viking_seer | TLV Inbox

Pardon. What anger, Saga.

"Ma'am?"

She doesn't look at all flummoxed. She sees true. She knows what she sees.

She tips her chin towards him.

"Why is killing them more important than saving them a week's worth of suffering? The people who'd care for them a week's extra work. The infirmary extra supplies."

She turns her hand, palm up.

"It's pretty obvious you don't like non-lethal neutralization. But instead of offering a potentially more efficient alternative, you question whether I've ever killed someone."

She looks back at him.

"You don't strike me as a straight up sadist. Anger is the next best guess. Add to that the fact that, nice or not, I've put you off kilter most of this discussion..."

She shrugs.

Hold on he's just gonna sit and stare for a second, slightly alarmed. That's a lot more of an answer than he wanted.

He answers the part that he can think to explain. "Keeps whoever had to be put down from hurting anyone for a week."

As for the care and supplies, well. He himself doesn't care. So the infirmary or a warden has to spend some time on someone who got themselves killed. The Admiral can just conjure more supplies up, as far as he's aware. Logistically, it doesn't matter.

She's got her eyes firmly locked on his.

"No. It doesn't. Or you're gonna tell me you couldn't pull a trigger a day after you woke up?"

She shakes her head.

"But here's the thing: even if you were right? That's not handling a crisis, David. That's meteing out a punishment."

She tilts her head to one side.

"And how you said that: 'had to be put down'. That's not how you talk about people, David. That's how you talk about rabid animals."

There's a moment where he's not sure what to do. Say. How to respond even in body language.

Then he remembers why he's here, who she is to him, presumably why he can speak freely.

That makes the reply a lot easier.

"Yes, ma'am."

She just nods, though it's clear that was what she expected and not what she was hoping for. Instead, she looks across the table.

"So do you want to talk about that anger?"

Unfortunately, his confusion is genuine.

"I'm not angry."

"So you've got another reason for wanting to be able to punish people?"

She's open to hearing what else you've got, David.

"I..." And lo, there's a tingle of frustration at the edges of the empty.

It's what he does. It's what he's for. It's the whole point of him, anymore. He's a weapon, and a good one, and that's the whole thing right there. He doesn't know how to explain what's so perfectly obvious.

"I'm not sure what you're looking for from me, Agent Anderson."

She leans in a little and tilts her head just so. Her smile is soft.

"I'm looking to understand how you feel and what you think. Those things are important to me."

He finds, to his own frustration, that he wants her to yell at him. He wants her to scream insults into his face like a disappointed drill sergeant. Then at least there would be a pattern in all this that's familiar. But that smile is so infuriatingly kind and all he can think about is her hand in his hair, comforting him on that bloodstained couch while he faded out of the world for the umpteenth time.

That's what creates enough of a crack for him to voice what should be self-explanatory. What the drill sergeant and the CO and even the researchers at Project Aegolius knew.

"It's my job." He's the property of the US Army. It's what he does.

She opens her mouth to answer when there's a beep from her communicator. She'll play it for him to hear that her request has been granted before she nods in satisfaction and puts it back away.

"All done."

She folds her arms again.

"Do you like your job?" And she'll pause just long enough before adding- "or do you think it's your only option?"

It's startling, how simple it is, and how instant. He blinks, blinks again, and actually has to close his eyes to give himself a second as the world sharpens into intense detail. Doesn't help that at the same time he can suddenly hear the soft trickle of her toilet running, the footsteps of someone passing in the hall, the minuscule creak of his chair as he shifts his weight. It's startling, though he'll be relieved once he's used to it again. He knows that.

"It's what I signed up for." Not like he really understood that as a kid, but he's been in for way too long not to know it now.

He opens his eyes slowly and blinks a couple more times to try and get himself acclimated. It's like walking into bright afternoon light after being in a dark room all day.

"As a teenager, I would guess," because it's not like she's unaware of how the army works.

"You're older now. You've been through a lot, I would guess. Just from what we've talked about. You have to serve, what, three years to get a full ride through school? A tour of duty is a year or less. And you've done a lot more than that."

She looks to David earnestly.

"You have other options. So I'd like to know what you actually want."

"Yes ma'am," he says, confirming his enlistment age. He scratches the back of his head, awkward.

He doesn't know what he wants. It doesn't particularly matter. Never has. He's had people telling him where to go, what to do, presenting him with the next natural steps his whole life.

"What I want has never been a particular issue."

"I can understand that," she says gently. "But what you want, and who you want to be, are hugely important right now. And it's not something that you can defer to other people for.

"Including me."

And that's the problem, to him. He's not sure how to want. Not in the capital-W Want way that people seem to mean when they say that word. He's a soldier. It's what he is, it's what he's been practically since high school. He does what people want.

David shifts in his chair, leaning back a little. "Yes, ma'am."

"But I'm going to guess that's not something you're prepared to do yet," she says a little more quietly, "so we're going to work up to that."

There's a pause as if to say 'you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's where I'm at'.

She lets her shoulders settle a little.

"So right now, I'm going to ask if there are any pain points you've been feeling while you're here. Things you need, things you'd like, things that would make being here easier. That can be personal gear, personal items, or changes to your room, including a toilet and sink."

"I'd rather not change my room." That's easy enough. John already posed that question and David discovered he did, in fact, have a preference there. "It's... It's someone else's."

They're going to talk about Caleb sooner or later. He has to be in David's file. There's no way that he's not. But he doesn't have to, yet. Not yet.

He studies the table, frowning. "I-- Honestly I don't need much. Basics are more than covered here."

If anything he's sometimes overwhelmed by the options.

She's noticed.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it."

First assignment set. She's not going to introduce it yet, though. They have other things to deal with.

"Then we can move onto you and me. First off: what do you know about me? And second: what questions do you have that I can address right off the bat?"

"Your name's Saga Anderson, you work with the FBI back in the world. You were Arthur's warden. You're... more than baseline, as far as humans are concerned. You and the writer know each other, as I understand it. Beyond that not a whole lot."

Questions. Questions. He feels blank, like he's been given a test he didn't study for, somehow. He doesn't know how to ask any more. If he needs information he's given information. Most of the time he doesn't need information, as far as his superiors are concerned.

"Uh. I suppose-- How do you and Mr Wake know each other?"

"I pulled him out of a dimension known as the Dark Place," she offers up to him easily enough. "He'd been trapped there for over a decade. I was in town working on a case having to do with a cult that was being blamed for a number of murders near the lake that serves as the gateway to that dimension."

She considers before adding-

"I got pulled into his narrative, became a character in his story. It's how I learned to start writing my own story. That you need to, if you want to get the ending you want."

"That-- makes sense." There's irony in his tone at makes sense, because really, it's completely insensible. Or it would be if he wasn't here, now.

But again it comes down to that wanting. Wanting an ending. Wanting in general.

"How'd it turn out? You get your killer?"

"It was a lot more complicated than that," she admits, "and, it turns out, a lot more personal. I found out a lot about myself."

She tilts her head with a crooked smile.

"Like that part about not being a 'baseline human'? Yeah, I wasn't aware of that until about a week before I got here. It was... let's just say it was an experience."

His eyebrows go up. "I'll bet."

It's probably the most uncalculated reaction she's seen from him, other than the times she's startled him herself.

"How'd you find out?"

He doesn't notice that he's asked another question unprompted.

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