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 Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:53 am
Well that was legitimately disturbing. Robert had really planned on spending the night in the Life Labs, and he was probably going to head back there, after he found Rep. Normally, he seriously wouldn't even have bothered. He hardly knew Rep, and he had some serious problems with what he did know. But Rep was.. Jordan's.. something.. oh dear God, he didn't want to think about that.
Robert stopped in the hallway and smashed his head against the wall a few times, before moving on.
And the fact was, the only guy that was trained to help people with problems... well he was dead. And as sad as Killzone's death was, it also meant people with serious problems were seriously ******** Robert was seriously about to try to do something about it.
Turning a corner, he saw the violent color of Rep's hair, and nodded. His face took on super serious mode, and he stormed over, tapping Rep on the shoulder.
"Hey." He muttered cordially. "Mind if we talk for a while?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:01 am
Rep was seething. He didn't even have his phone to vent just how little he was enjoying the current "mission". ******** Halloween creatures everywhere walking around like it was all right. He didn't care if they were weapons, they should be locked in people's ******** heads right where they belonged. To be wielded, to be used, not to be pandered to like ******** kids. Everything about his posture was tense and strained, hands clenched into fists as he mentally paced like a wild animal.
He almost jumped out of his skin as he was tapped on the shoulder, instantly snapping to face his assailant and likely to give them a very nasty piece of his mind. It was amazing how quickly the words seemed to die on his lips when he realised he'd be talking to Robert's chest if he did. The height was intimidating enough that rather than the furious tirade he was planning, he set his jaw and nodded.
"Aye. Awright, not like I'm doing anything anyway."
He crossed his arms in a feeble little attempt to assert his indifference.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:06 am
Rep looked like he was enjoying the day's festivities about as much as Robert was. He couldn't blame the hostility, he was just glad it wasn't directed at him. "This way." He led Rep into a small, quiet looking rec room that no one ever really seemed to use unless they wanted to have their meals alone. At the moment, it was empty. And that made it perfect.
He held the door open for Rep, rather gallantly, and waited for him to enter.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:10 am
Rep wasn't about to question an escape from the busy corridor and the major source of his irritation, and gladly headed into the room, plunking himself down on the nearest seat to hand with all the grace of a teenager in a bad mood. Any other day he might well have been suspicious of anyone wanting to talk to him, but today wasn't any other day and he had no idea what to think about anything. It didn't help that the mental crutch that was Tracey was absent - there was no one to tell him when he was being manic and irrational, to cut in when he edged off the acceptable realm of moodiness.
"Sup?" he stated lazily, crossing one leg and propping his chin on a hand.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:17 am
"You know your weap's got your phone, right?" Robert hadn't even waited until he closed the door before starting in, though his tone was nothing but worry. "He's been on your twitter all day."
Really, that was the easy part. Ratting Tracey out wasn't going to be the problem.. broaching the topic of Rep's disgust with humankind was.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:26 am
"Aye I let him have i-" There was an instant where his intially casual tone transformed into a guttural aggressive snarl. "What? That ******** little s**t better not have been saying anything about me or I'm going to lose that ******** deposit on the golem and then some." The anger came back tenfold simply imagining the sort of s**t the fallen angel could say if the mood took him and again he clenched his hands hard enough his nails bit into his palms. The only thing that kept him from storming off to find the weapon immediately was the thought that he wouldn't ******** dare do those things. Surely Rep had him suitably in line after all this ******** time? Still there would be hell to pay for even tweeting when the agreement had been that he could ******** read the damn thing but not say a word.
He raised a brow at Robert slightly suspiciously "So you came here to give me heads up?" It seemed strange to bring him off the hallway if a simple notification Tracey was a gossip was the only intention.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:29 am
There was one other thing that kept Rep from storming off to find Tracey, not that it was obvious Robert was ready to stop him. But he'd expected that kind of reaction, so he'd stayed near the door. "Yes. Sort of. Weeeell.." Robert's answer had come quick, and then he hastened to make it more truthful.
"Yes and no. I mean, I totally did. Because he's gonna get you in trouble if you're not careful. But actually, I just kind of wanted to talk to you about something he said."
And Robert's awkwardness came out of him in spades.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:33 am
He wanted to talk about something Tracey had said? He had no idea what sort of things Tracey would say on twitter if given half a chance, but nothing that came to mind was anything but embarrassing, he liked to ramble on about romance and all sorts of sappy nonsense in that vein. Was that what Robert wanted to talk about? Was it about the office?
He went from furious to the absolute best poker face he could muster.
"Ehh. What sort of thing did he say bro?, because er.. there's a lot of s**t he could have."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:35 am
Robert let out an awkward chuckle. "Yeah, I'm sure he could have said some seriously embarrassing s**t. You probably got off easy."
His hand ruffled through his hair nervously, and he did a small 360, turning around, looking at the door, and then turning back to Rep.
"All right. Don't bullshit with me. Do you seriously hate being human?"
There was no room for gentle in Robert's world. Get in, get what you need, get out. Talking to Rep was no different.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:40 am
There was a perceptive shift in the balance of the conversation Rep picked up on - no longer quite as obediently co-operative now that it looked like Robert was having second thoughts on whatever it was he was trying to address. His slowly building confidence iced over at the question. Oh so Tracey had been saying those sort of things. He frowned irritably and looked away from the other man.
"What exactly does it matter to anyone else if I do?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:45 am
"It matters to me. No, dude, it matters to all of us." He wasn't even going to get into how much the topic probably mattered to Jordan, even though that was a concern. Rep didn't need him explaining how relationships worked. What he did need to understand, however..
"We live in like, uhh.." He was searching for a word, and pantomiming it out to try and explain. His hand split down his face. "SYMMETRY. I mean, okay that doesn't actually make sense like I thought it did. Okay hold on, I can do this."
He was the worst Killzone ever.
"We're part of a machine. You get me? We may not like it, but that's what we are, and if you've got doubts about what we're doing, you're putting me in danger. You're putting Petra in danger. You get why it's suddenly my problem?" He tried very hard to keep any amount of hostility out of his voice, because he truly hadn't come here to lecture Rep. The frustration was evident, however, as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry if this is coming out wrong. I'm just.. I'm worried about you too, you know."
And the awkwardness tenfolded.
"Could you just humor me for a sec? Tell me how you really feel? Maybe I can help. Maybe I feel the same way. I don't know. Just tell me why you wanna be a monster."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:00 am
Robert got the most nonplussed look ever as Rep realised what he was trying to say. Everywhere he went people were trying to tell him what to think. Had he had Tracey in his head, the fallen angel might have neatly pointed out they did it because they cared about him, because like Robert said, one person's problem was everyone's problem.
But all there was in Rep's head at the moment was a silent void and a great deal of anger.
He steepled his fingers and eyed them instead of Robert as he talked, his tone flippant.
"Fine, you want to know how I feel?" A flicker of blue as he glanced up at Robert before looking back to his task at hand.
"There's no ******** symmetry - there's just a bunch of humans wielding weapons like lumps of metal without actually using the bond to like know their enemy, get inside their heads. I want to blur that line, want to be more. Everywhere I look people on both ******** sides are made weak by their emotions. Weapons are made stronger by stripping away all the unnecessary s**t right, their memories and emotions and s**t what's left is mostly instinct right? Like in that lecture." He remembered the image of the core, smooth and angular, polished to perfection - he had actually been paying attention for once. "I think we need to make that same ******** sacrifice they made. Cause there's so much about being human that is messy."
He shrugged. "Humans are weak." He could remember the barely-there resistance of bone and sinew the old woman had presented. "We suffer and we ******** die." There had been entirely too much of both for the sun hunter to cope with in recent weeks. "The monsters never die. To be human is to be weak, I don't want to be ******** weak, I want to live forever and feel ******** nothing. Its a dream, allright?"He gave the other man a look as if daring him to argue with him on it. "It doesn't put you, or other people at risk to have a perfect ******** weapon on your side."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:09 am
Rep spoke just a little too fast for Robert, and he had a hard time keeping up, but he was getting it. There was a cold sense of dread lumping in his heart, and when Rep finally made his point, that humans were weak, Robert sunk down into a chair. There wasn't anything he could think of to argue with Rep's train of thought. If he was a smarter man, maybe he could have thought of something. But all Robert could think at the moment was one, sad, unrelenting thought.
"Then why the ******** do we do it?"
All he had been taught, since the day he'd awoken from the pod, was that he was on the right side. The side that protected the things he loved, and the people who deserved to live. Everything Rep said confused and muddled his malleable brain.
"I thought we were fightin' because humans are weak. Because they need us. But if you take away the only thing that makes you a human, what's the point? Living forever? Feeling nothing? Is that really what you're fightin' for?"
Robert toyed with the cuff on his arm. "I don't wanna live forever. I just wanna live."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:20 am
"I do it because its fun. Because I like to have an enemy for once that I'm allowed to maim. That I'm allowed to blame for everything. And they just keep on giving me things to hate them for."
For Rep it was impossible to explain the tangled knot of his mind. He loathed the human race for being what it was, susceptible to vice - that it created people like his mother who had room in their heart only to love the physical. That weakness crept up and corrupted everything like a plague. He hoped on some level they would burn on their own pyre, that they would inevitably be destroyed by their own insidious problems. Sometimes he hoped the monsters they fought, the monsters humanity had created - would win. But like light on dark, tangled up with these dark thoughts, there was fledgeling protective desire, the urge to be the guardian he could never be for his mother, to save them all from their own weakness. To be the hero rather than the villain. It was an endless tug of war and it was too difficult to explain to anyone.
"I want to take away what makes me human for all their ******** sakes. They still stand to gain from it." There was a cruel twist to his smirk "Besides, I was never any ******** good at the being a human thing, but I think I would make an excellent monster."
He interrupted himself with a shrug. "The only reason I care about living is because of the people it would hurt if I stopped." His look turned colder and more serious. "Which is why I'm hoping this monster s**t doesn't become some sort of huge issue." It was almost a threat. "Because if I end up getting killed as a result, I don't know where the blame would fall."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 5:29 am
"There's one thing I don't get." Robert looked like he was seriously considering what Rep was saying, even though the doubt was still evident in his face. "You keep talkin' about humans like they've got all these things you think need to go. Weaknesses like emotions and s**t. But you're one of the angriest guys I know. How can you even think for one second you would survive without anger?" Robert scratched his neck in thought.
"And you know what else? There's somethin' about all this that's really bugging me, and it's not that you're sittin' here tellin' me you wanna be some goddamn monster." He let out a hollow, sharp laugh. "You've been on the battlefield enough to talk to them. The monsters. Christ, Rep, you've probably killed a few." Robert's eyes had been focused on nothing in particular, until that moment. They flickered sharply to Rep, intense and penetrating. "They have emotions. They have weaknesses. Loved ones. Don't you dare ********' tell me I'm the only one that's noticed this."
It had been bothering Robert for almost a year. It was Amrita's face, that nasty half-rotting face, that haunted his memories. She was a monster in every sense of the word, and if he had the chance, he would kill her in a heartbeat.
But there was love in her eyes. And there was fear.
"The way you make it out, it sounds like the s**t on the other side of the coin are perfect beings. But I don't think they're much different from us, Rep."
The intensity faltered, and Robert returned to staring at nothing.
"They're just on the wrong side of the battlefield."
There was a quiet moment, before Robert looked at Rep with an entirely new expression. Now, there was anger, and a dark promise.
"If you ever ********' repeat any of that.. I'll kill you and send you there myself."
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