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dogs b&c: giovanni rammsteiner

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Who: Giovanni (

ofobedience) and Mercy (

valcurie)
What: Reluctant medical check-up
When: Whatever the equivalent of 28th July is in game-time, ahah
Where: Thesa station
Warning(s): none probably? maybe some violent mental imagery from Giovanni

[Despite having agreed to this, he remains dubious. There's little point to it, after all, aside from assuaging whatever concerns the woman he'd rescued may have, allowing her to see that there is nothing physically wrong with him. At least, nothing that can be salvaged or fixed because all that is 'wrong' in him has been made that way through design. Something twisted and altered and strange, something lab-created and artificial and therefore never quite human.

But her concern had been there, and it's something so alien to him that he can't help but wonder at it. Can't help but be confused and vaguely (vaguely) drawn. Besides which, in the smallest of ways, he sees something familiar in her-- the shared language, the blonde hair, her self-identification as a doctor, very different from the one he's thinking of but similar enough for it to slide beneath his skin and stay there.

And with the trip to Thesa-- well. It gives him a moment to check up on things. To check up on them, lying cold and still and silent in their pods, waiting it out. After.

So he's here, and he makes his way towards their designated meeting place - one of the rooms supplied for visiting refugees such as themselves - knocks brightly, three times. Awaits the sound of her voice before stepping inside.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( She is a stubborn one, isn't she? Just ask any of those who've had the pleasure of being her patient: sometimes she's saved a life through sheer force of persistence. Whether that's because she can't handle disappointment well, or some other unpleasant personal flaw, it has usually been something that's worked out for the best. And if it hadn't, those are the times and the cases she might've learnt a lesson.

Now, she's herself in an unspeakably foreign situation. Caring for others is what she was bid to do, all that she really can do well, and she is a woman who both tries her best and keeps her promises. Despite whatever protests he make, she cannot let someone go without at least the most basic of care. Not when they give her a sense that good doctors dread having: that he is a person who, for whatever reason of his own, has little concern for himself. This is more lethal than a teenager convinced of their own invincibility.

The knock comes as she's filling up her idle moments with writing. She, dressed in her characterising pristine white, though sans the wings that are her presently unneeded means of flying, leaves her notebook, cramped up with musings in German, on the table, and goes over to open the door. He's welcomed with an unreserved smile and an outstretched, ink-stained hand. And her relief is genuine--lines around the eyes, hair nearly in her eyes, her head tilted somewhat, tells of a suffusive ease he offered her by alleviating her dread that he might not come after all. )

Hello, Giovanni. I'm glad to see you again. Come in and have a seat, and tell me how you've been.

( A touch of the personal, a glaze of élan added to her usual amicable grace. She steps aside to usher him in and her motion is towards two chairs sat orderly by the table. One is sat facing the window, with a view, of the nothingness that comprises space engulfing the luminescent globe that is their new home. )

[She opens the door, head tilted and hair tipping forward, dressed in pristine white and that has it's implications and reminders, only serves to exacerbate the similarities he already sees in her. Makes her feel almost familiar to him, despite that in personality she's already shown herself to be deeply divergent to the woman lying still and silent as the grave her in stasis pod. The woman who made him.

Still. It's enough, and familiarity is something he craves right now, right down to the very core of himself.

There's plenty of alien strangeness added here too, however-- the look on her face, the lines around her eyes, all indicative - he thinks - of some sort of genuine relief, the fact that the relief pertains to him and his presence here catching up with him only slowly, a little late. Again, there's the tilt of his head in response, his expression vaguely coloured by wry bemusement, because why she'd feel any concern for him is still something he struggles to understand.

Regardless, there's only a momentary hesitation before he briefly takes her hand, gives it a perfunctory shake. Moves into the room and towards the chairs, as directed. He takes the one not facing the window, a way to avoid looking out there into the black, a small reminder of their situation that he simply doesn't want. A reminder that they've lost everything, and nothing will ever be the same again.

That small cold fear in him, it doesn't show in his demeanor as he slides into his seat, all sharp lines and angles now that he's dressed, once again, in a fine-tailored suit. Free of blood and the ragged tears that attested to injuries no ordinary person should ever have lived through and yet which were no longer in evidence-- it's how he'd looked on that day, when they'd fallen from the skies, when he'd pried her from what could have become a metal coffin. Blood-stained and ragged. Unlike now.

He smiles his crookedpin smile, shoulders cutting at the air in a knifey shrug.]

Oh, I've been all right. Trying to adjust, and all that.

( Now that Mercy's free of both concussion and an imminent duty to save the lives of those who made might her, it's easier to focus on what she wants to. Much easier, in fact, and now she sees him move through the world. All angles, all sharpness, like canines and incisors, with no molars to blunt out the jagged edges. There's nothing ragged about him--he's clean and cut like crystal glass, in that suit he strikes her as someone out of something considered a classic European scene. He could be, in another life, walking down centuried cobblestone, tailored clothing a susurrus as he moved, a newspaper or leather bag on hand, heading towards the scent of espresso wafting from a cafe.

This image is a fantasy for a lot of reasons. For one thing, such was just a memory of what once was, a classical ideal reminiscent of the idea of a renaissance man. In the modern world no-one had time to be a gentleman-scholar; no-one, in her world, could afford to live out such a luxurious fantasy. So much of the continent had been wrecked by the war, so much of so many cultures had changed. Safe, solitary walks locked in your own existential musings had become a gross indulgence by the time the world had ended.

So it's not just him with a hesitation. Her frisson of wonder at departed casual grace, of a world long gone, gives her a moment's hesitation as he promenades by in his well-fitted suit, a lithe and literal form out of a past that somehow feels like it should be hers.

But soon she follows after, smiling at him and her relief resumed. She sits down opposite him, her eyes snapping to him immediately. She has no interest in space and the emptiness it holds. Her time is here now. With him. )

Well, however you're doing, you certainly look put-together. ( A knowing smile as she says that. For a moment she shifts to shuffle some papers. )

How is your adjustment going? Have you had any problems? It's rather something that we can all breathe the same air, and so far it doesn't seem like we've avoided an epidemic of common cold, but still. You're able to quickly recover from wounds. Does that include every other ill?

( He may notice too that's she remarkably scent free--absolutely scrubbed and scoured like she prefers to be. There are scents coming from her belongings, but nothing that seems out of place. Paper, ink, glass, and metal, no ferrous tang of blood to taunt him. )

[You certainly look put-together she says, and despite himself it's a response that makes him smile, the slight upwards tilt of his chin clearly indicative of some small internal pleasure.]

Well. One should always strive towards elegance.

[But even in this, perhaps, his choices aren't entirely his own, the words an echo of Mother's aesthetics, the design that most pleases her. Sharp and precise and elegant, all her dogs had been schooled in such a way, and the fine-tailored suits worn by himself and Frühling has been of Her choosing, not theirs. Beautiful brutality-- that had been Her aim and desire.

Regardless, though, he likes them. The suits. Whether through learned behaviour or his own desires hardly matters when the compliment is one that genuinely pleases him.

There are the questions, though, and quickly he turns his attention to those, pulls away from that brief pleased feeling.]

It's...well. It'll take some time, I suppose.

[He doesn't feel adjusted at all, still feels cut adrift, unmoored and undone, lost in a sea of strangeness that threatens at every turn to drown him. The big open maw of the sky down on that new world of theirs, the sun's organic light, the lack of structure and rules and orders to follow-- all things that unsettle him, leave him feeling silently shaken and disturbed. Although again, such things fail to make it into his demeanour-- sitting there before her, he seems as settled and as collected as can be. It's a mask he's worn for the longest time, one that cleaves to his skin so closely as to seem perfectly natural.]

And yes, most ills I should think. I'm quite immune to all poisons and pathogens. Built for endurance, so to speak. Hahah.

There is a reason they say cleanliness is next to godliness. It's good to take care of yourself.

( There's some dryness to her statement, a knowing irony in what she's saying. She will have to strive to get him to show some of that same care to his physical well-being, even if, as he explains to her, he's been modeled to be above such banal concerns. Is that why he directs his effort to his dress? She herself takes care with it, knows that it takes effort, that always there's is some reason to inspire the patience it takes to make conveying poise and grace effortless.

There's something here, she senses, a slight telling bulge beneath the surface of the thin skin. If only she knew where to push. And how it would be most safely done.

For now, more practical matters. Maybe the solution will reveal itself in connection, because the human body is like that, always was even before people themselves started to modify them. They are organic systems of complicated chains of arising and persisting consequences. And each one has its own complications that create disparate circumstances presenting puzzles to solve.

What his is, she's going to find out. )

Like all good things. ( A slight pause if he wants to cringe or laugh at the cliché. One for one, though she's keenly aware he's telling her something with his. ) So you weren't born this way? Was it gene therapy and body modification? I am most familiar with prosthetics, but I have practical experience with both. If you'd like to tell me about what makes you special?

[He hears it, the slightly dry tone that colours her voice, even if he's unable to discern it's meaning. The words themselves - taking care of oneself, cleanliness - they're things, at least, that he can understand. Relate to on some level. When he isn't stained by the scents of gunsmoke and blood and debris from battles hard fought and fast won, he is, at the very least, assiduous in regard to his outer appearance. And he does note the scrubbed-clean scent of her, underlain as it is by the distinctive scent of warm human skin, only furthers the comparisons he's already making. The familiarity he feels and finds he wants more of.

She continues, and he does laugh in the wake of her small cliché, an answer to the one he'd inadvertently given. Smiles his sharp-angled smile even as the inevitable questions start to come.

He should be more secretive perhaps, more elusive. Back there, in his own twisted world, it would have been better to say nothing at all, to slink and slide through dark spaces, deflecting attention at every turn until the truth of him was made undeniable in the moment of a fight. But even that had been coming to an end, before the Storm put paid to it all. They'd begun to make themselves known. And whatever agenda Mother had for them is currently frozen along with Her in cryogenic sleep, rendered - for now - irrelevant. And so why not be honest about what he is, when it's what She made of him? When he's been thrown among people so strange and different that it hardly matters, anyway.]

What makes me special.

[The words are a little dry, a little bitter around the edges, but it's such a subtle thing that it may well go unnoticed. His shoulders rise and fall in a shrug, and swiftly he continues]

I wasn't born at all. A genetically engineered artificial life form, designed for high resonance rates with the Spine.

( Well, that's a surprise, isn't it? Not the genetic engineering, that's old news in her world at this point, something even an non-specialist like her can understand. But then there's everything else--aritifcal he says, a life form he says, and that followed by resonance rates and the Spine, whatever those are. She immediately imagines s talk skyscraper vaulting for the heavens: something like a world-tree from which he was created and to which he is attuned, but she quickly dismisses the image as the fantasy it is.

Taken together with the vague hint in his voice that her wording was touching upon things she might not expect, this all something for her to think about. At first her thumb rubs along the pads of her fingers. This is nervous distraction, more than it is a reaction, so she reaches over to take her notebook and pen in hand to give her restless limbs something efficient to do.

She holds her pen at a sharp angle, near ninety degree to the page its nub is pushing into. )

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're telling me. Were you gestated for any period? Or were you assembled in some fashioned?

( Hard to believe, that latter notion, and despite her professional demeanor she gives into the urge of one of her ticks. Her free hand comes to rest on her neck after brushing away some stray hairs near her ear. Then she drops it into her lap and her bak becomes ramrod straight as she continues to consider, the caduceus motif, unseen, following the elegant curvature this gives to the small of her back. )

When we worked together I noticed some body modifications around your neck and back--your spine, as it were. Does this have something to with 'the spine'? And, if you don't mind, I would like to have a proper look.

Grown, I suppose you could say. In a laboratory.

[Using Mother's cells, and perhaps Zollner's too-- on that last point he is uncertain; the renegade researcher and supposed possessor of the Führer Spine having referred to him as Son, but not given him any specifics. Why should he, after all, when Giovanni had been no more than a captive, to him? Cells then altered and modified until they'd been forged into something capable of containing Kerberos' fury without losing their minds or warping their bodies into something truly monstrous. A lot of the finer details are still lost on him, and with a loose-shouldered shrug, he tells her as much--]

But I'm the science project, not the scientist. Alas, there are many details that have never been imparted to me. I'm an attack dog, hahah, there never was a need for me to know all the ins and outs of my own creation.

[And Mother always had played Her cards so close to her chest that they were buried inside Her. Her true objectives, Her reasons for making him-- they remain, even now, shrouded in mystery.]

And you're quite perceptive, it seems. Yes, it's the Spine - the Kerberos Spine - or at least one of them. The source of most of my abilities.

[There's the slight movement of one slim-fingered hand where it rests on his thigh, as though he means to lift it, to touch the place where the collar lies, bolted down into bone and causing a constant ache that never, never abates. Only slides into obscurity sometimes, when he isn't thinking of it. But he's thinking of it now, and that dull constant pain edges into his awareness, makes his smile that little bit sharper.

Fractional hesitation before he responds any further-- what would Mother think, of another doctor being allowed access to examine one of her creations? Would She have forbidden it? Would She only have gloated, been vaguely proud, or perhaps indifferent given that the creation in question has always been Her least favourite son? He doesn't have an answer...won't, not for as long as She remains in Her pod. And so finally he stands, fingers working at the buttons of his jacket. If there's no one here to either give or withhold permission, he supposes it doesn't matter what he does.]

I suppose there's no harm in you looking, providing you'll excuse my partial undressing.

[Words that come with the quick flash of his smile before he shrugs out of the jacket, begins removing cufflinks and tie. At the very least, he's accustomed to having the eyes and hands of researchers on him.]

That's all right if you don't know. By whatever means you came into the world, you're certainly alive now.

( As trite as that may seem, it is something that's true. He's living and breathing and responding to her questions, laughing at times, how awkward all that may be, and he has expressed to her preferences about his style and his substance, and the way he carries himself suggests an arrogance not found in lesser species.

So.

He may not be the most reliable source of information about himself, but what patient ever is? They lie and misdirection and sometimes ought try to steal from her. He, on the other hand, is polite, a truly ideal patient in every other way that doesn't involve the holes in his own autobiography.

She, like a proper professional, folds her hands in her lap and says, very gently. ) Only if you don't mind. I can assure you I have seen much worse than partial nudity.

( Her breath catches in her throat without it actually hitching, a taste like plastic permeates her mouth. Nerves? Something like that. She doesn't know what to expect, but she has seen it all before: body modification, cybernetics, prosthetics, bodies completely reformed by the toes up. She does not think she will be shocked.

Rather, she's worried that he might let her cross a line he will later regret. ) Is that the name of the company that produced it?

[Certainly alive now. Sometimes he wonders. He exists, that much is certain, but living can have a higher meaning, can't it? Adds up to more than the sum of it's parts, and if that's the case then he doesn't make the grade. He's the dregs, the trash, just Heine's pale shadow, a thing to be used and then thrown away. It's something he's always known, that one day it will come to that.

But he shakes such thoughts away like a dog shaking off water-- it's not worth thinking on right now, and besides which, the game has changed. Leaves him more uncertain than before yes, but also less precariously placed. His fatal flaw, the slow slipping away of self, his crumbling memories-- the Orbiters have halted all that. And now, if She ever wakes, perhaps She'll feel differently about him. He can hardly dare to hope.]

Oh, I don't mind. I'm well-accustomed to being examined by doctors, and the like.

[Doctors, researchers, scientists-- Mother.

And so for the moment he simply continues to undress, folds both jacket and shirt carefully, places them over the back of the chair, cufflinks slipped into trouser pockets. He stands there before her, then, slim and pale in the artificial light, the dull metal of the collar and the sickening way it's bolted right down through flesh and muscle into bone made obvious now there's nothing with which to cover it.

He turns then, to give her the full effect. Presents his narrow back to her, where the savage scar that runs from nape to tailbone - the only blemish on his otherwise perfect skin - stands in stark testament to where the implantation was made. The back of the collar, now visible to her, bears the number 68.

Glancing back over his shoulder at her, seemingly indifferent to the thought of her eyes on him, he answers--]

No, not the company. It's the name of the entity that resides in the Spine itself. Kerberos. The Dog.

( Of course, there isn't any reason for her to doubt that he meets the barest qualifications for alive: he thinks, he laughs, he makes decisions based on preferences, and displays volition. Maybe he's a bit immature, maybe he's a bit cocky, maybe he'll ruin some rather nice suits, these are all flaws of a person. This hardly registers as a possible source of existential confusion.

Then again, even if he thinks her keenness of physical observation, which is an essential skill in her trade, is worth noting, then he will be sorely let down by how meagre her psychological insights always turn out to be. She has a strength, and a clear weakness. And even with this supposed strength-- )

Oh.

( A stifled gasp as she puts her hand on her chin to force her mouth from gaping. It would have been easier on her to reveal it slowly, in slight turns and angles of his body, with some deliberation, though this is what she actually asked for: to see the real him. What was hidden, or lurking, beneath his pretty and self-assured exterior. The beautiful clothing removed, she sees him, and she is flummoxed by his cool insouciance to his own state, and has he just become used to this? It is the only existence he has known.

She's asked to see him and he has obliged her. It would be unkind, however much she aches for him, to show him anything less than professionalism to match his willingness to show this to her, and to match his presented indifference. So she stands, leaves her tools behind, and moves in for a better look at the bitter bite of the metal penetrating as deep as she feared it might go.

After the initial shock wears off, when she no longer has the urge to shove her hand in her mouth to prevent her reflexive personal response, there are chills and sparks along her skin, but that she can deal with, even when they tingle in sympathy for the pain she imagines must accompany every turn or nod of his head. Cool sweat has begun line the dip of her own spine.

Mercy observes the details which are lurid in her mind: 68, probably his number, the ugly scar which could have been rendered less stark with more care, and Kerberos, Greek for dog. Is that what he is called? Entity makes her think--doctors, he called them, but they are not such. Whoever could create life and then harm it such such a way are no colleagues of hers. If they can do this to their own children, she does not doubt they are capable of much, much worse. )

May I touch you, Giovanni? ( Such is her brilliant blast of hatred for these strangers, she makes a proud point of asking his permission. ) Does this ever bother you?

[Her stifled gasp - cut off before it can become a fully-formed sound but the beginnings of it picked up by his fine-honed hearing all the same - the careful silence that follows-- these are things that quite clearly telegraph her shock, perhaps even horror at what she sees, and in some strange and perverse way, it makes him smile. He knows what he is-- something monstrous, an artificially created thing of the deep Below, a beast of that facility buried so far down at the city's rotten core that no natural light or human softness can ever penetrate. He's something twisted, an abomination, a thing that should never have been, and yet here he stands all the same, just one of Her many creations.

One of the more successful ones-- there were plenty who came before his series who were not so lucky, warped and twisted into hulking shapes that barely resemble the human forms they had once taken. Those kidnapped children of the Underground, forced into a chain of twisted experiments that ended with them becoming nothing but canon fodder for later generations. For the newer models, specifically tweaked and twisted from before the moment they began to grow in order to house the inimical presence that lurks inside the Spine.

And so, his smile is a cold and cutting thing, concealed from her as he remains turned away, his back and the savage signifier of all that he is taking up - no doubt, he thinks - the entirety of her focus. And perhaps it's strange that he should bear so terrible a scar when every wound since heals so perfectly as to leave him entirely unmarked and unmarred, but he supposes that this, too, as with all things, is part of Mother's design. Something rough and vicious and raw on an otherwise beautiful body-- it's like the sharp, expensive suits he wears even when thrown into the most brutal acts of violence. Poetry in savagery-- Mother's aesthetic.

Still, when her question comes it's accompanied by the vaguest sense of surprise in him, unaccustomed to doctors who ask permission rather than handling him like the object he believes himself to be. Touching him, it's no different to touching a gun or a sword and holds no deeper significance. And so there's a fractional delay before he nods his acquiescence.]

Yes. Go ahead.

[The smooth rise and fall of bladed shoulders before he continues.]

And do you mean, does it hurt? If so, then yes. It causes a constant ache that never really goes away.

[Just the backdrop to his existence, something that has always been a part of him and as such, he doesn't know how it feels to be without it. And on a deeper level than the physical-- well. The collar doesn't bother him. It's a cruel reminder of what he is, yes, but also a point of pride for him. As long as we wear these collars, we're dogs, he's said it before, would say it again-- he knows to whom he belongs, as any loyal hound should, the collar an eternal reminder.]

All right.

( He's not wrong to think it's horror which she is displaying, because it is. But he is wrong to think it's horror at him. It's at the fact that people are so cruel, so--what she knows that they can be. Hers is a professional eye trained by decades dedicated to her craft, and she's seen all manners of things, but never something quite like this: such blatant disregard for life, whether created or otherwise. And, to top it off, perpetrated by someone arrogant enough to call themselves a doctor.

How could she not be horrified? How could she not feel intense and urgent and impotent hatred at such a mock to her profession?

His smile is hidden to her, and that's just as well. His confusing indifference to his own state would only agitate her more.

Her focus is instead on this: the movement of her fingers, hesitating in the air, briefly, shaking, before she makes contact with his skin. Gently, gently, she places her rough--calloused and unmoisturised, she is a woman who works with her hands--palms on his back and just feels for awhile the ways in which his body moves: a heartbeat, contractions of swallowing, the eloquent articulation of muscles as he either speaks or twitches or moves his head to see her.

Then she swallows, and moves her fingers to the collar. Here her touch isn't even that--just a brush of her fingers over the number the metal bears, lest she risk agitating the ache of which he has told her must be bothering him at this very moment. It is, she imagines, exacerbated already by the awareness forced from the attention she is drawing towards it.

And, when she has touched it more than enough, she rests one hand on his shoulder. A steady, firm weight meant to comfort. Not that he needs any of her meagre strength )

Do you know what would happen to you if this were removed? Did they ever threaten you with its removal?

[How much she's able to discern from the mere laying on of hands is hard for him to say, but she'll find every part of him to appear as one would expect of a regular human. A heartbeat, yes, the correct number of ribs, muscles and flesh arranged in the expected way. All organs accounted for and in the usual places. There's the slow rise and fall of his breathing to indicate healthily working lungs, and as such, from the outside, it seems only the collar is different. The collar, the scar, his blood-red irises and the sharp little points of his teeth.

He remains close to motionless as her hands press lightly against him, and in that, too, he is surprised-- there's none of Mother's firm certainty, the causal way She would conduct such an examination, as though She has every right to do with him as She pleases. Which, of course, She does.

There's the vaguest hint of tension in him as her hand now moves to touch the collar, as he expected it eventually would-- the slight, instinctual jump of muscle beneath pale skin, the smallest of indications that it's not something he especially wants to be touched. But in this, too, her touch is light, so light in fact that it causes no discomfort, isn't something he even feels. That moment of tension in him, it passes quickly.

And then finally there's the slight pressure of her palm against his shoulder, and though he takes it as an indication that she's done looking him over, it's not quite something he recognises as comfort or reassurance-- these are things he's never known, and as such their meaning passes him by. Goes quite over his head. Just slightly, he turns to glance back over his shoulder at her, flashes his uneven smile. He seems calm, perfectly collected.]

I'd die.

[He says it simply, without hesitation or outward signs of concern.]

It's a part of the Spine, you see. It's removal is one of the very few things that can kill me. But luckily for me, most would have a hard time doing that.

[Slowly, he shrugs.]

And no, no one has ever threatened to remove it. It would be rather a waste of a functional tool. Hahah.

[He says that, but 'functional' isn't exactly a word that has ever been used to describe him. But right now, flickering thoughts of his own faults and flaws are something he tries to push back and hold in. To momentarily silence.]

( Normally a clean bill of health would have her satisfied and ready to move on to things like piecing together his medical history and giving him tidbits of advice to chew over and digest in his own time. However, with him, it's not just a clean bill of health, is it? The collar, though not polished, catches enough light to, at least to her, emit a cold, cruel glow. She actually hadn't touched it enough to tell if the metal is cool, or warmed by his skin--she had not wanted to cause undue harm and she had taken his flinches as the cues of discomfort that they were. But just the sight of the bite of the collar is enough to make her make her head swim, her stomach churn, and her knees weaken, for the casual malice for life to which it attests; she cannot fathom how immoral one must be to have allowed themselves to actually go through with such a procedure. And it's not amorality, is it, when it's so clear to her that the design of this device was made with ownership in mind, beyond whatever functionality it was also made with?

Given how unmoved he seems, she doesn't know if it will help anymore, but she allows her hand to linger on his shoulder a bit longer as she carefully parses the simple sentences he's spoken. He's not said anything overly obtuse or elusive in meaning, but it is hard for her mind to get a firm grip on what he's saying. Her reflex is to jerk away from any reference someone makes to themselves as a tool, as a weapon, as something, a thing rather than a someone. )

Whatever kind of a tool this is, I pray that it wasn't thrust upon you without your consent. The choice of either life or death--that should be yours to make.

( Frowning, now the tightness in her brow and eyes would reveal webs of wrinkles if she did not treat her own self with certain advantages. Her skin is still young, but the expression which she gives belies her true age. She is an older woman--a woman who has seen so much, and is so weary, she has no energy left to be surprised or shocked by what new cruelties people can unleash upon others.

She looks at him, then, and speaks very slow, considered words. )

If you ever want this gone, come to me. We can look into potential treatments and options. I cannot guarantee anything, of course, but I promise you I will do my best. Here I am...severely limited in what facilities are available to me, but I have learnt how to make due with less.

( Then, a squeeze to his shoulder, a tiny nudge of sincerity, perhaps of hopeful comfort, in addition to a promise to become, once more, a miracle worker for a patient. )

I have helped people who've lost much more, to recover, and to live.

[Had her fingers lingered a little longer, she'd have discerned that the collar is chill to the touch, a disconcerting kind of coolness that never goes away. Something he feels down to the centre of himself, at times, if he's properly attending to it-- a bonedeep glacial piercing, another sharp-edged reminder of all that he is and all he can never be. In comparison, his own skin is always slightly too warm, as though he's running a slight fever despite his apparent perfect health. Kerberos, the beast in him-- it asserts itself in a myriad different ways.

But as things stand, her hand lingers only on his shoulder, and for now Giovanni remains poised where he is, as though awaiting her permission to move or officially consider the examination over. It's so easy to fall into these expected habits, his ideas of what a doctor should be and do, despite her obvious differences from the kind of 'doctor' he's accustomed to.

But then her words come, and he's unable to hold back on a barked-out laugh, a sharp and jarring kind of sound that lances through the companionable quiet of their conversation.]

My consent.

[And his tone, it's a sardonic slide, a dry refutation of the very term. That level of autonomy-- it's never been for him. At the very least, he's good enough to elaborate.]

The implantation was made before I ever gained consciousness. From the first moment I opened my eyes, it was already a part of me. It's all I've ever known.

[Again, as if in response to the faint squeeze of her hand (the strange shock of warmth it elicits from him, some vague feeling he can't name), there's once again the dismissive rise and fall of his shoulders. All casual, easy grace.]

And whilst I'm sure you believe you're offering me something of value, I wouldn't want you to remove the Spine any more than a human would want you to cut out their heart. This is what I am. What I always will be.

One of Mother's dogs.

Edited 2017-08-14 12:23 (UTC)

( Such a strange temperature differential, she's missed, then. An apparent lack of the basic laws of thermodynamics would have had her questioning him even more, so perhaps it's for the best that she doesn't linger. There's already enough to be concerned about, to press him about, without adding weird physics on top of it.

At the laugh she removes her hand--it's time. She doesn't need to see anymore of him, really, and the jolt of discomfort that rattles around her own spine makes her want to reserve some of herself, for herself. She is a woman who is used to being her own source of comfort.

So, her hands go to her lap, where she digs her nails into her skin through the nano-weave fibre of her leggings. The pain this causes her is a bright counterpoint to the coldness seeping into her skin from somewhere. Something, a thing which she cannot see, is stealing her heat, like a shade sucking away her energy, the colour has drained from her face and left only a pallor on her usually stately cheeks. )

Is that ( Here, the shortest of pauses, the shortest of stumblings. She can force her voice to be calm, though. ) what your mother told you?

I admit I don't know anything about this procedure, but, if you thought it would help you, I would do my best to--undo it. I would never cut out someone's heart, that's true. But I would replace it if they needed a new one.

[he hears it though, the little misstep, that faltering moment before the return of calm. Again, turned away from her, it has him smiling a cold empty smile, the realisation that all of this horrifies her. It's to be expected, and he knows this. Is fully aware of what he is and of the take most would have of Mother's actions-- that what She's done to him is something monstrous and twisted and wrong.

He doesn't entirely disagree.

But her hand has fallen away from him, and so finally he turns to face her again, the livid scar now concealed, and only part of the cruel, stark collar left on show.]

That I'll always be Her dog? It never needed to be said, back there. I'm no stray. I know to whom I belong.

[Again, that casual easy shrug, all fluid motion, and whilst he retains that smooth and confident drawl, there's a steel beneath his words now. A certainty.][He lets the words hang there for just a moment, wanting them to sink down into her-- on this one point he's an immovable object, refuses to bend. But then he smiles that crooked smile of his, infinitesimally relaxes.]

If you're done looking, may I get dressed?

Please.

( All she can muster is that one word, still reeling from what he's unloaded, as an intended assault or otherwise, at her before that. Whether meant to have an effect upon her or not, it doesn't matter, because who couldn't react to such a set of statements as that? How could they not be floored and devastated? These things he says are odd, untrue, and evidence of such endemic and unfathomable abuse. She does not know how to react, not now.

The one thing she does know, is this: whoever this woman is, it is best that she not wake up. She's guaranteed to try and recreate the chaos and cruelty and corruption she was allowed to get away with in her own world. Such a capricious person is beyond caring, and so is unable to be convinced to change.

Angela, if she had the chance, would be a part the team to stop this woman. Whether it was a legal strike or not.

As for Giovanni, once he's clothed again, allowed to resume the dignity and protection that they give, she resists the urge to touch him and offers him this: )

Whatever you are, you are not a dog. You can clearly stand on two feet.

[Having gained her permission, her assertion that her physical examination of him is over, he reaches for his shirt, begins to dress. His actions are smooth and fluid, meticulous in their precision, attending to his appearance with a quiet and obvious care. Shirt, tie, cufflinks, jacket-- he says nothing as he reorders himself, smooths down his freshly donned clothes until he looks as sharp and flawless as he had just a short while before. The cruel glint of the collar, the savagery of his one enduring scar-- it's all tucked out of sight now, neatly hidden, reducing his appearance to something that could almost (almost) pass for normal. If one were to ignore his too-sharp teeth, the blood red glint of his eyes.

He looks back at her, once he's done. Smiles his uneven smile, and there's something in his expression then, a quiet refutation. You are not a dog she says, but he knows that this is untrue. Knows it down to the loamy centre of himself-- perhaps if she were to see him in a moment of unbridled violence, see the beast in him come to the fore, maybe then she'd understand that he's no more a man than a wolf is.

Or perhaps she'd see something else, something he's incapable of seeing in himself. It's impossible to know.]

I don't expect you to understand. I doubt anyone could, unless they're from down there.

[It's why he always knew that to leave would be impossible, no matter what Heine had done, no matter what Mother did to him. He's a product of that twisted place and the world outside could never be for him...only now he's been thrust into it quite against his will, and the weight of that fact presses heavy on him. He still doesn't believe he can survive it, out here on his own, with no-one to hold the leash.]

But I'm a dog, all right. Just a different breed from the sort you're thinking of. Hahah.

( It's something of a blessing that she doesn't realise how he interrupted her quick, one-word answer as granting permission. Already she's upset on a visceral level, shaken to the core of herself when confronted by the depravity of a human she isn't exactly surprised by, but is affronted by on a personal level. Normally, she can maintain distance. Normally, she can find a goal, a purpose, something to achieve and focus on doing that instead of getting drawn into the messy and unproductive mire of weighing morals.

But what is there to do here? She cannot take his pain away, she cannot undo what this woman has done to him, and he doesn't want her to in the first place. There is a war raging within her, roiling her stomach and flaying her nerves, making her strain against her too-tight skin encased in her claustrophobic suit. Watching him resemble himself with so much deliberate care, she is reminded of her own ceremonious manner of donning her armour, and it is not a comforting sight.

Yet, outwardly, she is able to preserve a veneer of her professionalism cultivated over the course of all her years of service.

She meets his gaze when he gives it. No longer after she's learnt what's underneath, will she be unnerved by his teeth or remarkable eyes.

Unwavering, she does not ask him if he's literally saying he's from hell. )

Maybe I don't understand where you are from, but I have been a doctor long enough to be qualified to know a human when I see him. You can say what you like, but, in my professional opinion, I do not think there is any point in debating with you your species, Giovanni.

So. ( She turns, then, from him, and starts to write in her notebook, the movements of her pen able to disgusting the slight endemic tremors in her fingers. ) I will not be sending you to a vet. No matter how many times you may ask me for a referral.

[And perhaps it is hell, or something close to it, so far below the city's surface that even those who dwell in the Underground are largely unaware of its existence, know it only through legends and horror stories, the monsters that creep from the depths and snatch up the Underground's denizens, never to be seen again. That facility at the city's rotten core, where beasts are made and creatures created only to fight and die and be taken apart and used to create something new, or worse, become fodder for the next generation of genetically engineered abominations.

His dreams are always whiteredblack, the screams that echo in his ears the floors and walls coated with blood as his 'siblings' tore each other apart, forced to, at Mother's command. It haunts him down to his very bones, probably always will. Literally hell-- it's not a bad discription.

But he gives no outward sign of it. Observes her with a detached kind of coolness as she makes her incorrect pronouncement. That she can mistake him for human only serves to confound him, to irritate in some minor way because surely it's clear that he's nothing of the sort, just a thing created in human shape. But he chooses not to belabour the point, knows himself even if she cannot, and when her final response comes he barks out a rapidfire laugh, seems at least genuinely amused by it.]

Suit yourself.

[He shrugs, loose-shouldered. Dismissive.]

But look, I'm quite all right. I hope you've satisfied yourself of that, now.

[Quite all right, he says. As if he's ever been any such thing.]

( It's almost like he's sassing her, or fighting back, rather than slinking around what he doesn't want to face, and it's refreshing. Suddenly faced with this, it's almost like she perks up, back a fraction straighter and a quicksliver flash of a smirk crossing her lips. This quickening of amusement lingers, too, as she stops writing and turns to face him, pen poised halfway through the looping arc of a g.

Very carefully, she puts her pen down and observes him. She does not speak, and for this handful of seconds, if he cannot read her odd interest in his response, then perhaps it might seem up in the air whether her examination is truly over or not. Her concern of that is suspended however, for this moment, while she seeks his gaze and means to hold it.

And, when she is satisfied with that, primly shifting, she returns without a word to resume her work.

At least the cold sweats are gone. The threatened sluice down her spine felt like icicles raking the small of her back. )

And I hope you are satisfied with yourself. A clean bill of health. But with some caveats.

( She lapses into one more silence filled with the scratching of her pens, a possibly scathing sound with so little else to distract from it. Then, finally, she turns to face him fully with her hands clasped in her lap. )

Thank you for coming to see me, Givoanni, and allowing me to examine you.

[Well. If it's sass and snark and a cutting tongue that assures her of his underlying personality, if it's something that she likes to see, she'll be glad to find - in time - that he has plenty more where that came from. That he doesn't always slink and slide around the shape of things he doesn't want to overtly attend to. That he has, despite everything that he's done and has had done to him, a sense of humour.

But for the moment there's her sudden perking up, her gaze that catches his, and Giovanni can't quite discern the meaning of it. Cants his head in that disconcertingly canine gesture of his, one brow slightly raised, lips curled into the hint of an uncertain smile. And then the moment breaks, she turns away, leaving Giovanni to mentally shrug it off, his awareness switching to her words instead.]

Some caveats.

[He says it a little dryly, his words a smooth sardonic drawl, but he asks for no further clarifications. Not today. And as she turns back towards him finally he graces her with the upward tilt of his chin, a widening of his serrated smile.]

You're quite welcome. Should you require anything further, I trust that you'll be in contact. But for now, am I dismissed? I suppose that, whilst I'm here on the station, I have some other business I ought to attend to.

[By business what he really means is slinking around and skulking about beside Mother's pod, by Heine's. Assuring himself that they are here and well, and willing them to wake up >.>]

( His canine confusion and possible thrice of curious intrigue are both things she misses, as she actually does engage herself in a few concentrated couple of moments to write down what she needs to. It's important to recount things accurately, while it is still fresh, as she has not yet had time to bias her own observations with other impressions. First impressions, being what they are, are important as the salient bits of information that they are.

He also doesn't seem to have been lying to her about anything. That makes things easier for her, if not also refreshing and interesting. He has a vision of what he sees himself as, and he had tried so very hard to get her to see this version, too. To make her believe in it. )

Yes. What we've been over already..

( She finishes up and closes her book, and this time, his unnaturally sharp smile really doesn't unsettle her. It's just another quirk, and she wonders ideally if he did that himself. The darker side of the thought is that it's another thing done to him, but it quickly passes as she shakes her head and purses her lips. )

I'm not going to dismiss you since I am not in any way keeping you here against your will. But you are free to go, young man, if you don't need anything else from me.

( Her book is closes already, but she caps her pen now, and places both that and her hand on its cover. )

[The teeth, of course, are all part of his design, a deliberate tweak in his genetics, whilst the shape of his smiles themselves-- well. When one lives among wolves one must learn to become a wolf, or risk being torn apart. The mask he wears, it fits him like a second skin, and has now been a part of him for so long that it has, in part, become him. A necessary adornment in a world where weakness isn't tolerated.

The terrified, tearful child he'd once been has all but been crushed from existence.

And in response to her not-quite dismissal, he laughs, just a quiet ripple of sound.]

It's only polite to ask, isn't it? You did, after all, invite me to come here.

[Never mind that - as she seems to have devised on her own - his asking is at least in part a habit born from expecting to need permission.]

Whatever the case, it's been a pleasure to meet with you again, Dr. Ziegler. However unnecessary I might consider a medical check-up to be.

[And he lingers for only one fractional moment, seems caught on the precipice of saying something else, words hovering around him as though they can almost (almost) be discerned. But then finally, he shrugs. Smiles once more.]

Man sieht sich.

[And he turns, then, to show himself out.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

closed

whispers quietly i see those omom lyrics

.///. I love the music, and so much of it suits Giovanni ahah

ahh and that's just such a good album too i approve

yes, it's such a good one!

did you see the lyric video too? the twins in it are so adorable ;;

I did, yes!! So adorable <3

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ack, words missing. he basically said removing the collar is the worst thing he can think of

ah, noted!

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