logsinthenight | Truth is like a loaded gun

"Not much to tell. They came on the Ferry, before you arrived." The arrival before his, if she remembers correctly. "They'd gotten into the supplies that came on the ferry. I know somebody caught one. Killed it and it bled? So that tells you something about the Spirits."

"They eat. They're solid. They bleed. They have a language, we just don't understand most of it. Sometimes they like us and want to do things with us, and sometimes they attack us. Why do we call them spirits?" The Soldier doesn't know much about spirits, to be honest. The word is just picked up from the network and the others in Beacon, rather than anything grounded in an understanding of mythology.

"It's what Winters and the Doc called them." She never really questioned it at the time but the arrival of the rats and the other things she'd noticed scouting the treeline raised a few questions. "Winters told me that after a reset, animals come back but I'm starting to think they're not animals but Spirits. Just like the bugs."

"The bugs are, too? Intelligent? Or at least-- cognizant, like the larger spirits?" This world is so much not like the one it's used to. How does the ecosystem even survive? (Not like you know a damn thing about ecosystems, city boy. I know the word, so I gotta know something.) "Does this world even have any natural, non-spirit animals?"

Edited 2019-10-26 06:20 (UTC)

"I don't know. I leave that sorta thing up to the scientists." She was smart, but only when it came to certain things. She was probably the foremost expert on Vampires and knew more about hunting than almost everyone here combined but this wasn't Earth and she was way out of her depths.

"Doc would be the one to ask." He was an ass, the Doc, but outside of the Soldier? He was probably the closest thing she had to a friend around here. She couldn't trust him as far as she could kick him but she also figured out what made him tick, and that made him easier for her to deal with.

"This place makes no sense." A general statement of fact. "We shouldn't have greenery without the sun. No sun, no photosynthesis." So she knows some stuff but there'd been a lot of talk about what would happen to the wildlife after the cloud of ash blanketed North America.

"Either something other than the sun keeps the plantlife alive, or it's. Designed somehow not to need light. Which would suggest. What. There was never a sun here?" The Soldier doesn't know much about planetary physics or ecology, dammit. (There's a lot we don't know. Stop rubbing it in. Hey, I'm just as annoyed about it as you, pal.)

"I know we're not the only ones wondering about this," it says. "Where is that. Doc? Person? Is that Will? Where does he live?" The Soldier doesn't like using the network, so finding him in person would be the only way to talk to him. Though from his network presence, he's also kind of an asshole.

(Buddy, your best friends around here are both assholes. ... okay that's kind of a good point.) Maybe the Soldier is calibrated to deal well with assholes?

"Hell if I know. There was. Once. At least that's what we're hearing. The world eaters took care of that. How things continue to grow after? Who knows. This isn't Earth so maybe science is backward in this plane of existence." She somehow doubts knowing would help all that much, if that helps them feel better.

"Uh..." She grimaces because. Well yeah. Will is an asshole and she's pretty sure he will be an asshole to Tinman. "Yeah, Will. He's a couple of doors up from me. He spends most of his time hidden away in his room working on this and that." and ya know. Scarlett may have also asked him to monitor Crowley's tablet so he doesn't pull another incident like the Ferry. So there's that.

"He's... not the easiest person to talk to." Said the pot about the kettle.

( Hey screw you both! She's not an asshole to Tinman. :| )

The Soldier casts her a brief look, somewhere between amused and dry. "I'm not easy to talk to, either." For very different reasons, really. "Not today, anyway. I have. Done more than enough difficult shit for today."

It shifts so it can pull out the tablet in one of the many convenient pockets on its pants, checks the time. "And I've missed half the time I allotted for sleep. I think if I try again, I might just have nightmares. Or another malfunction."

She's not going to disagree with him but she can almost picture a conversation with Will and Tinman, especially in light of the Ferry incident and she's ninety percent sure it would end badly, and that's even if she were there to supervise. Will was... Will. He made Scarlett seem like Miss Congeniality standing next to him.

She regards him for a long quiet moment, her gaze flitting over to the bed that had once belonged to Raylan. It had been empty for much longer than it had been occupied but Scarlett hadn't offered for anyone to take it. That would require her encountering somebody she'd be willing to tolerate in her space for more than five minutes. Or... tolerate, period.

"Crash here?" And almost as if she feels like the offer sounds too much like a request she tacks on; "If you want. Nightmares don't bother me and I at least have an idea of how to handle you during a malfunction." Little by little trying to minimize the kindness by wrapping it up in logic.

That isn't expected. Scarlett doesn't seem the sort of want to share her space. The Soldier blinks at her wearily, tilts its head, and considers. It's tempting, to be honest. A room that's safe, with a door that shuts, off the ground... only one person in there with it, and that a safe person, too.

But there are still things to do, and at this point it might not wake up in time for its usual routine. "I was going to skip sleeping," it admits. "I have a patrol to make. I promised Inspector Javert I would keep track of the levels of supply daily."

She's not and yet she probably wouldn't have thought too hard about it if he hadn't started staring at her, Scarlett's head turning almost like she can keep him from seeing some part of her just by changing the angle.

"Hmph." Her mouth twitching into a frown as she forces herself back onto her feet and stands up. "You shouldn't be doing that shit. You heard the Doc." But she wasn't going to push, more point out why he should sleep and leave the rest to him. "Why does this Javert guy want you keeping track of supplies?" Eyes narrowing infinitessimally as those words set off alarm bells in her head.

Scarlett is not fond of people trying to 'take charge'.

"I sleep multiple times in a twenty-four hour period," the Soldier assures her. "I have my routine. I made one almost as soon as I got here."

You know, it's a good thing it hasn't put together "doc" with "doctor" yet, or there'd be freaking out going on here.

"The Inspector just wants to make sure we don't run out," it adds, in answer to her question. "Part of my punishment for crashing the ferry is helping with that." It hasn't actually let on that Javert is a handler yet... but that might be hinting in the direction. "The other part is I'm not allowed to try to escape again. Which is fine. I don't really want to. Even if it does smell like shit right now."

"Punishment?" God fucking help her, how was she supposed to get through this day without punching somebody in the face when he kept saying things like that.

"And who exactly came up with these punishments? This Javert guy?" She knew he wasn't going to get it but she swore at the rate they were going she was going to hate half the people in Beacon for being assholes that dished out orders and punishments like they had some right to.

That's a bit of a surprise. Why would she be angry? It deserved some kind of punishment for a fuck-up of that magnitude, and it's not even really a punishment anyway, since it would probably have done that regardless. "Yes," it answers with a blink. "He's still my handler." Unlike Crowley. "He has that right. It's hardly even a punishment, Scarlett. Even Misty not talking to me is. Worse than that."

A low growl rumbles in her chest and she has to force herself to step away, Scarlett not wanting him to feel like she's angry at him when all she wants to do right now is find this Javert asshole and slit him down the middle.

"He is not. Your handler." Her fingers curling into her palms until her hands become white-knuckled fists. "And he has no right to punish you."

Fuck, not again. It should have known better than to talk about this. The Soldier makes an actual, physical effort not to shrink back against the wall and drop every nuance of expression, this time. It's hard. It doesn't quite manage it, but it's not as bad as it's reaction to her first upset, either. It even manages to say something other than a platitude, thought its eyes are fixed firmly on the ground: "Can we please not argue about this. Scarlett. I know you don't like it."

Handlers are still necessary, dammit. Nobody understands that. Normally, that's okay, it doesn't mind people not understanding... but not when they get so angry about it.

"I don't like it. Because it's fucked up." Barely able to control her temper as she grits out those words. "Nobody here has the right to punish you. Nobody here has the right to tell you what to do. You might not realize that but this piece of shit does and he's doing it anyway."

She looks back at him and if she could possibly hate herself any more than she already does? Then she certainly does right now. His body language, his entire demeanor making her flinch as she closes her eyes - to shield them both from this picture.

"People who take advantage of you like that... they're bad, people, Tinman."

Maybe, maybe not. Crowley isn't bad, he's just dumb, but he cares. Javert doesn't seem to be. Rigid, judgmental, maybe even unforgiving... but not bad. Not in any way the Soldier is used to.

There's no way to make Scarlett see that. It tries anyway, voice quiet. "No one here is the kind of bad person I'm used to as handlers. No one hurts me. The punishments are easy. No one makes me kill people. The Asset requires handlers for instruction. I can't not. But it's better here."

Please just accept that. It doesn't know how long it can hold onto an intelligent conversation while she seethes, but it's trying very, very hard to stay present this time, at least so far.

"Better than evil twisted fucks, isn't exactly a high bar." She doesn't sound angry anymore, just tired because it's like talking to a brick wall. He doesn't want to hear what she has to say and nothing she says or does will change anything. She doesn't know whether to be infuriated or just sad and it would be so much easier to say that this isn't her problem and walk away... But she can't, and that in and of itself is what's messing with her head right now.

"I don't believe that." She finally manages to say, but it no longer looks like she's going to explode. "I know you think you do, and I get it feels that way now. But you could learn how to become your own handler."

She can't accept it. To accept it would mean to say that she condones what's happening and that's never going to happen.

Brick wall isn't that far off, at least right now. The idea of being its "own handler" actually makes it flinch-- just a little, but it's still there and still visible to Scarlett. Then it looks back down at the floor.

But it's a brick wall that hears and remembers, even if right now it can't incorporate and accept. It's not going to forget that she said that, because at the very least it's a way to explain a new state of being in terms it's used to, and without using the dreaded word "person".

"Even if that's true--" (It's not. It's not fucking true. C'mon, pal. I can't, Sergeant. I just can't. *Sigh.*) "--I can't right now."

Her eyes flutter closed at that flinch, more because it's a reminder of how far he is from getting there despite all the ground he's made and she doesn't want him to see the frustration that lingers there. For him to think she's disappointed, or angry. She's both of those things, but it's not directed at him.

Right now is at least better than never, Scarlett's mouth pressed into a thin like as she forces herself to look at him again. The silence stretching to the point of uncomfortable before she finally nods.

"Can you at least... be choosier about the - " She hesitates, hating the word but needing to force it out. "Handlers?" Her teeth creaking as she grinds her molars. "The thing about leaders, the kind of strong personalities you'd be drawn to? Power and corruption tend to go hand in hand."

Her voice after the long silence elicits a twitch, though not a flinch at least. There is a visible difference. The Soldier glances at her sidelong, through hair and lashes, then shrugs helplessly. "I can try. But it isn't always conscious choice. Sometimes it just. Happens." It draws in a slow breath and finishes, "But I'll try." That's the best it can do.

Truth is like a loaded gun

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