AND I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN

[acies]

[ the resistance are allies, important to the mission, and command has made sure to press the fact that they’re to remain so. that the ties between yorha and the resistance are not to be severed under any circumstances. that they should do their best to integrate with their forces. which is… difficult. while they hold the same enemy, the same goal, the andoids in the resistance camp are different. they thrive on clamor and noise, and distraction and even through the door of the room she and 9s have been given she can pick up the sound of them congregating around a fire, with no thought given to suppressing emotion or opinion. it’s strange to find that she… resents them. is jealous of how uninhibited they are but does not let it show. instead only does as they are bid, trades infrequent words with anenome and lets 9s act as a balm to their interactions. they run glorified errands, see needed parts from the machine village ( the machine life forms are used to them now, only a few now anxiously wave their white cloth flags at their arrival ) and things are peaceful for the moment.

she and 9s are always together, and sometimes she forgets that there’s a line that she needs to draw in order to protect the both of them, and to protect the mission. sometimes she responds to his chatter with more than monosyllables, and curses herself for it later. tells herself that there’s no point in engaging with this incarnation of 9s because the next will not remember it, and maybe—

maybe it will be easier, this time around. when the order comes.

she forcefully reminds herself that there’s no point, it’s illogical to focus on something in the distance future. to dread it. instead she pushes it to the back of her mind, focuses on the exhaustion present in her limbs, and the promise of nothingness for a couple of hours. a period of respite. the bed they have been given is too small for the both of them, is covered with sheets that scratch at her skin, but comfort isn’t something that’s necessary. is a luxury that they don’t need. it won’t fit both of them, not comfortably, so they alternate in a routine that’s become… normal. she takes off her boots, hesitates only for a moment, a fraction of a second before taking off her visor and placing it on a nearby table.

it’s her turn, to take the bed, and she lays on her back. stiff, until she relaxes in increments. she wonders briefly if 9s is still awake in the chair placed next to the bed, and then doesn’t think anymore. usually, there’s nothing, until she wakes but—

sometimes, during recharging of systems, there are moments ( memories ) that find their way to the forefront. there are pleasant ones, watching fireworks at the amusement parks, resting on top of city buildings with 9s beside here, taking shelter from a sandstorm the sting of it still present on her skin but being content with 9s beside her. there are also memories that are less pleasant, ones that she thinks come as a punishment for what she’s done and what she will continue to do for the sake of mankind.

there’s the sound of beeping, an error message that’s not her own. she turns on her heel to find 9s clutching his chest, red shining bright through his eyes, as his legs crumple beneath him and she calls him nines as she bends to kneel in front of him, places her gloved hands on his shoulders like it will steady the both of them.

“so you ... finally called me nines ... at the very end, huh ...”

“why ... Why did you activate your own self-destruction ...?! if you do that, your personal data will ...”

her fists clench into the fabric of his shirt, she doesn’t understand why he would—

the virus tears him apart at the seams and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it—

“... it's okay ... 2b ... you were assigned to — to kill me ... weren't you ...? i-i knew ... how much it hurt you ... to have to do this ...”

she doesn’t recognize it as her own at first, the sob that wrenches from her throat. how… could he think that this was the solution? that doing this would be better, that suffering at his own hands would make her feel better than having to choke the life from him herself.

“nines ... how could you ...”

“2b, i — i have ... a final request ... if you and i meet again, i ... i want you to kill me. p-promise?

before she can answer, that she can’t do that, the light goes from his eyes. dims before it’s gone and his body slumps against hers.

and then she wakes, pulse accelerated to a level beyond normal, adrenaline running through her with no outlet and her eyes burn with the sting of tears as she wrenches herself up to a sitting position. ] Nines?

Comments

[acies]

[ the film of tears blurs 9s as he startles, as his holo-screen vanishes, and his chair rocks back before settling heavy against the ground. 9s— 9s is fine. this one ( the fact that this 9s is different than the last, the one that came before him, somehow makes her chest tighten ) is alright. her pulse slows, from something frantic to something that doesn’t thud in her ears when he speaks ( she wasn’t lying, when she said something about his voice was calming ) and continues to do so with each moment spent awake and not reliving memories. memories with echoes of grief attached to them, that haunt her were the previous incarnations of 9s cannot.

her hands slowly unclench from the sheets where they were fisted, much like they had been in that 9s’s uniform, and she resists the temptation to breach the small gap between them— it would only take a second to swing her legs over the side of the bed, to reach out to where he’s sitting— and seek tangible evidence that he’s really alright. something that would be irrational, something that a human would do she thinks, but she isn’t so she refrains.

( sometimes she wonders if it was compassion or a certain brand of cruelty that made humans fashion them so much in their image. but something in her always turns from the notion that there is anything less than benevolent about their creators, and she wonders if it’s programmed into them. not only the desire to protect humans, to fight for them, but to protect their legacy. )

9s has probably already noticed the sheen of tears over her eyes, and there’s no real point in trying to cover them up now, but she does so anyway. tilts her head downwards, and lets the fall of her hair cover her eyes as she tries to blink them away. there’s another moment before she attempts to answer his question, it isn’t something she can brush off and ignore no matter how much she wants to. ] I’m fine. [ the response is barbed, made too sharp in an effort to compensate for the fact that the line of her back is still rigid. tense. ] Nothing worth concerning yourself over. [ unsaid : nothing worth examining more deeply. there’s always something, that spurs 9s’s curiosity, that leads him into looking into things that he shouldn’t—

there’s a soft whirring, as her pod approaches, hovers over her in a way that is a mimic of concern. ]

Report: increased pulse rate is likely due to disturbance in YoRHa unit 2B’s psychological state. Proposal—

Shut up.

[ the proposal isn’t given, is cut off by her order. the situation reminds her of finding 9s atop the goliath, ordering her pod to help her fix him, retrieve staunching gel, logic virus vaccines, anything that could help him and telling it to shut up when it came to the conclusion that attempting repair was ill-advised given 9s’s state. his failing vitals.

something 9s doesn’t remember, because he had prioritized her memories over his own. ]

[crueloath]

[ His smile is a wry one. If he wasn't so used to how she was, he might have even winced at the sharpness her tone had taken. ]

Nothing worth concerning myself over, huh…?

[ Of course she’d say that. Had he expected her answer to be any different? Had he really expected her to maybe, just this once—

But no. That was just his own wishful thinking. That maybe, one of these days, she might actually talk to him like he tries to talk to her. That maybe this time he won’t have to try to read between the lines of what she says, save every near-monosyllabic answer she sees fit to give him and decode the message hidden within the shell of words. Maybe it was selfish of him to want something like that.

And maybe she’s right. Maybe none of this is any of his business—nothing “worth concerning” himself over—and he should leave her be to sort herself out. He knows that there are differences between her model and his. And he knows that, because of it, there are times he probably crosses lines that were never meant to be crossed, all to satisfy the innate need inside his core to have an answer to everything. To know everything. Like anything that dared to brush past even the fringes of his vast curiosity was his concern.

He shakes his head, dismissing the cloud of intrusive thoughts from him like 2B had her own pod’s seed of a proposal. His eyes had never really left her. He can’t make out her face anymore, but his eyes can follow the all-too-rigid outline of her body. He can remember how her hands had strangled the sheets just moments before, recall how her eyes had looked (and maybe still do), and feels more stabbing through him than just some kind of selfish curiosity. No one should have to look like that. Even over nothing. ] But that’s what I’m here for, aren’t I?

[ To be in charge of her maintenance. There are times when he doubts that’s the real reason. Times when he starts to feel like his being here is just an afterthought, or some other just as unpalatable reason that his mind can't yet unravel. He’s seen 2B work. She’s efficient. More efficient than he is. And there’s rarely been a mission where he hasn’t felt like she couldn't have accomplished it all on her own. Like his being there was a waste of resources—not that he begrudges his assignment. He’d rather be here than somewhere out there, all on his own with only his pod for company. But the idea still eats at him. ]

You know… there’s nothing wrong about admitting you’re not… [ He searches for as neutral of a word as possible, but isn’t convinced that he's found it in the seconds he gives himself to.] fine. [ To make up for it, he lets his tone lift. Like he’s talking about something as unoffensive, inconspicuous, and normal as the weather. Like he hadn’t heard her call out his name that she’s up until now refused to call him. ] I mean, it’s not “forbidden” or anything, last I checked. It was some kind of bad dream, right?

[ As close as they can get to them, anyway, for non-organic creations. Memories reorganizing themselves, sometimes briefly blending into others as data overwrites data while their automatic processes direct new packets of information to where they needs to go, always keeping everything that was deemed most important stored in memory that was quicker and easier to access, less likely to be muffled underneath the noise of everything else. He’s not sure where he comes into the equation—if he even does. Maybe something had happened back in the factory that he can’t remember. But the thought that maybe he had done something to make her look like that (something he maybe can’t even remember) disturbs him more than he thinks it should, and he feels his own body tense up for a few, long seconds. ]

I get those too sometimes. And if they bother you, there are things that I can do to make you less likely to have them.