"So tell me why." His name's on the tip of her tongue, but that wasn't a winning strategy last time. Reaching out to touch his arm, though, hand catching at his elbow - that, she'll try.
He takes a step back almost before she moves to touch him. Envoy bullshit's got to be worth something. "Same fucking reason as every day. You're digging into my fucking work."
"You'd never take a shrink." Sitting down with some psychosurgeon and talking about feelings? She can't imagine it, let alone picture Kovacs in there. "Kovacs, talk to me. Please."
He finally sets his eyes on her, and it's with such practiced loathing he can't stand it. Then again, he can't stand much of this life. "What the fuck is so worth talking about?"
"Avoiding me's not enough?" He's going to deny he did, she feels sure of it. The way he's staring at her, Kristin thinks he'll do anything to disagree with her at the moment. Coming here might have been a mistake - a true revelation - but she can't leave bad moods alone. You get angry with each other, you yell a little, it's over. It's better than all this waiting, wondering if the other shoe's about to drop. "You just ran from me like I interrupted a drug deal. We haven't talked about your job in days. This isn't about work."
He stands his ground because he has no other options. "Yeah?" His words are bitter, confrontational; his gaze falls on her, and locks. "What d'you think it's all about, huh? You really gotta pick at that scab?"
And he doesn't deny it. The problem with (and the attraction to) Takeshi Kovacs: he's impossible to predict. The more pressing problem, not especially attractive: he's still pissed with her, maybe more than he was before he came back to The Raven.
(If someone asked her later, she wouldn't actually be able to blame him for that.)
"I'm a detective. Picking scabs is what we do." That seems to be his impression, anyway. She takes a step forward, making no effort to reach for him this time. (She wants to. Touching Elias calmed him down sometimes. She doesn't do it.) And she remembers the last conversation they had, the place where he stopped responding, the place where he cut off contact. Her voice softens, not deliberately. "I didn't say the right thing to you, last time we talked."
"Yeah. I noticed." There's bait there, but she doesn't take it beyond an edge coming into her voice. He's looking at her like he wouldn't mind if half the elevator fell down to the basement of this place, provided it took her with. Kristin swallows. The conversation as it was, it went you're strong, you're lying, leave me alone. That's where things went wrong. "People don't...I don't hear a lot of compliments."
Tanaka's got critiques of her policing. Her mother, of her appearance. And Samir--she doesn't want to think of him right now, the same way she doesn't want to think about Elias.
What she wants is to touch his chest, hand over his heart, and see the tension in his face relax. She doesn't try.
He's kept, just slightly, from snapping. She's trying to be honest, and he loves that brash honesty with which she assaults the world. He knows he's not nearly so brave.
But the anger and the hurt stay in place.
"Yeah," he murmurs out of the side of his mouth, "it's shit."
It's not like people look at him and see a person, not a thing, an obstacle or a tool.
"So I was an asshole," she continues, even though she doesn't think she was actually an asshole. Sometimes you say something, not because it's true, but because it'll help.
This time, Kristin does reach out, trying again to catch his arm. "But you were sweet."
Reflexively, he lets out a derisive snort. He turns away from her, staring toward the door of the elevator (has it stopped completely?), shoulder checking her if necessary.
"I don't want to talk about it."
It feels like concession, still. How does he recover?
Looking over his shoulder at her, there's a glint of that feral madness that comes from no one meaning anything to him, from loneliness, from isolation. "Unless you're so desperate for a fuck you're bribing the AI to get a chance at Elias' cock."
So he shoulder-checks her, and she turns, keeping him in his sights, and--
Kristin sucks in a sharp breath. Hurt flashes through her eyes, and then a stoniness that means I'm not letting you see me get upset. You don't deserve it.
"What," she hisses, "the fuck is wrong with you?"
Somewhere above them, there's a creaky sound, like a very old elevator coming to a stop. It's entirely for effect - surely this thing isn't powered by cables and cogs anymore.
"I got my reasons," Kovacs says, cool in the face of pain now spread between them. She should feel so rejected. The pool in his chest, the pit of loathing, deepens to his stomach. "What the fuck are yours, for tracking me down like a dog? They don't look real good."
"You were an Envoy." That she'd found out on the way to the Aerium is immaterial - the entire thing felt retroactively justified the minute he turned out to be a terrorist. "You need another reason?"
"I'm here right now because your AI is a meddling piece of shit." It's the only deflection she has right now, because he's right. She would've kept a eye on Elias' body no matter who was put inside it. That it's currently home to a man she's come to respect, someone she likes enough to fuck, just muddies up the situation.
She turns and bangs twice on the side of the elevator (normal arm, not the new one). "Hey, Poe! We're done here!"
"If that's what you gotta say," he drawls, "to sleep at night."
Kovacs pulls out the nemex and shoots the side of the elevator. A glittering redness falls momentarily away-- a hologram to make an old building look new and fresh-- before retracting around the bullet hole. "I'm not fucking kidding, Poe!"
His yelling contains hurt, like a stray dog choking at a new and unwelcome leash.
"You are being such an asshole." As though he doesn't know. As though he's likely to stop. It's almost a relief to use Poe's contrariness as a distraction; the hotel is someone they can both direct their anger toward.
It'd be a relief, even, if it had any effect.
She goes over her current inventory. Gun. Knife. Badge. Not much else of note. The gun obviously won't make a difference, and all she'll manage to do with the knife is dull the blade if she tries to use it like a can opener. What's left? Maybe a maintenance entrance at the top, disguised by hologram, but Kovacs would have to look for it - and she's disinclined to ask him a favor right now.
So she goes over to the door and tries to see if she can wedge her new fingers between it, pull it open through cybernetic technology and pure unvarnished spite.
Kristin wants to punch something. She picks the wall of the elevator, and she's pissed enough that she doesn't remember to use her left hook. The wall dents, metal clanging against the concrete of the the elevator shaft, and it dents enough that the buttons go dark, the hologram blinking out of existence. Turns out it's a clean but dingy elevator cab with faded trimmings.
Fuck.
She jabs at the button for the ground floor, but the elevator doesn't respond. (She's probably lucky this didn't turn into a one-way trip down - the elevator would hit the basement, and she'd hit the ceiling.) "Poe!"
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(If someone asked her later, she wouldn't actually be able to blame him for that.)
"I'm a detective. Picking scabs is what we do." That seems to be his impression, anyway. She takes a step forward, making no effort to reach for him this time. (She wants to. Touching Elias calmed him down sometimes. She doesn't do it.) And she remembers the last conversation they had, the place where he stopped responding, the place where he cut off contact. Her voice softens, not deliberately. "I didn't say the right thing to you, last time we talked."
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The weakness, the queasiness, is so much easier to fold up into anger.
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Tanaka's got critiques of her policing. Her mother, of her appearance. And Samir--she doesn't want to think of him right now, the same way she doesn't want to think about Elias.
What she wants is to touch his chest, hand over his heart, and see the tension in his face relax. She doesn't try.
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But the anger and the hurt stay in place.
"Yeah," he murmurs out of the side of his mouth, "it's shit."
It's not like people look at him and see a person, not a thing, an obstacle or a tool.
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This time, Kristin does reach out, trying again to catch his arm. "But you were sweet."
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"I don't want to talk about it."
It feels like concession, still. How does he recover?
Looking over his shoulder at her, there's a glint of that feral madness that comes from no one meaning anything to him, from loneliness, from isolation. "Unless you're so desperate for a fuck you're bribing the AI to get a chance at Elias' cock."
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Kristin sucks in a sharp breath. Hurt flashes through her eyes, and then a stoniness that means I'm not letting you see me get upset. You don't deserve it.
"What," she hisses, "the fuck is wrong with you?"
Somewhere above them, there's a creaky sound, like a very old elevator coming to a stop. It's entirely for effect - surely this thing isn't powered by cables and cogs anymore.
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She turns and bangs twice on the side of the elevator (normal arm, not the new one). "Hey, Poe! We're done here!"
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Kovacs pulls out the nemex and shoots the side of the elevator. A glittering redness falls momentarily away-- a hologram to make an old building look new and fresh-- before retracting around the bullet hole. "I'm not fucking kidding, Poe!"
His yelling contains hurt, like a stray dog choking at a new and unwelcome leash.
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It'd be a relief, even, if it had any effect.
She goes over her current inventory. Gun. Knife. Badge. Not much else of note. The gun obviously won't make a difference, and all she'll manage to do with the knife is dull the blade if she tries to use it like a can opener. What's left? Maybe a maintenance entrance at the top, disguised by hologram, but Kovacs would have to look for it - and she's disinclined to ask him a favor right now.
So she goes over to the door and tries to see if she can wedge her new fingers between it, pull it open through cybernetic technology and pure unvarnished spite.
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"Yeah," Kovacs says, shoulder checking her again as he walks past her, toward his room, "have fun riding back down."
He doesn't know what he'll do if she tries to follow him. Probably fucking explode.
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Fuck.
She jabs at the button for the ground floor, but the elevator doesn't respond. (She's probably lucky this didn't turn into a one-way trip down - the elevator would hit the basement, and she'd hit the ceiling.) "Poe!"