In which Glee and Unglee occur. [Closed to Dustin]

[slainrobots.livejournal.com]

It seems an odd day indeed when Yoshimi is as buoyant as she is, floating into the room on wings made of success, mind spinning with schematics and potentially helpful devices and maybe the desire to try her hand at building an aircraft, except for the limited on-ship supplies. A data pad is clutched in one hand, as per usual, but she tosses it onto the bed with nary a thought, tripping over to the shared desk merrily.

Humming--atonally, as is her unfortunate habit--she pulls out one of the few pieces of paper they have, and a pencil she found in the Mess--with an eraser!--and starts sketching that aircraft.

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[slainrobots.livejournal.com]

Yoshimi's eyes fly wide, because he had just switched from Not Talking to Talking so quickly it made her head spin, especially since the words being thrown at her (or the ceiling, more accurately) are laced with venom and... desperation. And sadness that she doubts he'll willingly admit to.

She lets silence fall for a few seconds as she faceplants into the mattress, breathing and trying to convince herself that glaring at him and pointing out that every other person on this ship is feeling the exact same way will not help in any way. In fact, that would probably a) make him storm out, b) make him hit her, or c) make him dump her, none of which were favorable options, because they would probably all happen (not in that order), knowing her luck.

By the time she looks at him again, there is a frown infused with a great deal of sympathy and real genuine concern! on her face, and she watches him quietly before tugging one of his hands out of hair, holding it between both of hers, eyes shifting to their hands so she doesn't have to look at his face as she points out a truth that he may or may not feel like having brought to his attention at the moment, because odds are that he just kind of wants to bash Stacy aimlessly for being guilty by association for possibly the greatest loss he has known.

"Were you... on the ship when Stacy finally got clearance to tell us what was going on? I don't know, I didn't know you yet, so maybe you were, but all I can think about is the months and months of not knowing why we were here. I didn't have it half as bad as everyone else on-ship, because, you know, I didn't really lose anyone when I came here--didn't have anyone to begin with, so I wasn't all that torn up about not having to rip apart rogue robots at every turning, but you know me: I'm not stupid, and I saw how much all of these people were hurting with all the not knowing, and all the aimless attempts to escape, so when we found out that all of our universe had been burned to the ground, what I sensed from all of these people, more than the pain, was the relief, because we all finally knew why we were here. Why we are here, still, right now: To fight the bastards that ruined our lives. And maybe, just maybe we can reverse it. Maybe we can turn it around, bring everything back, because this is alien technology we're dealing with, and it may very well include that option in its instruction manual." She pauses, rubbing at the skin between his thumb and forefinger absently, eyes fixing on his face. "Dying with dignity wouldn't have gotten you anywhere, Dustin. You would've just... died, with no hope of reversing any of this. Everything you know would have burned, and you wouldn't have been able to stop it, because you'd just be dead like everyone else, and all of your life would be gone. Where's the point in that? Now at least you can try to fix it, you know? It may not work, but... when has that ever stopped anyone from trying?"

The pink-haired woman is highly unaware of the face that her speech of several seconds ago was the most she has spoken since she was sixteen.

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

That hand pulled from his hair and now clasped between Yoshimi’s warm fingers was shaking, irreconcilably, as was the rest of the body also attached, a mass of shudders and horrified, unspoken thoughts directed at the knobby knees pressed against his forehead. He was angry, indignant, and absolutely terrified by his revelations, sending his mind into a storm of personal and pointed attacks, blocking out reassuring words, completely absorbed in its own brooding. The normal person would have therefore left things at this state, having turned a deaf ear on such pitying, trivial certainties. But Dustin was, as he’s pointed out on many occasions, definitely not the normal person.

Not like he didn’t require a few quiet moments after that—yes, he’ll admit it—really quite impressive speech to collect his thoughts, calm himself down, recall exactly what she’d said. Ambient chatter, even in the most stressful of situations, was often recorded in its entirety in Dustin’s mind just as easily as a camera placed on a street corner should pick up the most obsolete of gestures from passerby, at least in the short term; when he’d gathered enough resolve to dismiss his frantic anxieties and formulate a response, the explanation readily produced itself and, as per usual, unraveled into the necessary components of understanding.

Yoshimi was right. Dustin did not like what he heard. He wanted to throw off her hands, take his and throw them on her shoulders, shake her until the sense somehow wrung itself from her brain and made her realize what he was going through—but Dustin was tired. He was tired and frustrated and confused, and frankly it seemed like so much less effort to just babble out whatever popped into his head, because maybe that would provide more clarity into what he was really thinking (for not only Yoshimi, but also himself).

He refused to look at her. “But…but it doesn’t work that way,” Dustin insisted to his feet, “I saw them, they—they’re dead. You can’t…can’t reverse death. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t…”

The callused, gloved hand, the only one attached to Dustin’s person that was still real, insistently pulled itself from Yoshimi’s grasp and wrapped itself around his bent legs, pressing them firmly against his chest. His breathing suddenly became ragged.

“…Doesn’t work. They’re dead. She’s dead, I…I’ve failed.”

Yes, so there was the underlying issue. Welcome back to the forefront of Dustin’s subconscious, Dakota Perkins. You were missed more than you can imagine.

[slainrobots.livejournal.com]

All of the lightness she has been feeling since leaving Engineering seeps out as he almost simultaneously pulls away from her and says "she" in that tone of voice that she wouldn't have expected to hurt as much as it does. Still, she can't say she's surprised, so she locks that little wince and throb away in the part of her mind labeled "The Source of My Low Self-Esteem," prepared to reexamine both at some unfortunate hour of the night while she should be sleeping, and consequently let her aforementioned self-esteem plummet several levels. No doubt Dustin won't notice the difference.

Averting the frown growing on her face, she folds her own legs up, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees. It takes her a few minutes to come up with an answer that doesn't sound a) totally lame, b) entirely apathetic, c) tearful, or d) all of the above.

"I'm not saying we're planning on reversing death--we're planning on turning back the clock in any way we can so the death doesn't happen in the first place." Her answer is short, but only slightly flatter than her earlier words, and her eyes are still trained on Dustin.

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for Yoshimi, Dustin indeed did not notice this plummet in self-esteem and even went so far as to elaborate further, plow right through her assertions in a sudden burst of factitious inspiration. In truth he was merely trying to uphold his usual mantra—that he was always right, no matter the conclusion. If everyone was dead, then goddamnit everyone better be pretty friggin’ dead when this was all over with.

“—No, listen—“ he lifted his head, brow furrowed and nose wrinkled in frustration, eyes keeping level with the wall across the room, “It’s not just the people that are dead, it’s the universes. If the universe was still there to contain the time in which the people were killed, then yes, maybe you could turn back the clock. Maybe you could prevent it—but if that span of the universe’s existence is completely wiped, then so is the time contained within it. You can’t get that back. You could—you could recreate it, maybe, or start afresh and try to manipulate preceding events so that things turn out the same, but—but it won’t. It can’t be—“

Somewhere along the line, their roles had switched in Dustin’s mind. He was no longer the one seeking Yoshimi’s condolences; now he was the one attempting to change her perception, convince her to follow his convoluted views caused by the rough patchwork of Arrogance, once Grief and Anger could not seal the wound or hide the hysteria. And Arrogance was disappointed for Yoshimi, the poor girl, unable to grasp that all hope was lost…

[slainrobots.livejournal.com]

For some reason, Dustin's tone of voice bothers Yoshimi. It bothers her so much that she is positively scowling by the time he starts stuttering about recreating time, or starting afresh, or whatever bullshit he was spewing, because goddammit, Dustin, she thought you had gotten over using that tone of voice with her.

She is amazed with herself as she glares furiously at him, fur rubbed the wrong way, metaphorical tail puffed to be about the size of a feather duster, because despite her low tolerance for condescension, she still has enough affection for this infuriating man that she's considering a) not blowing up on him, b) not storming out, c) not blowing up on him and then storming out, and/or d) not hitting him. Oh, also, e) continuing with her attempts to comfort him. (Option e will probably lose.)

Fortunately, she comes to her decision before he finishes talking, and she cuts him off at "It can't be--"

"Shut up," she says sharply, eyes flashing. She makes sure that silence has fallen before fixing him with the icy stare of a woman who has spent the last three years in almost complete solitude, dealing only with corporate assholes, government officials, and veritable mob bosses, all of whom could talk up Denial Storms to equal, if not rival Dustin's. The only problem with the control she asserts here is the total lack of emotion in her face, something that always unnerved those assholes, officials, and bosses, because a nineteen-year-old with a pink bob should not be that cool, calm, and collected.

"You're making excuses to make yourself miserable. I'm not going to sit here and help you do that. You have two options here, and only two. 1) You keep talking like that, drive yourself mad with the guilt and the loneliness and the sorrow until you find yourself begging Stacy to decapitate you, or 2) You use your ears and you use your brain and you use your capacity for emotion, which I have a feeling is larger than that of a teaspoon despite the show you're putting on now, and you let yourself hope like the rest of us, because hope is what pulls people out of these situations. Hope and trust. You trust in Stacy, you trust in your crewmates, and you trust in your dead Universe to keep going, because you have two feet, and they're there to be used."

All of this is said in what is more or less a tone devoid of emotion, which, if Dustin has ever once paid attention, he will notice is very not normal. There is no stuttering, there is no apologizing, there is no neuroticism or blushing or anxiety, there is just a pretty pissed off woman not letting her pissed-offedness show because the man she's trying to talk down is, despite being a huge asshole, having an emotional crisis, and she has too big a heart to just let fly on him.

It's saying a lot that she remains seated beside his bed, arms folded across her chest, eyes fixed solidly on him, because all she really wants to do right now is get up and leave.

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

Damnit. He’d screwed up now, hadn’t he?

That look in her eyes, that less-than-comfortable pause she created, made Dustin snap to attention and stare at her, dumbfounded, because for whatever stupid reason he thought she would actually take what his explanation to heart. But now, with Arrogance muttering something about leaving the oven on and subserviently scuttling to the back of his mind, he was left with an emotional blank that had Logic furiously finding some of the lesser inhabitants to fill the blank. What else was left, though? What else…?

Well…there was always Shame.

Dustin’s eyes slid to Yoshimi. Quickly they slid back to the wall, and his mouth opened, prepared to defend him—but there were no words waiting. He closed his mouth again and waited for his brain to catch up.

It didn’t.

Dustin put his head back on his knees and let Yoshimi’s words replace the ones that he was lacking. Perhaps…perhaps if he waited long enough they would actually catch. Until then, however, he remained silent, and he didn’t look up again.

[slainrobots.livejournal.com]

She lets the silence drag on for a while, glaring holes in his head while the anger drains out of her. The glare fades, dropping entirely with a sigh. Yoshimi combs her hair out of her face, watching him silently, looking a bit pained as she fights the still-present urge to leave, because now she's fighting Guilt and Low Self-Confidence for control, and Guilt and Low Self-Confidence are just as eager to get the Hell out of here as Anger was.

Sighing again, she frowns and leans forward to touch his knee, eyes fixed on a fold in the fabric of his pants. She moves her hand to his hair after a moment, still frowning, though the expression is more exhausted than anything now.

"Don't treat me like an idiot. I know I am one, but really, just... don't," she murmurs, and hey, here's a characteristic Yoshimi move as her cheeks heat with a mixture of discomfort and embarrassment. "And I'm sorry. That you're... you know, going through this. I wish I could help."