goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

He has a reply ready, but he isn't able to. The effort goes to following York's lead. He thinks of it more as a lead, like a dance, like the dancing they were doing before during the night to thrumming beats, rather than a fight. It feels like a dance, blocking, then counter attacking, around the mat.

It's a challenge. It's a give and take, lead and follow, call and response and it's not just that he's getting good. It's not just that Mal's his teacher. Slowly he stops second guessing himself, stops THINKING and just lets himself move how he knows he needs to. Sees the hits coming and sees the blocks before they happen and goes for them anyway. Two one, two two, and he's rushing, ducking, swinging down low and hard, a sharp sweep with the staff he knows Mal can and will jump over followed by a shoulder charge- a graceless attempt to pin him to the mat.

It's not something he's used to, to feel it and just stop thinking about it, overthinking it. They barely pause when there's a hit, keeping track in their heads, knowing what's going to happen and doing it anyway. It's thrilling rather than boring. Feels good. It's fun, and time feels like it falls away.

Then York charges him, and that feels...out of the pace of things. Like a misstep. Malcolm's bowled over, but he positions his staff so that even as he lands, the wood is poised at York's neck.

And it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that the third goes to Mal because this? The sharp sting of adrenaline rolling through his veins, the fact that he just pinned him down at all on their first go at this- the fact he can feel Malcolm's pulse synced right up along with his?

York knows what this means. Knows it and embraces it with a wild crackle of laughter as he lets go of his staff and leans down enough to press his lips to Malcolm's.

It's a tie, a pin counts in his head, but that's not really the point. It's not the point, because they're here and they're together and they are in synch in a way that he's never been before with anyone. Part of him sees this as strange and different and like an alert, but that's far away. He's so inside of this moment that when York kisses him, it just feels like a natural thing, a natural extension of what they are. He lets it fill him, kisses back, presses back, pulls him in.

It's pretty chaste, all told. Just a steady dry press, a connection, a way to close the circuit and actually FEEL Malcolm against his skin the way he is in his chest. It's a stupid, giddy feeling. All bright joy and god he's got another partner. He's not broken. He's not alone anymore and that shouldn't be such a relief.

York pulls away enough to rest his forehead against Malcolms and murmurs, soft and awed. "Got you."

This is...

This is...

He's not sure what this is, and it's startling. He breathes. He breathes, and it feels like York breathing, and he holds his breath just to stagger it away. Takes a few breaths specifically to differentiate himself.

"We're done for today. Lesson over."

"We're-" Mal's out of sync and it shouldn't be so jarring but it is. That warm comfortable glow, that sense of completion that isn't sexual at all fades and flickers and sputters out. "Mal we need to tell the Marshall that we're-"

"That we're done for today? No need." He shifts, starting to pull himself out from under York. Taylor.

"Compatible." He rolls back on his heels, frowning down at Malcolm. "You feel it, right? It's not just me. I know it's not just me."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He's trying not to have the same reaction from the night, that night, where he panicked. But there's still panic. Just trying to hide it. He takes the sticks and puts them away, regulating his breathing.

"...That's what this is, Mal. We're in sync. We fit. We WORK. We're-." Compatible. it's a good thing, isn't it? To find that other half? He'd been ecstatic when he'd found out he and Carolina had been, why is Mal trying to ignore it?

Then it clicks. Of course it clicks. Mal wants to be a pilot- how can he not want that- but a perfectionist probably wants a perfect fucking partner and York's- well.

He ain't that.

Alone on the mat he just- stares after Malcolm and he can't stop the black, bitter thoughts from tumbling right out. "...'course you don't know what I'm talking about. You don't wanna get stuck with a gimp and a fuckup, is that it?"

"That is not," he grits, "it."

He is afraid. He is terrified. He's been teaching kids how to fight and how to connect for quite some time, but he's never--never--

"You need someone...better. Someone more suited to your needs. Someone like Carolina. I am not her. I am not better. This is not--" what he expected. "Is it supposed to feel like that?"

"Then what the fuck is it?" He doesn't think he's ever been angry around Malcolm. Never been angry at Malcolm but this is bullshit. They fit. They're compatible. He can fight again, he can be WHOLE again and not have this fucking rift in the back of his head anymore. And Mal's- what? Insecure? Is THIS what's gonna keep him from the drift? Mal's ISSUES?

"Fuck better. You suit me! You felt that- you felt it last night when we were dancing too, didn't you? that's why you bailed."

"We were done. I was..."

Stop being a damn coward. This is selfish and undignified. Where are his words when he needs them? "I am not Carolina." None of this is how it's supposed to be.

"No, you're Malcolm." He stalks over, teeth grit and hands curled in tight fists. "Claire's dead. She's gone. Sure she's still haunting me and I'm dealing with that but you're- you're alive. You're here. And we work. That's what matters."

"I am not a replacement!" The outburst is loud enough to startle himself, stilling himself. Breathing in, breathing out.

"I am not her replacement. Not in some club where it just fits for no reason, not while sparring and you decide to slip into her and not even recognize you're doing it. That isn't fair."

"That isn't fair? That isn't- you wanna talk about fucking fair, Reed? Not knowing what's me and what's leftover of her! Remembering every fucking time I wake up that there's a whole person's worth of memories that aren't mine that I'm stuck with because I didn't DIE WHEN I WAS SUPPOSED TO!" And that's something he probably should've told his therapist forever ago but-

Well. It didn't matter. Now it kind of does.

"And you really want to stuff another person's worth of memories in your head to make it more confusing? She's still going to be gone, every second of every day!"

"I just want that hole gone!" Drinking hadn't made it go away, training did- kind of. And now he knows why and it's not-

It's not Malcolm's fault he's a mess. It's the war. it's the program. it's unintended side effects of Drift Tech biting everyone in the ass afterward. "Just be honest. You don't wanna deal with it. You don't wanna deal with me."

This whole thing had been fucking Delta's idea. Rehabilitate him. Help him get back on his feet. Help him recover, like there's any fucking recovering from what happened.

"You're not the problem here." He pinches the bridge of his nose. Yes, it's some of the problem. "Not the whole of it. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what this is. I've never been compatible with anyone. How do you get comfortable drifting with someone? Giving yourself over to someone wholly, fully? It's not you." With a sigh, "Big shoes to fill. Big hole to fill."

"Bullshit." He's part of the problem, he knows he is, like he's ever been anything but a problem for the people that know him since the fall. The only part of his life that felt right was when he was running with Carolina.

Now?

Now he's just something other people have to deal with.

It's a testament to how pissed off he is that York doesn't go for the innuendo. Doesn't even register it. "Well you don't pretend it's not happening for starters. Jesus Christ, Reed, I never would've pegged you as a coward."

"Well I am one when it comes to interpersonal matters, or, sorry, have we met?" He'd rather go into a battle full of level 4 kaiju by himself than face the idea of having someone know every nook and cranny of him, but no, it has to be two people or you get overloaded. "I'll talk to the Marshall. You talk to your doctor."

"I dunno, last night was the first time I saw you outside the shatterdome. I don't know what you do when you're not teaching people because you're always on!" As much as Mal says he isn't Clair- they have that in common.

It's part of why York never got a chance to say anything he wanted to. Why they never DID anything near as often as he felt they could.

Talk to his doctor. And what? Open this whole mess again? Whatever pleasant glow the night before an the realization that he was compatible with someone might've given him is gone. "Don't bother. Just- forget it."

What's the point of being compatible when it won't work?

"I'm not going to forget it; I'm going to talk to the bloody Marshall. And then we'll get tested. And then we'll put on those helmets, and we'll see if it's true or not."

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