breakingmyheart | 2.8

2.8 - Text

[Approximately present-dated, i.e. Thursday evening.]

[Warden Filter]

I know the aftermath of this port is going to be subject to a lot of 'who did what'. To avoid speculation regarding this one matter, I will report that I drugged and killed my Inmate Erik Lensherr on Tuesday evening while under the influence of the environment. My state of mind was altered significantly; I can't rationalise my behaviour after the fact.

[Bullshit you can't, Tosh.]

He and I will discuss what happens next.

[Private to Erik]

Apologising wouldn't even cover it. I can't account for what I did.

If you believe it's the best course of action then I will request reassignment immediately.

[Private to Megamind]

Are you alright?

~~Please~~

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No. No, I...

[There's a is-this-thing-still-on-length pause.]

I hurt someone else.

Oh.

[ uh, what does he say now. ]

Do you-- uhm.

Do you want to--

Should I come by?

[ He doesn't know how to comfort, okay. Empathy is this new and terrifying thing he's doing lately and he's not sure how to feel about anything. ]

I...

[She's really not sure. Since sequestering herself in her cabin last night she's found the supply of painkillers in the Hub's medical bay, and she's not sure how obvious it is that she's taken the edge off.

Then again, if she hadn't spent three days alone with her thoughts Erik probably wouldn't have died.]

Yes. Please.

Right. On my way in a few minutes.

[ Just got to crate Angus and--in a brief moment of insight, grab clothes that do not have spikes on them. He can't hug very well in spikes and mantles, he's found. Besides, he's down a hand and going in one glove looks silly, if you ask him. ]

[ So don't mind the small blue man in the sneakers, black jeans, popped-collar button down and vest arriving at your door, Tosh. ]

[There's a few seconds' pause before the door rolls aside with a mechanical sound. Tosh is looking unusually un-put-together: no makeup, hair tied back, plain black T-shirt and grey sweatpants. She looks tired.

Behind her, the Hub looks like an industrial lab mated with a subway tunnel - there's a bank of computers, the word TORCHWOOD picked out on the white tiled wall in black, and a little way away a set of steps down into the sunken area that's passed as both infirmary and morgue. It's very tall - a few storeys - but apart from a few catwalks there's not much in the way of useable space.

She smiles, fleetingly - more a twitch of the lips.]

Hi.

Oh, you have a lair.

[ There's a brief note of wonder as Megamind takes in what's beyond the door, before he focused more fully on Tosh; his momentary smile dims a little, and he is at a loss for words. She seems so... sad. And unToshlike. ]

Can I come in?

[ That's what's said, he's pretty sure. His uncertainty with this whole 'being one self' and 'still being somehow able to date' is a series of disconnects that he's trying to navigate. ]

Yes, of course.

[She steps back, and the door will roll back into place behind him once he's crossed the threshold.]

It used to be my flat, I just feel...safer, here. How's your hand?

Yeah, I-- know how that is. [ But he's not asking Kay for the lair -- he knows he won't get it. The white-tiled room he has no may not resemble a prison cell anymore, but it's still close enough. ]

[ He looks to his hand; watch crushed, delicate bones in his wrist broken, one finger broken-- it's in a full case now, with his smallest finger secured, leaving the other three free, along with his thumb, though his palm is covered. ]

Awkward, but endurable. Aches a little sometimes, but nothing major.

Good. Good. [Another all-too-brief smile.] It's set to heal properly, isn't it?

[Tosh's first loves are programming and hacking, and now she's got the dataport she barely needs her hands at all for those; still, she's cultivated a love of engineering while on the Barge and she can't imagine what it would be like to lose her dexterity.]

Yeah. My skeletal structure isn't all that different until you get to the torso.... [ there's an 'added flexibility and weight endurance' joke to be made here, possibly involving their sex lives, but-- he isn't clever enough or confident enough to crack it. ]

Good thing, too. I like to work with my hands.

[ Okay maybe he managed something like double entendre, but-- no, he really does like to work with his hands. ]

[And though she's not the full shilling right now, the art of the double entendre is not something lost to former Torchwood agents.]

I have to say I'm in favour of it myself. It's no fun having to work solo.

[ Thankfully, he cottons on before he says someone about Minion, of all things, and being a lone wolf now. ]

I'm sure I can still manage great things even while handicapped. But-- [ back up the truck here, Casanova ] That's not why I dropped by. Though it can be.

[Her smile fades, then, and she steps back; being reminded of why he offered to come over in the first place has about the same effect as being doused in cold water.]

I know. I...there's not a lot to say beyond what I told you. There was an incident between my inmate and I.

[ There's a tilt of his head, and Megamind thinks for a moment, before he scans the place. Okay, something to sit on found. Good. A futon. Whatever, good enough for him. ]

[ He gestures, before he offers his left hand. ]

Sit? Tell me? Or don't. Whichever is better.

[ He still hasn't offered up details about his 'incident', so if she doesn't want to talk about hers, that's only fair. ]

[She takes his hand, sits, just sort of lets it happen. She's trying to monitor herself a little, separate out what degree of her behaviour is normal and what the drugs are influencing, but really - when could she last comfortably describe herself as 'normal'?]

None of it makes much sense in retrospect. My behaviour was - compromised. For some reason I thought my inmate's life was owed to the hotel.

[She knows exactly what happened. The place drew her lost love and her guilt and her pain out of her, turned it into a rod for her back and brought it down until she was more than ready to hand over Erik to make it stop. But it didn't; it hasn't; it won't.]

[ He sits and listens, thoughtful and uncertain. This -- being kind, helpful, it's so new and scary. If he screws up a plan as a villain, then, what does it hurt? No one but him and his pride. (and the occasional bystander, but he's pretty careful about that). ]

[ This is different. He isnt' adept enough to realize he's being lied to, not entirely, but he tries to be a good -- whatever he is, with what he knows. ]

Then you were compromised. I mean, the hotel did it, not you. I was here less than a month when it gave me a whole new personality, wife and children for a week.

That was a heck of a thing... but I only got myself killed.

[ His broken hand lifts, unconsciously reaching for the scar on his face, now visible with his watch in pieces back in his cabin. But he catches himself, scratches the back of his neck instead. ]

The hotel was just like the barge. Only worse. It doesn't try and make excuses about making people better, it just wanted people to hurt like the ghosts in it.

So it hurt you. And made you hurt another person. So it wasn't you. Don't-- beat yourself up over it.

[Tosh exhales slowly. It's reassurance based on a lie, but his background logic is sound, and he's going out of his way to be kind and she wishes he could just let himself believe that he's a good person because he is.

Better than she deserves, certainly. Someday she'll destroy him just like she destroys everything she touches but not yet, please God, not yet.

She wraps her fingers around his properly and leans into him a little.]

...thank you.

[ Gratitude is so very foreign. He just-- sinks back against against the futon, his hand in hers, and holds on. He feels like an anchor somehow, and can't say why. Will Tosh blow away in a strong wind? Of course not. ]

[ Doesn't matter. ]

[ Unaware of her thoughts (for the best really) he settles quietly, and lets her weight and warmth weigh him down and give him something else to think about for a while. ]

He'll forgive you, right? He'll know that it was the bad hotel and not you. And you can help him graduate if that's what he really wants and if it isn't, well...

[ Sorry, he can't help there. ]

He'll find something else to keep himself happy here, right?

Yes. His best friend's a Warden here. At the moment I'm surplus to requirements, quite frankly, but as long as there's someone here he can talk to it's fine. If he ever decides he wants to graduate, I'll be here, but I can't force him.

His best friend's a warden? Well, he must not be all bad. He'll come around to his way of thinking in no time. [ Little does he know... ]

[She half-laughs.]

I won't get into the details in his file, but....well, it's a bit more complicated than that. A lot more.

[ Megamind blinks quietly, shifting slightly to get his good arm around her a moment later; everything seems complicated, with people here. ]

There are days the barge makes me long for the simplicity of the rinse-and-repeat of going to prison, breaking out, and going back, you know that?

Everything's so-- complicated. At home it was easy. You were somebody's thug, or you were the somebody... Or you were me. The somebody.

Here, it's just so-- outside what a prison is. Sometimes it think it's worse. But... it has it's perks, too.

[ Needless to stay, he's cuddling with one of them. ]

[Toshiko catches that, and smiles.] Yes.

[She turns to kiss his cheek before settling back into the sofabed.]

...I think what to call this place is a bit of a sticking point. You'll get people who say that thinking of it as a prison will just make things worse, and I'll admit, it's got very little in common with the short stretch I served. But I don't know. As an Inmate, you can't leave, so if you have to compare it to anything...

[She shrugs one shoulder.]

But maybe it's better not to call it anything besides what it is.

I -- have a lot of thoughts on that. Maybe I'll put some of them down. I don't think people who are doing their jobs as wardens realize what they can be seen as, what they mean to people like me.

Maybe it'll help them stop being jerks. Or realize that this is less prison, more... something else. But it's still someplace we can't leave on pain of death, you know?

I just-- don't think that people grasp the enormity of that, sometimes. They just figure we'll all be willing to live to change our lives. But some of us never will be.

[ ...he thinks he's part of the latter. Mostly. Sometimes. Some days, he thinks of Roxanne and Jules, and he wonders. ]

[ He tightens his grip on her shoulders for a moment, and then relaxes again. ]

Can you leave, as a warden? Go home, visit, whatever?

As a warden, yes. For myself...there wouldn't be any point.

The whole--timeline and--[ dead thing ] world stuff?

Can you go to other places if you want? Other times and spaces, that sort of thing?

Yes.

[She's quiet for long enough to give his next question some thought.]

I think if I have a particular time and place in mind when I've finished here, then yes. Kay actually invited me back to his world, to his agency, as it happens. [She still has his card somewhere. She draws a deep breath.] But as far as I know that's something the Admiral will only do for you once, so...when I do go, I have to be sure.

[ Megamind is very quiet for a time, thoughtful on how that all plays out. He thinks of his idea -- and finally settles on a small confession. ]

I want to graduate.

[ He hasn't told anyone this, specifically. Not really. Not in so many words. ]

Not-- not to be good or conform or even save me own skin. But -- because if I can, I can get a deal of my own and I can-- I can save my system. Two worlds, billions of lives. I could-- find a way to stop the sun, or save them or move them or something.

But if I save those worlds...

I won't--

I don't know that I'll exist after that. Like I do now. Or if I'll have to die or change or something.

But-- that's what I want. I don't want to graduate to be good, or do any of these stupid things that people tell me I should, but... because those worlds didn't have to die. Shouldn't be lost forever.

[Idiot, she wants to say. You want to get out of here so you can save billions of strangers, risking the annihilation of your own identity in the process, and you're sitting here telling me it's not because you want to be good.

Idiot.

But she can't say that, and she can't imagine what else she would say, so instead she leans over abruptly and kisses him.]

[ It's math. And a complete lack of self-worth. ]

[ But mostly math; math that says one guy's life, one guy who is not loved or wanted and does not belong anywhere, against billions of lives, lost culture, hundreds of thousands of years of history -- what does one guy count against all that? ]

[ He doesn't count for much. Besides, what does he have going for him, other than... this? Which isn't shabby, admittedly, but-- in the scheme of things, he is merely a speck of stardust struggling against the inevitable. ]

[ Not the man kissing Toshiko, no. Just stardust that doesn't know it's already dead and decaying. ]

[ There's nothing more to say about it now, though. Toshiko Sato is kissing him, and he thinks they both need the contact right now. He's not sure what it is about physical contact that can make so much better with so little, but still. ]

[ He could get used to it. ]

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