driftfleet | Red Fish assemble!

[It occurs to her, belatedly, that unlike with everyone else so far, she hasn't rattled off her surnames when introducing herself, as if his silence is rubbing off on her. Or maybe, disturbingly, she's starting to finally realize that who she used to be doesn't matter.]

Coil? [Asuka's never learned sign language, but she can get the letters, at least, after a second's scrutiny. He's settling into the sewing enough that she lets the quietness kind of hang in the air, just watching him work with a slight amount of envy. His stitches are a vast improvement over hers already, not scraggly at all. They'll hold.]

When did you lose that eye? [Asuka doesn't quite sound conversational when she asks, more demanding than anything. It's as if her own eye being gone, too, has given her carte blanche to inquire.] It was years ago, wasn't it?

[and he doesn't answer at first, not even hesitating in his work, as if his being mute gives him the right to ignore whatever questions or demands that he wants. but, he's curious too, so... he sees a possible opportunity for a trade.

he nods, and then glances over to point at her missing eye, and trace a question mark in the air with one finger.

eye-for-an-eye, as far as questions go.]

[A tradeoff. She thought so. Her visible eye narrows, body language stiffening, but then she nods.]

It's been fourteen years. [Asuka wonders if he'll find her more inept with the admission, and then she decides she doesn't care. A pause. She doesn't really want to tell him the next part, but with her rages onboard and off, it's probably worth saying, or else he might start wondering how a missing eye can glow through a patch. She touches the eyepatch with the tip of her finger, feeling the pressure of the hex glyphs that seal it off. Still working.] There's an eye still. But it doesn't work.

[he shoots her a skeptical look at that answer, and he wants to ask her how old she is, but the comment that follows (and the fact that he doesn't have an easy way to ask that question anyway,) derails the thought.

the needle gets stabbed into the punching bag and left for a second, so he can turn toward her a little bit. he can't ask more clearly than pointing at her eye again and looking interested and questioning, but it's clear by his face that he wants to see.

just for a second. he just wants a peek.]

Fine. But you're going to tell me what happened to yours.

[Fair's fair, after all. Asuka figures she should probably get some paper (can he write, though?) or else grab those sign language books to figure out his incoming answer, if any. Show me yours, I'll show you mine, and all that. But she doesn't wait on a response before lifting up her eyepatch, quickly, because she's scared she won't be able to go through with it otherwise.]

[It's a mess beneath the patch. No scars, no signs of trauma. But her sclera's completely black, iris an inhumanly glowing, electric blue ring around a dilated pupil. Asuka blinks several times in succession, the dual images already making her a bit dizzy, but it's still glaringly obvious that that eye isn't focused in the slightest. Her good eye's looking at his face steadily, hand nervously tightening around a handful of the plugsuit material on her thigh, ready to pounce-- or flee.]

Seen enough?

[his own glowing, moon-colored eye looks downright mundane compared to that, and all of his previous reservation is temporarily forgotten in light of it.

finally, he's fully facing her like good humans are supposed to do when socializing. he gets close though, peering in at her eye as if he could burn the information into his brain to pore over later. he can see the struggle that lifting up the patch apparently is for her, so he is very aware of how short-lived this glimpse is probably going to be.

at this proximity, she can get a good look at all of his scars--dinging up the line of his mouth and tracing out from under his eye--and can see the hungry way that he's inspecting the mystery there. like he wants to just pluck out her eye and plop it under a microscope.

he does nod, though. it's a tiny, reluctant motion, but he's not completely lost to his lust for answers. he has enough restraint to acknowledge her... and not beg for more, like he'd like to.]

[Asuka's breathing, usually a half-remembered occurrence, is heavier than it should be with nerves. He's not disturbed-- of course he's not disturbed; he's a weird guy, that was obvious from the start-- he's intrigued. Which, in its way, is worse. She's been studied off and on ever since her contamination, a living petri dish for the likes of Dr. Akagi, an invaluable resource for understanding the biology of Angels. But he doesn't seem to be in any position of power solid enough to order her to go through any testing. And despite all that, Asuka would still take curiosity over revulsion any day of the week.]

[She allows Coil a few more seconds to keep looking before, face coloring, she snaps the eyepatch back into place. The eye glows through the material for a second before the suppressing glyphs tamp down on the reaction. Then, as if she can't quite stop trying to hide, she even pushes her bangs down a bit over the patch.]

It's not that interesting, idiot. Are you going to tell me about yours, or what?

[if he had been in a position to enforce some kind of testing, it might have been a completely different story. he luckily doesn't have that power, though, so he keeps the more voracious aspects of his curiosity reined in. for now, at least.

and, either way, it's definitely far from revulsion. if anything, what's under her eyepatch makes her more interesting and less akin to the common, human population. these are good things in his book.

so, he only huffs under his breath at the insult. and the line of his mouth presses flat more from the frustration of not being able to communicate easily than anything else.

he wonders if she'll be satisfied with a vague answer, so he tries that first--curling his fingers into claw-shapes, he mimes raking them down across his missing eye.]

An animal clawed your eye out?

[Asuka has seen pictures of more animals than she's ever encountered, but she can still get a mental image going. It would make the scars on his face make sense, too. Maybe a wild dog or something. Huh. She had been hoping for a less ordinary explanation, much as she still doesn't want to reveal her own. But the gruesome commonality is still appreciated. Eyeless birds of a feather. Unconsciously, she moves her eyepatch a bit, trying to fix its position entirely back to normal, as she peers at him curiously.]

A dog? Or a wolf? [What she wouldn't give to have a piece of paper and a pencil handy. But she could figure out his name before, so--] Spell it out.

[he first spells out 'M-O-N-S-T-E-R,' but that word is pretty much made up of all of the least-intuitive alphabet shapes, aside from the 'O.' so, he sighs before he even gives her a chance to figure it out, and glances around to the side while he tries to think of another way to phrase it.

after a few seconds, he tries again with 'E-V-I-L.' she'll probably have the most trouble with that first letter, but there aren't many other words it could be if she figures out the ones that follow.

he could just get up to go fetch his notebook, but there's something about this interaction that he doesn't want to walk away from, and then try to return to. he feels like some spell might be broken if he did. someone would put a wall back up in the meantime, decide to do something more sensible with their time, and that would be it. and for once, he doesn't really want that.]

[Once she deduces the second sign (no large amount of luck with the first), Asuka actually laughs, the sound rough, almost like a bark. It doesn't fit her.]

Yeah. Me, too.

[It's enough of an explanation for now. She doesn't want to ruin the moment either. It's a little daunting to have shared as much as she already has with him. Her eye's a blight even to herself, only usually seen by Dr. Akagi and her ilk. Frightening to share, but... for once, she doesn't really regret letting him that far in.]

Did it get your throat, too?

[he blinks at that cough of a laugh--almost a flinch--but, he gets it. he feels something similar, if quieter and deeper down, when she agrees. and it certainly doesn't make him want to look again at her eye any less.

but he'll put that want away, for now. it can be pulled out and quietly mulled over later, once they finally part and return to their quiet corners of the ship again.

in the meantime, he shakes his head. it's a question he gets often enough, so he points to his mouth instead, and then traces a little X right over his lips.]

Your mouth? [No, no, that's not right, so she hazards another guess.] Your tongue? The same thing that got your eye, right?

["Evil" is pretty all-encompassing. Asuka's still initially picturing something wild, maybe even rabid, but as far as her limited understanding of animals goes, they don't seem too likely to go after the tongue of someone still alive.]

Something alien? [She feels a little uncomfortable, asking all the time like this, when he can't respond that easily.] Look, just tell me if I'm asking too much. I know how it is, so. I won't get mad.

[he hadn't felt the pang of real self-consciousness until right then. part of it is the weight of the question, (the fact that he was the cause of his own muteness isn't exactly something that he feels like sharing,) and part of it is her drawing back and offering him respite from it. it's enough to bring focus back to the fact that this conversation is happening at all.

so, he sits back a little, lets his gaze wander without answering. he won't tell her that she's asking too much, because that feels like a surrender at this point. but, he will change the subject.

questioningly, he points at the demolished punching bag, and then gestures at her. it's pretty obvious that it's probably her fault, but he'd been too caught up in the fact that it had been wrecked to really think about that she'd been the one to somehow accomplish it.]

That? [Oh. Of course. Asuka's spent her whole life around people that knew exactly what was going on with her, how her biology was warping itself, to the point that no one did more than shudder at her bouts of temper. She both does and doesn't want to answer him; he'll think she's stranger still for any response she gives, so after a moment or two, she touches her patch again.]

The thing that screwed up my eye got the rest of me, too. [Her hand drops from the patch like a stone.] It contaminated me.

[well, he does give her a look at that--brow furrowing with a slow-building wariness--but it's probably not for reasons she's worried about. his is a very specific concern.

and he doesn't want to have to wonder about this thing that is now suddenly looming up in his mind, so... he'll just go right out and ask.

with a demonstrative grimace, he points at his own teeth, the canines specifically, and then points at her. he wants to see. he needs to make sure.]

Do you think I'm a vampire or something?

[She bares her teeth, even yanking her lower lip down so he can get a better view. A healthy set of gums, for someone who doesn't eat. White enough teeth, all normal-sized, even the canines. After a few seconds, she lets go, face stuck in what's almost a pout.]

I'm not contagious. [But people had sure acted like she was at NERV and WILLE.] I can't infect you.

[really, he takes the whole display rather well. he doesn't react to the question, and just leans in a little to give her teeth a good glance-over when she makes a face. as far as he's concerned, she has cooperated wonderfully with his request.

because, yeah. he needs to make sure that she's not a vampire. that's exactly it.

so, once he's satisfied, and she has reassured him that she's not a vector for something insidious, he nods. as if there is nothing ridiculous about this exchange at all.]

[Asuka's normally pallid cheeks have gone slightly pink from embarrassment at the display, feeling like a racehorse undergoing inspection, but at least he hasn't winced or anything at the state of her teeth, or made a face. That would have been mortifying.]

[But now to get the conversation away from her, since he seems satisfied. She doesn't want to go into the particulars of what she is unless she absolutely has to.]

Do you get that many weirdos where you're from?

[at least he seems to find absolutely nothing strange about all of this, and doesn't linger on it at all. if he notices the color in her cheeks, he doesn't let on.

since she's not the sort of monster he's worried about, he can put off the rest of his curiosity until later. he's a patient guy. so, he just continues chatting with a long-suffering nod. and just to clarify--since this still seems to be sharing time--he holds up two fingers to point down from where his canines would be.]

[Asuka's no expert on the supernatural, but there's really only one creature known for its fangs.]

You really did think I was a vampire, didn't you.

[She gives an aggravated, long-suffering sigh that's half a put on, and then, because that seems sort of insufficient, she says--]

You're Li-- human-- normal, right? Sort of?

[there's a little bit of a pause--either wondering at the word she'd almost said, or hesitating at the "sort of" part--but he ultimately nods.

his eye might have a bit of glow to it, and there might be other terms associated with exactly what he is, but he's still pretty much human.]

Red Fish assemble!

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