@brainchi1d said: ❝ i was just having a quiet moment of despair. ❞
shit. “right. uh, sorry, doc.” he eyes the silver flask held loosely in her delicate fingers. she looks unsettling, too fragile like this -- maybe it’s just that she’s not up in his face, arguing with him or complaining about something she put in one of those reports of hers. it’s easier to imagine her as a doll, too -- although the look of despondence on her scarred face is far from the cheerful complacency that topher programs into the dolls. how many times had he programmed her, back when she was whiskey? a lot, he knows that -- she was number one before echo, wasn’t she? the status that drew alpha’s ire in the first place, as much as anyone can understand why alpha does anything.
topher wants more than anything to leave the claire saunders he created to her own misery, not out of any malice, but because seeing her like this makes his guts twist uncomfortably, starts up that old is-this-my-fault song that’s been playing way too frequently in his head as of late. he needs to get back to the safety of his lab, where the only woman having moments of despair is ivy, who is in general much louder and much more tolerable. but -- and he stops himself mid-turn to leave the room -- but, he doesn’t have to be a super-genius (which he is, btw) to realize that he almost certainly has something to do with the doc’s misery. existential crisis or something. ( what do you do with the knowledge that god is -- how had she put it again? “a sociopath in a sweater vest”? ) and that means that he’s practically obligated to help. he can’t just leave her like this (even if no one would know -- or care -- if he did).
“soo...” he shifts from foot to foot, nervous energy feeling like sparks fizzling at the tips of his fingers, and not the fun science-y kind. “do you, like. need anything? i can get boyd for you? or, um, some water, if you’re drinking, because blood alcohol content is. well. you know that. you’re a doctor, after all.”
