ataraxionlogs | 07. in a gadda da vida, honey

[Takeshi shifts slightly, pleased with himself as he sits. So far, he hasn't quite gotten the memo, regarding William's plan. Sure, he knows he's going out into the wilderness and assumes maybe they'll just camp out for a while, but he hasn't considered much else. Truth be told, he's been in a sad mood since remembering the physical loss of his mother and father, and it's been a heavy weight that makes his smiles come a little less easier. Now, though, he is at least in better spirits with the passing scenery to keep him occupied.

Small favors.]

Um... Pot's those leaves. I don't - I didn't never touch 'em!

[Please, his dad was Ned. Of course he knew about pot.]

Can I have nashi in my garden? Like from home... And I want watermelon....!

In trees. Trees with strong branches.

[His dad was Ned. Of course Takeshi knew about pot. Though William's mask face isn't very flexible, there's a vague creak of wood and a shift in painted lines, his mouth bending upward at the corners.] Ace, [he says. It's a little incongruous, his big metal self saying something like, Ace as they lumber through the irregularity of trees.] Maybe in twelve years.

[The trees are growing slightly sporadic now, giving way to the edge of a river fed by any number of the streams they'd crossed earlier. The flow combines into clear rivulets, running up over brown stones. Not much sediment today, but that will change after another hard week's rain. William stops once he reaches the edge of the water, well aware by now that the lovely clarity nonetheless holds the kind of acid that will melt the skin off your foot in a minute. He rocks his big, helmeted head back to look at the narrow gap of sky. He doesn't mark a tree this time. The river is landmark enough.]

I've never had nashi, [he says.] But watermelon's fucking delicious. I'll check and see what our chances are when I get back in. When we get back in. [He corrects himself without making a big deal out of it, leaning down with a rusty scrape click turning sound of parts to set Takeshi on the ground, his huge mechanical hands very careful.] Listen, [his earthquake-voice says, as gently as an earthquake can.]

I want to set up home out here. I've got a bad feeling about the camp and all those thrashing wankers from the old crew running 'round.

[But twelve years is such a long time!

Hold on a second, though. He looks down, frowning a bit more deeply as he's sat down gingerly to the earth once again. He's learned, very distinctly, not to touch the water. Water's not good. Thinning his lips, he looks a bit worried by the plan.]

I guess... but don't we got friends there, too? We should be there to help them...

[Bit by bit, the hulking metal thing that William has become starts to settle down too. Joints flattening, overlapping segments sinking, weight buckling down on weight, arm and concealed mechanics. William is by no means a quiet creature, even when he weighs a fraction of his current poundage in ceramic-and-metal; he's quite loud now.

But eventually, he sits down on the grass besides the boy. A massive, boot-like appendage clunks down four feet in front of him, and then the other one. He doesn't notice the big, slow shapes moving downstream toward them, even though his strange green face is turned toward it.] They're doing all right, [the earthquake-voice answers, slowly, as carefully but thoughtfully as he can.] They're already building. Little homes and water systems. And we can go back a lot-- that's why I marked the way. [He gestures back over his shoulder. His massive arms move much faster than his legs.

He'd carved x's into the trees. The raw markings look more altogether alive than, frankly, William's mask-face does at the moment, very still, despite their bright colors and the voice emanating from inside.] Besides, most of them have still got their friends and family. And we have. I'll be honest with you, mate; I could use some space right now.

[Takeshi looks at William with a silent and studious way about him. He... thinks he understands. He's had a really hard time with people lately, too, but it's not their fault. Takeshi's just been so sad, he doesn't know how to be Takeshi around them, because they're here and mom and dad and Hoi Hoi's not, and seeing that just reminds him over and over again. But —

He feels like it's his job. Making sure people'll okay.

He stares at the water, his hands on his knees.]

Y... yeah... Guess so...

You don't like being around lots of people? Or... are you — worried more people's gonna disappear, and you don't wanna see them disappear, too?

[William doesn't remember having intuitive superpowers when he was Takeshi's age.

There's a scraping sound when his helmet head turns rather suddenly to look at the little boy. Despite the inflexibility of his shiny green face, one might have the impression that the expression on him softens a bit. It is harder to lie to oneself, or even to sidestep the truth, when Takeshi is in center orbit, a gravitational pull and shining light.]

Both-a' those, I suppose, [William answers, after awhile. He sets his huge, mostly-metal hands on his knees, a funnily human gesture.] I mean, there ain't anybody else I was close to like Heather, so it wouldn't be that bad.

You must have got people you're really fond of still. [Takeshi lived on the ship for a long time before William joined up.] You feeling that way at all, then?

[Fifteen yards away, the acid stream gives a slightly bigger blurp, still not terribly insistent. The big, slow-moving body inside of it breaches the surface only by an inch. William certainly still doesn't notice, his attention focused entirely on Takeshi, in absence of anything that's an actual threat.]

[Well gosh, William, we're bad at this whole attentive thing.

Takeshi doesn't notice anything amiss, all wide-eyed wonder.]

Yeah, I do! But! But... You really don't have other people you're close to, 'cept for Hed-for Heather? Nobody you got closer to? [He's just surprised, is all. He's always had people around him since he got to the Tranquility, so... so that's strange, to him. That that was it. Everyone needs more than that, don't they...? But maybe William's real smart. Not having people to be close to means not feeling that pain when they're gone...]

[Yes Takeshi.

This is definitely the most emotionally healthy course of action. Take it from William Tsang.]

Not like it was with Heather, [he answers. It's hard to emote when one's voice sounds like the movement of tectonic plates, but something about the shape of his inscribed eyebrows and the slow, terrestrial cadence of his voice seems sad. Which he would be.] Other people have got their own— special people. You know? You can have a hundred friends, sure. The real close ones, though, you choose them, but they've also got to choose you.

And the right place, the right time. Things like that have got to choose you both. [He makes the mistake of sliding into the abstract, which is what happens when he's threatening to slipping in thoughts about Remus. Other people too, of course; Rey, Charles, Dr. McCoy, everyone at Medical Bay. But Remus particularly weighs on the back of William's mind, symbolic of his failure, in general, to anchor himself with greater strength than the tidal pull and erosive pressure of bad blood, bad history, bad habits, bad moons, bad— situations. He and Sirius agree on one thing: someone else could be the one that Remus chooses. Someone else will be.

Not that William thinks of it in those terms, of course. He just thinks he could use a break, even from those people; a break from the treadmill to nowhere. Focus on survival awhile.]

We can't love everybody like we love Heather, [he says, simply. And then he glances toward the river, when he finally hears a rather conspicuous splash.]

Edited (better word choice) 2015-09-25 05:57 (UTC)

[He frowns, concerned, uncertain. It's true, he thinks...

It's true, that you can't love everyone the same. There are some people you just love more. And that's okay, isn't it? Everyone has those people. He flusters, trying to remember that he's supposed... to want to push people away. They could all vanish, and he'd be sad. But the things Will is saying, it's so sad. Too sad... He picks at his cast, quiet.]

Maybe... I think Dad — I think Mr. Ned couldn't love anyone like he loved Mom, too.

[Spoken sagely. He's pretty sure that Ned loved Heather more than he might've... loved him. But that's okay, isn't it? If something bad happened, he's not sure who Dad would've picked, but he hopes he would save Mom first. Would have. Even if it meant Mom being mad at him. Takeshi would rather Heather get saved. Did she ever know that, that he cared that much? That he would have always wanted her saved first? He's not sure if she'd want to know. He thinks she'd say some pretty serious words about him, that he shouldn't think like that.

But that's love. Takeshi's learned it in a way children wouldn't. He's learned a lot of things in ways that children wouldn't, like how puddles of blood smell or how people can still scream and cry even though they got cut off under their belly button. He learned how much you can love someone, but have them not love you back. Not enough to save you when you cry for them. And he learned there are people like Heder. Who hug you and tell you it'll be okay.

He stares at William, face passive.]

I think...

[splash

He looks quickly toward the river, eyes widening.]

Whatsat?!

[Fast as the blink of an eye, there's a massive metal-and-ceramic arm plugging down into the sod in front of Takeshi, blocking out a big bar of shadow over him. Despite his girth, his height, his raw bulk, towering and heavy, he's startlingly quick the way that only machines can be. People don't like to fight woodchippers for some fairly sensible reasons.

William glares about, suspicious. Still sad too, of course; that's not the kind of condition that simply disappears

And from underneath his arm, it's fairly easy for Takeshi to see what's happening. The stream, as it runs past, is not as broad or as deep as it was when the rain ran heaviest and a creature has gotten lodged in the inadequate cross-section of its flow. Its armored back protrudes, overlapping scales jutting, bristling with what's probably irritation as it scrapes, tugs, kicks in the water, sending liquid acid rumbling over the edge, a few tentacles roiling briefly above ground-level and into view. It'll be awhile before enough of them have been sighted to make this assessment, but the creature's young and lost, doesn't really know what it's doing.

A recurrent theme around here apparently.]

What the fuck, [William says, loudly. A beat.

Realizing that danger is not imminent, he thinks to remove his hand from where he embedded it in the ground beyond Takeshi's feet, his jointed fingers scraping with infinitessimal mechanical parts, smeared with mud.] I mean, what is that, [he translates himself suddenly, glancing back at the boy.] Alien zoology, mate. You ever seen anything like that?

[Takeshi only stays behind William because he — for once in his life after death — realizes that he has no power in which to defend himself. It's not usual that he has thoughts like these, really. He puts his hand on William's side, watching around him with wide, curious eyes.]

... Yeah.

[He bites his lip, thoughtful.]

I saw lots of aliens. They tried to kill me and my friends, sometimes... 'cus we had to fight 'em.

Mate, there was something wrong with your childhood, [says the most reliable source on this matter on THE PLANET. It's a little late to note this when he's already heard about Takeshi's mother, his mother's bastard boyfriend, but those pieces of insider knowledge aren't something that they've really explicitly discussed before. At most, they were inferences when he and Remus carried Takeshi out of the artificial paradise that the Tranquility had warped into reality around him.

William stares at the creature floundering in the acid water. He doesn't feel Takeshi on him, exactly, but somehow he knows that the diminutive boy is there. Honestly, he'll be the first to celebrate when he can put on the suit again.]

Oi, [he says.] Tak. Reckon we should kill it and see if it's worth eating.

[Even two months ago, he wouldn't have thought about it, really. William wasn't a violent man; sometimes fails to be, even when perhaps it would be better. The intervention of space and manipulation of time changed that just a little. Heather's disappearance has probably done more. The massive joints of his leg creak as he takes a step forward. The creature in the water flusters, tentacles scrabbling on the silty edges of the river.] You ain't a vegetarian, right? That was just spaceship bullshit.

[Takeshi considers the rather squiggly beast for a moment.

Still hidden halfway behind Will, of course.]

... Kill it?

[He sounds — a little nervous at the thought. He's never killed anything except for self-defense before. And he's always felt kind of bad about it, 'cept when it was something trying to hurt someone he cared about. Saying a prayer for them seemed like the best way to apologize.

... But this is kind of scary. Killing something outside of a fight, or a mission. He remembers Erik saying that hunting and killing are different things, but...]

It's stuck anyways. I think, [William is humble enough about alien taxonomy to know he should modify that statement somewhat. Maybe the creature is fine. Maybe the creature is setting up a trap. But it looks to be having difficulty, throbbing unhappily in the shallow riverbed.] And acid can't hurt me too badly when I'm like this.

[It could go terribly wrong, he means. But new creatures, new food, when he has his new charge-- that's enticing to him.

It doesn't occur to him, just yet, that there are real options besides killing it or leaving it to die. William is not a very imaginative creature these days, and frankly, his treatment of people seems to err on that side of simplification as well. He hunches slightly, his eyes lambent on his mechanical face, intent. It's not an uncommon adult fallacy. It's probably not an uncommon child fallacy either, when those children are exposed to problematic demonstrations from caretakers (heh) (sorry). But Takeshi has already felt that, by now. The doubt that caring is a good idea.

Still, it might be something, to have to look at a being thrashing and struggling to live, and see food instead.]

Edited (more wurds) 2015-10-03 00:12 (UTC)

[He ducks his head, thinking about it.

Well... It'd... but good, to have food. Food comes from all kinds of places.]

Sometimes — you gotta... hurt things so you can live.

[He says it with experience. He's hurt things to live, too.]

I think... I killed things before, too. [He looks up from under his bangs, realizing, slowly, that he's done things. Attacked monsters.] I'm a killer, right?

[Just because he was the good guy doesn't mean he wasn't the killer. Right?]

[William wants to say no. No, that's not quite right. He looks down at Takeshi from his hulking height, the boy's little round face and his leg in his cast below that. He feels something that can't be his heart kick painfully inside of himself. Knowing Takeshi's past doesn't make it any easier to look at the bitter evidence that that past marked him for the rest of his young life. And really what that means is--

Takeshi deserves better than to be lied to.]

You have been, [he grates out, slow, careful, his voice lower even than it was before. The worms in the earth feel reverberate through their skins, gently seismic.] Most people let others do the killing for them, when it comes to stuff like food. I'll do it now. Death is part of life, mate. I don't know much, but I wager, the most we can hope for is we don't cause it when we haven't got to.

[He nods, looking as though he expected William to say those very words.]

... We should. Make him food. We need to eat, so we stay strong.

Sometimes we gotta.

[And that, that was spoken as if he's entirely willing to try and help Will.]

[It is sad and terrible, the way that ordinary aspects of living can be sad and terrible. There's nothing that survives without doing so at some expense to something else, and it's probably only the overinflated complexity of the human psyche that presses them to wish it were otherwise. You won't find too many birds who give a shit about justice or mercy, never mind the maggots or the flowers.]

All right, [he says, solidly, or at least pretending to be— and it's easier to pretend, when you don't even look like a person.] I'll get it out of the water. You've got to make sure you don't get wet, right, mate? Don't get wet.

Or if you do, tell me immediately. We'll rinse you off and I'll heal the spot. [The compartment of his midsection creaks open, the dense panel of armor tricking up through some secret shift and grumble of hidden parts. Inside, he's packing a generous claim of supplies. Perhaps no more than the fair share of two people, given what is accessible aboard the Tranquility. Tarps, medicines, water, string and tools. Including, it turns out-- when he hauls out two large handfuls— a kit of carefully packaged knives. These, he settles on the ground where Takeshi can reach them, despite that it is generally inadvisable to leave knife kits lying around near toddlers.

On the other hand, most toddlers aren't highly experienced killers-in-self-defense.

The next moment, William locks up again, hauls up onto his feet. The ground is turfed up where the hard edges of his armored frame dug in, a clot of grass on the back of his heel as he hoists it up into a slow but steady run; more of a plod, than anything. It's only a moment before he's at the river, wading in, his metal and ceramic parts fizzing visibly as the water laps up, eats him in fractions. The cephalopod puts up an impressive fight: churning, kicking, tentacles wrapping double around his arms, trying to use its bulk to bring its enemy down into the killing waves. But William is big too, and strong; he falls backward, and the motion topples the creature out of the water and onto the land.

The river eats a few inches off his hands and feet, makes his armor bubble horribly. But it's fast.

Faster, anyway, than the cephalopod shrieking and dying of suffocation in open air. William rips free of the tentacles with systematic, mechanical strength, but there are many of them. Its many eyes flash in pain, fear and frustration as it squirms on the grass, kicking the strength in its body in a vain effort to return to water.]

Be careful — be careful...!

[He's mostly worried William's gonna hurt himself being stupid. But he's not in a working gantz suit, so he can't exactly rescue him from sudden doom if things do go wrong. This is nail-biting, okay. When it's finally in the grass and trying to get back to water, Takeshi just forgets that he's a normal-powered kid the size of a bug anyway and dives forward in his cast, pulling roughly at the creature's sticky leg while William re-joins them.

The water beast kind of just picks him up in his tentacles and shakes him a bit, though.

WHOOPS???]

You be careful! [bellows the golem, who is experiencing extreme scandalized feelings at the moment. Burning water sloshes over William's feet as he turtles on the ground, but then one massive hand comes crashing into the ground. He digs up clods with his big blunt fingers and anchors himself enough that he can roll over inside of its tentacular grasp. Hoisted half-upright onto his armored leg, he reaches over to clamp a massive hand down on the armored space dead center of the creature's numerous eyes.]

Are you all right?!

[William's enormous hand suddenly erupts into view from Takeshi's peripheral. There's the sound of cracking and thumping when his machine parts start to try and pin down the cephalopod's solid parts and then pry apart the squishy parts so he can retrieve the little boy. In a moment, a huge, armored glove closes around the tiny boy's right leg. Despite the frantic energy and colossal strength driving William's strange form, he's gentle in trying to tug, tug, tug Takeshi free of the critter's grasp.]

[He sort of gives up and just hangs out until William can pry the poor lil' fella from the creature's sticky mitts. He's flustered, though, cheeks and ears turning red from a combination of embarrassment and shame; he's supposed to be way tougher than this.]

I-I'm okay...!

I forgot m'not wearing my suit.

[Stupid leg cast.]

Takeshi winds up bundled in enormous hands, metal fingers bent to conform to the curvature of his little ribs. William is furious. Not at Takeshi, immediately, because-- well for one thing he's a kid, obviously. None of this is really his fault, to the extent that any of them on this Godforsaken planet have control over bloody anything, lately. But also because he was just trying to help.

The tiny boy is scooped up high in the air as William gets his footing. He's not fast, but nor is the creature now removed from its natural habitat. Holding Takeshi close to his wide metal-plated chest, William's masked face turns to level a glare down at the creature's many-eyed head. For once, he doesn't see the fluid flowing out of its face, finds nothing human or sympathetic in the slippery flail of its tentacles. Raising one broad foot, he aims a hard kick at the creature's head. And then another one. And another one. A fourth.

By the time they get to twelve, something has cracked and begun to smell meaty in the jungle sunshine. Despite some dying synapses, nervous twitches running through the animal's many appendages, it's pretty much dead by then.

Which makes the timing quite good, when William finally loses his balance and scuttles to catch his balance. He shifts, too, at the same time. Ceramic and stone parts drift, and the stiffness of his mechanics relaxes back into flesh, bone, and fabric. Abruptly, William is merely William again, clutching a baby to his chest. "Are you wet," is the first thing he asks.

He slowly shakes his head, looking a little nervous. He knows from experience that hitting like that goes beyond survival and into emotions, and emotions can be scary and dangerous and not good, not at all. So he's a bit frozen in William's arms, as if he's afraid of Will - as if he worries that maybe he did something wrong, and Will may just aim his foot at Takeshi if he does something to make him angry.

He swallows hard, feeling helpless without his suit, in the golem's hands.

William wouldn't, would he?

"... M'sorry..."

The last of William's golem form vanishes, leaving only flesh and bone to hold Takeshi above the damp earth. Despite that he may look more human and less monstrous, well— that probably matters little to the boy who met more than his share of abuse in the hands of mundane people in the course of his short life. William's chest is heaving and his eyes are still sharp and strange from spent rage, a violent hormone cocktail that transitioned seamlessly from dead mechanical parts to throbbing veins.

He staggers away from the river, eight, nine steps. Enough to put what he deems a safe distance between them and the carcass. Winds up dropping carefully to his knees, not too concerned by the impact of packed soil of the earth on his silly human bones. His bones are barely human, anyway. He sets Takeshi carefully on the ground, patting his tiny arms to reassure himself that the child is intact. Not really paying attention to the expression on the boy's face until they are on eye-level. And then he goes still, his dark eyes widening under the cloyed strings of his hair.

"What's wrong?"

Takeshi shakes his head, hands unconsciously wrapping around and giving himself his own hug. He's anxious, but there's a small relief when William's looking less angry — less violent. It's dumb. It's dumb 'cus he's seen a lot of people be violent; he's seen Dad get violent a lot, fighting monsters. They've made him super mad before. But he was never... It was always for the game. Gantz's games. Was this for any game? He looks down at his feet, ears turning red.

"N-nothing... I didn't... know if you were mad at me. I'm sorry. I didn't know if you got mad like — " He stops, shakes his head. "I know you're not mean, you're not like..." He doesn't know how to say it. He's kind of scared to compare, like that'll make Will mad for sure, and maybe Takeshi will be wrong about his friend and he'll be so so angry. Maybe he'll be mad that Takeshi would ever think like that, and he'd leave him here by himself..

07. in a gadda da vida, honey

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p.s. if u want to go mercy route i feel like takeshi could have a n animal friend, cuz theyre smrt

psht naaah

ashlee youre so hardcore

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i ffwded, lmk if this is ok! (and feel free to take the killing blow)

LMFAO HE'LL TRY BUT THIS DOESN'T GO AS EXPECTED EVER

cries my baby

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GIVES UP ON LIFE <X(

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1/2

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no;;;;;;;