do you want cyborgs?

[undiagnosed]

[barry or cyril-- those were the two choices archer had for this stakeout for a JUNO executive. it's a simple mission; shoot him in the head and tank their stocks so malory can get their own agency a step up and dug further into the (presumably) legal espionage operations they're running like some kind of hellish tick filled with alcohol. it's morally questionable, but sympathy only goes so far when JUNO agents have spent so long trying to drop all the...

...what's the new agency called? archer, unsheathing his combat knife, realises he doesn't know. people seem avoidant on the topic, the same way they were about lana when he'd first woken up.]

God damn it, we better not still be the Figgis Agency, [he mutters to himself, twirling the blade around for a moment before driving it into the motel's shitty plaster wall. figures malory had skimped on lodging-- she seems to be very fond of the excuse that barry being a cyborg means that they technically only need to pay for one room. archer's inclined to agree.

they may have bonded on that factory mission, but that doesn't erase literal years of being terrorized by a criminally insane cyborg. that, and... he's actually pretty sure barry literally doesn't even need to eat or sleep. archer makes a mental note to kick the guy out before he inevitably blacks out drunk-- don't need to wake up to barry standing over him with those red eyes glowing in the dark. he's had enough nightmares that ended like that.

archer pulls the knife up through the wall, idly starting to leave his mark while barry's in the other room doing all the work. it's kind of annoying how hard it is to get a rise out of him now. not like cyril, who'd practically had a mental breakdown at the idea of spending more than ten minutes alone in a room with him. he smirks at the memory, completing the gigantic dick on the wall in a minute or so.]

Hey, dickhead! [he calls out, sauntering into the kitchen and grabbing some scotch out the fridge. god, at least this place is stocked, though... that box of take out probably shouldn't be opened.] Have you calibrated the...

[pop goes the top of the bottle as he twists it off.]

...Whatevers yet?

Comments

[photovoltaics]

The heat sensors? Yeah, buddy, a few hours ago- hey, should you... really be drinking right now? [ Barry narrows his eyes in thought, something he is, rather surprisingly, still able to do despite a prolonged period without any muscles to control. Thank you, Krieger, and also dubious advances in modern medicine. ] What with it being a mission and all.

[ It's obvious that Archer's an alcoholic—among other things, or maybe because of them. The old him most certainly would have had... some sort of unhelpful jab about it, something he tries not to cringe at as he glances down at the half-finished paper box of fried rice in his hand and scans it for any bits of egg he might have missed the first go-round. The man's sick and not emotionally ready to acknowledge it yet, and he deserves sympathy. Especially from someone who chose to reside in that space as long as he did.

Partly because of this guy, who's taken efforts to remind him of how annoying he used to be before the whole...cyborg...Framboise...thing. It's okay, though, because it's not acceptable behavior, but he has the emotional skills to deal with it now, and it was never entirely about what Archer did to him, at least according to Dr. Fleischer. There was always something going on there. Common in kids brought up in the system, he'd said.

So, in a way, maybe he owes it to the guy. Not wholly, because Jesus Christ, that was a lot, but a lot of it was also him, and if Archer hadn't found his mother, well, he'd probably have gone on telling himself he was content being miserably unstable. He would have needed to get help sooner or later either way.

Barry grabs another piece of egg with the cheap bamboo chopsticks that came taped to the top of the styrofoam takeout container and tosses it into the wastebasket with the small collection he's already exiled. ]

[photovoltaics]

[ It feels wrong to keep an eye on him, because that would be watching him in his sleep and that would be a violation. So instead Barry just kinda... takes off his shoes and poses him in the recovery position like a very heavy Barbie, like, one of the new ones with the moveable joints and the leotard or something, and then makes himself comfortable-ish in the bathtub and hibernates—no, sleeps, they've been using humanizing terminology.

Morning comes early. He's still sort of adjusting to Pacific time again despite having spent the first half of his life in its rhythm, and yet, it doesn't feel like he's gotten any extra sleep so much as it just feels weird. It's also weird to brush his teeth and step out of his temporary sleeping arrangements to see Archer unconscious in the bed that was supposed to be his last night.

Barry sets out a glass of water and some black coffee before he settles in for his own breakfast. He'd prefer to watch the news, but that might wake Archer up, so instead he just flips through a very old LIFE and reads last year's latest on... imprisoned actress Veronica Deane. Shit. Better throw that out.

He's in the process of dumping it in the kitchen trashcan when Archer's footfalls alert him to the fact that he's up, apparently, because the guy is surprisingly light on his feet for someone who just got monumentally shitfaced like five hours ago. ]