[log] In the creaking darkness [closed?]

[ecks]

Characters: Ecks and Wilson
Location Building 124 (split tunnels entrance)
Date: Day 136
Summary: A meeting of the House Toleraters Club
Warnings: People with bad taste in friends

124: This house, covered in snow, is dark and cold, but better than outside. The snow presses in on the windows and makes the roof creak and groan whenever it shifts, but it seems to be holding up alright. It's a standard, single-story house with a living room, single bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. The house is sparsely furnished, unfortunately with mostly metal There's a back door leading off into darkness, but it isn't locked.

Comments

[ecks]

Ecks tilts her head at him, an eery, off-kilter sort of motion. "What kinds of things about the other kind? The other kind of doctor experiments. They are doctors because they learn things about bodies and magic."

[oh_negative]

Now there's magic in the mix? Magic came up a couple of times in his chats with the welcome wagon on the network, but hearing it out loud in person like this feels twice as insane. Wilson watches her for a moment, trying to figure out if she's just messing with him. She probably knows he's new here, or if she didn't know already then she's probably figured it out by now. He's an easy mark. Despite her strange way of speaking, though, she doesn't sound like she's lying. Hmm.

"What sort of experiments do they do? We don't, um, we don't have magic where I'm from." He shrugs. "Our doctors rely on science."

[ecks]

"I have heard about science," allows Ecks. She's heard rather a lot about science, really. She still thinks it is very strange that there are doctors that do not use magic at all, but it is good that there because they are useful here.

She fidgets with her shovel, debating how much to tell him. Nothing about her personal involvement, she decides. "Sometimes they cut people apart and put them back together differently," she says. "Or try different kinds of magic on them to see what happens."

[oh_negative]

Wilson has a sneaking suspicion that Ecks has more firsthand experience with this experimentation than she's letting on. That would certainly explain her appearance, anyway. But Wilson has social grace and will not ask about it. That would be rude. If she wants to tell him, she will.

"Interesting," he says instead, and it's a genuine reaction. It is interesting, if horribly unethical and at least a little frightening. "That's definitely not how we do things where I'm from, but..." Though he suspects Ecks has personal ties to this subject, he can't get a read on her emotions regarding it. She sounds rather indifferent, really. "Do they learn a lot from those methods, at least?"

[ecks]

"Yes. They learn many things. Many things are possible because of experiments." Things like creating people out of corpses, for instance. That's not really something to bring up, though.

"But I think it is mostly better to heal people," she adds. "Mostly people do not want to be experimented upon."

[oh_negative]

"Well, that's a reasonable thing to want," Wilson says, a little more sarcastically than he intended. It's just too absurd. What kind of place must she be from if she needs to assure him that people don't appreciate experimentation? "Aren't there laws against it, then, if it hurts people?"

On second thought, there probably are. Laws just don't do much to stop some people. Some people.

[ecks]

"Laws are for cows," says Ecks almost automatically, the phrase springing naturally to mind the moment he brings up the idea of there being laws against the things the gnomes of the Fleshworks do. "The other kind of doctor does not obey cow-laws because the cow is not their god."

[oh_negative]

"Oh," he says, and then he says it again when she finishes speaking. He thought she was being sarcastic, but apparently cows really do factor into the equation here. "I don't think we have those kinds of gods where I'm from. Typically, we keep our doctoring separate from our religious affiliations."

[ecks]

They what.

"How?" asks Ecks, perturbed. She knows, on some level, that Doctor House is a godless healer, but Doctor House is strange in many ways, and she's sort of assumed he's not the norm. "Everything we did was what our god wanted."

[oh_negative]

Wilson makes a face, taken aback by her statement. It's clear at this point that they come from two very different worlds, but that's not really what catches his attention. "I'm sorry, did you say 'we'?" He asks not as if to judge her, but as if he's genuinely curious. Which, he is.

[ecks]

Ohshit.

Ecks freezes up, silent. She did just say 'we' and she understands the implications. She hears that curiosity. She also hears judgment that is not there.

"No," she says after much too long a pause. At least her voice is still steady and flat, if too fast now. "I did not say we. I do not have any involvement."

[oh_negative]

Wilson picks up on Ecks' apprehension, her backtracking. His heart sinks. He shouldn't have said anything. "It's okay," he says with as comforting a tone as possible (which is pretty comforting; he's James Wilson, after all). "I'm in no position to judge. I don't know how things work where you're from."

He pauses. Was that the right thing to say? He's not sure. He's not sure about anything lately.

"We don't have to talk about it if you're uncomfortable."

[ecks]

It is not really okay, though. She knows that it is not okay to murder people and perform medical experiments on them, because she knows she would not want those things done to her.

She is uncomfortable, though. Best not reveal anything else.

"I am tired," she lies. She has done nothing but rest. "I would prefer to sleep now."

[oh_negative]

"Oh. Okay." Her sudden disengagement catches him by surprise. He hopes it's not because of anything he said, but he can't shake the feeling that it is.

"All right. Goodnight, Ecks."

He settles in to browse his tablet for awhile before turning in himself.

[ecks]

It is not so much the things he's said as the things she has said. Ecks does not know how to navigate this conversation without telling him things she does not want anyone to know, let alone a stranger -- and so she will simply not.

"Goodnight," she says, glad for the darkness. It will be easier to pretend that she is asleep this way.