toastysocks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toastysocks) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2021-02-18 12:45 pm
toastysocks) wrote in bakerstreet2021-02-18 12:45 pm
The Slave Auction Meme
• Leave a comment with the character's name, fandom, and whether your character will be playing the part of 'slave' or 'master', plus preferences for scenarios if you have any.
• Respond to others with one of the scenarios below or feel free to make up your own.
• Please remember to be respectful of others while you play
Warning: Be aware that this meme deals with dark subjects like slavery and may also contain non-consensual/dubiously consensual sex, violence, and kink.
SLAVES
1. The Newbie - This is your very first auction and you don't quite know what to expect. Hopefully you remember your training and don't disgrace yourself in front of your new master. Hopefully someone thinks you're worth buying at all.
2. The Oldtimer - You've been bought and sold and bought again so many times. You've seen it all before and don't think this time is going to be much different. In fact, the only real anxiety you've got is whether or not someone's going to pay for a more than slightly used slave.
3. The Pet - You're a pleasure slave. A bed warmer. A decorative piece of artwork. You're meant to look pretty and be pleasing and not much else.
4. The Guard - Your master hired you because of your ability to swing a sword or shoot a gun, not your looks.
5. The Escape Artist - Somehow you always manage to squirm out of your master's chains. Too bad you seem to get caught after a while. Maybe your next daring escape will be permanent. Then again, maybe your next master has special ways of keeping you locked up.
6. The Undercover - You aren't a slave at all, you're just pretending to be one. Why? Well that's up to you. Either way, your cover is blown if you don't act the part.
7. The Specialist - You have a skill that no one else has. Something rare and valuable. Something your master needs more than anything else.
MASTERS
1. The Customer - You've owned slaves before and this trip to the market is nothing new to you. Still, you're hoping to find something worth your while.
2. The Gift - Someone bought a pet for you, isn't that nice of them? Or maybe it isn't so nice. Did you even want a slave in the first place? Well you're stuck with one now.
3. The Giver - You're selecting a slave for someone else, and they need to be perfect. Perhaps you'd better test them out first to make sure you're getting your money's worth.
4. The Trainer - You specialize in taming unruly slaves and making them over into perfect, obedient, well-trained pets.
5. The Rebel - You hate the idea of slavery, but the system isn't going to go away any time soon, so the next best thing is to buy up any slave you can get your hands on and free them, right?
6. The Companion - You want someone to be with you always, someone you can talk to and depend on, someone who will never leave your side. It's a good thing that money can buy that these days.
7. The Undercover - You're not actually a Master. You're at the auction for an entirely different reason. Maybe it's special policework, maybe you're trying to hunt down a certain someone. Either way, your cover is blown unless you act the part.
As always, feel free to use a combination of scenarios or make up your own if you have other ideas.
Snagged from here.
no subject
It gives away a little too much, doesn't it? Of himself? Not strictly professional, like everything else he's done can conceivably be considered.
He doesn't realize it's manners that has her offering to help. Thinks it's maybe training, the obligation of servitude. His household was different from hers -- typically when his parents came home it was best to make himself as scarce as possible. His father always seemed pissed off on grocery days, maybe because of the cost of feeding a family as large as theirs on food stamps and his mother's unimpressive wages.
"S'alright, though--" a pause, and he dips down to pluck up one of the totes to hold out. "This one's yours, from asset supply."
She'll have seen something like it before, probably. He's not sure whether the others just hand her things over or they strictly control it, but he doesn't micromanage. It's the stock-standard clothes most assets wear, mostly in her size. One regular wear outfit, one athletically skewed version. Recyclable toothbrush, miniature toothpaste. Three ounces of everything; shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, soap. All unremarkable, incredibly generic, clearly bought in bulk.
Everything else he's set to mechanically put away without looking at her, the same detached way he tends to default to when she's not directly engaging him.
"We're going down to the gym tomorrow morning. Get a baseline of where you're at, start out your self-defense training. That'll mainly be with me. You shouldn't need it, there's no plans to put you in any direct risk, but it's a precaution on the off-chance." They all have their specialties; technically Blythe could probably teach her this as well, but prior experience proves results with him aren't nearly as good as results with Conner. It's not hard to guess why. Aside from that, Blythe's got too many training-related accidents tagged under his name. Too many sprains, broken fingers, broken noses, too many asset decommission days as a direct result. "Then tomorrow evening's gonna be team drills. I dunno if you'll be participating in any of that, it's gonna be up to Laila, but on the off chance... you're gonna wanna try and get down as much as you can, you're gonna be burning a lot of energy."
This is his version of small-talk, sorry for your lot, Blue. It's all he knows how to say without letting himself stray too far into personal territory, or falling entirely quiet.
no subject
"Thank you." The words slip out like clockwork when Blue takes the offered bag. The longer they go without him correcting her for speaking out of turn, the looser her tongue gets. She opens the tote bag, frowning as she goes through the neatly packaged items.
They're not unfamiliar by any means. Blythe never gave her anything except food and water. (Blue stayed in the same clothes until she switched to Laila's rotation. Slept in them too. First night, she turned her underwear inside out, on the second she washed them out in the sink when Blythe was busy watching TV.) Bu Laila keeps a (blue) bucket for toiletries under her sink with the same deodorant, soap, and dental products. Added to it is a box of tampons, a brush, and the hair care products she got special for Blue. The clothes are the same kind she'd hand Blue a set of to wear in the morning. The only thing absent are the soft t-shirt and sleep shorts she'd trade them in for in the evening.
Blue weighs the tote bag in her hand for a moment. She doesn't know where it goes. She doesn't know where she goes.
The others, at least, were clear on that point. Like Cordon who keeps a cot in the corner of his bedroom. Beneath it, a pull out drawer with her supplies. The toiletries (no deviation from the norm there) in a separate corner (where they are to be packed away neatly after each use) from the clothes.
Maybe she'd ask, but she gets distracted when he lays out the barebones of their schedule the next day. None of the others did, preferring to just brief her on one thing at a time, if they briefed her at all.
If he asked, she could've told him exactly where she's at with self-defense. Nowhere.
Okay, not quite true. She knows how to throw a punch, and how to twist her hands against an assailant's thumbs to get out of their grip. She knows, in a life or death situation, to let go of any fear of harming the other person. Go for the eyes, the crotch-- the sensitive parts. Except she gets stuck on part one, doesn't she? Letting go is harder than one might think.
I won't do team drills, the defiant part of Blue pipes up from within the walls. But she learned fast at the beginning of the week just how much she'll do if Blythe is there. So she nods, jaw tight, and steps away from the counter.
Toiletries are easy. She can get those sorted.
Once she's in the bathroom (with the door unlocked but shut), she makes a beeline for the products she saw him carry in there. She runs her fingers reverently over the labels before unscrewing the lid of the leave-in conditioner and giving it a quick sniff. It's not a brand she's ever used before, but it smells nice and she could've easily bought it for herself in a pinch. The unexpected -- and discreet -- gesture sets an ache through her chest.
(Tylenol for the bruise, showers in private, privacy, a closed door, hair products picked out special for her without any fanfare or strings attached.)
Remembering that she's got a task, she sets the jar back down where she found it. She picks a corner of the sink and sets her meager stash of toiletries down there. Pushing them close together so they take up as little space as possible. Fronting the bottles so they look neat. She folds the tote bag over the clothes and tucks them in the cabinet beneath the sink. They'll be out of the way, and she can get dressed in the bathroom in the morning.
"What do team drills entail?" she asks when she returns empty-handed to the living area, taking her cue from his location whether she comes to lean on the counter or sit back down on the corner of the couch.
no subject
By the time she's back from the restroom he'll have pulled down a pan and a bowl, will have started up the process of cooking. He doesn't do it for himself every night, he's not remarkable, but he can cook well enough. Scrambled eggs are easy, he's done them plenty enough to have it down to a practiced routine. He glances over his shoulder at her while he cracks them, shells tossed in the garbage one by one along the way.
"It's situational. Could be sparring, could be objective based. Two story building, four assailants and a hostage, rescue the hostage or repeat the drill until you get it right. Practicing scenarios we're likely to run into in the field so we know how to work together seamlessly when something like it happens." Easier to paint a picture involving saving a hostage than securing a threat. He knows now instinctively that most of the "threats" they bring in aren't threats. They're people like Conner, or they're people who can do stuff like Blue can do. People they think they might be able to onboard. People who he dreams about at night, sometimes.
no subject
(If Gansey or Henry had their way they could've eaten out or ordered in each day of the week, and now that they're gone from the every day of her life -- and have been for a while -- she's glad she stuck to her guns and made them cook. The separation would have been a thousand times worse if she had let herself get used to a lifestyle she'll never be able to afford.)
Her fingertips drum against the counter, and she shifts her weight against her arms. Standing idly by while he works is difficult.
If she had to pick one worst thing about this whole experience, she has a whole roster to pick from and being idle isn't even going to hit top ten. But Blue isn't used to having nothing to do. In her real life -- the one she was plucked out of with no regard -- she balances her course load with two part-time jobs, charity work every third weekend of the month, and the occasional stint in the fortune teller's booth at the small farmer's market every odd Sunday.
What does she have to do now but stay on her toes and sit through painful and occasionally incomprehensible medical tests?
"I won't be good at any of that," Blue warns him, as she pushes away from the counter. It probably gives away her earlier explorations when she goes to pull two plates from the cabinet, picking the right one on the first try. She pauses by the cutlery drawer, pulling out two sets of knives and two sets of forks.
With the neat little pile in hand, she hesitates. She was just going to set the table -- well counter -- for them, but--
"Do you have a preference where I eat?"
no subject
"Not a lot of options," he points out, casting a pointed glance backward. There's a coffee table, but no kitchen or dining room table. "Y'can stand, if ya like."
There's some amusement in his tone and in the subtle hitch to one eyebrow, and then he turns his attention back down to the mixing bowl in hand.
"Got to choose between a couch and a table, space-wise," because frankly, cramming a table into the small area of the kitchenette would be like creating an obstacle course. "Decided on the former, considerin'."
Considering he never has company, considering there's a cafeteria across the building. Considering a pull-out couch is a more comfortable option than a fold-up cot to have on hand. He doesn't really plan on spelling all that out, though. Bits of it make him sound like a bloody recluse (he is), bits of it bring too much attention to the fact that his team's had someone like her before. It's not common, they're a small team so taking on an asset exclusively for domestic work isn't really justifiable in the budget. However, assets with the right amount of potentially combat-enhancing gifts? Those they've taken on graciously.
"Anyway, you're not meant to be any good at it. That's the point," he whisks, he pours egg-butter-cream-mix into the pan. "Half of it's gonna be about us protecting you during drills. Half's gonna be to prepare you for what to do in the event of an emergency if we can't. All of it's gonna involve seeing how what you do influences what we do."
no subject
Considerin'
Blue has already figured out that she isn't the first. It's all too well-practiced for that. Cordon's routines easily incorporating her, Laila's steady set of expectations, the way Conner rattled off the rules before handing her a glass of water. Even locked away behind her brick walls she can tell as much.
If she lets herself think about it, the thoughts twist and squeeze around her spine. Who were they? How long were they there? What happened to them? The fact that there are no signs of their presence in the physical space chilling her down to the bones. So, glad he's side-stepping that whole thing.
If Blue had to choose between a table and a couch the table would win out. If only because the bed doubles for comfortable sitting, and there's something family like about sitting round a table for dinner. But Conner's family doesn't seem like much -- what little she knows -- and she bets Adam would pick the couch too.
"It won't." The response is quick and flat. The kind of immediate that means instinct hotwired her tongue rather than wait for her brain to turn the ignition. She'll play war games with them, if that's what they want, pretend to be a damsel in distress or fail miserably at taking care of herself. But they're not going to see how her powers influence theirs. Not as long as she can help it.
Blue tears off a couple of paper towels from the holder, wraps them around the cutlery like she would napkins at Nino's before the dinner rush.
"Haven't they briefed you yet?" There's a bitter edge to her voice that wouldn't have been there when he first picked her up from the lab. It's been nurtured by twenty-two minutes alone, Tylenol for the bruise, and the way Conner lets her skate past on things that would have warranted a conversation from Laila, a stern warning from Cordon, and a jolt of pain from Blythe. "My presence has no noticeable influence on any of you."
Best case scenario, Blue's shields hold until LAND declares her powers a wash and shift her to domestic duties. Blue never thought the prospect of being a maid for the rest of her life would hold any appeal. But here they are. Small dreams.
The plates are left on the counter -- easier to load them up with food there than to carry the pan over -- and she goes to set the little cutlery bundles down on either end of the coffee table. Blue returns to the little kitchenette with tired steps.
At least the glasses he already knows she knows where they are. She steps up next to him and opens the cabinet. There's still a whisper of moisture in the one she used earlier. She nudges it to the back, picks them out two fresh glasses and shoots him an unhappy look.
"I'm a waste of your time."
no subject
"Yeah, well," he says dismissively, twisting to triple-multi-task chopping a banana while everything else is in a holding pattern. "Not my time you're wastin' and I can't say I care very much about chasing power-ups, so."
Let 'em figure it out or let 'em fail, he doesn't lose either way if it turns out she's a fruitless endeavor in amplification. Might be the fact that his power's the least destructive of them all, that there's no fascination with how much more he could potentially do. A shield's a shield. Doesn't need to be any thicker to serve his purpose.
"Just... so you know..." Carefully level, trying to make sure he sounds as nonthreatening as possible when he warns her, "They're gonna keep testing. They're not gonna give up easy. They'll get progressively more invasive to find out why it's not working. I dunno how your... thing functions, but... they're not goin' away any time soon."
So if she needs to practice, or if she's holding back... At least she knows what to expect.
no subject
Blue ducks her head, her too tight jaw working around words she won't say out loud and fingers curling protectively around the glass in her hand. In her worst moments, she can't help but wonder what it'll be that finally breaks the last barrier of resistance. Exhaustion in the face of never ending tests? Blythe brute forcing his way through her defenses? Will she get to the point where she'll give it up freely for a single good girl and nod of approval from Laila? Or when the tests become so invasive she surrenders her power to save another part of herself?
"It's, uh," Blue begins, searching for the words to explain her thing, before she catches herself. The one thing she has going for her is that no one really knows how her power works. Its limits. What activates it. How much or little control she has.
Conner is not an ally.
Blue makes herself repeat the sentence in her head as she turns to the sink where she runs the tap, a finger beneath it to gauge temperature. That he got her Tylenol and shampoo that won't dry out her curls doesn't mean she can trust him.
Conner's loyalties are to LAND.
Conner isn't kind.
Conner is not an ally.
Blue's fingertip is going a little numb beneath the spray of cold water. She blinks and turns off the tap that she's let run a little too long. Casts a quick glance over at Conner to see if he's noticed. The set of his shoulders and slightly bowed neck give no indication that he did. She turns back to the sink, grabs her glass and fills it up.
"I guess we'll see what happens," she says. Bland and non-committal. She turns the tap off, leaves his empty glass by the two plates so he can pick his own drink.
The eggs smell like eggs and Blue's stomach (predictably) turns. It's not as bad as being jostled into the cafeteria for every meal with the others. Too many scents all intermingling, and the open space filled with surprisingly loud voices. But her appetite has been a losing battle lately.
She swallows down the burgeoning nausea, and carries her full glass over to the coffee table. Folds a paper towel twice over to put it down on. Maybe up here, glasses don't sweat like they do in Virginia, but old habits die hard and she doesn't want to warp the wood of his coffee table. (He keeps his space neat and tidy to the point of impersonal. Blue thinks it would bug him.)
"How many days do I get with you?" Blue asks, her back against him and eyes locked on the coffee table set up. "Two nights, like the others, and then--?" The rest of the question is a suggestion, lost in the heavy hammer-falls of Blue's heart. Back to Blythe? Enough time to get her used to a fraction of independence just to have it beaten back out of her again?
no subject
"Just two. Tonight and tomorrow night. Some time the day after you'll head on to whoever's next up in the rotation." The clinking of cutlery, the scraping of toast. A quiet moment as he assembles her plate, and then hands it over - scrambled eggs, hazelnut spread on toast, banana. Not exactly a five-star meal, but it's things she likes that ought to help balance out the under-eating if she'll actually eat 'em. "I dunno who that is yet. Laila sets the rotation, she'll update us that morning probably."
More likely the night before knowing how prepared Laila is, but better to offer the pessimistic answer and be pleasantly surprised. It might be Blythe, it's not an unfair guess, but intuition's telling him the more likely that seems the less she's gonna be able to eat.
A gentler, more understanding word of advice, "You've got the night off. Try to stay present in the moment and not get lost agonizing over the future. There'll be plenty of time for that when it gets here."
no subject
Blue takes the offered plate with a wordless nod. Any other time, the spread would look appetizing. Now, it just looks like a challenge. Less of one than this morning's breakfast or the lunch that followed, but a challenge all the same.
She is going to let that us go unchallenged. Perhaps Laila will inform Conner, but knowing that tomorrow she'll have self-defense class with Conner in the morning and maybe a team drill in the evening is the most advance notice she has gotten of anything since Conner laid down the bare bones of her future on that hotel table half a lifetime ago.
Blue bends and sets the plate down on the edge of the coffee table, next to her glass. Rather than figure out the logistics of her short stature versus the distance between couch and coffee table -- perch on the edge of the couch or pull the plate into her lap? -- Blue just sits down cross legged on the floor. She unwraps the knife and fork from the paper towel, spreads the paper towel across her lap automatically.
The softness of his voice cuts a path through her stone walls and she squeezes her eyes shut to ward off the tears that threaten at the gentle understanding. Her throat works against the collar -- absently, obsessively -- her head bowed over her plate. If her eyes were open, she'd see straight through the food and the effort Conner put into it down through the floor and into the center of the Earth.
Time doesn't work the way he thinks. Technically, there's no distinction between present and future. The concepts are too fluid. It's not a line, it's a sea. Everything happening all at once, though most people can only travel through it one way. Except Blue grew up with people who could dip into it any which way. Like taking a bath. All her life, she's lived with the future like a constant shadow. While she couldn't see it, everyone else around her could.
It's all probably just a fancy way to say that not-agonizing over the future seems impossible to her so Blue gives him another tight nod before she opens her eyes and cuts her toast on the diagonal to make two triangles. Then again so there are four. Smaller. More manageable. With the knife, she nudges the banana around until there's at least one slice on each triangle of toast.
You've got the night off.
Such an innocuous statement to take up so much real estate in her chest and her mind. If not a promise, it certainly seems like confirmation. It's what makes her reach out and pick up a fourth of toast to nibble carefully on its edge.
"I've never heard anyone talk about it like this before," she offers. An olive branch? Changing the subject to not dwell over what tomorrow might bring. "What we can do."
She casts a quick glance up at him across her eggs. This is dangerous ground to be tread carefully, if at all.
"Like it's science and not magic." In the lab, they may not speak directly to her, and a lot of the time what they say is lost in the static of the grey blanket settling across Blue's mind. But she's heard enough terms like measurable and energy decay to know that their understanding of it is vastly different from her own.
It's not quite a question. Closer to an observation.
no subject
He sits at the edge of the recliner, a plate with only eggs before him -- it's about the gesture more than anything. Eating alone doesn't do anything for anyone's appetite, in his experience. It's not much of an effort for him to slope forward a bit at the waist, to rest an elbow on his knee and pick at the plate with the other arm. Direct contrast, his height and the length of his limbs compared to hers.
"I hadn't either, at the start. That's the learning half of the title, I suppose. Quantifying everything, seeing how many different ways you can use it. Trying to recreate it in other people who can't do it. Dunno if they've had any luck," if they did he's sure he's not nearly high enough in the food chain to be informed. "I do know it's way over my head and I can't understand half of what they're talkin' about whenever I'm down there."
In the labs, he means. It was the same for him, his first year. They used terms for measuring force Conner's never even heard before, that he can't possibly remember.
no subject
One day, Blue imagines, they will turn to her directly and ask her how it works. Why it won't work. She's been trying to come up with answers with enough truth to not sound like lies while not giving too much away. It's a complicated knife's edge to walk.
She finishes her sliver of toast and grabs her fork to attack the eggs while humming a soft noise to let him know she's paying attention. Laila briefed her on the acronym. (Learning and National Defense. It sounds perfectly harmless until you're within its walls.)
"I don't think that's how it's meant to work," she says, picking at the edges of the scrambled eggs with her fork. It's not an argument against him. More the lab and the work they do down there. Trying to quantify everything down to the last molecule and leeching every last ounce of magic out of it.
"I'm not anti-science by any means. My bachelor's is in science, and my post-grad is--" Blue stops herself, brows drawing together in a sharp V as the light that's begin to trickle back in flickers and dies.
"Was," she corrects herself, trying to swallow though her throat feels like it's being shut closed. "It was going to be in environmental science."
She falls quiet and focuses on her plate. She asked for eggs, he made her eggs. There's an obligation there. So she tries. It's not eating, really, what she's doing, it's just shifting things around. Like she's an actress on set trying to avoid having to eat the same two bites through three hundred takes. She fills her fork with eggs, brings it nearly to her mouth, loses her nerve, ad lowers the fork again, spilling the eggs back down on the opposite side of the plate. Like an up-and-down egg carnival ride. A hot air balloon tour of the plate.
"How did you discover yours?" A change in subject and a distraction. "The whole-- wall thing, I mean."
no subject
Understands her lack of appetite. He really does.
Environmental science. She lived in a tree. The world would've been a better place if she'd have stayed in it, it's an irrefutable fact. She'd be saving the bloody planet now if it weren't for him. He wants to ask her what it is she did to wind up in the Place, if it was getting arrested living in trees or if she made some kind of mistake. How she got to where she is.
It'd be a redirection, though.
She's ground to a halt and it's his fault. There's an echoing sense of obligation in him to give her something, to not abandon her to an island.
"Ahhm..." He starts, dropping his eyes down to his plate. They're both just play-acting at eating. Everything feels so bloody fucking pointless he could drown in it. Six years of managing this keeps him from losing his grip now. "Me old man was a bit of a bastard, frankly."
His accent goes a bit thicker without his realizing it.
"Couldn't do anything about it until one day I could."
Simple, lacking in any details. Could be as light or as severe as she can imagine, and it feels easier to leave it that way than get specific about it. He's quick to pivot back with a half-second glance up, not even long enough to take in her expression. "What about you?"
no subject
If Conner had paid attention, he would've found Blue's expression schooled to careful neutrality. Not for her own benefit or trying to hide the effect of his words or the seed of connection trying to set down roots in her chest. It's just that sometimes, sympathy cuts like a blade. Blue learned that much from Adam.
She wasn't going to tell him. She really, really wasn't. Maybe she'd shrug, maybe she'd just ignore the question and move on. She hadn't decided. But then he drew her an all too vivid picture in twenty words. It connects to the dots she's already strung together and binds them tighter. He left home when he was sixteen and never looked back, there's a circular scar on his back, his dad was a bit of a bastard.
It feels like flipping open his sketch book all over again.
Blue puts the fork down on the plate with a soft clatter, and gives the plate a gentle nudge forward. She's not done, it's just giving herself permission to take a break until her throat relaxes again.
"I can't remember not knowing," she tells the edge of the plate quietly. "It's always just been."
It's possible Maura knew from the first time life sparked inside of her, what Blue's presence could do. From the time Blue was born for certain. One of Blue's earliest memories is being scooped up into Maura's lap in the living room. One of Maura's arms wrapped around her, the other busy laying out the cards on the lace table cloth in front of them.
By the time she was seven, she was used to the Blue, come sit with me while I do this reading or Go outside and play, Blue. You're making everything too loud. Never hard pressed to go outside, she'd mind the first far more than the second.
"I spent a lot of time resenting it." Blue looks up at him with a twist of a self-deprecating smile. "It's not exactly flashy."
Not like putting up walls with her mind or communing with spirits. A Tarot deck may as well be playing cards to her, time stays in a strict line, and the future is out of her reach until she's lived through it.
no subject
Not exactly flashy is pretty relatable. Granted, his is at least visible and tangible, but compared to his team? Conner's not exactly blinking out of this dimension and back in again across the room. He's not pushing and pulling gale force bloody winds. He can't knock a group of people back like bowling pins from twenty yards. All he can do is just... not. He can not something really hard. No wind, no gun, no energy canon, no getting your hands around his neck when you blink into the space in front of him. No.
Must be harder when something's invisible, when it's meant for the people around you and not yourself.
All the same, he sends her a look through his eyelashes that's just a touch sympathetic.
"I'd love to say something reassurin' right now, but I've not seen it in action, so. I dunno. But it could be worse," and this isn't a platitude. He actually has seen worse. "This one bloke on the second floor's power is just to melt. Just. That's it. Melts. Straight into a puddle on the floor. Can't do anything, can't move. Didn't exactly help him with his law degree. Mainly he just files papers, really."
He's not laughing, not outright grinning, but it's clear from the delivery he finds it hilarious on some level.
"Then there's a research assistant across the compound that's gotta wear gloves all the time because she temporarily turns stuff pink if she touches it. Had to stop going into that men's room, I couldn't stop laughin'."
no subject
It'd probably be funnier, those two powers, if it was just people he'd met outside of here. But their presence at LAND steals the laughter straight from Blue's chest. Did they get pulled in like she did? Purchased for a power that proved useless? Their lives and futures stolen away from them for melting into a stationary puddle or making things pink with a touch.
"You won't see it in action," Blue says, voice a little tired. Not if she can help it. Also, it's not really something you see. It might make everyone else look even more impressive. Make them better killing machines. But there's no glow, no sign it's working. Just a diffuse, difficult to measure feeling.
"That's kinda the point," she adds to soften the edge because she can tell that he's trying to make her smile. That's reserved for people, not things; she appreciates it.
"It's not an action kind of thing." She picks up a slice of banana between thumb and forefinger, balances it carefully on top of its friend on one of the remaining bits of toast.
"Is it just stuff, or people too?" Blue asks, hand lowering to her lap to rub the corner of the paper towel between her fingertips to wipe away the banana residue. "That she turns pinks?"
She'll take the change of subject before she gives up more than herself than she means. Any story of her ability will inevitably touch on her family, and the memory of his warning after the phone call still sits heavy at the back of her mind. She doesn't want to bring LAND unto her family.
no subject
In any case the faint hint of humor dies more quickly than it lived, so fleeting it may have not even really existed at all. It's replaced with something wry at best, a little hitch in his eyebrow.
"People, too. That's why I had to stop going into the men's room. After the third fistfight everybody just kept looking around the stalls."
Heartbreaker, that Linda. Can't blame 'em, she's whip-smart and drop-dead gorgeous. Looks like she could snap your neck with her thighs and get a tattoo commemorating it.
No commentary about her not an action thing. He's not sure if she means the effect itself is invisible -- thinks he knew that, rather meant that he hadn't seen its effect on any of them -- or if she means he won't ever see it in action because she won't let 'em. Like it's not an action thing because she refuses to let it be used in action, in combat. Think he'd rather have the plausible deniability, or at the least he'd rather not push her by probing too hard. It's just gonna seem like he's a bloody LAND mole, buttering her up to dig out her secrets. He'd rather not even speak than come off like that.
He finally, finally takes in a forkful of egg.
no subject
Oh.
She ducks her head, clears her throat to try to chase away the suddenly very vivid mental picture. There's still the razor blade edge of not knowing whether the research assistant is like her, or like, say, Laila. There's a whole lot of agency lost between those two counter points.
Which shade of pink? A bright fuchsia has to be worse than a dusty rose or pale pink. Blue drowns the question by taking a deep drink of water. And then another for good measure. If the research assistant is like Laila, thee question wouldn't hurt. If she's like Blue, it'd be adding insult to injury.
When she settles the glass back down on the folded paper towel, she shoots Conner a look that lingers perhaps a little too long. It's easy (too easy) to imagine -- sitting here with him, half sharing a meal -- that they're just new friends, getting to know each other. No. Less than friends. Like maybe he's dating her room mate and they're both stuck having breakfast together after said room mate was called into work unexpectedly.
Either way, it's a dangerous delusion. So when Blue reaches up to run her hand over the side of her throat it's to feel the thick collar beneath her palm. A physical reminder of what this is and (more importantly) what it isn't.
(The problem is the whisper of amusement from earlier. Enough to humanize him in return. He's not some unknown shadow of an opponent anymore. He's Conner, whose dad -- likely -- beat him, and who tried to make her feel better about the power she resented when she was a teenager. The same power that landed her in this whole mess.)
Her free hand plucks up another bit of toast. She chews it for too long, but it goes down a little easier than the first one when she swallows.
"She sounds popular." It's not a question, but Blue is still fishing. Come on, Conner. Make her feel better about her curiosity peaking back up again. "How did LAND find her?"
Okay. Now it's a real question, the weight of it betrayed perhaps by the look Blue shoots him. Apparently Blythe didn't beat any patience into her.
no subject
She touches her collar right before the question. She seems skittish about asking one at all.
Doesn't take a genius.
"It's really difficult to get a job in the learning division. Selective hiring process, you've gotta be really qualified. I dunno how she stumbled into it, but it won't have been easy."
Meaning, she applied. Meaning there were rigorous hoops she'd have had to jump through in order to get it. Meaning the area's probably well-known enough that she knew what she was getting herself into. He doesn't want to outright say it, as much as there's an impulse there; she's not wearing a collar. They walk on thin enough ice.
In an effort to keep it light, he tosses out speculative, "Then again, she could've just stabbed someone in HR. They say she keeps a switchblade in her combat boots."
...Was that tasteless? Too violent? Right on the heels of it, "I'm only joking. That wasn't... that was a joke. There was probably... paperwork. Involved."
Sweet Christ he should just stop talking.
no subject
It's hard to get a job in the learning division. She would've had to work hard for it. (Thank the stars, she's there by choice.) The effect of his words is as obvious as it is immediate. Blue's body relaxes again, and her hand slips away from the collar. She even pops another piece of toast in her mouth. (Swallowing keeps getting easier.)
There's no need to feel guilty for thinking that the tell tale pink stains on the skin of her lovers is funny. What isn't funny is switchblade joke. Nothing wrong with it, aside from being bad. It earns Conner a subtle quirk of her eyebrow Really? That's what he's going with?
Except it's not.
The awkward backtracking surprises a laugh out of Blue. It's a quick thing. Bright and warm. Clean, somehow. It's as startling as the snort over the Earl Grey earlier. More perhaps, because she isn't alone. Blue clasps a hand over her mouth, like she can take back the noise. Like it hasn't already escaped her. But there's no hiding the lingering sparkle of amusement in her eyes. It's hard to tell what exactly got to her. If it was the delivery, the almost pained consternation on his face, or the little pause between paperwork and involved. Like the words were being dragged out of him against his will.
"Sorry," she manages from behind her hand, the word muffled, as she tries to school her expression back to something a little more appropriate. Hostages (assets) don't laugh. Especially not at their captors (handlers). But her mouth keeps twitching up into a smile that's as much relief as anything else.
Probably a sign that captivity is getting to her or something.
"I don't-- Sorry. That wasn't--" Blue presses her lips together tightly behind her fingers.
"Involved."
no subject
He'll take it regardless. Better over his own awkward fumbling than none at all.
He shakes his head, a self-aware crooked smile hanging at one corner of his mouth. Soft, muted as best as he can manage, but impossible to school it entirely away.
"Yeah, alright," dismissively, with a fatigue he doesn't actually feel. "Shut up, eat your eggs."
On any of the rest of the team, the line would come across as an order. By all technical definition it is, but his tone doesn't sell it anywhere close. It's to the tune of an eye roll, and he says it while spearing a forkful of his own food.
Probably shouldn't feel like he accomplished something just now. Doesn't mean anything. Doesn't matter, shouldn't go to his head or settle warmly in his chest.
no subject
(Blue thinks Gwenllian would have something to say about that, but she refuses to let herself think on it hard enough to summon the memory of Gwenllian's sing-song Welsh tones.)
The smile -- dim as it might be -- looks good on him.
In Blue's chest, the first tendril sets root. It's not the tenuous understanding from the hotel, or the pang of comfort in a familiar face. It's deeper, and more dangerous than all that.
If he'd been anyone else, Blue would've shot back a teasing yes, sir and maybe a sarcastic salute in retort. But she thinks, considering the circumstances, that might leech the lingering mirth from the room. Instead she loads her fork up with egg and shoves it in her mouth demonstratively. See? Eating her eggs. Another smile threatens and she ducks her head to hide it, busies herself with eating.
Blue is maybe six bites in when the realization hits her that she's chewing and swallowing like it's nothing. No resistance from her throat. Just like that it's like the lines of communication between her mind and her body clear, and for the first time in days she can feel how hungry she is.
Fork hovering in the air above her plate, she uses her free hand to pop another piece of toast in her mouth. This time, the toast doesn't seem to expand dryly in her mouth, wicking all moisture away, while the hazelnut spread sticks against her teeth and the roof of her mouth. No, this time, the taste of hazelnut blends with the banana with the lingering warm crunch of toast. Like one of those pictures in the Sunday paper where at first all you can see is the young woman with her face turned away, but then your perspective shifts and suddenly it's a man smiling around his cigarette.
"This is good," she tells him with a flicker of attention going between him and the plate. Could be talking about the food. Might be talking more about the reprieve from constant misery that he's giving her. "Thank you."
Since she got to LAND, no one has let her forget that she's an asset. (Lesser somehow even though she's got a heart beating in her chest and a head full of thoughts just like the rest of them.) But sitting on his floor, and fighting a smile, she almost feels like a person again. The change is obvious in her demeanor as well; When he brought her from the lab, she was definitely wilting like a tree during a drought. But now her leaves are beginning to perk back up again.
It's not without a quick stitch of guilt -- there should not be even an ounce of happiness for her in a place like this -- but Blue's exhausted enough of feeling terrible, she is just going to let it be. Take the warmth and the strength where she finds it. She'll need her strength to keep resisting them, she tells herself, granting permission to clear her plate. Food is energy, right?
Above them, Ty Pennington is grinning wildly and waving his arm on the TV. If the sound was on, they'd hear him shout -- bolstered by the crowd -- move that bus!.
"I'll do the dishes." It's not an offer. It's not out of some sense of servitude or obligation. It's information. It's upbringing. He cooked. She will do the dishes. It's just how things work.
no subject
He offers up a slightly more visible smile at her thanks, but says nothing to it. Feels wrong to say you're welcome, all things considered.
Things are comfortably quiet and companionable for a bit until her offer, and he glances up with a subtle knit in his brow. Keeps his expression otherwise unreadable as his eyes track over her face, her posture. He seems to find what he's looking for, because he returns back one slow nod.
"If you like."
Her choice, he wasn't gonna ask. Probably shouldn't outright reject these acts of service every time when the rest of the team may expect it from her.
He finishes before her again - this time less because of militaristic eating efficiencies and more because he took on far less. It'd be habit to wash his own dish immediately, takes some conscious thought to leave it in the sink instead. He's quiet as he passes through the living area toward his bedroom. He leaves the door wide-open, full view from the couch where he is and what he's doing, but the distance alone might be enough that she feels like she's in her own space doing her own thing.
Unless she strikes up a conversation or follows him, he'll sprawl out on his bed with a book, and with no intentions to bother her.
no subject
Her eyes track him as he moves in and out of her space, and she frowns when he seems to settle on the bed without a word of instruction. Still frowning, she finishes up her dinner.
She carries her dishes into the kitchen, consolidates them with his and adds the pan and the rest of the prep dishes. It's almost comforting, the mundane domesticity of doing the dishes. The repetitive motions of the sponge, the soapsuds and water staining her from the knots of her wrists almost all the way up to her elbows. Familiar sensations in an unfamiliar place.
Once she's done, she pads back out into the living room, tilting her head to catch sight of him in his bedroom without fully stepping into his line of sight. When she finds him still reading in a comfortable sprawl, she returns to the kitchen.
It's almost a trial run, when she opens up the now-slightly-fuller fridge and rummages around. Her body braced for him to come check up on her. When he doesn't, she grabs a yogurt cup from the short stack and closes the fridge again.
Nothing.
Like a dog with its ears perked up, she tilts her head to listen for movement from his side of the space as she peels the top open. Still nothing. She pulls the cutlery drawer out with more force than probably necessary so the knives and the forks rattle together. She grabs a spoon, shuts the drawer.
Convinced now, that his distance isn't some trap, she jumps up to sit on the counter. The yogurt cup -- vanilla with strawberries -- it's not the brand she would have picked, but it's yogurt with fruit in the bottom so it certainly what she asked for earlier.
Slowly and carefully, she eats the yogurt part, leaving the fruit in the bottom completely untouched. It's not that she's still hungry -- dinner was plenty filling -- but it's something to do. (Something she can control.) It tastes better than dinner, if only because she chose it completely on her own. Once done, she sets the mostly empty plastic cup down on the counter next to her hip, kicks her heels restlessly against the cabinet below.
The problem with being left to her own devices is how much time it leaves her thoughts to run away with her. The future lies before her like a black hole, sucking away at the small measure of comfort she's found here.
There's only so long she can stand it before she slips back down from the counter and wanders back into the living room. The remote still lies where he tossed it on the couch and she grabs it as she sits down.
Blue passed the channel earlier, when she was restlessly going through them all in his absence. At the time, it gave her a stitch of homesickness so sharp it threatened to pierce her lungs and she moved on quickly. Now, she finds herself craving it. It's one of those free channels that end up with most cable packages but no one really wants. Like the home shopping network.
It takes some searching, but she finally lands on the low budget set where a woman lays out five cards in a familiar pattern on a round table with a velvet table cloth. A banner running below promises that YOU can know your future. Just call in to 555-PSYCHIC. For only $2.99/minute.
Blue leaves the sound off. She doesn't need to hear the caller's question -- love or money, it's always one of the two -- or the fortune teller's interpretation. That's not the point. The deck is the standard Rider-Waite, a little bigger than normal. Probably to show up better on camera.
The fortune teller -- Lady Fortuna, claims the rolling banner -- begins turning over cards.
The Tower
The Fool
Death
Ten of Swords
Temperance
It's quite the hand. Blue isn't sure how anyone can spin it as something good. Though she's certain Lady Fortuna does an excellent job. (No one comes to hear only bad. You have to shine a little light too.) She leans in, reads the cards as she imagines her mother might, the remote still in her hand, thumb resting on the channel button so she can switch away immediately if she hears him move. Of all things, this is more personal than anything he's already seen of her.
Seven fortunes later -- and heart full of longing -- Blue changes the channel back to the one it started on and turns the TV off. He can probably hear the sound of her feet as she walks up to his door and pauses on the threshold. Gently, Blue raps her knuckles against his door jamb. Maybe it's an effect of having her own privacy invaded, perhaps it's just another thing that's down to upbringing, but she feels bad interrupting him or just walking into his space.
With a shoulder leaned against the wood, Blue waits for his attention to drift from the book to her before she speaks.
"Do you mind if I grab a shower?" That's not the real question. Considering how long he's let her putter around his place mostly unattended, Blue is ninety-nine percent certain he won't mind anything she does as long as it doesn't involve hurting herself, hurting him, or opening the door. But she can't shower in the collar, and asking him out loud and specifically to take it off twists something in her throat until it threatens to break.
no subject
She's sitting on his counter eating yogurt.
It's amusing as hell. Probably some sort of test, yeah, but considering his side-goal for these two days is to maximize her caloric intake, let her have at it. Test her permission to eat yogurt anywhere she likes. A few seconds later he leans back again, eyes on the page but one ear open for her movements throughout the apartment. It's only once she finally settles on the couch that he can actually concentrate on what he's seeing instead of what he's hearing.
It's calm. Quiet. Perfectly manageable, and if this is how it can be every time it's his rotation for the next seven and a half months, he'll be thrilled. Fool's dream, he knows. Never gonna happen. Nothing good can last here forever, there's bound to be a rise and fall in tension along the way, but... If this can be baseline, this is good.
It's sometime around fortune number four that he slumps down a little further on the bed until he's nearly completely flat, head lifted just enough that he can see the book he's balancing on his chest with one hand. She knocks, and he allows the book to fall forward slowly so he can see over it.
Ah, yeah. That'd be it, wouldn't it?
Rather than nodding, he moves to sit up. Sets the book off to the side and swings his feet around to the floor, then gives her a little finger-wiggle. A silent come here, and he'll take it off.
"After you're out, first thing straight away it's gotta go back on," a firm warning, her only stipulation. No dawdling about the place, no bolting for the door. Even more subtle than that, the implication - she can come back and let him do it, or he can go to her and force it on. It'll be entirely up to her how she handles it.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)