[PRP] Ditching the Nark (Mot / Amrita)

[Enoh Love]

Amrita stared at him for a few long moments, but the longer they held eye contact, the more she fidgeted. When she tore her gaze away, she planted it firmly on the ground.

"I can't leave them yet, Mot." She said, her voice low with despair. It contradicted her earlier insistence on leaving and going as far away as possible, but it was still true. "We didn't have anyone to protect us...I can't let that happen to them." Though Hunter attacks - save for Haunted House run-ins - were nearly non-existent now, but there was still a threat hanging over Amity.

"I'm going to stay as long as I can. They need us." Though there was something that nagged at her, deep down. She wanted to stay at Amity to protect the next generation, but she also felt like she needed to leave, because they needed protection from her.  

[Bittiface]

"At that rate you may as well live at Amity." Mot was both advising and warning her, his hands still firmly at his hips. "New students arrive all the time. It'll never end unless the hunters stop needing them for... you know." New weapons.

He grimaced.

"And the hunters won't stop until their goals are met... and I'm not really sure what it is they want, ultimately." He knew some of them fought because they were scared. Others because it was orders.

"Amrita. I love that you want to protect them. But... protect yourself too, okay?" His face was wrought with worry, "You're a dear friend. I hate to see you in pain.."  

[Enoh Love]

"I know, I know!" Amrita let out a frustrated whine, pulling at the poncho unhappily. "I just want to stay until I can prepare some of them...and until a few others graduate." She added, because she felt that it was very important to stay around long enough to make sure her boils were safe.

What Mot had to say next made her feel guilty. Incredibly guilty. She was lying to him, but at the same time, she wasn't. There was a lot more to what she was saying, but a lot of it at this point was speculation. She had an idea, but no safe way to prove it, and until she did, she wasn't comfortable with telling anyone else.

But this was Mot.

Mister Moral Compass himself. The kind boil who helped her any chance he got, even if it meant scolding her until she preferred to avoid him entirely. He was saying such sweet things, and she wanted to believe him, or even let him in, but she couldn't.

"I'll be fine." She lied out loud, trying to make even herself believe it. "I always am." At least this was the truth; every bad thing she had ever undergone had eventually ended, and always gave her a small grace period of happiness before something else happened. It was those moments in between that she lived for, fought for, and imagined one day, die for.

"Now stop worrying about me!" She hesitated for a moment before reaching out to give him a much lighter punch than she had earlier; the first one had been out of instinct, before she remembered to avoid all contact. This one was an attempt at a peace offering, and one she hoped wouldn't backfire on her. "You've got your own life to live, and a business to run, and trends to focus on! I'm sure a few ladies - or gents - to woo, too."  

[Bittiface]

But he did worry. Maybe he was thinking too hard, but he just felt like Amrita was trying to be brave right now. She wasn't alright. No way she was. Mot gave a small smile, about as fake as the one he'd been given.

"Right." His own life. Last time he'd visited his mother, she'd oh so subtly asked about life partners and possible pitter patters of grand kids little feets. She'd also insisted any partner needed to be smart and sensible, lest her baby boil make the same life choice she did in spouses.

"Well.. I won't stop worrying, but I'll really let it drop this time. For now." He assured her with a bit of defeat in his tone. "I just hope that if you truly need to reach out, if you get into trouble? You'll call? It doesn't have to be me. Just somebody." He insisted. "Friends are supposed to get dirty for one another. It's hard asking for help, but worser yet is knowing you weren't relied on by someone you love."

"Right?"  

[Enoh Love]

Mot's comments had Amrita flinching. They went right through her chest, embedding guilt into her broken core.

"I'll call. I promise." She was sincere in that, only because she understood where Mot was coming from; she understood as much as she struggled with it. There were a few times she had caved and reached out, but it was few and far between.

"How dirty, though? Where is the line?" She questioned suddenly, the thought occurring to her. Friends were there to get dirty - but how far did that cover? She was filthy, after all; her crimes, both imagined and real, were a great deal more than some dust and dirt.

bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

"I guess the line is where you draw it yourself. I've supported friends who's morals didn't match my own before, but only to a certain point." Mot frowned, rubbing his neck.

"I scolded myself a lot back then, thinking that stepping back from helping a friend was the lowest I could go." He'd spent a lot of his time in Amity damaging his own self worth because of it. "But we all have a threshold, I believe. A point where we need to make ourselves stop. I love helping and supporting my friends, but not at the cost of my own code."

He wasn't sure what it was Amrita was looking for in his answer. All he could do was speak from experience, and from his own core.

"So while I won't storm Deus and kill all hunters because of my own code? I'd still run to help you if you found yourself in a bad spot. You know?"  

[Enoh Love]

Amrita considered what Mot was saying. There were points that she wanted to argue to be in her favour - especially the part about the line being where she drew it herself. She would always draw the line after a little dust, though she would plunge into the mud herself.

But she knew what he meant, and kept recalling the whole comment of a friend feeling terrible about not being relied on. That was important, and she knew it. He said not too long ago that he was willing to let it drop - but here she was, pushing the issue. She wanted to drop it. She wanted to run far away from this conversation, and go back to the time where she would break into Breck's Shed for fun, and because he'd been there to tease.

Why couldn't she drop it?

"Where's your line?" She changed tactics then, pressing him instead, because while she knew her own answers and her own line she didn't know what - or where - his were. "Talking, if I needed an ear? Healing, if I needed the FEAR?" Amrita was starting easy, but she was ramping up to something, even though deep down, she knew it wasn't fair to him. She had never been very fair to him. "Would you fight to protect me? Or, for me, if I couldn't myself?" She paused then for a moment, her face pinching before she continued:

"Or if...if my 'bad spot' was so bad, I needed you to fight against me? Or even kill me?" The patchwork paused for a moment, surprised by the intensity of the emotion in her own voice; the despair and devastation she felt, tumbling out of her mouth in the form of likely cruel words. All of the things she wasn't sure of yet, but was preparing herself for, were there then, in that moment. Including the ghosting memory of a dream, where she asked someone important to her to end her life if she turned on them, and to do it without hesitation.

"How far would you go to help, before your code stops you?"  

[Bittiface]

"Talking, healing. I'm always willing to help, and if need be, no questions asked." Though he preferred to know why, before things got too far. Being an ear and patching her up were the things he felt like he was capable of doing with ease. There was no dirt to be found there.

But as Amrita went on, it felt despairingly like she was getting towards something very specific. Very personal. Mot kept quiet, concern wrought over his features as his friend spoke with such emotion in her voice.

"You sound like you are in trouble, Amrita. Very serious trouble." Mot spoke softly, his head tilting to the side. He stopped walking, in a quiet alley, and leaned against a wall.

"I'll tell you a little something about myself. Remember that I wanted to be a Boogeyman?" That had been his life long dream, after all. The fuel to all his good doings. "But I'm not a Boogeyman, because I made a choice. If I had followed that dream, I realized I might one day need to be on the wrong end of a fight with some friends. Hel. Riley. Creeple that don't often follow the same moral code as me." He smiled softly, a distant look in his gaze.

"It hurt.. to give up on that dream. But more than anything, my friends mean more to me than any dream I could ever hope to live."

He stood a bit straighter, and gave Amrita a strong smile. "Whatever trouble you're in, Amrita? I want to help. It may be hard, and even if I have to get dirty, or give something up.. I won't regret it. As long as in the end, it will be for your benefit. I want you to feel better."  

[Enoh Love]

Mot was spot-on about the serious trouble, but not even Amrita knew just how right he was. As it were she only flinched and looked at the ground, listening to his story without even looking up at him. It put a little more perspective on the cowboil, while making herself feel a little more guilty about it all.

"I'm sorry you had to give up on your dream." Even though he had done it for a good reason, the fact remained that he had given up something important to him, for something that might not even keep. It was horribly brave of him, and for a single moment she disliked him a little more; he really was everything she could never be. By then, they had stopped in the alleyway, and as Mot leaned against the wall Amrita stood nearby, trying to make herself look as tiny as possible in the larger poncho.

"I don't think that's possible any more." She had her good days, and if she were lucky, weeks; but on the whole, that gnawing worry was back, the same one she had while she was tagged. But this time, it was worse. More final, somehow. "But I...I don't know..." Slowly, she sank to the ground, crouching there and hugging her knees against her chest.

"I don't even know if something is wrong yet. I have a feeling...and I'm pretty sure...but I'm not...you know, positive. There's no real proof, yet." She leaned her chin on her stitched knees, staring mournfully down at the ground. "I don't know what to do..."  

[Bittiface]

Mot crouched down too, but gave Amrita her distance. As much as he wanted to push, he needed to be gentle. If he wanted to help, and keep her from running, this was all he could do.

"We don't know that yet. Maybe I really can make you feel better." He really didn't. He wasn't even sure what Amrita was worried about. She refused to let him in on it. He was grasping at a vague idea of her being unwell, and not much else.

"Is there... anything at all I could do? A favour? A way to protect you? I promise I won't push you to tell me what's wrong... I just want to do everything I can to help. But I can only help so much with only a vague idea of what's wrong." He smiled softly, tentatively.

"If something bad were to happen to you, and I could have helped..."  

[Enoh Love]

The fear and worry she had been keeping at bay was pushing against her now, pressing into the forefront of her mind, an ever-present gnaw that threatened to tear chunks at a moment's notice. Mot's pressing made sense, it really did - her struggle between not wanting to bother anyone and wanting someone to confide in continue to rage on, all of them directed at the boil that was quite literally too good to be true.

He had kept secrets before, but they were small in comparison. This was a big secret she'd be asking him to keep. He was her friend, but he had his own life to worry about. He didn't need to spend his days worrying about her, when he had markets to research. He was asking her what was wrong, but insisting that he wasn't about to push her for it.

It meant that she could run away, right now, and he would leave her be. That's what it sounded like to her. But she stayed put, crouched on the ground with her forehead on her knees, holding herself tightly.

Then, quietly, she uttered the four words she had been dreading to say out loud to a friend, without once lifting her head to gauge his reaction:

"My core is broken."  

[Bittiface]

It was as good as a death sentence. For his friend to be living with the dread of a faulty core, and confiding in no one? She'd been living all alone in her pain. Mot felt remorse, and his heart hurt for her. The tall boil knelt down beside Amrita, and despite her attempts to keep him at arms length, put his arms around her in a hug.

"I am so sorry, Amrita.." He uttered quietly. "You shouldn't have to hurt like this all alone." Even if there was no way he could fix it, he wanted to at least be a shoulder to cry on. He didn't want to lose Amrita, but he wasn't naive enough to pretend something so grave was just a scratch.

"How?" He asked carefully. If Amrita didn't want to indulge him, that was fine. She'd given him so much already. He was genuinely touched and relieved she let him know this much.  

[Enoh Love]

She refused to lift her head from her knees, but her whole body tensed as his arms slid around her. His attempt to comfort her only made her panic worse, but at least she didn't scream, nor did she try to shove him away. She just stayed where she was, as still as she could be, and hoped that it would be over soon.

"I mean...I don't know for sure sure but all the signs are there and - and I just know..." But she had no obvious proof, and that was the only thing she could cling to at that moment. Her shoulders shook, the first move she had made since he attempted to hold her. She continued to not look up, because it put off seeing his face for that much longer; she could pretend she was talking to herself, where the voice in her head sounded like Mot for no reason.

"I had a Hunter tag on my core for a couple years." She started, her voice dripping sadly. Though she wanted to believe he wasn't there, she knew he was - and was grateful that he stayed, and that he didn't seem repulsed. Mot had opened the floodgates, and the story, however fragmented, began to tumble free: "A-and I got it removed, but...the damage was done, you know?" She paused for a deep, shaky breath. "He patched it up, but I think...I think there's something wrong with it." Though the damage would make it already wrong, she meant something more off.

"I black out once a week." She admitted, her voice breaking as if she were trying to cry. "And I sleepwalk now. I never slept before, Mot. Never." Which made the consistent sleep - and the dream walking - troubling. She was also somewhat lying, because she had slept a few times before, but it was all due to physical exhaustion or forced with damage. "He said it was going to be normal but it's not - and now I'm having strange dreams and things from my past are coming up and it's just..." She shook her head, still face down in her knees.

There was a heavy pause, and an even harder hitching breath heaved.

"Once I...I hurt someone. I...I lost control, and I attacked - " She cut herself off with a tearless sob, her arms finally loosening their grip on her ankles to instead squeeze between her chest and thighs, allowing herself to hold her face.  

[Bittiface]

Amrita began to explain, and Mot started to pull away. Eventually his hands left her, but he sat right in front of Amrita. He listened carefully to all of it. He fought the urge to cry as she broke down; he had a bleeding heart for his friends. Seeing them in such trouble broke his heart as much as theirs did.

He took his time as she did hers, piecing together the story she gave. Amrita had indeed been in a bit of trouble. Things only seemed to go from bad to worse for her.

"Sssh it's okay." Mot whispered, a hand uncontrollably holding her knee. "Your friends know you, Amrita. The real you. You wouldn't hurt a fly, not unless something was horribly wrong." And something was very very wrong with her. He wouldn't put down her judgement of her choices, or her lack of a doctor's note. He respected her too much to speak too flippantly of her condition as if it were a minor Fear cold.

"You're a brave and stubborn ghoul. I want you to come out of this okay, even if the odds seem like they're all against you." He offered a smile, even if she wouldn't see it. "I'm here, okay? I'll stay here in Amity with you as long as it takes. And don't you dare tell me not to because of my well being." At this he was adamant, his face steeled tight in determination.

"I am your friend. I'll do everything in my power to help you. Just don't push me away. That would hurt more than anything."