[ he loses her almost immediately under a barrage of things Eleven does not know or understand - hypothesis, schmear, prediction, subsequently, iterate...
she gets stuck on two things she does understand. ]
Are you... hungry?
[ She steels herself a little for the next question. ]
Are you... a scientist? Do you... do you experiment?
[ Three guesses as to what put that edge of tension in her voice, Peter. Three guesses as to why Eleven sounds like she doesn't actually want an answer. Thre guesses as to her trauma. ]
I— [ it clicks. the lingering questions he'd had after their first meeting have been answered by her second question, and he winces (way to go, parker). whilst the expression itself isn't visible, it's there in the pause, in the silence before he answers. ]
Friends don't lie, right? [ he repeats, any levity all but gone; an audible inhale, then: ] Yeah. It was my passion at school, and I studied biochemistry at college. The plan was to go into STEM, but things didn't quite work out like that — for a long time, the closest I got was teaching at my old high school. I had a company for a while, but we were more tech focused — on making things to help people.
[ a beat. ] I can't say we — I — don't do experiments, but they're not what you think. I know you've only got my word, but I would never do anything that would hurt anyone. [ he can't say there isn't a human element, because of anything, human trials are always one of the last steps where relevant; he's not even sure if saying 'but consent is always required' would even make it better. ] Anyone that does is a bad scientist, okay?
[ There were many men and women at the lab. They did their jobs. Some, she knows, didn't like what was done at the lab. She insisted on showing mercy to one. She remembers his face, remembers the red rage, remember flinging the gun away with a twitch of her head.
Not all bad men want to be bad men.
But some still are.
They follow orders.
Papa was a bad man.
Papa gave the orders.
Peter wasn't there.
Peter is not a bad man.
Papa was was a bad man.
Papa was bad.
Peter is not.
Papa was.
Papa.
She feels the hands in her hair, short cropped so they can place things on her head. She feels the hands on her arms, so tight they bruise, dragging her through sterile, white dark corridors. She feels the hands on her back, pressing on the knobs of her spine, and the sound of pens scribbling, and Papa deeming Experiment 011 healthy enough.
It feels hands on its shoulder and pricks of needles and hands on its cheeks.
Experiment 011 huddles in the corner of its cell, knees up and face hidden and knows better than to struggle against their hold and their pull and their push.
[ peter waits for a bit before realising that a response isn't coming. he doesn't want to make any assumptions about her response or how she's feeling, other than whoops, maybe that was the wrong response? it's a little while later then that he sends a message, switching back to text: ]
Hey, El. If you want to talk at some point, I'll be around. If not, I get it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
savingthrows) wrote2019-07-31 01:14 am
no subject
she gets stuck on two things she does understand. ]
Are you... hungry?
[ She steels herself a little for the next question. ]
Are you... a scientist? Do you... do you experiment?
[ Three guesses as to what put that edge of tension in her voice, Peter. Three guesses as to why Eleven sounds like she doesn't actually want an answer. Thre guesses as to her trauma. ]
no subject
Friends don't lie, right? [ he repeats, any levity all but gone; an audible inhale, then: ] Yeah. It was my passion at school, and I studied biochemistry at college. The plan was to go into STEM, but things didn't quite work out like that — for a long time, the closest I got was teaching at my old high school. I had a company for a while, but we were more tech focused — on making things to help people.
[ a beat. ] I can't say we — I — don't do experiments, but they're not what you think. I know you've only got my word, but I would never do anything that would hurt anyone. [ he can't say there isn't a human element, because of anything, human trials are always one of the last steps where relevant; he's not even sure if saying 'but consent is always required' would even make it better. ] Anyone that does is a bad scientist, okay?
I'm sorry, El.
CW for PTSD, human experiments, flashback
Not all bad men want to be bad men.
But some still are.
They follow orders.
Papa was a bad man.
Papa gave the orders.
Peter wasn't there.
Peter is not a bad man.
Papa was was a bad man.
Papa was bad.
Peter is not.
Papa was.
Papa.
She feels the hands in her hair, short cropped so they can place things on her head. She feels the hands on her arms, so tight they bruise, dragging her through sterile, white dark corridors. She feels the hands on her back, pressing on the knobs of her spine, and the sound of pens scribbling, and Papa deeming Experiment 011 healthy enough.
It feels hands on its shoulder and pricks of needles and hands on its cheeks.
Experiment 011 huddles in the corner of its cell, knees up and face hidden and knows better than to struggle against their hold and their pull and their push.
To Peter's message, there is no response. ]
no subject
Hey, El. If you want to talk at some point, I'll be around. If not, I get it.
Just take care of yourself, okay?
- Peter