Won't You Be My Neighbor?

[electronichound]

Characters: Batou, Erol [Closed]
Location: Batou's cabin
Date: Present
Rating: [PG-13, because Erol's got a dirty mouth]

Won't You Be My Neighbor?The metal cage was strong, sturdy and reasonably spacious. It wasn't as if Batou needed a lot of room to stretch his legs, so he was fine with the idea of letting Erol's confinement take up a full third

Comments

[psychoticracer]

Blackness.

Then, just at the edges, a smidgen of - not light, but sensation. Fabric beneath him. Air moving through his lungs.

Awareness. The last thing he remembered was fighting, and it was oh so tempting to sit straight up and keep at it. But he knew better - evaluate your surroundings first.

Listening. The turn of a page; otherwise, nothing. Not alone.

Feeling. Seemed to be on a bed; he felt the sag of the mattress beneath his weight, covers smooth.

He cracked his eyelids. Sight. Yes, on a bed; and a room like any other. What the HELL was going on?

Now he sat up, fingers searching for his weapons. All gone, naturally. Wide, alert eyes scanned his surroundings for a better survey; bars walling him off from the rest of the room, and on the other side - Batou.

Erol got to his feet, paced towards the bars to glare at his captor.

"I suppose there's an incomparably good explanation for this."

[electronichound]

"Peerless. You're my prisoner," said Batou calmly, turning the page again. Now that Erol was up he shifted his attention away from the words on the page and let his cyberbrain handle the actual reading part, and his biological brain handle the conversation part. It was nice when things worked together like that.

"The Captain hasn't bothered to restrain you, so I thought I'd do it on his behalf. Are you hungry?"

[psychoticracer]

"No," Erol growled. Slowly he paced the length of the bars. They were made from dismantled girders, very thick.

Really, he didn't have a chance of getting out. But that wouldn't stop him from trying.

"Any specific reason?" To be sure, everyone knew he was dangerous. Erol had gone to lengths to make this well-known. But why now, why Batou, why this in particular? He hadn't done anything recently to warrant such a move. Batou couldn't be upset about the scuffle with the rat.

[electronichound]

"You're dangerous and you might try to hurt Celeste and River," he said again, voice calm and low as it always was. He turned another page. Erol was taking all of this a lot better than he'd expected him to, which was saying something. The other man was being downright reasonable and calm about this.

"Personally, I'd rather just let you hang yourself on your own rope, but I'm not just looking out for myself here," he continued, watching Erol from one blank eye. "I'm not sure you'd understand."

[psychoticracer]

Erol gave a snort, continuing to pace and evaluate the bars. He was angry, to be certain. But there was nothing to be gained by throwing a fit here and now; he was more interested in gaining information, evaluating the situation. Restless, impatient energy simmered beneath the surface, but for now he held it back

[electronichound]

"No," said Batou, turning another page as his cyberbrain scanned the image in front of his eyes, converted it to an image, stored it in his memory and began the process of translating the language not to Japanese, but to a series of ones and zeroes. Batou's thoughts were in the language of computers in his cyberbrain, not speech. "I'm under no obligation to put my charges in danger, and certainly not at your promise that you won't hurt them. You're a threat, and since when has ignoring a threat ever made it go away?"

Batou finally lifted his head away from the book and tilted his head, fixing Erol with the same blank gaze. He smiled.

"So what was this mysterious deal you had with the priest? It had the redhead in a frothing panic."

[psychoticracer]

Erol rolled his eyes. "It's not a bloody promise. I don't make promises, and I certainly don't fucking keep them. It's a fact. If I was interested in harming them I'd not lie about it. No point."

After all, Erol wouldn't be ashamed of it, and there was certainly no chance in hell Batou would up and let him go if he promised not to hurt them. If he was interested in it, he'd out and say it. Though he wouldn't have minded another go-round with River, there were plenty of other interesting things to do around the Hellboat. No reason for him to go prowling after her when there were other thrills to be had at far less expense.

Speculatively he eyed one of the bars, braced his stance and gave it a good shove. "What redhead."

[electronichound]

"Remy Whitecastle, a friend of the priest's," replied Batou, flipping his book shut with a quiet, muted thump of paper on paper. He laid it to one side gently, watching Erol pace from one side of the cage to the other.

On one hand, Batou should have been more closed-mouthed, but on the other he was interested in Erol. Erol wasn't your run of the mill psychopath, and he intrigued the cyborg. Batou drummed his fingers on his knee, watching Erol.

"Tell me about yourself," he said after a while.

[psychoticracer]

Erol blinked and looked up from shoving against one of the bars, brow furrowed in suspicion. He'd expected more pressing about his deal with Glaukir; surely that little parry hadn't put him off the track? Or maybe Batou wasn't interrogating him at all. Though why he would not do so, Erol had no clue.

Tell me about yourself? Seriously? What the hell kind of question was that.

Eh well, what the hell could it hurt. It'd pass the bloody time and was probably about as useful as trying to shove his way out. Erol didn't realistically suppose he had a chance in hell but he couldn't sit and do nothing.

"Hnnf. What do you - hmph - want to know?" he returned, putting more of his strength into budging his chosen bar.

[electronichound]

"What did you want to be when you were growing up? What is your greatest accomplishment? What is your favourite hobby? Do you have a wife or any children? A lover?"

Batou watched Erol as he pushed at the bar. It wouldn't move, of course, Batou had tested each piece of steel himself, and unless Erol was suddenly capable of lifting a car over his head, there was no way the elf could force his way out. Neither could Erol squeeze his way out, as all the gaps between the bars were smaller than the circumference of the other man's head.

Oh yes, Batou was a cautious, careful man.

[psychoticracer]

"Hmph." Erol left off the bar for now. He'd go at it more later. For now he paced. Easier to concentrate on what he was saying that way

[electronichound]

"What did you like to do the most, when you were alone?" Batou asked, storing all this information away. He liked novels and he liked characters, and he liked having a fuller picture of the man who fairly gnawed at the bars and clawed his fingernails off to be free. What kind of life created a man like this, so full of passion?

For a cyborg like Batou who was passionless, it was captivating.

"What kind of media did you like to consume? What was your favourite food? Who was your favourite lover?"

More, more, tell him everything.

[psychoticracer]

"You're full of bloody questions, aren't you." Erol eyed him sardonically before backing off five steps, taking a steadying breath, and rushing the bars to ram hard with his armored shoulder

[electronichound]

"Did you want to be famous?" asked Batou, watching Erol with great fascination. This would be an instructive few days, he could feel it from deep inside. Erol was going to teach him a lot about passion from this detached vantage point the cyborg held, and Batou was eternally thirsty for knoweldge.

"Coffee, I see. Surely you had one lover who was kind to you, who you were kind to?"

[psychoticracer]

Erol shrugged. "Being famous was a bonus. I just love to race."

And not being able to here was driving him slowly and steadily mad... comparatively speaking. He satiated the drive with violence for now, but - he'd been here over a month. He was used to practicing every day. Erol was starting to worry that he would slip out of practice.

"Kind?" Erol gave Batou a flat look. "What's the point?

"Although." He ran his finger along the bars as he paced. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. "Flin did take a shine to me, back on the streets. Taught me a good many things. He was my first.

"I killed him."

[electronichound]

"How intimate," said Batou, a smile curving his lips. He couldn't narrow his eyes, but the skin around Batou's eyes blank eyes crinkled a bit and he chuckled, deep in his throat. "I had a comrade in the war like you. He said that when you fucked someone, you had been with them in a way no one else could ever duplicate. Same with killing. He counted his first kill as the first time he lost his virginity."

Batou shifted, hung his hand off his knee and tilted his head again at Erol. "He said that he was a whore."