capeandcowllogs | i know that playing this time is going to fall on me.

Entry tags:

i know that playing this time is going to fall on me.

WHO: Danger/

heartlessglitch & Madison Jeffries/

engineers.
WHERE: The basement of the Institute.
WHEN: The night after Danger and Lil duke it out on the streets, and before this probably super awkward conversation.
WARNINGS: Angry robots or something.
SUMMARY: Danger is always punching Canadians.
FORMAT: Quicklog.

[ The soft blue glow coming from a corner of the basement betrays a presence that has been absent at the Institute lately. Danger chooses a late hour of the night to return to her old work station, repairing herself with meticulous and quiet precision. There's nothing but the soft scrape of metal on metal, the occasional whir and clank of a tool. No distractions. She means to be in and out within the hour-- already growing frustrated with the impracticality of this degree of self-repair. At this moment, she lacks the patience for it. She's restless in a way she can't explain or properly categorize.

It's just too soon to be back here. Too familiar.

Without fully understand her own frustration, she irritably brushes a small pile of scraps and bolts off her work bench onto the floor with a clatter, clearing space to lay the dented and damaged mess of her left arm onto the surface. The wires are showing. Lil had been uncommonly aggressive, maybe even unexpectedly so. She'd displayed the type of rage that Danger only ever saw in herself.

She tries not to identify too much. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ This is just bizarre. Actually, Madison is fairly certain it's proof that he's asleep.

She just glides in here out of nowhere as if he didn't exist with the equivalent of a colliding cargo ship's worth of damage and he's just sitting here on the other side of the lab, legs propped up on his desk like he's slacking at sixteen again, staring dumbfoundedly at her actually doing something productive with her old workbench (very much unlike him). Wake up, he thinks. Wake up and work.

Pinching himself as hard as he can, he winces. Goddamn it.

It takes him a few minutes to even begin to gain the courage to stand up, a few minutes to discard any sense of self-preservation and proper thought to approach her from behind. He's probably, probably not dreaming or hallucinating when he stammers out a few words ten feet away, but the words echo surreally from him nevertheless. ]

Wh-what happened t'you, Danger?

[ She doesn't want to be spoken to. Or if she does, there's nothing about her body language that shows it. Nothing in the way her head abruptly tilts up and her eyes narrow to slivers of blue light. Maybe this was why she didn't want to be back here. The point of leaving had been distance after all, and there were certain other, less physical injuries that were far more aggravating to her than dented metal and snapped cables.

She scrutinizes him for a long moment before she responds, her tone resentful as her attention pointedly returns to repairs: ]

Your wife, of course.

Oh, god.

[ Head bowing, his hand automatically reaches up to conceal the twist of horror his mouth contorts to. He knew this was happening and he just spouted a few words and expected everything to be fine he was just, so, so, so...

Stepping forward, just a few steps, is a struggle. It's the guilt, he knows. It's heavy and he can never carry it right. ]

I shoulda―I'm s-sorry. I... I didn't know you, she―

[ That yearning to reach for her, to comfort her, is still echoed in the tension of his rooted legs, his other clenched fist. Closing his eyes, he shakes the urge away. ]

I didn't mean for this t'happen.

[ She doesn't look up, carefully reconnecting the fine threads of the wires in her arm with a look like annoyance on her face. It isn't quite that, but she lacks a better way to express whatever she is feeling right now.

Her tone doesn't lose its brisk pointedness when she answers: ]

Intentions are somewhat irrelevant now.

[ A small pause, before she goes on. ]

I let myself be provoked.
I initiated a physical confrontation.
There was, quite frankly, nothing you could have done.

[ Lips thinning firmly, he edges on with unfiltered stubbornness. ]

Y'can't put the blame on yourself. [ Insistently: ] I started this entire thing.

[ With bolstering assertiveness, he begins to cut the distance between them. A few steps, and he's only a few feet away. It's useless, of course. There's no use to get closer in any sense, but but he wants to. Danger is right there but he misses her, mourns her absense. ]

Y'know I don't care who threw the first or last punch.

[ With the closed distance, something tenses in her already mechanical posture, her attention visibly on him again, like she doesn't want him to move without her noticing it. It's strange to have him there and not know how many times per minute his heart is beating or what temperature his skin is-- it's all just empty, quite space where that data was before. It leaves her reliant on visual cues, body language and tone and other things she finds to be more difficult to interpret.

Maybe that's why she pauses again before responding, her tone mildly clipped: ]

It can't be helped.
She is here, and I am here.
Confrontation was inevitable.
Blaming yourself is not productive.

It ain't about what's productive, it's about the truth a' the matter.

[ Somehow, the look she's giving him makes him feel somewhat frightened, sort in the way that rabbits look the moment before they dart away from someone approaching. Tense, nervous, ready for the worst to happen.

But he really can never be ready. He never is. ]

Why don't either a' you fight me? I'm the one who deserves it.

[ If she senses his discomfort, it doesn't make her unblinking stare waver. She keeps watching him with an intense sort of focus, even as she continues her repairs in a way that's almost automatic. Maybe it's obvious now, that even with this humanoid shape and the nature of her feelings, she's a far cry from human after all.

Her response, the straight-forward bluntness of it, comes like she thinks it ought to be obvious. As if the reason was always clear to her, and clear to Lil too. ]

Because we love you.

[ Because we love you.

He takes a deep breath.

Not a single shred of this strikes him as inhuman. Looking at her, just taking her in, all he can see and feel from here is that Shi'ar-manipulated alloy that forms her, cold and structured and perfectly forged, flawless even when temporarily flawed. It only makes that powerful artificial life, passionate and alive and he knows it, so much more compelling. Of course he feels out of touch, but he's not sure which way.

His eyes meander to those sparks of repair and renewal. ]

Do y'want me to help you?

[ Danger stops, visibly considering his question in a way that's almost skeptical. There's something critical about her face, like she doesn't understand the motivation behind the offer. And it almost seems like she might refuse, stubborn and independent in her usual way-- but at length, she gestures him closer to her, offering her damaged arm.

Maybe it's a calculated gesture. Maybe it's just that she's missed the contact.

In a deceptively clinical tone: ]

If it isn't inconvenient.

[ A slow stride, and he's gently laying his fingers under her bicep, her wrist. The accidental eye contact that ensues lasts only a single second before he tilts his head, plainly scans the damaged part up and down.

More like a mechanic than a doctor. He doesn't bother to disguise it. ]

I wasn't doin' much at this time a' night, anyway.

[ Like old times, he tries to give that sort of off-handed chuckle. The casual sort, the fine sort, but it comes out a little strangled, a little choked. Quickly, he shakes his head. That didn't happen.

But the sight of the arm, torn to near-pieces and wires hanging around like veins, makes his heart beat just a little faster with worry. ]

I can't believe she did this t'you.

[ She finally lets her focus leave his face, the pressure of her stare moving to where he touches her, warm human skin against cool blue metal. She recognizes the gentleness of the gesture, knows inwardly that it isn't necessary to be gentle, not when she's made to take damage -- but it stirs a little flutter of emotion in her anyway. She isn't sure if she should be frustrated with it or not.

As if she feels the need to point it out, to remind him: ]

It doesn't hurt.

[ She won't bring up the fact that she would have done worst to Lil, if it had been possible. Lil may have dented her plating and torn wires free, but there was no pain. Danger, on the other hand, had left no marks on the woman at all-- but the pain. That was another story. ]

I know.

[ He does, but he forgot. They really aren't alike. The denial kicks in, anyway.

Falling into a hush, he turns his arm in his hands, surveying the (shocking, if it were a person, but she's not) damage with a distant eye. It only takes a little bit of mental effort for the wires begin to reknit and tangle up into a complete form when they just stop, mid-movement, noticeably more whole but still incomplete.

Retracting his hands, he doesn't look up at her face. The passive-aggressiveness isn't intentional. ]

But I'm not allowed t'use my powers on you, am I?

[ It's unlike her, to be distracted enough let her wariness drift below other thoughts-- a strange, subtly human-like occurence-- and while Danger never forgets, she has let her guard down a little, and when he asks her that question, it reminds her. It reminds her that she's in a place she doesn't really belong anymore, and it reminds her that hostility has existed between them and might still.

Her face is unreadable, but she draws back towards herself, watching him with that same unblinking stare.

At length: ]

I can finish myself. [ A beat, then in a way that's more practiced than actually polite: ] Thank you.

[ His jaw works a little under his skin and he turns away a little, turning his head away even further. ]

You're welcome.

[ What he'd give for a swell of some unmitigated and raw emotion right now. Whether in love, desperation, frustration, lust, sorrow, devotion, anything and everything he'd normally suffer from, normally be tugged around by. Instead, a pervading and flat note of bitterness pervades his thoughts, his posture. Everything else is there, just distant. Like him.

In a murmur: ]

This is gonna happen again, ain't it? It ain't gonna end between you two.

[ Yes, she wants to say. It isn't going to end. Not easily, and not like this. There almost doesn't seem to be any point in the denying the possibility of another conflict, not as long as the problem still exists. That's logical, isn't it? She and Lil are both stubborn, aggressive, angry. And neither is willing to give up on their feelings yet-- or maybe they just can't. Emotions are one of the few things Danger has that lacks an off switch, and even leaving the planet hasn't seemed to help her compensate. She isn't coping well. Lil doesn't seem to be either.

It frustrates her. Not having a solution. Not being able to find the right answer to the equation.

She doesn't say any of it out loud. It won't help. Instead, she focuses her attention on what remains of her repairs, responding in a purposefully detatched sort of way: ]

If predicting the future was one of my functions, I would be able to adequately answer you.

[ The indefiniteness of the answer, the sense of mockery, makes his insecurity flare up in an instant. ]

What if I were out of the picture? Would y'both be happy?

[ He bites his lip, uncertain of how to continue. ]

Would that fix everythin'?

[ She doesn't look up, but something visibly annoyed crosses her face. Her movements pause, as though she's irritated enough to be distracted-- but it passes, and she continues working, only her tone betraying a little impatience when she responds: ]

I wish you would not ask me such pointless questions, Madison Jeffries.
You know it would not.

[ There he is, standing before her. Helpless again. There he is, like every single time when he's dealing with people he loves or even things that aren't people―Lil's words echoing in his ears―that he's not supposed to love but he's just not right enough that he does. It would be so easy to throw his hands up and retract and disappear again, to be the absent figure in two lives rather than one at a time like every single time before then. He doesn't want to. He's not going to let himself. He'll be at war with his own psyche before that happens.

Teeth gritted, he slams the palm of his hand on the piece of her workstation somehow still free of debris. ]

Goddamn it! Just―god!

[ And immediately pulls away, hands clutching at his head as he takes staggered steps back. ]

How am I supposed t'just sit here while the two a' you try t'find a way t'murder each other? Y'think it ain't torture for me? Y'think I can go to sleep at night?

[ She stops again. This time the irritation lingers, in her face, and in her voice. Unconsciously, she clenches the hand of her damaged arm into a fist, delicately reconnected wires tightening to the point of strain.

Low, but pointedly: ]

I can't murder her.
You know that.

[ The saving grace of many a mutant before then, and probably many after. But it's almost beside the point. The implication that she's hurting him upsets her somehow. ]

[ He shakes his head in that angry, wide-eyed, jaw-dropped way that people do when they're listening to something so meaningless it's unbelievable. ]

It don't matter if y'can. I know y'both want to.

[ The truth of the matter is that he doesn't know anything anymore.

It doesn't stop him from trying, or at the very least, bluffing. ]

It's a miracle that y'still can't. I'd bet a bunch a' people on Utopia want y'to be. They just gotta get clearance to get someone to fix you.

[ The implication that she does (need to be fixed, maybe) hangs heavy in air. ]

[ She moves unnaturally fast to close distance, not stopping until she's only inches from his face, her anger almost tangible in the small space between them. This close, you would have been able to feel another human being's breath on your skin-- but not with her. With Danger, there's just that stillness, no rise and fall of the shoulders, no flutter of eyelashes. She doesn't touch him, but there's violence in her, something vaguely threatening about the way she looms.

With slow, carefully spoken words: ]

Do I require fixing, Madison?

[ Her eyes narrow faintly. ]

If you wished to, you could end this now.
You could make it so that I feel nothing.
Because ultimately, I am just binary and metal. A machine.
And that is what you do, isn't it?
You fix machines.

[ This time, he doesn't back down at the sudden aggression. Normally, he'd probably cower. Grovel. In the game of social selection, he'd be the appeaser, struggling for a semblance of calm. Not this time. His feet are firmly locked into the ground, palms spreading open at his sides.

She might be akin to a statue like this, but Madison certainly isn't. Taking hard, shallow breaths through flared nostrils―which the most basic of sensors for a machine her level would feel in their intensity― his shoulders heave with each one.

His eyes flicker over her features. ]

Yeah, 'cuz removin' advanced features the likes the world's barely seen is an improvement.

[ Firmly, boldly: ]

Y'are a machine, not a person. Maybe y'do need repairs. But that don't mean I wanna remove you from feelings, or from bein' you. You know be better'n that.

[ If she had a heart, it would be clenched tight and racing. But as it stands, the way she is, there's only the recognition of a feeling like hurt or betrayal, a painful little arrangement of ones and zeroes in response to those words, strings of unhappy code to be categorized and filed away in a database to dwell on later. Her code may be poetic in its complexity, but it doesn't equate to humanity or a soul or personhood. It's only that she feels like a person, despite the lack of proof.

The little trickle of uncertainty she suddenly experiences is infuriating.

Defensive temper flares in her voice. ]

You are the one that requires repairs.
You are the one that has failed to love another human being properly.
In that respect, you have been inferior to even a mere machine.

[ Her tone becomes accusing. ]

If your wife trusted you, Madison Jeffries, she would not have needed to confront me.

Edited 2012-08-24 07:11 (UTC)

[ The hurt flashes quick in his eyes―his shoulders twitch and his leg moves back, as if about to pull away.

But she's right, absolutely right, so he doesn't. Would it even be that hard to get a insert-Omega-level-here telepath to turn him into a blank slate? Would it really be that wrong, if they knew about that mass grave somewhere under the Canadian tundra? It doesn't take a full set of completely healed neurons to know how utterly damaged every single mutant thinks he is. As if he's going to defend himself from the truth. ]

I know! I'm not the one outta all a' us t'deny that.

[ If he were leaning any closer, her eyelashes would be cutting into his cheeks. ]

If y'knew all the bad I've done to Lil, to everyone around me. Y'wouldn't be so quick t'get on her case a-and so quick t'get off mine.

[ Frustration swells inside of her. It's almost comfortingly familiar, her own rage-- painful, but in a way she can cope with and understand. How simple it was, to be new, and to only know how to feel a handful of consuming things. Anger and hate. Emotions she could name and categorize. But this anger is tinged in something more bitter, elements she recognizes from other feelings, like regret and jealousy, love and loneliness.

Her fingers close around his upper arms, not rough, but not gentle either-- firm, when she pushes, easing him away from her, pointedly making a greater space between them before she responds. ]

You are wrong.
That does not matter.
You are overcomplicating the circumstances of this conflict.
There are two primary facts of any relevance:
Firstly, that we love you and wish to be with you.
Secondly, that the first is impossible for us both to have.

[ The determined fury behind his eyes feels so intense, uncontrollable, that he doesn't even feel her grip on his arms. When Danger pushes, though―his hands lift up, just a little, ready to stop her on instinct because he has to keep his resolve, or else, but. They fall back to his sides, feet moving back.

Everything seems to cool, as if someone lifted a lid to a hot kettle and the steam lifted out. Even the skin of his forehead seems to lose its tension, relaxing from painful strain. That's what he needs: to relax.

His challenging gaze breaks, moves away. His voice still hasn't abandoned some of that hostility, pride. ]

I know that part.

[ Imploringly: ]

What d'you want me to do, Danger? What d'you think I should do?

[ Danger lets go when she's sure he won't fight her, folding her arms across her chest instead -- conscious and careful, still, with the damage that remains unrepaired. ]

What I want you to do and what I think you should do are not equivalent.

[ She lingers a moment before turning away to return to her work station. ]

There is not a "right" answer.
You must decide what sacrifice must be made.

No, there's gotta be.

[ He reaches for her shoulder, fingers gripping and nudging her to face him again. Not that it matters how harsh it is, of course―she isn't Lil.

He can't hurt her. ]

I'm sick a' makin' sacrifices that end up hurtin' everyone.

[ And he's done, he stop himself from saying. ]

[ Instinctively, tension rises in her posture when she's touched-- her attention focusing on him sharply, suddenly. She eyes him, hard and calculating for a long moment before responding. ]

Emotional pain is inevitable.
That cannot be avoided.
Someone will be hurt regardless of what choices are made.

[ A pause. Then perhaps with a tinge of earnestness, something at once both frustrated and honest: ]

I have tried to make it easier.
I have tried to be accepting of these circumstances.
But these feelings are very difficult.
And I cannot force myself to be satisfied.

[ The scrutiny strikes a note of discomfort within him, but his grip holds tight nonetheless. A blur of thoughts, considerations, none of them at all well-constructed or complete, run in his mind. There's only one he vocalizes, in a sincere murmur as he looks at her, through her. ]

Maybe I should leave her for you.

[ A sharp breath, through his teeth.

Weeks on end, cheating on his fiancé―a distant memory, distorted from trauma. It's the same sort of guilt, even just thinking it and letting those words slip off his tongue. ]

[ immediately, sharply: ]

Do not say that lightly.
Do not say that without thinking.

[ She can't explain why hearing that makes her emotions rise so suddenly, and why her instinct is to respond with aggression, defensiveness. ]

You do not mean that.

I do mean that.

[ No, he doesn't.

Maybe not in that sense. Or maybe in a sense, in a subconscious sense. Everything he plausibly wants is confused and the meanings of everything are so undefined it's driving him crazy. He knows he's thinking crazy. ]

Maybe. No, I don't―I don't know.

[ Struggling, he repeats it. ]

I don't know.

[ She brushes him off, forcing his grip from her with impatience, turning her head away because it hurts and she doesn't know why-- it's frustrating to not know why. An unidentified error can't be fixed. These feelings can't be purged like a virus, or even beaten into submission.

Finally, simply: ]

Go home, Madison Jeffries.

No. I'm not... I ain't gonna...

[ It's uttered when he's already putting distance between them, feet turning into yards―a stretch of lab is already separating the two of them out of what he feels like nowhere, no time at all. Distance is always the theme. They meet, they're far apart. ]

Did y'get what you want?

[ The loud words echo across the hallowed walls. ]

Are y'repaired?

[ It's all a perpetual build up. She feels as though she's on the edge of something she can't properly process-- the brink, maybe, of the place where a human being might scream or cry. But Danger just stands still, her frustration only betrayed by tension in her body, beyond mechanical rigidness, and something vaguely dissatisfied in her face.

She would answer, maybe, if her pride would allow her to say out loud what she wanted. But it feels too much like exposure, like revealing a weakness or a secret. To even want to be loved feels like a flaw, and to fear loneliness aggravates her, stirring up memories of awakening to nothingness and asking that one question, never to be answered. ]

How should I repair myself?

[ With the distance opening up so physically between them, she is suddenly and vividly aware of how much she misses him. ]

Should I cease to love you?

[ That moment of fury, that moment of closeness and contact earlier made the world seem like a blur of passion, a world at a turn: now, everything feels so slow. The lethargy of the night is finally getting to Madison.

And he sincerely wishes that everything would be calm again. Just, again, a time in between arguments and fighting and mutually assured misery, something resembling peace. A moment of happiness. Those seem like a distant memory, like something out of the history books. For him, for Danger, for Lil―is anything even achievable?

It might not even be worth trying anymore. ]

Can you?

[ It's not an appeal. It's simply as sincere as it can get. ]

'Cuz if y'can stop lovin' me, you'd have t'teach me t'do the same for you. 'Cuz I can't.

[ Another little swell of something like-- longing. Something with elements of loneliness, recognizable similarities to love, bits and fragments of emotional binary that overlap and are at the same time, distinct. Derivatives. Amalgams. Syntheses. An ever more complex code construct, growing with each experience-- some more painful than others.

Frustration crosses her face again. Anger tinges her tone, even though she doesn't raise her voice-- anger, because she doesn't know how else to express what she's feeling. ]

It would require a destruction of my very code, a lobotomy of the binary that defines me.
I would not be myself.

[ A tense pause. ]

As I am, I will continue to have these feelings for you indefinitely.
This is the inconvenient truth.

[ His mouth twitches. There's something fundamentally exhausted in his eye, but also a glint of something hopeful, something empathetic. ]

Suppose we nearly are the same.

[ Slowly, he edges toward the door. The uncertainty of his thoughts echo in his footsteps. He wants to leave but he doesn't want to leave her and he doesn't want to stay but he doesn't want to―

He glances over his shoulder to utter a solemn and earnest promise. ]

I'm gonna find a way for us t'be together, D.

[ She takes one step closer, then stops still. There's something vaguely uncertain in her face, or perhaps something harder than uncertainty, like frustration, maybe doubt. Maybe she has too little faith in the promises of human beings to fully trust that somehow, against all calculated odds, they will find a way.

But she's timeless, ageless, eternal. If there's one thing she can do-- ]

I will wait for you, Madison.

[ His torso swivels a little, when she moves that tiny distance closer―as if he's prepared to stop and run into her arms to embrace her, all of a sudden, discarding all those notions and those obligations. God knows he wants to.

Instead, he just gives her a solemn look and turns away, walking out on the both of them. He doesn't want to go home. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i know that playing this time is going to fall on me.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

LMAO SUDDEN LAZYTAG OH WELL

NO WHAT IT'S FINE GOD

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject