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When Rep's phone buzzed that day, he checked the texts with the usual deep sense of trepidation and dread, expecting it to be from Cael or someone almost as bad. When it was from Clarice instead, everything about his demeanor brightened right up immediately. He really could use a good dinner and it had been what felt like a lifetime since the last time he'd eaten with the Life assistant.

The text said not to worry about dressing up, but this time Rep had actually considered it, gone was the tracksuit and trainers and in their place was a perfectly pressed suit he'd gotten for special occasions and in case more horrific cruises sprung up on the agenda. Somehow even in a suit he managed to radiate the usual aura of scruffy. At least he'd tied back - or enlisted Harrison to tie back - his ridiculous mane of hair.

When he arrived at the portal he looked almost presentable and about as excitable as a small child going to disneyworld. Free dinners didn't come along every day.

Rep raised a brow at Clarice but couldn't actually help the smile that crept onto his face at the perceived compliment.There weren't many people he'd oblige with obedience to a simple command the first time they asked but the Life assistant was one of them. He did as he was asked and - because this time he was in a cheery mood rather than anxious the way he had been the first time they'd gone out - he even added.

"Looking good yourself, ma'am"

Rep and heat were not very good friends, skipping back and forth alternate weeks to the Arctic had only lowered his tolerance for deserts.



He undid a few more buttons on his shirt, leaving the jacket wide open, it wasn't Vegas, but the heat felt like it was.

"I've no had a decent burger in ******** years at this point." He didn't count the sad limp patties and cheap soggy buns the cafeteria sometimes supplied as even worthy of being called burgers. His grin broadened, he was right deep down a very simple person, anything that spoke of carnality and satisfaction of the senses had his full and entire attention.

"As for happiness, how've you been keeping lately?" It was forward of him, he didn't ask questions a lot, especially not of his superiors, but his good mood leant itself towards a general sort of ambient good will towards the world at large, which bred more confidence than he'd had in a while.

Rep immediately sympathized with Clarice's anxiety at things twisting from the tolerable flatline of the day to day to being happy. It was how he'd been feeling since things looked like they might actually work out with the guys. Every single day he woke up feeling like he had no right to be as happy as he was and dreading the day when the hammer would fall.

He looked over the menu distantly before replying. "Aye. It's like. In our business you sort of feel like you have no place being happy for very long. I spend a lot of the ******** time waiting for the universe to realise I got into the ******** cookie jar and take it away." he smirked over the menu at her before resignedly fishing out his reading glasses and putting them on to really appreciate the variety of arterial punishment on offer. "I guess it sort of did already, just a bit." The shift in faction still remained as a reminder that even the things he took for granted could vanish in a heartbeat.

His expression softened from the bitterness that edged it "You work ******** hard though, you actually deserve happy." he was quietly pleased that Clerise had found her happiness too, he'd been fine with her flitting from relationship to relationship as she was entitled to do, but he had always felt that as long as she did it would be like him sleeping around, temporary respite but never safety or true real happiness.

"Also, ******** hell all of this stuff looks amazing. Anything you recommend?"

He raised a brow at her curiously, not fully comprehending how who you worked for related to how good a person you were, his life was mostly about deferring to authority and placing the blame upon them by proxy. It made life, and choices easier. "Everybody does what they need to to get by, doesn't make them bad." It was hard to imagine Clarice as anything other than a shining example of good, maybe her gender, as well as marking her as inherently inferior, somehow also absolved her of all sin. He tried not to think too hard about it.

"I ******** intend on getting a shake. No question. I'd ******** murder for one." he said resolutely, come hell or high water he'd have one. Everything else sounded ******** fantastic too.

Putting down his own menu he decided upon one of the most ridiculous burgers he could find, confident his metabolism could handle it and smirked at her question. "Well. I guess the oldies got off all right. No been allowed near retirement homes. Can't dismiss the week long orgies in the arctic though, it's hard work up there and some people have leave. Got rid of the yeti infestation for the time being while doing it too. But aye, mostly I've kept out of trouble. I mean. Got arrested at a bar - Melvin's fault ok. Got a bar of chocolate from Death in the desert, had to rescue Ace - Hrrsn" he amended "from his own ******** fantasy land in his head. A bunch of s**t, s**t that wasn't the ******** in the infirmary."

He frowned, looking away, still lingering on the words "if you decide to stay". "I've been trying hard to be well behaved, though it seems like the more I do, the less H wants to let me go."

He had never really thought about the dangers they'd faced in the jungle, too caught up in what went wrong that day to consider what the implications would have been had he been right. It was a point, they really weren't suited then - maybe even not now - to face off against what could have been a settlement of creatures. "I guess." It was a slight to his pride to admit it. "You are right, we'd have been ********, it was bad luck and good luck at the same time." And had been the kick in the a** he'd needed to realise he couldn't get away with everything he wanted.

His shiftiness edged over into fidgeting with table furnishings at the accusation he'd sat back and let Allan ask on his behalf. She was right though, he had simply allowed it to happen, and there wasn't much he could say to argue against it. "I couldn't argue with the doctor to his face. He's like, he's higher ranked than me, and knows more by miles. Allan was just helping, he's like, able to ask I guess seen as he's the same rank. I don't want to piss anyone else off, so I try to be careful." It was as if that passive streak returned just by virtue of talking about it.

He looked up from the tabletop, still flighty and tense, as if scared to say the wrong thing. "I.. I know. He won't be accepting I guess. He never was, I just really ******** hoped he would be." It was the same way he'd held out hope that the men his mum entertained would somehow turn around one day and see him as a human being rather than an inconvenience. It was a hopeless optimistic streak, and sometimes he could almost tell it was. "I guess I want to be in Sun because I feel like I make a difference there. It's like, the one time I really feel alive is when I'm out there fighting s**t, when I can feel the charge in my blood, when all the ******** hate and everything else that gets dammed up has a place to go. I like it in Life, its safe and comfortable and I can do a lot of work and s**t without getting bored. But I don't feel alive that same way. I'm never going to be remembered if I am just always that guy who can do a lot of ******** rune checking in the space of three hours."

Rep was instantly derailed as the chocolate flavoured deliciousness was placed on the table, listening still but caught up in the same temporarily perfect instant that was having a damn good milkshake after far too many ******** months without one.

"You think so?" he said, when he finally relinquished the straw. "I just thought like. Grunt work was what everyone got.." Though it made sense that he might well have been being kept simply as a slight against Allan and himself.

The idea of confronting H and demanding anything of him was chilling though.

Tracey agreed coolly, a strange rebellious stirring in the fallen angel.

He took another sip while the weapon spoke. "Then I'll do it. I'll say to him. I'll ask. Not Allan, me. ********, I won't ask, I'll demand. And if he takes it badly, I've ceased to ******** care. Live fast, die young, leave a ******** gorgeous corpse. If I want back into Sun I guess I have to show I can think like one."