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(no subject)

Who: The burrito of death (aka Tek)
Broadcast: Audio, open to the fleet
Action: Bloodsport cargo hold
When: Broadcast day after the attack - Action open all month

[this one is sent in audio only, because goodness no one needs to see his current face--though, his voice isn't right either. it's too light, too delicate, and there is a little too much purr to it. especially without the aid of a video feed, it's hard to tell whether the speaker is male or female or monster at all.

and the tone is nothing but flat.]

Everyone is safe and accounted for? Nothing is entirely amiss? Wonderful.

[he isn't bitter about no one asking about his absence at all. nope. not one bit.]

So, I guess it's about time to start returning to our old routine, hmm? Everyone ready for things to go back to normal? Especially with such a good distraction from our recent little 'vacation home,' I know I sure am ready to forget about everything that just happened.

[this weapons-grade sarcasm could burn a hole through the floor.]

Especially with all of this new spending cash. ...Have you all checked your accounts today? The bonuses are already rolling in.

Isn't it wonderful.

[this sorry creature feels sickened and infuriated and doesn't have the strength to vent it any other way. so, a pissy broadcast it is!

and for anyone wandering the Red Fish any time soon, he can be found actually sitting up now. still wrapped in blankets and misery, but he's at least upright. it's a step.]

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[so then they're both still again, quiet for a moment, listening to the hum of the engine. the comfort is gone, of course. leeched effortlessly from the scene.]

...I hate this too. Taking care of you is fucking miserable, you know that?

[...he shouldn't have said that. but this isn't the future, and what can Tek do? drool on him? bite him? Robin reaches out again, puts a gentle hand on the back of his head.]

So shut up and go to sleep, or something.

[Tek's misery is, and always has been, largely of the spiritual sort. it bleeds far over into physical manifestations of pain, as well as mental, but the roots are still usually the same. in all of the years and manifestations, his various expressions of pain stem from the same place.

so, it is a rare, strange day indeed when his pain is emotional.

but it's there now--suddenly and silently--and anyone else in the world would have missed the shift. and it's a dull thing, but that's maybe to be expected with his nature, and is still unusual enough to stand out.

normally, the comment wouldn't have made a dent. Robin's comments never make dents. but some perfect combination of factors finally finds a gap in the armor, and sticks.

and the result tastes like loneliness.]

[he doesn't even realize it, for a moment, because Tek never feels lonely. Tek never seems to feel much of anything. by the time he realizes it, his frustration has already softened... so it hits him right in the heart.]

No, I... ['that's not what he meant', he wants to say. it compounds inwards, instead, like it always does. he changes his words, starts muttering in the way he would back in the den of dragons--half out of instinct, and half out of old habit.]

I'm sorry, sorry... [if they had a word for that. he digs in close, finds his face, presses their foreheads together. he opens himself up to Tek, traces of "I'm right here" threaded between their minds.] I'm sorry I spoke like that.

[there's nothing he can do, at first.

just as the initial shock of it is registering--familiarity scuttling like a horror-shiver up his spine--he's dug up out of his sheltered place. the protective layers are peeled away before he can think, and he's stuck, raw, up against something he isn't ready for.

and it's too much. he spends his life bracing for even a little bit of the feeling, and now this is all of it. a little ache that he's been worrying and toying with for years is pulled all the way open and exposed.

Robin wants to stick his fingers into the wound. and Tek would do anything to keep him out, erasing the words from his head entirely. but when he'd written his name, over and over, he'd gotten the ink on his skin. it'd already stained him long before Robin had even thought to thread anything into his mind at all.]

Stop--! [hissed through his teeth in that now-shared language, and he shoves Robin back. violently breaking the connection, he pushes, curling in on himself again and twisting his face away. desperate to get away.]

[maybe it's a good thing their connection is severed; being shoved might as well have been a knife between his ribs, with the way it stings. he's pushed back, and is suddenly shaking. this is going so wrong all of a sudden. why can't he just--?

he stays there, trembling uselessly with a rage or a fear and staring at Tek, who's leaving him. hiding, flying away, disappearing again for another month or two to show up one day like it never happened. he's... tired of this. he doesn't want to get left behind anymore.

he sits up. it separates them further. he takes a couple of breaths, steadying his shoulders. years ago, he would have left. no, years ago he would have felt this cold sting and taken up a very real knife and lanced his friend through the heart in retaliation.

but now, he sits next to his useless form, the both of them crumpled and miserable, and thinks only of what a mess they've both become.]

[and in that silence, for a time, Tek doesn't breathe. something invisible constricts his ribs until there's nothing left in his lungs, weighing him down with quietly crushing force. and when he does finally draw in a breath again, the air is too thick. it's all wrong. it jams up in his throat.

he doesn't realize the extent of why, at first. he's too caught up in that little shared piece of mental space that broke when he shoved Robin away. there's still a ghost left. he's busy trying to untangle himself from the remnants of it, purge the taste it left behind, so he can make sure the door there is shut tight again. like he did a world ago, the last time that Robin peeled open his mind and left a message, there are lingering gaps in his armor and he fights hard to get rid of them.

but it doesn't work. Robin wedged something apart, the weight of what is now bleeding out holds it open, and he has run out of strength.

he returns to himself, remembers place and time, when he realizes that he's got curled fingers pressed against his own eyes. struggling to hold himself together when he feels things rattling apart has been a theme of his for a very long time.

maybe if he just pushes hard enough, he'll be able to hold it all back. maybe if he doesn't breathe again, he'll be okay.]

[he continues to sit there, head dropped into his hand. he doesn't press his palms over his eyes because he doesn't need to. he's not looking. Robin has been doing a spectacular job of keeping their past buried tight, ignoring the helpless arguments, the sleepless nights, the fear and frustration laced in everything back then.

but this... he's only ever seen Tek cry once before, and he was the cause of it then, too.

he doesn't want to lose his friend. that has been a very real fear since he first heard and felt and saw them slaying a dragon. he thought that maybe he'd fixed it, even if it wasn't perfect--a familiar scrabble out of desperation, praying it would work--and it had. for a little bit. but now it's bad again, and Tek is pushing him away, and he doesn't know what to do.

it's familiar. bitterly, crushingly familiar.

so Tek has some time to himself. Robin is trying just as hard not to breathe, struggling to wrench off whatever still pecks at his heartstrings. black feathers, black tar. why can't he just get something right, for once?

but eventually, quietly, he realizes that Crow still hasn't answered him.

that's the silence that eventually brings him back. his sickness turns to emptiness and echoes and nothing, so he starts to think dully about the present. the knife doesn't twist with the same zeal as it did before. it's going backwards--no, Tek and Robin are going backwards. he should have had this moment a long time ago.

Tek is still whole (at least, comparatively). Tek is still in his body. Tek's tears are heavy and choking him. the palpable tension is good and weighted and maybe there's still a chance that he will listen to reason. Robin made a mistake, but still wants to reach out and try to fix it.

So he does. Minutes later, perhaps, but he does--turning back to place a light hand on his shoulder. Robin might only know how to ruin things, but perhaps Riem will have better luck.

he tugs. lots of heavy strings to grab onto, meaty things. solid things. normal fears, stable agonies. his numerous tangles still, for the most part, make sense. he loosens a couple of emotions, first, lifts up some of what's biting into the man's heart. physical sensations are quick to follow. the aching of his bones, the way it all sticks and churns... he can't give him anything good, but a slowly-pooling absence of bad may be enough to calm him down.]

[for Tek's lack of reaction at the touch and then unraveling of strings, Robin might as well not be there. it's maybe a little reminiscent of some other things--him somewhere deep inside himself, detached from everything trying to reach him.

and for a little while, that's all there is. it isn't until some meaningless moment later that something suddenly connects up again.

between bringing his hands away from his face and observing the evident tears on his fingers, and the surreal lift of weight from having layers of suffering sloughed off of him... he begins to laugh.

it's not a happy sound--weak and resigned, more than a little bitter, as some thought strikes him in just the wrong way.]

[hearing that... it sends a shiver through his spine. perhaps it's not a bad sound, in the grand scheme of things, but isolated like this? there's a wrongness to it that still makes him uneasy at his most base instinct.

Tek can be thankful (or not, as he rarely is) that Robin doesn't leave him. he's done plucking threads, and he feels a little fuller for it--but Tek is still empty and he doesn't want to abandon him to look at something like that on his own. honestly, he doubts he could, even if he did want to.

so he lifts his hand, only to shift a little where he's sitting and lower it again. he keeps a hand on his shoulder as a friend, this time, patiently waiting for whatever spiteful thing he might have to say, or whatever silence he decides to leave them with.]

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