sameoldsong: (hand in pockets)
Sean O'Malley ([personal profile] sameoldsong) wrote2018-10-27 12:09 pm

OPEN TO ALL (ALL RATINGS)

 [Open post, feel free to continue threads here]
sentbydpd: (serious-face)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-03 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for talking with me, Mr. O'Malley. Enjoy your day.

[The available channels are myriad, like the deluxe package for most cable providers. There's no restriction on what Sean can watch while he's here.

It takes some time for Connor to get back to him, but he's at least energetic enough not to be monosyllabic, even though his heart sinks. It feels like Sean is just checking in out of some perceived obligation.]


Glad you two are getting along.
I'm goung to be fine. It didn't get very far from the original wound so they didn't have to cut more than a little.
Om painkillers and some local anesthetic still but tbh thus isn't any worse than the time I got stabbrd through the hand.


[Connor is just a little too out of it to care about his typos. He's annoyed at himself for letting himself get attached, and for letting this mess it up like he is. He wants to be better than this.

He doesn't realize how normal of a reaction this is to having betrayed a man that trusted him.

He's distracted by a thought, and he holds up the hand in question to snap a slightly unfocused pic, showing the pale pinkish scar that runs up part of his palm like a displaced life line.]


I never told you abt that onr, did I?
Edited 2018-11-03 15:31 (UTC)
sentbydpd: (disappointed)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
That's fair, yeah.
Same case as the one on my chest actually.
The circle one you like.


[He'd long since taken note of how much Sean likes his scars, likes touching and kissing and reveling in the texture. They're not particularly sensitive, but the attention is nice. Was nice.

Fuck.]


Guy that sucker-punched me nailed me to a table through the hand with a kitchen knife so he could get away.
I was investigating that small-time terrorist attack on the local broadcasting station and he was a witness but he had a good poker face and apparently too much to lose
So he bolted and my partner at the time had to get him.


[He puts his phone down in his lap and reclines back, making a face at that. A little too similar to this, though at least it was just him working alone, so nobody had to actually get hurt this time.

Well, except him. But he doesn't count.]
sentbydpd: (disappointed)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
nah, was my fault. I thpught i could intimidate him into talking.
We solved it in the end and anything that happened to me was negligible at best.
I got a commendation and a little medical leave.
Small potatoes in the grand scheme.


[He doesn't care that he'd been hurt. He rarely ever cares when he's hurt on the job. It's never personal, that he knows of. And it doesn't keep him from work for long. It doesn't impact his social life, since there's not exactly a social life to impact. It just doesnt matter.

He gnaws on his lip and debates whether to acknowledge the apology. Because yes, he was injured protecting Sean, but it was all his own fault. He put them both in this position. But he doesn't want Sean to feel guilty about any of it, when it wasn't his fault.]


Shit happens, don't worry about it.
Hey
I'll be out of here tonight, if you want to talk.
If not, it's ok. It's been a long day and we could both use a nap, huh
sentbydpd: (suffering_profile)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
[Connor crumples over that. Sean really believes that he sees him as expendable, like himself. That he'd let Sean be hurt for the endgame. For his mission.

That might have been true, once upon a time. But now, he just turns over the rambling messages in his mind and really wonders. Would he let it happen? Would he have sacrificed Sean in the interest of his investigation?

He really doesn't know. And not knowing is scary.]


I can see where you're getting the idea that I'd treat you like me but
I dont know about that
You have more to lose than i do
You have people that carw about you
I'm replaceable
I don't think you are
I don't think i would have been able to justify getting you killed
To myself or your ma or anyone else
No, i don't owe you anything, and i get the feeling that eben if i did, you wouldn't be all that inclined to collect
Bc you're a good guy lik that
I mean look what ypu did
You helped makr it possible to put away a lot of bad men
I want you to be able to live in a world made a little bit kinder by the end of all this


[He'll blame the sudden annoying emotional break on the drugs. He doesn't cry. He doesn't regret things. He doesn't get torn up over statistical outcomes or beaten odds. But here he is, trying to keep himself from falling apart as he remembers Sean crying on the sidewalk, and making him promise that if he died, Connor would tell his mom what happened.

He can't help the slightly watery smile over that afterthought.]

should i be paranoid you were gossiping about me?
sentbydpd: (losing hope)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 09:06 am (UTC)(link)
it was a joke anyway.
She's programmed not to give away company secrets
But yeah, we knew eachother before i ran away.
She's a good teacher, and very smart in that comouter way.
When we met she barely knew how to emote. Limited hardware capacity I guess.


[He reads and rereads the messages in between replies, and his heart aches knowing he's basically destroyed their relationship. But, it was worth it to be able to finish this assignment and end the string of murders. He has to believe it was worth it. He's ripped himself apart for less.]

You know what makes this so stupid?
I would have told you basically everything
About this place, and where I came from and about stuff that's happened on tje job
You would have thought i was nuts and we probably wouldn't have ever gotten together.
Made that mistake before.
sentbydpd: (Default)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 10:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Connor takes a minute to acknowledge that sudden declaration. He hadn't intended to face Sean again until he was up and around again and not drugged and actually wearing more than a tissue thin gown. He's not sure he's ready for this.

He can't tell Sean not to come though. What's more, he doesn't want to tell him not to.]


It's another building closer to the tower itself.
You can summon a car from the parking level and it'll take you wherever you want to go around here.
They're equipped with GPS and stuff so it should be easy but if you need help, Chloe is still connected.


[It's cold outside, just starting to snow, but the inside of the car would be warm. It's a strange futuristic version of the kind of driverless cars already out there on the road for bigger corporations. It pops up a display on the tablet seated in the dash, giving Sean a variety of destinations in the complex including the medical center and the tower proper. Chloe is also available to ask for assistance on the screen, via a little triangular icon.

The hospital won't look all that different from the habitation center from the putside, smooth and white and featureless but more lived in on the inside. It's nice as far as hospitals go, just quiet and rather lacking in human occupants.

And sitting at a front, high shelved reception desk, is a woman that looks very much like the avatar of Chloe, just more natural. She looks up at the movement of Sean approaching.]


Hello again, Mr. O'Malley.
sentbydpd: (dreamy)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
A close approximation, at least.

[Her smile is bright in that customer service kind of way, but her voice is more natural, less modulated than the CGI avatar's. She lifts a hand and shows him her palm, letting her skin seemingly slip back from her fingertips at the question of what she's made of. It looks like shining white plastic, with a membrane over it, presumably what her skin is layered over. It resumes its natural-looking state a moment later as she stands. She's rather tall for a young woman, probably by design.]

I can take you to him. He was still awake when we checked last. Please.

[She gestures to the edge of the desk before stepping around it, then leads the way down one of the nearby hallways.]

To answer your earlier question, yes, I am always here. There are others like me that attend the various needs of the company and its staff. I'm not the Chloe you've been talking to, but we do share information across a unified network, and we do know of you between ourselves.

[She pauses at one of the doors off the hall they've been walking down as she spoke, and presses her hand, once more devoid of skin, to a panel similar to that outside Sean's apartment. She steps back to let him in to see Connor sitting up, looking tired and in need of a shower, and possibly a cup of coffee and a cigarette. He looks around with a soft frown, though it turns to an unsteady smile when the door closes. His voice is just as tired, and very quiet, even in the dully humming silence of the room.]

Hey, stranger.
sentbydpd: (dead inside)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-04 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[Every single even slightly sassy reply that comes to him in that instant dies before it reaches his tongue. He's just too tired. It's entirely possible to see the redness around Connor's eyes from this close, though it seems to be fading back into that poorly-rested look he always has. He's wearing a thin gown and pants to keep him a little more comfortable, and he fiddles with a wrinkle of it above the fold of his blanket. He doesn't quite look Sean in the eye.]

I can feel it but I'm a little too high to care right now I guess.

I was going to come and see you tomorrow morning before I left, you know. [He feels the need to point that out, now that Sean is sitting there looking at him like things were ok again. He knows they're not.]
sentbydpd: (dead inside)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-05 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[Connor is still and silent as he lets Sean talk, just listening, hand resting under his, though as Sean's volume drops off and he starts to mumble, he lifts his fingers just enough to slip them in between Sean's and rest there once more.]

I suppose I just don't have enough faith in people to have trusted that you would do that for me. [He admits it with a small grimace, just watching their hands rather than looking back at Sean.] I'm sure he would have taken better care of you than I could, anyway. I wasn't made to have relationships. I was made to integrate for the sake of whatever assignment I was sent on.

Sean, when I told you I didn't have parents, there was a little more to that. I just...I wasn't actually born. I was the definition of a test tube baby. I never occupied someone else's womb, I was put together one piece of DNA at a time. I was incubated like a sample in a petri dish, designed to someone else's exact specifications and grown in sterile but basically perfect conditions for optimal health. Have you ever seen the movie GATTACA? Like that, just without the backing of a potential family.

[It's all very resigned, very matter of fact. He thinks about this a lot.]

I never knew anything but this place, until I was thirteen, and Amanda decided to take me along to some...function. Up until then, the only people I knew were the ones here. Other people are distracting, they'd said. You need to focus on bringing your mind up on par with your genetics. Then you can worry about the rest. And...I met Gavin. He thought I was weird. I don't even know if the other kid I met back then remembers me, but uh. I've arrested him a few times. Petty crimes, drug-related usually.

Gavin helped me a lot, when I was a teenager. Lent me his grandmother. I only knew what one was in theory.

I have a twin. He's an exact copy of me that they made as a backup, in case I failed whatever they made me to do. I never met him. I think he works for the FBI now.

[He trails off, leaning back and watching the window on the other side of the room, tiny snowflakes silently peppering the glass then melting off. He feels drained, and looks even more tired now, just talking about it. He doesn't even know if it'll help Sean understand anything. He just needs to say something. Anything to keep that line of communication open.]

I ran away as soon as I knew I could get myself legally emancipated from their guardianship. They didn't approve of my wanting to be a cop instead of...some kind of perfect sleuth. I wanted to help people.
sentbydpd: (oh.)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-05 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[Human beings all have quirks and no amount of genetic sculpting is going to eliminate all of them. They couldn't program him with a decent sense of humor or make his freckles more evenly or tastefully spread across his body. They couldn't control his sexuality or his innate need for human contact. They couldn't suffocate his humanity.

He's still awkward though, and emotionally stunted, and bad at knowing how to react to his own feelings. He doesn't know how to fix the part of him that looks at people like variables in an equation.

He doesn't resist when Sean climbs into bed with him and wedges himself in between patient and pillows, just shifting forward to give him a little more room then settling back tentatively as strong arms wrap around him. He can feel the warmth of Sean's cheek on his own even without contact. He doesn't look around, even when Sean speaks up, so close he can feel the gust of breath against his skin.]


I'm going to hurt you again. I don't know how not to.
sentbydpd: (argue)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-05 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[Connor shakes his head, though he stiffens and stops that the moment it pulls the wound. It's still a dull sort of feeling around the drugs, but it isn't something he can ignore just yet.]

If I'm just the latest in a long line, that's an awful repeating pattern. Don't you think you deserve better than that?

[Though he wants to look back around at Sean, to fix him with that puzzled stare like he's trying to solve him, he doesn't want to move far enough out of this embrace to do so. Instead he settles on taking one of the hands over his stomach, once more working his fingers in between Sean's and dragging his thumb back and forth over the other's knuckle.]

Don't get me wrong, I want this. I want it so badly. But I'm just a defective prototype of a human being. I have two friends in the world and one of them is a dog. I drink to cope and failing that, I work until I crash and then I get back up and do it all again. I just... I wish I knew what you saw in me.
sentbydpd: (dreamy)

[personal profile] sentbydpd 2018-11-05 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's surreal, uncommon and strange to have someone give him these little, meaningful affections, the gestures carrying so much more weight than he should probably let them. But Connor's touch-starved and high on painkillers and for once, he feels like he actually matters after believing for his entire adult life that he could die easily and alone and nobody would give two shits one way or the other. He sucks in a deep breath and lets his head fall back against Sean's shoulder, eyes back on the window.]

That wasn't the first time I'd ever seen you. When you hid at my table to get away from Marcone's guys. I'd spotted you around, before. Just loitering, doing your job sometimes. I was still working on building a proper case. Finding bodies, building connections, digging up names...the stuff I'm actually good at, you know? I never once really looked at you and thought 'hey, I should talk to that guy, he looks like he could tell me things'. Maybe you would have run, or told me to fuck off, or...I don't know. Tried to punch me. You never gave me a reason to do anything to you. And then you came and hid and I ruined your life.

[He swallows as he lets his head loll to the side, staring unfocused into the middle distance.]

I'll make this right. I don't know how yet, but I will. I just have to get out of here first.

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