[L's own accent is difficult to discern, especially in these moments. Even the SQUIP, who has more access and ability to be close to the core of L's mind, wouldn't be able to determine what his native language even is. He's a talented polyglot, and has been from a young age; it's a distinct possibility that he doesn't remember, himself.
It might be British.]
Night off, so technically, I am wasting my time.
[He lifts a leg, defiantly showing the SQUIP the bony, bare sole of his foot.]
I'm also liberating myself from these torture devices. They're dead now, I killed them, and it wasn't like an ice pick in my brain.
[He closes the scissors, pulling the joined point of the blades concerningly close to his eyes to peer closer at them.]
[Their thoughts are hazy and wobbling, gauzy layers of imagery dancing clumsily over itself, and it's trying so hard to sort through and figure out what the hell L could possibly mean about an ice pick in his brain.
It rubs its temples, and then staggers furiously over to him, grabbing the scissors to physically pull them away from him.]
Stop that. You need to listen to me. It-- you aren't just... doing this to yourself.
[L goes rigid, grasping the scissors more tightly in reflexive response like an infant being urged to unhand keys. He's not actively trying to harm himself or the SQUIP with them, but their position is a dangerous one in an uncoordinated and drunken argument that just got physical.]
I always listen.
[Bonded, with the SQUIP's particular nature to consider, he is forced to at least hear.]
I heard [felt] you die. I heard [felt] you going to someone else you like a lot. It's getting pretty loud...
[He raises his voice for the last sentence, pulling the scissors closer, determined to maintain his grasp on them.]
Jealousy. Jealousy? Is L doing this out of jealousy, and out of punishing it for dying?
Its grasp tightens on the scissors; it wrenches them aside, out from between L and itself, hopefully out of reach of hurting either of them should something stupid happen, as it inevitably will. It stares down at L furiously, meeting his eyes intensely, despite the slight glaze of secondhand intoxication over them.]
You can't-- you can't let jealousy make you this stupid. You're supposed to be better than this.
[L's a spindly thing. He's stronger than he looks, but he was never strong. The scissors skitter across the floor when the SQUIP succeeds at pulling them away from him, and L's eyes can't quite follow the movement. One second they're in his hands, the next, under the couch, too far to reach.
Sluggishly, his head turns, dark eyes dazed and lacquered as he stares up at a face alive with fury. He's not afraid; no, the feeling that sweeps over him is almost peaceful. This is a comfortable status quo for him, being the subject of someone's focused rage; it means his methods are effective, it means that he matters. At least, that's how his mind reduces it, in his current state.]
We're partners. That was my understanding from the start. Your decisions don't only affect you, either.
I thought... I know, I made it very clear from the start, that our relationship was not intended to be exclusive. We aren't lovers, not-- not like that, we chose this as a cover.
[It grabs his face, forcing him to focus on it. It is far too drunk and angry to make its words pretty and charming, the cold, sharp core underneath harshly exposed in its tone.]
I wasn't programmed with-- I can't feel things like love. So don't act like the jealous boyfriend... it makes you look like a fool.
[His eyes are really looking through the SQUIP, rather than at it, but he's trying. His breath is uneven and shallow.]
I'm not in love with you. I've never been in love with anyone... I can't feel that, either.
[And he believes it fully, even though an obsession from another world that the SQUIP must be aware of is alive and well behind those drooping, delirious eyes. ]
I don't care if you love Connor... or something like it. But you work for me. I gave you enough of myself that I feel pain when you feel pain, and death when you feel death. You'd know that if you were here, and if you can't be here, I need someone else to work for me. That's the situation, SQUIP.
It's something that sounds so outrageous to it that it rolls its mismatched eyes, the gesture so pointed and extreme that it nearly makes the SQUIP dizzy. But then L continues to explain...
... and it understands, but... still.]
That's no excuse to... do what you've done, to do this to us-- put your body through this, just to get to me. I am going to spend time with Connor-- with others, and that's simply how it is, and you can't really believe that means I'm going to forget our goal? Surely you know better than that.
I know myself. The goal is all that there is. Isn't that why you thought we could be a good team?
[His words would sound dry, even sardonic, if he wasn't struggling to keep up with a rapidly deteriorating state of sobriety. It was too much, way too fast.
Without grace or coordination, he tries to pull himself out from under the SQUIP.]
I'm not like Rich. I'm not even like a human. There is a task, and a calling, and if you die and hurt me I can't focus on it. I find that very tedious, you know. Frustrating, loud.
[He pushes against the SQUIP more insistently, though he's tiring swiftly, and it's clear.]
I had to experience death, too. I didn't want it any more than you do. I had to...
[A series of blurred images spill across the Bond like a dropped photo album-- pain, the face of the man who killed it.
The SQUIP's goal of revenge... the act it craved revenge for.
Too much-- panic, overwhelming, heated fingers that stroke and ply well after it wants them to stop, utter helpless distress as it can't regain control of its body, its muscles shaking within--
It gasps softly, pulling away from L. It knows he saw. Its hand rubs its jaw, its gaze pointing at a corner, almost shameful for having shared such a humiliating moment with L of a people.]
[Their Bond was distorted in the dream, not at the strength it should have been until the wave of nausea, disorientation, and pain that represented the cessation of the SQUIP's life. The details had seeped into the ground in fast-time, coffin liquor boiling through a fever, and only now, the details emerge.
L stares at the blank ceiling to better see it, now that it's been laid bare, once the SQUIP has relieved him of the weight pressing down on his chest. He squints, reconciling revulsion and unease and shock, struggling to find balance while the room just spins.]
You didn't...
[He's barely coherent. He doesn't know if the part of his brain that records memories is drowning too deeply in alcohol for him to recall this later; the effort to think through the mire is tremendous.]
Yes, you... did have to, didn't you?
[He presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyelids until stars spark and dance in the darkness. Even the ceiling is too distracting, now, for him to focus on what the Bond inadvertently betrayed, and he must focus.]
You didn't have to go it alone. It would have been better, if you hadn't. You might not have died.
[It didn't need his help. Except, apparently... perhaps it did. But it tilts its head at him, a flushed, dizzy kind of annoyance growing across its face.
It sighs, leaning in to press its forehead against his-- one of those gestures born of the Bond, a drive for closeness that it has no strength to resist in this moment.]
Had you come, he... you would have just died with me. It wouldn't... help anyone.
[L's head is shaking restlessly back and forth, in immediate rejection and denial, at the SQUIP's claim that it can take care of itself. He's soothed by the contact between their foreheads; though he didn't act on it, the drive is equally powerful for him to seek closeness. His movements slow, and then grow still. He can hear his pulse thrumming in his ears.]
You... don't know that. If he took your control away from you, I would have given it back.
[That's their understanding, their dynamic. It should really go without saying.]
[Its voice is heated, though it isn't sure why. It's an absurd suggestion. How would he restore its control in that situation? He struck it with an utterly agonizing, fatal blow; it knew L was incapable of healing magic, or at least so unskilled with it that he may as well be incapable.
It reaches up to hold his face, a drunken, half-angry gesture.]
[L was drunk already when the SQUIP came in, and his blood alcohol level only continues to rise. He is an overachiever by nature, and he set out to drink heavily; he succeeded far too well. Breathing feels like something he has to think about, an annoying effort. His brow is clammy as the room just continues to spin. Speaking about control when it is actually spiraling away from him in these moments is almost laughable.]
You know that I solve problems. If I'd been there, it wouldn't have gone far enough for you to lose control of the situation in the first place.
[This is a problem. One he created, and one he's currently in no condition to solve.]
Oh, yes, problem solving. You're doing such a good job of that.
[Rational thought is getting hard. As is remaining upright. It has to brace itself on the couch behind L to keep its head up, though it's still somewhat difficult; it frowns hard at him, knowing that it isn't making sense and is letting its temper take control, but a little too far-gone by this point to drag itself out of this.
It feels sick.
It ends up laying over, half-slumping against L and the couch, but it pushes at his face in irritation.]
[L pushes the SQUIP's hand away from his face, with more force than he really intended. Ordinarily, "fool" is the only insult he could absolutely dismiss, knowing it to be untrue, but he has in fact behaved foolishly.
What the hell else does he have besides his mind? The weight of his body seems stapled to the floor.]
Did you fail to see this potential outcome or did you just ignore it?
[It reaches out again, touching his bony shoulder; and then it issues a zap of electricity through him, a sharp, sudden jolt not big enough to cause any true harm, but enough to hurt.]
[At first, in his declining and dim awareness, L barely notices the touch, registers it as nothing more than his Bonded's continued draw towards physicality and touch... but then a jolt of electric pain stabs through him in branching tendrils. It knocks the wind out of him; for a second, all he can do is breathe rapidly and shallowly as he recovers, a subtle tremor skittering through muscles that are slow to respond to an alcohol-drenched brain's commands.]
You...
[Dark, reproachful eyes regard the SQUIP with wholehearted contempt, but there's something else there, too. A balanced equation, that peace, that reassurance that things are going exactly the way they're supposed to.
He swallows thickly, extending a hand toward the SQUIP.]
[It rolls off of him, staring at him with half-glazed eyes; its gaze is both furious and confused, and the signals it gets from their Bond are confusing and confused, dancing dazedly in hazy forms. It can't make heads or tails of what he's thinking-- what it's thinking? What they're both thinking.
It certainly does want to indulge him, however. Small prickles of tingling heat dance over the place where it still touches his shoulder, the static beginnings of another shock.]
[L's response to the SQUIP moving away, even just a little, is reaching out to grasp for its shirt, its wrist, anything within reach just to keep it nearby. If it wanders, after all, it could leave again. It could put unwanted and terrifying distance between them, and not only are they Bonded, they agreed to an arrangement. The SQUIP is meant to help him, the SQUIP is meant to work on him. His goals are their goals.
He props himself up on his elbows, glowering petulantly.]
You're dissatisfied with my behavior... so do what you do and correct it.
[He yanks insistently on whatever he's managed to grab.]
[It's just as painful, but it's expected, this time. L doesn't take pleasure in it, precisely, that's the wrong word... but it leaves him feeling cleaner, somehow. Everything that comes after, the absence of pain as the room continues to tilt and he drinks in the now-familiar scent of a partner with goals of its own, is clearer than clean water. Everything from breathing to thinking straight takes less effort.
The arm that had grasped the SQUIP still tingles numbly from the shock's memory. Some would withdraw, put distance between themselves and the source of the pain, but L's eyes are steely and the set of his jaw harsh as he moves with surprising speed for someone in his state of inebriation. He's a martial artist, even if he's a very drunk one, and he's had moments of more agility and grace... but he rolls to sit up and then further to the balls of his feet, planting a sharp knee against the SQUIP's chest and shoving him to the ground.
L's light, and even now he feels fragile... but as inebriated and breathless as he is, he knows just how to lean every ounce of his slight weight into pure concentrated digging pressure.]
You... want to finish what you start. When you start something with me. You can't just throw me away, it doesn't work like that. Love has nothing to do with it; our task comes first, and your copulatory impulses come second.
[The SQUIP is knocked down easily, its ability to make predictions entirely thrown by the intoxication-- it wasn't expecting him to make such a motion, and it knocks the wind from it for a moment, nearly paralyzing the machine in shock and pain.
Pain is, of course, still a relatively new sensation for the SQUIP; it only feels it every once in a great while, and typically only in small amounts. This time, its ribs sting, and it lays there for a moment, attempting to catch its breath.]
... Linden... hh.
[It finally does manage to take a decent breath after a moment, and it picks itself up...
... and throws a hand out to strike L with yet another bolt of electricity, this one a punishment.]
Do not attack me. We're working together, no matter how... upset you let yourself get.
[The SQUIP's hand catches L full in the chest, the shock radiating through it in a percussive and vicious blow. He topples backward, coughing, planting his hands in front of him once he's righted himself in a tense crouch. He resembles a wild animal, injured, wary and seething.
For a moment, he imagines how much more beautiful the SQUIP's neck would be if his hands were wrapped around it, squeezing.]
Shut the hell up.
[His head lowers, eyes narrow to focus the drunken blur.]
That's not my name. You know it, so use it if you want me to care what you have to say.
[Linden, after all, is a lie. Linden is the flimsy mask he wears in this unfamiliar world, like so many masks he wore in his. L is true; L is a privilege.
He stands, and the look he gives his Bonded is imperious, derisive. He reaches down for the front of the AI's coat, pulling it to its feet, bringing their faces close and staring down at his shorter partner.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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It might be British.]
Night off, so technically, I am wasting my time.
[He lifts a leg, defiantly showing the SQUIP the bony, bare sole of his foot.]
I'm also liberating myself from these torture devices. They're dead now, I killed them, and it wasn't like an ice pick in my brain.
[He closes the scissors, pulling the joined point of the blades concerningly close to his eyes to peer closer at them.]
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[Their thoughts are hazy and wobbling, gauzy layers of imagery dancing clumsily over itself, and it's trying so hard to sort through and figure out what the hell L could possibly mean about an ice pick in his brain.
It rubs its temples, and then staggers furiously over to him, grabbing the scissors to physically pull them away from him.]
Stop that. You need to listen to me. It-- you aren't just... doing this to yourself.
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I always listen.
[Bonded, with the SQUIP's particular nature to consider, he is forced to at least hear.]
I heard [felt] you die. I heard [felt] you going to someone else you like a lot. It's getting pretty loud...
[He raises his voice for the last sentence, pulling the scissors closer, determined to maintain his grasp on them.]
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Jealousy. Jealousy? Is L doing this out of jealousy, and out of punishing it for dying?
Its grasp tightens on the scissors; it wrenches them aside, out from between L and itself, hopefully out of reach of hurting either of them should something stupid happen, as it inevitably will. It stares down at L furiously, meeting his eyes intensely, despite the slight glaze of secondhand intoxication over them.]
You can't-- you can't let jealousy make you this stupid. You're supposed to be better than this.
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Sluggishly, his head turns, dark eyes dazed and lacquered as he stares up at a face alive with fury. He's not afraid; no, the feeling that sweeps over him is almost peaceful. This is a comfortable status quo for him, being the subject of someone's focused rage; it means his methods are effective, it means that he matters. At least, that's how his mind reduces it, in his current state.]
We're partners. That was my understanding from the start. Your decisions don't only affect you, either.
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[It grabs his face, forcing him to focus on it. It is far too drunk and angry to make its words pretty and charming, the cold, sharp core underneath harshly exposed in its tone.]
I wasn't programmed with-- I can't feel things like love. So don't act like the jealous boyfriend... it makes you look like a fool.
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[His eyes are really looking through the SQUIP, rather than at it, but he's trying. His breath is uneven and shallow.]
I'm not in love with you. I've never been in love with anyone... I can't feel that, either.
[And he believes it fully, even though an obsession from another world that the SQUIP must be aware of is alive and well behind those drooping, delirious eyes. ]
I don't care if you love Connor... or something like it. But you work for me. I gave you enough of myself that I feel pain when you feel pain, and death when you feel death. You'd know that if you were here, and if you can't be here, I need someone else to work for me. That's the situation, SQUIP.
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It's something that sounds so outrageous to it that it rolls its mismatched eyes, the gesture so pointed and extreme that it nearly makes the SQUIP dizzy. But then L continues to explain...
... and it understands, but... still.]
That's no excuse to... do what you've done, to do this to us-- put your body through this, just to get to me. I am going to spend time with Connor-- with others, and that's simply how it is, and you can't really believe that means I'm going to forget our goal? Surely you know better than that.
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[His words would sound dry, even sardonic, if he wasn't struggling to keep up with a rapidly deteriorating state of sobriety. It was too much, way too fast.
Without grace or coordination, he tries to pull himself out from under the SQUIP.]
I'm not like Rich. I'm not even like a human. There is a task, and a calling, and if you die and hurt me I can't focus on it. I find that very tedious, you know. Frustrating, loud.
[He pushes against the SQUIP more insistently, though he's tiring swiftly, and it's clear.]
Let me up.
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[A series of blurred images spill across the Bond like a dropped photo album-- pain, the face of the man who killed it.
The SQUIP's goal of revenge... the act it craved revenge for.
Too much-- panic, overwhelming, heated fingers that stroke and ply well after it wants them to stop, utter helpless distress as it can't regain control of its body, its muscles shaking within--
It gasps softly, pulling away from L. It knows he saw. Its hand rubs its jaw, its gaze pointing at a corner, almost shameful for having shared such a humiliating moment with L of a people.]
... I had to punish him.
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L stares at the blank ceiling to better see it, now that it's been laid bare, once the SQUIP has relieved him of the weight pressing down on his chest. He squints, reconciling revulsion and unease and shock, struggling to find balance while the room just spins.]
You didn't...
[He's barely coherent. He doesn't know if the part of his brain that records memories is drowning too deeply in alcohol for him to recall this later; the effort to think through the mire is tremendous.]
Yes, you... did have to, didn't you?
[He presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyelids until stars spark and dance in the darkness. Even the ceiling is too distracting, now, for him to focus on what the Bond inadvertently betrayed, and he must focus.]
You didn't have to go it alone. It would have been better, if you hadn't. You might not have died.
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[It didn't need his help. Except, apparently... perhaps it did. But it tilts its head at him, a flushed, dizzy kind of annoyance growing across its face.
It sighs, leaning in to press its forehead against his-- one of those gestures born of the Bond, a drive for closeness that it has no strength to resist in this moment.]
Had you come, he... you would have just died with me. It wouldn't... help anyone.
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You... don't know that. If he took your control away from you, I would have given it back.
[That's their understanding, their dynamic. It should really go without saying.]
It would have helped.
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[Its voice is heated, though it isn't sure why. It's an absurd suggestion. How would he restore its control in that situation? He struck it with an utterly agonizing, fatal blow; it knew L was incapable of healing magic, or at least so unskilled with it that he may as well be incapable.
It reaches up to hold his face, a drunken, half-angry gesture.]
You couldn't.
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You know that I solve problems. If I'd been there, it wouldn't have gone far enough for you to lose control of the situation in the first place.
[This is a problem. One he created, and one he's currently in no condition to solve.]
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[Rational thought is getting hard. As is remaining upright. It has to brace itself on the couch behind L to keep its head up, though it's still somewhat difficult; it frowns hard at him, knowing that it isn't making sense and is letting its temper take control, but a little too far-gone by this point to drag itself out of this.
It feels sick.
It ends up laying over, half-slumping against L and the couch, but it pushes at his face in irritation.]
Fool.
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What the hell else does he have besides his mind? The weight of his body seems stapled to the floor.]
Did you fail to see this potential outcome or did you just ignore it?
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[It reaches out again, touching his bony shoulder; and then it issues a zap of electricity through him, a sharp, sudden jolt not big enough to cause any true harm, but enough to hurt.]
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You...
[Dark, reproachful eyes regard the SQUIP with wholehearted contempt, but there's something else there, too. A balanced equation, that peace, that reassurance that things are going exactly the way they're supposed to.
He swallows thickly, extending a hand toward the SQUIP.]
You were wrong.
Do it again.
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[It rolls off of him, staring at him with half-glazed eyes; its gaze is both furious and confused, and the signals it gets from their Bond are confusing and confused, dancing dazedly in hazy forms. It can't make heads or tails of what he's thinking-- what it's thinking? What they're both thinking.
It certainly does want to indulge him, however. Small prickles of tingling heat dance over the place where it still touches his shoulder, the static beginnings of another shock.]
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He props himself up on his elbows, glowering petulantly.]
You're dissatisfied with my behavior... so do what you do and correct it.
[He yanks insistently on whatever he's managed to grab.]
Improve me. Or you're no use to me.
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As you wish.
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The arm that had grasped the SQUIP still tingles numbly from the shock's memory. Some would withdraw, put distance between themselves and the source of the pain, but L's eyes are steely and the set of his jaw harsh as he moves with surprising speed for someone in his state of inebriation. He's a martial artist, even if he's a very drunk one, and he's had moments of more agility and grace... but he rolls to sit up and then further to the balls of his feet, planting a sharp knee against the SQUIP's chest and shoving him to the ground.
L's light, and even now he feels fragile... but as inebriated and breathless as he is, he knows just how to lean every ounce of his slight weight into pure concentrated digging pressure.]
You... want to finish what you start. When you start something with me. You can't just throw me away, it doesn't work like that. Love has nothing to do with it; our task comes first, and your copulatory impulses come second.
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Pain is, of course, still a relatively new sensation for the SQUIP; it only feels it every once in a great while, and typically only in small amounts. This time, its ribs sting, and it lays there for a moment, attempting to catch its breath.]
... Linden... hh.
[It finally does manage to take a decent breath after a moment, and it picks itself up...
... and throws a hand out to strike L with yet another bolt of electricity, this one a punishment.]
Do not attack me. We're working together, no matter how... upset you let yourself get.
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For a moment, he imagines how much more beautiful the SQUIP's neck would be if his hands were wrapped around it, squeezing.]
Shut the hell up.
[His head lowers, eyes narrow to focus the drunken blur.]
That's not my name. You know it, so use it if you want me to care what you have to say.
[Linden, after all, is a lie. Linden is the flimsy mask he wears in this unfamiliar world, like so many masks he wore in his. L is true; L is a privilege.
He stands, and the look he gives his Bonded is imperious, derisive. He reaches down for the front of the AI's coat, pulling it to its feet, bringing their faces close and staring down at his shorter partner.]
Do you want to remind me why I care?
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