goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

[ Decommissioned research facility. This stinks of running to grab the Alpha all over again and look how well THAT turned out. His gut says to turn her down. This smells fishy, this smells like black ops and PFL and he is DONE with that. He's been done with that for years. He lost his eye and almost his lung and all his fucking friends and the one person that meant everything to him- and most of his mind.

He'd given them enough.

But now? This- someone drawls up with a lot of money and a job that he wouldn't dare take for anything. Even if he'd get a quarter for the first part.

He narrows his eyes behind his glasses at the datapad, preferring that to look at that instead of her helmet. The empty slot in the back of his head that held Delta tells him to bail. Third time will get him killed. He doesn't have armor, he doesn't have the healing unit, he doesn't have Delta. He doesn't even have a pointman that he trusts. Just a stranger. ]

I find motive to be more compelling than money when it comes to jobs like this. Care to share yours? [ She needs him more than he needs this job. And if all he's gonna get is a bullet in the back, he's not gonna do it. ]

"...I feel like I need to change my opening number." He's pretty sure he can hit all the notes- actually. Yeah. He's been singing it in the shower often enough. Not his usual stuff but- it'll be as much a message as keeping on. "We'll need half an hour to set up, gotta give notice, give people time to move and get the cameras up but-"

This he can do. This he can manage. This he can work through.

This is real. Everything that had been muted and far away slides back into place, a jumble of signals ringing loud and clear. There's a pause, where kissing turns into nuzzling, where hands slide to shoulders and grip tight. His eyes regain focus, not distant, not drifting, but here.

His voice struggles to find itself, but that he has a voice at all is...progress. "I'm here with you."

It's painful, the way Taylor is moving against him, painfully slow for both of them when Wash kind of wants to grab him and fuck him hard and fast. But no, no he needs this to last, to hold onto it for as long as possible. Taylor is hot and tight around him, and each movement sends sparks of pleasure right through him which settle in his stomach warmly. God, he can hardly breathe. He jerks his hips up to meet York as he slides back down, needing to feel him, not wanting to be apart even for a moment.

He wants to lean after. To press Mal down to his bed and just- finish what they keep teasing at but they're both still so damn wound up from the Drift- and it wasn't even that long. Didn't even do a sim together. Pulling away enough to look him in the eye is painful, but he manages. "There you are- yeah. We're out. We did good."

Charge? Her head tilts at the cable, words committed to memory, before she looks back to York. Looks at him, as though reassessing him.

No other summoners have cared that she know the extent of this reality before. Have helped her, or tried to, rather than command her outright.

"and then dinner?" Or breakfast - several decades worth of meals have to start somewhere.

"Right. Food should be a thing- not for you. Greedy thing." He mutters, scratching the ears of the cat that appeared as soon as Carolina said 'dinner'. "You still have- well no you don't. Okay. Feed the cat, then feed us. What do you like?"

He pushes away from the sofa and weaves his way to the kitchenette, pulling down a tin of wet food and dumping it into the cat's bowl as a starter. For them he's got-

Well.

Lunchmeat. Sort of. He's got cheese and some dried up strips of turkey that might be okay.

"Was dreaming..." His voice is still rough, and he glances at a point over York's shoulder in thought, not in drifting. "Didn't think this was reality. Aftershocks. It'll get easier?" His eyes dart back, searching for confirmation of...everything.

"Dreamt till you woke up and followed me here, looking like you weren't all there." Carolina behind him and he doesn't need to look to know she's there. It's a weight in the air, a hallow ache in the back of his head. "Yeah. It'll get easier. You were agitated at the end, that probably didn't help. Shouldn't have sprung the sim on you, sorry."

"It's...so much to take in." He ducks his head, embarrassed. "Sorry. I must have looked like a fool. But we...did well." That's what York keeps on telling him, anyway. "Enough to make us a team?"

"It gets easier." He leans forward, bumping Mal's nose with his. "Damn right. We are gonna kick so much ass, Mal. So much ass."

And Mal leans the rest of the way to kiss again. Feels good. Feels real. "You okay? You're not." Pretty clearly not. But it's polite to ask.

"...Post drift crash." He shrugs. It's still there, lingering like a cloud. He'll be fine. "Should probably talk to my doctor about mood stabilizers or something. I dunno. Can't be like this if we're gonna be working together."

"Ended it pretty abruptly. If you need something for it, I might need, too. We'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll ease up with practice." A hand ghosts along York's cheek. "What can I do?"

On his blind side and he should twitch away but- it's Malcolm. He's seen in his head. Seen his life. Lived it with him for a little while. He'll be doing more of that soon and- if he can't trust Mal with his bad side, his blind side? Who can he trust?

"Shower. Shave." He does still have stubble from the night before the night before. "Food. Real food. Not gonna wanna spar for- awhile. A week? A month. Kind of just- 'm afraid I'll jump ya."

Hell he's all but vibrating from the need to do that NOW.

His grin is slow, a little lopsided, a bit of still trying to find normal in a post-drift world and a bit of York. "I've seen both sides of your rodeo, cowboy." He might still be sorting through the details, but he knows it's all there.

"..." Okay so there was that one drunk night after Casbah where he and Clair did- they couldn't NOT have 'holy shit we didn't die' sex after that drop so. Both sides.

And Lina had made a point to have him every which way in the three hours they spent in that cabana. So. Both sides.

Now that he flips back through his mental filter he's able to match that smirk with one of his own. "Seen your game too, Mr. Smooth Operator."

"Not bad for a couple of can't-be-tied-down, one-night-standers like us." Certainly a not insignificant number of people between them. "I think your fear's a little misplaced." Maybe not given their conversation last night, but...that was last night.

"Maybe...see where we're at when we're both normalized?" Rather than both of them being not quite all here. Here, yes, and with each other, yes, but still settling back into their bones and their own skin. But he's up for the suggestion of now, in this recovery time.

"I dunno. I've heard the sounds you make and there's a trick you do with your tongue that's got me real curious." It's easier to laugh and- yeah, the weight is still there, his eye still hurts and he feels like ass but- he's not alone. He's got Mal. He's GOT Mal and mal's got him back and that- that's more than enough.

"Shower. Shave. Food. Yeah?"

He places one last, chaste kiss above York's bad eye. "Shower, shave, and food. I think I'll even be able to keep it down."

"Okay. I'm gonna clean up here. Might wanna let a tech know your shit's in this room before you go wash up in yours." The idea of being away from Mal is thoroughly enticing for all the wrong reasons and a pain in his gut for all the right ones.

But they're not at the 'showering together' stage yet. So. Break.

No, definitely not yet. Everything's too new. Needs to settle down. He leaves, lighter on his feet and not just because of being stripped down. Nabs a tech, says a few words. A shower feels like a miracle, and shaving the overnight stubble makes his face feel like he wasn't just drifting like a homeless person or puking up a night of coffee not terrible long ago.

And being away from York means that he's more himself. The drift falls away bit by bit, and, like York leaving his side to steal some food, he is better able to feel himself and not them as a singular being. His own thoughts in his own head. Better that way, to have time apart.

Food, actual food, and no, not pizza. Actual cooked food from the galley that is meant to be eaten and not swifted out in the middle of the night. He drops heavily onto a bench and can't help but still feel tired despite the rest full of dreams he got. But he's present, more present than he's been since he stepped into the pod.

He turns his shower to scalding so he won't get lost in the chill. Scrubs himself till all the gunk and funk from being in the undersuit for fucking ever is gone, leaving him pink and his scars a stark white against his skin. Actually shaves for the first time in awhile- doesn't even knick himself though the memory is overlaid with having a jaw that's more narrow and a chin that's more pointed and he has to stop for thirty seconds before he cuts himself using Malcolm's muscle memory.

It passes, like it always does, and he finishes cleaning up. Dresses in the usual 'fuck it' uniform of bdus and an oversized sweater (not his fault he's always feeling cold) and gets a tray of veggies. No meat. He doesn't need the protein right now and something fresh'll help. He doesn't actively try to avoid or find Malcolm but he ends up dropping onto the table across from him anyway.

Carolina hovers at his elbow, peering at the assortment with a wrinkled nose. You don't even like broccoli.

That's a little personal, isn't it?

[Most professionals don't usually care, beyond a paycheck. Never mind the one laid out here. Don't need to know such details. This isn't just a job for her, but that isn't something he needs to know.

Is it?]

What kind of difference does it make to you?

The corner of her mouth quirks slightly, but no outright smile appears. But he's focusing now. Focusing on what he can do here and now, rather than on what could be/would be/should be. "Concerts have delays all the time. We can work with that. Want me to get Delta on the line so you can tell him your decision?"

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