WHO: Misha and Richard WHAT: Richard shows up, the poor bastard.
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Richard was having a bad day.
Apparently, Rossum thought he was some sort of a liability. Weird, right? But bitch was crazy and they really weren't interested in loose ends. If anyone was going to up and work with the press, it would be Richard Walker---half of him, anyway. That earthy crunchy hippie vegan half they could trust, but ... y'know. You can never tell with the crazies.
He ended up staying near the elevator, alternating between pacing and kicking the door. God damn it. This so wasn't okay.
It wasn't difficult to find him. Misha threw on a pair of sensible shoes and raced to get there, as if she knew that Richard would just... shank somebody if left to his own devices. Or maybe she was running because she wanted to see him. She'd only recently gotten her memories back, she only recently remembered that he existed. He'd been so important to her. And now he was trapped here, too.
She skidded to a stop when she saw him, hanging back a safe distance. "Hey," she breathed.
He looked back at her, making a face. Yeah, that other one was still around. "Don't you ever go away?" Somewhere inside, Richard's other half was cringing. "What the fuck."
"You ever get tired of bein' so angry all the time?" Misha sighed. "Listen. Don't do anythin' nutty. Just... just... lemme getcha some water, and I'll find you a place to sleep, we got pods open these days----"
"I'm not sleeping in a goddamn pod!" he snapped. He was angry all the time because that's ... what he was. It made the other half incredibly mellow and sweet, but it came at a price.
"Then you ain't sleepin' at all, because with that attitude, ain't nobody gonna let you into a bed." Misha took in a slow breath. "I wanna talk to Richard."
"I don't know how to put this to you: I don't care. He wouldn't be able to get us through any of this, anyway. He's completely useless." Or so he thought. All he knew about Original Richard was what he'd written down, and his memory wasn't perfect.
"No. He's not. If you're thinkin' survival, he's the one who'll get you through here." Misha folded her arms, frowning. "You go runnin' your suck and you'll get yourself stabbed. Lotta people here wantin' to fight."
"Why don't you just shove off?" It would be an understatement to say he didn't like her. She tended to bring the Host back, and when the host came back, this one would black out entirely. "I don't like you. I don't want to be near you, and you smell funny."
"I smell funny?" Misha blinked. "Ain't a nice thing to say to a lady, Dick, but I ain't goin' nowhere until I know you ain't gonna run Richard into trouble----which you always do, by the way."
"Bullshit---" Richard stopped, shifting his weight. His posture changed, relaxed, and he rubbed at his eyes, groaning. "I am so sorry about that."
Misha hesitated, hanging back and staying where she was. She watched him carefully, fingertips against her mouth. "Richard...?"
"Misha." His entire mannerism changed when he switched. The Host was just so much calmer. "That wasn't how I'd wanted to say hi to you."
Misha gulped. "Oh, hon..." She took in a slow breath and moved forward, her arms sliding around his waist and her head resting against his shoulder. "You ain't supposed to be here."
He held her like a security blanket, squeezing her tightly. "I know. Guess they decided I was too dangerous. Place must be going to pot, though, if they just dumped me in the elevator."
"We..." Misha shook her head. "No." Up until a short while ago, she didn't remember him at all. She knew him now. She knew everything. He brought her here, he'd been her companion. She brought him cheese danish and coffee every morning for breakfast at the bakery. She'd slept in his arms. She'd... dealt with his disorder, with little success. "We're trapped in here, Richard. We been trapped in here since September. Locked in, there's... we're bein' played with and picked off."
Richard was sure he felt his heart stop. Trapped. With nothing but the clothes on his back. None of his notebooks, none of the little notes and bits and pieces that he left around his home to help him remember. He buried his face in her shoulder to hide it, muttering, "I don't remember all last week."
"I don't even wanna know what you were doin' all last week," Misha muttered. "Listen. It's scary in here. I ain't gonna lie. But it ain't all bad. You just gotta stay calm. You'll get used to it, get used to us... and hope you don't piss Alpha off." She pulled back, smoothing his hair. "You hungry? Thirsty? Lemme get you somethin', get you away from here."
Richard nodded. He trusted her; after all, she'd lived this long. "I'm starving, actually." Calm, he had down.
"You best be. There ain't a lot, we're all rationed, but I can get somethin'." Misha pulled back from him and headed away from the elevator. "There are over a hundred people here, it's gettin' crowded. We're all a little stir crazy by now, we... we had some people die in the... the imprint room, real bad. Friend'a mine, we thought he died, but it was some kinda hoax, Alpha figured it was awful funny."
"At least he's alive," Richard said optimistically. Richard was gentle, he didn't like to dwell. When he did, if he let himself slip too far into depression, he could switch. He had to control himself or risk losing control entirely.
Misha didn't tend to dwell. She let things roll off her back, she shrugged her shoulders and let things go. She had things that lingered, pains that still bothered her, but all in all, she was exactly the kind of person that Richard needed in order to stay calm. "At least. It's one good thing to happen in all this... he's safe. He has a boyfriend who loves him very much; dunno what woulda happened to him if Bravo had died. God. I can't believe you're here."
"I don't even know why I'm here. I don't remember if they told me." He lost pieces when he wasn't allowed to write things down before switches happened. "Have they hurt you at all? Or are you safe?"
"Whatever's hurt me ain't been physical," Misha said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "They've barely messed with me, ain't like I'm even here. I help out in the kitchen, that's about it. I mean..." She blushed, shaking her head. Embarrassed. "There was this... boy. Is, he ain't dead or nothin'. An' if that's the most of my personal problems, my track record's a good one."
Richard watched her, cocking an eyebrow. "There's a boy?" ...Was it just her, or did he sound a little unsatisfied with that?
"A----" Misha waved a hand. "I mean." She glanced back at him. "One of the handlers here, we got to talkin', visitin' a lot."
"And...?"
"And I ... dunno. I got stupid or somethin', I kissed him, he kissed back. Called me pretty. Real nice. Good friend, we just." Misha shrugged. "I went to tell him that I was wrong to just push him away." She couldn't admit to Richard that she loved Ozzy, for some reason, or maybe she decided to deny that part for her own sake. Didn't believe it right now. Didn't want to believe it. "Turned out he kissed me and then the next day wound up with his roommate. Had a crush on her, I knew that, so... good for him, hope he's happy."
"What a dick." A very small, ever-so-slightly vengeful part of Richard (and it really was, to be fair) was ... a little glad. A strange emotion to have right at this second, all things considered. Hn.
Misha glanced at him, her mouth twitching. "Ah, he ain't so bad. I ain't denyin' it wasn't polite, and my heart was broke over it, but nothin'----an' I say nothin'----is worth the hangover I had the next mornin' from drinkin' sorrows away. I'd rather be a friend, anyway, when I think on it, I... well, y'know, even if I had a boy, what would I do with him?" She shrugged, heading down a flight of stairs, leading Richard along. It was like they hadn't spent two years apart. Then again, for Misha, it really only felt like a couple of months----and in those couple of months she really hadn't known who he was, anyway. Richard was... special. All kinds of special.
It was ... fractured, for Richard. It didn't feel like two years because he blacked out, occasionally. There were alters that he had no knowledge of and didn't know about him, lost chunks of memory, things he just didn't want to remember. Misha was a familiar face, kept him calm. He'd been around her so much that she was practically a trigger and tended to bring the host personality back. He'd only gotten worse after she'd left. "What do you mean?"
Misha had no idea how fractured he was. No idea at all. She knew about his "other half" but hadn't experienced anything else. "I mean, ain't like I'd let him touch me," she said with a shrug. "It'd..." She slipped out a doorway and into a narrow corridor. She never talked like this with anyone else, but, "If my parts start reactin'..." She shuddered. "I ain't good for that."
"If someone loves you, that part shouldn't matter," Richard pointed out, frowning a little. It was easier to talk about this than the whole doom thing.
"Well----it----does," said Misha, emphatic but stumbling a little on her words, as if the idea was a little preposterous. "It does matter, it's..." She waved a hand. "Anyway, ain't nothin'. Honestly I feel a little better now than I did before, ain't no pressure to be... somethin' I ain't." See? They could talk about stuff like this even though they were prisoners. That was how they got by. "Kitchen's this way."
Richard didn't push. What was the point? It wasn't as if it was any of Richard's business. "Oh, um. The cook here. I was rude to her; will she be around?" Poor woman deserved an apology.
"Madeline? Probably, she usually is." Misha played with her hair, running her fingers through it. "You do a lot of apologizin' for somethin' that ain't your fault."
Richard shrugged. "It makes other people feel better."
"It's kind of you," Misha said. "I mean... hell, that kinda thing is common right now. We're gettin' imprinted sometimes. Without wires. Just a...a phone call can make us someone else. We do awful things, then snap back. You ain't so uncommon here."
"I don't know if that's comforting or not," he admitted. At least everybody else had an excuse. Richard was just ... crazy.
Misha shrugged. "Means you won't stand out." She took his hand and gently held it.
Richard squeezed her hand, grateful. "So. Tell me about everyone."