oedipusrat | TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

[several months after this initial interaction]

Rachette doesn't kick in the door. She's not a barbarian. But the door is definitely opened in a manner that is heavier and harder than strictly necessary. Being The Warden was pain enough; being a warden is...irritating.

"He talks too much."

That's a possibly very petty thing to complain to the mage (who has explained to her that he is not a mage, but she remains not entirely convinced of this) about his...companion? Compatriot? Person from his same world. But talking to her inmate, a man who seems to prefer the name Silva to any of the other potential names he could be going by, is as frustrating as talking to Sten sometimes. Roundabout. Never to the point. Why does nobody ever just say what they mean?

The dwarf huffs and blows a few strands of silver hair from her face. "He uses too many words in strange ways. Would it kill him to just talk like a normal person instead of blathering on? Before I kill him."

She won't. That's not what she's here for, and he hasn't given enough reason to make her want to. But by the Stone and all of the Ancestors, he makes her job so difficult. Fighting a mob of darkspawn sometimes seems preferable.

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"Maybe."

There are things he misses from home, but he's not sure if Silva is the best way to replace them.

"And, I am not sure I need your, ah, help in that department. I am well and content. I ..." He doesn't want to do this. He truly doesn't, and yet. "But, I'll make an effort."

"Ah."

Maybe Q was expecting more flamboyancy, more excitement, lording over a small win. Silva smiles still, but it's more subdued.

"You miss his antics that much."

Not How To Make Friends, that's not James' style, but willingly giving into the idea of spending time with Silva? Wild spy with a penchant for chaos and utterly terrible coping mechanisms? The banter.

"You do not let anyone else get close enough to know you, and I am the only one left to have a conversation like this with you. That must burn."

"It is not a pleasant feeling."

He doesn't like Silva, but he is somewhat tired of not truly being seen by anyone here. There are good people here, interesting people, but they look at him and see a slight, harmless boffin. Too young, too soft.

"What do you want to know? If anything."

"Just like that? No strings, no--" He makes a motion like he's tugging on said strings. "Price, no negotiating?"

Seems a little too good to be true from the slight young man who has a bit more steel in him than most might give him credit for.

"I reserve the right to refuse, but what should I bargain for? There's not much that I want and even less than I need."

Q turns towards Silva, actually looking at him for once. Usually he looks past him, avoids eye-contact in general, but here he's truly studying the man. Curious.

"Information, time, effort, these are all things to bargain for. But you would just allow me to ask. I like this."

What a change. Silva is all easy lines, relaxed but ready--one in the field never really loses that. Studies in return, eyes flicking here, there. On what seems to be impulse, he reaches out again, gingerly, and flicks a bit of Q's mop of hair aside.

Smiles.

"Is there anything you want, an item that you do not have here, that the Admiral has not seen fit to bestow on you, whether through inability or your lack of asking?"

"A firing range? Somewhere to build and test whatever I'm interested in?" Probably not the best thing to have on the Barge, but it really has been too long since he's dabbled in a little recreational or work-related arson.

"I don't think that would go over well, do you?" Again, he does not jerk away at the touch. Not even a flinch, but there is a momentary stillness.

"Fair enough. I was thinking an item, but a whole room? Yes, that would be nice. Too nice. Too dangerous, even maybe for the Wardens."

No touching this time. He hums a little thoughtful sound. "Favorite color?"

Maybe he's just playing with his food first.

"Do adults regularly have a favourite colour? Should I say that I only eat the red Smarties? Or something poetic about the colour of a flower?" He shrugs and that almost brings his shoulder in contact with Silva's. "I don't suppose I have one. I'd rather not wear orange or have a room decorated in bilious green or baby shit brindle, but I don't think that's a fair answer."

"You?"

"I've a fondness for greens. Pale like the grasses growing on sand dunes or dark as palm fronds. You see, nothing wrong in being a little poetic. It also does not mean I wear them all the time." His own shrug, wide and casual. "These are things you cannot learn from a screen. Maybe I will get you a new mug, hm? In bright orange, just for you. Those are the details I want to know."

Of course he's read Q's file. Strictly to the point, like all files, reports, documentations. It doesn't show the person.

"You want me to get on with it. To not throw softballs, yes? Dig in deep just so you can feel mildly offended and then refuse to answer? This is the game I can play if that's what you want."

"I wouldn't lose it then." You see? A bright side, to even a hideous mug. Why would you get him a mug, Silva? Don't do that. Don't...just, the idea fits into what he would expect at work and that's not a line he wants to cross.

"I would be far easier for me if I could just be offended, scoff, and then walk away. Might even be better for the both of us." His file is fairly uninteresting: an unstable home life as a child, average scores in school, and then joining the military when he was of age. A few years in the Royal Engineers, a few more years in school, and a smattering of small, positive commendations and reports. Clever, but an almost prosaic choice.

"Because it would feel more like the status quo, if I would say something to hurt, and you would remind yourself that willingly letting yourself be open was as bad an idea as you first thought." One little huff of a laugh, almost a scoff.

"Are we not here to grow as people? Maybe I don't go picking fights anymore. Maybe you're picking them now. If I say something that hurts, would you not only have yourself to blame?"

"Not only."

Q considers what he ought to do. He knows he's being goaded, but there's a soft-spoken part of his psyche that wants to see what will happen next. What else, what else.

"I shall try to keep my temper in check." Breathing in, a beat, and then breathing out. He is uncomfortable and feels somewhat trapped in a conversation that he is not equipped to get out of, but it's not wholly unwelcome.

...well, there's an unwanted bit of self-awareness. He's so used to some flavour of adrenaline burning in his breast, but nothing here really provides that jolt. Nothing and no one but Silva - that fear reaction still remains.

Silva takes Q in, takes the information he can gather and sorts it mentally, taking stock. His expression grows more serious. Not playing, then. Maybe still a game, however.

"Dear Quartermaster, maybe your temper will flare, maybe you will simply laugh at me. You won't upset me. But I would like to know. Things I cannot read on a screen, you see." But things that can be read on a person. If Q wants something to keep him so on his toes, so be it. An easy enough part to play for continued contact with someone from home.

He is even quiet, somber. Softer. Earnest. Uncharacteristic of him by and large. It means something to him.

"Do you love him?"

"Not romantically." That is not an answer. Q mulls it over, adjusts his glasses, and again makes a conscious decision to turn and look at Silva, allowing the other man the liberty to watch as he wishes.

"But I looked to the future, and I saw the writing on the wall. When I, I shouldn't have looked, you see? But I wanted to know what medical found in his head. I knew what was coming. I couldn't let it end that way. Not for him, not for anyone." Q is quiet, his voice soft, and there's none of that crisp, cutting tone now.

"I suppose that's love. Of a sort. Or ego. That I couldn't let that happen on my watch. That I couldn't think of a way to do it cleanly and without trace. Too many safe-guards within the time I had available, before the symptoms would become noticeable."

That is an answer. Honestly, he wasn't fully expecting anything. Maybe a quick dismissal. So that Q continues is appreciated. Silva is attentive, not patronizing or overbearing, but present and taking each word as it comes and filling in a picture.

"You gave up everything for him. I would say it is a type of love, yes."

Silva licks his lips, folds his hands together. "It was that bad, I see." Yes, drilling holes in the head could have all kinds of nasty side-effects, but the specifics had been left barren. "Years of recovery at best?"

With a curious expression, Q reaches out and touches the notch on Silva's head where his spine meets his brain. "If they had gone up here, they would've reached their target with less damage. Would've caused face blindness without more than the occasional risk of stopping breathing or a few other autonomic functions. He wouldn't be able to be a sniper again."

Walking his fingers up, through Silva's hair, he taps another spot. "This is where they went in. Face blindness is still possible, but on the way to fusiform gyrus, they went exploring." A light tap. "Seizures, eventually; mood control, certainly; self-awareness, too. Brodmann's 8, that's right here," -- another finger walk. "That affects uncertainty. An inability to choose or not choose."

He pulls his hand back and laces his fingers to stop himself from fidgeting. "Not so much that it would get him put to pasture, but enough that he would be himself with flashes of sudden, uncontrollable laughter. Everything was funny. Everything."

When Q makes the extraordinarily bold move, touch, touching, Silva's eyes slide shut. A little thrill runs up his spine. But he's paying very close attention, concentration and tension on his features. Tries to imagine the invasions, tries to imagine James with control lost, mind flitting through periods of sameness and periods of being a completely different person.

Torture already does a number on a man even without physically rewiring the brain.

It makes him upset, the idea of bringing his brother-in-arms so low with not much to be done about it. Sloppy, sloppy work. Intentionally so? Or just amateur hour?

It makes him angry.

His eyes flutter back open, breath thready as if he was the one with needles stuck in him. Swallows down a line about James with laughter lines. His own hands reach out, to cover Q's.

"Thank you."

There's a small, hurt sound, but Q is too lost in his own thoughts to pay it much mind. He too is angry. He was angry enough that he would've done something foolhardy, and given the options available to him at the time, the Barge was the lesser of the evils.

James hadn't shot Blofeld. He needed to be told to pull the trigger, otherwise he would not kill. Q suspects that he has the opposite problem: without someone telling him not to, he can't see any reason why a just world would allow that thing to live. He should be erased from history and rendered into nothing.

Hears that hurt, tastes that hurt, feels it. One hand moves further, up, to cup Q's cheek, a tender brush of thumb along cheekbone. And further still, if he isn't rebuffed, back along the hairline, settling around the neck.

"She did not hire you for your heart, you know. But it is as large and human as any I have seen."

Q hangs his head, as if the weight of Silva's hand is too heavy to bear. He breathes slow and steady - four in, four held, four out, four held - it's a rhythm designed to trick the body into staying calm and suppressing adrenaline.

"No, I was hired for political compromise." His paperwork looks good, clean and bright, but M knew that wasn't the whole of him.

Silva pulls him in. If the Quartermaster needs to hide for a moment, he has no qualms on being that shade. Yes, he hates what MI6 stands for on several levels, hates the hyper-patriotism, hates the coldness with which they try to view all things. But the people themselves?

Oh, how could he ever hate the people?

"Not everyone recognizes the truth of what they were meant for. But, north by northwest, hm?"

He doesn't lean into the embrace, but Q doesn't resist. He hasn't spoken about this to anyone and talking about it has been exhausting. He feels hollow inside and for a moment, he closes his eyes and just rests.

Soon enough, he's able to pull himself together and sit back up, his armour shifting into place.

"A hawk from a handsaw. Yes."

"There you are." A little smile, hands slowly pulling away. "You were lost in the woods for a moment."

And why wouldn't he be, with all of that coiled up inside of him?

"A love of a sort. You will have to tell me about this compromise at some point, but, ah, I think I hear my Warden calling."

She isn't. But Q is going to start locking up again, and there won't be much more to get out of him. The most important questions are answered, and this is more than satisfactory.

"I think I will take you up on your offer. If our conversations are to be this lively in the future."

Q knows there is no Warden calling, but he nods and there's a brief, honest smile before his usual expression of cool, disinterest settles over him. "Go, Silva. See what she wants and I'll...I'll go look for a box of lilac hair dye."

He really could do with that firing range right about now. Maybe he'll distract himself by going and taking apart some delicious sort of future-tech and then rebuilding it. (In a non-explosive way. Pity.)

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TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

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