And I've Seen How You Live

[electronichound]

Characters: Batou and Major Kusanagi[Closed]
Location: Batou's quarters
Date: [during Bryn's party]
Rating: [ PG-16. Self-harm in this log, so please be warned if this upsets you.]

Comments

[electronichound]

It didn't seem like that long to be gone.

He could hear the shower outside of the room, and that worried Batou. Had she selected the right temperature? Was she scalding herself or freezing herself? Had she broken anything on her way to the bathroom? Had she started the shower and then fallen out the window?

He should have restrained her. She would have been far too weak and unco-ordinated to escape even cloth bindings, but the thought hadn't occurred to him. Batou scowled as he opened the door and closed it behind himself.

He entered the bathroom and set the shots down on the counter, feeling a little calmer. Her skin wasn't the angry, enflamed colour of burns and she wasn't shaking in cold. She seemed relatively okay, except that she had both hands folded between her knees and her chest and there seemed to be a bleed somewhere.

"Did you hurt yourself on your way to the shower?" Batou asked, shrugging off his leather jacket. He took a jello shot and knelt down beside the tub. His expression softened. "You're bleeding. Take this, Motoko. Swallow it."

[electroniccrane]

There was a man there--oh yes, Batou. The woman could trust him. She reached out to take whatever it was he was offering her, and the skin flopped down from the back of her hand, revealing a flash of white bone underneath.

The experiment had been a success, but the woman wasn't sure what to do now that she'd shown herself to be a counterfeit. Batou would know.

[electronichound]

His hand froze as she took the jello shot. He could see the bones and tendons working in a place that should have been under her skin. All Batou could think about was bacterial infections.

She could get sick like this. Blood-borne infections were some of the worst, and given that she was currently venting blood into a (thankfully) somewhat clean environment just meant that there was an open passageway directly into her circulatory system and therefore to her major organs.

He didn't allow her to grasp the jello shot and instead brought it to her mouth. His voice couldn't shake because it wasn't a voice, just a vocoder, and his artificial body couldn't show the pain inside at seeing her like this.

"Swallow this," he said again in Japanese. "Do you feel any pain? Did you scratch your hand open?"

[electroniccrane]

Obligingly, she swallowed. It wasn't important.

It took the woman a moment to realize Batou was speaking to her, and then she had to think about the question. Couldn't he see the blood and the bone? "It's not my hand," she finally managed.

[electronichound]

"No," he said. "Of course it isn't. You're just in this shell for a little while."

She didn't appear to be in pain, and she swallowed the shot obligingly enough. Should he give her another? Perhaps if she started to become distressed. Batou continued to look at that awful, gaping wound with the flap of skin.

Batou was a special forces problem solver. The problems he was told to solve usually involved hunting someone down and killing them. He'd spent years in jungles and forests, years tracking down terrorists in urban landscapes, years ending careers with a single bullet, broken bottle, punch, whatever he had at the time. It never really bothered him.

This made him feel sick.

Batou reached over and turned off the water and gently took her hand. He flipped the flap of skin back up to cover the bones and bloodied flesh of her hand.

"You're just taking care of this shell for a while," he said. "Taking care of it for a friend of yours. You must keep it safe for this person. This person wants it in good condition. Do you understand?"

[electroniccrane]

"Why are they pretending to be me?" It was really extremely vexing, being an impostor, and even more so since Batou wasn't being his usual helpful self.

Maybe he didn't understand. The woman would explain it. "This isn't me," she said. It was all so very simple.

[electronichound]

"That's classified," Batou said. He reached down and tore her shirt as quickly as he could. It fell back down into the tub and all that was left now were her jeans. No way he'd try that with her sitting. He needed to take care of her hand in any case.

Batou reached back and took a roll of medical gauze from the little basket on the counter, then turned back and began to wind it around her hand. It stained red almost immediately, but he continued to wrap. The important thing was to stop bacteria from reaching her bloodstream. He could do a proper job or take her to the doctor later.

It was heartbreaking, in its own way, to see her like this. Batou hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and kissed her damp forehead.

[electroniccrane]

Oh fine, if he was going to be difficult, she could figure it out herself later. She watched impassively as Batou bandaged the woman's hand. It really was a nasty injury, and the bleeding wouldn't stop as long as it was wet.

Then he leaned forward and kissed the woman's forehead, which she herself felt quite clearly. That was odd, and she frowned, trying to figure out how that could be.

[electronichound]

She frowned, and Batou did it again, lingered with his pale lips on her forehead. He exhaled his artificially hot breath over her forehead and then released the hand. She needed to be dried.

Batou took a towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, began to gingerly rub her as he watched her face to see if he was doing it too hard, if he was causing her pain.

It was a sharp, potent worry.

[electroniccrane]

Batou was worried. Not everything was going as smoothly as he was implying. Clearly so--look at her problem. Something must have happened at the party.

If she could just think properly, she was sure she could put things together. Being a fake was difficult, and she couldn't remember when she had stopped being herself. Batou must remember, and that's why he was so upset. "Batou, what happened at the party?"

[electronichound]

He dried her, then wrapped his arms underneath her armpits and knees to lift her up. Again, she was disturbingly light.

He had to keep her calm, and it was harder than he thought possible to lie to the Major. She was his commanding officer. He never lied to her. He'd always been frank, open, honest, and to see her physically weak was one thing, but to see her dazed and weakened mentally was quite another.

Into the bedroom they went, and near the bed he let down her legs so she could stand and he could take the wet jeans off her. He needed to answer, Batou realised. He needed to make up something she'd believe.

"There was an accident," he said at last, tone broken. "And you had to go into this shell, just for a little while. I have to take the jeans off you, Motoko. Just stand and I'll remove them."

[electroniccrane]

Well, that was clearly bullshit. She didn't give a shit about jeans, and focused on the more important issue. "Why are you lying?" This was unbelievable.

[electronichound]

"Help me remove your jeans," Batou said, getting a little exasperated. If he'd known what was going on, Batou might have been more co-operative. As it was, he couldnt' communicate with her over the wireless and he couldn't share in her cognition via sharing cyberbrain experiences. She was a complete blackbox, and one that was behaving extremely irrationally.

He took a pair of scissors from the beside table and just began to cut them off. They'd find another pair.

[electroniccrane]

And now he was dodging the question. Issues of identity took a back seat to the much more immediate concern of her second-in-command's inexplicable behavior. "What is wrong with you?"

[electronichound]

Batou looked up at her as his hands continued to work. They cut through the soaked denim, taking her underclothes with it as they collapsed down onto the floor. Then she was naked save for the bandage on her injured hand.

"Me?" Batou said, incredulous. "You're injured, Major. You have to take care of this shell."

[electroniccrane]

Injured? Was she injured? She looked down, and there was a hand hanging there, wrapped in gauze that was rapidly soaking through with blood.

Blood? Who here bled?

When she decided to examine the hand, it moved.

It was hers?

Something roared very loudly in her ears as her vision grayed out and her knees buckled.