“Are you okay?” “I have not sustained any damage.” “I meant like…emotionally.”
@year-of-whump-tropes day 8
Asset 83 asks 84 what should be a simple question, right?
Complex 27 Alex Sam YOWT Jan list
"Are you okay?"
84 stood motionless for a moment, his eyes fixed ahead, unblinking, as though the words had not fully registered. His expression was cold, detached—a perfect mask cultivated over years of training and suppression.
"I have not sustained any damage," he replied mechanically.
It was a response he had learned to give instinctively, trained into him until it was more a reflex than a conscious thought. His body—still his own in some distant sense—had become nothing more than a vessel for orders and efficiency. The mind within it, though still sharp, was a tool designed only for one thing: to execute commands. There had been no room for anything else. Not since the Facility had taken everything from him.
83 hesitated, shifting uncomfortably, his gaze softening. There was something in his blue eyes—something unfamiliar. Concern, perhaps? It felt like an intrusion, a crack in the perfect wall that 84 had built around himself. “I meant… emotionally,” 83 clarified gently, almost apologetically.
84 blinked once, and for a fraction of a second, his mind seemed to flicker. He almost considered the question, as if it were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. His gaze shifted briefly, but the answer came swiftly, mechanically, "Emotion?" he repeated, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. "I do not experience emotion. It is inefficient."
A cold, rational answer.
But 83 didn’t seem convinced. He stepped closer, his voice quieter now, more hesitant. “That's… not true. You have to feel something. You're not a robot, 84. Do you not feel anything when Carter gives you orders? When the sergeants insult you? When you’re made to kill?”
The walls inside 84’s mind trembled slightly. Feel something? Hishand twitched, but he forced them to still. For t armament it felt like the entire room was holding its breath, waiting for the answer that would never come.
He had been trained to suppress it all. To ignore the noise of humanity that still lingered deep within him. He had learned to shut down that part of himself so completely that it no longer felt real, just something distant, lost in time. And yet 83 - no Sam - kept cutting through the static, scraping at the surface of the walls.
"I am 84," he said, his voice hard now, "I am a weapon. I do not feel. There is no place for such distractions."
83 - no Sam - was still, studying 84 with a quiet intensity that made him uncomfortable. There was no anger in Sam’s gaze—just something softer, something that spoke of empathy, something that made 84 - Alex? - want to look away.
"You were someone before that," Sam continued, his voice gentle but firm. "You had a life, a family… a home, right?"
Alex’s breath hitched, but only slightly, a fleeting movement that was gone almost before it had been noticed. His chest tightened at the mention of the past. His mind fought against the memory, trying to smother it, to push it back into the recesses where it belonged. No. That wasn’t him anymore.
"I am 84," he repeated, the words spilling from his lips. His gaze hardened, the words a shield. "There is nothing before that."
A shadow crossed Sam’s face, but he didn’t back away. He wasn’t frightened of 84’s words. He wasn’t frightened of him, period. It was infuriating. 84 was a frontliner, Sam an infiltrator. Sam was meant to be afraid, at least intimidated. He wasn’t supposed to push. "I don’t believe you," Sam said softly, almost to himself. The words felt fragile, yet there was something firm behind them, as if he were reaching through the walls 84 had built. “You can’t just… erase everything. You have to feel something. You were something once. It can't be gone completely."
84’s expression flickered. For the briefest moment, a spark of doubt, of something human, flashed across his face. 84 - or Alex? His mind wavered, trying to grasp something—something from before. The memory was fleeting, but it was there, pressing against the walls he had so carefully constructed.
He wanted to shut it out.
Shut them all out.
But something was pulling at the edges of his mind, something he couldn’t ignore. A voice—faint, distant, almost lost to time—that reminded him of things he had buried so deeply.
“I don’t have the luxury of feeling,” 84 responded, his voice hollow. It was a line he had memorized, rehearsed until it was second nature. But now, it didn’t come with the same certainty. "Emotions… are not meant for me. I was designed to be efficient, to follow orders. I am not a person. I am 84. I am a weapon. I will endure."
Before 83 could respond, 84 turned sharply, his movements stiff and precise. The finality in his voice left no room for argument. No room for questions. He walked away, his footsteps echoing down the sterile hallway, each one a reminder of the person he was no longer allowed to be.