driftfleet | Twin Roses Mingle

You? Look worried about your crew? Never!

[He gives her a thumbs up with a smile.] And I feel great. A good nap fixes everything. [A good nap that lasted two days. Granted if he was shaken he would have groaned awake before going back to bed; it was still two days going on three. And yes, he's still going to act like he went to bed with a hangover and nothing else. FIGHT HIM ON IT.]

You're going to lie right to my face? [Says the girl who claimed she was kicking him. She's not mad. She's disappointed.]

[Vash's lip juts out slightly in a literal pout.] I'm not lying. [He's avoiding!] Do I look injured or sick? [As if to prove his point he moves to stand up out of bed. Suddenly feeling a need to stretch his legs.] No. I'm fine. Honest! [So long as he doesn't has to talk about what happened that is.]

How are you feeling in your feelings, jerk? [Jerk because she knows he knows what she meant. Didn't he? Okay, maybe he didn't since she was worried about both things, but still. Jerk. She lies back in his bed with a sigh.]

Huh--? [He knew what she meant that whole time; but he would act clueless to the end of his days.] Uh, I'm not sure that was a proper sentence? [He will also try to keep the topic off of himself if he can.

But he also feels like that that's just going to make her more worried and upset so he adds on quickly.] And my feelings are feeling fine. [Even better if he can pretend nothing happened and bottle all the bad memories and feelings down deep within himself. Because that's healthy, right?]

[She reaches under her, grabs his pillow and throws it at him in reply. Simple. Eloquent. Your move.]

[He move is to yelp as if he's under attack, which he was in a way, as he lets the pillow fully hit him before falling to the floor.] What! I said it was fine!

The pillow thought you were lying and wanted to do something about it.

[Gawd! Why do people always want him to talk about himself and his feelings?] Well, I'm fine pillow. [Said with so much snark, but then his tone softens again.]

But thank you, Kitty. For your help. Are you alright?

No. [It comes quickly and with a side dish of annoyed.] See how easy that was? [She rolls over to face the wall, bunching up the blankets to rest her head on since pillow already sacrificed himself.]

[Vash sighs. He's in so much trouble.] I dunno, it didn't seem that easy to me. [Alright, so it actually did look easy but being honest it's not something Vash is great at.

He sits back down on the bed near her feet. Not feeling like he's earned the right to sit closer just yet. He rubs at the back of his head as he tries to figure out what he can say without pissing her off more.]

Seeing what we did. With what you went through. I can't imagine how hard that would have been.

[She reaches out.] You're too far. [See, Vash, you can't even sit right! Or mostly just that she wants more touching in this conversation even if no one has earned it!]

What did I go through?

[Gosh! Being in a casual relationship is really confusing! He's actually a bit surprised that she wants him closer, but he complies. Sliding closer to her on the bed and taking the hand reaching for him.]

Seeing Winn in that way. It couldn't have been easy.

[She shifts making herself more comfortable against him.]

Mmm...it's not the first time I've seen him like that. I mean the other times were all in dreams or my imagination, but yeah, it was... almost tangible there.

Dreams are also easier to try to tell yourself that they're not real. [Key word being try.] But that, what we saw, it wasn't real.

[She gently runs her fingers over his arm, glad that he's awake again and seemingly healthy.] It was from Marina. One day there was... I don't know, a malfunction or maybe they just wanted it to look unintentional, but all these brightly lit doors opened. I went through one and the next thing I knew I was waking up in my body in one of those pods in a room like that. And everything just felt...heavier somehow. More real in a way I'd never noticed it hadn't felt before. And everyone was there. A few others were awake like me, but most were still in the pods. It was everyone who I'd ever seen in the dome. Not just the ones who were still there. Everyone we thought had gone home was just...disconnected or maybe connected to some other simulation. I don't know.

[It's strange to have someone so willing to touch his arm after what Kitty has seen. As she speaks he moves to take her hand in his. Gently rubbing his thumb in a circle motion across her fingers.] I can only imagine how terrifying that would be. Did you escape from there? Or did they somehow put you back in?

It's...it's not terrifying in the moment the way some things can be. But it's the kind of thing that stays with you and undermines your sense of reality. And makes it so you don't know if you can trust your own instincts and senses. I don't know if this place is real. I never have. It seems like it would almost make more sense if it was just a new simulation with different people. Some plugged in like me. Some maybe just generated by the program like the aliens we meet.

[She takes a breath.] I don't remember what happened in Marina exactly. I explored for awhile and tried to wake other people up and learn what I could while i was in there, but eventually I just woke up again back in the prison.

[He shakes his head.] It's disgusting. No one, creature, or otherwise should have put you and all those other people through something like that.

Yeah, well, I guess I'd be dead otherwise, so all things considered... Not that I'm thanking them for any of this, but it beats that.

What about you? How bad would it have been if your arm discharged back there?

[Crap. They're back to him again. There's a pause as he tries to figure out how he wants to answer that. He doesn't really want to answer it, but he's just had a painful reminder of how people tend to act when he's trying to be evasive.]

Really bad. [Probably should expand on that, huh? He sighs and takes his hand back from her. Instead he uses his left hand to hold his right. Staring down as if by glaring at it that he might change it to being a normal human arm.] Back home, Kitty I-- [How does he say what he needs to say? It seems impossible.] --back home did you know that I'm a wanted man? [Some people have heard about that.] I've joked about it here and there, but it's true. Dead or alive my head back home is worth sixty billion. [He leaves off the double dollars part. While it was a serious currency back home he knows it can sound a bit funny here.] I got that bounty when I destroyed the city of July. A city of millions. Gone. In an instant.

Oh Vash... [She's not sure what to say or do here. She knows how hard it seemed to be for him just to kill Legato, a man who needed to be killed by her way of thinking of it and from what she'd seen, but a city full of seemingly innocent people? Millions? That would be hard for anyone, but for someone like Vash it's hard to even imagine.] I didn't know about July. [She had assumed there was some truth in his jokes about a bounty, but she didn't know it was that bad.] It was an accident? [She can't believe he'd do it on purpose even if it was to save billions it didn't seem like his way. But it also seems a little empty to call something that devastating an accident.]

[He could clarify in that some how the blast didn't kill anyone, but the rubble falling did. Leaving people suddenly stranded out in a desert with no resources did. He was still the cause of all the deaths that happened due to the lost of one of the planets few major cities. So he rarely ever explains that part.]

I lost control. [That's the way he sees it. The fact that his brother was the one who forced him into the transformation didn't matter to him.] I couldn't stop it that time.

[She would be fascinated to know that the blast doesn't harm people directly. She'd probably have more questions so it may be for his well being that he doesn't say so. She does accept "I lost control" as confirming it was an accident for the most part.]

You stopped it this time. [Just wanting to remind him things have changed. They can keep changing.]

Was Knives there in July like he was in the mist?

Yeah. He was.

[He almost leaves it there. He's never been good at talking about himself or his life. It usually drove people away or changed the way they looked at him. It was almost never in a good way.

Then again, Meryl had come back after hearing everything. Kitty also had some experience with being not exactly human as well. It gives him a bit more courage to open up a bit more.]

I went to July to see a relative of Rem's that I found out about. Knives beat me to him and was waiting.

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