[OTA] All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend

[serialskiller]

Who: Murderbot and You
When: Post Info Meeting, Post Muppets
Where: All over the place!
Summary: Critical failure to cope
Warnings: Discussion of slavery, exploitation of sentient beings, capitalism, death all likely here.


1. And I was runnin' far away [STELLAR DINING ROOM]
With no food being served in the dining room, there's no reason anyone is going to be there, so it's where a Murderbot hides while breaking down, while breaking apart internally. Those who regularly check in on it will find their messages returned unopened, because...look. It's too much. It's all too much.


2. Would I run off the world someday? [ANYWHERE PUBLIC]
As sense returns, Murderbot realizes others will be in similar broken states, emotionally. For the first time since Jinx expanded its drone fleet, it's going to be flying them all at once, trying to seek out those who have hidden away, those who need company but not people. Don't be surprised if a drone just comes and hovers near your character, listening and saying nothing. It means well, really it does.


A few of the drones do have speakers, though, so if you attempt to engage it in a conversation, you'll get that.


3. Nobody knows, nobody knows [ADULT POOL]
While not the same sort of Event the Muppets showing, there's a couple times early in October that the projector over the Adult Pool will inexplicably be showing episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. If someone looks for the source of this, they'll notice MB up by the projector itself, its media player auxed into the projector.

You know. Good calming relaxing material. Right?


4. And I was dancing in the rain [SAND DOLLARS]
Finally, coming back to itself, trying to figure out a path forward, Murderbot...it finds itself wanting to having something to hold onto of its crew that it now knows it'll never see again. Find it hiding in a closed cafe, where no one will look for company, surely. Find it with the one photograph it has of the PreservationAux survey team and its watercolors, trying desperately to capture the faces it has in memory and the personalities that go with it. A young woman with black hair and sharp eyes, looking like she's arguing about something. A motherly older woman with deep skin, smiling like she's proud of the viewer. A man with pale eyes and visible augmentations along one side of his face, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Another man, a man too pretty for his own good, reaching out a tentative hand, compassion written across his face.

The paintings, they aren't enough to capture the personalities, but it has to try, it has to do something, it has to hold onto these people. Memories can be erased, but it wants the people it loves down on paper, for others to see.


5. I felt alive and I can't complain [WILDCARD]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot

Comments

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri did a disappearing act of his own not too long ago. In all honesty, the promise he made Rich and Darcy is all that's stopping him from repeating the performance. But he also can't be a person right now, and when his messages to SecUnit (on an increasingly cracked phone screen) seem to drop into a void, Dimitri can guess what's happened.

It's not even too hard to find, once Dimitri looks. He just checks the same places he'd haunted. Stellar in the slow hours was a good hiding-spot -- quiet, and so spacious that if anyone did come in, they could easily miss Dimitri jammed into a corner or huddled under a table. SecUnit is somewhat easier to spot, but still well-hidden.

Not well enough for a dedicated searcher who knows where to look. Dimitri takes up a spot with his back to the wall a fair distance away, just close enough that it's obvious what he's doing.

He doesn't say anything yet. If SecUnit wants to talk (or text, or otherwise communicate) first, Dimitri will give it the chance.

[serialskiller]

If anything, Murderbot huddles in on itself a little more, bracing in anticipation of a lecture or a bitchfit or being told off or...

...look, there's just no 'good ending' to being found like this, is there? It's awkward and painful and humiliating, the way Mensah visiting its cubicle had been, way-back-when.
(She's very close to mind right now, even though it will never see her again.)

[prince_of_beasts]

... fair enough.

The silence weighs too heavily. Dimitri can't bring himself to break it. Instead, he pulls out his phone, with its increasingly cracked screen. Face scrunched in concentration, he painstakingly taps out,

ill leave if yuou want
but i tried beign alone last time
and it was worsre

A pause.

sory
im not vrey goood at typing

[serialskiller]

Murderbot pulls out its own phone, staring at the screen quietly.

"Worse how?" The words sound hollow, devoid of emotion. Good emotionless bot voice in play.

[prince_of_beasts]

it ws after the dinre
i thouhhgt no one would want to ese me atfer what i did
i thohught they would hate me

Dimitri hesitates.

i still think they should

but i wssa swaw sasw Dimitri jabs the screen, and only succeeds in adding another crack to the collection. He growls and bites his tongue, taking the next few characters with painstaking care. was hutrting myself
in the end i sufred surfred hurt mor than if i had just talked to htem

Dimitri watches the text window, transfixed by the blinking cursor. Softly, aloud, he adds, "When you found me in the library. That was part of it."

[serialskiller]

"You should talk to Cesar. About making your phone more durable."

That's easier to focus on than actual anything involving feelings. It's going to avoid that part for as long as it can.

[prince_of_beasts]

"Oh. That's a good idea."

Dimitri shrugs off the backpack he's been wearing and slides down the wall, sitting with his legs crossed and his elbows on his knees. The backpack only makes it about halfway to SecUnit on the first push (linoleum has more friction than Dimitri expected). He has to scramble and awkwardly flip it within reach, face scrunched sheepishly, before returning to his spot at a comfortable distance.

If SecUnit opens the bag, it'll find a heavy quilt, stuffed thick with wool and down, with a roaring lion's face in the center and a velvet border of dark pines and blue sky. It's faded, some of the stitchwork beginning to fray, painstakingly repaired by a delicate hand. It smells like cedar, not lavender and chamomile (if SecUnit's sensors are sharp enough: traces of flour and sugar, ginger and dark soil).

Dimitri's voice is muted, carefully monotone in his own way. "I brought a blanket. It's not as heavy as yours, but I thought it might help."

[serialskiller]

Murderbot picks up the blanket with both hands and buries its face in it, taking a deep slow sniff.

"I don't understand. I never have understood. Why...some people are capable of. Caring about me."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. (Shockingly, it's more comfortable without bruised ribs.)

"I don't understand why they care about me, either," he admits.

[serialskiller]

It's quiet, not knowing how to respond to that. Eventually, it wraps the blanket around its own shoulders like a cape, kind of.

"You realize you're part of 'them', from where I'm sitting. Right?"

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri scrambles through his memory to put context to that, and --

-- oh.

The meeting in the library is a fiery blur of snow and smoke -- Dimitri can't remember saying it out loud, but he must have, if SecUnit means what he thinks it means.

Goddess. Had he actually managed to forget?

" ... I apologize." Dimitri's voice is clear. It's his version of the buffer voice, neutral and polished, stiffer pronunciation bringing his accent thicker through the ship's translation. "I can make no excuses for myself."

[serialskiller]

"I mean one of the ones who cares for me. That I don't understand." It glances sidelong, indirectly at Dimitri. "You don't know why 'they' do. I don't know why you do."

[prince_of_beasts]

What.

Okay never mind deep breath false alarm.

"Sorry. I, um ... " Yeah let's just not make this one worse. Dimitri rakes a hand through his hair (it is really getting too long). "You were one of the first people -- figuratively, I mean -- I spoke to when I arrived. You helped me when I made an utter mess of myself at the pirates' party. And you lent me your blanket before -- isn't it right that I return the favor?"

[serialskiller]

It doesn't have a rebuttal to that, and stews in silence for several seconds.

"So. It's reciprocity? That's it?"

[prince_of_beasts]

"Not ... exactly."

Dimitri was raised with the language of debt and duty. He's felt its inadequacy before -- painfully -- but he has no other tongue to use. He fumbles, groping in the dark for words he doesn't understand.

"What I mean is ... I can't speak for anyone else. But I care for you," why is that strangely hard to say? "because you've been kind to me, and patient with me, of your own free will. Simply because I was there, and in distress. And someone who is kind and patient deserves kindness and patience in return."

That's not right. It's not enough. Dimitri muffles a frustrated noise in his elbow.

"I don't know how not to care. I can't afford not to. We have to care for each other. No one else will. And the consequences for not doing so are unforgivable."

Still there's a hollow space in Dimitri's chest, something slipping like smoke between his fingers.

" ... there are things we have in common that I've never shared with anyone. I can speak to you about things no one else would understand." Even if he's belatedly come to realize the full breadth of the gap between them. "I hope that's in some way reciprocal."

Deep breath.

"And ... you remind me of a -- a f-friend. From home. I know you're not him -- that's not fair to you -- but I ... " Dimitri's voice thickens, and he swallows a sniffle. "I'm sorry. This was a lot to say all at once. I don't mean to overwhelm you."

[serialskiller]

Murderbot pulls the quilt off of its shoulders, holding it in both hands. And it flings a dart at a board it can't see.

"The friend you're talking about, was he the one who made the repairs to this blanket?"

[prince_of_beasts]

Straight to the heart.

" ... yes." It's barely audible, a hoarse whisper. Dimitri swallows around a stone.

He should say something more, but the words won't form.

[serialskiller]

Who needs words?

Murderbot stands. Walks over to Dimitri. Drapes the blanket around his shoulders. And then sits back down again, right beside him, to where their knees are almost just barely not touching, but it's a very tiny thing and they could at any moment.

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri is so, so tempted to lean to the side. It's only a few inches. Barely even that. It would be so easy.

He won't. He can't. This isn't for his sake; he is all too good at making conversations about himself, even when he intended the exact opposite.

On the other hand, he can't get SecUnit to talk when it's given him nothing to work with. Instead, Dimitri tugs at the corner of the quilt, and say, "It was mine to begin with. I gave it to him when he -- came to live with me. I can't sew at all -- something always breaks, or tears -- but he's a wonder at that sort of delicate work. He has a gentler touch than I'll ever be capable of."

[serialskiller]

"I knew they weren't your repairs." There's...the very tiniest ghost of a tease. "It's...nice. To have someone who you trust to be meticulous and careful and detail oriented. I...once had someone who performed surgery on my body. Who I had to trust was that good with details. All the tiny fiddly details."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri huffs, only mock indignant. The teasing is comfortable; familiar, in a way that aches. His hand drifts to the jewelry box in his pocket.

"A surgeon? You must have trusted them a great deal." Dimitri assumes it means combat injury; cosmetic surgery isn't even a possibility in his mind. "What are they like?"

[serialskiller]

"It isn't strictly a surgeon. It's a transport ship--or the bot pilot for one. But it was using its MedSystem to perform the surgery. And it's...well, a fucking asshole."

Sorry, ART.

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri needs a second to unpack that one. He can guess that MedSystem is a short form of "medical system", but the rest ...

"A ship's captain? A ... 'bot'? Do you mean a construct, like yourself?"

[serialskiller]

"A construct whose body is a whole ship, instead of one person. It means it has a lot more processors--a larger brain, if that makes sense. It's the mind that keeps the ship running."

Right, it makes sense that Dimitri wouldn't be familiar.

[prince_of_beasts]

A mind that's an entire ship -- Dimitri struggles to comprehend. For now, he can accept it, and leave understanding for later.

"And it's an asshole, you say?" Dimitri chuckles. "I've known a few. Though I can't imagine what kind of asshole a ship would be."

He pauses and rests his cheek on his crossed arms.

" ... I miss them, too."