teapotshark — Roleplayer Guild

Tony

The strange man's eyes fixed on Tony as he spoke, and he felt his momentary confidence fizzle out. His shoulders slumped some and his steel tone faded into distant memory. He never was that well spoken for long, not with unfamiliar people. He could talk for days with Chris, almost like he became an entirely different person when he didn't have her around to serve as his comfort blanket. He fiddled with the stripped ends of the orange wires, but his mind was only half on the task now; he turned so introspective he almost forgot he shared the attic with a worryingly unstable man.

He was pulled from his reverie by Cat's question. It struck him like a whip and left him with his mouth half open in preparation for words that would not come. Did Cat have a place in a new and better world? Tony's ideal society could never be a reality, no one's could. Humans thrived on spontaneity, their actions largely driven by instinct, and that made everything unpredictable. Tony's brows came together in concentration. “Yes,” he finally said, voice gone soft again. “Even people like you.” As terrifying as Cat was – the images of the bloody and beaten dog still floated in Tony's thoughts – perhaps he could be rehabilitated.

No sooner had he answered the question, Cat clambered around Tony's neatly arranged lines of motherboards and cards and wires, and came to sit behind him. Every muscle in Tony's body tensed, his hands, tangled in the box of wires, clamped around the cords. The skin on his back crawled. Had Cat been disarmed? Could he be hiding a knife somewhere? When he felt Cat's strong, imprisoning arms caging him, Tony's blood ran ice cold, pulse racing until the ice reached his heart. His vision blurred and the attic spun around him once, then again... he swayed a moment, before going limp in the other man's arms.

Chris

She watched Mercy for the slightest sign she could see straight through the lie, and found nothing. Chris relaxed somewhat, and when she saw the other woman blush again her muscles loosened and she smiled. Everything back to normal again. But when did smiling become 'normal'? “Tony will want to stay a while,” she found herself admitting. There was no harm in telling Mercy what Tony wanted, and it was the truth. For a brief moment she wondered if Mercy would care at all, beyond her natural concern for others, whether Chris and Tony stayed.

“Yeah, we could last a while here. It's a miracle this place survived, the animals, the food. It'd be some kind of rude not to take advantage of it.” Closing the front door behind them, Chris tossed her braid back over her shoulder and strode towards the voices. It still felt unsettling not to have her weapons on her, when the rest of the group were likely to be carrying theirs. She cursed her earlier sleep-dulled mind. She slowed again when she heard Mercy's thanks, and opened her mouth to respond before the sound of her name shut her up.

Few people used her whole name, Tony and her grandfather included. Usually the sound of it on another person's lips felt uncomfortably strange, but she liked the way Mercy said it. Though that she did enjoy it struck her as just as odd. “I will. Don't worry about it, though, he won't mind at all. He just likes to help how he can,” Chris replied, smiling. She shifted where she stood, then made for the kitchen again. As she stepped through the door, the sight almost sent her head spinning: people eating breakfast at a table, together. It wasn't something she ever thought she would see again. She shook herself. “Hey, any of you seen Tony? Dark hair, glasses, doesn't say much?”

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