❝ you're the color of my blood ❞

[apolune]

[The worst morning of Une's life begins with a sunrise like any other, dark skies heralding the sun with pale pink hues that soon fade into the blue of a clear day. Light peers at her through the curtains of her hotel room window, urging her to rouse from beneath her sheets. Eyes still shut tight, she clings to yesterday when another body shared her bed. There's plenty of space for her to toss and turn yet she stays to the left side of her mattress, insensible as it is. After all, housekeeping came and went the day before, taking away the last traces of her lover; changing her bedding and stealing away the smell of his hair and skin. Yet somehow, she can't bring herself not to leave an empty space for him, somewhere for the image in her head to reside.

There's a tingle to her parched throat as she runs her dry tongue over the back of her teeth. Much as she resists, her body begins to answer the day's call to waking. With a groan into her pillow, she forces herself to sit up, long brown hair falling all over her face. Seconds pass between a few deep breaths before she lets her feet touch the carpeted floor, pain radiating from between her thighs down to her legs. Naked, she walks to the bathroom, shivering as warm carpet turns to cold tile. She washes her mouth out and spits with all the distaste she has for what lies beyond her room.

Brunch at 11. Pitch the strategy for lunar economic growth. Discourage the tax hike.

Dirty politics always goes down better with rich food and morning cocktails. Vice on top of vice. It's their playing field, not hers. Running the faucet, she splashes water on her face even as it runs through her fingers. Her reflection is one she doesn't dwell upon; lipstick smudged around her mouth as a garish complement to bloodshot eyes still smeared with mascara from the night before. She turns the spigot off, splaying her hands to touch frigid marble on either side of the sink as she slumps, watching the water go down the drain.

I can't keep doing this. I can't just-

The shrill ring of her room's landline steals her thought away, forcing her to stand at attention and grab her bathrobe. Cursing under her breath, she wraps herself in terrycloth, lacing the belt as she grabs the phone from its cradle.]

What is it?

[No pleasantries and a tone short and sharp enough to qualify as a switchblade. At her beside table, the clock blares 0900 with bright red numbers on its display.

We were just concerned about you, Ms. Une. The car you took last night...

Her hand trembles even as she keeps the speaker to her ear.]

What happened?

[There was an accident, ma'am. About a mile from your hotel. The car was totaled and-

Time bends just then as she slams the phone back down onto its cradle, frantic to grab her cell. Dial this, dial that. She's breathing heavy as she tries not to scream at every press contact she has confirming the news.

This has got to be a mistake, a joke, a hoax... Those bastards are messing with me.

Hospital address. Room number. The words flow into her ears and move from pen to paper as she paces her suite in a daze.

This can't be real.

Within an hour, she's moved to pacing in a hospital lobby, smartly dressed in a skirt suit with her high heels clicking against linoleum. Did she even bother to paint her face? Did she drive herself here? All of it fades to the back of her mind as she awaits clearance to head up and see the man who survived the crash.

There was a fatality but one of them survived. We're not sure if it was the driver or the passenger...

Even as her press contact spoke to her on the phone, her ribs seemed to close around her heart and lungs.

It has to be Warsman. It just has to be.

She'd wish death on an innocent man just to see him again. Selfish. Cruel. If Warsman had perished, she'd deserve the pain she got.

Ms. Une, you can head up now.

On shaky legs, she steps into the elevator, heart pounding as it ascends. Once the doors open, she enters a hall bathed in white and the harsh scent of antiseptics.

This way, please.

The nurse's white cap bobs as she walks and Une follows blindly until they reach the third room to the right. With a bow, the nurse leaves Une to turn the knob herself. Swallowing her fear and the lump in her throat, she pushes the door open and steps inside. On the bed, a hulking man lies battered, purple bruises blooming on his tanned skin, oxygen tubes feeding into his mask.

Her legs finally give out from under her, and she falls to her knees, hands clapped over her mouth as she tries and fails to hold back tears. Both relief and horror wash over her, neither granting her any sense of respite.]

Comments

[mouthbreathing]

[[Ȩ̡͞R̴̡R҉͠Ǫ͜R͏̷̢̢ : F͝I̧͘G̴̕͞HT͘I̢̨N̕G͠͠_͜CO̶MP͞U̵̡T͘Ę͟R͡.E͢͠҉X͠É̸ ̢͝H́À̛͟S͞͡͠ ̶̨E͏Ņ̵C̀O̧UN҉̸TE̸͟͏R̸͢ĘD A͜ ̷̛Ṕ͠Ŕ̷͢ÓB̡̀͏L̛͝͠E̷̴̸M̸̵

À̢T̴̀͞T͝È͠M̶̸P҉Ţ҉I͜N̶͏G͠͡ ͏̡R͘ȨB͠OO̧T͜

AT͝T́EM̵̨PT̵I̕͏Ń̡͟G͞

R͜E͠C̵O̧N͠F͟IG̡UŖA͝T̶ION̡ ̴SU͠CC͞ES͞S͜FUL̷. INIT͝IATE ̀REP̕AI͞R͞ S̢EQU̸EN͡C̛E?

. . . . .

Warsman is incapable of pinpointing the precise moment when awareness finally broke through the fog of that endless nothing; it's like opening his eyes in a dark room, like having the temperature slowly raised in a bath. Imperceptible. Even as his mind begins to warm over again he can't seem to make it snag on anything. All around him is little more than an absence, smooth and resistant to the blind ministrations of his consciousness in the way of deep space, that silent cage. A matrix.

Within, though: life. Or electricity. Don't try to tell him they aren't the same thing. It's the only way he can be sure that he is at all- or, indeed, that he is a he. But it's starting to stream back to him now, that he is, and sooner or later (he can't tell which) a name emerges from the hypertrophic thrummings of his cerebral cortex: WARSMAN. He is a sophisticated robo-choujin wrestler whose functionality is at a little less than 12.23%, his name is Warsman.

And the last thing he has has recorded is impact.

From there, as his memory core repairs every fractured bit of data, it's only a matter of watching the complex web of thoughts and feelings weave itself. It would kill him stone cold if he were capable of really taking it in, but as it is Warsman feels little more than a distant fascination, as though he were watching another body construct itself. Once upon a time, a brutish ogre and a beautiful woman met and fell in love. Absently, he notes the make and the colour of the car that blindsided them, the fraction of its number plate his ocular sensors could catch. Then...

SENSORY SYSTEMS AVAILABLE. REBOOTING: AURAL SENSORS. . . SUCCESSFUL.

The first thing he hears, beyond the sick thump of his pulse, is a high-pitched beeping. At first he wonders if it isn't some internal alarm, but his sensors are still adjusting themselves and a moment later he's swamped by distant voices, footsteps, an ambulance in the distance. After his silence it's almost too much to take in, and in a way he's grateful for the distraction because if it weren't there he might have to recognise that black morass of emotion he's been secretly acquiring in the backwaters of his heart. He's alive and he's in hospital. That's more than he could ever have hoped to ask for.

Only when the knowledge comes that his olefactory system is online does he truly feel its weight, like a kick in the gut. In the air he smells shampoo, and skin, and the blush of makeup, and in the chaos he hears a sob- and he knows all of it better than he knows himself.

Elle.]

[prevents]

[Still reeling, Une forces herself to her feet, stumbling toward the seat by his bedside in her high-heeled shoes. Tears leave a salty trail down her cheeks as she settles into the chair, all too afraid to touch him lest she cause him any more harm than she already has. Bruises cover the entirety of his body, angry red and purple marks over rippling muscle. There's a crack down the front of his mask and the doctors have forced his metal mouth open, running a breathing tube down his throat.

It's quiet. She can't hear the air going into his lungs like she usually does, oxygen noisily passing through the machinery in his body. Instead, life support has taken over, leaving the room all too silent. With a shaky hand she reaches out and lays a hand on his bruised chest, trying to feel for his heartbeat.]

I'm so sorry. If it hadn't been for me, this would never have happened.

[mouthbreathing]

[The sounds of heartbreak are clipped short by the sound of her heels, too smart and neat to carry them nearer. But then, she's always been that way, hasn't she? A delicate core surrounded by a harder shell, beautiful but in a distant sort of way. In some sense, she's more like a machine than Warsman has ever been.

Until now. Now the space between them has widened, deepened to a gulf; he hears her reach out and touch him, and all but the slightest pressure is swept away into the void of his wounded senses, while the memory of her soft palms taunts him in his dark, quiet mind. He may not be able to feel it, but he can remember it. Only too well. And when she speaks...

Something deep inside of him constricts with the sheer force of his frustration. What he wants to do is put his hand over hers and tell her she's wrong, but no matter how hard he wills his body to move it lies as still as a corpse but for what feels like a hard tension that balls itself up in the pit of his stomach. Whether it's real or imagined doesn't matter. It's all he can do for her right now, and it's killing him.

All he needs is time. Once he's repaired, he'll put her right and hold her again, and if he focuses on that it will happen. It will.]

[prevents]

[Wiping away at her tears with the back of her hand, she smears her make-up. Outside, the press is likely starting a feeding frenzy but she can't find it in herself to care what face she might end up plastering on the evening news. All that matters is here and now; being by his side, trying to bring him back to the land of the waking with little more than the hope in her heart.

She grips one of his hulking hands in both of her smaller ones, leaning down to kiss it as she shudders and tries to hold back her tears. Wake up. Please. Come back to me.

The heart monitor beeps on, failing to register a spike of any sort. Here they stay, trapped with naught but silence to keep them company. On the wall, time marches on as the clock's hands dance forward upon its face. Soon enough, a knock snaps Une out of her catatonia as a nurse sweeps into the room.

Visiting hours are over, ma'am. It's time to go.

Is it? If it were up to Une, she'd have him moved to her estate, bring in the best doctors to care for him while making sure he never left her side. But right now, that isn't possible. The press would raise a fuss and make transport downright impossible.]

Right. I suppose I'll return in the morning.

[It pains her to let his hand go as she rises from her seat, walking to the door in a daze. She doesn't remember getting home or falling asleep. Did she go back to the hotel or to her residence? Does it matter? She moves through the world with blinders on, letting the hours blur until she's back at his bedside.

When she returns in the morning, she has a book under her arm, one of many they purchased on their little date: The Complete Robot. He'd laughed when she'd taken it off the shelf. Right now, she'd give anything to hear him laugh again.]

I miss you.

[The back of her hand caresses his mask as she opens the book onto her lap.]

Thought I'd do some reading today. Maybe give you something good to dream about.

[mouthbreathing]

[Time has been a healer, if not for Warsman's heart or mind, then for his body. Little by little, almost imperceptibly to all but the most sophisticated equipment, the micro-machinations of his body piece together his ruined hardware. Every now and then his consciousness emerges from the oblivion, swimming in and out of consciousness to a new restoration. In the night, his pressures mointors came back on line: he felt the linen of the bed, the tube in his throat, the wires under his skin.

This morning, it was his sight. By the time his visitor arrives he's only just adjusted to the light streaming in through his over-sensitive optic sensors. The result is that, as the tall, elegant shape of a woman steps into the room it takes a moment for him to register her face as a whole: he sees the elegant curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips, the eyes that promise everything but give nothing.

By the time she touches his mask, his entire body has weakened in deference to love. Elle.

The name forms in his throat, but with no way to be spoken it chokes him there, too. She came back for him, just as she promised, risking the balancing act that is her reputation, and he can't even acknowledge her with a single word. If his eyes could light up they could at least let her know that her words have touched him, but even the simplest of gestures are beyond him still, and all while her presence taunts his senses. It's like being trapped behind a one-way mirror.

So focused is Warsman on her, absorbing what he can of her presence, that he doesn't even register the book in her lap. Nor, in fact, does he register something more important: the delicate rush of gooseflesh making its way across his thighs and arms, hidden beneath the sheets. A single touch could spread it like wildfire.]