voice: un: thomas

[rickitikitarr]

[[Forward dated to one good nights' sleep after the music ends.]]

Well.

[Says Ricki's voice, with that very distinct perfectly calm tone that manages to convey that something is probably actively on fire.]

Is there a doctor on board?

[The feed disconnects rather abruptly. What's happening in Ricki's room isn't pretty. Brightly, he adds;]

And if so is he free right fucking now?


[[Content warning for blood and injuries.]]

[It starts with a scratch on the back of his hand. It's just a little thing, he probably gave it to himself while he was helping Bodhi with the clean up. That he can't remember, after the week it's been, isn't surprising. When he goes to check on it that night, just to be sure it isn't infected, it's already gone... except now there's blood on his arm? How did he get cut there?

When he wakes up from the next sleep he's bled right through his undershirt, and all over his sheets, and it's hard to breathe. That's when he gives in and gets on the network and posts his message, staunching the wound with the clothes he has, trying to lie mostly still and not panic about the fact that his body is apparently tearing itself open from the inside out. It's like being a piece of cloth snagged on a rusty nail, and he doesn't know if he wants to laugh or faint.]


Video, much later.

[He pans the camera around his room, after it's older. It's the Reverie station standard, except now it looks like a fucking crime scene. Cloth and tissue and torn off sheets are wadded on the floor.

He's not up for making the full report. In fact, his hands are shaking badly enough that he lowers the camera, sets it down, putting himself in frame. He takes out, and lights a cigarette, lifting it to his mouth and taking a long drag off it, with fingers that are both shaking badly and bloodstained.

Ricki takes a long drag, breathes the smoke out through his nose.]

Fun for the whole family, right?

Comments

[rickitikitarr]

[He opens up, and spares Kovacs an extremely wry look, before his train of thought derails for the scent of coffee and he steps back to let him in.

The room has been cleaned up a bit, by now, no longer reeks of blood and cigarette smoke, but he still looks three shades too pale and a little glassy. All the mess is wadded in the bottom of the shower cubicle, and the mattress, now bare, has a few stains on it.]

I'm really just going to have to move, now all you freaks know where I live.

[He fishes in his pocket for that cigarette.]

[resleeves]

Half of this fucking station saw me naked. It's not that bad.

( there, there, ricki. there there.

he passes the coffee over to ricki and spares a look around the room. it doesn't look like a fucking massacre took place but kovacs knows better because he'd seen it. )

You can't hide in this place. Stop trying.

[rickitikitarr]

[Ricki opens his mouth to ask, and then abruptly re-prioritizes.
He shuts up a second and accepts his coffee cup, brow furrowing.

He takes a first grateful sip of his coffee, which braces him enough to ask;]

You know that's easier said than done, right? [And, quickly.] Why were you playing pantsless wonder of this new and alien world?

[resleeves]

Because I was showering and that fucking music wouldn't stop.

( they're related. trust him, ricki. )

And I don't tend to shower in my clothes so when I got angry, I got out and kicked my door in.

( oops. )

Got a few visitors after that.

[rickitikitarr]

Well, there's not a lot of entertainment here. At least the girls got one free show.

[He answers, philosophically.]

We did sleep deprivation in our training, but never that long. Forty eight hours, I think? And nothing like that music.

[resleeves]

( kovacs doesn't say that the only girls he'd seen had been bobbie, who could have cared less, and raven, who'd gotten naked too though she'd been very, very blue at the time. )

I considered homicide.

( was he serious? no. but he'd been so angry and so tired of hearing quell laughing that he'd wanted to kill something. )

I've gone without sleep for long periods of time but that was fucking ridiculous. Just more evidence that no one's trying to save us. They're trying to fuck with us, break us down.

[rickitikitarr]

If that's what they're trying to do then they're sure taking their time about it.

[Says Ricki, sipping his coffee, admitting;]

I honestly don't understand it. You can crack a captive population much quicker and much cleaner than this. It's simply true that if someone with this level of power over us wanted us to be insane, we would be by now.

[Maybe they already are. His hands sure won't stop shaking just yet.]

[resleeves]

Because they don't want it to be quick.

( that's kovacs' biggest takeaway. this isn't about being quick. this is like dimi in vr torture, wanting to inflict as much fucking pain and terror and violence as they can. this is about making everyone go out of their heads and then doing it again and again and again. )

Slow's more satisfying for whoever's doing this. Fuck everyone up, rinse, repeat. Something's probably jerking themselves off to it right now.

[rickitikitarr]

[Gross. Even the coffee isn't enough to keep him from making a face at the thought of someone watching via camera and beating it.]

If you're watching, [to this ceiling] I am going to find you.

[He'll decide to do when he gets there.]

[resleeves]

( kovacs snorts a little at that threat. ricki just doesn't seem all that intimidating right now, holding his coffee and recovering from bleeding all over the fucking place.

but, maybe he'd seem a little tougher when he recovers. )

And what are you going to do when you find them? Give them a very stern talking to?

[rickitikitarr]

This is a tactical feint. [Defends Ricki, perhaps not very convincingly.] People underestimate me when I look like a drowned kitten. I'll find them, and I'll-

[He pauses, contemplating this, before giving him a winning smile.]

-point you at them, Frankenstein.

[resleeves]

( kovacs waits for the conclusion that ricki comes to and the snorts once again when he's seemingly called into action. how lucky for ricki that kovacs has a few reasons to want to get at these shitheads too. )

When did I become your hired gun? I brought you coffee. You better fucking pay better than that if I'm going to be taking people out.

[rickitikitarr]

All the things I'll owe you. A cigarette, an answer to a question, and then for this?

[He answers, and then nods over to the desk, intending to at least settle part of the score. His cigarette is waiting for him- a single one, extracted from the pack. Ricki likes him very well but doesn't necessarily trust him not to get sticky fingers.]

I'll just have to get resourceful.

[resleeves]

I believe in you.

( the words are droll and dry. he stands there, arms crossed, watching ricki treat the cigarettes like a precious metal. )

Just remember that you owe me. Never know when I'll come and collect.

[rickitikitarr]

When I was last in prison there was much more of an emphasis on camaraderie, and accrued goodwill.

[He complains, and prompts;]

If you smoke it now you can borrow my lighter. [But it's his to save, of course, if he'd like to.] Anyways, you're making me nostalgic for Changi, which I would not have thought possible.

[resleeves]

I think I'm gonna save it.

( he plucks the cigarette from ricki's fingers and nods before pocketing it. he'd wait till he found a situation that really needed a smoke. hadn't happened just yet. )

I like to do impossible things. I'm a fucking miracle.

[rickitikitarr]

'Miracle,' eh. But I'm definitely prepared to give you 'one-man-spatial-anomaly.' You get into more trouble than me, and I'm notoriously accident prone.

[And, taking another sip of his coffee.]

Were you like this before you came to space-hell?

[resleeves]

Can't remember a time when I wasn't like this.

( and you were just oh so lucky that he'd taken enough of a liking to you that you got to see this more often than not, ricki. )

I like being different. Keeps me in demand.

( or on a leash when someone was dangling a pardon or money in front of him like fucking bancroft. )

[rickitikitarr]

'Niche,'

[Proposes Ricki, enjoying the synonym game, even as he gives in and closes his eyes against the exhaustion.]

Deeply specialized?

No. An acquired taste.

[resleeves]

Go to sleep, asshole.

( even kovacs could see that he needs it and he's not one to really prolong a conversation for too many reasons. if he needs to sleep, fucking sleep. )

Don't fucking bleed anywhere anymore.

( basically stay alive. )

[rickitikitarr]

[He doesn't even argue, he feels so fucked up. Instead he tries half-heartedly to move his half drunk coffee to safety, before doing as he's told and making his way down onto his side.

He does need to sleep that one off.]