TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

[oedipusrat]

[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.

Comments

[wetware]

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."

[oedipusrat]

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."

[wetware]

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.

[oedipusrat]

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."

[wetware]

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.

[oedipusrat]

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?"

[wetware]

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."

[oedipusrat]

"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."

[wetware]

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.)