Description: Three weeks after they first encountered one another in Ikari territory, K' and Whip meet up again in a discreet corner of Metro City. They share a discussion about their uncannily-similar lack of past, their aimless present, and their uncertain future. also, Whip introduces her brother to the joys of guinness
It's precisely three weeks later, down even to the minute. K' was by upbringing a rather exact and punctual individual, conditioned to be conscious of every second and nigh-mechanical in obeying strict schedules. He'd gotten here early this time, however, whether out of impatience or out of a wary desire to canvas the area first for any potential traps. The brief once-over had given him a good introduction to Metro, a city with which he was largely unfamiliar. Or at least, a good introduction to the city's slums.
What little business exists in the slums of Metro is of the usual sort that crops up in such downtrodden places. Bars. Pubs. Places where people can forget their surroundings and circumstances for however long they can keep themselves drunk. He hadn't been surprised, when he was first directed to this part of the city, to find that the Avalon was one such venue. It's rather more classy than the competition, to be sure, but that stench of morose alcoholism is still there: lurking beneath the sleepy, laid-back exterior.
In contrast to the usual clientele, K' was here to try to remember.
He hasn't gone in yet, but he can smell the cigarette smoke even from his position standing just outside, back against the wall and hands shoved in his pockets. Despite the obvious chill that had set into the weather, he's dressed as if he still thinks it's the early end of fall: nothing but a light leather jacket, a t-shirt, and dark blue jeans 'guarding' him from the windy 4 C weather. Those everpresent shades hide away his eyes, making it hard to know where he's looking or if he's even awake.
Outwardly, he is the very image of relaxed, negligent calm: leaned there against the wall, long legs splayed bracingly before him, with shoulders hunched and head canted to one side. Inwardly, he's on edge: nervous and almost scared. He's very alone out here, even more alone than usual, and he's very conscious of the fact.
The sharp wind reminds her of how accustomed she's become of South America. How quickly she's learned to live without that above the equator.
Despite her distaste for the cold, Whip's decision that they meet in Metro was deliberate. She knew she would be on assignment in town at this time, which would allow her a free evening in town, whether she would end up spending it shopping, dining up at the most exquisite locations, or meeting some nameless man in a sleazy pub who just so happened to be suffering identical bouts of amnesia.
Fine dining will have to be saved for next time.
One of the foolish few bodies to be walking the slums at night, Whip watches her breath puff visibly against the air and enjoys the silence. She's one of very few in the world who could be unconcerned enough to find the quiet beauty in a place like this; the usual, sneering Metro thugs and muggers would look like kittens next to what she's had breathe down her neck in NESTS.
She's also pretty familiar with the area. Whip picked the Avalon because she knows it and she likes it. She remembers one mark back in her assassin days that brought her there, and inside was the only peace she was able to get in six weeks. She also knows she'll have anonymity and privacy, and those are of the utmost importance tonight. She'll be able to slip in and slip out, dependent on whatever she gets to find out.
Christ, she feels guilty about this. Guilty she's taking this deliberate detour without telling anyone. But she wouldn't know how to begin to explain. If anything, it's taken her these very, very necessary three weeks to think up the questions she's going to ask this guy... if he's even there, that is.
There's the likely possibility he isn't. She knows nothing about him. Not his name. Not his faction, if he even has one. She's not even too definite she was able to make out--
--his face.
Whip is looking at it right now.
A distant, measured pace draws to a halt, and several metres down the street a lone figure simply deigns to stand there, staring. By the cut of her in the half-light, she's a young woman, dressed neatly in similarly dark jeans, a fitted sleeved black shirt, and a short suede coat matching the colour of her brown hair. A plain handbag sits off her shoulder, pulled imperceptively against her side when her elbow tenses. She makes no further movement. She doesn't even know what to say.
What does anyone even say in a moment like this? Hello, fellow amnesiac!
He hears her coming when she's still some distance away, and he hears her stop when she's still too far for easy speech. But at first, he doesn't seem to respond outwardly. He doesn't move until a few awkward seconds have ticked by.
Finally, K' glances over at her: or at least, he presumably does. Hard to tell with those shades. His head turns in her direction, and the look of her- not just her face, but her carriage, her demeanor, something ineffable about her-- slams back into his consciousness all over again. His yellow eyes twitch behind the flat black of those sunglasses, and K' shifts uncomfortably, straightening up: one long leg pulling up out of its generous extension to coil a bit defensively more directly beneath him.
But despite his uneasy motions, on the whole he seems a little more at ease then he had been before. She got to meet him in her own element last time. He hadn't been able to think in that sweltering heat. Now his mind's a little clearer, kept sharp by the edge of Metro's cold weather. The lower temperature soothes the fire under his skin.
It's not easy to see in half-light with shades on; and eventually, he makes the concession of removing them so he can get a better look. But unobstructed vision, unfortunately, doesn't make the half-remembered thoughts her face triggers any clearer. He looks her properly over a few more moments in silence, wind ruffling through his short white hair. Presently a long, amused breath huffs out of him, steaming visibly in the cold air. It's unusually pronounced, almost as if he were breathing a lungful of smoke-- almost as if the heat within him were greater than that of others-- and on the tail end of it his mouth pulls up slightly at the corner. "Well... I guess if you were gonna snipe me," he observes sardonically, "you'd have done it already."
With that, he finally peels himself fully off the wall, pushing away to stand up to his full height. The motion soon proves itself little more than a stretch, however: his posture soon dissolves back into that negligent, loose slouch. A slow cant of the head is angled at the bar door. "Get inside." His voice rasps gruffly on the words, like it hasn't been used for some time... and like it's never learned to be particularly kind or polite, though it might make its best efforts to be. One hand-- the ungloved hand-- lifts to the back of his neck, scruffing his hair up irritably in a gesture half habitual, half nervous. "It's cold out-- not that it bothers -me-, but..."
Trailing off, K' lifts a shoulder in a shrug; and then he simply turns and pushes inside, opting for action over further words. For the moment.
For the longest time, Whip neither knows what to think nor what to do. It had been so easy for her to arrange this, to walk away, to try to function despite it all the past three weeks, to walk here with an untroubled mind. But the instant she arrives and recognizes the man there -- the boy, he can't be any older than she is -- everything about her seems to lock up. He came along after all. He's been waiting here for her. And she doesn't know what to think.
A strange anxiety flushes out her confidence. She stands there uneasily, her nerves making her muscles go all on-end like a conditioned soldier's should. Her hand grips uneasily around the straps of her handbag. And her eyes, lacking the privacy of K''s shades, stare transparently toward him. The look on her face is about as unconcealed as they come. For that quiet moment they share, she looks pretty green.
When he greets her with that dry remark, she meets his mention of sniping with a confused look. It lasts only heartbeats, her dark eyes blinking, before her expression smoothes over and her lips move. She doesn't respond wryness with wryness, or even remind him with dark humour that she kinda did that already. Instead, his sharp words seem to strangely relax the tension from her body and push the uneasiness away. And Whip finds herself smiling back, gratefully.
Her eyes follow the front doors to the Avalon upon her mysterious companion's command, then again at him, an old voice in her head telling her that she shouldn't put her back on him. But she doesn't give it the heed it deserves -- Whip is too busy giving K' a curious look as she registers the distinct slant of his voice. Not one for requests. Then again, neither was she on Ikari territory. Off that aforementioned territory seems to do wonders for her mood now; Whip doesn't find herself riled in the least by K''s behaviour, either too patient by nature or having come too far that she can't afford being uncooperative.
Or perhaps she just finds herself too busy being intrigued to be anything else.
Then he babbles something about the cold and turns shoulder on her. Her head tilts, caught off-guard by it all. Strange. But she doesn't idle for long, finding herself more than compliant to flank him into the familiar old pub. And it hasn't changed one bit.
The Avalon is as dark and moody as its music, marinating under flickering yellowed lamps that bleed texture to the musty air. It's a rude awakening from the chilly November world -- too hot, too cramped, warmed by too many bodies breathing too much cigarette smoke. It doesn't bug Whip. However cramped and dark it is, however polluted the people look inside, the atmosphere of it comforts her in the weirdest ways. She knows she's going to be needing that tonight.
Sticking her hands in the pockets of her coat despite the warmth, keeping one eye glued on K', the so-far silent Whip finally deigns to speak. "So... where's it gonna be, Corey Hart? Booth back in the corner there?"
In contrast, K' had been unable to forget this entire thing; unable to shove it out of his consciousness even despite trying to dull his thoughts and clear his mind with any number of distractions. He thought about it before falling asleep at night, thought about it while dressing in the morning, thought about it as he fought his fights and traded blows. He'd thought about it at the dinner table with such wordless, frowning intensity that Maxima thought he'd taken ill. But weirdly, now that the moment's arrived and the pressure is on, he seems to stabilize to a controlled sort of equilibrium. He's always been trained to handle stress well. Whip stands there looking at him, the look on her face as transparent as they come, and he simply returns her gaze. It probably helps his affectation of calm that he's got shades and she doesn't.
They eventually come off, once K' is sure the initial discomfort has passed. It's daft trying to see anything or move around at night with shades on, and all he had wanted-- if only in the beginning-- that privacy of facial expression. Everything he wears has a purpose, and he's gotten used to using his shades in that way. People think his manner of dress to be some kind of subversive fashion statement, or that he's trying to look cool, but it isn't. He wears his leather as protection. He wears shades to hide... and if he could, he'd keep them on. However, he'd rather not walk into anything.
He'd figured she would hesitate to go in before him. He doesn't care. He can be the one to turn his back first, if that's what it'll come to. Besides, he's pretty certain that even if she did turn out to be a trap or assassin... if it's just her, he could kill her before she could him. Even if that hesitant smile of hers, just now, stirred some flicker of a strange sensation in him. Some dormant brother's instinct, still extant unbeknownst to him, that hasn't entirely been wiped clean.
The instant they're both in, K' takes a moment to quietly sweep the area with a practiced eye. He's not quite as comforted by the place as Whip might be, preferring open spaces to insular hideaways, but there's something about the place that's too laid-back to be particularly threatening. He's so busy thinking to himself that he almost misses it when Whip finally breaks her long silence at his shoulder.
The sound of her voice draws a small, almost pained flinch of confusion out along the line of his brows. The longer he's in her company, the more he's frustrated and bewildered by the simultaneous familiarity and utter strangeness she inspires in him. Shoving that moment of uncertainty out of his mind, his head dipping slightly, he forces his attention onto her words rather than her voice. The reference completely passes him by, his blank silence testament to how completely he's missed out on culture growing up; stymied, he focuses on the part of the sentence that makes actual sense to him.
"...Fine. It's out of the way." He's walking the instant he finishes talking, his gaze avoiding hers in favor of looking to the place she designates: a little booth wedged in the corner, whose table is adorned with a couple token, unlit candles. He's not used to standing around companionably side by side with somebody-- much less somebody who's a stranger-- and his lack of socialization shows in the way he doesn't look at her while talking, and holds himself a little drawn in. He slots himself into the seat with a rough motion that belies his obvious nervousness, but the instant he's actually facing her again he seems to relax a little. His eyes meet hers, the strange color of them even more pronounced in the yellowy light.
His hands stay on the tabletop. Loose. After a moment, they lift slightly, turning in a universal questioning gesture: So?
Amusement haunts her face, and Whip keeps it there, letting that ghost go unexorcised. She finds the longer she keeps some wayward humour about this whole exchange, the less nervous she'll feel about the lot of it. And the fact that she even finds herself able to be amused keeps her amused, running in a constant, if not extremely confusing cycle. This is a very important night for her. It might give her some answers that brings her steps closer to figuring out her past. Moments like these she's been waiting for years. She'd think she'd be sick to her stomach with tension and expectation. Unable to walk straight for the jitters.
Instead, she just wants to laugh at a hundred little things. Like mystery man's sunglasses and bad mood, and her wondering which comes bought as the accessory for the other.
Maybe she just needs more sleep.
But he starts walking again, and she follows impassively, her eyes on the line of his shoulders, staring and thinking. He nabs one side of the booth, and she, in a much more patient, gentled way, takes the opposite seat, setting her handbag beside her within arm's reach. There, she settles in, her hands immediately busy to begin unbuttoning her suede coat, her eyes lifting on K'.
She meets his eyes, and her hands stop a moment. His eyes are so strange... Whip finds herself immediately reminded of NESTS, and its wayward lot, how every single one of them looked so strange, or how she looked so strange compared to them. She wonders if that's entirely why he covers his eyes.
Then, her face suddenly vaccinates itself of all those little pensive lines. She smiles at him.
As ever, this mysterious young woman seems fit to be his antithesis, a living photo negative in both appearance and manner. To his distance, she is earnest, her face and bearing having very little to hide. To his stilted coldness, she is relaxed and warm, with the patient eyes more fitting of a nurturer than a soldier. To his social awkwardness, she is shy but very much at ease, grown comfortable to having others around. And to his white hair and yellowy eyes, she is both a homely brown and brown. Though she is pretty in her own right, her face is unremarkable, the kind seen a hundred times over in someone's day. Someone born just to be dismissed. That may be the most ironically distinct fact about this girl: that someone who looks so average could carry so many secrets.
And Whip supposes he's maybe deserving to hear them. His face asks: So?
"So," she replies, exhaling a little, biting her bottom lip absently as she ventures to collect her thoughts. Her voice remains low and quiet, deliberate to give them their privacy as she says, "I guess this is where we start.
"I suppose we can do this in two ways. We each tell each other all we know without stopping. Or we can be fair about it and go back and forth, answering a question and asking another. I'm not sure... I've never really done this before. I wasn't even entirely expecting you to be here, to be honest." She pauses, her eyebrows knotting, her head tilting, her words suddenly running away with her, "What do I call you, anyway? Do you have a name? Did you name yourself?" That smile reemerges along her mouth. "You can call me Whip."
His eyes are half the reason for his shades. He's found people stare considerably less if they can't see their color. He's sure they weren't always that strange, feral yellow-- a rare hue among the normal population-- and he's definitely sure that they're not supposed to reflect the stolen fire beneath his skin. But he can't remember what color they might have been before the alien fire in his blood gave them that yellowy-red, sun-in-scotch gleam.
The other half of the reason? His eyes, tuned to be keener than the average man's, tend to be sensitive-- and unlike those of blood Kusanagi, they're not naturally accustomed to the brightness of the Kusanagi fire. Those tinted lenses help to protect K''s eyes from the brightness of his own flames.
He can't hide behind them now, though. It's too dark to keep them on, much as he'd like to, and besides some niggling little thought-- the remnant of honesty that yet remains in his cynical heart-- tells him he ought to show some degree of openness. Somewhat reluctantly, he slides them away into the inside pocket of his jacket, and he lets his face lift so it can be seen. His bared eyes-- startling when taken with the white of his hair, the silver and yellow a combination of colors more suited to a wolf than a man-- watch her quietly as she undoes her jacket. They notice when the strangeness of his appearance startles her hands into stillness.
That smile is about the last reaction he expected. His usual defense against exactly this sort of awkwardness is a sharp tongue, blatant rudeness, and ready insults. None seem appropriate here. K' is completely out of his depth. He looks unsure a moment, as if not knowing what the correct response is, and after a moment opts to simply let his eyes drop again in bewilderment. Intimidated by a smile from a girl. If Maxima were here, the cyborg would have laughed uproariously.
He's almost relieved when she starts talking. It's what they're here to do, after all. It's like business. Think of it as business. He forces his eyes up to hers again, his look guarded. "I didn't know if I would even come," he replies her. "But I guess I had to know."
She gives her name then: a good enough start towards defusing the awkwardness hovering about them. "Whip." His low voice tests the syllable. He considers quietly, and then slowly responds, "...I was given a name. K'. I don't remember if I had a real one, before it." His gloved hand folds about one of the derelict candles in its little holder, rolling the thing around nervously. "It's not even really a name. It's like a designation. Or a label. -Krizalid- got the proper name. But I kept it. No one ever called me anything else." K-Dash. He pronounces the two syllables with a shocking bitterness, a mocking tone sunk deep into his voice.
He is quiet a few moments, and then he abruptly asks: "You were with NESTS. You have to have been. But you left." The questions are implicit: how, and why?
"K'," she echoes, pleasantly enough, not even batting an eyelash to the unusual name. Whip smiles as though it's the most normal thing she's heard.
Mostly because her mind is on other things.
His vindictive tone reminds her again that he knows Krizalid well... as she supposes he should, considering the two look so alike. But are they related? Are they rivals? Why didn't Krizalid ever mention anything about this boy? Would he know anything she doesn't? There was a time when they would have shared anything with each other... anything and everything. Either this, whatever is sitting in front of her, is classified beyond the trust of an old friendship, or it's something Krizalid himself wasn't fully aware of.
Her dark eyes watch him, not in a piercing, probing way, but how someone ruminates over coffee and friendly conversation. Whip purses her lips as she stares at K', her eyes soft and distant. Already, she seems to be revealing herself as the quiet, patient sort, the kind of person who has ten times as thoughts as words to say. She looks like a careful strategist, no doubt in combat as well as in conversation.
However, their silence is spoiled when K' speaks again, and his questions force Whip to surface from her own thoughts. Her eyes focus inside a single blink, her posture straightening, her hands flexing in a sudden, involuntary way when he mentions a certain word: NESTS. It's been burned into her.
Her face changes, its look of gentled curiousity quickly sobering. She seems unable to meet K''s eyes, not for their strangeness but for the questions that lurk behind them. She rubs the calloused knuckles of one hand, staring at her own fingers as she tries to weigh what she can say, against what she should. She barely knows him. His name itself doesn't even sound right. He could be an opposing operative, a spy, and not even for NESTS. Ikari has more than one enemy, surely those who would be more than interested in unveiling a mole. But she can't seem to believe that. He seems so honest... and she doesn't know why, but she feels inclined to believe him. She's always had
problems trusting, even when she was her most lonely. But something about him puts her at ease. And she can't understand why.
But here marks the point of no return. She has to make a decision here: she can either end their covert meeting now and leave, or she can tell him her secret. By all means, she knows there shouldn't even be a decision to be made here. There's only the smart thing to do.
And she's not doing it. Whip exhales, letting her breath go emphatically, realizing now that she's been holding it. She forces her hands to open and spread flat against the tabletop. She still looks down, avoiding K' and focusing on her own fingers, finding that if she only stares at them, it's much easier to say... "I was. For as long as I can remember. But I escaped."
Her hands flinch. A stuttery sound escapes her. Her eyes suddenly crease, and Whip lifts her head to stare into his face. The look on her face is miserable and pleading. Her voice thickens, an underlying desperation hurting her words. She gives the only explanation she can think of.
"I... had to."
Whip's eyes might not be piercing, but the eyes of her brother are. The calm, laid-back normality inherent in having a friendly conversation is largely lost to him. He occupies his own side of the booth not in a ruminative manner, but in one tense and tightly-wound: head lowered, yellow eyes shadowed in thought.
Krizalid was quite aware of K'. It was simply that K' was not often spoken of, his very nature as a partially-successful Kusanagi experiment condemning his existence to secrecy. Moreover, information never was at a premium among those working under the aegis of NESTS. You knew only those who you needed to know. In the end K' and Whip, despite their shared blood, fell victim to that enforced distance.
That considered, it's all the more extraordinary they meet now. Even if neither of them realize it. K', realizing at the least how serendipitous and rare this chance is, is quick to take the opportunity to ask questions. He's greeted with a change in Whip's demeanor.
He watches her as her gaze pulls away, brief uncertainty stopping her from replying immediately. Contrary to popular belief, however, K' can be patient. Her eyes might stay turned aside, avoiding his own, when she finally replies, but K' never lets his own gaze drop. Were he a more socially-discerning boy, a kinder one, he would have spared her his direct stare. But he's not-- and he is waiting with bated breath for her to confirm his suspicions.
The explanation would have been thin to anyone else: insubstantial and insufficient. And for a moment, K' looks entirely unmoved by it. Drawn back, cold, features austere, he meets her sudden stare evenly. His eyes regard her carefully for a few moments, and then-- they slide closed. K' leans back, his shoulders crumbling from their squared strength to slump in an exhaustion that nobody their age should have to bear. There is a misery about him to match hers-- one arising from a full understanding both of that sparse explanation, and the reasons it is all that's needed. She doesn't have to say any more than that.
"I left... because I couldn't take what they had done to me anymore-- what they wanted my life to be." One eye opens in a quiet, catlike regard of Whip, the yellow of it gleaming dully in the light. "They made us into things, Krizalid and I. Weapons. He embraced it-- went mad of it. I didn't. But then-- I suppose he can afford to." The sound of his voice is unremittingly bitter.
He is silent a moment, his eye traveling to the glove that manacles his hand. In an abrupt, angry motion, he reaches his free hand to it, unclasping the hinged metal thing, opening the glove to reveal an interior riddled with electrodes. His right hand twitches at the touch of air, and attempts to leave the glove-- but the instant skin leaves contact with those electrodes, a spike of sudden heat shimmers the air about his hand. K' grimaces, dropping his hand back in place. A brief sizzle of electricity, and his eyes unfocus-- flickering and drifting shut as the suppression current courses back into place.
"Yeah," he bites out, eyes still closed. He hinges the thing shut, the click of the clasp carrying a strange sort of finality. "He can afford to." He lapses back into silence a moment, his turn at giving answers exhausted-- and then he rouses to ask, "So... what did they do to -you-? Enough you'd want to destroy them like I do?" His eyes crack half-open at that, a feral sort of violent look smoldering beneath his lashes.
The mention of a familiar madness pulls on the corners of her mouth. She frowns automatically, her eyes creasing in a sad way. A part of Whip will always pity Krizalid. He's committed monstrous acts that she knows she wouldn't be able to forgive, but she can't help but feel sorry for him. She blames some of his insanity on NESTS. And maybe some on herself, for leaving him behind there. But if this strange boy in front of her has suffered anything what Krizalid must have, then she pities him too.
But Whip doesn't get to feel sorry for K' for long; that unusual glove of his finally merits her attention -- all of it -- when he begins unbuckling its strange clasps. The muscles tighten in her arms, and uncertainty grips her in a cold way. Mechanically, Whip remembers that she has Voodoo concealed in the handbag next to her, kept within arm's reach if she so needs it. But she stays her old soldier's training, her hands unmoving and her eyes unblinking as she plays audience for what K' has to show her. Her eyebrows twitch when his glove opens, and she leans in, both unsure and interested to see its contents. His hand. Or something much worse.
The air swirls and corrugates under the rising heat waves. She can feel it on her face. It reminds her of Krizalid, but... not.
She accentuates the finalizing close of his glove with a blink of her eyes.
Finally, Whip looks back up at him, a strange expression crossing her face. She doesn't look on him with any sense of apprehension or disgust, but there's a seriousness about her, that purse-mouthed look of someone who is busy thinking. She watches him strangely, her concentration only quickly bitten off when his eyes open on her. Caught staring, she colours a little in her cheeks, feeling suddenly shy. She pauses, feeling frozen under the last question he directs at her, and the underlying passion she can feel wafting up from those words, not unlike the heat she felt from his concealed hand.
For someone as emotionally-temperate as Whip, it's all a little disconcerting.
"Well," she starts lamely, clearing her throat, biting on her bottom lip as she searches for the words. She pauses visibly, as if forcing herself to realize something, and her momentary fluster numbs back into a careful professionalism. She turns her eyes, looking out at the bar around them: it looks unchanged as when they stepped in, dark, heavy with smoke, and quiet, its few patrons all sitting by themselves and keeping in their own little worlds. Assured of her privacy, she continues. "What I've told you... what I'm telling you now... only a few know about this." Whip looks up pointedly, seeking to meet K''s eyes with hers. Her stare is lined with hidden meaning. This is her way of telling him that this entire conversation is dangerous for her. It's a heavy secret on her part. One she hopes will remain that way.
Her foreword said, she deigns to answer him as they've agreed to do so. Her voice comes slowly, but it sounds steadier now than before. "They didn't do anything to me. Nothing like that..." Her eyes crease with memory, or her lack thereof. "I don't remember much, but I know that I joined them voluntarily. They promised they'd help me remember.. help me find my brother. I don't think I told you that," she adds, smiling in a sad way, "but I'm missing family too.
"I didn't stay long," Whip continues then, not allowing herself to stray too far from his question. "I couldn't stomach the work. I escaped, knowing that I'd be labelled a traitor. But, to answer you? No, I don't want to destroy them. I'm not strong enough to do anything like that. I just want to live my life."
For many moments, that strange girl, the alleged ex-assassin with the gentle eyes, is very silent. She looks down at the table, weighed down by a certain gravity, one only she can feel. She stares at nothing in particular, her eyes distant, the look in them a hundred miles away. Then, suddenly, she looks up, and she's smiling across the table at K', her expression tight with apology. "Hey, this is getting pretty heavy. What do you want to drink? My treat."
Were K' to find out Whip pitied him, the reaction would doubtless be curt, displeased, and abrasive. K' does not take well to anything that damages his pride, though he may often hide his disgruntlement for the sake -of- preserving face. He is more interested in the way she looks so sad upon his mention of Krizalid. His eyes narrow slightly as he guesses at the nature of their interaction, and his expression, inexplicably, sours.
K''s mood blackens further in the wake of that final click of metal clasps. He leans back, eyes hard, and he asks her a question that... seems to put her off her guard. If he cared about the way she was staring, he doesn't show it. He himself is doing his own share of staring, his yellow eyes fixed on her face like he's hoping staring just that much longer can reveal to him why it seems so familiar. Little wonder Whip seems flustered; there is a smoldering, constant intensity to K''s presence, spurred in large part by his disquiet.
K' continues to watch Whip even through her fluster, his direct gaze indicative of one who is neither bothered by nor sympathetic to momentary lapses in countenance. There is a sombre look to his eyes that promises to keep her secrets. After all, in turn, he is entrusting her with several of his own. He had not thought she was altered as he and Krizalid were-- he could not feel it in her-- but she has other ways of surprising him. She mentions a lost brother. A troubled line draws out along his brows.
"You're missing a brother." Said brother smiles a bit bitterly at that. His gloved hand reaches back towards the candle, toying with the small object in something that could be construed as absent nervousness. "Seems the cartel broke up a lot of families." His gaze turns bitter.
But thereafter, she is prompt to answer his direct question. No, she proceeds to tell him. K''s eyes flicker shut at that, a line drawn abruptly between his brows. He is silent a moment. "I want to live mine," he replies slowly. "But while they still exist... that will be impossible." He'll be hunted as long as the Cartel exists-- or as long as he lives. Whichever is shorter. Obviously, he'd rather the Cartel's lifespan end before his own. As to her thought that she's not strong enough...
"...Strength. Heard that word a lot from them." He puts the candle down on the tabletop, sheathed fingers shifting to spider over its top. An index finger slips from its tenuous perch on the rim, dipping into the space just above the wick: a spark of fire, and the candle abruptly lights. K' then pushes the thing impassively into the center of the table, the lit candle glowing softly. It's a small change, but it nonetheless warms their shared space.
"And despite their efforts," he comments coldly, his eyes settling in blatant indication upon the small flame, "I'm not strong enough either: not yet. But I'll improve upon what they gave me. Let them see how they like being burned by it."
His own eyes turn aside then, the boy as lost in thought as his companion. He doesn't come back to earth until Whip is asking him, quite suddenly... something he doesn't know the answer to. K' turns startled yellow eyes back on her, that intensity dimmed abruptly in the face of an odd uncertainty. K' hesitates, and then leans back in his seat, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. "...pick something? I don't drink much."
Her softly-featured face is clothed in curiousity, her head tilting as she watches K''s gloved hand play with their booth's unlit candle. He soon remedies that problem with him, the crack of light illuminating the widening of her eyes. She looks interested and impressed, watching as this strange boy gives them the gift of fire. The soft glow of the candle immediately gives their little corner some atmosphere, the little light gilding the warm tones of her skin and hair. And Whip seems to appreciate the gesture, whether it was done with meaning or casually. Her tiny smile is as warm as the burning flame.
But her comforted moment finishes all too soon. Watching the flickering flame to the backdrop of K''s tense words, it doesn't take Whip long to put two and two together. The realization hits her fast, like the burn from a swig of liquor. It might not be about retribution. He just can't get the kind of life she can.
She could only imagine the problems he might face, after what the Cartel must have invested into him. God knows she's had her share of troubles, with all those learning her secret ultimately demanding their piece of it: be it Zero's near-fatal attempt to beat an ounce of servitude back into her, Schugerg threatening her to be his personal mole, or the everpresent reoccurrences of Krizalid back into her life, who seems either unwilling or unable to let their old friendship go. But all that must pale in comparison of what waits for someone like K'. Whip has only merited a passing glance from the Cartel. He's got their full attention.
It must be hell.
Their serious coversation keeps turning more dour. This is what she came for. These miserable truths are what will bring her closer to her own missing memories. But it's all getting a bit too much. She never thought she'd ever find someone who seems to understand exactly what she's been through. Missing family. Missing mind. She's already feeling for him in a way she never thought she would, and it hurts. And now, Whip feels desperate for just a moment's departure from all of that. It's getting too heavy. She's getting too maudlin. His face is getting too hard to stare at, and for reasons she can't even answer. Her eyes are starting to sting.
You'd think an ex-assassin, a mercenary soldier shouldn't have trouble crying.
"Then this is your lucky day," Whip is saying instead, her face soon dominated by her wide smile. She shoulders out of her suede coat, absently tugging on the hem of her black shirt as she swings out of the booth. Leaving K' behind with a departing wink, the strange young woman quickly crosses the pub, stepping up to lean over the bar. She tucks a bit of her brunette hair behind an ear, smiling pleasantly to the tender, speaking to him as she hands over a couple folded bills. He doesn't card her. As she waits politely for her drinks, one of the old regulars, one stool over, transparently checks out her ass. Whip either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
Soon enough, she returns, grinning in a playful, anticipatory way as she cradles two pints of stout so dark that her black shirt looks more grey. "This is a Guinness," she declares upon sitting down, sliding one glass in front of the equally strange young man who can create fire from his fingertips. None of that seems to give her any pause. She chats on, friendly, even if a lingering sense of shyness keeps the colour burned into her cheeks. " Sure, your average stout only helps you on the hot summer days, but this guy is special." She taps her own glass with a thumb nail. "He's meant for the cold weather. I was never much of a drinker either, to tell you the truth, and I'm still classified a lightweight, but I got hooked on this. A pint of this warms you up and fills you up. It's a meal in a glass. I tell you, you get one of these for breakfast, and you're going all day."
She picks up her own glass, but doesn't yet take a drink from it. Her dark eyes are fixed on K'. She wants to watch him take, what she assumes and what she so hopes, his first taste.
The realization is an accurate one. K', as one of the most advanced projects of NESTS-- one of the only successful transplants of Kusanagi fire-- is a major target. Enough that they would create another clone for the express purpose of killing him and neutralizing his threat now he's turned traitor. A normal life is simply not achievable for him. NESTS would tear down anything he built for himself-- and then kill him.
It's either hide forever... or destroy them before they can destroy him. K' has opted for the latter.
This is reality for him: constant tension, constant wariness, constant smoldering anger at what's been done to him and what he now has to do because of it. And due to that fact, K' doesn't feel the oppressiveness of their conversation like Whip does. It's what he's used to. That bleak life is all he knows. Self-absorbed, retreated into his own grim thoughts, he does not notice how close to tears she is. Even if he did, he wouldn't ever guess they were out of sympathy for him. ...Perhaps for the best.
But soon enough he's startled out of his rumination by Whip's forced cheerfulness. K' blinks up at her as she winks and pops out of her seat, heading over to the bar. His eyes follow her over to her new destination, automatically sweeping her new surroundings for potential danger. His eyes fall on that old regular checking out his sister's ass, and inexplicably-- for some strange reason he cannot articulate or place-- he finds himself swallowing back a sudden surge of anger.
His gaze rips away angrily, the boy shaking his head in mild confusion. He's still wondering where the hell that came from when Whip comes back. Warily, he regards the pint slid in front of him-- perhaps considering whether it'll be rude if he fails to finish the thing. Absently, somewhere between all that thought, he's listening to her: finding her chatter... not entirely unpleasant. A change from his usual reaction to friendly girls.
Against every instinct, against his very nature-- spurred, perhaps, by his long-dormant memories of her waiting beneath the obscuring fog of his amnesia-- K' finds himself relaxing inch by inch in Whip's company. Despite only knowing her such a short time, somehow... he feels a similar sense of comfort as he would in the company of Maxima. It's a sense of rightness that only intensifies whenever he looks at her face.
That softening, however, can't save him from the stout sitting in front of him. Gingerly, he takes that expected taste. "It's-- not bad." He seems surprised to admit this. "...I'm not a beer person," he explains over the rim of the glass. Understatement of the year. K' was nearly killed in Germany quite recently for opining, in earshot of many, many Germans AND Kain Heinlein, that beer tasted like piss to him. In fact, it's uncertain why he -wasn't- killed. "I've only really tried hard liquor." He -thinks- so, anyway. He's hardly familiar with what alcohol is what. Nor does he have the time or inclination to want to get into appreciation of alcohol, as evidenced when he adds, "...not much time to be drinking."
No argument there, says the wise editor; German beer is a couple filters above piss. This is irish stout. There's no comparing anything to porter.
Watching him intently, his reaction makes Whip laugh, her face lighting up in a display that should be foreign to ex-NESTS agents, her eyes crinkling at the corners in a good-natured way. Amused, she picks up her glass and reaches across her table to clink her drink against his. "Then cheers to making time."
Grinning to herself, she drinks again, her eyes watching K' over the rim of her glass. She's never been attuned to people and is too unused to them to be fluent in body language, but she's trying her best to make him feel relaxed -- if just a little. It's not like her to care. She came here antsy and nervous, with Voodoo hidden in the bag next to her and about four knives on her person. This was a business proposition, something to be cold and professional about. And now, here she is, trying to cheer him up, and make this feel, if only momentarily, like a night in the pub between friends and not the exchange of information between ex-assassins. It's really not like her. Maybe
she's going soft.
"So tell me," Whip begins anew, peering at her pub mate as she works on her own stout, feeling her own mood lift as the alcohol warms her innards. Her voice sobered from her previous laughter, yet still ensconced with a hopeful tinge of lightness, she asks, "What do you do now? Are you...?" Her voice dies out, feeling suddenly awkward. She can't quite finish the sentence. Is he alone?
If it's so unusual that Whip bear any feelings of caring or warmth when in such a situation... one has to wonder what on earth is happening to -K'-, that he hasn't simply gotten up and run away in bewilderment long ago. Literally raised and bred as as a killing machine-- a programmed fighter devoid of humanizing characteristics-- he came here with as grim a heart as she did. Possibly even grimmer. And now where is he?
He's finding himself staring at her, quite bemused, no malevolence whatsoever in his countenance as he regards her good-natured face. He hesitates visibly, as if uncertain how to even respond to her laughter, and then settles upon watching her with the most frank sort of harmless, wondering curiosity. He's never really known anyone quite like her, and he's finding himself at a loss as to how to act; though his instincts, his long-suppressed memories, have their own answers they want to make as to that question.
Nonetheless he's visibly less tense and abrupt than he was when he first arrived: that harsh coldness largely lost in the face of her efforts to warm him up. Dimly, some part of him is alarmed and wary at how well she appears to be working him over. He almost feels... at ease, and well-being is too foreign a sensation for him to be entirely appreciative of it without some suspicion. He vacillates a moment, caught between the desire to just let down his guard and the desire to demand of her what her intentions really are.
He settles on neither. Instead, he simply slants a gaze over at her as she asks what he now does. It's a slightly easier topic, one with a concrete answer, and K' feels some of his anxiety relieve at that. "There isn't much I -can- do save fight," he replies her with a shrug. "So I show up in the fighting circuits. To take down NESTS... I'll have to be a lot better than I am now, anyway." And that pretty much is the sum of his existence. He doesn't seem bothered by how hollow it seems; Whip, however, having known a better sort of life, is wise enough to inquire if he's alone through it all. Or at least, she insinuates it; and K', being K'...
"...Am I what?" He looks momentarily puzzled.
The ex-assassin's eyes slip away from his, finding the neck of her stout bottle suddenly compelling. Her cheeks flush. Her lips tighten with apology. Whip is already regretting bringing that up. It's probably never even occurred to him. Or worse, he hasn't let enough think about it, up until she opened her fat mouth. There's a reason why good soldiers are to be seen and not heard.
She stalls on replying her strange, yellow-eyed contact right away, instead taking great interest to pick the label off her lager with her thumbnails, ripping the paper into neat, methodical tatters. Through her intricate work, the girl glowers quietly to herself, irritated at her own behavior and more irritated to have to explain it, her chin tucked, her lips pursed, and her eyes hooded self-deprecatingly. There's something strange about her face. She's got K''s sulky frown.
"By yourself," Whip finally clarifies, sighingly. She finishes dissecting her Guiness of its labels before stealing another gulp of her vivasected drunk. "It can really get to you, especially when you can't remember."
K' only looks more and more confused at Whip's odd reaction to his (in his mind) harmless request for clarification. His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing as he studies the changes in her expression with a frank and oddly-innocent curiosity. It's a strange sort of naivete which only proves that K''s only experiences with the world have been with all its worst parts and people.
Then Whip gives him a veritable copy of his own frown, sulky irritation hardening her gentler face into a veritable mirror of his. K' isn't astute enough-- nor does he pay enough attention to his own features-- to register the odd similarity on any conscious level. But for an instant, he gets the same sort of feeling as if he were looking in a mirror. A blink, and the sensation is gone; his brow furrows, his matching frown deepening slightly.
He finally realizes the thrust of her question when she answers it herself. For a moment he looks puzzled; and then he shakes his head. "--no. When I left, it was with my partner. We still work together now." He is silent for a moment, as if weighing how much to say. Presently, he settles on a slow, uninflected, "It would have been hard without him." It's not entirely clear to what he refers.
For a moment, he almost seems roused enough from his own childish self-absorption to think of her with actual concern-- to wonder if -she's- alone-- but then he reminds himself, no, she has the Ikari. What might have been a hesitant, guardedly questioning look soon turns aside into one of self-dismissal. She probably even has more than he does. He's surprised to find the thought doesn't rouse the expected bitter jealousy-- quite as much, anyway.
It's clear to her.
The moody frown doesn't linger long on her face. Her soft features weren't made for misery. Mollifying naturally, Whip takes in this information with a smiling look of relief, nodding her head along with K''s words either in acknowledgement or approval. It surprises her how glad she feels to know he's not alone in the world, God knows after all he's been through. She's surprised to find herself caring so much. She doesn't even know him.
Whoever this mysterious "partner" of K''s is, it doesn't take Whip long to figure out he too must be a veteran of NESTS. She wonders briefly if he's also got the amnesia. Maybe there's more out there in her situation that she realizes. Nevertheless, it's the girl assassin left feeling a little vaguely jealous; this K' has had someone with him who understands what he's gone through. Someone he can relate to. She's eternally grateful for having the Ikari in her life, and wholly attributes them to her ongoing survival and mental stability, but gets hard some days when you're keeping a secret. It makes you hate yourself sometimes. It makes you feel alone.
But Whip reminds herself that, perhaps now, it's no longer the case. Whoever this strange boy is across the table, wherever he came from and whatever he knows, and whether it was him finding her or her finding him, he's here and he shares something deeply profound with her. He understands the world she refuses to reveal to anyone else. It may be one of the best things to ever happen to her. Or it might just be dangerous. And it is. Sitting here is beyond risky for her, and she's irritated to have to remind herself of that. She feels comfortable, and she shouldn't be. She's too busy trying to make him feel at ease, worrying about what he's been through, about what he's got to go
home to, that she's hardly even paid mind to the essentials. What is she doing here? Is it the right thing?
"I'm glad," she says mechanically, but her voice sounds like she means it. She pauses a moment more, looking at her almost-finished stout bottle, staring at it as if asking it for suggestions of what to say. She's not too sure what to ask. And, having given herself some time for introspection has left her a little unnerved. She doesn't like how emotional she's feeling now. As much as a side of her doesn't want to, maybe she should cut this short. On a thoughtful breath, her dark eyes slant back up, watching K' as she makes her silent decision. Her voice returns in its usual way, gentle and polite, "Was there anything you wanted to ask me? I... should probably be going."
If anyone, Whip can confide in and trust K' with her secrets. She can relate to him now, if no one else. It's so unusual to think of K' as being good for this sort of thing, so starkly out of his character. He's got so many of his own problems, after all, that he doesn't want to hear about or carry those of others. Were it anyone else, he might simply have coldly used them, stripping away what they knew for his own purpose. But somehow, Whip is just different to him. Different on a visceral, subconscious level.
That, and she's one of the only people he's ever met who's shown him any genuine kindness. She seems to honestly care for him-- he can feel that from her, in the instinctive way an animal might. She understands him and his situation in a way not even Maxima could. She can commiserate with the heavy, troubling weight of being an amnesiac-- of having to wonder who you are every day-- because she suffers it herself. Not being able to separate truth from fiction when it comes to what few memories you have. Not being able to feel whole.
He is surprised to realize it, but he feels at ease. It's such a strange feeling for him, this feeling that he doesn't actually want to leave: not quite yet. Unlike Whip, he's forgotten caution, forgotten prudence, forgotten the essentials of what is right and what is safe. The only thing that matters to him now is the immediate moment: one in which he feels that much less alone.
It's why he almost looks disappointed when she says she should depart. His troubled silence holds for the first few moments after her words, but the look he angles up at her through his bangs is oddly childlike: abruptly and briefly bereft. His features, in contrast, seem made for frowns. They pull into one now, the expression riddled with bleak thought as he lifts his head to meet her eyes. There's only one thing he really wants to ask this girl he's now, for whatever reason, imprinted so strongly and desperately upon: "...how can I see you again?"
Were Maxima within earshot, this question would doubtless put him clear through the floor in surprise. K' actively wanting to see someone is, after all, a terribly rare occurrence.
Whip was bracing herself for a multitude of questions, half of which she wasn't sure she could answer. Who is she? What does she remember? What does she know of NESTS that he may not? Why the Ikari? ...Do they know?
She was preparing herself for frightening questions. Instead, she gets something worse.
That question stops her, her eyes creasing and her lips parting, a flicker of surprise drawing over her face. She wasn't expecting him to ask that. K' catches her so completely off-guard that she finds herself sitting there, dumbly, seconds passing as she literally thinks what to say. She's not sure what her response should be. She doesn't know what the right answer is. Does she maintain a secret acquaintanceship with this boy whose life seems a strange parallel of hers? Or does she part ways, for her safety and his sake, to minimize the potential risk of knowing him?
She's not sure. Her head and her heart are at war. A war that intensifies on one side when she happens to look up and catch the expression on his face. It hits her unexpectedly, and her heart seizes in a traitorous way, reaching up and sticking a dagger in her back. Before she can even think, she feels immediately compelled to reach over and touch his hand, to soothe him, and it unnerves her.
So she doesn't. Instead, she sits back and reaches for her things. She doesn't shoulder on her coat, only lamely folding it over her forearm, hugging onto it as she searches for the right words. Or what she hopes are the right words. "I don't think that's a good idea," she replies, her voice very quiet, very careful not to sound apologetic. "But I'm glad I met you. And I wish you luck. That... you'll be able to find what you're looking for."
Whip pauses noticeably. Then, looking up, she slowly extends K' her hand, inviting him it to shake.
Whip's quiet reply hits K' like a knife to the chest. At first he doesn't seem to comprehend her answer, that expectant look lingering just a bit longer in his eyes. Then it registers, and he just looks like a dog that's been kicked in the face.
The expression is extremely brief, flickering evanescently in his eyes and in the sudden unguarded slackening of his intent expression. It's only a moment or two before he forcibly hardens his gaze, the abrupt death of his disappointment like a flash freezing. Cold austerity forms a harsh mask over that moment of weakness, his jaw setting in a rough line as he leans back in his seat and lets his head dip. His eyes veil away in deep shadow. He looks like he's used to killing his emotions like this, used to crushing them down with clinical mercilessness. It's a sad sight on one so young.
"I hoped--" His phrase cuts off in a long breath, a deep, dissatisfied growl edging along the last remnants of the sound. His right hand, left lingering on the tabletop, coils with a complaint of metal into a fist. He is silent a few moments, and then with a bitter, quickly-aborted bark of laughter, he lets his mouth coil into a bleak, humorless sort of smile. The sort of look you give when there's nothing to do but grin and bear it. A sharp breath huffs out of him, between his teeth. "...I guess you think it's dangerous. It is," he concedes, as if remembering this for the first time.
He looks like he's trying hard to make himself not care. Either about the danger, or the fact she's not offering him any ways to get in touch with her again. But it's hard. There are so few people in the world he can relate to-- can talk to. So few people he -wants- to talk to. To have one of them disappear into the ether...
He shakes his head. "But I'm gonna find a way regardless," he promises darkly, his hidden eyes half-lidding. "I can't just leave it here." He leans back forwards, his movements abrupt. He uses his left hand to grasp hers, rather than his right. His grip is tight, but it doesn't shake. The boy simply holds her hand steadily, his amber eyes meeting hers. Then abruptly, he grins. The sudden expression is almost rakish-- cocky and arrogant. "Or I'll just destroy them... find what we're both looking for in their ruins."
Log created on 22:53:48 11/02/2007 by K', and last modified on 14:15:44 02/15/2008.