[OTA] Man of Steel, Pray and Kneel

[serialskiller]

Who: Murderbot and Friends
When: Mid-November
Where: A little bit of everywhere
Summary: Snacktime, Naptime, Recess
Warnings: None yet

1. But I gave you life! [Buffet and other restaurants]
A body must be sustained, or performance reliability drops. Murderbot knows this.

Food has flavor. Murderbot also knows this.

Look, early on in the stomach-having experience, Murderbot found dinosaur chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and declared those 'safe' foods and generally rejected most of everything else on the ship because...because it wasn't ready to expand yet. Something was safe and something became familiar and something soon became a comfort food. But it's been a few months of this. Murderbot is now ready to start trying new things.

It's not hard to tell that's what's going on, either, as the cyborg begins loading plates at the buffet with tiny sample servings of everything, or taking things at Mikabo one at a time in single plate portions, or even visiting Scoops to try a single spoonful of everything available (except the long pig).

Perhaps you can suggest combinations of food or offer context for some of what's going on (like that gravy goes on potatoes instead of being spooned directly into one's mouth). Or perhaps you just want to watch its experiments.


2. What else could you do? [Pool Deck, Night]
The stars are a lie. The stars have always been a lie.

But on a cool breezy summer night (they're all cool breezy summer nights), lying out on a deck chair under them and staring up isn't not a little bit relaxing.

Murderbot isn't flying any of its drones right now. It's not paying attention to everyone and everything around, just for this moment. It's here wholly in itself, eyeing the universeless sky, and feeling very small. Which is okay. Sometimes small is a good thing. Sometimes you want to wrap the blackness around yourself like a blanket and just be.

Of course, if left alone for too long, eventually its eyes slip closed. There may be a soft sound heard from the cyborg, if one walks past. A low, rhythmic rumble paired with a hushed little puff. Murderbot...is snoring.


3. To do what was right! [Around the Ship, previous CR]
The time has come for a change, a subtle shift in perception and a very tiny assertion of preference. If your character is someone in the habit of referring to Murderbot as Rin, expect to be approached at some point in this month.

"Do you have a moment?" It sounds a little uncertain, its posture an apology.


4. I'm perfect, are you? [Wildcard]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot

Comments

[serialskiller]

"...strawberry?" It's an arbitrary choice, it'll try either. "Are there things you're avoiding looking at, Klaus?"

[busball]

Klaus nods, stilling just for a moment. "Uh..." There's a nervous laugh at this. "Um. Well, you know." A beat. "Um." They look at the bar, choosing to go over there instead of answer-answer the question for now. Yep. Just gonna hand over this daiquiri. "It's really nice outside, isn't it?"

[serialskiller]

"I hope you don't think that was a particularly skillful method for avoiding the question." It accepts the daiquiri, setting the towel aside now. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it. You can tell me 'no', you know."

[busball]

Klaus looks down, sipping at the drink. It's...a lot to seriously talk about his shit. Sarcastic comments and casual comments that seem like a very blase thing? Sure. Real shit? Ehhh. "I mean...I guess it started because of the ghosts and it stuck around...because of the...vibes." They shrug. "I dunno. It's hard to talk about. But it's easier to be a...a disappointment when you don't give a shit, right? If you're fucked up out of your mind, no one can like...you know..."

He frowns. "I dunno. It doesn't matter."

[serialskiller]

"Klaus. You told me I'm your best friend. If you can't talk about this with your best friend, who can you? It's clear that you're being affected emotionally."

Surprise, bitch, calling everyone your best friend may have consequences when you want to weasel out of hard talks.

cw: drug/alcohol abuse/child abuse tbh mentions

[busball]

Wow. You would use his best friendship against him like this? How dare you, tbh? This is gonna hurt him emotionally. The itch to risk a brain freeze just to be more drunk for this conversation is strong. So yeah. Maybe they will just casually try to drink more of their drink now. Make the next one a double. Ughhh.

"It's just..." He sighs. "I dunno." Putting things into words is hard. Sure, he's done it every time he's ended up in rehab, but like...that was also a lot of bullshitting on his part. "When I was a kid, I was so scared of the ghosts and...my dad said I was weak and used to lock me in this mausoleum for hours. To make me less scared? Only it didn't make me less scared. It just...fucked me up. And the less okay I was with ghosts, small spaces, anything at all...the less of a shit I gave about training and generally everything? The more of a fucking useless disappointment I was to him. I was so small."

Still is. He's still a useless disappointment. More trouble than he's worth. And even though people told them that their dad was full of shit, the words are still in there, burrowing deeper into their core as a person.

"I've been an addict since...probably sixteen? I started then. Maybe seventeen. So I dunno. Just...easier. To be what everyone thinks you are anyway, right?" Except everyone here thought weirdly well of them and that was...a lot. "Can't die anyway, so...like...oh no? Not even here. Forever."

cw: more suicide ideation

[serialskiller]

Murderbot quietly reaches over to settle the towel around Klaus's shoulders. They need it more right now, clearly.

Because it can't bring itself to hug them, even though one is clearly called for. It doesn't know anything about how to help with any of this. Except. How to be here.

"It's hard. Knowing you'll survive. Or if you don't survive, you'll come back. It's almost as if...there's an option taken away. That final option. You don't know there'll be an end to it all at any point. And that's...kind of awful? Being brought back. Is awful, too."

[busball]

If it wanted to make Klaus go completely still and stare into space for a long moment, it succeeded. Just little acts of kindness. They're more difficult to know how to react to than basically anything else.

"Yeah." Not that Klaus has ever really tried on purpose. Outside of busball, but that was different. "Dad said it used to take me an hour to come back." Which...obviously means he'd done it before. "I got up to like a minute eventually. Maybe not even a minute?" They sigh, drinking more of the margarita. "I mean...I guess it was useful back home, but here it's...I dunno. Does anything really matter?"

Yes. Yes, they have friends...but part of them feels like..."I don't know how to deal with people giving a shit about me. Like...my siblings, sure. That's...you know...my siblings. I don't know how to be...just normal about shit. Like people are so nice here but like...why? I'm just...I'm like this weird trash creature that just...exists? And like sure I've wanted my dad to give a shit about me my whole life. I just...maybe I don't deserve it?"

[serialskiller]

Murderbot starts to open its mouth to say something commiseratory, but stops and sort of frowns, because. Like.

Klaus's turn to talk about problems, even if its issues echo against those problems so much it could almost cry. Right. Let's...find a way to talk about it without stealing any of the attention.

"And I bet it's hard. When people here see value in you that no one else back home could. When they immediately work from the assumption that you're worthy of respect and caring when you can't even reach that conclusion for yourself through hard logic. They treat you like you're an equal. Right? And you feel like. If you were at all worthy of that. Maybe you'd have had it all along? But you didn't. So you don't. And it hurts. A lot. Right?"

[busball]

Klaus looks down, on knee coming up to his chest. The knee-jerk reaction to insist that everything is fine and that they shouldn't bother it with their stupid problems is very much the avenue that Klaus wants to take, but...

All of the words hit and he's never really thought about it before like that. "It just feels like..." A sigh. "Yeah. I guess all of that." He frowns. "Sorry for disrupting your sleep and being depressing." They really should have done better at the telling it no thing. Then this would have saved them both a lot of feelings. Or like...saved SecUnit from having to humor him and try to make him feel better.

All the same, he just squeezes his knee against his chest with one arm and forces the insistence that SecUnit doesn't have to be nice about it down. "Pratt told me I should...like...do daily affirmations or something. Only it just...feels like lying to myself."

[serialskiller]

Murderbot moves so it's sitting sideways on the deck chair, feet flat on the ground, legs spread somewhat. And it gestures at that spot in front of it. "Sit down here for a moment. Facing away from me."

There's a reason. Actually, there's a few reasons. Maybe more than a few reasons.

[busball]

Klaus squints for a moment before slowly moving to sit down, setting what's left of their drink to the side just in case. "Okay." He's just gonna be here and be tense for a minute. "Now what?"

[serialskiller]

Murderbot leans forward. Drapes its arms loosely around Klaus's shoulders and rests its head on top of Klaus's head.

It doesn't like touching. It hates being touched. But for a moment, it can tolerate being the person doing the touching. Just for a moment, here. Especially in a position where they can't look at it while it does so.

"Everything I just said. About people assuming you're worthy of respect, about being treated like an equal, about how much it hurts. I know that's what it feels like, because that's what I've been living, too." Its voice is a low, dull murmur, a rumble for Klaus's ears alone.

[busball]

Oh. This is a reverse hug. This is much nicer than the potential smack upside his head he was expecting. They want to reach up, but they also don't want it to like...move either cause...actually this is nice. Really nice. They relax slightly at the touch, arms wrapping around their legs again.

It's the words that make him feel sad. It's been feeling the same? "Oh." That makes not reaching up even more difficult. "I didn't know that's..." He frowns. "Because of back home, right? And people like...treating you different because of...you know the whole AI thing?" There's another knee-jerk reaction to insist that SecUnit is so much better by default, but that's stupid. "Guess we missed the self-confidence day at school, huh?"

[serialskiller]

"You don't have to bear it all alone. There are others here who understand." That old bad habit, telling other people things it needs to hear and internalize, is back. It squeezes Klaus for a moment, because it knows he needs it, because he knows it will help.

[busball]

Klaus does need it. Probably more than he's willing to admit, but physical touch is one of those things. It's nice to have. It's reassuring in a way they're not sure almost anything else is. "Old habits die hard, huh? I don't-" He frowns. "I'm not very good at this part of it either. Do you have people that help you?"

[serialskiller]

"Huh? Yeah, some. You're one of them."

It finally lets go, pulls back.

[busball]

Klaus smiles at that. "I'm glad." A pause. "Um. Thanks. For being...um...for the hug and stuff." They turn around once it pulls back. "And like...maybe we can work with each other on like....positive encouragement or whatever. Even if we can't tell ourselves and we'll feel weird about it a little."

[serialskiller]

"That's probably a good idea. It might actually help, coming from someone else we know has the same sort of issues instead of someone else who's actually fine just preaching at us."

You know, like most of the humans on the ship.

[busball]

Klaus nods. "I guess I should probably listen to Pratt more." There's a long sigh at that and he lays back on the deck. "We're basically the same person anyway. Except like...not entirely, but there's a lot of similarities. Only he's also not very good at believing good things about himself." They look over at SecUnit. "Do you think it's always gonna feel this gross?"