[ INCOMPLETE ]

[cicumae]

Who: Spike Spiegel [ 7livesleft ] & Kengamine Nagi [ cicumae ]
What: A little visit.
Where: Smoker's office.
When: Sometime in the evening.

Comments

[7livesleft]

For some reason, sitting there, watching the tail end of his cigarette burn and recalling their last conversation, he nearly felt guilty. That could be attributed to the absolutely miserable look he recieved in gratitude for delivering Nagi from that hell hole he'd been living in. Then again, this didn't look like a big step up. They weren't giving him much of a choice in how he wanted to be saved. Or he might just be taking a while to adjust. Still, it's all Spike could think of to do for him.

He hadn't noticed the chains at first, not until Nagi moved against them and they clattered against the wall. Smoker always was the overly cautious type. Spike wouldn't pretend to know what Nagi went through, but from what little he'd heard of the prison, that wasn't something he wanted a reminder of. While he scanned the room wondering where Smoker might have put the keys to them, he heard Nagi's voice and smiled halfway as he turned his attention back. Looked like he wouldn't just be talking to himself after all.

"--They managed to fix that? That's good." It'd make everything a lot easier if he could tell him what happened. What he did to him. Spike didn't answer his question for a long while, only shrugged and took another drag of smoke. "I guess I went back on my word, didn't I? I said I wasn't going to turn you in."

Nagi didn't understand why he was helping him before, he was probably even more confused now. Like nobody could ever want to help a prisoner. "Don't worry about it, alright? I don't hold it against you," his tone was joking, even as his smile faded. "You can trust me."

[cicumae]

It all sounded so trivial. Everything Spike did, Spike said, everything here and now in this moment -- it all seemed to trivial. So pointless. And Nagi absently wondered how long it would take before the sedation wore off and he could move again. His limbs felt overly numb, absent of the pain that had been a constant companion over the past few months -- he couldn't even assess how badly he was hurt or how much he was healed at the moment. This, too, he hated -- this place, this situation.

And Spike was still talking, still saying things that he felt detached from. (Some part of himself might have been glad to see this familiar face in a location away from the man that had ruined him -- but it was all buried too deep beneath the anger and hatred that had festered for too long. It was hard to think clearly, especially with his thoughts so sluggish from the drugs. With no other outlet, he could only channel his anger towards this person before him. An irrational, caustic anger that was eating him up inside-out since Genkaku had awakened it in him. It hurt to think like this.)

Because those last words, they almost made him laugh. A hollow, rasping noise left his throat in lieu of a breath, the air edged with static from his voicebox as it left his lips. "I am -- a prisoner again now, aren't I?"

His voice was stilted from disuse, his words halting, and Nagi looked up with the faint hints of a sad, twisted half-smile gracing his features. "-- none of this matters. What you're saying."

[7livesleft]

"You aren't a prisoner here. I promise." Unless Nagi was speaking metaphorically. Although the chains probably didn't make him sound all that convincing. "But it looks that way, doesn't it?"

It was hard seeing him like that. Nothing like a few months of torture to suck all the optimism out of a person. Spike considered something for a minute, before he stood back up, sucking in a harsh breath as he did. Maybe he should have asked for a bit of whatever they had Nagi on, at least until some stitches came out. Although anything that made him less alert wasn't the best idea when he was slowly making an enemy out of every halfwit criminal in the city.

One problem at a time.

It wasn't a very large room, if Smoker had left another key he should be able to find it. That was assuming he didn't take it with him. Spike kept the cigarette wedged in his mouth as he started pulling out desk drawers and reaching underneath them for anything sticking out. No keys, but he managed to find an old flask hidden away, and pocketed it for a more appropriate time; like five minutes after he left. Worse came to worse, he could always try breaking the chains out of the wall, but he wasn't actually looking to destroying an office on top of what he already owed.

"... I might have to work on him. You know how he is." He stopped searching to shoot Nagi an apologetic glance. That had to be uncomfortable. Could have at least given the guy a chair--

--Then again, he could always try picking the lock. Brilliant. Turning back to the desk, he started looking for something else. "I don't like it either. He's got good intentions though, and I was the one who asked for help."

Finally, Spike walked back with an old spring in hand, which he stretched out as straight as he could manage. Closer to Nagi, he kneeled to get a better look at what kind of lock he was dealing with. "It's been a while, but I used to be pretty good at this."

[cicumae]

It was growing increasingly difficult to stay composed. Though the sedatives were more than effective enough in keeping him from moving, they did nothing to quell the rage that had caused him to lash out at Spike and the Commodore in the first place.

And when Spike got back to his feet, moving away, Nagi watched blankly, his breath escaping in a harsh rasp. The rustling of movement, the click-clatter of Spike rummaging through drawers mingled with the rush of air through his lungs, the beat of his heart in his head, and he felt dizzy, almost sick.

Almost wanted Spike gone.

Especially because Spike didn't seem to understand. It wasn't just the matter of being chained down here that most angered him, but the futility of any of what Spike was talking about. (What was the point any more? Everything he'd believed in, fought for, lived for, had all been a lie.) The chains rustled against him as he moved, the links clicking against each other as he attempted for a moment to sit back up before the numbness in his limbs forced him to slump back down. (The anger was welling back up in his throat, exacerbated by this forced immobility. His head hurt, pounding with a dull pain that matched the beat of his heart.)

The rustling and clicking had stopped, replaced by the sound of approaching footsteps, and even with his head bowed, Nagi could make out the blurred shape of Spike drawing close. Stopping before him.

"Don't." The word fritzed with static, spat out bitterly, and Nagi edged away from Spike the tiniest amount. "Don't -- come any closer." (I feel like I'm going to hurt you, and there's some part of me that still doesn't want to.) Flickers of blood sparked red from his bandaged injuries, lighting the air in hair-thin strands for a moment before dissipating.

[7livesleft]

There was nothing complicated about the lock, Spike could probably get it open after a few minutes of work. He didn't stop until he saw the blood hanging in the air. But that wasn't unexpected, not after the way they'd handled him. Spike dealt with the insane before, both inside and out of the syndicate, and Nagi wasn't one of them. He was traumatized and the drugs didn't help with any kind of rational thinking. Of course he didn't feel safe getting passed around from one captor to another.

"Alright." Hands in the air, voice low and even; nothing threatening. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not going to hurt you."

He didn't move from where he was crouched in front of him, but he absently snuffed out the end of his cigarette on the floor. One hand on his knee, he kept the wire at his side and spoke offhandedly. "You don't want to waste any of that. You'll need it later. ...He's not dead."

Spike didn't doubt they'd be seeing Genkaku again. They hadn't yet, which most likely meant he was incapacitated. The bounty hunter didn't have to guess what his first stop would be once he was on the mend. Keeping Nagi right where he knew to look wasn't the best plan on their part. "We'll deal with that when it comes, though. At least now I've got a better idea of what he's capable of."

[cicumae]

(Won't hurt me? Surely, you know by now what I am capable of, Spike? I could probably kill your right here, right now.) It was almost laughable, the care with which Spike seemed to be choosing his words, and if Nagi hadn't been feeling so lethargic, he probably would have laughed.

And though some small fragment of him was relieved that Spike wasn't attempting to draw any closer, the greater part of him was still bristling with barely-restrained anger at Spike's presence before him. His good hand gripping tight at the shoulder of his dismembered arm to keep himself from snapping, he spoke slowly, without looking up. "Of course he's not." A slow exhale that might have been a laugh. "... you don't know -- what he's capable of." (If you had any idea.) His words tapered off in a hissing burst of static as he let out a rasping breath. It was growing harder to stay still, even with the sedatives still flowing through his veins.

"You seem to have the wrong impression of me, Spike." His words were oddly flat past the crackles of static, and he looked up at Spike, his gaze cold. His breathing was growing ever so slightly harsher as he fought against the drugs, and he swallowed hard before going on -- fingers digging sharply into his shoulder, clawing at the bandages. "I don't think you understand."

[7livesleft]

It was none of Spike's business. It never was. He was the outsider muscling in on a system he knew nothing about, but still couldn't leave alone. Because why? He had nothing better to do? That was as good of a reason as any. He never said he wasn't selfish. Or maybe he was taking it too personally.

Spike tensed slightly at how Nagi described Genkaku. No, he didn't know what the monk was capable of. Just an idea. It was a real shame that they'd left that guy alive, but considering what death was like, it didn't matter. Spike had to be satisfied that they'd at least ruined his day.

He looked back up as Nagi went on, expression softening. "Like I ever have." Spike was never one to ask questions. Partly because it never made much of a difference in what he did, and partly because there was a lot he didn't want to know. It took all the surprise out of things. Made it more confusing. Nagi seemed to think otherwise.

"...I don't care what you did," he added, as if it was his first time saying it. He was certainly no judge anyway. Exhaling, he stood back up and proceeded to make himself comfortable on the chair. He crossed his legs in front of him and leaned back, still eying the lock like a puzzle he left unsolved. They were just going to leave him like that until he got everything out of his system? That wasn't what he wanted and it bothered him more than he thought it would when he agreed to it.

"What don't you think I understand?"

[cicumae]

The bandages around his shoulder were starting to unravel around the edges under his fingers, his grip tightening as he gritted his teeth. Spike's words were starting to grate against his nerves -- the way that Spike seemed to be making such an effort to sound understanding in a situation that he clearly had no place in -- and his next breath left in a low hiss. How long would it take before the sedatives wore out? Or would the Commodore just have him knocked out again? Spike had been lying when he said he wasn't a prisoner -- what else could this situation be?

"And why don't you care?" Trying to speak too fast slurred his words, sparking them with static, and Nagi paused to breathe, glaring up at Spike with an uncharacteristically sharp stare. "I was on death row for years -- did I tell you? I -- lost my wife to that hellhole. How do you think I managed to stay sane?"

A hoarse laugh escaped his lips, his fingers jerking and digging into the abrasions across his shoulder. Thin tendrils of red were starting to seep past the bandages, lighting the air, and he bowed his head, breaking the hard stare he'd kept on Spike. (There wasn't a purpose to it any more. It felt like his head was going to explode, the pressure and anger compounding with every second. The sedation nailing him to the ground was going to make him snap.)

"I was weak, I'd forced myself to believe a lie for years. I was wrong." His voice wavered, choked by a hissing laugh. "This is the truth."

[7livesleft]

"I'm sorry," came the automatic reply. That explanation made more sense than anything he'd seen or heard so far. No matter the case, somehow it always came back to a woman.

Spike resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on Nagi's shoulder. He wasn't particularly the comforting type, yet people still chose to confide in him. If they knew more about him, it'd likely be a different story. They were all capable of things they'd rather not talk about. Somehow it'd all come up sooner or later. That was one thing he took away from his death; you can never outrun your past. Not even in the afterlife.

Especially not.

Although it might not be a conversation they should be having when one of them was only partially lucid. The glare he was receiving from Nagi was enough to gather that much.

Laughter shook him out of his thoughts, and Spike stayed silent for a long while after. It could have come from anything, for any reason, but he wasn't ready to take it as a sign that he was losing his mind. And after what Nagi went through, who could have blamed him if he was? What did sanity offer that was so much better?

Spike being there might have been making it worse. Then again, sometimes it did some good to get it off your chest. Especially since it was the first time Nagi had been able to speak in months. So Spike leaned in, continued to listen, and tried not to show any emotion on his face. "What did you believe? How did she die?"

[cicumae]

(No, you're not.)

He hated the useless response, and he hated the way that Spike was still there, and he hated the fact that Spike still seemed to think of this as some sort of traumatized farce. Skin peeled and flesh split beneath the bandages, beneath his fingers as he grasped harder at his shoulder, blood starting to peel into the air again in response to his barely-suppressed anger.

"They made me fight her -- I couldn't. She was pregnant with our child. I threw the match, they took my voice and killed her. He killed her." His words were listless, acerbic, spat out without thought. "For years, I imagined that child was out there, safe. It was all I believed in, all I fought for."

His shoulders shook with hoarse laughter, blood stringing between his fingers and his bandages as his hand dragged down to claw at the floor. "-- I was so very stupid."

The chains squealed the next moment, shrieking with the grind of steel link against steel link when Nagi suddenly lunged forward. Fingers grasping at a handful of Spike's shirtfront, wrist straining against the taut chain, he stared into Spike's face, his features twisted into a cynical half-smile. "That child. Can you guess where he is?" The blood from his fingertips bristled against the fabric of Spike's shirt, forming hard, hexagonal plates. "Preserved in a test tube for dissection. How weak I must have been, to force myself to forget that, to give myself a fake hope. He helped me remember."

A wracking cough -- his throat was too strained by this sudden attempt at speaking too much after weeks of silence -- and he doubled over, trying to steady his breathing, dragging Spike down with him. The blood spread marginally further over the fabric between his fingers.

/stops falling asleep on you :'(

[7livesleft]

So that was why. When Spike had heard that Nagi was wrongly sentenced to death and forced into human cockfights with other prisoners, he assumed that it didn't get much worse than that. Apparently he was wrong.

Spike said nothing as he told his story, quickly feeling it wasn't his right to ask about it in the first place. There was nothing he could say, should say; and if Nagi wanted to go on a rampage against the world, he'd probably be completely justified. Spike might have even let him get away if he didn't already know what would happen, and he really didn't want to see Nagi locked away here for the rest of his life. Or until he got sent back to that prison he came from. Sorry situation any way he looked at it.

Engrossed in his thoughts, he wasn't quick enough to pull back from Nagi's grasp. Eyebrows knit together as he stared back at a face he didn't recognize, saw the blood on his shirt, and for the first time he believed that Nagi honestly wanted to kill him. The drugs must be wearing off. Pain shot up from his side when he was pulled to the floor, and he clenched his teeth.

"Nagi..." Spike stayed calm, but his voice was strained. Falling felt like a sucker punch to wounds that had only begun to heal and he grasped onto Nagi's wrist. "Let go."

you terrible person ):

[cicumae]

'Let go.' Literally? Figuratively? -- either way, Nagi didn't respond at first, shoulders still shaking with uneven breaths and head bowed as he fought between the anger heavy in his chest and the sedation that still weighed him down. His concentration was too shot to properly use the Branch of Sin, but the nanomachines in his blood were automatically reacting to his aggression -- his grip tightened against Spike's shirt, the traces of blood forming sharp edges against the fabric.

(You shouldn't have come here. What did you expect to find? I'm not sure, but I doubt it was this. You should have left.)

"-- I've killed many men. Ripped them apart, limb from limb. I hated them, and I didn't understand." His voice was flat again save the faint buzz of white noise, and Nagi laughed again. Maybe there would have been a chance at a quick recovery before, but now his rage had festered too long in Genkaku's hands, seeping deep into every thought. It was hard to turn back. "Why did she have to die?"

The steel cuffs were starting to dig into his skin where he was straining against the chains, but it was such a trivial matter. The blood plating against Spike's shirt spread up, a sharp edge carving a shallow cut against Spike's collarbone. And Nagi spoke without looking up. "I loathe you for being alive."

):

[7livesleft]

Because he's alive? Then he was hating him for the wrong reason; but it wasn't the first time someone made that mistake. Spike attempted to pull himself back up, but Nagi had a death grip on his shirt and the blood coming off him was as thick and sharp as steel. The edges cut into him as it spread upwards towards his neck and he could feel his pulse rising. Whatever was in Nagi's blood, Spike wasn't looking to see what would happen if it exploded on his skin.

"Hey! Calm down--"

If he wasn't Nagi, Spike would have been freaked out by what he was saying. Because it was, it unnerved him in a whole new way. Really stupid of Spike to think he was ready to talk it out. All that time Spike thought he'd been brainwashed, but he should have guessed it was deeper than that. That wasn't the kind of tragedy you got over, just something you learned to cope with. And that was only if you still cared enough to live. He understood that much.

But having sympathy didn't mean he was going to leave another mess for Smoker to clean up. The chains were holding, and suddenly Spike was glad he didn't go with his first instinct. With a hard scowl, he reached his arm around, bringing his elbow around in jabbing motions that were more frantic than he would have liked, trying to strike at his bowed head, shake him off somehow. "That's enough."

[cicumae]

To be honest, he wasn't sure if he wanted Spike to die, or not. The anger was still coursing through his veins, thick as rot, but it wasn't meant for Spike -- wasn't meant for anyone in particular. It was just that there was nowhere else that it could go. And Nagi knew that some part of him hated what he was doing, hated the fact that he was lashing out at Spike like this -- but he wasn't sure what to do any more.

It was only when the point of Spike's elbow struck him across the temple, sending a pulse of dull pain rippling down his spine, that he finally realized the way his Branch of Sin had reacted. His grip slowly loosening, he let out a hoarse breath -- the plates of blood began to melt away, some dissolving into liquid and seeping into Spike's shirt, others clattering to the ground before melting into splotches of red. And Nagi gave a shallow laugh as he let his hand drop to the ground, fingertips tracing red lines across the floor.

Backing away marginally, he shook his head. "I'm not insane, Mr. Spiegel." Nagi's voice was suddenly hushed, drained of the sharp anger that had been so clear before, and he looked up at Spike with an exhausted sort of look. The effort of moving had drained him of what little energy he'd had past the sedation, and it had mostly dissipated when he let go. (Ha. Let go.) The chains clinked softly, the links brushing against each other when he pulled back his hand to clutch at his head -- it hurt to think. "-- you shouldn't have come here."

[7livesleft]

As soon as he loosened his grip, Spike pulled away, getting to his feet and taking several steps from where he'd been. Out of reach. Visibly relieved that was all Nagi had in him, Spike pulled down his bloodstained shirt and straightened his tie, like he was going to pretend that outburst never happened. It would stick with him anyway. Pissed him off more than he'd say that a decent guy was pushed so far. The monk better hope Spike never saw him again.

"I do a lot of things I shouldn't," he replied without looking back. He felt bad for Nagi if Spike was really the only one out there to help him. If he'd attacked Smoker like that, he wouldn't get a second chance. Better that he got it out of his system while he wasn't around.

"I don't think you're insane." Spike finally turned to give him a pointed stare. "But I wouldn't blame you if you were."

He thought about sticking around a while longer, but he had a feeling it'd be worse with him around. As much as Spike hated it, he should probably get more drugs for him. Something to take the edge off. Pulled the chair back. Grabbed the keys.

"I'll be back later."

[cicumae]

Fingers tangling in strands of his hair, pressing sharply against his skull, Nagi only watched blankly as Spike backed away. It was probably a good thing that there was at least some distance between them now. Not that his rage had subsided any, but he still knew, somewhat rationally, that killing Spike would ultimately do him no good in this situation. At least he wouldn't be able to do anything for the moment.

And Spike's words only elicited a hoarse imitation of a laugh from him as he slowly slumped back down to the floor, the chains clinking as they pooled beside him. And he finally broke the stare he'd been keeping on Spike, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

(Nothing had changed the situation, really. But at least Spike knew of the past, now. Did that matter? -- not really. Probably not, he thought.)

The scrape of the chair legs over the floor and the jangling of keys were easy to ignore, and when spike turned to leave, Nagi only gave a weak imitation of a nod without looking up.