregnant. After Joey was born, he used them on her, too. She wasn't born sick--she was the victim of her father's selfish quest for eternal youth. [...] I don't condone murder. But every time I think about this case, I can't help but feel that Grant got what he deserved.
[He falls quiet for a little while, until the anger dulls to a low simmer. Eventually, he lifts his head to meet her eyes.]
Your parents... I have no doubt that you'll make sure they're brought to justice. For what they did to you, and anyone else they might've hurt. [He hesitates, then, choosing his words carefully.] ...But I hope the choice you make is truly yours. Not what you think they've made you. Not something you may regret, when you can breathe again.
no subject
and - maybe he'll find the way she responds to be unexpected in some ways. a little girl, eight years old, in a situation she didn't ask for - this one isn't strange, there's just a soft, pained feeling. empathy. familiar. it gets worse, as he describes what happened to her, and then it ends up what might be the unexpected part - a jolt, at eternal youth. something horrible and nauseated rises up in her throat and for a second it almost chokes her. makes her feel dizzy.
but she forces it back, away, and focuses on his anger. taps into that instead.
the quiet gives her time to recover. she looks down at her hands - at the tattoo.]
... I won't regret it. [she says, quietly. very, very sure. like it's already a done deal.] Not them.
[she doesn't look back up at him.]
I know what I am. The whole... the whole point of this was to find a way to someday put it behind me.
no subject
Well. It's not like he expected to change her mind, really; they're strangers, after all, no matter the secrets they've dared to share. It hurts to hear nonetheless, but it's a broad, all-encompassing feeling, rather than a simple, straightforward disappointment. There's more than one shade of gray. He knows that.
There's a sadness, there, in his emotions--a mirror, perhaps, of what she'd felt for him, when she'd told him he was begging the world to stab him in the back.
At least there's hope in her words, though. That's a good sign. It's proof that she's looking ahead, that she wants to live beyond revenge.]
You will. [Firmly.] I believe that.
no subject
she appreciates that he doesn't try to convince her otherwise, because this is something she knows she has to do. maybe she doesn't know a lot about him, but she's not half bad at figuring out how people are, and to her - luke seems like the kind of person to know that the world is an awful, dragging place, that maybe there isn't any hope, and yet. still have it anyway.
she gives him a little smile. it's sad and tired, but she tries.]
Thank you. [...] ... And thank you, for wanting to help me.
[even though she systematically resists his attempts every time]
no subject
You deserve the offer. [She isn't like Gordon Grant, shamelessly stealing from and torturing his children. Joanne Scott, Irene Burke, Rio--there have been so many like Throné, the ones who simply did what they felt they must. Luke is hardly one to claim every person in the world is good and deserving of mercy, but he believes, wholeheartedly, that vigilante justice causes far more problems than it solves--and yet, at the end of the day, he's only human. He can see how the world must look through her eyes.] I hope you make it back to the light soon.
[...]
She's okay, by the way. Joey. My team got her taken care of.
no subject
anyway. i hope you make it back to the light soon hurts a little, but more in that agreement sort of way. she hopes she does too, she just isn't sure she'll get to.
she swallows hard.]
... That's good to know. [she says, after a moment.] But little girls never recover from things like that.
no subject
He sits, for a moment, still--but she allowed it once, so he reaches out and gently squeezes her arm again.]
No. [He agrees.] But there's a chance the doctors can reverse the damage, and she'll be looked after until she's grown either way. And we have... professionals, in my world, who help with... learning to cope.
[THERAPY]
no subject
she doesn't pull away when he squeezes her arm. just exhales slow, and that sadness, the sorrow that sits deep in her bones and stays, like a chronic pain, gets a little worse, feels a little more sharp. she doesn't seem to notice it, or at the very least, it seems normal to her.]
You really do carry a lot of hope.
no subject
I try. It's something I learned years ago, from my senior. [He tips his head back, his tone turning slightly nostalgic.] He said, "To children, the world is black and white, while adults can see a gray zone. But in our world, there's a lot more darkness. Not only because of the crimes we face, but because the limits of our abilities. The pain can be unbearable, so you have to find a way to keep yourself from being swallowed up by the darkness."
[He tilts his head slightly, considering.]
I carry regrets, just like anyone. There are people I couldn't save in time. Tragedies that could've been avoided, but weren't. Sometimes it's hard not to judge people--bad people can be victims, and good people can hurt others. [Shades of gray in the darkness.] So... I just try to bring more light into the world however I can.