[ He wasn't expecting someone over 6 feet tall to show up. The guy having damn near six inches on him is a surprise.
Not necessarily an unpleasant one, but a surprise. ]
That was the point.
[ He inclines his head toward the kitchen - open concept, but separated by a bar, and very much just utilitarian and clean, save a bowl of fruit on the table.]
Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.
[ Look that b-crais has his name in it. He thinks he's introduced himself. Manners are not a point he's strong on.
[ he's looks over towards the kitchen cautiously even while giving the kitten an ear scritch. wash is a good liar, a good actor, has a perfect poker face, but it probably isn't quite as effective with the cat thing. ]
Crais is my last name. My first name is Bialar. Don't use it.
[ No lack of clarity on that, at least, as he moves to the kitchen to pour the coffee for Washington. He pretends to be ignoring Sylvester and how Washington is interacting with him, but he is not doing that.]
Tell me what you're willing to eat. Protein bar, yogurt, sandwich, fruit, or all of it. I'm only capable of cooking eggs and pancakes.
[ with your insistence on feeding him he would've assumed you were the cooking type. so you keep asking him if he's fed insist on giving him food and you don't even cook. what are you. ]
Just -- Give me a fruit, I guess.
Crais. I'm guessing you have my name. [ first name agent, last name washington, thank you very much. he turns to watch him, still very much gently cradling the kitty. ] What do you want?
With the number of time you Armor People have asked me that question, I'm tempted to fling the fruit at your head.
[ He sounds more exasperated than mad. He grabs an apple and then adds a jar of peanut butter and a (butter) knife and takes it all to the table and points at a chair. ]
I don't want anything particular except the freedom to do what I want, and what I want to do is this. You're not going to believe me and are going to spend several months thinking there's a hidden motive. When you realize there isn't you're going to act like it's a revelation. Surprise me and don't do any of that, please.
I know your name. Sit down and eat food, you probably haven't done that since Felix turned up dead.
[ it's a lot of information to process, but he's starting to get the sense that that's apparently the norm with crais. fine. he'll adjust. he listens quietly, maybe distantly incredulously amused at being designated as Armor People. none of the others have mentioned him, so it'd have to just be felix and sharkface -- ephemera. he pictures them being force-fed hot chocolate and a granola bar. it's an amusing enough image, absolutely ridiculous, but so is everything else he's saying.
he does, in fact, sit down. clearly thinking, turning over whatever crais is telling him in his thoughts. it's hard to parse if he's genuine, but there's nothing much he can do about it now except stay guarded, and he gently parks the kitten in his lap as he gets his apple. no thank you on the peanut butter. he won't comment on how crais is more or less right, he has eaten since, but not much. its been days of spiraling, circling the drain. ]
[ He takes Wash the cup of coffee, then goes to make himself a cup of tea, leaving the kitten happy to sit and purr in Wash's lap.]
Not exactly this. I had Felix hold the kitten and drink hot chocolate while I repaired his armor. Ephemera it was more a matter or refusing to fight back until he stopped trying to kill me.
[ more ear scritches for the kitty. he takes a bite from the apple, but it might be clear that he's mostly doing it because he's pretty sure if he didn't crais would hassle him about it. ]
And I take it that so far, neither of them have actually tried to murder you.
Not seriously, no. Neither one of them is actually stupid.
[ He finally sits with his mug, on the opposite side of the table - and yeah, he'd hassle Wash for not eating it.
There's something very matter of fact in that statement. It's simple, but it is actually saying something important. A few things. One of them is that he's not an idiot, either. there's calculated risk and real confidence there, but it isn't based on nothing.]
[ he is, in fact, asking because it'll tell him something about crais. not in an enemy of an enemy is my friend way, but just because even if he wouldn't exactly trust felix or sharkface as far as he can throw them, he does know that they aren't stupid, and are entirely capable people in their own right. he doubts they would willingly keep going on with crais if he really did have an ulterior motive. and it does, of course, inform him that crais understands ( or mostly understands ) the kind of risk he's undertaking with people like them in the first place.
it doesn't mean much further than that, of course. he could still have other purposes none of them know about, or felix could be the one pulling wool over their eyes. but its something, and leaves wash with the strange pragmatic conclusion that taking crais at face value honestly makes the most sense.
. . . it doesn't mean he'll really do it, just yet. but he has reached that thought. ]
Neither of them are stupid. But entirely unused to dealing with anyone quite like you.
[ he takes another bite from the apple, glances down at the kitten in his lap as it mewls for more attention. wash is happy to provide more scritches. perfect poker face otherwise. ]
[ He snorts inelegantly and grabs an orange from the bowl and starts peeling it. Continuing to not comment on Washington's interaction with the cat, but to note it.
You want to really know something about him? Okay. ]
My species was genetically engineered tens of thousands of years ago to be soldiers. Nearly all of us are part of an organization of mercenaries known as Peackeepers. Sebaceans are never alone, and Peacekeepers have no personal attachments and are allowed none. We are ambitious, self-serving, advancement seeking assholes. I was one of very few people not born on a ship and into them to ever make Captain. The carrier I was captain of had a crew and complement of fifty thousand. All of them socially and culturally conditioned to behave like psychopaths and most of them on the verge of snapping in some direction or another.
They may not have dealt with anyone like me, but they're far from opaque to me and there are three of you.
[ wash is clearly the quieter, more thoughtful type, and a good listener -- he listens closely, attentively, and there's a real sense that he's not just engaging in conversation but actively absorbing any information given to him, because really, he is. he'd be able to recite any of that word for word back if he had any reason to. he's a quick learner, adaptable and pragmatic, and is mostly working in his mind to fit together all the pieces of information he's learned before to draw a picture of crais, who he is, his world. sebaceans he gathers from context to be his species ( he looks incredibly human to wash, but what the fuck does he know ), maybe more of a nomadic and spacefaring species with either a kind of self-importance or an appreciation for irony judging by the name peacekeepers. a more militarized culture? based on technology or physical aptitude? hard to say. clearly with an emphasis on perceived mental fortitude, if what he's saying is true.
another bite from the apple. there's more than three Armor People, there's actually lots of 'em here, but he won't say that, because of course he won't. ]
Military is military, wherever it is. [ another bite. they're all deliberate, spaced out to give him time to process and choose his words. with lots of pets for the kitty. ] I wouldn't say we were conditioned to be psychopaths, but there's some of that in every army, I suppose.
I guess that's why you don't really give a shit about the morality of psychopaths or whatever else?
[ Excuse you, he knows there are others here, he just hasn't finished building his collection, yet. He might not even get the full set, depending.
He keeps peeling his orange, stacking the peel up neatly on the table. ]
From what I can tell most of what you were conditioned to be is paranoid. [Dryly, but believe it or not Crais can also be that. Or rather has been that, before violently rejecting everything about the Peacekeepers. ] I don't give a shit about other people's morality because much of it makes no sense to me, seems to often be arbitrary and contradictory, and has no impact on me or anyone I care about in a concrete way.
[ if you go collect the full set you will have to find them yourself okay.
he's still turning over information in his mind. fifty thousand is an large crew complement, far larger than unsc or covenant, which even in the upper ranges tended closer to twenty thousand -- but they sound like a nomadic or at least mostly spacefaring species who really lived their lives on those ships, and that more or less tracks. and as for that, well. ]
I can respect that. [ it's genuine. wash is ultimately pragmatic, and has learned to care less about who is and isn't a good person and instead more about who might or might not hurt the people he cares about. it doesn't stop him from immense guilt and the unshaking belief that he's far from a good person, but still. ] And it's not for me to question who you might care about.
[ . . . even though he is kind of questioning it just by saying that. its fine. ]
Paranoia and psychopathic tendencies kind of go hand and hand with the military mindset, though. You didn't get any of that?
Of course I did. I wouldn't have survived if I didn't.
[ Matter of fact. There's no guilt there, but also no evasion. He's tortured, he's executed, he's casually killed for convenience.
He starts splitting the peeled orange into segments. ]
I left the Peacekeepers a few years before I died and showed up here. I've been here more than a year. [ He eats a piece of the orange. ] I'm a terrible person but I like it here and I have had ample time and space to... reprioritize.
[ a little dryly, followed by a slight pause. was that rude. probably. good time to see how crais handles that kind of thing he guesses, his impression so far is that he's probably forthright and direct with everything.
in his lap the kitten is getting some good tummy time tickles and pets. wash manages to maintain an absolutely neutral expression regardless. ]
[ now that's something. a kind of smirk and a shift in his tone that he absolutely recognizes, too. the triumph of having survived something he was forced into, something he must have loathed. would that wash could say the same, he sometimes thinks he didn't really survive it at all. but it's something he recognizes, nonetheless.
that has his interest, right now. he'll circle back around to the whole holy shit you've been here more than a year? thing later. ]
Them. Your Peacekeepers?
You survived them, got out, but went back to destroy something of value to them.
[ your ship. the one with the mother. who tried to kill the mother. yeah that part's still weird. ]
[ It's weirder than it sounds - there are two ships, but that's not a thing he's thought to clarify. The second one died with him blowing up the first one. The second was alive and had a name. The other one was just a ship. ]
I went back because they had technology onboard that would have wiped out entire inhabited planets and that they had worked hard to get. I had nothing left to lose personally and a lot of rage that needed and outlet.
[ a slightly amused sound, here, the first real break of something that isn't wash's otherwise controlled mask of ambivalent neutrality. aside from the kitty. he doesn't know the details of it, but he doesn't need to know to hear that tone in his voice, to hear some of those words and perfectly understand. nothing left to lose, a lot of rage. go back and destroy everything. ]
I bet it did.
[ it'd just apparently worked out better for crais than it did for wash. good on him. ]
Was the fact that it got rid of planet-destroying technology more of a bonus than a motivation?
[ aka were you more motivated by wanting to potentially protect innocent people from getting killed or more out of spite. ]
[ Better, is his one and only thought on that faint glimmer of something behind the controlled mask. With most people, Crais would immediately pry at that 'crack' - not with bad intent, but simply because he gives no fucks and if he wants to know he will ask.
He actually uses a little more discretion this time. Uses his willingness to answer questions about anything and lay his cards out on the table for something other than an act of defiance against previous conditioning and an aggressive display of confidence.
He uses it as a means of being trustworthy, even knowing trust is months (at best) in the future and requires a little actual vulnerability on his end, since there is something in here that resonates with Washington. ]
I don't know the answer to that. There were a lot of... intersecting circumstances and I think they all had to be in place to lead to that particular outcome. Talyn - the ship I was interfaced to - was increasingly unstable and I was out of options for him. The neurbleedback through the interface was becoming increasingly worse as his mental state declined; I couldn't control him and it was killing me, anyway. I'd been alone for the majority of time for years, and had enough time to start to figure out how to be a person. There was the technology. If any of those were missing I would have looked for other options - including the outlet.
[ wash is continuing to make assumptions here, in that the ship has a name and is being referred to with an actual non-object pronoun, the only way he makes sense of it now is to think of talyn has the ship-based ai. he listens, just as attentively as before, giving the kitten another little gentle ear scritch. neurbleedback is an unfamiliar term, but it's not exactly a difficult one to guess the component words of, and pilots using neural interfaces to interact with ships was standard in the unsc. neural bleedback, he assumes, must be some effect of the ship ai affecting the pilot -- or captain, in this instance. he doesn't know if he'd also be a pilot. the ai was unstable ( rampancy, that makes sense ) and it was killing him. crais mentions being alone. without interfacing with the ship, perhaps.
he nods. quiet, absorbing, connecting lines in his head. he notices, too, that crais isn't just rambling off at his usual rate here, not just listing off paragraphs of personal life story like it's nothing. there's a little more hesitancy here. he's still talking, but there are pauses, and it's less a listing of information and more about some things that happened to him personally, how he felt.
wash has gone this entire time managing to say absolutely nothing about himself, he didn't even say his name, just asked if crais knew it. he will continue to say absolutely nothing about himself. but it's clear that something about this resonates with him, that he recognizes it in a way. ]
Perfect storm of circumstance. Guess that happens.
You designed the interface, but it was killing you as your ship -- as Talyn -- got more unstable. You ran out of options to prevent him from endangering others. [ he's using the exact same words that crais did in their earlier conversation. absorbs information real well, clearly. ] It helped that you had some personal stake, anger and a need for an outlet. And now you're here.
[ in other words: and then you killed yourself, and died, and now you've been here for more than a year. ]
[ The precise wording being used back at him gets Washington a bit of a look from Crais. It's a little unsettling but hey, he definitely knows he was heard. ]
[ he was heard very well. don't tell him anything you want him to forget, okay.
to his credit, wash doesn't noticeably lock up, mostly because his guard had been on when he came in here and it's not been let up, and he doesn't stop giving the kitten all the pets it wants and deserves. but there is a bit of tension, there, a subtle shift in the look in his eyes. ]
Which one did you hear about it from?
[ and how much did you hear about it. most likely felix, he's assuming, who's done extensive research into the freelancers as a whole and had access to their evaluations and profiles. sharkface might've had access to them too, but he doesn't know if he's the type to have really gone through them. ]
[ They haven't specifically - he thinks - talked about names and the very precise varied ways the implants can go wrong.
It's just that he's heard things about how frequently those things go fucking wrong in general, and in various ways. He's also taken, and seen, some pretty damn advanced medical scans of Ephemera (with a tricorder) and had the guy having seizures at his feet. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Not necessarily an unpleasant one, but a surprise. ]
That was the point.
[ He inclines his head toward the kitchen - open concept, but separated by a bar, and very much just utilitarian and clean, save a bowl of fruit on the table.]
Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.
[ Look that b-crais has his name in it. He thinks he's introduced himself. Manners are not a point he's strong on.
And offering options isn't an accident.]
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Coffee's fine, I guess.
[ ughhhh ]
Listen. Crais, right? Is that your actual name?
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[ No lack of clarity on that, at least, as he moves to the kitchen to pour the coffee for Washington. He pretends to be ignoring Sylvester and how Washington is interacting with him, but he is not doing that.]
Tell me what you're willing to eat. Protein bar, yogurt, sandwich, fruit, or all of it. I'm only capable of cooking eggs and pancakes.
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Just -- Give me a fruit, I guess.
Crais. I'm guessing you have my name. [ first name agent, last name washington, thank you very much. he turns to watch him, still very much gently cradling the kitty. ] What do you want?
no subject
[ He sounds more exasperated than mad. He grabs an apple and then adds a jar of peanut butter and a (butter) knife and takes it all to the table and points at a chair. ]
I don't want anything particular except the freedom to do what I want, and what I want to do is this. You're not going to believe me and are going to spend several months thinking there's a hidden motive. When you realize there isn't you're going to act like it's a revelation. Surprise me and don't do any of that, please.
I know your name. Sit down and eat food, you probably haven't done that since Felix turned up dead.
no subject
he does, in fact, sit down. clearly thinking, turning over whatever crais is telling him in his thoughts. it's hard to parse if he's genuine, but there's nothing much he can do about it now except stay guarded, and he gently parks the kitten in his lap as he gets his apple. no thank you on the peanut butter. he won't comment on how crais is more or less right, he has eaten since, but not much. its been days of spiraling, circling the drain. ]
So you did this with the other two?
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Not exactly this. I had Felix hold the kitten and drink hot chocolate while I repaired his armor. Ephemera it was more a matter or refusing to fight back until he stopped trying to kill me.
no subject
[ more ear scritches for the kitty. he takes a bite from the apple, but it might be clear that he's mostly doing it because he's pretty sure if he didn't crais would hassle him about it. ]
And I take it that so far, neither of them have actually tried to murder you.
no subject
[ He finally sits with his mug, on the opposite side of the table - and yeah, he'd hassle Wash for not eating it.
There's something very matter of fact in that statement. It's simple, but it is actually saying something important. A few things. One of them is that he's not an idiot, either. there's calculated risk and real confidence there, but it isn't based on nothing.]
no subject
it doesn't mean much further than that, of course. he could still have other purposes none of them know about, or felix could be the one pulling wool over their eyes. but its something, and leaves wash with the strange pragmatic conclusion that taking crais at face value honestly makes the most sense.
. . . it doesn't mean he'll really do it, just yet. but he has reached that thought. ]
Neither of them are stupid. But entirely unused to dealing with anyone quite like you.
[ he takes another bite from the apple, glances down at the kitten in his lap as it mewls for more attention. wash is happy to provide more scritches. perfect poker face otherwise. ]
no subject
You want to really know something about him? Okay. ]
My species was genetically engineered tens of thousands of years ago to be soldiers. Nearly all of us are part of an organization of mercenaries known as Peackeepers. Sebaceans are never alone, and Peacekeepers have no personal attachments and are allowed none. We are ambitious, self-serving, advancement seeking assholes. I was one of very few people not born on a ship and into them to ever make Captain. The carrier I was captain of had a crew and complement of fifty thousand. All of them socially and culturally conditioned to behave like psychopaths and most of them on the verge of snapping in some direction or another.
They may not have dealt with anyone like me, but they're far from opaque to me and there are three of you.
no subject
another bite from the apple. there's more than three Armor People, there's actually lots of 'em here, but he won't say that, because of course he won't. ]
Military is military, wherever it is. [ another bite. they're all deliberate, spaced out to give him time to process and choose his words. with lots of pets for the kitty. ] I wouldn't say we were conditioned to be psychopaths, but there's some of that in every army, I suppose.
I guess that's why you don't really give a shit about the morality of psychopaths or whatever else?
no subject
He keeps peeling his orange, stacking the peel up neatly on the table. ]
From what I can tell most of what you were conditioned to be is paranoid. [Dryly, but believe it or not Crais can also be that. Or rather has been that, before violently rejecting everything about the Peacekeepers. ] I don't give a shit about other people's morality because much of it makes no sense to me, seems to often be arbitrary and contradictory, and has no impact on me or anyone I care about in a concrete way.
no subject
he's still turning over information in his mind. fifty thousand is an large crew complement, far larger than unsc or covenant, which even in the upper ranges tended closer to twenty thousand -- but they sound like a nomadic or at least mostly spacefaring species who really lived their lives on those ships, and that more or less tracks. and as for that, well. ]
I can respect that. [ it's genuine. wash is ultimately pragmatic, and has learned to care less about who is and isn't a good person and instead more about who might or might not hurt the people he cares about. it doesn't stop him from immense guilt and the unshaking belief that he's far from a good person, but still. ] And it's not for me to question who you might care about.
[ . . . even though he is kind of questioning it just by saying that. its fine. ]
Paranoia and psychopathic tendencies kind of go hand and hand with the military mindset, though. You didn't get any of that?
no subject
[ Matter of fact. There's no guilt there, but also no evasion. He's tortured, he's executed, he's casually killed for convenience.
He starts splitting the peeled orange into segments. ]
I left the Peacekeepers a few years before I died and showed up here. I've been here more than a year. [ He eats a piece of the orange. ] I'm a terrible person but I like it here and I have had ample time and space to... reprioritize.
no subject
[ a little dryly, followed by a slight pause. was that rude. probably. good time to see how crais handles that kind of thing he guesses, his impression so far is that he's probably forthright and direct with everything.
in his lap the kitten is getting some good tummy time tickles and pets. wash manages to maintain an absolutely neutral expression regardless. ]
How long have you been here?
no subject
I survived them. What I didn't survive was going back and destroying the ship that was my command.
[ The kitten rolling over like that is a good sign. Washington's response to it's pretty nice, too, actually. ]
Fourteen or fifteen months.
no subject
that has his interest, right now. he'll circle back around to the whole holy shit you've been here more than a year? thing later. ]
Them. Your Peacekeepers?
You survived them, got out, but went back to destroy something of value to them.
[ your ship. the one with the mother. who tried to kill the mother. yeah that part's still weird. ]
no subject
I went back because they had technology onboard that would have wiped out entire inhabited planets and that they had worked hard to get. I had nothing left to lose personally and a lot of rage that needed and outlet.
It felt good.
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I bet it did.
[ it'd just apparently worked out better for crais than it did for wash. good on him. ]
Was the fact that it got rid of planet-destroying technology more of a bonus than a motivation?
[ aka were you more motivated by wanting to potentially protect innocent people from getting killed or more out of spite. ]
no subject
He actually uses a little more discretion this time. Uses his willingness to answer questions about anything and lay his cards out on the table for something other than an act of defiance against previous conditioning and an aggressive display of confidence.
He uses it as a means of being trustworthy, even knowing trust is months (at best) in the future and requires a little actual vulnerability on his end, since there is something in here that resonates with Washington. ]
I don't know the answer to that. There were a lot of... intersecting circumstances and I think they all had to be in place to lead to that particular outcome. Talyn - the ship I was interfaced to - was increasingly unstable and I was out of options for him. The neurbleedback through the interface was becoming increasingly worse as his mental state declined; I couldn't control him and it was killing me, anyway. I'd been alone for the majority of time for years, and had enough time to start to figure out how to be a person. There was the technology. If any of those were missing I would have looked for other options - including the outlet.
no subject
he nods. quiet, absorbing, connecting lines in his head. he notices, too, that crais isn't just rambling off at his usual rate here, not just listing off paragraphs of personal life story like it's nothing. there's a little more hesitancy here. he's still talking, but there are pauses, and it's less a listing of information and more about some things that happened to him personally, how he felt.
wash has gone this entire time managing to say absolutely nothing about himself, he didn't even say his name, just asked if crais knew it. he will continue to say absolutely nothing about himself. but it's clear that something about this resonates with him, that he recognizes it in a way. ]
Perfect storm of circumstance. Guess that happens.
You designed the interface, but it was killing you as your ship -- as Talyn -- got more unstable. You ran out of options to prevent him from endangering others. [ he's using the exact same words that crais did in their earlier conversation. absorbs information real well, clearly. ] It helped that you had some personal stake, anger and a need for an outlet. And now you're here.
[ in other words: and then you killed yourself, and died, and now you've been here for more than a year. ]
no subject
He was also miserable.
How badly did your implant go wrong?
[ He's heard (general!) stories. ]
no subject
to his credit, wash doesn't noticeably lock up, mostly because his guard had been on when he came in here and it's not been let up, and he doesn't stop giving the kitten all the pets it wants and deserves. but there is a bit of tension, there, a subtle shift in the look in his eyes. ]
Which one did you hear about it from?
[ and how much did you hear about it. most likely felix, he's assuming, who's done extensive research into the freelancers as a whole and had access to their evaluations and profiles. sharkface might've had access to them too, but he doesn't know if he's the type to have really gone through them. ]
no subject
[ They haven't specifically - he thinks - talked about names and the very precise varied ways the implants can go wrong.
It's just that he's heard things about how frequently those things go fucking wrong in general, and in various ways. He's also taken, and seen, some pretty damn advanced medical scans of Ephemera (with a tricorder) and had the guy having seizures at his feet. ]
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