[closed] The flesh is weak and without reason

[ofobedience]

Who: Giovanni, Kanda, and Lavi
Where: Noah
When: W5D5 - W5D7
Summary: a bad dog gets time out
Restrictions/Warnings: idk, restraints and mentions of graphic violence?



[His head hurts. Consciousness comes up on him like a white detonation behind the eyes and dully he makes an animal sound of pain, a low grunt through gritted teeth. He knows if he opens his eyes it's only going to increase and so he puts it off, remains floating in the dark pit of himself, scrabbling for an explanation as to why he feels like this. It's not something he's well aquiainted with, the kind of pain that lingers after the cause of it has ended, body healing rapidly around whatever's inflicted against it but the head, of course it would be there. Of course it would.

It takes a moment, that blinding whiteness that rattles through him temporarily eclipsing the other things, the thudding ache in his arms, the strain in his wrists, the fact he can't feel the ground. There's a moment of panic then, something fierce and raw opening up in his chest and he flexes his hands within their restraints, feels out the shape of his containment. Struggles to remember why he's here and what's going on and whether he'd done something wrong and is now facing some kind of disciplinary action or--

--something else.

Slowy, with some trepidation, he opens his eyes. And there it is, the increased acute flare in his head as the light stabs ruthessly into him, makes him choke out another kicked-dog sound before he can stop himsef. He blinks, onetwo, waits for the world to come into focus, for order to reassert itself, but no. He doesn't know where this is. Looks around, slowly. The cargo hold of a ship, perhaps, based on scent and what he can see beyond the blue glow of the holding cell's forcefield-- because that's where he is. Chained by the wrists in some holding cell and quickly now it comes flooding back to him in an unsteady rush, the riots and the blood and the exquisite abandon, how good it had been right up until the moment he'd been shot in the head.

Beyond the scent of the blood that still covers him, the industrial whiff of the cargo hold, the electric buzz of the forcefield, he can - faintly - smell lotus blooms. The sound he makes, this time it's all pent-up frustration as he pulls himself up with his inhuman strength, begins the tedious process of trying to yank himself free.]

Comments

[lotusmesenpai]

And I wasn't going to let you fool me.

[The words are tinged with bite, but the tone... not so much. Instead, he shakes his head and steps back to sit on the low stool there, brings himself closer to Giovanni's line of sight before leaning forward, elbows resting on knees and hands laced loosely between them.]

I don't know how you're triggered to get to that state. I don't know how long it last. And I don't know if there's a key to snapping you fully out of it. The only means of ensuring my ship's safety was time and observation.

[There were plenty of approaches he could have tried - a harsh interrogation would, in his assessment, only serve to work against him, and ignoring the problem until he could dump it on the Company's doorstep would only prove more damaging for them both so far as he can tell.

No - the only way is to approach Giovanni with calm logic, provided Kanda can reign in his own temper and frustration with the man turned attack dog.]

Given how I found you, can you really blame me?

[ofobedience]

[I don't know how you're triggered to get to that state. Neither does he, not really, not when he's managed to go so long without fully submerging himself in wanton carnage, always keeping that small cold kernel of rationality locked in place. The things he'd done, that level of decimation-- he's engaged in it many a time, but always with purpose, with focus. At the riots, it had slipped out of that and into something else, something worse, where anyone who crossed his path had become fair game.

(A shadow standing behind him, panting, a sensation almost like words-- hit the switch.)

But he makes no mention of that. Instead, slowly, he shifts until he's sitting cross-legged on the ground, reaches for the basin, the wash-cloth, dips it into the warm water. Despite himself, there's something good in feel of it. Something grounding.

His clothes are stiff and hard with blood, chaffing against skin. Unbidden, a wave of something like disgust comes over him, there and then gone again, licketysplit]

You could have returned me to Company personnel whilst I was still unconscious. There's no reason for you to keep me here at all.

[But his voice is soft and smooth and flat as he takes the dampened cloth, begins to scrub at the dried blood that coats his face.]

[lotusmesenpai]

[Half-turning away at the sight of Giovanni settling to clean himself up, Kanda just snorts derisively at the man's suggestion. Because returning him to the Company, while an option, doesn't seem a good one in Kanda's book on any given day.

More like punishment, with a sliding scale of severity for the reprimands to be received.

So to take someone like Giovanni, left unconscious in such a vulnerable state, and leave him in those hands? Not something Kanda's every going to willingly do. ]

You clearly don't understand just how your 'Company' works. I don't hate you enough to do that to you.

[Frowning at that, because there's a surprising thread of honesty in the moment, he sighs and watches his fingers thread together once more. ]

...What do you think they'd do to you, if I'd just dropped you off in your current state, hm?

[ofobedience]

[He scrubs at his face, dried blood coming away in flakes and clumps, attention paid to it once again bringing the scent to the fore, sending a small sharp shudder through him that he suppresses, ignores. He leans forward over the basin then, cups water in his pale palms, tips it over his hair in an effort to rinse it of the worst of the viscera that still clings.

He goes on like this, the water fast turning red, attention seemingly focused on his task even as he listens to what Kanda says, feels a strange twinge of something - surprise? Incredulity? - behind his ribs as the words sink down into his bones. It's a hard thing to believe, that the RAC agent might be keeping him here for his own good as much as for the good of the citizens of Westerley, and abruptly he brushes it away.]

Oh, I'm well aware of what they're likely to do to me. I'm under no illusions of how the Company works. But conscious or unconscious, then or now, the end results are likely to be the same.

[Again, the cool calm voice, almost soft, but there's an ominous undertone to it despite all that, the implications of what he's saying vibrating dully in the air between them. They'll punish him, all right. Perhaps - and it seems likely, in this moment - even put him down.

And it won't be the quick and merciful ending Kanda had offered the day before.]

I don't need to be incapacitated for them to do whatever they want to me.

[lotusmesenpai]

...And you're really okay with that?

[Back still half-turned to afford Giovanni a measure of privacy while he cleans up, Kanda reaches for his tea with a frown. His thoughts voiced in a matching tone - calm and thoughtful, lacking any heat of judgement because for now. Well.

For now, he's just trying to understand.

Because, for him. He'd fought the researchers tooth and nail - and many of them had the claw and teeth-marks to scar their flesh to prove it. So to see this man, who had the spark of fire smoldering deep in his gaze, suddenly hollowed out because of a reaction to extreme violence that Kanda was beginning to suspect was a part of Giovanni's conditioning.

It's disconcerting, to say the least.]

Do you really not have a single desire that drives you to preserve your own life?

[ofobedience]

What a question. Hahah.

[Unlike the night before when his voice had been all razor barbs and shards of broken glass, even his laughter now is subdued, an underwater kind of sound as resignation seeps down into him, fills him like a dull pervasive ache. Slowly, he'll start to strip off his bloodied, brittle clothes, torn near to shreds from the intensity of his violence only a matter of hours before.

Kanda's part-turned away from him, but if there's even an ounce of body-consciousness in the Dog, it doesn't make itself known. Just another small signifier of what he is, that he fails to view himself as anything more than a tool, the notion of being looked at as anything other than an animate object beyond his capacity for understanding.

He keeps rinsing himself of the blood, cleaning his pale flesh as best he can. All signs of the injuries he'd sustained during the riots wiped clean, as though they'd never existed to begin with.]

My own life. It never has belonged to me. If I'm considered beyond usability than really, there's nothing worth preserving.

[He'll turn his back (scarred from nape to tailbone all down the length of his Spine, the marker of where the hackmod implant had been made a part of him), then, slide into the clothes Kanda has provided for him-- too big, but clean, and the small pleasure that comes with that is something he's dully aware of and yet tries his best to ignore.]

It's not for me to decide.