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 Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 1:38 pm
Jordan stood staring at the door for some time. Then he slowly transferred his stare to Rep, saying nothing.
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Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 2:36 pm
Harrison wasn't sure if this meant they were getting kicked out on the street with all their s**t or not- or if they even had permission to move into a house, where everything would get destroyed anyway. They were either wearing chips until somebody decided to push the button, or grounded until Rep went stir crazy and got his third strike.
Harrison wished he didn't completely shut down with authority.
He felt a certain set of memories bubble up.
The warehouse. The casino. The sound of explosions.
The part of him that those memories belonged to felt oddly calm.
The chip, or not the chip, all that mattered was they got the same treatment. They fought together. If they had to take a desk job or head out onto the field, that was the most important thing. And no mention of their savings.
Clarice's death had hit him while he was coping with the idea of people he knew being able to die. When he remembered who he was, it was like hearing the news all over again. She'd always been there when he needed her. Deus had heroes, and she was one of them.
Even if he had seen what had happened, when she tried to save everybody. Even if it had killed them all instead, and what that future had meant for Rep. And then him. And then Jordan. She'd wanted immortality for them. She'd wanted to protect them, and Harrison understood that. In the field, when he was protecting something or somebody, he had to let everything else go, or he wouldn't be able to protect anything at all. Despite that, he had never considered himself moral. And maybe Clarice hadn't been moral either.
But he was glad he knew her.
He assumed H meant waking him up at been a foolish decision. H had never liked him much. But he was still alive. Sometimes people didn't die on account of being smart, or stupid, or skilled, or prepared. Sometimes it was just luck. Excalibur and Merlin had fought. Clarice had been yanked up as a goddess of the weird fog world, and they'd all seen into her head a while, and saying she was sorry, Clarice had died, and that terrible future hadn't played out. So they'd been lucky. Maybe she would have been unlucky either way.
He accepted the envelope.
After H was gone, he sat down, and mopped his face. He wiped his hands on his jeans.
Harrison opened the envelope.
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Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:07 pm
Inside was a set of keys, and a card bearing an address in Clarice's handwriting. Mesquite, Nevada.
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:34 am
The fight which had carried Rep through the start of the conversation didn't return, everything H said was true - he'd had plenty of time to deal with the hoard while they were stranded, and rather than actually move it somewhere else, he'd chosen instead to draw attention to it. He'd been labouring under the delusion that there was even one safe place in the world, that his multiple locks and solid door could keep the outside world at bay.
The realization that there was no sanctuary left in the world hit him hard, and he knew no one else would really get the weight of what it meant to him to lose it. To everyone else it was a room full of s**t, to Rep it was his roots and stability.
His hands were sweating and his chest was tight and he was walking a taut razor edge close to bursting into tears, and though he wanted to argue with H before he left, he was left scrabbling for words, for the impossible energy it would take to overcome the lump of anxiety in the way. He couldn't even defend Harrison and just looked down at the floor as the Life lead departed.
It was only when he could practically feel the look Jordan was giving him, that he looked up, his expression helpless and desperate. He didn't even try to defend himself or explain why H had shown up, in the middle of one of the worst panic attacks he'd ever really experienced, he couldn't process what was happening let alone how to address it. He just sat there in absolute silence, feeling hollowed out and defeated.
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:20 pm
Harrison turned over the key in his hand, and read, "Mesquite, Nevada."
He looked over at Rep, who looked sick.
"It's not your fault," he said.
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:56 pm
Jordan's expression softened a little as he took in the look of sheer, desperate panic on Rep's face. He breathed an almost-silent sigh and sat down again, still not saying anything, not quite trusting himself to stay calm about it.
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:02 pm
Rep had no idea what Harrison meant with his apparently cryptic comment but was so awash in his own misery that he didn't pry much further for the time being. He hadn't even noticed the envelope, his situational awareness gone almost completely.
"It ******** is." he snapped. "I was the one who mentioned it on twitter. I'm the ******** reason why everything goes wrong."
He pointed at the door. "You heard him, they are going to use you guys against me. Everything is just a ******** PLAYTHING to them. Just something I am temporarily PRIVILEGED to have. Not a right. N- Never a ******** right."
He didn't understand why it was so wrong to expect the right to possessions, to a safe place. But it was probably down to selling his soul to this organization, giving all that he was to people who saw him as a set of numbers on a page, assets and costs, nothing more.
"I can't let them use you against me."
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:12 pm
"It's the bosses. It's all it is."
Harrison took out his keyring, with the snowman keychain.
"We've all been in it with each other since the start. He can't punish you without punishing us anyhow. Don't act like it's a ******** separate thing."
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:22 pm
Jordan took a deep breath and got a firm hold on his anger, pressing it back down under control. Giving in to the urge to take it out on someone wouldn't change the results and would stress them all out. He could handle it; he'd accepted that.
He nodded. "It's not separate. Any punishment would affect us anyway."
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:31 pm
Rep set his mouth into a thin line, not liking the idea that it would effect both of them regardless. It was meant to be reassuring but in his mind it became yet another chain, he'd hurt them if he tried to get away and would hurt them if he didn't. He felt lost all over again and it wouldn't go away, a deep restless upset. He'd lose everything, everything he tried to hold to, it was just a matter of time, why the ******** had he been so ******** stupid as to ever think otherwise?
He shook his head.
"It's separate. It's one thing to be sad but alive if something happens to me, its another to be ******** dead because of me. It's very very ******** separate." He stood, moving over to where he'd discarded his denims and underwear to pull them on, throwing on his shoes as well. The door was clearly his end destination. "I'm not ok with my decisions having ******** collateral damage. I'm just not."
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:34 pm
"If something happens to you I'm not gonna be sad but alive. You're such a dumbass."
Harrison shoved the keyring in his pocket.
"It's not your fault," Harrison repeated. "What are you putting on your ******** shoes for?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:36 pm
"All decisions have collateral damage, yours, mine, anyone's," Jordan said, as evenly as he could manage. "Where are you going?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:40 pm
Rep stood up straight, shouldering on his coat. "It is my fault. I know how people ******** work, I know how to use what matters to people against them. Yet I let it get to this point and now every ******** I make will be spread across all our ******** shoulders. No."
His hands were shaking as he sought out the zip along the front and pulled it all the way up to his high collar. "I'm going out is where. I can't be here when people come to take my stuff or I am ******** going to kill someone."
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Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:22 pm
"Somebody's got to be here. And I don't want you by yourself."
Harrison stood. He took Rep's arm.
"It's a loss. The self-destruct thing is shitty. I don't want to move into towns either, but I'm not going to close my eyes. How many ******** times do I have to say it? You ******** up, I ******** up, Jordan ******** up, we'll handle it. But it isn't about deserving. We got the shitty spin on the wheel of upper level management. It's not fair. And it's not your fault."
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Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 3:25 am
Rep paused in his tracks as his arm was seized by Harrison and a little of the rigidity went out of his posture. But he didn't look away from the door or seem to lose his resolve to leave. The idea of being sat there, listening to two years worth of possessions being picked through and probably mocked in the progress made him feel sick and horrified. He couldn't do it, he didn't have the strength to do it.
"It doesn't matter if I'm on my own. What worse ******** trouble can I get into?"
He shook his head. "And that's the ******** thing. You two DON'T ******** up. When was the last ******** time either of you got into trouble that wasn't directly caused by me? ******** never. It's always me, there's no balance or give and take, just both of you who by all ******** rights should be happy." And probably married at this point, he thought bitterly, another thing he'd been holding back in various little ways. "who spend all your ******** time eating my backlash. It's my fault, it's not the upper management. Its like H said, they wouldn't have to ******** come after me if I just knew how to do the s**t they want me to do and to keep off their ******** radar."
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