heartlessglitch | ic contact.

I should have enacted a system to alert you if something had happened to me.
I apologize for this oversight.
But what is done is done, Aaron.
And I have little desire to argue with you at this point.

I keep tabs on you all on my own, you idiot. I knew something happened.

[Easily one of the most terrifying moments of his life.]

Just stay where you are. I'm on my way.

Aaron.
This isn't necessary.

[ Or maybe she just doesn't want him to see her like this-- trapped in her fleshsuit, powerless and tired. ]

I say it is.

[It doesn't matter what form she's in. Aaron needs to know. And this is the terrible power of caring about someone: to drop everything for them, to feel enough consideration for another being to lose control of his own emotions and detachment. He feels like he's somehow failed his erstwhile and unlooked for younger sibling, even though she's no kin of his in any sense of the word. Like he should have taught her something, so that she avoided this.

So he comes storming down the streets with his heavy coat whipping behind, removing any obstacle that dares be in his way with the callous indifference of a machine. He doesn't bother to knock on the door or wait to be let in. Aaron couldn't give a shit. Literally incapable of it.]

Danger?

[ And she, in turn, feels strangely as though she's let down an older brother. Even knowing that Aaron would ignore her protests, knowing that he'd come to see her, she doesn't feel that she can be prepared enough to face him-- not in this body, not as confused and frustrated as she is.

It would be a hundred times better, easier to hide her feelings, if she could be metal and wires. But she can't. A price paid for resurrection.

He'll find her in a corner of the living room, tucked up in a chair with her legs close to her. In the moment before she turns her head to look at him, she'd been staring out the window, thinking, eyebrows pulled together. Finally, she answers him: ]

I am here.

Oh, Danger.

[ Aaron doesn't like it, this form of hers. And he doesn't think, if she could get out of it, that she'd be in it now. It's not a comforting thought. And it's not easier to hide his feelings because he's a machine, and not a man of flesh and blood.

He knows well enough to know not to touch her. But he comes close enough, squatting down in front of her chair, as though by doing so he can get a better look at her when in fact it's totally unnecessary for his electric eyes to increase proximity for clarity. ]

What happened to you? Why are you stuck?

[ Why is she stuck. That is a complicated question. Though maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe she should just admit to him that she was murdered because she made the mistake of trusting another unstable human being. A human being that she thought understood her and trusted her in return. Her wounded pride, the injury of her miscalculation, is worse than the pain of death.

The thought makes her frown deepen. ]

I experienced an inconvenient, but temporary demise.

[ She settles for an answer that's both vague and particular, in its way. ]

But I am fine. It is simply a matter of waiting for the Porter to restore my powers.

[ No stranger to the sort of non-answers that come so easily, being a machine, Aaron is perfectly capable of reading a lot into that. ]

Uh-huh.

[ And it's not as though he doesn't respect her privacy, or the desire for it. They more than any other beings can dig up every hidden thing, probe deep into the heart of matters. Or at least do some serious Facebook stalking. But he would never do that to her. Her reticence to tell him worries him, as does the very statement. He suspects sometimes she might outclass him, and he's been notoriously hard to kill. She either made herself vulnerable or let her guard down. Or-- she did it to herself.

That's a hard one to swallow. ]

Who did it?

[ He'd rather be a dick than let it go. He can't let it go. She's all he has. ]

[ That's the trouble with Aaron Stack-- he understands her in a way that a human never really could. Most of them are distracted by the armor, the outward impassivity, or her sheer power. Fascination and fear. But Aaron is her equal. He is like her. And he sees past all of that.

At length, she answers a bit distantly, as if to detach herself from the implication of her words: ]

Someone I trusted. A human.

[ He'd let out a breath he was holding, if he had one. Haven't they all been there. ...Or maybe they haven't. He can't quite recall a time when he was, but that might require allowing himself to be close to somebody again, and he hasn't really done that in quite awhile. But he remembers the Alternate Jocasta's admonition: she'll just disappoint you like all the fleshies have before her. She'd had reasons for saying it. ]

They do that, sometimes.

[ Which, coming from him, is a relatively mild statement, given that it's not bitter and sweeping contempt. ]

And it happened-- like this?

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