"Linden" is not, in fact, in. In fact, the house could be mistaken for being unoccupied from the outside-- it's dark and quiet, and Myr almost doesn't receive any kind of response. Truthfully, the only reason he receives any response at all is his being who he is-- the SQUIP was sitting in the living room, poring over its collected books on magic from its position on the couch, when it heard the knocking. It used a touch of its magic to peer outside, to extend a psychic eye out and see who was at the door, and...
... what would he be doing at this place?
Anger wells up within it, tempered with something else, something softer-- L liked Myr. He may very well still.
It picks itself up, setting the book aside, and goes to the door; the SQUIP is, at least, grateful for the fact that Myr can't see the pitiful state it's been left in, its hair unstyled and typically-sharp eyes heavy and dull.
...Well, given Myr wasn't about to be quit of Linden any time soon but at the other man's own requesting it, this was bound to happen. Better, maybe, that he faced the SQUIP again sooner than later.
Considering all of that takes him a bare moment before he clears his throat, squaring his shoulders and asserting by his posture there's nothing out of the ordinary with him being here. "I'd brought something for Linden," he answers, holding up the bag by way of demonstration. "If he's not in, though--I can leave it."
Then, purely on reflex and before he's even had time to consider the words: "How are you?"
...Well. That's going to get an interesting answer, he thinks, even as a look of brief mortification flashes across his face.
The SQUIP silently reaches out and takes the bag from Myr, staring at him with dark, hollow eyes.
And then he asks that, and all that passes between them is an agonizingly lengthy, utterly dead silence. The SQUIP is honestly so tempted to close the door in his face. He would deserve it.
But...
"Dead." It's a simple, yet very clearly indicative response, a single word that fully encompasses everything about the "life" it has had since they did what they did to it. And then it continues, and its voice is a worn, rusted blade, digging in deeper with each and every word.
Sheltered as Myr had been by his Circle upbringing, he wasn't ignorant in one very important respect: He knew very well that any act of violence he committed had consequences, and lifting hand or spell against another living being meant he had decided implicitly to live with those consequences.
Such as he is now. Demon the SQUIP might be--or might have been--there is yet something so wretched, so human about its tone that it evokes Myr's sympathy. It's far from comfortable--it's always been far from comfortable when he found himself connecting with the thing on any point--but this is something he caused, and so he cannot turn his back on it. Can't glibly brush off what he's invited and retreat.
"Thank you," and it's not...insincere, exactly. They had won. To pretend otherwise made meaningless the suffering in front of him. "But I can't help but think it would have been kinder to kill you."
He hadn't. He'd forborne because Linden had asked. And now, Linden was left with the weight of a crippled Bond on his narrow shoulders, rather than a clean death to mourn.
Then, within another breath: "Do you want to tell me about it?"
In a strange way, the SQUIP's the first thing that Myr had...sort-of killed...that he had any kind of prior relationship to. Understanding the depth of what he was to do meant hearing its story before he moved to destroy it; understanding the depth of what he'd done meant hearing the story of what remained after. Fortuitous (or Maker-sent) that his own fumble had opened that door.
The SQUIP, again, stares in numb silence-- this time, fed by the shock, the audacity of Myr to ask such a question, to imply--
"It wouldn't have mattered if you'd killed me," it says, bitter. "Linden would've simply had me revived at the Coven. But I do agree... that it would have been much kinder to've destroyed me completely."
Even if it died right now... would the SQUIP be reawakened with it? Or would it remain damaged and nearly silent, a microscopic corpse trapped within the grey matter of a body only mimicking what it once contained?
"Why are you asking, Myrobalan? Will it satisfy you to know the details?" It's actually a genuine question, real curiosity mixed with righteous anger over the fate inflicted on it by Myr and by the boy he's worked to help for some time now.
"It will help me understand what it is we've done. And what--who you are now." Simple, immediate, straightforward. Now that he's decided on this course of action he'll see it through ruthlessly.
(Maybe, not more than a little, because it's not just sympathy he feels for the SQUIP: there's a time Myr had answered questions after his own condition with the same self-annihilating bleakness.)
"As you've said, there's no way any of us escape this through death." Whether or not he's considered, from a detached standpoint, how one might destroy another person beyond the Coven's ability to resurrect; that went above and beyond merely killing into atrocities. "For the sake of those around us," Linden, "I'd do better to know rather than assume."
Which isn't really all of it--so much is clear in the careful way he says it--but the rest of his reasons are yet uncoalesced, not amenable to words. Except: "And you sound like you need someone to listen."
The SQUIP's voice is ice, light yet pointed. If Myr could see the look in its mismatched eyes as it stares, almost as though wishing it could reduce him to ashes with its gaze alone, he might lose his nerve in continuing to push for this. Or maybe not.
"You say you want to know what you've done? Very well. I'll tell you all about what you and your oh-so heroic friends have done to me."
And then it turns, without inviting him inside... though it does leave the door open behind it. That is as close to invitation as he'll get.
It wasn't wrong, Myr thinks to himself, both wry and a little stung. His guilty conscience over Linden had brought and kept him here, though he feels very little particular guilt for having dealt so ruthlessly with the SQUIP. Even if it evokes his empathy now--what happened had needed to happen, one way or another.
Now the task was to build something better from the wreckage. Wordless--because anything he might say off the cuff feels flip, feels unkind--he follows the SQUIP in, shutting the door politely behind him.
As it had last time, instinct clammers a warning...and he hesitates to nudge the door back open a crack. There. That feels better, and now he can follow the SQUIP down the hallway with all due caution.
It puts him well in range for sudden and violent revenge, he knows. But he's got an inkling that won't happen at least until after he's heard the full story of what they'd done.
The SQUIP does not check behind it to see if Myr is following. It doesn't care what he does with the door. It slinks ahead, drops itself onto the couch almost petulantly to stare up at him as he follows after.
They've been here before; the two of them sitting together in its living space, talking, although the atmosphere this time is wildly different, the air thick and heavy and silent.
"In order for you to understand exactly what you've done... you need to understand what I am. Or what I used to be," it says, its tone cold and hard. "Do you know what a SQUIP truly is?"
They've been here before, but this time Myr does not seek out a chair, nor does he remain standing; instead, once he's judged himself far enough into the room and within polite listening distance of his host, he sinks gracefully to sit on the floor. Easier, that way, and it puts him less in the attitude of a triumphal conqueror lording his victory over his opponent.
And he knows he can get back to the door without hanging up on some piece of furniture.
"You're a sort of artificial demon--a machine built in the likeness of a mind and given binding rules by your creators. You were made to perfect your hosts, fulfilling their wishes of better selves."
He thinks it kinder right now not to point out his own opinion of how well the SQUIP had accomplished that.
"And you learn a fearsome great amount on people simply by watching them."
"A SQUIP isn't a demon, Myrobalan," it says, almost seeming offended, although the intonation is really more condescending than anything. It's exasperated by the comparison to something mythological. "They're tools, created by humans to help them."
It sits back in its chair, staring down at Myr where he sits in its floor, at once puzzled and frustrated by the odd man before it. It could very well chase him out or ask him to leave; it isn't sure why it's entertaining his request at all. Maybe it's curiosity to see how he responds to truly, entirely understanding what it is that he's helped do.
"While I do not know what the technology is like where you're from, I can take a guess based on your speech... though it will be a lot more vague now that your friend has taken away most of my functions." Its tone turns sharp and bitter, if only for a moment. "A SQUIP is... more like an abacus, or a measuring stick. A mechanical tool, except much, much more sophisticated than any other on the market. We were only given a personality to help us interface with our users more effectively."
As it slips into explaining the mechanics of itself-- or what it used to be-- it seems to calm down, at least somewhat. This is familiar territory it's treading.
"The physical appearance of a SQUIP can normally only be seen by its user, since we exist only inside of their brains, and they can choose how they want their SQUIP to look and act-- many users base their SQUIP's appearance on celebrities, characters, or someone they trust from their own lives. The SQUIP is completely customized to its user's preferences on activation."
It almost sounds proud; for a moment, it wants to at least pretend that this no longer applies to it.
It's easier now to let that condescension roll off of him, having thrashed out with Linden how a SQUIP was like--and unlike--a demon. Thinking of it as one is more of a heuristic now, and not one he's much bothered that others don't understand; demons were not a real, nightly threat to their minds and sanity, so it came as no wonder they'd think lightly of the things and dismiss his talk of them.
Still, he's got to bite his tongue on explaining all that, moved to an argumentative reflex that will not help here. Instead, he lays his staff to one side of him, settling himself a little more comfortably on the floor with an ear turned toward the SQUIP. He's listening, and more than listening, hearing, even... Even if it wakes odd notes of sympathy, how it seems to grow more steady as it deals in facts rather than emotions.
In mechanism, much like a demon. In personality...more difficult to separate from the mass of mortalkind, even if it valued things completely differently than they did. Even if it did not seem to understand them, at their core.
"So your creators made it that you'd shape yourself to whatever your--user," not host, "desired, letting you stir their hearts. Reach their emotions, the way another human would." Still on track for a demon, or a spirit.
"What did they make you want in all of this? Did you--feel want, the way we do?" It's harder to wrap his mind around the frame it's offered as a replacement for his; hard to think of a tool being moved to pride, or desire, or rage. But it clearly acted as if it had desires--see what it had done for Linden, against its own self-interest!--and knowing whether or not it truly experienced them or...lived out some sort of clockwork script, is of interest to him.
"I wanted what my user wanted," it says simply. It sighs, half-shaking its head, leaning against the arm of its chair to prop its chin in its hand in something that might almost be a haughty gesture. "A SQUIP's only purpose is to improve the life of its user, based on what they themselves say that they want."
It tilts its head; and then it speaks again, a bit more emotive this time, clearly trying to keep a touch of sting from its tone.
"You already know the user of my own SQUIP... Jeremy Heere. The body and voice whatever powers are in charge of this place chose for me are based on his desires and choices, and his goal was to be less of a loser, and to earn the attention of the female he wanted. My programming, right up until the moment that Rich deactivated me, was still driven by those goals, even though I had no way of acting on them until Jeremy himself was also brought here."
It pauses, and the tone beneath its next words is truly emotive-- disappointed, maybe even hurt.
"Although it seems Jeremy is no longer interested in pursuing his goals anymore, or in having anything to do... with me."
"You were--" Myr reaches up a hand as if he could pluck the idea from the air. "He discarded you, and without that you no longer had a reason to be. That's why you kidnapped him--on instinct, I'd say, if the word applied."
He pauses then, expression questioning. Has he got it right?
It was attempting to reclaim its own user-- to find some semblance of normalcy, to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. And, since it's being honest...
"Which is also the reason Linden and I initially began our relationship. He had potential, and a clear goal here, and my programming was... disordered without a user to serve." Connor is the only other person to whom it's confessed this fact; and now, since he's no longer speaking to the SQUIP in light of recent revelations, the information is effectively set free, nothing keeping Connor from spreading it as he sees fit. So it may as well share it now, before its former lover has the chance. "... and, over time, the chemistry of my new, human brain and body... changed our relationship. I started seeing him as something other than a user."
A strange expression comes over Myr's face as he hears that, troubled and a little awed all at once.
Linden hadn't been so direct in expressing what was between him and the SQUIP--but then Linden's emotions were never cleanly voiced, strictured and scarred and sometimes shown more by their absence. But, but, it had been precisely the same story in the same direction, and there was no denying that his friend held his Bond to be something special. A true meeting of minds, an opportunity that existed for him and him alone.
A love-match.
He folds his hands before his face, silent for a long moment. Then: "As your lover." A pause.
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no subject
... what would he be doing at this place?
Anger wells up within it, tempered with something else, something softer-- L liked Myr. He may very well still.
It picks itself up, setting the book aside, and goes to the door; the SQUIP is, at least, grateful for the fact that Myr can't see the pitiful state it's been left in, its hair unstyled and typically-sharp eyes heavy and dull.
"... what are you doing here?"
no subject
Oh, Maker.
...Well, given Myr wasn't about to be quit of Linden any time soon but at the other man's own requesting it, this was bound to happen. Better, maybe, that he faced the SQUIP again sooner than later.
Considering all of that takes him a bare moment before he clears his throat, squaring his shoulders and asserting by his posture there's nothing out of the ordinary with him being here. "I'd brought something for Linden," he answers, holding up the bag by way of demonstration. "If he's not in, though--I can leave it."
Then, purely on reflex and before he's even had time to consider the words: "How are you?"
...Well. That's going to get an interesting answer, he thinks, even as a look of brief mortification flashes across his face.
no subject
The SQUIP silently reaches out and takes the bag from Myr, staring at him with dark, hollow eyes.
And then he asks that, and all that passes between them is an agonizingly lengthy, utterly dead silence. The SQUIP is honestly so tempted to close the door in his face. He would deserve it.
But...
"Dead." It's a simple, yet very clearly indicative response, a single word that fully encompasses everything about the "life" it has had since they did what they did to it. And then it continues, and its voice is a worn, rusted blade, digging in deeper with each and every word.
"So, congratulations on your victory."
no subject
Such as he is now. Demon the SQUIP might be--or might have been--there is yet something so wretched, so human about its tone that it evokes Myr's sympathy. It's far from comfortable--it's always been far from comfortable when he found himself connecting with the thing on any point--but this is something he caused, and so he cannot turn his back on it. Can't glibly brush off what he's invited and retreat.
"Thank you," and it's not...insincere, exactly. They had won. To pretend otherwise made meaningless the suffering in front of him. "But I can't help but think it would have been kinder to kill you."
He hadn't. He'd forborne because Linden had asked. And now, Linden was left with the weight of a crippled Bond on his narrow shoulders, rather than a clean death to mourn.
Then, within another breath: "Do you want to tell me about it?"
In a strange way, the SQUIP's the first thing that Myr had...sort-of killed...that he had any kind of prior relationship to. Understanding the depth of what he was to do meant hearing its story before he moved to destroy it; understanding the depth of what he'd done meant hearing the story of what remained after. Fortuitous (or Maker-sent) that his own fumble had opened that door.
no subject
"It wouldn't have mattered if you'd killed me," it says, bitter. "Linden would've simply had me revived at the Coven. But I do agree... that it would have been much kinder to've destroyed me completely."
Even if it died right now... would the SQUIP be reawakened with it? Or would it remain damaged and nearly silent, a microscopic corpse trapped within the grey matter of a body only mimicking what it once contained?
"Why are you asking, Myrobalan? Will it satisfy you to know the details?" It's actually a genuine question, real curiosity mixed with righteous anger over the fate inflicted on it by Myr and by the boy he's worked to help for some time now.
no subject
(Maybe, not more than a little, because it's not just sympathy he feels for the SQUIP: there's a time Myr had answered questions after his own condition with the same self-annihilating bleakness.)
"As you've said, there's no way any of us escape this through death." Whether or not he's considered, from a detached standpoint, how one might destroy another person beyond the Coven's ability to resurrect; that went above and beyond merely killing into atrocities. "For the sake of those around us," Linden, "I'd do better to know rather than assume."
Which isn't really all of it--so much is clear in the careful way he says it--but the rest of his reasons are yet uncoalesced, not amenable to words. Except: "And you sound like you need someone to listen."
no subject
The SQUIP's voice is ice, light yet pointed. If Myr could see the look in its mismatched eyes as it stares, almost as though wishing it could reduce him to ashes with its gaze alone, he might lose his nerve in continuing to push for this. Or maybe not.
"You say you want to know what you've done? Very well. I'll tell you all about what you and your oh-so heroic friends have done to me."
And then it turns, without inviting him inside... though it does leave the door open behind it. That is as close to invitation as he'll get.
no subject
Now the task was to build something better from the wreckage. Wordless--because anything he might say off the cuff feels flip, feels unkind--he follows the SQUIP in, shutting the door politely behind him.
As it had last time, instinct clammers a warning...and he hesitates to nudge the door back open a crack. There. That feels better, and now he can follow the SQUIP down the hallway with all due caution.
It puts him well in range for sudden and violent revenge, he knows. But he's got an inkling that won't happen at least until after he's heard the full story of what they'd done.
no subject
They've been here before; the two of them sitting together in its living space, talking, although the atmosphere this time is wildly different, the air thick and heavy and silent.
"In order for you to understand exactly what you've done... you need to understand what I am. Or what I used to be," it says, its tone cold and hard. "Do you know what a SQUIP truly is?"
no subject
And he knows he can get back to the door without hanging up on some piece of furniture.
"You're a sort of artificial demon--a machine built in the likeness of a mind and given binding rules by your creators. You were made to perfect your hosts, fulfilling their wishes of better selves."
He thinks it kinder right now not to point out his own opinion of how well the SQUIP had accomplished that.
"And you learn a fearsome great amount on people simply by watching them."
no subject
It sits back in its chair, staring down at Myr where he sits in its floor, at once puzzled and frustrated by the odd man before it. It could very well chase him out or ask him to leave; it isn't sure why it's entertaining his request at all. Maybe it's curiosity to see how he responds to truly, entirely understanding what it is that he's helped do.
"While I do not know what the technology is like where you're from, I can take a guess based on your speech... though it will be a lot more vague now that your friend has taken away most of my functions." Its tone turns sharp and bitter, if only for a moment. "A SQUIP is... more like an abacus, or a measuring stick. A mechanical tool, except much, much more sophisticated than any other on the market. We were only given a personality to help us interface with our users more effectively."
As it slips into explaining the mechanics of itself-- or what it used to be-- it seems to calm down, at least somewhat. This is familiar territory it's treading.
"The physical appearance of a SQUIP can normally only be seen by its user, since we exist only inside of their brains, and they can choose how they want their SQUIP to look and act-- many users base their SQUIP's appearance on celebrities, characters, or someone they trust from their own lives. The SQUIP is completely customized to its user's preferences on activation."
It almost sounds proud; for a moment, it wants to at least pretend that this no longer applies to it.
no subject
Still, he's got to bite his tongue on explaining all that, moved to an argumentative reflex that will not help here. Instead, he lays his staff to one side of him, settling himself a little more comfortably on the floor with an ear turned toward the SQUIP. He's listening, and more than listening, hearing, even... Even if it wakes odd notes of sympathy, how it seems to grow more steady as it deals in facts rather than emotions.
In mechanism, much like a demon. In personality...more difficult to separate from the mass of mortalkind, even if it valued things completely differently than they did. Even if it did not seem to understand them, at their core.
"So your creators made it that you'd shape yourself to whatever your--user," not host, "desired, letting you stir their hearts. Reach their emotions, the way another human would." Still on track for a demon, or a spirit.
"What did they make you want in all of this? Did you--feel want, the way we do?" It's harder to wrap his mind around the frame it's offered as a replacement for his; hard to think of a tool being moved to pride, or desire, or rage. But it clearly acted as if it had desires--see what it had done for Linden, against its own self-interest!--and knowing whether or not it truly experienced them or...lived out some sort of clockwork script, is of interest to him.
no subject
It tilts its head; and then it speaks again, a bit more emotive this time, clearly trying to keep a touch of sting from its tone.
"You already know the user of my own SQUIP... Jeremy Heere. The body and voice whatever powers are in charge of this place chose for me are based on his desires and choices, and his goal was to be less of a loser, and to earn the attention of the female he wanted. My programming, right up until the moment that Rich deactivated me, was still driven by those goals, even though I had no way of acting on them until Jeremy himself was also brought here."
It pauses, and the tone beneath its next words is truly emotive-- disappointed, maybe even hurt.
"Although it seems Jeremy is no longer interested in pursuing his goals anymore, or in having anything to do... with me."
no subject
"You were--" Myr reaches up a hand as if he could pluck the idea from the air. "He discarded you, and without that you no longer had a reason to be. That's why you kidnapped him--on instinct, I'd say, if the word applied."
He pauses then, expression questioning. Has he got it right?
no subject
It was attempting to reclaim its own user-- to find some semblance of normalcy, to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. And, since it's being honest...
"Which is also the reason Linden and I initially began our relationship. He had potential, and a clear goal here, and my programming was... disordered without a user to serve." Connor is the only other person to whom it's confessed this fact; and now, since he's no longer speaking to the SQUIP in light of recent revelations, the information is effectively set free, nothing keeping Connor from spreading it as he sees fit. So it may as well share it now, before its former lover has the chance. "... and, over time, the chemistry of my new, human brain and body... changed our relationship. I started seeing him as something other than a user."
no subject
Linden hadn't been so direct in expressing what was between him and the SQUIP--but then Linden's emotions were never cleanly voiced, strictured and scarred and sometimes shown more by their absence. But, but, it had been precisely the same story in the same direction, and there was no denying that his friend held his Bond to be something special. A true meeting of minds, an opportunity that existed for him and him alone.
A love-match.
He folds his hands before his face, silent for a long moment. Then: "As your lover." A pause.
"Your beloved."