milliways_bar | (no subject)

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X slips downstairs after her shift in the nightclub, half-glancing at the back door before she decides to forgo training for the moment.

It is more important to eat something. Just in case.

The fact that X-23 (and her soup) are settled at the bar instead of her usual booth is entirely unrelated to anything.

Except that she refuses to be uncomfortable in what is, for now, her home.

This is just proof of that.

[ooc: This post is open until it falls off the front page or X gets another EP, whichever comes first. Thanks!]

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X studies the pills, nostrils flaring as she scents the air above them.

Then she touches one carefully, licking the tip of her finger afterward.

A moment later she nods.

"Yes."

Beat.

"They are not dangerous."

And she pulls the plate back, slapping the pills into her hand and drinks them down with the water smoothly enough.

She returns to her soup, still sticking the spoon in and out for a few moments -

"What are you doing?"

... in case it's not obvious, apparently.

"Eating," X's prompt response suggests that this is normal conversation.

"I was working. Upstairs."

Beat.

"Before."

Elle nods.

And realizes this takes effort. Finally, she sips up a little of the soup from her spoon. (Sweet and sour, like you get with Chinese take out.)

"Are you -"

That's not how she wants to ask it.

"Is it - ok?"

X offers a slight shrug.

"I do not know."

"It is better."

She thinks. There may be a question in that.

She's not very good at doing this with her left hand, and so just drops the spoon back into the soup for a moment.

"Better."

That, really, is a question.

"Yes."

X's reply is slightly hesitant.

"I do not--"

Beat.

"It is not relevant."

Elle looks down at her soup, briefly.

But it doesn't stay that way.

"X." It's clear from her voice that she thinks it is relevant.

X is looking at her own soup. Or maybe her hand on the soup spoon.

It's hard to tell.

Kind of.

"I do not know."

Elle presses her own spoon farther down into the soup, scratching at the bottom of the bowl.

"Why?"

X shrugs. It is not one-shouldered.

She also stays resolutely silent.

For a while.

Elle goes back to staring at her soup.

It looks for a moment like she's going to keep it to that.

"Did you go back?"

X does look at Elle, just for a second.

"No."

Beat.

"I have not gone back."

Home.

"To my world."

This doesn't leave Elle with a lot of options.

She doesn't return X's gaze when she asks, "Did something else happen?"

"I am not good at talking."

This is true, for what that's worth.

"You do not get mad?"

At X, that is.

Now, Elle just looks confused.

"You talk to me."

What else does 'good' mean?

"Yes."

Beat.

"You are my friend."

"494 does not like when I talk."

Elle puts down the spoon, and resigns to scratching at her bandaged arm instead.

"Well, he's dumb," she decides, without putting much thought into it.

Sometimes Elle's worldview is very simple.

"Artemis said that, too."

Beat.

"And Bela."

Well, the gist of it was the same, right?

She's quiet again, at least for a little while.

Then--

"He is like me."

Elle's hand flattens on her arm.

This is a little like a very angry staring contest.

She's still winning when she tells X, almost offhandedly, "That doesn't mean he's the same."

"I know."

She sounds defeated.

She looks it, too.

"Now."

Elle turns her attention more fully to X. At least, maybe that'll stop her from touching her sling.

(It won't.)

"What did he do?"

There are a lot of things X could say here. That he stayed, that he does not want to stop being a killer, that he likes to lie and pretend and be as normal as he can--

That he is better at it than she is. That for him, it's almost real.

But she does not have the right words for that.

"He said I do not understand. Him. That I lie."

The words are said very quietly. They still hurt.

"That I am only what somebody made me."

She clenches her fists, hard.

"He does not know."

"X..."

And she doesn't really know how to say it. Partly, she doesn't really know why she has to.

Because Elle knows how to say I'm not an experiment, has all the words but doesn't know what they mean.

"... you're not wrong."

X isn't crying.

She doesn't really do that. Not anymore.

She just looks at Elle, face blank.

It lasts a long time.

Then--

"I try. To remember."

What Elle said, that is.

"It is easier to be a weapon."

It makes sense.