myresponsibility | 027

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027 | VOICE

Scorpius is in Zero. He needs a doctor.

[And he's not going to say why unless he's pressed, because they've done this whole burn the warden at the stake for lashing out at someone thing before, and he doesn't think Ben deserves to be demoted or told he should be demoted for this..]

[Warden Filter]

[He sounds a little less hollow when he switches the filter, but there's still something off.]

Crazy question, but does anyone want to breathe down this guy's neck a little until he gets his own warden? I don't think this time out's really going to teach him much of a lesson and I don't think anyone else needs to get hurt.

I mean, I can do it, if no one else wants to.

[Filtered to Friends*]

[Peter is still bad about asking for help. Like, really bad at it. But he's super angry and still remembers being grabbed and threatened and being absolutely fucking terrified thanks to the flood, and he doesn't really know how to deal with all of it.

Like, at all. And he's apparently supposed to be better at reaching out to people now, but there's still a lot of hesitation and reluctance to actually be around people right now.

Except he did just sort of imply that he got in a fight even if that's not really true, so. Might as well reassure people, he guesses.]

I'm fine.

[Private to Ben]

[This part comes a bit later.]

Is he doing okay?

[ooc: One friendly conversation rule applies!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Scorpius' gaze remains locked on the ceiling for several minutes, before at last he sits up to address Dillon.

What Dillon may sense is a myriad of things. Certainly he would grasp that Scorpius is constantly in a state of overheating and externally cooling: a delicate balance necessary for his continued survival. He produces excess amounts of heat, which can spike to dangerous levels when he's upset.

He's a hybrid: an unfortunate mixture of two radically incompatible species - one, a strong, durable warrior race of reptilian stupidity and a love of heat. The other, a smaller, cleverer race much closer to humanity in origin but with an unfortunate side effect of being killed off by heat in an agonizing process. But the coolant suit helps with that. He had it built for him years ago, years after escaping the creatures responsible for bringing him into the world to be used as an experimental tool for galactic domination. He hates them.

Less obvious but still prominent is Scorpius' own ability to tell truth from lies. He will not appreciate being lied to, but will make no mention that he has this ability.

And then of course, there is the raw, burning obsession with John Crichton, the catalyst for all of this. Not just his stint in Zero, but his death and status as an inmate.]

Dillon Cole.

I was not expecting you.

[Not everything about Scorpius's heritage comes through - Dillon has no context for his two species, and that makes it harder to connect what he sees to the raw truth the universe wants to tell him. But the physics of it, the movement of heat, the peril and precarious balance, and the human-enough timbre of obsession, that he parses easily enough.]

I do try to be unpredictable.

[He doesn't touch Scorpius the way he did Alex. He does it with will alone, just focuses and pushes things into their proper alignments. Not setting the arm but unbreaking it, like the damage never was.]

[Scorpius' attention breaks off from Dillon and turns immediately to his arm. He had no warning, no preparation for this, but he holds still as the bones mend. From his expression there's nothing to determine whether he's in pain or not.

he is always in pain

When the arm is nearly done, he stands up, looking over Dillon in a new light]

I would have preferred a word of warning.

Did you warn Alex?

[This is actually an honest question. He asks mildly, makes no assumptions, no sneering pointed implications. He wants to know.]

Of course not.

[Scorpius is many things, but he tends to be very honest. Especially with creatures who may or may not be psychic]

But I am an unpaired, out-of-control inmate and it is expected of me to be a violent creature.

That's a little bit disingenuous. Not every inmate is violent, and you've gone out of your way to present yourself as reasonable.

Then you see more than half the wardens you share your title with.

[He snorts softly. He used to see everything, more than he could digest, he could see the shape of the world and how it would shatter. He feels blind, here, most of the time. He wonders whether it's the flattery that makes him think of Okoya, or if he's just kind of alien-racist.]

For all the good it does me.

[This isn't bitter, even though it could have been deeply so in other circumstances. It's casual. Hindsight is pointless.]

[Scorpius lifts his arm up, flexing his fingers curiously. If there is pain, he doesn't show it]

Why heal me?

Before I came here, I was in prison.

A real one, with heavy nuclear shielding and feet-thick vault doors and a full-restraints chair they could use to wheel me to the room where they pimped out my powers.

There was an electrocution mechanism built into the chair. Enough to kill a normal person, but I'd just bounce back, so that made it fine, right? The general in charge liked to buzz me whenever I got mouthy.

So of course I did it all the time. He could hurt me, but he couldn't stop me, aggravating him, worrying the cracks in his head a little bit day by day. Attrition. Nobody's got time like a prisoner.

I don't think physical injury or additional pain are going to do anything to discourage you. So not healing you would be pointlessly cruel, and I'm trying to avoid that.

You are correct in your assessment. Pain only encourages us that our methods are working.

But kindness is also its own trap. I am told nothing aches more than a betrayal of trust.

[Wryly, and the pain is deep and old, not raw and not healed over, either. it's just something he carries.]

There are a few things, actually.

[He breathes, then tilts his head, contemplatively.]

So, was that a roundabout warning, or a test? Or a little nudge toward chipping away a warden's perceived idealism? Or were you just saying it because you actually think that?

Edited 2014-03-02 19:17 (UTC)

I have no ill feelings towards you, especially not when you insist on healing me. So I have no desire to 'chip away' at your idealism.

I try not to lie if I see no point in it.

You're destabilizing things. I wasn't sure how widely you wanted to cast that net.

[It's not that Dillon understands Scorpius's motives; he doesn't. But fault lines, unraveling, that's his bread and butter, and he couldn't miss it happening. That's what Scorpius set in motion, and he's too smart not to know it, not to be doing it on purpose.]

So why did you do it?

Minimizing collateral damage was never a priority with me, and with those I work with and against. My primary objective is destabilization, albeit to one specific person.

John Crichton.

[He thinks about the Hoover Dam. He can't exactly judge.]

Why him?

He possesses the key to stopping a race of creatures from taking over my galaxy, system by system.

[It's always the same dream. A man, a woman, and a child, on a floating platform. The smell of purple. Sick and sweet. Doom is coming. Dillon blinks it away.]

And driving him crazy makes him more likely to give it to you.

Yes, actually. The knowledge is buried within him, completely inaccessible even to the host. "Driving him crazy" loosens the neural attachments.

[He wants to perch his chin in his hand. He wants to kick his feet. Neither of those are terribly feasible while leaning against a door, but the instinct is there.]

Maybe I'll peek.

[Scorpius inclines his head with interest]

Are you a psychic, Dillon?

Not the way people traditionally mean it. I don't have - some extra mental sense. It's more like...very localized omniscience.

Wow, that sounds pretentious, sorry. I see patterns, basically. I look at something and I just see what it's part of, what marks have been left on it, what it was and how it was shaped and what it would take to follow any of the paths to what it could be, where the fault lines are.

It works with just the same with physics and people, really.

And you could enter Crichton's space and discover this for yourself?

[He sits up, intrigued]

I don't know, maybe. Probably. He's human, right? I don't get anything off soulless people or extra-dimensional energy beings.

No, he is most assuredly human.

This ability. Does it work only through proximity? And how close do you need to be?

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