ataraxion | NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

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[She's in one of the media suites on one of the unpopulated floors. A better choice than another holodeck, she thought, because it wasn't like they did much or you could touch them. There's some soap opera grabbed out of the Tranquility's library playing on the screen, two women arguing, but it's muted. And Taylor wasn't paying it any attention anyway.

She still startles when he appears, turning in her seat immediately to face the door. But there's no almost shooting him - hasn't been for a while, and the one gun she's got with her isn't readily to hand anyway.]

Yeah, well. I'm not. [Wary and cautious at times, maybe, because he was an angel and she was still pretty sure she didn't entirely know what that meant. But she wasn't scared and she hadn't said he could be here.] And you should leave.

I don't...want to. [the hesitation is due solely to the fact that he wants to do better, and that means listening to others. but this is one order he has to ignore. he can't keep watch over tyke if he leaves now, and he can't just abandon her there. not while she has those masks out in front of her.

taking a careful step closer, castiel holds out the bottle of juice he'd brought, attempting to use it as an excuse to be moving in.]

Why did you come here to drink? [why not around those here she considers a friend?]

I didn't wanna see anyone.

[Anyone that would ask questions, talk, expect her to do anything. Anyone that would remind her Tommy wasn't there anymore, like she could still pretend it wasn't true. Anyone that would try to stop her drinking it away.

Not that the last had worked, anyway, but she still doesn't take the juice he's offering. Glares at it silently for a moment, then looks back up at him.]

Guess we don't always get what we want.

Sometimes it's better that way.

[of course, they're definitely talking about very different situations here. but he doesn't dwell on it. instead, he just continues moving closer, placing the bottle down in front of her instead.

he turns his gaze to the dogs then, a little confused as to just why they've kept their distance. surely they should be able to cheer her up a little.]

...people are worried about you.

[Both comments have Taylor looking away, frowning. She doesn't see how the dogs react to Castiel looking at them, several perking up slightly for the first time since she came into this room. One - Windsor - coming forward to say hello, though significantly less boisterous than he would be normally, Taylor's mood laying heavily on all of them.

And Taylor doesn't like the idea of people worrying - of making people worry - but that had been part of the reasoning behind taking herself out of their way. She shouldn't have made the video feed, that's what's set this whole thing off, worried people and brought Castiel here, but she'd had the sudden thought that she needed to tell everyone Tommy was gone. Needed to do it quick. Rip off the bandage.]

They don't need to be. I'm fine.

[It's a lie, a blatant one. She hates lying, but she lets it stand anyway.]

[he takes a knee at windsor's approach, giving him a quick scratch behind the ears. if he had his way, all of them would be in gardens now; somewhere far more comfortable than this, with space for the dogs to at least move around in. but he won't move tyke or her dogs without her permission, and right now, he already knows he's pushing his luck by simply being there.]

You're hidden away from everybody.

[which is the biggest problem. nobody else can find her right now to help.]

You still have those masks.

[She watches him with Windsor, but doesn't make any move to stop the dog or reprimand him (doesn't like how her feelings are affecting the dogs, even if she won't do anything about it). Which is enough to have a couple of the others coming over to join him, nosing after Castiel's hands, looking for some of the reassurance Taylor isn't currently capable of giving them.

Instead, she's settling back in her seat, snagging up the bottle of unnamed space booze again.]

Yeah, Cas. [Dry, because he's stating the obvious and he should just leave already.] I wanted to be alone and I wanted the masks.

[the other dogs are given a scratch in turn as castiel instead takes a seat. it makes it easier to give them each their fair share of his attention. even if the majority of it is still fixed on tyke.]

They're dangerous. [the masks, of course. wearing his had brought back more than just a few ghosts from his past. but he'd already been used to speaking with lucifer long before the masks came in to play. and lucifer had at least talked back. the others- well, he doesn't think anybody here deserves to have to deal with their own ghosts in quite such a literal manner.]

I don't want you to get hurt. Nobody here does. But if you stay here, people are going to keep worrying about you.

[He's settling, sitting down instead of leaving the way she wants, and she takes a long drink out of the bottle, almost in defiance of it. The alcohol's rough, burns, but she's used to it.]

I'm meant to do dangerous. Get hurt. It's what I was trained for. [If the Academy had left her with any of the injuries she'd experienced, there'd be enough sign of that. But the only scars she currently carried were from the maze. She shrugs.] Maybe you and everyone else should just get used to it.

[Better her than anyone else, she figures.]

Just because you were trained for it, it doesn't mean you deserve to get hurt.

[it's a thought he fully believes in when it comes to other people. it doesn't matter who tyke is, on this ship or back in her world. all he knows is that he trusts her for a reason, and it isn't because of her training. it's because he knows a good person when he sees one.]

Instead, I think it means that this is exactly where I should be right now.

[There's a part of her that thinks she does deserve it. Everything that happens to her. Because that was the only thing that would explain it, that it was her fault, something wrong with her. A freak.

She doesn't say any of that. Just lifts her chin, belligerent, defiant.]

Why? I don't need your help.

You don't need it, or want it. But that doesn't mean you don't have it anyway.

[in his eyes it's that simple. tyke may not want his help, but he's going to continue to offer it regardless, because that's what friends do. it's a lesson he learned from dean the hard way, and he isn't about to let it go to waste.]

NINE: video

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