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The first thing that Kasia noticed when she woke up this morning was the ankle deep pool of sickly water on the floor of her bedroom, the second thing she noticed was the smell, a horrid combination of industrial run-off and sewage. Kasia looked down at her floor from her bed, now an island of safety from the slate-gray concoction. Her eyes shoot open as a sudden realization hits her... her collection... her yaoi her books... all but two were strewn about the floor of Kasia's bedroom and all of them are now thoroughly soaked in poop water. Tears well up in Kasia's eyes, So many memories made, now lost. She quickly rubs away the tears throws on her coat and grabs the two remaining books on her nightstand and holds them protectively. With impressive agility, Kasia leaps through the doorway of bedroom into the main room of the apartment, thankfully there is less of the death water to the point she is able to walk around the puddles, Kasia exits her apartment and slams the door with all her strength and anger.
Kasia sits on the stairs, running through all of her options... and it all comes up blank. Maybe she's too emotionally charged to think straight, maybe there is really only one choice. Kasia slowly gets up and walks into the elevator, smashing the button for the ground floor. The elevator makes no movement. Sighing heavily she makes her way to the stairs and slowly, methodically tip-toeing her way down the stairs and exiting the building. Just for a moment she looks up to the sky, it's one of the rare days where it's not pouring rain, even the sun is out! The sky is sickly green rather than the usual swirl of gray and rusty red. she eventually reaches it. The payphone. A sticky note slapped to it, the landlord's number. With trembling hands Kasia slots in a coin and dials the number. It rings exactly three times before he picks up.
"Hel-" He barely gets to speak the first syllable before Kasia slams the handset of the phone back on it's base and quickly walking back a few steps. She walks back and forth trying to psych herself to call back, eventually she puts another coin in the phone and calls again, it only rings once before he picks up again.
"Hello?" Even through the phone Kasia can totally tell that he is SUPER pissed, like mega-meltdown levels of anger.
"ah...um...hi." Kasia's voice is barely above a mumble.
"Who is this? Is this a prank call? Don't call me if th-" Again Kasia just hangs up this is clearly beyond her right now.
Kasia walks up the stairs sitting down against the wall, curling up into a ball. Maybe, just maybe this day is all just a horrible nightmare.
Several hours pass, or maybe it was only a matter of minutes, but Kasia is awoken by Marie, softy shaking her. Kasia rubs the sleep from her eyes and is slightly startled with Marie being a bit too close, Her piercing, deep, unblinking eyes bare into Kasia, the unnatural illumination sends an electric chill down her spine.
"Kasia. You were on the floor, are you okay?" Despite Marie's status as highly-advanced military murder machine cyborg there is a surprising... softness to her voice, Kasia thinks, and blushes slightly at that thought.
Slowly, Kasia stands and brushes herself off. "Well, my room is... well just look inside." Kasia opens the door to her room, The rancid smell rushes into the hallway and Marie peers into the room.
"Oh." is all she says. Kasia closes her door and leans her back against the wall, sighing deeply.
"Did you report it to the landlord?" Marie joins Kasia with leaning against the wall.
"well... no not really." Marie raises one of her eyebrows.
"I'll be back." Marie pushes off the wall and continues down the stairs. Kasia is left on the landing, walking in circles and rocking back and forth on her heels. Eventually Marie returns.
"I called him, he's going to send someone, he didn't say when." Marie opens the door to her room and holds it open like she's waiting for something, it takes a second for Kasia a second to realize what she is implying.
"Oh! you don't have to... really." Kasia looks away from Marie. Kasia nods and walks into the room, Marie follows suit and closes the door behind her.
Kasia is instantly hit with a wave of awkwardness, she fidgets with hands as she tries to come up with something to say or talk about. Her eyes dart around Marie's kitchen, it's utterly devoid of anything except bottles and cans of alcohol empty or otherwise. Does Marie even feel the effects of alcohol? Does she even need to eat? Kasia wants to ask, but maybe that sounds a bit to personal? Now that she thinks about it, she doesn't know really anything about Marie, other than that she's a mercenary or something like it, not that she's trying to hide it or anything. But other than that? Kasia has no idea, But she WANTS to know, Kasia doesn't really understand it herself but Marie has this certain magnetism to her.
"It's not much, but feel free to make yourself at home." Marie's voice catches Kasia off guard, she only nods in response. Marie continues.
"I noticed you're pretty quiet today. Is everything alright?" Kasia opens her mouth to dismiss the question, but again that softness in her voice... it makes Kasia want to be friends with Marie, so maybe talking about stuff will make that happen? Kasia has made plenty of friends already, granted exclusively online but it can't be THAT different... can it?
Marie gestures at Kasia to follow and leads her into her... living room? It seems all of the furniture was gutted to make room for a mass of computer stuff, monitors, keyboards, loose parts and everything in-between. Kasia takes a moment to look around impressed by the collection. Marie pulls out a chair and stool, Kasia eases into the chair. It's just a shitty folding chair but it's infinitely more comfortable than when she was sleeping on the floor. Marie sits on the stool and stares deeply into Kasia expectantly, it takes her a second for Kasia to realize what she wants. She wants to talk. About her. Kasia smiles about that.
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The two talk for a long while. At first Kasia just talks about the crushing morning she had, about her apartment flooding and the destruction of her collection, which prompts questions from Marie about it. Normally, Kasia would be too scared or socially awkward to even begin talking about BL to someone in real life, she saves her lore dumps and brain worms for her friends she met online. But... something pushes Kasia to talking about it, some strange feeling deep in her stomach and chest. She wants to keep talking with Marie, it's strange. Normally someone like Marie would cause Kasia to run and probably hide under her bed. A cyborg that kills for a living, one that could probably murder the shit out of Kasia in half a second with nothing but her hands. But despite all of that, Kasia feels a strange... kinship with Marie, maybe because she noticed that Marie acts in a vaguely similar way, maybe it's because they are both short. After testing the waters with what Marie is comfortable with, Kasia opens up completely and is soon doing full on lore dumps about her favorite series and talking about all of her favorite parings and ships, of course all of this is slightly tinged with sadness with the destruction of all her books, now she'll have to rely on shitty link aggregate sites for her reading. Marie for the most part seems to be at least paying attention, nodding along and asking the occasional question. After what feels like hours of just Kasia talking at Marie, she stops. She WANTS to ask Marie about herself it would be so rude if she enters her home only to do nothing but talk about herself. But Kasia has no idea what to even say, would Marie even be cool with talking about herself? Kasia has never met a mercenary before, but she can assume they don't really like talking about themselves for one reason or another. Kasia swallows her nerves.
"So... Marie. Where did you get all your augments? They look pretty advanced." Marie doesn't answer right away. She shuffles a bit until she just shrugs.
"I don't know. I just woke up recently in a scrap pile, and I don't really know anything about myself." Kasia really doesn't know what to say to that. She just nods.
"Oh! I see. I am sorry to hear that." Well that's awkward. Quickly, Marie steers the conversation back to Kasia. After that the mood is killed a bit, even more so when Kasia yawns.
"Tired? I am too." Marie says as she tilts her head to the side. Kasia just nods, truth be told all of this talking really wore her out. Kasia stands up stretching out her arms.
Marie stands too, she shoves off her coat and discards it. Kasia's eyes go wide as she quickly looks away. Is this weird? Marie doesn't really have any skin aside for on her face, but by definition she is like totally naked. Kasia shakes her head and tries to push away such thoughts they make her feel like some sort of creep. This is what totally normal friends do, Kasia is totally normal right now.
Kasia clears her throat "I'm cool with sleeping on the floor or the chair." Marie shakes her head.
"No. you don't have to. I have a pretty big bed, we can both fit." Again Kasia blushes. This is certainly not how she expected this to go. She doesn't really know what to say, this cool cyborg woman is asking to share a bed, Kasia can't do anything but accept immediately.
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Kasia has been in many strange situations in her life. Most of the them made her more miserable, taking pieces of her one by one with her only response being to run and hide either literally or metaphorically. But this, this is one of the very rare GOOD strange situations. Kasia is laying in bed, still as a statue, paralyzed at the thought of doing something weird or wrong. Marie is right next to her. The room is completely silent, only a very low soft electrical hum fills the room. Kasia has to fill the silence, has to do something.
"Wh...What's that noise?" Kasia's voice comes out dry and quivers slightly.
"Sorry, it's me." Marie says plainly. "See?"
Marie scoots slightly closer to Kasia, causing her heartbeat to speed up more than it already is, Marie puts her hand right against Kasia's ear. Sure enough the soft buzz is coming from her, it reminds Kasia of the low buzzing drone that powerlines make.
Marie rolls over to her side, facing Kasia the illumination from her augmented eyes are... quite beautiful in this moment, Kasia feels warm from that thought. "Are you feeling better now? you seemed upset When I saw you this morning." Kasia, thinks about it for a moment. Truth be told she does feel better, She had a nice conversation with Marie, and that's not even talking about whatever the hell is going on right now in this bed. But there is still the fact she lost all of her collection, a lot of them she had since she was still in compulsory education, and carry memories that are not even necessarily about the mangas or books themselves but rather the people she came to knew because of them. Many of those people aren't alive anymore. Tears threaten to leak from her eyes.
"You can cry. If you need to."
Kasia shakes her head and tries to force the tears back down, rubbing her eyes furiously. "I'm okay I just-"
Kasia's trail of thought is cut of by the feeling of a metallic finger scratching against her scalp. Kasia stops rubbing her eyes to see Marie... patting her head? scratching her head? Whatever she is trying to do it gives Kasia immense comfort, comfort she wasn't even aware she needed at that moment.
"Thank you." is all Kasia can say. She scoots herself closer to Marie leaning into her, Marie doesn't do anything to stop her or push her away. She's so close now that Kasia can make out the details of Marie's body even in the darkness. The metal, wires, crossbeams, the soft whirling buzz of whatever is inside of her, all of it is decidedly "inhuman" But in this moment, the warmth that Marie emits and the soft scratching on top her head. Kasia can't think of Marie as anything but human.
Kasia closes her eyes. It was a shit day, and tomorrow will be too. But right now? Kasia thinks heaven is probably something like this. At some point, she falls asleep.