For ashyperfume

[trainwrecked]

It took a while, before he dialed the phone on the card. Weeks, he thought, he wasn't very good at keeping up with the dates. Or, rather, he didn't care that much.

But time had passed since the party. He'd memorized the information, then burned the card - in his experience already, anything after the last wipe wasn't going away, so he was using what part of his memory he could. Extensively.

In the end, though, he just picked a street phone and punched the number.

"Ms. Fukuyama?" Yes, she'd told him to call her Fuu. He couldn't be sure she'd pick up the phone herself. "This is James Banes."

That was how normal conversations went, wasn't it?

Comments

[trainwrecked]

He traced her motion from the moment she was in his line of sight again, but her words. Her words made him freeze. On the one hand, he could comprehend the familiarity of what she was describing. On the other hand, it was infuriating, how she could even think to call her life controlled by others. She was eating food she was choosing, drinking wine she probably knew about and had selected herself. She probably hadn't spent decades being fed intravenously, leaving her incapable of selecting her own nutrition for weeks...

She knew nothing of people taking her choices away, compared to him.

But he had learned already that he was not a fair comparison. For anyone.

She knew about people taking her choices away, was what he was left with once he stifled that anger away. And he had done it to her, too. That... was an explanation that he understood, and he gave her a slow, thoughtful nod, his own eyes gradually clearing even if his left hand was still locked tightly enough that if he were made to move, it would screech with the howl of metal forced too hard. Slowly, he tilted his head to one side.

"Why would protecting you equate to looking down on you?" A moment, and he clarified his question, "usually, if a person was assigned protection - against me - they were people that were looked up to, whether they were actual employers or not."

They used to be the people who were his targets. There was always a reason for that.

As to her actual point... he'd thought they'd addressed that last night. She wasn't going to rely on him to protect her, and he had agreed to it. For him, that had settled that. So he said out loud the answer that he had. "I was protecting myself, not you."

He'd told her so already, hadn't he? She could have died, if the person she opened the door to had a gun on him and shot her from close range. But it would have still left him with cover and a great point to take on the attackers. Yes, if the attack was of a different kind, he would have protected her, as well. But those were more complicated hits. People rarely went for complicated.

Though he certainly often did.

[ashyperfume]

It wasn't a comparison, her lack of control against his own. Just a separate type of pain. One, like fire, at the hands of a group wholly unfeeling, absolutely all-consuming. One, like drowning, at the hands of those who should have loved and been loved best. Both taking, reassigning, reshaping fate, sending fissures, then cracks, decaying and snapping and twisting, recreating into something completely unpredicted.

Better for them both that it was a road left untaken. There was no fair comparison to make.

Her eyes flicked away at his question. Rested somewhere beyond his sight line. Saw nothing at all.

"And your commentary about how I could still have been shot in the chest when I pulled my knife? That expression in your face? Your comparison that I might need to be helped like a person who might get run over by a car in the street? The question about if I should just let you sit by idly when you're such a good weapon? Your fervent reminders about how dangerous you are?" The line of her brow puckered. The words had started sharp, but ended thin, hollowing until they were almost empty. "How small we must all be to you. Little ants, so fragile."

[trainwrecked]

"My commentary how you still could have been shot was exactly what I mean - I wasn't there to protect you. I could not have protected you. It would have been futile - it was the strategic position. Yes, if the opportunity presented itself, I would have preferred to both neutralize the threat and keep you alive. But you chose your risk, there. I chose the safer - safest - place in the apartment."

He didn't even realize that the admission was still there. Not so much of guilt - he hadn't moved to cover her weakness - but of being invested in her survival.

He watched her, after the words had all sunk in. "My words are truth. You are free to see what I do, if you can observe it without endangering my job, whenever I strike. There's little else I can do to warn you." And, with the same even tone. "Ants have no choice. They do what their queen requires to survive and propagate." One finger pointed at her, without his hand stirring from his knee. "You're the one who has choice. I... am learning. To avoid the choices that were made for me."

[ashyperfume]

She watched him through his first explanation, silent, her eyes clear, quiet.

She didn't believe him. Words. He was filled with words, logical tangles fighting to be untwisted and reasonable. Explanations, purposes. He believed them. He wanted to. But actions, intentions spoke louder, wound and twisted through his words.

She didn't know how to feel about them. They closed like a fist inside her chest, shook, even as they cooled. She only knew that both reactions should not exist at the same time.

"You're under the misguided notion," she said softly, "that those who haven't been through what you have have full, free will. Maybe we're not as constricted. Not in the same ways. But we're limited by the people we bond to and the people we become. One day . . . we wake up and realize we're trapped. We don't know how to be anyone else."

[trainwrecked]

He didn't know how to explain it, though his anger burned hot, in his eyes, just for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was back to neutral.

"You know you like wine. I was fed intravenously for most of seventy years." His shoulders rose, and dropped. "Maybe it's a misguided notion. You'd know better."

[ashyperfume]

Her fingers stretched out before she thought better of it. Grazed, braced against cheek and jaw -- a feather-light touch that was a bid for his attention, to draw him back to her. Her thumb smoothed the skin next to the bridge of his nose, under his eye.

"It's not a comparison, James." Her own tone had steadied, leveled. "Life here to life there . . . I'm not naive enough to think that there's a comparison. The only thing I'm saying is . . . life out here has its own bindings, and its own way of stealing your choices."

A breath. "Can we try again?"

[trainwrecked]

He stilled, not even breathing, when her hand was on his face. But didn't flinch, didn't strike, either. It brought up a very mixed reaction in him, and he wasn't ready to explore what it was exactly, not right now. Curled up on the floor and throwing up from the headache wasn't going to help the interaction any.

After a moment, he half-closed his eyes. Not quite, but almost. And nodded.

"If that is something that can be done, yes. Please." After a moment, he looked up at her again, trying to clarify, a little. "I see myself as apart. As... damaged. Flawed? I know exactly where my reactions are faster than baseline human, where I'm stronger. But the physical enhancements. They don't make me more. Only a better tool. You're not ants. Not... despised. Or pitied."

A small cant of his head to one side. "I wouldn't be trying to learn from somebody lesser, would I?"

[ashyperfume]

He prompted the small, half-bloom of a smile again as her fingers lingered, then pulled away. "Well. There's something there that knows how to speak to a woman."

She moved to stand. "The food probably needs warming up, unless you managed to eat it all."

[trainwrecked]

... and then he realized some of what had just happened. Genuinely registered some of what had happened. He watched her move.

"No, I did not, I was." Pause, and barely audibly. "Waiting for your instructions."

Then he got up, following at some distance.

"So, correct me if I finally misunderstood, but. What I did and said was offensive because you're female, rather than male?"

Social constructs: not his forte.

[ashyperfume]

Catching her off guard seemed to be his superpower. Never mind super serum or a mechanical arm. With a sharp blink, she twisted back around in mid-step. ". . . What?"

[trainwrecked]

"What you just said. I - do not talk or act towards women differently than men." The implications of that did not even begin to occur to him. "I've trained both. I've eliminated both. It's..."

He spread his hands. That difference hadn't occurred to him.

Why, yes, Fuu, if the most imposing, authoritative man you know had been there in your place, and by some obscure chance he'd let them in as close as he'd let you in? He would have acted the exact same way. Hope this might help.

[ashyperfume]

Her eyebrows shifted up as she stared at him. She almost laughed at the pure, inexplicable consternation of it, and at his determination to make it right. His mind did work in other ways sometimes; what she'd seen as a light, playful comment meant to detract attention from the subject connected to a larger pattern to him.

"You're the one man I'd almost believe that from," she remarked softly, the smile faint in her eyes. Her head tilted -- a light gesture towards the kitchen. "Come eat."

She didn't quite wait for a reply, turning back towards the kitchen, though the words were not a dismissal, either. Her movement invited him forward.

[trainwrecked]

It gave him insight, her light comment. So it was good in that way, at least.

He opened his mouth to argue that he did mean it, then realized, this time, that the remark was a tease. So he closed his lips, shook his head, and followed her instructions.

"All right." He frowns slightly at the food.

"I've seen people eat some of those."

And, by implication, I've never actually eaten any of these kinds of food that I can remember.

[ashyperfume]

For her turn, Fuu busied herself spooning small heaps into bowls from the paper cartons, popping them into the microwave where they hummed and spun, warming. There was sauce on one of her fingers; absently she tucked it into her mouth to lick it off, motioning to him to pass the carton of rice.

"How does it smell?" She'd caught the implication; the question forced him to form his own judgement rather than stick to the emptiness of his observations. The aromas of the food lingered in the air, revived by the warmth. "Usually if it smells good, it tastes good too."

[trainwrecked]

He watched her quietly, his face kind of blank. Just going focused for a few moment, then he shrugged.

"It doesn't smell like any of the poisons or explosives ingredients I can identify by smell." A.k.a. you lost him at 'good,' Fuu.

But he recognized the question, and, after giving his technically correct answer, his mouth pursed a little. "I've come to the realization that I was intentionally kept away from any reason to make judgments like 'pleasing or not' that were not related to the outcome of my missions. I can't tell you if I like the smell or not, though I've been working on trying to decide about perceptions in that context for a few weeks now."

[ashyperfume]

Her shoulders lifted, unsurprised by the reply -- and also completely unbothered about it. "That's why I'm asking. You start somewhere." Again, the gesture. "Rice, please."

[trainwrecked]

He blinked at her for a moment, then followed the direction of her motion, nodded, and finally passed her the carton with the same subconscious focused attention as all of the other things that he did.

"Yes. There are a lot of things to get started on."

He hovered for another moment, then settled against the counter, in a pose that was almost identical to how he had been before she'd retreated. It was convenient and well placed, from his point of view.

[ashyperfume]

The rice went into the microwave next, three other bowls pulled out and set on the counter between them, steaming. "Maybe a better question, then: Does it smell like something you don't want to keep smelling, or something that you're okay to keep smelling? Or, if I dare: Something you would like to smell more?"

Starting somewhere actually meant starting, after all.

[trainwrecked]

He focused for a little more, then shrugged.

"Like I said, doesn't smell like the poisons I know with certainty, though this one, " he pointed at one of the bowls, "might share ingredients."

It probably had some sort of mushrooms or another.

"Doesn't smell burnt or rotting, either." He considered the bowls for a moment more, then raised an eyebrow at her. "Which one do you like best?" Only fair if questions went both ways, wasn't it? Besides, he was trying. But his reference was mostly about the things to avoid. Or use against targets or those in his way.

[ashyperfume]

"I'll take that as an 'I'm okay to keep smelling it,'" was her wry reply as she leaned against the counter's edge, but it was coated with amusement. "But I'll give you half credit for your sense of smell. Not everyone can pick out ingredients."

One finger tapped the bowl he'd identified. "Mushrooms. Chinese food isn't poison -- unless you order from the wrong place, and then your life is in your own hands."

Reaching out, she broke a pair of chopsticks free from their paper wrapping, balancing them in her fingers with practiced ease as she reached out to take a bit of meat from the next bowl over. The meat went into her mouth, and her eyes half-closed as she obviously savored it. "Spicy, as far as I'm concerned, is best -- even just a little, like this, to turn up the flavor."

Her eyes flicked sideways towards him -- just a quick brush, playful. "Though I don't know; it might be too much for what might be a virgin tongue."

[trainwrecked]

He paused for a moment. "I had training, and I'm not sure that's not among the enhancements that... allowed me to survive." He was pretty sure it was not the 'serum' that he'd read about when catching up on Rogers. But he was pretty sure there had been enhancements. Still were, for him not to reject the arm, most likely.

He watched her work with the chopsticks, eyebrows just a little raised, then he rolled his eyes.

"I don't expect it'll be much of a challenge. I know for a fact that my pain thresholds are... difficult to believe, for most people."

Famous last words.

Especially paired up with the fact that he wasn't reaching for utensils, himself.

[ashyperfume]

Her eyebrows rose in turn as she failed at looking suitably impressed. The glint of humor was in her eyes; he was taking himself completely seriously, and she was enjoying it. (And furthermore, he'd raised a challenge.) Her head tilted coyly as she reached out and tucked another bit of meat between her chopsticks, dangling it in the air between them.

"But has your tongue been fully trained against the ravages of Chinese and Indian food?" The chopsticks hovered close to him. "Impress me."

[trainwrecked]

Of course he was taking himself seriously. Any attempt at humor was, clearly, not ready to be aired. Not even humor at himself. He learned, even if not necessarily the right things, fast.

His eyebrow cocked up at her, then he shrugged. And opened his mouth, though he didn't lean closer. The chopsticks were weird enough, his reflexes suggested he should be able to pull away quickly if they should start poking into his throat or his nostrils.

Little did he know that the closest danger was in the meat itself.

He was too trained to take things in, including pain, to scream, or try to spit it out. Though his chewing did slow down, somewhat (it looked a little awkward to begin with), and he was swallowing heavily. His eyes teared, though he didn't let those tears fall, but that meant that he was trying to stifle sniffles a moment later.

He didn't make faces. Or complain.

But his eyes did grow even larger. Not frightened, but that was the only part of him that in any way betrayed that the hot was too much. Even his mind would have denied the 'too much' part, anyway.

"I... see," he managed to gasp, eventually.

[ashyperfume]

Fuu had plucked another bite for herself in the interim, nibbling idly at it as she watched him attempt to mouth his own. The laughter was in her eyes again, and in the small, tight corners of her mouth. Yet she was complete innocence as she queried,

"Does that mean you'd like another piece?"

[trainwrecked]

"Why," he asked, still trying to get his breath properly, "would anyone want more of it?"