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Lay my bones in neat little rows [open]

Started by Tegan, July 02, 2017, 07:33:14 AM

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Tegan

Faraday sunk his hands into his pockets as they climbed the stairs, conscious of the sound of crunching broken glass in his satchel as he placed each echoing step. When Kate stopped at the top of the stairs the doctor very nearly barged into her back distractedly. Managing to stop just in time and putting a steadying hand on the banister he stepped round to stand beside her as she indicated to the rooms on the left and then the right, nodding his understanding at each allocation.


"thank you. This is more than I ever could have hoped for!" He said, leaning his weight against the banister and turning to his host.
"There must be something I can do for you in return," he mused, narrowing his eyes in thought and trying to figure out if it was inappropriate to offer a medical once over to someone by way of barter. Probably there were a lot of people who might frown at the idea of him going into a woman's home and asking her to take her top off. No. Probably better not.


"Do you drink? I have a skein of the finest honey mead you ever tasted; I can guarantee it!" he said with a broad, friendly smile. hrm. probably wasn't particularly appropriate to go into an empty house and offer young ladies alcohol either but the thought didn't cross his mind. He struggled sometimes to remember that not everyone was like him, and he personally would have been thrilled if someone had offered him a delicious refreshing beverage.  Anyway people who didn't drink were an enigma to him.

His stomach growled in protest at its prolonged period of emptiness but he politely ignored it. There was some bread and cheese in his bag which he would happily share if they ended up sitting down somewhere and they weren't full of tiny shards of glass. He hoped she would say yes to his offer as he felt horribly rude intruding in her home with nothing to offer in return. Besides it would be nice to talk to someone who wasn't a solder to readjust himself to the real world, and he hardly wanted to vanish on his host so quickly; his mother would have hit him for such poor manners.

Wrathwyrm

She had smile with his profound gratitude, but then settled into something approximating confusion when he mentioned doing something for him in return.  You see, in her mind, she'd made the offer to help him out and he'd taken it, and that was that.  Kate wasn't thinking of any sort of reward, so the offering of one threw her for a moment, like it was a foreign concept.  She didn't mind gratuity, but when it came unexpectedly, the brain sort of has to stop and process this.

He had paid her back for hurting her before with his pain-relieving material, which was always good in her book, and he had an interest in science and machinery, which Kate definitely liked.  Finding people with an understanding - Nay, a joy - of the new age of discovery and innovation was a rare thing.  It was almost a reward in of itself to know such people.  It was important to her to find relatable people.  She didn't know very many...

The mention of the wine drew her attention back to the forefront, and a look of curiosity...if slight uncertainty.

"I haven't made a habit of it, but it isn't my first time.  Mother has wine, and when she invites me to have a glass, I've taken it.  It's fine, though...I've gone and made some very weird calculations later."

This, for some reason, produced a sheepish smile and even a blush.  What had she wrought while under the influence?  Was this science safe?  Still, his stomach had produced a definite 'Yorrrp...' and Kate had taken notice, with a raised eyebrow.

"I guess I'm not the only one who forgets to eat, every now and then?"

His own potentially-damaged food wasn't an issue, really.  I mean, they had bread, cheese, meat, vegetables, and umm...thou.  After all, what is a big house without any food in it?

Tegan

John Faraday had grown up in the countryside in a small dustbowl village where most people, including his parents were small time farmers. His mother, however, had always been obsessed with the upper class and city folk and had spent a great deal of his youth lecturing him about manners and etiquette and being a gentleman. It'd been worse for his tomboyish sister who'd had to endure hours of needlework and ballroom dancing lessons which his mother had only read about or heard from passing strangers and housewife gossip. The outcome of this for young John was an overly inflated determination to please everyone and come across as polite as possible. College, and then the army had knocked a lot of it out of him but entering a grand house like this had caught him off guard and given him a towering feeling of indebted inferiority. Kate's attitude was a saving grace though. He wouldn't have thought she came from money had he not been standing in her impressive home. he supposed that many of the nobles had never had to work for their fortune as Kate's mother clearly had so that probably made a big difference.
He noted the hint of uncertainty in her expression when he mentioned a drink if only because he observed it with such intensity, trying to read her reaction and gauge if he might have found a kindred spirit to drown his demons with. It seemed he had no such luck and he wondered if in the short three years since he'd studied here students had stopped being recklessly irresponsible with their free time and money. Is seemed unlikely to him, but then again it seemed equally unlikely that Kate here was a fair representation of your average student.

While not overly enthusiastic her response was good enough and he was glad to get the chance to talk to her some more either way. He gave her a dazed smile as she mentioned unusual calculations.

"hah. I can imagine." he said, quietly amused by her sheepish smile. If she could dream up devices to pull a human instantly to the top of a tower when she was sober who knew what crazy ideas a buzz of ethanol might produce. Unfortunately for Faraday his science did not mix so well with alcohol which was probably a good thing really.

His own cheeks flushed a little when she called him out about the growl of his stomach and he shrugged. "Guilty as charged." Fact was that he drank enough coffee and smoked enough cigarettes that his appetite didn't generally rear it's head until it was urgent.

-   ((sorry, I'm steering a little bit here, hope that's ok, let me know if not and I'll change it!))
He let her lead him through the house again, back down the stairs and into the kitchen where he uncertainly pulled out a chair for her before slumping untidily in one opposite. He put his satchel on the table, opened the battered leather flap and peered into it with the apprehension of a man looking into a bag of scorpions. He sighed and rubbed the dark circles under his eyes as he tried to calculate the damage.

"If I might make a suggestion? Perhaps you could invent something like glass but more durable?" he asked with a meek smile, then, "oh, the blasted leeches..." He exhaled again, staring tiredly at the bag for a moment before deciding a drink was necessary before proceeding. He pulled out a wineskin and poured a liberal helping of the golden liquid into two glasses. He'd been about to pour the whole thing down his neck in one go before realising that he wasn't in the company of soldiers anymore and taking a more reasonable gulp before returning it to the table.

"It's honeymead from one of the villages I was posted at. They had fields and fields of lavender for perfume there and apparently the bees only collect their pollen from them so that's why it tastes the way it does. " he said with a sad smile, knowing full well that said lavender fields had been more of less obliterated in the skirmish and the likely hood of more of the mead being produced was small indeed. It was a shame because the drink really was exquisite; perfectly sweet and perfumed. It tasted misleadingly non-alcoholic.
After another polite sip he began to empty his bag of things that were not broken, brushing leeches from them where appropriate.

"So how long have you studied here for? Do the tutors still all have sticks up their asses?" he asked, a playful smile flicking across the corner of his mouth and twinkling in his tired brown eyes.

Wrathwyrm

[OOC: No worries.]

Very unlikely that Kate was the average sampling of the student body around here.  More like the average sampling of eccentric geniuses, if one could behold such a thing.  Still, she could describe a few bizarre things she had tried to do while her mind was doing the tilt-a-whirl.  For instance, she had written up diagrams that could've been mistaken for M.C. Escher drawings in the future, laughed at it for about fifteen minutes, and then fallen asleep.  Kate was not the usual kind of woman, that's for sure.

Guilty of hunger as he was, she led him over to the kitchen, where there was a smaller table for a less-formal occasion, instead of eating in the dining room they had passed through to get here.  You wouldn't say that this place was like the Clue mansion, partially because it was much smaller, less creepy, and not a mansion, but it was asthetically pleasing enough, with a nice wooden finish and all.  It was here that Farraday began to rummage through his pack and grumble about glass...and leeches.

"Hmmm...  Durable material like glass?  I'm sure someone can make stronger glass, but it'll still be glass.  Lemme think about this a second."

She was honestly giving this some thought.  If he'd been joking at all, she hadn't picked up on it.  Why?  Well, because people could use more durable bottles, and the only way so far to do that was to enchant it with something wizard-y.  Not really likely a thing to happen in Connlaoth.  Still, the apparent mess in there aside, he poured two glasses and drank from one.  After Farraday described it, Kate took her glass and looked at it for a second.  She'd never had mead before.  She wouldn't know why it tasted one way while another tasted another, at this point.  For her part, the only way to know was to try and see for herself.

So, she drank...experimentally.  Taste, pause, sip, sip, pause, shrug, drink.  She waited for the effects of the honeymead to take hold...and found that she might be waiting a long time.  She didn't feel...different.  Was the mead not mead?  She'd have to ask about that, but not right now.  Not while the man was dealing with his things like this.  He had enough troubles, as is.  Besides, he had questions, and the second one immediately caused her to snerk.  Nice and blunt, that's what this guy was.

"Well, I've been here for a long time.  I was enrolled when I was old enough, or...maybe a year or two before that.  I learn fast, though I have had a few 'talks' with faculty."

Wow, you could hear those quotation marks...  Guess the tutors ARE a pain.

"I don't remember how long exactly.  I've just been doing it and learning more all the time.  How long were you here?"

Tegan

Faraday looked up when Kate 'hmmmed' and began pondering the glass situation. It seemed that the girl took most of what she herd at face value. He could see there were disadvantages of takin everything literally (especially as he had a fondness for making such light-hearted comments) but that at the same time it was probably exactly that the sort of unusual way of thinking that led people like her to make new discoveries. He supposed that he was overly cynical and that was why he was a slave to the way he perceived things to be and not a pioneer in his industry. Oh well, at very least maybe he could continue to provide misconstrued half-hearted humour that Kate could play with. He blinked drowsily at her as he watched her run the idea through her mind like a man panning for gold, checking to see if there were any useful nuggets buried away in there and then returned his attention back to the soggy bag and its depressing content. Looked like a trip into town was on the cards for tomorrow then if he had any chance of earning some money while he stayed here.

He carried the basics around with him most of the time. Salves, needles and basic surgery implements- some of which looked not unlike torture devices to the untrained eye- plus jars and tubs of plants and roots with various medical applications and some suspicious looking mushrooms... Then there was a depressingly light coin pouch too, his tobacco, some food and a change of clothes, a few personal effects and a hip flask filled with strong brandy. Faraday observed the sum of his positions uncertainly as Kate tentatively tested the mead. He ran a hand over his unshaven jaw. He was sure he should have been feeling something about the soggy, leash-riddled mess in front of him but the griffons root made any sort of serious feeling or complicated thinking difficult so he ended up just staring at it numbly, though not unhappily. He didn't worry about it. not right now. 

He chuckled when she spoke about having 'talks' with the tutors, willingly distracted from his task and resting his elbows on the table. He instantly knew what sort of talks she was talking about because he'd been subjected to more than his fair share of those.

"I see." he said, bringing his glass to his lips again briefly. It seemed the young woman had spent most of her recent life here. He wondered if she had a social life or if her studies and inventions were all consuming. "me? hrm"

He furrowed his brow for a moment as he waded through his swampy mind for the answer.
"five years, I guess. Then two years of not really doing anything productive then one and a half in the service." he rolled his injured shoulder. There was no pain in it currently and the full range of motion put his mind at ease. "and now I've come back here for some reason" he laughed. The laugh was made of half bemusement as himself and half equally self-directed bitterness. "two months leave and then I'm going to a prisoner of war camp." Thinking about it usually stressed him out but for some reason he couldn't help but bring it up. He supposed he had become his work. How dull. Doubtlessly his lack of direction and disenchantment shone through as he spoke. "I guess they thought I needed a break from the front so they're sending me off to keep their torture victims alive instead" he said nonchalantly. Maybe that was a bold statement. He didn't really know what to expect but he figured it was best to assume the worst. He caught himself and shook his head in disbelief, "Sorry, I don't suppose that's a very cheery topic, is it?"

He forced a warm smile back over his face and emptied the remainder of his glass.


Wrathwyrm

Kate was, of course, unaware of his money situation, or rather the lack of money.  She did have sympathy for the contents of Faraday's bag, but of course there wasn't much she could do about that.  She didn't know medicine, jsut knew OF medicine.  It was his fault that it had happened, but...well...let's be honest here.  Kate wasn't going to hold a grudge over that, nor was she going to take any pleasure in his difficulties.  Not when a guy like Faraday turns out to be so nice.  Yes, she wasn't seeing much of the cynic in him.  Then again, how much of it had he thrown out there, thus far?  I mean, they're both having a laugh over crusty old tutors.  That's not bad at all!

A point about her social capabilities, though.  While it was true that she definitely thought and acted differently from many other people, Katherine Bellows did not simply take everything literally or at face value.  Some things, perhaps, but not all.  The concept of either shatterproof bottles or an otherwise durable container that could replace bottles...  That was a legit attempt to see if such an idea was potentially within her capabilities.  She thought of it not as how other people viewed the problem, but whether it was impossible for her.  Sometimes, this was the case, but...sometimes not.  Take her gun, for instance...  She knew it was getting there, but she was already having ideas about it attaching to a belt and allowing a fall while it passes the line out, so that you weren't going to kill yourself, but just get lowered to the ground.  This, mind you, before solving the rope issue.

Anyway, back to things at hand.  Kate listened intently to his tale of how long he's been doing things, not just studying here in Uthlyn.  It was strange that he didn't know why he was here.  Most people coming to this town knew the reason they were here.  When he said the next part, though, she frowned, looking either concerned or shocked.  Maybe both.  Her eyes clearly said 'Why would anybody want to go to such a place?'.  She hadn't figured it being about army orders.  Even then, the idea was definitely unappealing, and what he said next...  She just stared in disbelief.  The whole thing...it was just a bit much.

No...you can't just keep beating and beating them!  Let them go or let them die...

His apology was something of an understatement.

"No, it isn't..."

Her voice seemed a bit small, just then.  She found herself shaking her head, trying to forget a different unpleasant thought.  After that, though, Kate gave him a look, earnest and almost pleading.  Something clicked inside of her, and she had to bring it out before she buried it again.

"Faraday, you're a doctor.  You have to help them...not set them up for more pain.  They're prisoners, but they're not monsters..."

She didn't know how, and she obviously didn't know what these prisoners ever did, but if he felt distaste over it, then it meant that they hadn't done enough to warrant this.

Tegan

Faraday poured himself another drink, wanting desperately for the numbing buzz of the alcohol to hurry up and kick in already as they traversed the awkward conversation. He'd mentioned his new destination in rather an off handed manner, but when Kate spoke her voice sounded small and tight as if he'd dug an ice-pick into a sensitive nerve and he felt instantly guilty.

He focused his attention on the drink in his hand, swirling it absently and watching as the pale liquor formed a tiny shallow whirlpool. But from the corner of his eye he could still see Kate shaking her head as if trying to tremor loose an unpleasant thought. When she spoke again his fingers tightened around his glass and he swallowed nervously. This time it was his turn to feel the sting of her words like an arrow to the chest. He was a doctor. he was meant to help people, not prolong their suffering.

When he spoke his voice was low, with a forced, gravely evenness. "yes. well. unfortunately it's not as simple as all that, is it?"He said. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it, but the fact was that he could only really see two paths ahead of him.

Option number one: they asked him to do something his moral compass simply could not allow, or his soft heart made him do something that might brand him as a traitor and they killed him.
Option number two: He ignored said moral compass, did what he was told and then had to live with his actions for the rest of his life.

Thinking about it made his stomach feel like a pit of black worms, wriggling and knotting till his felt sick. It was much, much easier to not think about it by getting drunk or high. Or preferably both.

He emptied the content of his glass and poured another, eyes still downcast.
"I might not be a soldier but I still have to bark when my master tells me. The crime for desertion is to hang by the neck, so there's that..."
He had to tell himself that those people were terrorists and monsters with information that could save many lives and that it was not worth laying down his life in defence of them.
"we just have to have faith in the crown; that their ends justify the means. That this is a worthy cause. I have to think that my life is worth more than a terrorist with vital information and that I can do more good alive than dead. Otherwise I'd never sleep at night.
Judging by the dark circles under his eyes he didn't sleep particuarly well at night.
"anyway... maybe it's not as bad as all that. Maybe the mage camps aren't what everyone says they are..." He was aware that he'd dragged their conversation down a pretty dismal path and he felt bad about that too. He straightened in his chair and forced himself to look up at her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. " uh. Do you mind if I smoke?"
He always used to enjoy having philosophical moral debates but now it all felt far too close to home. He wasn't sure he could sustain the conversation without getting defensive or upset and he didn't really want to show either of those faces to his kind host but he wasn't really sure what else to say either.


Wrathwyrm

It was those feelings of being on the wrong side of a beating, for her.  That was something she just wasn't going to really shake from her being, not for as long as she lived.  Kate knew that Faraday couldn't be comfortable with it.  He was a doctor.  Doctors become doctors because they can't stand the sight of another's pain and want to stop it, right?  But what do you DO when your actions can lead to more pain?  How do you resolve that?  He said it was complicated...but was it?  He spoke about the consequenc and of faith that it was all for a good cause, and maybe some of that seemed somewhat reasonable on the whole it it, but...

"What?  Smoke?  No, I don't care about that, not unless something highly flammable's around."

She wanted to believe that he was just trying to make sense of it for her, but her mind was working on this and seeing an inherent flaw in the whole thing.  It was already a topic her mind didn't want to work on, but it did so, anyway.

"I don't think...that the prisoners are ever going to talk if torture hasn't made them, already.  It's completely useless, by then.  If they're you're enemy, and you haven't gotten your information by them, you shouldn't waste your time...because if they get healthy again, they might hurt you."

In her mind, if you have an enemy and you can't get anything from them, you're not going to get anything.  They're going to make you waste your time, to spite you, and maybe wait to get revenge.  All they can see is you and the pain, by then.  They'll just flip out.  It wasn't...  Kate put her hand to her forehead.  She needed to stop thinking about this.  People in anger did things that...at the end of it...you couldn't tell whether they were good OR bad.

Tegan

When Kate said that it was ok for him to smoke the doctor opened his tobacco pouch on the table and proceeded to roll a cigarette. He cast a suspicious glance around the room because he didn't put it past the young eccentric inventor to have something flammable at the breakfast table. He lit the cigarette, inhaling gratefully and watching as the smoke spiralled in gentle lethargic circles up towards the wooden vaulted ceiling. He was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, no doubt mixed and enhanced with the painkiller he'd taken earlier. Just the knowledge of it- the observation of the slowing of the world when he looked around- put his mind at ease and he leaned back in his chair, shoulders un-tensing. He tapped the cigarette with his forefinger to let the ash fall away into the broken glass he'd placed on the table.

"hmm, perhaps you're right." he shrugged, watching her through heavy lids across the table. Chances were anyone worth torturing would be dedicated enough to their cause to resist. He stared off into the middle distance for a moment, pondering the situation.

"but... I mean what are you suggesting I do Miss Bellows? Just start murdering people?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "And when the war is over and those men could have been reunited with their families?" he shook his head. "It is not for me to decide."
Of course he hated seeing people suffer but his job was saving people not ending their lives unless there was no other option. He didn't know Kate's angle. He'd never been in a position of taking a repeated beating but he had certainly seen his fair share of violence.

"besides. For every dying man who begged me to end their life I can assure you there were ten more who begged me to save it. In my experience humans want to live above most else." he hesitated for a moment, watching the ember of his cigarette. Would he see things at that camp that might change his mind about that? How much extended emotional and physical torture could a person endure before death seemed like the better option? The thought still distressed him but it passed by quicker now, lubricated as the alcohol performed its blessed magic. He leant forward, folding his arms across the table in front of him and continued; And anyway if they did flip out and want to hurt someone I should hope they might go for the man with the knife and not the man with the bandages..."



Wrathwyrm

He seemed to at least see her point, that it may be an exercise in futility.  Of course, there were some people who made torture the point of their actions, but Kate didn't really want to think about that.  Some people were just horrible.  Still, Faraday caught her a bit off-guard with what he said next, a proper blink of surprise and confusion when he suggested murder.  He couldn't seriously think that she thought a doctor should do that either...  No, he was trying to point out that because they had lives too that he couldn't just take matters into his own hand.

It wasn't clear whether the doctor really understood where she was going with this.  Kate was honestly finding it hard to navigate it, herself, now.  He'd continued on and it sounded like he was really caught in a conflict about this, which made a fair deal of sense.  Where DO you draw the line in a situation like this?  And the reason that Kate thought some of his patients might just flip out was...well...apparently, she had an episode when she was just a little girl and someone was trying to bring her out of her shell forcibly.  Long story short, there was blood involved.  She now leaned on the table herself, since it was her turn to speak, at last.

"I don't mean that you should start killing them, but you should own what you do.  You're a doctor, an expert in a field.  It's like being me or mom, but with medicine instead of machines.  What I said about them not giving up anything if their torture didn't do anything...  You agree with that, right?"

It seemed to her like he believed that much, or at least entertained the notion.

"You heal them because you're a doctor.  You tell your commander it's useless to keep at them, because you're a doctor and you know how people are.  You're too smart to not think it's stupid.  It's an expert's job to show why he's the expert when someone's about to make an error."

Tegan

The doctor took a long drag from his cigarette and tried to remind himself to let Kate get a word in edgeways. He knew he had a tendency to talk too much but it was sort of hard to reign in, especially in a subject that was so awfully close to him. Kate's expression made it clear that he had misinterpreted what she'd said and he wondered if he might have made the same mistake if he had been sober or not. No matter. Honestly the idea of a superior officer actually listening to what he had to say had never even crossed his mind.

When it was Kate's turn to speak Faraday listened carefully, determined not to make any more incorrect assumptions. When she suggested that he was an expert in his field he snorted in amusement. John Faraday was not the sort of man to take a compliment. It was a shame because he really was an exceptional doctor and could easily excel to the top if he applied himself and had more confidence in his own abilities. But he was a pessimist to the core and always eager to put himself down. She asked again if he agreed with her on her statement about torture and he had to admit that he wasn't really sure. He'd never been tortured but he was fairly certain that if he was he'd probably tell them everything they wanted to know. He didn't have the constitution for that sort of thing; he was sure that he was a coward.

"for the sake of argument I'd agree that it's true of certain individuals." he mumbled into his cigarette, feeling defensive now at Kate was directly leading the conversation. He felt sure he was about to talk himself into a corner.
When she finished he shook his head a little too enthusiastically.
"poppy-cock." he said, [/b]"Those men are probably experts in the field of... of obtaining knowledge though unpleasant means. You think they are going to listen to some bedraggled, bleeding-heart medic?"[/b]

Maybe he was just making excuses for his cowardice. Maybe a brave man might try. He bit down on the tip of his tongue as he ran that thought through the cogs. "I don't think those sorts of people will care about the wellbeing of their enemy enough to listen to someone like me. They'll just say that they deserve everything they get" His commanders would doubtlessly not be as uncertain as he was about the whole situation. He clenched his jaw and reached for the wineskin again. It was nearly empty and he felt bad for drinking more of it than his host but he really felt like he needed it right now.

Wrathwyrm

There's nothing wrong with leading a conversation when you're trying to make a point.  Just wait your turn and all will be well.  It took a moment for Kate to realize, though, that he had a low opinion of himself.  'Bedraggled' was where she began to understand part of the problem.  He had little-to-no confidence, in some form or another.  He didn't expect anyone to listen to him, maybe not ever.  It was a little hard for someone who lived in a world of facts to understand this, sometimes.  People who believed something that was wrong were just wrong, no two ways about it.

"I know I'm not a doctor or a commander, but I know that people want to get things done, and when they can't get that to happen one way, they have to do it another or fail.  It's no different than loading a gun and firing.  If you do it in the wrong order, bad things happen."

She lowered her gaze for a moment, trying to get this out without putting too much thought into the terrible things going on in war or any sort of conflict.  She could fight, even kill, but it would be about what she's trying to stop the other person from doing, in the process.

"The soldiers are fighting in a war.  What's the use of trying to interrogate for information they're not going to get?  They're wasting the king's time and their own lives, doing it.  They should get back to the fighting, if the war is so important, and leave you to your work.  There's no reason why you can't lay it out plain, because it is true."

It's not as though this were a trick or something, some kind of ploy to get the soldiers to leave the torture victims alone.  It made sense.  If you can't find what you're looking for, you may be looking in the wrong fashion, so either a different approach is required or you need to go back to what makes sense.

Tegan

Her analogy about the gun made him blink rapidly and he looked down at the table, jaw tensing as he tried to hold her in his gaze and not slip away into one of the vivid memories that were ever keen to jump to the forefront of his mind. Firing a musket without packing the powder down was a sure fire way to blow ones arm of off, that was for sure. He wasn't even really sure why he was arguing his point –arguably the point of the torturer- anymore. Out of the dog like sense of loyalty to his 'side'? or to try and justify the tides of guilt for his cowardice that lapped at his ankles. It'd be easier to just agree with her and let it go. It obviously wasn't doing either of them any good. None the less he listened to her suggest that the soldiers should just go back to fighting one another. suggesting that the young men got back to shooting eachothers aces off and shashing eachothers throats. He felt his temper stretch and replied snappily;

"Yes, well congratulations, in an ideal world you solved the problem. But people aren't all facts and straight lines- Its not just some simple equation, It's more complex than that."
It was like he was watching himself from a distance, watching his blunt tone of voice tumble from his lips despairingly. Ordinarily he was very laidback -charmingly polite even- especially after a few drinks but tonight his nerves felt millimetres long and frayed to breaking. His heart was racing.

"a-and anyway th- the point is moot because we don't know, do we? Maybe the difference between a valuable, piece of information is one blasted fingernail or... a- and it only takes on person to break, that could save lives or ever end the-"
His voice wavered as if it was about to break and he stopped abruptly. What was he saying?. Why was he...

He scowled at the grain of wood in the table, silently swallowing down the cocktail of confused feelings that seemed to be clawing at his throat and hissing white noise in his head.
He groaned ever so slightly because he couldn't quite trust his voice to carry an apology yet, bringing a trembling hand to his face and rubbing it vigorously as if he might be able to rub his last words away. The cigarette smouldered between his fingers and he focused on controlling his breathing and collecting himself before speaking again.

Wrathwyrm

What...what was she doing?  The look on his face...  He'd gone from sour to angry to...  No.  No more of this.  She'd clearly disturbed him like someone - anyone - mentioning her father.  She'd delved too deep on this because all this talk of hurting people made her think of her father, about how much harm it does and how wrong it was to ever even begin that kind of horrid abuse.  The way Faraday was looking and acting was sobering, even though she wasn't anywhere approaching an un-sober state of being.

She'd forgotten, like an idiot, that other people go through things like she did too.  Kate didn't like it when people couldn't see her point of you on things like this because the alternative seemed deplotable to her, but right now...she realized that his point of view - not so different from hers - was what was harming him.  Her hand went out to his - the one that wasn't trying to push the nightmare from his expression - and gripped it, minding carefully not to get a cigarette burn, of course.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to put you on the spot.  I just thought you didn't understand.  I didn't know it was that bad for you.  I'm sorry..."

She had a look on her face that she reserved usually for 'I just broke something vital and expensive' and 'They're going to be absolutely livid over this', which...being honest...sometimes happened.  Currently, she was adding a new entry called 'I'm doing more harm than my inventions' onto that list.

Tegan

It took a little moment for him to reign in his emotions, feel the pounding in his chest begin to slow and the feeling of anxiousness quieten back down to a normal level. He felt annoyed with himself; frustrated and more than a little embarrassed. What a mess he was. Of course he'd seen things like this on other people; in young soldiers who had watched one too many of their friends bleed to death, and he hadn't thought ill of them for it, but to now find himself in such a state rather a distressing surprise. Maybe he'd thought that because he'd seen it from the outside he was immune. Idiot. He shook his head slowly, willing the stinging sensation in his eyes to go away.

The doctor flinched ever so slightly when her hand came to his, not expecting it, nor the apologetic tone in her voice.
"No, no i-its not your fault." he said, feeling guilty because she felt guilty. To be fair misplaced guilt was probably a large part of the problem. Even though he knew it wasn't rational he couldn't help relive certain moments over and over and wonder if it'd been his fault. If he'd been less tired, or less stressed or ran a little faster how many of the young men in the ground might still be walking above it? And then there was the fact that he was here at all. While he was monstrously glad to not be on the front line anymore he couldn't help but feel bad for not being there while people were dying. Being back here in the normal world seemed both a blessing and a curse. One tends not to think about their terrible situation quite so much while it's actually happening and when you are in the company of other people to which it is also happening. It was easy to focus on his job in that place but now there was a great slab of spare time for his brain to screw with. Now that he was back he felt like a soggy puzzle piece; unable to fit back in to the space designated to him. Seeing the things men could do to each other was not good for the psyche.

He rather fancied for the world to swallow him up right then.
"It's me," he said, face still buried in the folds of his hand, "I'm the one who bought it up. I... suppose I didn't realise it had affected me so badly. I'm probably just tired from traveling all day." he drawled, though he knew in his mind it had been something more than that. The little adrenaline rush of the near-freak-out had made him feel rather drunk, but it seemed tainted and untrustworthy now that he'd seen his mood fluctuate so drastically. He pushed his half full glass away across the table In favour of resting his forehead on the surface instead. He swore to himself under his breath and tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the fact that he had to go back to that other world because it made him want to sob and he was sure he couldn't bear the shame of being a grown man crying in a stranger's house. It sounded so... pathetic...

Faraday felt suddenly exhausted, the hollow of his stomach reminding him of his hunger and the heaviness of his eyelids of his fatigue. He realised that he was running on empty. On painkillers and alcohol and tobacco. You'd think a doctor might know to take better care of himself. He laughed a blunt brief note at himself and lifted his head from the table. He extinguished his cigarette in the broken beaker and gave Kate what he hoped was a reassuring smile- though it barely touched his brown eyes. The world swam pleasantly and he folded his arms across the table and rested his head on them like a child taking a nap at their school desk.
Eyes shut and voice somewhat muffled by the position of his head, he said "I'm sorry I'm afraid I'm being awful company." he half laughed into his chest, "You probably should have left me on the ground where we first met." his tone of voice suggested that had been a joke.



Tegan


Wrathwyrm

He believed himself the one responsible.  She supposed that if he insisted, she could accept that he was partially responsible, but...it didn't seem fair to lat him take all the blame.  Kate shook her head with a sigh.

"I probably shouldn't have been asking and saying so much.  It's something I do because...I need it.  Even if you blame yourself, I would say 'No' to being the only one to blame."

She needed stimulation, making sure her attention was focused.  The more often she focused on people, the more she remained cognizant of their needs, of the important things...  Focus on them, not the past.  Never on the past.  The point is to break out of the shell, not hide away until father's gone.  Father was gone.  He had been, and he'll never be back.  A person like Faraday was normal, but interesting.  She pushed him too far.  Maybe it was his subject, but she went too far because it bothered her to hear about pain and hopelessness.  It needed a silver lining, some small sliver that someone would do something, at least try.

Not Faraday, though.  She should have realized sooner.  He was trapped, cage, suffocated - and she'd rattled him by asking 'Why don't you DO something?' when he felt utterly powerless.  Of course, there was always a way to deal with terrible people.  Her mother taught her the way to handle that.  Some of the most simple and direct ways to handle the unreasonable and monstrous: Kill him.  Even still...the doctor before him was clearly neither the sort who would, nor would he allow such a line of reasoning, because...he was a good doctor.

Kate felt herself calming down, not because of the assurances given by Faraday, but because - regardless of how they'd arrived at the fact - they now understood each other properly.  At least, she thought so.  He made an apology, but...

"What kind of person would I be if I'd left you there?  And please, don't say 'A smart person'.  You haven't meant me any harm, even though that kind of happened.  I just didn't understand.  That happens...sometimes.  I've had...problems...picking up things from others.  Having other people around makes it easier to think, to focus, and you liked what I was doing, once you saw what it was.  More people like you should exist, Faraday..."

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