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 Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:45 pm
Faustite was in the office again after enough bureaucratic nonsense piled up that he had to attend to himself. While he considered whittling a stamp of his signature and giving it to Albite for occasions like these, the level of chaos and wanton destruction to Faustite's reputation that would result from such an irresponsible move somehow deterred him. He did, however, find Albite a stamp. It said Hello, my name is ___ instead.
As Faustite sat on his stool, shedding ash and curses alike, he leaned his temple against his left palm while he tried to focus on writing. The fountain pen sat unmoving in his hand, however, as Faustite reread the same sentence for the sixth time. And given that he already had four cups of tea in the past hour, he suspected any more caffeine would burst his heart. Then he told himself, if he could finish reading the report and put in his edits, he could go with Albite to a French bakery and buy some scones and tea cookies. It was a small thing, but it was a motivator that he never allowed himself to have, because something else always cropped up to delay the trip. Now, perhaps, its allure had worn off for Faustite still couldn't focus.
He was starting to nod off. Would have, too, if a new fissure hadn't opened up on his neck with a pain so sharp and venomous that Faustite jerked with a rasped yelp. He felt for it, touched it gingerly, pulled back his fingers to find a thin layer of blood. He was certain steam had been coming off of it, too. Just one more thing to match the mix of popped and unpopped heat blisters.
Dropping the pen, Faustite sighed and fisted his hands in his hair. Had he reached the point where he couldn't manage the most menial labor that the Negaverse afforded its Generals? Was his mind going, too? Why couldn't he just do his ******** job? The questions spawned their own questions until he was swimming in unanswered criticisms about the state of his mind and body. In some ways, he wished his body would finish itself off so he wouldn't have to be in pain anymore. In other ways, it was more painful to consider what that meant to the people he loved and the memories he kept close to heart.
But there wasn't an easy solution. Between Medical and Bloodstone, that had been made quite clear.
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Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2023 5:45 pm
Bloodstone didn’t bother knocking. Why knock for someone who was going to probably die soon, anyway? He wasn’t even there because he wanted to be there. He was there because Roselite was crying about it and he felt--
What was the word…? Guilt? Was that even possible? Was there something wrong with him? Surely, because he wasn’t used to feeling such a horrific emotion. Maybe it was just indigestion.
Regardless of what it was, he was going to keep his word, because regardless of what people thought about him, he did keep his word.
“Came to check on your shoulder,” he announced as he pushed the office door open and closed it behind him. He didn’t have his weapon drawn, but his free hand was twitching like he was just itching for a reason to test out how brittle Faustite’s arm bones were with the hammer side of his pick.
“Take off your jacket so I can see,” he grunted, pushing the things on Faustite’s desk to the side so he could place his medical bag down on a flat surface.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 4:34 am
His attention lifted from his work, newly roused, when someone simply opened the door. Most of his team still knocked, but this was ******** Bloodstone. Bursting into Faustite's office like he owned the place. Like he had any business being there with his ******** medical bag —
"Get out of my ******** office," Faustite hissed. Did Bloodstone want a repeat of last time? Did he so enjoy getting his clothes burnt and his hair singed that he wanted a ******** encore? Or was he even more daft than him when it came to social mores? Could a doctor be that socially inept? ******** if Faustite ******** if he cared, either. The youth sat up, much as he could anymore, and fixed Bloodstone with a tired glare.
"That sounds like ******** bullshit. You don't get to march into my office to gloat over the damage you caused." It was unlikely that this one would leave, having already invited himself into Faustite's space, but he could call on Albite or Alkmene if he needed someone to bodily drag the doctor out of his office.
"And even if you did come to check on it, what's the ******** point if you're expecting me to die soon?" That was, perhaps, the most perplexing thing about seeing Bloodstone's ugly mug in his office.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:05 am
“What, indeed,” Bloodstone grumbled as he ignored everything else Faustite was demanding. What was the point of checking in on Faustite if he only had so long to live?
If it weren’t for Roselite, Bloodstone wouldn’t be there at all.
He didn’t flinch at Faustite’s demands, but instead gave him a cold, level stare. He was used to being yelled at. This was no different.
Besides, if Faustite blew up again, it would likely be the last time he’d be able to.
“Trust me, you’d know if I was gloating. Now either take off your jacket or I’ll observe with my fingers,” he threatened. There was more than one way to skin a youma.
“Your youma half is burning too hot,” he commented, but this was something they’d both already discussed. It certainly wasn’t conversation. If anything it almost sounded like Bloodstone was talking to himself, but clearly with the intention of Faustite hearing him. “There might be ways to contain the fire that wasn’t in the original reports or test results.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 5:48 pm
Faustite rolled his eyes in a juvenile show of displeasure once Bloodstone made his threats. "Medical said it would heal fine. That the starseeds helped. Don't need your second opinion." He wasn't actively bleeding, so he wasn't going to undress for anyone other than his boys. Except maybe potential new boys, of whom Bloodstone was certifiably not.
He wasn't at all nice or personal or any quality Faustite learned to attribute to a doctor. He was an assuming b*****d who thought that, since he entered a room, all occupants should drop what they were doing and do whatever it was he wanted. He treated Faustite the same way that most of the others had done: to them, he was a science project, or a thesis paper waiting to be written, or a proof that they wanted to present in exchange for a promotion. It seemed to fit with how Bloodstone was dangling another solution in front of him, waiting for him to take off after it.
Faustite squinted up at him tiredly. "Don't bother leading the conversation. Out with it." For both their sakes, as Bloodstone looked just as displeased about being around Faustite. What a shame that he couldn't stay in his own damn office. Should've gotten Roselite to babysit him.
"Remember that I don't have much time left to spare."
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 7:15 am
“You certainly don’t look like you’re on your deathbed,” Bloodstone snapped back at Faustite’s little quip about how he didn’t have much time left.
“Do you want my help or not? I don’t have to be here and I don’t have to share anything that I’ve thought of,” he growled, glaring down at the pathetic looking half youma.
Poor Faustite everyone said. But while they all doted on him, they just continued to spoil a petulant child. He didn’t see anyone else in there trying to help him.
“If the Negaverse doesn’t have the ability to stop a youma, maybe there are other avenues outside of the Negaverse,” he said lowly. He didn’t want to outright suggest it, but if Faustite couldn’t put two and two together, then he deserved every bit of suffering he got.
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 4:49 am
"Oh, was the death sentence not enough? Doctor's got more to say?" Faustite sneered back.
Did Bloodstone make a habit of being a p***k in someone else's office, or did he make a special case out of Faustite? In either case, Faustite was already made to sorely (very sorely) regret ever making contact with Bloodstone and needed no further encouragement to give the doctor a wide berth. He would've likewise enjoyed any opportunity to accidentally set the man aflame, more thoroughly this time, and hopefully to death (for the betterment of the Negaverse), though Faustite supposed that time had passed.
Still, fire would've looked good all over Bloodstone. Almost as good as the look of death.
His cindered eyes widened at Bloodstone's grumble, then narrowed again in incredulity. He knew what that implied. He told himself that Bloodstone could only mean doing exactly as Nectaris or Lysithea or Ilse or presumably Nembus had done.
Matched in volume, Faustite replied, "Be careful with your words. You're talking about treachery." And he was certain that would make for a good sell to the higher-ups — look how Bloodstone sussed out how Faustite was having traitorous thoughts, doesn't he just deserve a promotion for that — which incensed him further.
"Either you're —" He paused to hack and wheeze, to cough black onto his curled fist, to breathe a smoky sigh of not again. "Looking for a good excuse to kill me or digging for a promotion. There has to be something else."
There had to be something the Negaverse could do. Axinite had been searching. If anyone could come up with an answer, it was him.
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Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2023 1:47 pm
“You be careful with your words,” Bloodstone snapped back, eyes narrowed on the pathetic youth at the desk, wheezing and coughing like he was on death’s door. Dramatic. He clearly had more energy to him if he was going to be bitching about another chance to live.
“I don’t need an excuse to kill you. You already knew the answer when you came to me before. You know you’re dying. All I’m saying is that if you’ve explored all of your options -- all of them, and not just half a** whining about it to anyone who can offer you a few moments of pity -- then there has to be other options that we do not have access to.”
He knew he wasn’t wrong. He knew that Faustite was being stubborn (unsurprising) and obnoxious (expected) on purpose. He could see it in the way Faustite’s eyes widened, the way he lowered his voice.
“Who says you can’t use it as a means to an end? It doesn’t take much to bring you back after you resolve your… issues,” Bloodstone sneered, still waiting for Faustite to remove his jacket, but he also looked like he was just as ready to take his bag and hit him with it.
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Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:06 pm
"I know that," Faustite hissed back, ignoring Bloodstone's veiled threats. He wasn't sure he should explain the complexities that went along with an otherwise straightforward suggestion to Bloodstone of all people. He wasn't certain the General would deign to hear any pushback. He told himself there had to be something to the man being here, however; even if the push for Faustite to join the White Moon, however temporarily, could be a ploy, there was nothing stopping Faustite from turning that back around on him.
Report the man who was encouraging his coworkers to join the White Moon. The man who also stabbed him. Maybe the contention between them was more even than Faustite originally suspected.
"Heard it's not as simple as that." Much as Faustite loathed acquiescing to anything Bloodstone requested, he began unclasping the front of his asymmetric vest. He shrugged it off of one shoulder, but struggled to pull it off his injured shoulder. Faustite spoke while he fought with his overly complicated uniform.
"Keep getting told that I have to want to 'purify', whatever that means. That I should want to 'let go of the chaos'. That I'd lose some — or even all — of my memories. My identity would be gone. Know I could plan an ambush, maybe have Jet on call to bring me back, but I might forget — everything. Have to work my way up from the bottom. Be faced with all these boys I've disappointed when I told them I don't know who they are." Faustite winced when he finally pulled the metal ring off and slipped out of his vest.
That left the button-down, but it was easy enough to cut the thread with his fingernails. "And that's the only other solution. But I don't know which is worse — becoming a youma or losing everything just to be human again."
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Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:26 am
“You want to live, don’t you?” Bloodstone growled, annoyed that he was still waiting for Faustite to remove his vest. Once it was finally off, Bloodstone dug out a pair of scissors he kept in his medical bag, and reached out to jerk the fabric away from Faustite’s fingers so eh could make quick work of slicing open the shoulder of the shirt so he could see the injury that, well… he caused.
He still thought Faustite had deserved it, though. So he didn’t feel guilty. And he didn’t have to tell Faustite that he was lucky he ran so hot because it probably burned out any infection that might have started to form.
“Boys?” he scoffed and made an expression of disgust. “You make it sound like your lovers are children. But I really don’t care about who you disappoint. You think they wouldn’t just mold you into whatever you were before? You think they’d care if you remembered as long as you were alive? Decide what you want to do, Faustite. Figure out a way to live and get another chance, or die. I don’t care.”
Bloodstone worked on ripping off the bandage that was already in place, and was not at all gentle about poking and prodding at the wound. He cleaned it with sterile gauze and slapped on a new bandage.
But there was something else that had drawn his attention, and as much as he didn’t want to be in that office for longer than he had to, he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“What do you mean you keep getting told you have to want it? Have you already been planning this? You seem to know a lot about how it would -- or wouldn’t -- work.”
Maybe they were dealing with a potential traitor already.
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Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:13 pm
Faustite huffed at Bloodstone's rhetoric. If he didn't want to be alive, he wouldn't have asked Bloodstone for a second opinion. or Axinite to look into whatever knowledge he could find, or the youma in the Rift for anything they might know. He would have let it be. Inaction was itself a choice.
"Know what I'd prefer," he explained, coughing, "But if my decision affects them, I want their input." It was all he would say on it. If Bloodstone refused to understand that, he didn't care.
The man was as heavy-handed with his bandaging as he was with his vitriolic judgment. Faustite hissed and started a few times, with a mental note already written and underlined concerning how uniquely unsuited Bloodstone was for anything related to taking care of people. He should've been a data analyst, whatever that even meant. Maybe he should've worked for Ren in the business of selling information.
No — he shouldn't have worked for Ren. He should've worked for a company that Ren's company probably subsumed and then laid him off, left him jobless, and then —
Oh, ******** it, Bloodstone wasn't worth the time for that.
Faustite gingerly rolled his shoulder while he answered. "When you're part youma, people either take pity on you or want to kill you. Met a few of the pity-prone ones — notably Castor. Wanted to ambush him as a Captain. Required some amount of playing along until we had enough information to move on the plan. But Castor fell out of contact — either he suspected me, left for his planet, or someone else got to him first.
"Lysithea was the same way. Kept trying to drag me out of the Negaverse. Said they'd reverted a youma back to being a person before. Same story, though.
"Don't know if any of them are right, or if they just see what they want to see."
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 2:17 pm
“Then get their input and stop talking to me about it,” Bloodstone snapped, checking his hands now that he’d risked injury to treat a dying man.
“If it’s so horrible being part youma, then just don’t be part youma,” he shrugged, not seeing the issue with temporarily jumping to the other side if it meant survival. Besides, it wasn’t as though Faustite planned on staying with the stupid White Moon and their stupid, hypocritical ideals.
“But stop telling me your life story or your failed missions. I don’t care,” he hissed, throwing everything haphazardly back into his medical bag now that he was done. He even tossed the used bandage into the fire of Faustite’s stomach since why the hell not, it was what it was there for, wasn’t it?
“I’m only here because Roselite gives a s**t about you, okay? If you want to whine and moan about how horrible it is being a half youma then go talk to him,” he finally admitted, already regretting being there in the first place because Faustite was being so wishy washy about everything.
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:10 pm
Why Bloodstone would need to be in his office antagonizing him because Roselite cared was beyond Faustite. If Roselite cared so much, why wasn't he here instead of his intolerable General? Unless Bloodstone was out to spite Faustite for being someone that Roselite cared about, Faustite didn't see another reason for the General to show up in his office. Certainly he didn't express anything close to remorse for his actions. Faustite suspected that he wouldn't know how, anyway. "And stop —" Faustite groaned, hastily digging into his grate with his right hand for the half-burnt bandage. After pulling it between the bars with his nails as tweezers, he tossed it at Bloodstone. " Go. Before I do something we both regret."
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