(closed) story time.

[mindtricks]

CHARACTERS: roy walker & cassandra anderson
LOCATION: medbay
WARNINGS: knowing roy, trigger warnings for depression and suicide.
SUMMARY: roy will tell the story of Κασσάνδρα, the seer no one believed.
NOTES: backdated to the 14th, continuing/in response to this.



[ she hasn't been to the medbay before, feeling no more inclined to accept medical treatment now than she did when she walked away from peach trees. dredd patched up the wound on her side, it's fine. even now, she's not here for that but rather to see roy. he's given no last name, but she can't imagine that it will be particularly difficult to find him, especially given that she knows what he looks like.

he'll be the first person she actively seeks out on the tranquility. hearing him tell her about the seer with her name should be interesting — and it should take her mind off the fact that she failed her final assessment, that she lost her primary weapon. that still nags even though she's no longer in mega city one (and that is another thing she wouldn't mind being distracted from.)

she's — curious.

anderson spots him and steps closer. ] Roy. [ in place of the sir that he wouldn't accept. ]

Comments

[mindtricks]

Yes. [ it isn't a secret. there's a hint of worry, perhaps, about how he will react — but that doesn't quite make it to her face. mutants aren't well-liked, exactly, in her world. she can understand it — reminder of the radiation, too many of them misformed and incapable of living and other. and mutants like her with abilities — well. people are often scared of what they don't know or don't understand. ]

[fallasleep]

[ He makes a soft sound, half-thoughtful, half just to make a sound, really. So she can read minds. He wonders why he isn't angry, why he isn't reaction adversely- but he knows the answer already.

(It's not that Roy doesn't want to talk, to tell people about what is inside him. All the darkness that threatens to swallow him up at any moment; the despair that has him in its grasp ever since his youth. It's simply that no one really wants to listen - his best listener had been Alexandria, and how fucked up is it that he's relying on a kid for that? - and he can't- he can't really find the words.

They no only sound stupid when he says them, but weak. And Roy's life has basically been a tale of trying to avoid weakness even when it threatens to swallow him whole.)

When he speaks, the words come carefully. Not measured, because he's not thinking them. And he's not looking at her, instead staring to the side. At where the medical equipment are. Or where he thinks they are. ]

I should've told you the story over the communicators, then.

My mind isn't a pleasant thing for anyone to look into.

[mindtricks]

[ she catches some of that — can't help but catch some of that and she has enough distance to recognise the despair without being swallowed by it herself, without letting it touch her. it's not clinical — but keeping herself one step removed is a self-preservation instinct.

perhaps she should stop looking. force herself away. ]

It's not the worst I've seen. [ the words slip out before she can help it, the memory of kay's mind at the forefront of her thoughts, the way he'd tried to make her freak out, the fantasies he'd pushed on her, deliberately and with the intention to hurt.

that had been worse.

that had been easier, too, because she could push back at kay, fight him. there's nothing to fight in roy's mind. ]

[fallasleep]

[ He thinks he's starting to recognise it when she's looking. There's a gentle prodding into his head, like a small hand poking at the small of his back, right at the barrier where he feels something and when all feeling disappears. He looks at her for another long moment, not knowing what to say.

There are dozens of possibilities. Maybe he should say that she's lying. Maybe he should offer comfort. But he simply picks up the empty vial from beneath the blankets, running his fingers over the warm, smooth glass. ]

Probably. [ Dryly. ] Given how your world is like.

[ He pauses, still looking at the vial. ]

What are you still doing here?

[mindtricks]

[ in the end, the dry answer is perhaps better than any other possibility — she doesn't want the comfort, really, because that is the way she grew up in and it's how things are. (she doesn't want to want it, at least.) and no one wants to be accused of being a liar.

what is she still doing here? the question surprises her even though it probably shouldn't. 'here' could be both his head or the medbay, but she thinks he means the latter.

softly: ] You were telling a story. I haven't heard the end yet.

[fallasleep]

[ There's a part of him that almost wants to get angry. To reach out and shake her and say that she must be empty inside, as empty as he is consumed by shadows, because she has seen into his head and yet she doesn't care.

And he reminds himself again. He doesn't want anyone to care. If they do, then they will try to stop him from killing himself, and that will be the worst possible think.

He doesn't. He doesn't.

(Killing with kindness, the saying goes, and that's the worst death of all.)

He takes a deep breath instead. ]

So you haven't. [ He looks at her. ] Where was I?

[mindtricks]

[ distance isn't the same as not caring and she almost points that out to him, but — but she doesn't think he'd appreciate it, or maybe he would and he wouldn't appreciate appreciating it. either way, she bites down on the words and looks away. ]

She went to the temple. The god wanted to make her his whore.