[reverse darkest timeline AU: cellthread #2]

[stilljustandrew]

[Previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

What's worried Baby the most, over the past few days --

Well. What's upset her the most is Andrew's consistent refusal to speak to her mind-to-mind, or out loud beyond the few necessary words she might exchange with any other inmate, such as requests for food, fresh clothes, an extra blanket.

But what's worried her is that he hasn't asked for anything to pass the time. No tablet with games or videos on it, no pencil and paper, no baseball to bounce off the opposite wall.

No books.



In the cell, Andrew finishes his breakfast (cornflakes, with sliced banana), sets aside the bowl, and settles down leaning against the wall.

Comments

[gothamsheiress]

"Most of the time."

[hadyougoing]

Her lips quirk.

"That's more than I got."

[gothamsheiress]

"I imagine it's easier for me to listen to him in turn than it is for those who care about him." She shakes her head. "And some of what he said was far from easy for me to hear."

[hadyougoing]

Ava may look faintly guilty, though it only manifests as a glance to the side, and a slight downward twitch of her mouth.

"Yeah," she says, "I bet."


A pause.

"Hey, do you want some tea? I was thinking I could go for tea."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix looks surprised -- and perhaps, for a moment, faintly wary -- but she nods.

"Yes, thank you."

[hadyougoing]

Ava smiles faintly at her.

"Awesome. Be right back."


When she returns, she has a tray loaded with a box of various teas, strainers, a plate of cookies, and, of course, mugs and teapot.

"Okay." She lowers the tray carefully onto the desk. "Knock yourself out. I'm calling dibs on one of the chamomiles, though."

[gothamsheiress]

. . . This is so weird on several levels, but weirdest is definitely the thought that she could come to like this not-Iva person.

"Thank you." She finds a bag of mint tea and sets it to steep, wrapping her hands around the warm mug.

"He asked again to sleep somewhere else, at least for a night. He even agreed to an armed chaperone."

[hadyougoing]

Ava has already dunked the chamomile into her own mug, and is reaching for a cookie.

"He asked again?"

[gothamsheiress]

Brix nods.

"As far as I can see," she says carefully, "I think you should let him, if only for one night."

[hadyougoing]

Ava sits back with her cookie, eyebrows climbing.

A little flat, "Why?"

When Brix was on her way in, she seemed like she was on Ava's side with this one.

[gothamsheiress]

"He's being kept prisoner in a place of punishment, after being kept as a prisoner for four years. I don't think he can see anyone offering help for who they are, in that case. We're all just jailers. And we don't offer him anything as attractive as his last captor did."

She fetches a sigh. "And in practical terms, if he doesn't sleep, he'll grow ill."

[hadyougoing]

"Well," mordant, "if he grows ill, we'll have to send him to the Infirmary." She bites into the cookie. "Problem solved."

[stilljustandrew]

Perhaps unexpectedly, Baby's voice speaks from the nearby wall.

"I do not believe physical illness is a likely outcome, Brix nó Balm de Marsilikos."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix starts, looking around to the source of the voice, insofar as there is one.

"No?"

[stilljustandrew]

There's no real source, but as usual Baby causes a spot on the wall to brighten slightly in time with her voice. Humans, she has found, feel more comfortable talking to her when they have a visual focal point.

"No. I have been observing Andrew Wells closely since his incarceration, and his sleep patterns are well within normal parameters for a healthy adult human. I am unable to determine whether or not he is experiencing bad dreams, but if so, they are not substantially affecting his ability to sleep."

[hadyougoing]

Bad dreams.

That phrase sinks into her brain like a hook.


"Thanks Baby, good to know," she murmurs.

[gothamsheiress]

Brix is sort of torn between feeling annoyed that neither Ava nor the cells trust her judgment, and feeling annoyed by the possibility that Andrew played on her sympathies successfully.

"Still," she persists, "as things currently stand, his only request is being denied. It's hardly a way to build rapport."

[hadyougoing]

Ava's listening, but only with half her attention. The other half is following the curve of that hook, bad dreams.

(Falling asleep in Cold Oak never really felt like falling asleep. Too much noise after she'd closed her eyes.


The yellow eyed man. He comes to me in my dreams--)


"I'm an idiot," Ava realizes.

"I haven't even asked him if he's been having bad dreams."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix starts to say something, but stops, watching Ava closely.

"I confess I'd be surprised if he wasn't," she murmurs.

[hadyougoing]

"Yeah."

Ava nods, with a rueful little laugh.

"That's how they get you."

[gothamsheiress]

"Do you speak from experience?"

[hadyougoing]

As Ava considers the question, the cheer drains from her face.

She takes a sip of her tea, holding onto the mug to give her fingers something to do.



"I don't talk about this a whole lot," she says at last, aiming for casual. (Her tone is even, but a bit soft.) "But you might need to know, so ...

A long time ago, I was kidnapped by a demon. He wanted me to work for him too, more or less."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix almost asks if his name was Henri.

No, that'd be too much.

She takes a long breath, lets it out slowly.

"Did he convince you to? As Andrew's been convinced?"

[hadyougoing]

"Mmhmm."

She takes a rueful bite of her cookie and chews.

"I thought of myself as a soldier, not really a ... 'his,' or whatever. But I still would've done anything he asked me to. And the way I got into it was--also through somebody I loved. My fiance."

(Interesting alternate universe fact: Iva Shahrizai was once engaged herself. But the young man tragically died in an accident.)

"And as long as there's all these similarities, it seems worth bringing up that the demon who took me had ways of talking to me even when he wasn't around."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix's eyes narrow as Ava speaks. She takes an absent sip of her tea.

"And what ways were those?"