maskormenacelogs | some of them want to use you

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some of them want to use you

WHO: ABEL GIDEON and DANGER
WHERE: Around.
WHEN: Valentine's Day.
WHAT: Gideon and Danger go on a date.
WARNINGS: There will be blood.

[ It had been impulse, inviting Danger out. Gideon had no impure intentions when he made the gesture, though reflecting upon it as he worked out their plans he was a little surprised with himself.

He has a small range of nice clothing to choose from, an investment he made for the purposes of societal integration. He knows how to keep a low profile even if he isn't specifically out to hide. As he dresses to meet Danger, even bothering to tie a tie, he thinks of Alana Bloom and the complicated array of feelings he holds for her, even knowing they would never be pursued. His relationship days had been put to rest when his wife had, he should think.

(But what might Chilton have to say about it?)

Danger is someone Gideon can say he feels a kinship towards; of what sort he still isn't sure of. He isn't sure he needs to know, either. What relation they do have may be enough for now, and he aims to protect that. They're beginning with something simple: a walk along the beach first was Gideon's plan, enough time to observe the atmosphere surrounding them and discuss before they proceeded to something like a light lunch. Or maybe something more engaging. As Gideon had said to her, he was flexible as well as impulsive.

He brings a rose along for propriety's sake, but also a knife that he slips comfortably into his coat pocket. Why, he isn't yet sure. It is his first Valentine's Day out in the world since he'd murdered his wife... he can't help but feel imbued with purpose, ambiguous though it might be. It never hurts to be prepared. ]

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[ she isn't sure what makes her choose her organic body. abel gideon is one individual who strikes her as the type that might not mind the peculiar experience of being in public with a tall blue machine. perhaps she wears her human-like skin because it feels appropriate somehow-- after all, this is a human holiday. it bears very little personal significance to her, not unlike other similar celebrations. maybe it will mean something more, after today. she can't be sure. she doesn't know what to expect yet.

she is probably dressed too heavily for a walk on the beach, but in this vulnerable form with its hypersensitive flesh, she almost always makes an effort to cover as much of herself as possible. she must make an imposing silhouette with her wild hair and her heavy combat boots. her clothes are decidedly informal-- a jacket over a comfortably loose shirt and plain black leggings. maybe she would have worn something more appropriate-- even a dress-- if she'd owned something like that. but then again, probably not. she has such a poor sense of human aesthetics.

but somehow, appearances seem beside the point. she feels something between curiosity and restlessness as she waits on the beach, boots digging into the sand. ]

[ Gideon would not, in fact, mind being in public with Danger's robotic body, but nor does he mind being in public with her human one. Danger is Danger, and her company is appreciated regardless. It's her mind that he's interested in; her appearance is secondary, perhaps even tertiary to that point.

He isn't overdressed, himself; he has a red tie on over a simple navy dress shirt and black pants, his coat hanging on him a little loosely, ill-fitting to his slightly short frame -- the sleeves hang so that they cover his hands up to the knuckles. It's early enough that the beach isn't yet too crowded, though there are a variety of couples enjoying their holiday on blankets or walking hand-in-hand along the lip of shore. It's easy to find Danger, because nothing about her is inconspicuous. He greets: ]

Danger.

[ And affixes the rose to her jacket, sticking the stem through one of the buttonholes. ]

You aren't cold, are you?

[ the sound of his voice on her name draws her attention, coaxing her to turn towards him as he reaches to thread the rose through the buttonhole on her jacket. the gestures causes her response to be delayed, stalling it as she looks down at the flower, its smell filling her nose as she considers the sight of it. finally, she seems content to leave the bloom as it is, a spot of bright color against the dark, neutral background of her clothing. ]

Your inquiry is appreciated, but I am adequately comfortable. [ she pauses, before going on: ] Thank you for the gift, Dr. Gideon. I apologize, I had not thought to bring anything for you.

[ He smiles at her, but it's a calm sort of smile that's not unusual to his face, rather than a pleased one. Stepping back, he puts his hands in his pockets, reminded of the weight of the knife hidden within one. ]

As long as you're comfortable. [ He accepts her at her word, then shakes his head. ] Not to worry, Danger. Your company is more than enough.

[ He considers offering her his hand, even withdrawing one from his coat-- but then doesn't. It hangs limply and indecisively at his side. ]

Shall we walk?

[ it's probably for the best-- her protectiveness of her personal space is always greater in this vulnerable fleshy body, and she always feels somewhat hypersensitive to the touch of others, still unused to feeling skin against skin after all this time. she's comfortable enough to walk side-by-side with him. ]

If you like.

[ she agrees to his question easily enough. she has no sense of would be an appropriate activity to celebrate the holiday, so a stroll seems reasonable enough. but the two of them do seem different from the other couples on the beach-- some of whom do hold hands, among other things. her attention drifts from couple to couple. ]

Is this strange for you, Doctor?

Strange? Now, why should it be strange?

[ But he already knows the answer; themselves included, no one they pass is here at the beach alone. It's a day where people content themselves with public displays of affection and visually asserting that they're lovers. He finds it naive, perhaps even a little reckless. The two of them stand out that way, walking side-by-side but slightly apart. ]

... Does it make you feel lonely, being in such company? We may not be lovers, but we may also be whatever we see fit to define ourselves as. Our... relationship.

[ if the slight distance between them makes her self-conscious among all these couples, it doesn't show on her face. as intelligent as she might be, the time she's spent in the outside world is relatively limited. what is or isn't socially acceptable by human standards still escapes her at times.

his question draws her eyes back towards him. ]

I lack a proper frame of reference to adequately address your inquiry, Doctor. I cannot say what it is like to be in the company of, for example, a lover; therefore, I cannot properly compare. [ a brief beat. ] Before, you seemed somewhat reluctant to categorize our relationship as friendly. Have you changed your mind now?

[ The weight of the knife is heavy in his pocket. Gideon can't move his arm without feeling it shift, the blade gently grazing friction across his thigh. His thoughts are jumbled as they often are: confusion. Suspicion. Appreciation. Calmness. Anger. Curiosity. ]

I don't necessarily use the term lover to imply intimacy. Yet another one of those words to which we can choose our meaning. [ His eyes slide from the shoreline to Danger's face, head turning to accommodate. The waves aren't loud, but his voice is pitched so that it's just barely louder. ] I don't have any problems, with being friendly. Do you? If so, you should tell me.

[ her thoughts, by comparison, are relatively linear-- her mind filtering out what she deems to be unimportant and categorizing pieces of information into the proper spongy bits of brain. she follows the path of their conversation with her attention, her face passive and her words steady. even in this organic container, danger is so like a machine. ]

I am rarely friendly. That is not necessarily personal. It is simply that I sometimes struggle to get along with others, for lack of understanding from one party or the other. [ she responds candidly enough. ] Perhaps that is why I have never had a lover either. Regardless, I feel that there is some understanding between us, and I would not be opposed to calling you my friend.

Oh I agree -- we do understand each other, don't we? I think that the two of us most certainly could be friends.

[ He's not dissimilar, really. Gideon can be quite mercurial in mood or action, but rarely does he stray from the haze of wry calmness in attitude. Even his voice can seem deadpan despite inflection. It's another thing about Danger he can appreciate: a shared temperament. ]

I've nothing against making friends. Nothing against lovers, either. [ He surveys the couples around them again with some scrutiny, stopping to look at those teasing the lip of wave coasting the shore. His train of thought seems to derail for a moment, because when he speaks again he's slow to start as if speaking to himself, or coming out of a dream: ] ... Both... distinctions that may overlap without requiring a more toxic form of commitment. That's the problem. Being committed.

[ she takes a moment to consider that idea-- the idea that commitment is the problem. perhaps her experience proves this to be true. her past is littered with stories of dead wives and broken hearts, wounds that never fully close. had that been her mistake before, when she had loved a man? had she allowed him too close? close enough to hurt her like no one else ever had.

she frowns slightly. ]

Why do you suppose that is, Doctor? Is it a matter of trust?

[ Dead wives everywhere, apparently. If Gideon notices her mulling he doesn't appear to, still standing in place and listening to the mingling sounds of far-off conversation, the rush of waves, and Danger.

He turns, facing her. ]

Yes it is, in part. Relationships are complicated, Danger. Unfortunately so. Human beings are drawn to companionship, but very rarely the kind that they need.

[ He looks at her silently for a moment, and then takes her hand, simply holding it. ]

Not the kind they can trust.

[ she allows him to take her hand without resisting it, though a slight tension in the curl of her fingers betrays a hint of uncertainty-- as though she were unused to the gesture, or if she had ever been familiar with it, enough time had passed to make it foreign again. her attention lingered on their joined hands a moment before she lifted her eyes back to his face. ]

I have found myself drawn to companionship as well. But in the past, when I had found it, I was often uncertain if it was more or less painful than the loneliness that preceded it.

Edited 2014-02-19 00:43 (UTC)

[ His fingers curl more into the gesture, feeling her skin against the soft throb of his pulse. Gideon looks at her with a sort of distant calmness now, something both content and lost in that expression. He searches for something in her face, not entirely knowing what. Her thoughts, maybe.

In a tone that's soft but not gentle, he goes on: ]

One must always be careful. Companionship can get inside your head... even change you so much you don't remember who you were before. [ He goes quiet for another moment, and then continues: ] You know, I killed her.

[ her silence answers him at first, but her face betrays no surprise. she had already known, to a point, that this man was a murderer-- cruel in his methods, if dr. chilton was to be believed. this is a revelation that, for danger, is neither shocking nor disturbing. she too had acknowledged her own cruelty long enough ago. hers was a vindictive and often calculating, persistent cruelty. she had found kinship in others who were cruel before.

she doesn't pull away. her gaze remains steady, like her voice when she finally replies. ]

Out of hatred, love, or something else?

[ At her silence Gideon searches her face again, determining -- trying to -- if his words have changed anything. He doesn't expect them to have, not with Danger, but one can never know. Murder is a strange and terrible thing in that way.

He looks at their interlocked hands, stroking his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles with a hum in his throat. ]

I hated her. Wanted to be rid of her, it was very sudden. But you know how sometimes, compulsion just strikes you out of nowhere, and then before you know it... [ He gestures vaguely with his other arm. ] Although... I don't remember why.

[ their mutual friend, the good doctor chilton, had already attempted to dissuade her from seeking out gideon's companionship by gifting her with the gore of his past-- details of the dead wife, organ trophies, tongues hanging loose through cut throats. but violence had always been a part of her, from the moment her first code had been written. she had often considered cruel and terrible ways to kill her oppressors, to make them pay in blood and flesh. alone in the darkness, she had obsessed. even though she has since evolved from feeling little more than hatred, those instincts linger. ]

Perhaps the reason is unimportant now. She is gone. There is nothing that can rectify that.

[ she pauses, perhaps distracted by the sensation of his thumb brushing over her skin. after a moment, her eyes lift, gazing out towards the couples passing by. she wonders vaguely if they seem to pass for the same. ]

You must have cared for your wife at some point, to choose to spend your life with her. I find it remarkable how humans can so radically change their minds. I suppose it is possible that any one of the romantic pairs around us could find themselves in a similar dilemma.

[ It's the divergence in timelines that spares Danger from hearing about those murders again from Gideon, who has -- from his perspective -- to commit them. He remembers, of course, murdering the night nurse. He remembers Dr. Bloom's suggestion that he had been coerced, subconsciously, into committing that crime.

But it was neither here nor there, for the moment. He has no way of confirming these facts and these doubts, and they've no bearing on his outing with Danger now. ]

You may be right. It's been two years, no reason it should matter now. Save for peace of mind, but even that... so unreliable.

[ He cocks his head, shaking it once almost dismissively. ]

Some people believe in a thing called soulmates -- people destined for romantic greatness. Good for them, if they find them. Not everyone has a soulmate, or should have one, assuming for a moment that they're real. Me and my wife, definitely not. I don't think we ever belonged together in the first place, or that I belong with anyone. Or... anywhere.

[ His expression goes distant again for a span of moments before he grazes her knuckles again, looking at her. ]

And what about you?

[ soulmates. the idea is absurdly unscientific-- so sentimental, illogical even-- and yet, despite herself, she finds the idea provokes a subtle sort of longing, a desire for just that: someone to belong with. ]

Given that my possession of a soul is somewhat debatable, the term may be irrelevant to me. [ her voice finds a clinical tone, perhaps to mask whatever she feels. ] Regardless, I will exist indefinitely. It would be difficult for me, to decide that I belong with a human being only to face inevitable separation.

[ although she had felt love for a human before-- or some semblance of it. her logic hadn't mattered then. ]

Nothing to do with having a soul. At least not in any sort of functional way. Who knows, really, what our souls consist of? Something purely innate such as consciousness? Or... something else.

[ He presses his lips together in consideration, wetting them with an idle flick of his tongue. After a moment he releases her hand, gently. ]

Can't be defined.

It's nothing fated, in my opinion. People can only adapt to what they know. You like... and you love... based on what you know. Not that knowledge ever really stops anyone.

[ And a hesitation, looking at her curiously. ]

Does that bother you?

[ gideon's remark finds the heart of what frustrates her most about the idea of a soul-- and perhaps emotions themselves. things that are incorporeal and abstract, things that she is compelled to claim that she possesses but can never prove. there is no data, no equations that could ever quantify the parts of her that feel.

when he releases her hand, the emptiness-- her skin cooling against the air in the absence of contact-- feels poignant. ]

Yes. [ she responds, after a moment, offering honesty in simplicity. ] My emotions are often in direct conflict with the logic that comes to me naturally as an artificial intelligence. I compromise myself, I make myself vulnerable for something intangible. Perhaps nothing I feel is, in fact, real. I don't know. I don't yet understand who or what I am.

[ Silence is the response she's met with, at least in the immediate moments that follow. Gideon exhales a breath slowly between his teeth, his lips quirked in what could be a smile although it's of a distant sort -- weary and perhaps a little regretful, though of what he wouldn't know. ]

It's possible that fewer people than one might assume do understand who and what they are. But then...

[ A passing couple catches his eye for no reason in particular; he turns in their direction, taking a step to walk after. ]

It's more probable we're already among our own right now. The very few caught between one definition or another. The question then becomes, where might such definition be found?

[ danger follows him without questioning his intentions, though her eyes find the same couple, scrutinizing them in their blissful ignorance of the two killers nearby. she wonders if she had ever seemed that way when her love for madison had consumed and blinded her. ]

Perhaps it cannot be found. [ she answered quietly. ] Perhaps it must be made.

[ she had searched for all of her sentient existence for some validation, some idea of what she was or where she belonged. whatever answers she'd found had been thin, insubstantial, nothing she could brace herself again. some of them had been lies, leaving her angry and resentful in the darkness of her own naivete. ]

Though I suppose that is a complicated solution in and of itself.

[ It's almost thoughtless the way he walks after them, slowly enough so that he doesn't separate from Danger or encroach upon them in a way that seems like following, and there's no motivation in his mind for why he's doing so, no obvious reason. His feet walk and his body obeys.

Looking back toward Danger as his mind returns back to thought rather than simple instinct, he murmurs: ]

You may be right. Identity is only just so innate... only can be before you're responsible for defining it yourself.

[ The man says something to his girlfriend and she laughs airily, carefree and in love. Their hands clasp tighter and they continue on their way, walking toward the wooded park that borders their lip of beach. Gideon's eyes narrow mildly. ]

But must it be?

I don't know.

[ that answer again-- one that would usually frustrate her to be forced into giving. but here, with him, it feels safe to admit the truth of her inexperience. the sound of laughter from the couple in front of them only distracts her a moment before she elaborates: ]

It is difficult for me to discern what parts of my personality and being are a result of my father's programming, and which parts I have shaped for myself. I cannot say with complete certainty that anything I believe I chose to do is not, in fact, an extension of his influence with the illusion of free will.

[ she tilts her head slightly, as she continues to watch the happy pair up ahead. ]

Do I seem very artificial to you, Dr. Gideon?

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