[DRP]Past performance doesn't guarantee future results (Rep)

[Baneful]

Rep had had an extremely shitty few days. And that was an understatement. Porting back from the Arctic he'd found himself in the infirmary, holding onto Harrison as if his life depended on it, and when his vision readjusted to light he realized how he ******** looked. He was covered in so much blood, so ******** much of the stuff, and not all of it was everyone else's.

The next few hours were a blur, his brain hardly coped with the combination of mending him up and pushing aside what had happened. He did remember throwing up and on finding teeth, hair and skin amongst the fleshy awfulness having a bit of a meltdown. It was one thing to joke about eating other people flippantly, it was a whole ******** other matter to experience it from that end, to have it made so horrendously real that you could taste it and know that hadn't been all of it, that it couldn't be all of it after so many hours.

After that he'd simply lay there inside his head trying to be somewhere else rather than to admit to himself that what he remembered was not simply nightmares but had actually happened. His report read like a man recalling some sleepwalking episode.

Tracey was concerned.

He didn't know what would happen, what the verdict would be on his actions. Even cleaned up, he felt like he was covered in the thick frozen gore, as if he didn't want to be attached to himself at all.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Harrison had been extremely surly about everything. And although polite suggestions were made that he should take a break, or that he still had duties, and was still on this or that roster, Harrison did not leave Rep's side.

He did fill out a report. He did ask, politely, that an orderly he worked alongside on occasion would turn it in.

When visitors walked in, Harrison would be there. He took up a chair, and was mostly unobtrusive. Reading. Sleeping. Only occasionally glaring.

He maintained a tense air of coiled violence, bristling in case someone did try to make him leave.

So far, nobody had.  

[lizbot]

America

The original goal had been to treat Rep and maybe tease him a bit, but the familiar pair of guards outside the door had any sort of humor draining away before America even entered the room. She had a basket in hand, containing a teddy bear wearing an I ♥ America sweater surrounded by fancy chocolate bars. She set it beside his bed with a nod toward Harrison and asked, bluntly, "Did you go red?"

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toshihiko two

 

[Baneful]

America

It was the bear that did it.

He'd been getting through the day on the tenuous edge of a breakdown, like a man walking on thin ice, knowing that falling through would be the end of him, every step felt out for creaks or hints that a break lay ahead. Visitors were not something he expected, he'd given up on that, all he had was Harrison and because of the way he was, all Harrison would ever have was him. And even then that present was vague and insubstantial and could be gone in an instant if the trial decided he had meant what had happened, if he had known.

And he had known, sometimes. That was the part he couldn't admit to anyone, the part that sat like a lead ball in his stomach.

The bear reminded him of the bear that had been waiting for him on his promotion, a symbol of other people's misplaced love and vested trust. It was silly and of no incredible material value, but what it represented broke his heart. It was always when this s**t happened that people came forward and reminded him of what he really didn't deserve. He'd even chewed her out, tried to tear her down to where he was, and yet here she was, back again as if he hadn't. He wanted to twist it, to make it that she was being condescending, reminding him how much better than him she was, but he couldn't, he just wanted to take it at the most basic value, that people cared about him in any small way and that that all he could ever do was let them down.

A bear should not bring him to the teetering brink of tears, it should not settle a lump in his throat that meant words pressed against it but could not break free.

He nodded instead and covered his face with both hands, tension written in every line of his body as he refused to cry, refused to break with all the determination and strength he had in him.

lizbotx

 

[lizbot]

America

Expression crumpling a bit as he hid his face, America sat down on the side of his bed but didn't reach out to touch him, remembering how hard and physically painful contact had been when she'd gotten back. Swallowing, she asked, "Were you...are there any left?"

baneful

 

[Baneful]

America

It always took a few moments to compose himself, to pull back the well of despair, frustration and anger at himself that threatened to overwhelm him, and somehow, this time he did, pushing himself into a mode where there were only facts, no failures, no disasters, no potential death.

"No one but me." he said, and his voice seemed a lot smaller and softer than the usual sulky teenage anger or outdoor-voice bellow. "Ace saved my a**." he said.

He didn't know what would have happened if the other hunter hadn't been there, when there was nothing left to kill. Would he have just stayed there and waited till they sent someone to check things out? Would he have killed them too or been killed himself? "I don't know what ******** happened to me, no c**t will tell me, they just want reports."

Moving his hands he gave her a desperate sort of look, his eyes shining with the tears he'd viciously denied. "Do you know?" he asked, and it was desperate.

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

America

She gazed back at him, expression sympathetic and unhappily wry. "Yeah...it's," America began, haltingly, "...you know Pey's promo a few months back? That's was the first time I'd gotten hit with it. We were inspecting an abandoned base, and found the bodies of the folks who'd gone missing, all but one. The red eyes showed up and we attacked each other and maybe things woulda gone a lot different if my pendant hadn't been working at the time. But it was so the worst I got from it was a scar and a bad memory."

Closing her eyes, the girl visibly steeled herself to revisit the rest. It took a few moments of quiet breathing, and then America went on, "It showed up again while I was on that Russia mission. Supposed to just be clearing a base for traps. We found a ******** maze down there and a city even, they're talking about turning the whole place into a special base now. But a few weeks in, the red hit the base. I was in and out of it for a few days, but the more it hit, the more I was...me. Sometimes I couldn't tell when it was me or the other. I got lucky, though. Some of the others got my phone and responded to Taym and Konstantin's texts. Not sure if they meant to lure the two in by being suspicious as ********, but I think maybe so. They were clever like that, but it didn't work. Me and this other piece of s**t," and the change in her voice was sudden and vicious and then gone, "...Kon and Taym got us out."

There was a pause, and then, "I had to go on trial, 'cause I killed two hunters, and Suns at that. But they cleared me even if I did have a few strikes on my record. They were..." America considered it, "...fair about it."

xbaneful

 

[prolixity]

There was a guard on the door. Jordan still wasn't sure what that meant, but it felt like the beginning of a pattern. Too many, recently. Unsettling.

He'd brought a box of Rep's usual brand of cocoa, and he slipped into the room quietly, uncertain whether he would be welcome and trying not to let it show. "Brought you something," he said, with a brief flickering glance between them, and went over to put the box on the table. He didn't ask if Rep was okay, because yes would patently be a false answer, and he had no right to the vulnerability of no. "Is there anything else I could bring you?" he asked instead, addressing the question to both of them, feeling a little awkward.

Baneful

Toshihiko Two

 

[iloveyouDIE]

Cee

She didn't expect guards but tossed each of them a wink, a grin and trilled, "Candystriiiper..." As she shook the tin of altoids.

Literally everything she'd brought was pilfered except for the old cosmos. She had a giant paper cup filled with cocoa she'd 'found' (made with real milk and a chocolate bar melted inside). The tin of altoids had been another found treasure, as the vending machine mints were absolute garbage in her opinion.

Cee wouldn't venture to call her and Rep friends but there was no harm extending a favor or two and possibly giving herself a solid reputation.

"Mints an hot chocolate? Shoulda I'a wore my sexy nurse costume?" She teased aloud as she came in the door, not really sure what she was expecting to find on the other side.

banefulx

 

[Saliru]

Word reached Al through Twitter and though he made a pit stop to make hot cocoa and grab a packet of mints, he essentially made a b-line for the hunter's room in the infirmary. He would have brought more, but well - this was the only certainties he could find and didn't wish to waste any time quibbling over other things the red head might have liked right now. Plus the thermos of cocoa was getting cold.

He reached the door and decided it was probably a much better idea to knock (considering people were talking about Rep's blonde-haired 'visitor').

Quote:

u already know

 

[Baneful]

America

Rep listened with an almost childlike intensity to America's recollection of her run-in with red eyes and as he listened found just a little of the weight that he'd been carrying around on his shoulders since the mission begin to ease. She'd been unfortunate enough to run into it twice. He did not ******** want to ever run into it again.

But she had surfaced as well, there had been times when she had been herself the way he'd found himself as himself. It was enough to give him composure and the resolution she'd been given gave him hope that he might be ******** walking away from all of this.

"Aye. That was the bit that...really ******** got to me. I'd keep.." and he closed his eyes as if the words were painful. "..knowing. What I was doing. But it didn't ******** matter how much I told them to run, or tried to let them run I just kept -"

He clenched his fists and even though it hurt the pain spurred him onwards. "It was dark. I can see in the dark. It was almost too ******** easy. And one of them took the power out on his own." He felt nauseous again just thinking about it, about the way they'd flailed blindly against an assailant they couldn't see, after inviting him into their base that had become their home. "I used someones ******** boyfriend to try and get them out. I did s**t I would never do." He hugged himself the way he'd hugged Killzone's tablet to his chest. "I'd never break a tablet. Never." he said, and it felt more like a plea than anything else.

"I don't know what they'll decide for me. My record at this ******** point man..." And once again that bitterness threatened to loom, threatened to throw a wedge of jealousy between them once more. "s**t is never fair for me."

lizbot

 

[Baneful]

Jordan

Rep was surprised when Jordan showed up. He'd gotten into a mental spiral of assuming that the other man did not give a ******** about him, starting to slowly re-write his own life narrative to reflect this. It upset things when Jordan arrived, looking awkward but well-meaning.

"Thanks" he said, before raising a brow at the follow up question. "Since when have you been a maid?" he asked playfully. "I mean, other than that one time." It was easier to slip into that playful front than deal with the upset and hurt that lay beneath the surface.

"I got in trouble ********." he explained, even though he wasn't asked. "This time it really wasn't my ******** fault."

Prolixity

 

[Baneful]

Cee

Rep didn't know Cee very much, but despite that fact, he felt like he knew her. That part of him that remembered being the Queen always seemed to flood him with feelings of approval and loyalty when she was around. She was often rude and flippant, normally cardinal sins in Rep's book, but this was permitted because of those lingering memories.

"Sexy nurses always put me in a good mood." he joked with a smirk. "But sexy ladies will do just fine on their own." it felt effortless to flirt, even with Harrison present, it was the non-aggressive language he understood best.

Rep himself looked roughed up to say the least and the skin on his hands parts of his face recovering from what seemed like a minor case of frostbite. He had a few almost mended superficial scratches, at the very least, nothing looked to have put him in particularly mortal danger.

"You are a lifesaver." he said, not regretting the pun even one tiny bit.

iloveyouDIE

 

[Baneful]

Al

Rep looked up at the door knock and tensing anxiously called out. "Eh. Come in?" He couldn't think of who in the whole facility might knock. H certainly didn't, Cael would never. Hell most of the leads liked to ******** sweep in out of the blue and startle the bejeezus out of everyone around.

When he saw it was Al though, he frowned. He didn't want to have to explain failure to him, and it was failure that was written on his injuries and the guard at the door.

"Hey." he said, a little grimly.


 

[lizbot]

America

She smiled in grim, unhappy recognition. "I held my eclipse partner down while the others tortured him. When I woke up a bit, I ended it." America didn't elaborate on the rest. If he wanted to exchange details later, she would over a few drinks far away from an infirmary room. Instead she plucked the bear, soft and smelling like a bakery, and pushed it at his chest where he hugged himself.

"They made me watch some of the security footage during my trial, but it was fair, in the end. Last trial I was on before it, Caelius just decided I was guilty by himself and tried to execute me." A tight smile, followed, but the girl was confident as she went on, "I think you'll be fine. Maybe if you hadn't come back it'd be different because you were the winner," and even as she said the word, she didn't know exactly what it meant, just that it was true. "But I think you'll be off the hook here. It hit Leslie too, and he walked and got a promotion for surviving it."

baneful