Lamb to the Slaughter [m]

[Draconian]

[M for language : D]

There was sound.

The last thing Vaughan remembered was that all he could hear was his own heart beating in his ears. Now it was mixed in with the sound of everything else. A ship? Vaughan opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. Dark and dreary. Was he on a movie set or something? Did the insides of ships always look so... Like an Old Vampire movie? Were those spikes? Vaughan sat up quickly, coughing harshly into his fist before he rolled onto his side and glanced around, eyes wide and cautious. He smoothed his hand over the floor and felt the texture of it under his fingers, taking a moment to revel in the fact he wasn't a frozen corpse floating around in space.

It lasted only a moment before Vaughan jolted, realizing that he wasn't a frozen corpse in space. He looked down at himself, frowning at the clothing he was wearing, plain and loose, grey. Vaughan plucked at the shirt and brought it to his nose to sniff, it didn't smell like anything. Rising up onto his knees, looking down at his hands. He took a moment to mentally check himself over and... Nothing hurt. There wasn't any number of bruises. He pulled at his cheeks and ...

"The fuck?"

Vaughan touched the collar around his neck, fingers digging in between it and his neck, giving it a tug. No use. Stuck there. Slowly he rose up to his knees and then stood, hand wrapping around the bar to the cell. What kind of place had a cell? Another frown and he pressed his forehead to it and took a deep breath before giving the bar a tug. Nothing. No rattle. No noise. Shit. Slowly, he let the breath escape and closed his eyes.

"Hello!?" Vaughan yelled but winced when it echoed. This place was so... Dreary. It looked old and... Just weird. Vaughan slammed his palm against the bar a few times to make noise though he gasped and jerked back when something wandered towards him from down the hall. Had that been there all the time? He calmed slightly when he saw that it was a man. Sort of. A vacant sort of person who looked like he'd seen some shit. Tired and blank and it just stood in the hall and stared at him. "Hello?" Vaughan said softly, leaning forward to look at him.

"Hello?"

No answer. Just staring. Vaughan tried to reach out to hear what he was thinking about but... There was nothing. He was nothing and he couldn't do anything but he bit his lip for a moment and rode his wave of bravado and fear.

"Stop fucking staring at me and answer me! Where the fuck am I!?" He slammed his hand on the bar again and... It felt wrong to get angry but who scoops someone out of fucking space and changes their clothes and then dumps them in a cell! That means someone on this ship has seen him naked. He couldn't even see his back to make sure he didn't have any weird new tattoos and fuck. Vaughan slammed his fist against the bar again, giving a shout when he split his knuckles from the force. "Fuck!" he shouted, holding his hand to his chest and glaring at the person across from him. Nothing. No reaction. Not even a tweaked eyebrow.

"Am I going to be a slave? Can't you tell me anything?" Vaughan fell to his knees, reaching his hands out of the bars, blood dripping from his hand to the ground in a steady drip-drip in front of the cell before it slowed to a goopy mess on his fingertips. "Fuck you, man." he growled, resting his face against the bars before he just made some intense eye contact with those vacant eyes across from him and started to sing something about an itsy bitsy spider and a water spout. If he couldn't get actual information out then fuckitall he was going to annoy someone into telling him something.

[nephero]

   There were two types of people in the world. Just the two.

   Xande sighed as he settled into the captain’s seat, a cup of tea in hand and boots kicked up onto the console, watching the swirl of distant stars and stellar debris float in one great colorful expanse. The universe really did paint a pretty picture, all those little fragments of explosion and dust and billions of years of coagulation sweeping across the vastness of nothing. Something, and nothing. Nothing, and something.

   There were two types of people.

   Neither of those types, however, were the sort you’d expect to see go floating by your front window. Not this deep in space, anyway. It was probably one of the weirdest things Xande had ever seen, and Xande had seen some pretty weird shit over the years. But a scan of the area noted that there were no ships in the vicinity, none that were anywhere close to his present location anyway.

   Leaning in a little closer, Xande’s eyebrows rose in surprise to note that the body was, in fact, very, very naked. Not exactly recommended wear, as evidenced by the wizened, frozen skin. So, mummified and then flash frozen, was it? Which meant that they’d come from closer to Sol, before drifting out this way.

   What a way to go. At least it was quick. Xande leaned back once more, sipping at his tea and adding a little more whiskey to make up the difference, when another flash of movement against the nebula backdrop caught his eye.

   Well, where there’s one floating space corpse, there’s another. Though this one wasn’t nearly so underdressed, eyes wide and vacant and frozen in place like the first dude’s were, a helmet clutched in both hands. Probably was in the middle of trying to put it on when they ran out of air, same as the naked guy. Mummified and then frozen.

   Just. Bloop! There they went! Some kind of ventilation accident, then?

   “Lights,” he said, and a series of floodlights flickered on, reflecting off the collected ice on the bodies. But that wasn’t what Xande was looking for. No, what he was looking for floated by a third time, much closer and missing hitting his ship by the narrowest margin. But it was close enough for Xande to spot four brilliant letters in the middle of another, brilliant logo.

   “Eyes,” he said to the empty bridge, and screens popped into existence one by one, tracking the slow passage of the third poor soul along the starboard side of the Hybris. Enough to get a good reading, a telltale pulse and only partial freezing settling on the suit. Xande squinted, considered his options, before shrugging and set his tea down.

   There were two types of people in the world. Might as well see what type this little void-walker was.

—

   Apparently, the little void walker was the shout-y type. Xande sighed into another cup of tea, this one a little more thick with whsikey than the one prior. Even from his place on the bridge, Xande could hear the guy yelling, could see him slapping at the bars and cussing angrily at the shade Xande had left behind to stand watch.

   It was a pretty fair reaction, honestly. A common one, too. Most people didn’t take kindly to waking up in a cell in clothes they hadn’t previously been wearing.

   The truth of it was that TRIM-grade void suits were hell to get your hands on, but some of the best there was on the market. It went with the territory, being from an advanced research institute. It made it so no one could really just ignore one floating by in mint condition, completely intact. And not even covered in bloodstains! But that also meant that the alternative was leaving the guy naked save for the collar.

   Which meant he had to be redressed. It didn’t make things any more pleasant, of course. Plus the whole collar thing, plus the cell, plus the strange place and the strange, immobile guard. Maybe Xande needed to reconsider making them look so much like people— it only seemed to set people even more on edge when they didn’t answer.

   Plus the fact that the guy wasn’t very far off the mark.

      Eventually, though, the little void-walker seemed to run out of steam, just like they always did, and Xande sighed his way through a dark, shadowed nook and out into the brig’s main corridor. Still stirring his tea, Xande stepped out from beside the shade-guard, blinking once to dispel the utterly jarring effect of seeing the same thing partially overlapped on one another, and sending the shade back into the shadows.

   Probably not the best thing to do, teleporting while drinking. Xande blinked hard, shaking his head as if that would somehow make him not dizzy (spoiler alert: the opposite was true). Still, he tried to keep from looking quite so shitfaced, steadying his gait just as he came to a stop in front of the only occupied cell in the corridor.

   “Hey, there!” He said, cheerfully, teeth bared in a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Those were a bit too busy for smiling, focusing through the muddled haze to fixate on his newest acquisition. “Nice singing voice you have, love it-- love, love, love it. You should really do something with that.”

[Draconian]

"What?"

Vaughan said, voice breathy and eyes wide. It took a moment for his eyes to actually focus on the person. The grin. His heart leapt into his throat and Vaughan just stared, golden eyes wide. He hadn't noticed anyone walking down the halls towards him and he'd been pretty on the ball, right? Vaughan chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, maybe he'd dozed off. No. His eyes flicked to the stranger again, finding it hard to breathe a little when they made eye contact. Vaughan then chose to just not make eye contact.

Instead, Vaughan stared at his lips.

Back in Aedolis he would have complimented the guy. Thrown a grin and tossed his hair, said he was good looking and scuttled off. Here though. Where the fuck was here? Vaughan impulsively pat at his chest, forgetting for a moment he'd been changed out of the voidsuit and into the simple cotton outfit. Did this guy think he worked from TRIM? Was he going to get tortured for information he didn't know and then sold? Vaughan moved his hands to fist them around the bars, hissing slightly when he cracked the fresh scabs on his knuckles.  One quick glance for eye contact and again, quickly looked away.

Why did this person make him so nervous?

"I did once," he finally choked out, eyes on the other persons lips, "I sang. Before..." He swallowed and gently touched the collar around his neck with his uninjured hand, "What's this for? Is this like... A tracker? I need some answers Man or I'm gonna curl up into a ball pretty soon and go comatose." it was odd that he could handle being a Candidate. He knew he'd come out of that one of two ways. This was the much less desired way and absolutely not the one he'd been counting on yet... Here he was.  Vaughan moved his uninjured hand back to the bar and squeezed them until his knuckles were white.

" What's your name." He finally asked, leaning in so his face was barely an inch from the bars, looking at the mans forehead 'cause he had an intense set of eyes.

[nephero]

   They always looked amazing when they tried to figure out just where he’d come from. Xande grinned all the wider as he watched his newest acquisition look back and forth, dropping just shy of meeting Xande’s gaze. It was all animal instinct, of course. Some base reaction that made it so even the most civilized person understood what it meant to lock eyes with a predator.

   It was never anything good.

   Xande enjoyed the minor deference for a moment, taking a sip of his tea while the young voidwalker felt against himself for… something. The voidsuit, probably, right about where the logo and accompanying regalia had been so carefully, robotically stitched. Perfect condition. It was really a beautiful thing, and the other bodies had been, too, resulting in one hell of a payday if Xande said so himself.

   Decades worth of tea, at the very least.

   His acquisition seemed to get a little bolder, though, unable to maintain eye contact but certainly able to try. And all to the tune of mild threats, no less! Unfortunately for the voidwalker, Xande wasn’t really interested much in talking, and nor did he really need the voidwalker awake. But, he also didn’t need to tell the guy that, and so gave a little acquiescing nod towards the collar itself.

   “Lead, babe. When the suit comes up TRIM, you’ve got a 50/50 shot of picking up someone a might bit special.” He sipped at his tea, slowly stepping a little closer to the bars, peering down through the gloom at the device in question. “So, bit of company policy to just tag ‘em all and not tempt fate any.”

   Xande grinned, giving a little shrug. “Bad luck is contagious and all. So yeah, you’ve got your standard monitoring chip, little gal-ps, lead dampeners, and won’t come unlocked until I enter the code. Spared no expense, and really, when it comes to your work tools, you should always go high quality whenever possible.”

   The shade shambled forward just in time for Xande to pass over his teacup, his newly freed hands wrapping around the bars just above his acquisition’s head. He swiveled his head, trying to catch the voidwalker’s eyes before they darted away again, the whole thing just too amusing for words.

   “Kinda goes for everything else, too, now that I think about it. Good quality ships don’t usually have decompression issues.” He narrowed his eyes a bit, tonguing at one canine before clicking it sharply. “But that’s not what happened, is it? TRIM doesn’t skimp on that sort of thing, either. Hm?”

   Quick as a shot, his hands slid through the gaps in the bars, grabbing the voidwalker’s wrists and yanking them forward, keeping the songbird right where he was. Xande stared down at him, at the way the guy’s pupils shrank and grew with alternating psychological responses, at the way he kept swallowing against the pressure of the collar, at the way the guy’s breathing picked up as his body prepared that good ol’ fight or flight response. Mm, fight or flight smelled so good.

   “You get to address me as Captain Veyn, tweety.” He gave a sharp, quick whistle to the tune of some very small spider and a spout, before his face split into a wide grin. “For as long as you make it, here. Don’t that sound just goddamn peachy?”

[Draconian]

Talking made this guy a little less scary.

He was still scary, Vaughan noted, but having a sort of conversation made it... Less. Eye contact was still hard and he carefully drew his fingers over the collar. The weight of it made him nervous and he just gazed through the bars, trying to calculate and process everything. It was difficult, of course.  Listened to the man process through why there had been bodies in space. Why there had been a fault ship.

Slowly he took his hurt hand and traced the cut on the side of his head after he'd asked his little question, felt the prickle of stitches before he put his hands back on the bars, only for his wrists to be grabbed. A sharp gasp and his heartbeat picked up, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide, his tongue darted out to lick his lips and he shook his head gently, bravado climbing up his throat.

"That's fine, but that's your title. Not your name. I-" Vaughan breathed slowly, glancing away before he closed his eyes, "I'm Vaughan." Did he tell the truth? Should he? He was already in a cage on a ship, he'd been saved from TRIM and dying in space. Would this be worse than being an experiment? What was the worst thing that could happen?

Vaughan decided it would be getting sold back to TRIM. Better to be honest now than to ... Make up a story and forget it later. "I was a candidate," He said softly, flexing the fingers of his unwounded hand, "Stage 4. Empathy. I don't know what I did but I guess I did it badly because one day I'm in my room and the next I woke up on that ship. I manipulated one of them to give me their suit and a helmet. Oxygen. And then I spaced us." Vaughan's voice trembled and this time he made as much eye contact as he could, "because dying in space would be better. I don't even know when I am or how long i was out. Or if they fucked with my brain." Vaughan turned his head, "Ever seen one of these before? The fuck is that for? it feels itchy and crusty and..." Vaughan sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

"I'd really appreciate it if you took the collar off, Captain Veyn." Guy seemed kinda high or drunk or something. If movies were anything to go by, this ship captain was constantly with ladies (and men) knew how to shoot stuff but was ultimately a good person. Potentially.

Vaughan was so fucked. He was going to die both fucked and unfucked he was so fucked. Why did he get TRIM'd. What had happened between the night in his bedroom and when he woke up on that ship. Why couldn't he remember. He paused a moment, stared off to the side to try and think of it but it just set off a sharp pain behind his eyes, crying out softly before he shook his head and finally made eye contact again. "can I have some water?"