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(no subject)

Who: Vicious, Gren
What: Event Horizon plot fall-out.
When: Early evening.
Where: Vicious' room in the castle.
Rating: R for violence, drug use, etc.

The third time the small glass vile slipped from between his bandaged fingers, the metal atomizer it was meant to be attached to was unceremoniously thrown at the wall with a growl of frustration. A week. That was the limits of his patients. A week of frustration at not being able to perform even the simplest of tasks on his own without pain and far more effort than it should ever have taken.

There was no one to take the frustration out on, and even his one surefire means of escape was being thwarted. He picked a tumbler of scotch up off the end table, and then kicked the table over for good measure. He might have tried to smash it, were there not already fresh blood seeping into the bandages on his hands. He glared at it instead, and then walked back to the bed. He'd already spilled the bottle of painkillers from the clinic across the nightstand, so sweeping a few into one hand was, at least, mercifully easy. He swallowed them with the alcohol and turned his gaze back to the empty room, wishing there were anything else to vent his rage on.

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Gren opened the door and instantly spotted the wreckage that Vicious had made of the room, proving rather quickly he couldn't leave the other man alone for very long, especially when he was in this state. After the ship had returned to Paradisa he'd been handed a shattered version of his comrade - a broken piece of pottery he couldn't quite figure out how to piece together. Not to say that he faulted Vicious for this in any way. His mind had once betrayed him as well, and it months to remember how the reverse felt. But seeing this in Vicious was different. He couldn't even recall Vicious being injured in the war.

But space and the drugs the clinic had provided were apparently not doing what he hoped they would do.

He enters cautiously, unsure of what stage of the tantrum Vicious might be in at than instant, his stance ready for defense. But never for flight.

Vicious was used to everything being neat and orderly, under his control, and just the way he wanted them. His injuries had thrown all that off, though there were really only the outward manifestation of a greater chaos.

The ship had driven some people mad, but he had not been so fortunate. He'd been well in possession of his own faculties while that place tried to claw its way into his mind and dig out every little secret he'd ever hidden away. He'd kept the worst of it internalized, hadn't let it slip free, but it was all still there, lurking beneath the surface, trying to drag him back down into his own past.

He hadn't quite found the right formula for obliterating it all again.

He hears the door open, but chooses to ignore it for the moment. There's really only one person who'd bother to enter, anyway. Instead, he walks back from the bed to where he's left a half-full bottle, refilling his glass more sloppily than he would normally tolerate before finally turning to look at Gren.

"What do you want?"

His tone isn't hostile, so much as it's just completely devoid of feeling altogether.

He wasn't exactly used to a warm welcome where Vicious was concerned, or any welcome at all, if the other man even felt like talking. But this was a different sort of cold, that made him shiver from the emptiness of it.

Gren picked his way around the broken glass and splinters and towards his comrade, still cautious but his focus was on the other man's back.

"I wanted to see if you're okay, but I'm the guessing the answer to that is 'no'"

Had it been like this, before? When he'd come back from Titan and everything had looked the same, but felt wrong? That hadn't been paranoia, though. Everything had been wrong, and in any event, they were hard to remember now, the memories of his immediate return forever clouded by what came after.

He swallowed his drink and scowled slightly at Gren's assessment of the situation. "I'm fine." But there was venom in it. The last thing he wanted was someone trailing around after him, worried about his well-being. He couldn't keep up a disaffected facade if Gren insisted on being around every time it started to show cracks.

If that was something Vicious wanted to discourage, he shouldn't have let Gren close in the first place, as that was precisely his intentions. Certainly, he'd often elevated his comrade to something more than human, beyond all such considerations and needs, but at the same time, especially now that he'd seen those cracks from time to time, he was just as interested in the man underneath. He wanted, in the very least, for Vicious to know it was okay to be that man around him.

"Like hell," he said, the phrase oddly warm despite the strength of the words.

The problem was that Vicious had spent a lot of time on that facade. It had been quite costly, on a personal level, but that carefully controlled exterior had been essential to his plans, and though those goals were gone now, he was not ready to let it go so easily, even around Gren.

He finished off the alcohol in his glass, took a moment to consider it, then threw it in the direction of his comrade's head. It wasn't the neatest throw, given the state of his hands, but there was still some force behind it.

Luckily he'd always been fast on his feet, and he dodges to the side, avoiding all but a few specks of glass bouncing into his back more or less harmlessly. He wasn't entirely surprised by this behavior - he could even sympathize with it - but it wasn't something he was about to encourage, either.

He stepped forward quick, carrying the motion from the dodge, and moved to shove the other man.

"Stop that."

Vicious took a half-step back and made a grab for one of Gren's wrists before he could remember that it was a bad idea given his injuries.

"You should leave."

He hadn't asked for Gren's company, and he certainly wasn't going to tolerate this sort of thing in his own room, of all places.

Gren didn't budge and didn't plan to, either from the room or Vicious' life in general.

"No. I'm not leaving. Not ever. I'm not them. I'm not going to walk away when it might be convenient to me."

If Gren wasn't going to move, than he would. He dropped his hand and turned away, pacing back to where he'd left the half-empty liquor bottle.

"Is that how you think things were?"

With his glass smashed to pieces on the floor, he had no choice but to drink from the bottle. Part of him balked at the crassness of it, but the vast majority just did not care about such things at that particular moment.

He crossed his arms, both stubborn and subtly disapproving.

"I don't know. Maybe. They did what they felt was right for them. But if you think it was different why don't you tell me?"

He didn't often ask Vicious about his past, largely because it was irrelevant and got him a rebuke or silence even then. It mattered not so much in the answer as in getting to the heart of what was driving the other man to this level of self-destruction.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He'd kept his past and his personal affairs private for a reason, and he didn't appreciate what seemed, at that moment, to pry into the very things he'd had to fight that damned ship from laying bare. He didn't bother keeping the anger from his voice, did nothing to disguise his contempt.

"Of course I would. I've only ever asked for honesty from you. You can keep it to yourself if you want. It's your choice," he said, not sounding at all angry despite the words, nor backing down from the sound of it in Vicious'. He had every right to be angry at what the castle had put him through, and it seemed to Gren that it had dug at scars that even he had not noticed. His goal wasn't to open those up but to help them heal, if he could. It was a risk trying, but he was incapable of not caring.

"I know more than a little about what that might have been like over there, you know."

Gren's utterly reasonable reply did nothing to temper Vicious' anger. If anything, it simply irritated him more. He would have vastly preferred a fight, but Gren seemed determined not to oblige him in that.

"You don't have any idea."

He was unwilling to commiserate, and didn't want to discuss it. He didn't want to think about it, but all current attempts at blotting it out were failing him.

Gren usually defaulted to diplomacy first, even if it was sometimes just a blind for other things. His motives were not much different here. Reasoning with Vicious was not unlike reasoning with an angry bear that wanted nothing more than to be left alone, except this time the bear was wounded.

"No? You don't think I know what it was like to see things that aren't there? To be so immersed in it you're not sure what is real and what isn't? It may not have been the same, but it wasn't that different either."

"The topic is not open for discussion," he replied, tone clipped and dismissive. He wasn't interested in comparing ordeals, did not want Gren's sympathy or understanding. So far as he was concerned, it was a situation to be dealt with on his own.

Anything less than that was a weakness he would not afford himself. It might be fine for others, but he was beyond depending on anyone but himself.

"As if the alternative was doing you any favors," he says, frustrated now, gesturing at the room around them.

He reached out to grab Vicious' arm. "Let me help you."

He might have lashed out, but he was far too aware of the damage he'd already done to his hands to risk it. Instead he jerked away with a glare, and went to scoop up the atomizer he'd flung at the wall earlier.

Not without some difficulty, he managed to wrestle an intact glass vile out of one pocket. "If you want to be helpful, take care of that," he replied before dumping both onto the nightstand.

Edited 2013-06-07 04:11 (UTC)

Gren stared at it a moment, feeling vaguely horrified. He'd dealt Red Eye, sure enough, but he'd also kept the stuff, and most of the culture, at as much of an arm's length as he could afford. Maybe if it hadn't been for what the drugs in prison had done to him he would have been more ok with it all, but instead it just made him uneasy.

"You want me to...?" he started, gesturing uncertainly, "Are you serious?"

The look on Vicious' face said volumes about what he thought of Gren's sudden squeamishness. "You just have to put it together. It's not hard." He would have done it himself, had he not already thoroughly determined he didn't currently have the dexterity to do so.

He frowned and picked the pieces up. "It isn't about that. It's that this," he said, starting to screw the vial into place with a grim expression, "isn't going to help for long."

"Nothing does," he replied, in a tone that seemed to indicate it should have been self-evident. He didn't really expect it to, either. But it did help, for awhile, and that was what he needed. Even a short-lived reprieve was better than nothing. His current need was greater than it usually was, and his patience worn thin, but that was all that had really changed.

His expression softened just a bit, knowing of course that he was right but hating the truth of it. Hating that the need to numb things was there at all. He knows that Vicious doesn't want pity, but he feels a spark of it all the same.

"Will it really hurt to admit you're human for just a minute?"

"I never claimed to be otherwise," he replied, knowing Gren would think it was a semantic argument, at best. But it was less a matter of denying humanity than it was elevating himself above all the trivialities of life that made other people weak.

It was the weakness he couldn't stand, especially in himself. He could ignore it so long as he didn't acknowledge it. Eventually, he'd find his equilibrium again. He just had to do it without admitting he'd ever lost it in the first place.

"Fooled me, then, I guess," Gren answered, a bit defeated. Even, under Vicious' definition, weak, the man was still extraordinary in ways he could never hope to live up to.

He curled his hand around the atomizer. "Look, whatever it is, I just want you to know it wouldn't make any difference to me. You're not alone in this. Not just this," he gestured at the room with his empty hand, "but all of it. Everything. Okay?"

While Vicious still denied it, it meant something to him. That was what comrades should be, after all. Somebody that would stand by you no matter, and help you through the hard times when you'd couldn't do it yourself. He was still determined to prove to the other man that it wasn't such a bad thing.

He looked at Gren, then walked away to one of the chairs--mercifully debris-free--and dropped down into it. The alcohol-and-painkiller cocktail was starting to take hold. Maybe the Redeye wouldn't be necessary after all.

"In life, you're either a hunter, or hunted. I don't like being prey." He knew what it was like, of course. He hadn't been able to escape it, in his adolescent years. But he'd fought hard, and sacrificed to put himself into a position where he was no longer the victim. And he just couldn't take that reversal of roles with any sort of grace or humility. It wasn't in his nature.

"I know that," he said, coming over to stand in front of Vicious' chair, then dropping to a crouch, "but it's always more complicated than that. Besides, the castle might have got it's claws in you but you got out alive. Which is more than you can say for some people."

Not that he'd taken inventory of the dead. His concerns were and would always be elsewhere.

"Is that meant to be comforting?" He thought, perhaps, the dead had gotten a better deal. A reprieve, of sorts. He might have counted himself fortunate had death held any sort of permanence here, but the castle seemed reluctant to let any of its captives go so easily as that.

No, he was sure it preferred suffering over death.

Gren shrugged. "It is or it isn't. That's up to you. Surviving comes with it's own price, and there's more to it than just being alive. But dying is the easy way out, and that's not like you."

He caught Vicious lightly by one of his wrists, glancing down at his hands with a small frown. "You need to change these."

Maybe, from Gren's perspective, that was true. It had been on Titan, certainly. But on Titan, he'd had his eyes on a goal he felt was within his grasp. When it had slipped beyond his reach, he'd decided to burn it all and see how many he could take with him in the process. Living beyond his revenge was something that had never been a part of the equation. Not really.

But for Gren, that was all a part of a future he'd never even see, and Vicious was not about to own up to it.

Instead, he made a vague gesture with his free hand. "How do you suggest I do that?" His tone was a little more caustic than the statement really warranted--he knew full well that he could have walked into the clinic at any time to have it done--but he wasn't going to apologize for his bad mood, either.

Funny that, unbeknownst to Gren, they had taken similar ways out, both burning bridges before they went down themselves, though in Gren's case it had been a last resort. That, in his mind, Vicious was out there somewhere continuing his life was a nice thought.

But the reality was they were both dead men trapped together in an unfriendly place, and that, at least, was not so different from Titan at all.

"I could do it, but it won't be a professional job," he said, not insisting on it. If Vicious wanted to hide that was fine, and the clinic staff was probably safer for it. But it still had to be done.

"You're the one insisting." Vicious clearly didn't care if it was a 'professional' job or not. He didn't even care if it happened at all, at the moment.

He'd care later, especially if it didn't heal well and compromised his dexterity, but thinking that much about the future was something currently beyond him. It would require seeing beyond his current situation, and he was far too focused on his current unhappiness for that.

"Yeah, you're right. I am. I'm always going to be the one, whether you like it or not."

He placed the vial of red eye on the table next to him and stood up with a sigh. "Take it or don't, I'm going to get some things," he said, turn towards the bathroom. A washcloth at least. Bandages, definitely, though Vicious probably didn't have any. He'd have to make an exception and wish them up, but this was a rare instance where he could give in.

He turned to look at the table after Gren walked away, but didn't move to pick up the drug. He wanted it, of course, but Gren's reaction made him want to defy expectation more, and so stayed his hand. Later. It could wait. He was the one in control, after all. He wasn't about to let a chemical cocktail get the better of him.

He'd had bandages, at one point, a nice neat collection of everything you could need to treat the sort of wounds he was prone to collecting, but he hadn't bothered to restock after his last violent scuffle with Spike. There really wasn't much of anything in the bathroom now, besides the basic necessities.

Trust Vicious to have the absolute minimum of requirements for human existence. Gren wasn't surprised, though it pained him in a small way, at the same time that there was tiny thrill at realizing that the evidence of his own habitation here was some of the most obvious pieces of warmth.

He wished for the proper supplies, making a note to pilfer some extra supplies from the clinic at a later date, and returned a few minutes later. He wasn't going to risk taking the time while the other man was as close as he passed for docile at this particular moment.

He couldn't help but glance at the vial still on the table, managing not to smile as he knelt in front of the chair and started on removing the bloodied wrappings.

Anything docile about his mood currently could likely be blamed on the pharmacological cocktail he already had circulating in his veins. Now that he was sitting in the chair, he couldn't find the motivation to do anything else.

However well-medicated he was, though, it could not completely blunt the pain in his hands as Gren stripped away the old bandages. His hands stayed still, for the most part, and he made no sound, but the tight clench of his jaw was a give-away he couldn't quite manage to disguise.

He noted the pain but didn't remark on it directly.

"This will sting a bit," he warned, before he brushed the warm, wet washcloth over the wounds, slow and as light as he could manage. Seeing the cuts up close wasn't any easier the second time, and made that peculiar protective feeling knot itself somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. He frowned, mostly to himself, and at the futility of being mad at the castle for doing this to him. He only hoped these hands would be returned to their former glory, and the versatility and ease they could dole out both pain and pleasure.

It hurt enough already that the warning, while not unwarranted, meant very little. It was better than it had been earlier in the week, at least, though he could hardly proclaim himself healed. He had managed to avoid any major damage to bone or ligaments, and while the cuts were far from pretty, so long as they healed properly, this setback would be temporary.

It was just very hard to be that patient, especially when the injuries impinged on his daily routine. He did not, as a general rule, deal particularly well with things that upset his plans, as utterly mundane as they might be.

Normally he would talk to fill the silence, but Gren was uncommonly and rapt with concentration as he finished cleaning the wounds - half-measure though it assuredly was - and carefully wrapped them again. He bent for a moment as the last piece of tape fell into place and brushed his lips on the inside of a wrist - not quite a kiss and therefore plausible to deny.

He want to sprawl right here across the other man's lap and stay for awhile, but he had the notion that was comforting more to himself than to Vicious.

"I'll take care of everything," Gren said, not nothing to specify what that encompassed, because he more or less meant it. He would bring him food and do his laundry. Change his bandages and clean up his room. Or simply be a distraction from the mundane and an outlet for all his desires. At least for a little while he could try to be everything Vicious needed. There was no higher purpose for someone like him.

He wasn't prepared for that strange little display of devotion. He enjoyed control, enjoyed bending people to his will, but Gren seemed to place himself there of his own will, and without a struggle. It was the willingness he couldn't understand, when Gren knew full well the sort of person he was. The times he fought and pushed back never seemed to be for his own sake.

It was foolish, but nothing seemed to dissuade him.

"You should know better." The admonishment lacked force, however. He hadn't chased him off earlier, after all, and he felt too drained now to really try again. If Gren wanted to be foolish, so be it.

It was as foolish as it was selfish, in his point of view, and he figured he could afford either, no matter what it was that Vicious was referring to. He was far less adept at avoiding his drug - this thing between them - than Vicious was his.

"I know," he said, soft and even faintly amused at himself.

He rose to his feet and started cleaning up. First the bandages and maybe the rest of the room that Vicious had wrecked.

There was nothing Vicious could say to that; Gren was choosing his own fate, fully aware of what it might entail. Instead, he sat silently in the chair for awhile as Gren cleaned, before finally getting up to move to the bed. Normally, he wouldn't have allowed himself what seemed like a show of weakness, but all he could feel was the insistent throbbing in his hands, and Gren was hardly likely to judge him for it.

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