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AND I'LL USE YOU AS A WARNING SIGN
[ 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?
no subject
He can hear the sounds of engaged chatter outside, humming in his ears like the clatter of rain, and 2B is asleep in the bed next to his chair, looking a little bit less real to him every time he steals a glance in her direction, always taking a moment to time the rhythmic inhale and exhale of her breathing in his head—if only to make sure that she’s not moments away from exiting her sleep cycle—before returning back to the yellow hue of his screen. He looks into each new window he pulls up as if the information contained there holds something new, always on the lookout for some crucial increment of data he’s missed that might help him understand what this ruined world might have once been like, and what it may someday be once again.
Their pods are in the corner, hovering in the air like quiet sentinels. Though every now and then they’ll shift in place, turning to face each other like they’re determined to have the longest silent conversation on record before immediately reverting back to the positions they held not seconds before. He catches them at it again out of the corner of his eye. It's movement 9S doesn’t pay much mind to until his pod’s voice cuts through the silence. ]
Report: YoRHa Unit 2B’s pulse rate is quickening.
Huh? [ He looks up, brows furrowing, not even sure what makes this information important enough to deserve a verbal report. Stuff like this makes him wonder, sometimes, if the pods get some sort of thrill out of stating the obvious. ] She’s not waking up all ready, is she?
[ No response.
His frowns, starting to slowly bend his knees, preparing to stand up from his chair to get a better look at her as his holo-screen hovers just off to the side of him. ] Ooookay. I guess I could—
[ And then everything happens. 2B wakes before he’s even managed to make it halfway out of his chair, yanking herself upward in a movement so sudden and unexpected it nearly startles him out of his own skin, and causes his holo-screen to snap out of existence like it had been abruptly cut off from its power source. The ensuing yelp stays mostly strangled in his throat as his body tries to step back a pace, and he nearly falls over his own chair as its legs tip backwards before thankfully finding proper equilibrium against the cement floor once again. A strange-yet-familiar word hisses past his ears in the form of a question, threatening to ricochet off the drab walls and lodge itself inside his chest. He feels his own pulse rate skyrocket and the response that comes out of him is automatic. ]
Y-yeah?
[ Did she just—
And it's then that the surprise that had so galvanized him trades itself for anxious worry as his eyes catch the glimmer of what couldn’t possibly be the sheen of tears. Was she crying? There’s no way that could be. Right?
He stares at her for what feels like a long time, though it took perhaps only a second’s worth of sand within the world's hourglass, trying to reconcile what his eyes are seeing (why does that name—his name—have to come with tears attached to it?) into something that makes sense to him. He settles back into his chair, wondering what could ever, ever make someone like her cry. It makes him feel like he shouldn’t even be here. That he had inadvertently stumbled across data he had no business or right to access. ]
Hey, 2B, are— [ He pauses, unsure of what to even say. He wonders, then, if he should just pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened, even though he knows that’s not even a real option. His mind just wants solutions. And perhaps a few more seconds to compose itself. ] Is... everything okay?
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.