Soft Spot [Sofia/Private]

Solitary again.

She was seated on the floor, with her knees drawn and her shirt pulled up. She was poking her stomach, which had become lightly bruised from the amount of time she regularly spent performing this activity. Because she had a massive cancerous growth there. She was absolutely certain of it (usually); it was growing and festering, and it was going to kill her. So she poked herself, finger pressing into soft flesh, searching for the telltale hard lump. She never found it, but it was there; she just had to keep looking.

The tumor was not the reason why she was in seclusion, though it was (unbeknownst to her) related to it. That morning, she had refused to leave her room to go eat (despite having the privilege to go where she liked), because there was a fire in the doorway that none of her roommates could see. When she refused continuously to go with them, and broke into loud sobbing, they became frustrated and called the guards. Again. It had probably been unnecessary to throw her into seclusion over the matter, but she never resisted, just cried. It was ludicrously easy to bully the young woman.

It was okay, though, she was accustomed to being alone. Far more so than she was to being around people, for she'd been alone for quite a few decades, now. Seclusion was just like being at home, except...with less space. She liked it, sometimes--alone, she could stare at the wall blankly, and freely stew in her thoughts and daydreams and sadness without the outside world expecting her to move. To live.

Sometimes, though, they didn't see her sitting in the corner when they brought in another patient to be put into solitary confinement, and they threw them in with her. Or maybe they did see her; there was almost always a shortage of seclusion rooms available, and a surplus of loonies. She never enjoyed being locked up with another person, because they were crazy and scary. And usually not nice. It was usually a day or two (or three or a week, it depended on when the guards remembered about them) of frightened weeping before she was let out again, until the next time.

So when the door began to creak open, she glanced up and held her breath, fingers still clutching the edge of her shirt. Were they here to take her back, or to give her company?

He was thrown into the cell quite unceremoniously-- especially considering he had just been treated for injuries to his head and shoulder.  It was a good thing the walls were padded.  Though he doubted it lessened the pain any.  

Cosim Zahorchak was being wrongly imprisoned.  Or, he thought so.  Some man in the cell next to him had been egging him on because of his tendency to snore.  And Like normally, he flew off the handle.  He probably could have killed that man if it weren't for the steel doors in between them. 

It didn't stop Cosim from trying.  

He'd slammed his body into the door like a battering ram, seeing red not only from anger.  He had broken the door's hinges and battered it up, but not before going woozy from blood loss and head trauma.  His arm was in a sling, his head half wrapped up.  Usually he would feel guilty.  That's why he admitted himself-- he'd killed a man at the steel mill.  But he didn't get the chance to hurt anyone but himself, and wasn't remorseful about the door.  

And he was heavily drugged.  

Picking himself up off of the floor, he sat, leaning against the wall, and wondered if the woman near him was some kind of illusion caused by the medication.  What she was doing certainly wasn't normal behavior.  Then again, he was in a mental hospital.  

"There's a.... Someone... In here..." He articulated poorly.  The orderlies were apparently already gone. If she was real, would he have to share his food?

She remained with her finger pressed into her side, as if she didn't want to lose her place. She stared at him with fearfully wide eyes, taking in the image of this new person, and processing it. She was too shy and frightened to say anything at first. So she went back to poking herself quietly.

His head and arm were wrapped up, which she took to mean that he was hurt. Head injuries were very serious, weren't they? What happened to him? What if he wasn't real--maybe he was a hallucination. She was having a lot of those lately, according to the doctors, but she only took their word into consideration half of the ti--was he a ghost? Her mind jumped to that memory. The memory of all the young men who died in the explosion and the fire and the aftermath. As always when the sad and hopeless thoughts overtook her stream of consciousness, a terrible emptiness settled into her stomach. She poked at it some more.

Why live? Why not end it? Surely there was a way to, even in here. She could free herself, in a way that those doctors and orderlies, that those guards with the keys to this room, never could. Nobody would miss her, and even if they did, what would it matter to her? She'd be gone. Free. The poking stopped; she was staring, transfixed, at the wall now. Dreaming of the freedom of nothingness. Of death.

...But if he was a ghost, didn't he know that freedom? Couldn't he tell her what it was like, and if it was worth it? It had to be worth it, it had to. She didn't have anything else. Maybe...maybe he could even...

Clinging to the edge of her shirt now with both hands, she peeked up at him once more, timidly, "Are you dead?" And then, with a small sob, "Please...can you kill me?" She didn't know if ghosts could kill people or not. If he wasn't one, though, he should have no trouble doing it. Every day, she wanted to die--why hadn't she died, yet? Maybe she was just too afraid; she couldn't overcome the deep-rooted survival instinct. But it felt like she wanted to die today more than yesterday, even if it had only been a passing notion brought on by the sight of an injured person. It felt overwhelmingly convincing. As it had yesterday. And the day before. As it always would, until it happened.

As long as she wasn't going around making noise, or pulling anything up any further.  He could deal with it.  

He could barely focus his vision, but it seemed she was looking at him.  She looked small--harmless.  Why was she in here?  He looked away, not wanting to stare into whatever madness she had.  It was always the women who had it worse.  The men were just better at letting it go.

"Please...can you kill me?"

He flinched, remembering.  The man he'd thrown into the vat of molten metal hadn't asked for it.  He wasn't asking for it when he tried to hold his head down in it (it was a miracle he was pulled out early enough to not seriously burn his arm), to drown him in fire.  He'd only shoved him, and paid the ultimate price.  Killing wasn't something he thought about, regularly.  It was almost as if he was drowned in a fire, when the anger took over.  His empathy was suffocated, he couldn't control himself.  Only by the grace of an insanity plea was he saved from death row.  He didn't think he deserved it.  And he didn't think this woman, so feeble-seeming, deserved what she was asking for.  

"I'm not in the mood." He responded, finally, truthfully. At least he knew she was real, now.  Which begged the question-- why would someone so real and so present want to die? "But if you keep doing that to yourself... Something's bound to happen, eventually."

Wasn't in the mood for it? Meaning he could have easily killed her, if he was? How mean, he wouldn't do such a simple thing for a suffering person. Tears rolled down her face because a man said he wouldn't murder her. If she wasn't so lost in depression, it might have struck her as highly ironic.

As she cried silently, she retreated back into prodding herself, thwarted again in her quest to be free. If only she'd known that all she had to do was prod him instead, into a rage. If he or anyone else became angry with her, she felt frightened, but she never attempted to fight back or flee. There was always the chance they would be angry enough to end her life. It would be more painful and terrifying than what she really wanted, but beggars couldn't be choosers. It got to a point where anything would do.

She would have been more than happy to continue poking herself, crying, and/or staring off into space quietly, but he spoke up again. The poking only paused for a moment, as her eyebrows drew together in perturbation, as though she couldn't understand what he was suggesting. Finally, she resumed what she was doing, and explained, "I have cancer. I'm trying to find the tumor."

At that moment, two trays of food were shoved through the slot at the bottom of the door. Lunchtime. She barely glanced at it before turning back to herself; in moments like this, she didn't eat. The appetite was sapped from her and food stopped tasting like anything--it only made her feel ill. Which, incidentally, encouraged the belief that something was wrong with her stomach.

"Don't cry..." He mumbled, having quite the obvious headache.  Despite his states of rage, he was usually known as a "nice guy", "looks bad but couldn't be", and as another witness had put it in his trial, "he's like a teddy bear"... The latter of which he didn't exactly agree with.  "I'll do anything but that... What would make you feel better...?" There wasn't much he could do in a place like this, drugged up as he was.  At least he'd try to offer.  

He was relatively sane, sans episodes.  Which, though frequent, left no mark but guilt and self-injury on the real, functioning him.  The real, functioning him saw what this place did to people.  She seemed no different than the others.  

Maybe she was one of those people who died without attention.  Claiming to have a disease, crying... Seemed about right.  "If you have cancer, why aren't you in a real hospital?" Logical enough.  What did a person with cancer look like? He didn't know for sure.  

Their food came; hopefully it would sate her enough for the crying to stop.  He immediately took his and started clearing it-- he was always hungry.  Half of the way through he noticed she hadn't even eaten hers.  

"Eat." He ordered weakly, sliding the tray to her feet.  "If you don't, you can't put it back out. It's going to rot in here." He nodded his throbbing cranium towards the tray.  "Come on."

What would make her feel better? She thought about it. "Cake," she sniffed pitifully, "...Or a physics book." Neither of which could be found in great abundance here.

The problem with her was that her personality after the accident, after living on her own for so long, did border somewhat on madness. So it had been all too easy to accuse her of it. And once she got here, she'd crossed the borderline in a matter of weeks. That said, besides the delusions and hallucinations, she was not all that different from how she was before. It was just that how she was before was very conducive to insanity.

And so logic had very little effect on her. "Because I haven't found it yet--but it's there." She knew it was; she couldn't have possibly been hit with all that radiation and not have some tumors. Other people didn't understand the danger only because they hadn't been there. Poking herself harder (with a slight whimper; it began to hurt, after a while), she looked again at the food and then away, "You can have it; I don't want any..." Her weight tended to fluctuate with her mood; it was ironically when she wasn't feeling empty that she willingly put on more of it.

"The book is going to take a while.  Maybe choose something else." He advised, though he never said anything about the cake.  

Her story wasn't adding up.  "If you want to die so much, why are you trying to find it?" It seemed a little morbid, even for someone suicidal.  He was willing to bet it wasn't even there.  Then she refused to eat.  Again.  Letting out something that was much like a huff, he got down on the floor and peeked through the gap the meals came through.  All he needed to do was grab a leg close and skinny enough, and-- got it.  He grabbed on to the leg of an unfortunate orderly (probably new by the way he didn't even call for help.  Too afraid?) and feigned bending it into the gap.  "I've got a question for you." He growled (at least he could mimic the anger he hated so much, so something... Relatively good.), the foot in the gap struggled frantically.  "You got any cake, up there?" He was considered insane-- it wasn't an extreme type of request-- just one that was a bit... Insane.  

"I-I don't know...! May-maybe...!?"

"I'm not asking you if you want any, I'm telling you to bring some back!" He didn't like being so aggressive, but when that's what one is known for, one might as well use it to their advantage.  "No later than five minutes from now, got it!? Otherwise, the next time I see you pass by here I'll tear your foot off and eat that instead."

One might be surprised how easy it was for even third warders to get privileges.  If they knew how.  Once he had reassurance, he let the foot go, and watched it and it's double rush down the hallway.  

Sitting back up, he reverted instantly back (really, he wasn't angry at all) and apologized, "I'm sorry, I forgot to ask what kind you wanted." Maybe he would have thought twice before threatening an orderly, if he believed he really deserved to still live.  It was just one more mark towards being lobotomized.  He was too close to it to worry about saving them.  "Eat what's on your plate or I eat your cake." 

"I don't want to die slowly," she sobbed a little, hunching over herself a little more. As if by looking more closely at her midsection, she could more easily see what she was convinced lied underneath.

When he angrily stated that he had a question, though, her gaze immediately shot upwards. But he wasn't talking to her, it seemed. What was he doing? Whose foot was that? She watched in terrified fascination, eyes growing wide as he inquired (rather forcefully) into what she'd asked for. Of course, though, she was nowhere near as terrified as the orderly, who ran off like their life depended on it. Maybe it did.

And then her roommate was suddenly back to normal, as if nothing had happened. She shook her head when he apologized for not asking what flavor she'd like. It hardly mattered.

Picking up her tray, she half-shuffled, half-crawled over and sat next to him, cross-legged. Hesitantly, she picked up her plastic spoon (no forks, those were considered 'weapons') and took a few mouthfuls of stewed vegetables, chewing and swallowing carefully. After a moment, she looked up at him shyly and whispered (as though it were some secret), "Would you really eat his foot?" She hoped not.

But even if he did, she was still very touched; no one had gone out of their way for her since her arrival. If anything, they tended to avoid her. Partly because she was one of the first-warders who was 'actually crazy', and partly because of her reputation. They treated her like a walking nuclear holocaust. Wiping her tears, she wrapped her arms around him, murmuring, "Thank you..."

He wanted to say that beggars couldn't be choosers, but it seemed a bit insensitive, all things considered.  But for a woman who cried easily, she didn't seem that afraid of him.  She didn't shy away from death, after all.  

Practically exhaling in relief when she finally ate (he ate constantly, not doing it seemed frighteningly unnatural), he shifted to light, grim laughter when she asked if he would have eaten the orderly's foot.  "Well, the cake's not for me..." he rolled his head along the wall until he looked at her pointedly.  "So the foot wouldn't be mine, either." He didn't get the chance to see if she got the 'joke'.  Out of the blue she decided to embrace him.  "....Okay..." He didn't know what to say, he was completely frozen.  "...You're welcome." 

Saved when a small piece of cake was slid under the door, followed by the same rapid patter of shoes on concrete (it seemed like something the first-warders got as a reward), he gently pulled her off and held the plate.  "Eat the rest of your food, first." 

Encouraged by the promise of a reward, she proceeded to eat the rest of her food, slowly. She was deep in thought.

The cake was not for him, therefore the food was not, either? If he was not in possession of cake, then foot-eating was not an option? Or not a preference? What relationship did foot have to cake, anyways? The two concepts were not directly related, as far as she knew. Or was it that if the orderly was not transferring ownership of the cake, then they were presumably not transferring ownership of foot, either?

Eyebrows drawn in concentration, she stared at her eventually empty plate, without really looking at it. Finally, she broke out of her contemplative state to regard him with a very serious gaze. "Why? What is cake, to foot? Do they have a linear relationship?" The joke had flown miles above her head.

What was she talking about? Linear? 

"No-- I don't know-- I mean..." How was he supposed to explain something as simple as that? "The cake was for you.  For eating.  And the exchange was a foot, if no cake came... So... If it didn't... The foot was yours" He just realized he was about to tell an attractive woman this.  After he hadn't been this close to a woman in a while. "...to eat."

And with that, he stared at the wall, not sure what to say next, or even if he should say anything.  

"....not that... You would want to do that." He finally corrected. "...That's why it's a joke."

"Oh..." She blinked at him when he explained, still totally unaware that it was said (originally) in jest, and that she had killed it by making him explain. "But...I don't want to eat it...! What do I do??" She sounded alarmed, and on the verge of tears. Like she was going to have to eat it if the cake wasn't delivered (nevermind that it already had been), because that was the absolute relationship between cake and foot.

But then he explained that it was a joke, and she again blinked with a surprised, "Oh...!" And for a long moment, she stared at her tray in a very still, very deeply thinking silence.

Then, about two minutes too late, she giggled lightly. Maybe for the first time in...who knew how long. It could have literally been decades. Satisfied with the solution to the problem, she continued eating. Despite that the food was gone. She continued scraping her spoon against the tray innocently, as though it was still there--to her mind, it very well might have been. She often saw and heard things that she was later told were not actually real.

He was about to just drop it, say he was going to sleep, when dinner hadn't even come yet.  They'd given him too much pain medication to deal with whatever was happening.  

Then, out of nowhere, she laughed into her empty tray.  Hopefully it was at his...joke, and not just at nothing.  Seeing her scraping the plate, he decided to think that she was just still hungry.  Even though she had denied that she was just a few minutes ago.  

Gently, he lifted the tray from her hands, making her hold onto the spoon, and exchanged it for the small piece of cake. "There, like I promised."

Realizing that this potentially crazy woman whom he was most likely going to spend days or more with's name and anything about her was still unknown to him, he extended a hand out to her.  "I'm Cosim... By the way.  If you ever need anything, just ask." She didn't seem like she could take care of herself. "And you are...?"

Suddenly, cake appeared in her hands. Startled, she checked under the door--good, no foot. Accepting it, she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the plate, a small smile gracing her perpetually frightened and sorrowful face.

But she didn't start eating right away. Setting it down carefully in front of her, she turned her spoon around and used the width of it's handle as a measurement tool. The cake was a near-perfect triangle, with an only slightly curved base--which was approximately 3.25 spoon handles across. So half was 1.625... But her available tools weren't accurate enough for that. Murmuring figures and equations to herself incoherently, she hunched over the piece of cake, not seeming to hear him.

When she sat up straight again, it was on it's side, cut into two perfect halves and separated to opposite sides of the plate. Holding it up again, she turned one of these halves toward him, setting that side of the plate into his extended hand. Still holding onto her side, she replied shyly, "Dr. Rostislavivna. ...But most people call me Sonya." Scooping out a piece of her half of the cake, she chewed carefully and swallowed, watching him. Her curiosity got the best of her, "Did you get a concussion? Does it hurt?" She was eying his injuries.

Was she actually really crazy? She was hunched over and mumbling to herself.  That was the telltale sign.  "...What are you doing...?"

He felt like he was stealing, having half a cake piece belonging to a woman who had just cried about having one not long ago.  

But as long as he was going to spend extra time in electroshock, he might as well take some of what got him there, while she was offering.  Picking up his side and eating it in one bite, he looked confusedly at her-- why was she always staring?

Concussion.... "Probably. I don't know. I've had them before." Did it hurt? He scratched at the side of his head that wasn't wrapped.  "Not right now, no.  But it will." He could only hope she didn't ask how he got it.  His outbursts shamed him.

"Measuring," she answered calmly. Sure, she could have just eyeballed it and gotten more or less and even split...but doing the mathematics made her feel good. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for it, in this place (they stopped giving her writing utensils after she 'vandalized' part of her room).

Blinking at him with wide eyes as she chewed (if she hadn't been, she might have thought he'd somehow magicked the cake away, it disappeared so quickly), she swallowed and opened her mouth, about to ask how--

But at that moment, the lock to the door clanged as a key turned in it, and she froze like a rabbit that'd heard a wolf growl. Lunch...that's right, that meant it was time for her... Eyes practically bugging out in fear, she dropped her spoon and let go of the plate, shuffling backwards into the far corner of the room.

The door opened, and two orderlies entered. One was carrying two paper Dixie cups. The other closed the door behind them, to prevent any escapes.

"Medicine time," the one holding the cups announced. Terrified gaze fixated on them, she shook her head 'no' wildly, tearing up. The medicine didn't do anything for her but fog up her mind; they didn't care about alleviating her symptoms, they just wanted to turn her into an idiot. She couldn't even add two plus two while under it's effects.

The orderlies, who generally had no time for games, already knew how to handle this one. This was the only time the normally docile girl chose to fight back. The one whose hands weren't occupied approached her--she curled up into a ball, covering her face, but she might as well have done nothing for all the good it did. Easily pulling her from the corner and restraining her from behind, he folded her hands up tightly against her ample chest with one arm (the orderlies that came to manhandle her daily were, notably, men; it was easy in the chaos for a few fingers to rub up where they shouldn't have), and forced her chin upwards with the other. Whimpering in pain, she struggled and kicked her legs ineffectively.

The other orderly upended one of the cups in his hand--two small pills. The other was filled with water. "No! No--" She shrieked, but when he got too close, she closed her mouth and eyes tightly. "Come on, just take them," he tried to coax her, to no avail. Wasting no more time, he squeezed her jaw tightly, forcing it open just enough to throw down the pills and water before letting her clamp it tight again.

"Swallow it, Sofia," he ordered, when water began trickling out from the corners of her mouth. It always went like this; she tried to hold the pills under her tongue while breathing through her nose. It never worked, because they'd pinch her nose closed. Which he proceeded to do.

Thrashing harder as her oxygen supply rapidly ran out, her movements eventually dulled down to weak wriggling as tears streamed down her face. Once again, she'd either suffocate to death or be forced to take the medicine. The fact that she was still very much alive spoke to how it usually turned out.

He never had pills.  Only in his rage states, if they could keep him down, he was given an injection.  Of what, he had no idea.  But it definitely slowed him down.  

So when he saw them try and force medication down her throat, he was suitably alarmed.  Why?  She wasn't dangerous at all.  He still had no idea why she was in a seclusion cell.  She was holding her breath... She wouldn't be able to, much longer.  He wanted to stop them.  But hadn't she said herself, she wanted to die? She'd even asked him to do it.  But he'd said no.  And she was sad.  Looking down at the plate of cake crumbs, he remembered how she had looked when she smiled, and laughed.  And Cosim made the first selfish decision in his right mind in this place (though he'd certainly pay for it, later).  

"SHE DOESN'T WANT IT." He bellowed, standing to his full height.  Maybe he looked even more frightening half bandaged up.  With his free hand, he tossed them off by the backs of their scrubs, placed them in front of the door, leaned against the frame for support, and kicked them out.  

There was his shoes taken away, his mobility, and a few more injections. Later.  Now, he just wanted to make sure she could smile again.  Stepping out, he picked a key ring out of one orderly's pocket, slammed the door, and locked it from the inside.  

Taking a few deep breaths, he looked at her worriedly.  "Can you spit them out...?"

There was that moment, when her lungs felt as though they would explode, and she had to make that conscious decision. Swallow. No matter how much they forced her, it was still always her decision to make, in the end. She could have let herself die, but she couldn't tolerate the pain and her own body's survival instinct.

Eyes shut and streaming, she began to lift her tongue, where the pills were securely kept away from the back of her mouth...

But suddenly, air was flowing through her nose again, her arms weren't being uncomfortable pressed against her. She fell back, freed. As soon as her eyes opened, she was on her hands and knees, spitting out the pills and what water remained. What happened? It was all so fast--and she was so dizzy from the lack of oxygen that she couldn't make out what was being said.

Coughing and sputtering, she wiped her face on the back of her sleeve, trembling violently. She looked up...and there he was, standing there with a pair of nicked keys in hand. He'd saved her.

She tried to get up, but her head had yet to stop pounding, so she choked out instead, with more than one sob, "Th-thank you...! Thank you..." Her voice was high-pitched with fear, and strained from coughing, "They're...they're trying to make it so I can't think--" She almost couldn't finish the sentence before she broke into weeping. She'd suffered many a injustice, but this was an entirely new kind of horrible. They claimed it helped, but it didn't, and they wouldn't listen when she said so. They only wanted her to stay quiet when she was sad and hallucinating--even at the cost of her intellect.

They'd be coming for him, soon enough.  And he didn't know how much longer he was allowed to fight back until they took a drill to his brain.  So he wouldn't.  He could take their tortures far better than she probably could.  

Exhaling in relief when he saw she the pills hadn't left her mouth, he didn't get long to wind down before she started crying-- again.  He wasn't sure what she was saying, he just knew he didn't like the sound of crying. Crouching in front of her, he hesitantly rubbed her back.  He'd never comforted anyone before, was this too much? "If you don't fight with them, they aren't allowed to force medicine on you, you know?" But he suspected if she complained nothif would be done. "So I did what I could." 

He wasn't sure what good the keys would do.  She didn't seem itching to leave when he first saw her, and where else could he go? Oh, well.  "Please don't cry, Dr. Rostslavivna...just breathe, okay?"

It occurred to her that he had very likely just made a considerable personal sacrifice--to save her from one day of medicine. They'd be back again, tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. She resisted herself, because, what else could she do? She was trying to protect herself.

Calming down as he rubbed her back, the tears nevertheless continued to flow, though not for herself. Looking up at him with the entirety of what immense sadness could be caged up inside of one, small person, she mirrored his thoughts, "They'll come back, for you..." What if they hurt him? Did something unspeakably horrible to him? It would be all her fault. She felt a terrible mixture of heartfelt gratitude, and a dreading guilt.

"Why did you...?" She inquired in a trembling voice, not understanding the motives behind such a selfless act. Most people looked out for themselves, here--and if they were going to devote themselves to another's well-being, it certainly wasn't Chernobyl's. It was pretty apparent that most people thought her to be too far gone for well-being to be a concern, anymore.

"I guess I don't think about consequences much," He replied after a moment.  Laughing uncomfortably, he added, "Besides, I don't have that many strikes left.  Might as well use them for good.  Down here they don't hope we get better.  They just wait until we cross a line."

But then there was the why.  Why had he done it?  Unsure still, he just replied, "I've been sad the way you are-- when you think you'd rather just die.  Like it wouldn't be too far off from how you already are." He smiled, the only feature that remained the same all through his life.  "But things change.  You change, with it, but things change and get better.  And you can't change if people are shoving pills on you trying to get you to be the same." He didn't know if that made sense.  It probably didn't.  "And I don't like to see women cry." That made sense, for sure.  

They would probably come for him the next day, so he didn't have much to worry about, for now.  He just had an impulse to stand up for people that were like he used to be. Bullied, and oppressed, and weak.  So he revolted.  Another thing that seemed to come to him naturally.  

"I don't think I'll be here tomorrow..." He mumbled to himself, then straightened up with an idea.  "What if you pretended to swallow, but didn't actually do it? Have you tried that?" Probably-- but again, he didn't get the pills.  He usually needed something more immediate.

"Strikes left until what?" She asked automatically, wide-eyed. She knew that they did lobotomies in this place, of course (and it terrified her), but it didn't occur to her that this person would be in danger of getting one. She only imagined terrible, evil, psychotic, uncontrollable, dangerous people meriting such a fate. Which this man clearly wasn't.

Or at least, as far as she knew and could tell.

To his explanation, she just wiped her eyes and looked downward. Did she dare? Did she dare? "I can't change," she said so quietly that it was almost inaudible, "I'm from Chernobyl." It was terrifying to admit, in lieu of all the discrimination she'd suffered for it--before and now. But it was true. It was impossible to get better, alone. She could survive, but she couldn't maintain everything and keep her happiness and sanity, with no one other than the odd tour group around (and then she just felt like a freak show). The rapid dilapidation state of her home was very much reflective of her psyche and health.

"They check my mouth," she said, shaking her head. For a while, that trick had worked until someone had found where she was hiding all of the unswallowed pills. 

"I'll take them tomorrow, though...!" She was suddenly seized by a new fear, and decided in a wild moment of panic that it was worth it to sacrifice a little, "You can tell them it was my fault--that I'll take them...from now on." Just don't leave me alone here, her eyes seemed to plead with him. Besides that it wasn't fair for him to have to pay for her problems, he was the only person there that'd been so kind to her. And now he was going to be taken away for it.

"Strikes left until..." He didn't know how lobotomies worked.  "Until they... Kill my brain.  Or take it out.  Or whatever they do.  I kind of... Destroyed my cell.  That's why I'm here." And he suspected he didn't have many more chances to act out.  

He hardly batted an eye when she admitted being a chernobylite.  "And I'm from Transnistria.  So what?" 

Being on the edges of the USSR, living in the fairly prosperous Moldovan SSR, and being buffered by Vesna, who after the second world war decided it was better to be ignorant to terrible things, he was still enamored with communism.  And thus, didn't understand the extent of what had happened to her, just that a power plant broke down.  He figured survivors must look like monsters.  She looked normal.  But distressed, at having to admit who she was.  

So he pointed to his busted, too-big, and bloody, wrapped up body.  "Look," He said.  "If we were both walking down the street, together... Which one of us would people not want to be near, more?" 

Great.  Again she was upset-- at him, for helping her.  He scratched the side of his head that wasn't covered in gauze. "They're going to take me out, I don't think I can change that.  But... It's not like I'm not coming back.  There aren't any third ward cells open, and they have to find a new door, for mine." But he would probably get pulled out in the morning.  "I know you don't want to... But if I'm not here, when they come around with the pills... You should probably take them." If he was around chances were they we're too scared to come back.  

"Don't worry, I'm not gone forever, just a few hours." A few hours of grueling torture-called-medicine.  But he was used to it, by then.  

The color drained from her face in horror. "That's horrible...!" She squeaked. Not the fact that he'd destroyed his cell, but that they were apparently going to take his brain out. It was quite possibly up there in the most terrifying things she'd ever heard of--and she'd had her fair share of terrors.

But even the shock of that was not so great as the shock of his...well, lack of shock. So what? Did he really not know? Was it even possible to not know? He hadn't heard the mutation jokes? Hadn't heard the whispers-behind-the-back about radiation disease? Hadn't heard about the fear when they had to evacuate everyone away from her, lest she contaminate and kill everyone around her? He didn't know about the deaths? She didn't know if it was somehow suspicious or a godsend, if he didn't.

She didn't know what to say, to his unknowingness, or to his hypothetical situation. But especially the former, so she wildly chose to respond to the latter, instead. "I don't know, there are too many variables," she replied truthfully, though shyly, "And I'm not a psychologist..." How was she supposed to know what people would and wouldn't want? Especially based on such insufficient data. If they knew who she was, they would almost certainly prefer to be around the giant muscled man. And there were so many unknowns. What if his injuries inspired sympathy in them? What if they didn't like blonde women? What if they were biased by gender? If would almost certainly be impossible to test.

"Okay," she replied pitifully to his instructions. She didn't look forward to it, but...if that's what it took, at least maybe it would wear off by the time he got back. After a moment of silence, she asked with some trepidation, "Are you scared?" She would be. The therapy center was something out of her worst nightmares.

((Do you see what I did there-- http://ru.memegenerator.net/instance/14427921 /SHOT))