Upon Silver Devil: Chapter Three

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[I can't say i've ever seen him drunk actually. I haven't seen him in nearly ten years.] Hmm that'd be interesting. [He got tall.] He smiled oddly, trying to make light of what was clearly pretty awkward and difficult.

Esk glared back at her. "Leave her out of this." He hissed.

She closed her eyes, "The truth hurts, doesn't it?" The cyborg waited for him to try to attack her. "I pity you and I pity her."

"I don't need you pity." Esk spat. "you're the one wasting wasting your energy on fantasies and delusions." He was pretty mad now, his tone had gone cold. "The reason you keep getting your heart broken isn't because you're attracted to the wrong people, but because you go out of your way to seek out heartache and conflict. You'll fuck the next one up too. You've already started." He gestured to her prone position. "look at yourself, so much for me not being worth it huh?"
Not that he much liked knowing that. He'd rather preferred to believe she had been telling the truth about that. It had absolved him a little.

they'd attracted a crowd of nosy onlookers now.

Esk glowered at them, wiped his bloodied lip on his sleeve again and stalked off toward the docks. "Stay away from me Vicky." He called back. "Just stay away."

Vicky said nothing, each word a painful blow into her heart. She wished he would of attacked her, that would of been less painful. Quietly the cyborg said nothing as she left and return back to her ship, returning to her room the bags were dumped on the table. She fiddled around in her drawers looking for one of her lnives as esk words played in her head repeatedly. She hadn't fallen to this dark of a mental slump in so long she almost forgot what it was like to do this. The cyborg couldn't get drunk, or high on drugs, but she could harm herself.

James followed Esk hastily. "Holy crap," he said. It was all he could think of to say.

Esk grunted and kept walking. No, it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. He just wanted to get BACK to the ship.

James followed Esk, still trying to make sense of the level of venom he'd just seen Vicky and Esk sling at each other. They were both pretty bitter, geez.

"Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna ever recommended casual sex to anyone again," he said, half to himself.

Esk sighed. "That's the problem, it wasn't casual sex." He looked tired and his lip was starting to swell. "not to her anyway." other people were just exhausting he decided, being in any sort of relationship with them was way more work than it should be.
He rubbed his aching jaw. "Shit she's got a mean left hook."

"I could've sworn it started out casual, it sure looked casual. I guess we both misread her pretty badly." James shook his head. "I'd better scan you when we get home, make sure she didn't fracture anything."

Esk looked annoyed. "It was supposed to be, then she got...mushy. " He exhaled deeply. "She wanted me to lie to her and I could have, but for what? Just to keep getting laid? " He shook his head. "She knew what she was getting into, she's not THAT stupid." He really believed that.

James nodded. "I guess people can't really control who they get attached to, but it's not fair of them to expect you to reciprocate. I mean Acus got attached to me, but at least he didn't try to pressure me into a relationship I wasn't interested in. Stinks Vicky wasn't like that." He shook his head, "And if you're not interested in romance, you're not interested. Nobody should try to pressure anyone into living a lie." Yeah, Esk was a jerk and shouldn't have been quite so nasty to Vicky. Still, James had personal reasons to sympathize with Esk here.

Esk shook his head. "Acus tried to guilt you, intentional or not, he had you feeling like shit and worried about him. I mean at least with you you've got the whole excuse that you're an android and you guys are not exactly built for the whole romance shit. I'm just broken." He looked away. "Let's just, get this food and shit put away. I'll get some ice. If anyone asks, I got into a fight." Well it was true, he just didn't much want the crew gossiping about him. It was uncomfortable.

"He didn't try to guilt me, I just felt guilty," James said. "And being an android is no excuse, a lot of us can and do fall in love. You just can't be in love with everyone who loves you." He sighed. "Anyway. Seriously, I'd like to scan your jaw just to make sure she didn't break it. Vicky's crazy strong."

"Fine." Esk relented. "it doesn't feel broken." He sounded like he had experience with that. Knowing him, he probably did.

"It's probably just a bruise," James agreed. Esk was talking pretty clearly, which was a good sign. They reached the Silver Devil, and would drop off whatever stuff wasn't being delivered.

Rigel was glad when they got back, though he frowned when he saw Esk's lip. "You alright?"

"I'm fine." Esk snapped. He didn't look like he was in the mood for a chat. He took some of the bags off James as an excuse to go to the galley and away from questioning.

"Some lady punched him, it was weird," James explained vaguely. "Can't trust anyone at this station, they're all violent." He went to put some stuff away, the stuff Esk hadn't taken.

Rigel frowned but nodded and glanced back to Dawn before going to help put the stuff away. "As long as the 'law' here doesn't come bothering us." Yeah, he wasn't happy with them letting Dawn get hurt.

"The law here doesn't care enough to intervene, much less run investigations," James said. "I don't think we'll be seeing them at all, man."

Rigel nodded with a frown. "Yeah, seems that way" He said, not liking that.

"It's okay, we'll be out of here and away from the crazies before much longer," James said. "We already placed our orders at the station, now we just gotta get those deliveries and we can leave."

Rigel nodded again "Good. Getting our supplies delivered and our people traded for those kids, then we can be off. Which room are we going to put them in?" He figured they could put the kids in Tala's room for the trip to Vestia at least. Then they would only have to share with one another.

"The kids? I guess they can share a room, probably. They seem like they'd prefer than anyway," James said thoughtfully.

Rigel nodded "I was thinking Tala's room, since she is going to be over there."

"Makes sense. She's a weird lady, she won't care if they use her room," James agreed.

"And they can be together to stay calm" Rigel said with a nod "We should make sure the room is ready for them before they get here." He said, finishing getting the food put away "Want to help me with that?"