#codenamecrusnik

[thegunmetalhound]

codenamecrusnik

     [>> . . . scanning.                   >> SCAN COMPLETE.                   >> NO TARGETS DETECTED.]

“Damage report, Father Nightroad.”

The red tint to Tres’s eye fades gradually back to brown. His guns still hum, warm with use; the scent of gunpowder and smoke fill the room, and the darker metallic tang of blood. Most of it is enemy blood. Some of it is Father Nightroad’s.

“Your physical condition has been compromised. Requesting response.”

[thegunmetaldog]

"Don’t move, I just got comfy."

Tres turns his head to glance briefly at Father Nightroad, but otherwise follows orders. He is lost without orders to follow, direction to take, and is grateful that Nightroad gives it. 

"Affirmative." The other’s body is slouched against his own. Abel had tried putting his head on Tres’s shoulder, but Tres is too short for that, and it had ended— uncomfortably, to say the least. So Abel takes to leaning comfortably against him, despite the hard metallic skeleton beneath Tres’s soft synthetic skin, and Tres makes no move to dislodge him.

He faces forward again, moving only when the movements of the train they’ve boarded jostles him somewhat. He sits straight-backed and aware, though does feel a flush of warmth in his systems. He does a quick diagnostic scan — no error found.

[thegunmetaldog]

codenamecrusnik replied to your post:♕ –⊱ "What's the best quality of your mun?"

( everything is the best quality. your existence is the best quality )

N E G A T I V E 

[sorrowscars]

codenamecrusnik

"Oh!" Tsuzuki pauses a moment, considering what to say. "Hello!" After such a long time practicing English, his accent is barely noticeable. "I'm looking for, um--" He pauses again, but this time it's to try to remember the name of the person he's supposed to be meeting up with. "Ah! Right. Father Nightroad? I think that was it." 

[thegunmetaldog]

Lost

Send me “Lost?” for how my muse would react to losing yours.

emp·ty [EMP-tee]

—adjective1. containing nothing; having none of the usual or appropriate contents: an empty bottle.2. destitute of some quality or qualities; devoid (usually followed by of): Theirs is a life now empty of happiness.

- - - - - - - - -

It begins, as one would expect, when Father Nightroad pulls Tres out of the water. Suddenly, all of the small annoyances — Nightroad calling him “little brother,” or “teeny-tiny,” or any of the other insulting remarks the priest so adoringly gives — do not matter. “You could have died,” Abel says, and Tres simply responds, “Negative— I only break.”

It is impossible for Tres to die. Father Nightroad’s concern is unnecessary, and has a tendency to annoy. Tres reminds him again and again that even if he were to be decommissioned, it is not the same as death. Tres does not believe in God, and even if he did, he is a machine; he has no soul to pray for, and would not go to Heaven. He would be cold, silent, stored away — or likely taken apart to have his parts sold.

He cannot die.

But Father Nightroad can.

- - - - - - - - -

Through the echoing, empty corridors, he walks. Soft moss on stone. Home, for lack of a better term. There is a tilted bird bath that drips that with tea-colored rain. Vines snake up old walls. Decaying gutters sag, heavy with dead leaves and the fallout of tiles.

Tres’s thoughts are not linear. They reel with a million histories, memory playbacks making him take this walk to begin with. Father Nightroad’s skin, pale and goose-bumped and smeared with crimson, and his eyes full of saline. 

It is more than death. Abel is not immortalized in Sister Blanchett’s choked sobs, or that sense of wrong that hangs in the air. Abel is not immortalized in the unnameable.

Replaying memory files. Again. Again. Again.

"Father Abel Nightroad was unable to complete the mission regardless of assistance. Crusnik 02 was killed in action."

Tres’s hands had been soaked in Abel’s blood and his own vital fluids. Tres, nearly halved by Methuselah blades, had gone offline just as Abel’s heart had stopped beating. He does not tell anyone about this, but in a moment of horrible clarity, Tres realizes that he and Abel, in a way, had died at nearly the same moment.

- - - - - - - - -

"Tres."

The Cardinal rarely calls him by his name, or what has become his name rather than just a serial number. He looks at her; does not blink. It has been twenty-five days since the incident, since the loss. People still look at him with such— pity.

"It wasn’t your fault. In those conditions, a few losses were bound to happen. You mustn’t blame yourself."

Tres had come online again after repairs, laid out on a workshop table, with the professor standing over him. Where is Father Nightroad, he had asked. They had given him this same look.

"There was nothing anyone could do. You were damaged. You wouldn’t have been able to prevent it even if you’d been fully functional." After a pause that is 8.9 seconds long, she says, "Nobody blames you for what happened."

Tres recalls that moment out of the water, both of them dripping and soaked. He recalls Abel’s foolish concern and the firm grip the other had around his ankles, and later, around his shoulders. You could have died, Abel had said. 

"Affirmative."

It is only now that Tres wishes, against all logic, that he had.

[thegunmetaldog]

          [＞＞ ． ． ． ｓｃａｎｎｉｎｇ.                    ＞＞ ＮＯＩＳＥ ＳＯＵＲＣＥ ＩＤＥＮＴＩＦＩＥＤ.]

"Father," Tres says, his voice soft in the otherwise quiet atmosphere. "I was informed that you were in your quarters." This is, obviously, not Father Nightroad's quarters. This is the corridor near the kitchens. Tres is giving Abel a blank, unamused look.

". . . You do not appear to be well rested. You are showing signs of physical exhaustion. Requesting a damage report." 

[thegunmetaldog]

a real boy at last || abel & human!tres

"Father Nightroad?"

Tres's voice is different. He doesn't like it. It lifts at the end, questioning, rather than Tres's usual monotone. This is bothersome. It is annoying. It is many things he is not supposed to be feeling.

"Father Nightroad," he repeats. "I cannot find Professor Wordsworth. I have a virus. I can't perform a diagnostic scan on my systems. I'm malfunctioning and cannot find--"

He steps forward, wobbles, nearly trips over his own heavy boots. He has lost half his body weight and does not know why. There is a consistent thrumming in his ears, and the panic of it all is making his eyes well up again.

"I'm broken," he says. "I cannot serve Her Grace if I am broken."

[thegunmetaldog]

codenamecrusnik replied to your post:replies are done on here. if anyone would like to...

(whispers i want to start something)

[muffled screaming]