[This has not been an easy set of days for anyone in this tiny apartment, which feels cramped and clammy now, seeing as the windows are closed. Asher doesn't want to look outside so he tolerates the stuff nature of the air around him, growing weary of the dreary atmosphere. Still, they can't leave just yet, not with the town currently in shambles and the timeline still in jeopardy.
He saunters over to the little work space Sieglinde has set up in their living room and sits himself down next to her, eyeing her openly with worry. After letting out a loud sigh, he offers her a plate of various meats and cheeses, thankful that their electricity has yet to go out.]
Yooooo.
[A tired protest.
She may or may not have noticed, but he is doing his best to keep the people around him together. Jin is asleep, soundly, thankfully, and so is Achilles.
A law student's sleep schedule is never an early one- He has yet to break his habit of staying up late.]
You hungry?
[He laughs, though it's not a bright sound that she will hear.]
[Sieglinde's eyes don't move from the microscope, small hands and thin fingers carefully placing slide after slide under the lens and examining them, occasionally moving to let those same fingers slide over to her tablet, to tap notes into the screen now that they're far past the point of trying to blend in and not use technology outside this world's timeline.
She isn't seeing anything she wants to see there, though she keeps looking. Double checking.]
Thank you.
[The response is wooden, a bit too delayed to be timely, and her eyes still don't break from the lens more than a second, all it takes to position the plate in her peripheral, so that she can reach out and take a slice of ham and bring it back to her lap, already forgotten.]
[Contrary to what most people may believe, he isn't stupid enough to stir her from her research. The entire team is relying on such a small set of people to come up with a cure, and most of them sick, including Sonia and Urahara.]
I haven't seen you eat anything since you got here.
[His tone is neither rude nor accusatory. As much as he hates seeing a child push herself so hard, they do need her help.]
It won't hurt to take a bite while you're lookin' at all this stuff, y'know.
[He blows a puff of air from his lower lip, scrunching his face into a somewhat whimsical expression.]
Besides, If you get sick 'cause you aren't takin' care of yourself? We're toast.
[His expression is lost on her, because Sieglinde has yet to actually look at him. Not properly anyway, frowning at the slide she examines next before moving to discard it into her reject pile, scratching out a few notes on her tablet.]
Simply because you have not seen me do it does not mean I have not.
[Which was admittedly true- she thinks she recalls eating something earlier. But just to placate him, in the hopes that it would be as simple as that, (that she could compartmentalize and forget their situation as simply as that), she gropes about in her lap for the ham and absently puts it in her mouth.
And have you been watching me constantly for three days?
[She knows she sounds snippy, sounds rude, when he and Jin had opened up their makeshift home to Achilles and her both, been reliable in keeping the man somewhat cared for in her stead while she concentrated on the problem at hand...
But she's exhausted, and the results aren't what she wanted, but at least she idly puts another piece of food in her mouth.]
[She is met with an air of spite and another wrinkle of the nose, although this one is accompanied with a slight gritting of teeth. Asher is tired too, tired of people resisting his desire to care for them, unaware that others do not take to comfort and kind acts as easily as he does.]
Yeah, pretty much.
[Caring for his teammates is just about the only thing he is capable of right now, so when people refuse it, he can feel pretty goddamn useless.]
Somebody has to.
[This, surprisingly, is not a pointed remark.
He means everybody in this little apartment he and Jin have come to call home over the past few weeks. Without proper attention, they will all fall apart.
And that won't happen. Not if he has anything to say about it beforehand.]
[She speaks around a mouthful of food, but the words are mostly intelligible, even as she continues to avoid eye contact and instead focus her attention largely on her microscope, preparing the next slide with the hand she hadn't been handling ham with.
She knows he's just trying to be helpful- they were always just trying to be helpful. But science, discovery, breakthroughs... they didn't happen as soon as you needed them to. And she needed one now, soon, before the rest of her fellows working on the project in their own house arrest locations went mad and became useless, before anyone on their team succumbed to the virus-
Before anyone else ended up like Patroclus.]
Achilles would benefit far more from your support. There are things a daughter cannot do.
[She doesn't quite realize she referred to herself still by the false roles they'd taken in Woodhurst. It didn't matter. Achilles was grieving, hurting, and for all that she'd earned his respect in some ways she knew he likely could not see her as a true equal, not a fellow man in which he might confide.
[That is the thing- Asher does know that there is no other way to find this cure, but that is why he grows more and more frustrated. Of course, people like Sonia and Urahara and Sieglinde have to push themselves, but if they drop dead first, this team is going to be even more screwed than they were at the start.
Jin is more suited to comfort Achilles, as he is the warrior, the one who Achilles considers an equal as a man.
Even though Asher is the one who has been footing the bills for everything ALASTAIR isn't covering as he is the only one who had an actual paying job, Achilles referred to Jin as the primary owner of this place. Whatever, it's not that big of a deal.]
He's asleep right now, and I'm not-
[A disgruntled sigh.]
I'm not about to pull you away from this Bill Nye the Science Guy bullcrap, 'cause I know the team needs this-
I would ask you to take care not to slander Master Nye.
[She might have spent a lot of her time pretending to be a patient in the hospital watching his show, and she might believe he was a real person and not a character, unfamiliar with the concept of television entertainment as she is.
Still.
Her tone is just as full of snap despite the youth in her voice, finally taking her gaze from the microscope to fix him with a cold look, her best attempt at trying to remain mature and removed, rather than give in to the desire to cry, to rage, to never get out of bed until she'd forgotten that-]
[She's seen countless dead bodies since she'd joined ALASTAIR, dead by countless methods. She's seen bodies charred by dragon fire in Anwick, crushed by chimera in Chantes, drowned and bloated in Nalawi, riddled with bullets in Perdition's Rest, and ripped apart by teeth and nail in Woodhurst... she's even had them under her care, when her patients were simply too far gone for magic or stitch.
They moved on. She didn't have to watch their families grieve, or bury them, or console their loved ones. She just had to watch.
But Patroclus-]
That does not change anything. You may see many more bodies in your time. More, sooner, if I do not find out a way to convince these cells to target the viral infection more aggressively.
[So has he, but that doesn't make this any easier.
Asher is the type of man who feels everything strongly and all at once, including sympathy. He is the simple sort, easily satisfied by company and the promise of friendship or love, with little regard for anything else. Being the best or the brightest is something he does not see as possible for himself, so he does not try quite as hard to impress people anymore.
[She stares back at him sullenly, dark circles beneath her eyes and dammed up emotions beneath the surface, striving for something that will make him stop. Make them all stop. But no matter what she does, no matter how she protests, pushes, or pleads, they keep doing it.
Caring. In that way she might have craved once, were she a normal girl with a normal childhood.]
If you say "starvation" or "exhaustion" as if I am somehow not aware of my own limits I shall leave Achilles here and return to our home to work in peace.
[If the threat rings empty, its only because she doesn't want to leave. Doesn't want to abandon Achilles, not now. Abandon Patroclus' body. Abandon having food made available for her when she did deign to eat it.
[He does not understand the source of her ire, since Asher is not a mind reader, but he knows that most of the people on the team have been on edge due to the nature of the mission at hand.]
And look at what happened to him.
[This is said with sympathy, not all with a hint of blame for Patroclus himself. It's not as though he could have known that he'd be attacked? It just all seemed so out of the blue, so unfair...
His voice trembles as he lets it out, a little bit of that fear he's been experiencing as of late. Asher can not afford to lose any more people, and from the looks of it, Sieglinde probably can't either.]
I know that you think I'm being a pain in the ass right now, but I just wanna make sure that you'll be okay.
So I'm sorry. That I care about you.
[His nostrils flare a little.
Team oriented at heart, he feels that staying together is important, and gets irritated when people push him away.]
I just don't want to see anybody else getting hurt.
[Sieglinde didn't mind if people cared. Anyone should be glad to have people who cared about them. But the form that care took... it felt smothering at times, to someone who had been raised making her own decisions and lording over a village.
Her fingers tighten over the focus wheel of the microscope, jaw grit in frustration, in the grief she has yet to actually allow herself to dwell upon.]
But you hardly have to worry. Unlike Patroclus, I am not trusted enough to go out by myself while those who might fight by my side protect the weak.
[Though she has allowed herself to dwell on the fact that if it weren't for her, Achilles would have been with Patroclus that night. If she weren't seen as needing protecting all the time, if Achilles hadn't come with her instead...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Late night, pre-cure timeframe; ACTION
He saunters over to the little work space Sieglinde has set up in their living room and sits himself down next to her, eyeing her openly with worry. After letting out a loud sigh, he offers her a plate of various meats and cheeses, thankful that their electricity has yet to go out.]
Yooooo.
[A tired protest.
She may or may not have noticed, but he is doing his best to keep the people around him together. Jin is asleep, soundly, thankfully, and so is Achilles.
A law student's sleep schedule is never an early one- He has yet to break his habit of staying up late.]
You hungry?
[He laughs, though it's not a bright sound that she will hear.]
I brought ya somethin'.
no subject
She isn't seeing anything she wants to see there, though she keeps looking. Double checking.]
Thank you.
[The response is wooden, a bit too delayed to be timely, and her eyes still don't break from the lens more than a second, all it takes to position the plate in her peripheral, so that she can reach out and take a slice of ham and bring it back to her lap, already forgotten.]
no subject
I haven't seen you eat anything since you got here.
[His tone is neither rude nor accusatory. As much as he hates seeing a child push herself so hard, they do need her help.]
It won't hurt to take a bite while you're lookin' at all this stuff, y'know.
[He blows a puff of air from his lower lip, scrunching his face into a somewhat whimsical expression.]
Besides, If you get sick 'cause you aren't takin' care of yourself? We're toast.
no subject
Simply because you have not seen me do it does not mean I have not.
[Which was admittedly true- she thinks she recalls eating something earlier. But just to placate him, in the hopes that it would be as simple as that, (that she could compartmentalize and forget their situation as simply as that), she gropes about in her lap for the ham and absently puts it in her mouth.
Chewing was a bit delayed, but she eats it.]
no subject
[Meant as more of a "guuuurl" than a "little girl" because, hey. He's picked up on the fact that she hates that.]
I haven't seen you tear your eyes away from that thing since we got here, and that was three days ago.
no subject
[She knows she sounds snippy, sounds rude, when he and Jin had opened up their makeshift home to Achilles and her both, been reliable in keeping the man somewhat cared for in her stead while she concentrated on the problem at hand...
But she's exhausted, and the results aren't what she wanted, but at least she idly puts another piece of food in her mouth.]
no subject
Yeah, pretty much.
[Caring for his teammates is just about the only thing he is capable of right now, so when people refuse it, he can feel pretty goddamn useless.]
Somebody has to.
[This, surprisingly, is not a pointed remark.
He means everybody in this little apartment he and Jin have come to call home over the past few weeks. Without proper attention, they will all fall apart.
And that won't happen. Not if he has anything to say about it beforehand.]
no subject
[She speaks around a mouthful of food, but the words are mostly intelligible, even as she continues to avoid eye contact and instead focus her attention largely on her microscope, preparing the next slide with the hand she hadn't been handling ham with.
She knows he's just trying to be helpful- they were always just trying to be helpful. But science, discovery, breakthroughs... they didn't happen as soon as you needed them to. And she needed one now, soon, before the rest of her fellows working on the project in their own house arrest locations went mad and became useless, before anyone on their team succumbed to the virus-
Before anyone else ended up like Patroclus.]
Achilles would benefit far more from your support. There are things a daughter cannot do.
[She doesn't quite realize she referred to herself still by the false roles they'd taken in Woodhurst. It didn't matter. Achilles was grieving, hurting, and for all that she'd earned his respect in some ways she knew he likely could not see her as a true equal, not a fellow man in which he might confide.
Asher could do that. Maybe. She didn't know.]
no subject
Jin is more suited to comfort Achilles, as he is the warrior, the one who Achilles considers an equal as a man.
Even though Asher is the one who has been footing the bills for everything ALASTAIR isn't covering as he is the only one who had an actual paying job, Achilles referred to Jin as the primary owner of this place. Whatever, it's not that big of a deal.]
He's asleep right now, and I'm not-
[A disgruntled sigh.]
I'm not about to pull you away from this Bill Nye the Science Guy bullcrap, 'cause I know the team needs this-
[Angrily:]
But there is a goddamn body in our apartment.
Do you not see what's happening?
no subject
[She might have spent a lot of her time pretending to be a patient in the hospital watching his show, and she might believe he was a real person and not a character, unfamiliar with the concept of television entertainment as she is.
Still.
Her tone is just as full of snap despite the youth in her voice, finally taking her gaze from the microscope to fix him with a cold look, her best attempt at trying to remain mature and removed, rather than give in to the desire to cry, to rage, to never get out of bed until she'd forgotten that-]
It is not a body.
[It's Patroclus.]
1/2
oh boy, who's gonna tell her]
no subject
Right, sorry.
[Dry lips part and let out an odd, hollow sound.]
He just looked so different when he was alive.
no subject
[She's seen countless dead bodies since she'd joined ALASTAIR, dead by countless methods. She's seen bodies charred by dragon fire in Anwick, crushed by chimera in Chantes, drowned and bloated in Nalawi, riddled with bullets in Perdition's Rest, and ripped apart by teeth and nail in Woodhurst... she's even had them under her care, when her patients were simply too far gone for magic or stitch.
They moved on. She didn't have to watch their families grieve, or bury them, or console their loved ones. She just had to watch.
But Patroclus-]
That does not change anything. You may see many more bodies in your time. More, sooner, if I do not find out a way to convince these cells to target the viral infection more aggressively.
[As if this was about him.]
no subject
Asher is the type of man who feels everything strongly and all at once, including sympathy. He is the simple sort,
easily satisfied by company and the promise of friendship or love, with little regard for anything else. Being the best or the brightest is something he does not see as possible for himself, so he does not try quite as hard to impress people anymore.
The desire is still there, however.]
All I'm asking is that you finish your food.
[Said in an oddly paternal tone.]
I'm not tryin' to stop you.
But you know what else gets people killed?
no subject
Caring. In that way she might have craved once, were she a normal girl with a normal childhood.]
If you say "starvation" or "exhaustion" as if I am somehow not aware of my own limits I shall leave Achilles here and return to our home to work in peace.
[If the threat rings empty, its only because she doesn't want to leave. Doesn't want to abandon Achilles, not now. Abandon Patroclus' body. Abandon having food made available for her when she did deign to eat it.
Just... not with this sort of accompaniment.]
no subject
[She is correct, in a way. His voice grows noticeably softer, regaining some of the tenderness it possessed before.]
When he-
[Asher's eyes shut tight as he draws a breath inward, still very uncomfortable with the thought of losing their friend.]
Y'know.
no subject
I know he was alone.
[Because of her. Because Achilles had needed to escort her, because she was weak. Because she couldn't be trusted alone.
Like Patroclus could be.]
omg im so sorry i forgot about this
And look at what happened to him.
[This is said with sympathy, not all with a hint of blame for Patroclus himself. It's not as though he could have known that he'd be attacked? It just all seemed so out of the blue, so unfair...
His voice trembles as he lets it out, a little bit of that fear he's been experiencing as of late. Asher can not afford to lose any more people, and from the looks of it, Sieglinde probably can't either.]
I know that you think I'm being a pain in the ass right now, but I just wanna make sure that you'll be okay.
So I'm sorry. That I care about you.
[His nostrils flare a little.
Team oriented at heart, he feels that staying together is important, and gets irritated when people push him away.]
I just don't want to see anybody else getting hurt.
no subject
[Sieglinde didn't mind if people cared. Anyone should be glad to have people who cared about them. But the form that care took... it felt smothering at times, to someone who had been raised making her own decisions and lording over a village.
Her fingers tighten over the focus wheel of the microscope, jaw grit in frustration, in the grief she has yet to actually allow herself to dwell upon.]
But you hardly have to worry. Unlike Patroclus, I am not trusted enough to go out by myself while those who might fight by my side protect the weak.
[Though she has allowed herself to dwell on the fact that if it weren't for her, Achilles would have been with Patroclus that night. If she weren't seen as needing protecting all the time, if Achilles hadn't come with her instead...
He might still be alive.]