Work Text:
Ranmaru doesn't have blood to run cold when Sou fixes his gaze and asks a question almost as though he's carelessly discarding it. There's a callousness to everything he says, of course, a weight to every word and sharpness in every syllable that he's well aware of the reason for. But Sou's cutting wit has never been pointed at him before, and Ranmaru stumbles mentally to hear the question he's posing.
"Ranmaru. Do you not want Miss Sara to have any hope?" Sou asks, eyebrows furrowed, scarf pulled over his mouth. It's impossible to tell what kind of expression he has on his face. Even his voice is carefully, perfectly tweaked, revealing absolutely nothing, and Ranmaru wonders for a moment which of the two of them is really the human.
"It's…not like that," Ranmaru says, weakly. Sou's eyebrows move slightly, but he provides no other response. He can feel those venomous green eyes boring holes in his head, and he's equally aware of Sara's gaze fixed at a point firmly away from him. "I just…"
"Mm-hmm." That's all he says, having evidently decided the conversation is beneath him. Ranmaru doesn't breathe, not anymore, but it feels like he's just let one, massive held breath out. If he had ribs they'd be rattling now.
"It's really not like that," he says, to Sara this time, who finally looks over at him and nods, smiling.
"I know," she says. "Don't worry. We'll all make it out alive. We just have to believe. In each other…and in Keiji, too."
This time, it feels like he has to breathe the other way, to suck in air to cool some unfathomably hot phantom pain. A different part of him feels rattled. He clenches his teeth, because clenching his fists would be far too visible.
Ranmaru knows Sou and Sara aren't idiots. He knows Sara's been worried about their conversation since it happened, and with Keiji in her thoughts, she's worried about it now too; he's seen her biting her lip when she thinks no one is looking, eyes darting as though continuing to weigh two options she doesn't want to acknowledge the existence of. And he knows Sou, for better or worse, is going to do everything he can to make sure everyone makes it out alive, to ensure the middle-school girl helping him out didn't die in vain—even if he isn't bothering to hide his intentions to kill them himself, once they get out.
That will be a problem, Ranmaru thinks to himself, the words leaping unbidden into his mind; he'll have to be extra careful that Sou is really, properly killed.
He glances over at Sara, suddenly petrified she's heard his thoughts somehow, but she's absorbed in a discussion with Midori, and he relaxes slightly. Truthfully, he's not sure what to do. She'd told him he didn't need to resort to violence for her, told him that she didn't want him to get his hands dirty. She'd told him to forget the entire conversation.
As if it were that easy.
He flexes his hands, detachable pieces of some compound he's sure he can't hope to understand the composition of. He's warm to the touch, the same as any living person, so horrifically lifelike that thinking about it for too long makes him sick—which in turn is just another thing that he tries not to think about, in the grand scheme of things. He wonders if it's some marvel of programming that prevents him and the five other Dummies from collapsing into a heap of existential torment, some block on his brain keeping him from fully realizing the true extent of the ramifications of his circumstances. If he were human…if he were human, he thinks, this would be too much to bear. It would take a lot more than a few moments of weeping on the floor to come to terms with it.
And yet, if he weren't human, would he even still be entertaining the possibility Sara asked him to throw out? Wouldn't it be easy to disregard everything she'd said so far if he didn't want her to survive so badly? His existence is balanced so perfectly on the precipice of humanity and technology, an artificial intelligence in the form of a boy who's dead, but being with her makes him feel more alive than he can ever recall being, more human than his replaceable limbs and fabricated personality are capable of being by themselves.
That's why he has to do this, he reasons. Sara can't bear to do it herself. She's developed bonds with the other humans here, but Ranmaru, he's only been given the basics. He can't betray anyone but Sara, and that's the one thing he won't do. Something between human and inhuman—only someone like him can win for the two of them.
He feels giddy, almost, something akin to excitement twisting inside his where his guts used to be. When he'd seen Sara smiling as Maple told her about the special win condition—the ability to leave with him, and only him—he'd been unnerved. But he's sure, now, the same expression is threatening to paint itself across his own face. He gets it, now. He understands. He can't possibly give up now. Not when the two of them are the only ones who could possibly have this shared understanding.
At first, he'd begun to tumble the ideas around in his head in an effort to snap himself out of it. But the longer they tumble, the more the beginnings of a plan begin to emerge, like gemstones out of rough, unpolished rocks; more and more thoughts of resistance fall away like so much grit and mud, washed off and pulverized by a familiar sensation he'd given up on ever feeling again. Ranmaru might not have a heart to pound in his chest anymore, but he remembers the sensation well enough to know when it should happen, and the suggestion of a heartbeat thrums and flutters even though there's nothing of the sort in his chassis.
This can work. This can work! He just needs a little time. Just a few moments alone, and he can take the first step to walking side by side, hand in hand with Sara, away from everything that's happening.
He wouldn't even mind continuing to be the doll in their relationship, as long as Sara makes it out alive. As long as they can make it out together.
"Ranmaru?" He hears a twinge of concern in Sara's voice as he's snapped out of his own quagmire of thoughts, and he gives her a quick smile. "You doing okay?"
"Yeah," he says, and though he can see her searching his expression to make sure that's the truth, he's not lying at all. He's never felt better—after all, it's rare to have such moments of clarity. Sara gives him as bright a smile as she can manage, given the circumstances, and gestures for him to follow her, the hope of finding Keiji nestled in her heart while the desire to never see him again smolders in Ranmaru's.
Sou got things wrong. Of course Ranmaru wants Sara to have hope—he wants Sara to have that and more, everything she wants.
It's just, this isn't the kind of hope that she needs. Empty, wishful thinking when it's only a matter of time before Keiji dies even if he is alive…Sara has no need for something like that, not when Ranmaru can't have him surviving this in the first place.
What Sara needs is the hope that she'll make it out alive, no matter what. And that's the kind of hope that only he can give her.
The memory of the warmth of her hand when she grabbed his to enter the Discussion Room flickers across his palm. He flexes his fingers one more time, hand moving to practice holding hers.