Open Post 001

[2020mod]

• Step one: start a thread in this post!
• Step two: specify who the thread is for (or open) in this post!
• Step three: make people reply to this post!
• AND THAT'S THE WAY YOU DO IT.


And don't forget, there's still the ooc discussion post! And nothing needs to be contained to this post! Create new logs to your heart's content! This AU is yours, so have at it!


musebox • rules • character list

Comments

[motherofnemesis]

She knew where he was staying. She almost always knew, through Sherlock or through Ghost himself. Cautiousness when approaching his hideaways had become a matter of course, double checking everything for safety for his sake, doubling back to lose any potential tails even though she was certain the government still thought she was in Ireland. For him it was worth it, though.

She sat down on a box when she got in, dropping her bag by her side. Elbows on her knees and chin on her hands as she leaned forward, patient. The odds were he already knew she was here, and even if he didn't he would be here soon, of that she was fairly certain.

And sure enough, he arrived. A tiny smile tugged the corner of her mouth.

"And yet I'm here," she said calmly. "I'm in the City for the next while. How are you?"

It was meaningless, almost banal chatter, but some normality was the only thing she had to offer him.

[hacktivist]

"I am." He was hunched, twisted in midair with tortured tendons pulled tight as a bowstring, tight as frayed nerves.

"Gotham should take you home."

Animated, opening his arms. "I have configurations. Lachesis can be coaxed. Look." And a sudden darting, dash to a stack of cardboard pieces with rough sketches on them, the equivalent of meandering technological gibberish, like a sentence translated into a few languages and back, whatever original meaning hopelessly lost in translation.

"I know you'd like to go home."

[motherofnemesis]

She listened patiently, waiting for him to finish. Waiting for him to drift close enough in reach that she could reach up for his hand, trying to keep it secure in hers. There was so little real protection she could offer him from this constant, waking nightmare. Reality was all, and offering reality was at some points almost an unkindness rather than a service.

"I am home," she said calmly. "Ghost. I've lived here for almost eleven years now, this is where I belong." Where she deserved, at this point, given the things she'd done.

And perhaps more importantly, where she wanted to be. The concept of losing the memory of everything she'd won and lost here was unthinkable. For better or for worse, this was who she was and this was her life. She couldn't deny that sometimes she thought wistfully of being young and innocent and free, but that was years ago and she wasn't that person anymore. She couldn't ever cram all of this back into that skin. "I wouldn't have that just erased." She stood up, taking the papers from him and setting them aside. "I wouldn't want you erased. Not ever." Her smile was calm, almost hopeful. "Hey. We're going to win this." White lies. Things she didn't believe but needed him to.

[hacktivist]

He looked down at her hand on his hand, then back at her, and then lowered his head a little, like a wound-down toy.

"Oh."

It was unclear what he was saying oh to, although he took another moment or two seemingly to gather himself.

"Have you eaten? "

[motherofnemesis]

A pause as she watched him, trying to maintain her calm. Trying not to let it show how much it always managed to hurt that he remained so disconnected.

"No," she said softly. "I haven't. Have you got dinner?" She sighed, brushing her hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder. "You need repairs."

She covered the next moment, voice as even as if it had been what she intended to say at first.

"Pretty soon this suit's damage will reach a critical level and start increasing exponentially."

[hacktivist]

Ghost phased through her, behind her to access a box of rations, pawing through it busily and with a kind of anxious quickness as the thought remained in his mind, what he needed to retrieve.

"I can continue operating on baseline integrity with minimal maintenance."

And in the same tone, "I love you."

[motherofnemesis]

She turned, suppressing the instinctive shiver as he phased through her. She'd never been able to grow accustomed to the feeling, not really.

"But it won't be optimal." She shrugged, as if it wasn't too important. "I could help you, it wouldn't take long." She knew the odds of getting him to leave his suit were about as high as the odds of winning this fight - no wait, possibly even lower. There was still a tiny chance the resistance would succeed.

Every time like a punch to the gut. She'd burnt her emotions out and shielded them up, but he could still bypass every security measure she had with three simple words. Self corrupting protocol. Unfair advantages. She closed her eyes.

"I know." It was quiet, the unevenness in it the first real trace of emotion she'd shown since getting here. "I love you too."